No Hope for Gomez! (13 page)

31.

Blog entry: My return to consciousness was slow and painful. As I drifted out of my coma-like state, I sensed that something was wrong. It wasn’t just the pounding on the inside of my skull, or the feeling of something trying to burrow its way out of my stomach. No, what tipped me off was the pink nighty I was wearing and the abundance of flowers decorating my room. They covered every flat surface in sight.

Flowers on the coffee table, which I didn’t remember owning.

Flowers on the bookcase, which I couldn’t quite place.

Flowers on the TV, which was a feat of stupidity as well as balance as it was one of those flat screen models which, in fact, I was still thinking of buying.

Blog entry: The pounding in my head and the aching stomach could easily be explained of, course, the odor of alcohol in the room was a solid hint. I had no reason to believe that the origins of the nighty, the flowers, and the TV were any different. What I couldn’t fathom, however, was how I’d managed to procure all these items after midnight and at such short notice – my original couch took eight weeks to be delivered!

Had I been unconscious for two months?

I sat up and tested my limbs. They worked, if rather sluggishly. The pounding subsided, but my attention was drawn to my mouth, which was dry like the desert floor. I needed to find water.

I had apparently fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, which was more comfortable than I’d given it credit for. Nonetheless, I felt like I had just died.

I stifled a painful yawn.  

Blog entry: “Feeling any better?”

Dr. Hargrove emerged from the bedroom. She was wearing one of my T-shirts – the pink one with the lacy neckline and the bunny on the front.

“You threw up all over your shirt last night,” she said, “so I hoisted you into one of my nighties. Hope you don’t mind?”

All I could do was smile.

I Rule!

I Rock!

I Rock ’n Rule!

Blog entry: Dr. Hargrove pointed at a chair in the corner.  My pants were folded neatly over the back. “I didn’t want you to ruin your nice pants,” she said, “so I took them off.”

A sudden flashback reminded me how I had very nearly killed our fledgling relationship the previous evening. And, apparently, I had continued on my wanton path of destruction undeterred. Yet, here she was, all friendly and half naked. All smiles with wild bedroom hair. That had to be a good sign.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Thanks for looking out for me, that was really nice of you.”

“Think nothing of it.”

She turned and headed to my kitchen. There she filled my new water cooker and set it to boil on my re-painted kitchen top. Somewhere, I could sense my wallet crying. “Cup of tea?” she asked.

“That would be great, thanks.”

Dr. Hargrove was amazing. I watched her beautiful body move about my kitchen and marveled at how she instinctively knew where everything was. Even the things I didn’t know I owned, even the things I was sure I’d put somewhere else.

She brought the tea to the living room and handed me my cup. I drank greedily, although it was still a little hot.

“You might want to take it easy today,” she warned. She sipped her tea leaning against the bedroom wall, which, for no good reason, I appeared to have moved into the living room. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your hangover lasted a while.” She shot me a knowing smile. “You were going at it quite hard last night.”

I nodded and drank some more.

“And be sure to get plenty of liquids,” she added. “You’re probably dehydrated.”

“I will,” I said. “Again, I want to thank you for taking such good care of me. I hope you won’t get into trouble at work?”

She waved it away. “I guess we’ll find out.” She didn’t seem overly worried. “If worse comes to worst,” she said, “we’ll have to tell them you have a harmless little crush on me.” She gave me a wink.

Blog entry: Finally reached the store after wandering around town for hours. Hicks was waiting, so we opened up together. I hardly noticed his hysteria. For the first few hours there weren’t any customers so I helped Hicks clean up. Started with the windows (which I cleaned on the outside), then moved the boxes of administration to the storage room. Hicks balked at this, mostly because I didn’t follow his preliminary plan of action. Eventually, though, he went to the back to sweep up.

I wanted to make the store really nice. Dr. Hargrove might drop by someday to see where I worked and I wanted her first impression to be one of professionalism, of success.

I moved through the store swiftly and happily, putting things in order. I was careful not to disturb the dust on the older pieces, as it lent the place an air of class.

Blog entry: While cleaning up, my mind kept going over the events of that morning. Although it’d been a very pleasant experience, I now realized I might’ve suffered a slight case of hangover-induced confusion. My sheer joy at seeing Dr. Hargrove in the morning had allowed me to temporarily disconnect from reality. I wanted so badly to see her at my place, wearing my T-shirt, that I’d mentally substituted her house for my apartment.

No problem, though. It had mostly gone unnoticed. No harm, no foul.

Blog entry: Hicks returned from the back. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Something’s up, Gomez.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Hicks waved the tip of his broom at me. “Don’t give me that,” he said. “In all these years, I’ve never seen you smile so often. Are you mentally ill?”

“Of course not!”

“Delusional?”

“No! Can’t a guy just be in a good mood? Can’t a guy just enjoy himself for no particular reason?”

I didn’t want to jinx my almost-relationship with Dr. Hargrove by talking about it too soon, so, for now, I’d keep it to myself.

“Well,” Hicks said, shooting me a suspicious look. “if you don’t want to tell me, fine. But whatever it is, stop it. You’re making my hair itch!”

Blog entry: Closed up at five and wandered around town, then returned to Dr. Hargrove’s by mistake. I was backtracking my route from the morning, as I do every day, and realized too late that I’d sat down at what was not my kitchen table, to eat what was not my soup, using what was my spoon, but only because I happened to have it on me and Dr. Hargrove hadn’t finished setting the table.

Far too embarrassed to admit my mistake, I pretended to have arrived on purpose. I finished the soup.

Apparently Dr. Hargrove hadn’t heard me come in. She let out a startled cry when she returned from the kitchen. Other than that the meal proceeded well. Especially considering the fact that the first thing Dr. Hargrove asked me, as I took some bread from her plate, was how my day had been.

32.

Blog entry: Spent the next couple of nights at Dr. Hargrove’s place.

Wasn’t entirely sure whether she expected me to leave and I didn’t want to appear like the kind of guy who’d only sleep on her couch when he was violently ill. That might give her the wrong impression. So I returned to her place day after day, waiting for her to kick me out.

She didn’t.

In fact, by the third night she complained about having to launder two sets of sheets. When I asked her what the solution might be, she mumbled something about using the couch only for sitting and her bed for sleeping. It made more sense, she said, as her bed was far too large for just one person anyway.

I’m not one to make trouble.

Blog entry: Meanwhile, Hicks was getting more agitated by the day. He broke out in hives
and
shingles, and his gums bled at random intervals.

Wasn’t sure what was causing this.

Told him to concentrate on his window displays and his sweeping, and not to worry about any other duties. He could do as much or as little as he felt comfortable with. Hopefully, this would cheer him up, help restore his health back to its normal levels.

Blog entry: The really bad news came on the fourth day.

“Is Mr. Porter in? I need to speak to him,” a strong, authoritative voice said. It drifted to the storage room where I was sorting my administration.

“If you could let him know I’m here? He’ll know what it’s regarding.”

I put down the forms and listened, wondering if I should go out to the front.

“Hello? Are you okay? There seems to be some blood coming from your mouth…”

I realized someone was attempting to converse with Hicks. I also realized I’d never actually seen Hicks talk to anyone but me. I hurried over to find out what was going on.

Hicks stood transfixed by the door, staring at Detective Moran. Detective Moran, only halfway through the door, seemed at a loss about how to proceed.

“Ah, detective,” I said, drawing his attention away from my frozen assistant. “Nice of you to drop by. Let’s talk over here by the counter, shall we?” I motioned him over.

Detective Moran glanced in my direction, shot a frown back at Hicks, then joined me at the counter.

Hicks breathed a sigh of relief and disappeared to the back, wiping his chin with his sleeve. 

Blog entry: “Take a look at this.” Detective Moran handed me an old, dog-eared book. I opened it at the bookmark and scanned the chosen pages. There were some hand drawn pictures in between columns of tiny script. A few lines had been highlighted with a marker. At first glance, it appeared to be an ancient tome on different styles of Chinese martial arts.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Pressure points,” Moran said. “They’re like acupuncture points, but, when manipulated by an expert, they cause the subject physical harm.” He gave me a grave look. “According to this,” he tapped one of the highlighted paragraphs, “you can disturb someone’s energy so badly they become ill, or they die. Could be a matter of seconds, could be over a period of days. It’s up to the attacker.”

I scanned the pages more carefully. One of the things that stood out was a map of points on the upper body. Most notably a point called Gendokki. It was somewhere half way up the side of the neck.

“Looks like science fiction to me,” I said. “I mean, Vulcan death grips and all that, it’s all for a laugh, right?”

Detective Moran shrugged. “Friend of mine swears this stuff is genuine. I was discussing some of the strange aspects of the Norton case with him the other day, then he gave me this book. He’s a black belt in Wukai Chi. Says this stuff is definitely real. Not many practitioners, though.” He glanced around, as if worried Hicks might overhear. “Needless to say, you never saw this book!”

“No problem. So, you think this is what happened to Norton and Miller?”

“It might be part of what happened to them.” Detective Moran closed the book and put it away. “It’s not going to appear in my official report, of course, but I’d urge you to stay away from any and all martial arts practitioners for the time being. You happen to know any?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Well, until I get to the bottom of this, be careful.”

“Are you telling me I’m in danger?”

Detective Moran gave me a weary look. “I’m not sure. I guess I’m telling you that I have no idea how this killer chooses his victims. All I have to go on are the ties to the Miller case. That means both you and I need to be careful!”

With that ominous warning he left.

Blog entry: Hicks returned from the back and apologized for not receiving Detective Moran properly. “I’m not sure what happened,” he said. “I must’ve gotten distracted.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I know for a fact Moran has bigger problems on his mind.”

“Good.” Hicks didn’t look relieved. “Anyway, I don’t think it’ll happen again.”

Blog entry: Rest of the afternoon was uneventful. Finished cleaning up the store and arrived back at Dr. Hargrove’s place late. Over dinner I asked her about martial arts. Whether she’d ever practiced or knew anyone who did. She gave me an odd look, then shook her head and told me she’d always been too clumsy for sports. Called herself a nerd.

“By the way,” she said, “maybe you should start calling me Christine?”

I gave her a look. “Why?”

“It seems only right, Gomez,” she said. “I mean, we’re sleeping together and everything, you should probably call me by my first name.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Come on,” she said, pinching my cheek over the dinner table. “Don’t look so glum. I don’t go around calling you Mr. Porter, do I? That would be weird, right?”

“Of course it would,” I said. “But you’ve been calling me Gomez from the beginning.”

“Please,” she said, “do it for me?”

I thought it over. “I guess I
could
call you Christine,” I said, “if you really wanted me to. But, deep down, you’d always be Dr. Hargrove to me.”

“Yes,” she said. “About that, Gomez. It’s cute and everything, don’t get me wrong. And I’ve actually started enjoying that. But, you know I’m not actually a doctor, right? I mean, it was always our little inside joke, wasn’t it?”

For a long moment I was too stunned to react. An inside joke? Not really a doctor? What was she talking about?

“What about the clinic?” I burst out. “What about the trial? Are you saying you don’t even work there? You just walk in off the street, find an empty office, and sit there messing with test subjects’ heads?”

“No, Gomez, of course not! I
do
work at the clinic, but –”

“What, then? It’s not a real drug trial? You’re all just pretending to be doing valiant medical research when in actuality you are – what exactly – some evil conglomerate experimenting on people?”

“No, Gomez, you’ve got us all wrong!”

Ms. Hargrove tried to take my hand. I pulled away.

“I should’ve known!” I said. “Reputable companies don’t get their test subjects through ads in gaming magazines, they don’t pay this well, and they don’t have cute members of staff that take you home and fool around with you. So,” I gave her a hard stare, “what is it you people are doing exactly? Something illegal? Bio-warfare? Testing chemical mind mines? Dabbling in personality altering substances? Are you checking up on me, is that what this is? Keeping me close to make sure I don’t die or go insane or dislocate myself from reality?”

“Gomez, stop it!” Christine said. A tear formed in her eye. “It’s nothing like that. I should’ve corrected you at the beginning but I didn’t because I thought you were just flirting. I’m not a doctor – not yet – I’m a research assistant. That’s all. The rest of what I’ve told you is true. The clinic is real, I
do
work there, and we’re not testing anything remotely dangerous!”

“Actually,” I said, composing myself, “that was going to be my next and final guess; research assistant, almost a doctor, no evil conglomerate.” I constructed my best make-up smile. “You should’ve let me finish, dear. It’s not polite to interrupt.”

Blog entry: Close call.

That almost blew up in my face.

Good thing I can think on my feet!

Dr. Hargrove sulked for the remainder of the evening, but, when it was time for lights out, she didn’t show me the door, nor did she make up the couch. I figured that was a very good sign. We’d had our first fight and we’d survived.

Decided to show I was more than willing to do my part, called her Christine a few times. In my mind, though, she was still Dr. Hargrove.