CHAPTER 14

.....For the evening crowd of The Teapot, the background noise of jukebox had been replaced with slow tempo jazz. The crowd consisted of the Zieglers at a dining room table quietly toying with their meal and Doc holding down his end of the bar.
.....Wolfe realized that the ‘tender behind the bar was Lolita, apparently a young girl of some hidden talents. In the kitchen, Carlos was engrossed in a People magazine article on Paris Hilton and the genesis of her soon-to-be-published spy thriller, The Kinkade Code.
.....Wolfe slid onto the stool next to Doc, who eyed the clock.
.....“The festivities over already?”
.....“For me?” Wolfe chuckled. “Yeah, about twenty years ago. I didn’t much like them the first time around.”
.....He glanced around casually. “Tanya done for the evening?”
.....Doc glanced over at Wolfe neutrally. “She may own the joint, but she doesn’t live here.”
.....Lolita tossed down a bevnap in front of Wolfe. He turned a questioning eye to Doc, an unspoken judgment called for on her Bloody Mary skills.
.....The doctor shook his head and indicated the glass of cabernet in front of him.
.....“I’ll have what he’s having.” Wolfe eyed Doc’s near-empty glass. “You want another?”
.....“I’m okay,” Doc shook his head, hand over the glass. “This is my last for the night...I gotta be gettin’ home for American Idol.”
.....“Hate to break it to you, but American Idol was over a couple of hours ago.”
.....Doc squinted at the clock again.
.....“Oh-kay, then.” He threw up his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. “In that case, why not?”
.....Doc was still more than a little tipsy.
.....Lolita smiled her enigmatic smile and headed over to the bottle of Sterling cabernet parked next to the register. Wolfe leaned in to the Doc.
.....“Is she old enough to be working here?”
.....“Who’s gonna complain?”
.....The girl returned with a glass and poured the red for Wolfe, set it before him.
.....“Might as well leave the bottle,” Wolfe noted, looking over at Doc with cocked eyebrow. Doc sighed and nodded. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do...and one of those things is not insulting another man by turning down another round.
.....Or two. He grabbed the bottle and topped off his glass. Wolfe watched the play of the girl’s ass beneath faded denim as she moved away. He leaned over to Doc as the man took a sip of the red and sighed his thanks.
.....“By the way,” he asked in a low voice. “Just what is that girl’s name?”
.....Doc smiled and offered his glass in a toast. “Here’s to Lolita.”
.....“Lolita?” Wolfe smiled doubtfully, and the doctor nodded.
.....Wolfe shook his head. “Who in the hell names their daughter Lolita?”
.....“Well, you just know that there’s gotta be more than a few Nabokov fans floating around this town.”
.....“Right.”
.....Behind them Steve Ziegler’s voice rose. “Have you ever even seriously given any though to what you’re gonna do with your life?”
.....The man didn’t sound too happy. Sons being sons and acting that way since before the era of recorded history, Mike wasn’t having anything to do with what his old man wanted him to do.
.....Of course, over the ensuing millennia times have changed enough that a father demanding that his son join the military during the cloud of war wasn’t exactly the inarguable demand that it used to be. Mike had responded with an inarguable ‘No fucking way.’
.....Although in his mother’s house, he had maintained decorum and had only used two of those three words. The middle one had come through loud and clear, however.
.....The negotiations had moved on over to The Teapot, where Mary could participate without having to do so from the kitchen.
.....Wolfe and Doc paused to listen in. At any given point in a bar environment, listening in is usually the true entertainment. The jukebox gets old after awhile.
.....“I’d like to spend the rest of my life figuring that one out,” Mike finally responded. “My long, long life.”
.....“Playing video games is not a life...”
.....“You’re just being selfish, Michael,” Mrs. Ziegler cut in.
.....“Selfish?” Mike scoffed. “Exactly how am I being selfish, here?”
.....“You have an obligation,” his father muttered into his beer. “You owe your country, at least. At least you owe us that much.”
.....“My country?” Mike shook his head. “This has never been my country, and the way things have been going it never will be. There’s nothing left. You people have bled it dry and left us nothing but your tab.”
.....“Us people? What the hell are you talking about?” Steve demanded. “You’re not turning into some kind of Commie, are you?”
.....Mary was horrified by a sudden thought. “Or a Muslim?”
.....Mike gave his father a long, appraising look. “Did you serve?”
.....“You know I didn’t.” Steve found a renewed interest in his steak. “Fortunately, I had other options.”
.....“Yeah,” Mike nodded. “Fortunately for you.”
.....“What the...” Steve glanced at Mary, then continued. “What is that sup...”
.....Mike cut him off. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt you guys eating up everything in sight and leaving us to eat the shit.”
.....“Mike!” Mary was shocked at the explicative, missing the sentiment. Mike looked around for service.
.....“I want a beer.”
.....“Mike...”
.....“I want a Coors,” Mike decided. “The commercials say the hot chicks’ll dig me if I drink Coors.”
.....“You’re not old enough,” his father muttered.
.....Bait laid down, bait taken.
.....“Bingo,” Mike stabbed the air with his forefinger, and his father jerked back like it had been poked in his eye. “I’m old enough to go die for your country, but not old enough to have a beer. Point/match. Fuck you very much.”
.....Mary cringed, on the verge of tears. Mike stood, threw down his napkin and headed for the door.
.....“You want a beer?” His father turned in his seat to follow. “You want a fucking beer? Hey, waitress! Get the big man a fucking beer over here.”
.....Lolita threw the man a dark look: she was a bartender, not a waitress. If someone wanted a fucking beer, they’d have to come to the bar to order it. Or wait until the waitress came back from her cigarette break. She turned her back and went back to dusting the bottles of the top shelf booze with the bar towel.
.....Mary put a hand on his arm, pulling him back as Mike paused at the door.
.....“No,” he shook his head. “No, I don’t want a beer. You don’t even get it, do you?”
.....He slammed the door shut behind him. The Zieglers stood, looking over at the bar in dismay. Steve snatched up the bill, did the math. He counted out the cash and threw it on the table. He paused to do more math, then added a tip.
.....As he turned to the door, Mary glanced at the bar, where the rest of the patrons were studiously not looking at them. Her hand darted out and snatched up the tip. She pocketed it and followed out after her husband.
.....The door eased closed behind them.
.....“Bitch,” Lolita muttered. There’s a mirror behind the bar for a reason, and it’s not just for primping. Next time she’d have to be quicker.
.....The floorshow over, Wolfe turned back to the doctor. “So... you a real doctor, Doc?”
..... It would have been considered bad form to acknowledge the conversation that they most certainly were not listening in on.
.....Doc grunted and shook his head. “Was.”
.....“Retired?”
.....“Not by choice.” Doc chuckled ruefully. “I called the wrong woman fat.”
.....“Was she?”
.....“Oh, yes. Morbidly so.” Doc took a measured sip off of his cabernet. “I told her that if she didn’t lose some weight and fast, she wouldn’t live to see sixty.”
.....“How old...”
.....“Fifty-nine.”
.....“So what happened?”
.....“She sued me.”
.....“Sued you? For what?”
.....“The silly old cow claimed that I lacked sensitivity and professionalism. She wanted to have my license yanked.”
.....Wolfe nodded sympathetically; he could see where this was going. “And she won.”
.....“What?” Doc shook his head. “No... she died.”
.....Oh.
.....Doc took his time with the end of the story, rolling up another cigarette. Wolfe abided.
.....“Now her son...” he lit up the cigarette and exhaled. “Her son the lawyer filed a follow-up suit. Claimed that the aforementioned proceedings had driven his dear mother to an early grave.”
.....He cast Wolfe a bemused sidelong glance. “That was the motherfucker that won.”
.....“Damn.” Wolfe glanced over. “He was actually fuc...”
.....“It’s a figure of speech, son.”
.....“That was a joke, old man.”
.....Doc nodded sourly. He wasn't much for humor at the moment. “Didn’t help that the judge was also her brother-in-law. Bastard ran for the bench on a tort reform platform.”
.....Wolfe shook his head at the injustice. “Sounds like you, my friend, picked the wrong woman to call fat.”
.....“Tell me about it.” The former doctor sighed, then waved his hand. “Actually, don’t bother.”
.....“So, how’s the retirement treating you?”
.....“Retirement?” Doc sighed. “Right. I’m the only GP the town has after Janssen died.”
.....“I remember Doc Janssen,” Wolfe nodded. “When did he die?”
.....“Going on about ten years now. Picked up a nasty habit of sampling his own supply somewhere along the line.”
.....“Oxycontin or something?”
.....“No, that stuff's for the tourists,” Doc noted. “Morphine. More fun.”
.....Wolfe nodded. That would do it.
.....“Overdose?”
.....“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” chuckled the doctor. “But no. A couple of speedfreaks broke into his office one night looking for whatever they could find. What they found was a hopped-up Janssen with his Smith & Wesson .38, all fired up and ready to protect his stash. There was a scuffle and they ended up plugging him with his own gun.”
.....“That’s fucked up.”
.....“Yep, that’s fucked up all over the place,” Doc agreed. He stubbed out his cigarette and began to roll another one thoughtfully. “Did you know that more Americans die every day from gunshot wounds than folks generally being shot the same day over in Iraq?”
.....“America’s a bigger country.”
.....“True,” Doc agreed. “But over in Iraq everyone has some damn’ reason or another to be shooting at each other. Here we just seem to like shooting each other.”
.....“What are you going to do?” Wolfe countered. “We like our guns. It’s not like you can stuff Pandora in the box and be done with it.”
.....“And you say you used to be a teacher?” Doc blinked.
.....“Art teacher,” Wolfe corrected. “And yes, I know that was a tortured metaphor.”
.....“Tortured? You done and went all Abu Ghraib on its ass.”
.....“But like I said, what are you going to do?” Wolfe continued. “It’s not like they’re going to outlaw guns anytime soon.”
.....“Especially in a country where they maintain their guns just in case someone comes and tries to take away their guns.” Doc made a circling motion with his forefinger and brought it up to his temple, thumb cocked. “Shoot me now with the logic.”
.....Wolfe chuckled and the former doctor looked up at him quizzically.
.....“Sorry...I was just amused at the sick irony of someone getting shot with their own gun.”
.....“Happens to cops all the time.” Doc shrugged. “Maybe Janssen got all tangled up in his Hippocratic Oath. I s’pose the moral here is to never pull a rod on another man unless you’re willing to watch him die.”
.....Wolfe looked at him for a minute. “I’ll remember that.”
.....“Anyway, he died and I was here,” Doc continued. “And so, here I am... I just have to order my supplies from an outfit in Mexico is all, not being licensed and all that anymore.”
.....A comfortable silence fell between them as they watched Lolita. She wasn’t doing anything special, other than just being Lolita. She finally moved out of sight to restock.
.....“Enough about me,” Doc finally encouraged. “You didn’t come back here out of some undying curiosity about some ol’ fart, right?”
.....“Well...”
.....The Doc held up a hand. “Listen.”
.....“What?”
.....The melancholy swing music faded as Tanya’s voice covered the segue.
.....“You’re listening to KPAX-AM 610.” She was wearing her radio voice now...controlled, seductive and smoky. “Where for two hours a night every Saturday and Sunday you can return to a halcyon time when things were simpler...more honest...”
.....The opening strains of Glen Miller’s ‘Londonderry Air’ began to fill the restaurant. “If any of you have any requests, you have another twenty-five minutes to call 343...”
.....“She rides a bike out there,” Doc mused aloud. “Gets kinda chilly ‘round these parts late in the evening.”
.....“I remember.”
.....Doc tapped his ash in the tray and continued, seeming otherwise absorbed with the television offering the spectacle of a bunch of grown men in shorts chasing a ball up and down a court.
.....“A gentleman might be waiting to offer her a ride when she signs off,” he finally noted.
.....“What kind of gentleman wouldn’t?” Wolfe agreed.