Mirror Image by Dennis Palumbo Page A

started down the hall toward the patient quarters.
    Nancy and I had known each other since my days as an intern at Ten Oaks. Barbara’s death had come just a few months after Nancy’s bitter divorce, and we were kind of thrown into each other’s arms by loss and regret. As lovers, we’d spent countless nights desperately clinging to one another, between bouts of equally desperate sex.
    When it ended as quickly and unexpectedly as it had begun, we were like drunks after a three-day binge, gazing bleary-eyed at each other, each hoping the other would make some sense out of what had happened.
    Since then, unless we run into each other when I’m visiting the clinic, or when she’s shown up at the bar to check on Noah, we didn’t have much contact. But I’d always be grateful to her for being there when I needed someone.
    I hoped she felt the same way toward me.

Chapter Twenty-one
     
    We found Richie Ellner sitting on a bench in the A-V room next to a rack of vending machines. His clothes were still wet, spattered with mud. He clutched his broken glasses in thin fingers pock-marked with cigarette burns.
    “Richie,” I said. “Are you all right?”
    Nancy and I flanked him as he rocked back and forth on the bench. Indoors, out of the rain, I got a better look at him.
    Twenty-eight going on sixty. Deeply delusional. Eyes bright with fear, clouded with madness, tinged with grief. His father was a senior state senator.
    Richie was making an effort to sit still, wrapping himself in his arms, planting his feet firmly to stop the rocking. But he kept shivering, as though having just been pulled from the sea.
    “What happened?” Nancy asked him.
    “Your standard chick fight. Probably over some guy. Or maybe another chick. Around here, doesn’t make much difference what you got goin’ on between your legs.”
    “Who started it?” she asked.
    He smiled. “Let me see…I think it was the crazy one.”
    “Dammit, Richie.” Nancy squatted and faced him. “Give me a break here, will you?”
    “Hey, I was just screwin’ with you.” He glanced up at me knowingly. “Not too many laughs around here since you went over the wall, Doc.”
    “Not too many on the outside, either,” I said.
    Nancy got to her feet. “Look, we can talk about all this later. Anything I can do for you in the meantime?”
    “Depends. We talkin’ blow-jobs?”
    “In your dreams. I was thinking more along the lines of asking staff to clean you up, bring you a hot drink.”
    “Nah. I don’t wanna miss anything.”
    “I think the show’s pretty much over for today,” I said. I reached down and gently took his broken glasses.
    He moaned. “Man, those are two bad-ass chicks.”
    Nancy took the glasses from me. “Why don’t I see about getting these fixed?” She looked at me. “Take care, okay?”
    I nodded. She patted Richie’s shoulder, then headed out of the room.
    “Hey,” Richie called after her, “ this time, see that they leave out the micro-transmitter, okay?”
    “Right,” she called back from the hallway.
    Richie gave me a look. “Nice lady. Too bad she’s CIA.”
    His shivers had subsided. Only his eyes, rapidly blinking back tears, betrayed his level of anxiety.
    “How’ve you been, Rich?”
    “Fine, man. No complaints.”
    “Great.” I paused. “Now, how’ve you been?”
    “ Oh . Life sucks, man. It sucks dry tittie and shits green down my face. I tell you my old man finally croaked?”
    “No, you didn’t.”
    “Well, that’s probably ’cause he’s still alive. But it was a swell thought, though.”
    “He still won’t come and see you?”
    A dark laugh. “Would you?”
    I could have answered in some therapeutic, bullshit way, but I had too much regard for him. He seemed to appreciate my silence.
    “By the way,” he said, finally. “I wasn’t shittin’ you before. I mean, Nancy’s all right, and she’s got some ass on her, but this place just ain’t the same without you.”
    “I’m not sure Dr.