Act of God

seen Darbra since I talked with you last?”
    “Uh-unh.”
    “Heard from her?”
    “Not even a note.”
    I watched him, my eyes adjusting enough to the light to see his now. They seemed eager.
    “Did you see anybody out of the ordinary in the building yesterday?”
    “The building?”
    “Where you live.”
    “Oh. No, man. Ran into, let’s see, Traci, some guy on Social Security looks like the next good breeze’ll finish him.... That’s about it.”
    “Traci the one who told you I wasn’t a cop?”
    “She mentioned it, yeah.”
    “How about last night?”
    “Thursday? I was out with my band. How come?”
    “Somebody went through Darbra’s apartment sometime yesterday or last night.”
    He seemed genuinely surprised. “How do you know?”
    “They tossed the place.”
    “No shit.” Something else moved behind Teagle’s eyes. “What’d they get?”
    “I don’t know if they got anything.”
    “What do the cops say?”
    Teagle was definitely as interested in this as I was, and I didn’t get the feeling he was acting. “You know any reason somebody’d toss her apartment?”
    “Not me, man.”
    “Somebody with a key.”
    A smile. “Same answer. Not me, man. Get it?”
    “I get it.”
    “So, anything else you got to ask me?”
    “Not just now. You guys aren’t touring in the near future, are you?”
    “Touring.” A laugh, the kind I remembered coming from me when an older relative at a holiday might make a joke he thought I’d enjoy. “No, I’m gonna be around. For a while, anyways.”
    Teagle pushed off from the bar and swaggered back to the rest of his band, throwing stale patter at them like a bad Henny Youngman warming up a room.

    From a pay phone in the upstairs bar, I called my service again. Nothing from Pearl Rivkind, but there was a message from the doctor at the sports clinic. I tried her and got through after only two layers of insulation.
    “Oh, Mr. Cuddy. Thanks for calling. I have the results of your MRI.”
    “That was fast.”
    “I asked them to push on it.”
    “And?”
    “And they came through.”
    “The results, I mean.”
    “Oh, sorry. Can you come by sometime this afternoon?”
    “I’m in the area right now.”
    “Good. How soon?”
    I felt a twinge in my left shoulder, even though I wasn’t moving it. “Right away.”

    Her smile seemed upbeat. “How’s the knee brace working out?”
    “I’ve gone slowly with it.”
    “Like what?”
    “Light Nautilus, a little stationary bicycle, and StairMaster ”
    “Good. After you’ve worn the sleeve for another few days, you might try a short run, level pavement.”
    “How short?”
    “Oh, no more than half a mile. If there’s going to be more of a problem, you ought to know it by then.”
    “Otherwise?”
    “Otherwise, just keep wearing the brace continuously until you don’t need it anymore for stairs or other everyday things.”
    “What about the MRI?”
    “I’ve reviewed all the images, and they hold good news.” I felt a relief that surprised me by its sheer size. “What does good news mean?”
    “The X-rays showed no fractures, and now we can rule out a tear of the rotator cuff or other structural damage. I think it’s just a matter of torn muscle tissue, though there may be a wayward tendon or two.”
    Wayward. Where do they go? “So, what should I do?”
    “How has the anti-inflammatory worked?”
    “Makes me nauseous.”
    A little smile. “So you stopped taking it.”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s all right. It’s mainly for pain, anyway, so it’s your choice, pain or nausea. What I think you should do is go to a physical therapist.”
    “What for?”
    “What for?”
    “Yes. If there’s no damage, won’t the muscles just... what, grow back?”
    “Well, they’ll grow, all right, and mesh. But you want to minimize the scar tissue and maximize your recovered strength, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Well, then, the therapist can show you exercises that will help that, help you to come back sooner and sounder.”
    I thought about Norm’s advice. “Okay. Can you recommend somebody?”
    “I can.” She paused. “Just one thing?”
    “What?”
    “The pills you can skip, but the exercises, you really should do them faithfully.”
    “Or else?”
    “Or else you’ve wasted my time and your money.”
    That was close enough to a line I’d used with clients in the past to take her word for it.

17

    The insurance company that carried the policies on the Proft family was