Dark Maze

Dr. Ronald Reiser.”
    “Dr. Pfizer retired. Last year or maybe the year before.“
    “No, Reiser. Not Pfizer, Reiser. ”
    “You don’t want Dr. Pfizer?”
    “No, I want Reiser.”
    “This Dr. Kaiser, he’s with Bellevue Hospital?”
    “I don’t want Kaiser, I want Reiser. "
    “Young man, is this some kind of game?”
    “What?”
    “You guys in the barrooms, you think you’re pretty funny, hey?”
    “Look, lady. I’m a cop and I want to talk to Dr. Ronald Reiser.”
    “Well I don’t have any way of knowing who I’m talking to, and besides I don’t know anybody here named Rice.“
    “What the hell is your name, lady?”
    “That is certainly none of your business!”
    I counted to ten fast and said, “Let’s start all over. My name is Detective Hockaday... ”
    “Oh, and a detective yet.”
    “Please, I would like to speak to Dr. Ronald Reiser. That’s spelled R-E-I-S-E-R.”
    “You think I don’t know how to spell?”
    “I think you don’t know how to answer a telephone.”
    “Don’t tell me how to do my job!”
    “Transfer this call to the Zoo for Christ’s sake!”
    “So we’re familiar with the name Zoo? I thought as much.”
    “Transfer the freaking call!”
    I waited. The line clicked. A woman with at least a double load of chewing gum came on.
    “Psych services.”
    “Dr. Ronald Reiser please.”
    “Usually he’s gone out of here by this time. He supposed to be on tonight?”
    “I don’t know. You tell me.”
    “Got no time for games, man.”
    “Me neither. So I’m going to say this once: My name is Neil Hockaday, I’m a detective with the New York City Police Department, and I want to talk to Dr. Ronald Reiser, if that’s all right with you.”
    “Whoa, man!”
    She connected me to a line that rang a dozen times, then she cut back in. “Told you. He’s gone.” She giggled.
    “But he’s not always in his private office. He might be walking around the ward. You want to page him, darling?“
    “Whoa, man!” The pace of her chewing quickened. Then she covered the telephone speaker and I heard her muffled call to someone, “Hey, Freddy, check out Doc Reiser, see if he ain’t gone home yet.”
    The phone slammed down on a desk, which I took as my cue to stand by while Freddy searched the Zoo floor. I waited. I listened to gum popping, patients mumbling and shuffling along in felt slippers, the occasional scream. Meanwhile, Ruby sat across from me on the couch under the window and examined the Polaroid of the grisly painting and declared, “No doubt about it, this is Charlie Furman’s style.” Then I heard Freddy (presumably) say, “Well I went and looked pretty much everyplace. I guess he’s gone checked out.”
    And then, “Hey man, you still there?”

    I put on my shoulder holster and a tweed jacket. Ruby put on a pout.
    “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”
    “Don’t be like that, Ruby.”
    “How sweet. Our first argument.”
    “Come off it. The inmates are running the asylum. You know I have to go.”
    “Sure, go. And leave me here again.”
    In two and a half turns of her head, Ruby took a disapproving inventory of my sorry little apartment: lumpy couch, green fringed chair next to table with an old wooden radio and a rotary telephone, non-working fireplace, books crammed onto a wall of shelves, the kitchen alcove blighted with a sink full of dishes and a crusted chili pot on the stove, door to the untidy bath, unmade bed through the archway to the other room, the sideboard with Johnnie Walker in the cupboard and a black-and-white Philco on top.
    “You could watch television.”
    “Oh, swell suggestion, Hock.”
    “It passes the time.”
    “Yes, and it’s so educational. The minute somebody turns on television, I go and read a book.”
    “That’s my girl,” I laughed. “I hate to say it, but don’t Wait up.”
    Ruby did not laugh. “I hate to hear it. But I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.”
    “Do you?”
    She got up from the couch and came to me. She ran her almond fingers over my coat buttons and smoothed the sleeves and folded her arms around my waist, grazing me with her hips. She slipped one of her knees between mine. If I ever got out the door and downstairs to the street, I thought, I would possess the strength of ten men.
    Her voice was low, like a lady disc jockey’s on an overnight jazz show. “Got your guns now, Detective Hockaday?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Your badge, and that nasty