To Catch a Spy by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page A

sure we were looking at it. There was no body.
    “Someone took him,” I explained.
    “Took the dead guy, the one who was shot?”
    “Looks that way,” I said. “Check the tree and the ground.”
    “Stand right there,” he said, moving to the tree and flicking his light on it and then on the nearby ground.
    “Blood?” I asked.
    “Blood,” he confirmed.
    He got up and moved in front of me.
    “Turn around.”
    I turned.
    “You’ve got a pretty big gash back there,” he said. “Let’s get you to a doctor.”
    “You think that’s my blood on the tree?” I asked.
    “What I think, between you and me and the wind, grass, and trees is that you came out here with a fruity friend and had a fight. He hit you and ran. We get a few like you every couple of months.”
    “I look like a …?” I was trying to understand.
    “Call it whatever you like,” he said. “You pansies come in all brands and sizes. Can you drive?”
    “I think so,” I said.
    “Good. I’m going to do you a favor. Get in your car. I’ll drive behind you. You know where the hospital is?”
    “County?”
    “County. Drive there slow. I’ll be right behind you. When I see you get out of your car at the hospital, I leave. What I want is for you to stay the hell out of this park and never come back. That or I take you in, and I don’t have the time to fill out the papers. So, sure you can drive?”
    “I can drive,” I said.
    “Let’s go,” he said. We trudged in the general direction of where I had parked.

CHAPTER
    5
     
    “I could, except for the fact that you are walking unsteadily and talking incoherently, declare you legally dead.”
    The statement was made by an old acquaintance of mine, Dr. Marcus Parry, who seemed to live in the emergency room of Los Angeles County Hospital. He had seen me the last two times I had concussions. He agreed with my handball-playing friend, Doc Hodgdon, that I couldn’t take any more blows to the head. Parry was just barely in his forties and back from the war for about a year. When he had left, he had been a lanky smiling man with blonde hair. When he came back, he had lost his smile and much of his hair. He looked ten years older than he was.
    I was on an examining table, where he had stitched my scalp and checked my neck and shoulders. There was light coming through a white frosted pane of glass. There were three X-rays hanging next to each other.
    “They’re in chronological order,” he said. “This one.” He pointed to the one farthest left. “This old four-year-old one shows depressions in the skull. Next one shows your skull beginning to look like an overused Ping-Pong ball. Let’s jump to today’s. Look.”
    I looked at it. It looked exactly like the others.
    “I’ve seen healthier skulls on corpses exhumed after six months,” Parry said. “And the scar tissue you’ve … what’s the use? You’re not going to change.”
    “It’s what I do,” I said.
    “What you do. I see. Could you possibly consider doing something else?”
    “What?”
    “Cleaning toilets in the hospital would be a good start,” he said, flipping a switch and turning off the light behind the glass. “Safer and probably pays more than you make now.”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “No you won’t,” he said with a sigh, gathering his X rays of my head. “I’ve got a file on you, Peters. Someday I’ll write an article about your body. You’re a testament to what the human body outside of a war zone can take.”
    “Thanks.”
    “It wasn’t a compliment. It was a comment on your stupidity.”
    “Determination,” I amended.
    He shook his head and motioned for me to follow him. I did. He had a tiny office with no windows. On his desk were three small bottles of pills.
    “Take this one for pain,” he said, handing me the first. “This one for balance. And this one for good luck. All three twice a day. Got it?”
    “Got it,” I said, picking up the bottles and putting them in my jacket