Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

FIVE

Again, there was no news. Dempsey had been hooked up to a saline drip, and looked as though the tranquilizer had taken its effect. He wasn't quite asleep, but he was dazy.

"We'll do an X-ray today, and see how he looks," the doctor said. "We should have the results back by the end of the day. So why don't you two go home, we'll keep Dempsey here and see what we can do to get him well?"

"I want to stay."

"Well that's going to be very uncomfortable for you, Mister Pickett. We don't have a room we can put you in, and frankly you both look as though you didn't get a full night's sleep. Dempsey's mildly sedated, and we'll probably keep him that way. But it's going to be six or seven hours before we get any answers for you. We share our X-ray technician with our hospital in Santa Monica, so she won't even be in to look at Dempsey until eleven at the earliest."

"I still want to stay. You've got a bench out there. You're not going to throw me out if I sit on that, are you?"

"No. Of course not."

"Then that's where I'll be."

The doctor looked at his watch. "I'll be out of here in half an hour and the day-doctor, Doctor Otis, will be taking over Dempsey's case. I will of course bring him up to speed with everything we've done so far and if she feels there's something else she wants to try—"

"She'll know where to find me."

"Right."

The doctor gave up a wan smile, his second and last of the night. "Well, I sincerely hope you have good news with Dempsey, and that by the time I come in again tonight you've both gone home happy."

Todd would not be dissuaded from staying on the bench, even though it was situated a few steps away from the front counter, next to the soda machine, and would leave him in full view of everyone who came through the next few hours. Marco said that he would come back with a Thermos of good coffee and something to eat, and left Todd there.

The parade of the needy began early. About two minutes after Marco had gone, a distraught woman came in saying that she'd struck a cat with her car, and the victim was now in her car, alive, but terrified and badly hurt. Two nurses went out with well-used pairs of leather gloves and a syringe of tranquilizer to subdue the victim. They came back with a weeping woman and a corpse. The animal's panicked self-defenses had apparently used up what little energies its broken body had possessed. The woman was inconsolable. She tried to thank the nurses for their help but all she could do was cry. There were six more accidents that rush hour, two of them fatalities. Todd watched all this in a dazed state. Lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with him. Every now and then his eyes would flicker closed for a few seconds, and the scene in front of him would jump, like a piece of film which had had a few seconds' worth of action removed and then been spliced back together again. People moved abruptly from one place to another. One moment somebody was coming in, the next he was engaged in conversation (often tearful, sometimes accusatory, always intense) with one of the nurses; the next he'd gone, or he was on his way out.

Much to his surprise, nobody gave him more than a cursory glance. Perhaps, they thought, that can't possibly be Todd Pickett, sitting on a broken-down old bench next to a broken-down old soda machine in a twenty-four-hour animal hospital. Or perhaps it was just that they saw him, recognized him, and didn't care. They had other things to think about right now, more pressing than the peculiar presence of a weary-looking movie star on a broken-down bench. They had a rat with an abscess, a cat that had had six kittens but had got the seventh stuck, a guinea pig in a shoe box that was dead when the box was opened; a poodle that kept biting itself; a problem with fleas, a problem with mange, two canaries that hated one another, and so on and so forth.

Marco came back with coffee and sandwiches. Todd drank some coffee, which perked him up.

He went to the front desk and asked, not for the first time, to see the day-doctor. This time, he got lucky. Doctor Otis, a pale and slight young woman who looked no more than eighteen, and refused to look Todd in the face (though this, he realized, was her general practice: she was the same with Marco and with the nurses, eyes constantly averted), appeared and said that there was nothing to report except that Dempsey would be going for X-rays in about half an hour, and they would be available for viewing tomorrow. At this point, Todd lost his temper. It happened rarely, but when it did it was an impressive spectacle. His neck became blotchy-red, and the muscles of his face churned; his eyes went to ice-water.

"I brought my dog in here at five o'clock this morning. I've been waiting here—sitting on that bench—that bench right there, you see it? Do you see that bench?"

"Yes, I —"

"That's where I've been since six o'clock. It is now almost eleven o'clock. I've asked on several occasions for you to have the common decency to come out and tell me what's happening to my dog. Always politely. And I've been told, over and over again, that you're very busy."

"It's been a crazy morning, Mister—?"

"Pickett is my name."

"Well, Mister Pickett, I'm afraid I can't—"

"Stop right there. Don't say you can't get the X-rays until tomorrow because you can. You will. I want my dog looked after and if you won't do it I'll take him some place where he can be taken care of and I'll make sure every damn newspaper in the State of California—"

At this moment an older woman, obviously the hospital manager, stepped into view and took Todd's hand, shaking it. "Mister Pickett. My name's Cordelia Simpson. It's all right, Andrea, I'll take care of Mister Pickett from here."

The young woman doctor retreated. She was two shades whiter than she'd been at the beginning of the conversation.

"I heard most of what you were telling Andrea—"

"Look, I'm sorry. That's not my style. I don't like losing my temper, but—"

"No, it's okay. I understand. You're tired and you're concerned about—?"

"Dempsey."

"Dempsey. Right."

"I was told he'd be X-rayed today and we'd have the results back this afternoon."

"Well, the speed of these things all depends on the volume of work, Mister Pickett," Cordelia said. She was English, and had the face and manner of a woman who would not be pleasant if she were riled, but was doing her best right now to put on a gentler face. "I read a piece about you in the LA Times last year. You were on the cover with Dempsey, as I remember. Clearly you're very close to your dog. Here's what I'm going to do." She consulted her watch. "Dempsey is being seen by the radiographer right now, and I guarantee that we'll have the results back by . . . six. It might be earlier but I think six we can guarantee."

"So how long before I can take him home?"

"You want to take him now?"

"Yes."

"You'll find him rather dopey. I'm not sure he could walk."

"I can carry him."

Cordelia nodded. She knew an immovable object when she saw one. "Well I'll have one of the nurses come fetch you when he's ready. Is that his?"

She pointed to the quilt on the bench. Quite unconsciously, Todd had been nursing it while he waited. No wonder people had kept their distance.

"Yes."

"Do you want me to have him wrapped up in it?"

"Thank you."

Cordelia picked up the quilt. "And my apologies, Mister Pickett, for any difficulties you may have had. Our doctors are horribly overworked. And, I'm afraid to say, often people who are wonderful with animals aren't always terribly good with human beings."

Ten minutes later a burly Latino appeared with a sleepy-eyed Dempsey, wrapped in his quilt. His ears pricked up just a little at the sight of Todd, enough for Todd to know that his holding the dog, and whispering to him, meant something.

"We're going home, old guy," Todd murmured to him, as he carried him down the steps into the street and round to the little parking lot behind the building, where Marco was backing out the car. "I know you didn't like it in there. All those people you didn't know with needles and shit. Well, fuck them." He put his nose into the cushion of baby fur behind Dempsey's ear, which always smelled sweetest. "We're going home."

For the next few hours Dempsey slept in the quilt, which Todd had put on his big bed. Todd stayed beside him, though the need for sleep caught up with him several times, and he'd slide away into a few minutes of dreamland: fragments of things he'd seen from his bench in the waiting room, mostly. The box containing the dead guinea pig, that absurd poodle, nipping its own backside bloody; all just pieces of the day, coming and going. Then he'd wake and stroke Dempsey for a little while, talk to him, tell him everything was going to be okay.

There was a sudden rally in Dempsey's energies about four o'clock, which was when he was usually fed, so Todd had Marco prepare a sick-bed version of his usual meal, with chicken instead of the chopped horse-flesh or whatever the hell it was in the cans, and some good gravy. Dempsey ate it all, though he had to be held up to do so, since his legs were unreliable. He then drank a full bowl of water.

"Good, good," Todd said.

Dempsey attempted to wag his tail, but it had no more power in it than his legs had.

Todd carried him outside so he could shit and piss. A slight drizzle was coming down; not cool, but refreshing. He held on to the dog, waiting for the urge to take Dempsey, and he turned his face up to the rain, offering a quiet little prayer.

"Please don't take him from me. He's just a smelly old dog. You don't need him and I do. Do you hear me? Please . .. hear me. Don't take him."

He looked back at Dempsey to find that the dog was looking back at him, apparently paying attention to every word. His ears were half-pricked, his eyes half-open.

"Do you think anyone's listening?" Todd said.

By way of reply, Dempsey looked away from him, his head bobbing uneasily on his neck. Then he made a nasty sound deep in his belly and his whole body convulsed. Todd had never seen the term projectile vomit displayed with such force. A stream of chewed chicken, dog mix and water squirted out. As soon as it stopped, the dog began to make little whining sounds. Then ten seconds later, Dempsey repeated the whole spectacle, until every piece of nourishment and every drop of water he'd been given had been comprehensively ejected.

After the second burst of vomiting he didn't even have the strength to whine. Todd wrapped the quilt around him and carried him back into the house. He had Marco bring some towels and dried him off where the rain had caught him.

"I don't suppose you care what's been going on all day, do you?" Marco said.

"Anything important?"

"Great foreign numbers on Gallows, particularly in France. Huge hit in France, apparently. Maxine wants to know if you'd like to do a piece about Dempsey's health crisis for one of the women's magazines."

"No."

"That's what I told her. She said they'd eat it up, but I said—"

"No! Fuck. Will these people never stop? No!"

"You got a call from Walter at DreamWorks about some charity thing he's arranging, I told him you'd be back in circulation tomorrow."

"That's the phone."

"Yeah. It is."

Marco went to the nearest phone, which was in the master bathroom, while Todd went back to finish drying the dog.

"It's Andrea Otis. From the hospital. I think it's the nervous young woman you saw this morning."

"Stay with him," Todd said to Marco.

He went into the bathroom, which was cold. Picked up the phone. "Mister Pickett?"

"Yes."

"First, I want to say I owe you an apology for this morning—"

"No, that's fine."

"I knew who you were and that threw me off—"

"Dempsey."

"—a little. I'm sorry."

"Dempsey."

"Yes. Well, we've got the X-ray results back and .. . I'm afraid the news isn't very good."

"Why not? What's wrong with him?"

"He is riddled with cancer."

Todd took a long moment to digest this unwelcome news. Then he said: "That's impossible."

"It's in his spine. It's in his colon—"

"But that can't be."

"And it's now spreading to his brain, which is why we've only just discovered it. These motor and perception problems he's having are all part of the same thing. The tumor's spreading into his skull, and pushing on his brain."

"Oh God."

"So ... I don't know what you want to do."

"I want this not to be happening."

"Well yes. But I'm afraid it is."

"How long has he got?"

"His present condition is really as good as things are going to get for him." She spoke as though she were reading the words from an idiot-board, careful to leave exactly the same amount of space between each one. "All that is really at issue is how quickly Dempsey becomes incapacitated."

Todd looked through the open door at the pitiful shape shuddering beneath the quilt. It was obvious that Dempsey had already reached that point. Todd could be absurdly optimistic at times, but this wasn't one of them.

"Is he in pain?" he asked the doctor.

"Well, I'd say it's not so much pain we're dealing with as anxiety. He doesn't know what's happening to him. And he doesn't know why it's happening. He's just suffering, Mister Pickett. And it's just going to get worse."

"So you're saying I should have him put down?"

"It's not my place to tell you what to do with your dog, Mister Pickett."

"But if he was your dog."

"If he was my dog, and I loved him as you obviously love Dempsey, I wouldn't want him suffering . . . Mister Pickett, are you there?"

"Here," Todd said, trying to keep the sound of tears out of his voice.

"So really it's up to you."

Todd looked at Dempsey again, who was making a mournful sound in his sleep.

"If I bring him back over to the hospital?"

"Yes?"

"Would there be somebody there to put him to sleep?"

"Yes, of course. I'll be here."

"Then that's what I want to do."

"I'm so very sorry, Mister Pickett."

"It's not your fault."

• • •

Dempsey roused himself a little when Todd went back to bed, but it was barely more than a sniff and a half-hearted wag.

"Come on, you," he said, wrapping Dempsey tightly in the quilt, and lifting him up, "the sooner this is done the sooner you're not an unhappy hound. Will you drive, Marco?"

It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and though the drizzle had ceased, the traffic was still horrendous. It took them fifty-five minutes to get down to the hospital, but this time—perhaps to make up for her unavailability the last time he'd been there—Doctor Otis was at the counter waiting for him. She opened the side door, to let him into the non-public area.

"You want me to come in, boss?" Marco asked.

"Nah, it's okay. We'll be fine."

"He looks really out of it," the doctor remarked.

Dempsey had barely opened his eyes at the sound of Todd's voice. "You know, I realize this may seem like a strange thing to say, but in a way we're lucky that this caught him so fast. With some dogs it takes weeks and months . . ."

"In here?" Todd said.

"Yes."

The doctor had opened a door into a room not more than eight by eight, painted in what was intended to be a soothing green. On one wall was a Monet reproduction and on another a piece of poetry that Todd couldn't read through his assembling tears.

"I'll just give you two some time," Doctor Otis said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Todd sat down with Dempsey in his arms. "Damn," he said softly. "This isn't fair."

Dempsey had opened his eyes fully for the first time in several hours, probably because he'd heard the sound of Todd crying, which had always made him very attentive, even if the crying was fake. Todd could be rehearsing a sad scene from a picture, memorizing lines, and as soon as the first note of sadness crept into his voice Dempsey would be there, his paws on Todd's knees, ready to give comfort. But this time the animal didn't have the strength to help make the boss feel better. All he could do was stare up at Todd with a slight look of puzzlement on his face.

"Oh God, I hope I'm doing the right thing. I wish you could just tell me that this is what you want." Todd kissed the dog, tears falling in Dempsey's fur. "I know if I was you I wouldn't want to be shitting everywhere and not able to stand up. That's no life, huh?" He buried his face in the smell of the animal. For eleven years—whether Todd had had female company or not—Dempsey had slept on his bed; and more often than not been the one to wake him up, pressing his cold nose against Todd's face, rubbing his neck on Todd's chest.

"I love you, dog," he said. "And I want you to be there when I get to Heaven, okay? I want you to be keeping a place for me. Will you do that? Will you keep a place for me?"

There was a discreet knock on the door, and Todd's stomach turned. "Time's up, buddy," he said, kissing Dempsey's burning-hot snout. Even now, he thought, I could say no, I don't want you to do this. He could take Dempsey home for one more night in the big bed. But that was just selfishness. The dog had had enough, that was plain. He could barely raise his head. It was time to go.

"Come in," he said.

The doctor came in, meeting Todd's gaze for the first time. "I know how hard this is," she said. "I have dogs myself, all mutts like Dempsey."

"Dempsey, did you hear that?" Todd said, the tears refusing to abate. "She called you a mutt."

"They're the best."

"Yeah. They are."

"Are you ready?"

Todd nodded, at which point she instantly transferred her loving attention to the dog. She lifted Dempsey out from Todd's arms and put him on the steel table in the corner of the room, talking to him all the while. "Hey there, Dempsey. This isn't going to hurt at all. Just a little prick—"

She pulled a syringe out of her pocket, and exposed the needle. At the back of Todd's head that same irrational voice was screaming: "Tell her no! Knock it out of her hand! Quickly! Quickly!" He pushed the thoughts away, wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, because he didn't want to be blinded by them when this happened. He wanted to see it all, even if it hurt like a knife. He owed that to Dempsey. He put his hand on Dempsey's neck and rubbed his favorite place. The syringe went into Dempsey's leg. He made a tiny little grunt of complaint.

"Good boy," Doctor Otis said. "There. That wasn't so bad now, was it?"

Todd kept rubbing Dempsey's neck.

The doctor put the top back on the syringe and pocketed it. "It's all right," she said. "You can stop rubbing. He's gone."

So quickly? Todd cleared away another wave of tears and looked down at the body on the table. Dempsey's eye was still half-open, but it didn't look back at him any longer. Where there'd been a sliver of bright life, where there'd been mischief and shared rituals—where, in short, there'd been Dempsey—there was nothing.

"I'm very sorry, Mister Pickett," the doctor said, "I'm sure you loved him very much and speaking as a doctor, I know you did the right thing for him."

Todd sniffed hard, and reached over to pluck a clump of tissues from the box. "What does that say?" he said, pointing to the framed poster on the wall. His tears made it incomprehensible.

"It's a quote by Robert Louis Stevenson," Andrea said. "You know, the man who wrote Treasure Island ?"

"Yeah, I know . . ."

"It says: 'Do you think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.'"