John Grisham

I leave the Blacks in Donny Ray’s room, hoping mightily that I don’t return tomorrow with the news that our case has been dismissed.

THERE ARE AT LEAST four hospitals within walking distance of St. Peter’s. There’s also a med school, dental school and countless doctors’ offices. The medical community in Memphis has gravitated together in a six-block area between Union and Madison. On Madison itself is an eight-story building, directly across from St. Peter’s, known as the Peabody Medical Arts Building. It has an enclosed walking tunnel above Madison so the doctors can run from their offices to the hospital and back again. It houses nothing but doctors, one of whom is Dr. Eric Craggdale, an orthopedic surgeon. His office is on the third floor.

I made a series of anonymous calls to his office yesterday, and found out what I needed. I wait in the huge lobby of St. Peter’s, one level above the street, and watch the parking lot around the Peabody Medical Arts Building. At twenty minutes before eleven, I watch an old Volkswagen Rabbit ease off Madison and park in the crowded lot. Kelly gets out.

She’s alone, as I expected. I called her husband’s place

of employment an hour ago, asked to speak to him and hung up when he came to the phone. I can barely see the top of her head as she struggles to rise from the car. She’s on crutches, hobbling between rows of cars, headed into the building.

I take the escalator one floor up, then cross Madison in the glass tube walkway above it. I’m nervous, but in no hurry.

The waiting room is crowded. She’s sitting with her back to the wall, flipping pages in a magazine, her broken ankle now in a walking cast. The chair to her right is empty, and I’m in it before she realizes it’s me.

Her face first registers shock, then instantly breaks into a welcoming smile. She glances nervously about. No one is looking.

"Just read your magazine," I whisper as I open a National Geographic. She raises a copy of Vogue almost to eye level, and asks, "What are you doing here?"

"My back’s bothering me."

She shakes her head and looks around. The lady next to her would like to stare but her neck is in a brace. Neither of us knows a soul in this room, so why should we worry? "So who’s your doctor?" she asks.

"Craggdale," I answer.

"Very funny." Kelly Riker was beautiful when she was in the hospital wearing a simple hospital gown, a bruise on her cheek and no makeup. Now it’s impossible for me to take my eyes off her face. She’s wearing a white cotton button-down, light starch, the type a coed would borrow from her boyfriend, and rolled-up khaki shorts. Her dark hair falls well below her shoulders.

"Is he good?" I ask.

"He’s just a doctor."

"You’ve seen him before?"

"Don’t start, Rudy. I’m not discussing it. I think you should leave." Her voice is quiet but firm.

"Well, you know, I’ve thought about that. In fact, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about you and what I should do." I pause as a man rolls by in a wheelchair.

"And?" she says.

"And I still don’t know."

"I think you should leave."

"You don’t really mean that."

"Yes I do."

"No you don’t. You want me to hang around, keep in touch, call every now and then, so the next time he breaks some bones you’ll have someone who’ll give a damn about you. That’s what you want."

"There won’t be a next time."

"Why not?"

"Because he’s different now. He’s trying to stop drinking. He’s promised not to hit me again."

"And you believe him?"

"Yes, I do."

"He’s promised before."

"Why don’t you leave? And don’t call, okay? It just makes matters worse."

"Why? Why does it make matters worse?"

She falters for a second, lowers the magazine to her lap and looks at me. "Because I think about you less as the days go by."

It’s certainly nice to know she’s been thinking about me. I reach into my pocket and retrieve a business card, one with my old address on it, the address that’s now chained and seized by various agencies of the U.S. Government. I. write my phone number on the back, and hand it to her. "It’s a deal. I won’t call you again. If you need me, that’s my home number. If he hurts you, I want to know about it."

She takes the card. I quickly kiss her on the cheek, then leave the waiting room.

ON THE SIXTH FLOOR of the same building is a large oncology group. Dr. Walter Kord is Donny Ray’s treating physician, which means at this point he’s providing a few pills and other drugs, and waiting for him to die. Kord prescribed the original chemo treatment, and performed the tests that determined that Ron Black was a perfect match for his twin’s bone marrow transplant. He will be a crucial witness at trial, assuming the case gets that far.

I leave a three-page letter with his receptionist. I’d like to talk to him at his convenience, and preferably without getting billed for it. As a general rule, doctors hate lawyers, and any time spent chatting with us is at great expense. But Kord and I are on the same side, and I have nothing to lose by trying to open a dialogue.

IT IS WITH GREAT TREPIDATION that I putter along this street in this rough section of the city, oblivious to traffic and trying vainly to read faded and peeling numbers above doors. The neighborhood looks as if it were once abandoned, with good reason, but is now in the process of reclaiming itself. The buildings are all two and three stories running half a block deep with brick and glass fronts. Most were built together, a few have narrow alleys between them. Many are still boarded up, a couple were burned out years ago. I pass two restaurants, one with tables on the sidewalk under a canopy but no customers, a cleaner’s, a flower shop.

The Buried Treasures antique shop is on a corner, a clean-enough-looking building with the bricks painted dark gray and red awnings over the windows. It has two levels, and as my gaze rises to the second, I suspect I’ve found my new home.

Because I can find no other door, I enter the antique shop. In the tiny foyer, I see a stairwell with a dim light at the top.

Deck is waiting, smiling proudly. "Whatta you think?" he gushes before I have a chance to look at anything. "Four rooms, about a thousand feet, plus rest room. Not bad," he says, tapping me on the shoulder. Then he bounces forward, spinning around, arms open wide. "Thought this would be the reception area, maybe we’ll use it for a secretary when we hire one. Just needs a coat of paint. All floors are hardwood," he says, stomping his foot, as if I couldn’t see the floors. "Ceilings are twelve feet. Walls are plasterboard and easy to paint." He motions for me to follow. We step through an open door and into a short hallway. "One room on each side. This one here is the largest, so I thought you’d need it."

I step into my new office, and am pleasantly surprised. It’s about fifteen by fifteen with a window overlooking the street. It’s empty and clean, nice flooring.

"And over here is the third room. Thought we’d use it as a conference room. I’ll work outta here, but I won’t make a mess." He’s trying hard to please, and I almost feel sorry for him. Just relax, Deck, I like the offices. Good job.

"Down there is the John. We’ll need to clean and paint it, maybe get a plumber in." He backtracks to the front room. "Whatta you think?"

"It’ll work, Deck. Who owns it?"

"The junk dealer downstairs. Old man and his wife. By the way, they have some stuff we might want: tables, chairs, lamps, even some old file cabinets. It’s cheap, not bad-looking, sort of goes with our decorative scheme here, plus they’ll allow us to pay by the month. They’re Mnda happy to have someone else in the building. I think they’ve been robbed a coupla times."