Doctor hate, p.1
Doctor Hate, page 1
Books by Richard Helms
Geary’s Year
Geary’s Gold
The Valentine Profile
The Amadeus Legacy
Joker Poker
Voodoo That You Do
Juicy Watusi
Wet Debt
Naked Came the Flamingo (contributor)
Paid In Spades
Bobby J.
Grass Sandal
Cordite Wine
The Daedalus Deception
The Unresolved Seventh
The Mojito Coast
Six Mile Creek
Thunder Moon
Older Than Goodbye
Brittle Karma
Doctor Hate
RICHARD HELMS
DOCTOR HATE
an Eamon Gold novel
BLACK ARCH BOOKS
Copyright 2021
by Richard Helms
All Rights Reserved
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, whether mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, in any language, living or dead, without the expressed written consent of the author.
This is a work of fiction. No events or persons in this work of fiction are intended to represent actual persons, living or dead, or actual events of the past or future. Any depictions in this book which appear to represent actual persons or events are purely coincidental.
BLACK ARCH BOOKS
an imprint of
Barbadoes Hall Communications
For Elaine
Cor meum in aeternum
ONE
Brandon Hunt sat across from me in my office. He was slim, well-dressed, and appeared to have an open, inviting face—at least the part of it I could see that wasn’t bandaged. I was reminded of the cautions against judging books by covers.
“I’m told there won’t be any permanent scars, Mr. Gold,” he said, as if he had read my thoughts.
“Well,” I said, “There’s that.”
“They were lying in wait for me on the way to parking lot.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Four. Maybe five.”
“Can you describe them?”
“No. They put a bag or a towel or something over my head before they laid into me.”
“Pity.”
“I don’t hear a lot of empathy in your voice,” Hunt said.
“Still gathering information. Empathy costs extra.”
“What do you charge?”
I told him. He winced a little. Then I told him that number didn’t include expenses. I think I ruined his day. I pulled a sheaf of printouts from my desk drawer.
“After you called for an appointment, I did some research,” I said. “You’re kind of famous, Doctor Hunt.”
“Do you run background checks on all your potential clients, Gold?”
I noted he’d dropped the ‘Mister’. We were making progress on revealing the genuine Brandon Hunt.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said. “Usually it’s just a credit check, but…”
“You checked my credit? Do you have any idea what that will do to my rating?”
“Have you seen your face? Priorities. When I started the check, I found over ten thousand hits on various search engines. You should be glad I don’t charge by the hour for that. You’ve been a busy boy.”
“If I were black and you called me that, I could ruin your life.”
“You could try. This is you, right?”
I passed the papers to him. He glanced at them, without touching them, and waved his hand in the air.
“Sure, that’s me. What about it?”
I picked up the top sheet. It was a string of Twitter posts.
“You have a curious nickname,” I said. “A lot of the junior pundits on Twitter refer to you as Doctor Hate. On October twelfth, you said, ‘Sick and tired of seeing so much money spent on Women’s Studies. Where is the Men’s Studies program? After all, the only thing women want to really study is men’.”
“So?”
“You don’t find that attitude a little…archaic?” I asked. “Especially here in San Francisco?”
“I’m entitled to my opinion. Same as you.”
“And this one? ‘Wish my Middle Eastern students wouldn’t sit on the front row in class. I can’t see people raising their hands over all the turbans.’”
“I’m not the only professor who’s ever said that.”
“You’re the only one I’ve heard say it in public. During the Black Lives Matter protests last year, you wrote, ‘What are all these people doing in the street? Why aren’t they at home, watching Madea movies, making babies and collecting welfare checks?’ Kind of inflammatory, wasn’t it?”
“What’s your point?” Hunt said. “I’m a conservative. I have a point of view, and I’m allowed to express it. Even the university said so.”
“What they said, in essence, was that your public statements are embarrassing, inexcusable, and unrepresentative of university values and mission, but they are protected by the First Amendment, and your tenured status makes it impossible for them to dump you just because you’re a jerk, a racist, a sexist pig, and a xenophobic asshole.” I paused, for effect. “Professor,” I added.
Hunt leaned back in his chair and held up both hands. “Is this a great fucking country or what? And, believe me, they tried to get rid of me. More than once.”
“That’s why you took them to court?”
“Naw. I took them to court for denying me tenure in the first place. And I won. I was due, Gold. I’d earned it. My political and social beliefs are immaterial compared to my record of published research.”
“That would be the research in which you attempt to scientifically demonstrate that minorities are intellectually inferior to whites?”
“I never did any such thing. I went where my data took me. What are you, a fucking prosecuting attorney? I got the shit beat out of me the other night. I need protection.”
“Assault and battery are crimes. You need the police, not a private investigator.”
“They took their report. Said they’d look into it. Want to know exactly how long they spent taking prints and samples from the scene where I got beat down? Less time than it took to speak that sentence. They aren’t going to do shit.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have referred to them as undereducated crossing guards in one of your Twitter screeds,” I suggested.
“Those were the campus cops. You know—the guys who couldn’t get into the regular police academy because they rode the short bus to elementary school.”
“Cops are a fraternity. They hang together. You stick it to one, you’re taking on the entire Thin Blue Line. I’ll hand it to you, though. You’re an equal opportunity offender. You insult and demean everyone.”
“Are you going to take my case or what?” he asked. “I have a class in a half hour.”
“What is it exactly you want me to do?” I asked.
“I’d like you to find out who beat me up, so I can charge them.”
I shook my head. “It’s an open police case. That’s No Man’s Land.”
“Okay. Lacking that, I need protection. I checked up on you, too. You’re good friends with Earleen Marley in my department at the university.”
“You know Earleen?”
“Believe it or not, we’re friends. She’s appalled that I was attacked, and she said you were very, very good at what you do. The best, she said.”
“My blushes,” I said. “Hold on.”
I picked up my phone and punched Earleen’s office number in the directory. She answered on the second ring.
“Eamon,” she said. “Thought I might hear from you.”
“There’s a gentleman in my office I’d just as soon chuck out the window into the bay,” I said.
“So, Brandon Hunt contacted you.”
“He did. Tell me why I should take his case.”
“You shouldn’t. I never referred him to you. He casually asked me who the best private eye in town was. I told him. He ran with that. I say this as his friend. Brandon’s an asshole, Eamon. He taints almost everything that touches him.”
“Right now, he’s an asshole in danger,” I said.
“Brandon’s always in some trouble or another. You know about the petition to remove him?”
“I read about it online this afternoon.”
“It’s up to fifty thousand signatures across the state already. A lot of people are angry at Brandon and want to see him in a different line of work. Something involving sewers or potential falls from great heights.”
“Won’t the university have to respond to them eventually?”
“Can’t. Won’t. Boy’s got tenure. Unless he’s busted with a pound of cocaine, a naked dwarf clown, and a promiscuous goat in his car, he can say anything he wants.”
“And does.”
“And does. The university isn’t going to fire him. They’re educators, Eamon, not social warriors. They’re spineless. Scared to death he’ll take them to court again. But, you know what?”
“What?”
“He’s not really a bad guy, underneath all that Junior Hitler shit. And he’s scared. After that beatdown the other night, he’s worried one of those petitioners might decide to do the university’s job for them. I don’t think you should take the job, but I think you will.”
“You’re going to need to explain that.”
“You ever heard of a researcher named Sue?”
“I heard of a boy named Sue.”
“Sue and his partners researche
“Like the Joker and Batman.”
“Exactly. Very perceptive. That’s exactly the example I use in my classes. In this equation, you’re Batman.”
“Bullshit. I’m a meat and potatoes blue collar private cop. I live client to client. I only got an education because I wanted to play football.”
“But you got that education. You do everything you set your mind to. I didn’t send Brandon to you, and I wouldn’t, because you’re a buddy and I don’t like to put buddies in bad situations. But if you take the case, I think you can help him.”
I thanked her and placed my phone back on the desk.
“You’re a fucking fraud,” Hunt said.
“Butter me up some more,” I told him. “Earleen had me ninety percent convinced to take your case. You’re about to blow it.”
“I’m a psychologist. I know people. You’re nowhere near as dumb as you pretend to be. Earleen says you’re the best there is. Revel in that! Brag about it! Your false humility is sickening. It’s like white guilt, feeling awful for shit that happened two hundred years before you were born. This city’s lousy with weenies like you.”
“Were you born without social filters, or did they just scrape off along the way?”
He sat back and grinned.
“You were jerking me around,” I said.
“Wanted to see if you could take it.”
“Not a matter of can or can’t. What matters is whether I want to.”
“And?”
“I’m on the fence.”
“You have other cases?”
“No, but I’ve had a good year. My bank account is bursting at the seams. And a nice, easy philandering spouse case is always just around the corner.”
“Don’t you get tired of sitting outside tawdry motels waiting for some cheater to walk out a door with his secretary? Seems to me this would be a nice change of pace. It’s bodyguard work. You stand around and look like someone’s going to toss you a raw steak. You’re big, and wide, and kind of mean-looking. Just hang by my side, and nobody will bother me. We don’t even have to talk if you like—not that I think we’d have much in common to discuss.”
“I’ll think about it. Call you tomorrow,” I said.
TWO
When I first entered the private eye game, I signed on with an established guy named Dobbs. I’d been a cop on the San Francisco force, and eventually got my gold shield, but I was never terribly regimental in my habits, and as a result I decided to go private. Dobbs promised me a bright and successful future. We signed a contract, he took me on, and two weeks later he went nose-first into his plate at the Mark Hopkins. Aneurysm. Tough break for him. By the time his debts were paid, there wasn’t enough to honor my contract, so his family instead offered me a rental property he’d bought on an impulse in Montara Beach, south of Pacifica on the PCH.
The house sits up the hill from the Chart House Restaurant, about four rows back from the highway. It’s your standard central California beach house—shaggy redwood siding, crosshatched Tudor casement windows, a carport instead of a garage, two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, and a large living room. At first, I considered selling the place, but when I saw it, I discovered the living room would make a perfect workshop.
In addition to sleuthing, I’m a woodworker. I make stringed musical instruments—mostly guitars, but I’ve also made Irish citterns, a banjo or two, a Cuban cuatro, a few ukes, and most recently a hurdy-gurdy. I don’t sell them, but I do give them away as gifts. Sometimes a friend asks me to build something new. This time it was a Celtic harp. I was building it out of California claro walnut, because I find the figure in the wood so fascinating, and because I love the way it smells when I work it—spicy and sweet. Different woods have different smells. Rosewood smells like—well, that’s pretty obvious. Poplar smells like bacon as you saw and sand it. Cherry, I was sad to discover, doesn’t smell like much of anything except hot wood.
Heidi Fluhr had joined me at the Montara house for the weekend. Heidi has her own aroma, and I find it intoxicating. If humans have pheromones, she’s cornered the market. Heidi is an art dealer whose gallery is situated right under my Jefferson Street office near Hyde Pier, overlooking the Golden Gate. She specializes in post-modern art, but always carries a few traditional representational pieces, because they sell well with tourists looking for mementos of their trip to San Francisco. She’s tall, blonde, and curvy, a Northern European goddess.
We met a few years back when she hired me for protection, after being robbed on the way to make a deposit. I tailed her for a few days, until the guy decided to take another swipe at her, whereupon I showed him what a bitch it is to exceed the limits of your Blue Cross coverage. She paid her bill immediately and added a tip by taking me out to dinner, which led to a night I shall carry fondly in my memory until the day I die.
We’ve been an item ever since. Maybe she’s my girlfriend. I know she isn’t anyone else’s girlfriend. I’m not seeing anyone else, either, but that doesn’t mean we see ourselves together for life. We get along, understand each other, and have a hell of a time between the sheets, but beyond that we avoid placing a label on what we do together, because that would imply permanence. We take it day by day and night by night. So far, it’s worked out quite nicely. That’s about as deeply as we’ve defined things.
On our previous sojourn to Montara, I’d laminated three boards of the claro walnut to make a slab about three inches thick, from which I would bandsaw the main upper arch of the harp. A Celtic harp is a lap instrument, not much larger than your typical moving box. I could make the entire arch with just one board of the walnut. After sawing out the basic shape, I’d attack it with rasps and files and assorted hand rifflers to carve out the delicate yet robust shape of the arch.
I lifted the slab onto my workbench and placed a heavy cardboard template over it. Using a pencil, I drew the outline of the main arch.
Heidi sat on the couch, wearing an oversized mesh Forty-Niners jersey, a serene smile, and that’s about it. German by birth, she had grown up in a decidedly non-uptight environment when it came to body culture. She had on about as much as she ever did when we were at the beach. She was playing a Hauser replica classical guitar I had built several months earlier just for her, and she was doing it expertly.
I don’t know a great deal about Heidi’s youth. I know—entirely by chance—that her father was some high muckety in the German government. I know she doesn’t go by the name she was given at birth. I know she is a trained classical musician who somehow found herself immersed in the Munich punk rock scene, and from there became involved in radical anarchist German politics, the kind that involve bombings and public mass shootings. I know she had to flee Germany under threat of death from her radical compatriots after she betrayed them in some way. I know she can never play guitar professionally in public again, because people who still want to hurt her might recognize her, and therefore the gallery is her way of staying in touch with her artistic side.
I could find out more, of course. It’s kind of my thing. But Heidi asked me not to, and I’ve respected her wishes. We have that sort of relationship.
She played a piece I hadn’t heard before on the Hauser knock-off. It was haunting and lyrical and would have driven Segovia himself to tears. Then, she stopped.
“Was that Brandon Hunt I saw head up to your office yesterday?” she asked, with a faint remnant of her German accent.
“Friend of yours?” I said as I stowed the template back in a rack.
“Hardly.”
“But you know who he is.”
“I watch the news. I read the paper. I know things. He’s kind of famous.”
“For all the wrong reasons.”
“What did he want?” She rose from the sofa and placed the Hauser copy back on its wall hook.
“Got jumped a few days back on the university campus. Wants protection.”
Heidi lounged on the sofa and picked up a novel she’d brought for the weekend. “I find the man reprehensible. He’s a fascist.”
“Something you Germans know a little about.”
