The Tiger Catcher Read online

  The tube was barely moving. Julian lived near Angel and worked near Austin Friars. It took him over an hour to get to work. It would’ve been quicker to walk. He barely had time to hang up his coat before his manager appeared at his desk. “Oh, your highness! So kind of you to drop by.” Graham Parry hated Julian. “My office. One minute.”

  “You’ve shaved, well done,” Sheridan whispered, a punctual British lass with moist bedroom eyes and buttoned-up, overly snug blazers. “But you’re still in trouble.”

  “Not on my birthday,” Julian said.

  “Just tell him you had a doctor’s appointment,” Sheridan said with unhelpful snark. “For you, doctor’s appointments are like the American Express card. There’s no spending limit.”

  “Funny.”

  “Who’s being funny?”

  He would’ve used the doctor as an excuse for being late this morning; trouble was, he was using it as an excuse for ducking out this afternoon.

  Graham popped his head out. “Julian—now.”

  Under the glaring fluorescent lights, from behind the Formica desk, Graham stared at Julian for so long, it bordered on physical aggression. Graham was short of neck and stocky of shoulder. The recession of his inadequate lower jaw was matched only by the unnatural protuberance of his massive forehead and skull. Today the unsightly veins in his temples were throbbing. Julian was going to sit down but thought better of it. Combat required your standing attention.

  “Are you or are you not my senior staff editor?” Graham said.

  “I am. Sorry, chief.”

  “Were you too busy to come to work this morning?”

  Julian worked at Nextel, a local wire news agency, owned and run by one Michael Bennett, father of one Ashton Bennett. “I didn’t feel well. It won’t happen again. What’s going on?”

  In disgust Graham slapped a piece of copy on his desk. “Did you write this headline?”

  Julian glanced at it. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Look at it! Do I have to remind you that you’re not writing for The Onion? GEORGE LUCAS GIVES FANS SNEAK PEEK AT HYPERREALISTIC ALIEN GENITALS.”

  “Seems all right to me,” Julian said. “Clever. Informative.”

  “What the fuck do genitals have to do with the created universe?” Graham yelled.

  Julian stared blankly into Graham’s pulsing face. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Graham slapped another article on his desk. “And this? You think this is acceptable? ON MOTHER’S ADVICE WOMAN USES POTATO AS A CONTRACEPTIVE—AND ROOTS BEGIN GROWING.”

  “You want better headlines, give me better stories,” Julian said. “I’m reactive. I write the headline for the news that’s given me.” THE WORLD, AND EVERYTHING THAT’S IN IT, IS IN HELL. NEWS AT ELEVEN.

  “AUSTRALIAN ARMY VEHICLE DISAPPEARS!”

  “It went missing after being painted with camouflage,” Julian said. “You think I was out of line there?”

  “BUGS FLYING AROUND WITH WINGS ARE FLYING BUGS!”

  “Did you read that story?” Julian said. So now it was his fault the news was crap? He took a breath and stepped back. “You’re right. I’ll do better. But can we pick this up later? I’ve got to run out for a few minutes. Doctor’s appointment.”

  Graham jumped up. “No! You just got here. Our new fashion section needs editor assignments and four display captions. I’ve got twenty gen-news stories going out without headlines. A woman fell to her death after her boyfriend proposed on the edge of a cliff!”

  “There’s your headline,” Julian said. “You hardly need me.”

  “This is bullshit. Make your appointments after work.”

  “I can’t tonight, it’s my birthday.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  “We’re meeting up for a drink. Even you.”

  “Reschedule the doctor.”

  “I can’t.” Julian needed more magic beans. He was certain the one he found yesterday was the last bit of grace he’d been given.

  “Well, I can’t run my news division because you’re never here.”

  “Sheridan will help you.”

  “It’s your fucking job!” Graham said. “Sheridan is busy fixing the typos you missed. And if Sheridan can do it, then what, pardon me for asking, is the point of you?”

  “Good question. Let’s talk about it this afternoon.”

  “Julian, if you leave, I’m warning you, that’s it. You’re done. I don’t care who you know.”

  But Graham was shouting it into Julian’s back, who had grabbed his coat and was already headed for the stairs, hearing a hyperventilating Graham running behind him. “Don’t you dare walk out of this office! Do you hear me? Don’t you dare!”

  Julian heard him. Even on the street, Julian heard him.

  His head was throbbing. He stopped in a leafless square a few blocks away and sank down. He couldn’t walk anymore, couldn’t see. His chest was tight. Which way the tube? Which train to Peckham? Poor Ashton, who had swallowed his pride, called his dad, and got Julian a job in a foreign country. What if after the blowup with Graham, Julian would be forced to confess to his friend the reason for the desperate lunchtime visit to a private doctor across the river? Confess that he couldn’t live without an anti-psychotic drug, the withdrawal from which makes people hang themselves in their backyards on balmy Sunday afternoons.

  21

  The Apothecary

  LONDON WAS DRIZZLY AND CHILLY IN THE MIDDLE OF MARCH, especially south of the river. Everything was worse south of the river.

  Julian banged on the front door until the doctor, a James Weaver, unlocked it.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Julian Cruz. We had an appointment.”

  “Mr. Cruz, our appointment was for twelve-thirty. It’s nearly four. Where have you been?”

  “I got lost.” He had no idea where the time had gone, where he had been.

  “Well, my office closes soon, and I’m with my last patient.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Cruz, was I not clear? Last patient. Call and reschedule.”

  “No,” Julian said. “I mean—please no.”

  “I’m with a . . .”

  “I need your help,” Julian said. “Are you going to turn me away? I’ll wait. I’ll do what it takes. Whatever it takes.” He stood like a post until the man waved him in.

  Weaver worked at a Health and Wellness Center in the warehouses behind Peckham. In the old days, Peckham was a place no Londoner who valued his life went. Peckham entered the British lexicon just before the war, when all the school age children were taught to “pray for Peckham.” And now Peckham was where it was at, where the hip private doctors worked in flash remodeled spaces.

  There was no specific reason Julian had picked this doctor other than this was the doctor who could see him today. Most important, when Julian stated that he needed a new prescription for a schedule C drug, the receptionist didn’t hang up.

  Everything smelled of fresh paint. Impatiently Julian waited in the peach-colored room with shiny metal furniture. He drank some orange-flavored water from the cooler. He leafed through a coffee-table book on the history of British mercantile trade. He checked his watch half a dozen times to see how long it had been. Despite hearty denials to Ashton, this is how Julian knew he wasn’t well. He couldn’t tell how much time was passing between seconds.

  Julian should’ve used his time more wisely. For example, he might’ve considered figuring out how to answer some of the doctor’s inevitable questions. Even if it was just to cover his own ass, the doc might reasonably ask, um, why do you need Klonopin, Mr. Cruz?

  Just as Julian was getting exasperated, even though it had been only fourteen minutes and he was over three hours late, the office door opened and the doctor motioned him in.

  Weaver was a small nervous man with a notepad. His eyes were too close together. At certain angles he appeared cross-eyed and hook-nosed. Julian perched on the edge of the couch, trying
not to stare at the man’s prominent proboscis.

  Sure enough, Weaver asked him questions.

  Julian Cruz. Thirty-three years old. Born, raised, educated, residing in California. Correction: residing temporarily in London. Mother still alive. Father also. Five brothers. No, he didn’t smoke. Drank recreationally.

  The doctor glanced at his legal pad.

  Julian corrected himself. “Thirty-four today.”

  “Happy birthday. What have you been doing in London?”

  “Working.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a headline editor.” Julian hoped that was still true. That he wasn’t an unemployed headline editor.

  The doctor wasn’t impressed. “I didn’t know that was a job. Let’s hear a sample headline.”

  Julian tried not to sigh. “POPSTAR CONTINUES PERFORMING FOR 49 MINUTES AFTER BEING BITTEN BY COBRA BEFORE COLLAPSING AND DYING ON STAGE.” He shivered.

  “Are you cold? The heat is on.”

  “No.” Time’s a-ticking. Julian wanted to script and scram. He had a party to get to.

  The doctor studied him, but he had nothing on Julian who had become quite the expert at pretending he could withstand all kinds of scrutiny. Except for an odd twitch in his cheek, a twitch he had trouble controlling since drastically reducing his Klono intake, Julian was a model of serenity. With a carefully placed hand he hid his herky-jerky face and, to lighten the mood, offered the doctor another headline. “How about . . . THE SCIENCE BEHIND HITLER’S POSSIBLE MICROPENIS.”

  “Better. Shorter.” Weaver allowed himself a small smile in return. “How long have you been in London?”

  “A few months.” Julian corrected himself for the third time off the doctor’s silence. “Six months.”

  Weaver studied him cross-eyed. “This morning I received your records from Dr. Fenton, your National Health doctor,” Weaver said. “You’ve been in London eighteen months, Mr. Cruz.”

  Julian said nothing. What he was thinking was, it can’t be! But he said nothing.

  For long seconds the doctor also said nothing. “So what have you been doing in London for a year and a half?” Weaver asked.

  Julian’s been making the time fly. One Sunday, after having coffee at Victoria, he decided to take a ride to the country. Little did he know that the train terminated at Bromley because the British liked to repair the rail tracks on their day of rest. The remainder of the trip to Dover would be by bus. Julian didn’t have the stomach for a bus, so he switched platforms and waited for the train back. He waited over two hours. The clock told him. By the time he got back, it was ten at night.

  That was Julian’s momentous weekend excursion. He would’ve mentioned it to the good doctor today as an example of the kinds of things he did during his five hundred days in London, but what if Weaver followed up with a question about the seaside? What plausible genuine detail could Julian offer about Dover? If only he had looked online for a war museum there. He and the good doctor could’ve talked about the war. The British liked to talk about that.

  What about the other 499 days? Could a rational man confess to a consumptive obsession with looking for a street in his dream and still be considered rational?

  Julian had never seen lanes and courts as they had in London. A road would begin north, a narrow path with no stores, and widen into a six-lane boulevard with monuments in the parks and museums in the squares, before meandering like a river, south and west, doubling up on itself, one way, two way, past shops and outdoor vendors, ending seven miles east in a village green.

  The grande dame of them all was Cheapside, the most ancient and noble of London’s streets. It was formed a millennium ago in the walled City near the Bank of England, where the magnificent goldsmiths once plied their trade, and ran through central London, becoming Holborn, then High Holborn, then Oxford Street. It breezed by as Hyde Park Place, Bayswater Road, Holland Park Avenue, Stamford Brook Road, and Bath Road—ending abruptly on Chiswick Common. From the goldsmiths of Cheapside near the greatest financial institution in the world to the Puff and Stuff newsagents twelve miles away, that was London in microcosm.

  And Julian had walked it all.

  What could he tell the doctor? Near the Tower of London, there was a shop that sold strong drink and chips with vinegar. Julian could smell the rising swampy scent of the Thames as he sat outside in the drizzle, watching the noisy crows. He could tell you nothing about the interior of the Barbican or Westminster Abbey, but boy did he know where to get a crappy cup of coffee. He must have walked a thousand miles in his worn-out shoes looking for the thing that didn’t exist. Immense London, where in the course of two millennia, a thousand souls became a million became ten million, and for the last eighteen months of this sliver of eternity, Julian had failed to discover if Josephine’s soul was one of them.

  He wasn’t gaunt from grief. He was whittled away by pounding the pavements of an ageless city.

  “Mr. Cruz? What’s happening?”

  Julian blinked. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

  “Well, you’ve been catatonic and rocking for five minutes, so everything does not look fine.”

  “I’m good.” Julian steeled his back. He hadn’t been rocking, had he?

  “I asked you what you’ve been doing, and you slumped and disappeared, Mr. Cruz.” Weaver glanced into his pad. “You already have a regular National Health doctor. And Dr. Fenton, is free, so to speak.”

  “I’m trying someone new. Paying for someone private. I’m trying you,” Julian said.

  “I hope I can help. Why are you here?”

  Julian didn’t want to downplay it since he was here asking for Klonopin, not Advil, but at the same time he didn’t want to seem desperate. “I need a script for Klonopin—clonazepam,” he blurted. Just like that. No point beating around the bush. Time was short, the medic far from the White Crow.

  “That’s a serious drug. Addiction is common, withdrawal is physically and mentally debilitating. Have you taken it before?”

  “What does it say in my notes?”

  The doctor looked up. Julian abated. “I mean yes. Yes, I’ve taken it before.”

  “How long for?”

  “Just a few—”

  “I don’t recommend being on it longer than seven days,” Weaver said. “Ten days max.”

  Julian had come to the wrong doctor. He knew that now—too late. This was true of so many things in his life. He learned—oh he learned—but too late. “That’s fine,” he said. “Ten days will be fine.” He’d find someone else.

  “Ten days total.”

  Julian had been on Klonopin a lot longer than ten days total. And the National Health info didn’t include a script from his doctor in West Hollywood, and another from a doctor in Beverly Hills. And from one in Simi Valley.

  “Without it, I can’t get out of bed in the morning,” Julian said, making an effort not to turn his body inward. “I can’t get on with my day. Klonopin helps.”

  “What about therapy?”

  “Klonopin is what helps.”

  “Why did you start taking it in the first place? What happened?”

  “Nothing.” Julian made a superhuman effort to keep his hands relaxed. “I can’t sleep. I can’t calm down.” He knew it seemed as if none of what he was saying was true. Outwardly, Julian displayed the most casual exterior, the most placid, stoic, nothing’s bothering me exterior. His poker body was spectacular. This helped him in fights and interviews, on first dates and with eulogies.

  But it wasn’t helping him now.

  Julian knew he looked like a man who needed a shot of adrenaline through the heart, not a sedative. “The girl I was going to marry was killed the day before our wedding.” He didn’t look at the doctor as he spoke.

  “My condolences. When did this happen? Back in L.A.?” The doctor was respectfully silent. At first. “Mr. Cruz . . .” Weaver lowered his voice. “Answer me truthfully, how long have you been on Klonopin? Not . . . since she di
ed, right?” The doctor gasped that out, as if not only could he not believe it, but felt himself under threat of a malpractice suit for even asking the question.

  “No, no,” Julian hastened to reply. “Of course not. On and off.”

  “It’s wreaked havoc on people. Ruined their lives.”

  “Not me.” You can’t ruin Carthage, Dresden, Troy. Not twice.

  “Out of control electrical impulses, insomnia, drowsiness. Cognitive difficulties, panic, paralysis.”

  “Not me.”

  “Muscle spasms, cramps, drooling mouth, dry mouth. Weight loss, weight gain. Loss of balance, of coordination.”

  “Not me.”

  “Death,” Weaver said.

  They were silent.

  “Not me.” Barely a voice.

  “Visions? Hallucinations?”

  Maybe that. “I don’t have a problem with it. Really,” Julian said.

  “So why don’t you get it from Dr. Fenton?”

  Julian stayed quiet.

  “Are you doctor shopping, Mr. Cruz?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Because that’s a serious crime.”

  “That’s a serious charge, Dr. Weaver, and no, I’m not.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  Clearly Julian was doctor shopping. Why even ask?

  “I understand what happened to you back then,” Weaver said, with an almost compassionate tone. Almost. Except for the word then. As if, well, it was back then. Like in the past. Over and done with. Why the malingering? “But what about now?”

  “I’m not doing so great, doc. Can’t you tell?”

  After she died, Julian developed cotton mouth, a perpetual case of dry mouth that got so bad that when he was home he could make it better only by constantly sucking on a rag soaked in lemon water. And he was always home. For months after, he was frozen cold. He was cold until he left for London. When Ashton later told him that Los Angeles had gone through the worst heatwave and drought in seventy years, Julian didn’t believe it. “Every day above a hundred,” Ashton said. “All the reservoirs have dried up.”

  Because of the potent cocktail of these separate but related things—the chewing on rags, the shivering under blankets, the deadening nature of the anti-psychotic drugs, mixed in with bottom-dwelling depression and sleeping like a sick lion, and then the sudden move to London—time both stood still for Julian and ran amok.