Read Online Angel of Mercy by Andrew Neiderman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Andrew Neiderman
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if Tommy Livingston had some infectious disease.
“You won’t.”
Corpsy Ratner followed the gas pump attendant’s suggestion and took the Ramon Avenue exit off the 1-10 freeway into Palm Springs. Once on Ramon, he lifted his foot slightly off the accelerator to hover closer to the speed limit. Corpsy, so nicknamed by his associates in the pathology department at the hospital in Phoenix because of his enthusiasm for his work, had an obsessive need to obey all laws, especially traffic laws. He prided himself on the fact that he had not gotten so much as a parking ticket his whole driving life, nearly twenty years, to be exact. What other man in his mid-thirties could claim so spotless a record? If nothing else, Faye Sullivan should have been impressed with that, he thought ruefully.
Instead, on every occasion, she had rejected him firmly, once even reinforcing this maligning of his image by claiming he reeked of the odor of formaldehyde.
At nearly six feet tall, Corpsy was as lean and awkward as a young Abe Lincoln, with the same soulful face cut deeply by premature wrinkles around his cheeks and etched in his wide forehead. He was hairy: the same dark strands that streamed down his forehead unevenly also curled up his spine and even over his shoulders. His eyebrows were bushy and thick like near-term caterpillars, and no matter how closely he shaved, his face was haunted by a five o’clock shadow mere hours afterward.
When he was a teenager, Corpsy would beg his mother to shave his back during the summer months; otherwise, he would never take off his shirt, never go swimming. Of course she would do it; she would do anything he asked of her. His mother was a simple, soft-spoken, meek woman who dwindled rapidly after his father’s truck accident and death until she resembled a bird with a broken wing, denied song and flight, its eyes vacant, waiting for the inevitable end.
Corpsy was her reason to go on. He was Lillian Ratner’s only child, and as such was babied and spoiled.
Corpsy was the first to admit this, but he rationalized that he suffered his mother’s indulgence for her benefit more than for his own. I’m all she has, he thought, which was especially true after his father’s smashup returning from a haul to Texas.
No two people looked more mismatched than Bret Ratner and Lillian.
Corpsy’s father was a muscular, hard, gruff six-foot-three-inch man with sinewy arms and wide shoulders, a trucker who wolfed down his food even when he was on a week’s layover. Corpsy had his long arms and legs and long fingers, but it was as if his mother’s daintiness and fragility had interfered during his formation to prevent him from inheriting any of his father’s strength. No matter how much he exercised, his body refused to become anywhere as hard as his father’s, and his muscle structure remained mediocre, if not downright underdeveloped.
He gave up trying to be like his father and withdrew, feeding his ever-festering interest in the internal nature of things, from mere insects and flowers to animals and people. Not bright enough or rich enough to become a doctor, he became a lab technician and eventually got a job in the pathology department at the hospital. He had been at the job most of his adult life, devoting himself to his work with a religious intensity that rivaled monks’ and priests’ and that earned him the notoriety that resulted in his nickname.
But he no longer minded. In fact, Corpsy saw the outside world as a world populated by envious people, people who wished that they cared about something as intensely as he did, people who wished they had his capacity to love something other than their miserable selves.
To say he was obsessive was to understate. Corpsy wouldn’t deny it.
When he found something that interested him, he pursued it with a passion that threatened to kill him. It was true about aspects of his work, but it was also true about his hobbies, the latest being collecting the
“You won’t.”
Corpsy Ratner followed the gas pump attendant’s suggestion and took the Ramon Avenue exit off the 1-10 freeway into Palm Springs. Once on Ramon, he lifted his foot slightly off the accelerator to hover closer to the speed limit. Corpsy, so nicknamed by his associates in the pathology department at the hospital in Phoenix because of his enthusiasm for his work, had an obsessive need to obey all laws, especially traffic laws. He prided himself on the fact that he had not gotten so much as a parking ticket his whole driving life, nearly twenty years, to be exact. What other man in his mid-thirties could claim so spotless a record? If nothing else, Faye Sullivan should have been impressed with that, he thought ruefully.
Instead, on every occasion, she had rejected him firmly, once even reinforcing this maligning of his image by claiming he reeked of the odor of formaldehyde.
At nearly six feet tall, Corpsy was as lean and awkward as a young Abe Lincoln, with the same soulful face cut deeply by premature wrinkles around his cheeks and etched in his wide forehead. He was hairy: the same dark strands that streamed down his forehead unevenly also curled up his spine and even over his shoulders. His eyebrows were bushy and thick like near-term caterpillars, and no matter how closely he shaved, his face was haunted by a five o’clock shadow mere hours afterward.
When he was a teenager, Corpsy would beg his mother to shave his back during the summer months; otherwise, he would never take off his shirt, never go swimming. Of course she would do it; she would do anything he asked of her. His mother was a simple, soft-spoken, meek woman who dwindled rapidly after his father’s truck accident and death until she resembled a bird with a broken wing, denied song and flight, its eyes vacant, waiting for the inevitable end.
Corpsy was her reason to go on. He was Lillian Ratner’s only child, and as such was babied and spoiled.
Corpsy was the first to admit this, but he rationalized that he suffered his mother’s indulgence for her benefit more than for his own. I’m all she has, he thought, which was especially true after his father’s smashup returning from a haul to Texas.
No two people looked more mismatched than Bret Ratner and Lillian.
Corpsy’s father was a muscular, hard, gruff six-foot-three-inch man with sinewy arms and wide shoulders, a trucker who wolfed down his food even when he was on a week’s layover. Corpsy had his long arms and legs and long fingers, but it was as if his mother’s daintiness and fragility had interfered during his formation to prevent him from inheriting any of his father’s strength. No matter how much he exercised, his body refused to become anywhere as hard as his father’s, and his muscle structure remained mediocre, if not downright underdeveloped.
He gave up trying to be like his father and withdrew, feeding his ever-festering interest in the internal nature of things, from mere insects and flowers to animals and people. Not bright enough or rich enough to become a doctor, he became a lab technician and eventually got a job in the pathology department at the hospital. He had been at the job most of his adult life, devoting himself to his work with a religious intensity that rivaled monks’ and priests’ and that earned him the notoriety that resulted in his nickname.
But he no longer minded. In fact, Corpsy saw the outside world as a world populated by envious people, people who wished that they cared about something as intensely as he did, people who wished they had his capacity to love something other than their miserable selves.
To say he was obsessive was to understate. Corpsy wouldn’t deny it.
When he found something that interested him, he pursued it with a passion that threatened to kill him. It was true about aspects of his work, but it was also true about his hobbies, the latest being collecting the
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