The Mysteries of Soldiers Grove by Paul Zimmer Read Free Book Online

my pulse and holding my wrist.
    I always wanted to give her a life to think about. That’s what I do best. I could think of a hundred beautiful women she resembled, but I had to get it just right. Finally I said to her, “I’m trying to figure out who you look like-—maybe Désirée Clary, or Elinor Wylie. Is it Vera Hruba Ralston or Sigrid Hjertén?” I meant to flatter her, but she didn’t know any of these names. She gave me her wonderful smile, though, and that was very nice.
    Was I flirting okay? I wasn’t sure, but I was trying hard to learn.
    Another kind of young woman showed up by my bed one day with a clipboard; maybe she was twenty years old, but she acted like she was running the whole show. She looked kind of snippy like Bette Davis, but if I’d told her this she wouldn’t have known who I was talking about. Anyway, she was too snooty to be given a life. I had no desire to flirt with this woman.
    “Cyril,” she said in her superior voice, “we don’t seem to have any past records of you in the hospital. Have you been here before?”
    Damn—I hate this new familiarity that young people have! No twenty-year-old snot has any business calling me by my first name! What kind of a world is this? Even though I might look like roadkill, I deserve some respect.
    “My name is Mr. Solverson,” I corrected her. “No, I have not been here before.”
    She blinked once when I corrected her, but went on. “We need some information, Mr . Solverson . Do you have insurance?”
    “I’m a resident of the care home in Soldiers Grove. They have my insurance records.”
    “Do you have any information with you?”
    I told her my billfold had been stolen by Balaclava.
    “Your clothes are here in the locker. I’ll make a list of your belongings and you can sign it. But do I have your permission to look in your wallet for your medical card, Mr. Solverson?”
    “I told you, there’s no wallet. It was taken by the man who abducted me.”
    “Do you remember your social security number?”
    Now how the hell am I supposed to know my social security number while I’m lying on my frozen ass in a hospital bed, half out of my noggin?
    “6086245731,” I say off the top of what’s left of my head. I think it’s my phone number, but can’t be sure; it is the only number I can remember for the moment—and it is good enough for this sniffy kid.
    “Mr. Solverson, there are ten digits in that number. Social security has nine.”
    “How did that happen? There’s mysteries everywhere around this place,” I said in mock wonder.
    “Maybe you’ll remember later. Who is your next of kin?”
    “I have none.”
    “Who is your nearest relative?”
    “I have none.”
    “Can you give me the name of a close friend?”
    “I have none.”
    “Surely there is some distant relative somewhere?”
    I think hard, but I can think of no one. I decide to invent a relative so that this prissy missy will just go away.
    Who would I like to be my distant relative? Lots of people. But today I think of . . . Thurman Tucker. He was a reserve outfielder for the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians in the 1940s. He had a couple of pretty fair seasons for the Sox. He had a huge mouth like Joe E. Brown, and I saw a picture of him once in the Sporting News with half a dozen hardboiled eggs stuffed into his mouth. He wore steel-rimmed specs and I thought he looked like a pretty good guy. “Thurman Tucker,” I said. I spelled it out for her.
    “And what relationship is Thurman Tucker to you?”
    “He is my cousin three times removed. He might even be deceased by now.”
    Pause. “Do you know his phone number?”
    “011-43-6841.”
    “Cyril,” she said. “That does not sound like a phone number. Is it your social security number?”
    “You said you wanted nine numbers. My name is Mr. Solverson!”
    “ Mr. Solverson ,” the young woman’s voice had gone very, very cold. A gap of about sixty years yawned and opened its abyss between us.