Read Doc in the Box for Free Online Page A

office and family substitute, and you could find me there most mornings. If there was no line out front, Tom the cook had my one egg scrambled before my car was even parked. Marlene the waitress popped in two pieces of wheat toast and poured my decaf coffee by the time I took off my coat. That had been my breakfast routine for the last eight years. Readers who couldn’t get through the
Gazette
switchboard knew they could reach me at Uncle Bob’s most mornings, and the waitresses took more accurate messages for me than Scarlette, our department secretary.
    It was another ten minutes before Cheryl the hostess could seat me, plenty of time to find out what caused the crowd this morning. St. Philomena’s Catholic Church had a Recognition Day for students and parents, then gave the kids the rest of the day off. All those proud parents and their offspring had worked up an appetite picking up their achievement certificates.
    “No booth for you today, Francesca,” Cheryl said. “It’s too crowded. I’m gonna have to stick you at the little table in the corner, but it’s in Marlene’s station.”
    Marlene was my favorite server, a generously proportioned woman with an innocent Irish face and a wicked comeback for everything. Today she barely had time to pour my coffee and plop down my plate. I buried my face in a murder mystery. I’m an addict. I read five a week.
    A few minutes later, Cheryl the hostess came over. “There’s a call for you,” she said. “You can take it at the front desk.”
    It was Georgia.
    “What’s wrong?” I said.
    “Nothing,” she said. “I just don’t want to call you at the
Gazette
. You know the phones are bugged there. Listen, can you pick me up an hour earlier for my radiation appointment?”
    “No problem,” I said.
    “Are you sure? How are you going to get your stripper story finished?”
    “I worked on it at home on my laptop. It’s nearly done. I just have to ask Leo a couple of questions.”
    “Good. I need to buy a wig. I’ll be losing my hair in another week or two. I want to have my wig styled and ready.”
    “Sure, I’ll be glad to go with you,” I lied. I’d hate it. But I couldn’t tell her that. The woman’s hair was going to fall out, and I was whining because it made me feel uncomfortable. She needed me to be with her, and I would. Friends don’t let friends go bald alone.
    “Is an hour going to be enough time?” I said. “I can leave earlier.”
    “I have dyed blond hair in a wedge cut, like every other woman my age. How difficult can it be?”
    I thought it was going to be very difficult. I hung up, dreading the wig appointment. It wasn’t even ten o’clock, and the day was already in a nosedive.
    By the time I sat down again to cold coffee, Marlene’s tables had cleared out enough that she could join me on her break. She poured me a fresh cup. Then she sympathized about Georgia’s hair. To lighten things up, I told her the story about the missing stripper, Leo D. Nardo. But Marlene didn’t laugh. “Monday night was the last time anyone saw him,” she said. “This is Thursday. If he doesn’t show up for work today, I’d say it’s time to get seriously worried.”
    “Oh, come on, Marlene. This is a stripper. An absolute airhead.”
    “Francesca,” she said, “if a man said that about a woman stripper, you’d be indignant. You’d say he was discounting her because she was a woman in a marginal profession. Men deserve equal treatment.”
    “But it’s different.”
    “Why? Male and female strippers are both in businesses that attract a lot of weirdos.”
    “But he’s …”
    “He’s a sex object. He just happens to be a male sex object. But he deserves equal treatment. How do you know he even went anywhere with a woman? Does he have a girlfriend? Did anyone see him with a special admirer that night? Did he have any money with him so he could take a sudden trip or get a hotel room for several days?”
    “Just his tips,” I