Authors: Michael Palmer
“Hey, Harry,” Phil said. “Good to hear from you. I think I caught some little item about you on the news or someplace.”
“Very funny. How are Gail and the kids holding up?”
“Let’s just say we’re all having to defend the family name a bit. How’re you doing?”
“Thanks to you, I’m still on the loose. Phil, that note I gave you set up a meeting time with Maura. But so far she hasn’t showed. Are you sure it was delivered?”
“Positive. I spoke to Ziggy this morning. He put it in her hand personally at about three
A.M
.”
“Shit.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Not for now. You’ve done more than enough already. Phil, thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
“Just take good care of my baby, there. I’ve been promising Gail a weekend away in her. Now that you’ve gotten first dibs, I’m going to have to deliver.”
Harry cruised around his loop for almost an hour, careful to widen it or shorten it each time. No Maura. Something was definitely wrong. He got Kevin Loomis’s home phone number from information and tried him there. Daddy was at the store getting ice for a party, a child informed him. Mommy was in the bathroom. Harry said he’d call back in an hour.
It was nearly eleven—almost two hours before the second scheduled try at connecting outside of C.C.’s. Harry would be there, but he felt almost certain that Maura would not.
Perchek?
Dickinson? Booze?
Of the three, only a fall off the wagon seemed unlikely. He checked the gas gauge and the rest of the jet plane dashboard panel. No problems … so far. He headed downtown.
The only option he had, it seemed, was to try and find Ray Santana. He had no desire to put Mary Tobin at risk, but he really had no choice. Besides, he thought smiling, in any match between the authorities and Mary, his sympathies would have to go out to the cops. He reached her at home. As he expected, she was anxious to do whatever she
could to help him and had an enormous extended family who were willing to help out as well.
“My son-in-law, Darryl, is the only one who has bad-mouthed you,” she said. “He’ll be back home just as soon as they finish the X rays and the stitches. An’ that’s just from my daughter. He’ll still have to deal with me.”
It took almost forty-five minutes for her to get Walter Concepcion’s address and number and make it back home. As soon as she entered the office, the two policemen who were staking out the place had barged in and questioned her.
“We’re going to get him,” one of them had said. “Just don’t you be helping him when we do.”
“I’ve got twenty-one grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, young man,” Mary replied. “I’m sure you’ll be a big hit with your family and fellow officers when you haul me off to jail.”
At precisely noon, she called Harry with Concepcion’s number and address and a report of her conversation with police. He called immediately and got no answer. Then, when he was a block away from the rooming house, he tried again. This time, Santana picked up. Three minutes later, he loped out of the house and jumped into the passenger seat. Harry knew the moment he saw the man that his anger was gone. He was merely grateful that where there had been one, now there were two. He swung onto the Harlem River Drive, heading north.
“Now this is my idea of a getaway car,” Santana said.
Ray was well past needing a shave and looked as wasted and hyper as Harry had ever seen him.
“It’s a loaner from my brother. I’m glad you got away. Are you all right? You don’t look so hot.”
“Just the usual, only more of it than usual. I screwed up at the hospital, Harry. I’m really sorry.”
“Was it Perchek you saw?”
“No, not Perchek. It was Garvey, Harry. Sean Garvey, the bastard who served me up to Perchek. I was lying there half asleep when I heard his voice outside the door. It’s been seven years, but I knew in two seconds that it was him.
Our eyes met and he recognized me, too. I’m certain of it. He was with a bunch of people in suits. He’s lightened his hair and had some sort of stuff done to his face, but it was him. By the time I reached the doorway of my room, he was pulling away from me. I … I lost my cool and fired at him. The rest I guess you know.”
“Do you have any idea who Garvey is now? What he might be doing at a hospital in New York?”
“None. After Nogales, he disappeared, almost into thin air. He either had some powerful friends in high places, or he had the goods on them. I pulled every string I could to find him. Nothing. No records he ever worked for the government. No Social Security number. No tax returns. Nothing. Witness relocation times fifty. I called in every marker I could think of around the agency and the CIA. Zip. You have coffee in here?”
Harry motioned to the thermos. Santana poured himself a cup and then flipped on the nine-inch television bolted on a swivel atop the passenger-side dash. The reporter was updating developments in the dual manhunt for Dr. Harry Corbett and a man tentatively identified as Raymond Santana, a former DEA undercover agent, whose fingerprints were among those taken from Grey 218.
“So much for the element of surprise,” Ray said. “It was only a matter of time. You think Maura’s in trouble?”
“I
know
she is. Listen, I’m going to head back to the club soon. The note I sent her said we’d try again at one if either of us didn’t show up.”
“That body in your trunk sounds like Perchek’s work. Do you suppose he’s got her?”
Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“First this Roundtable, then Perchek, and now goddamn Sean Garvey to boot. This is really the mother lode, Harry.”
“Where do you think we should start?… Ray?…”
Santana, eyes narrowed, was peering at the screen from just a few inches away.
“Douglas Atwater, vice president of Manhattan Health. You know him, Harry?”
“I know him well. He’s one of my few enduring supporters at the hospital.”
“He’s on this station live, right now, issuing a plea for you to give yourself up before anyone gets hurt.”
“So?”
“Well,” Santana said, “your enduring supporter at the hospital is also the man I tried to kill yesterday.”
“Garvey?”
“In the flesh.”
It made no sense for them to remain in the city, and there were a number of good reasons not to. With Harry driving, he and Santana left Manhattan and headed north on Route 684 toward the New York-Connecticut border. Their mood was grim. Maura had not shown up at C.C.’s at one, and it seemed fairly certain now that Perchek, not the police, had her.
“You know,” Harry said, “the more I think about Atwater, the stupider I feel.”
“What do you mean?”
Santana, his feet up on the dash, had turned off the TV. He was gazing out the side window at an approaching bank of storm clouds.
“Getting an IV into Evie and injecting her with Aramine took some planning,” Harry explained. “Whoever did it had to know that she was coming into the hospital that day. And I didn’t know myself until twenty-four hours
before. Doug was one of the few people besides me who was aware that her admission date had changed.”
“When did he start working for your hospital?”
“He doesn’t work for the hospital exactly, he works for the managed care outfit that has a contract with the hospital.”
“Managed care
. That’s very creepy sounding if you ask me.”
“It’s a far cry from some ol’ doc riding up in his buggy with his black bag, I’ll tell you that much. Anyhow, Doug’s been around for about five or six years, I think.”
“Sounds right. Someone high up in the agency did a hell of a job of making him disappear—a new life, a new face, and no records that he ever existed. Garvey probably brought his pal Anton up to New York as soon as he was settled in his new position with the
managed care
company. There must be a hell of a lot of money in this Roundtable business for Perchek not to go back to his old globe-hopping ways.”
“Maybe The Doctor just wanted to settle down.”
“Sure, that’s it. He’s in semiretirement. Just five or six killings a week.”
“Well, what do we do now?”
“I’ve been thinking that maybe we should give ol’ Garves a call,” Santana said. “Things are unraveling for him just about as fast as they’re unraveling for us. Garvey knows. I’m around now. And until I’m
not
around, he won’t ever be able to stop looking over his shoulder. That shot I fired in the hospital may have missed, but it did send a clear message that I’m not in a negotiating frame of mind. Also, he must realize that you know about The Roundtable. Why else would you have set me up in the hospital?”
“But we have no proof of anything or we would have gone to the police. They must know that, too.”
“I agree. That gives them a chance to stay in business, but only if you’re in jail or dead and I’m successfully bought off or dead.”
“What about Maura?”
Santana shook his head, his expression grave.
“Assuming they have her, she’s a bargaining chip so long as we’re around, and a loose end as soon as we’re not.”
“Let me call him,” Harry said angrily. “I want to thank him for being such a devoted friend all these years.”
“Just be cool.”
He pulled into a rest area and dialed Atwater’s office at MMC.
“Whom should I say is calling, please?” Atwater’s secretary asked.
Harry hesitated for a moment, then said, “It’s Dr. Mingus. Dr. Charles Mingus.”
Mingus, one of Harry’s idols, was acknowledged by many, including Atwater, to be the greatest jazz bass player ever. He had been dead for fifteen or twenty years. It took just a few seconds for Atwater to come on the line.
“Harry, is that you?” he said.
“Hi, Doug. Okay to talk?”
“Absolutely. Dr. Charles Mingus. Clever. Very clever. You are a trip, Harry.”
“I saw you on the tube a little while ago. Thanks for worrying about me.”
“Hey, I’m just glad to hear your voice, pal. I’m glad you’re all right. Where in the heck are you anyway?”
“Oh, around. I’m trying to find Maura Hughes, Doug. I thought maybe you’d know where she was.”
“That was some damn good drawing she did, wasn’t it, Harry?”
“Does Perchek have her?”
“Perchek. Perchek. Now there’s a name that doesn’t ring any bells with me at all. Gee, I’m sorry about your friend Maura. I only met her that one time in the hospital, but I’ll wager she’s a beautiful woman when she’s sober and not all banged up, and has a full head of hair. Not a looker like Evie was, mind you, but then again, who is?”
Harry put his hand over the mouthpiece. “He’s got her,” he whispered. He took his hand away. “What do you want for her, Doug?”
“Harry, aren’t you paying attention? I said I only met her that one time at the hospital.”
“I know where Ray Santana is, Doug. That’s the trade. Santana for Maura.”
“Now this is without a doubt the craziest conversation I’ve ever had. First someone named Perchek, whom I’ve never heard of, then someone named Santana, whom I’ve also never heard of.”
“Doug, I really care about that, woman. I don’t want her hurt. Just tell me what you want.”
“You know, ever since that fake patient of yours took a shot at me, I’ve been wondering why in the heck you went to such trouble to put him in the hospital in the first place?”
Again, Harry covered the mouthpiece.
“He’s nibbling,” he whispered. “Okay, Doug, listen. Let’s not fuck around with each other. You deliver Maura Hughes to me unharmed, and I’ll not only pinpoint Santana for you, I’ll tell you all I know about The Roundtable, which of your knights are close to blowing the whistle on the whole operation, and exactly what they have on you.”
This time there was no immediate response.
“Then what do you plan to do?” Atwater asked.
“I’m getting out. I’ve got it all set up—tickets, passport, money, safe destination. The works. But I’m not leaving without Maura.”
“God, Harry. You’ve got it that bad, huh? Take it from me, none of them are worth it—except the next one.”
“Without her, I don’t care what happens to me, and I don’t leave. That means you don’t get Santana and The Roundtable collapses around your ears. If we
do
go, we’ve got to leave by dawn tomorrow. You and I do business tonight or it doesn’t happen.”
There was another prolonged pause.
“Where can I call you?”
“Not a chance, Doug. I’m frantic, but I’m not stupid.”
“I should say you’re not. Okay, pal, have you got something to write with?”
“I’m ready.”
Atwater gave him a number in the 201 area—the northern New Jersey area that included Fort Lee.
“Call me tonight at nine,” he said. “We’ll talk.”
“Nine it is. Now listen, Doug. I don’t have much left to lose. If Perchek hurts Maura Hughes, I swear I’m going to kill you both.”
“Hey, Harry, easy on the hot sauce, brother. We’ll talk, and then we’ll see what we can do.”
“Nine o’clock.” Harry hung up.
“Bravo. Bravo,” Santana said, applauding. “That was one hell of a performance.”
Harry’s eyes were flint.
“It was even better than you think,” he said. “I know exactly where she is.”
It was raining steadily when they crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge heading for New Jersey. The digital clock on the Winnebago dashboard read 7:06
P.M
. A small digital calendar mounted right next to it read
August 31
.
August 31
—Corbett curse minus one.
Harry concentrated on the road ahead as Santana prepared himself. Harry knew he might drop dead on September 1st, as had his grandfather at seventy and his father, to all intents, at sixty. But the chances of his being killed tonight were far, far greater. Still, Santana was a professional, Harry had been under fire before in his life, and they were not going after Maura unprepared. Before crossing the bridge, they had left the highway and searched until they found an army-navy store. Ray spent half an hour inside and emerged with a rifle, two knapsacks full of equipment, and a receipt for $1123.37. The stock in the place was limited, but the big-ticket items—the rifle, telescopic sight, and binoculars—he pronounced as “adequate.”