The plan presented itself full-blown. Potassium would leave no trace, and the hospital’s PMs were hopelessly shoddy. If the medical examiner hadn’t autopsied Tim—and Ross had never envisioned that—the whole plan would have worked. He realized that if he could make it appear that Carla was distraught enough to kill herself and her family, the police would never even look for a murderer. He would use the gun Tim kept in his home office.
When he got to the house, the upstairs lights were out. He wanted the kids to be asleep so he would not have to see them. He would do that part in the dark. They would feel nothing, suspect nothing. Sleep.
But Carla stood inside the door and at first would not
open it to him. “There’s nothing to talk about, Mal. We’re all exhausted and at the end. We can meet tomorrow.”
But he’d worn her down. “Please, Carla. I know Tim must have told you some things, but we were working them out, just like we always have. I loved the man. I need to explain. I need you to understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand.”
“Then I need you, at least, to forgive me.”
And she’d paused a last time, then unlocked the chain. As he entered, he took the Walther from his pocket and told her they needed to walk quietly to the back of the house.
Now he would do it again. He had experience now. It had to look like suicide. It had to look as though Bhutan, knowing the police were onto him for all the murders at Portola, including Markham’s, chose to take the coward’s way out. That would close all the investigations.
He also had to make sure no one heard the shot, which he supposed would be louder with the Walther than Tim’s .22 had been.
First he would have to distract Bhutan, then use chloroform to put him out. Except it would stay in the system long enough to be detected. Maybe ether? He had ether in his medical bag right here. That would do, as well. And of course he could simply shoot him as though it had been a robbery attempt or something. But a suicide was far preferable. He’d have to consider his options on the drive over, then play the thing by ear.
Bhutan obviously thought the police were coming to get him at any moment. So he wanted fifty thousand dollars tonight. He was desperate and, being desperate, he was doomed to commit foolish acts, to make dangerous decisions.
Just like Tim, for example. He couldn’t get over Tim. When they’d both been humping to get the business up and running and there’d been so many opportunities to make hay under the table—much smaller potatoes than now, of course, and much of it in soft currencies and perks—the
weekends in Napa or Mexico, the fine wines, the occasional corporate escorts for the convention parties when the wives couldn’t make it. Tim had willingly enough succumbed to those temptations, right along with him. But the first hard money payoff had scared him off. This, he thought, was wrong, where to Ross it was no different than what they’d been doing. In fact, it was better.
But Tim always wanted to believe that somewhere inside he was essentially an honest and good person, the fool. Hence all the agony he’d put himself through over wanting to
schtup
the admittedly sexy Ann Kensing. Ross couldn’t believe that the guy had nearly ruined his life over what should have been at most a playful dalliance. But, no, he’d been “in love,” whatever that meant. Stupid, stupid. But not as stupid as letting himself believe that just because Tim had decided not to take anybody’s dirty money, Ross was going to do the same thing. Oh sure, Tim had had his little crisis of conscience all those years ago and had come to Ross saying they had to stop—not just because it threatened the health of patients and the company, but because it was wrong. And Ross had pretended to go along. And why not? Why burden the self-righteous idiot? Why split the money with someone who didn’t want it? Ross knew the truth was that he wasn’t really harming any patients by taking the odious drug money. If Tim was happier living with the fiction that Ross had found the Lord with him, he’d let him enjoy his fantasy.
But then, even while Tim was sleeping around on his wife, he discovered Ross’s brilliantly conceived fraudulent billings and could not believe that his longtime partner and medical director still cheated. And took kickbacks. His whining self-righteousness made Ross puke.
What a hypocrite Tim was, coming to Ross in hand-wringing desperation—what should he do? What should he do? It had come to his attention, and so on and so forth. Didn’t Ross understand? Tim had asked him. He’d crossed the line where now Tim had to do something, now had to act. And
the conflict was ripping him up—Ross had been his friend for so long. Their families, blah blah blah.
But even in the face of this direct threat, Ross remained calm and told Tim that of he felt compelled to accuse him publicly of criminal behavior, that Ross would have no choice but to point the finger back at him. They would both, then, be ruined, and who would that serve?
Stalemate.
But he knew that Tim was a time bomb. Eventually he would force the issue again, and again Ross would parry—it was the same with Ann and Carla and Ann again and Carla again. But Ross would not panic. He would calmly wait while Tim vacillated and if something did not change, as it often did, then Ross would eventually have to find a permanent way out, a permanent solution.
And then Tim was suddenly delivered to him, on the edge of death, needing only a push that no one should ever see to send him over.
He kissed Nancy at the door, told the kids to be good. In the circular driveway, he spontaneously decided to take the old Toyota. Bhutan’s address was in the Haight and he didn’t want to drive one of the good cars, which would only be magnets for the vandals. The old green heap would get him there and attract no attention, and that’s what the situation demanded.
Throwing the briefcase onto the seat beside him, he pulled out into the traffic and adjusted the visor against the rays of the sun as it cleared the thin cloud layer above the horizon and sprayed the street in a golden glow.
A
s Ross drove by, the door threw him off at first.
What kind of place did this guy live in? If it was just the door and the window down almost at the sidewalk level, the apartment didn’t look to be much bigger than a closet. No space to swallow the sound of the shot. Fortunately, there was no lobby. He could simply knock and walk in, take care of his business, then walk out with relative impunity. Nevertheless, his heart was pounding much like when he’d gone to see Carla. This was a necessary business, but he couldn’t deny the adrenaline rush.
He finally parked a block and a half down and across the street now in the last minutes of daylight. He tried to envision Rajan Bhutan. He must have met him dozens of times in the hospital, of course, but he hadn’t paid too much, if any, attention. If he had any impression of him at all, it was of a quiet man of very slight stature. If so, Ross could subdue him easily if he could maintain an element of surprise.
But what was he going to do about the ether? Rajan the nurse would be intimately familiar with the smell, might pick it up as soon as he opened the door if Ross had already opened the bottle, poured it into the gauze, stuffed it into his jacket pocket. And how would he get behind the man? That seemed crucial.
There was no hurry, he told himself. He’d gotten the call no more than an hour before, then had made noises about fifty thousand dollars being difficult to get ahold of in such a short time. But Bhutan hadn’t bought that. Told him to figure some way to get it and then be at his address by nine or he would call the police.
Ross looked at his watch again. It was ten to eight. He had all the time in the world. He held his hands out in front of him and looked at them for a long time. No trace of the shaking that had plagued him afterward with Tim, and then with Carla.
He was actually looking forward to the moment. This last-minute planning even had a little bit of the quality of a game. It was amazing how easily the man had delivered himself up to him. A phone call, then one decisive act, and his problems would be over.
And suddenly as he was sitting there, as he knew it would, as it always did when he really needed it, the solution came to him. He had been trying to be too clever by half. There would be no need for ether, no surprise. As soon as he was inside, he would simply brandish the gun and control events from there. Sit down, Mr. Bhutan. Spread your palm against your temple. A little more distance between the fingers please, so that I can put the end of the barrel right up against the hairline where it ought to be. Thank you. Good-bye.
Smiling to himself, he took the bottle of ether out of his pocket and put it and the gauze back in his medical bag. The gun was in his right pocket, small and concealed. He reached for the briefcase, opened the door, stepped out onto the sidewalk.
The dusk was advancing rapidly now. A light shone inside the low window, but there was no light over the door, which was to the good. He stopped and stood still for a few seconds, then proceeded uphill to Frederick, where his street dead-ended. He crossed to Bhutan’s side. Now, on the uphill corner, he could see beyond his car down the hill and in both directions on Frederick, the cross street. A few cars were parked up and down both sides of the street, but there wasn’t a pedestrian in sight.
He walked past the window once, leaning over to glance inside. It was covered with a cheap cloth he could see through when he got close. And there, waiting alone inside at a table, he saw Bhutan. He remembered him now, a nonentity. He stood another instant at the door, savoring the power.
It was time.
It had been a long hour and then some. Rajan felt himself nearly crying with fear and apprehension when the knock came at the door. He picked up his water and sipped so he would be able to speak, then put the glass down on the table, wiped his hands on his pants legs, said, “Come in, please. It’s open.”
He almost expected Malachi Ross to look somehow different, but it was the same man who’d appeared at the hospital so frequently, over the past couple of years. Tall and thin, controlled and commanding, Ross exuded a quiet, terrible power in the halls of Portola. As soon as he was through the door, Rajan felt that physical force in the room. His bowels roiled within him, and it occurred to him that this might not work. That it had been a mistake. He might not be able to pull it off.
Ross closed the door behind him and took in the tiny room with a dismissive glance. “You live here?”
“There is another room,” Rajan replied defensively, indicating his darkened bedroom through the open doorway. “I have simple needs.”
“Apparently.”
Ross still stood by the door. He held a briefcase and Rajan pointed to it. “Have you brought”—his throat caught—“the money?”
“This?” Holding up the briefcase, the man seemed almost to be enjoying himself, which Rajan could not imagine. “How much was it again?”
He knew that Ross was playing with him, but he didn’t know the rules of this game. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
“And I’m giving this to you because why? Maybe you could refresh my memory?”
“It does not matter. You know why. That’s why you have come here.”
“Maybe not, though. Maybe not the reason you think.”
Rajan’s eyes raked the room’s walls. He reached for his water again and drank quickly.
Ross crossed the room in two steps and pulled a chair out from under the table. “You seem nervous, Rajan. Are you nervous?”
“A little bit, yes.”
“It’s not quite the same as making threats over the telephone, is it? You and me here together, one on one?” Ross placed the briefcase between them in the middle of the table.
Bhutan tried to answer, but no words came. He tucked his head down quickly and tried to swallow. When he looked up, Ross was holding a gun in his right hand, pointing it at his heart. “Oh dear mother of God,” he said under his breath.
Ross still spoke in the same conversational tone. “Do you want to know what I find supremely ironic about this situation? Are you interested? I’d think you would be.”
Rajan could only manage a nod. His eyes never left the weapon. Ross continued in almost a playful banter. “Because, you see, what’s funny is that you’re afraid that the police are going to arrest you for all those poor sick souls at Portola that they think you killed. And you want to run, don’t you, because you don’t have any defense except to say you didn’t do it. Imagine that. I’ll be the first to admit that it looks bad for you, and I don’t blame you, really. But I’ll tell you something. You want to know?”
“Yes. What’s that?”
“I think you’re going to help the police solve this case, Rajan. In fact, I know it.”
“And why is that? I would never tell. What reason would I have to say anything?”
“I’ll bet you can figure that out, Rajan. The answer is that you won’t need to say anything. But the great irony is that after tonight, after you kill yourself, everyone will know not only that you killed all those patients—all those poor patients who were costing me thousands of dollars a day—but that you also killed Tim Markham and his family.”
“You can take the money back.” Rajan’s voiced echoed in the tiny space. “A gun! There’s no need to use a gun!”
Ross pushed his chair back and started to stand up.
Don’t move! Police! Drop the gun!” Glitsky came out of the darkness and was in the doorway to the bedroom, his weapon extended in both hands before him. “Drop it!”
Ross froze for an instant, turned his head, then slowly lowered his hands to the table. He dropped the gun the last inch to the wood, where it landed with a hollow
clunk
.
“All right, now, knock it to the floor. All the way.”
Ross’s eyes never left the weapon that was on him. He still had his hands where he’d let go of the gun over the table and he reached his right hand back as if to swat it onto the floor.
Glitsky saw his move and perhaps misreading it, perhaps lowering his guard for an instant, he let the angle of his own weapon drop a half inch.
Ross moved like the strike of a snake. He grabbed at the briefcase and with a vicious lunge, threw it across the tight space at Glitsky, who fired—a tremendous explosion in the small room—and blew the briefcase open as it hit him, knocking the gun from his hand, spilling the stacks of money onto the floor. Plaster from the back wall rained onto the Formica countertop.
Another explosion and more plaster.
“Don’t you move!” Ross had his own gun back in his hands and had fired it at the floor where Glitsky had reached for his own. “Get up, then kick it over here! Now!”
Rajan was huddled in the corner by the refrigerator. Ross glanced over at him and told him to get up, too, then motioned for Glitsky to move out of the doorway to the bedroom and into the kitchen itself. The medical director was breathing heavily, but his eyes were clear and focused. He held a gun in each hand now. His mouth arced in a tight half smile. “You guys stung me,” he said. “I’m impressed. Especially you, Rajan, good work.” But then the mouth turned into a line of bitter resolve. “But I see what’s going to happen here now. You! Cop! You came here to arrest Mr. Bhutan and he decided that he wasn’t going without a fight, so it looks like there’s going to be a shootout here after all. And sadly, neither of you are going to survive.”
Still stuck where he’d been all along, standing behind the wall in the darkened bedroom, Hardy had no choice. There was no way he could predict when Ross might take the first shot at one of the two of them. He had to move first and fast.
The light switches were next to the door and he was right there. He reached up and flicked the switch down, plunging the apartment into total darkness.
And, it seemed, immediately into deafening sound, as well. He dropped to the floor and counted four shots in an impossible succession, running together almost as one within the first heartbeat. Then the sickening and unmistakable crunch of a body ramming into another one and taking the wind out—
“Hnnh!”
—slamming it back into something immovable, and accompanied by the crash of more breakage. Another explosive shot, then a further struggle before a final crash, a hollow thumping sound, and Glitsky’s voice, almost unrecognizable, but clearly his, yelling: “Lights, Diz, lights!”
Which he hit just in time for the front door to slam open and Bracco’s form to appear in it, gun drawn, hands extended. Turning the light off, and then on, was the signal they’d worked out for reinforcement. Then Bracco was all the way inside the room, Fisk behind him, with his weapon out, as well. Hardy leaned in adrenaline exhaustion against the frame of the doorway into the bedroom.
Rajan Bhutan was still huddled in his corner, crying softly, his head down on his knees. Glitsky, a gun in each hand, had gotten to his feet and was standing unsteadily over the prostrate figure of Malachi Ross, who was bleeding from the nose and mouth.
Turning, Glitsky handed both the weapons, butt end first, to Bracco.
Then he took an awkward half step backward, and stumbled, seeming to lose his balance.
Hardy took a step toward him.
“Abe, are you—”
Glitsky turned to him and opened his mouth to speak, but a trickle of blood was all that came out, tracing the line of his scar before he fell again to the floor.