Stress Test (13 page)

Back at his desk, Matt pulled his to-do list toward him and was about to make another call when the phone rang. The caller ID showed Southwestern Medical Center. What now?

“Dr. Newman.”

“This is Hank Truong. I know you said you’d call me, but I wanted to give you this information before I forgot.”

“Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you, Hank,” Matt said. “I’ve been sort of busy. What do you have?”

“I checked out that patient I saw with the lacerated leg, and you were right. He used a false ID. The address he gave was a vacant lot in
east Dallas, and his insurance information was somebody else’s. So I don’t know how we might track him down.”

Matt hadn’t really thought the kidnapper would have been stupid enough to give his real name and address, but it was worth a try. “Thanks anyway, Hank.”

“I hope you get better soon. Be sure to let me know if there’s anything I can do here.”

He guessed it would have been too simple to be able to direct the police to one of the kidnappers. But a patient with wounds matching those of one of his assailants should be some sort of evidence that he didn’t just dream up the whole episode.
Oh well
.

Matt still needed transportation, and that meant Hector Rivera’s car. After he got it from Rick, assuming he ignored the standard warnings against driving this soon after a head injury, Matt would be mobile again.
At least until the DA . . .
No, he wasn’t going to think about that. He had a lawyer, a good one, and he had to trust her. He’d do his job, and hope she did hers.

Matt called the ER but was told that Dr. Pearson wasn’t working today. Would Dr. Newman like to leave a message? No, Dr. Newman wanted—make that,
needed
to talk with Rick Pearson today, not tomorrow when he returned to duty. He hung up and was checking Rick’s home number in his address book when the doorbell rang.

He wasn’t expecting anyone. Maybe his attackers had decided to take the simple approach: ring the bell, shoot him when he opened the door, make a quick escape. He’d even heard of homeowners being shot when they put their eye to the peephole in the door.
Better do it this way
. Matt tiptoed to a window that gave a partial view of the front porch, pulled aside the curtain, and looked out. His whole body relaxed when he saw Rick Pearson standing there whistling.

Matt opened the door. “Rick, come in. I was about to call you.”

“I brought you a present,” Rick said, and pointed over his shoulder at the gray Chevrolet parked at the curb. “A Malibu, low mileage. Blue book value is something over three thousand dollars, but Hector said he’d take two.” He moved inside and headed for the living room.

Matt followed him and pointed toward the room’s only comfortable chair. “I could pay five hundred now, maybe spread the rest out over ten or twelve months, if you think Hector would take that.” He took a seat at the desk and rummaged for his checkbook. If he ever got his own car back, he could sell this one. In the meantime he had to have transportation.

“Between the two of us, Hector will take whatever I send him.” Rick pulled two pieces of paper from his hip pocket. He put the first on the end table beside him. “Here’s a note showing you paid two hundred dollars down and will pay the rest monthly over the next year. I only need your signature and a check.” He laid the second paper beside it. “And here’s the title. Hector signed it before he left. Don’t forget to transfer it.”

“Rick, are you sure—”

“Listen, Hector was anxious to leave; you need a car. It’s win-win.” Rick leaned back and crossed his legs. He pointed at the papers on the table. “When you’ve finished that, I’m going to buy your lunch, then you can drop me at my place. On the way we’ll talk about your new job.”

Matt found his pen on the floor where he’d dropped it when the doorbell rang. He opened his checkbook and ignored the balance as he wrote the check for the car. One problem solved. Only one, but Matt was willing to take small victories when they came. He had a hunch there were more fights ahead. Lots more. What did that verse
say? Something about not worrying about tomorrow, because there will be enough troubles today.
One day at a time
.

The bartender looked up as the door opened. Edgar stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust. Outside, it was bright and hot and smelled like exhaust. Inside, the bar was dim and cool and smelled of stale beer and staler cigarette smoke. Outside, the noise of traffic was loud. Here the sound came from the jukebox sending forth the nasal tones of Willie Nelson.

Edgar took a stool at the near end of the bar, leaving as much space as possible between him and the other two patrons. Both were bent over their beers, not talking with each other, only occasionally glancing up at the TV set above them.

“Draft beer, whiskey chaser,” Edgar said.

The bartender was moving before Edgar finished speaking. He topped off a mug with just the proper amount of foam, poured a generous jigger of cheap whiskey, and put them both on coasters in front of Edgar.

“Run a tab, will you?” Edgar said.

“Can’t do that,” the bartender replied. “Owner says you owe too much already.” He covered the mug in front of Edgar with one hand, the whiskey with the other. “If you can’t pay, I gotta take these back.”

Edgar reached into his pants pocket and peeled off two bills from a thick roll. “This should take care of it.”

The bartender nodded as though hundred-dollar bills passed through his hands all the time. He reached behind the cash register and extracted a slip of paper from a bundle nestled there. It took him a minute to tally up Edgar’s tab, but in a moment he opened the cash register, put the two bills inside, and pulled out several others. He
slapped them on the bar and said, “We’ll play pay as you go until that runs out.”

By this time Edgar had tossed back his whiskey and almost finished his beer. He slammed down the mug and said, “Hit me again.”

The exchange had caught the attention of the two men at the other end of the bar. “When did you get so rich, Edgar?” one said.

Edgar turned to the questioner. “I do important work for a big man, and he pays me real good.” He stopped talking long enough to gulp the second whiskey and down half the next beer. “One more time,” he said.

“What big man is that?” the other guy asked.

“You wouldn’t know him. He keeps to himself, but he’s important, trust me.” Edgar smiled. “A really big man.”

“What do you do exactly, Edgar?” the first man asked.

Edgar laughed. “I hurt people when they need it. Sometimes I even make them disappear.”

The two men shrugged and turned their attention back to the TV. The bartender busied himself cutting lemons. And Edgar continued to drink, silently now. After one more round, he scooped up his change and ambled out without leaving a tip.

The bartender pulled the phone from beneath the bar and tapped out a number. “Lester, this is Solly. Edgar, the little guy who works for Mr. Grande, was just here shooting off his mouth.”

He listened for a minute. “Yeah, a little too much. I thought you might want to let Mr. Grande know.”

“I appreciate this.” Matt scanned the area. No one appeared interested in him or the man sitting beside him outside the zoo’s monkey house.

His companion was a short man whose clothes declared, “Salvation Army thrift store.” His lifeless brown hair was a week overdue for
cutting. When he spoke, his eyes darted everywhere while his lips hardly moved.

Matt pulled a stack of bills, fresh from the ATM machine, out of his pocket and slid them into the man’s hand.

“Here you go, Doc.” The man handed Matt a brown paper sack as casually as a mother delivering lunch to her fifth grader. “If you hadn’t patched me up that time, I wouldn’t be here. Glad to do you a favor.”

Matt watched the man sidle away. He hated to do this, and not just because the very act put him on the wrong side of the law. But desperate times called for desperate measures, as someone once said. Was it Shakespeare? Or the Bible? He should have read more of both. Then maybe he’d know the answer to that question—actually, to a lot of questions.

His reverie was cut short by a yelling group of preteens, apparently on a field trip to the zoo, herded by teachers en masse to see the primates housed to Matt’s left. As they hurried along, one boy said to the friend beside him, “Have you seen the new gorilla? He’s huge! I guess he’s behind some pretty strong bars.”

If Matt had any thought of seeing the exhibit, the boy’s words quashed it.
I’m not sure I want to see anything behind bars
. He hefted the sack, which was heavier than he’d expected, and headed for the zoo exit and the parking lot. He had lots to do.
“And miles to go before
I sleep
.” Another quotation, the source of which eluded him. He thought about that all the way to Hector’s Chevy. As he started the engine, Matt promised himself he’d do more reading in the future. He hoped it wouldn’t be books taken from the prison library.

Sandra Murray barely noticed the images flickering on the TV in front of her. The sound was low, and she couldn’t even remember
the name of the program or why she’d tuned in to it. Since she and Ken broke up, her social life was pretty much confined to this: throw some sort of dinner together from the contents of her refrigerator and eat it in front of the TV while reading articles and opinions from a law journal.

The ring of her cell phone roused her. She reached into the pocket of her jeans for it, noticing that her journals had slid to the floor. Try as she might, she couldn’t recall what she’d been reading. That was it. No more reading in front of the TV. It was more effective than Sominex in inducing sleep.

Sandra punched the remote to still the set and checked the caller ID on her phone. Ken Gordon’s cell. Her mind raced through the possibilities. Had some complication forced Matt back to the hospital, maybe even requiring an emergency re-operation? She wasn’t a doctor, but she knew enough about head injuries and bleeding to know that re-bleeds were possible. Was Ken calling her because he knew she was representing Matt? Did she need to—
Oh, get over it.
Answer and find out
.

“Ken, what’s up?”

“I hope I didn’t call at a bad time.” Ken’s voice was calm, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d discovered that the neurosurgeon took everything in stride. Maybe it was a product of dealing daily with life-and-death situations.

“No, no. Just reading some law journals.” Her next words tumbled out as uncontrollably as water roaring over rapids after a heavy rain. “Is something wrong with Matt?”

There was a moment of silence while Sandra’s heart thundered in her chest. Then Ken replied, “No, not that I know of. And I wonder why that was the first thing you thought of when I called.”

Think fast
. “I was reading some cases that might apply to his, and
I guess I automatically made the leap.” Sandra reached for the bottle of water on the TV tray in front of her, brought it to her lips, and had a healthy swallow. She cleared her throat. “What’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking about us,” Ken said. “Maybe we didn’t give it enough of a chance. Would you like to have dinner with me sometime and talk about it?”