Dr. Knox (30 page)

There were two guys at the end of the alley when I parked behind the clinic, dividing the contents of a suitcase that looked mostly made of duct tape. Caught in my headlights, their smudged faces were furtive and hungry and mad. One elbowed the other, and together they dragged their treasure into deeper shadow. I dragged myself upstairs.

I found a yogurt that was only slightly out of date in the fridge, and a brown banana, and I stood by the kitchen window while I ate them. I looked again at the eviction papers that had come that afternoon, and thought about what Sutter had said—
Your girl has left you deeper in the shit
—and found nothing I could argue with.

What little leverage I might've had with Bray, any marginal sway over this slow-motion train wreck, had bolted out the back window of the house in El Segundo, and driven off in a stolen truck. Harris Bray hadn't believed me before, when I said I couldn't produce Alex. What reason would he have to believe me now, or even to listen? A helicopter flitted in the western sky, above Pershing Square and the towers along Grand Avenue, and I thought about my recent chopper ride—the sky sliding across the cabin window, and Conti's suntanned bulk. Perhaps the question of Bray's believing me was beside the point. Perhaps, having raised up his mace, he just wanted to bring it down.

I dropped the eviction notice on the counter, and wondered what messengers might arrive at my door—or Lydia's, or Lucho's—tomorrow, and with what ugly news. Then I dug in my pocket for my cell. Talking to Harris Bray was a nonstarter, but maybe someone else would take my call, and maybe she'd be drunk again.

Amanda Danzig answered on the fourth ring but, unfortunately, was sober. There were people talking in the background, and music playing. “Kicking yourself over missed opportunities, doctor? Wondering if that ship has sailed for good?”

I laughed. “That wasn't the main purpose of my call, but we can talk about that if you want.”

Mandy laughed too. “I haven't had nearly enough wine for that. What do you want?”

“I don't know where Alex is, and I don't know where or how to find him. I want you to get your uncle to believe that and to lay off me and mine, before this gets out of hand.”

Another, chillier laugh. “Out of hand for who? As far as I can tell, my uncle has the reins firmly in his grasp.”

“Did he share the particulars of his plans with you?”

There was quiet on the line for a while, just dinner party sounds from wherever Mandy was. Then she sighed. “He did not, doctor, which is not atypical.”

“So you said, last night.”

“Christ—I really
was
in the bag.”

“There's nothing wrong with venting.”

Mandy laughed again. “The two of you must really have hit it off. I'd have paid to be a fly on the wall.”

“If you had been, you'd know the overkill that he's got in mind—and not just to punish me. There are innocent people—”

“None of this is remotely surprising, or remotely my business. Not anymore.”

“No? I thought you were concerned about the big picture at Bray Consolidated.”

She sighed. “Doctor, as appealing as you may be in certain ways, let me assure you that you and your friends and this whole messy business with my baby cousin constitute not the smallest pimple on the ass of the big picture of Bray Consolidated.”

“Maybe not, but what your uncle's planning—coercion, conspiracy, inducing perjury—that kind of stuff is messy. It shows up on the radar, and in the press.”

“Again with the power of the press! That must be a generational thing, doctor, this overestimation of the power and incorruptibility of the Fourth Estate. It's sweetly retro, and much less annoying than porkpie hats.”

“I'm serious, Mandy. If you're concerned with your company—”

“It's
not
my company, as my uncle has made abundantly clear to me. And my role is to stay the hell out of this and say:
Good night, doctor.
So: good night, doctor.”

My phone went quiet, and I put it on the counter and took a long, slow breath. Then I opened a bottle of Carta Blanca and went downstairs to pull Mia's records.

We held a podiatry clinic that Sunday—soaking, debriding, clipping, scraping, lancing, salving, and bandaging feet that looked like they'd marched the long way from Bataan. Lydia usually ran these things, with help from some of our part-timers and from Bruce Welker, a mostly retired podiatrist from the Valley who volunteered. But Lydia was a no-show when the first patients tottered in, so management fell to Dr. Welker, who seized command like a gnomish MacArthur. I was glad of it, because I had an overfull dance card of my own.

Injuries and STDs, mostly. Syphilis, chlamydia, ankle sprain, fractured ulna, scalp laceration, genital herpes, syphilis, syphilis, fractured ribs, second-degree burn, chlamydia. In between, I tried and failed to reach Mia on the several phone numbers we had on file for her. It wasn't until two that afternoon that I took a break. I was eating an apple at my desk, listening to another of Mia's phones ring, when Lucho stuck his head around the corner.

“You hear from Lyd, doc?”

I shook my head. “You?”

“Not yet.”

“Not even a voice mail?”

“Nope. I'm gonna give her a call.”

“She didn't have much to say yesterday—not to me, anyway. Maybe five words altogether.”

“She's pretty worried, doc. We all are.”

I nodded. “How's Artie doing?”

Lucho shrugged. “Not sure. He's been at his office since…I don't know when. He's gonna start calling his clients today.” He paused and looked down at his big, scarred hands. “I'm gonna call Lyd,” he said, and headed for the file room.

“Let me know when you talk to her,” I called.

By five he hadn't, nor by six, nor by seven o'clock, when we were turning out the lights.

“I tried her house and her cell a couple times,” Lucho said. “I'm gonna go over.”

“I'll do it,” I said. “You go home to Artie.”

“He's not home yet.”

“Then go to his office. I'll see Lyd.”

Lucho frowned and looked at his feet. “Maybe she won't be glad to see you.”

“There's no maybe about it,” I said.

The sky was a muddy violet when I got to Highland Park. There were lights on in most of the little houses that I passed, and cars in the driveways. I turned onto Repton Street and slowed when I saw a woman who at a glance looked like Lydia. On closer inspection, she was smaller and younger, and I drove on.

There were kids on Lydia's block, a pair of ten-year-old boys, shoving each other, laughing, sprinting past her house. Lydia's windows were dark and empty, as was her driveway. The gate on her chain-link fence was unlatched, and swung slowly in the evening breeze. I parked in her drive and walked up the path to the porch; I stopped halfway there, when I saw that her front door frame was splintered, and that there was a large black boot print on the door itself, just under the knob.

I waited on the porch for a moment, until my heart climbed back behind my sternum, then pushed open the door and called Lydia's name. I called three times and got no answer, and prayed it was because the house was empty. I found my cell phone, and the flashlight app, and threw a small white circle into the foyer. There were black scuffs on the floor, and broken crockery, and a small upended table with a broken leg.

“Fuck,” I whispered, and found the light switch. Then I searched the house.

I went through it twice, my breath fraying in my lungs, and found more broken things, but no blood and no body. Lydia's sofa had been pushed up against the wall, and I slid it back to where it usually was and sat down heavily. I pulled out my phone again, but I didn't know whom to call. Lucho? Sutter? The police? My phone made the decision for me. It glowed and burred, and Lydia's name came up. A shuddering sigh went through me as I pressed the phone to my ear.

“Jesus, Lyd, where the hell are you?”

The voice that answered was heavy, dark, and Russian. “The bitch is here, doctor,” the man said, “but she can't talk right now.”

Sutter looked down at his living room floor and touched the toe of his sneaker to a stone that was newer-looking than the others around it, but webbed with cracks. He shook his head and sighed. “I just fucking replaced this,” he said softly. “Now look at it.” He looked up at me. “Tell it again—everything the guy said.”

The glass doors to the patio were open, and the ticking of insects came in with traffic noise and a tired breeze. I was on the sofa, and Eartha stepped from the cushions onto my shoulder. Sutter was pacing too, slowly, from the kitchen to the edge of the patio and back. He held a beer bottle in his hand, but hadn't yet had a sip.

I nodded. “It wasn't much. He said:
It's not complicated—we have your nurse and we want the boy. A simple swap.
He said to tell you to call about the details. I tried telling him I didn't know where Alex was, but he ignored me. He kept saying I should talk to you, and that you should call. Then I pointed out that you and Siggy had a deal, and he laughed at that. He said:
They still do. The deal was, he pays and we forget about the girl. This has nothing to do with the girl; we forgot about the girl. This is a new deal.
” I sighed. “Do I call Lucho?”

Sutter shrugged. “What's he gonna do?”

“If Lyd doesn't turn up tomorrow morning, he'll want to know why—assuming he doesn't call before then.”

He looked at his watch. “You open at, what, seven a.m.; that's eleven hours from now. She'll be back by then.”

“How's that going to happen?”

“ 'Cause I'm going to get her now.”

Sutter said that I didn't have to come, that I shouldn't come, but I didn't answer him, and he didn't press. I waited in the living room while he went upstairs. He was back in ten minutes, having swapped sneakers for black boots, and wearing black Kevlar over his black tee shirt. He carried a gray duffel that looked heavy, and that made clanking sounds when he slung it on his shoulder.

“Might as well be useful,” he said, and tossed me car keys. We got into the GMC in his carport, and headed for the Valley. There was traffic on the freeway, but it was fast. The only sounds in the car were of tires hissing on pavement, Coltrane playing softly, and the metallic snap, latch, and rack of magazines and weapons as Sutter checked them.

“Siggy has her at his house?” I asked, as we turned onto Foothill.

“I don't know where he has her. I know where he'll bring her.”

Sutter had me pull off Berkshire Avenue onto a narrow street that bordered the back of Siggy's property. It was hung in drooping pines and shadows, and the only streetlight was fifty yards from where I stopped.

“Lights,” Sutter whispered, and I killed the headlamps. Sutter got out, carrying the duffel, and disappeared into shadow. When my eyes adjusted I could just make him out, crouched beneath a pine at the foot of Siggy's wall, a cell phone to his ear. In a moment he rose and fastened a belt around his waist. He Velcroed the holster around his thigh, and slung another gun on his shoulder. He slid the duffel into the back seat and came around to my window.

“Your phone on?” he asked. I nodded. “Good signal?” Another nod. “Put it on mute, put it on the dash, and hang here until I call. When I do, don't answer, just drive around to the main gate, and drive quick. Shouldn't be longer than fifteen minutes, give or take. You might hear noise while you're waiting. If you do, don't worry about it. If you don't hear from me in twenty, take off. Go to that shopping center on Foothill—the one with the pizza joint—and wait there. Park out front; wait in the car. Somebody will come.”

“Somebody who?”

“Somebody. Did you get all that?”

“I got it. What if cops come?”

Sutter's grin was bright in the shadows. “Not to worry, brother—the neighbors are far away, and nobody in there is calling
911
.” Then he tightened his Kevlar vest and vanished.

I put the phone on the dash, and waited and watched as the numbers changed. The night air was soft and full of pine resin and chirping and the quiet creak of branches, but all I could hear was the hammering of my heart, and all I could taste was metal on my tongue. In about an hour, ten minutes passed and I heard—thought I heard—distant shouts and flat popping sounds. An hour or a minute later, I saw a flash of red at the top of the wall. After an eternity—at the fourteen-minute mark—my phone glowed with Sutter's number. I started the engine and pulled out.

The GMC slid around the first corner on a patch of pine needles, and slid again on the next one, and I tapped the gas coming out of it. It was dark on Siggy's block but for the lights at his gates, which winked out just as I got there. I hit the brakes, and the GMC skidded and swayed and threw up a heavy cloud of dust. The gates swung open and Sutter was there—a silhouette walking backward from the haze, dragging Siggy by the back of his pants. Siggy was barefoot and stumbling, and his wrists were bound in back with zip ties. There was a strip of duct tape over his mouth.

Three of Siggy's men followed them down the drive, ranged in an arc, about twenty yards away. All three had guns—automatics with straps and skeleton stocks and big magazines—but only one seemed to know what to do. He was in the center, squinting down his sights at Sutter. Sutter stopped and pointed a finger at the center guy. When he did, a red line cut through the hanging dust and a red dot appeared on the man's head. The gunmen didn't notice, but then the center man's head snapped back, and I heard a sound like a cough behind me, and the man's legs collapsed beneath him. He lay motionless on the cobbles, and the other two gunmen stood frozen, staring at him and at the red dots that hovered on their own chests. I opened the driver's door, and Sutter called without turning around.

“Stay in the car. That guy's done, and these two aren't as stupid as they look. They know if they empty their hands and put their bellies on the deck they might see sunrise. Right, boys?”

The gunmen looked at each other, at Sutter, at Siggy, who shook and grunted, and at the silent red dots over their hearts. Then they did what Sutter told them.