Extreme Measures (45 page)

“I told him I’d call him an ambulance, but he
wouldn’t have no part of it. All he wanted to talk about was that damn horse.”

“Get me the wine, please.”

Laura took her brother’s face in her hands.

“Can you hear me okay?” she asked.

“I can hear you.” His voice was grainy and his speech dry and thick, but there was still strength there. Laura could feel it.

“Do you know who I am?”

Scott studied her, then shook his head.

“Do you know who
you
are?”

“I … I don’t know anything.”

“Oh, God,” Laura murmured. She willed herself not to break down, and then said calmly, “Your name is Scott. Scott Enders. I’m your sister. My name’s Laura. Does that help?”

The man with her brother’s face as it might be at age sixty shook his head once again.

“Can you stand?” she asked.

“My legs are okay. Got kicked in the chest, though. Ribs are broken.”

“We’ll get you help, don’t worry.”

Rocky entered the lean-to with his wine, and Laura forced a few drops between Scott’s lips.

“Help me get him up,” she ordered.

“Don’t … need … help,” Scott said, crawling from the hut and then painfully pushing himself upright.

Laura immediately noticed his limp and the clumsy way he used his left hand.

“Tell her about the horse, buddy,” Rocky DiNucci urged. “Tell her about that damn horse.”

Laura duckwalked out of the lean-to and then looked up at the twin oaks on the crest of the hill. Lester Wheeler was either well hidden or gone.

“What horse?” Laura asked.

She supported Scott’s arm with one hand, although she was encouraged to see that, as he had promised, he could stand quite well on his own.

“Mrs. Gideon’s horse,” Scott said with no emotion. “I’ve got to find Mrs. Gideon’s horse.”

“Our
Mrs. Gideon?” Laura asked incredulously.

Marjorie Gideon, a feisty spinster who wore cowboy boots and Wranglers at age seventy-five, had owned the farm nearest to their parents’ small spread in Missouri. She was also reputed to be one of the wealthiest people in the county. As far as Laura knew, she had died years before.

“I don’t know,” Scott said.

“Scott, where did you come here from?”

“I don’t know,” he answered haltingly. “I was in a town in the desert.… I saw the beams and found the way to get beneath them.… Eddie Garcia picked me up and brought me to Cleveland.”

“Utah!” Laura said. “Scott, you were in Utah, weren’t you?”

“I … don’t … know.” He shook his head in frustration, as if trying to clear the mist from his mind. “I’ve got to find Mrs. Gideon’s horse.”

Laura struggled to understand. Marjorie Gideon had owned several horses, and had been happy to let Scott and Laura go riding in exchange for mucking out the stalls. But that had been so many years ago.

“Scott, tell me something,” Laura asked suddenly, trying to keep Rocky from hearing, “does the horse have anything to do with a tape—a videotape?”

Scott looked at her impassively.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe it does.”

“Think, Scott. You’ve got to think what it means.” She studied her brother’s face but knew he was nowhere near putting his thoughts together. “Don’t worry about it right now. I have a car and a man to help. We’ll get you to a hospital. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Laura turned toward the top of the hill. There was still no sign of Lester Wheeler. She raised her hand, just in case, but at that instant she realized the gesture was unnecessary. Wheeler had somehow
made his way around and was approaching them along the fence from the Bow Street side.

“Captain Wheeler,” she called, “come quickly. It
is
Scott, but he’s hurt. He’s hurt badly.”

“Well, then,” the policeman said, “we’ll just have to get him some help.”

He was just ten feet away when Laura sensed a change in her brother. The muscles in his arms tightened, and his body seemed to tense. His hollow eyes were riveted on the policeman.

“Scott, are you all right?” she asked.

The moments that followed were a slow-motion nightmare.

With a guttural cry, Scott pulled free of her and lunged at Wheeler, his arm sweeping down in an awkward karate stroke aimed at the man’s neck. The attack was too slow and far too weak. Wheeler, who seemed prepared for the onslaught, parried the blow easily with one hand while he pulled his other hand from beneath his jacket. Laura saw the gun and recognized the long silencer attached to it at the same moment Wheeler slashed the barrel across Scott’s face, sending him sprawling to the wet ground.

“Don’t!” Laura screamed, charging the man.

Wheeler whipped her across the cheek with the back of his gun hand. The tip of the silencer gashed her skin, and she spun down almost on top of Scott.

“Hey, just one minute there,” Rocky DiNucci said, bringing his hands up in a semblance of his boxing stance.

Without hesitation the policeman pointed the ugly silencer at the hobo’s mid-chest and fired. There was a soft pop and a puff of smoke from the muzzle. Rocky flew backward as if kicked by a mule, slammed against the lean-to, and collapsed beneath a heap of plywood, scrap metal, and canvas.

Wheeler whirled, and in seconds had handcuffed Laura and Scott together and pulled them to their feet.

“Move!” he growled. “And not a word. Not a fucking word.”

Without a glance at the man he had just killed, he shoved his two prisoners down along the chain-link fence to his cruiser.

Heedless of the throbbing wound on her cheek, Laura pressed the sleeve of her jacket against the gash on Scott’s face. Their handcuffs still in place, they were in the rear of the unmarked cruiser, heading through the back streets of East Boston toward the harbor. Scott was awake and responsive, but his breathing was even more labored, and twice he had coughed up small amounts of blood.

“Please,” Laura begged through the metal mesh. “Can’t you see he’s dying? We’ve got to get him some help.… Dammit, what kind of monster are you?”

Lester Wheeler did not respond. He eased the cruiser through the narrow streets and onto the road that paralleled the docks.

Laura recognized the area. Just a week before, she and Eric had parked in a spot not far from where they were.

“How are you doing?” she whispered.

Scott’s bloodied lips pulled back in something of a smile.

“He’s one of them,” he rasped. “The men in the tape.”

“You remember that?” “Yes.”

“And do you know who I am now?”

Scott looked at her, but shook his head.

“No,” he said flatly.

“That’s okay, Scott. It’s okay.”

He let her reach across and squeeze him gently. Suddenly she stopped and leaned forward, staring through the screen and out the windshield. Ahead of them was the lot where she and Eric had parked. She recognized the rusting tractor trailers resting on piles
of railroad ties. It was the trailer nearest them that had caught her eye. Painted on its side was the depiction of a Greek goddess, and enclosing the painting, in large red script, were the words
APHRODITE MOVING AND STORAGE
.
Aphrodite!
Marjorie Gideon’s favorite horse.

Laura brought her lips close to her brother’s ear.

“Scott, look,” she whispered. “That trailer. That’s where the tape is, isn’t it?”

Almost imperceptibly, Scott Enders nodded.

I
t wasn’t supposed to have happened like this, Eric thought as he searched once more through Bernard Nelson’s apartment for a note or some sort of explanation as to why Laura had left and where she had gone. He was supposed to have returned to her in triumph, having not only solved much of the mystery of Caduceus, but also quite likely having identified the death’s-head priest as well. Then, after toasting their success with what little remained of Laura’s wine, they were to formulate a plan for breaking down Haven Darden. And finally, they were to set about doing whatever was necessary to implement that plan.

Desperately, Eric flipped through every magazine he could find, lifted every vase and dish, and even looked in the oven, searching for some sort of clue. Fueling his urgency was the faint but definite odor of cigarette smoke, which had hit him the moment he entered the place. Unless Laura had a smoking habit she had never shared with him—and given her concern
with fitness and health, that possibility seemed remote—someone else had been in the apartment.

He checked in with Dave Subarsky, who had returned to his office, but Dave had heard nothing from her either. Subarsky promised to remain at his desk until one of them had word from her. Calls to Eric’s apartment and Bernard Nelson’s office were no more fruitful. Finally he phoned the Carlisle, but the unctuous desk clerk, who had been on duty only since nine, had nothing at all to offer. Eric left a message with the man for Laura to contact him at the apartment or through Dave Subarsky. Then he climbed to the loft and lay down—to wait, and to think.

Through a thin spatter of rain he gazed across Storrow Drive at the Charles and at Cambridge beyond. Laura was out there somewhere, he reasoned, and she was almost certainly in trouble. What other conclusion could be drawn from the cigarette smoke and the absence of any note from her?

Was it Scott’s tape that had gotten her into difficulty? Or perhaps Haven Darden had decided to use her as insurance against Eric’s getting any closer to Caduceus. One scenario flowed into another in his mind, each one more disturbing and frightening than the last.

Fueled by anger and helplessness, Eric began to focus on Darden: the one variable he might yet be able to control, the one person he still might be able to take by surprise. The timing was not what he would have chosen, and the idea that began to take shape was rough, but there was no way he could just sit around and wait to hear from her. In minutes, he felt ready to act.

His call to White Memorial was quickly put through to the medical chief. There was trouble, serious trouble at the hospital, he told Darden—trouble involving Sara Teagarden and a clandestine society called Caduceus. Darden coolly responded that the
only trouble at White Memorial of which he was aware involved a resident named Najarian.

Eric stressed his innocence and begged for Darden’s forbearance. He said enough, just enough, he hoped, to whet the man’s interest without making him suspicious. Tetrodotoxin
was
being used at White Memorial, and patients
were
being harmed. He had proof of that now—irrefutable proof. Several people involved with the secret society had already died violently. He had proof of that as well.

Gradually, but oh so skillfully, Darden suspended his façade of cynicism and doubt and expressed a mild curiosity to learn more. His hand clenched on the receiver, Eric suggested meeting at Darden’s lab at four, at which time he promised to present proof of every allegation. In response to Eric’s concern about being seen in the hospital, Darden gave his assurance that no one else would be around.

“Eric, you have generated a great deal of ill will around this hospital in an amazingly short time,” Darden said. “I am trusting that what you have to say to me will be the truth, supported not by your speculation but by hard facts. Please do not give me any reason to join those who have closed ranks against you.”

“You have my word on it,” Eric said. “By the time I’m done, you will believe me. I promise you that.”

Eric waited until Darden had hung up before slamming the receiver down.

“Sleazy, smug bastard,” he said.

He paced the apartment, marking time in case Laura called, and trying to sort out his approach now that Haven Darden had taken the hook. Assuming the man honored his promise to have his lab deserted by four—and with that assumption Eric felt reasonably safe—there remained only one more detail to see to: a weapon.

By three, Eric had conceived of a solution to that problem as well.

He left the apartment and walked quickly to where his Célica was parked. He had a full hour left, but with traffic beginning to build, it would be at least a ten- or fifteen-minute drive to and from the Metropolitan Hospital of Boston.