Fixer (29 page)

Karen took off, joining a number of tuxedoed agents for the
en masse
exit. Maggie listened for the elevator chime and then counted to five.

“Hey,” she called loudly, “anybody here?”

Silence.

“Good enough.”

The women’s room for the floor was down the hall, past the elevators, down another hall, and to the right. She figured by changing at her desk she could cut four or five minutes off her time, with the only possible drawback being someone from the staff or the cleaning crew, which usually didn’t show until after seven, spotting her in a stage of undress. It was a moderate risk but worth taking, especially since she was already wearing the appropriate undergarments.

She had succeeded in stripping down to said undergarments when her line rang.

“No, not now, not now,” she muttered. She picked up the line. “Agent Trent.”

It was the hospital. 

Erica Smalls was awake.

Erica’s survival was one of the few things about the case that had gone right, but only barely so. The girl had lost a ton of blood and narrowly escaped permanent damage to a number of vital organs. According to the paramedics, her heart stopped twice on the way to the hospital and then once more during the nearly twelve-hour surgery to clean up the damage. And after that she was put into a medically induced coma from which the hospital didn’t fully expect her to wake. Taking the doctors at their word, neither did Maggie.

Still, Maggie thought it would be prudent to keep Erica’s battle for survival a secret while her killer was still loose. Outside of certain hospital staff and one or two people in the FBI office, nobody except for Tanya and Erica’s parents knew.

And now she was awake.

It was her first decent break in the case, but it came at an especially bad time. Maggie needed to turn up for the gala, and if she didn’t her absence would be noticed. More importantly, her boss would be incredibly pissed if she not only skipped his speech, but skipped his speech to follow up on a case he told her to bury. She was, in short, standing at the crossroads of a career decision.

“I’ll be right there,” she said, hanging up.

But not in her underwear. She glanced at the business suit and white blouse she’d just thrown off, now laying haphazardly across her chair, and then the dress.

“Screw it,” she said, tearing the dry cleaning plastic off.

Chapter Twenty

Now

It took somewhere in the neighborhood of three hours to get Dr. Frederick Ames from Newton to East Cambridge, thanks to a series of delays that started with the difficulty of acquiring a cab company that would get him there for a rate he considered less than obscene and ended with the fact that he didn’t move too fast, even when he wanted to. So he was not in an altogether fantastic mood when, having finally made it to the proper building, the concierge at the front desk refused to let him get on the elevator.

“I’m sorry, sir, but if you are not an invited guest—”

“I
am
an invited guest, young man,” he snapped. “Corrigan Bain is expecting me.”

“Yes, sir, so you’ve said. But Mr. Bain didn’t call down with any instructions—”

Ames leaned over the desk. “Son, look at me. Do you think I’m planning to burgle anybody? You suppose there’s some sort of weapon hidden in this cane?”

“I understand that, sir. But I’ve rung Mr. Bain twice, and he’s not answering. So—”

“Ring him again, then.”

“We have a policy—”

“Ring. Him. Again.”

The concierge stared at him. “All right, one last time. But you understand that the policy—”

“I’ve heard your damn policy.”

“Yes, sir. No need to be rude, sir.”

Dr. Ames could think of a thousand reasons to be rude. But he kept quiet, as the fellow at the desk had picked up the phone again.

“Mr. Bain. Sorry to disturb you, but there’s a gentleman . . . yes . . . right away.” He hung up the phone. “You can go right up, sir. Take the second elevator to the seventh floor; then take a right.”

“Thank you,” Ames said, trying out his gracious voice. “So what was the problem?”

The concierge sighed. “As I said, the policy is—”

“No, no, no. I’m not senile, dammit. I mean, what was Corrigan’s problem? Why didn’t he answer before, did he say?”

The man looked embarrassed. “I’m not—”

“Come on, son. I’m his doctor, you can tell me.”

“Well . . . he said he wasn’t entirely sure the phone was really ringing the first two times he heard it.”

“Ah. Of course. Happens to me all the time.”

“Uh, yes . . .”

“Second elevator, you said?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thank you.”

Two minutes later, after a ride on a lift so rapid it actually buckled his knees when it launched, Ames was standing outside the door to Corrigan’s apartment. He reached out to knock but saw it was ajar, so he just pushed his way in.

“Corrigan?” he called out. The door opened directly into a horizontal corridor, meaning he was facing a white wall that was just crying out for some kind of artwork. “Corrigan, it’s Dr. Ames. Are you here?”

“In here.” The call came from his left, so he hobbled over in that direction, past a small kitchen space and into a barely lit living room. Or dining room. It had a little of both. The only light in the room came from a muted television hung on the wall, and since the windows faced the east, there wasn’t much of the early evening sunlight to help things. But he could make out the figure on the couch all right.

“There you are,” Ames said. “Put on some lights in here for chrissake.”

“Sorry,” Corrigan said. He pulled himself off the couch and tiptoed awkwardly across the room, like he was dodging land mines on the floor trying to get to Ames, whom he greeted with a handshake. Ames looked up. He’d forgotten how tall the boy had grown. “Glad you could come.”

“That’s all right,” Ames said, the neediness in his host’s voice disarming him to the degree that he’d almost entirely forgotten he was grouchy. “It sounded important.”

“Shut up,” Corrigan said.

“I’m . . . sorry?” Ames asked.

“No, not you. The kid. Will, I think his name was. He said you look . . . well, he said something unkind. Let me get that light.”

Ames looked around the room as Corrigan adjusted the lighting. There was clearly nobody else there.

“He’s a ghost,” Corrigan explained. Ames had been about to ask him which kid he was talking about. “Bit of a brat, but he’s all right most times. At least when I’m awake he is. Oh. And Harvey says hello.”

“Harvey’s here,” Ames said levelly.

“Yeah. In the chair.”

“Then I won’t be sitting there. Why don’t you tell me which space is currently unoccupied?”

*  *  *

Maggie pulled into the parking garage of Mount Auburn Hospital at just before six, making what had to be a new rush hour land speed record. Parking in the lot adjacent to the main building, she half-jogged to the lobby entrance, her expensive little purse—which matched the dress and shoes very nicely—slapping up against her back thanks to the extra weight from the dangerous little handgun she’d shoved inside it at the last minute. She made a note to move the gun from the bag into the pocket of her jacket, an inexpensive knockoff of a London Fog that did not go with anything, as soon as she was by herself long enough to do so. 

She was busy reviewing the room and floor number on the scrap paper in her hand when, heading through the lobby, she nearly bowled over a cameraman for a local news affiliate.

“Excuse me,” she said, smiling. The cameraman scowled, having almost dropped a very expensive piece of equipment, and then thought better of it when he saw Maggie.

“Not a problem,” he said, suddenly grinning. He appeared ready to say something else in an attempt to prolong the conversation at least long enough so that Maggie could take the coat off, but she was already past him by then and heading for the elevators.

“Please, please, please,” she muttered while waiting for the elevator to arrive and pulling out her phone. “
Please
don’t tell me they’re here for the same reason I am.”

*  *  *

As the first real human being Corrigan Bain had seen in about a week, Dr. Ames was something of a shock. He seemed to be occupying a full six seconds of time simultaneously, and the muscle, or whatever it was, Corrigan routinely exercised to distinguish the present and navigate his way through had apparently atrophied irreparably. It was as though he was five years old again and throwing snowballs out behind Bluff Commune.

“Why don’t you tell me why you haven’t been sleeping, Corrigan?” Ames was saying, over and over again, from the couch. He was sitting right where Emily had been a few minutes earlier, before Corrigan asked her to move.

“It’s complicated,” Corrigan answered, hoping he’d waited long enough first for the question to have actually been asked out loud.

“I’m sure it is. How long has it been?”

“I don’t know. Seven, eight days, maybe.”

Ames leaned forward, leaned forward, leaned forward. “What happens when you try to sleep?”

“The ghosts keep me up.”

“Hey, don’t blame us,” blue suit said. She was still on the floor, right near Corrigan’s feet, as he was still standing near the light switch. In a moment or two he’d be walking over to the couch. He was still standing near the light switch.

“Yeah,” said the kid. “We’re not even here, remember?”

“Quiet, both of you,” Corrigan said.

“Are the ghosts speaking to you right now?” Ames asked.

“Yes.”

“Who are they?”

“Just people,” Corrigan said. “The ones I didn’t get to save.”

“Ah. And have you always seen them?”

“I don’t know. Not always. Probably not always. I’ve been seeing them during the day here and there but . . . it wasn’t a big deal. Not like when they turned up at night. See, whenever I screwed up, I’d get a visit that evening, and it would be bad, but the next day I’d have new appointments, and things would work out, and they would go away again.”

“Why didn’t that happen this time?”

“I didn’t have any appointments,” Corrigan said. He headed for the couch and sat down. He headed for the couch.

“And why do you suppose that was?”

“I don’t know. Something happened at the last appointment that I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, he didn’t save me,” blue suit said.

“Shut up.” He sat down. “The timeline diverged or something. I picked the wrong one to follow.”

“Do you suppose that this . . . divergence is what’s preventing you now from getting any new appointments?”

“I don’t see how. It’s not like I’m in control of that. You know how it works. I told you about it before.”

“Yes,” Ames said, smiling. “I remember it well. You said you were receiving messages from . . .”

“The universe,” Harvey said.

“. . . the universe,” Ames said. “That’s what Harvey told you would happen. Am I remembering correctly?”

“Yes.” Corrigan glanced at Harvey, who was nodding knowingly. Harvey had barely spoken while they were waiting for Ames to show, and had even appeared to doze off a couple of times, but now he looked engaged.

“Except,” Ames said, “I think we both know that’s not really the case, don’t we?”

*  *  *

“Get me Masterson,” Maggie barked as soon as she reached the door to Erica Smalls’s private room in ICU. The cop at the door did a double take, as he was not accustomed to taking orders from runway models. Then he recognized her.

“Where were you?” he asked. “Fashion show?”

“I was at a function,” she said. “And now I’m here. There are news teams downstairs from more than one station about to tape their preamble for the eleven o’clock broadcast. Wanna take a guess what they’re reporting?”

He blinked. “Masterson. Right.” He radioed into the station. Maggie paced outside the door and reviewed the defenses. They were standing in a wide corridor right around the corner from the ICU reception desk. Points of entry were three elevators with four sets of doors, where the unusual fourth set belonged to the elevator that came up in the middle of a split corridor, and the stairwells. There were three of those; one opening right next to the elevators and two fire-exit-only ones at the near and far ends of the floor. The entire floor itself was a warren of doors and walls, signs and walkways. None of the doors locked.

“He’s off duty,” the uniform said.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll get him at home.” She called his profile up on her phone.

“Miss, you’re not supposed to be using that here,” a helpful nurse said as she walked past, pointing even more helpfully at the sign on the wall that said the same thing in four colors and three languages.

“Arrest me,” Maggie growled, fingering the auto-dial.

*  *  *

“I don’t know where the messages come from,” repeated Corrigan. “I just wake up knowing where to go.”

“I’m aware that this is what you believe is happening. Let’s examine that for a moment.”

“This is getting interesting,” Harvey said.

“Quiet,” Corrigan shot back.

Ames, who was doing an admirable job ignoring the ghosts in the room, continued. “You got that letter from Harvey when you were twenty-one, yes?”

“Yeah. I showed it to you.”

“You did. Do you still have it? I’m just curious.”

“I don’t remember,” Corrigan lied. It was locked up in a strongbox in the bottom drawer of his office, along with his bankbooks and a few clippings that were meant to someday become part of a scrapbook.

“
Young Master Bain.
” Harvey began to recite his own letter. “
I imagine this has all come as something of a shock, and for that I apologize.
”

“Will you stop that,” Corrigan snapped.

“Is that Harvey now?” Ames asked.

“He’s reading his own letter back to me. Third time today.”

“Ah.” Ames smiled.

“
There were many times in the years since our last encounter when I considered attempting to contact you, but the truth is, I am not a brave enough man. I could not bring myself to face the likely prospect of your scorn. This letter, then, like much of my life, is the coward’s way out.”