Flashpoint (17 page)

The shooter was gone. That was the bet I made with myself. No shooter would stay in place now that sirens could be heard.

Keeping my eyes and my Glock fixed on the point in the hardwoods where the shooter had stood, I moved carefully to Ruskin. He was impossible to miss and not only because he was rolling around on the ground. He made loud mewling sounds: fear. I couldn't blame him.

It's always disappointing to find that a major villain resembles a stereotypical Star Trek nerd, but that was Ruskin's curse. Writhing on the asphalt now, clutching the arm of his tan sport coat, his three-hundred-dollar jeans properly stressed, his glasses crooked on his pudgy face, his balding head shiny with sweat, the thick two-inch heels on his black boots jutting out, he might have been suffering the shame of having been shunned by other Trekkies. At least that was the noise he made – a sort of yelping. Not the sound of someone mortally wounded.

‘You just gonna stand there, Conrad? I'm fucking dying here!'

I doubted he was fucking dying here, though there was blood on the pavement and his fingers were splotched with red from where they'd touched his arm. I hunched down and examined the wound as best I could. ‘Were you hit anywhere else?'

‘Isn't this enough? I could die here.'

‘Not if this is your only wound.'

‘Oh, is that right, Mr Macho? What the hell do you know about it?'

I stood up. ‘They'll take you to the ER and fix you up.'

‘I knew they were after me.'

‘Who?'

‘Oh, no. I don't tell you anything until we make a pact.' He grimaced and rolled some more. I didn't mean to minimize his wound. Most people would have been in shock. He was certainly in pain and he certainly had a right to be afraid. Somebody
was
after him and somebody
was
trying to kill him. ‘I'm in agony here, man.'

‘You saved your own life when you stumbled.'

‘What the hell're you talking about?'

‘You stumbled just when the shots started.'

Apparently he wasn't listening. ‘Where is the goddamned ambulance?' I was sure they could hear him in the distant dorms.

A police car with siren ripping the night jerked to a stop ten feet from my Jeep and two uniformed officers, a man and woman, lurched from the car and ran toward us.

‘What happened here?' the female officer said.

‘I've been shot!' Ruskin cried. ‘What does it look like?'

The look she gave me said that they were inclined to give him another shot or two. The male officer walked over to Ruskin and said, with epic contempt, ‘Who the hell are you?'

‘If you read a goddamned newspaper once in a while you'd know who I was. Now get me the hell to a hospital before I die.'

Howie Ruskin made friends wherever he went.

To me, the officer said, ‘Are you famous, too?'

I smiled at him. ‘No. But believe it or not, in certain circles he's very famous.'

I don't know what Ruskin had said to the female officer who was hunched down next to him but she said with great scorn, ‘What are you, five years old? You need to calm down. You're going to be all right.'

‘You got some ID?' the male cop asked me. ‘And while you're at it, tell me what the hell happened here.'

Now it was the white ambulance that arrived, blazing lights and blaring siren. We had already started to accumulate an audience. You could hear their feet slap-slap-slapping up the drive here toward all the fun. Students. In my college days an event like this would be as good as a movie; even better because it was real. There were already twenty or so of them, boys and girls mixed. None of them knew yet what had happened and from their vantage point they couldn't see past my Jeep so they couldn't know that Ruskin lay on the asphalt. But some of them had heard the gunshots. Who could resist gunshots? The ones who'd stayed away would be those who remembered all the campus killings that had shocked the country over the past decade.

The three men from the ambulance worked so hard and so fast I wondered if they were trying to set a Guinness record. These were the guys I'd want if I was the one needing emergency help.

‘How about being careful, all right?' Ruskin shouted at one of the ER crew as they prepared to put him on the gurney.

I had no idea what he was talking about and was sure they didn't either. He was so used to bellering at people he probably couldn't control himself any longer. He was Howard ‘Howie' Ruskin the Great, the Magnificent, the Most Wonderful of All. Neither the ER people nor the police found him wonderful tonight.

The first few drops of rain tamped my forehead.

‘Just who the hell is this asshole?' the male cop asked me.

‘He's in politics.'

‘Big deal. Are you with him?'

‘I know him. He was walking toward my Jeep when somebody started shooting from the trees right behind him.'

‘You wait right here. There'll be a detective along any minute.'

Meanwhile, they were guiding Ruskin into the ambulance. He was still yelling at them but not as loudly. Somewhere in the muddle of accusations he was hurling at them I heard my name. After they had him inside and closed the door, one of the ambulance men came over to me and said, ‘Are you Conrad?'

‘Yes.'

‘He wants you to come to the ER.'

‘I'll need directions and I can't leave until a detective talks to me.'

‘He's quite a little fella.'

‘You noticed that, huh?'

He snorted then grinned. ‘Yeah, I noticed that.'

It was ten minutes before Detective Farnsworth arrived but only five minutes before the downpour began. I sat in my Jeep during my wait, listening to the rain on the roof.

Farnsworth opened the door of the Jeep and made himself comfortable. He wore a well-cut light brown overcoat that made him look even more like a stockbroker instead of a cop. Relentless, handsome young black man – TV series maybe? ‘Too bad Hammell needed to pull me off following you. Something finally happens and I'm not there for it.'

‘Why'd he pull you off?'

‘Convenience store robbery. The robber beat the store clerk pretty badly. Sixty-three-year-old woman. Unarmed, of course.'

‘They seem to get worse.'

‘Meth, probably. Anyway, Hammell wants the bastard and so do I. But then I got pulled away out here. So who shot this Ruskin character?'

‘I have no idea. And since you called him a character I take it you've met him?'

‘Only what I could find about him online. So what happened?'

I told him everything I thought he should know. He was enough of a pro to understand that what I said I'd edited heavily. And I was enough of a pro to know he wanted to take a hammer and put a few dents in my skull.

When I walked into the ER reception area I saw a woman at the check-in desk sobbing so hard the woman behind the desk rushed around and took her in her arms. A nurse came rushing from somewhere in the back and took over, leading the woman to a seat then sitting down next to her. The nurse put an arm around the woman and started talking to her in a voice so low I couldn't pick up on what they were saying.

The ER reception area contained two couches and maybe twenty straight-backed chairs with cushioned backs and seats. End tables between some of the chairs held magazines and small toys for kids. We'd arrived during a lull. This time of night ERs are often crowded. This was when the victims of car accidents, domestic abuse, brawls and gunshots started showing up. But now, except for the sobbing woman, I was the only other visitor.

‘I'm waiting to see Howie Ruskin.'

She typed in the name. ‘Yes. Doctor Olsen is with him now.'

‘Mr Ruskin asked me to be here.'

‘I'll be sure to let you know when you can see him.'

‘Thanks. Is there any coffee available anywhere?'

‘Of course. There's a vending machine down the hall but I just got a pot going. Let me get you a fresh cup.' She was middle-aged and competent-looking. My demographic mind was fitting her into a pattern. She probably had kids and this was probably the only job she could get – the graveyard shift. She might have a husband but then she might not. This sketch would seem to make her a potential voter for us but I couldn't be sure. Though our side doesn't like to admit it, welfare has inspired some people who tend to rush to the ER for ills as minor as sore throats. They could wait and see their docs in the morning for eighty percent less but they don't. And when you talk to the workers who serve them you sometimes hear a great deal of resentment.

In the next twenty minutes I looked at three recent copies of news magazines, had a second cup of not-bad coffee and waited to be called to visit Ruskin. I also had time to think through everything that had happened. I'd assumed it was Ruskin who'd been followed, but if that was the case how had the shooter been able to get into position to shoot him so quickly? Ruskin had parked, cut his engine, stepped out of his car and started walking toward me. Then came the shots. That made no sense.

But what if someone had been following
me,
believing I would lead them to Ruskin? That made more sense, and was why I got up and walked down the hall where I was alone. I punched in the number for the hotel and asked for Earl the bellman. It took a few minutes to locate him.

‘This is Earl.'

‘Earl, it's Dev Conrad.'

‘Hey, there, Mr Conrad.'

‘Have you seen Michael Hawkins around tonight?'

‘Hawkins?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, I saw him come out of the restaurant about nine thirty and then go into the bar.'

‘How long was he in the bar?'

‘He's still in there. Something going on?'

‘No. I was just curious, is all. There's a twenty in this for you if you don't mention this call to him.'

‘No need to pay me, Mr Conrad. I keep secrets pretty good. It's part of my job.'

‘Thanks, Earl.'

I hadn't given Hawkins any of the details about my meeting with Ruskin, but given his alleged competitiveness maybe that had been enough for him to follow me. Hard to imagine him being the shooter, but since Ruskin was certain ‘they' were after him, ‘they' could be anybody, including an investigator for a US Attorney's office. But maybe if Hawkins had been following me he'd gotten a look at the actual shooter.

At this time of night all the doctor/nurse calls over the hospital system were muted. As I walked back to my seat in the ER area the noise my phone made was ominous in its loud pitch.

‘I told my friend in the police department about Howie Ruskin,' Jane said, ‘and she recognized the name so she called me. Somebody shot him?'

‘Yeah. In the arm. I'm at the ER. I'll get in to see him pretty soon here.'

‘This is getting scary.'

‘I just wish there was some angle in it that would help Robert.'

‘Yes. But it must have something to do with Tracy Cabot, don't you think?'

‘Absolutely. But right now that's
all
I know.'

‘I'm still at the office working on a case. I've got an important court date tomorrow morning. I'm going to stop in about an hour. If you're up for a drink let me know.'

‘I'd like that. I'll just have to see how it goes here.'

‘Sure. Well, good luck.'

By the time I got back to my seat Detective Farnsworth was talking to the woman at the desk. When he saw me he excused himself and walked over. He took the chair next to me. ‘When I was a kid I always liked horror films that were set in hospitals. You like horror films, Mr Conrad?'

‘A few of them. But not the gory ones.'

‘I'm the same way. The gory ones turn me off. My fourteen-year-old son talked me into going to see one recently and I barely got through it.'

‘You don't look old enough to have a fourteen-year-old son.'

‘I also have a sixteen-year-old daughter. I run a check on all her dates.'

I laughed. ‘You tell her you do it?'

‘Hell, no. She'd never speak to me again.'

Easy to know what we were doing. He was trying to make us momentary friends so I'd tell him more than I already had. Since I knew how these things worked – had worked a few of them myself – I wondered if he had a son and daughter at all.

He stretched long legs out in front of him. He still wore his overcoat.

‘You working with Howie Ruskin now, Mr Conrad?'

‘I thought we were talking about horror movies.'

‘From what the ambulance crew told me, Ruskin is a horror movie.'

‘I wouldn't argue with that.'

‘When we were sitting in your Jeep you said he called you.'

‘His girlfriend set it up. Just as I said.'

‘Any particular reason he wanted to talk to you?'

‘My favorite horror movie is still
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. The one with Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter.'

He smiled with great tolerance. ‘Too bad you're not a priest or a lawyer or even a private investigator, Mr Conrad. That way you could proclaim client privilege. This way you're shit out of luck. If I take you to the station and Hammell starts asking you questions, he won't be happy if you bring up a movie called
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
He won't be happy if you bring up any movie at all, in fact. You'll actually have to answer his questions.'

But it was then that an angel in the form of a nurse appeared before us, backlit by the soft bluish light of the ER desk, and said, ‘Detective Farnsworth, the doctor said you could talk to Mr Ruskin now. If you'd follow me, please.'

As he was pushing up from the chair, he said, ‘I shouldn't be too long, Mr Conrad. I mean, if that's all right with you.'

The nurse, a middle-aged woman, caught his sarcasm and then glanced at me to see how I was reacting to it.