Silent Treatment (46 page)

“You
still
should idolize him,” Phil replied. “He’s a terrific guy. While we’re all out trying to make an obscene amount of money, he’s off helping people get well. Half the time, he doesn’t even get paid.”

“But what about all this nonsense at the hospital? This post-traumatic stress?”

“Harry has about as much post-traumatic stress as you do. Someone’s out to get him. That’s what he tells me, and that’s what I believe.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ziggy said. “I always liked Harry a lot. But you know, even Dillinger had a brother.”

“He’s not Dillinger, Ziggy.…”

The ringing persisted—five, six, seven times. Phil’s agreement with Gail was that if she was in the house on poker night, she would answer all phone calls. But tonight, she had gone to the movies with friends. Phil studied his ten, jack, queen, king of diamonds, and then glared over at the phone, trying to will it to cease. Finally, he slapped his cards down.

“You gentlemen’ll have to wait a minute for me to take your money,” he said, rising. “But I’d advise you all to fold. I’m working on a straight flush.”

“Yeah, sure,” someone muttered.

“Hello?”

“Phil, it’s me. Are you alone?”

Phil had no trouble picking up the urgency in his brother’s voice.

“Ah, no. No, I’m not.”

“Change phones, please.”

Phil put the call on hold.

“I was lying about the straight flush,” he said, burying his cards at the bottom of the deck. “You guys play on without me for a while.”

In twenty minutes, Phil was back, his face heavy with concern.

“There’s been some problems with my brother,” he said. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to call it a night.”

“Anything we can do?” White asked.

“Actually, there is. I’d like it if you and Matt could stay behind. The rest of you just head home as quickly as possible. We’ll settle up tomorrow. And if any of you want to, feel free to say a prayer for Harry. He’s in it pretty deep right now and he’s going to need all the help he can get.”

“Phil, you be careful, now,” one of the other three men said. “No one wants to believe somebody in their family could get into big-time trouble, but it happens.”

“I know, Stan. Thanks. I’d like you to forget I got that call just now, but in the end, that’s up to you.”

The three men exchanged concerned glances. Then, without further question, they hurried for their cars. Ziggy White and Matt McCann remained behind. A few moments after the last car had left, a police cruiser, lights flashing, came up the drive.

“Matt, I’m going to need you to stay and watch the kids until Gail gets home,” Phil said. “Maybe around eleven-thirty. Ziggy, I’m going to speak with these guys. Then I have to get out of here without being followed. Any ideas?”

During their school years, White had been a daredevil among daredevils—always diving in from the highest rock or shoplifting some unneeded item from the most theft-conscious store. He had gone on to make a small fortune as
an options trader. Now, he mulled over the problem for just a few seconds.

“No sweat,” he said, excitedly. “Matt’ll hide while the cops are here. You make it clear your wife is out and you’re babysitting. I’ll walk them out and have a chat with them by the squad car. Meanwhile, you slip out the back. Take a flashlight, but only use it when you’re certain it’s safe. Go through your backyard and then across that little brook you have back there. If they’re going to stake you out, they’ll have to wait somewhere past the end of the driveway. I’ll leave when they do and head out like I’m going home, but I’ll turn off at Maitland. I’ll meet you right by the Griffins’ driveway. They’re in England until after Labor Day. You know where that is, right? Okay. You can drop me off someplace near my house and keep the car as long as you need it.”

*   *   *

Harry knelt in the dense undergrowth just beyond the soft shoulder of a rural two-lane road. The night wasn’t that chilly, but he was soaked through and shivering hesitated in agreeing to help. Now, if he would only show up. Accessory to murder was nothing he wanted to expose his brother to. But until he found Anton Perchek and a Way to bring him down, staying free was the only realistic chance he had.

The biggest problem, since he didn’t know exactly where he was calling Phil from, and Phil didn’t know the Fort Lee area well at all, was finding a way to meet up. It was finally left to Harry to choose the right person to bribe into driving him to a spot they both knew—a little-traveled roadway that swung past a power substation not far from their childhood home in Montclair. It was the place where Harry first took his younger brother to introduce him to beer and cigarettes, only to find that Phil was already well acquainted with both.

The lucky man Harry selected was a motorcyclist on a Harley chopper. Harry watched from the woods beside a
service station as the biker lumbered into the rest room and called him over as soon as he came out. The man was well tattooed and grizzly bear huge—as unlikely to be frightened off by Harry as he was to be tight with the police. The fare for the half-hour ride was agreed upon in seconds—a thousand dollars. Over his years in medicine, Harry had seen the ravages of bike accidents often enough to have developed a healthy fear of ever riding on what the ER docs cynically referred to as “donorcycles.” But the biker, whose name was Claude, was worth the risk. Harry donned the spare Panzer Division helmet, hunched as low as the raised passenger seat would allow, clenched his teeth, and wrapped his arms around the bear.

“Hey, if you’re gonna get that friendly, I want another hundred,” the biker said, laughing.

“You don’t speed and I won’t get fresh,” Harry replied.

Within the first mile or two, they had passed four police cars heading in the opposite direction.

“You must be some hot stuff,” Claude called over his shoulder.

“Parking tickets,” Harry yelled back.

During the half hour Harry had been crouched in the bushes by the substation, six cars had passed, one of them a Montclair police cruiser. Now, as he wiped a muddy hand across his forehead, he wondered what his next move should be. If there was any workable option available to him, any at all, his mind hadn’t settled on it yet. On the plus side, he had miraculously made it through the trap Perchek had set for him in Fort Lee. Still, by the time the forty-minute ride was over, Harry’s teeth were chattering mercilessly. He tipped the biker with a hundred-dollar bill as casually as if it were a one and accepted a death’s-head pin in return. Now, as the fear that he and Phil had somehow miscommunicated took hold, he wished he had kept Claude around.

There were bends in the road about fifty yards in either direction from where Harry was concealed. The headlights of approaching cars reflected off the trees several seconds
before they actually came into sight. Each time, as soon as he heard the engine noise or saw the reflected light, he flattened down in the shallow swale beside the road. And each time he got a bit filthier and, if possible, a bit more sodden.

Through the darkness and the persistent drizzle, he heard engine noise to his left. Moments later, reflected light shimmered high off the trees.
A truck
, he thought, burrowing back under cover. What it was instead was a mobile home, as large as a bus, moving along slowly, followed closely by a car. Harry froze as the two-vehicle caravan slowed even more and then stopped not ten feet away. Both drivers cut their engines and killed their headlights. Immediately, heavy darkness settled in again. The interior light on the massive RV flashed on and off as the door opened and closed. For several seconds there was dense silence. Then Phil called out.

“Harry? You out there?”

Before he could even reply, Harry had to work the immense tension from his muscles and his jaw. He worried in passing about the second car, but at this point he had to trust that Phil knew what he was doing.

“Right here, bro,” he said.

He pushed himself to his feet and made an ineffectual stab at brushing some mud off. Phil met him at the front of the RV, which Harry could see now was a Winnebago.

“You okay?”

“Soaked, scared to death. Is that the same as okay?”

“Well, believe it or not, I have a warm-up suit inside that’ll fit you.”

“Who’s in the car?”

“It’s Ziggy White. Remember him?”

“The one who used to bet people he could drive a mile blindfolded?”

“I didn’t want him to come with me, but he insisted. He can’t get enough of living on the edge—you’d think being an options trader would do it. Besides, he says he’ll never forget that you once kept Bumpy Giannetti from beating the snot out of him.”

“Thank Ziggy for me,” Harry said as Phil helped him up the step. “But tell him that if that’s really the case, I probably just showed up at the right moment and presented Bumpy with a punching bag less likely to hit back.”

The interior of the Winnebago was as grand as any hotel Harry had ever stayed in.

“This is incredible,” he said, stripping off his shirt. “Is this yours?”

“For the time being, it’s yours. The Luxor. Thirty-seven feet of everything you could ever ask for in a motor home. Two TVs with a dish on the roof, fax, phone, bar, ice maker, stereo system, washer/dryer, driver
and
passenger airbags, cherrywood cabinets. You told me you needed a car, but I got to thinking that you also needed a safe place to stay. Then I realized I had both all rolled up in one. We lease this baby from time to time to some people who need a hotel room, but don’t want a hotel. It’s registered to my corporation. The registration’s in the glove compartment, along with a couple of sheets on where you can and can’t take it and park it. My beeper number’s there, too. You can reach me twenty-four hours a day.”

“Phil, I … thanks. Thanks a lot. This is perfect. How much does it—”

“Hey,” Phil said, stopping him with a raised hand. “If you have to ask, you really don’t want to know.”

Harry toweled off and pulled the stacks of soggy bills from his pockets.

“You neglected to mention the all important microwave,” he said.

“Just don’t do them all at once.” Phil tossed over the black Nike warm-up suit. “I don’t think I could stand the thought of all that cash vaporizing in my RV. The fridge is pretty well stocked and there are some clothes in the closet that I think will fit you. Just be careful and don’t stay in one place too long. Is there anything else you need?”

Harry thought for a moment, then took a pen and paper from the small mahogany writing desk and dashed off a note to Maura.

“The doorman at my co-op will take this up to her,” he said. “Then I want you to back off and keep out of this. You’ve done way more than enough.”

Phil slipped the letter into his pocket.

“We’ve had a funny life, Harry,” he said. “I won’t deny that over the years, especially after you won those medals in Vietnam, I pushed myself in business because I wanted to beat you out at something.”

“Well, you did.”

“So what? The point is it was always just something inside me. You never did or said anything to make me feel I had to top you. What difference does it make anyhow? It’s not a contest. It never has been. It’s our lives. You’re my only brother, Harry. I don’t want to lose you.”

Harry stared at his brother through the dim light. It was the first time he had ever heard Phil talk this way. He leaned against the soft, leather headrest of the passenger seat.

“Remember that day in front of my office when you told me not to worry, that something would come along for me to push against? Well, something has, Phil. A monster. His name’s Anton Perchek. He’s an M.D. And I’m not going to stop pushing against him until he’s finished or I am.” He wrote the name down and passed it over. “If anything happens to me, this is the man who killed Evie. He also killed Caspar Sidonis, Andy Barlow, one of my favorite patients, and God only knows how many other people. The Feds know who he is, but they might not admit it. I think he did some torture work for the CIA. He’s supposed to have died years ago, but they have a fingerprint of his taken from Evie’s hospital room.

“I had stopped caring, Phil. I don’t know why—maybe turning fifty, maybe Evie, maybe that goddamn family curse I’ve been so wrapped up in. But I care now, Phil. Thanks to that bastard, Perchek, things matter to me again. That woman, Maura, the one the note is for, she’s very special. I want the chance to get to know her better. Maybe get married again someday—if not to her, then to someone
like her. Maybe have a kid or two so
you
can be an uncle.”

“I’ll spoil the hell out of them. Do you know where you’re going from here?”

“I do, but I don’t want you to know. You’re already going to have to lie to the police because of me.”

“You know how to get hold of me.”

“I do. Don’t worry, Phil. I’m gonna win this one.”

“I know. I know you are. Well … um … we’d better get going.”

“Thank Ziggy for me. And give my love to Gail and the kids.”

For a few seconds, the brothers stood in silence by the door. Then, for the first time since the death of their father, they embraced.

*   *   *

Rocky Martino, the night doorman at Harry’s apartment building, had more than enough reason for having an extra nip or two. It had been the longest, most stressful night of his life. In the space of just a few hours, half of Manhattan seemed to have descended on him, everyone looking for Harry Corbett. The Manhattan police, the New Jersey police, even the FBI—something about moving a body across state lines. Crews from several TV stations and some radio people as well had come by and spoken with him. But all he could tell any of them was that he had no idea when Harry Corbett had left the building or when he would be back.

The one thing that he did not tell any of the news people, but he did tell the police, was that Maura Hughes had come back to the apartment at ten-thirty and was still there. Two officers had gone up and spoken to her for over an hour.

Early on, Rocky knew that he was in over his head and had the presence of mind to call down Shirley Bowditch, the president of the co-op association. She had handled everything. Now, at last, he was alone. He went to the
maintenance closet just behind the door to the cellar. On the bottom shelf, in the base of a locked tool box, was his supply of nips. He selected an ounce of Absolut and downed it in a single gulp. The raspy burning brought warm, familiar tears to his eyes. When he returned to the lobby, a tall, broad-shouldered man in a sports coat was tapping on the glass, holding up a police badge. Rocky buzzed him in. The huge man introduced himself and the branch he was with, but whatever he said didn’t register. Rocky told him his name.