Silent Treatment (49 page)

“Did you really kill a guy in the war like the papers said?” Santana asked, inspecting the rifle as they pulled away.

“It’s nothing I’m proud of.”

“That’s okay. Killing a person is something that once
you’ve done it, you know you can do it. That’s all that matters to me.”

“I’m filled with hate, Ray. It wouldn’t be that hard for me to kill either of them.”

“One less thing for me to worry about.”

Harry had never been inside Doug Atwater’s house, but he had seen it from the water and from the land. Three years before, Harry had rented a yacht for a surprise party for Evie’s birthday. The boat was huge—large enough to hold the combo from the club and about forty guests, with room to spare. It was chartered for a circumnavigation of Manhattan Island, and was by far the most extravagant thing Harry had ever done. But their marriage was already crumbling over his conservative lifestyle, and he was desperate to make a statement. That evening was the last time he could remember Evie seeming truly happy.

Atwater had shown up for the affair with his usual gorgeous
blonde du jour
—an actress of some sort, Harry recalled.
Sondi? Patti?
She and Harry were standing alone by the rail at dusk, watching the Palisades of New Jersey glide by, when suddenly she began gesturing wildly at a spectacular modern house built on the very brink of one of them.

“That’s Dougie’s!” she exclaimed. “That’s Dougie’s house. See that deck? We had mimosas out there this morning. You wouldn’t believe the view. Have you ever been there?”

In fact, until that moment Harry had known only that Atwater lived in an elegant penthouse on East Forty-ninth Street. They had met there several times when he and Evie had gone out with Atwater and his date. Curious about the house, he glanced back across at the New York side of the river and fixed a couple of landmarks in his mind. Later in the evening, the captain used his navigational charts to pinpoint the spot exactly. It was not very far from Fort Lee. Harry had considered mentioning the house to Atwater, but now he felt certain that he never had. He and Atwater were friendly, but obviously not that close, because Harry had never been invited over.

A month or two later, after visiting his mother in the nursing home, Harry had found himself just a few miles from where he thought the house to be. It was surprisingly easy to find—a sprawling, California-style mansion at the crest of a rising, tree-lined driveway at least a hundred yards long. The massive wrought-iron gate at the end of the drive was closed. A six-foot-high, fieldstone-in-cement wall stretched along the roadway in both directions, giving the impression that the entire property was enclosed. He did not consider dropping in.

But tonight, he and Santana would pay a call.

“Pull off at the next rest area,” Santana said. “You need to get ready, and I need to check this sight out.”

Despite his gaunt physical appearance and nervous tics, Ray had always seemed somewhat cocky and self-assured. But following Harry’s conversation with Sean Garvey, he had become withdrawn and subdued. The tic at the corner of his mouth had diminished until it was just a faint suggestion, and his hands were rock steady. Harry bet that this was exactly the way Santana had looked as he crouched, aimed, and fired that night in Central Park.

He pulled off into a sparsely occupied rest stop. Santana tossed him a black turtleneck, ammo vest, and watch cap, and a small jar of black greasepaint labeled
Nightstalker
.

“Don’t forget the backs of your hands,” he said as he left the camper cradling the rifle in a canvas wrap.

Outside, the rain had begun falling harder. To the east, in the distance, lightning glinted off the blackening sky.

Harry set the clothes beside his seat.
Evie, Andy Barlow, Sidonis. Maura?
He was ready to fight—ready for whatever. But there was one more piece of business he had to take care of before they headed into battle—a phone call.

*   *   *

Kevin Loomis glanced up at the clock and tried to imagine what the mounting flood in the basement was looking like. Rain had forced the barbecue indoors, but it
really didn’t matter. Everything was moving along as he had planned. It wouldn’t be long now.

It had been about thirty minutes since he left the party through the back door, ostensibly to get a scorecard from his golf bag in the garage. He grabbed the card, which he had set by the garage door, then cut around to the side of the house to dislodge the washing machine hose. His setup worked even better than he expected. One tug on the heavy twine had pulled the hose free, and the twine had slipped off so that he was able to pull it through the basement window. Now, there were about ten minutes left before he would “discover” the disaster.

He made his way through the guests, trading stories, laughing at jokes, and doing a fairly effective job of getting drunk. It was strange knowing when the exact moment of one’s death was going to occur. What if he had known from the very beginning? Would he have done anything differently? The question was rhetorical. He would always have joined The Roundtable as he understood it to be. And the moment he entered his first Roundtable meeting, he was one of them. From then on, nothing he did would change a thing.

He had said goodbye to each of the kids in his own way and had managed half-decent sex with Nancy before tension overwhelmed him. Now, he stood in the kitchen and glanced over at the drawer where he had placed the flashlights. Just a few more minutes. Suddenly, he realized the phone was ringing. His first thought was that something had happened to one of the kids. He snatched it up.

“Hello?”

“Kevin Loomis?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Harry. Harry Corbett. How’re you doing?”

“Fine. We’re having a party here, though. I really can’t talk.”

“That’s okay. You can just listen. I won’t take long. The murder they want me for, the surgeon … ?”

“Yes.”

From the doorway, Nancy asked with body language if
the call was anything for her to be concerned with. Kevin shook his head.

“It’s Atwater, Kevin,” Harry went on. “Doug Atwater from Manhattan Health. He’s the knight behind the killings, behind that Dr. Perchek I told you about.”

“I suspected as much. Atwater’s Galahad, the knight in charge of security. I saw him earlier today on the news.”

“The others in your group may have participated, but I believe he’s the mastermind. We’re going after him and Perchek right now.”

“Good luck.”

“Kevin, I’m calling to beg you to see this thing through. If we get them, we’re going to need you to testify against them. If we fail, all those patients at risk are going to need you even more.”

“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kevin said. “Of course I’m going to see this through. I wish you luck tonight. I’ve got to go now.”

“Kevin, please be strong. You have too much to lose. We all do.”

Kevin set the receiver down without replying.
Damn Corbett. He didn’t even have any kids
. He turned on the sink water, which was now little more than a trickle.

“Hey, Fred,” he called to one of the two men he had selected, “we’ve got no water pressure all of a sudden. What do you think?”

The man shrugged.

“Guess we ought to check the basement,” he said.

Kevin allowed him to open the basement door and try the light.

“Bulb’s out,” the man said. “Or else the power down there’s dead.”

From below, they could clearly hear the sound of gushing water. Kevin handed him a flashlight and then called over Reverend Pete Peterson and handed him one as well. His pulse was beginning to race.

“It looks like the great flood down there,” he said. “Unfortunately, my waders are right in the middle of it.
You guys hang on the stairway and follow me with your lights. I’ll see what I can see.”

It was about to happen
, Kevin was thinking. It felt strange, so strange that his whole life had come down to these few moments.

He led the two men down to the basement and stepped into a foot and a half of water. “It’s the washing machine hose,” he called out from the blackness. “It’s snapped off. Keep your lights on it.”

All those things in life that had seemed so damn important at the time … all meaningless
 …

“Just be careful,” Peterson said.

Kevin jammed the hose back onto its housing.

“See,” he said, “no problem. No problem at all.”

What I’m doing is right. Best for Nancy. Best for the kids. Best for everyone. God, forgive me
.…

Sir Tristram, Knight of The Roundtable, took a single deep breath and then set his hand down on the back of the dryer. His body stiffened. Sparks shot from his legs at the waterline. His heart went into immediate standstill. The muscles in his hand, in a viselike spasm, tightened around the frayed wire. He had been dead fox fifteen seconds by the time the weight of his body pulled him free of the wire and allowed him to drop into the water.

“Green Dolphin Street.”

They were still a ways from Atwater’s mansion when Harry began hearing the tune in his head. He tapped out the rhythm on the steering wheel and bobbed his head to the bass line.

“What are you doing?” Santana asked.

“Listening to music. It’s a tune that pops into my brain when I’m keyed up. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m tense until I hear it.”

Santana studied him. From within the black greasepaint, his eyes were glowing discs of pearl.

“Keep listening,” he said finally.

They drove toward the Hudson until they found the narrow, winding roadway that paralleled the Palisades. Harry cut the headlights and slowed down. There were no cars on either side, moving or parked. The houses, each overlooking the Hudson from a majestic height, were widely spaced and nestled in the woods a good distance
from the road. Through the rain and the gloom, it was impossible to make out much more than lights from any of them.

“You still think you know where we are?” Santana asked.

“I’m not as certain as I was a little while ago,” Harry said, peering through the Winnebago windshield, which was being squeegeed by wiper blades as big as hockey sticks. “Maybe that’s why the damn tune in my head keeps getting louder.”

“Maybe it’s time to stop listening. How’re you even going to know we’re there?”

“I’m looking for that wall I told you about. That stone wall.”

At almost the moment he said the word, they saw it—fieldstone set in cement, two feet thick, running along the road as far as they could see. To their right, a six-foot-high chain-link fence extended from the wall toward the cliffs. Harry pulled as far off the road as he could, cut the engine, and gestured toward the fence.

“I would guess there’s another one like this on the other side, and then the cliffs in the back. So the place is completely enclosed.”

“A big corral,” Santana said. “What better place for a gunfight?”

Peering down the road, they could just make out the main gate, perhaps fifty yards away. Santana used a hooded flashlight and set out their equipment, which included a snub-nosed revolver and the silenced semiautomatic that Harry knew had killed the gunman in the park. In addition, there was rope, adhesive tape, switchblade knives, wire cutters, wire, Swiss Army knives, powerful flashlights, and several boxes of ammunition. Santana handed Harry the revolver and some bullets.

“The safety’s here,” he said. “Flip it off after you load it. Then just point and shoot.”

“Just point and shoot,” Harry echoed. “The ultimate Kodak moment.”

“Load up your rucksack and be ready.”

Santana took the binoculars and the rifle, switched off the interior lights of the RV, then opened the door and slipped out. Harry watched, impressed, as the former DEA undercover agent moved quickly and silently to the wall and scaled it in a heartbeat. He lay flattened on the top, scanning the property. Then, after a few minutes, he was back.

“The house is pretty well lit and not that far away. I can actually see into some of the windows. There’s one guard in a little house by the gate. I didn’t see anyone else.”

“Any dogs?”

“Not that I could see.”

“Shouldn’t we have brought some big T-bone steaks just in case?”

“You mean like they do in the movies?”

“Exactly.”

“Harry, any attack dog that’s worth its salt knows the difference between the kind of meat that just lies there and the kind of fresh meat it gets to hunt down and kill. We see a dog, we shoot it. That’s too simple for the movies, but it’s damn efficient. Now, here’s what I think we should do. I’m going back up on the wall, about halfway down. When I flash one time, call the house and demand to speak with Maura. That way we’ll know for certain she’s there. Hopefully I’ll see her through one of the windows. If not, we’ll just have to get close enough to figure out where she is. If I flash twice, come along. Three times, there’s trouble of some kind. In that case, hop up on the wall right over here, and be ready to use that gun. Lock the doors and leave the key wedged under the right rear tire. Questions?”

“None.”

“You ready?”

“I am. Ray, I guess there is one thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“Please don’t take this wrong. I’ve got a score to settle with these people too. A big score. I just want to remind you to … to keep your cool.”

Santana’s response was not what Harry expected. He
glared at him in an unsettling, frightening way. The tic by his eye and at the corner of his mouth, intensified.

“Okay, you asked, now you listen,” he snapped. “I’ve lived in pain every second of every minute of every hour of every fucking day since that bastard shot that stuff into my body.
Seven years
. The only peace I ever got during that time was when I was able to imagine what it was like for him in that filthy Mexican prison. Now he’s up there in that mansion along with the bastard who set me up to be tortured. Don’t you tell me to keep my cool.”

Harry felt himself recoil from the man’s fury. It took some time for him to regain his composure. Finally, he reached out and rested his hand on Santana’s arm.