Ricochet

by Paula Gosling

  ‘I know,’ said Ann-Catherine. ‘That’s what worries me.’

  ‘How do I find it?’ David asked.

  David found the doors marked ‘Pathology’ and pushed through them. The room was huge, long tables filled with scientific equipment. The neon lights overhead were extra bright and the whole room seemed sharp-edged and steely.

  ‘Is Dr Waxman here?’ he asked, raising his voice slightly.

  ‘He was here,’ one of the women standing near him said. ‘I think he’s in the morgue with Ivan.’ She gestured. ‘Through there.’

  David did not like the sound of the word morgue. He crossed the room and went through the indicated door. If anything, it was brighter in there, and colder, and smelled of harsh chemicals and something . . . sweet. He saw the drawers lining the wall. One was slightly open, but he couldn’t see inside. The steel tables were all empty. No one living was there.

  If Dan had gone back out through the labs, presumably the woman would have noticed him. There was another door on the far side of the room and David went to it, pushing it open. ‘Dan?’ he called.

  The other side of the door in the morgue led to a long, dark passage. Big ducts twisted overhead into the distance and there was a steady humming of the big machines that kept the hospital above him alive. David took a few steps into the corridor, feeling grit on the concrete underfoot. The echoing of the tunnel and the thrum of the machines made a kind of music . . . a sound that would be hard to capture.

  ‘Dan?’ he called again more loudly.

  ‘Here,’ came a voice from the distance. ‘Go away. Let me deal with this.’

  ‘The hell I will,’ David muttered to himself. And he started down the dimly lit corridor towards Dan’s voice.

  About thirty yards along, the corridor widened and there was an alcove. In it stood two people – his brother Dan and a tall, thin man with dark, penetrating eyes.

  ‘Go away, David,’ Dan said. His voice was weary, hopeless.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ David asked, stepping closer and taking Dan by the arm.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said the big man. ‘We’re working things out.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Life and death,’ said the big man. ‘We’re doctors, that’s what we deal with, life and death.’

  ‘It’s all right, David,’ Dan said.

  ‘It obviously isn’t,’ David contradicted firmly.

  ‘Your brother is interfering with my work,’ the big man said. ‘I can’t allow that.’ He raised his hand, which had been hidden behind him. It held a hypodermic syringe. ‘I’ve taken care of that.’

  ‘He’s injected me with HIV,’ Dan said in a lost voice.

  ‘Dear God.’ David went cold with horror. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I realized what he was doing,’ Dan said. ‘Just as Ricky Sanchez realized.’

  ‘Ricky followed me. He was in the way,’ Sherwin said impatiently. ‘He started yelling that I was unethical, that I was immoral. But I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘You killed him,’ Dan accused.

  Sherwin shrugged. ‘I lost my temper. Little holier-than-thou smart-ass. He was going to tell and I wasn’t ready. It was too soon.’

  Dan looked down at his arm. ‘Better you should have smashed my skull in than done this.’

  ‘But I can cure you,’ Sherwin said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small ampoule. ‘I can cure them all now. Just a few more tests, just a few more . . .’

  ‘Allow me to introduce Ivan Sherwin,’ Dan said wearily. ‘Pathologist and research scientist. They refused him a grant, so he’s been going out into French Street and tracking down people we have on record as having HIV.’

  ‘They’re victims of society,’ Sherwin said. ‘They need someone to stand up for them.’

  ‘Yeah, and you do, don’t you, Ivan. Big time.’ Dan looked bleakly at David. ‘He injects them with genetically altered viruses, using them as human guinea pigs. He tells them it’s vitamins, something new for their treatment. They believe him. Hell, they’ll believe anyone who gives them a few bucks. When they end up in here – and they always do – he draws blood to see what effect his treatment had,’ Dan said.

  ‘I can cure them,’ Sherwin said to Dan. ‘I know I can. You’ll see. You’ll have to believe me now.’

  Dan sighed heavily. ‘He’s been telling me all about it. Whenever he was supposed to be taking blood samples, he was also taking some extra, testing his treatment. If he didn’t see the result he wanted, he would inject the patients again. Then, when they died – and they all died . . .’

  ‘But mine take longer,’ Sherwin said earnestly to David. ‘It’s working. It’s going to work, as soon as I can get—’

  ‘You bastard!’ David shouted and without warning leapt at Sherwin. He hadn’t even known he was going to do it himself, it just happened; suddenly he was at him, grabbing him, shaking him. The syringe and ampoule dropped to the floor as Sherwin struggled to defend himself from a whirlwind of fists and kicks. Dan, also startled, had enough sense to kick the syringe away and tried to help his brother. His ribs stabbed him with pain – already, in an earlier struggle in the morgue with Sherwin, he was pretty sure another one had been cracked.

  Sherwin bellowed with rage and knocked David to the floor, then ran off down the long, dim corridor.

  ‘He’s nuts,’ Dan said. ‘He’s lost it completely. His brother died of AIDS, so he’s a man with a mission – at least, that’s how he sees it. God knows how many he’s killed with his half-assed “treatment”. He told me all about it and it’s crap, it has to be. He’s gone completely over the edge.’

  ‘Well, we’d better stop him,’ David said.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Come on,’ David said and he started off down the corridor too. He turned back. ‘Where does this go?’

  ‘Everywhere,’ Dan said. ‘It’s a maze down here.’

  David turned back and ran on. After a minute Dan went after him. Their footsteps echoed hollowly as the invisible machines thrummed on. All around them the hospital was breathing. The air rushed through the ducts above. They were in the bowels of the place, chasing a human virus that had infected the building with murder.

  Dan was right, the corridors were a maze, some very old, some blocked and rerouted, intersecting, going off at angles, now hot, now cold. And they were infested . . .

  David had stopped, winded. ‘Who are these people?’ he asked Dan, who had caught up with him. Every once in a while he had come upon one, curled up in layers of filthy clothing, huddling over bags of possessions.

  ‘Homeless,’ Dan gasped, his breathing uneven, ragged. ‘They come in through the delivery doors at night because it’s warm. Security throws them out, but they come right back. Mostly we just ignore them now.’ He turned to one. ‘Did you see a big man, running?’

  The bundle of rags stirred and a hand emerged, pointing. David and Dan started off again, knowing they had been in some places before, losing their sense of direction. Abruptly they found themselves at a dead end, among shelves loaded with discarded equipment, a big room with no other exit, and in the far corner Sherwin crouched, breathing hard, leaning against the wall, his eyes wild and desperate behind his dishevelled hair. Like the demented animal he is, David thought with disgust. He glanced at Dan and nodded. The room was poorly lit, one overhead light, swinging slightly in the draught from the hallway and squeaking rustily. Bright, dark, bright, dark. It gave the place an odd, stroboscopic feeling. Like an old movie run on a broken projector.

  David reached back and closed the door behind him. There was no key, no way to lock it. They had to stop Sherwin here. And now.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Sherwin growled. ‘You’ve got to leave me alone to go on with the work.’ He looked at Dan. ‘I can cure you, I know I can. Let me go. Let me go.’

 
They came at him from two sides, co-ordinating without thinking, without saying anything, no need. They were brothers.

  When they jumped, together, Sherwin was ready and fought like the madman he was. Falling and rolling as they struggled, Dan was crushed beneath the other two and cried out in agony. He scrambled away, panting shallowly for precious breath. He was pretty sure he’d punctured a lung.

  ‘No!’ Sherwin kept shouting. ‘You don’t understand. You need me. They all need me. I can do it. I’m almost there.’

  Blindly David fought on, though he was no fighter. He had no system, no plan, just wildly punching and kicking because he knew no other way, and rage for his brother was driving him.

  Sherwin was like a huge spider, long arms and legs going everywhere. He bit, he fought, he screamed and cursed and twisted. Twice he nearly got away. Each time David brought him down, once by the neck, then by the legs, but it was getting more and more difficult. Sherwin was full of panic and it gave him great strength. ‘You don’t understand . . . you’re wrong . . .’ he kept saying, as he tried to get away, but David would not let go.

  Grunting and gasping, they continued to struggle. The blows between them were becoming fewer, slower, lighter, and Dan could see Sherwin was getting between David and the door. David was going to lose him.

  Dan looked around wildly, dragged himself to his feet, then grabbed an old metal bedpan and struck Sherwin on the back of the head. Once, twice, three times. Ribs or not, he put everything he had left into it.

  Sherwin went limp and collapsed.

  David scrambled up, panting, aching, half dazed, and looked down. ‘He’s finished,’ he gasped.

  Dan rubbed the place where Sherwin had plunged the loaded needle into his arm. ‘So am I,’ he said and slowly slid down the wall to sit on the floor beside the unconscious Sherwin. ‘So am I.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Stryker and the others went in through the back door. Quietly they moved across the kitchen into the dining room. They could hear Torrance still raving, his voice quite calm but talking total nonsense, occasionally giving a bizarre little giggle. He sounded tired, old and manic.

  Stryker thought don’t do anything, Kate. Let him rave. Don’t do anything. Leave it to me. For once, please, leave it to me.

  But in the cosy flowered living room Kate had made up her mind. She and Liz were actually quite close to Torrance – sitting like two birds on a telegraph wire, motionless as he ranted on.

  Kate had suddenly decided it was up to her. She glanced at Liz and saw the same resolution in her eyes. If this guy was a killer, they had no alternative, did they?

  ‘On three,’ Kate said very, very softly under cover of Torrance’s voice.

  ‘He can only get one of us, Sundance,’ Liz said.

  Kate wanted to laugh, she was so strung up, but said the numbers instead: ‘One, two, three.’

  They launched themselves at Torrance who, for once, had been gazing at what was probably a picture of his wife, as if he were explaining himself to her instead of to them. The combined weight of Kate and Liz knocked over the rocking chair Torrance sat in and the gun went off – once, twice, three times. One, two, three. And a scream.

  Liz was lying across his chest and Kate was clutching his legs when Stryker burst into the room, followed by Tos, Muller and Neilson, and some uniforms. Between them Muller and Neilson grabbed Torrance’s arms and Stryker handcuffed him.

  Slowly Kate backed off. But Liz didn’t get up. She lay there, moaning, blood trickling from her arm and the other arm bent at an impossible angle. She was swearing steadily. Tos went and put his arms round her. ‘It’s OK, you’re OK,’ he murmured.

  She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m leaking,’ she said, looking down at herself. And passed out.

  ‘Damn you, Kate,’ Stryker said.

  She turned to him. ‘I love you, too.’ She burst into tears.

  Muller took the call. It was Pinsky again. He turned to look at the others as the ambulance took a heavily sedated Torrance and a semi-conscious Liz to the hospital. Tos went with them, ignoring Torrance completely in his concern for Liz.

  Neighbours had gathered, drawn by the police cars, the shots and the ambulance. Standing in the freezing cold, they watched, they listened. Drama on your doorstep, courtesy of your local police department. For this you pay your taxes. Muller handed the cellphone to Stryker.

  ‘They got him,’ Pinsky said in a peculiar voice from the other end.

  ‘Who?’ Stryker demanded, his attention on the ambulance.

  ‘The guy who killed Ricky. They got him. I wasn’t even there and they got him.’ Pinsky sounded stunned, relieved, resentful, weary. Somebody else had done what he was supposed to do. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

  ‘What?’ Stryker asked. ‘Who got who? What the hell are you talking about?’ He was jittering with adrenalin, holding Kate with one arm, walking her back and forth, back and forth.

  ‘Those two brothers – the Waxman brothers. They figured out who he was, what he’d done. They got him. Jesus, they knocked him out with a bedpan, can you believe it? I got there just after. But he injected one of them with bad blood . . . HIV . . . before they brought him down. You’d better get down here.’

  The man at the reception desk was tall, broad and angry. ‘I want to see my daughter,’ he demanded in a loud voice.

  ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible,’ said the receptionist, quailing a little as she consulted a list on her desktop. ‘She is to have no visitors, on doctor’s orders.’

  ‘I don’t care what a goddamn doctor says, I want to see my daughter,’ said the man, even more loudly than before. ‘I have a right to see my daughter.’

  ‘Actually, you don’t,’ said a quiet voice behind him. He turned and saw a small woman in a red tracksuit and white coat regarding him. ‘Your daughter is over twenty-one and has rights as an individual. She doesn’t want to see you and I don’t want her to see you. You have done enough damage already.’

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are, you old bitch?’ he shouted.

  ‘I am Dr Maclaine. I am in charge of your daughter’s health and well-being in this clinic, and she is to have no visitors. That is also the decision of the police, by the way. You will have to leave.’

  He stepped forward threateningly. He was an ugly man, his expression brutal, his size intimidating. Dr Maclaine did not move.

  ‘I come all the way down here to see her. They say she killed someone. No way, no way she has the guts to do that. She’s a bad one, but she’s no killer.’

  ‘You would be surprised at the amount of courage your daughter has, Mr McKittrick,’ said Dr Maclaine. ‘And the charge against her has not been settled yet, but it is certainly not going to be a charge of homicide. What happened was an unfortunate accident. Her only real crime was trying to hide it, from herself and everyone else.’

  ‘Bullshit. Don’t give me that psycho mumbo-jumbo. Do I have to get some damn lawyer to make you let me see her?’ he growled. He was obviously unaccustomed to opposition and, had the two of them been alone, there was a good chance he would have added physical abuse to verbal. As it was, the lobby was crowded and the attitude of those people in it to the large, noisy, unattractive and, frankly, dirty man was hostile to say the least. There were murmurings, there was a security guard – and then there were two security guards. Then three. They all stood watching, prepared to move if they had to, but the little old lady in the white coat seemed to have it all under control. The angry man loomed over her, but she remained unmoved.

  ‘You can get any number of lawyers, Mr McKittrick, it will make no difference,’ said Dr Maclaine. ‘Lois is not going to be bothered by you or anyone else. She has had a nervous breakdown and is physically ill as well. No visitors. Is that clear?’

  He stepped back, brushed his long matted hair away from hi
s scowling face. He was suddenly aware they had an audience. ‘We’ll see about that. I got rights too.’

  Dr Maclaine managed a wry smile. ‘Under the Constitution of the United States? The Constitution you profess to uphold against all comers and all sense? Yes, you do have rights, Mr McKittrick – but they do not include seeing your daughter in her present condition. Good day.’ She turned and walked towards the elevators.

  McKittrick stared after her. ‘We’ll see about that!’ he shouted rather pointlessly. Glaring around at the other people in the lobby, he charged the outer doors like a bull moose and disappeared from view in the crowd beyond them.

  There was a silence.

  And then a little quiet scatter of applause.

  Liz lay in the hospital bed, looking very uncomfortable. ‘I figured he would get you, not me,’ she said with a wry grin.

  ‘Ah, and that would have been all right?’ Kate asked.

  Liz shook her head. ‘Of course not. But it would have been justice – the whole thing was your idea, remember. Going there, confronting him.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Kate admitted. ‘I must have been insane.’

  ‘You have been a little more goofy than usual lately,’ Liz conceded. ‘But here I am, not even able to scratch my own nose.’

  ‘Do you need it scratched?’ Kate asked with concern.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact,’ Liz said. ‘Right at the bridge.’ Kate leaned over and complied. ‘Ahh,’ Liz breathed. ‘Thanks.’ Both her arms were immobilized – she had broken the right one when she fell over Torrance and the rocking chair, and when his gun had gone off in the struggle the bullet had gone into her left shoulder. She looked down. ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do now.’

  ‘You’ll be coming home with me,’ said a voice from the door. It was Tos, looking determined. ‘I will take care of you.’

  ‘You mean you’ll come and stay with me?’ Liz brightened. ‘What a great idea.’

  ‘Better than that,’ Tos said. ‘I’m taking you home to Mama.’

  There was a long and considerable silence.