Instead, the story had been about another possible scandal in Millgate’s background. To the government’s dismay, a copy of a Justice Department special prosecutor’s report had been leaked to the press this evening. The report, a first draft never intended for publication, implicated Millgate as a negotiator in a possible covert attempt—unsanctioned by Congress—to buy nuclear weapons from the chaos of governments in what used to be the Soviet Union.
An unsubtantiated charge against him. Solely an in-house assessment of where the Justice Department’s investigation might eventually lead. But the gravity of the news announcer’s voice had made the grave allegation sound like established fact. Guilty until proven innocent. This was the second time in seven years that Jonathan Millgate had been implicated as a go-between in a major arms scandal, and Pittman knew that if he failed to investigate this time, if he didn’t at least make an attempt to get a statement from Millgate’s people, Burt Forsyth would accuse him of reneging on his bargain to do his best for the Chronicle during the brief time remaining to it. For Burt and what Burt had done for Jeremy, Pittman forced himself to try.
14
Pittman stood on the corner across from the hospital’s Emergency entrance. It was after midnight. A drizzle intensified the April night’s chill. He buttoned his wrinkled London Fog topcoat and felt dampness even through the soles of his shoes. The drizzle created misty halos around gleaming streetlights and the brighter floodlights at the Emergency entrance. By contrast, the lights in some of the hospital rooms were weak, making Pittman feel lonely. He stared up toward what had been Jeremy’s window on the tenth floor, and that window was dark. Feeling even more lonely, he crossed the street toward the hospital.
At this hour, traffic was slight. The Emergency area was almost deserted. He heard a far-off siren. The drizzle strengthened, wetting the back of his neck. When Jeremy had been sick, Pittman had learned about the hospital in considerable detail—the locations of the various departments, the lounges that were most quiet in the middle of the night, the areas that had coffee machines, the places to get a sandwich when the main cafeteria was closed. Bringing Jeremy to the hospital for chemotherapy, he had felt uncomfortable at the main entrance and in the lobby. The cancer had made Jeremy so delicate that Pittman had a fear of someone in a crowd bumping against him. Given Jeremy’s low blood-cell counts, a bruise would have taken a considerable time to heal. In addition, Pittman had felt outraged by the stares of people in the lobby, who seemed shocked to see a skinny, bald fifteen-year-old, his face gaunt, his hairless scalp tinted blue from blood vessels close to the surface. Terribly sensitive about his son’s feelings, Pittman had chosen an alternate route, in the back, a small entrance around the corner to the left of the Emergency area. The door was used primarily by interns and nurses, and as Pittman discovered, the elevators in this section were faster, perhaps because fewer people used them.
Retracing this route created such vivid memories that he sensed Jeremy next to him as he passed a private ambulance parked outside this exit. It was gray. It had no hospital markings. But through a gap in curtains drawn across the back windows, Pittman saw a light, an oxygen unit, various medical monitors. A man wearing an attendant’s white coat was checking some equipment.
Then Pittman was beyond the ambulance, whose engine was running, although its headlights were off. He noticed a stocky man in a dark suit drop the butt of a cigarette into a puddle and come to attention, seeing Pittman. You must really have needed a cigarette, Pittman thought, to stand out here in the rain.
Nodding to the man, who didn’t nod back, Pittman reached for the doorknob and noticed that the light was out above the entrance. He stepped inside, went up four steps to an echoey concrete landing, and noticed another stocky man in a dark suit, this one leaning against the wall next to where the stairs turned upward. The man’s face had a hard expression with squinted, calculating eyes.
Pittman didn’t need the stairs; instead, he went forward, across the landing, through a door to a brightly lit hospital corridor. The pungent, acrid, too-familiar odors of food, antiseptic, and medicine assaulted him. When Pittman used to come here daily to visit Jeremy, the odors had been constantly present, on every floor, day or night. The odors had stuck to Pittman’s clothes. For several weeks after Jeremy’s death, he had smelled them on his jackets, his shirts, his pants.
The vividness of the painful memories caused by the odors distracted Pittman, making him falter in confusion. Did he really want to put himself through this? This was the first time he’d been back inside the hospital. Would the torture be worth it just to please Burt?
The elevator doors were directly across from the door through which he had entered the corridor. If he went ahead, he suspected that his impulse would be to go up to the tenth floor and what had been Jeremy’s room rather than to go to the sixth floor, where Millgate was and where Jeremy had died in intensive care.
Abruptly a movement on Pittman’s right disturbed him. A large-chested man stepped away from the wall next to the door Pittman had used. His position had prevented Pittman from noticing him when he came toward the elevators. The man wore an oversized wind-breaker.
“Can I help?” The man sounded as if he’d swallowed broken glass. “You lost? You need directions?”
“Not lost. Confused.” The man’s aggressive tone made Pittman’s body tighten. His instincts warned him not to tell the truth. “I’ve got a sick boy on the tenth floor. The nurses let me see him at night. But sometimes I can barely force myself to go up there.”
“Sick, huh? Bad?”
“Cancer.”
“Yeah, that’s bad.”
But the man obviously didn’t care, and he’d made Pittman feel so apprehensive, his stomach so fluttery, that Pittman had answered with the most innocent, believable story he could think of. He certainly wasn’t going to explain his real reason for coming to the hospital to a man whose oversized windbreaker concealed something that made a distinct, ominous bulge on the left side of his waist.
Footsteps made Pittman turn. He faced yet another solemn, stocky man, this one wearing an overcoat. The man had been standing against the wall on the opposite side of the door from where the man in the windbreaker had been standing. Neither man had rain spots on his coat. The rain had started fifteen minutes previously, so they must have been waiting in this corridor at least that long, Pittman thought. Why? Recalling the man who’d been smoking outside and the man in the stairwell, he inwardly frowned.
“Then you’d better get up and see your boy,” the second man said.
“Right.” More uneasy, Pittman reached to press the elevator’s up button when he heard a ding and the doors suddenly opened. Loud voices assaulted him.
“I won’t be responsible for this!”
“No one’s asking you to be responsible. He’s my patient now.”
The elevator compartment was crammed. A man on a gurney with an oxygen mask over his face and an intravenous tube leading into his left arm was being quickly wheeled out by two white-coated attendants. A nurse swiftly followed, holding an intravenous bottle above the patient. A thin, intense young man was arguing with an older red-faced man who had a stethoscope around his neck and a clipboard with what looked like a medical file in his hand.
“But the risk of—”
“I said he’s my responsibility.”
The young man surged from the elevator just as Pittman felt hands behind him grab his arms and pull him back out of the way. The gurney, the two attendants, the nurse, and the young man hurried past him toward the door to the stairwell. As the man with the stethoscope charged out, trying to stop them, two dark-suited, solemn, well-built men—they also had been in the elevator—veered ahead of him and formed a blockade.
“Damn it, if you don’t get out of my way—”
“Relax, doctor. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Pittman squirmed, pained by the force of the hands that gripped him from behind. Through the window in the
stairwell door, he saw the man who’d been waiting on the landing dart forward to open the door. The attendants pushed the gurney through, then lifted it, hurrying with it down the stairs to the exit from the hospital. Although restrained, Pittman was able to turn his head enough to see the man who’d been smoking in the rain yank the outside door open.
The attendants rushed with the gurney, disappearing into the night along with the nurse and the thin, intense man. The somber, stocky men retreated, letting go of Pittman, moving swiftly into the stairwell, down the stairs, through the outside door.
The man with the stethoscope trembled. “By God, I’ll phone the police. They can’t—”
Pittman didn’t stay to hear the rest of his sentence. What he heard instead were repeated thunks as doors to the private ambulance outside were opened and closed. He ran down the stairs. Peering out toward the drizzle-misted darkness, he saw the private ambulance pull away, a dark Oldsmobile following.
Immediately he lunged into the chilling rain. Seeing frost come out of his mouth, he raced through puddles toward the street corner opposite the Emergency entrance. From having come to the hospital so often with Jeremy, he knew the easiest places to hail a taxi late at night, and the corner across from Emergency was one of the best.
An empty taxi veered around a curve, almost striking Pittman as he ran across toward the corner.
“Watch it, buddy!”
Pittman scrambled in. “My father’s in that private ambulance.” He pointed toward where, a block ahead, the ambulance and the dark Oldsmobile were stopped at a traffic light. “He’s being taken for emergency treatment to another hospital. Keep up with them.”
“What’s wrong with this hospital?”
“They don’t have a machine he needs. Hurry. Please.” Pittman gave the driver twenty dollars.
The taxi sped forward.
Pittman sat anxiously in the backseat, wiping rain from his forehead, catching his breath. What the hell was going on? he wondered. Although the oxygen mask had concealed the face of the patient on the gurney, Pittman had noticed the man’s wrinkled, liver-spotted hands, his slack-skinned neck, and his wispy white hair. Obviously old. That wasn’t much to go on, but Pittman had the eerie conviction that the man on the gurney was Jonathan Millgate.
15
“I thought you said they were taking your father to another hospital,” the taxi driver said.
“They are.”
“Not in New York City, they ain’t. In case you haven’t noticed, we just reached New Rochelle.”
Pittman listened to the rhythmic tap of the taxi’s windshield wipers. As tires hissed on wet pavement, he concentrated to provide an explanation. “The ambulance has a two-way radio. Maybe they called ahead and the hospital they were going to didn’t have the machine they needed.”
“Where I live over on Long Island, they’ve got plenty of good hospitals. I don’t know why they didn’t head there. What’s wrong with your father, anyhow?”
“Heart disease.”
“Yeah, my brother has a bad ticker. Thirty years of smoking. Poor bastard. Can hardly walk across the room. You better hope your father’s strong enough to hang on, because it doesn’t look like the ambulance is gonna stop here in New Rochelle. Christ, at this rate, we’ll soon be in Connecticut.”
Headlights gleamed in the rain.
“I’d better let my dispatcher know what’s going on,” the driver said. “Listen, I’m sorry about your father and all, but buddy, this long a trip needs special arrangements. If we end up in Stamford or some damned place like that, I won’t be able to get a fare to come back to the city. I’m gonna have to charge you both ways.”
“I’ll pay it.”
“How?”
Rain tapped the roof.
“What? I’m sorry… I wasn’t listening.”
“How are you gonna pay me? You got the cash? Rough estimate—we’re talking over a hundred bucks.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll get paid.”
“But I do worry. I need to know if you’ve got the cash to—Wait a second. Looks like they figured out where they’re going.”
The sign at the turnoff heading north said SCARSDALE/WHITE PLAINS.
16
“What’s all those trees to the right?”
“Looks like a park,” Pittman said.
“Or a damned forest. Man, we’re way out in the country. I knew I shouldn’ta done this. How am I gonna find a fare back to the city from way out here?”
“We’re not in the country. Look at those big houses on your left. This is some kind of expensive subdivision. There’s a sign up ahead. Yeah. SAXON WOODS PARK AND GOLF CLUB. I told you we’re not in the country.”
“Well, either the guys in that ambulance plan to take your father golfing or—Hold it. They’re slowing down.”
So did the taxi driver.
“They’re turning off,” Pittman said. “There, to the right.”
The driver kept going, passing a high stone wall and a gated driveway. As the red taillights of the ambulance and the Oldsmobile receded into the darkness, the gate—tall, made of wrought-iron bars—swung electronically back into place.
“Funny how these days they make hospitals to look like mansions,” the driver said. “What the hell’s going on, buddy?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“What?”
“I honestly don’t know. My father’s really sick. I expected…”
“Say, this isn’t about drugs, is it?”
Pittman was too confused to answer.
“I asked you a question.”
“It’s not about drugs. You saw the ambulance leave the hospital.”
“Sure. Right. Well, I don’t plan to spend the rest of the night driving around Scarsdale. At least I think that’s where we are. Ride’s over, buddy. You’ve got two choices—head back with me or get out right now. Either way, you’re paying both ways.”
The driver turned the taxi around.
“Okay, let me out where they left the road,” Pittman said.
The driver switched off his headlights, stopping fifty yards from the gate. “In case it’s not a good idea to advertise that you followed them.”
“I’m telling you, this isn’t about drugs.”
“Yeah. Sure. You owe me a hundred and fifteen bucks.”
Pittman groped in his pockets. “I already gave you twenty.”
“What are you talking about? That’s supposed to be my tip.”
“But I don’t have that much cash.”
“What? I asked you earlier if—”
“I’ve got a credit card.”
“That’s useless to me! This cab ain’t rigged to take it!”
“Then I’m going to have to give you a check.”
“Give me a break! Do I look like the trusting type? The last time I took a check from a guy, it—”
“Hey, I told you I don’t have the cash. I’d give you my watch, but it isn’t worth fifteen dollars.”
“A check,” the driver muttered. “This fucking job.”
After Pittman wrote the check and gave it to him, the driver studied the address at the top of the check. “Let me see your driver’s license.” He wrote down Pittman’s Social Security number. “If this check bounces, buddy…”
“I promise it won’t.”
“Well, if it does, I’m gonna come to your apartment and break both your legs.”
“Just make sure you cash it before a week from Saturday.”
“What’s so special about a week from Saturday?”
“I won’t be around.” Pittman got out of the car, thankful that the rain had lessened to a mist, and watched the taxi pull away in the darkness. A distance down the road, the driver switched his headlights on.
17
In the silence, Pittman suddenly felt isolated. Shoving his hands in his overcoat pockets for warmth, he walked along the side of the road. The shoulder was gravel, its sandy bed sufficiently softened by the rai
n that his shoes made only a slight scraping sound. There weren’t any streetlights. Pittman strained his eyes, but he could barely see the wall that loomed on his left. He came to a different shade of darkness and realized that he’d reached the barred gate.
Without touching it, he peered through. Far along a driveway, past trees and shrubs, lights glowed in what seemed to be a mansion.
What now? he thought. It’s two o’clock in the morning. It’s drizzling. I’m cold. I’m God knows where. I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital. I shouldn’t have followed the ambulance. I shouldn’t have…
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he studied the top of the gate, then shook his head. He was fairly certain that he could climb over it, but he was even more certain that there’d be some kind of intrusion sensor up there. Before Jeremy’s death and Pittman’s nervous breakdown, he had worked for a time on the newspaper’s Sunday magazine. One of his articles had been about a man whom Pittman had nicknamed “the Bugmaster.” The man was an expert in intrusion detectors and other types of security equipment—for example, eavesdropping devices, otherwise known as bugs, ergo the Bugmaster. Enjoying Pittman’s enthusiasm about information, the Bugmaster had explained his profession in detail, and Pittman’s prodigious memory for facts had retained it all.
A place this size, Pittman knew, was bound to have a security system, and as the Bugmaster had pointed out, you never go over a wall or a gate without first scouting the barriers to make sure you’re not activating a sensor. But at this hour, in the dark, Pittman didn’t see how he could scout anything.
So what the hell are you going to do? You should have gone back to Manhattan with the taxi driver. What did you think you’d accomplish by hanging around out here in the rain?
Through the bars of the gate, a light attracted Pittman’s attention.
Desperate Measures Page 4