Desperate Measures

by David Morrell

  bandage around the hand. Blood soaked through the first layer. Jill

  bandaged faster, adding layer after layer.

  "You'd better hope this stops the bleeding, or you'll be going to the

  hospital whether you like it or not," she said.

  Pittman stared at the thick padding around his hand. A portion of it

  turned pink, but it didn't spread.

  "One more layer for good luck." Jill wrapped it again. "Now let's get

  you into the living room and up on the sofa."

  "I'm fine," Pittman said. "I can do it myself."

  "Yeah, sure, right." Jill lifted him, putting an arm around him as his

  knees bent.

  The sunlit living room turned shadowy for a moment. Then Pittman was on

  the sofa. "Lie down."

  "Look, I really am sorry."

  "Put your feet on this pillow. I want them higher than your head."

  "I wouldn't have come here if there was any other way t, "Stop talking.

  You sound out of breath. Lie still. I'm going to get you some water."

  Pittman closed his eyes. The next thing he knew, Jill was cradling his

  head, helping him to drink.

  "If you don't feel queasy after this, I'll get you some juice. Do you

  think you could eat? Would you like something bland like toast?"

  "Eat?"

  "You make it sound like a new idea."

  "The last time I ... You could say my meals have been irregular. "

  Jill frowned harder. "Your overcoat's torn. Your pants have dirt on

  them, as if you've been crawling on the ground. -What's going on? How

  did you get hurt?"

  "A broken window." I 'You look like you've been in a fight." Pittman

  didn't answer. "We're not going to get anywhere if you're not honest,"

  Jill said. "I'm taking a big chance by helping you."

  "I know"

  you're not a policeman. You're Matthew Pittman, and the police are

  hunting you."

  The shock of her statement brought Pittman upright. "No," Jill said.

  "Don't try to sit."

  "How long have you-?"

  "Lie back down. How long have I known? Since about thirty seconds

  after you started talking to me at the hospital. "

  "Dear God." This time when Pittman tried to sit up, Jill put a hand on

  his chest.

  "Stay down. I wasn't kidding. If the bleeding doesn't stop, you'll

  have to go to a hospital."

  Pittman studied her and nodded. Adrenaline offset his lightheadedness.

  "Matt."

  "What?"

  "You called me Matthew. My friends call me Matt."

  "Does that mean I'm supposed to think of you as a friend?"

  "Hey, it's better than thinking of me as an enemy."

  "And you're not?"

  "Would you believe me if I said no?"

  "It's not as if you never lied to me before."

  "Look, I don't get it. If you knew who I was at the hospital, why

  didn't you call the police?"

  "What makes you think I didn't? What if I told you I played along with

  your charade because I was afraid of you?

  You might have hurt me if I let on I knew who you really were."

  "Did you phone the police?"

  "You don't remember me, do you?" Jill asked.

  "Remember? Where would we have . - . '?"

  "I'm not surprised. You were under a lot of stress. About as much as

  anybody can take."

  "I still don't - . ."

  "It's only in the last six months that I've been working in adult

  intensive care."

  Pittman shook his head in confusion.

  "Before that, I worked in the children's section. I left because I

  couldn't stand seeing ... I was one of Jeremy's nurses."

  Pittman felt as if his stomach had turned to ice.

  "I was on duty the night Jeremy died," Jill said. "In fact, I'd been on

  duty all that week. You'd received permission to sit in a corner of the

  room and watch over him. Sometimes you'd ask me about the meaning of

  some of the numbers on his life-support machines. Or you'd get a look at

  his chart and ask me what some of the terms meant. But you weren't

  really seeing me. Your sole attention was toward Jeremy. You had a

  book with you, and sometimes if everything was quiet, you'd read a page

  or two, but then you'd raise your eyes and study Jeremy, study his

  monitors, study Jeremy again. I got the feelingthat you were focusing

  all your will, all your energy and prayers, as if by concentrating, you

  could transfer your strength to Jeremy and cure him."

  Pittman's mouth felt suddenly dry. "That's what I thought. Dumb, huh?"

  Jill's eyes glistened. "No, it was one of the most moving things I've

  ever seen."

  Pittman tried to sit up, groping for the glass of water on the table

  beside the sofa.

  "Here, let me help." Jill raised the glass to his lips.

  "Why do you keep looking at me that way?" Pittman asked.

  "I remember," Jill said, "how you helped take care of Jeremy. Little

  things. Like dipping a washcloth into ice water and rubbing it over him

  to try to bring down his fever. He was in a coma by then, but all the

  while you washed him, you were talking to him as if he could hear every

  word you said.

  Pittman squinted, painfully remembering. "I was sure he could. I

  thought if I got deep enough into his mind, he'd respond to what I was

  telling him and wake up."

  Jill nodded. "And then his feet began curling. The doctor told you to

  massage them and his legs, to try to keep Jeremy's muscles limber so

  they wouldn't atrophy."

  "Sure." Pittman felt pressure in his throat. "And when his feet still

  kept curling, I put his shoes on him for an hour, then took them off,

  then put them on in another hour, After all, when Jeremy would finally

  come out of the coma, when his cancer would finally be cured, I wanted

  him to be able to walk normally."

  Jill's blue eyes became intense. "I watched you every night of my shift

  all that week. I couldn't get over your devotion. In fact, even though

  I was due for two days off, I asked to stay on the case. I was there

  when Jeremy went into crisis, when he had his heart attack."

  Pittman had trouble breathing.

  "So when I read the newspapers and learned all the murders you were

  supposed to have committed, I didn't believe it," Jill said. "Yes, the

  newspapers theorized you were so over come with grief that you were

  suicidal, that you wanted to take other people with you. But after

  watching you for a week in intensive care, I knew you were so gentle,

  you couldn't possibly inflict pain on anyone. Not deliberately. Perhaps

  on yourself. But not on anyone else."

  "You must have been surprised when I showed up at the hospital.

  "I couldn't understand what was going on. If you were suicidal and on a

  killing rampage, why would you come to the intensive-care ward? Why

  would you pretend to be a detective and ask about Jonathan Millgate's

  last night in the ward? That's not how a guilty person would act. But

  it is how a person who's been trapped would act in order to get answers,

  to try to prove he didn't do what the police said he did. "

  "I appreciate your trust."

  "Hey, I'm not gullible. But I saw the way you suffered when your son

  died. I've never seen anyone
love anybody harder. I thought maybe you

  had a break coming."

  "So you let me pretend I was a detective."

  "What was I supposed to do, admit I knew who you were?

  You'd have panicked. Right now, you'd be in jail

  "Or dead."

  A knock on the door made Pittman flinch. He frowned toward Jill. "Are

  you expecting anyone?"

  Jill looked puzzled. "No."

  "Did you lock the door after I came in?"

  "Of course. This is New York."

  Again someone knocked.

  Pittman mustered the strength to stand. "Bring my overcoat. Put those

  bandages under the sink in the kitchen. As soon as I'm out of sight in

  the closet, open the door, but don't let on that I'm here." The third

  knock was louder. "Open up. This is the police. Jill turned toward

  Pittman.

  "The police," he said. "Maybe. But maybe not. Don't tell them I'm

  here." Apprehension overcame his unsteadiness. He took the overcoat

  Jill gave him. "Pretend you were sleeping. "But what if it is the

  police and they find you?"

  "Tell them I scared you into lying." Someone knocked even harder,

  rattling the door. Jill raised her voice. "Just a moment." She looked

  at Pittman.

  He gently touched her arm. "You have to trust me. Please. Don't tell

  them I'm here."

  As he hurried toward the closet, he didn't let Jill see the .45 he took

  from his overcoat pocket. Heart pounding, he entered, stood between

  coats, and closed the door, waiting in darkness, feeling smothered.

  After a moment during which he assumed Jill was hiding any further

  indication that he had come to the apartment, Pittman heard her put the

  chain on the main door, then unlock the dead bolt. He imagined her

  opening the door only to the slight limit of the chain, peering through

  a gap in the doorway.

  "Yes? How can I help you?"

  "What took you so long?"

  "You woke me up. I work nights. I was sleeping."

  Let us in."

  "Not until I see your ID."

  Startled, Pittman heard a crash, the sound of wood splintering, the door

  being shoved open, the chain being yanked out of the doorjamb.

  Heavy footsteps pounded into the hallway. The door was slammed shut.

  Someone locked it.

  "Hey, what are you-?"

  "Where is he, lady?"

  "Who?"

  "Pittman."

  "Who?"

  "Don't look so damn innocent. We know he came up here. one of our men

  was watching this place and called us. After Pittman went to the

  priest, we figured he might be making the rounds to anybody else who'd

  talked to Millgate before he died. And we were right."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "I checked the bedroom, " another voice said. "Nothing.

  "Is there a back wayout of here, lady?"

  "No one in the bathroom," a third voice said.

  "Answer me, lady. Damn it, is there a back wayout of here?"

  "You're hurting me."

  "He's not in this closet,"

  "Check the one in the hall."

  "Where is he, lady?"

  As Jill screamed, Pittman heard footsteps approach the closet. A

  heavyset man yanked the door open, exhaled at the sight of Pittman,

  raised a pistol with a silencer, and lurched back as Pittman shot him.

  The gun's report was amplified so loudly by the confines of the closet

  that Pittman's ears rang fiercely. He surged from the closet and aimed

  the .45 at two husky men in the living room, one of whom was twisting

  Jill's arm so severely that she'd sunk to her knees, her face contorted

  with pain.

  They both had silenced pistols, but as they spun, startled, the frenzied

  look on Pittman's face made them freeze. "Raise your hands!" Pittman

  screamed.

  Seeing the outraged expression on his face, staring at the .45's barrel,

  they obeyed. Jill fell away.

  "Take it easy," one man said. "The way you're shaking, that gun might

  go off on its own."

  "Right," the other man said. "Don't make it any worse for yourself.

  We're police officers."

  "In your dreams. Keep your hands up. Drop the guns behind you."

  They seemed to calculate their chances.

  "Do it!" Pittman tensed his finger on the .45's trigger. The guns

  thunked onto the floor.

  Pittman walked past Jill, picked up one of the silenced pistols, and

  shook less violently-because after he'd left the church, there had been

  only one bullet left in the .45, and he had used it on the man who had

  opened the closet door. There'd been no time to grab that man's pistol.

  In order to catch the remaining gunmen off guard, he'd been forced to

  threaten them with an empty weapon, first making sure to press the lever

  that closed the .45's ejection slide so they wouldn't realize the weapon

  was empty, easing it shut so they wouldn't hear a noise.

  The men had slammed and locked the main door after they entered.

  Now someone else was banging on the door, a frail, worried voice asking,

  "Jill? Are you all right?"

  Pittman frowned at her. "Who is it?"

  "The old man who lives next door."

  "Tell him you're not dressed or else you'd open the door.

  Tell him you had the TV too loud."

  As Jill moved down the hall, Pittman ordered the men, "Open your

  jackets. Lift them by the shoulders." Two years ago, he'd done a story

  about training techniques at the police academy. An instructor had

  invited him to participate in a session about subduing hostile

  prisoners. He strained to remember what he'd learned.

  When the men lifted their jackets, Pittman walked around them. He

  didn't see any other weapons. That didn't mean there weren't any,

  however. "Down on your knees."

  "Listen, Pittman."

  "I guess you don't think I'd shoot you the same as I shot your buddy."

  "No, I'm a believer."

  "Then get down on your knees. Good. Now cross your ankles. Link your

  fingers behind your necks." As the men assumed that awkward position,

  Jill returned.

  "Did Your neighbor believe you?"

  "I think so," Jill said.

  "Wonderful. "

  "No. He says when he heard the shot, before he knocked on my door, he

  called the police."

  "Christ, " Pittman said. "You'd better hurry. put on some clothes. We

  have to tie these men up and get out of here."

  "We?"

  "You heard what they said. After I went to the priest, they figured I

  might try to see anyone else who had talked to Millgate before he died."

  "What Priest?"

  "The One you told me about. Father Dandridge. Look, I don't have time

  to explain. The Priest is dead. They killed him. And I'm afraid they

  think you know too much. you might be next."

  "The police will protect me."

  "But these men said they were the police."

  Jill stared at the gunmen on the floor, her eyes wide with

  understanding.

  while she dressed quickly, Pittman used bandages and surgical tape to

  bind the gunmen's arms and legs . Hearing police sirens, he and Jill

  ran nervously from her apartment. Neighbors, frightened by the gunshot,

  peered from Part
ially open doors, then slammed and locked the doors when

  they saw Pittman charging along the hallway.

  He reached the elevator but then thought better. "We might be trapped

  in there. Grabbing Jill's hand, he rushed toward the stairs. She

  resisted only a moment, then hurried with him. Her apartment was on the

  fifth floor, and they rapidly reached the third floor, then the second.

  on the ground floor, they faltered, hearing sirens approaching.

  "where does that door lead?" Pittman breathed deeply, pointing toward a

  door at the end of the corridor behind him . It was the only one that

  didn't have a number on it. It had a red light over it. "is that an

  exit?"

  "Yes, but-"