Flashpoint

by Ed Gorman

  ‘I’d like that. I’ll just have to see how it goes here.’

  ‘Sure. Well, good luck.’

  By the time I got back to my seat Detective Farnsworth was talking to the woman at the desk. When he saw me he excused himself and walked over. He took the chair next to me. ‘When I was a kid I always liked horror films that were set in hospitals. You like horror films, Mr Conrad?’

  ‘A few of them. But not the gory ones.’

  ‘I’m the same way. The gory ones turn me off. My fourteen-year-old son talked me into going to see one recently and I barely got through it.’

  ‘You don’t look old enough to have a fourteen-year-old son.’

  ‘I also have a sixteen-year-old daughter. I run a check on all her dates.’

  I laughed. ‘You tell her you do it?’

  ‘Hell, no. She’d never speak to me again.’

  Easy to know what we were doing. He was trying to make us momentary friends so I’d tell him more than I already had. Since I knew how these things worked – had worked a few of them myself – I wondered if he had a son and daughter at all.

  He stretched long legs out in front of him. He still wore his overcoat.

  ‘You working with Howie Ruskin now, Mr Conrad?’

  ‘I thought we were talking about horror movies.’

  ‘From what the ambulance crew told me, Ruskin is a horror movie.’

  ‘I wouldn’t argue with that.’

  ‘When we were sitting in your Jeep you said he called you.’

  ‘His girlfriend set it up. Just as I said.’

  ‘Any particular reason he wanted to talk to you?’

  ‘My favorite horror movie is still Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The one with Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter.’

  He smiled with great tolerance. ‘Too bad you’re not a priest or a lawyer or even a private investigator, Mr Conrad. That way you could proclaim client privilege. This way you’re shit out of luck. If I take you to the station and Hammell starts asking you questions, he won’t be happy if you bring up a movie called Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He won’t be happy if you bring up any movie at all, in fact. You’ll actually have to answer his questions.’

  But it was then that an angel in the form of a nurse appeared before us, backlit by the soft bluish light of the ER desk, and said, ‘Detective Farnsworth, the doctor said you could talk to Mr Ruskin now. If you’d follow me, please.’

  As he was pushing up from the chair, he said, ‘I shouldn’t be too long, Mr Conrad. I mean, if that’s all right with you.’

  The nurse, a middle-aged woman, caught his sarcasm and then glanced at me to see how I was reacting to it.

  But I didn’t give either of them the satisfaction they wanted. I just sat there expressionless and silent. Finally, seeming confused, she said, ‘This way, Detective Farnsworth.’

  Farnsworth was in a hurry when he reappeared. The brisk walk, the curt nod to me, the intense expression – there might have been a break in the beating of the convenience-store woman. He half-jogged the rest of the way until he disappeared through the doors down the hall.

  It was another fifteen minutes before a red-haired woman in doctor whites came down the hall from the right and walked straight to me. About thirty, I guessed, trim, glasses with dark frames, not unattractive. ‘Are you Mr Conrad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Doctor Olsen. Mr Ruskin has asked to see you.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘We took the bullet out. He’ll need rest but he should be fine.’ A smile. ‘He’s quite the character.’

  ‘You noticed that, huh?’

  ‘He says you’re a good friend of his.’

  By now I was on my feet. After she said that I thought about sitting down again. I was afraid I’d pass out. ‘That’s strange.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Actually, I hate him.’

  She studied my face to see if I was joking. I think she gave up. ‘Let’s go see him.’

  We didn’t talk until we were in a large room where there were four other beds, all empty now. Curtains could be pulled for privacy.

  He was propped up on pillows, studying a smart phone with the intensity of a bookie surveying the latest results from the track. He was doing this one-handed. His left arm was in a blue sling. He was in a light-green hospital gown. His hair was wilder than usual, the operatic tentacles of a madman. When he saw me, he said, ‘Hey, dude. I bet you were scared. I wasn’t.’

  ‘Right. I noticed that being shot didn’t bother you at all. You were screaming because you were so happy.’

  ‘Can you believe this guy, Doc? His sarcasm?’

  She was eager to leave. ‘I’ll leave you two alone for ten minutes. Then I’ll be back.’

  The metal sides on the bed were up. On the rolling table next to the bed was a 7UP and a glass full of ice. Then there was the rosary. Howie Ruskin had a rosary? But somehow that fit his reality. He was this thirty-eight-year-old near-genius who wanted to pay the world back for a lot of different reasons. The rosary surprised me because he always denied being associated with the right-wing religious nuts, claiming he was a non-believer. I didn’t know many non-believers who carried rosaries.

  I expected to hear more of his patter but instead he said, ‘You have to hide me, Conrad. That’s the first thing. You have to figure out where I’ll be safe while we’re setting everything up.’

  ‘You’re way ahead of me. First of all, why do I have to hide you? You’re the one who knows all the bad guys.’

  ‘Great. Somebody’s trying to kill me and you’re getting sanctimonious.’

  ‘Back up a minute. Who’s trying to kill you?’

  ‘The people who hired me.’

  ‘Why would they try to kill you?’

  He winced – the first indication that he was in pain. ‘Because there’s already some jerk from the US Attorney’s office on my case. He left a message on my phone. That’s why I had to get the hell out of the hotel. They’re afraid with him involved I might get indicted. And that if I get indicted I might talk. It’d be safer to get rid of me.’

  So he knew Hawkins was on his case; that, at least, was true. ‘This isn’t just paranoid bullshit?’

  The childlike eyes. ‘Does it sound like paranoid bullshit?’

  ‘Yeah, it does.’

  ‘I can deliver names and dates of a lot of things. And you’re making shit out of me.’

  The hell of it was the hurt feelings were sincere. A real grown-up would try to hide them, but then nobody had ever said that Howie was a real grown-up, had they?

  He closed his eyes. Rested. I didn’t blame him. I’d been surprised at how active he was.

  ‘Howie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why did you kill her?’

  He lay still, but smiled. ‘I knew you were trying to nail me for killing her. You’re so fucking stupid maybe I shouldn’t get involved with you after all.’

  ‘That’s not exactly a denial.’

  His eyes opened and he bellered: ‘Of course I didn’t kill her, Conrad. Howie Ruskin doesn’t kill people.’

  Overlooking the fact that he was referring to himself in the third person, I found his resentment at my question believable. At least for now.

  ‘How about this? I’m going to put you in my hotel room. There are two beds. Then I’m going to hire somebody with a gun to stand guard just inside the door.’

  He was fading. ‘They gave me … a … pill.’

  I let him doze off and walked to the door. When I leaned out to look up and down the hall I saw Dr Olsen talking to a nurse who held a clipboard. Clipboards don’t cost that much but in a hospital setting they can look imposing and important. Maybe the nurse was showing her some of the doodles she’d come up with tonight.

  The doctor saw me, said goodbye to the nurse and walked up to me. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

  ‘He nodded off.’

  ‘It’s about time. He never quit talkin
g. I was impressed.’

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘Somebody needs to take him home with some pain meds and some instructions I have for his caregiver. He keeps talking about a woman. Sarah.’

  ‘His girlfriend. She’ll take care of him.’

  ‘How does she put up with him?’

  ‘One of the mysteries of life.’

  ‘Can I give you his meds and the instructions? I’ll have to get his permission.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a shirt, either.’

  I remembered his sport coat. ‘I’ll warm up the car.’

  ‘You’ll have to sign some papers taking legal responsibility for seeing that he is taken care of.’

  ‘I’ll be happy to do that.’

  She paused and gazes met. ‘I still don’t understand your relationship. I’m bothered by the fact that you said you hated him and you didn’t seem to be kidding.’

  ‘I wasn’t kidding. But don’t you work with patients you hate but you take good care of them anyway?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say “hate,” but there are people who certainly piss me off.’ I like it when docs swear. A human touch.

  ‘Well, that’s what I’m doing here. Howie is an old political enemy of mine. But now – for a reason I won’t go into – I have given my word to Howie that I’m going to make sure that he’s safe.’

  ‘Safe from what?’

  ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten, Doctor. Somebody shot him tonight.’

  ‘I hardly forgot, Mr Conrad. I was the one who worked on him, remember? I’m simply asking why the police won’t be keeping him safe.’

  Speaking of people being pissed off, that was what she was doing to me. She was going to gnaw on this forever. ‘Howie and I are now what you’d call circumstantial buddies. He’ll be fine with me. If the police want to talk to him just tell them he’s staying with me in my room at the Regency.’ I put just enough irritation in my voice so she’d finally let it all go.

  She nodded but her expression said she not only didn’t like me, she didn’t trust me either. ‘I need to go see him now. Get his permission so you can take over.’

  She left abruptly with no other words.

  Jane was at the registration desk when I arrived there, looking smart and fresh in her blue Burberry coat, her hair slightly mussed by the winds. Her smile was the first thing I’d had to be happy about for a long, long time. When I walked over to her she touched my arm and it was like receiving a blessing from on high. ‘You look exhausted, Dev. Are you all right?’

  She said this quietly as we moved over to the chairs. She smelled of wind, rain, chill, perfume and woman. I wanted to dive into her.

  I spent a few whispered moments bringing her up to date on the evening. She kept shaking her head as I described the shooting and the immediate aftermath.

  But Jane was fixed on Ruskin. ‘I don’t understand. Who exactly is he afraid of?’

  ‘From what I can tell, the people he’s working for.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘He knows the police’ll keep on questioning him. And so will Hawkins from the US Attorney’s office. Ruskin knows enough to put a pretty fair number of people in prison and to launch a lot of scandals. He’s dangerous. He’s under the impression that I can get him to the right people in the Administration and they can protect him in exchange for immunity if he tells them everything.’

  ‘I doubt he’d ever get blanket immunity, and that’s what he’d be after.’

  ‘You know that and I know that but we’re dealing with Ruskin here. He thinks he’s got enough leverage to pull it off. By the way, he hasn’t said much of this to me. But I’m pretty sure this is the general drift of what he’s got in mind.’

  ‘What are the chances he killed the Cabot woman?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s not the type. And he’d know enough that his masters would have to have him killed if he did it. That’s what he’s fighting against now. They’ll blame him for it going wrong anyway, even though he had nothing to do with it. But now I’m going out to get the car started. And I want to check on something.’

  She nodded. ‘So I’m going to meet the notorious Howie Ruskin.’

  ‘If he’s awake he’ll undoubtedly put the moves on you.’

  ‘Somehow I think I’ll be able to resist him.’

  I needed the cold air and the wind. I needed to be revived. I needed to think clearly. I passed a blue-suited security woman on my way out.

  ‘I’m going to pull my Jeep up here. Warm it up for somebody I have to take home. Would you watch it for me?’

  I took her hand and put a crisp twenty in it.

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

  The wind slapped me in the face and the rain soaked my head. I opened the Jeep remotely then climbed in and fired it up. Once I had it going for a couple of minutes, the heater going full tilt, I got out and locked it up again.

  And then I went to the back of it and felt under the bumper.

  As I’d suspected, a nice little tracking device had been planted there. Somebody had been following me all right.

  EIGHTEEN

  Ruskin didn’t put the moves on Jane. He didn’t do much of anything except slump down in the wheelchair that I stashed him in to get him to the Jeep. I used another wheelchair at the hotel to get him into an elevator, then the back door and a freight elevator in case a stray reporter who was staying there happened to notice who I was wheeling around. If we were spotted, we’d be the lead story on most of the morning cable news shows. Probably the network news shows, too, actually. Who shot Howie Ruskin last night? What did the shooting have to do with Senator Logan? Why was Logan’s consultant Dev Conrad pushing Ruskin around in a wheelchair and trying to sneak him into a hotel? Political junkies would have tears of joy and gratitude streaming down their cheeks.

  I’d given Jane the room card. She’d gone ahead to get the bed set up and to request an electric blanket. I’d called before we arrived to make sure that somebody would be at the back door with a wheelchair and that they would lead me to the proper elevator.

  So now here I was, pushing the slumbering Ruskin into my room.

  ‘He’s really out,’ Jane said as we struggled to lift him out of the chair and sit him on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Can you hold him there for just a minute?’

  ‘Sure.’

  My suitcase was on the other bed. I threw it open and grabbed a T-shirt, brought it up and slipped it over his head.

  As she appraised my work as if it were a painting she was thinking of buying, her smile got wider and wider. ‘It fits like Spanx.’

  ‘We’ll get his girlfriend to bring him some clothes.’

  ‘Have you heard from her?’

  ‘No. I have her cell number but she didn’t answer.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘It sure doesn’t. But for right now let’s get him comfortable.’

  Jane grabbed the pillows from the other bed so we could prop him up. I tugged his black boots with the tall heels on them. They also had lifts. He didn’t screw around when it came to making himself taller. Then came his jeans. He was in red boxer shorts and white socks. Those stayed on. We covered him up right away so he wouldn’t get cold. There was a knock on the door.

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  I was accompanied by my Glock. The shooting and the tracking device had changed everything. I eased open the door by inches. A young woman in a red blazer, white blouse and black skirt – the hotel’s uniform – stood there with a blanket in her hands. The electric one. I had to take it with one hand. I kept my other one, the one with the Glock, behind my back. ‘Thank you very much.’

  When I got back to the bed Jane was talking to him. ‘Are you comfortable?’

  He sounded drunk. ‘I told her but she wouldn’t listen.’

  Jane put her hand to his forehead. ‘He feels a little cold. Are you cold?’

  ‘Am I … cold?’

>   His eyes were open but I didn’t think his eyes and mind were forming a coherent picture of Jane. ‘Sleep …’

  ‘All right. That’s a good idea. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Hear … you?’ The round face with the small, perfect nose was blanched white from the physical shock. The eyes tried to focus on Jane but I don’t think they succeeded. ‘I warned her …’

  ‘You sleep now. If you want anything we’re right here. You’ll feel better in the morning and we’ll get you a very nice breakfast.’

  He said something I didn’t understand and then his chunky body rolled over on its side. He yawned, and then he farted, and then rested like some machine that had abruptly run out of power. His breathing was ragged but steady.

  She touched a finger to her lips and then led me over to the window where a small couch awaited. The midnight city was painted on the glass. Lights of red and green and yellow and white; the part of the main drag that passed through the downtown area still busy; the college toward the east lit from below; several large housing developments divided by a mall and other shopping areas; and the pulsing lights of the distant airport.

  ‘I love this old town,’ she said.

  ‘You’d never move?’

  ‘Probably not. I’m sort of a hometown girl and I know that probably sounds ridiculous. This isn’t exactly a cultural center.’

  ‘Neither are big cities except in certain places. They’re just a lot of small towns sharing the same turf.’

  She slid her arm through mine. Then kissed me on the cheek. ‘I’ve never thought of big cities that way before. Or if I have I’ve forgotten it. Or maybe I’m such a hayseed I’m easily impressed by obvious ideas.’

  ‘Well, if it’s obvious ideas you want, baby, you’ve come to the right place.’

  An easy-going laugh. ‘Oh, God – I didn’t mean it that way. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I know. I was just kidding you.’

  ‘I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation, but can I have some water here? You may not have noticed, but I’m dehydrated.’

  Less than two minutes ago he’d looked unconscious. Now he was not only awake, he was his usual spoiled-brat insulting self, and being ridiculous on top of it.