The Society

by Michael Palmer

  “Actually, there’s a surprising amount of muscle in there. So, bandages or no?”

  “Send him in. Tell him to be gentle, though. I have a very low pain threshold.”

  Gold grinned.

  “Well, we still want those X-rays and you still haven’t told us how you managed to get rid of them and where they might be now.”

  “Good. I figured when I didn’t wake up dead, I hadn’t told you. I guess after he killed Charles Newcomber, you told Krause not to be quite so heavy-handed.”

  “Something like that. Let’s just say he wanted to get closer to the line, and I wouldn’t let him—at least yet. You’re fortunate that you have the propensity to pass out. Some people never do.”

  “What kind of animals are you?”

  “Before he . . . um . . . suddenly passed out, Newcomber did tell us he had earmarked the films for you. That’s why I was following you when you drove to Roxbury.”

  “What’s so important about those films, anyhow?” Will asked. “Do they show how your cancer center screwed up and diagnosed Grace Davis as having cancer when they weren’t her films?”

  Will knew even as he said the words that the explanation really didn’t make sense to him. Almost certainly the mammograms weren’t Grace’s, yet she did, in fact, have breast cancer. One other thing was bothering him. Although he never got the chance to open it, the envelope he had managed to pass over to Lionel was bulky and heavy. It had to contain many more than just one set of mammograms.

  “Why we want those films is our business,” Gold said. “And I promise you, we will have them.”

  “Why would I want to give them to you when if I do I’m dead?”

  “Correction,” Gold said, his pale eyes menacing. “Soon events will transpire that will obviate the need for those X-rays. When that time comes, we will no longer have a need for you, and you will, in fact, become history. However, if you cooperate now and help us remove the chance that those X-rays might surface at an inopportune time, you have my word that you can go free. You will be no threat to us. Anything you say will be your word against ours, and pardon me for saying it, but at present your word isn’t worth too much.”

  Will weighed Gold’s logic and found it badly flawed. Regardless of what the man promised, there was no way Will was going to be allowed to leave the farm alive. He steadied himself against the wall and clenched his teeth against the throbbing pain in his fingers. Was there any way he could survive another session with Krause?

  “Leave me alone,” he said, with more panic in his voice than he had expected. He held up his hands. “How can you do this?”

  Gold sighed theatrically.

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “We haven’t time for you to keep passing out on us, so we have decided another approach is called for.”

  He returned to the doorway.

  “Wat, come on in and put some Band-Aids or something on his fingers. I want him looking and feeling his best for his lovely guest.”

  Will’s eyes narrowed as he tried to read beneath Gold’s words.

  Jess! his mind shrieked. Jesus, they’ve got Jess!

  He stopped himself from screaming anything out loud just in case he was wrong, although using the kids seemed like the sort of thing Gold would have already considered. Massive Watkins lumbered across to him with a first-aid kit, which he opened and set on the small table. The scissors inside were plastic, as were the tweezers. No help there. Will craned his neck to see past Gold and through the doorway.

  Hurry up, Gold! Hurry up!

  His heart was threatening to pound through his chest wall as Watkins used peroxide, then applied antibacterial cream and a bulky gauze dressing on each finger.

  Come on! Come on!

  Finally, the giant packed up the kit and returned to Gold.

  “You want me to bring her in?” he asked.

  “I think it’s time.”

  Will gritted his teeth and held his breath. Patty, her head bandaged, eyes patched, nasal oxygen prongs in place, an IV bag resting on the sheet that covered her from neck to ankles, was wheeled into the center of the room on a telescoping ambulance stretcher. The bag attached to her catheter hung down from one of the horizontal struts. She lay motionless, breathing steadily, clearly still in a coma. Will tried not to show how stunned and ill he was feeling. How in the hell had they gotten her out of the ICU?

  “What’s this supposed to mean to me?” he managed.

  “Sorry, Grant, that doesn’t work. You two have been an item for a while now. Policewoman sleeps with murder suspect. Everyone knows it.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Okay then, if you don’t care, you don’t care. Wat, go find Dr. Krause and tell him I want this woman’s little finger cut off. Tell him not to worry, because she won’t feel it, and besides, she’ll still have nine left.” He turned back to Will. “Next time, though, it could be one of her lips.”

  Will felt smothered, unable to breathe.

  “Jesus, what kind of monster are you?” he managed.

  “Someone who wants information from you and is rapidly running out of patience.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  Will knew he was beaten. He gave up his pretense, reached beneath the sheet, and took Patty’s hand in his. At that moment, Krause arrived, his narrow, pockmarked face glowing at the prospect of getting back to work.

  “Pretty,” he said, leering down at Patty’s bruised face. “Very pretty. You have work for me?”

  “It seems so,” Gold said, feigning a helpless, resigned expression, as if giving Krause the green light to begin mutilating Patty was taxing for him. “Dr. Grant, one last time. Help us get what we need, and I promise you your friend here will be dropped off unharmed someplace where she will be quickly found and taken back to the hospital. I have every reason to despise her, given that she messed up what would have been the greatest shot of my career, but I will release her.”

  Will knew that despite Gold’s earlier promise of amnesty for him, there was no chance whatsoever the man would let him live, but with Patty in a deep, possibly irreversible coma, she certainly posed no threat. There had to be a way to stall things until he could think of a deal of some sort that would guarantee she would get safely back to the hospital. His mind was working furiously, sorting through various scenarios. None of them provided any deal on which Gold couldn’t easily renege. At that moment, minutely but unmistakably, Patty squeezed his hand.

  Startled, Will’s surgeon’s mind and reflexes instantly kicked in. His hand remained virtually motionless but tightened around hers. He bowed his head, shaking it in apparent frustration as he shifted his weight, checking to see if the sheet moved. There was little if anything to be seen, and certainly neither Gold nor the other two seemed alerted to the change. Once again, as if to be certain he knew, Patty’s hand tightened just a bit, then relaxed. Watching the sheet as much as he dared, Will returned the pressure.

  I know, I know. Just be careful.

  “I need some time,” he said.

  “Time for what?” Gold asked. “I think I’ve made myself perfectly clear.”

  “I need some sort of guarantee Patty will be returned to the hospital unharmed.”

  “I gave you my word.”

  “Gold, cut the crap. You kill people. Ten minutes. Give me ten minutes to see if I can come up with something better than your word.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  Will looked down at Patty and gently brushed his hand across her forehead. Again, immediately, there was pressure from her hand. She was not only awake, she was wide awake.

  “If I can’t, I’ll have to decide if there’s even a chance you’d make a promise not to harm this woman and actually keep it.”

  “What do you think, Dr. Krause? Should we give Grant his ten minutes, or just go ahead and see what he’s really made of?”

  “You know my answer to that,” Krause said, surveying Patty from head to toe.

  “Ten minutes,�
� Gold said. “After that, either we’re on our way to Roxbury or I turn her over to the good doctor here.”

  Will’s stomach turned at the notion.

  “Bring me a chair so I can sit here,” he said.

  “No problem. Wat, bring Dr. Grant a chair and bring one in for yourself. It’s okay to stay over there by the door. Just keep an eye on him. Make sure he behaves under that sheet there.”

  Krause snickered. Will ignored him. He was processing the fact that Gold had probably been telling the truth about there being no hidden surveillance camera, although a hidden microphone of some sort remained a possibility. As Krause and Gold moved through the door, and Watkins moved past them, Will bent down and kissed Patty on the temple.

  “One is yes, two is no,” he whispered. “Understand?”

  One squeeze.

  “Ten minutes,” Gold said, tapping his Rolex, then following Krause out of the room.

  “If you were me, what would you do, Watkins?” Will asked. “Should I go out to Roxbury and get those X-rays?”

  One squeeze.

  “Huh? Oh, sure. I would do whatever Mr. Gold says. He’s not a person to mess with.”

  Will scanned the narrow room for anything that might have been a bug. There didn’t seem to be one, but if he screwed up now and Gold realized Patty was awake, they would have lost the only advantage they had. From what she had said before her injury, it seemed possible she had already figured out that Excelsius Health was behind the murders. That had to be why she wanted him to cooperate. If they somehow got out of this, there was other evidence besides the X-rays that they could use to nail Gold and his boss.

  There was slight pressure on his hand, pushing it a half an inch at a time down the thin stretcher mattress until it hit against the catheter.

  “You want out?” he asked.

  One squeeze.

  “What’s that?” Watkins asked.

  “I asked if you wanted out of all this. You don’t seem like such a bad guy.”

  “I do my job,” Watkins said. “Whatever it is. If Mr. Gold tells me to be bad, I can be real bad.”

  The catheter was kept from being accidentally pulled out by a round balloon blown up just before the tip. It was inflated not with air but with water inserted by a syringe through a port on the near end. Will found the small syringe taped to the drainage tubing, carefully deflated the balloon, and then slid the catheter out. The corners of Patty’s mouth turned up slightly. Not only was she awake, but now she was more mobile.

  “Gold says he’s the one who shot her,” Will said. “Did you hear him say that?”

  One squeeze.

  Impatiently, Watkins checked his watch.

  “If Mr. Gold says something, it’s generally true. You got three minutes.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “From you?”

  One squeeze. Lying virtually motionless, Patty hooked one finger around the IV tubing and touched it to Will’s hand. He stood, lifting the sheet enough to see that the IV catheter in her wrist had clotted off. He loosened the tape holding it in place, slid it out of the vein, and kept pressure on the puncture site with his finger. Still more freedom of movement for her.

  “I meant is there anything I can do for you that might convince you to let me go?”

  Two squeezes.

  “Not likely.”

  “Suit yourself. I could do a stapling procedure on that stomach of yours. You’d be out modeling bathing suits in no time.”

  “I’d rather eat.”

  Watkins was checking his watch again when the door flew open. Marshall Gold, showered and now dressed in dark slacks, a sports jacket, and a tangerine turtleneck, strode past the giant to stand across from Will, just inches from the stretcher. With a final tightening on Patty’s hand, Will withdrew his from under the sheet.

  Don’t move, baby, his mind was screaming. Don’t move a muscle.

  “So, I gave you two extra minutes, Grant. What’s it going to be?”

  “I want your promise again that you’ll get her back to the hospital unharmed.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  You’re lying, you son of a bitch.

  “Okay. But I also want your word that the guy with the X-rays won’t be hurt, either. He hasn’t done anything. I want Watkins there to hear you promise.”

  “You really have brass balls to be ordering me around like this in your situation. Okay, okay. If the guy is not a danger to me, I won’t hurt him.”

  Will hesitated as if he were still considering. He felt sick at the notion of putting Lionel in harm’s way, but there really was nothing he could do.

  “I gave the films to the man who gave me directions.”

  “At the very end of the street, where I lost you for just a couple of seconds.”

  “That’s right. I gave the envelope to him and told him to take it home and I’d buy it back for a thousand dollars.”

  “Then you ran across the street in the other direction.”

  “Exactly.”

  Gold’s expression was absolute glee. In that instant, what little hope remained in Will vanished. He and Patty were dead, and poor Lionel would likely fare no better.

  “I knew it was something like that,” Gold said. “How are you going to find him again?”

  “I’m not sure. I know his first name and the area he lives in. I didn’t have time to get his last name. I planned to bring as much cash as I could come up with and bribe as many people as necessary until someone told me where he lives. I would guess a lot of people know him. He seemed like a real character.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I’d prefer—”

  Gold whipped a bone-handled switchblade from his pocket, flicked open the five-inch blade, and grabbed Patty’s little finger.

  “What’s his fucking name?” he roared.

  “L-Lionel. It’s Lionel.”

  Gold’s fury instantly vanished and he smiled across at Will benignly.

  “Lionel. Nice name. Well, let’s you and I go and find this Lionel.”

  “Marshall, you’re not going anywhere. We have business to attend to.”

  Will recognized the voice after the first word. He flashed back on the Faneuil Hall debate that had started everything, as Boyd Halliday strode into the room and took up a place at the foot of the stretcher.

  “I want those films before tomorrow,” Gold said, speaking to the Excelsius Health CEO more as an equal than an employee.

  “I understand, Marsh. I want them in our control, too. But Ed Wittenburg is due here any minute to go over the figures for tomorrow’s meeting and to put the folios together, and I must be home by five for a dinner party my wife is throwing for the board officers of our soon-to-be subsidiaries.” He turned to Will. “Well, if it isn’t the darling of the Society. Welcome to the farm, Dr. Grant. Life seems to have been rather unkind to you since we last met.”

  Will shook his head derisively.

  “Is that what this is all about, Halliday,” he said, “acquiring companies?”

  Halliday looked back at Gold.

  “I need you here with us, Marsh. As it is, we’re barely going to have enough time to finish our business today, and the meeting is set for ten tomorrow morning. How about sending Mr. Watkins with our friend? He might do better than you in Roxbury, anyhow.”

  “But—”

  Halliday gestured toward Patty.

  “She’ll be here with us, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So there’s no chance Dr. Grant will cause Mr. Watkins any problems. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

  “Whatever you say,” Will muttered.

  “If he does cause even one bit of difficulty, if Mr. Watkins doesn’t call in every fifteen minutes on the dot, the good doctor’s relationship to this sleeping beauty will be, how should I say, cut short.”

  “What companies are you acquiring tomorrow?” Will asked. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess. The companies you’l
l be acquiring just happen to have been controlled by the four people who just accidentally happened to have been murdered by a killer out for revenge. What a convenient coincidence.”

  “Actually,” Halliday said, “we were only interested in two of them. But patterns can be so revealing. Mr. Watkins, are you ready?”

  “Whenever you say.”

  “Wat,” Gold ordered, “before he leaves this room, put a pillowcase over his head and tie it at the bottom. Take it off only when you reach Roxbury. Use the handcuffs for the trip, too, just in case he loses his mind and decides to be a hero. If he gives you any shit at all, just shoot him through the knee, then the balls, and then drag him back here.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  “We can keep her right here in this room, Marsh,” Halliday said. He reached down and gave Patty’s great toe a playful tweak. “I’m sure Dr. Krause wouldn’t mind watching her.”

  CHAPTER 33

  “What kind of car is this, Watkins?”

  “Lincoln Town Car.”

  “Nice. I knew I was kneeling on the floor of something pretty spiffy. Smells new.”

  “I take good care of it. Keep your hands up on the seat where I can see them.”

  “You’re three-hundred pounds of frigging muscle, and I’m kneeling on the floor of your car with handcuffs on, my fingers all torn up, a pillowcase tied over my head, and my girlfriend being held as collateral. What are you worried about?”

  “Mr. Gold tells me what to do, and I do it. And this time he told me you are not to be trusted. So get your hands up on the seat where I can see them, or I’m going to reach down and grab them and put them there, and I don’t think you want me to do that.”

  Will did as he was ordered. There was an abruptness to Watkins, a coldness, that he hadn’t fully appreciated at the farmhouse. Despite his Buddha-like physique and moon face, and the care with which he had bandaged Will’s fingers, there was nothing soft about him. If Watkins needed or wanted to kill, chances were he would do so without remorse. Gold knew that. Otherwise, there was no way he would have trusted the man as he had.

  They were maybe twenty minutes away from the farm and, at Gold’s insistence, Will had spent the entire ride on his knees, his butt crammed under the dash, his face pressed onto the front seat. At first, influenced by any number of hostage movies, he tried remembering turns and listening for the sort of telltale sounds that might enable him to retrace their journey—the tolling of a church bell, the whistle of a train, the jackhammering of road construction. He heard nothing that he could pinpoint. Of course, before retracing any steps, he had to deal with his handcuffs and overpower the gargantuan at the wheel of the Town Car. Quickly he gave up listening for clues and instead forced his mind back to the conundrum of how to guarantee that Gold would release Patty. He had yet to solve that puzzle, and time was running out.