by JA Schneider
“Oh, now this one begs to be sliced,” he crowed. “What a cute little pink hat! ‘Chloe,’ it says.” Haig’s crazed eyes darted from the cops to the child. “Looks like some loving mommy knitted it just for her little darling. Poor mommy’s going to be so sad.”
His fingers started to lift Chloe’s Lucite lid.
Fallon laid his gun on the floor, and moved forward desperately. A veteran SWAT cop, he had never been in anything like this. What to do? How to do it? He got to six feet away from Haig, ready to take him down physically.
Haig waved the scalpel and taunted him. “Oh, you’re going to make me do this? We fight and how many kids get knocked over?”
Fallon stopped dead. Haig, playing martyr, said, “In your flak jacket and helmet you want to hurt poor me in just my scrubs and naked arms? Well, tough guy, this kid’s death is on your head!”
Haig lifted the lid higher and raised his scalpel.
Fallon, so focused, hadn’t seen others’ eyes including David’s flick to just behind Haig, who laughed again theatrically, weirdly…as if, with his knife starting to lower, he were putting on a show.
“I am the star,” he crowed happily. “Just look at all this attention I’m getting!”
With a small cry, Jill jumped from behind, got a loop of something tightly around his neck, and with all her strength yanked him out into the aisle. The scalpel dropped with a ping. Haig fell hard onto the floor.
She had crawled and then run to the department storeroom at the end of the aisle. Her loop was made of IV tubing. David blinked at her, amazed. She still held tightly about five more feet of it that she’d cut from the roll.
“You like my noose, creep?” she said, her chest heaving for breath. He was turning pale fast. The tubing was cutting off his carotids - but even in this awful moment of horror she couldn’t kill him. Her hands shook almost uncontrollably as she loosened the tubing around his neck, but still hung on to it.
Haig glared murderously up at her, then spun on the floor and grabbed the electrical cord to Chloe’s respirator. His mouth twitched at Jill in an ugly smile. “Let go my neck, bitch, or I pull this out and the kid dies.” He gave a slight yank to the cord.
Cops who’d started to move on him again, stopped dead again. There were groans of desperation. Another stalemate.
“Bastard!” Jill cried. Terrified for the baby, she let go of her tubing. Haig furiously yanked its loop off his neck, then reached for something else.
The scalpel, which he held up leering at Jill, at all of them. He had heard where it dropped.
“Hoo-weee!” yowled a high pitched voice. “Now that’s what I call thinking.”
Stunned eyes searched for the voice.
“Down heeere, you bozos!”
Cop eyes flicked down. The weird voice came from a clown puppet, red-wigged with his garish-painted face split nearly in half, on the floor by a near isolette.
“Cripes,” breathed someone. Another cop, grimacing, pushed the puppet with his foot into the aisle; propped the head against a monitor base.
“Thank you,” said Clown nastily, his leering, split face seeming to enjoy the cops’ stares. His features weren’t moving, though…stares whipped back to Haig’s lips that weren’t moving either.
But he coughed. Put his hand to his mouth and coughed hard. Got his breath again.
“Actually,” said Clown, “I’m Sandy’s manager and I do most of the talking for him, not that he listens to any of my sage advice!” An exasperated, theatrical sigh. “You think it was easy for him to play dumb? Pretend he was an amateur at those stupid kids’ parties ‘cause he needed a little dough? Blair’s the amateur! Didn’t you see his lips moving like a trap door? It’s so easy to fool kids-” Clown stopped. “Hey stooopid, just where do you think you’re going? Maybe if you just stay and explain, y’know?”
Haig was moving, crawling away on the floor. Gripping the scalpel and Chloe’s respirator cord, leaving a trail of blood from his shoe, headed toward a door next to the storage room. Over the door was a lit red sign that read, Exit.
“Aw, on second thought,” Clown crowed, “Pull the kid’s cord! They just want to kill you, like they did your brother.”
Jill stared. David, who’d done an end run around isolettes, stopped short, feet from Haig.
“Your brother?” he said, screwing his face.
Haig’s eyes glared pure venom at him. His mouth quivered and turned down. He coughed harder, kept moving, but wouldn’t speak.
“Sandy’s real name is Sandy Sears, although he prefers the name Buck Loki,” leered Clown, coughing as Haig coughed. “Sonny Sears was his little brother, and you shot him! Go ahead, kill poor Sandy too! Guaranteed he’ll pull that kid’s plug before he dies!”
Cops barely breathed. Haig had reached the Exit, pulled himself up and gotten the door open, still gripping Chloe’s respirator cord. It was tighter; its plug loosened. He would have been a clear shot now, but – the cord! - they still couldn’t shoot, couldn’t move on him.
Fallon quick-muttered into his shoulder phone. “Suspect moving toward rear Exit. Stairwell beyond.” He asked David. “Which stairs are those?”
“Center north stairwell, building three,” David said low.
Fallon was back in his phone. “Send second team,” he muttered. And something else that was incomprehensible because Jill, seeing Haig grin and taunt with another yank on Chloe’s cord, burst out-
“Stop, you win!” She moved desperately toward him, not knowing where her words were coming from. “Drop the cord,” she cried. “Name your terms.”
David was aghast. “Jill, you’re too close! Move away!”
“My terms?” Sarcasm from Clown. The voice was suddenly deeper, more masculine.
“Okay, terms,” Clown snarled. “Must be half a million bucks someplace and Sandy wants ‘em. Arnett gave Sonny tons of good stuff. He sold it, promised Sandy half ‘cause he needed Sandy to launder it! Sandy’s the smart one, the talent. He would’ve HAD IT if you hadn’t killed the little shithead!”
Eyes blinked incredulously from Haig back to the grotesque pile on the floor.
Clown’s voice changed again, now turned thin and plaintive. “Sandy could’ve been… a great ventriloquist. He could’ve had the biggest act in Vegas! Terry Fator makes ten million a year and Sandy’s better than him!” A double coughing spasm, from Clown, and from under the Exit sign. “We were gonna open a club with Sandy as the star. Bigger than Copperfield, Fator, all of ‘em! Think that’s possible now? Sandy’s name gets in lights - and they’d find out! That his brother was that killer creep the whole world saw on the roof! People would be creeped out by Sandy! Not come to his shows! YOU WRECKED HIS CAREER BY KILLING HIS BROTHER!”
Jill’s mind raced during the rant. Get Haig to drop the cord.
She looked hard at him, stepped closer to him in the doorway. “So what about the money?” she said. Her voice shook, her knees shook, but she forced herself on. Can I pull this off? “It’s near. I’ll show you where.”
Haig’s eyes narrowed at her. For the first time in long, desperate minutes, he spoke. “There’ll be cops, you’ll have me out there-“
“No! It’s…in the tunnel. The old part. A great escape route, by the way, a labyrinth they’ll never find you in.” She gestured fake-earnestly with her hand - which he lunged and grabbed by the wrist, twisting her around to him like a shield, dropping the cord and holding his scalpel to her throat. She didn’t flinch.
“No!” David turned ashen.
From under Haig’s grasp, Jill met his eyes. Her gaze was steady, determined. I can do this, it said.
42
A night nurse named Sheri, checking on Kassie Doyle, made a few notes and smiled to herself. Kassie’s temperature had dropped further…suddenly had taken a dive to 103. Still not great, but a huge improvement, a huge step in the right direction. She was getting better! They had friends in common; wait till they heard! If it weren’t for all those cops in the hal
l, Sheri wanted to run up and down telling everyone on night duty!
Happily, she scribbled a few more notes, when a movement on the bed caught her eye.
Kassie’s hand! Lying flat on the bed, but with the fingers reaching up to her. And…great day in the morning…Kassie’s eyes were open! A little, anyway…
“Hey, sweetie, you’re back!” Sheri burst into tears and hugged Kassie, who tried to hug her back. Weakly, very weakly, with her arms giving up and falling back to the bed. But she smiled. Kassie…smiled!
“Where…?” she managed.
“Where what, honey?” Sheri said, squeezing her hand.
“Where…have I been?” The sedative still had her groggy. “What…happened?”
What to say? Now? So soon? “You had…an infection,” Sheri said, keeping it simple. “But it’s getting better.” Her emotion overwhelmed her. “You’re alive, sweetie. Alive and getting better and – oh, praise God!”
Sheri burst into tears again, hugged Kassie again, then got her settled. “Sleep,” she whispered, as Kassie’s eyes gently closed.
Then, as fast as her crepe soles could carry her, Sheri raced down the hall, past at least a squad of uniformed cops, and into the OB lounge where she’d seen the doctors go to fret and pace.
“Some good news,” she burst in, trying to be sensitive to those frantic-looking faces. “Kassie Doyle’s fever is way down. She was just awake and talking to me!”
They looked at her, and their faces cleared a little. Doctor MacIntyre, pacing, managed a smile and said, “That’s great, Sheri. Thanks. That’s really terrific.”
Doctor Donovan, her eyes red-rimmed, thanked her too, as Doctor Greenberg finished talking on his cell phone and hung up. “Delivery just came in,” he told the others, looking drained. “We gotta go.”
Sheri blurted to him too about Kassie.
“Wow,” he said, awed, as if stunned in slow motion. “David saved her life.” He thanked Sheri too, and they all started heading out just as Len Akers came running in.
“What’s the word?” He still had drying white plaster on his arms. “Are they still in there? Are they okay?”
MacIntyre shook his head, his face very drawn. “Cops won’t tell us. They won’t even let us down that end of the hall. They just told us to…wait.”
Limping, Haig yanked Jill out to the landing, started to drag her stumbling down the stairs. The scalpel felt like a razor on her throat. Jill’s eyes squeezed nearly shut in terror. She could see the railing they had to face, his free left hand clutching it, easing his weight down on his one good foot while his free arm choked her, wielding the blade.
David had rushed to the landing, the cops coming up behind him.
Haig leered triumphantly up at them. “Do not follow! I hear one footstep coming after me, I cut her throat!”
That instant undid him.
He shrieked as Jill stomped on his injured foot. Then as he doubled in pain, she kicked his chest with all her might and sent him tumbling down the stairs.
“Break your neck, Psycho!” she screamed after him.
With shouts the SWAT team thundered down after him, a pounding blur as Jill sank onto a step, pressed to the rail, gasping.
“Stop or we’ll shoot!” came a shout. Jill heard it as David was there too, kneeling to her.
“My God,” he said softly, cradling her.
They both looked down the stairwell.
Haig was like an unkillable monster. Before the cops reached him, he’d scrabbled across the landing below, pulled himself up onto the railing, and slid down to the next landing, the fourth floor.
Where he heard more cops coming. A second SWAT team pounding up what sounded like the second flight.
He was trapped on the third floor landing. Cops from above running down, other shouting cops coming up, all converging. More threats to Stop or We’ll Shoot. There was the sound of huge glass crashing. Something was going wrong down there.
Jill pulled away from David, frowning bitterly. “I want to see them get the bastard.”
He gently pulled her up. She was shaking. He placed one foot on the step below to balance them both. “It’s stairs,” he reminded her. “The kind that go down.”
Her head began to spin.
“I can do it,” she breathed, one hand holding the rail, her other arm tightly in his. Together they started down the steps, first two, then another two, then several steps more quickly...
She let go of the rail and it hit her: I’m really doing this? For a swooning instant, she saw the other maniac’s hands throw her out the window and down the slate roof, but she fought it. That was over! She heard Lainey Wheeler say, “I refuse to be a victim,” and drew strength. Her head cleared. Her wits gathered.
“Okay?” David asked as they reached the landing below, started down the next flight.
“Yeah,” Jill said determinedly - and the Bad Thing evaporated…just like that. “I’m past it,” she breathed, taking the steps faster with him. Then, excitedly: “I’m really past it.”
They neared the third floor landing and tumult, men’s shouts and another man screaming. Haig, howling with his back to the cops’ guns, had thrown a fire extinguisher through the landing’s tall window; had crashed it outward in one shatterproof piece. Crazed with adrenalin, he was heaving himself up and through to the graveled rooftop outside.
Some cops clambered after him, but his back was still to them and he was unarmed, lurching across to the roof edge. He got down onto his belly, crawled over the edge, and let go.
A stunned instant. Then radios resumed squawking, and uniforms hollered back that he’d landed on an awning, then fallen through to the sidewalk below. Cops who’d stayed inside pounded back down, shouting to each other and into their phones. He’s left the sidewalk! He’s trying to cross the street!
Cars honked and brakes squealed as Jill and David made it to the hospital’s side entrance, teeming with more cops and crackling radios. Out in the street Sandy Haig lurched, dragged his foot, and stumbled. He had made it halfway across.
Then it happened. A cab trying to avoid hitting a delivery truck hit Haig and sent him flying, right into the path of a van that ran over him.
Crunch. The most cringe worthy, hideous sound.
The cab and the van screeched to a stop, the drivers running out, horrified, as patrolmen waved their arms and backed away bystanders. There were few. It was two-thirty in the morning.
“He musta been drunk!” the van driver wailed as patrolmen tried to calm him. The cab driver gibbered in some language they didn’t understand.
The block blazed with flashing patrol car lights. Shouts sounded all around as uniforms formed a ring around Haig, who was on his back, mangled but still moving. His legs looked crushed. Spreading blotches of red oozed from sharp rib fragments protruding through his scrub top.
“He’s had it,” David said, as they stepped off the sidewalk into the street.
“I want to see him die,” Jill said bitterly, liking this new fierce sound to her voice, pushing ahead into the street. “I want to see his evil die.”
David nodded and followed her past the uniforms, who saw their scrubs and didn’t stop them. EMTs and more flashing emergency vehicles were just arriving.
Haig’s chest heaved, fighting for every breath. Jill knelt over him, and their eyes met. His gaze was hooded, cold, hateful.
“Looks like you lose,” Jill said, returning his cold look. She hated him so much.
“Bitch.” He sucked in a gasp. “You…spoiled…everything.”
“Right, my fault!” she mocked in fury. “When you’re a narcissist self-righteous psycho, anything that doesn’t go your way is someone else’s fault. Others gotta pay! Did you really need drug money if you had talent? Did hurting good people make you feel better?”
David put his hand on her shoulder, and leaned over Haig. “Looks like you’ve still got one lung going,” he said. “People can last years on one lung.”
Hai
g’s mouth twisted at both of them. “Go to hell,” he whispered.
“On the other hand,” David snapped, seeing blood start to spurt from one of Haig’s red blotches, “you’ve probably nicked an artery, which means-“
“Give us room, please?” Two EMTs came running, a man and a woman lugging equipment. The woman got busy with an IV, the man with a B.P. cuff.
“Masks,” David told them. “Guy’s carrying Pseudomonas, a very bad bug.”
The EMTs dove for their masks. Jill glared even harder into Haig’s eyes.
“Was it that easy to rape Kassie?” she cried. “Hurt horribly someone who’d been so good to you?”
He smiled his scorn at the question. Heaved for the last of his strength. “Thought…she had…the money.” A wheezing gasp. “Sonny musta lied…again. I got mad.”
“Oh that explains it.” Jill’s eyes blazed. “See, I’m trying to understand evil. Any more quotable quotes you can give before you go straight to hell?”
He sneered. Blood bubbled out of his mouth. Then the blood spurting from his chest started to come harder, higher.
“Got a geyser here,” David said, pulling Jill away as Haig’s blood shot its arterial blast from his chest.
The EMTs and cops backed away too.
Way back.
43
What a difference from last time…
The next day, not a word about it in the newspapers, on the Internet. It had happened mostly inside the hospital, in the wee hours, with patients sleeping and staff kept away. There’d been no daylight struggle, no news choppers excitedly taping overhead. On page seven or eight of one of the smaller papers, there was mention of a man getting run over outside Madison Hospital on East 38th Street. One paragraph, under a longer, detailed report of a two-homicides bodega stickup in Brooklyn.
Bigger news was a Fifth Avenue socialite who had shot her husband and his mistress. Arrived home early from her spa far away, and caught them both in the Jacuzzi. Reporters and media switched their attention in a millisecond. Converged in a frenzy on the new excitement.
For Jill and David, the only real repeat was being told again to rest, in semi-isolation for four days, with no patient contact, orders to catch up on their discharge summaries, and “to watch for any signs of contagion.”