by Nick Oldham
She closed her dry eyes and ran her hands down her naked body, quivering with the sensation in her head.
Once her body had been beautiful, desirable.
Now she was thin and wasted. No one, no man, could possibly want to make love to her. Her bones stuck out hard and cold, her thin legs looked like they had rickets, her once large firm breasts were shadows of their former selves. Her nipples, once rich and scarlet, were pitiful and lifeless.
All she retained was her mouth.
That was still sensual, her lips thick and moist.
And that was how she made her living, with her mouth. She was good with it - the very best. Last night forty customers queued up and testified to the fact. At fifty dollars each that made two thousand dollars, and it wasn’t her best night by any means. All she got though was a measly two hundred, a hundred and fifty of which went straight back to the man for dope.
And the baby cried in the corner.
The mother sat up, desperate for more. She searched frantically for some in her bag. There was none, but she already knew that anyway.
Then the door opened and two men came into the room.
One was THE man.
‘Oh God, thank God,’ she breathed in relief, not even beginning to wonder why they’d come, just pleased with her good luck. ‘I need it, man, I need it. I’ve got fifty dollars left here.’ A hand slid under the pillow and came out clutching a wad of crumpled dollar bills.
The man crossed to her.
With the flat of his hand he smacked her hard and accurately across the face. ‘Get the fuck out of here - now - and take that little piece of Whisper-shit with you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she whined, holding her face. ‘What’s going on? What’ve I done? I need it, man. Please!’
‘You’re being evicted. He’s decided,’ said the man, pointing upwards as if to heaven, ‘that he don’t like bitches in any way connected to people who talk to the law. Now, nigger, get your clothes on, you skinny, ugly bitch, collect that thing and get out. From this moment on, you’re a homeless person - and you can thank Whisper for that.’
Joe Kovaks had a four-hour wait before they let him in to see Chrissy. Part of the time he was accompanied by Sue who plied him with sweet black coffee from a nearby dispenser and machine-gunned him with small talk, which included her minor clash with Ritter. Everything went in one ear and out the other before eventually starting to irritate him. In the end he told her - not unkindly - to go, explaining that he needed to be alone.
She understood and left reluctantly, only to be replaced almost immediately by a young detective from Fort Lauderdale who got Chrissy’s personal details from him, then a statement. It was like getting blood from a stone. Kovaks didn’t feel very much like talking. He wanted to sit and brood. He spoke in angry monosyllables where he could and didn’t feel any remorse or empathy for the detective. Fuck him, he thought. Just fuck him.
All Kovaks wanted to do was see Chrissy. Until then, he wasn’t interested in making anyone’s life easy. What the fuck were they doing with her?
When the detective left, muttering and bearing a statement a rookie would have laughed at, Kovaks sat there alone at last ... but only for a short time. In less than five minutes a nurse turned up and asked him to accompany her.
He dropped the stub of his cigarette into his cold coffee, and stood up on quaking legs. He wanted to see her, yet he didn’t. He wanted, yet dreaded, the moment. With this conflict battling inside him, he followed the nurse.
For the first time in his life he was totally shocked and speechless as he stood at the door of the Burns Unit and looked at the pathetic charred figure of Chrissy Strand, the woman he had definitely grown to love.
In truth he couldn’t see all that much of her. There was a spaghetti-like mess of tubes running across and into her body and arms. A suit that looked like it was made of a combination of plastic and tinfoil covered her upper torso and a sheet was drawn up to cover the part of her body from her stomach downwards. A hairnet, rather like a shower cap, was on her head and the whole left side of her face was concealed by gauze. Her hands and arms were covered with plastic bags.
He gasped in horror as he saw her blackened hands, burned like an overcooked joint. He held onto the door jamb for support.
She looked awful and the expression on his face registered his shock and disbelief. His Chrissy.
At least she was unconscious and pumped full of drugs for the moment. For the moment.
Hi-tec machines surrounding the bed monitored her functions. Kovaks looked quickly at the displays. They all seemed to be pinging healthily enough.
He took a deep breath and approached the bed.
He wasn’t sure how long it was that he stood there. Two minutes. Could have been twenty.
‘Mr Kovaks?’
He jumped back into the real world and turned round. A young man in a classy suit offered a hand. Kovaks took it and they shook. Kovaks’ puzzlement was cleared up when the man said, ‘I’m the surgeon who operated on Chrissy. Dr Jefferson. I believe you’re her boyfriend?’
‘We live together as man and wife. We were going to get married.’
‘Right, right.’
‘So, how is she? No bullshit, please.’
‘Come - let’s discuss it out here.’ He indicated the corridor.
Kovaks followed him out, amazed at how young and inexperienced he appeared. He couldn’t have been over thirty, with a face like a baby, all chubby and rubicund. But he exuded an air of confidence and ability that Kovaks found reassuring, coupled with an outwardly relaxed persona.
The doctor leaned against the wall and waited for a couple of chattering nurses to pass. He cleared his throat. ‘Right ... obviously she’s very badly burned. The device, or whatever you want to call it, was designed to pour out a flash of flame as the recipient opened the envelope. Normally that would result in hand, facial and neck burns. I say normally because most recipients would probably be fully clothed when opening mail. Chrissy hadn’t got dressed.’
‘Which makes it worse?’ The doctor nodded.
‘She works late.’ Kovaks felt he had to explain her nakedness for some reason. ‘She’d probably got straight out of bed when she heard it fall through the door. We can hear mail coming in quite clearly from the bedroom. ‘
The surgeon shrugged. ‘Whatever.’ He went on: ‘The problem is that there was no protection whatsoever from any clothing. Therefore much of her chest, upper arms and neck were burned as well as her hands and face. It was actually the left side of her face that took the brunt of the flames. The right side is hardly touched at all. A great deal of her hair has been burned off too.’
‘So what’s the bottom line? What’s the future?’
‘At this early stage it’s difficult to say. She will be badly scarred, but plastic surgery can do wonders. She’ll be OK physically. Her eyes are unharmed and in itself, her body remains in good shape. It’s the mental side that’ll be the biggest problem. All I can say is this: don’t think too much of the future at the moment. Let’s take each day as it comes. She’ll need a great deal of support,’ he added.
Kovaks nodded. His eyes watered over. ‘She’ll get it,’ he said resolutely, biting his bottom lip, trying to hold back the tears.
The doctor laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Good man. Does she have some family?’
‘Chicago. I’ll speak to them.’
‘OK. I don’t think there’s much point in you staying around here at this time, Mr Kovaks. She’ll be sleeping for many hours yet. If you want to be here when she wakes up, come in tomorrow about eight a.m. But go and get some rest yourself. You’ve had a very exacting day so far and you’ll need all your strength for Chrissy ... won’t you?’ He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ said Kovaks, acknowledging the sense. ‘Look, if you don’t mind I’ll have a few more minutes with her before I go.’
‘By all means.’ They shook hands again. �
�Good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Thanks, Doc.’
He watched the surgeon walk away and thought that he rather liked the man. Talked straight from the hip, as it were. He believed Chrissy was in safe hands, which took a weight off his mind.
Kovaks spent a few minutes sat by Chrissy’s bed, staring blankly at her, listening to the shallow breathing, his mind in turmoil. He wondered what the future would hold for them. Not eight hours ago it was very rosy. Now it was all upside down, with its guts twisted out and fed to the scavengers. In his mind’s eye he kept seeing her opening the package, just as he’d done. The whoosh of the flames. Her screams of terror.
Bastard. Whoever had done it. Bastard. It was a warning, wasn’t it? And at that moment in his life, there was only one possible source - Corelli. The Mafia godfather had just told the FBI to go fuck themselves.
At the door he took one last look at Chrissy. She stirred momentarily, then moaned slightly. He willed his thoughts to transfer from his mind to hers, to penetrate the pain and the drugged state. I will be there for you, he told her. Whatever happens, whatever the outcome. And whoever has done this to you will suffer. They have bitten off more than they can chew. I’ll find them, I promise you, and justice will be done. I promise you. I love you.
With that he turned and walked out.
In the hospital foyer his heart dropped as he saw the waiting, predatory figure of Lisa Want, accompanied by a photographer. The camera flashed a dozen times.
Then Lisa Want swooped on him like an osprey on a fish. Her portable tape-recorder was running.
‘How is she, Joe?’
Kovaks stopped dead and opened his hands wide as if to say, ‘Got me.’
He looked levelly at her, then said, ‘If you don’t get out of my way, Ms Want, I’ll break that fuckin’ tape-recorder over your head and shove the batteries right up your pretty little ass - and you can quote me.’ He shoved past her.
Unfazed, she persisted. ‘Agent Kovaks, is it true that you also received a letter bomb, which failed to explode?’
No reply. It was true, of course. But how the hell did she know? ‘Is it also true that it was wired not to explode?’
No reply. But also true. According to the bomb disposal expert who’d defused the device, it was a real live bomb but wired purposely not to detonate. Its sole purpose, therefore, was to frighten its recipient. But again, how the hell did she know? The office had decided that news of this package would not be released to the media, so who had told her?
‘Why do you think you received the bomb? Is someone warning or threatening you to keep off a case? Is this all connected with your ongoing investigation into the Corelli crime family? How do you feel? Are you intimidated? Has Chrissy regained consciousness yet? Can we get in for a photograph of her? How is your investigation progressing? Are you going to answer any of these fucking questions or not? Come on, Joe, give me something!’
Kovaks paused at the door. ‘Turn that off,’ he said, pointing to the tape-recorder.
Meekly, she obliged.
‘It’s quite obvious to me that you’ve already been given something, Lisa. Some of the questions you’ve asked indicate to me that someone ill the FBI office in Miami is feeding you stuff you shouldn’t know. I haven’t a clue who it is and I don’t think you’ll tell me’ - here she opened her mouth to protest - ‘no, don’t speak,’ he ordered her. ‘Let me finish. I know you’ll deny it and that’s fair enough, but I’ll tell you this: when I find out who it is, whoever it is, regardless of rank, gender, race, length of service, length of penis, whatever, whoever - when I find them, they’ll wish they’d never been born, never joined the FBI, never fucked you. Their feet won’t touch the fuckin’ ground - and nor will yours, because I’ll go for your throat too and you’ll be before a court faster than you come. Now, if you want to turn that machine back on, I’ll give you a comment.’
Speechless, she pressed the record buttons.
‘No comment,’ he said, smiled, turned and walked out of the hospital.
Kovaks drove home in a bleak, black mood. He hit the bottle and his mood became darker and deadlier. How could he prove that Corelli was the man behind the bombs? The simple answer was that he couldn’t. It wasn’t as though Corelli, or even one of his hired hands, would go to the trouble of popping round or phoning to say, ‘Back off - you’ve been warned.’ Corelli would just assume that Kovaks was intelligent enough to get the message.
And now that Whisper was dead - the only chink in Corelli’s ring of steel- there was no way they could tie Hinksman and Corelli together. Everything he’d told Kovaks before being knifed to death wasn’t worth the breath it had been whispered on.
They were as far away as ever.
Once again, Corelli was out of reach. Untouchable.
Kovaks had started with a full bottle of Jack Daniel’s. A quarter of it had slid effortlessly down to his empty stomach and then very quickly up to his head, clouding his judgement.
Drink makes people do rash things.
Holding the bottle by the neck, he stormed out of the apartment down the blackened, burned hallway - and out to his car on the street below.
Without hesitation, other than the drunken delay caused by the problem of getting the key in the ignition, he drove south towards Miami.
He drove quickly, recklessly, with no regard for other road-users. With one hand gripping the wheel and one hand around the bottle, frequently necking mouthfuls of the fiery liquid contained therein, he was fortunate not to have caused a serious accident.
Once in Miami itself, he did a left onto MacArthur Causeway and headed out in the direction of Miami Beach and the Art Deco section where Corelli had a house. It was a 1930s mansion really, surrounded by a high wall, high security and a two-acre manicured garden with peacocks and arty statues.
Kovaks drew up at the high, wrought-iron gates. They stayed closed. A camera up on the wall focused on him and he waved at it. Still nothing happened. He staggered out of the driver’s seat and rang the intercom set in the wall.
‘Yeah?’ came a voice. Friendly? No.
‘FBI - let me in. I wanna see Corelli,’ slurred the agent.
‘Goodbye.’ The intercom went dead.
Kovaks continued to lean on the buzzer whilst peering drunkenly through the gates up towards the house which was discreetly half-hidden by trees and topiary.
Eventually the front door of the house opened and two men in tracksuits meandered down the driveway. They walked on the balls of their feet. A tough guy’s walk. Rolling shoulders, twisting hips. Smug. Each man carried a pump action shotgun. Kovaks recognised them as a couple of Corelli’s minor heavies. He sneered at them, the drink making him much braver than he should have been under the circumstances.
They arrived at the gate. Their expressions remained impassive but superior. One stood slightly behind the other, to one side, the shotgun held across his chest. The one at the front did the talking.
‘What you want?’
‘I wanna see Corelli - OK, bud?’
‘Go away.’
‘Let me see him.’
‘You gotta warrant?’
‘Don’t need one - I’m backed by the power of Federal law,’ Kovaks spat stupidly.
‘Bye bye,’ said the talking heavy. To reinforce his statement he laid the barrel of his shotgun on a cross member in the gate, pointing the weapon about chest-height at Kovaks. He pumped it. It was a deadly sound. ‘You don’t go right now, I’ll have to phone the cops and tell ‘em I had to shoot a drunken intruder.’
Kovaks stiffened. The insinuation got through his drunkenness. ‘I just want to talk to Corelli,’ he said.
‘Well, he ain’t here.’
‘Where is he, then - Key West?’
The heavy checked his watch. ‘By now he’s about halfway across the Atlantic.’
‘Why, where’s he going?’ Kovaks asked too quickly, making the heavy realise he’d said too much.
‘Just sho
ve it, man,’ he said, beginning to lose his cool, his voice rising up towards agitation. ‘You don’t go, I pull this trigger.’
Kovaks conceded defeat and rolled back into his car. He slammed it into reverse and screeched backwards out of the driveway. He pulled away with the flourish of a boy racer, a finger for the two heavies and a head out of the window shouting, ‘Fuck you, assholes!’ It was the most original insult his drink-sodden mind could manage.
He reached across the passenger seat, swerving dangerously into, then out of, the path of an oncoming car, and fumbled for the bottle of JD. With an angry horn sounding in his ears he took a hefty swig of what should have been sipped without spilling a drop. He was quite proud of the accomplishment.
‘So he’s goin’ to England, eh?’ Kovaks murmured. ‘Better let that cunt Donaldson know.’
His right foot went down heavy on the accelerator and the big engine roared with pleasure as it picked up speed.
Halfway back across MacArthur Causeway he heard a distinctive sound right behind him: the shriek of a police patrol car siren, the one blast that meant ‘pull over.’ Kovaks checked his rearview mirror and saw the car behind him, two officers on board, roof-lights flashing. He drew into the side of the road as smoothly as his state would allow and stopped with a lurch. He rested his hands on the top of the steering wheel where they could be seen.
One of the officers stayed half-in, half-out of the patrol car. The other one approached Kovaks with the caution of bad experience and good training. His right hand rested significantly on the butt of his holstered revolver.
Kovaks stayed where he was and awaited instructions.
‘Get out of the car, please sir, and place your hands on the roof.
Re-al slow, like.’
Kovaks obeyed every word to the letter.
At the end of these formalities, when it had been established that Kovaks was unarmed, the officer said, ‘Is this your car, sir?’
‘It is.’
‘We’ve received a report of a possible drunk driver in the Art Deco area, in a red Trans-Am.’