Chapter 71
ED'S voice was high-pitched and irritated. "You paged me 911. This better be an emergency."
"It is."
"Where are you now?"
"I'm in my car."
"Are you in imminent danger?"
"No."
Ed took a deep breath. "All right. We need to get our signals straight. Cornered in a shootout--that's a 911. Waking up in a bathtub of ice with a missing kidney. That's a 911."
"Look, this is extremely important. The cops are staking me out to catch Clyde. I managed to sneak out, and I only have a brief window." David yanked the Explorer over to the side of the road. "Where are you? I'm coming over."
"How do you know they're not following you?"
"Because I've been driving in loops and circles all over the city for the past hour and a half. I'm not as much of a dumb-ass as when you first met me."
"Jury's still out on that one, Spier."
"Where are you?"
"I don't take meetings at home."
"Where are you?"
Ed paused for a moment, as if debating with himself. "I'm at Five-thirty-four Federal, just south of Wilshire. Apartment Six."
"Thank you," David said. "Thank you. I'll be there in less than-- " He stopped, looking up at the street sign ahead. "Where the hell am I?"
Before letting David enter, Ed made him explain himself at the door. The small ground-floor apartment was ransacked. Drawers pulled from the dressers and dumped, mattress sliced open, plates shattered. Holes had been punched into the walls at regular intervals in a search that went even behind the sheetrock. Ed moved through the mess with a practiced gait that showed he'd grown accustomed to it.
On a long folding table in the corner sat five or six computers of different shapes and sizes, screens blinking, monitors humming. About ten Nextel cell phones were lined up, charging. A bank of small televisions showed what appeared to be live shots of several rooms, from presumably hidden cameras. David watched a woman lean forward into what must have been a one-way mirror and attempt to floss an entrenched piece of food from between her teeth.
Sitting in a rolling chair, Ed began to splice a wire that led to a minuscule microphone. "Don't ask questions. Not a one."
David looked around for somewhere to sit. Finally, he picked up a slashed pillow and set it on top of an overturned bookcase, forming a makeshift banquette. He sat cautiously so as not to stretch the stitches in his side.
Ed looked up from his work and pointed at David. "Yes, I trust you, but let me tell you, if you mention one thing about this location to one person, I'll know. And believe me, I'm not someone you want to cross."
David gazed across the bank of screens. A skinny man was fucking what looked to be an obese call girl on a mahogany desk somewhere. "I believe you," he said.
A week ago, he would have been horrified to be threatened; now he found it almost flattering.
"Want something to drink?" Ed asked.
David reached for an unbroken tumbler at his feet.
"No, no. I keep the clean ones over here." Ed pulled a glass from a stack sitting atop a fallen dartboard and filled it with water.
He and David sat in perfect silence, David sipping from the glass nervously, though he wasn't thirsty. "So can you do it?" David asked. "Get me a bug of some kind?"
"Yes, and we call it a digital transmitter these days, Joe Friday." Ed flared his hand like a magician, and a flat metal disk appeared in his palm. About the size of a watch battery, it was dense with tiny components, like a computer's motherboard. "Works off radio frequency." Leaning over, he pulled what looked like a walkie-talkie from a desk drawer that had been left on the floor. "Here's your receiver. I go with the Motorola HT one thousand because it's more compact than a Saber, so you can strap it to your belt without looking like you have a perennial hard-on." He smiled, his grin a white crescent in the white of his face. "It'll get the RF transmission and kick it up to this" --he held up a molded, skin-colored earpiece-- "as long as you're within a few blocks."
"I won't be within a few blocks. I'll be in the middle of a stakeout in Venice."
Ed ran his hand across the top of his head. It made a rasping sound on the red stubble. "A challenge. I love challenges. Where's Peter live?"
"Westwood. A few blocks east of the hospital."
"Where's his office?"
"On Le Conte."
"How many stories is the building?"
"Four."
Ed rubbed his temples. David opened his mouth, but Ed raised a silencing finger in warning. More temple rubbing. Clearly, he was enjoying this.
"All right, Spier, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna put an expensive-as-shit repeater on the roof of his office building. Think of it as a big antenna. It'll pick up the RF transmission and bounce it to your Motorola across town." He spread his arms wide, as though accepting applause. "I am a trained professional. Do not try this at home."
"When can you do it?"
"Tonight. Once it gets dark. But let me ask you a question. What good does this do?"
"I'll know where Peter is at all times. I'll know if he finds himself in trouble. As a worst-case scenario, if he's attacked, I'll be able to direct the police to him quickly."
"He'll need a gun."
"Peter won't carry a gun."
"How do you know?"
David regarded Ed wearily. "Trust me on this one."
"Fine. Well, would our liberal and foolish urologist with the apropos name lower himself to carrying a nonlethal weapon?"
"Perhaps."
Ed dragged a large cardboard box from the coat closet across the room and sat back down. The contents gave off a metallic jingling as he dug through them. Proudly, he displayed a weapon with a spear-gun handle that looked as though it shot out two attached electrodes with dart ends. "A taser," he said. "You have to have decent aim, though, and they're a bitch to get through thick clothes. Fucker's wearing a leather jacket, forget it."
David shook his head. "Too . . . complicated."
Ed threw the taser back into the box and removed a pair of spiked brass knuckles.
"Too savage."
Next, Ed pulled out a silver rod with a knob on the end. When he flicked it, it telescoped to form a baton. "The asp."
Again, David shook his head. "Too easily overcome."
Ed grumbled, tossed the asp back into the cardboard box, and continued to sort through its contents. His face lit up. With a Vanna White gesture, he exhibited a large frying pan. "Old Faithful."
David merely looked at him, and he threw it back.
"I think we have a winner," Ed exclaimed. He removed a stun gun, about the size of a flashlight, complete with finger grooves. The black rectangular stock extended into two prongs. He thumbed a switch forward, and a burst of visible voltage shot between the prongs.
"Can it work through clothes?"
"Again, nothing too thick. But a T-shirt or something, you might as well not be wearing anything at all."
"I'll take it," David said.
Ed tossed him the stun gun. "Congratulations. You are now the proud owner of a fifty-thousand volt, hair-standing, cattle-prod special."
"How should I get the . . . bug-transmitter thing on Peter?"
"I could install it in a watch. Could you give it to him as an early birthday gift?"
"No. That would be suspicious."
"Does he have a special pen or something? I could slip it in there."
"I don't know. Nothing I could be sure he'd always have on him."
"So the question is: What sort of pet object does he keep with him at all times?"
An idea hit David with a sudden, bright clarity. He raised his head with a smile. "I think I've got it," he said.
Chapter 72
PETER'S office building, a modern four-story structure of dark glass and concrete, sat near the junction of Westwood and Le Conte, a few blocks from the hospital. David parked at a meter. The construction work next door had left a light fal
l of dust on the sidewalk before the front doors.
When David arrived at Peter's second-floor office, his side was aching and itching, and he couldn't decide which sensation was worse. Peter's office manager was leaving and putting out the lights. David took a quick step back as she locked the door and turned to him, nearly striking him in the gut with a jumbo purse that swung from her shoulder like a pendulum.
"I'm looking for Dr. Alexander," David said.
She continued down the hall, not bothering to make eye contact. "He might be in the procedure suite," she said.
"Across the street?"
"No, in the new one. It's on the third floor. The move's been a royal pain in the rear end. That's why some of us are still here when we should be home with our husband and two daughters."
"Have a lovely evening," David said.
He found Peter in the suite upstairs, skimming through a folder, standing between two procedure tables amid a scattering of moving boxes and file crates. Peter looked up with a smile and took a few heavy steps toward David, assisting himself with his ortho cane. "David. To what do I owe . . . ?"
David thought about pulling himself up to sit on one of the procedure tables, but didn't want to risk tearing the stitching in his side. "I wanted to see you in person, to convince you to let the cops keep an eye on you. Just for a few days."
"I appreciate the thought, David, but this is ridiculous. First of all, Clyde Slade has no reason to come after me."
David fondled the digital transmitter in his pocket. He'd had Ed adhere a small, powerful magnet to its back. Plan B. Getting police protection was still preferable, so he took a deep breath, preparing himself for his next words. He saw no alternative but to attack the issue head-on, despite Peter's repressive preferences. "To be frank, as a disabled man you make an appealing target."
Indignation cast its pallor across Peter's face, mitigated only by a devilish glint in his eyes. He flipped his ortho cane, caught the end, and let the long rubber-coated handle fall between David's feet. With a sharp tug, he yanked David's feet out from under him. David landed on his back, an explosion of pain screeching through his side.
"I can protect myself better than you might think," Peter said.
A groan escaped David as he reached for his side.
"Oh, Jesus," Peter said. "I forgot about your injury. I'm so thick-headed." He attempted to help David rise. Ignoring the pain, David pulled the minuscule transmitter from his pocket and placed it on the inside of Peter's left leg brace, just where it tapered above the ankle. The deceit helped undercut his anger at Peter.
He let Peter help him back to his feet. "Let me see the cut," Peter said. David raised his shirt obediently. The stitches were all intact. "You're fine." He looked up at David, his gray face tired and drawn. True regret. "I'm terribly sorry."
David did not hesitate. "Then promise me something."
Peter cocked a bushy eyebrow.
From his other pocket, David pulled the stun gun. He offered it to Peter, who regarded it like a used handkerchief.
Peter raised his ortho cane and let it thump to the floor. "You can't be serious."
Chapter 73
LAST night, David had sneaked into his house through the back door like a teenager come home from a night drinking. He hoped none of the press had snapped a photograph of him pulling himself gingerly over the rear fence.
He slept unevenly and awakened early when Ed called him to let him know the repeater was in place atop Peter's building. David slipped the earpiece into place and fiddled with the Motorola until he heard Peter's snoring.
Making his way through the house, he closed all the blinds so the tabloid photographers couldn't shoot him with telephoto lenses. He listened to Peter awaken, eat breakfast, and spend an unreasonable amount of time gargling. Before David showered, he hung a bedsheet over his bedroom window, as it didn't have a curtain. The perimeter alarm Ed had installed beeped at least once every five minutes. David felt paradoxically jumpy and exhausted. Captive in his own home.
By the time Yale and Dalton arrived in the late afternoon, David had long given up pretending he was patient. He'd dressed his wound twice, cleaned the house top to bottom, showered several times, refolded all his clothing, and spent nearly half an hour eating lunch--an eternity for him. He'd heard Peter drive for a while, greet his office manager, and begin seeing patients. Whenever guilt encroached on David for his eavesdropping, he pushed it away, granting himself a twenty-four-hour reprieve. He didn't have time for guilt until after the stakeout.
He was dressed in a pair of scrubs, the Motorola strapped to his waistband. Wearing his work clothes, he hoped, would strengthen his appearance in Clyde's mind as a representative of the hospital. Every bit might help.
Yale folded his arms across his chest, smiled an implacable smile, and said to David, "You have to wear a baggier scrub top if we're gonna hide all this hardware on you."
Dalton self-consciously touched his tie--a brown-striped JCPenney clip-on--and it tilted revealingly from the knot. His eyes found David's earpiece. "What's the other radio for?" he asked.
"We don't know anything about another radio," Yale said.
Dalton pulled the loose skin of his jowls down into a turkey wattle, nodding solemnly. Yale rested an assuring hand on David's shoulder and steered him back to the bedroom. David indicated his side with a tilt of his hand. "I'm pretty stiff. Do you think you could help me out of this?"
As Yale briefed him about the procedures for the sting in a calm, even voice, he eased David out of his scrub top and wired him up, taping the mike at his fifth intercostal space. After selecting a bigger top from the closet, Yale helped David pull it over his head.
David would drive to Healton's in his Mercedes behind Yale and Dalton's car, being tailed by Jenkins and Bronner in the carpet cleaning van. A sweep car would check the route ahead of Yale and Dalton. Once there, David would walk from the parking lot seemingly unescorted, make his way along a highly visible designated route through the neighborhood, and wind up in the scorched car in the abandoned lot. In reality, undercover police officers and SWAT team members would be watching him every minute. Not surprisingly, Rhonda Decker had refused to grant permission for any part of the stakeout to occur on Pearson Home property. David was disappointed; his presence in the house itself would have been a tempting draw for Clyde.
At all times, an ambulance would be standing by a few blocks away. David did not ask who it was for.
Someone knocked in code on the back door, and Yale swung it open to reveal Jenkins and Bronner. Jenkins walked across the living room, boots creaking, equipment jingling on his belt, and leaned against the far wall. Bronner held a plastic cup. He chewed and spat. "We have the van in position," he said.
Yale rubbed his hands together. "All right, crew," he said. "Stay on point. If we fuck this up, the Captain'll put his foot so far up my ass I'll be able to taste shoe polish."
"A lovely image," David said.
"But an apt one. Let's do our jobs, and hope Clyde's drawn in for the . . . " Yale shifted his weight from one foot to the other in a rare display of discomfort.
David took a deep, halting breath. Jenkins watched the emotions working on David's face. "Our guys are in place," he said, in a tone David imagined was as close to comforting as he could manage. "The area's tighter than the Dodgers infield."
David smiled. "This season?"
Some nervous grins. A cough. Dalton fiddling with his wedding ring. Nerves working.
"I'll meet you in the van," Bronner said. He nodded once, gravely, and backed toward the door cautiously, as though leaving a lion's den.
Yale leveled his stare at David. "Ready to roll?"
The three men faced David, and he detected respect in their faces. He had coiled his stethoscope inside his jacket pocket for good luck, and he patted it through the fabric to feel its weight. He took a deep breath, and held it before exhaling. "As ready as I'm gonna get."
David stood in the dark
of his garage, enjoying his last moment alone. The clamor of the press outside seemed amplified through the garage door. A stream of light fought its way through the crack beneath the door, lending the room a dreamlike cast. David had no choice but to forge through the media outside; his Mercedes was a key prop in the stakeout.
In a touching gesture, Dalton had spray-painted over the lettering so the tabloids would have one less thing to screech about. David got into the car and sat with his hands on the wheel for a minute, then he hit the garage door opener and pulled out.
The press flooded toward him. Mikes tapping the car, hands pressed to the windows, faces and makeup and lenses. Cameras flashed. Film rolled.
His first instinct was to stop, so as not to run anyone over, but he continued to back out slowly, carefully, doing his best to fight off claustrophobia. He finally hit the street and accelerated up the block. A few neighbors were standing out on their porches, watching. An old couple up the street wore matching expressions of confusion. The van pulled out immediately behind him, and just before he reached Sunset, Yale and Dalton's car swung in ahead of him. The media brigade followed a few blocks back, but Jenkins did a good job driving poorly to slow them up. As David's eyes darted to the rearview mirror, he realized he was sweating profusely.
Turning right on Veteran, he headed for the police checkpoint. As planned, the two officers pulled aside the sawhorses, letting him through but blocking the following media traffic. One of them offered David a wink as he passed through, and David took note of the clear plastic tube hooked over his ear.
He followed Yale and Dalton south to Wilshire, completing the loop, and the carpet cleaning van was miraculously waiting at the curb after he made the turn. David was amazed at how well Jenkins tailed him to Venice. The van disappeared several times, and David thought for sure Jenkins had lost him for good, but then traffic would thin and there it was again, behind him.
David thought about turning on the radio to relax himself, but not wanting to be distracted by news updates, he hummed instead. He stopped abruptly when he remembered that the wire conveyed his every noise to countless police officers, and it occurred to him with amusement that they'd overhear if he had to take a leak later. In his right ear, he'd been receiving a good transmission of Peter undertaking a procedure--a prostatectomy, from what David could piece together from Peter's concise commands to the nurse.
Do No Harm (2002) Page 43