Star Chamber Brotherhood

by Preston Fleming

  There was a half minute's pause while the nurse listened attentively to the person she had reached in the Pain Management Department.

  "Doctor Avery's description? Well, yes, he's a large man, over six feet, on the trim side, looks to be in his mid–fifties, with sort of a weathered complexion, horn–rimmed glasses…"

  For what seemed to Werner like an eternity, Nurse Mallory pursed her lips, nodded, and glanced back at him with a concerned look. Then she drew a deep breath before responding to the voice on the other end.

  "I'm terribly sorry, Dr. Holt, I didn't mean to interrupt your meeting. No, really, that won't be necessary. Dr. Avery is already with the patient and everything seems to be under control. Yes, he should be on his way very shortly. I do so appreciate your help, Dr. Holt."

  With a sheepish expression the redheaded fury replaced the phone in its cradle.

  "I believe I owe you an apology, Doctor Avery," she offered. "I hope you won't take offense. You see, we have strict instructions not to let any strangers into the apartment."

  "Not at all," Werner answered with a magnanimous smile. "In your place I would have done the same. Now, if you don't mind, I must get back to the Medical Center. House calls are not something I have the luxury of performing very often. I expect the patient will rest easily now. He should not be disturbed."

  "But don't you want me to monitor the effects of the new medication, Doctor?" she persisted.

  "Only if you consider it necessary. Now, unfortunately, I'm running late for a meeting. If you require anything else from me, please have me paged."

  The nurse's face still bore a troubled expression as Werner turned to leave but, as she had done so many times over the years, she let go and deferred to authority.

  Werner retraced his steps along the corridor past the treasures in Fred Rocco's living room and thanked Sergeant Shea for opening the door to the landing. At last when the door closed door behind him he felt as if his entire body had gone limp. His hand trembled as he pressed the elevator call button and the electric motor began to whir. And while the indicator light above the door advanced from one to two to three, he felt beads of sweat forming on his forehead and upper lip and dripping down the back of his neck.

  The moment the doors slid open Werner stepped in. But in that eternal interval before the sliding doors closed again, Werner watched the apartment door reopen and the burly policeman rush into the hall.

  "Doctor, come quick!" he cried. "Something's wrong with Mr. Rocco!"

  By supreme force of will, Werner mustered the will to conceal the fear and dread that radiated in waves from the pit of his stomach. He had no choice but to follow Sergeant Mallory back to the bedroom, where the vital signs monitoring alarm beeped and flashed at full volume. He found Nurse Mallory astride Rocco on the bed trying to resuscitate him.

  "What the hell did you do to him?" she confronted Werner, her green eyes blazing with anger. "He's nearly stopped breathing and his pulse is failing. And why did you tamper with the vital signs monitor?"

  "Never mind the monitor," Werner answered decisively. "Get off the bed and keep up the CPR as best you can until I tell you to stop."

  He turned now to the policeman.

  "Sergeant, we've got to get the patient to the hospital. Call an ambulance and then help me wheel him out to the elevator."

  Werner disconnected the IV drip from Rocco's wrist before removing the blood pressure cuff and the leads to the heart rate and respiration monitors. Placing his doctor's bag on the bed, he and Sergeant Shea unlocked the bed's wheels and guided it out of the guest room and along the corridor to the elevator with Nurse Mallory following close behind.

  When they arrived, Werner and the nurse maneuvered the bed into the waiting cabin while the plainclothesman took to the stairway.

  The moment the doors closed and the cabin began its descent, the nurse challenged Werner more heatedly than ever.

  "What in God's name is going on here?" she demanded. "Who the devil are you, anyway, and why haven't you even attempted to administer a reversing agent? Nobody gives midazolam without having flumazenil on hand. You should know that. By God, when we get to the emergency room I'm going to get to the bottom of this!"

  Werner gave her a knowing look but he sensed that his confidence tricks might have lost their effectiveness with her.

  "There will be time enough for questions when we get to the hospital, Nurse Mallory," he remarked coldly. "I suggest we focus on getting the patient there alive."

  Before she could reply, the elevator reached the ground floor with a bump and the doors opened onto the lobby. Sergeant Shea stood a few meters away speaking to someone on his two–way radio.

  "The dispatcher says it'll be another five to ten minutes before the next ambulance can reach us," he announced with a worried look.

  "We don't have that long," the nurse protested.

  "Okay, then let's flag down a car," Shea responded, pointing to Sam Tucker's Honda idling outside the front door. Werner and the nurse guided the mobile bed out of the elevator and onto the sidewalk while the plainclothesman ran around to Sam's window and motioned for him to lower it.

  "We have a very sick man here, Sir," the Sergeant told Tucker. "He needs to go to the hospital immediately. Will you take us?"

  Sam Tucker cast a questioning look at Werner, who nodded quickly and looked away.

  "Sure, if you say so," Tucker replied in confusion.

  "Put him in the front seat," Werner directed.

  Werner and Shea each took one of Rocco's arms and lifted him gently off the bed.

  "Careful with his spine," Werner directed. "No sudden movements. Just follow my lead. Now, driver, I want you to lay the seat as flat as you can. And nurse, sit wherever you have the best angle to continue CPR. While you're getting settled, I'll go fetch my bag."

  The moment the nurse's back was turned, Werner stepped back from the Honda and took off at a run. Shea heard rapid footfalls and raised his head in time to see Werner approaching the corner. He stepped free of the car, raised his service pistol, and called for Werner to freeze.

  In another second Werner would be around the corner and out of sight. The policeman considered the risk of hitting an innocent bystander and lowered his pistol.

  But at the very moment when Shea's finger left the trigger, the driver of the parked car nearest the corner Werner was approaching stepped out onto the pavement and leveled a pistol at Werner from less than three meters away. Werner stopped and raised his hands over his head, his chest heaving, mouth agape, and eyes wide with shock.

  The gunman, a tall, lean man in his mid–forties with military–length, salt–and–pepper hair and a darkly handsome face, stepped onto the sidewalk and ordered Werner to turn around. Werner did so without objection.

  The man holding the pistol was Hector Alvarez.

  Sergeant Shea saw the action and came quickly but Alvarez waved him off.

  "I read your radio message, Sergeant. You stay with the principal and get him to the hospital fast. I'll call for backup here and bring the suspect in. Now, go!"

  "Hurry, Sergeant!" the nurse called from the Honda. "He's slipping away! We've got to go!"

  Werner watched Sergeant Shea race back to the Honda and heard the doors slam shut. He caught his breath while Tucker's Honda took off with screeching tires.

  Alvarez confronted Werner with a grim expression. Bystanders up and down Commonwealth Avenue had stopped to watch and some were approaching to offer their help.

  "Keep your hands up and get in the car, fast," Alvarez ordered quietly. "We can talk after we get out of here."

  Hector Alvarez pushed Werner into the car at gunpoint and drove off before the neighbors could figure out what was happening.

  The Toyota had traveled a block before either man spoke.

  "My God, Hector, you nearly gave me a heart attack," Werner began with a nervous laugh. "How on earth did you get here?"

  "You really didn't think I would leave you alone to
finish Rocco off after all we've been through together?" Alvarez began.

  "But you were in Cuba! How could you have known?"

  "I found a Boston paper and saw that Rocco still wasn't dead. So I came back as soon as I could and parked outside his place to find out who came and went while I listened to the police radio. Didn't you see the signal I left you yesterday?"

  Werner cast a nervous glance out the window through the rearview mirror but saw no flashing blue lights.

  "Sorry, Hector," he confessed. "I didn't even think to look."

  Werner heaved an enormous sigh of relief and slowly removed his glasses, bow tie, and jacket, tucking the glasses into his breast pocket and laying the tie and jacket across the back seat.

  "Too bad about the doctor's bag," he commented with sincere regret. "I borrowed it from a friend. There's nothing traceable in it, but I promised her I'd bring it back in one piece. I know it's just a loose end, but…"

  Werner froze mid–sentence.

  "Wait, talk about loose ends!" he exclaimed. "I forgot about Sam! We have to find him at the hospital and get him out of there!"

  "Who's Sam?" Alvarez asked with a vacant look.

  "He's the last man left on our team. He was going to be my getaway driver. And now he's the guy driving Rocco to the emergency room, for God's sake!"

  "Okay, let's turn around," Alvarez agreed. "The Medical Center is only five minutes away. I'll hop out a block from the emergency entrance and look for him. I got a good look at him when he drove up. When I get out, you take the wheel and meet me on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Harrison in half an hour."

  Alvarez turned right at the next intersection and right again onto Newbury Street, heading west. But as they approached Massachusetts Avenue, traffic slowed and it took them ten minutes to negotiate the left turn. As they inched their way north toward the I–90 overpass and Boylston Street they spotted the flashing lights of a police cruiser in the distance.

  A quarter of an hour passed while they crawled toward their destination. They soon despaired of reaching the hospital in time to find Tucker. At last they drew abreast of the flashing lights and saw the wreck that had stalled traffic. It was a gray Honda, the front end crushed like an accordion where it has crashed head–on into a concrete bridge support. An ambulance had pulled up alongside. Three bodies lay on the ground draped in sheets and a fourth was being strapped into a stretcher. It was a nurse in a white uniform.

  "Oh, no, no, no," Werner burst out. "Not this. Not Sam. It can't be…"

  "Three plus one makes four," Alvarez observed, counting the bodies. "The only one left is a woman. Sorry about that, boss. They had to be going at least sixty when they hit that concrete. Your man Sam must have wanted to kill Rocco awfully bad to do something like that."

  CHAPTER 20

  Monday, May 20, 2029

  Brookline, Massachusetts

  The sun shone brightly and fleets of cumulus clouds sailed across the afternoon sky as Frank Werner exited the subway at Coolidge Corner Station. While he strolled down Harvard Street toward Carol's apartment with the final record of his spirits inventory folded in his breast pocket, he heard the Red Sox double–header blaring from a radio atop a street vendor's folding table. Spring had arrived late again in Boston but despite the afternoon chill one could no longer doubt that summer was coming soon.

  Werner stepped lightly across Beacon Street and gazed into the distance. He was three blocks away from the apartment when he noticed smoke rising from the vacant lot next door. Once again, a diminutive tent city had been erected on the lot and a few dozen homeless squatters now gathered around trash fires blazing from fifty–five–gallon drums. As Werner approached, he steeled himself to withstand the baleful stares, jeers, and insults directed at the building's rightful occupants and their visitors.

  Unlike the wretched crowd of flood refugees who had huddled around the trash fires over the winter, this crew looked well fed, cocky, and organized. Nearly all were males in their twenties and thirties and some of them held cans of beer. At the rear of the lot, a late–model Chevy pickup truck dropped off multiple cases of soda, beer, and sandwiches. If these were indeed the homeless refugees who had camped out over the winter, they had picked up some deep–pocketed sponsors since then.

  As if aware that Werner was a visitor and not a resident, the squatters left him alone until he was within a few meters of the entrance. Then a pair of toughs in faded Red Sox jackets blocked his path.

  "I wouldn't go in there if I were you," the larger of the two warned. "It's unsafe, you know."

  "So what's not safe about it?" Werner inquired mildly.

  "Haven't you heard?" the youth replied with a knowing look. "The City's going to have it condemned."

  "Is that so? Funny, it doesn't look all that bad." Werner attempted to walk around them but the smaller of the two men stepped into his path.

  "You live here?" the squatter challenged.

  "No, just visiting. But thanks for the tip, anyway. I'll be real careful."

  This time Werner stepped off the curb and made a wide arc around them to the entrance. They let him pass but he could still hear their mocking laughter as the door shut behind him.

  Harriet Waterman was waiting for him when Werner entered the lobby. Locks clicked and chains rattled the moment he passed her door. It opened before he could reach the stairwell. Harriet stepped outside wearing a blue housecleaning smock over her customary jeans and oversized white t–shirt. She must have seen him coming through her kitchen window because she still wore the thick yellow rubber gloves he had often seen her use to clean ovens and sinks.

  "Oh, Frank, I'm so glad you're here," she exclaimed as she followed him to the stairs. "I'm warning all the tenants about the demonstrators. The Housing Authority thinks they may try to occupy the building tonight. I've called the police three times about it but they keep telling me they can't do anything till someone commits a crime."

  "Do you mean you're advising tenants to leave?" Werner asked.

  "I honestly don’t know what to tell people anymore," she answered, evidently realizing the risk of providing incorrect advice whether a tenant remained or not. "Some of these tenants are elderly. They could have a heart attack if someone tries to bash in their door. But if they leave, the place may be stripped bare by the time they get back. For someone like Carol with so many beautiful things, it must be a scary choice."

  "Thanks for the alert, Harriet. I'll talk to Carol and see what we can come up with," Werner replied, trying not to seem abrupt. "I'm sure she'll let you know whatever she decides."

  "She has my number if she wants to talk," Harriet added quickly as Werner started up the stairs.

  Though he still kept a key to Carol's apartment, Werner knocked and waited for Carol to come to the door. When she did, she greeted him with a warm hug and a kiss on each cheek.

  "It was such a lovely surprise to get your call this morning, Frank. I can't tell you how much I've missed you," she gushed. Indeed, the effusive greeting was so uncharacteristic of Carol that he wondered if she were mocking him. Or, alternatively, if she had been drinking.

  Then, to his surprise, Werner spotted Linda Holt seated on the living room sofa. Between their two teacups was a bottle of dark rum. Linda offered him a smile but said nothing until Carol led him into the room and pulled up a chair for him.

  "Did Harriet intercept you on the way up?" Linda inquired playfully in lieu of a greeting.

  "Would she be Harriet if she hadn't?" he replied.

  "You realize, don't you, that she wants to take over Carol's apartment? That awful woman is doing her level best to scare the daylights out of all the exempt tenants with her endless warnings about the squatters. And as soon as she can get them to leave, the Housing Authority will claim abandonment, revoke their exempt status, and reallocate the apartment to their political cronies."

  "Which would include Harriet's needy relatives from Maine, I suppose," Werner added.

  "Apparently so
. And, all the while, our blithe and trusting Carol, bless her heart, continues to knock herself out looking for a new job so she won't be evicted. Except that the fix is in. It's abundantly clear she won't get one until she gives up the flat."

  "Oh, just listen to the two of you!" Carol mocked. "Must you always be so conspiratorial?"

  "And did or did you not receive an eviction notice last week?" Linda pressed.

  "I most certainly did not!" Carol protested, her cheeks reddening. But Werner could see that it was a lie even before Linda stepped in to expose it.

  "Don't, Carol, please," Linda responded gently, laying a comforting hand on her friend's knee. "Even if all else fails, we must never stop speaking the truth to friends. The Medical Center received a copy. There's no point in denying it."

  "Well, then, I did receive it," Carol conceded, "but it's not nearly as dire an event as you seem to think it is. These things always take more time than anyone expects and the order can be withdrawn if I get another job first."

  "If. If," Linda objected. "Listen to yourself, Carol. You're putting your property and your person in jeopardy every day you stay here. Why don't you accept the hand that fate has dealt you? We could have a mover here tomorrow to pack your furniture into storage while you come to live with me. There's plenty of room for all three of us. Now, what do you say to my generous offer?"

  Carol Dodge's eyes filled with tears. All at once she threw her arms around her friend's neck and began to sob uncontrollably. When at last she recovered she accepted Werner's handkerchief to dry her tears.

  "I feel so defeated," Carol confessed. "I've never failed like this before. I feel like there's no place for me anymore."

  "Of course there's a place for you, Carol," Linda soothed. "You just have to stop going to the hardware store for milk. So start over. Try something radically different, something you've always wanted to do but didn't dare try. Why, just the other day I met the most wonderful man from Concord, a Mr. Motley, a former teacher at the Academy there. He has been recruiting doctors for Concord and told me they are simply desperate for pediatricians. Perhaps you could speak with him."