Miracle Cure

by Coben, Harlan

  “No,” Michael answered. “Never.”

  Harvey nodded. “Normally, we wouldn’t think of going through with an HIV test, but when Eric reviewed your records, he came up with the fact that you had a blood transfusion after your boating accident in the Bahamas.”

  “But that was years ago.”

  “I know. If it were more recent, I wouldn’t worry about it as much. Nowadays we have the technology to screen blood donations so that the chances of a patient’s receiving HIV-contaminated blood are very remote. Back then the test didn’t exist.”

  “So you’re saying—”

  “I’m not saying anything. Look, Michael, Eric and I have HIV-on-the-brain with the clinic and all. You don’t have AIDS. I’m nearly positive of it. Under normal circumstances I would have just gone ahead and done the HIV test without telling you.”

  “So why didn’t you? You didn’t give me details about the other tests.”

  “Because the law requires that you sign a form, that’s all.”

  “And Dr. Sagarel agrees with you and Eric about this?”

  Harvey’s face seemed to cloud over in hurt for a brief moment. “Yes, Michael. He agreed.”

  “Harv,” Michael began, “I don’t mean to question your judgment—”

  Harvey waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it, Michael. It was the right question to ask.”

  “So now what?”

  “I’d like to draw some blood, if it’s okay.”

  Michael shrugged, his eyes still scared. Then he nodded. “You guys are the doctors.”

  “Good,” Harvey said. “Give me your arm.”

  “Pick a vein, any vein at all.”

  Harvey did so, inserting the needle into the protruding blue line. “Believe me, Michael, this is merely a formality.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  He finished taking the blood and withdrew the needle. “I am,” he said. He walked over to the door, opened it, and stepped into the hallway. “Janice?”

  As per Harvey’s instruction, Janice Matley, his most loyal and trustworthy nurse, was waiting by the door. Harvey had brought Janice over from the clinic because he did not trust anyone with this task. “Yes, Doctor?”

  He handed her the blood sample. “Give this to Eric or Winston only. Nobody else. If neither one of them is there, just wait.”

  She nodded and left. Harvey stepped back into Michael’s room.

  “When will you know the results?” Michael asked.

  “In a week,” Harvey answered. “Now stop worrying like an old lady. There’s no reason to think you have anything other than hepatitis.”

  MR. Philip Adams, assistant manager of the Days Inn, unlocked the door. “Here it is,” he said. “Room 1118.”

  “Damn,” Lieutenant Bernstein said.

  “Something wrong?”

  Max took his finger out of his mouth. “Hangnail. It’s driving me nuts.”

  Philip Adams watched with something near horror while the police lieutenant used his teeth to rid himself of the annoying problem. “Will there be anything else?”

  “Has anybody stayed here since the suicide?”

  “Actually, business has been a little slow right now, so we’ve kept it vacant.”

  “Has the room been cleaned since the incident?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “Can you find me the maid who cleaned it?”

  “She’s off today.”

  “When will she be in?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “I’d like her to call me when she gets in.”

  “Of course, Lieutenant, but why are you investigating this now? The suicide was more than two weeks ago.”

  “Just trying to tie up a few loose ends,” Bernstein explained. “Can you also find me the receptionist who was on duty the night of the suicide?”

  “Hector checked Dr. Grey in,” Adams said. “The police spoke to him already.”

  “When does Hector come in?”

  “He’s here now.”

  “Then please send him up.”

  “No problem.”

  “Has any work been done on the room since the incident?”

  Adams coughed into his fist. “We replaced the broken window he jumped through, of course.”

  “Nothing else?”

  The assistant manager thought a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Here’s the key, Lieutenant.”

  “I’ll return it to you on my way out.”

  “Thank you.”

  Left alone, Bernstein paced the room in a circular pattern, hoping to get a feel for the surroundings. Then he closed his eyes and tried to step into the good doctor’s shoes. He tried to picture Dr. Bruce Grey checking into this hotel, taking the elevator up to the eleventh floor, unlocking the door, moving into this room. Max imagined Grey trying to force open the window and finding that it was nailed shut. So what did Grey do next? He must have decided to take a running start and leap through the glass. Max pictured him backing up, sprinting forward, hurling his body against the glass, shattering it into small shards, slicing himself in the process. Not exactly a neat suicide. Very messy, in fact. And painful—jumping through glass could not have been a lot of laughs.

  Something’s wrong here, Twitch.

  He nodded to himself. Why here? Why a leap? Why jump through glass? It did not add up. The man was on the verge of a major medical breakthrough. He had been divorced for seven years already, had a kid he didn’t see enough, loved to read, loved to work, was more or less a homebody. According to Harvey Riker and several of Bruce’s friends, Grey rarely traveled and had only been out of the country three times—his recent trip to Cancún, Mexico (taking a vacation before suicide?), and twice to Bangkok a few years back, where the clinic kept all confidential blood and lab samples and test results. Max had learned that Harvey and Bruce were paranoid about leaks, sabotage, government interference, that kind of thing—hence the decision to have a safe house way out in Bangkok. Might have seemed like unsubstantiated paranoia at the time but now . . .

  Bernstein stopped in mid-thought when he saw it.

  His gaze fastened on the left side of the wall by the door, his eyes widening. He slowly crossed the room and examined the chain lock, which hung from the wall and door in two separate pieces. The steel chain was snapped in two. Max was bending forward to get a closer look when a knock on the door made him jump.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Hector Rodriguez,” a voice with a Hispanic accent called out. “Mr. Adams told me you wanted to see me.”

  Bernstein opened the door. “Come in.”

  The slight, dark-skinned man moved into the room. He wore a hotel uniform and a goatee that looked like it had been penciled onto his face. “Mr. Adams said you have some questions about the suicide?”

  “Hector, did anyone notice this before?”

  Hector squinted at the chain lock. “I don’t think so. No one’s used this room since the suicide.”

  “Are broken chain locks a common occurrence in this place?”

  “No, sir, they’re not. I’ll have it replaced right away.”

  Bernstein wondered if the lock had been broken when Grey first came into the room. Somehow he doubted it. “Do you remember Dr. Grey checking in?”

  “A little,” Hector replied. “I mean, he jumped out the window a few minutes after he checked in. He couldn’t have been in the room for more than five minutes.”

  “What do you remember about him?”

  “He had very blond hair—”

  “I don’t mean looks-wise. I mean, how did he act? How was he behaving?”

  “Behaving?”

  “Yes. Did he seem depressed, for example?”

  “No, not depressed. I’d say nervous was more like it. He was sweating like a pig.”

  “I see . . .” Bernstein’s hands flew forward. “Hold it a second. Did you just say Dr. Grey had blond hair?”

&n
bsp; “Very blond.”

  Max’s eyes squinted in bafflement. He opened his file and looked at a recent photograph of Bruce Grey. The man in the photograph had black hair. “Is this the man who checked in that night?”

  Hector stared at the picture for a good ten seconds. “I can’t say for sure. He looked much different. He didn’t have a beard, and like I said before, his hair was blond.”

  Bernstein opened the file. He had tried to avoid the police photos because he was not fond of looking at splattered remains, but now he knew that he would have to look. He thumbed through the papers until he arrived at the first glossy photograph. There was not enough face left to tell if there had ever been a beard, but even through the thick patches of blood, Max could see that the dead man definitely had blond hair. Like Hector said, very blond.

  Max closed both the file and his eyes. Why the sudden appearance change? A new hairdo and quick shave for a leap through a window seemed a tad bizarre, to say the least.

  “Tell me what Dr. Grey said to you when he checked in.”

  Hector looked up, trying to remember. “Nothing special. He just said he wanted a room. I asked, ‘How many nights, sir?’ and he said, ‘One.’ ”

  “That’s it?”

  “I said, ‘Will that be cash or charge?’ and he said, ‘Cash.’ Then I gave him the key and he took off.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re sure.”

  He thought a moment. “That was it.”

  “He didn’t have any special requests for his room?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t ask for the room to be on a certain floor?”

  Hector shook his head. “I don’t even think he looked at the number on the key until he stepped into the elevator.”

  Cold fear slid down Bernstein’s chest. His finger went back into his mouth, but there was nothing left to chew except skin. This whole thing was getting messy and complicated, too messy and too complicated. Bruce Grey had not asked for a special room. He had not asked for a room with a view or a room near an elevator or one of those new no-smoking rooms. He had not asked for a room with a king-sized bed or a queen-sized bed or two separate beds. And most of all Bruce Grey had not asked for a room on a high floor. For all he knew, he could have gotten a room on the ground level.

  “Is there anything else, Lieutenant?”

  “No, that’s it for now.”

  Hector Rodriguez turned to leave and then stopped. “I saw your name in the Herald, Lieutenant. I hope you catch that whacko before he slices off somebody else’s nuts.”

  Max’s head shot up. “What did you say?”

  “Cutting off a man’s balls. Pure loco, huh, Lieutenant?”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “The evening edition. Front cover. What kind of a man does something like that? City’s full of sickos.”

  Once again, Max rubbed his face and eyes with his right hand. The press. The mayor. The gay activists.

  Help.

  8

  THE ringing of the telephone jerked George out of his sleep. He awoke, as he always did, quickly, alert. He picked up the receiver before the second ring.

  “Hello.”

  “Did you read this morning’s paper?”

  George sat up and checked his watch. The voice on the other end sounded different this time—still agitated and strained, but now there was something else. More fear. Maybe even anger. “No,” George replied. “Should I have?”

  “According to the Herald, the Gay Slasher tortured and castrated Scott Trian before killing him.”

  “You sound upset.”

  “They were supposed to die quickly, damn it! I never said anything about torture or mutilation.”

  “If you’re unhappy with my work—”

  “Unhappy? You’re a lunatic. I thought I was dealing with a professional, but you’re a goddamn psychopath.”

  “I was following your orders,” George said. “The mutilation just speeds up the end result. It makes sense financially.”

  There was stunned silence on the other end.

  George continued. “I assume you also read that everything went smoothly with Jenkins’ murder. I dumped the body just where you wanted it.”

  “Did . . . did you disfigure him?”

  “He died from the first stab wound. The same with Whitherson.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  “Then just promise me you won’t hurt any of the others.”

  George almost smiled. “I am merely the executioner, the one who pulls the switch or drops the gas pellet. But you . . . you are the judge and jury. You are the one who ordered their deaths.”

  “No,” the voice said slowly, “I am not.”

  Again there was silence. Then the voice said, “Promise me, George. Promise me that no others will be needlessly tortured.”

  George paused. “Okay. But I assure you it was for the best.”

  There was a long release of breath and then the voice said, “The situation is different now. You’ll have to be more careful. The police are going to start watching.”

  “Watching what?” George asked. “The police force can’t guard every faggot in Manhattan . . . unless there’s something else.”

  “Something else? I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do,” George said. “Listen, I don’t care who you are. I don’t care why you want these people killed. It’s not my concern. But I need to know what the police are thinking. I need to know what the real connection is between the victims so that I can prepare properly. Otherwise, mistakes can be made.”

  Silence.

  “Can I assume,” George continued, “that these men have more in common than being gay?”

  “They’re all patients at an AIDS clinic,” the voice said.

  “So that explains why you told me to wear the mask and gloves.”

  “Yes.”

  “And Dr. Grey worked at this clinic?”

  “Yes.”

  “So let me get this straight: Trian, Whitherson, and Jenkins were all AIDS patients at a clinic operated by Bruce Grey?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the police know this?”

  “They know most of it. The rest they’ll figure out.”

  “So they may look into Grey’s suicide again.”

  “They might.”

  George thought for a moment. “I have an idea, but it’ll cost you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ll kill a couple of random faggots—”

  “No!”

  “Hear me out. I kill a couple of faggots who don’t have AIDS or aren’t being treated at this clinic. It’ll throw the cops off the track. Make it look even more like the work of a psychotic gay hater.”

  “No!”

  “Then I’ll change the way I kill the next few. I’ll make it look like an accident or, better yet, a suicide. If these guys have AIDS and are on death row anyway, a suicide might not be looked into too closely.”

  “The police will be looking for something like that. You’ll never get away with it.”

  “Worth a try.”

  “No. I want you to use the same methods unless I say otherwise.”

  George shrugged. “Your money.”

  “And remember—the only people who are to be put to death are the ones I say.”

  “Not put to death,” George said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “They’re not being ‘put to death,’ ” George continued. “They’re being murdered.”

  “DO you eat here every day?” Sara asked.

  “No,” Eric Blake replied. They both slid their trays along the hospital cafeteria girders. The room was packed with doctors, nurses, lab technicians—everyone dressed in white coats or blue hospital scrubs with the words “Property of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center—Removal from Premises Prohibited” emblazoned across the chest. Everyone looked
exhausted, the men unshaven, the women baggy-eyed. Working forty hour shifts can do that to a person.

  Sara looked down at the hospital pizza and frowned. “Eric?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is mozzarella cheese supposed to be green?”

  “It’s one of the better items on the menu.”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “I can order in Chinese, if you’d like.”

  She shook her head. “Michael would kill me. He hasn’t eaten Chinese in two days and he’s already suffering withdrawal pains.”

  “He always did love Chinese food.”

  They found a table toward the back where the room was relatively quiet.

  “How’s Michael feeling?” Eric asked. “I haven’t had a chance to check in on him today.”

  “About the same,” Sara replied. “He’s taking a nap right now. I don’t know, Eric . . . he just doesn’t look right to me.”

  “He’ll be fine.” Eric carefully opened his container of milk. While everyone around them drank directly from the carton, Eric poured the milk into a glass and then lifted it to his lips. “It’s kind of spooky seeing Michael here, though. Like a bad déjà vu.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It reminds me of when we were kids,” he said. “Of when Michael’s stepfather beat him.”

  Sara winced. “He doesn’t talk about it much.”

  “I know. I don’t blame him. It was a bad time, Sara, best forgotten.”

  She nodded slowly, picturing Michael as a helpless child in a hospital bed. A flush of anguish and anger rose in her. Her mind traveled back five years to the first time she had learned about Michael’s past, a few hours before she met him for the first time.

  “I want you to interview Michael Silverman,” Larry Simmons, managing editor of the New York Herald, told her.

  “The basketball player?” she asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Why? Basketball is hardly my area of expertise.”

  “I don’t want a story about basketball. I want a story about Michael Silverman, the man. Look, the NBA finals are on now and everyone is applauding Silverman’s skill on the court. But where did he come from? What made this Jewish kid from New Jersey become such a fantastic athlete?”

  “Hasn’t this story been done before?”