Extreme Measures

by Michael Palmer

  Above the desk, an STP wall clock told him that it was 2:15.

  Perhaps two hours had passed since he and Anna were poisoned. He felt desperate to get the death powder off his face.

  In the weeds alongside the building he found a brick. As he stood poised before the window, he noticed the thin, metallic strip of a security system. it was just as well, he thought. With any luck he could get at the envelope and summon the police with the same maneuver.

  He stepped back a pace and hurled the back with all his strength. The spectacular implosion of glass was accompanied instantly by the wailing of a siren. Eric kicked away a few large shards and stepped into the office.

  He grabbed the envelope and hurried to the restroom. Trying to ignore the bloody apparition in the mirror, he carefully used the small knife to scrape as much of the powder as possible from his cheek into the envelope. When he felt certain that Ivor Blunt could make an identification from a fraction of what he had saved, he scrubbed his face with soap, rinsed it, and then scrubbed it again. Still, with his eyes lost in dark hollows and his lower lip split and stiff with clotted blood, he looked very much like precisely what he was at that moment-a man who was dying.

  The pay phone behind the desk required a quarter even to get a dial tone. If the wailing alarm wasn't somehow connected to the police, Eric knew there was no telling how much time he would lose waiting for someone to respond. He searched the top of the desk for a coin, but succeeded only in learning from several bills that he was in Bob Kuyper's Country Mobile in Wayland-a rural community twenty miles or so west of Boston. He huddled over the desk, using his knife to work on the lock.

  "Okay, asshole, get on the floor!"

  The harsh voice, from not ten feet away, drove Eric's heart into his throat. His service revolver leveled, a rugged young officer stepped through the shattered window and motioned Eric away from the desk.

  Behind the policeman Eric could see a second officer, undoubtedly this man's backup.

  "Wait, officer, please. I'm not a thief, I'm a doctor and-"

  "Shut the fuck up and get face down!"

  The man, younger than Eric, seemed quite tough but also a bit nervous.

  Eric knelt in a spot away from the broken glass and then prostrated himself on the oily floor. The policeman circled him warily, finally positioning himself against a wall, safe from any attack from behind.

  "Please listen to me," Eric begged. "It's a matter of LIFE and death, believe me it is."

  "Put your hands behind you!"

  "You've got to-"

  "Do it!"

  Eric did as he was ordered. The policeman knelt roughly against the small of his back and expertly snapped a pair of handcuffs into place.

  Pain from the knife cuts seared up Eric's arms.

  "He's cuffed, Sarge," the man called out.

  "Keep him there," the other Man responded. "I'm going to check around out here." The policeman stood up.

  "Okay, then," he said. "I'm Officer Carney. That's Sergeant Clarkson out there. You're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent-"

  "Please, please," Eric begged. "I know all that. I waive all my rights. You've got to listen to me.", "Sit up. Slowly."

  Eric did as he was told.

  "Will you listen to me now?" he asked.

  The young policeman nodded. For the next three minutes he listened without saying a word. Then he helped Eric to his feet and crunched across the shattered glass to what was once the plate-glass window.

  "Hey, Sarge," he called out. "I think you'd better get on in here."

  West Valley Regional Hospital was a tiny, fairly new facility located about five miles from the station house where Eric had been taken and booked for breaking and entering, plus malicious mischief It was 3:30 A.M. With Officer Carney keeping watch, a nurse was bandaging the lacerations on Eric's wrists, two of which had required suturing.

  The bleary-eyed physician on duty was a moonlighter, a senior surgical resident from Worcester named Jennifer Farrell. Trying mentally to place himself in her Position, Eric had dropped a few names from her training program, and then cautiously and calmly recounted the events of the evening, using enough jargon to convince her that he was, in fact, a physician. Finally he showed her the envelope of powder and begged her to contact White Memorial for verification of his identity, and to get the home phone number of Dr. Ivor Blunt.

  The nurse had just finished her work when Sergeant Clarkson and Jennifer Farrell reentered the room.

  "apparently you are who you say you are," Clarkson said.

  "That's a relief "Tell us again what you want us to do now."

  "Well, first of all I want someone to get over to AUston and see if they can find Anna Delacroix."

  "That's already being done. We called the Metropolitan Police from the station."

  "Thank you. Now I'd like to call Dr. Blunt and have him meet us at White Memorial."

  "Who is he again?"

  "He's a toxicologist, and probably the only one in the city who has the equipment and know-how to identify this poison."

  "Do you agree with that, Doc?" Clarkson asked the resident.

  Dr. Farrell shrugged. "I know of Dr. Blunt," she said. "And I know that we can't do a thing with this powder here."

  "How does our friend here seem to you right now?"

  Jennifer FarreR rechecked Eric's eyes, heart, lungs, and blood pressure.

  "No problem," she said. "Dr. Najarian, are you sure you don't want me to sew that lip of yours?"

  "I'm sure," Eric said, unable to keep impatience from his voice.

  "Okay," Clarkson said after some thought. "Dr. Farrell, do you have a phone with a second extension?"

  She nodded. "Dr. Najarian, I'm going to listen while you talk to this Dr. Blunt. If it sounds on the up-and up, I'll drive you in to White Memorial. Just remember, you're still under arrest. Any crazy stuff and you'll be back on the floor."

  "I understand."

  Ivor Blunt was outraged at the early hour.

  Eric quickly found himself squirming in his seat as the crusty toxicologist questioned his every statement.

  "Let me get this straight," Blunt said. "You want me to get up, shlep into the hospital, Turn on my equipment, and analyze some dust that was put on your cheek during a voodoo ceremony in downtown Auston?" i(Correci.

  "]X. Najm, are you crazy?"

  "What I am is poisoned, Dr. Blunt," Eric said evenly. "Please, you've got to help me."

  "Doctor, try to see it my way. You come into my office asking if I can analyze a woman's blood for this toxin that's never been found in Massachusetts. Then, not twenty-four hours later, you're calling me from some podunk hospital, claiming to have been poisoned with the stuff."

  "That's right, sir."

  "You sick now?"

  "N'of yet, no."

  "If these men wanted you dead. why didn't they just put a bullet between your eyes?" be "I lieve they wanted to" make a point to the people they've been terrorizing, Eric said.

  "errorizink with tetrodotoxin."

  "That's right." There was a prolonged silence, during which Eric rattled off what prayers he knew.

  "I think you're crazy," Ivor Blunt said finally, "but since you've already got me wide awake, and since I'll never get back to sleep over my wife's snoring, I'm going to do what you want."

  "Thank you," Eric sighed. "Thank you, sir. We can be at your lab in forty-five minutes."

  "Take your time. Bring me your powder and four red-top and one green-top tubes of blood."

  "I'll have them drawn here."

  "Fine. Do you have a personal psychiatrist on the staff?"

  "No. No, I don't."

  "That's too bad," Ivor Blunt said. don't like this, Bernard," Laura said, listening as Eric's apartment phone rang a ninth, then a tenth time. "I don't like this at all."

  For nearly three hours they had sat in Bernard Nelson's office, drinking coffee, sorting through the material they had brought with them from the Gate
s of Heaven, and trying to locate Eric. There was a message from him at the Carlisle which had come in some time around ten, but since then, nothing. Five calls to his apartment and one to the hospital had gotten them nowhere.

  The nervous energy generated by their break-in at the funeral home and their grisly discoveries was wearing off, and Laura was beginning to feel desperate for some sleep. Bernard Nelson was bearing up even less well, and had already taken a prolonged nap on his couch. They had decided, at least for the night, that she should steer clear of her hotel. If someone had tried to run her down, there was good reason to avoid anyplace she might be expected to be.

  Their escape through a back door of the mortuary had seemed unnoticed.

  But still, Bernard had driven around for nearly an hour, making absolutely certain no one was following them. Finally they parked in the alley behind his building and entered through the basement. Only when they were in his office with the curtains drawn did they begin to examine what they had gathered from Donald Devine's safe.

  Before they did, however, Bernard placed a brief, anonymous call to the Boston police, suggesting that someone stop by the Gates of Heaven.

  "Where could he be?" Laura asked, concern shadowing her face as she set the receiver down.

  "Where did you say his parents lived?"

  "Watertown."

  "Maybe he went home and stayed over."

  "Why wouldn't he have left the number at my hotel, or at least have called back?"

  "I don't know, Laura." Nelson rubbed at his eyes.

  "Listen, I hope you don't misunderstand what I'm about to say. I know you think a great deal of Eric.

  And I suspect from what you've told me that those feelings are not misplaced. -But people are not always what they seem to be. You haven't known him that long. There are any number of things he could be into that he hasn't let you in on."

  "Maybe." Laura thought for a moment and then added, "But I don't think so. I think we should go over to his apartment."

  Bernard Nelson massaged the back of his neck and once again stretched out on the couch.

  "Laura, a couple of days ago in East Boston, some heavies nearly tore the two of you apart. Yesterday afternoon someone probably tried to kill you. There's every reason to believe that whoever they are, they're watching his place as well as yours. If they've already got him, the best thing we could do is wait until they contact us. It's you, and your brother's tape, they're after, not him. If they haven't got him, well, then the best thing we can do is wait anyhow." He forced a smile. "Besides, one break-in a night is my limit."

  "I have a key."

  Bernard looked up at her and softened.

  "Are you sure his phone's working?"

  "The operator says it is."

  "Well, I still think we're better off getting a couple of hours sleep and at least waiting until it's light. It's just too dangerous, really it is. Trust me on that."

  "I'm very worried about him."

  "I know you are. Listen, the couch in my waiting room's a fold-out.

  Give me just a couple of hours."

  "Oh, okay. What about all of this?" she asked, gesturing to the piles of notes, receipts, and ledgers.

  "Laura, our late friend generated and squirreled away more paperwork than the Department of Defense. If we couldn't make-any sense of this stuff at tWO A.M our chances are even less at three.

  There's something buried in there that's going to shed some light on the man and his basement, I'm certain of that. But frankly, at this point I can barely remember my own name."

  "I understand," Laura said.

  "Good. In that case you remain the leading candidate to become my apprentice."

  "Bernard, before you sleep I want to tell you again how grateful I am for what you've done."

  "Cigars, woman. Talk in terms I can relate to."

  She smiled. "I haven't forgotten. Listen, why don't you use the fold-out. I'll stay up for a while longer going through this stuff Then I'll try Eric one more time. If we haven't connected with him by, say, six or seven, we can try his place."

  "Good enough."

  Groaning with the effort, Bernard Nelson pushed himself up, grabbed a pair of old army blankets from his closet, tossed one on the couch, and then lumbered into the waiting room with the other. In minutes, Laura heard the sonorous breathing of exhausted sleep, Then, with a sip of cold stale coffee, she settled in behind the desk.

  Bernard had estimated that in their haste to get out of Donald Devine's bedroom he had gotten perhaps half the contents of the safe.

  Before they left the mortuary, he had slipped back to the upstairs apartment and verified that, as they suspected, whatever they had left behind had been taken, and the, apartment ransacked. undoubtedly the police would put robbery at the head of their list of motives. Of course there was still the intensive-care room to explain away.

  Laura set aside the folder of correspondence and contracts, and concentrated on two ledgers. One of them, dating back six years and replete with names, addresses, payments, and various abbreviations, seemed to be a record of the considerable number of clients Devine had tended to. The other, held closed with a heavy rubber band, was also a list of names and abbreviations. However, between the last page and cover, this one was stuffed with receipts from.various gas stations-at least a hundred of them, and possibly many more than that. Laura set the pile in front of her, made some room, and one at a time smoothed each one out, arranging them by date.

  At 5:2.0, with the first light of day Mtering through the curtains, Laura could no longer keep her eyes open. Without even trying to make sense of what she had found, she shuffled to the couch and was asleep almost as her head touched the pillow- Resting on the desk was a calculator, a pad scribbled with figures, and the Rand McNally adas she had extracted from Bernard Nelson's eclectic collection of novels and reference volumes. The atlas was open to a map of the mountain states.

  Tucked in the cleft between pages was the pencil she had used to circle a small, sparsely populated area in southeast Utah. n Barred from the spectrophotometry lab by Ivor Blunt, Eric paced about the pathology department's waiting room. From time to time he swore his heart had skipped beats; at other times a breath or two seemed to be heavier than normal. He flexed his fingers and rubbed his hands, wondering if the tingling in them was the first sign of progressive neurotoxicity, or merely the result of his lacerations.

  The sergeant from Wayland had turned out to be something of a godsend.

  After driving Eric to White Memorial and getting a positive recommendation on him from the head of hospital security, Clarkson had decided to void the criminal charges against him. In exchange, Eric gladly promised to pay the Mobile station owner for repairs to his window and security system.

  After Clarkson left for Wayland, Eric had stopped by the emergency room for a confidential talk with the senior resident assigned to Reed Marshall's shifts.

  As he rechecked Eric's vital signs and physical exam, the bewildered resident did his best to appear to understand what had happened, but Eric knew he was being patronized. Nor was that reaction surprising.

  Until Ivor Blunt confirmed the identity of the teotoxin, Eric was resigned to being very much on his own.

  He sat on the arm of a chair and thumbed through a dog-eared copy of People. Like grotesque neon, the leering death's-head face glowed in his mind. Extortion, murder, narcotics, preying on the weak and superstitious-the man or woman behind that mask was a monster. He wondered where Anna Delacroix was, what horrors she was enduring-if in fact she was still alive.

  His thoughts were interrupted by voices and a commotion of some sort in the hallway outside the waiting room.

  "No, dammit," he heard a man say. "You all stay out here. We'll handle this. When we have something to say to you, we'll say it."

  "You have no right," a woman's shrill voice cried.

  "We have every right. Now just stay back here before I bust you for interfering."

  Th
e glass door to the waiting room was pulled open, and two metropolitan District policemen entered.

  "Dr. Najarian?" one of them asked. He was a thin " black man with a creased forehead and kind eyes.

  "That's right. Have you found out anything about Anna?"

  The policeman, whose name tag identified him as Patrolman Medeiros, flipped a note pad open. Behind him, the other officer, younger and huskier than Medeiros, turned as several people pressed against the door.

  "The natives are restless, Tony," he said.

  "Goddam cannibals," Medeiros muttered. "Brian, just don't let 'em in here."

  "Who are they?" Eric asked.

  Medeiros looked up at him.

  "Reporters," he said. "A couple of them were at the station when the call came in about this Delacroix woman and your voodoo ceremony.

  One of them recognized your name."

  "Mine?"

  That's right. Apparently the Herald is about to hit the streets with an article about you and a missing body of some sort."

  "Oh, Jesus," Eric said, remembering the stern faces of the selection committee as they discussed the hospital's campaign against negative publicity. "What about Anna?"

  "Twelve Sproul Court in Allston- That the address of the store you went to?"

  "That's right. Benet's. It's like a hardware store."

  "You sure this man-this Titus Memmilard-was the owner?"

  "Of course I'm sure. He said it, and his niece said it.

  Eric felt confusion and a tearing emptiness beginning to set in.

  "Well, Doctor, number Twelve Sproul Court is a hardware store named Benet's all right. But the Benets, who live upstairs, and who we woke up and scared half to death, have owned that store for more than five years. And they've never even heard of anyone named Titus Memmilard-or, for that matter, Anna Delacroix either."

  "That's… that's impossible."

  But even as he said the words, Eric knew he was hearing the truth.

  "And that other place," Medeiros went on wearily, glancing at his notes,

  "the place three doors down where you claim you and this Delacroix woman were taken at knife point and allegedly poisoned."