He pulled into a sprawling truck-stop complex and parked in a dark area off to the side of the restaurant. He checked his map and stuffed it in his pocket, then went through the doctor's satchel again. He opened a flat leather case and his eyes gleamed. It was a set of scalpels. He took out the largest one, tapped his thumb on the blade, and drew a drop of blood. He sucked it off and slipped the razor-sharp tool in his breast pocket. He also took a hypodermic needle, a vial of morphine, and a large roll of adhesive tape from the bag. He got out of the car and locked it. He looked around. Nobody was near him. He hastily opened the trunk and threw the doctor's satchel on top of Rifkin's body. He slammed the trunk shut and walked off into the darkness.
Vail sat next to Jane Venable in the ICU. The entire right side of her face was swathed in bandages. IVs protruded from both arms, the narrow tubes, like snakes, curling up to bottles attached to the back of her head. Behind her, machines beeped and hummed as they measured her life signs. An oxygen mask covered her mouth and nose. Her limp hand, which he clutched between both of his, seemed cold and lifeless.
He watched the clock on the wall. It was nearly 2:30 A.M. Stenner had been in surgery for more than four hours. An hour earlier, one of the doctors had stepped briefly into the hall.
'We're doing everything we can,' the weary surgeon had told Vail. 'He's a lucky man. The point of that knife missed his heart by a quarter of an inch. If it had nicked the aorta he would have bled to death before the medics got to him.'
'But he's going to make it, right?' Vail said, almost pleadingly.
'It's touch and go. He's still opened up, we're having to do a lot of microsurgery. But he's strong, in excellent physical condition, that's going to help.'
Since then the tortured minutes had crawled by.
Outside the ICU the entire staff had gathered at the hospital, monitoring phone calls in a small office Mrs Wilonski had hastily cleared out for them. But in the outside world there was nothing but silence. Stampler had simply vanished into the night. Was he holed up somewhere in the city? Had he stolen another car? Vail was overwhelmed with anxiety, guilt, and hatred towards the man who had so successfully conned them all and was now on a madhouse killing spree.
He felt a slight pressure from Jane's hand and looked over at her. Her lips moved under the oxygen mask.
'Take it off,' her lips said.
'Can't do that, Janie.'
'Just a minute,' the lips said.
'Okay, just for a minute.' Vail reached over and slid the face mask down to her chin. She squeezed his hand again.
'Hi,' Vail said.
'Abel?' she asked, her speech blurred by drugs.
'He's carved up pretty badly, but they think he's going to make it.'
'Sav'd m'life, Marty.'
'And you saved his.'
'D'you catch Stampler?'
'Not yet. Just a matter of time. I can't stay long. I'm not even supposed to be in here.'
'Pull rank, you're th' DA…'m I all smashed up, Marty?'
'Nah. I know a good body shop, they'll knock the dents out in no time.'
She smiled up at him.
' 'Fraid m' goin''t'sleep again.'
'Sleep well, my dear. I'll be here when you wake up.'
'Marty?'
'Yeah?'
'Kiss me?'
He leaned over and gently touched her lips with his.
'I love you.'
'And I love you, Janie.'
And she drifted off again.
She was in a deep, deep sleep, dreaming the dream she always dreamed: She was walking through dense fog, hearing the voices but never quite seeing the faces that went with them, those harpy songs that taunted her, luring her deeper and deeper into the mist. Help me, help me, help me, the voices cried until the sense of futility overwhelmed even her dreams, until suddenly she stepped into the hole and fell through the clouds, tumbling towards oblivion until she awakened with a start. This time as she moved through the cottony mist, her feet froze in place and the haze blazed into light just before she fell. She awoke with a start. The bed-table light was on and her feet were tied to the foot of the bed. She tried to scream, but her mouth was bound with tape. Fear turned sour in her mouth. She looked around and saw, a few inches from her face, a scalpel.
Its blade twinkled as it was twisted in the light's beam. Her eyes gradually refocused on the face behind the scalpel's edge.
'Hi, Miss Molly,' he said in the innocent Appalachian accent he had discarded years before. ' 'Member me?'
She recognized Stampler immediately. Time had not changed him that much. Molly Arrington's heart was pounding in her throat, her temples, her wrists. She was having trouble breathing through her nose. Behind him, she saw the open window, the curtains wafting lazily in the draft. She peered at him in terror, but then just as quickly - as she adjusted to waking up - she grew calm. Questions assaulted her mind. How did he get here? What was he doing?
'Listen to me,' he said, and his voice was cold, calculating, without accent or tone. 'I'm going to take that tape off your mouth, but if you scream, if you talk above a whisper, I'll make an incision right here' — he put the point of the blade against her throat - 'and cut out your vocal cords. It won't kill you, unless maybe you drown in your own blood, but it will be almighty painful. Do we have an understanding?' She slowly nodded.
He picked a corner of the tape up with the tip of his little finger and then ripped it off. It tore her lips. Tears flushed her eyes, but she did not scream.
'That's good, that's very, very good,' he said. 'I always did admire your spunk. I suppose you have some questions?'
She did not answer but instead stared down in shock at him. He was stark naked and erect, sitting in a chair beside the bed.
'Cat got your tongue?' He chuckled. He moved the scalpel to the neckline of her silk nightshirt and drew the sharp blade slowly down the length of the shirt. It spread open in the wake of the incision until he had split it all the way to her knees. He took the knife and flipped first one side of the shirt, then the other, aside.
'There,' he said, staring lasciviously at her naked body. 'Now we're even.'
Still not a sound from her.
'Can't you even say hello?'
She did not look at him. She stared at the ceiling.
'Talk to me!' he roared.
She turned her head slowly towards him.
'Martin was right,' she said.
'Oh, Martin was right. Martin was right,' he mimicked her. 'Martin was finally right, you should say. And only because I let him know. I gave him the clues and he finally figured it all out.'
'That's what he said.'
'Bright boy. Well, Doc, I don't have much time. Got a lot to do before I'm on my way. Got to be waiting when he comes.'
'Comes where?'
He just smiled.
She did not ask again.
He held the scalpel up again and regarded it with sensual pleasure. 'Know what I like about knives, Doctor? I like the way they feel. I like their power. People have a visceral fear of knives. And they're so efficient. All you have to do…' - he slashed the scalpel through the air — '… is that. Swish, and it's all over. Exsanguination. Instant rigor mortis. Instant! All the air rushes out of the lungs. It's such a… a pure sound. Whoosh. Ten, fifteen seconds and it's all over. And this? This is a masterpiece. A scalpel. The ultimate blade. So beautiful.'
'It's nice to know you killed them first, before you—'
'Oh, she can talk. Before I what? Before I cleansed them? Before I blooded them?'
'So that's what you did. Cleansed them,' she said with sarcasm.
'Oh, we're going to push it, are we?'
'Push what?' she answered wearily. 'I don't doubt for a minute you're going to kill me.'
'I might surprise you.'
'You can't surprise me any more,' she said.
He stood up and began to stroke himself. His lips were twitching around a sickening leer.
'You always wanted it
, didn't you? Huh? Wanted me to throw you down on the floor of that cell and fuck your brains out.'
'You're delusionary.'
The smile vanished. The eyes went dead.
'Rebecca was right. Rebecca was always right. She was right about my brother and Mary. Get rid of them, she told me. Get rid of the hate. She was there when I stuffed the towels in the car window. And when they were cold and stiff, we did it in the front seat, right in front of them. Now you're even, she said. Now you can forget them. Just like I forgot Shackles and Rushman and Peter and Billy. Just like I finally could forget Linda and that creepy little coward, Alex Lincoln. She told me you were in the pit, too, that you were just as nuts as the rest of us. You know what it's like, don't you? To be smarter than all of them, listen to them pampering, pandering, so righteous. So fucking proud of themselves playing God. And they were all wrong. All of you were wrong. That's the best part of it all. Now everybody will know, the whole world will know.'
'I was wrong,' Molly said. 'You're not delusionary, you're demonic.'
'Demonic,' he sneered, raising his eyebrows.
'Demonic,' he repeated, savouring the word. 'I like that. Is that a medical term?'
'You want to kill the people that kept you alive.'
'Alive. You call ten years in bedlam alive?'
'Would you have preferred the electric chair?'
'I would have preferred freedom. He played games with me.'
'He did the best he - '
'He fucked me to protect that miserable faggot Rushman. He had the tape. Not a woman on that jury would have found me guilty if they had seen the tape. Christ, after that he had plenty of room for reasonable doubt. A second person in the room, temporary insanity, irresistible impulse. But nooo, he had to play the clever boy, protecting Rushman's good name, sucking that prosecutor into his game. And you went along with it.'
'You tricked yourself. You provided the multiple personality defence…'
'I didn't know you two would use it to sell me out. I knew when he came up to see me in Daisyland the other day he was going to try and ruin me. Hell, he would have looked like a fool if he tried to stop me from leaving, but he was too smart for that. We had the perfect plan, Hydra and me. Hydra got Shoat and I was supposed to get Venable. I could have been back in the room with a perfect alibi. I could've laughed at Vail. I could've got them all - Venable, Shoat, Stennet, you - all but Vail. I would've let him live in his own hell. Then that bitch, Venable, screwed me up. Look at my face. She did that!'
Molly said nothing. She stared at him in disgust as he straddled her, resting on his knees.
'He should've pleaded temporary insanity, I could have walked out of there free and clear.'
'That's ridiculous, he couldn't - '
'Don't speak to me like that!'
'I'm sorry.'
'You're not sorry. You're patronizing me. You should know better.
She shut up and stared at the ceiling again.
'Vail was so fucking clever, playing all those little legal games of his in court, dicking around with that insufferable Shoat. Jesus, I could have done better.'
No answer.
'Ten years of drugs and shock treatments, egomaniac doctors, panderers, panderers, they were all fucking panderers.'
He turned to the night table and put the scalpel down. He picked up a hypodermic needle, stared at its point. He picked up the vial of morphine, inserted the needle into it, working the plunger until it was full of the deadly painkiller.
'Well, now, Mr Vail understands what it's like to hate enough to kill. And it's going to get worse.' He settled down on her and held the needle in front of her face. 'One hundred ccs, Doc. Permanent sleep, like the shot they give you when they put you away like a dog. I'll give it to you a little bit at a time, so the pain won't be so bad. A cc here, a cc there, here a cc, there a cc…' he sang.
He had lost it, she realized. Disassociated. Calm replaced by rage. Whatever he was going to do, he would do, she knew that now. She closed her eyes and waited with an eerie calm for the inevitable. She hardly felt the needle when it pierced her arm.
Thirty-Eight
An exhausted young surgeon walked out of operating room three. He was surprisingly young, a tall, lean man with his long black hair tucked up under his green surgical cap. His surgical gown and shoe mittens were blood-spattered. His eyes were bloodshot. He pulled off his mask and breathed a sigh of relief. Vail approached him.
'Doctor? I'm Martin Vail. Any news?'
The young doctor smiled and held out a large hand with long, delicate fingers. 'It's a pleasure, Mr Vail. I'm Alex Rosenbloom. Your man Stenner is one tough cookie.'
'He's going to make it, then?'
Rosenbloom nodded. 'But an hour ago I wouldn't have bet on it. We almost lost him twice.'
'Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.'
The young doctor slapped Vail on the shoulder. 'I'm thankful I didn't have to bring bad news out,' he said. 'Look, I know you've been very patient. They're taking him into Recovery now. You can stick your head in for just a minute.'
'Thanks. There are a lot of us here that thank you.'
'I heard the whole DA's staff is here,' Rosenbloom said. 'He must be a very special person.'
'Yes, he is.'
Vail entered the small recovery room. Stenner seemed frighteningly tiny and frail. He looked grey and vulnerable with his arms attached to a half-dozen IV tubes and various machines beeping and humming beside his bed. Vail took his hand.
'Welcome back,' he said softly.
Stenner groaned.
'Can you hear me, Abel?'
Stenner's eyes opened a hair and he stared, unfocused, at his friend. He blinked his eyes once.
'You're going to be okay, my friend. And so is Janie. Thank you. Thank you.'
Stenner slowly blinked his eyes again.
'We've got Stampler in our sights,' Vail lied. 'Just a matter of time.'
Under the oxygen mask, he saw Stenner's lips form the word 'Good.' Then his hand slipped out of Vail's and he fell asleep.
Vail stood by the window, staring out at the first red signs of dawn. It was nearing 5 A.M. and everyone was exhausted. But the crisis seemed to be over. Both Stenner and Venable were holding their own and for that Vail was grateful. He gathered the troops together.
'I think it's safe to call it a night - or a morning,' he said with an attempt at a smile. 'I'd like to work in shifts, keep somebody here around the clock. Naomi, work up a schedule, okay? I'm going to hang in here for a while longer.'
'I ain't goin' nowheres,' St Claire said emphatically.
'Me neither,' Meyer joined in.
'Look, we all need to get some rest,' Naomi said, taking command. 'Let's not forget we still have an office to run.'
'I'm going outside and have a cigarette,' Vail said. He went down the long hallway and out on the emergency dock. There was very little activity. The chaos of the night before had been replaced by an eerie calm. He lit up and watched the sky begin to brighten. Parver and Flaherty joined him.
'I hate to bring this up,' Parver said, 'but Stoddard is up for arraignment tomorrow. What're we going to do?'
'Postpone it until we see how Jane is doing. Hell, I don't want to deal with that right now.'
'I'm sorry,' she answered. 'I'll take care of it.'
'You're still having mixed feelings about Stoddard, aren't you?'
She thought for a minute and nodded. 'After finding that stuff in that closet room, I…' She hesitated for a moment, then finished the sentence. 'Don't worry, I'll handle it properly.'
'I know you will.' He smiled at Flaherty, who stood quietly by, holding her hand. 'You two take care of each other. Time has a bad habit of running out when you least expect it.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Better go home and get some shut-eye.'
The emergency doors swung open and St Claire peered out.
'I think we got us a break,' he said.
Buddy Harris was on t
he phone. The state police officer had been up all night, fielding false alarms and the usual nut calls that result from an APB. It seemed everybody in the city of Chicago had seen Stampler during the long night.
'But I think we got a live one,' he told Vail. 'I just got a call from the Indiana HP. They think they've tumbled on a stolen car with Illinois plates and an MD's tag. Probably wouldn't have noticed it for hours except the dumb bastard parked in a handicapped space next to a diner. It was spotted by a waitress a little after two A.M., so it's been parked there for a couple of hours. They ran the registration. It's owned by a Dr Steven Rifkin. There's no answer at his house, so I called the University Medical Center. They say he checked out of there about ten-thirty last night. Apparently he had a really hard day and was going straight home to bed.'
'You say Indiana has the car?'
'Yeah. In a place outside Indianapolis called Shelbyville.'
Vail thought for a moment. The name struck a chord.
Then he remembered the shrink at the Justine Clinic telling him Rene Hutchinson had taken computer lessons in Shelbyville.
'Jesus, Buddy, that's only a few miles from the Justine Clinic. My God! He's going after Molly Arrington. Call the Indiana patrol, tell them to get an address on a Dr Molly Arrington in Winthrop and get over there on the double. I'm going out to the airport and fly down there.'
'Hell, that isn't necessary, Marty, they got—'
'I'll call you from the airport. Just get on it, Buddy.' Vail turned to Naomi. 'Call Hawk Permar and tell him we need the chopper. There's going to be three of us and we're going about thirty miles southeast of Indianapolis, a town called Winthrop. If he starts bitching, tell him I'll personally throw in a two-hundred-dollar bonus.'
'Three passengers?' St Clare said. 'You, me, and Flaherty. We're going down there to find that son of a bitch and bring him back.'
They were airborne, swinging south from the airport and following Interstate 65 towards Indianapolis. The pilot, Matt Permar, who had earned the nickname Hawk flying choppers in Vietnam, was grumbling about not getting enough sleep as he followed the interstate straight towards Indianapolis. A chunky, good-humoured man, he was an excellent pilot who loved to gripe - a hangover from his army days.