Desperate Measures

58

Dino called Muldoon, and the detective answered.

“It’s Bacchetti.”

“I got Barrington’s message,” Muldoon said. “I called Calabrese, where should we meet you?”

“Lenox Hill, the ER entrance,” Dino said and then hung up.

Donald Trask took the call on his cell. “Yes?”

“You know who this is?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a guy named Eddie, a doorman, who’s in the ER at Lenox Hill Hospital.”

“From the Carlyle?”

“From Bloomingdale’s. He can put you there on the night. I thought you’d like to know.”

“I’ll leave something for you at the drop,” Trask said. Then he got into his coat and took a gun from his safe. A minute later, he was on his way to Lenox Hill, which wasn’t far from his apartment.

The ambulance had some traffic problems — a wreck on Third Avenue — and took longer to get to the ER than Stone had hoped. Eddie seemed to be getting sicker. Finally, the rear door of the ambulance burst open and the EMT was handing over the truck’s gurney, while he held the IV bag over his patient.

Stone clipped his badge to his coat pocket and walked rapidly along behind the gurney. Eddie was wheeled into an area marked EXAM 4, and a nurse pulled the curtain closed in Stone’s face. “Take a seat!” she yelled. “You can’t help here.”

Stone took a seat. Muldoon was the next arrival and sat down next to him. “Tell me,” he said.

Stone ran down the story for him, and by the time he had finished, Dino had arrived, followed shortly by Calabrese, wearing a new suit. Stone noticed, because he had just seen one like it on a dummy at Bloomingdale’s: it was made by Ermenegildo Zegna, an Italian company, and it cost more than three thousand dollars.

Dino noticed it, too. “What’s with the suit?” he asked Muldoon quietly.

“He dresses better off duty, I guess,” replied the detective, who was wearing a tracksuit and sneakers. “I think he must have a rich girlfriend.”

A doctor came out of the exam room and looked at the group. “Is the guy on my table a cop? He was wearing a doorman’s uniform. Was he undercover?”

“He’s a doorman,” Stone said.

“One we need to speak to,” Dino added.

“He’s not conscious and is obviously concussed. We’re sending him downstairs for scans to make sure there’s no brain injury.”

“When can we talk to him?” Muldoon asked.

“When he wakes up,” the doctor replied, “and I can’t guess when that will be. I’ll know more when I see his scans.”

“Okay,” Dino said to his group, “there’s no point in all of us hanging around here. Calabrese, you’re low man on the totem pole, so you do the hanging and call me the moment he seems to be coming to.”

“Yes, boss,” Calabrese replied.

“Let’s go get some coffee,” Dino said to Stone and Muldoon. They found the doctors’ lounge, made themselves at home, and took advantage of the free coffee and donuts.

A moment later, a woman who looked familiar to Stone entered the room and looked around. “Ah, there you are,” she said, walking over to Stone and handing him a Bloomie’s shopping bag. “You dropped these. I had my cab follow the ambulance.”

“Thank you,” Stone said.

“I’d have kept them, but my husband is a size forty-four,” she said, then walked out.

“What was that?” Dino asked.

“Boxer shorts,” Stone replied.

“You have them delivered wherever you are?”

“I dropped them when Eddie got hit by the car while trying to get her a cab, and they got mixed up with her packages.”

“A likely story.”

Donald Trask entered the hospital by the main entrance, walked through a door marked STAFF ONLY, and found himself in a locker room. He grabbed a green coat with an ID pinned to it and put it on over his jacket, then he started looking for the ER. His cell phone rang. “Yes?”

“He’s downstairs from the ER where they do the MRIs and CT scans. I’m there, and it’s very quiet.”

“Then you take care of him,” Trask said. “There’s twenty-five thousand, cash, in it for you.”

“Nope, I’m not that greedy.” He hung up.

Trask walked back into the hallway and checked the signs, then he took an elevator down two floors and got off. The quiet was broken only by occasional hums. He walked from door to door looking through the windows, until he found a room where a man on a stretcher was being buckled in and readied for entering a large machine. Outside the door a cart held an ornate uniform coat. He had found Eddie.

Trask waited for a moment while the medical personnel cleared the room, then walked in, drawing his weapon. A voice behind him shouted, “Freeze! Turn around” He raised his hands, still holding the gun, and turned around.

Calabrese fired two shots: One caught Trask in the neck and the other hit above an eye. He collapsed in a heap. “One case cleared,” Calabrese muttered to himself. He walked over to Trask, still pointing his gun, and checked him for signs of life. The man was dead. Then the detective heard another voice.

“That’s not how we clear cases,” Dino said. “Drop your weapon or join your pal.”

Calabrese turned to find the commissioner and Muldoon facing him with drawn weapons, while Barrington looked on. Calabrese dropped his weapon.

Stone, Dino, and Muldoon walked into Eddie’s hospital room an hour later to find him sitting up in bed drinking soup through a glass straw.

“Hi, Mr. Barrington,” he said, “who are your friends?”

Stone introduced Dino and Muldoon. “They’d like to hear your story, Eddie,” he said, “if you’re feeling up to it.”

“My story?” Eddie asked. “What story?”

“The one you told me a couple of hours ago at Bloomingdale’s.”

“I wasn’t working Bloomie’s today,” Eddie said. “I was at the Carlyle.” He furrowed his brow. “I think. What am I doing here? Nobody will tell me anything.”

“You were hit by a car,” Stone said, “and you have a concussion.”

The doctor entered the room. “I’ve seen your scans,” he said, “and you have no serious brain injury. We’ll keep you overnight, which is policy in these cases, and you’ll be back at work in a day or two.”

Eddie looked at Stone. “Does this make any sense to you?”

“Eddie,” Dino said, “I think we’ll wait a day or two, then talk again.” The three men wished him well, then left.

“That’s the second guy in a week I’ve talked to who had no memory,” Dino said.

“I guess we’re not going to need Eddie, anyway,” Muldoon observed.

“Can I give you a lift?” Dino asked Stone.

“Sure,” Stone replied.