Do No Harm

Chapter 71

Ed's voice was high-pitched and irritated. "You paged me 911. This better be an emergency."

"It is."

"Where are you now?"

"I'm in my car."

"Are you in imminent danger?"

"No."

Ed took a deep breath. "All right. We need to get our signals straight. Cornered in a shootout-that's a 911. Waking up in a bathtub of ice with a missing kidney. That's a 911."

"Look, this is extremely important. The cops are staking me out to catch Clyde. I managed to sneak out, and I only have a brief window." David yanked the Explorer over to the side of the road. "Where are you? I'm coming over."

"How do you know they're not following you?"

"Because I've been driving in loops and circles all over the city for the past hour and a half. I'm not as much of a dumb-ass as when you first met me."

"Jury's still out on that one, Spier."

"Where are you?"

"I don't take meetings at home."

"Where are you?"

Ed paused for a moment, as if debating with himself. "I'm at Five-thirty-four Federal, just south of Wilshire. Apartment Six."

"Thank you," David said. "Thank you. I'll be there in less than- " He stopped, looking up at the street sign ahead. "Where the hell am I?"

Before letting David enter, Ed made him explain himself at the door. The small ground-floor apartment was ransacked. Drawers pulled from the dressers and dumped, mattress sliced open, plates shattered. Holes had been punched into the walls at regular intervals in a search that went even behind the sheetrock. Ed moved through the mess with a practiced gait that showed he'd grown accustomed to it.

On a long folding table in the corner sat five or six computers of different shapes and sizes, screens blinking, monitors humming. About ten Nextel cell phones were lined up, charging. A bank of small televisions showed what appeared to be live shots of several rooms, from presumably hidden cameras. David watched a woman lean forward into what must have been a one-way mirror and attempt to floss an entrenched piece of food from between her teeth.

Sitting in a rolling chair, Ed began to splice a wire that led to a minuscule microphone. "Don't ask questions. Not a one."

David looked around for somewhere to sit. Finally, he picked up a slashed pillow and set it on top of an overturned bookcase, forming a makeshift banquette. He sat cautiously so as not to stretch the stitches in his side.

Ed looked up from his work and pointed at David. "Yes, I trust you, but let me tell you, if you mention one thing about this location to one person, I'll know. And believe me, I'm not someone you want to cross."

David gazed across the bank of screens. A skinny man was fucking what looked to be an obese call girl on a mahogany desk somewhere. "I believe you," he said.

A week ago, he would have been horrified to be threatened; now he found it almost flattering.

"Want something to drink?" Ed asked.

David reached for an unbroken tumbler at his feet.

"No, no. I keep the clean ones over here." Ed pulled a glass from a stack sitting atop a fallen dartboard and filled it with water.

He and David sat in perfect silence, David sipping from the glass nervously, though he wasn't thirsty. "So can you do it?" David asked. "Get me a bug of some kind?"

"Yes, and we call it a digital transmitter these days, Joe Friday." Ed flared his hand like a magician, and a flat metal disk appeared in his palm. About the size of a watch battery, it was dense with tiny components, like a computer's motherboard. "Works off radio frequency." Leaning over, he pulled what looked like a walkie-talkie from a desk drawer that had been left on the floor. "Here's your receiver. I go with the Motorola HT one thousand because it's more compact than a Saber, so you can strap it to your belt without looking like you have a perennial hard-on." He smiled, his grin a white crescent in the white of his face. "It'll get the RF transmission and kick it up to this" — he held up a molded, skin-colored earpiece- "as long as you're within a few blocks."

"I won't be within a few blocks. I'll be in the middle of a stakeout in Venice."

Ed ran his hand across the top of his head. It made a rasping sound on the red stubble. "A challenge. I love challenges. Where's Peter live?"

"Westwood. A few blocks east of the hospital."

"Where's his office?"

"On Le Conte."

"How many stories is the building?"

"Four."

Ed rubbed his temples. David opened his mouth, but Ed raised a silencing finger in warning. More temple rubbing. Clearly, he was enjoying this.

"All right, Spier, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna put an expensive-as-shit repeater on the roof of his office building. Think of it as a big antenna. It'll pick up the RF transmission and bounce it to your Motorola across town." He spread his arms wide, as though accepting applause. "I am a trained professional. Do not try this at home."

"When can you do it?"

"Tonight. Once it gets dark. But let me ask you a question. What good does this do?"

"I'll know where Peter is at all times. I'll know if he finds himself in trouble. As a worst-case scenario, if he's attacked, I'll be able to direct the police to him quickly."

"He'll need a gun."

"Peter won't carry a gun."

"How do you know?"

David regarded Ed wearily. "Trust me on this one."

"Fine. Well, would our liberal and foolish urologist with the apropos name lower himself to carrying a nonlethal weapon?"

"Perhaps."

Ed dragged a large cardboard box from the coat closet across the room and sat back down. The contents gave off a metallic jingling as he dug through them. Proudly, he displayed a weapon with a spear-gun handle that looked as though it shot out two attached electrodes with dart ends. "A taser," he said. "You have to have decent aim, though, and they're a bitch to get through thick clothes. Fucker's wearing a leather jacket, forget it."

David shook his head. "Too… complicated."

Ed threw the taser back into the box and removed a pair of spiked brass knuckles.

"Too savage."

Next, Ed pulled out a silver rod with a knob on the end. When he flicked it, it telescoped to form a baton. "The asp."

Again, David shook his head. "Too easily overcome."

Ed grumbled, tossed the asp back into the cardboard box, and continued to sort through its contents. His face lit up. With a Vanna White gesture, he exhibited a large frying pan. "Old Faithful."

David merely looked at him, and he threw it back.

"I think we have a winner," Ed exclaimed. He removed a stun gun, about the size of a flashlight, complete with finger grooves. The black rectangular stock extended into two prongs. He thumbed a switch forward, and a burst of visible voltage shot between the prongs.

"Can it work through clothes?"

"Again, nothing too thick. But a T-shirt or something, you might as well not be wearing anything at all."

"I'll take it," David said.

Ed tossed him the stun gun. "Congratulations. You are now the proud owner of a fifty-thousand volt, hair-standing, cattle-prod special."

"How should I get the… bug-transmitter thing on Peter?"

"I could install it in a watch. Could you give it to him as an early birthday gift?"

"No. That would be suspicious."

"Does he have a special pen or something? I could slip it in there."

"I don't know. Nothing I could be sure he'd always have on him."

"So the question is: What sort of pet object does he keep with him at all times?"

An idea hit David with a sudden, bright clarity. He raised his head with a smile. "I think I've got it," he said.