Silent Treatment

Chapter28

The thermometer, mounted on the wall justoutside the Battery Park IRT station, was in direct sunlight. Still,ninety-four degrees was ninety-four degrees. As he entered the station, dampand uncomfortable, his briefcase in one hand and his suit coat scrunched in theother, James Stallings cursed his penchant for dark dress shirts. He loved theway they looked on him, and the statement that they made among hiswhite-shirted colleagues. But on a day like today, wearing royal blue wassimply dumb.

But then again, he had been doing a lot ofdumb things lately.

The station was mobbed. Tourists fromEllis Island and the Statue of Liberty jostled with passengers off the StatenIsland ferry and a crowd of kids in their early teens wearing Camp CitysideT-shirts. Almost everyone was talking about the heat. Stallings shuffledthrough the turnstile behind two Cityside girls, who were giggling about a boybeing disallowed on their field trip. Caught up in their conversation,Stallings tried to piece together what it was the boy had done and where theywere all headed. But before they could, the teens took up with a dozen othercampers and moved like a jabbering phalanx down the broad stairs.

There was a train waiting at the platform.Battery Park was at the beginning of the run, so there were almost always emptyseats, even at rush hour. Today, though, it was standing room only. Fromsnatches of irritated conversation around him, Stallings discerned that therewas a delay of some sort. And of course, while the cars themselves wereair-conditioned, the platforms were not. Thick, steamy air billowed in with thepassengers and overwhelmed what little cooling the system was generating.Beneath his arms, Stallings's shirt was soaked through. He glanced out thewindow at the crowd still pouring down the stairs and across the concreteplatform. Loomis was supposed to wait ten minutes before heading back to Crown.It had probably been close to that already. Not that it really mattered if theyended up on the same train. Especially different cars. But Stallings, who hadnever been the nervous or paranoid type, was frightened — irrationallyfrightened, he kept trying to convince himself.

Sir Lionel had posed something of a threatto The Roundtable, and he had died suddenly and mysteriously. A year or solater, Evelyn DellaRosa had been murdered in her hospital bed. She, too, hadcrossed paths with the society. The drug used to poison her had beendiscovered, but almost by accident. Were the two deaths coincidence? Possible,but doubtful, Stallings thought. Now, within twenty-four hours, he wouldeither have to submit a list of hospitalized clients to be terminated, orbecome a potential threat to The Roundtable himself.

Meeting with Kevin Loomis was the rightthing to have done, he decided. Loomis seemed like an up-front, decent enough guy.Even though he remained noncommittal and maybe even unconvinced, as soon as hehad the chance to sort through everything, he would come around. And togetherthey would figure out something. They simply had to. Stallings wipedperspiration from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. The car was nearly packed.The heat oppressive. It was only a matter of time before someone passed out.

'Hey, watch it!' one of the passengerssnapped.

'Fuck you,' came the quick retort.

A gnarled old woman with a pronounced humpand an overfilled shopping bag worked her way between him and the seats andstopped with one of her heels resting solidly on Stallings's toes. Stallingsexcused himself and pulled his foot free. The crone glared up at him withreddened eyes and muttered something that he was grateful he couldn'tunderstand.

The doors glided shut and for a moment itseemed as if they had been condemned to a new brand of torture. But slowly,almost reluctantly, the train began to move. Stallings was taller than most ofthose standing in the car. Clutching his briefcase and his hopelessly wrinkledsuit coat in his left hand, he was able to keep his balance in part by holdingon to the bar over the old lady's head, and in part by the force of thosepressing around him. He commuted to work from the Upper East Side on the IRT,and so was an inveterate and extremely tolerant rider. But this was about asbad as he could ever remember. To make matters even worse, the train waslurching mercilessly — perhaps responding to an effort by the driver to make upfor lost time.

A minute out of the station, the oldlady's heel again came down on his foot. This time Stallings nudged her away,earning another glare and another epithet. Moments later, a particularlyvicious lurch threw a crush of people against him. He felt a sharp sting in hisright flank, just above his belt. A bee? A spider? He reached down with hisright hand and rubbed at the spot. The stinging sensation was already almostgone. His shirt was still tucked in all around. His hand was still off the barwhen a tight curve pitched him against the passengers behind him.

'Hang on to something, for chrissake,'someone cried as he was pushed back upright.

'Idiot,' someone else added.

'Sorry,' Stallings muttered, still tryingto make sense of having been stung in such a way. He had been stung before, anynumber of times, by both bees and spiders. He wasn't allergic to either. Butwhatever had bitten him this time had done so right through his shirt.

The train slowed as they entered the CityHall station. The crush of passengers intensified as some tried to make theirway to the doors.

'Excuse me,' a woman said, trying to getpast Stallings. 'Sir?'

Stallings couldn't respond. His heart hadstarted pumping wildly. His pulse was resonating in his ears like artilleryfire. He felt a terrifying nausea and dizziness taking hold. Sweat cascadeddown his face. The car lights blurred, and then began spinning, faster andfaster. His chest felt empty, as if his lungs and heart had been torn out. Heneeded desperately to lie down.

'Hey, what are you doing?' someoneshouted.

His hand had slipped off the steel bar.

'Hey, buddy …'

Stallings felt his knees buckling. Hishead lolled back.

'Hey, back away, back away! He's passingout!'

Stallings knew he was on the floor, hisarms and legs jerking uncontrollably. Feet hit against him as people tried toback away. He sensed himself bite through his lip, but felt no pain. A flood ofwords reached him as distant echoes through a long, metal tunnel.

'He's having a seizure'. . 'Getsomething in his mouth'. . 'Roll him over! Roll him over on his side!'. .'I'm a paramedic. Move aside, everyone. Move aside'. . 'Somebody dosomething' … 'I am, lady, just back off. . 'Get a cop. .'

The words became more disconnected, moregarbled. Stallings felt the people kneeling around him, touching him, but hewas powerless to react. He knew he was losing consciousness. Blood flowed fromhis lip on to his royal-blue shirt. He sensed his bladder give way. The blurredimages faded to blackness. The voices and sounds died away. .

All but one of the tangle of people werefocused on Stallings. This one, a nondescript man in a print sports shirt,reached between two would-be rescuers and grasped the handle of Stallings'sbriefcase. Then, ever so slowly, he slid it free of the crowd. He smiledinwardly at the image of Sir Gawaine utilizing one evasive tactic after anotherto avoid being followed to Battery Park, never realizing that thestate-of-the-art bugs Galahad routinely placed in each knight's room had madetailing him quite unnecessary.

The car doors were open now, and peoplewere pushing and jamming to get out on to the platform. The man withStallings's briefcase moved calmly with the flow. The syringe in his pocketwould be tossed into a sewer within a block. The cardiotoxin he had emptiedinto Stallings was one of his favorite weapons — a drug virtually unknownoutside of the lower Amazon, so potent that the poison remaining along thebarrel of the syringe would probably still be enough to kill. The thirty-gaugeneedle attached to the syringe was so fine it could pass through a pore, makingthe puncture wound essentially invisible. And even if the injection hadproduced a tiny droplet of blood, the man's dark blue shirt would have made itvirtually impossible to notice. Just another statistic — another heat-relateddeath. Beautiful, just beautiful.

Anton Perchek exited the station just asthe two policemen were rushing in.

'Take your time, gentlemen,' he whispered.'Believe me, there is no need to rush.'