Silent Treatment

Chapter32

'. . I couldn't see the man's facebecause of the way I was tied up, but even through the drugs and the pain, Irecognized his voice. It was my boss, Sean Garvey. He was what we called afloater — sort of part CIA, part DEA, part above it all. It was his job tocoordinate our side of the undercover operation in northern Mexico. But he soldme out, and brought in his friend Perchek to work on me. .'

When the man Harry had known as WalterConcepcion arrived at the apartment, Harry immediately lost control. Withoutwaiting for any explanation, he spun Concepcion against the hallway wall andwas so close to striking him that Maura had to restrain him. Now, he and Maurasat together on the sofa in his living room, listening in stunned silence asRay Santana took them through his three years as an undercover Drug EnforcementAgency operative in Mexico, then his capture, and his torture at the hands ofAnton Perchek.

'. . After Garvey left the cellar,Orsino, one of the drug lord's lieutenants, told Perchek about an escape tunnelleading to a house across the street. With the festival going on in Nogales,and crowds of people all over the city, they would have a perfect chance toslip away from the Mexican police. Poor Orsino obviously didn't appreciate whohe was dealing with. It wasn't by accident that no pictures or reliable descriptionsof The Doctor existed. Perchek pulled a pistol from his medical bag and just ascalmly as you please, shot him through the mouth. Then he pointed the gun atme. But he was furious with me because I hadn't broken. It was the ultimateinsult to him. He wanted me to die, but not a quick death. Instead of shootingme, he emptied the whole syringeful of hyconidol into me.'

'Oh, God,' Maura said.

Santana shuddered.

'It was horrible. Indescribably horrible.But it was also a mistake. I didn't die…'

Fascinated, Harry studied the man as hecontinued. Santana's voice was animated enough, but there was a blankness inhis eyes — a strange, detached distance. Outwardly, he was telling his story,but in his mind, Harry realized, he was living it.

'. . Ray. . for God's sake, Ray. Comeon.'

A man's urgent voice pries into Santana'sconsciousness. Ray fights to stay within the darkness. Finally, though, hegroans, opens his eyes a bit, and strains to focus on the face behind thewords. His body feels as if it has been worked over with a baseball bat. He ison his back on the grimy cellar floor, a makeshift pillow beneath his head.

'Ray, it's me, Vargas. Ray, where is he?Where's Perchek? Come on, Ray. We've lost a lot of time.'

The face comes into focus. Joaquin Vargas.One of Alacante's most trusted lieutenants. One of the men Ray was preparing tohave arrested. Vargas — Mexican undercover all the time!

'Vargas … I never thought you-'

'Never mind that. Where's Perchek?'

With great effort, Ray pushed himself up.His head is clearing rapidly. Apparently, The Doctor does not know his reveredpain drug as intimately as he thinks. Or maybe he just doesn't know RaySantana.

'How long have you been here with me?'Santana asks.

'Half an hour. Maybe a little more. You'vebeen out like a fish on ice. At first, we thought you were dead.'

'He went out a tunnel somewhere overthere. It goes to the house across the street.'

'The tunnel.' Vargas orders.

Immediately, three uniformed policemenrace that way.

'They don't know what he looks like,' Raysays. 'I do. I need a gun.'

'Ray, you're too-'

'I'm fine. Joaquin, you have no idea whatthe bastard did to me. Please. Give me your gun.'

Reluctantly, Vargas hands over hisrevolver — a nine millimeter Smith amp; Wesson. Ray cradles the gun and patsthe Mexican on the arm.

'You sure as hell had me fooled,' he says.

Without waiting for a reply, Ray hurriesup the stairs. If the streets are as Garvey has warned, crawling with policechecking out any and all gringos, there is still a chance Perchek hasn't founda safe way out.

It is nearly six P.M. Long, late-afternoonshadows stretch down the main street, where a small parade is wending its waytoward the plaza. The crowd along the sidewalks is modest — probably in a lullbetween the afternoon and evening festivities. But a number of thosecelebrating are wearing costumes. . and masks. Chances are, Perchek isbehind one of them, possibly in the midst of the parade. Or perhaps he isheaded out of town by now. But policemen are everywhere, knocking on doors,checking alleys, and blocking the main exits from town. There is still achance.

Ray is more wobbly from his ordeal than hewishes to admit. But each step feels more assured than the last. And he knowsthat when and if he does need the strength, it will be there. He starts tofollow the parade. But after a few yards, one of Vargas's men calls to him. Thepoliceman is approaching with a thin, agitated man who is gesticulating wildlyand chattering nonstop. The man is naked save for a pair of red silk bikinibriefs.

'Mr. Santana,' the officer says, 'we foundthis man bound and gagged with adhesive tape in an alley two blocks in thatdirection. He says that not ten minutes ago a gringo put a gun to his head,took his costume, and tied him up. We're looking for a clown with a redpolka-dot suit, mask, and bright orange hair. From this fellow's description, Idoubt he'll be hard to spot. Only ten minutes ago. There's no way he can escapeus. We're closing in on the plaza.'

Ray voices his approval, but he sensessomething is wrong. Anton Perchek had shot Orsino to death without a flicker ofhesitation. An ally of his. Why allow the man in the clown suit, who hasalso seen his face, to live?

He slips the Smith amp; Wesson beneathhis belt and heads away from the plaza toward the alley where the clown wasfound. A tangled ball of adhesive tape shows him the exact spot. The alley isdeserted. With firecrackers going off every few minutes, there is no way agunshot would ever have been noticed. Yet the man is alive.

Not at all certain what he is searchingfor, Santana makes his way around the tawdry block. Then quickly around thenext one. And the next. Litter from the fiesta is everywhere. A number ofcelebrants lie in doorways or between trash barrels in deep, alcohol-inducedsiesta. One of them, somewhat removed from any others, catches Santana's eye.It is a young woman with a rather pretty face, perhaps in her early twenties.She is sleeping on her side, her back pressed against a building, covered tothe neck with a tattered Mexican blanket. Ray approaches. But five yards beforehe reaches her, he knows she is dead.

He pulls back the blanket. She is dressedonly in a pair of white cotton panties, and she is pregnant — perhaps sevenmonths, perhaps eight. A single bullet hole stares up at him obscenely from aspot just above her engorged left nipple. The blood that has oozed from it hasalready clotted. Santana bets that The Doctor had the woman's clothes hiddenaway even before he took the clown's.

Driven by a jet of adrenaline, his legsare suddenly responsive. He pulls the revolver free as he sprints toward themain street. A juggler in a skeleton's costume and mask is entertaining a crowdof fifty or so. Shielded by the corner of a building, Ray studies the crowd andthen turns his attention to the street. Everyone seems to be involved inconversation, in commerce with one of the street vendors, or watching thejuggler.

Then suddenly he sees her. Across thestreet and a block away. She is walking slowly, unobtrusively, away from thecrowd — away from him. What strikes him, though, is her very unobtrusiveness.Her feet are bare, her head covered by a shawl. An unremarkable pedestrian in avery remarkable scene. Unremarkable. The Doctor's most valuable attribute.

Santana moves ahead, keeping the crowdbetween himself and the woman. If it is Perchek, taking him will not be easy.There are dozens of potential hostages around, and scores of potential victimsshould any sort of shooting erupt. One move. That is all he has. If heis wrong, there will be one shocked, bruised woman. But nearly fifteen years asa cop tell him he isn't wrong. One move.

He remains in the shadows of the buildingfor as long as he can. Then he breaks across the street and dashes toward thewoman from directly behind her. At the last possible moment, she sensesmovement and begins to turn around. But Ray, his gun drawn, is alreadyairborne. His shoulder slams into her back, sending her sprawling on to therutted dirt street. The moment he impacts with her — the instant he feels thebulk and the tightened muscles — Ray knows it is Perchek.

Shrieking in Russian, The Doctor spins tohis back, struggling to free the gun in his right hand. But the loose maternitydress slows him, and Santana is ready for the move. He pins Perchek's wristwith his left hand, and simultaneously thrusts the Smith amp; Wesson up intothe soft flesh beneath his chin.

'Drop it!' he barks. 'Drop it now or it'syour fucking head, Perchek. I mean it!'

The Doctor's ice blue eyes sear him. Hismouth is twisted in a snarling rictus of hate. Then, slowly, ever so slowly,Anton Perchek releases his weapon and lets it drop from his fingertip. .

Harry worked his neck around and realizedhe hadn't moved a muscle for some time. Across from him, Ray Santana saggedvisibly, exhausted from recounting the ordeal that should have killed him.Without speaking, Maura went to the kitchen and returned with coffee. Nobodyspoke until she had poured three cups.

'Can you tell us what happened afterthat?' Harry said.

'Nothing good. Perchek's injection didn'tkill me, but over the last seven years I often wish it had. Somethingirreversible happened to the pain fibers in my nervous system. They fire offwith no cause. Sometimes a little. Sometimes absolute hell.'

'I assume you've seen doctors.'

'Without the chemical Perchek used, theydidn't even know where to begin. Most of them thought I was crazy. You know howdoctors are about things they didn't learn in some textbook. They thought I wasjust after drugs or a government pension. Finally, I took a medical dischargefrom the agency and got one hundred percent disability. I go to AA and NAperiodically, but the pain always wins out. Fortunately, I have a doctor andpharmacist at home in Tennessee who understand. So getting Percodanprescriptions is no problem.'

'And your family?' Maura asked.

Santana shrugged sadly.

'My wife — Eliza — tried to understandwhat had happened to me and what I was going through. But with no encouragementor insight from any of the doctors, she finally gave up. Last year she gotmarried to a teacher from Knoxville.'

'And your son?'

'He's at the university. From time totime, when he can, he calls. I haven't seen him in a while.'

'This is very sad,' Maura said.

'I was managing — at least until a fewweeks ago I was. About a year after Perchek was locked up in the Mexicanfederal penitentiary just outside of Tampico, I got word that he was dead,killed in a helicopter crash during an escape attempt. I didn't trust the report.In Mexico, if you have enough money, you can make just about anything happen — or appear to happen. There had been an explosion over water, I was told. Thechopper blew up, there were several reliable witnesses. What was fished out ofthe Atlantic was identified as Perchek through dental X rays.'

'You sound as if you weren't convinced.'

'Let's just say that what I wanted tobelieve and what I believed in my heart were not the same thing.'

But how did you end up here?' Harry asked.

'I got a call from an old friend inforensics at the bureau in D.C. That expert of yours, Mr. Sims, had sent down anumber of prints for identification. One of them, a thumbprint, matchedPerchek's with about ninety-five percent certainty. I wasn't that surprised — especially when I learned it had been lifted from the room of a woman who hadbeen murdered in a hospital. I came here and began making plans to get close toyou. My friend in D.C. promised to give me a little time before identifying theprint for Sims.'

'But why didn't you tell us who you were?'

'Well, the truth is I wasn't sure whatside you were on. I thought maybe you had hired Perchek to kill your wife. Iwasn't even a hundred percent certain after that night in Central Park.'

Harry groaned.

'That was you. You shot that man.'

'You look upset.'

'I am upset.'

'I saved Maura's life. Maybe yours, too.'

'If you had taken those men in instead ofkilling one, Andy Barlow might still be alive.'

Now it was Santana who lashed out.

'Harry, don't be an ass. We're dealing withkillers, here. Not college professors, not social workers — killers. Got that?These people don't stand around and let someone escort them to thepolice. They kill. It's too bad about Barlow. He shouldn't've died. But get itthrough your head — it wasn't my fault.'

'You're dangerous, Santana,' Harry snappedback. 'A walking stick of dynamite with a short fuse. You don't really care whogets blown away as long as Anton Perchek goes along with them.'

'You've got that right, brother.'

'Well, I might get booted out of myhospital because of what you've done, brother.'

'Come on, Harry,' Santana said. 'You mightget reprimanded, but you won't get kicked out. Your lawyer's too good. Listen,we'll go take the posters down. They've been up most of the night now, and thatmeans they've already succeeded in rankling Perchek, which is pretty much whatI wanted them to do.'

'Rankling Perchek. You really are a piece ofwork,' Harry said, not at all kindly. 'Have you heard how many times thegoddamn phone has rung since you got here? That's a growing percentage of allthe nutcases in Manhattan, each one convinced I can be conned out of fiftythousand dollars. Rankling Perchek. Santana, just get out of here. I'mhaving enough trouble with my enemies without getting blindsided by myso-called friends.'

Maura had heard enough.

'Listen, you two,' she snapped. 'Sit downand shut up for a minute, both of you. I don't care how you feel about oneanother, but neither of you operating alone has much chance of getting thisPerchek. Harry, you're a doctor, not a cop. And Ray, you can't get insidehospitals, and that's where your man is. You two need one another. Face it.'

Harry glared at Santana. Maura stalkedacross the room and stood over him, hands on hips.

'Do you guys want me to make you shakehands like we used to do after fights in junior high school? Okay, then. Westick together, and we try to clear things with one another before we do them.Deal?'

'Deal,' the two men grumbled.

'Well, come on, then,' Maura cut in beforethey could get started again. 'We've got some posters to take down.'

A small crowd clustered around thebulletin board outside the MMC surgical suite. There were nurses, technicians,and physicians, including an anesthesiologist, an ENT specialist, and Caspar Sidonis.Everyone, it seemed, was talking at once about the posters that had appearedovernight throughout the hospital.

'You know,' one of the nurses said,pointing to the rendering of Perchek with a beard, 'I actually think I've seenthis guy.'

'Janine,' another nurse said, 'since youkicked Billy out last year you've seen most of the guys in the city.'

'Not funny,' Janine said.

'I agree, Janine,' Sidonis said. 'Andneither is this. . this latest humiliation for our hospital.' At the firstwords from the cardiac surgical chief, all extraneous conversation stopped.'Everyone in the hospital knows that Harry Corbett killed his wife. He couldn'tstand the thought of losing her and so he killed her. It's as simple as that.These drawings are just a smoke screen, a misdirection play. The man isabsolutely certifiable, and so is the woman who drew these. They are theproduct of an alcoholic's distorted mind, and nothing more. You'll all see.I've had it up to here with Corbett and the way he's manipulating everyone inthis place. Fifty-thousand-dollar reward, indeed.'

Embarrassed by the surgeon's ramblingoutburst and the stories they all knew about his involvement with the murderedwoman, the crowd quickly dispersed. As Sidonis turned to go, he nearly collidedwith a man in a full-length lab coat, whose photo badge identified him asHeinrich Hauser, a research professor from the department of endocrinology.

'I agree with you completely, Doctor,'Hauser said in a dense German accent. 'This Corbett makes trouble foreveryone.'

'Thank you, Doctor,' Sidonis replied.

He glanced at the man, who was four orfive inches shorter than he was, with gray-white, crew-cut hair, thick glasses,and yellowed teeth. The teeth disgusted Sidonis. Instinctively, he backed away,fearing a blast of bad breath. He had not seen the man before that he couldremember, but he seldom took notice of anyone with whom he didn't haveimportant business.

'Have a good day, now,' Hauser said.

'Yes. You, too.' Sidonis paused and lookedat the man once more. 'Have we met?'

The man's ocher smile prompted Sidonis tolook away.

'I don't think so, Doctor,' he said. 'Butperhaps we shall meet again sometime.'