Silent Treatment

Chapter42

Harry's first awareness was the smell — the unmistakable amalgam of cleaning solutions, antiseptic, laundry starch, andhuman illness. It was an aroma as familiar to him as his own room. He was in ahospital, cranked up in bed at a forty-five degree angle.

Piece by piece, image by image, thenightmare began returning to him. He was dead. Had to be. The godawfulsensation of muddy river water filling his mouth and lungs — it had to havebeen fatal. Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa. . He was dead, and itreally wasn't all that bad. He would open his eyes now and there would beclouds billowing about his feet. James Mason would be ushering new recruits tothe celestial escalator that would take them to the next level.

'Dr. Corbett? Dr. Corbett, open youreyes.'

A woman's voice. Harry did not respondimmediately, although he sensed that he would. Instead, he tested his limbs.First his legs, then his left arm, and finally his right. There was no movementthere. The arm was gone! The bullet had severed an artery and the armwas gone. He opened his eyes a slit and peered down at his chest. His arm andhand were there, resting in a loose cloth sling, working exactly as they weresupposed to.

'Maura. .'

He murmured the word, then said it again,louder.

'Who's Maura?' the woman asked.

Harry opened his eyes fully and turned tothe voice. A young woman with short, sandy hair and an attractive, intelligentface looked down at him. She had on a white clinic coat with a blue name tagthat read Carole Zane, M.D. Cardiology.

'Maura Hughes is the woman who was withme,' Harry said, his senses clearing rapidly.

'There was a woman survivor fromthe accident, but I don't know her name. From what I heard, you were in worseshape than she was. I think she was taken to a hospital in Newark.'

Thank God she's alive, was all he could think.

'Do you know anything else about theaccident?' he asked.

'Nothing at all except that you were in acamper and you flew off a thirty-foot cliff into the Hudson.'

'Some camper,' Harry said. 'Where am Inow?'

'You're in the coronary care unit ofUniversity Hospital in Manhattan. I'm Dr. Zane, one of the cardiac fellows. Youwere brought here by chopper last night. Apparently we were the closestfacility to the accident with an available cardiac bed.'

'What day is it?'

'Saturday.'

'The first?'

'The first of September. Yes.'

September first. The end forGramps. The beginning of the end for Dad. Now it's Harry's turn. .

'Have I had a coronary?'

'Maybe. We don't know for sure. Iunderstand you are a physician?'

'A GP, yes.'

'Okay, then. You've been shot through yourupper arm. The humerus has been chipped, but it's intact. They wanted toexplore the wound last night, but they couldn't because your EKG is abnormal.It's showing ST segment changes suggesting acute posterior wall injury. Yourcardiac enzymes are slightly elevated as well, so there definitely has beensome minor cardiac muscle damage already.'

'So I've had a coronary?'

'Not had. The EKG patterns keepchanging. Whatever is going on is still evolving. That means we have a chanceto fix it.'

'With a balloon?'

'Or a bypass.'

'Damn.'

Harry quickly reviewed his family historyand his months of intermittent symptoms. The physician took notes, stopping himfrom time to time to clarify a point. She was quite obviously bright, but moreimportant to Harry, she was also kind, attentive, and careful not to show himhow rushed she was.

'Are you having any pain now?' she asked.

'No. I never have had pain when I'm atrest. Mostly I tend to get it when I run hard or jump.'

'Well, we've decided against bloodthinners and clot dissolvers because of the gunshot wound and the possibilityof internal injuries we don't know about yet. You are on anitroglycerine drip.'

She motioned to the plastic bags draininginto his left hand. The nitro drip was running piggyback through a long,slender needle inserted through the rubber infusion port of the primary line — sugar water, which was keeping the vein open.

'No problem,' Harry said, wondering how hemight best go about finding out where Maura was and how she was doing.

'We'd like to do a cardiac catheterizationon you as soon as possible,' Zane said.

'Do whatever you have to.'

She handed him a clipboard — the operativepermit.

'There are a number of potential problemswith this procedure listed on page two. I am required to inform you of them oneat a time.'

'Don't bother,' Harry said, signing. 'I'vealready been dead once, and it didn't feel all that bad. Do you think I couldmake a phone call or two?'

'First let me listen to your heart andlungs. Then there's someone here to see you.

Curious, Harry let himself be examined.Then Carole Zane promised to meet him in the cardiac cath lab as soon aspossible and turned toward the door. Harry followed her with his eyes. Onlythen did he notice the uniformed policeman seated just across from hisglass-enclosed cubicle, facing him.

'Dr. Zane?'

She turned back.

'Yes?'

'What's that policeman doing here?'

She smiled at him patiently.

'Well, from what I've been told, you areunder arrest. I'll see you downstairs.'

Harry electronically cranked himself upanother few degrees and searched about for a phone. If he was under arrest,then Phil had to be in trouble as well. Undoubtedly the police had alreadytraced the Winnebago to him.

'One call, Corbett. Just like you were injail.'

Albert Dickinson walked into the room andstopped at the foot of the bed. He was wearing his usual suit and smelled as ifhe had just smoked an entire pack of cigarettes at once. Harry felt a mix ofanger and disgust at the sight of him.

'Have you gotten people out to DougAtwater's house?' he asked.

'The New Jersey police are working on it.'

'Maybe you should just wait until someoneburns the place down. Do you know anything about Maura?'

'She's not in the DTs yet, if that's whatyou mean.'

'You snide bastard. Isn't there anykindness inside you at all?'

'Not towards murderers or drunks. No, notmuch.'

'You're going to feel very dumb when thetruth comes out. Now what about Maura?'

'She's in Newark City Hospital. Hurt, butnot badly. From what I hear, she's the one who saved you. Apparently she wentup to the surface, couldn't find you, and then dived back down. The docs tellme you were on your way out when she pulled you to shore. Apparently you werehaving a coronary.'

'So they say. What about the sedan thatwent over with us?'

'They're hauling that up right now.'

'Any survivors?'

Dickinson shook his head.

'None.'

'How many were in there?'

'Dunno. I'll be looking into that and intowho they were later today. I'm going to wait until after you're taken care ofto get a statement from you, so you'll have some time to put together a realdoozy. Your file in the office is already three inches thick with fairy tales.I ought to tell you that we know where that monster mobile home came from. TheJersey police will be paying your brother a visit as soon as our DA tells themwe want to press aiding and abetting charges, which we do.'

Harry adjusted the oxygen prongs in hisnose and wondered if the detective was trying to provoke him on purpose just tosee what a full-blown coronary looked like.

A nurse came in with a syringe.

'What's that?' Harry asked.

'Just some Demerol to keep you relaxedduring your catheterization. The cath lab people will be up for you in aminute.'

'No medicine, please,' Harry said. 'I'llbe calm. I promise.'

'Okay,' the nurse replied. 'But I'll haveto notify Dr. Zane.'

'This man is under arrest, Miss,'Dickinson said. 'If he goes anywhere, an officer must go with him.'

The nurse's expression suggested that shewas not nearly as taken with Dickinson's importance as he would have liked.Harry asked her for the phone.

'One call,' Dickinson reminded him.

Harry swallowed back a dozen or socomments on the policeman and his ancestry. Then he called his brother collect.Phil had just heard about the accident and was getting set to drive to thehospital. As Harry would have predicted, he made light of the loss of theelegant mobile home.

'Hey, that was going to be yourfiftieth-birthday present anyway, Harry. I was just waiting to have itwrapped.'

He was, however, concerned about Harry'scardiac situation.

'Sounds like you just worried about thatcurse and worried about it until it came true,' he said.

'Maybe so.'

Phil promised to find out what he couldabout Maura and to see Harry in a couple of hours. Moments later, a gurney waswheeled in by a stoop-shouldered man with horn-rimmed glasses and a grayingmustache. He was wearing surgical scrubs beneath a loose surgical gown. Hetransferred Harry's IV bags to a pole on the gurney and then grabbed the sheetbeneath Harry's head. Two nurses on opposite sides of the bed grasped the samesheet at hip level.

'Hey, don't just stand there,' one of themsaid to Dickinson. 'Grab this sheet beneath his feet and help us lift him.'

Dickinson complied, but looked revolted.

'Okay,' the other nurse said. 'One, two,three.'

The four of them swung Harry on to thegurney as if he were weightless. The landing caused a twinge in his upper armand perhaps something, real or imagined, in his chest.

'How long is this going to take?'Dickinson asked.

The nurse shrugged.

'One to two hours,' she said, setting aportable cardiac monitor/defibrillator between Harry's feet. 'Depends on whatthey find and what they do. He may end up in the OR for a bypass.'

The nurses hooked a small oxygen tank toHarry's prongs and floated a sheet on to him. Then Dickinson followed thestretcher and one of the nurses out of the room.

'Take a break,' he said to the uniformedpolicemen. 'I'll go down with him. I'll call you up here in half an hour andtell you what's what.'

With the nurse on one side of the gurneyand Dickinson on the other, Harry was wheeled to the elevator. The monitorbetween his feet silently charted out his heartbeats. Facing cardiac surgery,he felt detached, surreal, and very mortal. But in truth, he had felt that waymost of the time since the night he walked back on to Alexander 9 with a milkshake for Evie. The gurney was pushed on to the elevator by the man from thecath lab. Dickinson and the nurse squeezed in alongside it. There was a secondset of doors beyond Harry's feet, opposite the one through which they hadentered. Harry heard the doors behind him glide close. He heard a key beinginserted in the control panel so that their trip could be made with no stops.

'Hey,' the nurse said, 'what are youdoing? The cath lab's on the eighth floor, not the subbasement.'

At that moment, her expression turned toterror. Dickinson, looking with wide-eyed surprise at the old man from the cathlab, was fumbling inside his coat for his gun when Harry heard the soft spit ofa silenced revolver from just beside his ear. The nurse spun 180 degrees,slammed into the metal door, and dropped. Dickinson, clearly beaten, loweredhis hand in a gesture of surrender. The silenced revolver spit again andcreated an instant hole in the white shirt over his left breast. For twohorrified seconds he stared at the wound. A halo of crimson appeared around thehole. He looked at Harry, his expression a mix of astonishment and utterdismay. Then his eyes rolled up and without a word, he crumpled to the floor.

Harry was too shocked and horrified tospeak. The heart rate on the screen between his feet was one seventy. Heexpected any moment to see the beating stop entirely.

'I told you you should have killed me whenyou had the chance,' Anton Perchek said dispassionately. 'Now, you must getready for your great escape.'

The elevator stopped at the subbasement,but Perchek kept the doors from opening.

'You'll never make it,' Harry said.

'I made it this far, didn't I?' Perchekboasted. 'A brief stop for some things at my Manhattan apartment, and I arrivedhere to begin preparation just a few hours after you did. They couldn't havechosen a better hospital for my purposes. I have several different excellent IDbadges from here. And having handled a number of cases here for The Roundtable,I know my way around the place pretty well.'

'You're insane.'

'So, then, Doctor. We must get a move on.I have a laundry hamper waiting just outside the door. It's Saturday so thelaundry is almost deserted. A little IV Pentothal for you and we should be ableto roll right past the pressing machines and out of this place.'

'Why don't you just kill me?' Harry asked.

The Doctor circled around the gurney sothat Harry could see the loathing in his eyes. . and the glee.

'Oh, Harry, the idea is not to kill you,'he said. 'The idea is to have you beg me to kill you.'

Harry cast about for something, anything,he could use as a weapon. There was not going to be any abduction and torture.It was going to end for them right here, right now. He fixed on the DoorOpen button near his right foot. The laundry was through the door behindhim. Something, possibly an equipment supply room or the power plant, had to beon the other side of this one. If he could just get there, he had a chance. Atthe very least, Perchek would have to decide whether to pursue him or flee.

The sling was loose enough to allow somemovement. Shielded by the sheet, he slid his right hand across his body. Thepain in his shoulder grew more intense with every millimeter, but he ignoredit. Finally, his fingers closed on the only weapon he could think of — theone-and-a-half-inch needle in his IV hookup. Carefully, he eased it free fromthe infusion port and shifted it to his left hand.

Perchek released the door behind Harry'shead.

'There's our hamper, right where I leftit,' he said, setting the silenced revolver down as he pulled the gurney outfar enough to drop the side rail. 'Now, just the right amount of Pentothaland-'

At that moment, the nurse crumpled on thefloor moaned loudly. Perchek turned.

Now! Harry screamed to himself.

He gripped the needle tightly and drove itto the hilt in the soft spot just below The Doctor's right ear. Perchekbellowed with pain and surprise, and reeled backward, pawing the spot. Harrypushed himself off the stretcher and swung backhand as hard as he could,connecting with Perchek's left cheek and sending him sprawling to the concretefloor next to the hamper. Then he whirled and hit Door Open on the paneljust above where Albert Dickinson lay. He could sense Perchek stumbling to hisfeet as the other set of elevator doors glided open. Head down, Harry racedacross a small, enclosed waiting area, burst through a set of swinging doors,and charged straight into hell.

He was on a long cement walk in thecavernous hospital power plant. The temperature was over one hundred, and thenoise level was deafening — machinery whirring and rumbling above the constantchurning of circulating water. Harry pulled off his sling and threw it aside ashe ran awkwardly away from the elevator, expecting at any moment to be shot inthe back. To his right was a safety railing, and fifteen feet below that wasthe massive turbine — a gray monolith, rising out of a concrete slab. Thepulsating, high-energy drone it emitted bludgeoned Harry's chest like aheavyweight's fist.

To his left, reaching seventy-feet towarda grimy, glass-paneled ceiling, were the boilers — foreboding giants, radiatingheat and energy. Thirty yards straight ahead and up a short staircase was theglass-enclosed control booth. Inside, his back to Harry, a large man in a tanjumpsuit and yellow hard hat was watching TV.

'Help!' Harry screamed. 'Help me!'

His cry was swallowed by the noise. Hestumbled on, sweat already cascading down his face and stinging his eyes. Theunremitting pulsations from the turbine were making him intensely nauseous. Heglanced back just as a bullet ricocheted off the steel column by his ear.Perchek had crawled over the gurney and now knelt at the head of the corridor,taking aim once more. Harry dove on to his belly, sending pain screaming fromhis shoulder and throughout his chest. The bullet missed by inches, stinginghis cheek with concrete spray. Fifty feet ahead of him were the stairs to thecontrol room, which he now realized had to be soundproof. Fifty feet. Hecould even make out the McDonald's bag on the counter by the television. Butunless the engineer in the hard hat turned around and spotted him, the boothmight as well have been on the moon. There was no way he could reach it beforePerchek reached him.

Then, to his right, just a dozen or sofeet away, he noticed the stairway down to the turbine floor. He scrambledforward on his left hand and knees. His right arm would bear no weight at all.The heat was intense, the air heavy and stagnant. The pain in his chest wasunremitting. He half tumbled down the steel steps, scrambled across theconcrete, and took cover behind the massive turbine. Ground zero. The droningvibration cut through his body like a chain saw.

Fifteen feet above him, on the corridorfrom the elevator, Perchek leaned over the metal railing, searching. Staying onto kill him was a foolish choice, but clearly The Doctor's pride and hatred hadtriumphed over logic.

Crouching behind the turbine, Harrycircled, trying to keep out of Perchek's line of sight. Behind him was anothersafety railing, and beyond that another drop-off to a lower level. The entirewindowless, three-tiered power plant was as vast as a cathedral. He could hearwater flowing below — probably being pumped in from the river to cool the steamfrom the boilers after it had passed through the turbine. Harry wondered if theconduit returning water to the river was large enough to carry a man out.

Perchek had already moved over to coverthe stairs up to the corridor. The stairs down to the lowest level werevirtually a continuation of those. There was no chance Harry could make iteither way. He continued inching to his left, trying to keep the hideousturbine between him and The Doctor. But at that moment, Perchek spotted him.Harry fell back as the revolver again spit flame. A piece of pipe directly overhis head split open. With a freight train roar, steam under immense pressurespewed out, instantly flooding the whole area and billowing thirty feet upwardto the ceiling. The temperature rose rapidly. The hot, wet air was painful tobreathe. Hell.

Harry knew he was cut off from eitherstaircase. But now, the swirling cloud of steam had completely engulfed theturbine. He pushed through the dense mist on his belly and slipped between thesafety rail. The twelve — or thirteen-foot drop to the lowest level looked likea hundred. But there was no choice. Painfully, clinging to the rail with hisone good hand, he lowered himself over the edge. He hung there for a moment,then dropped to the concrete floor, rolling gracelessly as he hit. Pain shot upfrom his feet through his chest, taking his breath away. It was severalfrightening seconds before he realized that he could still move.

He was at the very bottom of the hospitalnow. Beneath the concrete floor were the water tunnels, crawl space, and earth.The massive pedestal supporting the turbine extended upward from the ground,through the floor to the level Harry had just left. Ahead of him, flush withthe concrete, was a steel grate. Harry crawled over and inspected it. It wasfour feet by three, placed to allow access into a concrete tunnel, which was abouteight feet across. At the base of the tunnel, five feet below where Harryknelt, a stream flowed rapidly, discharging spent coolant water from the powerplant to the river. Beside him, a control post with four buttons permitted the waterto be stopped to service the system in either direction: Open Inflow, CloseInflow, Open Outflow, and Close Outflow. The prospect of trying toescape through the tunnel to the river was not appealing, but it was rapidlybecoming his only option. With the drill-like pain in his chest getting evenworse, it was possible he couldn't make it anyway.

On the turbine floor above him, steamcontinued hissing out. Perchek was up there somewhere, undoubtedly guarding thestairway, Harry's only way out. But now, he realized, The Doctor had anotherproblem. Soon, dropping steam pressure had to set off an alarm. The engineer inthe control room would have to look down and see what was going on. Any saneman would flee right now.

But Anton Perchek was hardly sane.

Harry tried the grate. It was heavy, butmovable. With two good arms, it would have been rather easy. He kept glancingup at the stairs, expecting any moment to see Perchek step down from the cloud.The dreadful ache beneath his breastbone shot up into his jaws and ears. Inch byagonizing inch, he slid the grate aside. He estimated the rushing water belowto be three feet deep. Not much cushion. He was weak, dizzy, and drenched withsweat — probably having a full-blown coronary. There was little chance he couldsurvive dropping into the pitch-black tunnel to follow the outflow to theriver. It would be better to try and hide behind the turbine pedestal. Anyminute, someone had to come down.

He crawled over to the concrete base ofthe pedestal just as Perchek stepped out of the billowing steam and down thestairs. Harry crouched low, out of sight at least for the moment. Beside himwas a rolling metal cart, loaded with tools. He tried hefting a hammer with hisleft hand. It was a worthy weapon, but he doubted he would be able to use iteffectively. Still, it was something. Perchek scanned the area and peered intothe tunnel. The open gate was a giveaway that Harry had been there. But it wasalso a source of confusion for Perchek. He had to make a decision.

Harry gripped the' hammer and watched asThe Doctor crouched by the opening, debating whether or not to jump in. Thepain in Harry's chest was making it hard to breathe and even harder toconcentrate. Then Perchek stood and turned away from the grate, again searchingthe room. Harry cursed softly. He had to do something — maybe attack, maybe tryto sneak back up the stairs. Again, Perchek knelt and peered into the tunnel.

Suddenly, before he fully realized what hewas doing, Harry was on his feet, charging toward The Doctor with every ounceof strength he had left, leaning on the tool cart as he pushed it ahead of him.The hissing steam and machinery rumble covered the sound of the wheels. Percheksensed something and turned, but too late. The cart slammed into his shoulder,sending him over the edge and splashing into the water below. Harry collapsedto the concrete, gasping and perilously close to unconsciousness. Below him, hecould see The Doctor on his hands and knees, groping in the black water for hisgun.

Harry forced himself to move. He kneltbeside the grate and, with agonizing slowness, pushed it back into position.Perchek looked up as the grate clanged into place. For the first time, Harrythought he could see panic on the man's face. Then he remembered the controlpanel. If he could close the outflow, the water would deepen and the gun wouldbe harder to find. Anything that would buy even a little time was worth trying.With great effort he rolled over, reached up, and pushed the button. Fromsomewhere beneath him came the vibration of gears engaging. He slumped facedownon the concrete floor, unable to move, barely able to breathe. The lightsdimmed. The intense noise began to fade.

Time passed. A minute? An hour?

Then suddenly, the grate by Harry's facebegan to move. He opened his eyes and through a gray haze saw Perchek's fingerswrapped around the metal, thrusting upward in short bursts again and again.With the outflow closed, the rising water had floated him upward. His leveragewas poor, but he was easily powerful enough to move the grate aside. In just afew seconds he would be out. Battling the darkness and the pain, Harry forcedhimself to one elbow. Then, with agonizing slowness, he toppled over on to hisback, across the grate. Unable to move, he lay there, arms spread, as Perchek'sfingers tore frantically at his scalp and his neck, and pulled at his shirt.

'Corbett, get off! Get off!'

'Go … to … hell. .'

'Corbett

The Doctor's panicked words were cut off.His movements grew more feeble.

Harry felt the soothing coolness of waterwelling up around him, flowing out over the floor. The fingers clutching themetal beneath his head slipped away. Minutes passed. The water continued risingaround him, now touching his neck, now his ears.

All at once, the cacophony of machines andsteam stopped.

Dead, Harry thought. At last, I'mdead. . But so is Perchek, Ray. . So is The Doctor. .

A hand gently shook his shoulder. Hepeered up through the haze. The engineer knelt beside him — yellow hard hat,kind brown eyes behind protective glasses. .

'Are you crazy being down here like this,fella?' he said. 'Why, it's a wonder you didn't get yourself killed.'