The First Patient

CHAPTER 53

B IG AL, THE CAR BUYER'S PAL.

The slogan, complete with a caricature of the man, was painted on a sign that rose from the top of a shacklike office, overlooking a lot of forty or so used cars, festooned with red, white, and blue balloons.

While Gabe was working over and over through the elements of the plan that was designed to save the presidency of Andrew Stoddard and possibly the man's life as well, Big Al Kagan was working over every cliché in his automobile buyer's Blue Book in an effort to sell Gabe a late-model Bordeaux red Chevrolet Impala, with CD changer, power sunroof, factory alloys, and cruise control.

"All you need to do," Big Al was saying, "is just take this baby out for a drive, just a quick spin around the block and out Sixty-six for a few miles, and you'll be belting yourself in for the long haul."

"What do you need?"

"Just your license and I'll hook a dealer's plate on this puppy and you're off."

"I… um… don't have a license right now. My wallet was stolen."

"ID?"

Gabe thought about the handwritten introductory note folded in his pocket from the president to banker Walter Immelman-a note he never even had to use to get twenty thousand dollars in cash.

"Nope."

"Do you have a trade-in?"

"No, I sold my other car."

"Well, then you must have the plates."

"I… well, yes, yes, I do have one."

"One is enough."

"If I get the plate, can I just take the car?"

"Of course, once I get a little paperwork done. But don't you want to take her for a little-?"

Stoddard's cell phone cut the bewildered dealer short. It was playing "Hail to the Chief."

"Give me a couple of minutes, Big Al," Gabe said, walking ten yards away to lean against a silver Infiniti with air, CD changer, low mileage, Bridgestone Turanzas, and a red balloon.

"Ellen?"

"Hey there, cowboy."

"Thanks for getting back to me so quickly."

Gabe pictured the trim, seasoned veterinarian seated in her pine-paneled office, just outside of Tyler, surrounded by photos and children's drawings and paintings of horses. Dozens and dozens of horses. In fact, her office chair and those in her modest waiting room were hand-tooled western saddles, transformed with backs and legs by the grateful owner of a patient.

"In no time at all, you've become a legend in these parts, Gabe."

"I promise to undo that misconception just as soon as I get back home."

"Before you go and do any undoing, my kids will want your autograph and a signed photo of your boss."

"Tell them if they want a legend, they don't have to look any further than their mom… Okay, okay. Harry and-"

"Sarah, with an h. Harry and Sarah. Make it one for each."

"Done. You want one, too?"

"Only if he's on a horse. In that case it'll be to Dr. Ellen K. and Gilbert F. Williams. Gilbert hates being left out. The middle initials'll make sure people know it ain't just any ol' Ellen and Gilbert Williams."

"Done."

"So, you mentioned your call has something to do with your patient. Now, pardon me for saying it, but that's intriguing. What can an ol' veterinary sawbones do for you and our esteemed president?"

"I need you to put a potion together for me and ship it out here so that I have it in my hands by noon tomorrow. Any later will probably be N.G."

"Exactly what's this potion supposed to do?"

Watching Big Al Kagan pace about his otherwise deserted sales lot, Gabe went over the details of his requirements. Seventeen hundred miles to the west, Dr. Ellen K. Williams listened intently.

"That's it," he said. "That's all I need."

"That's it, huh? Well, Doc, let me ask you something. What would you say to me if I called you long-distance and asked if you could do this to a bunch of humans?"

Gabe felt himself sink. He had been so immersed in the logistics and potential of his plan that he did not think for a moment that Ellen Williams, whom he had known professionally and socially for years and who was on the board of Lariat, would be morally unwilling to go along with a scheme that might end up killing horses.

Desperately, he searched his mind for alternatives. The best he could come up with on the spot was finding a large-animal specialist locally and opening one of the wallets full of cash he was carrying. He knew that there was no way a bribe of any size would work on Williams.

"You're right, Ellen," he said finally. "If I were even going to consider such a request, I'd want to know details-details and exactly what was at stake. Well, unfortunately, I can't tell you all the details. But I can say that the life of the man I am caring for may be at stake, and I am desperate enough to beg, but not desperate enough to ask you to compromise your professionalism and love of animals. As a physician, I completely understand why you would have misgivings."

A long silence followed.

"You'll be careful?"

"I promise. You've been out to my place. We've even ridden together. You know how I feel about horses."

"Okay, Gabe," she said finally. "I'll do the compounding myself and see to it that the mixture is at your D.C. address by noon. It will be a blend of ketamine, Nembutal, and maybe some fentanyl, although I'm not sure yet how much of each. I'll have to make my best guess as to when each drug will do what it does, and how they will work together. There's a couple of rescued animals here I might be able to try various combinations on. They could use some rest."

"I owe you, Doc," Gabe said, "and I think the country owes you as well."

He gave her the address of the Watergate, slipped the cell phone into the jeans Stoddard had lent him, and turned his attention back to Big Al, feeling not that pleased about what he had just coerced a very wonderful doctor into doing.

"Listen, B.A.," he said, "I'm going to run home and pick up my old plate. Then I'll be back. I'm glad I didn't throw it out."

"Me, too," Big Al called out as Gabe was leaving the lot.

When he reached the street, Gabe glanced about casually. Then he began the evasive action he had started the moment he left the White House. The lesson learned in Anacostia was an indescribably painful one, but it was a lesson nevertheless.

Except for what he had seen in the movies and read in some thrillers, he was a rank amateur in the cloak-and-dagger business. But he was logical and, in most circumstances, he wasn't dumb. Down uncrowded sidewalks; through stores and restaurants with back exits; into one cab, then another. With each move he fought against complacency and against allowing the pressure of time to make him careless. As things stood, with what he knew he might be as much a target as Drew.

Now, leaving Big Al's, he moved thoughtfully, ducking into a doorway from time to time and flagging down a cab for a zigzag five-minute ride to no place in particular. After a two-block walk, he stopped in a hardware store, emerging from the alley entrance with both slotted and Phillips head screwdrivers. Parked against one of the walls in the alley, looking as if it might not have been driven for a while, was an old Chevrolet-hardly a perfect match for the car he was about to buy, but a match of sorts nonetheless. He ducked behind the junker and in just a minute emerged with its plate.

If nothing else, he had just made Big Al's day.

Finally, after returning to the lot, screwing the plate on the Impala, paying Al off, and freeing the balloon, it was time to use some more of the president's hard-earned cash to brighten up someone else's day-this time, it would be Lily Sexton's stable man, William.