The Plan

PROVIDENCE COMES TO

The subhead read:

Kaz got on the Jersey Turnpike, heading toward New York City. Then he said, "Bolt says this guy is a mob pawn." A light rain started falling so he turned on the wipers and waited while Cole bit carefully on a sugar doughnut.

"You wanna kick in anything or are you just gonna perform oral surgery on that doughnut?"

"Okay, here's what I got so far… I think UBC is hooked to the mob. I'm not sure how high up it goes, whether it's just Steve Israel in the news division or if it goes all the way up to C. Wallace Litman. When they killed my story on the Alos in Atlantic City, I got to wondering if maybe there was something going on between the mob and UBC. I went back and looked at their news coverage on organized crime. They've killed every single story about the Alos, specifically, and the East Coast crime syndicates, in general. I find that very disturbing."

"Where's that take us?" Kaz asked.

"I'm digging around in the Justice Department, using old contacts, but it's pretty damn hard when you don't have any network clout behind you. I figured I'd start at the top, with C. Wallace Litman. So far, I haven't go t m uch that's solid, but one thing seems funny…" "What?"

"Back in the sixties, he was just this little accounts manager for an investment portfolio company in Florida. He was making twenty-five to thirty thousand a year, and then he quits. Nobody in that firm can remember why. He resurfaced in New York a few years later, and he owned, of all things, two parking lots in downtown Manhattan, and I'm thinking, what a strange investment for this little Yiddish accountant from Fort Lauderdale. 'Course, it's not so strange when you realize the mob is big on Manhattan parking lots and all other cash businesses. Then he parlays the parking lots into some real estate and, ten years later, he tacks that 'C' on the front of his name and he's a big Wall Street gazoonie, buying media companies. I can't prove any of it, but my bullshit meter is in the red."

Cole amputated a piece of his sugar doughnut with his lateral incisors, managing not to get any powder on his clean, blue shirt and matching tie. "By the way, where are we going? I thought we were just gonna get breakfast and have a talk."

"I thought we should go back and have another look at Brenton Spencer. He's in NYC County. Ryan got me thinking, it's very strange Brenton walked off that stage in Iowa."

"Maybe it was the brain aneurysm that made him act funny."

"Yeah, and maybe it wasn't. If he wakes up, I wanna be there."

They arrived at County Hospital at noon and went directly to the Neurology floor. The hubbub had died down and the press had left days ago. Now all that remained was the smell of sickness and Lysol. Nurses moved quietly, like green paper angels, their rubber-soled shoes squeaking on sanitized corridors, while music and doctors pagings came lightly over the intercom.

Kaz found the same intern he had talked to the day they'd checked Spencer in. He was in the office at the far end of the floor.

" 'Member me?" Kaz said, poking his head in. "How's Spence?"

The doctor had been up all night and was resting on the sofa with his shoes off, stocking feet propped on the arm rest. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Still about the same. Like I told you, it's gonna be a while."

"This is his brother, Carl. He's in the jewelry business. Just flew in from Zurich."

"Brenton and I haven't seen much of one another since I started buying gemstones abroad. It's hard to believe this happened," Cole said, rolling with the improv.

"He's still in the same room. You can look through the glass but don't go in."

They moved out of the intern's office.

"Guy's a doctor, he should wash his socks," Cole mumbled as they walked down the spotless corridor to the room where Brenton was being treated. There was an observation window, but Kaz ignored the instruction, opened the door, and entered.

Brenton had gone camping in an oxygen tent. They stood at the foot of the anchorman's bed and looked at him. His head was wrapped heavily in gauze. To their surprise his eyes were open and staring up at them.

"Is he awake?" Cole asked, looking down into his eyes. "Brenton, it's me. It's Cole Harris." Brenton didn't move his eyes. He was looking up into space.

"Brenton, it's Cole. Can you hear me?"

Brenton Spencer could hear but he couldn't move or speak. His eyes were directed at the ceiling, but saw nothing. He had lost all sight and much of his memory. None of his senses worked except his hearing. Several times a day, people would come and give him a shot and he would fall back into a deep, drugged sleep. But he would always come out of it sooner than they expected. He began to realize, each time he came to, that he was frozen in thi s b ody; trapped, unable to see or speak or move. Through the blind patchwork of his crippled brain, he was screaming silently at everyone who came into the room. Screaming, Help, help, let me out. I'm in here. He could hear them as they walked in and out.

"Can he understand us?" they would say. "Is he awake?"

Lemme out, lemme out, he would scream in his tortured mind, unable to move, unable to twitch… trapped but alive. He lay there while they talked, first to him, then about him.

Brenton Spencer was locked in a nightmare that began anew every time he woke up.