The Society

CHAPTER 34

Discipline. . Discipline. . Don’t move. . Not a flicker. . Not a twitch. . Breathe in. . Hold it. . Hold it. . Breathe out. . Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. . Discipline. . Discipline. .

For most of a year during college, Patty and one of her roommates had taken yoga classes together. They had both dropped out, partly because of the pressures of class work, but also because each had met a man.

What in the hell was his name? she wondered now. He was supposed to have been The One. Now she couldn’t even remember his name. Why hadn’t she stayed with yoga?

Breathe in. . Hold it. . Hold it. . Breathe out. . Slowly. . Slowly. . Don’t move. . Don’t move. .

At least an hour had passed since Will was sent off with the man named Watkins-probably closer to two. Boyd Halliday and Marshall Gold had departed just a few minutes after that for an important session with their lawyer and hadn’t returned. Before they left, they had said enough for her to know that tomorrow at ten there was a meeting scheduled at which the Excelsius takeover of several companies would be completed. The new conglomerate, still to be called Excelsius Health, with Halliday as CEO, would instantly be among the largest health-care providers in the east, if not in the country. Power and money. The managed-care killings, believed by almost everyone to be about revenge and retribution, had never been about anything except power and money. Now, unless she or Will could do something, the body count of those sacrificed on that altar was about to rise.

Patty had begun experiencing momentary glimmers of consciousness for a while before she was taken from the ICU, but it wasn’t until she was being transferred from her bed to the stretcher that she had started to come around on all levels. By the time she was secured inside the ambulance, the conversations around her were increasingly penetrating the darkness that had enveloped her mind. In snatches, she heard about her brain surgery and her persistent coma. Some sort of a diversion-maybe a fire-had been set off in the hospital solely for the purpose of getting her out of there. She had no idea where she was being taken, or why, but what she did hear told her that the best she could do was to remain still-absolutely still.

As the ambulance ride wore on, beneath the patches that covered her eyes, she opened and closed her lids. Then, carefully, concealed by the sheet that was draped over her, she tested her arms and legs. From what she could tell, everything was working. But she also knew of the phantom pains of amputees and the phantom movements of paralyzed limbs in stroke and spinal-cord victims.

Breathe in. . Hold it. . Hold it. . Breathe out. .

Since Will and the others had gone, she had been alone with the torturer Krause-the man Gold had referred to as the good doctor. He was seated toward the door, maybe ten or fifteen feet from where she lay. Several times he had come over and stood beside her, breathing heavily and, she sensed, touching himself. First it was just a few seconds at a time, then a minute, then even more.

Good, she thought, stoking her anger, the more you get turned on, the better. Creep.

As the visits to her stretcher became longer, they also became more frequent. It was as if Krause was battling his own instincts-and losing. Each time Patty tried, through the man’s breathing and the sound of his movement, to create a mental picture of him and to focus in on his position and posture. She felt certain from his footfall and at what height she placed his mouth that he was slightly built and not very tall. Finally, perhaps unable to control himself any longer, the good doctor pulled her sheet down below her breasts and stood by her shoulder, staring down at her. She was wearing some sort of hospital pajamas, or perhaps a set of surgical scrubs, but still she felt naked, exposed, and vulnerable.

“How beautiful you are. . How beautiful.”

His breath reeked of cigarettes and garlic. His voice was raspy and rather high-pitched. She honed in on the image of a very thin, wiry man, maybe five-six or — seven, and for no objective reason whatsoever, decided that he fancied himself an intellectual and a poet.

Krause replaced the sheet, and Patty silently sighed relief. He had stopped short of uncovering her hands and the loose IV tubing that rested beneath them. The clear plastic tube was the only accessible weapon she had, but applied quickly and with the proper leverage, she felt it might be enough. The green polystyrene oxygen tubing was a bit thicker, with perhaps less give, but it would be impossible to get at without lifting her arms and risking the loss of the small advantage surprise was going to give her.

Strangulation, from the front and back, was a maneuver they had studied at the academy, mostly so that they could learn how to defend themselves against it. She had never paid that much attention to technique when she was the attacker. Now she wished she had. It frightened her that any move she made would have to be done with the patches covering her eyes, but she sensed, right or wrong, that this unpleasant little man was physically weaker than Gold or Watkins, or even Halliday. If she was going to defeat any one of them, he was the best bet, and if he gave her the chance, she was going to take it.

She had barely completed the thought when he was back. Again the sheet went down. This time, after muttering how beautiful she was, he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips, at the same time setting his hand on her breast. It was all she could do to keep from cringing. Instead, her resolve grew. Krause was testing now, perhaps seeing how much he could get away with without waking her up, perhaps fearful of being caught by Gold or Halliday should he linger too long. However, excitement and his perverse nature clearly had a grip on him.

Not knowing whether he was watching her or not, Patty had not yet dared to move enough to wrap the IV tubing around her hands. If she tried and he was looking at her, it was all over. Still, she felt she was running out of time. She had to sense the opportunity and make her move.

“You’re so beautiful,” he was whispering again, increasing the pressure on her breast. “Just so beautiful.”

His vocabulary was woefully limited, Patty noted, distracting herself from being touched by him. If he was a poet, he was a very bad one.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Krause lifted his hand from her breast and again drew the sheet up. She listened to his heavy breathing and envisioned him standing there, a hand down his pants, fondling himself. Then she heard the scuffing of his shoes as he turned away from her to return to his chair. For a few precious seconds, his back would be to her. He was too stimulated to keep away for long. When he returned, she had to be ready. It had to be now.

Keeping her movements minimal, she located the IV tubing, gripped it, and using quick, minute circles, wound it around each hand. The polystyrene garrote she had created, nearly two feet long, rested across the tops of her thighs. Now she had to pray that Krause’s lecherous ambitions remained above her waist. Across the room, from near the door, she could hear him breathing, clearing his throat, and shifting in his chair. She tried envisioning his movements as she rehearsed her own in her mind.

Many times since joining the force she had asked herself whether she was capable of shooting to kill in order to protect herself or others. Always, the answer had been yes, but in the scenarios she created, firing her weapon to kill had always been reflex and instinctive. This time, the kill would be premeditated, deliberate, and at close range, and once she was committed, there could be no hesitation, no turning back. She tested the strength in her arms by pressing them tightly against her sides while clenching and unclenching her fists. Then she continued her deep breathing, allowing images of Gold’s victims and their families to flow through her thoughts and keep her still.

Several minutes passed. Krause’s breathing seemed more rapid now. Was he masturbating? He began humming to himself-a bizarre, tuneless incantation that Patty found quite chilling.

Come on!. . Come on!

Finally, he stood up and returned to her.

“Oh, baby, you are so beautiful,” he whispered. “So beautiful and all mine.”

He lowered the sheet to her waist and pulled her top up above her breasts. She sensed him devouring her with his eyes. Then she felt the heat of his breath as once again he bent down and set his lips on hers. In seconds he would put his hand on her breasts again. Getting the tubing past his arm and around his neck would be much more difficult. It had to be now-right now!

She drew her hands up clear of the sheet. Then, just as Krause was reacting to the maneuver, she swept the tubing around his neck and pulled his face down against her breastbone, tightening the loop with all her strength. As she had envisioned, holding him tightly against her reduced what he could do with his arms. He flailed at her face but was unable to land a blow with any real force behind it. The patches were torn from her eyes, sending a painful blast of light through her widely dilated pupils. One random swing hit directly on the incision and bone flap on the side of her skull. She cried out, but intensified her grip even more. The tubing felt as if it was going to tear through her palms, but she battled the pain and pulled even harder. It strengthened her to realize Krause hadn’t uttered a sound. His airway was completely occluded, as were his carotid arteries.

Harder. . Harder. . Don’t let up no matter what. . Don’t let up.

The blinding light was rapidly giving way to movement and color. She could see his jet-black hair, then one blurry ear, then her own hand, blanched and bloodless with the effort of killing him. Krause struggled to straighten up, but instead lurched to one side and fell onto his back on the floor. Patty was pulled off the stretcher and landed heavily on top of him. The tension in her grip held. Instantly, what little leverage he had vanished. His arms went limp and flopped to the wooden floor.

Patty was looking directly into the torturer’s bulging, bloodshot eyes when he died. She heard, then smelled, then felt his bladder and bowels give way. The tension in his body ceased. His jaw went slack, and a trickle of blood emerged from the corner of his mouth. Still, she maintained her grip on the tubing, holding fast until she could no longer bear the throbbing in her hands and arms.

Ignoring as best she could the shell bursts going off in her skull and the stench of violent death, she rolled off Krause’s corpse and lay on the floor nearby, gasping for air. Finally, she propped herself up unsteadily on one elbow and took her first careful look at the man she had just killed. If she was feeling any remorse at that moment, any at all, she certainly couldn’t identify it as such. Krause had a narrow, rodentlike face, with burned-out acne and irregular, cigarette-stained teeth. His blood-red eyes still bulged almost out of their sockets.

“Beautiful,” Patty muttered. “Just beautiful.”

With difficulty she grasped the frame of the stretcher and hauled herself upright. Her legs held her there, but not without some conscious effort. Across the room was the chair from which Krause had so vigilantly guarded her-high-backed with a caned seat and no arms. There was a copy of Penthouse on the floor beside it, along with a glass half-filled with what looked like Coke. Draped across the back of the chair was a black sports coat, and hanging over the coat, nearly invisible in its black shoulder holster, was a gun. Suddenly energized, she hurried over. It was a Colt.38 Special-reliable, but with a bit less stopping power than she would have liked. Still, in her hand and at close quarters, it was certainly enough.

Expertly, Patty flipped the cylinder open and assured herself that the six chambers were full. Then, hefting the revolver in her hand, she managed a thin, bitter smile. The odds on their making it out of this mess had just shortened considerably.

Patty checked the windows and satisfied herself that without tools, there was no way out of the room except the door. Through the dense overcast, the gray afternoon light was fading. Four-thirty, she guessed, maybe five. Boyd Halliday would probably be gone by now, hurrying home to join his wife at the dinner party they were throwing for their new business associates. She had heard stories of managed-care CEOs with villas in Majorca and stables of rare antique cars. What sort of place did Halliday live in, she wondered. Would any amount of money, any amount of power, ever be enough for him? She scanned the buildings and grounds outside, trying without success to get some sense of where the farm might be located.

With Will unaccounted for and no definite idea of the firepower beyond the door, she decided that her best chance was to stay in the room and wait. The odor emanating from the body on the floor was testing that decision, but she knew that she held the advantage so long as the first person to arrive could be induced to move through the doorway and into the room-especially if that person was Marshall Gold.

The aromatic Dr. Krause was quite literally dead weight. She gave thought to somehow pulling him up onto the stretcher, covering him with a sheet, and then flattening herself against the wall behind the door. Quickly, though, she passed on the notion of hauling him up that far as a physical impossibility. Instead, staying tensed for the slightest noise outside the door, she rolled the body on its side and left it where it was. Next, she brought the chair over, and laid it on its side, adjusting Krause into a sitting position against it. Using the oxygen, IV, and catheter drainage tubing, and Krause’s belt, she lashed the body to the chair. Surprised and utterly grateful that the chair legs didn’t shatter, she hoisted her creation upright with surprising ease and dragged it to a spot about ten feet in from the door, facing the stretcher.

With the good doctor’s sports jacket draped over the back of the chair, the illusion was nearly complete, and quite good if she did say so. It became even better when she added the finishing touch of the small table that stood near the ratty mattress she assumed was Will’s bed. Setting Krause’s arm at a jaunty angle on the top, she wrapped his fingers around the half-finished glass of Coke. The position also helped brace the body against toppling over prematurely.

“Voila!” she whispered proudly. “C’est si bon.”

The lure, calculated to draw her first visitor at least several steps into the room, was in place. There was little she could do with the stretcher other than to put the thin pillow under the sheet, but by the time anyone got that far, hopefully she would be in charge.

The door to the room opened inward. Patty checked Krause one last time, then positioned herself against the wall so that it would swing toward then past her. The extra half second might make a difference. Now there was nothing to do but wait. Inside her head there seemed to be a serious synergy between her concussion and the massive pounding of her heart created by her battle with Krause. She was feeling vague and sluggish one moment, sharp and focused the next.

Images of her father and of Will, of Lieutenant Court and Brasco, of Marshall Gold’s victims and their families flowed through her mind as she crouched on one knee and waited. It was going to be over soon, she told each of them-very soon. Finally, she heard footsteps outside the door. An instant later, it swung open and Marshall Gold strode into the room.

“So, Doc,” he said cheerfully, “how’s our prize patient?”

He reached Krause’s side and actually touched the corpse on the shoulder before realizing that the stretcher was empty. At the same moment, the body and chair toppled over, taking the table and Coke with them. The glass shattered on the floor.

“Welcome back, Mr. Gold,” Patty said, standing and kicking the door shut. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Patty was totally unprepared for Gold’s reaction. Without a moment’s hesitation and with a furious bellow, he charged her. Teeth bared, he covered half the distance between them with a single step and launched himself, arms outstretched, at her head. His hands slammed ferociously against her shoulders, driving her backward and off her feet. She was in midair, almost parallel to the floor, when she heard a shot. She landed heavily on her back, air exploding from her lungs. Her head snapped against the polished wood with stunning force, sending an explosion of white light through her brain.

She lay there dazed, unable even to lift her arm to fire, helpless to keep Gold from finishing the attack. Then she realized he was screaming.

“You bitch! You fucking bitch! Goddammit! Oh, shit! My leg! You bitch, you bitch!”

Desperately, he grabbed her ankle, but Patty kicked at him and pulled free easily. His face, twisted with rage, was ashen. He was clutching at a spot just above his right knee. Blood was seeping between his fingers.

Bone, Patty thought. The shot had to have shattered his femur. She pushed herself out of his reach and lay there, propped on one elbow, breathing heavily.

“Next time I’m going to aim,” she said.

It was a while before the dizziness and the pounding in Patty’s head allowed her to move. During that time, she twice thought she saw Gold’s hand drift toward his left ankle. Her eyes riveted on him, her revolver aimed at his mid-chest, she crawled around to his feet and felt up inside his pant legs. Even though she tried to be gentle on the right, he cried out with even the slightest movement. His gun, a slender.9mm Glock, was strapped just below his calf on the left. She removed the bullets from the Colt, then sent them and the revolver skidding across the floor to the far end of the room. Now, with the Glock, she had some serious firepower. Warily, she patted Gold down, even though there was precious little else he could have hidden beneath his turtleneck and form-fitting slacks.

He seemed to have regained some composure, although the pallor around his mouth said that he was in some degree of early shock.

“Who else is in the house?” she demanded.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Those are really nice shoes. How about I just tap that right one on the sole?”

“Why not? You asshole cops are no better than Krause there, anyhow. Go ahead. Do it, bitch.”

Jarred by Gold’s words, Patty stood up and stepped back, glaring down at the man who had brought so much terrible pain to so many.

“Not tonight,” she said softly.

She moved cautiously to the door and listened. If anyone else had been in the house, surely they would have reacted to the gunshot. All she had to do now was find a phone and call 911. Was there danger in leaving Gold here unguarded? It would take a hell of an actor to fake the signs of early shock, but if he were acting and the bullet hadn’t shattered his femur, there was plenty of danger. At that moment, from somewhere nearby, a door opened and closed. Moments later, a man called out Gold’s name.

“Mr. Gold. Mr. Gold, we’re back. I have the package. I’ll bring our friend into the blue room.”

Watkins!

Patty pushed the door closed and again flattened herself against the wall.

“One word, Gold,” she whispered fiercely, “one sound, and I’ll put a bullet into your face. I swear I will.”

“Fuck you,” Gold moaned, but there was little force behind the words.

The door opened and Will, his wrists handcuffed and a blood-soaked pillowcase over his head, was shoved rudely onto the floor.

“Get in there, jerk,” Watkins said, stepping in after him, his boot drawn back, poised to land a kick.

Patty came at him from behind and jammed the Glock against the base of Watkins’s skull.

“Police. Down on your knees!” she snapped. “Put your hands on your head or I’ll blow it off. Now! I mean it, dammit!”

In slow motion, the giant complied.

Will pulled the pillowcase off. His face was a bloody mask, his left eye swollen shut. Blood was still oozing from his misshapen nose.

“He’s got a gun in his right jacket pocket,” he said thickly. “The keys to these are in his pants pocket.”

Keeping the revolver in contact with Watkins’s skull, Patty pulled his jacket off and threw it aside. Then she forced him onto his belly, had him retrieve the key, and helped Will remove the manacles.

“Hands behind your back! Will, can you put those on him?”

“I can do anything you want,” he said, looking from Krause to Gold and back. “Bad things happen to people who don’t.” He snapped the handcuffs onto Watkins. “I think I’ll swallow this key and bring you a week’s worth of my dung so you can look for it.”

He dropped it into his pocket.

“Do you need help right away?” Patty asked.

“My cheekbone is broken and I’m a little dizzy, and I can’t see so good out of this eye, but I’m not in any immediate trouble. Patty, I can’t believe you pulled this off.”

“I don’t think I’ve told you yet, but I have quite a nasty temper.”

“I don’t think I’ll have much trouble remembering that.”

“Find a phone and call nine-one-one. Take Watkins’s gun just in case. Make sure the safety’s off and don’t shoot yourself by mistake.”

Will retrieved the pistol, had her check that he had released the safety, and headed off. Patty surveyed the human wreckage around her-one handcuffed, one disabled, one dead. What would Tommy Moriarity say if he could see her now? Probably that she had violated some protocol or procedure and had just lucked out. She smiled. At least there’ll be photos of the scene from the crime-lab people. Maybe she could have one matted and framed for Father’s Day.

She was still smiling a few minutes later when Will returned. He stopped in the doorway, staring at her strangely, not moving or speaking.

“Will, are you okay?” she asked. “Did you make the call?”

Will stepped into the room, followed immediately by his partner, Susan Hollister, her hair still wet from the shower. The powerful automatic weapon held expertly in her right hand was aimed directly at Patty’s heart.