town privileges back from Dr. Cioffi. Szabo can come and go as he likes.'
While I talked, Betsey kept pulling at the lapels of her blazer. I was afraid she might start pulling out her hair next.
'But he doesn't go anywhere! He's a fifty-year-old slacker! He's a total loser!'
'Betsey, I know. I've been watching Szabo sleep and play games on the Internet for three days.'
She snorted out a laugh. 'So he's pulled off five perfect crimes that we know of. And now he's retiring to the farm.'
'Yeah. The funny farm,' I said.
'Want to hear about my day?' she finally asked.
I nodded.
'Well, I visited First Union and I talked with everyone I could find who was there when Szabo was at the bank. He was considered very 'dedicated,' actually. But he was wound tight about efficiency and doing the right thing in exactly the right way. Some of the others used it to mock him.'
'Mock him in what way?' I asked.
'Szabo had a nickname, Alex. Get this it was the Mastermind! The name was a joke. It was supposed to be a joke on Szabo.'
'Well, I guess he's turned the joke around. Now the joke is on us.'
Chapter One Hundred and Nine
The strangest thing happened the following morning. As Szabo was passing me in the hall, he rubbed against me. He managed to look flustered and he apologized for supposedly 'losing his balance,' but I was almost certain he had done it on purpose. Why? What the hell was that all about?
About an hour later, I saw him leaving the ward. I was pretty sure he knew I was watching him go. As soon as he was out, I hurried to the door.
'Where's Szabo going?' I asked the aide who'd just let him out.
'PT. He signed out. Szabo has full grounds and town. He can go wherever he likes.'
He had been vegetating on the ward for so long that he'd caught me off guard. Tell the head nurse that I had to leave,' I said.
'Tell her yourself,' The aide frowned and tried to blow me off.
I pushed past him,' Tell her. It's important.'
I let myself off the unit and took the rickety and temperamental elevator down to the lobby floor. PT was physical therapy, and Frederic Szabo hated the gym. I remembered reading it in his nursing notes. Where was he really going?
I hurried outside and saw Szabo skulking across the courtyard between hospital buildings. Tall and bearded like the physical description we'd gotten from Brian Macdougall.
When Szabo walked right past the gym, I wasn't surprised.
He was on the move!
He kept on going and I followed. He seemed kind of nervous and skittish. He finally turned his head in my direction and I ducked off the path. I didn't think he'd seen me. Had he?
Szabo continued on and walked through the hospital gates. The street outside was filled with traffic. He walked due south. Not a care in the world. Was this the Mastermind?
He hopped into a cab a couple of blocks from the hospital. There were three of them parked in front of a Holiday Inn.
I hurried to one of the other cabs, got in, told the driver to follow.
The driver was Indian. 'Where are we going, mister?' he asked.
'I have no idea,' I said. I showed him my detective's badge.
The driver shook his head, then he moaned into his hands. 'Oh brother. Just my bad luck. Like the movies - follow that cab.'
Chapter One Hundred and Ten
Szabo got out of his cab on Rhode Island Avenue in Northwest. So did I. He walked for a while window- shopped. At least that's what it looked like. He seemed more relaxed now. His nervous tics had lessened once he was off the hospital grounds. Probably because he had been faking them.
He finally turned into a squat, dilapidated brownstone building, still on Rhode Island Avenue. The basement floor was a Chinese laundry
– A LEE.
What was he doing in there? Was he skipping out a back door? But then I saw a light flash in the second-floor window. Szabo crossed past it a few times. It was him. Tall and bearded.
My brain was starting to overload with possibilities. No one at Hazelwood knew about Szabo's apartment in DC. There wasn't any mention of it in the nursing notes.
