Koko

5

Both Poole and Underhill were stitched up in an emergency room by a baby-faced young resident who pronounced their wounds identical but “all glamour,” meaning that while they would leave good-sized scars, they represented no serious threat to life or health, facts that Poole had already ascertained for himself. After their wounds had been sutured, they were taken upstairs to a double room and told they would be spending the night by the officer who had ridden with them in the ambulance. This officer’s name was LeDonne, and he had a neat moustache and kindly eyes.

“I’ll be right outside the door,” LeDonne added.

“There’s no need for us to spend the night in the hospital,” Poole said.

“The lieutenant would really prefer it this way,” said LeDonne, which Michael took as the officer’s polite way of telling them that they were under orders to spend at least one night in the hospital.

Maggie Lah appeared with Conor Linklater and Ellen Woyzak three hours after their installation in the room, and all three visitors described how they had spent the previous hours with Lieutenant Murphy. The lieutenant had heard the story of how they had come to the building on Elizabeth Street enough times to conclude that they were innocent of all crimes except foolhardiness and finally had charged them with none.

Maggie also told Michael and Tim Underhill, who had become slightly groggy from the effects of painkillers, that Koko had escaped the police in Chinatown, but that Murphy was certain he would be captured before nightfall.

Maggie stayed on after Conor and Ellen left to go to Grand Central for a Metro North train. Ellen kissed both men, and nearly had to pull Conor through the door. Poole thought that Conor almost wished he had been injured himself, so that he could stay with them.

“Where did they put Beevers?” he asked Maggie.

“He’s three floors up. Do you want to see him?”

“I don’t think I ever really want to see Harry Beevers,” Poole said.

“He lost an ear,” Maggie said.

“He has another one.”

The light in the hospital room grew hazy, and Michael thought of the beautiful grey nimbus of light at the top of the stairs as he had emerged from Koko’s cell.

A nurse came and gave him another shot although he said he did not want or need it. “I’m a doctor, you know,” he said.

“Not now, you’re not,” she said, and slammed the needle into his left buttock.

After that he and Tim Underhill had a long conversation about Henry James. Later all that Poole could remember of this woozy conversation was that Tim had described a dream James had had as an old man— something about a terrifying figure trying to break into the writer’s room, and the writer eventually attacking his own attacker and driving him away.

That day or the next, for Murphy had ordered them held over for at least another twenty-four hours, Judy Poole appeared on the threshold of the room just before the end of visiting hours. Michael could see Pat Caldwell standing behind his wife. He had always liked Pat Caldwell. Now he could not remember if he had always liked his wife.

“I’m not coming in unless that person comes out,” Judy said. That person was Maggie Lah, who immediately began picking up her things.

Michael motioned her to stay. “In that case, you’re not coming in,” he said. “But I think it’s a pity.”

“Won’t you see Harry?” Pat called to him. “He says he has a lot of things to talk about with the two of you.”

“I’m not interested in talking to Harry right now,” Poole said. “Are you, Tim?”

“Maybe later,” Underhill said.

“Michael, aren’t you going to get rid of that girl?” Judy asked.

“No, I don’t think I am going to do that. Come in here so we can talk in normal voices, Judy.”

Judy turned around and marched away down the hospital corridor.

“Lot of fun, being in a hospital,” Michael said. “Your whole life appears before you.”

Late the next evening, when Poole was lucid enough to feel the pain of the wound, Lieutenant Murphy came to the room. He was smiling and seemed calm and self-possessed, like the man Beevers had admired at Tina Pumo’s funeral.

“Well, you’re in no danger now, so I’m sending LeDonne home to get some rest. You’ll be able to check out of here in the morning.” He shifted on the balls of his feet, apparently uncertain of how to give them the next bit of information. In the end he decided on a mixture of optimism and aggression. “He’s ours now. Thanks to you two people and Mr. Beevers, we didn’t get him in Chinatown, but I told you we’d get him in the end, and we will.”

“You know where Dengler is?” Tim asked.

Murphy nodded.

“Well, where is he?” Poole asked.

“You don’t need to know that.”

“But you can’t apprehend him now?”

Murphy shook his head. “He’s as good as apprehended. You don’t have to worry about him.”

“I’m not worried,” Poole said. “Is he on an airplane?”

Murphy glowered at him, then nodded.

“Didn’t you have people at the airport?”

Now Murphy began to seem irritated. “Of course we did. I had men at every subway station he might have used, we had people at the bus terminals, and at both Kennedy and La Guardia.” He cleared his throat. “But he managed to get to New Orleans before we identified him. By the time we worked out what name he was using and where he was going, he had already boarded his connecting flight in New Orleans. But he’s on that flight now. It’s all over for him.”

“Where is he going?”

At length Murphy decided to tell them. “Tegucigalpa.”

“Honduras,” Poole said. “Why Honduras? Oh. Roberto Ortiz. You checked the passenger lists and found the name. Dengler still has Roberto Ortiz’s passport.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything, do I?” Murphy asked.

“Tell me you’re going to get him this time.”

“You can’t walk out of an airplane. I don’t think he’s going to do a D.B. Cooper. And when the plane lands at the Tegucigalpa airport in four hours, we have a small army waiting for him. Those people down there, they want to be our friends. Those people, when we snap our fingers, they jump. He’s going to be picked up so fast his feet won’t even touch the ground.” Murphy actually smiled. “We can’t miss him. This guy might be the running grunt, according to you gentlemen, but this time he’s running into a trap.” Murphy nodded good-bye and went to the door; when he had gone out he had another thought, and leaned back in. “In the morning, I’ll tell you how it went. By then your boy will be on the way back here.” A grin. “In chains. And probably with a few bruises, and minus a couple of teeth.”

After he left, Underhill said, “There goes Harry Beevers’ idol.”

A nurse came in and gave them another shot.

Poole fell asleep worrying about his car, which he had left parked at a meter on Division Street.

As soon as he woke up the next morning, Poole called the Tenth Precinct. On his bedside table was a vase of irises and calla lilies, and beside the vase was his copy of The Ambassadors and the two Babar books. During the night, Maggie had managed to rescue his car. Poole asked the officer who answered his call if Lieutenant Murphy was planning to visit St. Vincent’s Hospital that morning.

“As far as I know he has no plans to do so,” said the officer. “But I’m the wrong guy to ask.”

“Is the lieutenant in now?”

“The lieutenant is in a meeting.”

“Did the Hondurans arrest Dengler? Can you tell me that much?”

“I’m sorry, I cannot give you that information,” the officer said. “You will have to speak to the lieutenant.” He hung up.