Even a person in his sixties, without great strength, striking a lightning-fast blow with such an instrument, can traumatize the brain with four thousand to forty-five hundred foot-pounds of pressure per square inch. It is a devastating blow to the head.
Shtolz had emerged to direct the movements of Solomon Royal the moment he sensed danger. The evil genius soaked the situation in through his pores, every movement geared to that moment when he could lash out at this intruder.
From the second he thought he'd been spotted by the old woman and he first realized that she recognized him, the long-dormant survival instincts had been reawakened. Since then, he'd been constantly prepared for and attuned to the other hunters that he knew would be coming.
He'd known when his girl had closed the door he would be safe. He kept up his soft-shoe routine, speaking to the man even as he moved, talking about the woman's prosthesis as he took the syringe out, deftly seeking and finding a vein and plunging the hypodermic needle in, filling the unconscious Jew's veins with enough morphine to kill three men.
Now the adrenals were activated and he felt the erotic charge surge through his own system, as if he'd shot the dope into his own veins, and the apprehension, excitement, and pleasure of supremacy gave him the power he needed to work the heavy body into his private closet.
He opened the office side door that faced a corner of the rainy parking lot, then, leaving it ajar, quickly opened the door of his office, and, seeing the hallway empty, he faced the parking lot and said in a loud voice, “No problem. I think she'll be fine. Give me a call if she needs anything.” A pause and a glance back at the open office door. “Okay. So long.” He slammed the private door much louder than necessary, immediately going back down the hallway for his next patient, thinking a dozen thoughts as he quickly sorted and compartmentalized his options.
His main regret was not that someone had come for him but that he had felt unwilling to gamble. He regretted that he could not afford the risk of keeping this solitary hunter alive for interrogation later. Aside from the pleasures of the inquiry and what would follow, it would almost have been worth the gamble to know for certain who else knew about his existence.
There would be a vehicle in the parking lot to contend with. Keys in the man's pocket would doubtless fit the ignition. He silently examined these dangerous intrusions and inconveniences, as he assessed the risks of his plan.
In the slimy darkness of his mind he felt the blood and tissue fleck his face as it flew from the bone saw, savoring the climax of the evening ahead.
When he'd spent a few minutes with a woman whose kidney infection could be treated with a simple urine analysis, routine diet, and prescribed antibiotics, he returned to his office and considered the problems at hand.
There was his fictitious Purdy folder there in the clinic files, now conveniently misplaced, but which had been prepared and filed, initialed and charted by a part-time employee who worked only one day a week and would remember nothing. The Medcor computer carried Alma Purdy's fictional record of office visits, diagnostic entries, lab work, and treatment summary. When the chart was found it would show she had known Dr. Royal for over a year, and it would prove adequate unless the woman's records turned up in the files of another doctor.
He'd invented a rather well documented condition of aggravated arthritic pain to explain the spurious history of past visits. The X rays of a prosthesis-wearer's amputated arm, which he'd inserted into her chart, were a particularly nice touch.
That evening, after the clinic was empty but before the nighttime custodial people arrived, he backed Kamen's car up to the office side door and, under cover of his privacy wall in back of the clinic, loaded the body into the trunk. After that it would briefly occupy part of the two-car garage in Royal's empty rental property a few blocks away. From there the late Mr. Kamen would go to dwell in the newly planted “garden” in Royal's basement, perhaps not all at once, but piecemeal.
The contents of the Hebe's briefcase were nothing: ancient, blurry photos, renderings that resembled Dr. Royal not in the least, notes of haphazard conjecture, fumbling guesswork. He could imagine what the regional law agencies had. Little or nothing. The object mailed by Mrs. Talianoff remained a small, loose cannon.
The car itself would also present no problem. Without undue trouble he could drive the vehicle out to the backwater's edge after dark. Leave it at the edge of the incoming river. Plan a nearby house call. Invent some car trouble. His patients wouldn't blink an eye if he requested a lift into town. Nothing major, much less insurmountable.
It was past his bedtime and he was physically exhausted but his keen mind still turned over variables. He knew the woman had alerted this Aaron Kamen, who would have taken his story to the authorities, but so what? This was no spearhead of a search team from the K-group or the Mossad. This was an old crone and an inept amateur. Two moron Jews.
His Royal identity, in concert with cosmetic surgery, his language proficiency, intellect, and background in the community, they amounted to an impenetrable shield. It was best not to plan these things out too painstakingly, he supposed. Weigh the probabilities of course, but let the element of chance factor itself into the mix to some extent. Go with the harmonics.
He decided he'd take a Seconal or two, almost too exhausted to sleep, and within a few minutes was slumbering peacefully.
32
She'd started trying to reach her father by phone late Saturday, calling him a number of times Sunday afternoon and evening, and then putting it out of her mind Monday, with the pressures of work to contend with. But the fact he'd been out of touch all weekend tugged subliminally, and by late afternoon Monday, Sharon started calling the motel in earnest. No answer. That night she dialed several times again. Nothing.
She tried to read. Listen to music. Paint. She couldn't disengage her mind. How could her father get lost in Bayou City?
At times like this, as she prowled her apartment, feeling the walls closing in on her a bit, she would get quick, uncomfortable flashes of insight into just how much damage had been done to her psyche by the thing at the shelter.
The cop and his ominous warnings about sticking to her story of the shooting ... the cold formalities with the police interviews that left her feeling dirty and confused ... the frightening business of having to get legal counsel and then depose ... stand trial ... terrifying moments after long months of waiting. When she was finally exonerated there was no sense of real relief, only anticlimax. The guilt was still with her, the feelings that a self-defense acquittal could never expunge. At such moments as these she'd realize how far she still had to come to shake loose from it.
At 9:48 P.M., after the fifth call of the evening, letting it ring twenty times or more, she rang the Bayou City motel office, asking the manager to make sure her father was all right. After some discussion, the woman relented and took a passkey, returning after what seemed like ten minutes to the telephone that Sharon insisted she not hang up.
“Hello?'
“I'm still here.'
“Well, Mr. Kamen apparently hasn't been back to his room for a day or so.'
“Why do you say that?'
“Because our maid didn't show up today and I had to do all the beds and clean the rooms myself. His bed is still made up from the weekend and I don't think he's been back in the room.'
She thanked the woman, and as soon as she had a dial tone tried the Bayou City police. A deputy or assistant of some sort answered and she asked for the person in charge, was told he wasn't available, and was given the opportunity of leaving a message. She explained the nature of the emergency, the fact that her father, who was looking into the disappearance of a Bayou City resident, had not returned to his motel room for at least two days. The man on the other end was maddeningly calm and infuriatingly placating in tone.
