anotherto avoid being followed to Battery Park, never realizing that thestate-of-the-art bugs Galahad routinely placed in each knight's room had madetailing him quite unnecessary.
The car doors were open now, and peoplewere pushing and jamming to get out on to the platform. The man withStallings's briefcase moved calmly with the flow. The syringe in his pocketwould be tossed into a sewer within a block. The cardiotoxin he had emptiedinto Stallings was one of his favorite weapons — a drug virtually unknownoutside of the lower Amazon, so potent that the poison remaining along thebarrel of the syringe would probably still be enough to kill. The thirty-gaugeneedle attached to the syringe was so fine it could pass through a pore, makingthe puncture wound essentially invisible. And even if the injection hadproduced a tiny droplet of blood, the man's dark blue shirt would have made itvirtually impossible to notice. Just another statistic — another heat- relateddeath.
Anton Perchek exited the station just asthe two policemen were rushing in.
'Take your time, gentlemen,' he whispered.'Believe me, there is no need to rush.'
Chapter29
The mood in Harry's apartment wasdecidedly upbeat. Walter Concepcion and Maura arrived within a few minutes ofeach other, both with good news.
Harry needed it. After the hearing, as hewas getting out of Mel Wetstone's Mercedes in front of his office, he hadexperienced another bout of chest pain — more sharp than dull or squeezing,moving from deep in his back through to the middle of his breastbone. The wholeepisode didn't last long — maybe three or four minutes, and it wasn't all thatsevere. But it was the worst pain he had had in a while. By the time he hadgiven Mary Tobin a quick kiss of gratitude and hurried to the medicationcabinet to try a nitroglycerine pill, the pain was subsiding. If it was angina,he told himself again, it certainly wasn't a text-book case.
Still, Maura was going to keep her part oftheir bargain by going to an AA meeting with Concepcion. The least he could dowas schedule a stress test. He went back to his desk, dialed the office numberof a cardiologist friend, and actually let the phone ring once before he hungup. He would keep the nitroglycerine in his pocket, he decided, and take it atthe first sign of chest pain. If it worked, if the pain subsided, there was a fairlystrong likelihood that the problem was his heart. Then he would call thecardiologist. Meanwhile, he told himself, the stress test could wait.
Harry gave Maura and Concepcion a vividaccount of the hearing at the hospital — especially the near catastrophicspeech by Caspar Sidonis, and the remarkable performances by Mel Wetstone andMary Tobin.
'This Sidonis,' Concepcion said when hehad finished, 'does he know about your wife — I mean, the research she wasdoing?'
'I don't think so. I haven't shared what Iknow about her other life with anyone except the police. Telling Sidonis seemedto serve no purpose. I doubt he would believe it anyway.'
'He sounds like he could be a dangerousenemy. I would recommend you to stay as far away from him as possible. Will hefollow through on his threat to quit?'
'I doubt it, but you never know. He makesit sound like he could just walk out of MMC and hang up his shingle at anotherhospital. But he has a huge research lab, and when you're in themillion-plus-a-year category, which I'm sure he is, things are seldom thatsimple. There's no hospital in the city without a chief of cardiac surgery. AndI doubt any of them would be too pleased to have ol' Caspar decide to horn inon their territory.'
Maura next told of how Lonnie Sims hadhelped her produce a series of photo-quality pictures of the man she had seen.There was the original, and three other front-and-side views — one with glassesand a beard, one with a mustache and blond hair, another with blue eyes andlong dark hair. Sims had reduced them all in size and placed them on a singlelegal-size sheet along with an empty box for the addition of other information.He then printed out ten copies for her.
'Should have done one as a woman,'Concepcion said studying the images.
'What?'
'Nothing. Just babbling. This guy seemslike he can almost walk through walls in hospitals, so I was wondering whathe'd look like as a nurse.'
'Actually, Lonnie tried out a number offeminine wigs and makeup of various kinds. That opened up dozens ofcombinations and possibilities. The pictures would have been awfully small ifwe had tried to print too many. Plus, we felt it might be too confusingfor anyone looking at a set of fifteen or twenty composites to focus in on oneof them.'
'Good point,' Concepcion said. 'We'll geta batch of color Xeroxes and put them up on every floor in the hospital. Maybein other hospitals, too.'
'We can't,' Harry said.
He reviewed his clash with Owen Erdman andhis agreement that Erdman alone would supervise distribution of the drawings,and then only privately to department heads.
'It won't work,' Concepcion said, moreagitated than Harry had ever seen him.
'What do you mean?'
'There's not much chance that someone'sjust going to look at these posters and say, 'Ah ha! That's our man rightover there.' It happens that way sometimes, but not often. What we'rereally trying to do is annoy The Doctor, upset him to the point where he doessomething careless — jab and run, jab and run until he doesn't care aboutanything except getting even with you.'
'You talk as if you know him,' Harry said.
The tic at the corner of Concepcion'smouth fired off several times.
'I don't know
'I'm sorry, but I can't do it, Walter. Igave the hospital president my word. My position's shaky enough around thatplace without pushing my luck with him. He's famous for his temper. In a weekor so, we can try approaching him again. But not now.'
'Whatever you say, Doc.'
Concepcion studied one of the posters fora few seconds.
'Maura, this is really quite amazing,' hesaid, slipping it into a battered leather portfolio.
She looked at him curiously.
'How do you know?'
'Hey, I may be a little rough around theedges,' he responded cheerily, 'but I know good artwork when I see it.'
'Thanks,' she said, shrugging off hermomentary concern. 'We'll know just how amazing a likeness that is when we seethe guy looking out at us from behind a set of bars.'
It seemed to Maura as if a shadow hadpassed over Concepcion's face — as if he had quite suddenly drifted off to somefaraway place. He took a long drink of the lemonade Harry had made for them.When he set his glass down, the shadow was gone. His grin was broad andengaging.
'So, then,
'Swell.'
'Hey, are you going to be okay with this?'
Harry shrugged. 'Go ahead.'
'Okay. Anyhow, this Page is very angrybecause some wealthy, powerful people pulled out of a contract with