Turning to Alice and away from all temptation, Jack said, ‘Do you want to dance, darling, or meet people first?’
‘We’ll dance, darling,’ she decided. ‘We can always meet people.’
True enough.
The new red paint on the fire engine doors was dry, and the doors no longer read
CRYSTAL CITY F.D.
ENG#1
It’s a good thing Crystal City, a sparsely populated area down near Homestead, had an Eng #2 as well, or the good folks there would be shit out of luck if a fire were to start up anywhere around town in the next couple of days. It was a volunteer fire department, like so many in the sticks, so there was never anybody around the small brick fire house except for fires and meetings, so it had been very easy, at five this morning, to bypass the alarm system and ease into the fire house and come roaring out with old Eng #1. By the time anybody started looking for it, Melander and Carlson and Ross would have finished with it.
At nine P.M., with the pre-auction ball in full swing up at the Breakers, Ross stood beside the driver’s door of Eng #1, an open quart of gold enamel paint in his left hand and an M. Grumbacher fine-line brush #5 in his right, with Melander just behind him to hold the flashlight. The fire engine now stood on the lawn at the right side of the house, out of sight from anywhere off the property. Ross, who had learned to be a passable sign painter during the first of his two stretches inside, leaned close to the door and drew the first vertical, then the U-shape to the right:
P
Farley’s wife had learned to sleep through the late-night phone calls, and Farley had trained himself to wake right up at the beginning of the first ring, his hand snaking out from under the covers toward the phone before his eyes had completely focused on the bedside clock: 1:14. There’d been worse.
‘Farley.’
‘Higgins here, Sarge,’ being one of the deputies on night shift at the office. ‘We got a report of a missing man out to the hospital.’
‘Parmitt,’ Farley said.
‘That’s right, Daniel Parmitt. The night administrator just called. They did their usual late-night check on the patients, and that one’s gone.’
How? He didn’t walk out, Parmitt, he wasn’t up to it. Somebody helped him. The real estate woman? Farley said, ‘You sent somebody over there?’
‘Jackson and Reese.’
‘Call them, tell them I’m on my way.’ There wouldn’t be anything there; still, he’d have a look.
Damn; should’ve taken those prints yesterday.
He drove into Snake River at two in the morning in the rented Buick Regal. He’d be done here in an hour, then drive back to Miami International, have breakfast, take the morning flight west, be swimming in his own pool by mid-afternoon.
The woman who gave him his assignments, once or twice a year, was a lawyer in Chicago. They spoke guardedly on the phone, almost never met face-to-face, and unless he was on assignment he lived a quiet life indeed, writing occasional album reviews for music magazines. On assignment, he had a different name, different identification, different credit card, different everything. Different personality. He didn’t even listen to music, driving south and west from Miami.
The lawyer in Chicago had told him this wasn’t a rush job, but what was the point in dragging it out? Fly in, do it, fly away. ‘Just so it’s certain,’ the lawyer had said, and he had said, ‘It’s certain,’ because when you hired him, you hired the best. It had been certain every single time for the last twelve years.
Apparently, the client, whoever he was, had gone bargain basement the first time, brought in people who’d messed the job up, left the target alive but hospitalized. And the client really and positively wanted this target worse than sick; he wanted this target a fading memory.
He had never before had a target stationary in a hospital. And no guards on him round the clock, no steady police presence. It was almost too easy, as though he shouldn’t take his full fee for the job. Though he would. Still, it hardly seemed like work for a grown man, and he had to talk to himself as he parked the Regal on a side street three blocks from the hospital to walk the rest of the way. He had to remind himself that allassignments are serious, even if this one seemed like shooting ducks in a rain barrel. He had to remind himself that every mistake was serious and that overconfidence is the cause of more mistakes than anything else. He had to remind himself to treat this assignment just as though there might be some danger in it.
He approached the hospital catty-corner, through the parking lots. He was a tall lean man dressed all in black. One Beretta was in a holster in the small of his back, just above the belt, and the other was in his left boot. The right boot contained the throwing knife. Other than that, and his knowledge of several martial arts, he was unarmed; he never carried more weaponry than needed when on assignment.
The hospital’s main entrance and the emergency entrance around on the left side were both well lit, but the service entrance on the right was dark except for one small illuminated globe mounted on the wall above the door. He found the door unlocked he’d have picked it if necessary went in, and climbed one flight of concrete stairs before stepping through into a hallway. What he needed first was an operating room.
He avoided the lit-up nurse’s stations, moved through the halls, and soon found what he was looking for. And in the scrub-up room next door were several clean sets of green O.R. coats and pants. He took the largest set and put them on over his clothing; then he’d be able to move more freely along the halls, though still keeping out of other people’s way.
There had been no way to find out ahead of time what room the target was in, so all he could do was walk the halls and look at the patient names stuck into the labels outside the doors. How long could it take? Half an hour?
Less. Fifteen minutes after he entered the hospital, he came to the third-floor door labeled ‘Parmitt,’ and without breaking stride or looking around he walked right in. Never pause and look indecisive, it attracts attention.
The target should be asleep; the knife would probably do. He crossed the dim room to the bed, starting to reach down toward his right boot, then realized the bed was empty.
