And the picture cut to some political hack standing at alectern. I killed the TV and reached for my phone. And froze.
I couldn’t call — that security routine, plus medical privacylaws. I’d have to go in person, go through the ID dance again. I started toheave myself out of the chair.
Another thought hit me, another step clicking into place in myhead. I winced and settled back into my chair, heart pounding but not supplyingenough blood to my brain, all those aches and pains waking up. Security.Something had slipped. Yeah, something. Or someone. And given all the dodges and blind alleys we’d set up, thatsomeone had to be a member of arather exclusive list.
Me. Nef’s colonel. Whatever member or members of Nef’soriginal medical team had changed those names on her X-rays and files at thehospital.
And the likeliest member of that small mathematical set wouldhave to be me.
I forced myself out of the chair, using crutches and table asa brace. Forced myself across the room to the closet nearest my entry, blackdots dancing in my eyes, heart pounding, hard to breathe. I opened the door. Ireached in and checked the pocket of the jacket I’d been wearing yesterday andthis morning, wearing when I found my way through the maze to the nurses’station in Nef’s ward and introduced myself to the white starched uniformbehind it and stuffed that note away in my pocket, the note with the buildingname and room number on it. The jacket I’d left behind when I got back and thenwent out on my round of errands.
The note was gone.
XIX
Yeah, I was jumping to conclusions. I could have lost thatnote. I could have wadded it up without thinking and tossed it in a trash binat the hospital, I could have dropped it on the street while shuffling in mypocket for a handkerchief, it could have fallen out of my pocket while I triedto sleep in that damned recliner, still be lying on the floor in Cash’s room atthe hospital. Any number of things.
But I don’t do that. Maggie used to say she had to be sure tocheck my pockets for case files or frogs or funny-looking rocks before she didthe laundry, just like for any other small boy. Something goes into my pocket,it stays there. And I remembered putting it there. I remember things. Kind ofan idiot-savant that way, I may not be too bright but I remember things.
That’s the savant part. We’ll get to the idiot part soonenough. Trust me.
Anyway, losing the note wouldn’t have mattered. The nice lady atthe information desk hadn’t put Cash’s “name” on that paper, just the roomnumber and building name and how to find my way through the maze. By itself,the note meant nothing. The note connected to me, now, that mattered.
I’ve been through all this before, so I’ll just hit the highpoints. Kratz had been wrapped around me like a glove, this whole case. Helland damnation, once I thought about the timing and the fading strength of hisstink, he’d probably been waiting outside my office when Cash picked me up thatfirst afternoon, before I even knew I hada case.
Further thinking, that propane tanker trick looked a lot likethe bomb he’d placed on my car. Odds had been strong, both cases, that neitherwould kill me.
I shoved myself out of the chair, one crutch only, and hobbledover to the liquor cabinet. I grabbed the opened bottle of Malcolm Ridge’santique Jack Daniels, didn’t bother with a glass, and spun the cap off. Itrattled across the counter and down to the floor, and I didn’t fight withgravity and my bad leg to pick it up. I wouldn’t be needing it. I planned tokill the whole bottle. Started right there with a quick slug.
Back to the table, back to sitting, back to brooding, I pulledanother swig of whisky straight from the bottle and swirled it burning aroundmy mouth and throat.
I couldn’t check on Cash. I couldn’t go anywhere near her. Ifshe’d survived whatever ol’ Albertus Magnus had tried at the hospital, I’d justbe setting her up for another round. I didn’t even want to call her colonel or thecity cops, checking on casualties. The way things stood at that point, Isuspected that Kratz had a tap on my phone, a bug in the apartment, wasstanding in the corner of my living room disguised as a floor lamp.
I took another pull on the bottle. Yeah, I drink too much. I’veconfessed to that already. Hey, I’m a burned-out old ex-cop working as aprivate detective. Drinking too much is part of the job description. And beforeyou go defining “too much” by conventional terms, remember that I weigh 300pounds or so. I have to distribute a lot of alcohol through that mass to getthe same buzz as a skinnier man.
Kratz. He’d left his signature on John Doe. He’d left hissignature on my office, my apartment. He’d left it on Wes, out at PodunkHollow. He’d left that same buzzing stink on the commercial courier at theairport, Wolfgang, and on Reverend Fred, and on my cruiser and Nef’s cruiserwith those bombs. I’d bet good money on what I’d taste and smell if I returnedto the hospital corridor outside Nef’s room.
There wasn’t any Kratz-stink on my jacket, though. Nothing onmy apartment door to show he’d been here this morning.
And why would Kratz hate Nef?
But Kratz had been a certified psychopath. He didn’t hate people. People, other people, had been nothing more thanobjects to him. Disassembling a man had held the same moral value asdisassembling a car or radio for the parts. Arranging those parts, staging atableau like the one in Reverend Fred’s love nest, to him that was the same ascollage art in a museum, or street theater.
I swallowed more whisky. I stared at the bottle, hoping itmight give me inspiration or oblivion — I wasn’t sure which looked moreattractive at the time.
Malcolm Ridge, his cousins, his lawyers — they had the sameattitude as Kratz, just different in
