Clyde studied him, then his chin dipped slightly. 'You make one bad move, you won't have time to leave your farewell message.' Clyde stepped closer, standing almost on top of him.
Peter pushed his chair out from the desk, but Clyde kept the pistol planted on his forehead. Still no opportunity to wield the stun gun. He couldn't move it much past his crotch without Clyde noticing and probably shooting him.
Pulling a lever beneath the seat cushion, Peter locked the wheels so the chair wouldn't roll out from under him. He leaned over and locked first his left brace, then his right, so they would support his weight. With a slight groan, he fisted the metal knob on the desktop and pulled himself up out of the chair and onto his reinforced legs. His left pant leg was still hiked up high over the knee from when he'd rubbed his ankle.
He released the knob, standing on his own. The gun barrel slid a bit on his sweat-moist forehead. He felt breathless, as though he'd had the wind knocked out of him. He leaned slightly to his left, bringing the metal of his ankle into contact with Clyde's thin scrub bottoms. He eased his calf over until he felt the press of Clyde's leg. Clyde did not pull away.
Peter turned into the pistol, looking past it again into the slick, depthless eyes. With excruciating slowness, he moved the stun gun over and touched it to the inside of the metal thigh band of his left brace. His thumb hovering over the power switch, he braced himself for the pain and prepared to duck.
'All right,' Peter said brusquely. 'I'm ready now.'
Chapter 75
David flew up Lincoln, narrowly missing a collision with a banged-up Pontiac, and floored it, screeching right on Wilshire and heading toward Peter's office. He was shouting into the mike and trying to listen to the earpiece simultaneously, which made both efforts ineffective. A blast of noise erupted through the earpiece, causing him to jerk back his head, then the unit went dead. What could have done that to the digital transmitter?
Concern did him little good, so he tried to think clearly and pragmatically. From what he had overheard, he knew Peter was in trouble, that Clyde had been planning on harming him to frighten David. The cops would arrive at Peter's building soon-maybe they even had by now-but David had to get there as quickly as possible. In the likely event of a standoff, he was certain Clyde would demand to talk to him.
The carpet cleaning van caught up to him after a few blocks but fell back again, and he lost sight of it when he ran the red at Federal. He spoke continuously into his mike, updating the cops on his location.
He careened through Westwood and pulled down an alley into the back lot of Peter's four-story building. Peter's car, a gray BMW with a hand brake sticking up near the wheel, was parked in its usual spot, but there were no police cars.
David got out of his car and glanced up the empty street anxiously. 'Where the hell are you guys?' he said, bending his neck so he could speak into the mike. 'Why aren't there police cars here already?' He stepped back, glancing up the side of the building at the third floor. No movement or light. Clyde could be there right now, torturing Peter.
David couldn't wait for the police to arrive. 'I'm going in,' he said to the mike and the empty parking lot.
He searched his trunk for a weapon, but he had nothing, not even a tire jack. An old-style otoscope was tucked into his father's doctor's bag in the trunk, the weighty metal handle protruding. He grabbed it, and snapped off the plastic head used for ear exams. It would have to do.
Tossing the Motorola and the dead earpiece into the trunk, he sidestepped a Dumpster and reached the building's back door, made of glass. The glass, evidently shatterproof, had been dented near the handle, but had remained intact. The lock had been gouged and scratched up with a tool of some sort. The door was slightly ajar, a Carl's Jr. Superstar wrapper wedged between it and the frame to prevent it from closing.
David knew he should wait for the police to arrive, but the possibility that Clyde was torturing Peter was too much for him to bear. He pushed the door, and it drifted open easily, the wrapper falling to the floor. Stepping into the dark interior, he closed the door slowly behind him, leaving it unlocked.
Not wanting to draw attention by using the elevator, David entered the dark stairwell and crept upstairs. He pushed the third-floor door open, peering up the hall, and immediately saw the triangular fall of light from the open door of Peter's procedure suite. He eased his way down the corridor, the thin carpet padding his footsteps. A deep wailing became audible. Mournful sobbing interspersed with violent breathing.
David drew near to the open door, inching his way forward, his hand curling around the metal shaft of the otoscope. The crying continued, broken by fragmented mumbling and a slapping noise. Reaching the door frame, David pressed his face to the wood and rotated his head slightly so he could see into the room with one eye.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the swinging lamp breaking the dimness. Clyde sat despondently against the far wall, holding a pistol limply between his legs. His face was red, his acne standing out in severe blotches. Sobbing and murmuring, he was rocking himself forward and banging his head back into the wall. He stopped only to rend his face with his hands, clawing at his cheeks, knocking the pistol against his crown.
David's chest tightened when he saw the pair of inert legs protruding from behind the desk, the metal bands of the braces visible at the ankles. The rest of Peter's body was out of view. A stun gun lay on the floor in the corner, near Clyde.
A humming in his ears. A tingling in his mouth. He wanted to run downstairs-either Yale or Jenkins should have arrived by now-but the possibility of Peter's needing immediate medical attention held him in place. David couldn't leave his unconscious body up here with Clyde.
Clyde's face was lined with scratches from his nails, some of them beading with blood. He was facing the door-there was no way David could surprise him.
Clyde directed his words at Peter's body. 'You weren't supposed to do that.' He scrambled to his feet and regarded Peter, like a problem he did not know how to solve. His face vacillated between agitation and confusion as he rocked back and forth. He scratched his head with the barrel of the pistol, then aimed it at Peter.
David had little choice.
Wedging the otoscope in the back of his pants, he stepped from cover, holding his hands out to his sides. Startled into a little leap, Clyde aimed the pistol at him. David made no sudden movements, and prayed Clyde's hands would stop jerking.
'Don't you move,' Clyde bleated. 'You stay right there.' He wiped his running nose with his sleeve. 'I'm in control here. I know what I'm doing.' Despite his agitated condition, Clyde was steady on his feet, and his slurring had stopped.
'All right,' David said. 'You don't need to hurt him. I'm here now. You can scare… you can scare me directly. Just let me check on Peter first.' Calmly, slowly, he pointed at the two inert legs. 'Let me… ' His throat dried up, and he lost the end of his sentence.
Clyde's face trembled; he was still pulling himself back from the edge of sobbing. Raising the torn leg of his scrub bottoms, he rubbed a red patch on his calf. 'He shocked me. Knocked us both down. I hit him on the head. He got still.' He slapped his head, and the noise rang around the room. 'He hurt me, and I've gotta… I've gotta take it out of him.' He began mumbling incoherently.
The current of electricity from the stun gun must have shorted out the digital transmitter. Which meant the shock had somehow run through Peter's left leg brace. 'Can I step forward and look at his body?' David asked. He spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a child.
The pistol snapped back up at his head. 'It's a trick. You're here to trick me and-shit, shit… ' Clyde began to rock his upper torso, his eyes pressing closed. 'Three two one the door back from the
… '
David's head was humming. 'Clyde. I'm going to take another step forward. And I'm going to look at Peter. I'm going to do this now.' There was something comforting in the knowledge that all his words were being transmitted through the hidden wire to the police officers. It made him feel less alone. Even so, he wondered what was taking them so long to arrive.
Clyde continued to rock, his lips moving silently, but his eyes were open again. David eased slowly forward, and Peter's body came into view behind the desk.
Rage and sorrow mingled, rising from David's gut. He crouched over Peter and raised one eyelid, then the
