“You checked out Luke Altman?” Horn asked.
“Yeah. It was pretty much like checking out Casper the Ghost. The Luke Altmans in our computer banks, as well as the Fed’s, didn’t pan out to be anyone who could be your spook.”
“He didn’t say he was CIA,” Horn reminded Larkin.
“If he had, he wouldn’t be CIA, we can assume.”
“More assumption,” Horn said. “There’s too much of it in this case. I’ll be glad when we get beyond the point of assumptions.”
“To when a jury assumes the bastard’s guilty.”
Horn smiled. “For now, I guess we have to figure Altman is CIA, and his purpose was to assure me the agency had or was investigating any such secret Special Forces unit and would deal with the killer if they found him there.”
“If the Night Spider is a member of the military,” Rollie said, “my guess is he’ll meet with an accident. Maybe die a hero.”
“And if he’s a former member?”
Rollie gave the cold grin Horn recalled from their earlier days in the department, when they were street cops. “Then he’s ours.”
The meeting had run long, and by the time Horn arrived home, Anne was already in bed. He’d undressed quietly, crawled into bed beside her, and listened to her shallow, irregular breathing. Not the deep, rhythmic breathing of sleep. Yet she’d said nothing to him.
“You awake?” he asked softly. Seeing if she’d pretend sleep.
“Yes.” She didn’t move, lying curled on her side facing away from him.
“Something’s wrong.”
“Yes. I’m in bed, it’s nighttime, and I’m not asleep.”
“Something more?”
She sighed and turned over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling in the dim light. “The Vine family’s filed suit against the hospital, naming almost everyone involved in their son’s operation, including me.”
Horn had expected this and been afraid of it. “How’d you learn?”
“Finlay told me.”
“He named in the suit?”
“No. And I think the hospital’s plan is to contain the damage to Radiology, which means I could be the scapegoat.”
“Sounds that way.” Being honest. “What do the hospital’s attorneys think?”
“They’re still studying the charges. The family’s already turned down a proposed settlement, and a reasonable one- if there can be such a thing if your four-year-old son’s been placed in a vegetative state.”
“So the hospital will probably fight it out in court.”
“They’d like not to. The publicity would be brutal. And the family’s never going to accept. They don’t really want money. They want revenge.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s what I’d want.” The sheets rustled as she half turned on her pillow to face him. “Thomas, I can’t help feeling guilty about what happened to that child.”
“Sure. But you’re
“I’m in charge of Radiology. It happened on my watch, as the politicians say.”
“But what happened to the boy wasn’t radiological. The hospital should be able to establish that in court.”
“Like you often point out, Thomas, there are no guarantees in court. Anyway, it isn’t that I’m afraid of punishment. It might even make me feel better.”
“But it wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be justice.”
He could barely see her smile in the dimness. “You’ve been a cop too long to expect justice. And I’ve been a cop’s wife too long. There’s a shelf life to these things.”
“Expecting justice, you mean?”
“I mean there’s a shelf life. A time comes when hope finally surrenders to apprehension and loneliness.”
Horn gave a noncommittal grunt in reply and rolled onto his stomach. Now he was the one afraid of where words might lead, who wanted to feign sleep. Talk was to be feared. It could be a downhill road to catastrophe, where speed increased and there was no turning around.
The silence in the bedroom roared, allowing only troubled dreams.
Neither Joe nor Cindy Vine had slept much last night. Cindy had been crying again, off and on, waking Joe the few times he’d made it to sound sleep. They sat at the tiny gray Formica table in their Lower West Side apartment. Cindy’s breakfast was orange juice and black coffee. Joe’s was a Bloody Mary. They often argued about which was healthiest. They often argued about everything.
“I’m scared, Joe.” Cindy used the back of her hand to wipe orange juice from where it had dribbled on her chin. The hand dropped down to grip the empty glass and hold it tight to the table. He knew it was to keep him from seeing the trembling in her fingers. She would have been an attractive woman if it weren’t for the worry on her face, the bags beneath her large brown eyes that were always bruised-looking. And her hair. She did little with her hair these days, the thick and soft brown hair that used to bounce when she walked.
“You’re scared of something new every day,” Joe said. He was in his early forties, medium height and build but muscular in the white T-shirt he’d slept in. He had on brown slacks and was barefoot. His own hair was short but ragged. It looked as if it needed to be shaped by a barber. “I’m scared, too. For Alan.”
“You think I don’t care about our son?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You meant it.”
“Bullshit,” Vine said sullenly, staring down at his tomato-juice-stained glass. There was a limp stalk of celery in it that he hadn’t touched.
Cindy was too tired this morning to muster a continued offense. “We’re taking on one of the biggest hospitals in the city. We maybe shoulda accepted their offer. We’re gonna get them pissed off, Joe.”
He stared at her and something in his eyes withered her.
“Our attorney says he’ll take payment on a contingency basis. Didn’t you hear him?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t hear him tell us that if we lose, the court won’t say we have to pay the hospital’s legal costs. It happens that way sometimes in these lawsuits, Joe. Read the papers. It’s on page one when somebody sues a big institution and wins a million dollars. But it’s on page nine if they lose and have to pay a quarter of a million in court costs.”
“Sigfried says it’s okay, we can’t get burned.” Sigfried was Larry Sigfried, their attorney who’d been recommended by a patients’ advocacy group. “Besides, they might come up with a better offer than the first one.”
Cindy didn’t reply. Joe saw that she had her head bowed and was crying.
He didn’t like the feelings of guilt she stirred up in him. She was hurting, as he was, and he was the stronger. He knew he should take care of her, not be furious with her. And that was how it had been in the beginning, when Alan was first diagnosed. They’d shared their trouble, mistakenly thinking it would draw them closer instead of wearing them down. She needed him now more than ever, and he knew it. But Joe Vine was so full of rage! So fucking full of rage!
He stood up suddenly, knocking his chair backward onto the floor, and stalked from the kitchen. Wondering
