The Bum's Rush
Page 14
"For the night and weekend people," she said as she rustled around the comer. I listened until I heard the groan of the elevator and then turned back to the room. Behind me, to the south, a flight of concrete stairs followed a bright blue railing up to the exit sign. Unless I was turned around, the door would lead out onto Eighteenth Avenue, at the very back of the old wing.
I allowed myself a moment of pride. Not bad, I thought. Considering how lubricated they all probably had to get before attempting anything this audacious, the plan really wasn't half bad. The Speaker keeping security occupied out front. The girls keeping lookout and watching everybody's back. A staff meeting keeping the laundry staff out of the way. For the boys, this was tantamount to arranging peace in the Middle East. Not bad.
At the far end of the room, a ten-by-ten steel door with a pull handle like an old-fashioned refrigerator occupied the entire wall. It looked like a big walk-in freezer. For no better reason than because I couldn't imagine why a laundry needed a freezer, I headed that way. Grabbed the handle and pulled. The door began to open but was suddenly jerked shut from the inside. I pulled again, harder this time, and the door started to come open. I could hear shoes sliding on the floor inside the door, fighting for traction. With a final grunt, I gave it all I had and jerked it open. It banged hard against the old steel radiator along the wall, sending a dull ring throughout the bowels of the building.
Ralph was still in bed. Sitting up. Oval eyed. A bottle of Potters vodka clutched in his lap. Earlene and Mary peeked out from over his shoulders. To my left, Billy Bob Fung was plastered against the wall, shaking his hand. Out in the center of the room, two masked figures in surgical gowns were rooting through a pair of huge canvas laundry hampers.
"Holy shit," said Ralph.
I spoke to the nearest brain surgeon. The one with the mismatched Nikes and the wet spot in the center of his mask where he'd been drinking through it. "You want to explain this crock of shit to me, George?" ii
"You're not gonna rat us out, are ya, Leo?" asked Ralph.
"George," I repeated.
He yanked down his surgical mask. "He's got no goddamned clothes. They burned his clothes. Said they were a health menace."
"A public health menace," Ralph corrected, after a quick pull on the bottle.
"Leo won't rat on us," Mary said without believing it.
George pointed to the piles of stained garments Uttering the floor and covering his feet. "He can't wear any of this shit. We won't get a block. This shit looks like somebody butchered an elk on it."
He had a point. The garments on the floor looked more like they belonged in a slaughterhouse than in a hospital. I suspected they used this room to isolate surgical supplies from the rest of the laundry.
"I don't believe you guys."
"We don't want to hear it," said Earlene.
"Yeah, stuff it," said Mary.
"Don't you realize " I started.
Harold cut me off. "Oh yeah, Mr. High and Mighty gonna make a speech now," he slurred through his mask.
I opened my mouth to speak, thought better of it, and closed it again. I checked my watch. Two thirty-three. Wouldn't be that long. Meetings usually got out a bit early.
"I'm getting out of here," I said. "I don't give a shit what you guys do. Just give me two minutes to get clear." I turned and walked back through the door.
"He's got no goddamn clothes," George shouted at my back. "We can't get him home with his ass hanging out. Goddamn it, Leo. You gotta help us. Loan us your shirt."
"Oh no," I said. "I've got work to do and then a dinner date. You guys are on your own on this one."
"What are we gonna do?" Mary whined.
"Try the lockers," I suggested as I headed for the stairs.
17
"Are you listening to me, goddamn it?"
I rolled over and pulled the phone out from under the covers. "I'm listening," I said. Seven-fifteen a.m. Arrrrgh.
"Where the hell have you been, anyway? I called you all the way past midnight last night."
"Letha's cruising."
"Not the downtown bars, I trust."
"Alaska with her sister."
"How nice for you."
"I sure thought so, until just a few minutes ago."
"You get that goddamn bed back. You hear me? I don't care how you do it. You find those maniacs and you return that bed to Providence Hospital, or I swear to God it's going to appear on your bill. You'll be working for me pro bono well into your dotage. Am I making myself clear? You have any idea what a hospital bed costs?"
"I don't wanna know," I said.
"And speaking of your bill, what's going on with that little matter I'm paying you for? Pleased as I am that your sex life has taken an upturn, I thought maybe--"
"You're a bit cranky this morning," I ventured.
"Cranky? Me? Why would I be cranky? Just because I had my dinner interrupted by an irate hospital administrator, who tells me that someone who's there under my auspices --"
"Nice word, auspices."
"Shut up. Who's there under my auspices has broken out and taken a four-thousand-dollar hospital bed with him."
"Four-thousand?"
"On your bill."
"Jesus. I'll find them. Trust me. Consider it done."
"Trust you? I trusted you to find the Mendolson girl."
"We're making progress," I objected.
"Such as?"
"Such as she's not visiting anybody in northern Michigan."
"Your man is sure?"
"He's a good man. If he says she's not there, she's not there."
"Shit."
I'd tottered in about two-thirty this morning and decided to check my E-mail before falling into bed. I had two messages. The first was from Tim Miller. No go. The girl was not hiding out with either her father or her brother. Ron was sure, which was good enough for me. The second message read:
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 96 08:51:24 EST
From: "Kara L. Robinson"
Subject: Re: subscription
To: Leo Waterman
Hi,
To join DorothyL, follow the attached instructions EXACTLY!
1)send an email message to LISTSERV KENTVM.KENT.EDU
2)the text of that message should read ONLY:sub-scribe DorothyL
Leo Waterman
you will receive a message back from LISTSERV asking you to confirm your subscription (this is to check your address). To confirm, Replyto the message, with the only text being the word ok (this will v be explained more clearly in the message from LISTSERV)
Once your subscription has been added, you will receive a copy of the user education/welcome memo. PLEASE read through this memo carefully as it contains valuable information about DorothyL. Also, please be aware that on DorothyL the ONLY email option is a daily digest version. If you have any questions or problems, now or in the future, please let me know.
Danger Mouse AKA Kara L. Robinson Co-Listowner: DorothyL
I followed the subscription directions, watched slack jawed as the message went through, and then shuffled in to bed, where I dreamed of lime green icebergs floating just above the surface of bright blue waters until Jed roused me.
"Well, that about leaves our asses in the wind, now doesn't it?"
"Not quite," I said. "I'll hear from Paul today about whether she's been using her credit cards or not. Maybe we'll get something there."
"You think so?"
"No," I said. "But I've got another idea."
"What?"
I told him. When I finished, he said, "That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Investigation over. I'm calling the cops."
"Just give it till the end of the week," I pleaded. "If I don't find her by Friday--"
"You're out of your mind. It's from hanging out with those lunatic friends of yours. You need to keep better company. That's your problem, Leo. Are you nuts? You think I'm going to hold back a police
investigation for a week because you think this girl is going to write in to some mystery fan Internet thing?"
"I can feel it in my bones. I just know it's gonna happen."
"If you'd spent more time pursuing the Mendolson investigation instead of sticking your nose into this Lukkas Terry thing, maybe we wouldn't be in this--"
"I'm telling you, Jed, this girl didn't have a hell of a lot going on in her life. She's addicted to this thing. That's why she took her computer with her. Desktop computers are not generally on the list of stuff people take with them when they go into hiding. She's hooked on it. Hell, I'm addicted to it. You gotta trust me on this, Jed. All I've got to get her to do is send me a piece of E-mail and I've got her."
"How's that?"
"I've got this piece of software that Carl gave me last summer called SuperFinder. It's like caller ID, except it works for E-mail. It works its way back through the system and finds the phone number that any message originated from."
"Really? You can do that?"
"Guys like Carl can do that. It's not commercially available."
Carl Cradduck was a former AP photographer who, after being consigned to a wheelchair by a couple of drunken kids, had worked his way into being the Pacific Northwest's premier surveillance expert. C&C Technical was the cutting edge in everything from sophisticated industrial espionage to recording those long phone calls your wife kept making to that downtown plumbing shop. Not only had Jed and I used Carl on numerous occasions over the years, but Carl had, over time, become a close friend of mine. I was hoping his name would lend some credibility to what I had to admit sounded like a pretty far-fetched scheme. "Just to the end of the week," I said.
"No can do. Wednesday is the longest I can wait."
"I need the whole week. I don't know how long it's going to take to get connected to the list. It's automatic, so it shouldn't take too damn long, but I can't be sure. Friday. Close of business."
Jed heaved a huge sigh. "What makes you think she's going to write in to this--this--"
"Digest. It's a compiled digest, and I think she's going to keep participating because the thing has a strange, hypnotic quality to it. Once you start reading it, it's like you don't want to stop. She had digests everywhere. At home, at work. I'll bet she took a bunch with her when she left."
"You need more to do."
"No, I'm serious. By the time I'd gone through all the digests she'd downloaded to disk, I was like really disappointed when I got to the end. It was weird. I was depressed, like I'd lost a bunch of friends in an airplane crash or something."
"I stand corrected. You don't need more to do. You need a nice long rest, is what you need."
"Friday. Close of business."
"God help me, Leo."
"And you're going to file that paperwork on behalf of Serena Dunlap this morning."
He heaved a sigh. ''Already done. I had it messengered to both Sub-Rosa and Conover. I've already heard from both of them. They want to meet this afternoon."
"What time?"
"Two."
"I want to be there."
"Why? It's just going to be the kind of legal posturing you hate."
"I want to watch them squirm."
"What is it with you and this Lukkas Terry thing? You, my friend, are definitely not one for crusades. You've always been old Mr. Live and Let Live. This is way out of character for you, buddy. What's the deal here?"
He had a point. I'd been asking myself the same question for the past couple of days. "I don't know, man," I said. "I was thinking about that the other day when I was on my way down to Vital Statistics."
"And?"
"It started out to be just idle curiosity."
"And?"
"And the minute I started to poke around in it, I got all these discrepancies. A bunch of stuff that didn't fit. Just the kind of crap that tends to get my attention."
"Like?"
"Like, I've got a competent police force under heavy public scrutiny saying the kid died by misadventure. Accident, period. No-brainer."
"So?"
"I've got a girlfriend. The one who found him, by the way, who says they were about to move in together, saying he killed himself because she told him she was pregnant. She swears Lukkas Terry didn't use drugs."
"Really?"
"On the other hand, I've got a manager, a guy who takes it upon himself to support half the down-and-out musicians in town, so damn nice he's still paying Terry's girlfriend's bills out of his own pocket, probably the closest guy in the world to Lukkas Terry and he's strictly noncommittal on the drug issue. He says you never really know what goes on behind closed doors with these rock stars."
"Probably a wise approach," Jed offered.
"I agree," I said. "Buuuut " I drew it out. "Number one, I'm told that Terry had real bad migraines and was forever hitting Conover up to help him with his shots. Couldn't do it himself. Too squeamish."
"Do tell."
"Which, the way I see it, makes him real vulnerable to somebody slipping him something other than medicine."
"It do indeed."
"Yeah, and number two we're in a situation here where millions upon millions of dollars are at stake. I don't need to tell you how that gums up the works."
"Be like preaching to the choir."
"That about covers the range of possibilities, now, doesn't it? Accident, suicide, murder. Other than dying of old age, that's about all there is. And then just about the time I'm asking myself these same questions and thinking about bagging it "
"Somebody tried to run your big ass over," he finished.
"Correctomundo. Always an attention-getter with me. You want to pique my interest, try to run me down. Works every time."
"You said that's how it started."
"Yeah, well, you know, it's gotten to be more than that, too. It's as if I'm pissed off about something. About Elvis getting fat and wearing those stupid jumpsuits in fucking Las Vegas. It's about every dead musician I ever liked. From Buddy Holly and Elvis, Jimi and Janis, all the way up to Stevie Ray and Lukkas Terry you know, all of them. What happened to them. What they did to themselves. How record companies end up with all the fucking money and the families get screwed. All of it. Like I feel cheated or something and now suddenly, just this once, I've got this chance to fuck with somebody over it, and I seem to be determined to make the most of it."
Jed took a minute and then said, "Yeah. I know what you mean. Let's kick some ass." Before I could reply, he said, "You find that goddamn bed and get it back where it belongs."
"Scout's honor."
"I mean now. Right now. First thing," he insisted.
"I won't be able to find them until about one, one-thirty, when they start to wander into the Zoo. They move so often. I don't know where any of them flop anymore."
"All right," he said without enthusiasm. "But you round up that goddamn bed, you hear me?"
He was still grumbling as I set the receiver in the cradle and sat up. Without rising, I pulled the cord on the Levolor and took a peek at the day. A thick drizzle hissed against the glass, distorting the newspaper-headed creatures trotting up Fremont Avenue. Back to normal. Arrrrgh.
The coffeepot had progressed from drooling to dripping to a full-throated gargle by the time I configured and clicked my way to my E-mail. Ta ta de da. You have mail today. Mr. Happyface. Nobody loved me. One measly message. Oh, goody. A big one. This would require coffee and possibly an onion bagel. Life was good.
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 00:00:00-0500
Reply-To: Mystery Literature E-conference
Sender: Mystery Literature E-conference
From:Automaticdigest
processor
Subject: DOROTHYL Digest--17 Feb 1996 to 18
Feb 1996j
To: Recipients of DOROTHYL digests^
Ther
e are 26 messages totaling 1046 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. A basketball mystery 2. Phoenix and Tucson mystery tips? 3. Fair Dinkum 4. Anti-semitism 5. Dropshot 6. Inappropriate Places to Read 7. Dealbreaker/Series/LOC
8.British authors 9.Phillips's Perdition USA
10. Reading earlier novels 11. new addresses for dorothyl 12. recursive digest 13. Sayers' Values 14. Multiple pen names 15. Political correctness 16. SinC/BOP 17. Enough of Sayers 18. Jance and Seattle 19. Basketball mysteries 20. Parker's basketball mystery 21. VinceKohler 22. museums, dentists 23. Reunions/Dental 24. Sayers/Revisionist History 25. Thanks/reading habits 26. Late protagonist
I kept it short. "I've got nothing to say about what you assholes pulled off yesterday. That's your business. I'm talking about today. And TODAY, I want that bed back up at Providence Hospital by two. That's it. End of story."
They'd come out of the woodwork for this little gala. The Return of Ralph. People I hadn't seen in years. Waldo and Big Frank. Heavy Duty Judy, still wearing that friggin' tiara. The little guy with the brain damage. What was his name? Soloman. Something like that. Poor guy had this neurological problem that kept him from approaching anything directly. Instead, he was forced to close in on things in a series of oblique tacking movements, like a sailboat. Slalom. That was it, they called him Slalom. Flounder in a brand-new Mariners cap. Red Gomez and some Asian woman. Half a dozen younger guys I didn't recognize. All gathered around the regular crew.
They were a sullen lot. I'd interrupted a perfectly good party, and they didn't like it one bit. The Speaker's board read Free at Last.
"I never thought of you guys as thieves," I said.
George gave me the reaction I was fishing for. "We ain't no goddamn thieves." His scalp glowed red beneath the carefully combed rows of his white hair. "Don't you be callin' us no thieves."
"Then return the bed to the hospital."
Harold spoke up. "Ya know, Ralph lost his shopping cart down there at that hotel. We just figured, you know "
"That bed's a four-thousand-dollar shopping cart," I said.
"Are you shittin' me?" said George. "Four grand?"
"The crux of the healthcare dilemma," intoned Normal.
"Four grand. Grand theft. Hard time," I chanted.