by Lee Goldberg
"What I believe isn't important," Steve said. "It's what I can prove that counts."
"What about Yankton?" Mark said. "Can you live with the possibility that you put an innocent man on death row?"
There was a long silence. Finally Steve spoke up. "You've seen people who've found a way to live while being eaten alive on the inside by cancer. I suppose I'll have to find a way, too."
"This isn't right," Mark said.
Cale was going to get away with the perfect crime, and Bert Yankton was going to be executed for a murder that never even happened.
The game of cat and mouse was over.
Jimmy Cale had won.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mark Sloan lay in bed that night staring at the ceiling of his unfamiliar hotel room, unable to sleep. He was too angry, too frustrated, and too disappointed to fall into peaceful slumber.
He'd woefully underestimated the calculating brilliance of his quarry. He should have known that someone capable of devising, within hours of Stryker's blackmail attempt, the complex frame that ensnared Bert Yankton would have an even more elaborate strategy for guaranteeing his own escape.
Even if Mark had recognized the cunning of his adversary, what could he have done differently? He was only following the clues where they led.
It was a weak excuse.
There was no point in rehashing the past. He had to concentrate on the future. Was there any way to prove that Mannering and Cale were the same person?
The only conclusive evidence would be fingerprints, DNA, or dental records. Mark was certain that Mannering had eliminated any points of comparison. Without a doubt, Cale's dental records were gone. And a man willing to chop off his toe would think nothing of having his teeth altered or replaced.
Whoever the doctors were who gave Cale his new face and teeth, transforming him into Mannering, were probably dead, killed by the same person who murdered the LAPD property clerk and Sanford Pelz, the currency dealer.
The killer was the one loose end that Mannering couldn't do without.
Or perhaps Mannering killed those doctors and the clerk himself and brought on the hired gun only recently when he heard that someone had picked up his trail through his currency purchases. Regardless, it was unlikely that the hit man had any idea who Robin Mannering really was.
Nobody would.
Because Mannering hadn't left any of his old self behind. Even his possessions had been sold off by his ex-wife, Betsy, to support herself and Serena.
Mark realized that Yankton, the file clerk, the doctors, and Pelz weren't Mannering's only victims. Mark's son, Steve, was also a victim. He would have to live with the knowledge that he'd doomed an innocent man to years of hell and eventual execution.
What had Steve said to him? He'd said Yankton's fate would eat away at him like a cancer.
Mark would feel the pain, too. He'd feel it as a father, agonizing over his son's needless suffering.
And then it hit Mark.
Steve. Cancer. Flesh and blood.
Suddenly Mark knew what he had to do.
He had to kill Robin Mannering.
Jesse was dreaming of driving on the winding roads above Monte Carlo in a convertible, Susan at his side, a thousand Snickers bars in the backseat, when the phone rang at three thirty a.m., waking him up. He answered it, mumbling a groggy hello, still thinking about those Snickers bars. He didn't even like Snickers bars. Milky Way was his favorite.
"Jesse, this is Mark."
"Mark?" Jesse blinked hard, trying to clear his head. "Where are you?"
"Las Vegas," Mark said. "Is Susan there with you?" Jesse rolled over, as if he really needed to check, half expecting to find Snickers bars where she was supposed to be. But she was asleep beside him, the covers up to her neck.
"Yeah," Jesse said. "You didn't call to lecture me about premarital sex, did you?"
"Wake her up." Mark said.
"You're going to lecture us both?"
"No." Mark said. "I'm going to plead for your help. But what I'm asking could cost you your careers, and perhaps your lives."
Jesse thought for a moment. "I think we'd prefer the lecture."
It was four thirty a.m. when Steve's phone rang. But he wasn't asleep. Like his father, he was wide awake, tormented by problems he couldn't solve, failures that would irreparably change people's lives.
"Sloan." Steve said.
"It's me." Mark said.
"You can't sleep either."
"I've been using the time to think," Mark said. "There's something we can do about Mannering, but there could be consequences."
"Worse than an innocent man being killed?"
"You could lose everything," Mark said.
"I may already be losing the most important part of who I am. My soul." Steve said. "What else is there?"
Dr. Amanda Bentley was always up at five-thirty, sitting in the kitchen, reading the newspaper online on her laptop. She cherished these early hours of silence and peace. It was her personal quiet time before her son woke up and she had to get him ready for school, which started at eight.
Her first thought when the phone rang was that somebody had died. Not a friend or a loved one, but a complete stranger. That was often how her day began. It was also how her day usually ended.
But it wasn't the police calling her to a crime scene. It was Mark, asking her to risk her career and her liberty as a favor to him.
She said yes without giving it a second thought.
Mark found Nate Grumbo that morning in the security center, watching a blackjack table on his computer monitor.
"See that guy, sitting in the middle?" Grumbo jerked his head towards the screen.
"Yeah." Mark said. He was a large man in a tuxedo, wearing sleek Italian sunglasses and smoking a thin cigarette. There were other men playing cards on either side of him.
Mark would never have imagined before today that there were people who actually got up and dressed in tuxedos to play cards at eight in the morning. But this was Vegas, a world that spun on its own axis.
Then again, maybe Mark had it wrong. Maybe those men simply never went to sleep. There were no windows in the casino. For all they knew, and for all they cared, it might still be the dead of night.
"He's marking every face card he gets," Grumbo said. "The inside of his ring is putting a dot on them that's invisible to the naked eye but that he can see with his glasses."
"It's not a very sophisticated way to cheat," Mark said.
"He'll win a few hands, but not enough to raise much attention, and then move on to the bar or the slots for a couple hours until the dealers change." Grumbo said. "Or he'll go to another casino."
"How did you catch him?"
"He dresses like a tourist, but he doesn't walk like one." Grumbo said. "Or sit like one."
"But tourists aren't just one homogeneous group," Mark said. "They come from all over the world."
"Once they step off the plane or climb out of the limo, they're tourists." Grumbo said. "You have the rich tourists and you have the herd. But they all have the walk. And the sit. He doesn't."
"What are you doing to do?"
"I'm going to deal with the situation." Grumbo said.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I'm going to convince him that cheating isn't very sportsmanlike and that we don't appreciate that behavior at our casino." Grumbo said. "I'm going to convince him strongly."
"It's a good thing you have a hospital on-site."
"He won't need it," Grumbo said.
"Maybe Roger should build a mortuary here as well." Mark said.
Grumbo smiled. "I think you've got me figured all wrong, Doctor."
"I hope not entirely." Mark said. "How do you feel about covert ops?"
"It's what I do." Grumbo said.
"Just here?" Mark said.
"What do you have in mind?" Grumbo asked.
"I want to kill a man." Mark said. "Very slowly."
"I can do that
," Grumbo said. "Would you like to see my references?"
Las Vegas was paradise, where any desire, any need, any hunger could be satisfied. Any time. Any day. Any way.
It was made for a man like Robin Mannering.
Anything you could possibly want could be found in this perfect place. The best meals. The best clothes. The best entertainment. The best wine. The best cigars. The best jewelry. The best women.
There were no judgments here. No morality and no ethics. No vice and no perversion. Only desire and fulfillment.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
That was the city's slogan. But it was much more than that. It was its very reason for being. And it worked because Las Vegas didn't exist in the same dimension as the rest of the world. How could it? All that water, all that comfort, all that glorious excess in the middle of one of the bleakest, driest, most inhospitable deserts on the planet? It wasn't possible.
But there it was. A city apart.
The same could be said of Robin Mannering. He was a man apart, existing in his own realm, one of his own making, answerable to no one.
Mannering loved Las Vegas, a place where you could be anyone you want, do anything you want, live any way you want. Nobody cared. The only thing that had any meaning was money. Big, thick piles of cold, green cash.
Nowhere else was cash so celebrated, so ubiquitous. If not actual currency, then depictions of it, mentions of it, flashes of it, promises of it.
For a man who loved money, who collected it for its beauty, its utility, and its power, there was no place else to be.
Robin Mannering was in his natural habitat. There was no torment or doubt in his life, no regrets. He had no second thoughts about leaving his family or his lover behind or dooming his business partner to imprisonment. Their lives meant nothing to him. His happiness and security were all he cared about. Other people were merely toys to be played with or tools to serve his needs.
The biggest mistake of his life was getting married, a grievous error he'd carelessly compounded by letting his wife have a baby. A child was a pointless acquisition. There was no profit in it, no pleasure. It was a drain on time and money with no tangible upside.
That was when he knew a transformation was in the offing, a move to a new and higher level of being, one free of responsibility for anything but his own pleasure.
He didn't know how it would come about, or when, but he knew that it would.
And then fate drove up to his house in an Escalade and showed him some explicit photos.
It was an epiphany, almost spiritual in its magnitude. He had a vision of his future and knew exactly how to make it happen.
All it took was resolve, some painful sacrifices, and a chunk of his flesh, penance for the mistakes he'd made. The agony when he took the ax to his toe was a release, a rebirth.
Jimmy Cale died in that instant of blinding pain and Robin Mannering, a far better man, was born. The necessary killings that followed—the property clerk, the plastic surgeon, the dentist, the forger—those were all part of maturing, of recognizing that his needs, his well-being, were all that mattered. Once he accepted the worthlessness of any life but his own, killing came easy.
Now he'd reached that higher plane of existence, that perfect life where indulging himself was his full-time occupation.
Mannering did nothing for anyone unless it led to his own immediate enrichment, satisfaction, profit, or amusement. Delaying gratification wasn't an option.
It was an exciting, stimulating, yet oddly restful, life. There was no stress, no demand on him of any kind. He usually partied or gambled until the early hours of the morning and then slept no later than ten, regardless of when he went to bed. Yet he was always full of energy, enthusiasm, and good cheer, ready to take on the day and pleasure himself even more.
His house was his Fortress of Solitude. No one but service personnel were ever allowed inside. Here he could gaze upon his magnificent currency collection, smoke a fine cigar from his walk-in humidor, and enjoy a glass of wine from his world-class wine cellar. Then he could stroll to his seven-car garage and choose a vehicle from his collection—a Bentley, a Ferrari, an Aston-Martin Vanquish, a '59 Caddy convertible, or a massive black Hummer—for the short daily drive to the Côte d'Azur, his personal playground.
At the Côte d'Azur, all his appetites and needs were taken care of. If he wanted a woman, or three women, he could have them whenever and wherever he wanted them. And when he was done with them, they were gone, waiting for him to call again.
Mannering could gamble all night, making fortunes and losing them without a care. He would gorge himself on gourmet food and magnificent wines without paying a cent. This kept him in a very good mood.
To those around him, Mannering was a pleasure to be with, a class act, a wonderful guy.
Why shouldn't he be?
Robin Mannering was the picture of contentment, success, and power, a man at the very top of his game. A man others aspired to be.
Which was why he was troubled now, why the way he'd begun to feel over the last week was so wrong, so terrifying.
At first he'd been able to ignore it, to write it off as the consequences of partying too hard.
So he was feeling a little tired after gambling for five hours, drinking three bottles of wine, and wrestling all night with three stunning, very athletic, very demanding, twenty- two-year-old showgirls.
Of course he was tired! It was the best kind of fatigue. Too much of a good thing.
But then he was just as tired the next day, and more so the day after. He began taking naps, something he'd never done in his life.
It wasn't just the crushing fatigue that worried him. It was the weakness. He invited two girls to his room and could barely muster the strength to attend to one of them. And when he was done, he could barely breathe.
Now simply walking across the room left him short of breath, his heart racing. He was growing more and more depressed. It even affected his sense of taste. Soon everything that passed his lips tasted like it was made of chemicals.
Each day it got worse.
Each day it got harder and harder to get out of bed, harder and harder to deny what his mind was screaming.
I'm dying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Robin Mannering awoke on the eighth day of his slow death with barely the will, the energy, or the breath to rise from under his sheets.
But it was more than that.
He hated the idea of accepting his weakness, his vulnerability, and seeking help.
It meant stepping out of his carefully controlled, totally secure realm. It meant entrusting his life to someone else, if only for a while.
He'd told himself he would never let that happen.
And now it was happening.
He had to do something. He had to save himself. Mannering couldn't simply pick a doctor out of the Yellow Pages or stagger into the hospital. There would be questions he couldn't answer, medical history he couldn't provide. They would gather information from him and enter it into databases that he couldn't control. His security would be breached, his carefully constructed world invaded, not to mention his body.
He would be naked and exposed in every sense of the words.
There had to be a way to minimize the risk, to exercise some control over a situation that was frightening because it was beyond his ability to control.
And then he remembered his dinner a week ago with Dr. Douglas Ross. He'd seen Dr. Ross a few times since, but not across a poker table. The good doctor didn't have the guts to face him again, preferring to play blackjack, where his only opponent was the dealer.
That was good, because Dr. Ross would have no reason to resent him. He was still flush with the money he'd won from Mannering.
Yes, this was good. Very good.
Fate was playing into Mannering's hands again.
Dr. Ross owed him. And Mannering was going to call in the debt.
That was if, of course, Dr. Ro
ss was still a guest at the Côte d'Azur.
Mannering reached for the phone and made a call.
Dr. Ross was waiting for him in the lobby at the Côte d'Azur medical center. Mannering hated the look he saw on the doctor's face when he shuffled in, short of breath, sweating from every pore on his body. It was a look of pity. His weakness, his vulnerability, was that obvious.
"How long have you been this way?" Dr. Ross asked, taking his arm.
"A week or so," Mannering said, yanking his arm away. He wasn't a damn invalid. Not yet, anyway.
"It shouldn't have happened that fast," Dr. Ross said. "It must have been creeping up on you for some time and you just ignored the signs."
"There weren't any."
"I've worked with many rich and powerful people. What I've learned is that people who are used to being in control don't want to accept the slightest hint of their own weakness," Dr. Ross said. "They won't acknowledge it until they have no choice, until it becomes debilitating."
Mannering was flattered to be recognized as someone of a stature equal to that of the royals and presidents Dr. Ross counted among his patients, so he didn't take offense at the stinging assessment of his failings. He didn't resist when Dr. Ross took his arm again and led him into one of the examination rooms.
To be honest, he felt instantly better around the genial doctor. There was something about Dr. Ross and his natural amiability that made him feel safe in a way he hadn't thought was possible.
The doctor closed the door to the room and asked Mannering to change into a hospital gown.
Then Dr. Ross asked him some general questions about his health and made notes on a clipboard, which made Mannering nervous. The doctor seemed to sense this and set the clipboard aside, though he continued his questioning, probing a bit deeper into his medical history, asking about past illnesses and surgeries, as he examined Mannering.
Dr. Ross gestured to Mannering's feet. "What happened to your toe?"
"Childhood accident," Mannering said. "You should never chop wood barefoot."
"I would think not," Dr. Ross said. "Are you short of breath only when you're doing something, or does it happen when you're at rest, too?"
