Lethal Measures

by Leonard Goldberg

  “We’ve got to give those guys upstairs a break,” Farelli said.

  “Otherwise they’ll go stir-crazy.”

  “Can’t,” Jake said.

  “Time is running out.”

  “Hurley is sure it’s going to happen on the nineteenth, huh?”

  “Positive.” Jake’s gaze went to the neon sign above the bank. Now it was flashing the date, April 6. “We’ve got thirteen days.”

  “That ain’t enough time,” Farelli said honestly.

  “It’ll take a lot longer than that to track these bastards down.”

  “We’ve got to get them before that bomb goes off or they’ll disappear forever.”

  Farelli looked at him oddly.

  “You mean, like vanish in thin air?”

  “It happens more times than not,” Jake said.

  “The really smart ones are never found. They never use credit cards or a social security number, so they never leave a trail you can track. They never write checks, never have bank accounts.

  And when they want to vanish altogether, they go into some isolated wilderness and nobody ever sees them again.”

  Farelli gave the matter thought, still not convinced.

  “Hell, the Unabomber—Ted whatever the hell his name is—did everything you just said and they still managed to catch him.”

  “They didn’t actually catch him,” Jake said.

  “The FBI tracked him for years and never even came close until his brother turned him in. If his brother hadn’t squealed, that crazy bastard would still be sending bombs in the mail.” Jake used a finger to wipe perspiration from his brow.

  “And there are a dozen other examples I could give you.”

  “Shit,” Farelli said disgustedly.

  “Are you saying either we get them now or we don’t get them at all?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  Jake could sense something wrong the moment he entered Joanna’s office. She was staring into space, her mind a million miles away. On her desk was an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts, one of them still

  smoldering. “You don’t look so good,” he said, remembering the last time he saw Joanna smoke. Kate had been deathly ill with the Ebola-like virus.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Joanna reached for a Kleenex and dabbed her eyes.

  “A man.”

  “Who?”

  “Somebody I thought was wonderful and turned out to be not so great.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Yeah. Don’t ask me what happened.” Joanna crushed out her cigarette, now remembering her last phone conversation with Paul. He had called back ten minutes after his earlier call. At first she thought he was going to try to make up. But he didn’t. It was better to end it cleanly, he had told her. It made no sense to just hang on and wait to see what happened. Better to get on with their lives. And then he said goodbye.

  “Jake, let me ask you something. It’s a hypothetical question.”

  Jake leaned back against a countertop.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Someone you really care about needs you. But you’re tied up with something very important. You can’t go.”

  “So?”

  “How would you feel?”

  “Like I’d better do the best I could without her.”

  “No hard feelings?”

  Jake shrugged.

  “No. Why should there be?”

  Joanna nodded. That was the answer she had expected. That was Jake. He understood priorities.

  Jake studied Joanna’s face briefly. She looked tired and drawn, and her eyes were red and puffy. But she was still so damn pretty. She had the kind of beauty that wouldn’t fade with the years. It would last a lifetime.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “No,” Joanna said honestly.

  “But I’ll get by.”

  “If you need anything, you call.”

  “Thanks, Jake.”

  He shrugged again.

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  Joanna’s stomach growled loudly, then made another rumbling sound.

  “I forgot lunch,” she said and walked over to her desk, where she took out a candy bar and unwrapped it.

  “Want some?”

  “No, thanks,” Jake answered, glad to see some of the sadness gone from her face.

  He reached for a cigarette but decided against it.

  “If you’ve got a minute, I could use some help with medical

  terminology.” “Fire away,” Joanna said, licking chocolate off her fingers.

  Jake read from his notepad.

  “What the hell is an osteogenic sarcoma?”

  “It’s a rare type of bone cancer. Why?”

  “Because I just saw a video of a Mexican with a prosthetic leg and a red rose tattoo on his arm.”

  “Was the word “Monterrey’ written under it?”

  “That I can’t be sure of,” Jake said.

  “But his diagnosis was osteogenic sarcoma.”

  Joanna’s eyes narrowed as the pieces began to fall into place.

  “One of the bones we found at the West Hollywood bomb site had an invasive osteogenic sarcoma.”

  Jake nodded slowly.

  “And that piece of bone could have come from the guy with the rose tattoo.”

  “There’s one way to find out for certain.”

  Joanna led the way toward the rear laboratory. The floor was now cleared.

  Plasterers were repairing the cracks in the walls, carpenters putting safety latches on all the cabinets and drawers. Off to the side Mary Chen was checking out an ultracentrifuge machine. Jake waved to her.

  “How did the picture turn out?” Mary called over.

  “Pretty good,” Jake called back.

  “It’s going to be a big help.”

  Joanna said quietly, “But it’s only a profile view, right?”

  “One of the cops in the lobby thinks he saw her,” Jake said.

  “We may end up with a full face yet. And if we do I’ll want you to look at it and see if it’s the same woman you saw getting off the elevator.”

  They walked over to Lori McKay, who was busily working at a computer. She had a cherry lollipop in her mouth.

  Joanna asked, “Do you have the DNA tissue types from the West Hollywood explosion logged into the computer?”

  “Sure do,” Lori slurred, moving the lollipop around with her tongue.

  “I entered all that data yesterday.”

  “Let’s see the DNA type of the tissue from the osteogenic sarcoma,” Joanna requested.

  “Then let’s determine if it matched up with any of the other tissues.”

  Lori punched buttons on the keyboard. Then she sat back and waited. In seconds a DNA tissue type was on the screen. Under it was listed scalp, bone (sarcoma) and tattoo.

  “The tattoo and piece of scalp came from the guy with the osteogenic

  sarcoma.” “Are you absolutely positive?” Jake asked.

  “The chances of my being wrong are about one in five billion.”

  “Well, well!” Jake said, rubbing his hands together.

  “It looks like we’ve got our man.” Tuesday, April 6, 4=40 p.m.

  The receptionist spoke briefly into the phone, then looked up at Joanna and Jake.

  “Dr. Wales is tied up in a conference.”

  “We’ll wait,” Jake said.

  “It could be a while.” The receptionist glanced over at the wall clock. It was 4:40 p.m.

  “And we close the building and leave at five sharp.”

  “Not tonight you don’t,” Jake told her.

  “Everybody stays until I say otherwise.

  That includes Dr. Wales and Dr. Bremmer and anyone else who sees or talks to patients or handles their charts.”

  “But—but some of the staff have already gone.”

  “If we need them I’ll send a black-and-white to
pick them up and bring them back.” Jake put his knuckles on the desktop and leaned forward, giving the young woman a long stare.

  “You might want to pass that information on to Dr. Wales.”

  The receptionist spoke into the phone again, her eyes avoiding Jake’s. She waited for a response, hoping she wouldn’t have to stay late. A handsome intern had asked her out to dinner, her first date in six months. She had to get her hair done and a million other things.

  “Lieutenant, will I be able to leave by six?”

  “You got something important to do?”

  “Real important.” The receptionist pressed the phone to her ear and listened intently, then nodded to Jake.

  “Dr. Wales can see you now.”

  Jake took Joanna’s arm and guided her around the information desk.

  “Lieutenant,” the receptionist called after them, “will I—” “You’ll make it, “Jake said.

  They entered a large clinic area that was deserted except for two patients using parallel bars to support themselves as they tried to

  walk on artificial legs. Perspiration was pouring off their faces, every step a struggle. A black therapist stood between them, coaxing them on.

  “Doing good, doing good,” the therapist encouraged them.

  “Looking like a champ.”

  Jake could feel the patients’ eyes on him, watching him walk with no effort. And no doubt envying his legs.

  Joanna led the way into a spacious workshop. Equipment and tools were neatly stacked atop the vacated benches. All of the technicians were gone, their green smocks hanging loosely on wall hooks. At the far end of the room Jake saw Josiah Wales sitting in an elevated chair. One of his pants legs was rolled up, exposing a stump just below the knee. Timothy Bremmer was seated on a metal stool, measuring the diameter of Wales’s stump.

  Jake slowed and quietly asked Joanna, “Do you think we should come back a little later?”

  “Nope,” Joanna said.

  “They’re working on his leg, not his larynx.”

  As they approached, Jake studied Wales’s stump. It was fleshy and reddened and resembled an overstuffed sock.

  “We appreciate your taking the time to see us.”

  “This better be good,” Wales said gruffly.

  “We think we know the guy whose prosthesis was found at the West Hollywood bomb site.” Jake kept his voice even, trying not to show his dislike for Wales.

  “We need to look at his medical record.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Gonzalez.”

  Wales shrugged.

  “We’ve got dozens of Gonzalezes in our files.”

  “This one’s first name is Ramon, and he has a rose tattoo on his arm,” Jake said, watching for a reaction.

  “It had the word “Monterrey’ written underneath it.”

  Wales shrugged again.

  Bremmer looked up.

  “So that’s why you were so interested in seeing those videos?”

  “Right,” Jake said.

  “Does a red rose tattoo ring any bells with you?”

  “Not offhand,” Bremmer said and turned his attention back to Wales’s stump.

  Wales shifted in his chair, repositioning his large frame. “Give us a few more minutes here, and we’ll pull the records on this patient for you.”

  Jake leaned back against a workbench and glanced over at a side wall. There were hands and feet coming out of the plaster, and in the dim light they all seemed so real. It took him a moment to realize they were artificial hands and feet that were set on pegs.

  Wales followed Jake’s line of vision.

  “Those are reconditioned prostheses.”

  Jake asked, “How long do the new ones usually last?”

  “That depends on how active the wearer is,” Wales said.

  “Mine lasted six years before the damn thing cracked. At first there was only a little fissure near the heel, but it kept getting bigger and bigger.”

  “That happens with the older models,” Bremmer explained, now using calipers to take more measurements.

  “They don’t hold up nearly as well as our newer designs.”

  “I hate to change over to a new prosthesis,” Wales complained.

  “They never fit the same, no matter how carefully you do the measurements. You have to break the damn thing in until it gets comfortable. And that takes a while.”

  “Why not just patch up the old one?” Joanna asked.

  “Oh, we tried,” Wales said, nodding.

  “Like a half dozen times over the past month. But it didn’t hold up.”

  “The newer ones will,” Bremmer assured him, writing the measurements on a legal pad.

  “The laminated models will last at least twice as long.”

  “Just make sure it’s ready by the time we open the new institute,” Wales said.

  “I want my prosthesis to be the first one fitted and worn in the new building.”

  “No problem,” Bremmer said.

  “You’ll be the first director and the first patient at the John Edgar Wales Institute.”

  Wales flexed and extended his stump, studying it and the empty space just beyond.

  “You know, I can still feel my foot, which of course isn’t there.”

  Jake gave Wales a puzzled look.

  “It’s called the phantom limb syndrome, Lieutenant,” Wales told him.

  “People who have lost a limb sometimes still sense its presence. It’s believed that the nerves in the stump send back information which the brain misinterprets.”

  “Is it painful?” Jake asked. “Only when you look down and see that your foot is still missing,” Wales said, staring out into space.

  “Sometimes you forget that, even after being without it for forty years.”

  Wales shifted in his chair again, his face now hardening.

  “But there’s one thing I never forget, Lieutenant. That’s the son of a bitch who cost me my leg.” He spat angrily at the floor.

  “He was driving drunk when he hit my bicycle and crushed my leg. He got a year in jail, I lost a foot. A goddamn drunk …” Wales let his voice trail off.

  Jake glanced at the doctor’s reddened stump once again, thinking he’d have felt the same way if some drunk bastard had cost him his leg. And made him limp for the rest of his life.

  “Well, enough of that,” Wales said. He reached down and strapped on his old prosthesis.

  “What was that patient’s name again?”

  “Ramon Gonzalez.”

  They walked into a nearby glass-enclosed office that was packed with files and journals and books. On the wall behind the desk was a large framed black-and-white photograph. It showed a fighter pilot climbing out of his jet plane. The inscription read: “To my little brother. Much love, John Edgar.”

  Bremmer sat at the computer and punched buttons on the keyboard. A moment later two names appeared on the screen.

  “We’ve got two patients named Ramon Gonzalez,” he said and pushed more keys. The first Ramon Gonzalez died in 1996. The second was still alive.

  “It’s got to be the second guy,” Jake said.

  Bremmer typed in the information and sat back as the others leaned forward. In an instant the patient’s medical history appeared on the screen.

  RAMON GONZALEZ 2801 ESCON DIDO STREET—APT. 26 LOS ANGELES, CA 90038

  AGE—28

  RACE—HISPANIC BIRTHPLACE—CO LIMA MEXICO DIAGNOSIS: OSTEOGENIC

  SARCOMA—LEFT

  FEMUR SURGICAL AMPUTATION IN MEXICO, 1998 RECURRENCE OF TUMOR, 1999

  PROSTHESIS

  FITTED—MARCH 2, 1999

  “I wonder why they amputated his leg,” Joanna asked, more to herself than to the others.

  “Because he had a bone malignancy,” Bremmer said, pushing more buttons to see if there was additional information on Ramon Gonzalez. There wasn’t.

  Joanna shook her head.

  “They don’t do amputations for osteogenic
sarcoma of the femur nowadays. They resect out the tumor and put in titanium rods.”

  “Well,” Bremmer said thoughtfully, “maybe they believed that was their best chance for a cure.”

  Joanna shook her head again.

  “There’s a high rate of recurrence with amputation, even when you add radiation. That’s why they’ve gone to the new procedure. His surgeons should have known better.”

  Wales asked derisively, “What do you expect from a south-of-the-border hospital?”

  “Some of their doctors are very good,” Joanna said.

  “Well, Ramon didn’t get one of those, now, did he?”

  “I guess not.” They probably did the best they could, Joanna was thinking.

  Mexico didn’t have the wealth to set up a good health care system. The Mexican rich came to America for their medical needs while the lower class had to make do with second-rate facilities. The poor always caught hell, Joanna thought.

  “Do we have any of his sarcoma frozen here at Memorial?”

  “Not that I know of,” Wales said.

  “Why?”

  “Because one of the bones found at the West Hollywood bomb site contained an osteogenic sarcoma. If its DNA type matched that in Ramon Gonzalez’s leg, we’d know for certain he was in the house that blew up.”

  Bremmer asked, “So you’re not sure Ramon Gonzalez was in the explosion?”

  “Not absolutely,” Joanna answered.

  “There’s a slim possibility that there is more than one Mexican with a rose tattoo and an osteogenic sarcoma.”

  “But you also found a prosthesis at the bomb site,” Bremmer said, thinking aloud.

  “Which may or may not belong to Ramon Gonzalez,” Joanna countered.

  “The only surefire proof would be the DNA testing.”

  “Well,” Wales said, “you can forget about getting any of that osteogenic sarcoma from a Mexican hospital. That leg is long gone.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Joanna said.

  “I’d like to look at his complete medical records. I want all the information you have on Ramon Gonzalez.”

  Wales hesitated.

  “It’s not going to be that much. Remember, we don’t do extensive work-ups on our patients.”

  Joanna pointed to the computer screen.

  “It says he had a recurrence of his sarcoma in nineteen ninety-nine. How do you know that?”

  Wales gestured with his hands.