Harmful Intent

by Robin Cook

  “They assured me there would be no further problems,” Jeffrey said. He touched the tip of his nose and looked at his finger. He expected to see blood but there wasn’t any.

  “So the money will be there tomorrow morning?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, in that case I guess I’ll be going,” Devlin said. “Needless to say, if the money doesn’t appear, I’ll be back.” Devlin turned from Jeffrey and stepped over to Carol. He extended the beer. “Thanks for the brew, honey.”

  She took the bottle. Devlin again made a motion to pinch her cheek. Carol tried to slap him, but he caught her arm. “You certainly are feisty,” he said with a laugh. She yanked her arm free.

  “I’m sure you’re both sorry to see me go,” Devlin said at the door. “I’d love to stay for dinner but I’m supposed to meet a group of nuns over at Rosalie’s.” He laughed a hoarse laugh as he pulled the door closed behind himself.

  For a few moments neither Jeffrey nor Carol moved. They could hear a car start out in the street, then pull away. Carol was the one to break the silence: “What happened at the bank?” she demanded. She was furious. “Why didn’t they have the money for you?”

  Jeffrey didn’t answer. He just looked at his wife dumbly. He was shaking from his reaction to Devlin. The balance between anger and terror had tilted to terror. Devlin was the embodiment of Jeffrey’s worst fears, especially since he understood he had no defense against him and no protection from the law. Devlin was just the kind of person Jeffrey imagined populated the prisons. Jeffrey was surprised the man hadn’t threatened to break his kneecaps. Despite his Irish name, he seemed like a character straight from the Mafia.

  “Answer me!” Carol demanded. “Where have you been?”

  With his briefcase still in hand, Jeffrey started for his room. He wanted to be alone. The nightmare vision of a prison filled with inmates all like Devlin came to him in a dizzying rush.

  Carol grabbed his arm. “I’m talking to you!” she snapped.

  Jeffrey stopped and looked down at Carol’s hand gripping his arm. “Let go of me,” he said in a controlled voice.

  “Not until you talk to me and tell me where you’ve been.”

  “Let go of me,” Jeffrey said menacingly.

  Thinking better of it, Carol let go of his arm. Again he started for his room. She quickly fell in behind him. “You are not the only one around here who has been under strain,” she yelled after him. “I think I deserve some kind of explanation. I had to entertain that animal for hours.”

  Jeffrey stopped at his door. “I’m sorry,” he said. He owed her that. Carol was right behind him.

  “I think I’ve been pretty understanding through all this,” Carol said. “Now I want to know what happened at the bank. Dudley said yesterday there would be no problems.”

  “I’ll talk to you about it later.” He needed a few minutes to calm down.

  “I want to talk about it now,” Carol persisted.

  Jeffrey opened his door and stepped into the room. Carol tried to push through after him, but Jeffrey blocked her way. “Later!” he said, louder than he’d meant to. He closed the door on her. Carol heard the lock click into place.

  She pounded on the door in frustration and began to cry. “You’re impossible! I don’t know why I was willing to wait on the divorce. This is the thanks I get.” Sobbing, she gave the door a kick, then ran down the hall to her own room.

  Jeffrey slammed the briefcase down on his bed, then sat down next to it. He didn’t mean to aggravate Carol like that, but he couldn’t help it. How could he explain what he was going through when there hadn’t been any real communication between them for years? He knew he owed her an explanation, but he didn’t want to confide in her until he’d decided what to do. If he told her he had the cash in hand, she’d make him take it to the bank first thing. But Jeffrey needed time to think first. For what felt like the fortieth time that day alone, he wasn’t sure what he would do.

  For the moment, he got up and went into the bathroom. He filled a glass with water and held it with both hands as he drank. He was still shaking from a whirlpool of emotions. He looked at himself in the mirror. There was a scratch on the end of his nose where Devlin had flicked him. Both his ears were bright red. He shuddered when he recalled how defenseless he’d felt in front of the man.

  Jeffrey returned to the bedroom and eyed the briefcase. Flipping open the latches, he lifted the lid and pushed aside Chris Everson’s notes. He looked at the neat packets of hundred-dollar bills and found himself wishing that he’d stayed on the plane that afternoon. If he had, he’d now be well on his way to Rio and some sort of new life. Anything had to be better than what he was going through now. The warm moments with Kelly, that great dinner, seemed to have happened to him in another life.

  Glancing at his watch, Jeffrey noticed it was a little after eight. The last Pan Am shuttle was at nine-thirty. He could make it if he left soon.

  He remembered how awful he’d felt on the plane that afternoon. Could he really go through with it? Jeffrey went back into the bathroom and again examined his inflamed ears and scratched nose. What else was a man like Devlin capable of if they were locked in the same room day in, day out?

  Jeffrey turned and went back to the briefcase. He closed the lid and locked it up. He was going to Brazil.

  When Devlin left the Rhodes’s house, he fully intended to follow his original plan of Italian food, followed by beers at the harbor. But when he got about three blocks away, intuition made him pull over to the side of the road. In his mind’s eye, he replayed the conversation he’d had with the good doctor. From the moment Jeffrey had blamed the bank for not coming through with the money, Devlin knew he’d been lying. Now he started wondering why. “Doctors!” Devlin said. “They always think they’re smarter than everybody else.”

  Doing a U-turn, Devlin drove back the way he’d come and cruised by the Rhodes’s house, trying to decide how to proceed. About a block beyond it, he made a second U-turn and passed the house again. This time he slowed down. He found a parking place and pulled in.

  The way he saw it, he had two choices. Either he could go back inside the Rhodes’s house and ask the doc why he was lying, or he could sit tight and wait awhile. He knew he’d put the fear of God into the man. That had been his intention. Often people who felt guilty about something reacted to confrontation by hastily committing some telltale act. Devlin decided to wait Rhodes out. If nothing happened in an hour or so, then he’d go get some food and come back for a visit afterward.

  Turning off the motor, Devlin scrunched down as best he could behind the steering wheel. He thought about Jeffrey Rhodes, wondering what the guy had been convicted of. Mosconi hadn’t told him that. To Devlin, Rhodes didn’t seem like the criminal type, even the white-collar variety.

  A few mosquitoes disturbed Devlin’s reverie. After rolling up the windows, the temperature inside the car climbed. Devlin began to rethink his plans. Just as he was about to start the car, he saw movement at the far edge of the garage. “Now what have we here?” he said, hunching low in his seat.

  At first Devlin couldn’t tell who it was, the Mr. or the Mrs. Then Jeffrey stepped around the edge of the garage, making a beeline for his car. He was carrying his briefcase, and he ran kind of hunched over, as if he didn’t want to be seen by anyone inside the house.

  “This is getting interesting,” Devlin whispered. If Devlin could prove Jeffrey was trying to jump bail and caught him, and dragged him to jail, some big money would be coming his way.

  Without closing the car door for fear that Carol might hear it, Jeffrey released the emergency brake and let the auto slip silently down the driveway and out into the street. Only then did he start the motor and drive off. He craned his neck for a view of the house for as long as he could, but Carol never appeared. A block away he slammed the door properly and put on his seat belt. It had been easier to get away than he’d thought.

  By the time Jeffrey got to the
congested Lynn Way with its used-car lots and gaudy neon signs, he began to calm down. He was still somewhat shaky from Devlin’s visit, but it was a relief to know that he would soon be putting the man and the threat of prison far behind him.

  As he got closer to Logan International Airport, he began to feel the same misgivings he had had that morning. But all he had to do was touch his tender ears to rekindle his resolve. This time he was committed to following through, no matter his qualms, no matter how high his anxiety.

  Jeffrey had a few minutes’ leeway, so he went to the ticket counter to have the agent change his Rio de Janeiro ticket. He knew the shuttle ticket was still fine. As it turned out, the night flight to Rio was cheaper than the afternoon flight, and Jeffrey got a considerable refund.

  Holding his ticket in his mouth, the suitcase in one hand, and the briefcase in the other, he hurried toward security. It had taken longer than he’d expected to exchange the ticket. That was one flight he didn’t want to miss.

  Jeffrey went directly to the X-ray machine and hoisted the suitcase onto the conveyor belt. He was about to do the same with his briefcase when someone grabbed his collar from behind.

  “Going on vacation, Doctor?” Devlin asked with a wry smile. He snatched the airline ticket from Jeffrey’s mouth.

  Holding on to Jeffrey’s collar with his left hand, Devlin flipped open the ticket folder and read the destination. When he saw Rio de Janeiro, he said “Bingo!” with a broad smile. He could already see himself at one of the gaming tables in Vegas. He was in the money now.

  Stuffing Jeffrey’s ticket into his denim jacket pocket, Devlin reached around to his back pocket and pulled out his handcuffs. A few people who had backed up behind Jeffrey to get at the X-ray machine stood gawking in open-mouthed disbelief.

  The familiar sight of handcuffs jolted Jeffrey from his paralysis. With a sudden, unexpected move, he swung his briefcase in a violent arc aimed at Devlin. Devlin, concentrating on opening the handcuffs with his free hand, didn’t see the blow coming.

  The briefcase hit Devlin on the left temple, just above the ear, sending him crashing into the side of the X-ray machine. The handcuffs clattered to the floor.

  The female attendant behind the X-ray machine screamed. A uniformed state police officer looked up from the sports page of the Herald. Jeffrey took off like a rabbit, sprinting back toward the terminal and ticket counters. Devlin put a hand to his head, and it came away with blood on it.

  For Jeffrey it was like broken-field running as he tried to skirt passengers, missing some, colliding into others. As he came to the junction of the concourse with the terminal proper, he glanced back at the security area. He could see Devlin pointing in his direction with the uniformed policeman at his side. Other people were looking in Jeffrey’s direction as well, mainly those he’d run into.

  In front of Jeffrey was an escalator bringing people up from the floor below. Jeffrey ran for it and charged down, pushing irate passengers out of his way along with their luggage. On the arrival floor below there was a crowd milling about, since several flights had recently landed. Worming his way through the newly arrived, Jeffrey skirted the baggage area as fast as he could and ran out through the electronic doors to the street.

  Gasping for breath, he paused at the curb, trying to decide where to go next. He knew he had to get out of the airport immediately. The question was how. There were a few taxis lined up, but there was also a long line of people waiting for them. Jeffrey didn’t have much time. He could run over to the parking garage and get his car, but something told him that would be a dead end. For starters, Devlin probably knew where it was. He’d probably trailed Jeffrey to the airport. How else would he have known where to find him?

  As Jeffrey weighed his alternatives, the intraterminal bus came lumbering along the roadway. Without a second’s hesitation, Jeffrey rushed into the street and stood directly in its path, flailing his arms wildly.

  The bus screeched to a halt. The driver opened the door. As Jeffrey jumped on, the driver said, “Man, you are either stupid or crazy and I hope it’s stupid ’cause I’d hate to have a nut on board.” He shook his head in disbelief, put the bus in gear, and hit the gas pedal.

  Steadying himself by clutching the overhead rack, Jeffrey stooped to get a look out the window. He caught sight of Devlin and the policeman threading their way through the crowds at the baggage carousel. Jeffrey couldn’t believe his luck. They hadn’t seen him.

  Jeffrey took a seat and set his briefcase on his lap. He still had to catch his breath. The next stop was the central terminal, serving Delta, United, and TWA. That’s where Jeffrey got off. Dodging traffic, he ran over to the taxi line. As before, there was a considerable number of people waiting.

  Jeffrey hesitated for a moment, running through his alternatives. Marshaling his courage, he walked directly to the taxi dispatcher.

  “I’m a doctor and I need a cab immediately,” he said with as much authority as he could muster. Even in emergency situations, Jeffrey was loath to take advantage of his professional status.

  Holding a clipboard and a stub of a pencil, the man looked Jeffrey up and down. Without saying a word, he pointed to the next cab in line. As Jeffrey hustled in, some of the people queued up grumbled.

  Jeffrey slammed the taxi’s door. The driver looked at him through his rearview mirror. He was a young fellow with long, stringy hair. “Where to?” he asked.

  Hunching low, Jeffrey told him just to drive out of the airport. The cabbie turned around to look Jeffrey in the eye.

  “I need a destination, man!” he said.

  “All right—downtown.”

  “Where downtown?” the cabbie asked irritably.

  “I’ll decide when we get there,” Jeffrey said, turning around to peek out the rear window. “Just go!”

  “Jesus!” the driver murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. He was doubly irritated to get such a short fare. He’d been waiting in the pool for half an hour and had hopes for a run to someplace like Weston. And on top of the short fare, his passenger was a weirdo or maybe worse. When they drove past a police car at the far end of the terminal, the guy lay flat across the backseat. Just what he needed: a weirdo on the lam.

  Jeffrey lifted his head slowly, even though the cab had to be well beyond the squad car. He turned and peered out the rear window. No one seemed to be following. There were certainly no sirens or flashing lights. He turned around and faced forward. Night had finally fallen. Ahead lay a sea of bobbing taillights. Jeffrey tried to clear his head enough to think.

  Had he done the right thing? His reflex had been to flee. He was understandably terrified of Devlin, but should he have run, especially with the policeman there?

  With a shock, Jeffrey remembered that Devlin had seized his ticket, proof he had intended to jump bail. That was reason enough to toss him in jail. What effect would his attempt to flee have on the appeal process? Jeffrey didn’t want to be around when Randolph found out.

  Jeffrey didn’t know much about the finer points of the law, but this much he did know: with his bumbling, indecisive behavior he had managed to turn himself into a true fugitive. Now he would have to face an entirely separate charge, maybe a separate set of charges.

  The cab plunged into the Sumner Tunnel. Traffic was relatively light, so they moved ahead swiftly. Jeffrey wondered if he should go directly to the police. Would it be better to own up and turn himself in? Maybe he should go to the bus station and get out of town. He thought about renting a car, since he’d have more independence that way. But the trouble with that idea was that the only car rental places open at that time of the night were at the airport.

  Jeffrey was at a loss. He had no idea what he should do. Every plan of action he could think of had disadvantages. And every time he thought he’d reached rock bottom, he managed to find an even deeper quagmire.

  4

  TUESDAY,

  MAY 16, 1989

  9:42 P.M.

  “I got good news an
d I got bad news,” Devlin said to Michael Mosconi. “Which do you want to hear first?” Devlin was calling from one of the airport phones in the baggage section beneath the Pan Am departure gates. He had combed the terminal searching for Jeffrey, with no luck. The policeman had gone off to alert the other officers at the airport. Devlin was calling Michael Mosconi for additional backup. Devlin was surprised that the doc was lucky enough to have slipped away.

  “I’m not in any mood to be playing games,” Mosconi said irritably. “Just tell me what you have to tell me and be done with it.”

  “Come on, lighten up. Good news or bad?” Devlin enjoyed teasing Mosconi because Mosconi was such an easy target.

  “I’ll take the good news,” Mosconi fumed, swearing under his breath. “And it better be good.”

  “Depends on your point of view,” Devlin said cheerfully. “The good news is that you owe me a few bucks. Minutes ago I stopped the good doctor from boarding a plane for Rio de Janeiro.”

  “No shit?” Mosconi said.

  “No shit—and I have the ticket to prove it!”

  “That’s great, Dev!” Mosconi said excitedly. “My God, the man’s bail is five hundred thousand dollars! That would have ruined me. How the hell did you do it? I mean, how did you know he was going to try to jump? I got to hand it to you. You’re amazing, Dev!”

  “It’s so nice to be loved,” Devlin said. “But you’re forgetting the bad news.” Devlin smiled into the receiver mischievously, knowing what Mosconi’s reaction was soon to be.

  There was a brief pause before Mosconi said with a groan, “All right, give me the bad news!”

  “At the moment, I don’t know where the good doc is. He’s on the loose in Boston someplace. I got ahold of him, but the skinny bastard hit me with his briefcase before I could ’cuff him. I never expected it, him being a doctor and all that.”

  “You got to find him!” Mosconi shouted. “Why the hell did I trust him? I should have my head examined.”