Remote Control

by Stephen White

  “Here? No. God, no.”

  “I have your word?”

  “Yes.” She finally met his eyes.

  “I need to meet briefly with the woman who was in the waiting room a little while ago, to reschedule an appointment. When she and I are done, you and I need to talk some more, okay? We need to come up with some plans on how to handle this situation you’re in. Here, tonight.”

  “You want me to wait out there? In the waiting room?” She was reluctant to leave his office.

  “Please. It won’t be too long. I don’t have any other patients tonight No one else will come in. You’ll have it to yourself. Then, together, we’ll work out what to do next.”

  Her words still scratchy, she said, “All right.”

  Alan walked Emma back to the waiting room and watched her pick a seat and choose a magazine. He twisted the wand to shut the blinds. He asked Kendal to come back to his office.

  She started talking before he sat down.

  He interrupted her and explained that their session would need to be rescheduled.

  He thought she looked like someone had killed her cat.

  Alan finished rescheduling his appointment with Kendal Green, let her out the back door, and returned to the waiting room to get Emma.

  She wasn’t there. Alan’s immediate reaction was that he wasn’t as surprised as he should have been.

  The note sitting on the seat of her chair, scrawled on a subscription card that had fallen out of Mirabella, read, “Don’t worry. I’ll keep my promise.”

  Alan said, “Damn,” closed his eyes, and tilted his head as far back as he could, trying to stretch the muscles in his neck before his headache became intolerable. When he opened his eyes, the waiting room in his office was still empty.

  Emma’s note was still on the chair.

  Aloud, he said, “If wishes were horses.”

  Alan heard a rush of slushy footsteps approaching the front door. The blinds were tilted closed and he couldn’t see who was coming up the walk but he hoped that Emma had changed her mind and that she was coming back.

  The door opened and Kevin Quirk, his hair and clothing pocked with big flakes of wet snow, burst into the room and stomped his feet on the mat.

  Kevin looked up and saw Alan. His voice steady, he said, “Oh good, I caught you. Can you believe this storm? I though the weather lady said an inch or two. We’ve had that already. Listen, I’ve been trying to find Emma. You seen her?”

  Quirk didn’t appear to be someone who had been ambushed by the weather. He was dressed for winter, not Indian summer.

  Alan said, “Hello, Kevin. She was here a while ago, but she left. I don’t know where she went, maybe home.”

  “How did she seem?”

  Alan hadn’t fully considered yet the question of whether the time he had spent with Emma that afternoon had changed her status and made her a temporary patient of his, or whether he had been merely providing counsel to a friend. The answer to that question was an ethical dilemma that could be as twisted as a pretzel and, if he managed to untangle it, would determine how much he could tell Kevin Quirk in response to his question.

  Alan preferred to err on the side of caution. As nonchalantly as possible, he walked across the waiting room and began to straighten the magazines, a chore he probably hadn’t done in a year. His first task was to swipe up the loose magazine subscription card from the chair in the corner and stuff it into his pocket.

  “Distraught,” Alan said. “Emma’s distraught.”

  “She was going to see somebody for that, right? A shrink? Is that where she is now?”

  “I wish. That was my advice to her last night. That was my advice to her this morning. But, no, as I said, I don’t think she has an appointment yet.”

  “Maybe I have some news that can cheer her up. I just got a lead on that disc that was stolen. Hope maybe to get it back in the next little while. Tonight, anyway.”

  Alan decided to voice Emma’s concern for her, see what Kevin’s perspective was. “What real difference does it make? How can you be certain it wasn’t copied?”

  Kevin thought for about two seconds, then said, “I can’t. No way. It’s a digital record. A copy is as good as the original.”

  “That’s the problem as far as Emma’s concerned, though I’m sure she’ll be grateful if you manage to get it back. But she’ll still be devastated that the genie’s out of the bottle, that she can’t be certain that copies aren’t floating around. She’s even terrified that people will be aware that the disc is out there.” Alan watched Quirk’s face, still rosy from exposure to the storm. “You know, Kevin, if I had stolen that disc drive, and I learned that someone with your background and abilities was after me, I’d give it back, too. But I’d copy it first.”

  “I’ve thought of all that.”

  “I assumed that you had.”

  Quirk’s shoulders sank perceptibly. “I really like Emma, Alan. I think I know her better than maybe almost anyone. She’s not that strong a person. She’s full of self-doubt, insecurity. She’s not like the media makes her out to be.” He shook his head. “I’m just trying to help her. She’s all alone.”

  Alan was surprised at Kevin’s insight into Emma. He also reminded himself about the message that Emma had received that afternoon. The offer had been frank and obscene: someone had the disc and would return it to her for real live sex.

  The source of that note was either the person who was scheduled to meet Kevin Quirk that evening.

  Or the source of that note was Kevin Quirk.

  Was this really just an elaborate ploy by Kevin to finally get Emma Spire into bed?

  Alan wished Lauren was with him. She was much more confident in her perceptions of sociopathy than he was. She’d have a firm opinion about Kevin Quirk’s motives. All Alan had were doubts.

  He looked closely at the other man. Impulsively, he said, “Let me go with you, Kevin, you know, when you go wherever you’re going to go to get the disc. Maybe I’ll be able to help you decide whether this person is telling the truth about making copies. Knowing that would help Emma feel better.”

  Kevin considered the offer. Alan figured him to be one of those people who was comforted by the illusion that mental health professionals could accurately distinguish a liar from an honest man. Alan always found the fantasy amusing, except when one of his colleagues had it about themselves.

  “Okay,” Kevin said. “You can come along. You’ll do what I say?”

  “I’m an inveterate chicken, Kevin. And I take orders like a buck-private.” The cowardly part of the disclaimer was close enough to the truth, but Alan didn’t even know exactly what a buck-private was, and responsiveness to authority was certainly not one of his more reliable personal traits.

  Kevin asked, “Do you know where Eben Fine Park is? On Arapahoe?”

  “Sure. Six, seven blocks from here. In good weather, we could walk there in ten minutes.”

  “This isn’t good weather.”

  “It’s right on Boulder Creek, Kevin, just down from the mouth of the canyon. That’s where they’re meeting you?” Not a bad choice, Alan thought. In the late afternoon, during bad weather, the little park on the west edge of the city would be one of the most deserted places in town.

  Quirk looked at his watch. “We have a few minutes. Can I use your facilities?”

  Alan called Lauren at her office to let her know he wouldn’t be home on time. She wasn’t in; he was connected to her voice mail and he left her a message that he’d be late and that he hoped Emma had called her.

  He was gathering some papers from his desk when Kevin came out of the bathroom.

  Kevin looked at Alan quizzically. “You going like that? It’s miserable out there.” He pointed to Alan’s cotton sweater.

  “I always keep a parka and a pair of boots in the car. This is Boulder.”

  Kevin pulled at the fabric of his jacket. “Me, too,” he said. “I’m an old Boy Scout.”

  Alan had no do
ubt that Kevin Quirk had been the first Webelo in his pack.

  “Who has it? The disc?”

  “Don’t know, yet. I’m almost certain it’s somebody who knows Han. I’m assuming that Han was either in on this from the start with someone else and warned this person that I was after the disc. Or Han mentioned to someone close to him that I was snooping around, and the guy panicked. Either way, I just now got a call on my cell phone telling me where to go.”

  Alan flipped off the lights to his office. The falling snow outside seemed to brighten considerably. He said, “We’ll know soon enough, I guess.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I think we’re dealing with cowards. I’m willing to bet we’ll get the disc back, primarily because they don’t want me looking for it anymore. But I don’t actually expect to see a soul in the park.”

  “Why the cloak-and-dagger, then?”

  “Either to buy time for some reason I don’t understand. Or to set up an ambush. Truthfully? I think they plan to drop the disc someplace obvious and they wanted a deserted location so that someone else wouldn’t walk off with it.”

  From a determined examination of Kevin’s expression, Alan couldn’t tell what part of the prognostication had been serious. Alan opened the back door of his office, allowing Kevin to precede him to the side yard, where Alan’s car was parked.

  Alan asked, “Would you like me to drive?”

  “No, I’ll follow you.”

  Alan opened the back of his Land Cruiser and unzipped an old rucksack. He shook out an old parka and pulled it on, then tugged on the boots. If Ethan Han was in on this, Alan was thinking, everything was going to be more complicated. It would raise serious doubts that Ethan’s romantic interest in Emma Spire had ever been anything more than an elaborate plan to compromise her integrity in order to punish her for her role as an involuntary poster child for the reproductive choice movement.

  Alan had no doubt—none—that if Han had stolen his own optical disc drive, then there were already copies of the data secreted away.

  Starting the engine of his car, he wished he felt more confidence about the reliability of Kevin Quirk’s loyalty to Emma.

  SEVEN

  Friday, October 11. Near midnight.

  Snow, 16 Degrees

  Having reluctantly chauffeured Lauren across town from the jail to the hospital, Detective Scott Malloy was now stuck again. Regulations said that he was required to have a female officer present to monitor Lauren while she was in the examining room at the hospital. And dispatch had already informed him that they were not currently able to free a female officer for that duty. Maybe in an hour, they said. Malloy knew damn well that these doctors weren’t going to wait an hour to examine Lauren. He would be left outside the exam room, unable to observe, and more important, unable to hear whatever was going on.

  Shit.

  Right after he and Lauren had arrived at the hospital, Malloy received word that the shooting victim had survived surgery and was on his way to the recovery room. Malloy’s instinct was to race upstairs and take the lead in what he assumed would be an arduous process of negotiating with the surgeons about exactly when the detectives were going to be permitted to question the man. Danny Tartabull, the detective who had been assigned to shadow the victim, was marginally competent but, in Scott Malloy’s eyes, a little too conciliatory. If the surgeons said “you can talk to him in the morning,” Danny Tartabull would nod and ask the docs, “Is ten too early?” At the very least, Malloy wanted to get upstairs to make sure Tartabull didn’t give away the store. He also thought it would be a good idea to bring Danny up to speed, in case they got lucky and Danny had a shot at a few questions.

  The emergency room was dead.

  Most people stay home during blizzards. Primary-care visits to the ER are reduced to nothing. The morning after the storm, though, things change. Heart attack victims begin to arrive by ambulance as out-of-shape homeowners try to shovel a few tons of snow off their sidewalks. Then, by midday, after the Rocky Mountain sunshine has a chance to put a nice transparent glaze on the ice, the casting room would be booked nonstop with broken bones from pedestrians who had failed to navigate on the ice, and motorists who thought antilock brakes could stop on Teflon.

  But during a furious blizzard like this, blissful quiet.

  The ER docs used the time to catch up on their sleep or make a dent on their charts or their managed-care paperwork. The nurses checked supplies, chatted, and relished the quiet.

  Lauren was the only patient in the department. The ER doc examined her efficiently, leaving Malloy out in the hall behind a closed door.

  The doc returned to the desk, walking right past Malloy, ignoring his questions about his prisoner’s condition. The doctor went into a back office to make a couple of calls, confirmed that the specialists were on their way in to see their patient, and returned to his pile of dictation. Lauren was stable and, to him, her diagnosis was not in question.

  Malloy paced, frustrated that the doctor wouldn’t talk to him and that he wasn’t free to leave his prisoner. Not that he didn’t trust her to stick around. He would have anointed Lauren his all-time-felon-least-likely-to-flee. But the book said don’t leave your prisoner. The book also said a female officer should stand by a female detainee during medical examinations.

  But the damn book wasn’t written for the middle-of-the-fucking-night during a blizzard.

  After pacing the hallway outside the open door to the exam room and catching occasional glimpses of Lauren falling asleep, Malloy decided he would cuff her to the gurney for ten minutes while he went upstairs to talk with Danny Tartabull and maybe even the damn surgeon.

  What’s ten minutes?

  Lauren looked haggard. Her hair was limp and her skin ghostly pale under the hospital lights. She didn’t stir from her sleep as Scott hooked up her left wrist and snapped the other end around the side rail on the gurney.

  Another man loitering near the emergency department was as eager as Scott Malloy to talk with the shooting victim in the recovery room. He’d been assembling a plan that would get him past the cops and gain him brief access when he saw Malloy escort Lauren into the ER.

  The man couldn’t believe his fortune. Lauren was being delivered to him.

  The man quickly scavenged a stethoscope and a hospital name badge from a white lab coat in an unlocked office. He pulled the top piece of a scrub suit over his turtleneck. From a safe distance, he watched the cop speak briefly with a nurse before proceeding to the elevators. Was the cop actually going to leave his prisoner unattended?

  The man had no time to consider any options; this was too good an opportunity. He saw only one problem: the door to the exam room where Lauren was dozing was clearly visible to the nurse at the long counter that served as the nerve center for the ER.

  He returned down the hall and watched the cop enter the elevator before moving to the nearest phone and asking the hospital operator for the main desk in the ER. He manufactured a few questions for the nurse who answered, posing as a parent anxious about an infection on his daughter’s hand. Sure enough, the nurse’s head went down and she scribbled notes the whole time they were talking.

  He thanked her for her advice, hung up, and waited.

  Although it took almost five minutes, during which time he would have sworn his watch had stopped, the phone finally rang again, and the nurse bowed her head to her pen.

  Like a runner off the blocks, he made his move to Lauren’s door. In seconds, he was in.

  He entered with his back turned, quickly pulled a surgical mask over his face and an elastic hair restraint over his head.

  Lauren was asleep.

  He looked around and smiled at the propitious design of the room. He offered another prayer of thanks. The room had two doors, not one, the second leading out the far side of the examination suite. He poked his head out that door and quickly modified his plan to buy himself some time. He and Lauren were going elsewhere.

  Despite the fact that she didn
’t have a spouse to help her take care of kids in the middle of the night, Adrienne, the urologist, arrived at the hospital before Arbuthnot, the neurologist, did.

  Dr. Arbuthnot wasn’t tardy; he knew pretty much what was going on with his patient. And he knew that thirty minutes wasn’t going to make any difference in the treatment he was likely to order after examining her. Adrienne, on the other hand, was hurrying because it was her nature to move fast and because she didn’t know anything other than that her good friend was under arrest and was asking for a urological consult, neither of which made any sense to Adrienne whatsoever.

  She trundled into the hospital with her son, Jonas, in her arms, took a deep breath as she always did upon entering the ER, and recalled another night when she had watched her husband die in this very place. She handed her sleeping progeny to the nurse at the desk, taking a second to scan her face. Adrienne wanted to reassure herself that this nurse wasn’t one she’d insulted or infuriated in the recent past.

  She didn’t think so.

  “Find him a bed and don’t forget to put up the rails. He migrates. Don’t worry, he won’t wake up. I don’t think I’ll be too long. Where’s my patient?” She stared up at the big board that listed the patients currently bedded down in the ER.

  The nurse gazed at the youngster bundled in her arms as though she’d just been handed a baby by a stranger on a street corner, and nodded down the hall. “She’s in treatment one, Doctor. Right there.”

  Adrienne yanked off her hat and began to tug on the fingers of her gloves. In a much softer voice, she said, “Don’t put him down in cardiac three, okay? I have a thing about that room.”

  Cardiac three was where her husband, Peter, had died.

  Although Adrienne was small, she covered the ground to Lauren’s room in a few squishy steps, trailing snow off her boots the whole way.

  Two seconds later Adrienne’s head popped back out of treatment one. She was significantly more irritated than when she had gone in. The nurse was already down the corridor in search of a bed for Jonas.