Dr. O

by Robert W. Walker

  As the cab pulled out she asked to be taken to see the Indian Crafts Museum on Cornwall Island. This was halfway across the border. Here she got out and pretended interest in the jewelry and art of the Mo-hawks, realizing that much of the crafts were imported from other tribes, some of it as far away as New Mexico. Shortly, as she watched the driver putter about outside, getting bored and starting to come in, she located the ladies' room in the back. As she had hoped, there was a window, through which she climbed, tearing her suit in the process.

  She rushed around the back stairs, dodging windows, and was in the cab before the Mountie knew he was being duped. She tore from the sand lot parking area, kicking up a cloud of dirt which the Mountie stood in, outlined in her rearview mirror. It was nearing dusk when she went through the customs gate, where she merely flashed her FBI badge and was waved through.

  Thorpe followed the signs that led her from the bridge spanning the enormous St. Lawrence River. They brought her out onto Highway 34, going west toward Massena, New York, but then she was sent on a divergent route that would take her toward the American side of the dam that she had seen from the Canadian side. But the sign also said she was on the path for the locks.

  Tension mounted in her with each mile that brought her closer to the rendezvous with Ovierto. She had taken every precaution, and she believed she was ready for him. She had already made certain concessions to him, concessions he knew nothing about, such as the fact she no longer believed that there was any chance of regaining the remains of her parents. She had made that concession, and it was bound up with her certainty that Ovierto must die at any cost —any cost—including her own life.

  She had made arrangements to that end.

  She put a hand to her breast, her breathing coming in starts and stops. It only calmed when her fingers wrapped around the snub-nosed .38 beneath her jacket.

  All around her was the brilliant blue of a lovely winter's sky. Winter birds took up chase in the branches of the denuded trees, and on each side of the winding road she saw the evidence of an area that had many lovely fishing holes. How she'd love to go fishing. Instead, she was hurtling along toward her death.

  Looming ahead, cutting into the countryside like some strange underground laboratory, were the government buildings of the locks, along with the inevitable high fences. One area was turned over to an electrical station. Straight ahead there was a tunnel which went below the locks and under any ship that happened to be in the locks at the time, which surfaced on the other side. Far from there, on the winding, park like road, the Robert Moses Dam was hidden beyond the trees.

  Just short of the tunnel a sign told visitors to turn in, and she did so. The visitor's center was all parking lot and a two-story viewing stand, surrounded by fences and warning signs; below there were a hot dog/hamburger stand, a phone booth, restrooms, and a blackboard listing the incoming and outgoing ships along with their names, time of arrival, cargoes, ports of call, and registry. There were also a handful of the viewing devices she had seen at the dam. Litter from gum wrappers to cigarette packs was given wing by sudden thunderous gusts of wind. From the concrete main deck she could see far and wide, but the island on which the dam was built covered her view of the dam. She did a double take when she realized that one of the huge buildings in front of her was steadily descending and some of the windows that had been over her head were now at eye-level. Then she realized the mammoth structure looming over her, casting its monstrous shadow, was a freighter idled and silent, sitting in the cradle of the locks, being lowered to the level of the seaway by the controls being worked somewhere out of sight.

  The superstructure of the great freighter, flying a Canadian flag along with several flags she did not recognize, dwarfed the viewing stand beside her. She now saw men on the ship, some of them waving to the tourists here, but most ignoring the hubbub of the locks, going quietly about their business.

  She watched the process of lowering the hulking ship, finding it fascinating. The dimensions of the locks had to be enormous to take such a huge monster into its belly and either lift or lower by virtue of the water level. Now she saw the ship's name, Bruha. It was of Puerto Rican origin, she realized. The Canadian leaf had been hoisted to pay a quiet tribute to the Canadians along their route as they'd arrived at the locks. At the aft, an American flag flew, looking like a mainstay rather than an afterthought.

  Now getting a little bored with the mechanical show, she did as the other tourists did. She found the blackboard and read about the ship before them. The Witch, in English, had been filled with a capacity tonnage of eighty thousand tons of coffee, but was returning now with that much in tons of manganese, iron, aluminum. Thorpe guessed that much of the cargo was actually cocaine, heroin, and other drugs camouflaged as coffee. The ship had already made stops at every major U.S. city along the route —Detroit, Toledo, Chicago, Milwaukee —as well as their Canadian counterparts.

  She tried to eat something, but the smell of the burger and her knotted stomach conspired to send it to the trash bin. She returned to the viewing area, wondering if she should stay below or pay the dollar toll to go above. Where did that filthy bastard want her? Her eyes fell on the ship again, and it was astonishingly low, the "building" of before now below her feet. She looked down on the dark men who had moments earlier been looking down on her. They were burnt black from the sun, most of them donning neckerchiefs and looking like Latin swashbucklers. Despite her situation, despite her emotions, she allowed herself a moment's fantasy as she watched one thin young man who looked a bit like Errol Flynn roam the decks below her.

  Separating her and everyone else from the ship was a fence that reached up over her head, perhaps eight feet high. It was littered with signs prohibiting anyone's climbing on it. On the other side there was a mere four feet to the edge, a sheer drop. From her vantage point, the ship itself seemed almost to touch the wall of the locks.

  Across, on the other side, a few men worked in an area that was restricted to authorized personnel only, and beyond them were the administrative offices which housed the main controls. She was beginning to wonder again what Ovierto was up to, bringing her to this strange place merely to make a drop and exchange. The men working the other side busied themselves now with detaching lines, for the Puerto Rican ship had revved its engines and a large metal gate at the east end of the locks opened for the ship to pass through safely toward the sea hundreds of miles away.

  The entire time that the gargantuan ship with its ugly rusted hull had sat in the locks it was helpless, held in check by the lock master at his controls. It was the kind of power that would appeal to the good doctor, like a fast and sharp little sparrow frightening off a giant condor, or holding it in check before its nest.

  "Yes, I can see why this place would appeal to you, Ovierto," she said to herself, but an aged man in a guard's uniform, who had been wandering about, started her when he suddenly said beside her, "What's that, miss?"

  For an instant she thought it was one of Ovierto's gophers, if not Ovierto himself. But she calmed when she saw the condition of his teeth, the sunken gums, and the warm blue eyes. "Oh, nothing," she said, "just sort of—

  "Talking to yourself?"

  "Yeah, silly, huh?"

  "I saw you come up alone. I'm alone myself. When you're alone, who else you goin' to talk to but yourself, huh?" He laughed lightly. "Been a lovely day, and sunset is going to be a nice one. Lovely weather we have up this way. You're not from around here, are you? Didn't think so. The way you dress... look 'round at most the visitors here. You can see who's from just around here and who's not, just the way they dress."

  "You see anyone else today that looked different?"

  "Nothing to write home about, no. Well, best tend to my duties."

  She nodded and smiled, watching him amble away. But she caught up to him and said, "Sir, would you look very closely across at those men working on the other side of the locks."

  "What about 'em?"

  "Do
you recognize them?"

  "Sure."

  "I mean, you know all of them?"

  "McClosky, Walford and Ames Kensington... what of it?"

  "Are you sure. Take a close look."

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  "Just a visitor, but I'm supposed to meet someone here and I thought it might be one of those men."

  "Hmmmmph." He had tired of her and rushed away. She went back to dawdle at the stand, going up to the second story. Everyone was watching a ship approaching from the other direction, which was about to enter the locks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Dr. Maurice Ovierto had taken every precaution, and it did appear that finally he would have Inspector Thorpe within his reach; even more importantly, he would have Pythagoras. With Pythagoras and the power it represented he could one day rule the government. It was that simple.

  But he still held a soft spot in his heart for Thorpe, the last of her line, a line he had vowed to see an end to. He'd miss her when she was gone, and he wondered how he would get on without her. But she was getting to be a bit annoying as well.

  He would wait until dark at the locks for the arrival of the Carpathia—a huge freighter from Britain, trading in iron ore, on its way up to the steel mills of Michigan and Illinois. As the mammoth ship entered and came through the locks, he would conduct his business with Inspector Thorpe. His plans for her amounted to a night's debauchery. She was, after all, quite a beautiful woman, and he was, after all, quite a man.

  He had spent countless hours fantasizing about the moments they would one day share, what he would do to her and with her, and how he would drag out her suffering. He had imagined her whine, her plea, her begging for death and mercy. He had imagined the feel of her flesh under his nails—finally under his scalpel. He had even imagined drinking her blood before her eyes.

  The fun would start when, before her eyes, he destroyed forever any chance she might have of regaining the bones of her father and mother.

  He had paid his porters well to get her this far, and he had kept it anonymous. No one knew what was going on here except Thorpe and him.

  He looked over his shoulder at the men who were removing the cold storage crate from their pickup to his van, now shoving it all the way up into his truck.

  "This kinda crate don't stay cold long, man," said one of the swarthy, heavyset Mohawks to him. "Whatever you got on ice, you'd better find a freezer soon."

  "Never you worry your mind about that. You just worry where you and your friends are going to spend all this." He handed them the second half of their well-earned cash. "You're sure there were no questions at the border crossing?"

  "You kidding? We didn't even slow down, man. They know not to mess with Mohawks on our own land, man."

  "That's what I thought. And no one followed from Canada?"

  "Not a soul. Whatchu so worried for, man? Whatchu got in that thing?"

  "No questions asked, remember? That was the deal"

  "Sure, sure... whatever you want, Mr. Samson."

  "Come on!" the others were shouting for their leader. But he was concerned about the future. "Anything you need again, we're here, Mr. Samson. You know how to get in touch."

  "Well, there is one thing more you can do —alone, however."

  "Alone?"

  "Come with me. You will be paid well."

  "Sure... sure." He returned to the others, and one argued that he'd like to come along, too, but this one made him silent and in a moment, Ovierto and the Indian were on their way toward the locks. Sunset had come on and the night shift at the locks would come on, too, now. Ovierto had already been here at the changing of the guard and he had observed that most of the men working the locks congregated in one building during this time, changing into rubber boots and gear.

  The Carpathia was chugging toward the locks as Ovierto's van arrived, going to the workman's side of the locks, a place off-limits to the tourists just across the concrete canal of the locks. He tried to imagine which of the dark figures at the observation deck was Donna Thorpe.

  "We must hurry," he told the big Indian, who was perhaps in his mid thirties, though with such a thick baby face it was hard to say.

  "You can't come into the grounds like this, man. They'll have the law after you."

  "Don't worry, just do as you're told. Stay here. I'll need you to help me lift this thing when the time comes."

  "Whatchu got inside here, man?"

  "Damnit, Indian! No fucking questions."

  "I don't like jail time, man!"

  "Do as you're told and I can promise you no jail." He stuffed several more hundred dollar bills into the Indian's flannel coat.

  "All right, but this don't make sense."

  "It doesn't have to make sense, damnit. Just follow my instructions."

  The man the Indian knew as Samson was gone, and he sat in the rear of the van with the box, which was quickly thawing out in the surrounding sixty-degree temperature. He wondered again what was inside. But for now, he watched the man called Samson go straight to the administrative offices, flashing a badge.

  "Damn, he's a cop of some sort."

  He began to wonder if he and his friends hadn't just crossed the border with narcotics. He wondered if it had something to do with the lumbering freighter just coming into the arms of the lock. He looked again at Samson, who now seemed to be alone in the office, and it made him wonder about the old man inside. What had happened to him?

  Samson rushed toward the other building where the oncoming shift was about to exit. Samson yelled something at them and rushed them all back inside, again flashing a badge. He must have a lot of juice, the Indian decided, as he watched Samson exit the building alone. He thought he saw some strange fog around him like a halo as he opened and closed the door, but now it was gone.

  Then the Indian heard a noise coming from the box, a soft, croon that was either animal or human. It made the Indian start and jump from the van, but he was suddenly grabbed by Samson who held a gun to his head. "Help me with the box, now!"

  "Sure, sure, but—"

  "Shut up and put your back into it."

  "All right... all right. I didn't see anything, man. I didn't hear anything." The Indian figured it was a police sting, that Samson wanted the box on the ship, and that he had a partner inside. That made some kind of sense out of what at first seemed meaningless.

  They carted the cold storage box over to the rail, where the ship was now coming closer, her engines completely cut. The locks had been placed on an au-tomatic sequence. At the moment, the Carpathia loomed above them like a monster against the night sky.

  No one could see them from the other side, nor could they see anyone on the observation deck. Ovierto thought it perfect for his plans.

  He gave a signal to the lock master, the old man now back at his controls. The water in the lock was rushing from beneath the underside of the ship, bringing it slowly, ever so slowly down and down to-wards them.

  Ovierto was taking his goddamned time, Thorpe was beginning to think, when she saw the van move in opposite the viewing stand, just before the large ship entered the long corridor of the locks before her. She watched the man in the van get out after some hesitation and go to the lock master, but her vision was suddenly blocked by the incoming ship. She rushed from the second-story tower to the main observing area, pushing past tourists and visitors. There were signs all along the rail warning her to stand back and not to cross the fence under any circumstances, but if she were to outsmart Ovierto, she knew she'd have to break more than a few rules.

  Donna Thorpe rushed through a door in the chain link fence that held the crowd back. People all around gasped at her actions. She paid them no heed, trying to determine how best to get aboard the ship which, for the moment, loomed above her like the Empire State Building. She went the length of the ship, looking for a way aboard. Some member of the crew saw her out a porthole, and he opened a door, waving her off and pleading with her to get back, that what she
was doing amounted to suicide.

  She raised her badge and hoped he could see it in the dark over the distance. There was an enormous gap between the huge hull of the ship and the cornerstone she stood on.

  The crewman put up the palms of his hands to indicate that she should be patient. He then signaled that the ship would soon be moving downward, at which time she might have a chance of getting aboard. He must have excellent eyesight, she decided.

  Then the ship began to almost imperceptibly glide downward. Had there been no horizontal lines on the ship, she would not have known it was descending. Somewhere on the other side, on land, Ovierto was preparing for her, but he was expecting her to be where he had last seen her, in the stands, waiting patiently for a message so that she might dutifully follow his dictates now.

  She chose instead to surprise the bastard. It wasn't in her nature to sit idly by and let a madman dictate to her. She had come this far under his direction, but the final act would be hers. She felt for the plastique she had taped in the package. All she need do is fire into it when he was near and they would both be dead, hunter and hunted, sent off to eternity in a bloody embrace.

  The ship nudged downward... downward. On board, the crewman who had watched her so carefully opened a hatchway and let a ladder fall forward. It jutted out from the ship, braced there, waiting for the ship to lower to her level, all out of sight of Ovierto's prying eyes.

  "It's coming due, Ovierto... coming due," she muttered to herself, waiting, trying desperately to hold onto a shred of patience.

  "Get ready," said the sailor, who seemed fascinated by her now. He had a British accent, and the idea of her jumping into his arms, aboard his ship, had seemed to grip him with a romantic fervor. Too long on shipboard, she imagined; he thought she was some local woman who had gone out of her mind with loneliness in this isolated, cold, northern region. "I'll catch you," he promised.