After relieving himself, he sighed. Even ten seconds without the torturous pain eased his mind. But the mere act of zipping his jeans fly sent new tremors through his body, causing him to cry out. He collapsed into a heap on the bathroom floor, his legs dangling out of the cramped space.
Oh, God… Oh, God, what’s happened?
The car wreck, he thought. Whiplash or something.
Crashing the Malibu had been an act of desperation that saved his life, but now he had to pay the price.
A pound of flesh …
Even when he remained still, the pain in his back throbbed, disorienting him. He had no idea how much time had passed before he motivated himself to get up and crawl again. He made it halfway to the bed when his quivering arms gave out and he collapsed yet again. Grimacing, he rocked back and forth on his back. What had he done to deserve such torment?
Don’t answer that…
Jake lay on the floor in a fetal position, praying his body would recover. Hearing the door open and close in the reception area, he could not help but flinch. He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming in response to the spasm in his back.
He heard footsteps in his office.
Holy shit… Holy … fucking… shit!
He peered up at his bed, where he had left his Glock hidden beneath his pillow. Sweat beaded on his brow and stung his eyes. He had not expected the dead things to return in broad daylight.
Why not? This building was as deserted before business hours as it was in the middle of the night.
“Jake?” A female voice.
Carrie!
Carrie Scott worked for him as a bookkeeper, scheduler, and occasional receptionist. Three times a week she came in for two hours, and he called her his Person Friday. He had even used her on a couple of stakeouts.
“Carrie …” Speaking increased the pain.
“Are you okay, Jake?” Her voice sounded louder, and he knew she had her face close to the door now.
“No!” Spittle flew from his mouth, and he groaned. “Get in here!”
The door opened, and he heard heels clacking across the hardwood floor. He saw her shadow, then her legs, and he looked up. She towered five feet above him.
“Oh, my God! What the hell happened to you? Were you shot?”
He shook his head.
She crouched down on one knee, and he found himself focusing on the texture of her sheer black stockings. A dwarf with a perfectly proportioned body, so that she resembled a person of normal height who had shrunk, Carrie favored provocative Goth fashions. “What’s wrong, then?”
He forced himself up on one elbow. “My back …”
“Well, I’m too small to lift you up and carry you to bed. You’re going to have to do it yourself.” Her voice took on a surprisingly maternal tone for a twenty-two-year-old grad student. “I’ll do what I can, okay, sweetie?”
Jake nodded, grateful for a simple yes or no question.
Carrie stood and offered her hand, which he took. She wore black fingernail polish and a pewter bracelet with a grinning skull surrounded by a floral wreath. Her glossy black stacked platform boots added seven inches to her height. She pulled him up, and he set his weight on one knee, then managed to stumble the rest of the way to the bed and collapse onto the mattress with a protracted cry.
“Honey, what did you do to yourself?”
“I don’t know,” he said, gasping. “I just woke up this way …”
“Uh-huh.” She looked him over. “I find that a little hard to believe. Something must have happened.”
“I totaled the Malibu last night. The tow slip is on your desk.”
“Oh, a car accident. And you waking up like this. What a coincidence.”
“Save the sarcasm. Can’t you see I’m dying here?”
“I think it’s unattractive when a grown man cries.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re not screwing.”
“I’m not going to tell Ripper what you just said because you’re a pathetic cripple, and he won’t care about that.”
For the five months she had been working for him, Carrie had referred to her boyfriend, Ripper, in a manner reserved for groupies. Jake had never met Ripper, who Carrie described as a musician, but as far as he had been able to discern, the lothario was normal height. “Go to the Rolodex and look up Dr. Metivier. Tell him it’s an emergency, but don’t tell him what’s wrong. I want him over here right away.”
Carrie’s Irish features formed a frown. “What kind of doctor makes house calls in this city?”
“Just call him.”
Dr. Lawrence Metivier had a thriving medical practice, albeit one unknown to the Internal Revenue Service. Although he maintained a private practice with a limited number of patients in Amityville, Long Island, he made regular house calls to Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan, and Queens. He drew the line at New Jersey.
Lawrence had several high-profile clients, most of them on the shadier side of the law: Mafioso, crooked cops, criminal defense lawyers, even politicians, men and women who had reason to keep certain medical needs off the record, which was how the doctor preferred to keep his income. Jake first learned about the unique medical services that Lawrence provided through Gary Brown. Lawrence treated drug overdoses, gunshot wounds, and stabbings with equal discretion. He had even falsified a death certificate or two.
Jake held none of this against the man and, lying facedown on the bed with his buttocks in the air, breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Larry enter and exchange pleasantries with Carrie, who showed him into the bedroom.
“Lying down on the job?” Larry said to Jake, then turned to Carrie. “Thank you, dear.” He closed the door on her, giving them privacy.
“Har, har,” Jake said.
Larry set his black bag down on the foot of Jake’s bed. “The sad thing is, I’ve seen you look worse. Where does it hurt?”
“Back,” Jake said, groaning. “Hips. Neck. Balls.”
Larry pulled up a chair and sat, then looked Jake over. In return, Jake focused on the man’s gleaming leather shoes and Italian slacks.
“I don’t see any blood, so I take it nobody shot you in the back?”
Jake shook his head, the result being that he pressed his face against the mattress. “I totaled my car outside One PP last night.”
“That was you? I saw the photo on the front page of the Post, but I didn’t bother to read the caption. I just figured it was an incredibly stupid and inebriated crook turning himself in after suffering a guilty conscience. Jesus, man, what happened?”
“Doesn’t matter. I walked away from that feeling fine. Then when I got out of bed this morning …”
“Yeah, that’s how it happens. Too bad you can’t sue yourself for negligence. Well, I can’t do much with you like that. You’re going to have to stand up.” Larry offered his arm, which Jake took, then swung his legs off the bed. “That’s it.”
Wincing, Jake staggered forward, then back, grabbing the bed’s headboard for balance. His face contorted in ways he didn’t know possible.
“Try to stand straight,” Larry said.
Jake’s head trembled with effort, and his eyes watered.
“Okay, okay. Don’t kill yourself. Here’s what I see: your left hip is two inches higher than your right hip. That’s a hell of a lot of twisting and knotting going on inside your body. I’m going to give you a shot of morphine to ease the pain and prescribe some heavy-duty muscle relaxers, the kind you’ll have to receive by special delivery, if you know what I mean. All you can do is stay off your back and wait for them to kick in. Your muscles have to relax in order for your spine to return to normal. This will pass as quickly as it started.”
“How long will that take?”
“A minimum of four days. Then you’ll need an MRI—”
“Screw that.”
“What?”
“I can’t wait a minimum of four days. Some people out there are trying to kill me. I need to be able to defend mysel
f, and I need to be clear clearheaded.”
Larry glanced at the window. “Is this something I need to be concerned about while I’m in here?”
Jake shook his head.
“Good. Well, I guess we can skip the morphine, then. With your history, I thought you’d consider that a silver lining. I can probably get you in for an MRI tomorrow—”
“Today.”
“That’s not possible, Jake.”
“Today. “
“Be reasonable.”
“Did you hear what I said a minute ago?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then make it today.”
“I’m not God, and you’re not the president of the United States.”
“How much am I paying you for this little visit?”
“Minus the injection? Five bills and we’re even. But the meter’s running.”
“I’ll double that. Just get me in now.”
“You have insurance?”
Jake nodded.
Larry sighed. “All right, but you’ll have to come out to the island. I know someone who will squeeze you in there.”
“No problem. You can drive me.”
“Only because I have to go that way anyway, but I’m not bringing you back.”
Jake blew air out of his cheeks. “Now you can give me the damned shot.”
“Thank God. If nothing else, it will make you more pleasant.” Larry opened his bag, rumbled through its contents, and prepared a hypodermic needle, which he flicked with his finger and squirted into the air.
“Then you can help me get dressed.”
“Christ. Be sure to leave your gun here.”
“Fat chance.”
“You know what MRI stands for? Magnetic resonance imaging. Also known as NMRI, as in nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. The scanner is so magnetic that when you’re pinned down inside it, any metal objects in the room will be sucked into it with so much force that the object will tear through your head and into your brain. They’ll make you check your belongings, but knowing you, you’ll find a way to smuggle in your piece. I strongly advise against it.”
“Whatever you say,” Jake said.
“Help is on the way,” Larry said right before injecting Jake’s ass with the morphine.
The drug kicked in before Jake got into Larry’s BMW. Numbness spread through his body, followed by tranquility.
“I thought you’d like that,” Larry said.
For the first time in a year, Jake found himself thinking of cocaine.
Stop it, he commanded himself. He had to be careful every day, and he knew it was dangerous to lose control of himself even for an hour.
They took the Long Island Expressway past Hicksville and Old Westbury and Huntington to exit 49 South 110, Amityville.
Larry parked beside a three-story, modern-looking medical facility in a section of the lot reserved for physicians. “How about I just drop you off here?”
“Not a chance,” Jake muttered.
Larry walked around the BMW and helped Jake out. “You know, I make house calls to special patients, of which you barely qualify, but I don’t normally provide ambulance service.”
“It does the soul good to walk an extra mile once in a while,” Jake said, grimacing as they limped onto the sidewalk.
Larry supported his arm. “You couldn’t last a mile. I’d have to carry you.”
The MRI technician, a young Chinese woman with glasses and a pony-tail, led Jake into the magnetic resonance imaging room. Larry had cut out as soon as Jake had been registered, and a nurse had given Jake a hospital gown and disposable slippers and had shown him to a small locker room. Now he stood in the quiet room, gazing through the soft lighting at the mammoth MRI machine, which resembled a giant womb, complete with its own fallopian tube, a sliding table on which he was expected to lie. The machine was constructed of vacuum-formed plastic, giving it the appearance of NASA technology.
“Lie down on the table, please,” the technician said.
Jake hobbled over to the giant donut in the middle of the room and positioned himself on the cool plastic table, his eyes focusing on the overhead ceiling panels.
The technician placed a plastic headset with foam earpieces on his head.
“This is going to take about forty-five minutes. Are you claustrophobic?”
“No.”
“Good. Some patients find this procedure very upsetting. It’s a tight fit inside the scanner, and the noise is pretty fierce. The headset is so I can talk you through the process.” She grabbed Jake’s wrist and guided his right hand to a button a few inches below his hip. “That’s a panic button. If for any reason you decide you can’t take any more, press the button. I’ll switch off the machine and pull you out. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
She retreated from his field of vision, and he listened to her footsteps recede. “Here we go.”
He heard a hum and felt a vibration through the table, which carried him headfirst into the scanner. The room vanished from his view, replaced by the bright tube. It was impossible to determine the distance from his face to the top of the tube, but he guessed it to be about six inches.
I can handle this, he thought despite the disorientation he felt.
Then his shoulders entered the tube, and he felt the tube pressing his arms against his torso.
Tight fit is right. He felt like a nail driven into a cement block.
His heartbeat quickened, and he took a deep breath. It seemed to take forever for his entire body to enter the tube. Then the table stopped vibrating, and he heard his own breathing amplified.
Slow down.
“Are you okay?” Over the headset, the technician’s voice sounded distant.
“Yes,” he said, closing his eyes.
“You’re going to hear a loud noise for two minutes,” she said.
Swallowing, he waited.
A deafening roar emanated from the scanner, and he imagined a subway train running over him.
Jesus Christ!
His brain rattled inside his skull. He no longer heard his breathing because it was impossible to hear anything over the roar. He couldn’t even construct a thought. The noise continued, and he had to open his eyes. Staring at the ceiling inches from his face, he pictured a construction worker manning a jackhammer on the other side and half expected the power tool to burst through the plastic and burrow between his eyes, splattering the tube with cartilage and gore.
Stop it.
The noise stopped, but his body continued to shake. His breathing came in tortured rasps.
“Are you okay?”
He calmed his breathing. “Yes …”
“This will last for six minutes.”
Oh, God.
The roar resumed. Sweat formed on his brow. He felt the immense machine pressing against him from every direction.
Don’t open your eyes, he told himself.
He opened them.
The bright ceiling seemed only four inches away now instead of six.
What the hell?
Perhaps he had misjudged its distance from him. The noise continued. He felt trapped inside—
A coffin!
Panic seized him. “Hello?”
He could not hear himself over the roar, nor could he be certain that he had even spoken.
“Hello?”
He raised his forearms so that his knuckles brushed across the coffin lid. He could not press his palms against the lid, but he managed to fold his arms over his chest for what little purpose that served. The ceiling pressed against his nose.
The panic button …
He worked his right arm down again, then felt along the side for the panic button. His fingers clawed at the heavy-duty plastic.
No button!
Then the lights flickered and died, enshrouding him in darkness. He heard a rhythmic sound over the scanner’s roar: thrum … thrum … thrum …
He tapped the headset.
Drums!
Sheryl!
The constricting scanner pinned his arms to his sides and crushed his ribs.
Jake felt light on his eyelids. Opening them, a blurry shape loomed overhead. Murky sounds.
Underwater?
Fire burned his nostrils, and the technician’s face came into focus.
“What happened?” His throat felt hoarse. From screaming, he thought.
“You passed out,” the technician said. “I don’t understand. You had a panic attack, but you never pressed the button.”
He took a deep breath. Panic attack? He didn’t think so. Someone had attacked his mind … or his soul. But he had survived, goddamn it. “Couldn’t find it…”
“I’m so sorry. Would you like a sedative?”
He considered the offer. The pleasant numbness provided by the morphine had begun to wear off. “Sure.” Why the hell not?
ELEVEN
Scarecrows walked the Polo Grounds in broad daylight. The Washington Heights public housing projects occupied land that had once been Polo Grounds IV, the stadium which had served as home to the New York Giants, Yankees, and Mets. The four towers—surrounded by West 155th Street, Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and Harlem River Drive—contained 1,616 apartment units.
“Look at ‘em go,” Frank said from the passenger seat. “They’re even uglier in the daytime.”
“Frigging skells,” Gary said behind the wheel. God, how he hated them. Downtown, the Black Magic dealers and druggies only came out at night, but here in the hood …
They had parked on 155th, which afforded them a clear view of the drug activity in the grassy lawns between the towers.
“Just looking at this depresses me,” Frank said.
“I know what you mean.”
“We gonna do this or what?”
“You bet.”
They got out of the car and didn’t bother to lock the doors. They crossed the wide street, ignoring the oncoming traffic, and vehicles slowed to allow them to pass. They carried themselves like the cops they were, and two hardened white faces around here meant one thing: NYPD. Birds chirped in the gray trees. The scarecrows showed no fear of the narcotics cops; they just moved around them and resumed their previous course.
Desperate Souls Page 9
