Silent Treatment

by Michael Palmer

  “Oh, yeah. You’ve got a point there.”

  Half an hour later Brenda Wallace stopped by to say good night. Kevin quickly stacked the papers he had been working on and slid them inside his desk drawer. There was nothing further, he told Brenda. She gave him one of her most dazzling similes before heading home.

  Kevin opened his briefcase and took out a newspaper clipping about Evelyn DellaRosa. He was looking at her picture when he dialed Harry Corbett’s line.

  “Corbett, this is the man you called earlier,” he said to Harry’s answering machine. “I want to talk with you. Be home tomorrow morning at nine. I’ll call.”

  He set the articles back in his briefcase and then tossed the drawings he had been making in on top of them. They were a series of diagrams and sketches of the basement of his house in Queens, most particularly emphasizing the position of the washing machine, dryer, bulkhead entryway, and especially the electrical power source.

  CHAPTER 31

  It was nearly midnight when Harry heard Maura’s soft knock on his partially open bedroom door. He was lying on his back, wide awake, trying to will himself to sleep. But he was still far too keyed up. Things were continuing to break for them, as they had since the moment Maura convinced him to hire Walter Concepcion. Now the insurance executive Kevin Loomis had left a message on his answering machine. He wanted to talk. In the morning he was going to call. Bit by bit, the circle was closing. Step by minuscule step, they were drawing closer to Evie and Andy Barlow’s killer.

  “Come on in, I’m awake,” he said.

  “I just wanted to see if I could talk you into some tea, and maybe a little company.”

  Wearing loose cotton pants and a tank top, she stood in the doorway, framed by the light behind her. If her goal at that moment was to look alluring and incredibly sexy, she had succeeded admirably. Harry pushed himself up and motioned her to a spot on the bed a fairly safe distance away.

  “No tea, thanks, but a little company would be fine.”

  A little company. Harry’s attraction to the woman had begun within minutes of their meeting at her apartment, and had grown steadily since. It was dumb, he knew. Dumb and dangerous. Both of them were fragile and vulnerable. His wife had been dead just a few weeks. Maura had fallen off the wagon. And they had business to attend to—a madman who wanted both of them dead.

  “Harry, I’ve decided to go home tomorrow,” she said suddenly.

  He tried to mask his surprise and hurt.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know. But sooner or later I do. It’s not to get away from anything here. I hope you know that. It’s just that all of a sudden, my head is full of the paintings I want to do. They’re flashing through my brain like comets.”

  “That’s terrific. But I don’t think it’s safe yet.”

  “Not from the killer, I agree. But that danger’s here, too. It’ll be everywhere I go until we nail him. What I am safe from now is the booze. That was the big worry for me—even more dangerous than the killer. The AA meeting tonight made me even more certain. I’m not taking anything for granted, and I’m going to keep going to the meetings, but I know I’m going to be all right. With all the terrible things that’ve happened, that’s one good thing to come out of this mess.” She smiled at him. “But now I feel like I ought to be alone, and I know you need some space.”

  She sat with her legs tucked underneath her. Her body was silhouetted by the hall light. Harry tried to remember the last time he had held Evie—the last time they had had sex. The last time he had really cared. He sensed the stirrings in his body. Over the past days he had managed to overcome them. Now? He reached out tentatively and took her hand.

  “I don’t need space, and I don’t want you to go,” he said.

  She moved closer. He breathed in the scent of her and knew that whatever resistance he had been clinging to was gone.

  “You don’t know me, Harry,” she said. “I’m tough. I’ve been known to eat nice, kind men like you for breakfast and spit out the seeds.”

  He backed away and peered at her.

  “That sounds like something you heard in a movie.”

  “It is, actually. I think it might have been Garbo. But I’ve sort of always wanted to try the line out myself. Unfortunately, though, it’s true. I can’t remember the last lover I cared about as anything more than some sort of perverse validation that I was a worthwhile person.”

  “You are a worthwhile person,” he said, “and incredibly sexy.”

  “Even with no hair?”

  “You have plenty. Besides, that minimalist coif just lets me focus more on the rest of you.”

  He drew her toward him and gently cupped her breast. She made a soft, excited sound, pressed his hand in more tightly, and nestled her head against his chest.

  “Harry, I’ve wanted you to want me since I first saw you walking up the stairs to my place. Now I really am frightened. We’re both going through so much—we’ve had so much hurt.”

  “Maura, we don’t have to make love. We can just lie here and hold one another.”

  She slid her hand down his shorts.

  “Don’t let me talk you out of this,” she said.

  Propped against the headboard, he kissed her lightly on her lips, on her neck, on her throat. She knelt astride him and pulled off his T-shirt. Then, with his lips just inches from her breasts, she swept off her tank top and threw it aside. Instantly, his mouth was on her, sucking her, caressing her nipple with his tongue.

  “Making love sober is going to be a hell of an experience for me.”

  “We don’t have to do it tonight.”

  “Shut up.… Harry, listen, though. I really don’t feel right making love with you unless it’s safe. It’s been quite a while for me, I think. But you know how us blackout drinkers are.”

  “Don’t worry. Evie was the condom queen. The latest box is in the drawer by the bed. It’s been there for months. I don’t think it’s even been opened.”

  “Well, it’s about to be.”

  They kissed, gently, longingly. He worked his hand inside her pants over her buttocks, farther and farther, until he could touch her new dampness. Instantly, she was wet. She let him stroke her that way for as long as she could stand. Then she slid down him, pulling his shorts free and running her lips and tongue over him again and again.

  “Go slow, Maura,” he begged. “I’m really out of practice and I want this to last.”

  “Where does it say you only get one try?” she murmured, moving up to his lips and helping him slide her pants down.

  Completely nude, with wonderfully white skin and only the shortest, soft bristles of hair on her head, she was the sexiest woman he had ever been with. She lay stretched out on her belly now, toes pointed. He knelt beside her and ran his hand down her long, silky body, pausing to stroke her buttocks again and again. Then he rolled gently on top of her, kneading the muscles in her back, spreading her legs apart with his knees. He was so aroused, so large, he ached. He kissed the inside of her thighs and touched between her legs. She was ready, too—incredibly ready.

  “Please, Harry,” she moaned. “Not this way. I want to look at you this first time. I want to see your face. I want to see your wonderful face.”

  He kissed her behind the neck and helped her roll over. She drew her knees up and took him in her hand. For several magically suspended seconds they remained that way, their eyes fixed on one another.

  “Keep looking at me,” she whispered as she guided him inside her. “Baby, please, keep your eyes open. Just a little longer. Keep your eyes open and see how happy this makes me. See how much I love doing this with you.”

  The light of morning was filtering through the blinds when the phone began ringing. Harry couldn’t remember when they had finally drifted off to sleep, but he knew it couldn’t have been very long ago. They had made love, then rested, then made love, then showered and ate, and then made love again.

  “If this is you at f
ifty,” Maura had gasped at one point, “I’m sure glad I didn’t meet you when you were twenty-five.”

  “You would have been eleven,” he said.

  “That’s just the point.”

  An hour later, as she lay beside him, she gently touched the patchwork of scars covering his back. He had already told her about Nha-trang.

  “Hey, you can tell me the real story now,” she said. “I’ll certainly understand. What was her name?”

  The ringing persisted. He reached across her for the phone just as she was beginning to stir. The digital display on his clock radio read 7:50.

  “Hello?”

  “Harry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Harry, it’s Doug. Sorry to wake you.”

  “Hey, I’ve been up for hours.”

  Maura, now almost fully awake, reached playfully under the sheet to touch him. He pushed her hand aside, stifling a laugh.

  “Harry, what in the hell is going on?” Atwater asked.

  From the tension in Doug’s voice, it was clear he was not referring to what was going on at that moment in Harry’s bedroom.

  “With what?” Harry asked.

  “With those posters, dammit. Harry, please, we’re friends. Don’t play games with me.”

  Harry was wide awake now, sitting bolt upright. Maura, sensing trouble, was up, too.

  “Doug, you have to believe me, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “There are posters on every bulletin board in the hospital, and in at least two other hospitals we know of. Posters with eight versions of that drawing of the man you think killed your wife. Owen is furious, Harry.”

  Harry groaned and put his hand over the receiver.

  “The posters are up all over the hospital, goddammit. It’s got to be Concepcion.” He returned to Atwater. “Doug, I swear, it was a guy I hired to help us out who did it. I told him not to, but apparently he did it anyway. Is it just the pictures? I mean, does the poster say anything?”

  “Of course it does, Harry. Listen, I’m not an idiot. Don’t treat me like—”

  “Doug, please, what does it say?”

  Harry could hear Atwater sigh, trying to compose himself.

  “It says that this man is wanted for the murder of Evelyn DellaRosa, and that anyone with information should contact you at the number I just dialed. There’s a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  “Fifty thousand?”

  “Harry, Owen is berserk about this.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry. I’ll be calling to explain and I’ll take every one of them down.”

  “It’s more than just this hospital, Harry. University has called, and St. Bart’s. I suspect there may be others.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Doug. I’ll take care of them all.”

  “Who’s the guy who did this?”

  “No one you know. Listen, thanks, Doug. Thanks for calling me.” He set the receiver down. “No one I know either,” he muttered. “Maura, can you get hold of your brother?”

  “I think so.”

  “I want to know if there was ever a licensed detective in New York named Walter Concepcion.”

  The call from Kevin Loomis came precisely on time, at nine o’clock. By that time, three other calls had come in as well. One was from a maintenance worker at MMC, one from University Hospital, and one from Bellevue. Each of them reported seeing the man in the poster. Two of them wanted an advance on the reward before giving any information. Harry found a notebook in the study and began keeping a log. He also began letting his machine screen calls.

  “Goddamn Concepcion,” he said after each of the calls. “Goddamn Concepcion.”

  Loomis, calling from a pay phone, would say only that he was willing for the two of them to meet. He sounded tense, but not excessively so.

  “Be at the southeast corner of the intersection of Third Avenue and Fifty-first at eleven o’clock tonight,” he said. “Wear a baseball cap. I’ll pick you up.”

  He hung up before Harry could ask any questions.

  Over the next half an hour, there were two more calls with tips and inquiries about the reward. Maura answered both. Neither seemed that promising.

  “We’re going to have to develop a system for evaluating these,” she said. “I suppose we should say that if the caller can point the man out to us we’re interested. Otherwise, thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Maura, I don’t have fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Hey, first things first,” she said. “Don’t you remember hearing the speaker say that at the AA meeting last night?”

  “God, I’ve created a monster.”

  The third call was from Tom Hughes. He would keep looking, but as far as he could tell, there had never been a licensed private eye in Manhattan or any city in New York State named Walter Concepcion. Harry slammed down the receiver, then snatched it up and called Concepcion’s rooming house. Walter himself answered.

  “Concepcion, I want to know who in the hell you are, and why you’ve stabbed me in the back like this.”

  For fifteen seconds, there was silence.

  “Your place or mine,” Concepcion said finally.

  CHAPTER 32

  “… I couldn’t see the man’s face because of the way I was tied up, but even through the drugs and the pain, I recognized his voice. It was my boss, Sean Garvey. He was what we called a floater—sort of part CIA, part DEA, part above it all. It was his job to coordinate our side of the undercover operation in northern Mexico. But he sold me out and brought in his friend Perchek to work on me.…”

  When the man Harry had known as Walter Concepcion arrived at the apartment, Harry immediately lost control. Without waiting for any explanation, he spun Concepcion against the hallway wall and was so close to striking him that Maura had to restrain him. Now, he and Maura sat together on the sofa in his living room, listening in stunned silence as Ray Santana took them through his three years as an undercover Drug Enforcement Agency operative in Mexico, then his capture, and his torture at the hands of Anton Perchek.

  “… After Garvey left the cellar, Orsino, one of the drug lord’s lieutenants, told Perchek about an escape tunnel leading to a house across the street. With the festival going on in Nogales, and crowds of people all over the city, they would have a perfect chance to slip away from the Mexican police. Poor Orsino obviously didn’t appreciate who he was dealing with. It wasn’t by accident that no pictures or reliable descriptions of The Doctor existed. Perchek pulled a pistol from his medical bag and just as calmly as you please, shot him through the mouth. Then he pointed the gun at me. But he was furious with me because I hadn’t broken. It was the ultimate insult to him. He wanted me to die, but not a quick death. Instead of shooting me, he emptied the whole syringeful of hyconidol into me.”

  “Oh, God,” Maura said.

  Santana shuddered.

  “It was horrible. Indescribably horrible. But it was also a mistake. I didn’t die.…”

  Fascinated, Harry studied the man as he continued. Santana’s voice was animated enough, but there was a blankness in his eyes—a strange, detached distance. Outwardly, he was telling his story, but in his mind, Harry realized, he was living it.

  “… Ray … for God’s sake, Ray. Come on.”

  A man’s urgent voice pries into Santana’s consciousness. Ray fights to stay within the darkness. Finally, though, he groans, opens his eyes a bit, and strains to focus on the face behind the words. His body feels as if it has been worked over with a baseball bat. He is on his back on the grimy cellar floor, a makeshift pillow beneath his head.

  “Ray, it’s me, Vargas. Ray, where is he? Where’s Perchek? Come on, Ray. We’ve lost a lot of time.”

  The face comes into focus. Joaquin Vargas. One of Alacante’s most trusted lieutenants. One of the men Ray was preparing to have arrested. Vargas—Mexican undercover all the time! />
  “Vargas … I never thought you—”

  “Never mind that. Where’s Perchek?”

  With great effort, Ray pushes himself up. His head is clearing rapidly. Apparently, The Doctor does not know his revered pain drug as intimately as he thinks. Or maybe he just doesn’t know Ray Santana.

  “How long have you been here with me?” Santana asks.

  “Half an hour. Maybe a little more. You’ve been out like a fish on ice. At first, we thought you were dead.”

  “He went out a tunnel somewhere over there. It goes to the house across the street.”

  “The tunnel,” Vargas orders.

  Immediately, three uniformed policemen race that way.

  “They don’t know what he looks like,” Ray says. “I do. I need a gun.”

  “Ray, you’re too—”

  “I’m fine. Joaquin, you have no idea what that bastard did to me. Please. Give me your gun.”

  Reluctantly, Vargas hands over his revolver—a nine millimeter Smith & Wesson. Ray cradles the gun and pats the Mexican on the arm.

  “You sure as hell had me fooled,” he says.

  Without waiting for a reply, Ray hurries up the stairs. If the streets are as Garvey has warned, crawling with police checking out any and all gringos, there is still a chance Perchek hasn’t found a safe way out.

  It is nearly six p.m. Long, late-afternoon shadows stretch down the main street, where a small parade is wending its way toward the plaza. The crowd along the sidewalks is modest—probably in a lull between the afternoon and evening festivities. But a number of those celebrating are wearing costumes … and masks. Chances are, Perchek is behind one of them, possibly in the midst of the parade. Or perhaps he is headed out of town by now. But policemen are everywhere, knocking on doors, checking alleys, and blocking the main exits from town. There is still a chance.

  Ray is more wobbly from his ordeal than he wishes to admit. But each step feels more assured than the last. And he knows that when and if he does need the strength, it will be there. He starts to follow the parade. But after a few yards, one of Vargas’s men calls to him. The policeman is approaching with a thin, agitated man who is gesticulating wildly and chattering nonstop. The man is naked save for a pair of red silk bikini briefs.