The Plan

by Stephen Cannell

  "After his wife is gone, the fact that he had an affair with a woman two years before sort of loses its impact, doesn't it?" Justin said. "If Anita's not on stage to bleed for the TV cameras, I don't think we get the same energy out of it."

  "The man has lost his wife," Pudge's voice interrupted them. He had rested his chin on steepled fingers. "I can't believe you guys are saying what you're saying. I always hated this Bonita Money thing. I never was sure she was telling the truth. It's over. We're not going to use it."

  "What if she decides to go public on her own?"

  "You go to her, Justin. . Do whatever you can, just make sure she stays quiet. Let's get out of this sewer and get back to running a campaign." He picked up his coat and walked to the door, then turned and looked back at the roomful of people. "There are times when the end doesn't justify the means."

  Pudge walked down the hall, where he found an empty office, and wrote Haze Richards a personal note of condolence.

  Mickey got the news directly from Milo, who had called him on the secure line from a gas station minutes after the crash. The conversation had been brief.

  "Catch it on the news," Milo said and hung up.

  Mickey waited around for the first news report that came in as a special bulletin at nine-thirty. He watched, without emotion, as the newscaster talked about the flaming wreckage and the curse of Hopkins Field in Cleveland-a curse that had already claimed three other aircraft in eighteen months. Mickey Alo shut off the set, then went downstair s t o the kitchen and fixed himself a sandwich and a cold beer.

  Lucinda had heard people from two boats discussing Anita's death on the marine ship-to-ship radio. She pulled out the old black-and-white and adjusted the rabbit ears so that she and Ryan could watch the newscast on the aft deck. Ryan felt his heart sink as the story unfolded. He had heard rumors inside the campaign that there was trouble between the candidate and his wife. . Then his mind went back to the bar at the Savoy House, where he had told A. J. that the way to create sympathy was to create tragedy. Had he been the unwitting architect of this tragedy? At that moment, he promised himself that he would devote his energies to Mickey's destruction.

  "What is it?" Lucinda said, noticing a strange look on his face.

  "Tomorrow, I want to go into town and see the doctor you found. I need to get better."

  Lucinda reached out and took his hand. They both knew the vacation was over. What they didn't know was that the Ghost was already in town, waiting.

  Chapter 50

  CHECKUP

  They arrived at the Dinghy Dock in Avalon at eight-ten the next morning. It took another ten minutes to get Ryan off the boat and up onto the bench on the woode n d ock.

  Lucinda left him sitting there while she went off to rent one of the electric golf carts that were used by everyone on the island instead of cars. Ryan sat on the bench looking at a pay phone across from him. It was only twenty feet away, but he wondered if he could make it. He stood on his one good leg, reached in his pants pocket for some change, then hopped across the wooden deck, grabbed the phone, and, teetering precariously, fed some quarters into the slot and dialed a number from memory.

  The phone in the Alos' New Jersey house rang five times before Pulacarpo answered it.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Lemme talk to Mickey."

  "He's a' no here right now. You wanna leave a'you' name an' a'you' number?"

  "Tell him Ryan Bolt is on the line." He could hear the other man breathing. "Go get him. He wants to talk to me."

  Ryan was put on hold and then, in a few seconds, Mickey was on the line.

  "Hey, Ryan, buddy, how you doin'?" Mickey's voice grinned at him through three thousand miles of phone cable.

  "Not so good, Mickey. Every time I turn my back, some overbuilt slice a' pizza is swinging a bat or a gun at me."

  Mickey pulled the Pin Tel out of the desk drawer and was scrolling it while he talked. The number Ryan was calling from was different from the one Lucinda used, but he saw that the area code and prefix were the same. . Ryan was in Avalon with his sister.

  "Listen, Ryan. . I don't know what you think is going on, but you got it all wrong."

  "Yeah? How's that?"

  "I'm your friend."

  "You're nobody's friend."

  Mickey put down the Pin Tel, then slowly sat back in his swivel chair. "You have something on your mind or you just trying to get your balls to swell?"

  "I called to tell you you're going down for this." "For what?"

  "For Anita Richards. I know why her plane crashed. I know why you killed her. I also know you're behind Haze Richards's candidacy. You had two tries at me when I wasn't ready. Now I am."

  "You threatening me?"

  "It's not a threat, it's a promise. I'm gonna put you away, Mickey."

  "I invite you to try, shithead."

  "You remember when we were kids at school? I was always better than you, Mickey. I always won. In sports. In school. Pick a category, I'm better."

  "The category is killer. You're not a killer, Ryan. I'm a killer. For you, it was always games with rules. Fifteen yards for clipping, no hitting after the bell. I got only one rule: Win at all costs. So you take your best shot, asshole. I ain't worried 'cause nothing's ever stuck to me yet."

  And he hung up, leaving Ryan balanced on his, leg, feeling stupid.

  When Lucinda returned to the pier, he was back on the bench. "Does it hurt?" she asked, seeing the tight expression on his face.

  "No. . no. Let's go."

  She helped him to his feet and down to the end of the pier, where she had parked the rented cart. After Ryan was seated, she moved around and got behind the wheel. They zipped off toward the island hospital.

  Armando Vasquez watched them go. His wiry body advertised twenty-eight years in South Central L. A. Knife scars and the names of old girlfriends were scratched onto his muscled arms like bridge graffiti. He looked down at a small picture of Ryan he had in his hand, then got up off the bench near the end of the pier and stood watching as they headed up the hill. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, razor-sharp curved linoleum knife. He leaned against the rail with the knife in his palm and waited for them to return.

  The hospital was busy when they got there. Schoolchildren with sinus infections sneezed and sniffed in the waiting room as they were given medicine and complained about shots. Several of them stole glances at Ryan and Lucinda. By nine-fifteen, the morning preschool sick call was over and Dr. Andrea Lewis came out and looked at them waiting patiently on the tan vinyl sofa, holding hands.

  "So, this is Bill. .?"

  "Huh?" Lucinda said.

  "Lauren and Bill. . remember? That's you two. I wrote it in the logbook." Then, not waiting for a reply, she reached out her hand to Ryan, taking in his blond good looks.

  "I'm Dr. Andrea Lewis."

  "Ili, I'm Bill."

  "Sure you are."

  "Would you mind taking a look at his leg?" Lucinda said sharply.

  "Can you walk?"

  "I'm a good hopper."

  With Lucinda on one side and Dr. Lewis on the other, they pulled him up and helped him into the doctor's examining room. The room was painted yellow with a wood cabinet full of medical supplies and a metal examining table covered with sterile paper. Ryan struggled up onto the table as Dr. Lewis took a pair of scissors from an instrument tray.

  He unbuttoned his trousers and Lucinda removed his tennis shoes and began to tug gingerly at the jeans until they were off. The bandage had turned brownish red from additional seepage. Dr. Lewis looked at it carefully.

  "Is the wound on the front and side?" she asked, noting the stains on the bandage.

  "That's right."

  She slipped the scissors under the bandage on the inside of his leg and cut it off, peeling it back slowly. She pulled the bandage free and looked at the repair job done by Dr. Jazz four days before.

  "Who did this work?"

  "A doctor in New Jersey," he sai
d. "Is it bad?"

  "No, it's very good. . tight stitching, good surgical knots. Have you had a fever?"

  "No. "

  "You've been taking antibiotics?"

  "He gave me a heavy dose of penicillin."

  Dr. Lewis turned away, got an alcohol swab, and cleaned around the wound.

  "This is a gunshot wound, isn't it?"

  Neither Ryan nor Lucinda responded, so she went on.

  "I can't treat you unless I call the sheriff and tell him."

  "Don't do that, please. There are people trying to kill him. . powerful people. If they find out he's here, they'll come, they'll kill him."

  "Why?"

  "They just will."

  "You're wanted by the police," Dr. Lewis said, feeling a momentary fear rising up in her.

  "We're not," Ryan finally said. "I'll make a deal with you. We'll get out of here. . You don't have to do anything. If you don't treat me, you don't have to report it."

  Dr. Lewis didn't know what to do. She had been an intern for only six months. It was her first job since graduating from UCLA Med School. The Avalon Hospital made arrangements with the university to take one doctor a year. She wanted to be a GP so she had applied, thinking it would be a great adventure, but she hadn't bargained for anything like this. On the other hand, some irrational urge made her want to help them. They didn't look like criminals. They didn't sound like criminals. She guessed they were both college-educated, both were clean-cut and extremely attractive.

  "It's not that easy. The law doesn't say, if I don't treat you, I don't have to report it. The law says, I have to report any gunshot wound that I see whether I treat you or not."

  "It's not a gunshot wound. I got stabbed accidentally with a barbecue skewer." Ryan grinned at her.

  "You two come in here with cornball aliases. You don't want the police advised. . and I can see the dimple here where the slug entered the thigh. All that's missing is a videotape of the shooting."

  Ryan turned to Lucinda. "Gimme a hand, let's get outta here."

  Lucinda started to pick up his pants but Dr. Lewis put out a hand to restrain her.

  "A barbecue skewer. That's the story?"

  "I guess so, unless you can come up with a better one,"

  Ryan said.

  "It's pretty cold this time of year to be barbecuing in New Jersey."

  "We're compulsive," he said. She shook her head and looked at the leg again. She put on latex gloves and gently spread the edges of the wound to see how it was mending.

  She could tell it was less than a week old, but it seemed to be knitting well. "Okay, I'm going to redress it. You're gonna need to watch for infection. I'll give you two weeks' worth of antibiotics. Take them twice a day until they're all gone."

  "I take it you're not gonna want a follow-up visit?"

  "Look, Bill, or whoever you are. . I could get into a helluva lot of trouble over this. I'm doing it because something tells me you two are on the level, despite the fact you haven't told me one thing that sounds true since you got here. I'll wrap the leg, give you the drugs, leave it off my medical log, and pretend I never saw you. For that, you can leave an extra hundred dollars in the dish out there for the children's playground. If you come back here, I'm gonna notify the police."

  Andrea turned to the table and grabbed some sterile pads and disinfectant powder. She shook the powder onto the wound and put the pads over the stitching. She wrapped the leg in gauze first, then with a white, heavy elastic bandage. She gave Lucinda the powder and the rest of the bandage on the roll, along with several sterile pads.

  "In four days, cut off the bandage and redress. If he starts getting a fever or if there is oozing or discharge through the stitching, get him to a hospital, fast; otherwise he could lose the leg. You can cut the stitches and pull them out in about a week." Then, as an afterthought, she added, "No more barbecuing till August."

  "Will I get back use of this leg?"

  "That depends. Since I didn't do the surgery, I can't really tell what's left in there and what's gone. Can you lift it up?"

  He tried to lift the leg. It moved halfway.

  "Okay, you have hip flexors and abductors. You still have tendons and blood flowing to the muscles. Whoever did this job-connecting the veins and arteries you should send a thank-you note."

  "Will I be able to walk?"

  "I don't know. You'll have to try and build up the muscies that are left. You're probably going to have weak spots, like if you pivot the wrong way, you could go down. A leg is supported by muscle, bone, and tendons wrapped in flesh. Blood supplies oxygen to the muscles. Without that, they atrophy. You lose any of the parts, you change the physical equation. You could have a permanent injury or other muscles could build up to compensate. But it will probably never be as good as it was."

  Lucinda got Ryan's pants and helped him pull them over the newly bandaged leg.

  "I'll get some ampicillin." She moved out of the office and Ryan motioned to Lucinda to follow her. Lucinda left as Ryan pushed his good foot into his tennis shoe, didn't bother to lace it, then stood and pushed the other foot into the left shoe. Then he hopped to the door, thankful for the firm new dressing on his leg. He lowered his foot and tried to put some weight on it, but he knew, instantly, that the leg wouldn't hold him. He hopped to the outer office. Andrea Lewis got pills out of the cabinet. She put them into a bottle, wrote something on the label, and handed them to Lucinda. Dr. Lewis turned to Ryan.

  "You need crutches?"

  "I lost mine," Ryan said.

  "I have some wooden ones in the back. Just a minute."

  Andrea moved out of the office and down the hall. There was a phone in the equipment room and she toyed with the idea of calling the sheriff. His office was only two blocks away. But for some reason she couldn't identify, she knew she wouldn't call. She brought the crutches back and handed them to Ryan. Lucinda reached out and shook her hand. "Thank you," she said softly.

  Lucinda dropped five $20 bills into a jar labeled SCHOOL PLAYGROUND FUND, and a few minutes later, they got into the electric cart and headed back to the harbor, while Andrea watched from the front porch of the hospital.

  Lucinda stopped at the market near the pay phone where she'd made the call to her mother. She picked up some fresh fish and vegetables and threw in some barbecue briquettes. A middle-aged, red-haired man with a sunburned nose saw her struggling with the heavy grocery bags. "Need any help with those?" he asked. He had a fishing hat pushed back on his sun-raw forehead.

  "I think I can manage, thanks."

  She moved out and handed the bag to Ryan in the front seat of the electric cart and drove to the wooden pier.

  They walked slowly down the pier while Ryan tried to put some weight on his bad leg, but each step was causing more and more pain. He decided to start some sort of self-therapy first thing in the morning. They moved down onto the dinghy dock and, after Lucinda scrambled aboard and stowed the groceries, he threw the crutches into the boat and stood on one foot while Lucinda started to help him aboard.

  Armando Vasquez watched from the darkness under the gangplank. He was crouched down with the linoleum knife out and ready. He chose that moment and made his charge, staying low, the knife out in front of him.

  Ryan saw him, but without his left leg to pivot, he was helpless, teetering on the edge of the pier. Armando slashed at his torso with the linoleum knife. Ryan jerked back and fell awkwardly to the dock, landing on his elbows, favoring his left leg, trying not to tear out the stitches again. He was on his back as Armando rushed at him and slashed at his throat with the knife, missing again, as Ryan rolled left out of the way.

  "Hey!. . Hey you!" the redheaded fisherman from the market bellowed from the pier above them. "Stop that!"

  Armando hesitated. Lucinda was trying to get out of the Avon to help Ryan. The man from the market was now running down the gangplank, his beer belly bouncing in front of him, the hat flying off his head. He had a long-poled fish gaff in both hands
as he charged toward Armando. Once he got to the dinghy dock, he swung the gaff. The sharp point buried itself in Armando's shoulder. "Ayyee puta," Armando swore as the fisherman yanked the gaff free, tearing out a hunk of the Mexican's flesh.

  Armando screamed, and the fisherman swung the gaff again. This time, it hit him in the side of the neck, but didn't stick as deeply. Armando yelled, jumped off Ryan, then turned to face the balding fisherman who had the gaff now in both hands. He swung it again as Armando turned and dove into the water and started swimming the short distance to shore. Once he was at the beach, he ran toward the street, the wound in his shoulder trailing blood down his ripped shirt on his back. They all watched until he was out of sight.

  "Jesus," Ryan stammered.

  "Looked like he was after your watch," the fisherman said, grinning, pointing at Ryan's Rolex. "That there's a ten-thousand-dollar invitation to get mugged."

  "Bill Williams," Ryan said, extending his hand.

  "Jerry Paradise." The red-haired man leaned down and held out his hand to Ryan, who was still on his back on the dock. Ryan took his hand and Jerry pulled him up on his good leg. Lucinda grabbed the crutches and handed them to Ryan.

  "This is my girlfriend, Lauren."

  "Thank you, Mr. Paradise," she said.

  "It's okay, y'all take care now and don't wear that hunk a' gold on yer wrist, son."

  'Thank you."

  Jerry looked at his own watch, then out to the empty water. He sighed, shook his head in disgust, then started back up the gangplank.

  "Can we give you a lift someplace?" Ryan said.

  Jerry turned and smiled at them. "I was expecting a buddy to pick me up. I'm camping on the beach down at White's Cove, but he's not here."

  "We can take you," Ryan said.

  "I don't wanna put y'all out."

  "Hey, you kidding? Jump in."

  Lucinda and Jerry helped Ryan into the boat, then Lucinda followed.

  The Ghost was the last to board. He pushed his hat back on his head. He knew it made him look goofy, just another fat fisherman.