Extreme Measures (1991)

by Michael Palmer

  "So where do we go from here?"

  Eric glanced over at the clock.

  "Well, unless you have another idea, I would think that in half an hour we go to the Gates of Heaven."

  "How's your belly feeling?"

  "Let's just say that getting sucker-punched like that is not an experience I want to repeat. However, if there's one thing that five years of emergency medicine have taught me, it's how to take a punch. I've been hit at work any number of times by any number of crazies."

  She pulled him down and kissed him.

  "You know," he said, "believe it or not, there's an up side to all this for me. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I'm immersed in things that have nothing to do with medicine."

  "Just with pain and confusion," she said.

  "Hey, Pain and Confusion are my middle names. Speaking of which, why don't we head on over to meet with Don Devine. Service is his middle name. I'm getting a little antsy for some explanations."

  "Just watch your midsection," Laura said.

  Donald Devine was dressed in the same suit and blue tie that he had worn during Eric's previous visit to the mortuary. As before, he ushered the two of them to his office and turned down the background strings. Eric thought he caught a bit of the Muzak version of "Sounds of Silence."

  "Now then," Devine said. "What can I do for you this time, Dr. Dadarian?"

  "Najarian," Eric corrected, noticing that the man seemed less at ease than he had on their first encounter. "Mr. Devine, we don't want to take up too much of your time, but there are some things we hoped you could clear up."

  "Go right ahead," the little man said.

  "We have reason, good reason, to believe that the man I spoke to you about the other night--the man you called Thomas Jordan--is Laura's brother."

  "That's impossible."

  The man's response was nearly knee-jerk.

  "Is it?"

  "Of course. That body was identified by the medical examiner, signed for by his next of kin, and cremated."

  "Mr. Devine," Laura said, "we went to see Dr. Bushnell last night."

  "So?"

  "So he was drunk and barely able to make it from his chair to the door, let alone do the fingerprinting and research you claim he did."

  "What Dr. Bushnell does on his own time is no concern of mine," Devine said, beginning to pace and avoiding any eye contact with her. "He did exactly what I said he did."

  Laura crossed to him and forced him to meet her gaze.

  "Please help us," she said softly. "We don't want to cause trouble for you, but we are determined to find my brother."

  "And I hope you do," Devine said. "But it won't be here, because I have nothing more to tell you."

  He tried to hold her gaze but failed. Finally, he forced himself past her and across the room to his desk.

  "Mr. Devine," Eric said, taking up the slack, "perhaps you don't understand. We're convinced something's going on here. Something illegal."

  "Nonsense."

  "Is it?"

  "I think I would like the two of you to leave."

  "If we go, we'll be back," Eric said, "either with a court order to examine your records, or with a reporter. We promise you that."

  "Do what you wish," the mortician said, pausing to mop at his brow with a linen handkerchief. "I have nothing to hide, and nothing more to say to you except that if you continue to harass me, I shall be forced to speak with the police."

  "A wonderful idea," Eric said. "Let's do it now."

  Arms folded, Devine turned to him.

  "I think it's time you left," he said. "You have learned all there is to learn here."

  "Mr. Devine, please," Laura said.

  "No. I have work to do. Now, would you please go."

  Laura and Eric exchanged looks, and silently decided that this was not the time for a major confrontation.

  "You know we'll be back, don't you," Laura said. "My brother is all the family I have, and we're going to find him or learn what happened to him."

  "I wish you luck," Donald Devine said.

  The two of them had started toward the door when Eric turned back.

  "Donald, I'd suggest you go right out and get yourself some more handkerchiefs," he said. "Before we're through, you're going to need a bunch of them."

  For nearly a minute after the door closed behind his two visitors, Donald Devine stood statuelike by his desk.

  "You can come out now," he said finally.

  From the back room a tall man with broad shoulders and thick, graying red hair emerged. He wore chinos and a turtleneck that seemed to be stretched to the limit across his chest.

  "Y-you see, Les?" Devine said, shifting uncomfortably. "I told you I could handle them."

  "Yeah, Donald," the man said. "You did great. Just great."

  Devine, who barely reached the man's chin, backed away.

  "You really mean that?" he asked.

  "Course I do, Don," the tall man said with a mirthless smile.

  "Do you think they'll be back?"

  "Now why would I think that, Don?"

  "I ... I don't know."

  "You stayed so cool that I'm sure they don't suspect a thing."

  "L-look," Devine said. "I've done exactly what you all told me to do."

  "And been damn well paid for it."

  "I just don't want any trouble. Those people at the hospital told me this wouldn't happen."

  The man reached in his pocket, pulled out one of Laura's posters, and handed it to the mortician.

  "Are your two visitors right?" he asked. "Is this the man?"

  "I ... I think so."

  "Don, that's not good enough. This is the bastard who filmed us that night. Now the question is: Is he the man you brought to Charity or not?"

  "Maybe."

  The redhead grabbed Devine's tie and twisted it tightly around his fist, nearly lifting the little man off the floor.

  "No 'maybe's.' "

  "Y-yes. Yes, it's him," Devine croaked.

  The man loosened his grip and went to the phone.

  "Who are you calling?"

  "Who do you think, Don?"

  "Dr. Barber?"

  "Good guess. If you're right, and this is the guy, then we don't have anything to worry about."

  "Listen, I have nearly two hundred dollars in phone bills and another two hundred in gas that no one's paid me for yet."

  "Don, just shut up." The man picked up the phone, and then he smiled. "How ironic," he muttered. "Sandy North almost blows our whole operation, takes out two of Gambone's best men, and then ends up shuffling around in pajamas at Charity. I guess there is a God after all."

  He stayed on the phone for just two minutes. Then he slammed the receiver down.

  "The bastard's gone," he said. "Escaped."

  "That's not possible, is it?"

  "I just said it happened, didn't I? So I guess it's possible."

  His face was crimson.

  "I don't like this," Devine said, once again beginning to mop his brow. "I ... I don't like this at all."

  The man appraised him, his lips pulled back in an odd, icy grin.

  "I know you don't, Donald," he said. "I know you don't."

  Dr. Roderick Corcoran held appointments to the pathology staffs of all the medical schools in the city. A medical examiner for nearly thirty years, he was, in the words of one police official, long on experience but short on enthusiasm. In fact, the call that had brought him to the White Memorial autopsy suite had interrupted a session with the architect who was designing his retirement home on Cape Cod.

  Now, as he completed his notes on the external examination of the body of Loretta Leone, Corcoran wrestled with the decision of whether or not it was worth adding a set of solar panels to the south roof.

  Behind him, the White Memorial autopsy technician, Sang Huang, was preparing to make the huge "Y" incision that would expose the woman's chest and abdominal contents. Sang Huang was nervous. After a four-month a
pprenticeship in the department, he was doing his first unsupervised case. He was a superstitious man, and not that comfortable around corpses. But the job had nearly doubled his salary, and for that kind of money he was willing to endure a lot.

  He paced from one side of the steel autopsy table to the other, wondering whether he should wait for the pathologist's order, or simply proceed on his own.

  This was not the case Huang wanted to start on. The examiner was a man he didn't know. Everything seemed rushed and disorganized. And the corpse was fresher than any he had ever dealt with. He glanced down at the body. The skin was waxen and uniformly pale. There were none of the external signs of death that he was used to--no fatal wounds, no rigor mortis, no dependent lividity. Involuntarily, he shuddered.

  "Um, excuse please, Docta," he ventured, "you want I start here now?"

  "Whassat?" Corcoran glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, sure, kid, sure. Get me six vials of blood from her heart, then set everything out on the table. I'll be done with this goddam paperwork in a minute."

  Huang hesitated, then shrugged and used a scalpel to make incisions from each of the corpse's shoulders to the upper breastbone, then down past the navel to the top of the pelvic bone. At the touch of the blade, the skin beneath it seemed to tighten before falling away. Again, Huang shuddered. There was more bleeding from the incision than he had ever seen before. Much more.

  He glanced over at Corcoran, who was still engrossed in his writing. The last thing Huang wanted was to look uncertain or incompetent. He was nervous. That was all. With a resigned sigh he took the huge bone shears, forced them through the thick intercostal muscles, and snipped through the ribs where they intersected with the breastbone. Midway through the procedure, he felt certain the woman had moved. It took every bit of his courage to continue. He worked his hand beneath the left side of the breastbone, and then pulled it up, exposing the heart.

  Instantly, bile welled in Huang's throat. He vomited, and collapsed to the floor.

  Roderick Corcoran whirled at the commotion and rushed to the autopsy table. Loretta Leone's steadily beating heart gleamed obscenely beneath the bright overhead lights.

  "Oh, my God!" Corcoran cried. "Oh, my God!"

  At that moment, a dreadful gurgling moan--a cry that seemed to come from the very depths of hell--welled up from the woman's throat. Her body stiffened, then went limp. Her shimmering heart quivered, then stopped.

  Reflexively, Corcoran reached down to attempt cardiac massage. But just as quickly he stopped. With the chest cage mutilated, and no help available, there was no sense in it.

  He bent down by his prostrate assistant and assured himself that the man's pulse was strong. Then, bathed in a cold sweat, his hands shaking, he skimmed through the woman's chart looking for a name. After a final nervous glance at the corpse on his autopsy table, he snatched up the phone.

  "Page operator," he said angrily, "get me Dr. Marshall. Dr. Reed Marshall."

  Eddie Garcia stretched the stiffness from his neck and shoulders and dropped his rig into fifth for the climb into the Rockies. The night was coal-black, and he was down to one static-filled country/western station, but thanks to a decent night's sleep at his mother's and a few tablets of "Trucker's Friend," he felt keen and alert. It was a good thing, too, because the man he had picked up wandering along a deserted stretch of Highway 163 hadn't spoken ten words in almost as many hours.

  An independent trucker, Garcia was hauling beef from Flagstaff to Cleveland under contract to Buckeye Packing. He took the run whenever he could, because he liked the distance and the scenery and because he got the chance to visit his mother and sisters in Mexican Hat. The downside of the detour home was that he was now half a day behind and would have to keep at it, without sleeping, until Ohio.

  He glanced over at his passenger, who was propped against the window, drifting in and out of sleep. The man had the hollow, gray, sickly look of someone who had done time, and if Eddie hadn't known that there were no prisons in the area, he might have pegged him as an escapee. Even if he had been, it wouldn't have mattered much to Eddie.

  "Hey, Bob, you hungry?" he asked.

  "No."

  The man sat up a bit but didn't look over.

  "You from these parts?"

  "What parts?"

  "Utah, Colorado. Hey, are you okay?"

  "I ... I'm okay."

  "Well, you don't look okay. Mind if I ask what your last name is?"

  Bob continued staring out at the blackness ahead.

  "I don't know," he said.

  "Suit yourself," Garcia said. For a time he just drove and rubbed at the stubble along his jaw. "Look," he said finally, "let's get one thing straight. I picked you up because you were twenty miles from nowhere and looked like you were needin' a ride, and because I was wantin' some company. I'm not the type to pry into other people's lives. I don't give a shit who you're runnin' from or what you're into. I did some time once myself. If I ask you somethin', then it's just for conversation or 'cause I want to help you out if you're sick. You got that?"

  "Yes."

  The driver looked at him with concern.

  "You really don't know your last name, do you?"

  North ... Shollander ... Trainor ... Biikowski ... Enders ... Pullman ... Scott Enders's dark eyes narrowed as he tried to sort out the many names that kept swirling through his head.

  "No," he heard himself say. "No, I don't."

  "Or where you're from?"

  Scott shook his head.

  "When did you eat last?" Garcia asked.

  "I ... don't ... know."

  Scott pictured a crowded dining hall, someplace and remembered now that he hadn't eaten for days, fearing the food was drugged. But by whom? And why? He pictured the man named Pike, and he saw himself hiding the last capsule Pike had given him beneath his tongue. Where did that happen? There were snatches of other images as well, but none that he could sort out well enough to understand what they represented.

  "Well, then," the trucker said cheerfully. "At least you know that you don't know when you ate last. Now we're gettin' somewhere. There's a diner about ten miles ahead. Some coffee and a burger will do us both some good. You got any money?"

  Scott checked his right-hand pants pocket, but when he tried to reach into his left, the fingers on his left hand, which were bent in a stiff claw, refused to move. Have they always been that way?

  "I'm watchin' you fumble around and I'm worried about you, Bob," Garcia said. "What happened to your hand?"

  Scott merely looked at him and shrugged.

  "This is crazy. Absolutely crazy," the driver said. "Are you just puttin' me on, or can you really not remember anything? How did you get to Route One-sixty-three? Someone leave you there?"

  "I crawled under the photoelectric cells," Scott said, realizing the fact only as he spoke the words.

  "What?"

  "I saw the photoelectric cells, and I got down on my belly and crawled under them."

  Eddie Garcia shook his head.

  "Leave it to ol' Eddie to pick up the craziest bird this side of San Francisco," he muttered.

  They pulled into the truck stop, which was nearly deserted. Garcia hopped from the cab and watched as his passenger worked his way to the pavement. It was only then that he noticed the man's limp. It seemed as if he couldn't pick up his left foot properly.

  "I know, I know," he said, more to himself than to Bob. "The photoelectric cells paralyzed you."

  Garcia ordered coffee regular and cheeseburgers for both of them, and watched as Bob tried, then gave up trying, to use his left hand. The more he studied the man and the emptiness that seemed to envelop him, the more sadness he felt. He briefly entertained the notion of giving him a twenty and simply taking off. But just as quickly, he discarded the thought. That wasn't his way.

  "You really don't remember anything, do you?"

  Scott's lower lip tightened. "Not much," he said. "I want to remember something, but I just can't."

&n
bsp; A memory flashed of kicking open a cactus and scooping out its moisture, and he wondered how he had known to do that. A succession of disconnected scenes--many of them quite violent--flicked through his mind. None of them brought even a glimmer of recognition or emotion.

  Eddie Garcia bought some beef jerky and various other snack foods, paid for their meal, and then eased his semi back onto the interstate. He felt as if somehow he had stopped on Highway 163 and picked up a child in a man's broken body. Now, he had no idea what to do with him.

  "Bob, tell me something," he said as they sped through Glenwood Springs and on toward Denver. "Do you have any family? Anyone you want to call? A place you want me to bring you?"

  "Mrs. Gideon's horse," Scott said suddenly.

  "What?"

  "I need to go to East Boston to find Mrs. Gideon's horse."

  "East Boston, Mass?"

  "Yes."

  Scott knew that was true, and important as well, but he had no idea why.

  "Bob, who's this Mrs. Gideon? She a relative of yours?"

  "I ... I don't know what I'm talking about." He clenched his good hand in frustration. "Dammit, I just don't know."

  "Well, look," Garcia said, "we'll be in Cleveland tomorrow night. You can hitch from there to Boston. Better yet, you can catch a bus. I'll front you the money."

  "Mrs. Gideon's horse," Scott said again. "I've got to find it."

  Eddie Garcia, relieved to have even the semblance of a plan, shifted into overdrive, and the rig barreled on.

  Propped on one elbow, Laura lay in Eric's bed watching the gray light of the new day filter over the city. It had been a year or more since she had last spent the night with a man. And even though they had not yet made love, she knew that she wanted to. In a short time they had already shared so much.

  She reached over, swept Eric's hair from his brow, and kissed him there. He blinked and squinted up at her. Then, without a word, he drew her over onto him and held her. For nearly half an hour they lay there, her face nestled against his chest.

  "Soon?" he asked, reveling in the lines of her body and the smoothness of her skin.

  She nodded and kissed him deeply.