The truth, however, appeared to be more shocking than he had imagined.
The taxi slowed now in front of the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The lights of Central Park twinkled from across the street and to the north. Bruce paid the driver, tipping him no more or less than the proper amount, and strolled into the lush lobby of the hotel. Despite his designer suit, he felt conspicuously sloppy. His jacket was heavily creased, his pants completely wrinkled. He looked like something left in the bottom of a laundry hamper for a week—hardly what his mother would have called presentable.
He began to walk toward the reception desk when something he barely spotted out of the corner of his eye made him stop.
It’s just your imagination, Bruce. It’s not the same guy. It can’t be.
Bruce felt his pulse quicken. He spun around, but the big guy in the Armani suit was nowhere in sight. Had he really seen the same man? Probably not, but there was no reason to take chances. He left the hotel by the back entrance and walked toward the subway. He purchased a token, took the 1 train down to Fourteenth Street, switched to the A train to Forty-second Street, cut cross town on the 7 train, jumping off the car seconds before the doors closed at Third Avenue. He changed trains haphazardly for another half an hour, jumping on or off at the last possible second each time, before ending up on Fifty-sixth Street and Eighth Avenue. Then “John Benson” walked a few blocks and checked into the Days Inn, a hotel where Dr. Bruce Grey had never stayed.
When he got up to his room on the eleventh floor, he locked the door and slid the chain into place.
Now what?
A phone call was risky, but Bruce decided to take the chance. He would speak to Harvey for only a few moments, then hang up. He picked up the phone and dialed his partner’s home phone. Harvey answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Harvey, it’s me.”
“Bruce?” Harvey sounded surprised. “How’s everything in Cancún?”
Bruce ignored the question. “I need to speak to you.”
“Christ, you sound awful. What’s wrong?”
Bruce closed his eyes. “Not over the phone.”
“What are you talking about?” Harvey asked. “Are you still—?”
“Not over the phone,” he repeated. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? What the hell is going—?”
“Don’t ask me any more questions. I’ll meet you tomorrow morning at six thirty.”
“Where?”
“At the clinic.”
“Jesus, are you in danger? Is this about the murders?”
“I can’t talk anymo—”
Click.
Bruce froze. There was a noise at his door.
“Bruce?” Harvey cried. “What is it? What’s going on?”
Bruce’s heart began to race. His eyes never left the door. “Tomorrow,” he whispered. “I’ll explain everything then.”
“But—”
He gently replaced the receiver, cutting Harvey off.
I’m not up for this. Oh, please, God, let my mind be playing tricks on me. I’m not up for this. I’m really not up for any of this....
There was no other sound, and for a brief moment Bruce wondered if his overactive brain cells had indeed imagined the whole thing. Maybe there had been no sound at all. And if there had been a noise, what was so strange about that? He was staying in a New York hotel, for chrissake, not a soundproof studio. Maybe it was just a maid. Maybe it was just a bellhop.
Maybe it was just a big guy with slicked-back hair and a custom-made, silk Armani suit.
Bruce crept toward the door. The right leg slid forward; then the left tagged along. He had never been much of an athlete, had never been the most coordinated guy in the world. Right now, it looked like he was doing some kind of spastic fox-trot.
Click.
His heart slammed into his throat. His legs went weak. There was no mistaking where the sound had come from this time.
His door.
He stood frozen. His breathing reverberated in his ears so damn loudly that he was sure everyone on the floor could hear it.
Click.
A short, quick click. Not a fumbling sound, but a very precise click.
Run, Bruce. Run and hide.
But where? He was in a small room on the eleventh floor of a hotel. Where the hell was he supposed to run and hide? He took another step toward the door.
I can open it quickly, scream my brains out, and run down the hall like an escaped psych patient. I could— The knock came so suddenly that Bruce nearly screamed. “Who is it?” he practically shouted.
“Towels,” a man’s voice said.
Bruce moved closer to the door. Towels, my ass. “Don’t need any,” he called out without opening the door.
Pause. “Okay. Good night, sir.”
He could hear Mr. Towel’s footsteps move away from his door. Bruce pressed his back against the wall and continued to make his way to the door. His whole body shook. Despite the room’s powerful air-conditioning, sweat drenched his clothing and matted his hair down against his forehead.
Now what?
The peephole, Mr. James Friggin’ Bond. Look through the peephole.
Bruce obeyed the voice within his head. He slowly turned and put his eye against the peephole. Nothing. Nada, as the Mexicans say. There was no one there, not a damn thing. He tried to look to his left and then his right—
And that was when the door flew open.
The chain broke as though it were a thread. The metal knob slammed against the point of Bruce’s hip. Pain shot through the whole area. Instinctively he tried to cover his hip with his hand. That proved to be a mistake. From behind the door a large fist came flying toward Bruce’s face. He tried to duck, but his reflexes were too slow. The knuckles landed with a horrid thud against the bridge of Bruce’s nose, crushing the bones and cartilage. Blood flowed quickly from his nostrils.
Oh, Jesus, oh, sweet God . . .
Bruce stumbled back, reaching for his nose. The big guy in the Armani suit stepped into the room and closed the door. He moved with a speed and grace that defied his great bulk.
“Please—” Bruce managed before a powerful hand the size of a boxer’s glove clamped over his mouth, silencing him. The hand carelessly knocked against the flattened nostrils, pushing them upward and sending hot surges of pain through his face.
The man smiled and nodded politely as if they had just been introduced at a cocktail party. Then he lifted his foot and threw a kick with expert precision. The blow shattered Bruce’s kneecap. Bruce heard the sharp cracking noise as the bone below the knee snapped. His scream was muffled by the man’s hand tightening against his mouth. Then the giant hand pulled back just slightly before slamming up into Bruce’s jaw, fracturing another bone and cracking several teeth. Gripping the broken jaw with his fingers, the man reached into Bruce’s mouth and pulled down hard. The pain was enormous, overwhelming. Bruce could feel the tendons in his mouth ripping away.
Oh, God, please . . .
The big man in the Armani suit let Bruce slide to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Bruce’s head swam. He watched through a murky haze as the big man examined a bloodstain on his suit. The man seemed annoyed by the stain, upset that it would not come out at the dry cleaner. With a shake of his head, the man moved toward the window and pulled back the curtain.
“You picked a nice, high floor,” he said casually. “That will make things easier.”
The big man turned away from the window. He strolled back toward where Bruce lay writhing. He bent down, took a solid hold on Bruce’s foot and gently lifted Bruce’s shattered leg into the air. The agony was unbearable. Jolts of pain wracked his body with each slight movement of the broken limb.
Please, God, please let me pass out . . .
Suddenly Bruce realized what the man was about to do. He wanted to ask him what he wanted, wanted to offer the man everything he had, wanted to beg the man for mercy, but his damag
ed mouth could produce only a gurgling noise. Bruce could only look up hopelessly with pleading, terror-filled eyes. Blood streamed down his face and onto his neck and chest.
Through a cloud of pain Bruce saw the look in the man’s eyes. It was not a wild-eyed, crazed look; not a hateful, bloodthirsty look; not the stare of a psychotic killer. The man was calm. Busy. A man performing a tedious task. Detached. Unemotional.
This is nothing to this guy, Bruce thought. Another day at the office.
The man reached into his jacket pocket and tossed a pen and a piece of paper on the floor. Then he gripped Bruce’s foot, one hand on the heel, the other on the toes. Bruce bucked in uncontrollable agony. The man’s muscles flexed before he finally spoke.
“I’m going to twist your foot all the way around,” the big man said, “until your toes are pointed toward your back and that broken bone rips through the skin.” He paused, gave a distracted smile, and repositioned his fingers in order to get a better grip.
“I’ll let go when you finish writing your suicide note, okay?”
Bruce made the note brief.
1
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
SARA Lowell glanced at her wristwatch. In twenty minutes she would make her national television debut in front of thirty million people. An hour later her future would be decided.
Twenty minutes.
She swallowed, stood slowly, and readjusted her leg brace. Her chest hitched with each breath. She had to move around, had to do something before she went nuts. The metal of the brace rubbed against her, chafing the skin. After all these years Sara still could not get used to the clumsy artificial constraint. The limp, yes. The limp had been with her for as long as she could remember. It felt almost natural to her. But the bulky brace was still something she wanted to toss in a river.
She took a deep breath, willed herself to relax, and then checked her makeup in the mirror. Her face looked somewhat pale, but that was nothing new. Like the limp, she was used to that. Her honey blond hair was swept back from her beautiful, delicate features and large doll-like green eyes. Her mouth was wide, her lips sensual and full to the point where they looked almost swollen. She took off her wire-rimmed spectacles and cleaned the lenses. One of the producers walked over to her.
“Ready, Sara?” he asked.
“Whenever you are,” she said with a weak smile.
“Good. You’re on with Donald in fifteen minutes.”
Sara looked at her costar, Donald Parker. At sixty he was double her age and a billion times more experienced. He had been on NewsFlash since the early years, before the fantastic Nielsen ratings and a market share that no news show had ever seen before or since. Simply put, Donald Parker was a legend in television journalism.
What the hell do I think I’m doing? I’m not ready for something like this.
Sara nervously scanned her material for the millionth time. The words began to blur. Once again she wondered how she had gotten this far so fast. Her mind flashed through her college years, her column in the New York Herald, her work on cable television, her debates on public TV. With each step up the ladder, Sara had questioned her ability to climb any higher. She had been enraged by the jealous chatter of her colleagues, the cruel voices that whispered, “I wish my relatives were famous . . . Who did she sleep with? . . . It’s that damn limp.”
But no, the truth of the matter was much more simple: the public adored her. Even when she got rough or sarcastic with a guest, the audience could not get enough of her. True, her father was the former surgeon general and her husband was a basketball star, and maybe her childhood pain and her physical beauty had also helped her along the way. But Sara remembered what her first boss had told her:
“No one can survive in this business on looks alone. If anything they’re a drawback. People will have a preconceived notion that because you’re a beautiful blonde you can’t be too bright. I know it’s unfair, Sara, but that’s the way it is. You can’t just be as good as the competition—you have to be better. Otherwise they’re going to label you an airhead. You’ll get blown off the stage if you’re not the brightest person out there.”
Sara repeated the words like some battle cry, but her confidence refused to leave the trenches. Her debut tonight featured a report on the financial improprieties of Reverend Ernest Sanders, the televangelist, founder of the Holy Crusade—a big, slippery (read: slimy) fish. In fact, the Reverend Sanders had agreed to appear for a live interview after the report was aired to answer the charges—on the condition, of course, that NewsFlash display his 800 number on the screen. Sara had tried to make her story as evenhanded as possible. She merely stated facts, with a minimum of innuendo and conclusions. But deep inside Sara knew the truth about the Reverend Ernest Sanders. There was just no avoiding it.
The man was pure scum.
The studio bustled with activity. Technicians read meters and adjusted lights. Cameramen swung their lenses into place. The teleprompter was being tested, no more than three words to a line so that the audience at home would not see the anchor’s eyes shifting. Directors, producers, engineers, and gofers scrambled back and forth across a set that looked like a large family room with no ceiling and only one wall, as though some giant had ripped apart the outside so he could peer in. A man Sara did not recognize rushed toward her.
“Here you go,” he said. The man handed her several sheets of paper.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Papers.”
“No, I mean what are they for?”
He shrugged. “To shuffle.”
“Shuffle?”
“Yeah, you know, like when you break for a commercial and the camera pulls away. You shuffle them.”
“I do?”
“Makes you look important,” he assured her before rushing off.
She shook her head. Alas, so much to learn.
Without conscious thought, Sara began to sing quietly. She usually restricted her singing to the shower or the car, preferably accompanied by a very loud radio, but occasionally, when she was nervous, she began to sing in public. Loudly.
When she got to the chorus of “Tattoo Vampire” (“Vampire photo suckin’ the skin”), her voice rose and she started playing the air guitar. Really into it now. Getting down.
A moment later she realized that people were staring at her.
She lowered her hands back to her sides, dropping her well-tuned air guitar into oblivion. The song faded from her lips. She smiled, shrugged. “Uh—sorry.”
The crew returned to work without so much as a second glance. Air guitar gone, Sara tried to think about something both distracting and comforting.
Michael immediately came to mind. She wondered what Michael was doing right now. He was probably jogging home from basketball practice. She pictured all six feet five of him opening the door, a white towel draped around his neck, sweat bleeding through his gray practice jersey. He always wore the craziest shorts—loud orange or yellow or pink Hawaiian ones that came down to his knees, or some whacko-designed jams. Without breaking stride, he would jog past the expensive piano and into the den. He would turn on a little Bach, veer toward the kitchen, pour himself a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and then drink half of it in one gulp. Then he would collapse into the reclining chair and let the chamber music sweep him away.
Michael.
Another tap on her shoulder. “Telephone call.” The same man who had handed her the sheets of paper handed her a portable telephone.
She took the phone. “Hello?”
“Did you start singing yet?”
She broke into a smile. It was Michael.
“Blue Oyster Cult?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Let me guess.” Michael thought a moment. “ ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’?”
“No, ‘Tattoo Vampire.’ ”
“God, how awful. So what are you up to now?”
Sara closed her eyes. She could feel herself beginning to relax. “Not much. I
’m just hanging around the set, waiting to go on.”
“Play any air guitar?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I’m a professional journalist, for God’s sake.”
“Uh-huh. So how nervous are you?”
“I feel pretty calm actually,” she replied.
“Liar.”
“All right, I’m scared out of my mind. Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” he replied. “But remember one thing.”
“What?”
“You’re always scared before you go on the air. The more scared you are, the more you kick ass.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” he said. “This poor guy will never know what hit him.”
“Really?” she asked, her face beginning to beam.
“Yeah, really,” he said. “Now let me ask you a quick question: do we have to go to your father’s gala tonight?”
“Let me give you a quick answer: yes.”
“Black tie?” Michael asked.
“Another yes.”
“These big stuffy affairs can be so boring.”
“Tell me about it.”
He paused. “Can I at least have my way with you during the party?”
“Who knows?” Sara answered. “You may get lucky.” She cradled the phone between her neck and shoulder for a moment. “Is Harvey coming to the party tonight?”
“I’m going to pick him up on my way.”
“Good. I know he doesn’t get along with my father—”
“You mean your father doesn’t get along with him,” Michael corrected.
“Whatever. Will you talk to him tonight?”
“About what?”
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