Biofire, page 27
“Others?”
“Well, yes, there were others, weren’t there? What about the man in the back booth with the woman? Was he a regular?”
She frowned as she turned his questions over in her mind. Then: “Oh, you mean McNolte? Yeah, he was a regular.”
“McNolte? What’s his first name?”
“I don’t know. Just…McNolte. I’m pretty sure he and that woman got out.”
“Really? How?”
“Well, I was standing at their table when the shooting started and…they tried to drag me into the bathroom because there’s a window in there, yeah, we wanted to get to the window. It opens on the alley. But I left them to…to find Manuel. And then…I don’t remember anything else.”
“You’re sure they got out?”
“Pretty sure. That’s why they went into the bathroom. To get out the window.”
“Where do you suppose they went? You know, it’s possible that they saw something they could tell the police. Something helpful.”
“Oh. I don’t know. McNolte…if he was hurt…well, I know he probably can’t afford a hospital bill. I doubt he went there. Maybe the mission.”
“Mission? What mission would that be?”
“Well, he works at this mission, see, it’s…well, I can’t remember the name.”
“A homeless mission?”
“Something like that, yeah. The big one. It’s on that street, um…” Her eyes closed for a moment and her thoughts drifted dreamily.
“What street is that?” Dexter said after several seconds.
She opened her eyes again. “Um…South Street, yeah, that’s the one. The South Street Mission. He works there, see. Volunteer work, that sorta thing.”
Her eyes started to close again. All the talking she had been doing had drained her of energy.
“McNolte, huh?” Dexter muttered, sounding preoccupied as he looked over her chart. Finally, he turned to her and smiled as he removed something from the pocket of his white coat. A syringe. Its plunger was already pulled out. He popped the small, narrow cap off the needle, then took her IV tube in his left hand and stuck the needle into the small, rubber-ended port with his right. Pressing the plunger, he injected the syringe’s clear fluid into her IV tube as he continued to smile. The second it was empty, he pulled the needle from the port, replaced the cap, and slipped the syringe back into his pocket.
“Thank you so much, Miss Connor,” he said with a nod. Then he disappeared.
She closed her eyes and dozed…until she felt the sudden fluttering in her chest, which quickly became a sledgehammer-like pain.
That was the last thing she ever felt.
24.
Diagnosis
* * *
Dunne waited in a parking lot across from the main entrance of the massive hospital, hoping all was going well inside. The rain pounded deafeningly on the roof of the car and poured over the windshield, distorting the world, making everything look blurry and nightmarish.
Dunne could not afford another mistake, not even an unavoidable one. Mr. Shaw would not be so forgiving the second time, especially in the same night. In fact, he was not sure Mr. Shaw was being forgiving. Dunne was well aware of Mr. Shaw’s reputation for reacting violently when things did not go his way. He had only spoken to the man on the phone, and if Emma Shaw really had escaped the mayhem at Wee’s Café, there was no telling how Mr. Shaw might choose to handle Dunne’s mistake once they met in person.
Dr. Dexter was his only hope.
Now in his sixties, Dexter had lost his license to practice years ago for his liberal distribution of prescription drugs. He had been an excellent doctor then, and he still was; he simply could not practice legally. Ever since losing his license, he had been a doctor for hire, available to anyone who needed medical help off the record, or in this case, someone who could insinuate himself into a hospital without attracting attention, someone who could get information from, or even eliminate, a patient. Or both.
Dunne spotted Dr. Dexter as he came out of the hospital and hurried across the street holding his umbrella over his head. Once he was in the parking lot, Dunne realized the man was smiling, for God’s sake. He kept smiling as he approached the car, collapsing his umbrella, and even as he got into the car and pulled the door closed.
“I require a libation, my friend,” the doctor said with a breathy sigh.
Dunne reached behind his seat for a brown paper bag and handed it over to Dr. Dexter. It contained the quart of whiskey that was always required when working with Dexter.
The doctor unscrewed the cap rapidly, leaving the bottle in the bag, then tipped it up to his mouth for a moment. He lowered it with a satisfied smile, a delighted exhalation of breath, and wiped his lips with the sleeve of his lab coat. Then he offered the bottle to Dunne and said, “Have a dose. Doctor’s orders.”
“No, thanks. I’m driving. So, how’d it go.”
“Thanks to a large dose of Digoxin, your witness is no longer a witness. To anything.” He took another healthy swig from the bottle, then rested it between his thighs.
“Okay, great. But were you able to talk to her?”
“Oh, yes, we spoke. Had a pleasant little exchange. Seemed like a nice girl.”
“And? What did you learn, dammit?”
Dr. Dexter smiled at him. It was a cruel smile. “Well, considering what you’ve already told me, my diagnosis would be that you are up to your patellas in gastrointestinal byproduct.”
Dunne pounded his fist on the steering wheel hard as he shouted, “Don’t fuck with me, Doc, I’m not in the mood for it.”
Dr. Dexter paused to take a few more swallows of his medication, then said, quietly, seriously, “You’re in deep shit, my friend. Up to your knees at best. It seems this woman you’re looking for got out of the diner, accompanied by one of the regulars. Some fellow named McNolte.”
Dunne leaned back his head and groaned. “Son of a bitch.”
“But if they stayed together, I know where you might find them. Or at least where you might find someone who knows where they are. I suggest you convey this information to your employer before any more time passes. You wouldn’t want this woman to get any further out of reach, now, would you?” He kept smiling, enjoying Dunne’s discomfort.
Dunne picked up his cell phone and punched in Mr. Shaw’s number, waiting with dread for the man to answer.
25.
Answers
* * *
Willy’s office was as silent as a tomb. The smell of coffee from the pot Mama Charity had brought them mixed with the sweet aroma of Willy’s pipe and the harsher smell of the cigarettes McNolte and P.W. had been smoking to form a bitter, caramel-like swirl in the air.
Emma had taken her time, talking in long rapid spurts, pausing now and then, as if to gather scattered thoughts into a coherent whole. She had told them everything that had been done to her in her husband’s lab, everything she knew about the project, although she admitted that her knowledge was sketchy, made up largely of things she had overheard, and that her conclusions were mostly speculation. But she was done now, and she sat slumped in a folding chair, still buried in the rubber poncho, which she had refused to take off. She had lifted the hood again in a gesture of withdrawal, as if she might be safer completely engulfed in the enormous garment; her face was a mournful, ghostly apparition in the hood’s cavernous darkness.
No one spoke. Willy’s pipe had gone out again as he clenched it between his teeth and stared at Emma from behind his desk, but strands of smoke still rose from McNolte’s cigarette, which had a long, drooping, neglected tube of ash clinging tenuously to the filter. P.W. sat on the very edge of his chair, forearms resting on his thighs, hands dangling between his knees, head hanging low. He had been in that position for a long time, and when McNolte looked at him now, he wondered if P.W. had fallen asleep.
But he wondered that only distractedly as his mind returned again and again to the tale Emma had just told them. That was exactly what it sounded like: a tale. It smacked of campfires and S’mores on a crisp autumn night. It was a modern version of one of those urban legends kids were always telling each other, stories that began with, “I had a neighbor whose friend’s aunt was…”
But McNolte believed it. He had no choice.
For one thing, he strongly suspected that the usual obsessive, abusive husband stalking his wife would not have access to automatic weapons. And he vividly remembered the feeling that had come over him so suddenly in the restroom of Wee’s Café, a feeling that he was experiencing some life-threatening illness, or perhaps a stroke.
Emma’s story could have come from a comic book or a science fiction movie, but McNolte did not doubt it. In fact, it was his gut-level acceptance of it as truth that made him inclined to consider his own protection and survival first and foremost, especially after what had happened back at Wee’s.
But as he looked at her soft eyes, nearly invisible in the hood as she cowered in that rubber poncho like a terrified child, he knew it would not be possible for him to send her away to face them on her own. McNolte would understand if Willy did not want them hanging around South Street. He would go with her.
Still, no one spoke. Emma remained motionless, waiting patiently for some kind of reaction.
“You’re dead,” P.W. said. Then he lifted his head, sat up straight, and leaned back in his chair, looking blankly at Emma.
After a long moment, she nodded somewhere inside that bag-like rubber hood. “I know,” she whispered. “I know I’m probably going to end up dead, which is why I don’t want to endanger anyone else by—”
“No, no,” P.W. said gently, smiling, “that’s not what I mean. I mean, you’re supposed to be dead. I read about it in the paper. Just tonight, in fact. They found your remains buckled up in a Mercedes at the bottom of the Thunderhead River.”
Emma’s hand rose slowly and peeled back the rubber hood. Her face was a mixture of shock and fear and deep pain as she leaned toward P.W. slightly.
“Are you sure it was…supposed to be me?” she said.
“Your name was in the article. Emma Shaw.” P.W. stood and turned to Willy. “You got today’s paper?”
Willy spun around in his chair to the credenza behind him, gathered the scattered sections of the paper together and handed it to P.W., who turned to the article and handed it over to Emma. They gathered around behind her, McNolte, P.W., and Willy peering over her shoulder at the paper.
Her eyes darted back and forth as she read the article quickly. Accompanying it was a wedding picture of Emma and her husband, a tall, handsome man who looked crisply businesslike in spite of his smile and the occasion.
“Sounds like your husband meant it when he said you were dead,” P.W. said. “He just took his time proving it to everybody. Looks better that way, too, letting some time pass before your corpse is pulled outta the river, all bloated and fish-eaten. Harder to identify by sight. He probably arranged for the identification. Money exchanged hands, you can bet your butt. I’d say he did a pretty damned good job.”
The ash fell from McNolte’s cigarette and he dropped the dead filter into the ashtray on Willy’s desk.
“You think she’s telling the truth, P.W.?” Willy said.
“She’s shook up, not crazy,” he said. “I don’t have any problem with her story.”
“Neither do I,” McNolte said. “I believe her.”
Willy frowned. “I…I don’t know. People have come through here with all kinds of stories, people who seemed perfectly sane, but whose stories were…not so much, if you know what I mean.” He looked at Emma, who was reading over the article again, eyes glistening with tears.
Emma crumpled the paper in her lap and looked at Willy. “I’m not lying. And I’m not crazy. Landon did this. I don’t know who they found, but it wasn’t me. It was somebody he had killed, that son of a bitch. Somebody he had put in that Mercedes and dumped into the river in the middle of the night. The dental records…that had to be faked. He managed that somehow. He has so many connections and so much money, that wouldn’t be hard for him to pull off.”
“And this project he used you for,” P.W. said, “you say it might have been commissioned by the Pentagon?”
“Yes. I’ve overheard him talking about Project Biofire several times before he took me. A couple of times while I know he was talking to the Pentagon, and then with others, when he mentioned the Pentagon. And I know how important this project was to him. The ones that he really values, the ones he tries the hardest to protect and keep secret, they’re almost always for the Pentagon. I just never knew what Project Biofire was. At least, not until they locked me up in that building and started doing things. It didn’t take long for me to start putting it all together in my head. Things I’d heard, documents I’d seen, and what he was doing to me. Or having done.”
P.W. scrubbed a hand up and down over his face as he exhaled explosively.
“What?” Willy said to him, standing behind the desk. “What are you thinking, P.W.?”
He sighed. “As a Vietnam vet, I can say from experience…I wouldn’t put a thing past the goddamned Pentagon.” He began to pace the cramped office. His usual happy smile was nowhere in sight. Instead, the corners of his mouth seemed to be turned downward behind the wiry hair of his mustache and beard, which he tugged at nervously as he walked back and forth. Finally, he turned to Emma and said, “We can hide you, but I gotta ask—if they come for ya, and they got you cornered, can you take care of ’em?”
“Well…yes. That’s how I got out of the lab. The only thing is…I can’t contain it very well. I can flame them, but I’ll flame anybody else in range, too, and I’m not even sure what that range is. I don’t want to do that. That’s why I shouldn’t be here. I should—”
“Let us worry about that,” P.W. turned to Willy. “Let’s put ’em in the basement. Keep ’em there for a while, isolated and put away from the others, at least long enough for Shaw and his people to decide she’s gotten out of the city.”
“Why both of them?” Willy asked.
“Well, McNolte’s situation might not be as dramatic, but if he’d been alone tonight, he might be missin’ some digits. I think his creditors have run out of patience and are getting serious. It’d be a real bad idea for him to go back home. But if we’re gonna do this, we gotta do it now. We’ve wasted enough time, ’cause they’re gonna show up here, I got no doubt about that. I’m just wondering, like I said before, if maybe they already have.”
McNolte watched P.W. with amazement. He was no longer the grinning, carefree fellow with whom McNolte had been rooming, no longer the quiet smiler who had an occasional joke to add to the conversation, or who sometimes laughed at a joke that he kept to himself. Now, he was deadly serious. His large body had a tautness to it that had never been evident before, his eyes a thoughtful determination that McNolte had not seen until now. His voice was solid with confidence, and he was speaking and moving with the fluidity and assurance of a man in his element.
“P.W., I’m not really sure about this,” Willy said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “This will endanger all of us, everyone here. If I thought we could actually do something about Emma’s predicament, I might feel differently, but as it is—”
“Maybe we can,” P.W. interrupted. “I know some people. I have some connections, too, you know. Just like Mr. Shaw. Maybe we can do something. For now, we get ’em in the basement and keep ’em there. Nobody, and I mean nobody can know they’re here. Tell everybody they’ve left, I mean, really get the word out right away that they took off forty-five minutes, an hour ago.” He turned to McNolte and Emma and added, “And once you’re down there, you stay there until further notice.” To Willy: “Is the basement fit for company, Willy?”
“Certainly. We always keep it clean and ready for guests if we get overrun. There are bathrooms and beds, even a television set and ping pong table.”
“And we’ll see that you two are fed well,” P.W. said to McNolte.
“Jesus, P.W., you sound like you’re shipping us off to some gulag, or something,” McNolte said. He was uncomfortable with the way P.W. had quickly taken over and begun making decisions for McNolte and Emma, as if they were not even in the room.
“Don’t worry, it ain’t a gulag,” P.W. said, smiling again, more like his old self, “but you’re gonna feel like prisoners. I just want to prepare you for that. We put you down there, you don’t exist no more far as anybody’s concerned. Least, not until we can think of something else. And we will, don’t worry. You’re gonna be invisible for a while, one way or another. Then, pretty soon, your friends,” he said, nodding at Emma, “are gonna give up on the city and take their search someplace else.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Emma said, voice hollow and breathy as she shook her head slowly back and forth. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, here.” Her weary eyes moved slowly from P.W. to McNolte to Willy and back to P.W. again. “You’re very nice to want to help me, I really appreciate it. But these people…my husband and the men who work for him…they will hurt you. Kill you. Without a thought. What I really need to do is get out of the city, that’s all. If you could get me on a train, or on a plane out of the country, Mexico, maybe—”
P.W. said firmly, “If your husband and his people are so determined to find you, how long do you think you’d last in a train station or airport. He’s probably got people there looking for you right now. Look, Mrs. Shaw, I know you’re real scared, and rightfully so from the looks of things. But can you think if any reason why your husband would look for you here at South Street? Huh?”
Her face tensed as she considered the question. “No. But still…I know what he can do.”
“Your problem is, you don’t know what I can do,” P.W. said, giving her a good-natured wink. He turned to McNolte. “Any reason you can think of that these fine folks looking for Emma might connect her to you? To South Street?”
