Phantom Limb Page 33

  Keeping the muzzle pointed at me, James leered at Lisa.

  “You know, honey, I don’t think I mind if your global embarrassment is posthumous. ’Cause it felt real good shooting you just now. Even better than fucking you on camera. So after I whack Rinaldi here, I’m gonna put another bullet in you. In your pretty head, this time.”

  He turned his attention back to me. Raised his gun.

  “So say good-bye to the good doctor, Lisa. Therapy’s about to be terminated.”

  I had no choice. If I was going to go for his gun, it’d have to be now. It’d have to be—

  Suddenly, Charles Harland’s hand moved on the bed. Fingers still gripping the plastic cup, he raised his arm up, flinging the water at his son. Right into his face.

  Caught off guard, James looked away, blinking. Distracted, but only momentarily.

  Which was all the time I needed. I crossed the distance between us in two quick strides and delivered one goddamn sweet right cross. Like when I was a kid in Golden Gloves. Only backed by more intent, more justification.

  And a helluva lot more rage.

  James’ head snapped hard to the side, the gun flying out of his hand. And then, already unconscious, he fell backwards. His body thumping as it collapsed on the floor.

  I stood there, quivering. Adrenaline surging like rushing lava through every vein.

  Soon, I knew, the hand I’d hit him with would start throbbing. Without the protection of training tape and a thick glove, punching someone usually did as much damage to the guy who threw the punch as to the guy who caught it.

  From the pulsing I already felt in my hand, I knew I’d probably strained it.

  But, Christ, it was worth it.

  “Danny…”

  Lisa’s breathless voice drew my eyes. Standing as before at the side of the bed, holding her bleeding shoulder.

  “You all right?” I asked her.

  “I’ll live. Unfortunately.”

  “So will I. Thanks to Charles.”

  I glanced down at the old man, whose thin fingers still clasped the plastic cup. It trembled in his hand.

  “Yeah.” Despite her pain, Lisa managed a wry smile. “The old bastard came through. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?”

  If her husband registered anything we’d said, he gave no indication. Merely closed his tired, rheumy eyes.

  “But what about Mike?” she asked anxiously.

  “I know. The nurse is useless. Get on a phone and call for an ambulance. For you and Payton. Then get a hold of Charles’ doctor. Dinner break’s over.”

  She nodded and moved slowly but steadily toward a phone on the other side of the room. I bent to tend to Payton, fearing that the only one who’d be riding in an ambulance was Lisa. For Mike, it was probably too late.

  The security man was bleeding profusely from his stomach wounds. I peeled off my jacket and pressed the fabric against the insistent ooze of blood, but to little effect.

  I shifted position, gazed down at his pain-flecked eyes.

  “James…” He struggled to form the word.

  “He’s down, Mike. We got him.”

  He blinked rapidly, as though willing himself to understand the meaning of my words.

  Suddenly, I heard a low groan behind me. I turned on my haunches. It was James Harland, stirring slightly. A gurgling noise in his throat.

  Quickly, I went over to where he lay. Crouched down. He was still unconscious, his movements involuntary. As were his moans. Like a child sleeping fitfully. In many ways, I realized, an unfortunately apt description.

  Then I noticed something else.

  The loop of gold chain he invariably wore had been flung free, no longer tucked inside his sweater. The pendant whose vague outline I’d seen earlier now lay exposed on his chest.

  Except that it wasn’t a pendant.

  Of course, I thought. No wonder Lisa had been unable to find it, despite rummaging through James’ room, his office, even his car. He’d keep something that valuable, that important to him, on his person. Always. He’d never want it out of his sight.

  I scooped it up. No, it wasn’t a pendant.

  It was a flash-drive. Containing the one and only copy of the video made of Lisa’s assault.

  “Lisa…” I called over to her.

  She was just hanging up the phone. Wincing from her wound, she came over and stared flatly down at James.

  “Gimme some good news. Did you kill the bastard?”

  “No, he’s just out. But I do have some good news.”

  I tossed her the flash-drive. At first, she stared at it in her hand with incomprehension. Then her eyes widened.

  “Holy shit, is this…?”

  “It sure is. James had it with him the whole time. Now if I were you, I’d destroy that horrible thing. Burn it, smash it, throw it down the mouth of a volcano. Whatever.”

  “Don’t worry, Danny. I’ll think of something.”

  She encircled the flash-drive in her fingers, then held her fist to her chest. Her eyes filled with tears.

  I got to my feet, gave her good arm a squeeze, and hurried back over to Payton.

  “Ambulance is on the way, Danny,” she called after me.

  “And I’m available, too.”

  It was the nurse, rousing herself as she awkwardly rose from the floor. She straightened her clothes and carefully stepped toward Charles Harland’s bedside.

  “Sorry I fainted, Mrs. Harland,” she said to Lisa. Though she didn’t look that sorry. Mostly perturbed. “This kind of thing isn’t what I’m used to.”

  Lisa frowned. “Who the fuck is?”

  I knelt once more by Payton’s side. His face had lost its color. And the light in his eyes was fading.

  “Forget Harland, nurse.” My voice tight. “We have a man with gunshot wounds here.”

  She looked ill. “I’m not bonded for anything like that, mister. You need to call a doctor.”

  Then she turned back to her patient, adjusting the old man’s tubes, fussing with his sheets. While Lisa, leaning unsteadily against the bed rails, peered nervously across the room at Payton and me.

  Hurriedly, I tried again to staunch the blood spreading across his torso. Folding my jacket into a thick wad.

  “Forget it,” he said haltingly. “I’m done….”

  “Look, Mike, the ambulance is coming and—”

  Then, surprisingly, he reached up and gripped the collar of my shirt. Pulled my face down, inches from his.

  “Listen, Doc…” He coughed, a spittle of blood dotting his lips. “Remember when I said I wanted to talk with you…that I had something to tell you…?”

  “Sure, Mike. I remember. But don’t try now to say—”

  “I need you to know…about your dossier…”

  “My dossier? You mean the one that Lisa asked you to put together, about me?”

  He nodded slowly, painfully.

  “Look, Mike, we don’t have to talk about that now….”

  “Yes…we do. You need to get a copy…”

  Another cough, threaded with phlegm.

  “Everything’s in there…including the police report on the mugging…You and your wife Barbara…years ago, when that thief shot her…killed her…”

  I felt a dryness in my throat as I strained to hear him. His voice growing weaker by the second.

  “What, Mike?” I tried to keep my own voice calm. “What about the mugging?”

  He licked his cracked, blood-spattered lips.

  “The cops…they missed stuff…it wasn’t a mugging…I think your wife…she was the target all along. I think she was murdered….”

  “Murdered?” A whisper, almost softer than his own.

  But there was no answer. His mouth had gone slack.

  “Mike? Mike?” I le
aned lower, my ear to his lips.

  I no longer felt breath.

  My mind was a chaotic jumble of thoughts and feelings, a roiling cauldron of emotion. As though the floor had opened up beneath me. As if I were falling through a void…tumbling and tumbling…

  Forcing myself to focus, I quickly felt for Payton’s pulse. Nothing. Checked his breath again. And, again, nothing.

  Mike Payton was dead.

  ***

  Sam Weiss’ source in the district attorney’s office had been right. I’d no sooner closed Mike Payton’s lifeless eyes and slowly risen to my feet than the butler—if that’s what the guy was—appeared in the doorway.

  After giving the room, and what had obviously gone on inside it, a horrified look, he recovered himself enough to speak to Lisa. As formally as he could muster.

  “The police are at the door, Mrs. Harland. They insist on being let in.”

  “Then let them in, Davis, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Very good, madam.”

  “And by the way, Davis, where the hell have you been? Any of you? You must have heard the fucking gunshots.”

  “Yes we did. We all hid in the library, with the door securely locked. It seemed the only prudent thing to do.”

  She waved him away, and Davis strode quietly from the room.

  “Can you believe that shit?” she said, coming over to where I stood. “I swear, I’m gonna fire their asses. The whole fucking staff—”

  With a horrified gasp, Lisa froze, her hand over her mouth. Looking down at Payton’s body.

  “Oh, God, no…He isn’t…?”

  “I’m afraid so, Lisa. I’m sorry.”

  “He saved my life,” she whispered, stricken. “Mike took those bullets meant for me.”

  I nodded. Then, sensing she was about to falter, I put my arm around her waist. For a brief moment, she let herself lean in against me.

  Until, favoring her injured arm, she righted herself again. Though something about my silence, my own stricken look, made her uncomfortable.

  “Are you okay, Danny?” Her voice choked, thick with tears. “I mean, of course you’re not okay, nothing’s okay…Not with Mike and…everything. But is there something else going on?”

  I mutely shook my head.

  Then there was a stir of loud, authoritative voices. Men and women coming down the hall just outside the room.

  I had to pull myself together. At least for now.

  Later, when I could think…

  When I could get my hands on a copy of that damned dossier and see for myself if what Payton had said was true…

  Then, and only then, I could let myself feel the impact of his words. The urgent last words of a dying man.

  But not now.

  Giving Lisa a brief, reassuring smile, I turned to the opened door and waited to greet the police.

  Chapter Forty-three

  There are limits to power and privilege. Even money.

  During the next forty-eight hours, pretty much the whole story came out. Lisa’s kidnapping by Sykes, the murder of Arthur Drake by Sykes’ man Griffin, the death of Mike Payton at the hands of James Harland.

  Though subsequent reports also named James as the killer of Donna Swanson, her murder held less fascination for the media. As always, it was the aberrant lifestyles of the rich and famous, and the lurid consequences of those lifestyles, that fascinated a bored, restless public.

  Still, as Lisa was only too happy to inform me when we talked by phone on Wednesday evening, no details of her assault by James and his fellow Horsemen would ever emerge.

  “God knows, none of those four pricks are going to mention it. And even if James does decide to brag about it, he has no proof. That goddamn video is gone for good.”

  “You destroyed it? How?”

  “I took your advice, Danny. I burned it, crushed it, and threw it down the mouth of a volcano.”

  I laughed. “Well, whatever you did, sounds like it’s finally out of your life. Behind you.”

  “Yeah. Now the only excuse I have for offing myself is boredom. And cellulite.”

  I was standing out on my rear deck, Rolling Rock in hand, watching the sun set on the Three Rivers. It had been a long, hard day at the office, seeing a number of vulnerable, deeply troubled patients. Including that one man who’d refused to miss his usual Wednesday appointment. When I saw him today, I congratulated him on his adamant self-care.

  After I got home, and fixed a typical single guy’s dinner of microwaved meatloaf and a beer, I’d returned a number of calls. One was to Sam Weiss, to arrange a date and time for my promised exclusive interview. Another was to Harry Polk, to arrange a different date and time to give my final statement in the Harland case.

  I also talked to ADA Dave Parnelli, who assured me that Sykes’ threatened lawsuit against me was a non-starter. In fact, dropping the suit was one of the conditions of his plea deal with the district attorney.

  “Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know the DA cared.”

  “About you? Trust me, Danny, he doesn’t. But what he and Chief Logan do care about is a lawsuit that might embarrass the Department. They don’t want the public to think they sanction the reckless actions of a civilian who’s on the police payroll.”

  Whatever, I thought. Relieved that there was one less thing I had to worry about.

  Finally, I checked in with Noah and Charlene.

  “Hey, Danny, good to hear from you,” he said. “Every time I leave a message for you, I’m always afraid you’ll be too dead to call me back. Dead as in fuckin’ dead, if you get my drift.”

  “Never fear, I’m still alive and kicking.”

  “Cool. ’Cause you still have a bar tab that needs lookin’ into…Uh, wait a minute. Charlene wants to talk to you.”

  I heard him grumble as he handed the phone to Charlene.

  “How’s Noah doing, Char?”

  “Gettin’ better, I think. Though with him, it’s not easy to tell. But at least he’s stopped insulting the customers.”

  “That’s a start, anyway.”

  “Listen, Danny. I wanna thank you again for saving Skip’s ass. And I did like we discussed. I started talkin’ to him about getting into a program. Like AA or somethin’.”

  “Good, Charlene. Give him my best, will you?”

  “I will. But you’ll still hang out with him once in a while, right? I mean, go to a ball game or whatever.”

  “Least I can do.”

  ***

  I’d saved the last call for Lisa. Now, having assured me that she’d destroyed the flash-drive, we talked about the upcoming Sykes trial, should there be one. And her concerns about having to testify. Though from what I’d heard through the Department’s rumor mill, and from what Sam had said, I doubted if Raymond Sykes would ever set foot inside a courtroom. He would get his deal, DA Leland Sinclair would get his conviction, and all would be right with the world.

  Which left Lisa and me free to discuss other matters.

  “I have to ask, Lisa. How are you holding up since Mike Payton’s death?”

  “All right, I guess. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet. Not just about what happened to him, but…I mean, I cared about him a lot when we were together. Now I’m starting to think it meant more to him than I thought. More to him…than it did to me. Does that mean I’ve been right all along, and I really am a shitty person?”

  “You know better than that. I don’t think we choose to fall in love with someone. Just as we don’t choose not to.”

  “Easy for you to say, Doc.”

  “Maybe not. You’d be surprised.”

  “Anyway, I know I’m gonna feel bad about him for a long time. But maybe that’s okay, too.”

  “It just means you’re human, Lisa. Like the rest of us.”

  Her breath qui
ckened. She was eager to change the subject. “Hey, speaking of surprises, guess who called me? My daughter Gail, out in L.A. She saw the story about my kidnapping on the national news.”

  “She was probably worried about you.”

  “Bullshit. She wanted to make sure I’m still well enough to keep sending them checks. But at least she called. Hell, that’s something, right?”

  Finally, I got around to asking her the one question she’d most wanted to avoid.

  “So, Lisa, how’s your husband?”

  “Not great, but not dead. Which pretty much describes Charles before the stroke. They got him pumped full of tranks, but I think he knows that James is under arrest.”

  “But does he know about the video? Did he hear James talking about it?”

  A heavy sigh. “Who the fuck knows? Maybe James’ll tell him about it someday. Or it’ll come out if there’s a trial. Though the lawyer we got from Arthur Drake’s firm says there won’t even be a trial. James will cop a plea, and that’ll be that.”

  “Just like Sykes. Two of a kind, despite what James said.”

  “Yeah, twin pieces o’ shit. Anyway, if James tells his father about the gang-rape, and Charles somehow blames me for it, I guess I’ll be shown the door. But I can live with that. I can get lawyers, too. Probably end up with some kinda settlement, right? I mean, if there’s one thing Charles Harland hates, it’s bad publicity. And nothing says ‘bad publicity’ like a messy divorce.”

  “I noticed you said you could live with it, Lisa. And I don’t think you’re just referring to a divorce. Right?”

  “What are you implying, Dr. Rinaldi?”

  “I’m suggesting that maybe your suicidal impulses have lessened. That you’ve found that, in spite of everything that’s happened to you, you have the inner resources to handle life. That you can cope.”

  She made her voice breathy, a little girl’s. “Gosh, Doctor, do you really think so?”

  “Come on, give me a break. And think about what I said.”

  “If you mean that you and I still have a verbal contract, and that I can’t kill myself without calling you first, then I agree. But that’s as far as I’ll go.”

  “We still have an appointment on the books, right?”