The Society (45 page)

“Is that what’s in that envelope? X-rays? I thought about bringing it to the police, but they haven’t been much help to folks from this neighborhood, and the Cobras have a way of finding things out, so I decided that—”

“Please, sir,” Watkins pleaded, “the envelope?”

Will wondered why Watkins wasn’t speeding things up by flashing the reward money the way he had in the florist’s shop. The only explanation he could come up with was disturbing—very disturbing. The big man needed to play the reward card to get through the door, but now that they were inside, there was no longer any need. The moment they had the envelope, the moment Watkins was sure the films were there, Lionel was a dead man—and quite possibly, Will was, too.

It was at that moment Will noticed the knife resting on the counter—a large carving knife, it appeared, although it was mostly obscured behind a plump tomato, a head of lettuce, and an as yet empty salad bowl. There was no sign that Watkins had seen it. Will felt his pulse accelerate as he forced his eyes away from the weapon and moved a nonchalant six inches to his right, cutting down Watkins’s angle of sight.

“Like I told you, Mr. Dunn, I’ve got it,” Lionel was saying. He turned to Will. “You sure this is okay? You really don’t look so good.”

“No, no. I’m fine. Really I am. Ol’ Joe here is my friend. The reason I don’t look so good is that I’ve had like the flu. I haven’t been sleeping too well lately.”

“Oh, okay. Well, you two just wait here.”

He headed over and opened the bedroom door.

“You’re doin’ fine,” Watkins whispered to Will, “just fine.”

“Watkins, don’t you hurt him.”

This time the giant didn’t even bother to respond. Will risked a glance at the counter, gauging the best approach to the knife. If he even got the chance, it would be only fleeting. He was going to have to take it and move decisively. There was little doubt that both his and Lionel’s lives were at stake.

“Here you go,” Lionel sang cheerfully. “I hid it under my mattress in case the Cobras came callin’.”

“You did good,” Will said. Then he added, stalling as he tried to create even a momentary advantage, “Joe, my friend, it’s not that I don’t trust Lionel, but you never know. One thing I
do
know is how angry our pal Mr. Gold can get when things aren’t exactly the way he wants them. I think you’d be making a big mistake if you didn’t let me examine the contents of that envelope to ensure that everything that’s supposed to be inside is there.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Lionel said. “You can trust me. I never even looked to see what was inside that envelope.”

“It’s not just you, Lionel. The Cobras could have messed with it, too. I know exactly what should be in there.”

Clearly nonplussed, Watkins hesitated, then decided that of his two choices, more trouble could result for him by not checking inside the envelope and bringing Gold a sheaf of cardboard. He gave Will a good look at the way his hand was thrust into his jacket pocket.

“Quickly,” he growled. “We don’t have much time.”

His pulse hammering, Will settled onto a chair and slid the thick stack of films out onto the table. It looked as if all of them were mammograms. At least one man had died because of them, and both he and Lionel Henderson were on the brink.
Why?

He was about to spread the X-rays out when he saw the corner of a white envelope protruding from the stack. He covered it with one hand and, in almost the same motion, grasped half of the films with his other, allowing them to slip through his fingers and onto the floor between Lionel and Watkins.

“Clumsy bastard!” Watkins exclaimed.

“Now, listen here,” Lionel said, “Cussing is not allowed in my
home
.”

He glared at Watkins, then dropped to his knees and began gathering up the glossy X-rays. They had scattered over quite an area and were awkward for him to handle. Watkins reflexively bent over and grabbed a few before sitting up and warily turning his attention back to Will. But during those precious seconds when the killer’s attention was diverted, Will pulled the business-size envelope out, folded it in half with one hand, and stuffed it into his pants pocket.

“Come on,” Watkins growled.

“Sorry. Sorry, Joe. Thanks, Lionel.”

“No problem. No problem. Eighty-one and I can still get down and do my own floors. But I can’t believe you suspected I might have messed with the stuff in that envelope. I never even looked to see what was in there.”

“Sorry,” Will said.

“Dammit, Grant, let’s go. Are they all there or not?”

There was a small wall lamp tacked up just to Will’s left. Once the shade was removed, the light, though not great for a detailed reading of the mammograms, was adequate. Will quickly arranged the films in stacks by patient. There were ten different patient names altogether. Grace Davis was one of them. Even though the cancer was there in the upper outer quadrant of her left breast, the absence of a BB assured him the film wasn’t hers. The next two sets also showed cancers, one in the right upper outer quadrant, and the other a rather large mass just lateral to the right nipple, with bright white flecks of calcium throughout—often an ominous sign. The fourth stack of films held the key. The name on those X-rays was different from the patient of stack three, but the cancer was identical. Will was absolutely certain of it. Same location, same size, same pattern of calcium deposition. In fact, even the pattern of the blood vessels and other markers in the rest of both breasts were the same.

Watkins shifted edgily and jerked his head in a demand that Will hurry up.

Stack five was identical to Grace’s films. In all, although the mammograms were labeled with ten different patients’ names, dates, and clinic numbers, there were actually five identical pairs of films. Will suspected that the variation in the films coincided with the size and shape of the patients’ breasts. He also began suspecting something else—that none of the X-rays actually belonged to the women whose names were on them. If he was right about those two possibilities, a third one, sickening almost beyond imagination, seemed quite likely, as well. None of these women, all of whom were probably treated for cancer at the Excelsius clinic, actually had the disease.

Will slumped back in his chair, trying to get his mind around what he was seeing. One thing seemed certain: As with everything involving the Excelsius HMO, at the root of the films and the deception, one way or another, was money. Watkins stood.

“That’s it,” he said. “Are there any problems, or are these all the X-rays?”

“No, no problems,” Will replied.

“So,” Lionel said, “there’s a reward in it for me, is there?”

Watkins turned toward the little man and, in what seemed like slow motion, Will could see what was about to happen. There would be no gunshot; no telltale bullet hole in Lionel’s body; no suspicion of foul play; no police questioning neighbors and others such as Carol in the flower shop. Watkins was going to do this with his hands. In the end, there would only be a frail old man dead at the bottom of the stairs, his neck broken by the tragic fall.

Watkins had reached the bewildered Lionel and was raising his huge hands toward the man’s neck when Will moved. With one step he was at the counter, grasping the carving knife. Before Watkins could effectively react to the movement behind him, Will leapt at him, locking his palm under Watkins’s chin. On his tiptoes, powered by a massive adrenaline rush, Will yanked back with all his strength and pressed the blade of the knife firmly against the giant’s exposed throat.

“Move and I’ll kill you!” he snapped, tightening his grip even as he felt the enormous power of the man he was trying to hold in place. “I know exactly how to do this, Watkins. Believe me, I do. One slice. That’s all. It’s a terrible way to die.”

He added some pressure for emphasis and felt the killer wince as the blade broke skin.

“What in the heck are you doing?” Lionel cried.

Watkins’s body stiffened. For an eternal few seconds, Will could sense him sorting out the odds. Then the tension in his body lessened.

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“The gun. Ease it out of your pocket and drop it on the floor.”

Muttering threats and obscenities, Watkins did as he was ordered.

“You’re signing your girlfriend’s death warrant,” he said.

“Lionel, get out of here now,” Will ordered. “Don’t tell anyone; don’t go to the police. Just get out of here, get off the street, and don’t come back for two hours. Watkins, give him your wallet. . . . Now! . . . Lionel, take all the money in it. You’ve earned it. Now, get out. Quickly!”

The little man hesitated, then took the stack of bills from Watkins’s wallet, grabbed a jacket from the back of a chair, and hurried out of the apartment.

Watkins slowly, dramatically lifted his hand and checked his watch.

“You really fucked up, asshole,” he said, careful not to move any further against the knife. “I’m five minutes late. Your little honey’s probably dead already.”

“Call Gold,” Will said.

“No way.”

Will tightened his grip across Watkins’s chin, but this time the killer didn’t react at all.

“I said call in!”

“Drop the knife.”

At that instant, Watkins’s cell phone began ringing.

“Answer it.”

Watkins laughed derisively. Another ring.

“Five rings and the recording starts,” he managed.

Three.

Will stepped back and threw the carving knife to the floor.

Grinning, Watkins flipped on his phone.

“Sorry, Mr. Gold. We were getting the envelope and I lost track of the time. No, he’s right here. He had a little accident and banged his face, but he’ll be all right. . . . Yessir. I’ll bring him. We’ll be back soon. No problem. He’s been acting up some, but I know he’ll behave from now on.”

Watkins flipped the phone shut and dropped it in his pocket. Then, without warning, he swung from his hip, smashing Will flush in the face. Will heard his cheekbone snap an instant before the pain exploded from it. He was sputtering on a gush of blood down his nose and throat before he hit the floor.

CHAPTER
34

Discipline . . . Discipline . . . Don’t move . . . Not a flicker . . . Not a twitch . . . Breathe in . . . Hold it . . . Hold it . . . Breathe out . . . Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king . . . Discipline . . . Discipline . . .

For most of a year during college, Patty and one of her roommates had taken yoga classes together. They had both dropped out, partly because of the pressures of class work, but also because each had met a man.

What in the hell was his name?
she wondered now. He was supposed to have been The One. Now she couldn’t even remember his name. Why hadn’t she stayed with yoga?

Breathe in . . . Hold it . . . Hold it . . . Breathe out . . . Slowly . . . Slowly . . . Don’t move . . . Don’t move . . .

At least an hour had passed since Will was sent off with the man named Watkins—probably closer to two. Boyd Halliday and Marshall Gold had departed just a few minutes after that for an important session with their lawyer and hadn’t returned. Before they left, they had said enough for her to know that tomorrow at ten there was a meeting scheduled at which the Excelsius takeover of several companies would be completed. The new conglomerate, still to be called Excelsius Health, with Halliday as CEO, would instantly be among the largest health-care providers in the east, if not in the country. Power and money. The managed-care killings, believed by almost everyone to be about revenge and retribution, had never been about anything except power and money. Now, unless she or Will could do something, the body count of those sacrificed on that altar was about to rise.

Patty had begun experiencing momentary glimmers of consciousness for a while before she was taken from the ICU, but it wasn’t until she was being transferred from her bed to the stretcher that she had started to come around on all levels. By the time she was secured inside the ambulance, the conversations around her were increasingly penetrating the darkness that had enveloped her mind. In snatches, she heard about her brain surgery and her persistent coma. Some sort of a diversion—maybe a fire—had been set off in the hospital solely for the purpose of getting her out of there. She had no idea where she was being taken, or why, but what she did hear told her that the best she could do was to remain still—absolutely still.

As the ambulance ride wore on, beneath the patches that covered her eyes, she opened and closed her lids. Then, carefully, concealed by the sheet that was draped over her, she tested her arms and legs. From what she could tell, everything was working. But she also knew of the phantom pains of amputees and the phantom movements of paralyzed limbs in stroke and spinal-cord victims.

Breathe in . . . Hold it . . . Hold it . . . Breathe out . . .

Since Will and the others had gone, she had been alone with the torturer Krause—the man Gold had referred to as the good doctor. He was seated toward the door, maybe ten or fifteen feet from where she lay. Several times he had come over and stood beside her, breathing heavily and, she sensed, touching himself. First it was just a few seconds at a time, then a minute, then even more.

Good
, she thought, stoking her anger,
the more you get turned on, the better. Creep.

As the visits to her stretcher became longer, they also became more frequent. It was as if Krause was battling his own instincts—and losing. Each time Patty tried, through the man’s breathing and the sound of his movement, to create a mental picture of him and to focus in on his position and posture. She felt certain from his footfall and at what height she placed his mouth that he was slightly built and not very tall. Finally, perhaps unable to control himself any longer, the good doctor pulled her sheet down below her breasts and stood by her shoulder, staring down at her. She was wearing some sort of hospital pajamas, or perhaps a set of surgical scrubs, but still she felt naked, exposed, and vulnerable.