Torch Song (11 page)

“Hospital!” Pulaski whispered. “My God, is he going to burn a hospital?”

Chelsky snapped at Lehman, “Find out.”

“Not just checkups,” Constance said then. “Where he had surgery within the past few months.” She was shivering.

Chelsky eyed her narrowly and then nodded to Lehman. “Get on it.”

“His hair is just now growing out again,” Constance said. “He has seizures, and sometimes they operate to remove a blood clot or something.”

They waited. In various combinations, the four men went to the living room and spoke in low voices, returned.

Finally, Charlie called again. “She's leaving,” he said. “We're keeping with her. Be back on as soon as she hits the interstate.” He disconnected.

“Mrs. Meiklejohn,” Chelsky said, “if you can sort of point me in the right direction, I could probably work your coffee maker just fine.”

She stirred. But she had made a pot… . It was empty. She started a fresh pot, grateful to Chelsky for giving her something to do.

Charlie slouched in his seat while Brian drove. He stayed far enough behind the Buick not to alarm her, and now and then he drove with his lights off. He was good. He stayed with her. Charlie called home again. “Heading north on I-Eighty-seven,” he said. Pulaski wanted to know what they were driving. He hung up. But he was worried: It was early for her to be heading out. How far did she intend to go? He kept his eyes on her taillights. Somewhere with a hospital where Nathan had been operated on. He kept hearing her soft, musical voice: “Such beautiful hair, and they shaved it all off. My poor baby. But it's coming in thicker than ever. Just like your father's. They won't do that to you ever again. I promise you. After tonight, they'll never hurt you again.”

She held at seventy miles an hour. Traffic began to ebb and flow, growing heavy at each entrance to the interstate, thinning again. Suddenly, Charlie straightened and pressed the redial on the phone. Brian said, “There she goes.” She had turned onto State 23.

Charlie reported in. “Anything about the hospital yet?” he asked. Chelsky said there wasn't, and asked where he thought she was going. “Don't know,” he said. He gave them the number of the cell phone and then said, “Constance, you okay?”

“Yes,” she said in a low voice. “You?”

“Sure. Oh, oh. She's going to turn again, or pull over or something. Hang on.” She was signaling a turn, and now his stomach began to hurt. “She's on State One forty-three,” he said in a flat voice.

He heard Constance make a soft noise. “Take it easy, honey,” he said softly. “We'll know more when she gets to I-Eighty-eight. You still have a lot of company?”

“All of them, four guys,” she said, and she sounded perfectly normal.

He grinned. “I'll be back in a couple of minutes,” he said.

Marla was going to his house, taking the route he used, the quickest way from her place to his. He bit his lip. There was little traffic on 143; Brian had to keep farther back than he liked. Could use a little backup, guys, Charlie thought darkly. He called Constance again in a few minutes. They were about ten minutes from the interstate. Constance answered his first ring.

“Honey, if there are cars out front, maybe it would be a good idea to get them in the garage, or around back, out of sight.”

“Thought of that,” Chelsky said. “We're moving them now. We'll turn off lights, make it look like it usually does this time of night.”

Marla turned left at I-Eighty-eight and then made the next turn onto the county road that led to his house. Brian hung back as far as he dared; he was muttering under his breath, and driving without lights half the time. When they passed the house, it looked like a house should look at 1:30 in the morning: an outside light on the front stoop, a dim light from an upstairs window, empty driveway. Marla drove past slowly, then speeded up a little.

“Don't turn on anything yet,” Charlie snapped into the phone a minute later. “She's turning around, making another pass.”

Chelsky said very calmly then, “Meiklejohn, don't touch the brakes. If she's suspicious, the brake lights will give it away.”

“We'll pick her up here,” Pulaski said, “just as soon as she goes by.” He and the two aides hurried to the garage.

This time, she slowed to a crawl as she drove by the house, then came to a full stop for a second at the boundary where a ditch separated the property from Hal Mitchum's.

Charlie was speaking into the phone throughout, worried. She had pulled too far away before they had been able to make a turn and resume the chase. Her lights were distant and fading fast. He saw a car pull out of his driveway and go after her, but he was cursing softly.

“See what she did out there,” Chelsky said to Stan Lehman, who had come back in and now went scurrying out. He returned with a sprayer.

“It was in the ditch,” he said.

Then Charlie was back on. “We lost her,” he said in a harsh voice. “We're on this side of a train with Pulaski; she's on the other.

“Where?” Chelsky asked, looking again at the map on the table.

“About seven miles from the house, four miles from the interstate. Pulaski will head north with me; his guy will go south with Brian as soon as we hit the interstate again.” He sounded very grim. “Pulaski's holding a gun on me,” he added. There was a choking sound close by, and Charlie said, “Well, then take your damn hand out of your damn pocket.”

“Easy, easy,” Chelsky said. “We'll have people on the interstate as soon as possible.”

Charlie hung up.

Chelsky was on the kitchen telephone, speaking in a low voice; Stan Lehman was on the cell phone, arguing with someone. Constance sat at the table, feeling helpless. Lehman made some notes then and disconnected. “Got it,” he said.

Over the past five years, Nathan had been treated in two hospitals in New York City and had had surgery in one in Albany last November.

“Let's go,” Chelsky said, and they ran to the garage. Constance was at his elbow when he reached the car. He hesitated briefly, then yanked the back door open, and she got in. Lehman drove; Chelsky stayed on the phone.

In the other car, Pulaski listened to Chelsky and relayed the message to Charlie. “Children's Hospital, Albany. If this is a wild-goose chase, Meiklejohn, I'll have your ass.”

“Just shut the fuck up. Address.”

Pulaski told him and he snapped, “Get on the phone, someone to lead us in, tell us the best route to take.”

Pulaski began speaking again.

Charlie watched taillights, drew close enough to see if it was a black Buick, passed whatever it was in front of them, and then did it again. Traffic was light, but as they got closer to Albany, it picked up. Pulaski made a choking sound again when Charlie swerved and passed a semi. “No sirens,” Charlie snapped. “No fanfare, no fire trucks. Understand? She'll spook and take off for parts unknown to dump the gas. God only knows what she'll burn then.”

“Right,” Pulaski said, and repeated the message into the phone.

A few miles out of Albany, they picked up an escort—two unmarked dark cars, a Chevy and a Dodge, one to lead, the other to follow. Pulaski kept the phone line open now and the three cars left the interstate and headed for the hospital.

Two blocks from the hospital, the lead car turned down an alley, and the following car passed them and continued out of sight. “We stop here and you drive,” Charlie said. “You're a doctor on a call. Park near an entrance, get out, and go into the hospital. I'll duck down out of sight in case she's already around watching the place.” She was cautious, he thought, paying no attention to Pulaski's objections as he stopped at the curb. “Another doctor arriving for an emergency—she probably will accept that, but she knows me. Now.”

They changed places and Pulaski drove into the parking lot near a side entrance where several other cars were parked. There was a Buick there, but it wasn't hers. Pulaski got out, stretched, and walked to the entrance, into the hospital.

The hospital was close to the street in the front; the ambulance entrance was on one side, well lighted. Here in the back, the parking lot was lighted with a few lamps, and had great shadowy areas, with cars scattered here and there, clumped near entrances, some all the way to the far edge near the sidewalk. The other side of the building was flush with the sidewalk. It would be back here, he thought grimly—if she came at all.

He had been too busy driving and searching for her to worry until now that they might be in the wrong place altogether. Maybe they had made a false assumption and she was heading for another warehouse, a school, the governor's mansion. He eased the car door open and slipped out, keeping low. She would drive by, make sure it was safe, maybe drive by more than once, and then… She wouldn't enter the lot, he thought; she would park out on the street, walk in, ready to run back to the car and take off as soon as she tossed a match.

How many agents were already there, in parked cars, in the building, across the street? He couldn't see anyone, but he knew they were there. They'd better be there, he thought grimly. A car drove in; a man and woman got out and hurried inside the hospital. He heard another car leaving. A nurse came out, smoked a cigarette, and reentered. Another car pulled in, parked. No one emerged this time. He didn't move.

He eyed the building; what she'd do was park over on the street, walk around the block maybe, approach from this side, spray it and light it, and have only a dozen feet to the car to cover. They hadn't come down that side street; he didn't know if the Buick was there or not.

The building was old and shabby, brick and wood, lots of wood on windows and doors, and a lot of dead ivy clinging to the bricks. It would carry fire to the roof, he knew. A couple of wooden benches were near the entrance, no shrubbery, no place anyone could hide, just a walkway around the building, and the parking lot. His ears had become attuned to the night sounds now—traffic out front, an occasional car on the side street, a light wind rustling in the dead ivy. Then he heard a different sound, soft footsteps, and he carefully looked around the back of the car, into the parking lot. At first, he thought he was seeing a boy with a backpack, but it was Marla, dressed all in black—jacket, jeans, shoes, a black visor cap pulled low. She was walking openly through a drive lane, making no attempt to stay hidden behind cars, and she looked like a boy going to work late. Then figures appeared from parked cars, and others from the building, and he heard Chelsky's voice.

“Stop there, Mrs. Boseman.”

She was holding the wand of a sprayer, Charlie realized; the backpack was a sprayer tank. Don't anyone shoot, he prayed. Marla hesitated, raised the wand, and then continued toward the building.

Charlie went cold all over when he heard Constance's voice. “Marla, you have to stop now. If you don't, someone will shoot, and you'll die. Who will care for Nathan if you die?”

Marla swung around, aiming the wand toward the car where Constance stood. Charlie began to move quietly then. Her back was to him.

“You!” she said in a low, harsh voice. “Now he'll know what it's like to see someone you love crippled, hurt.”

“Marla, if you spray me, someone will shoot The sprayer will explode if it gets hit. You'll die. No one will watch out for Nathan, see if he's making progress. Who else will even notice if he's getting better? They'll let you see him, visit with him, make sure he's getting things he needs.”

Charlie was nearly close enough. Don't spray her, he prayed. Don't do it. Don't.

“Who else will read to him, Marla? Who will tell him about the flowers? No one else believes he can understand. They won't read to him, talk to him, but you will be able to. They'll let you see him.”

“You're lying!”

“If you're dead, he'll die, Marla. You're keeping him alive. You know that.”

Charlie knew others were moving, too, although he didn't take his gaze off Marla, off her hand holding the wand pointed at Constance. She had something clutched in her other hand.

“He'll miss you, wonder if you've forgotten him, if you're ever coming back. No one will even tell him that much, because they don't think he can understand. He'll suffer, Marla. He will.”

Charlie jumped then. He threw one arm around her neck and grabbed her hand on the spray wand. As she tightened her finger on the trigger, he forced the wand down; gasoline sprayed on the pavement at their feet. She raised her other hand, and he swept it back in a brutal, swift motion. Something fell with a clatter. Abruptly, she relaxed; her whole body seemed to lose tone, and her hands hung limply at her sides.

“I have to go home now,” she said. “He's waiting for me.”

Charlie held her while someone came and removed the backpack sprayer gingerly. She didn't resist then or when two agents took her by the arms and led her away. He took a step toward Constance, who was running to him. They held each other hard, not speaking.

Then Chelsky tapped Charlie on the arm and cleared his throat. “This yours?” he asked. He opened his hand to show them a disk, the size of a silver dollar. He opened it, a locket, with Constance's picture in one half and Jessica's in the other. They were both wearing
gis
, their martial-arts clothes. Marla must have been at one of their exhibitions, he thought with a chill. The last one had been over a year ago.

“It's what she dropped,” Chelsky said when Charlie shook his head. “That probably would have done it, that and the sprayer at your place.” He started to walk away, then said, “You folks go on home. You need a ride?”

Charlie shook his head. “Brian can take us.”

“Someone has to go take care of Nathan,” Constance said, facing Chelsky.

“We'll see to him. He'll have to be put in a hospital tomorrow.”