Billy Povich: Loot The Moon Part 24

Phyllis set Billy up with the days first course. They watched her step back behind the counter and then dip chicken breast in egg batter and bread crumbs. "Thank G.o.d," Martin whispered. "Shes making meat today. My secret inner carnivore is hungry."

"Nice to see that the vegan Mrs. Smothers doesnt have you as whipped as you seem," Billy joked. "Maybe she should use a leather whip, not a subst.i.tute made of soybeans and seaweed."

"What she dont know wont kill me."

Billy watched traffic pa.s.s slowly outside the window. "Im dead-ended," he confessed.

"I know that."

"I was sure the trail would lead to Rhubarb Glanz, but he didnt contract for the hit on the judge. Glanz is dying. Hes not interested in revenge. He wasnt even put out with me when the ambulance took his kid to the hospital as a precaution."

Martin covered his ears. "I dont want to know any more. I feel guilty enough for bamboozling you into investigating this case. For me, it was personal. And my obsession got you beaten up, and nearly buried alive. Now I learn you sent the son of a mob boss to the hospital?"

"Just for observation."

"You did far more for me than you should have. You still have that reporters instinct for the truth ... ." His cell phone buzzed in his coat pocket. He checked the caller ID and said, "Its Carol. Dont you despise people who answer their phones in restaurants?"

"Yes."

Martin answered: "Carol? Im with Billy Povich, in a meeting, with the scent of sauteed chicken wafting over us."

"Ill keep it short," she said in his ear. "A kayaker scratched his expensive carbon surf ski on the roof of Gary Gleasons car early this morning."

Martin pulled his fountain pen from his pocket, checked for leaks on his shirt, and then jotted notes on the paper placemat, repeating as he wrote: "On the roof of Gary Gleasons car? Howd he pull that trick?"

"You talking about Scratch?" Billy asked.

Martin nodded and held up the pen to ask for patience.

"The car was off the coast of Portsmouth, underwater at the end of an old industrial pier," she continued.

"Wow. Did he drive into the bay?"

"Excuse me?" Povich said.

"Not unless he steered it from the trunk," said Carol.

"Holy mother of ... when did they find him?"

"d.a.m.n it, Marty, whats going on?" Povich demanded.

Carol reported, "Twenty minutes ago. Its on the news now, with no details, just video of the winch pulling out the car. My source on the police dive team says he was strangled. Ill call when I get more."

"Do it."

They hung up.

Martin paused a second, downed a sip of root beer without tasting it, then summed up for Povich: "Scratch is dead. Murdered. f.u.c.k."

Billy banged a fist on the table and splashed coffee from his mug. Through gritted teeth he growled, "He was our last connection to Adam Rackers."

"Whoever paid Rackers to kill the judge is cutting the links to him," Martin agreed. He thought for a second and added, "Or to her."

A feverish sweat gathered on Billys forehead. "This means I was close," he said. "I was going the wrong G.o.dd.a.m.n way, but I pa.s.sed close to the truth." He rubbed two days worth of whiskers on his chin and gazed out the window again. "Why didnt I recognize it? What did I miss?"

"I think you were thorough," Martin said, but Povich wasnt listening.

Billy stared at a column of traffic at a standstill. His expressive brown eyes slowly shrank; his thumb turned absentminded little circles in the stubble on his neck. Only at the very point of his chin did Billys whiskers show any gray. His lips parted, and then shaped silent words, like the physical echo of his thoughts. Martin followed Billys eyes. What was he staring at? Outside the window, a blue-eyed man with spiked hair, stuck in traffic in a gray Saab convertible, spoke into a cell phone.

Billys silent thoughts had become a whisper; "Challenge your a.s.sumptions ... ." His head c.o.c.ked and he looked away a moment. He gestured at the man in the Saab. "His lips move but we cant hear what he says."

"Right ... the window is closed."

Then Billys eyes pa.s.sed over the table with a look of detached terror, and a creepy smile broke across his face. He clamped his hand over his mouth. "What was our biggest a.s.sumption? So f.u.c.king big it could not be challenged?"

"Wha-?"

"That Rackers shot the judge, right?"

Billy slipped from his chair and nearly fell to the floor. He caught himself on the rickety table. His mug toppled and cast a wave of coffee over the place mats. Martin jumped from his chair to grab Billy by the arm. "Are you taking a heart?"

"Im not having a coronary, Marty. Jesus Christ, he never said a word ... ."

"Who? Billy!"

"In the hospital, we never heard him speak! Holy s.h.i.t, Martin, n.o.body paid Rackers to shoot the judge. He just took the fall!"

twenty-nine.

The hospital reminded him of a submarine, with its narrow, windowless halls cluttered with exposed pipes that carried steam to the ancient heating system ringing with clangs and pings.

Ugh, would a submarine stink like this?

He hit the b.u.t.ton for the elevator, then changed his mind and decided to walk up the fire stairs. He did not want to run into someone he recognized.

This is it. The last one.

With Scratch Gleason dead, this was the last link between him and Adam Rackers.

Once the link was severed, he would be free.

He thought of Scratch, dead in his car, underwater. Some sick part of him-not the pragmatic part that had no choice but to kill in self-defense, to protect himself from being discovered, but some twisted sliver of himself deep inside-pushed a little tune into his head to the music of Otis Reddings "Dock of the Bay."

Dead in my trunk in the bay ...

Feeling the tide roll my way ...

Dead in my trunk in the bay, covred in slime.

The words repeated in his head. His feet knocked the stairs in time with the music. He began to whistle. There was something grotesquely funny about the little tune, though he felt guilt over the pleasure it brought him.

But what could he have done? He could not have let Scratch live. That little thief was too dangerous. Who knew what Rackers had told him about the plan?

The final threat, to be eliminated in this hospital, was infinitely more dangerous than Scratch Gleason. He put a hand to the knife in his waistband, under his shirt.

He left the stairwell at the trauma recovery unit, put his head down, and marched the halls.

At the door, he hesitated. What if somebody he knew was inside? He made sure the hall was clear, then placed an ear to the door. Nothing but the hum of machines. Hes more machine than man right now. Hes not even a human being.

The door closed behind him.

"h.e.l.lo?" said Stu Tracy from the bed.

A ghastly bruise, like a purple wave, had spread across Tracys neck since the last time he had seen him.

He chuckled in reply without opening his mouth.

"Are you on the staff?"

"Mm-hm." He stepped toward him. From his jacket he pulled a black ski mask. No plastic bag this time. This was the mask he wore when he helped Scratchs car into the drink. When he had finished with this task, he would burn the mask and get back to his life. What he had done would fade from his memory-maybe not completely, but he was confident that the events of the past several weeks would soon seem like the color-washed recollections of a childhood nightmare.

"You a nurse?"

"Mm-hm." He pulled on the mask.

"You have leather-soled shoes," said Stu Tracy. "The nurses on the day staff wear rubber soles because theyre on their feet so much."

At the bedside, he discreetly shoved the emergency call b.u.t.ton aside. He felt the knife and looked at the shield of bandages and tubes over Stu Tracy. No, he decided, the knife might be noisy.

"Why wont you say anything to me? Are you really a nurse?"

"Yes," he said. He pulled a pillow from under Stu Tracys head. "Let me fluff this for you."

"That voice," Stu said.

"Yeah, its me."

Stu stammered and tried to sit up. "Thats not ... not possible! Youre dead!" He grabbed blindly for the alarm.

When he inhaled to scream, the pillow came down over his face. Stu Tracy writhed weakly under him. He held the pillow in his fists and pressed down with his forearms, channeling all his weight into the task. One of Tracys arms slapped pathetically against him.

Just three minutes and its over.

He thought ahead, three minutes into the future. He would toss the pillow in the closet, smooth the sheets, and put everything back as he had found it. Stu Tracy was already so mangled ... might take them hours to figure out he was dead.

He never heard the door open. He thought he imagined the sound of an electric wheelchair, and then he howled in shock and pain when something crashed into his legs.

thirty.

Billy found his father on the hospital floor in a puddle of his own bad blood.

"Pop!"

He bulled past the overturned wheelchair and threw himself to the floor. He stopped suddenly as he was about to grab him; an old first-aid postulate screamed in his mind: Dont move an injured person! The old man grimaced and held a hand over a b.l.o.o.d.y gash on his chest, near the armpit on the left side. Billy pulled off his sweatshirt and pressed it to the wound.

His father turned sad blue eyes on him. "He was trying to smother Stu," he said, in a whispery voice, like a draft through an old mine shaft. "You just missed him. Not five minutes ago."

Stu Tracy lay limp in the bed; his breathing sounded ragged. "Billy," he wheezed. "It was him-Adam Rackers. Hes alive!"

"Not exactly, Stu."

Billy ran to the door and screamed down the hall, "Help us! Help! Help!" His tone was not to be questioned; people in white came running.

Billy dashed back to his father and laid a hand on his chest. "Easy now, Pa," he said. He chuckled against the tension. "If youre going to get hurt, it might as well be in a hospital."

"Hes got a knife, son. I tried to grab him but he cut me. I couldnt hang on. Hes wearing a mask."

"I know who it is, Pop."

"Which one of your a.s.sumptions was wrong?"

"All of em. The truth was in my face the whole time. Breathe easy."

The old man closed his eyes and shivered against a tremor of pain. His face blurred in Billys tears.