With a final glance back at Brian, whose concerns had only served to fan Lou’s anxiety to a fevered pitch and with a final check to make sure his Smith and Wesson Detective Special was in its holster, Lou rang the front bell. Mrs. Cerino had opened the door. Taking a deep breath, Lou had entered.
Lou laughed heartily, bringing tears to his eyes. The experience was still capable of doing that after three years. While still laughing, Lou glanced into the car immediately to his left. The driver was looking at him as if he were crazy, laughing as he was in such abominable traffic.
But the traffic notwithstanding, Lou could still laugh at the shock he had had when he’d stepped into Cerino’s house that day expecting the worst. What he had unexpectedly walked into was a surprise party for himself in celebration of his having been promoted to detective sergeant!
At the time Lou had been recently separated from his wife, so the promotion had gone unnoticed except at the station. Somehow Cerino had heard about this and had decided to give him a party. It had been Mr. and Mrs. Cerino and their two sons, Gregory and Steven. There’d been cake and soda. Lou had even gone out to get Brian.
The irony of the whole thing had been that Lou and Paul had been enemies for so long they had almost become friends. After all, they knew so much about each other.
It took Lou almost an hour to get out to Paul’s, and by the time he mounted the front steps, it was just about the same time of day as when Paul had thrown the surprise party. Lou could remember it as if it had been yesterday.
Looking through the front windows, Lou could see that the living room lights were on. Outside it was getting dark even though it was only five-thirty. Winter was on its way.
Lou pressed the front doorbell and heard the muted chimes. The door was opened by Gregory, the older boy. He was about ten. He recognized Lou, greeted him in a friendly fashion, and invited him inside. Gregory was a well-mannered boy.
“Is your dad home?” Lou asked.
No sooner had he asked than Paul appeared from the living room in his stocking feet clutching a red-tipped cane. A radio was on in the background.
“Who is it?” he asked Gregory.
“It’s Detective Soldano,” Gregory said.
“Lou!” Paul said, coming directly toward Lou and extending a hand.
Lou shook hands with Paul and tried to see his eyes behind a pair of reflective sunglasses. Paul was a big man, moderately overweight, so that his small facial features were sunk into his fleshy face. He had dark hair cut short, and large, heavily lobed ears. On both cheeks were red patches of recently healed skin. Lou guessed it had been from the acid.
“How about some coffee?” Paul said. “Or a little wine?” Without waiting for a response, Paul yelled for Gloria. Gregory reappeared with Steven, the younger Cerino. He was eight.
“Come in,” Paul said. “Sit down. Tell me what’s been happening. You married yet?”
Lou followed Paul back into the living room. He could tell that Paul had adapted well to his reduced visual acuity, at least in his own home. He didn’t use the cane to navigate to the radio to turn it off. Nor did he use it to find his favorite chair, into which he sank with a sigh.
“Sorry to hear about your eye problem,” Lou said, sitting opposite Paul.
“These things happen,” Paul said philosophically.
Gloria appeared and greeted Lou. Like Paul, she was overweight—a buxom woman with a kind, gentle face. If she knew what her husband did for a living, she never let on. She acted like the typical, lower-middle-class suburban housewife who had to scrimp to get along on a budget. Lou wondered what Paul did with all the money he had to be accumulating.
Responding to Lou’s positive reply regarding coffee, Gloria disappeared into the kitchen.
“I heard about your accident just today,” Lou said.
“I haven’t told all my friends,” Paul said with a smile.
“Did this involve the Lucia people?” Lou asked. “Was it Vinnie Dominick?”
“Oh no!” Paul said. “This was an accident. I was trying to jump-start the car and the battery blew up. Got a bunch of acid in my face.”
“Come on, Paul,” Lou said. “I came all the way out here to commiserate with you. The least you can do is tell me the truth. I already know that the acid was thrown into your face. It’s just a matter of who was responsible.”
“How do you know this?” Cerino asked.
“I was specifically told by someone who knows,” Lou said. “In fact it ultimately came from a totally reliable source. You!”
“Me?” Paul questioned with genuine surprise.
Gloria returned with an espresso for Lou. He helped himself to sugar. Gloria then retreated from the room. So did the boys.
“You have awakened my curiosity,” Paul said. “Explain to me how I was the source of this rumor about my eyes.”
“You told your doctor, Jordan Scheffield,” Lou said. “He told one of the medical examiners by the name of Laurie Montgomery, and the medical examiner told me. And the reason I happened to be talking to the medical examiner was because I went over there to watch a couple of autopsies on homicide victims. The names might be familiar to you: Frankie DePasquale and Bruno Marchese.”
“Never heard of them,” Paul said.
“They are Lucia people,” Lou said. “And one of them, curiously enough, had acid burns in one of his eyes.”
“Terrible,” Cerino said. “They certainly don’t make batteries the way they used to.”
“So you’re still telling me that you got battery acid in your eyes?” Lou asked.
“Of course,” Paul said. “Because that’s what happened.”
“How are the eyes doing?” Lou asked.
“Pretty good, considering what could have happened,” Paul said. “But the doctor says I’ll do fine as soon as I have my operations. First I have to wait a while, but I’m sure you know about that.”
“What are you talking about?” Lou said. “I don’t know anything about eyes except how many you got.”
“I didn’t know much either,” Paul said. “At least not before this happened. But I’ve been learning ever since. I used to think they transplanted the whole eye. You know, like changing an old-fashioned-type radio tube. Just plug the thing in with all the prongs in the right place. But that’s not how it works. They only transplant the cornea.”
“That’s all news to me,” Lou said.
“Want to see what my eyes look like?” Paul asked.
“I’m not sure,” Lou said.
Paul took off his reflective sunglasses.
“Ugh,” Lou said. “Put your glasses back on. I’m sorry for you, Paul. It looks terrible. It looks like you have a couple of white marbles in your eyes.”
Paul chuckled as he put his glasses back on. “I would have thought a hardened cop like you would have felt satisfaction that his old enemy took a fall.”
“Hell no!” Lou said. “I don’t want you handicapped. I want you in jail.”
Paul laughed. “Still at it, huh?”
“Putting you away is still one of my ultimate goals in life,” Lou said agreeably. “And finding that acid burn in Frankie DePasquale’s eye gives me some hope. At this point it looks mighty suspicious that you were behind the kid’s murder.”
“Aw, Lou,” Paul said. “It hurts my feelings that you’d think something nasty about me after all these years.”
6
* * *
8:45 p.m., Wednesday
Manhattan
At first Laurie thought the experience was unique enough to be tolerable, but as the time approached eight forty-five she began to get irritated. Thomas, Jordan’s driver, had shown up exactly at the agreed-upon time, eight o’clock, and had rung Laurie’s bell. But when Laurie got down to the car, she learned that Jordan was not there. He was still in surgery doing an emergency operation.
“I’m supposed to take you to the restaurant,” Thomas had said. “Dr. Scheffield will be meeting you there.”<
br />
Taken by surprise with this situation, Laurie had agreed. She’d felt strange entering the fancy restaurant by herself, but she was quickly put at ease by the maitre d’, who had been expecting her. She’d been discreetly ushered to a waiting table wedged among others near to the window. Next to the table stood a wine stand icing down a bottle of Meursault.
The sommelier had appeared instantly and had shown Laurie the label of the wine. After she’d nodded, he’d opened it, poured her a dollop, waited for her OK, then filled her glass. All this had been accomplished without words.
Finally at five minutes before nine, Jordan arrived.
He came into the room with a flourish, and although he waved a greeting at Laurie, he didn’t join her immediately. Instead he weaved his way through the crowded room, stopping at several tables to say hello. Each group of diners greeted him with gusto; animated conversation and smiles followed in his wake.
“Sorry,” he said, finally sitting down. “I was in surgery, but I guess Thomas told you as much.”
“He did,” Laurie said. “What kind of emergency surgery was it?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly an emergency,” Jordan said, nervously rearranging his place setting. “My surgery has picked up recently, so I have to squeeze standby cases in whenever the operating room can give me a slot. How’s the wine?”
The wine steward had reappeared and gave Jordan a taste of the wine.
“The wine is fine,” Laurie said. “Seems that you know a lot of people here.”
Jordan took a sip of his wine and for a moment he looked pensive while he swished it around inside his mouth. He nodded with satisfaction after he swallowed, motioned for his glass to be filled, then looked at Laurie. “I usually run into a few of my patients here,” he said. “How was your day? I hope it was better than mine.”
“Some sort of trouble?” Laurie asked.
“Plenty of trouble,” Jordan said. “First, my secretary, who’s been with me for almost ten years, didn’t show up in the morning. She’s never not shown up without calling. We tried calling her but there was no answer. So scheduling got all fouled up by the time I came in from the hospital. Then, to make matters worse, we discovered that someone had broken into the office the night before and had stolen our petty cash as well as all the Percodans we kept on hand.”
“How awful,” Laurie said. She remembered how it had felt to be robbed. Her room at college had been ransacked one day. “Any vandalism?” she asked. Whoever had broken into her room had smashed what they couldn’t carry away.
“No,” Jordan said. “But strangely enough the burglar rifled through my records and used the copy machine.”
“That sounds like more than a simple robbery,” Laurie said.
“That’s what makes me uneasy,” Jordan said. “The petty cash and the few Percodans I could care less about. But I don’t like the thought of someone in my records, not with the high accounts receivable I have. I’ve already called my accountant to run a tape; I want to make sure there isn’t some big change. Have you looked at the menu?”
“Not yet,” Laurie said. Her irritation was fading now that Jordan had arrived.
Responding to Jordan’s gesture, the maitre d’ appeared with two menus. Jordan, who ate there frequently, was full of suggestions. Laurie ordered from the daily specials menu attached to the main menu.
She thought the food was wonderful although the frenetic atmosphere made it difficult for her to relax. But Jordan seemed in his element.
While they were waiting for dessert and coffee, Laurie asked Jordan about the effects of acid in the eye. He warmed to the request immediately, going on at length about the cornea’s and the conjunctiva’s responses to both acid and alkali. Laurie lost interest halfway through his discourse, but her gaze remained steady. She had to admit: he was an attractive man. She wondered how he maintained such a fabulous tan.
To Laurie’s relief, the arrival of dessert and coffee interrupted Jordan’s impromptu lecture. As he began his flourless chocolate cake, he changed the subject. “I probably should be thankful those crooks didn’t take any of the valuables last night, like the Picassos in the waiting room.”
Laurie set her coffee cup down. “You have Picassos in your waiting room?”
“Signed drawings,” Jordan said casually. “About twenty of them. It’s truly a state-of-the-art office, and I didn’t want to scrimp on the waiting area. After all, that’s the place the patients spend the most time.” Jordan laughed for the first time since he’d sat down.
“That’s even more extravagant than the limo,” Laurie said. Actually, she felt more strongly than she let on. The idea of such ostentation in a medical setting seemed obscene, especially given the runaway cost of medical care.
“It’s quite an office,” Jordan said proudly. “My favorite feature of it is that the patients move. I don’t go to them, they come to me.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Laurie said.
“Each one of my five examining rooms is built on a circular mechanism. You’ve seen these revolving restaurants at the tops of certain buildings. It’s kind of like that. When I push a button in my office, the whole thing turns and the examining room I want lines up with my office. Another button lifts the wall. It’s as good as a ride in Disneyland.”
“Sounds very impressive,” Laurie said. “Expensive but impressive. I suppose your overhead is pretty high.”
“Astronomical,” Jordan said. He sounded proud of it. “So high that I hate to take a vacation. It’s too expensive! Not the vacation itself, but letting the office sit idle. I also have two operating rooms for outpatient procedures.”
“I’d like to see this office sometime,” Laurie said.
“I’d love to show it to you,” Jordan said. “In fact, why not now? It’s just around the corner on Park Avenue.”
Laurie said she thought that was a great idea, so as soon as Jordan took care of the bill, they were off.
The first room they entered was Jordan’s private office. The walls and furniture were entirely of teak, waxed to a high gloss. The upholstery was black leather. There was enough sophisticated ophthalmological equipment to outfit a small hospital.
Next they entered the waiting room, which was paneled in mahogany. Just as Jordan had said, the walls were lined with Picasso drawings. Down a short hall from the waiting room was a circular room with five doors on its perimeter. Opening one, Jordan asked Laurie to sit in the examining chair.
“Now stay right there,” he said before leaving the room.
Laurie did as she was told. Next thing she knew, she felt like the room was moving. Then the movement—real or imagined—stopped abruptly and the lights in the room began to dim. Simultaneously, the far wall rose. Its disappearance effectively joined Laurie’s examination room to Jordan’s private office. Jordan was sitting at his desk, backlit, and leaning back in his chair.
“What’s that line about not having Mohammed go to the mountain, but the mountain going to him? Same principle applies here. I like my patients to feel they are in powerful hands. I actually believe it makes them heal more quickly. I know that sounds a bit hocus-pocus, but it works for me.”
“I’m impressed,” Laurie said. “Obviously I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Where do you keep your records?”
Jordan took Laurie through another door that led from his office into a long hall. At the end of the hall was a windowless room with a bank of file cabinets, a copy machine, and a computer terminal.
“All the records are in the file cabinets,” he said. “But most of the material is duplicated on the computer on hard disk.”
“Are these the records that the burglars went through?” Laurie asked.
“They are,” Jordan said. “And that’s the copy machine. I’m very meticulous about my records. I could tell someone had been in them because the contents in some had been put out of order. I know the copy machine was used after we closed because I have my secretary record the num
ber from the machine at the end of each day.”
“What about Paul Cerino’s record?” Laurie asked. “Was that disturbed?”
“I don’t know,” Jordan said. “But it’s a good question.”
Jordan flipped through his “C” drawer and pulled out a manila folder.
“You were right,” he said after paging through. “This one was disturbed as well. See this information sheet? It’s supposed to be in the front. Instead it’s in the back.”
“Is there any way to tell if it had been copied?”
Jordan thought for a moment but shook his head. “Not that I can think of. What’s going through your mind?”
“I’m not sure,” Laurie said. “But maybe this supposed burglary should convince you to be a bit more careful. I know you think taking care of this Cerino character is mildly entertaining, but you have to understand that he is apparently one nasty man. And maybe even more important, he has some very nasty enemies.”
“You think Cerino could have been responsible for my break-in?” Jordan asked.
“I truly don’t know,” Laurie said. “But it’s possible, one way or the other. Maybe his enemies don’t want you to fix him up. There are all sorts of possibilities. The only thing I do know is that these guys play for keeps. Over the last two days I’ve done autopsies on two young men who’d been murdered gangland style, and one of them had what looked like acid burns in his eye.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Jordan said.
“I’m not trying to scare you just to scare you,” Laurie said. “I’m only saying this so that you will think about what you are getting yourself involved with by taking care of these people. I’ve been told that the two major crime families, the Vaccarros and the Lucias, are currently at each other’s throats. That’s why Cerino got the acid slung in his face. He’s one of the Vaccarro bosses.”