“Good grief!” Dr. Newhouse blurted.
“Sorry,” Paul said guiltily. Since he was mostly responsible for the steering, the collision was his fault more than anyone else’s.
“Did the frame hit the doorjamb?” Dr. Newhouse questioned, as he patted Ashley’s hand down into his lap.
“No, it missed,” said Marjorie, who was on the side of the collision and might have been able to avert it had she seen it coming. It just happened too quickly. She let go of Ashley’s arm to push the front of the OR table away from the doorjamb.
“Thank goodness for small favors,” Dr. Newhouse said. “At least we didn’t contaminate it. If we had, we would have had to start from the beginning.”
Constance hurried over from where she was standing at the scrub table. Since she had remained gowned and gloved while everyone had gone down to X ray, she was able to grasp the frame without threatening its sterility, straighten it up along with Ashley’s head, and support it.
“Am I finished already?” Ashley asked, sounding inebriated. The collision had jarred him from his drugged repose. He tried to open his eyes, with little success. His lids were only able to struggle to less than halfway open. Sensing the strange weight on his head, he strained to reach up and feel what it was. Dr. Newhouse grabbed his raised arm; Marjorie restrained the other.
“Get the table into position,” Dr. Newhouse ordered.
Paul pulled the table to the center of the room. He helped Dr. Newhouse get the armboards in place. A moment later, Ashley’s arms were appropriately restrained. Ashley helped by immediately falling back asleep. Dr. Newhouse handed the EKG leads to Marjorie, who connected them to the electronic unit. Soon the regular and reassuring beeping of the cardiac monitor replaced the tense silence in the room. Dr. Newhouse took the stethoscope from his ears after taking the blood pressure. “Everything is fine,” he announced.
“I should have been more careful,” Paul said.
“No harm done,” Dr. Newhouse responded. “The frame wasn’t compromised. We’ll let Dr. Nawaz know so he can check it. Does it feel stable, Constance?”
“Rock-solid,” said Constance, who was still supporting the frame.
“Good,” Dr. Newhouse said. “I think you can let go now. Thanks for your help.”
Constance released her grip tentatively. The frame’s position did not change. She returned to stand by the scrub table.
“I guess you were right about the patient’s color,” Dr. Newhouse called over to Spencer. “There’s been no change in his cardiovascular status. At the same time, I think I’ll set up a pulse oximeter. Marjorie, could you get one for me from the anesthesia room?”
“No problem,” Marjorie said, before disappearing through the door into the adjoining space.
A figure appeared at the window to the hallway and caught Paul’s attention. Although the man was dressed in scrubs and was wearing a mask, Paul instantly recognized Kurt Hermann. Paul’s pulse rate shot up again after having recovered from the collision with the OR table against the doorjamb. He was nervous, since it was highly unusual for Kurt Hermann to be seen in any building other than admin, where his office was located, and particularly unlikely in the OR suite. Something had to be seriously wrong, especially with the typically restrained Kurt waving for Paul to come out into the hall.
Paul made a beeline for the door and stepped out into the corridor. “What’s up?” he asked anxiously.
“I need to talk with you and Dr. Wingate in private.”
“What about?”
“The patient’s identity. He’s not Mob-related.”
“Oh, really?” Paul voiced with relief. The last thing he expected was good news. “Who is he?”
“Why don’t you get Dr. Wingate.”
“Okay! Just a moment!”
Paul returned to the OR and whispered into Spencer’s ear. Spencer’s eyebrows arched. He made a point to look out the window at Kurt, as if he didn’t believe what Paul had just told him. With alacrity, he followed Paul back out into the hallway. Kurt motioned for them to follow him across the corridor and into the OR storeroom. Once there, he made sure the door was closed before turning to stare at his bosses. He didn’t have a high regard for either one of them, especially since he was never quite sure who was in control.
“Well?” Spencer questioned. He didn’t have the patience with Kurt that Paul had. “Are you going to tell us or what? Who is he?”
“First, a bit of background,” Kurt said in his clipped military style. “I learned from the limo driver that he’d picked up the patient and his woman companion from the Atlantis resort. Through employee contacts at the resort that I’d been provided by the local police, I found out they are staying in the Poseidon Suite, registered to Carol Manning of Washington, D.C.”
“Carroll Manning?” Spencer questioned. “I never heard of him. Who the devil is he?”
“Carol Manning is a she,” Kurt said. “I had a friend run the name on the mainland. She’s the chief of staff of Senator Ashley Butler. I checked with the Bahamian immigration authorities; Senator Butler arrived on the island yesterday. It is my belief the patient is the senator.”
“Senator Butler! Of course!” Spencer said, while slapping the top of his head. “You know, I thought I recognized him this morning, but I just couldn’t put the face and the name together, at least not with him in that ridiculous tourist outfit.”
“Crap!” Paul swore. He jammed his hands onto his hips and paced in the small area the storeroom afforded. “All this trouble to find out who he is, and he turns out to be a freaking politician. There goes our big payoff.”
“Let’s not be too hasty here,” Spencer said.
“And why the hell not?” Paul said. He stopped and looked at Spencer. “We were counting on the mystery man to be rich and famous. That meant a celebrity like a movie star, a rock star, or sports hero, or at the very least, a prominent CEO. Certainly not a politician!”
“There are politicians and there are politicians,” Spencer said. “What could be important to us is that there’s been considerable talk of Butler running for the ’04 Democratic nomination for President along with everyone else.”
“But politicians don’t have any money,” Paul said. “At least, not any of their own.”
“But they have access to people with a lot of money,” Spencer said. “That’s what’s important, particularly with serious Presidential contenders. When the field of Democratic Presidential hopefuls gets whittled down, which it undoubtedly will, there will be lots of money. If Butler runs, and if he does well in the early going, we could get that monetary windfall yet.”
“That’s a number of big ifs,” Paul said with a wry, disbelieving expression. “But regardless, I’m happy with what we’ve got already. Windfall or not, I got great exposure to HTSR, which we’ll profit from greatly, and that’s in addition to the forty-five K, which isn’t chicken feed. So I’m happy, especially getting Dr. Lowell to sign that statement. He’s not going to be able to deny what he’s done here, and I’m going to push for that article with the Shroud of Turin twist in the NEJM. Publicity will be our big long-term payoff, and for that, a politician is as good or better than any other celebrity.”
“I’ll be getting back to my normal security duties,” Kurt said. He wasn’t going to stand there and listen to the drivel of these two buffoons. He stepped to the door and pulled it open.
“Thanks for getting the name,” Paul said.
“Yeah, thanks,” Spencer added. “We’ll try to forget it took you a month and you had to kill someone in the process.”
Kurt glared back at Spencer for a moment, then he was gone. The automatic closer pulled the door shut.
“That last comment wasn’t fair,” Paul complained.
“I know,” Spencer said, with a wave of dismissal. “I’m trying to be funny.”
“You don’t appreciate his contribution around here.”
“I guess I don’t,” Spencer agreed.
&nbs
p; “You will when we get up and running at full capacity. Security is going to be a big issue. Trust me!”
“Maybe so, but for now let’s get back to the implantation, and let’s hope it goes better than it has so far.” Spencer pulled open the door and started out.
“Wait a second,” Paul said, grabbing Spencer’s arm. “Something just occurred to me: Ashley Butler is the senator who has been spearheading the movement to ban Lowell’s HTSR. Now that’s ironic, since he is now going to be the beneficiary!”
“It’s more hypocritical than ironic, if you ask me,” Spencer said. “He and Lowell must have come up with some kind of clandestine deal.”
“That has to be the case, and if it is, it bodes well for our financial windfall, since both would be committed to keeping it a deep, dark secret.”
“I think we’re in the driver’s seat,” Spencer said with a nod. “Now, let’s get back in that OR to make sure there are no more problems, so the implantation actually takes place. It was a damn good thing we were around for that X-ray muddle.”
“We’re going to have to get a portable X-ray machine.”
“Let’s hold off until we get some cash flow, if you don’t mind.”
Spencer hesitated just outside the OR door. He turned back to Paul. “I think it is important we don’t let on about knowing the senator’s true identity.”
“Of course,” Paul said. “That goes without saying.”
twenty-five
11:45 A.M., Sunday, March 24, 2002
For Tony D’Agostino, it was like being caught in a bad dream, unable to wake up, as once again he found himself pulling up to the front of the Castigliano brothers’ plumbing supply store. To make matters worse, it was a cold, rainy late March Sunday morning, and there were a thousand other things he’d prefer to be doing, like having a cappuccino and a cannoli in cozy Café Cosenza on Hanover Street.
After opening the car door, Tony first stuck out his umbrella and got it open. Only then did he climb from the car. But his efforts were to no avail. He still got wet. The wind was whipping the rain around so that it was going every which way. It was even a struggle to hold on to the umbrella to keep it from being yanked out of his hand.
Just inside the door, Tony stomped the moisture off his feet, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and leaned the umbrella up against the wall. As he passed the counter where Gaetano usually worked, he swore under his breath. There was no doubt in his mind that Gaetano was the one who had screwed up yet again, and he had hoped the hulk would be there so he could give him a piece of his mind.
As usual, the door to the inner office was unlocked, and Tony entered after a cursory knock without waiting for a reply. Both the Castiglianos were at their respective desks, the cluttered surfaces of which were illuminated by the matching desk lamps with green glass shades. With the heavy cloud cover, very little light was coming in through the dirty, small-paned windows facing out over the marsh.
The Castiglianos looked up in unison. Sal had been busy making entries into an old-fashioned ledger book from a stack of crinkled notes. Lou was playing solitaire. Unfortunately, Gaetano was nowhere to be seen.
Following the usual ritual, Tony gave each twin a slapping handshake before sitting down on the sofa. He didn’t sit back or even open his coat. He planned on making the visit as short as possible. He cleared his throat. No one had said a word, which was a little strange, especially since he was the one planning to act irritated.
“My mother talked to my sister last night,” Tony began. “I want you people to know I’m confused.”
“Oh, really?” Lou questioned with a touch of scorn. “Welcome to the club!”
Tony looked from one twin to the other. It was suddenly obvious that both the Castiglianos were in as ugly a mood as he, especially with Lou showing the disrespect of immediately going back to his game of solitaire, snapping his cards on the desktop as he played. Tony looked at Sal, and Sal glared back. Sal appeared more sinister than usual, with his gaunt face illuminated from below with sickly green light. He could have been a corpse.
“Why don’t you tell us what you’re confused about?” Sal suggested superciliously.
“Yeah, we’d like to hear,” Lou added, without interrupting his card playing. “Especially since you’re the one who twisted our arms to come up with the hundred K for your sister’s scam.”
Mildly alarmed at this unexpected cool reception, Tony sat back. Feeling suddenly warm all over, he opened his coat. “I didn’t twist anybody’s arm,” he said indignantly, but as the words escaped his lips, he felt an unpleasant sense of vulnerability wash over him. Belatedly, he questioned the wisdom of coming out to the twin’s isolated office without any protection or backup whatsoever. He wasn’t packing, but that wasn’t unusual. He almost never did, which the twins knew. Yet he certainly had muscle as part of his organization just like the Castiglianos, and he should have brought it along.
“You’re not telling us what you are confused about,” Sal said, ignoring Tony’s rebuttal.
Tony cleared his throat again. With his mounting uneasiness, he decided it best to mellow his anger. “I’m a bit confused about what Gaetano did on his second trip to Nassau. A week ago, my mother told me she’d had difficulty getting ahold of my sister. She said that when she did, my sister acted weird, like something bad had happened that she didn’t want to talk about until she got home, which was going to be soon. Obviously, I thought Gaetano had done his job and the professor was history. Well, last night my mother managed to get my sister again, since she hadn’t shown up. This time she was, in my mother’s words, ‘back to her old self,’ saying she and the professor were still in Nassau, but that they were coming home in just a few days. I mean, what gives?”
For a few tense minutes, no one said anything. The only noise in the room was Lou’s cards intermittently snapping on the desktop, combined with the sound of seagulls squawking out in the marsh.
Tony made a point of looking around the room, which was mostly lost in shadow despite the hour. “Speaking of Gaetano, where is he?” The last thing Tony wanted was a surprise coming from the twins’ enforcer.
“That’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves,” Sal said.
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Gaetano has yet to come back from Nassau,” Sal said. “He’s AWOL. We haven’t heard boo since he left the last time you came over here, nor has his brother and sister-in-law, who he’s close to. Nobody has heard a goddamn thing. Not a peep.”
If Tony thought he was confused before, now he was dumbfounded. Although he had been complaining about Gaetano recently, he respected the man as an experienced professional, and, as a connected man, Tony assumed Gaetano would be unquestionably loyal. His going AWOL didn’t make any sense.
“Needless to say, we’re a tiny bit baffled ourselves,” Sal added.
“Have you made any inquiries?” Tony asked.
“Inquiries?” Lou questioned sarcastically, finally looking up from his solitaire. “Why would we do a crazy thing like that? Hell, no! We’ve just been sitting here day after day, chewing our fingernails, waiting for the phone to ring.”
“We called the Spriano family in New York,” Sal said, ignoring his brother’s sarcasm. “In case you didn’t know, we’re distantly related. They’re checking into it for us. Meanwhile, they’re in the process of sending us another assistant, who should be getting here in a day or so. They were the ones that sent us Gaetano in the first place.”
A shiver of fear creeped up Tony’s spine. He knew the Spriano organization was one of the most powerful and ruthless families on the East Coast. He’d had no idea the twins were associated, which put everything in a more serious and worrisome category. “What about the Miami Colombians who were to supply the gun?” he asked to change the topic.
“We called them too,” Sal said. “They’re never overly cooperative, as you know, but they said they’d check it out. So there are feelers out there. Obviously
, we want to know where the moron is holed up and why.”
“Is any of your money missing?” Tony asked.
“Nothing Gaetano could have taken,” Sal said enigmatically.
“Weird,” Tony remarked, for a lack of anything else to say. He didn’t know what Sal meant, but he wasn’t about to ask. “I’m sorry you’re having this problem.” He moved forward on the couch as if he were about to get to his feet.
“It’s more than weird.” Lou sneered. “And sorry ain’t good enough. We’ve been talking about all this over the last few days, and I think you should know how we feel. Ultimately, we hold you responsible for this foul-up with Gaetano, however it plays out, and also for our one hundred K, which we’re going to want back with interest. The interest will be at our usual rate from the day we handed it over and is nonnegotiable. And one last thing: We now consider the loan overdue.”
Tony abruptly stood up. His rising anxiety had reached a critical point after hearing Lou’s comments and thinly veiled threat. “Let me know if you hear anything,” he said, heading for the door. “Meanwhile, I’ll make a few inquiries myself.”
“You better start making inquiries about how you are going to raise the hundred grand,” Sal said, “because we’re not going to be all that patient.”
Tony hurried out of the store, oblivious to the rain. He was perspiring, despite the chill. It was only after he’d leaped into his car that he remembered his umbrella. “Screw it!” he said out loud. He got the Caddy going, and with his arm hooked over the back of the front seat, he looked out the rear window and gunned the engine. With a shower of pebbles, the car lurched out into the street. A moment later, he had the Cadillac up to almost fifty miles per hour, heading back into the city.
Tony relaxed to a degree and dried each palm off in turn on his pant legs. The immediate threat was over, but he knew intuitively that a much larger long-term threat was looming on the horizon, especially if the Sprianos became involved, no matter how tangentially. It was all very discouraging, if not frightening. Just when he was mobilizing his resources to fight his indictment, he was now facing a possible turf war.