He felt like a cowboy.
He carried his own pistol, the 'dog.44, in his right hand, and pulled Martin's pistol out of his left pocket, and pushed through the doors using his elbows.
An information counter was just inside the doors to the right. A security guard sat behind the desk, watching a portable television. Three more people, two women and a man in a white medical jacket, were scattered around the lobby chairs, the women reading, the man staring sightlessly at the wall, as though he'd made an unforgivable error somewhere.
LaChaise walked over to the guard, who looked up only at the last minute, a smile dying a sudden death. LaChaisepointed the two guns at the guard's chest and said, ``Walk me up to the operating rooms or I'll kill you.''
The guard looked at the guns, then at LaChaise, and then, slowly, stupidly, at the television: ``They're looking for you,'' he said.
``No shit. Now get out of there and walk me up to the operating rooms. You got five seconds, then I kill you.''
``This way,'' the guard said. He came out from behind the desk, his hands held at shoulder height. He was unarmed. The three people in the lobby were looking at them, but nobody moved from their seats. ``There's another guy coming in, in one second,'' LaChaise said to the room in general. ``If anybody's moving, anybody's standing up, he'll kill you. Sit tight and you'll be okay. I'm Dick LaChaise, that you seen on TV, and I'm here on business.''
The sound of the line pleased him; it sounded cowboy-like. They walked a few feet down a corridor, around a corner to the right, to a bank of elevators. The guard pushed the elevator button and the doors slid open. ``Three,'' he said, as they got inside. ``You gonna kill me?''
``Not if you do what I tell you,'' LaChaise said. ``When we get to three, you stay in the car and ride until you get to the top.'' LaChaise pushed all the buttons higher than three, and a bell rang and the door opened, and LaChaise waved the gun at the guard and said, ``I'll stand here until the doors are closed. If you get off before the top, somebody'll shoot your ass. Got that?''
``Yes, sir,'' the guard said, as the doors closed.
AT THE END OF THE HALL, DOUBLE DOORS LED TO THE operating suite. To his right, an elderly man sat in a chair reading Modern Maturity. He looked up, sucked on his teeth, and looked back at the magazine. LaChaise had the odd impression that he hadn't noticed the guns.
Nobody else in sight. LaChaise went to the double doors, pushed through, found himself in a nursing station. Two nurses were looking at a clipboard, and one of them was saying, ``... must be stealing scrubs again. They're all his size, and it's only the new ones...''
They both looked up at the same time. LaChaise was there in his heavy dark coat, dripping water from the melting snow, his eyes dark and two guns in his hand. He said, ``Ladies, I need to see Dr. Weather Karkinnen.''
The taller and younger of the two nurses said, ``Oh, shit,'' and the older, shorter one shook her head and said, ``You can't. She's operating.''
``Then let's go down to the operating room and see her.''
``You're not authorized,'' the older woman said.
``If you don't show me, I'm going to kill one of you, and then the other one will show me, I bet. Who do I kill?'' He pulled back the hammer on the 'dog, and the catches ratcheted in the silence. The two nurses looked at each other, then the older one began to sniffle, the way the boy in the car had; and the younger one said, finally, ``I'll show you.''
She led the way through another set of doors, stopped outside of a single wide door, stood on tiptoe to look through a window and then stepped back and said sadly, ``In there.''
``If she's not, I'll be back,'' LaChaise said, holding her eyes. The woman looked away, and LaChaise bumped through the door.
WEATHER HAD HER EYES TO THE OPERATING MICROSCOPE while her hands made the delicate loops that produced square knots in the nearly invisible suture material. She'd just said, ``If you actually listen to The Doors you start to laugh; listen to the words of `L.A. Woman' sometime and tell me they're not...''
The door banged open and she almost jumped, and everybodyturned and, without looking up, she said, ``Who in the fuck did that?''
``I did,'' LaChaise said.
Weather finished the knot and then looked up from the scope, blinked and saw him there, with the two pistols.
``Who's Weather Karkinnen?''
``I am,'' Weather said. He pointed a pistol at her and she closed her eyes.
``Come out of there.''
She opened her eyes again and said, ``I can't stop now. If I stop now, this little girl will lose her thumb and she'll go through life like that.''
LaChaise took a mental step back, confused: ``What?''
``I said, if I quit now...''
``I heard that,'' he snapped. ``What're you doing?''
``I'm hooking up an artery. She had a benign tumor and we removed it and now we're hooking up the two ends of the artery to get the blood supply going again.''
``Well, how long will it take?''
Weather looked back through the operating microscope. ``Twenty minutes.''
``You've got five,'' he said. And he said, ``You're really short for a doctor.''
Weather looked away again, and asked, ``Are you going to kill everybody in here?''
``Depends,'' LaChaise said.
``If I get another doctor in here, he could finish for me.''
``Get him.''
``Not if you're going to hurt him, or the others.''
``I won't hurt him if he doesn't fuck with me.''
Weather looked at the circulating nurse and said, ``Betty, go down and ask Dr. Feldman to step in here, if he would.''
LaChaise looked at the nurse and said, ``Go. And if you fuck with me...''
Weather went back to the microscope and they all waited, silently, her hands barely moving, for two or three minutes, when a man in an operating gown bumped hip-first into the room, his hands at chest level. ``What's going on?''
LaChaise pointed one of the guns at him, and Weather said, ``We've got a gentleman with a gun. Two guns, in fact. He wants to talk with me.''
``The police are coming,'' the new doctor said to LaChaise. In the sterile operating theater, LaChaise looked like a rat on a cheesecake.
``They're always coming,'' LaChaise said.
``However this works out, we've got to finish this,'' Weather said to Feldman, her voice steady. ``Could you take a look?''
The operating scope had two eyepieces, and Feldman, his hands still pressed to his chest, stepped to the operating table opposite Weather and looked into the second eyepiece. ``You're almost done.''
``I need to put in two more knots, and then it's a matter of closing...''
She gave him a quick brief on the operation, and finished one of the two knots. ``One more,'' she said.
``I've got to go down and back off mine,'' Feldman said.
``How far are you in?'' Weather asked.
``Not in,'' Feldman said. ``We were just getting the anesthesia started... I'll be back.''
He went with such authority that LaChaise let him go without objection. Weather was working in the incision again, and one of the nurses said, ``If I stay here, I'll pee my pants.''
``Then go,'' Weather said. ``Everybody else okay?''
They were okay. The nurse who thought she might pee her pants decided to stay with them.
Feldman returned: ``Where are we?''
``Just finishing,'' Weather said calmly. ``See?''
Feldman looked through the scope and said, ``Nice. But I think you might need one more, at...''
He was stalling. Weather said, ``I think that should be all right.'' Feldman looked at her and she gave a small shake of the head. ``You sure?''
``Better to get him out of here,'' Weather said.
``What's going on?'' LaChaise demanded.
``Trying to figure out what we can do here,'' Feldman snapped. ``We're right in the middle of things.''
Weather stepped back from the table. ``But I'm done,'' she said.
She looked at LaChaise. ``Now what?''
``Outa here. We need a phone. Someplace where they can't get at me.''
``There's an office at the end of the hall.''
``Let's go,'' he said, waving the pistol at her.
THE OUTER AREA WAS DESERTED. THE NURSES HAD gone, and the cops hadn't arrived yet. Weather pulled off her mask and peeled off the first of her gloves and said, ``What're you going to do?''
``Talk to your old man,'' LaChaise said.
And kill her, while they were on the phone, she thought. She came to the office and said, ``In there. There's a phone.''
She gestured and she went through ahead of him, turned. ``You have a lot of choices to make,'' she said.
``Shut up. What's your old man's number?''
``You could probably dial 911 and they could patch you through. He's out there in his car.''
``Do it, and hand me the phone...''
Weather punched 911 and handed it to him. He listened a minute, the gun muzzle steady on her chest, and said, ``This is Dick LaChaise. I want to talk to Lucas Davenport. I'm at the hospital and I'm pointing a gun at his old lady, Dr. Karkinnen.''
Weather said, ``You don't have much time left: you better start thinking this through.''
``I said, shut up.''
``Why? Because if I don't you're gonna kill me? You're already planning to kill me.''
``You don't want it to come no sooner than it has to...'' Then he said to the phone, ``Well, get him on. Well, when is he gonna be... Yeah? You tell him to call...'' He looked at the phone, but there was no number, and he looked at Weather.
``The surgery suite,'' Weather said. Lucas wouldn't get on the phone. He knew what LaChaise would do.
``The surgery suite,'' LaChaise repeated, and he hung up. ``He's on foot somewhere. They're getting him.''
Weather said, ``I've got to sit down,'' and she dropped in the chair on the other side of the desk. ``Look, you're either going to have to shoot me or listen to me, and I think you better listen: My friend Davenport will get here in a few minutes, and if you kill me, he'll kill you. You can forget all about rules and regulations and laws; he'll kill you.''
``Like he killed my old lady and my sister.''
She bobbed her head. ``Yes. He set that up. I talked to him about it, because I couldn't believe he did it. It's caused us some trouble. But when he thinks he's right, he won't turn. And if you kill me...'' She shrugged. ``That's the end for both of us. You won't walk out of here.''
``I ain't walking out anyway.''
Now he looked at her, and she saw that she was still wearing one glove, and she pulled it off slowly, watching his eyes.
``There's no death penalty either in Wisconsin or Minnesota. You escaped once. You might have to wait for a while, but there's always the chance that you could be free again. One way or another.''
``Bullshit, they're gonna kill me.''
``No, they won't. Not if you wait a while. They have all kinds of rules. And once you're on television, they won't be able to take you off and shoot you somewhere. Once you're in the system, you'll be safe. My husband, my friend...''
``Is he your husband or your friend?''
``We're planning to get married in a couple of months. We live together... If you make a deal with him, he won't kill you. But if you shoot me, you can make any kind of deal you want-you can make a deal with the President-and he'll kill you anyway.''
He grinned, and said, ``Yeah, tough guy,'' but he was thinking. He thought about Martin, probably dead already, going cold in the snow somewhere, and he said, ``They'd stick me in the Black Hole of Calcutta.''
``Probably, for a while,'' she agreed. ``Then something bigger and dirtier would come along, and they'll start to forget about you, and they'll give you a little air. Then you'll have a chance. If you die now... that's it. No court, no TV time, no interviews, no nothing.''
``Well, fuck that,'' LaChaise said. ``Let's see what your old man says.''
Weather took a breath: it was a start. ``You're bleeding,'' she said. ``We could get a first-aid kit.''
TWENTY-NINE
THE DRIVER OF THE SQUAD HAD HIS FOOT TO THE floor, his partner, braced for impact, screaming, ``Slow it down, slow it down,'' and they skidded through the first corner and nearly off the street, then they were on Washington headed toward University Hospitals.
Dispatch came back: ``We don't know what the situation is, but she's still alive. He's got her on the third floor, in surgery. Wait a minute, wait a minute, he's calling in on 911, he wants to talk to you...''
Lucas shouted, ``No. I don't want to talk. He wants me to hear him shoot her. Tell him you're trying to get in touch.''
``Got that.''
He sat clutching the handset, the street reeling by. Then Dispatch again: ``You asked for a number at U.S. West.''
``Yeah, yeah.'' He'd almost forgotten, but he took the cellular phone from his pocket and punched the number in as the dispatcher read it.
The phone was answered instantly: ``Johnson.''
``This is Lucas Davenport. I was supposed to call here tofind out what numbers this phone has been calling.''
``Yeah. We've got the number now, we're reading it now, we'll check the billings and get back to you. You can hang up.''
``Get it quick,'' Lucas said. ``Soon as you can.''
``It'll take a few minutes.''
``Whatever. Call me back at the number,'' Lucas said, and he hung up, got on the handset, and said, ``What's happening?'' and the cop in the passenger seat lifted his hands to ward off an oncoming car, but the driver slipped it to the left and then hooked down a ramp and they were on the bridge.
Dispatch: ``He's still in the operating room. Another doctor's going in and out. We've got two cars there, we've got an ERU team a minute away. Listen, the chief wants to talk...''
Lucas said, ``You're breaking up... I'll get back.''
He turned the handset off and said, ``Stay off the radio, guys.''
``Why?'' asked the white-faced cop in the passenger seat.
``Because Roux wants to take me off this, and I can't do that.''
THEY FLASHED UP THE HILL ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE river, made the turn and slewed down Harvard toward the hospital's front entrance. As they braked to a stop, Lucas said, ``Pop the door,'' and they popped it, and he climbed out with the cops and said to the driver, ``I owe you big time,'' and they all ran into the building.
A half-dozen security guards were in the lobby, and Lucas held up his ID and said, ``What's the deal?''
``They're out of the operating room. They're in an office.''
``Any cops up there?''
``Yeah, but they can't see down through the doors.''
``Let's go up,'' Lucas said. He'd observed at several ofWeather's operations, trying to learn a little about her life. He knew the operating suite, and most of the adjoining offices and locker rooms. They rode up in the elevator, and when they got off, were met by two uniforms, who saw Lucas and looked relieved.
``He's down there, Chief. He's got her in a back office, and he's asking for you,'' one of the cops said.
``You got a phone line into him?''
``Yeah, but he says don't call unless it's you.''
``All right.'' He turned to the security guard. ``I need an exact floor plan, and all the nurses and doctors who work inside.''
``You gonna call?'' one of the cops asked.
``Not yet,'' Lucas said. ``And I don't want anyone to tip him off that I'm here. We gotta figure something out.''
WEATHER WAS FIGHTING LACHAISE. SHE'D COME OUT from behind the desk, rolling out of the office chair, and she said, ``I hope everything goes okay for Betty. I wish you'd come a half hour later.''
LaChaise was standing, holding the door open just a crack, peering down the long hall to the double doors. Davenport, when he arrived, should be coming around the corner just in front of the doors, a thirty- or forty-foot shot. But he was half listening to Weather, and he said, ``Yeah?''
``She's a
farm kid,'' Weather said. ``If she loses that thumb, she'll have a tough time of it. I don't know how you work around a farm without a right thumb. I know I couldn't.''