"Mongo!" she said. "Senator Younger called me; he told me-"
"Babe, I haven't got time to talk. I need you."
"I'm here," the nun said quickly.
"Get over to the university Medical Center; sixth floor. The patient's name is Kathy Marlowe. She's dying fast, but from what you and Mercado say, Esteban just might be able to maintain her long enough for me to get information that could save her life. I need you to set things up. Younger will be bringing his daughter over there. We'll need another bed set up in the Marlowe girl's room so that Esteban can work with both of them. The doctor you want to speak with is Joshua Greene. He's going to be pretty incredulous. I need you as a scientist to talk to the physicians, and as a nun to talk to the girl's mother and uncle."
"Are they Christians?"
"Hardly; but I suspect the three of you may have something in common: you take your beliefs seriously. Concentrate on the mother; right now she's trapped by the notion it's all been written, and that it's a waste of time to try to change the ending. If the big weirdo with her gives you any lip about accepting fate, kick ass. Okay?"
"When do you want me to go?"
"Right now. I don't know when I'll be there, but there isn't a minute to spare."
"I'll do my best, Mongo."
"I know you will, Janet. Thanks."
I made my second call to Senator Younger. I told him to meet Garth at the station house, then quickly filled him in on what I hoped to do.
Now I had to make the crucial decision whether to call Eric Jordon or go directly to see him. If I called and he simply refused to see me, my show closed out of town. I preferred to confront him directly, without any prior warning. On the other hand, his office was about thirty minutes away, allowing for traffic. He could have an office full of patients; he could be out on a Long Island golf course; he could be in Bermuda. In which case, precious hours would be wasted. I decided to call; it might give me a slight advantage if I could start him stewing before I got there.
I dialed his number and got his nurse. I was told that Dr. Jordon was in, but that he couldn't be disturbed. I asked her to tell him I wanted to talk to him about his dead colleague. She sniffed, informed me that she'd see if he'd come to the phone. He did.
"Dr. Jordon here."
My stomach picked that moment to heave, and I tasted bile in my mouth; a burning, acid sensation undulated back and forth across the inside of my belly. I couldn't afford any show of weakness; I had to appear cold, confident. I crouched down on the floor and pressed my fist into my stomach. The nausea passed. I activated the tape recorder and put the tiny microphone up against the receiver.
"This is Robert Frederickson," I said, blinking sweat out of my eyes.
"Who?"
"Right now I'm the most important person in your life," I said, trying to imagine how Laurence Olivier would handle it if he wanted to sound casually menacing. "I've been doing some checking on your operation, and I've found out some interesting things. I thought I'd talk to you before I went to the police."
I winced when a new spasm of nausea hit me, and shoved my fist even deeper into my stomach. I felt short of breath. There was silence on the other end of the line. All Jordon had to do was laugh, or be outraged, or hang up, and the play was finished. If there was a play.
Finally Jordon said, "What things have you found out?"
The curtain was going up. I covered the receiver with my hand as my breath came out of me in a whoosh. I took a deep breath, said evenly, "I don't think you want me to go into it over the phone."
"What do you want, Frederickson?"
"We can talk about that when I see you. I'll be over in a half hour. Be sure you make yourself available."
Hanging up quickly, I doubled over and waited for the spasms to pass. Then I left the apartment, got into my car and began to drive to Jordon's offices. Despite the adrenaline pumping through my system, I suddenly felt exhausted, unable to keep my eyes open. I lighted a cigarette.
That helped some, but the smoke made me sick to my stomach. I pulled over to the curb, opened the door and retched.
Thirty-five minutes later I walked into the offices Jordon had once shared with Robert Samuels. I paused and hyperventilated. The nausea and pain in my stomach had subsided, and I was grateful for that: I was about to do the most important Command Performance of my life.
There were no patients in the waiting room. Jordon's nurse-secretary directed me down a narrow connecting corridor to a wood-paneled office, where I found Eric Jordon sitting in a leather-backed chair behind a massive oak desk. He was wearing a starched white lab coat. He'd crossed one ankle over the opposite knee; he held his hands in front of his chest and was gently tapping his fingertips together. If he was surprised to discover I was a dwarf, he didn't show it; his face didn't show anything. His mouth seemed frozen in a kind of grimace, and his pale flesh looked the color and consistency of plaster of Paris. I reached inside my pocket and activated the tape recorder as I walked up to his desk. I was feeling light-headed again; it wouldn't do to pass out on my co-star's floor.
"Dr. Jordon," I said with a curt nod.
"Say what you have to say, Frederickson," he said tautly. He sounded as if he were talking through a thick gauze mask, and he was breathing shallowly. His thick brown hair was tousled, greasy. He seemed to be looking straight through me.
"All right, I'll lay it on the line for you. I lied to you on the phone; I haven't been doing any investigating. I haven't had the time, which is a subject I'll get back to in a minute. The point is that I'm going to be doing a lot of digging, and I'm here to tell you up front what I expect to find. I know you were a brilliant medical student, and you're probably a great diagnostician. But I expect to find that you're not a very good physician. Patients just don't respond to you. As brilliant as you are with facts, figures and computer readouts, you screw up when it comes to people."
Suddenly my head spun. I leaned heavily on his desk and tried to cover the pause with a cough. The room straightened out. Judging from Jordon's glazed expression, I wasn't even sure he'd noticed.
"I think I'll find that a number of malpractice suits were filed against you-and won," I continued quickly. "You lost your hospital affiliation, but you weren't really concerned about that because you still had your main meal ticket-a partnership with Robert Samuels in this medical-services conglomerate. I think I'll find that you're very good at what you're doing, which is attending to the business side of medicine. But that wasn't enough for Samuels. After all, it was his business he'd brought you into, and he had a controlling interest. Samuels was a good physician, and when he found out you weren't he wanted to dissolve the partnership. If that happened, you'd be finished. After all those years of medical school-not to mention the financial investment-you saw yourself being cut out of the profession. Something in your head snapped-if I may be generous. You couldn't let that happen. I think I'll find that the two of you insured each other's lives-a common business practice. So you had to kill Samuels to protect your future. When Janet Monroe approached you concerning the Esteban project, you saw your chance. Somehow you managed to talk your partner into cooperating, but Esteban was a setup from the beginning. You were the one who went to Samuels with the story about Esteban drugging one of your patients; a lie, but Samuels bought it. He hadn't wanted to work with Esteban in the first place. Now he blew up and filed a complaint with the police. You'd established a motive. Then it was a simple matter of you leaving a message for Esteban saying that Samuels wanted to see him that Thursday evening. You killed Samuels, then waited around for Esteban to show up. Everything just fell into place. Esteban's too passive to be outraged, and he's considered a bit peculiar to begin with; everyone just assumed he was guilty."