Karen was dressed and checked out of the Ramada Inn by 6:30 A. M. She had rented a Ryder van and was now driving around looking for a motel room that would work. The early morning traffic was surprisingly light. Beautiful white clouds drifted like whipped cream across the blue Miami sky.
She finally found a place that looked good. It was called The Swallow Inn and was on the Miami River, of Fourth Street, two blocks from Highway 9. She drove around it once, looking it over. It was an old wood-frame bungalow-style motel. The bungalows were private, set away from one another. She needed privacy. She decided the best unit for her needs was Bungalow 7. It was well away from the others and close to the service road, which would give her a back way in and out. She parked the step van on the shell drive and walked across the crunchy surface to the office.
A room cost nineteen dollars a day. She asked for Number 7 and got it. She registered under an assumed name, Karen Styles, and paid cash. She took her key, stepped back outside, and looked around.
She knew from the map that the Miami River went inland for about three miles, then became so narrow and marshy it was more of a swamp than a river. The wide mouth of the river was in Biscayne Bay. The river was like no place else in Miami. It could have been in a third-world country. She glanced at two Haitian freighters that were tied to wharves across the river. They were big, ugly, rusting hulks piled high with junk that would eventually be bound for Haiti. A favorite item seemed to be plastic Clorox bottles. They were strung by the hundreds on ropes and draped along every convenient rail. She couldn't imagine what they would be used for. To carry water maybe? The freighters were also stacked high with old mattresses, broken furniture, and stolen bicycles.
She could smell the thick, pungent odor of moss and drying seaweed. Still, this was not a place where neighbors talked to the cops, or where she thought anybody was going to look for Malavida.
She went to Bungalow 7. It had once been bright blue, but now the paint was faded and eaten by the sun. She opened the door and went inside. The two small rooms were clean but musty. She opened a window to air it out, then checked the TV to make sure it worked. She picked up the telephone and found that it was a direct line out. Then she locked up and left. She had one more stop to make at the hospital. She had volunteered to be a candy-striper and needed to pick up her uniform.
Malavida was transferred to a gurney and rolled down to X-ray at quarter to ten. Ray Gonzales was lifted onto a gurney for the same destination at about the same time. They were both wheeled down to the X-ray room and arrived five minutes apart. Both were parked in the anteroom adjoining the X-ray machine. Ray had been thoroughly briefed by Karen and was conscious, but pretended to be asleep. Malavida was sleeping off and on, due to the heavy medication he'd been given. The agent assigned to accompany Malavida was different from the night before, and sat on a chair out in the hall as Malavida was wheeled into the X-ray room. At quarter past ten, a technician put the lead vest over his chest to protect his heart and lungs, then moved the nozzle of the X-ray machine down and began taking pictures of Malavida's abdomen.
After the X-rays, the technician parked both beds in the anteroom.
As both patients appeared to sleep, he read their wristbands, then checked the computer for their IDs and destinations. The computer identified Malavida as Ray Gonzales. So the technician pushed Malavida's gurney out the east door, into the main lobby. He told the waiting attendant to take the patient back up to the Renal Care ward. The Federal agent who was supposed to guard Malavida was still sitting in the main corridor outside the X-ray department, reading the sports page. Five minutes later, they sent Ray Gonzales out to him.
"Here's your boy," the X-ray technician said. The agent slowly got to his feet. He walked around to confirm that the man on the bed was Malavida. It was only then that he realized they had returned the wrong man to him.
Karen Dawson, in her fresh, new candy-striper's uniform, took Malavida's gurney from the attendant as he wheeled it off the elevator on the third floor, near the Renal Care ward.
"Got it. Thanks," she said as she pulled it out of the elevator. After the attendant left, she pushed the elevator button and got the next car down.
Once downstairs, she pushed the gurney right out the front of the hospital. To her surprise, nobody said a word. She wheeled Malavida around the side of the hospital and finally arrived at the rented van. She opened the back doors, then pushed the gurney up hard against the back bumper. The gurney bed overhung the legs by almost three feet and extended into the vehicle. She then collapsed the front legs so that the gurney's skids were resting on the bed of the van. This accomplished, she jumped in and pulled with all her strength… The gurney slid into the van on the metal rails under it. She looked around to see if anybody had witnessed the operation.
Her heart was pounding. She was having a ball. She knelt down and put her hand on Malavida's forehead.
"I'm awake," he grimaced. "That was the worst ride I ever took, even worse than the shore break at Huntington."
"Sorry." She smiled. "We're a little shorthanded this morning." He looked up at her and saw her grinning. "What the hell's so funny, Karen?"
"Nothing. Sorry, I get off on strange stuff"
In twenty minutes, she had Malavida back at The Swallow Inn and propped up in bed. The room seemed suddenly small, as both of them communicated silently… each remembering another motel room where they had clung to each other in ecstasy and then awkwardness. Karen moved quickly across the room and turned on the TV. She finally found an all-news station. She set the volume and went back out to unload some hospital supplies she'd filched. Ten minutes later there was an update on a story in Washington, D. C. Neither of them was paying much attention until they heard Lockwood's name.
Karen quickly turned up the volume.
6 4… at D. C. General Hospital. Agent Lockwood is in a coma," the gray-haired news anchor said.
"What…?" Karen almost shouted at the screen.
"As we reported earlier, the Director of All Operations of U. S. Customs, Laurence Heath, died in the mishap when halon gas accidentally escaped in the locked file room in the basement of the Department of Justice. Heath was the second-highest-ranking officer in the service. Along with him, and also dead on arrival, were Agent Victor Kulack and two attorneys: Carter Van Lendt, with the Justice Department, and Alex Hixon, who was representing Agent Lockwood at his Internal Affairs hearing. Government engineers are still studying the mishap to determine why the elevators in the building locked and the halon system malfunctioned. That report is due shortly. In the meantime the lone survivor, Agent John Lockwood, barely hangs on to rife at D. C. General."
They called the hospital, but there was a stop on Lockwood's phone; Karen's call was transferred to a man who sounded like a cop. She quickly realized that he was not going to give out any additional information. She hung up and cursed under her breath. Karen looked at Malavida, who was now propped up in the bed.