She lay back on the bed and waited for the jolt of excitement to hit. It had always been risk that her life craved. But now, as she lay there, she felt nothing… no fire, no adrenaline, only a vague sense of distress and foreboding. She tried to pump up her engine. She told herself she would do it the way she always did: alone, with tools of her own invention.
Malavida had received the call from Karen at twelve midnight. After she hung up, he continued cracking into the computer at D. C. General Hospital in Washington. He finally managed to break through at about three A. M. In ten more minutes, he had John Lockwood's medical records up on the screen. He determined several things as he read them, including the fact that Lockwood was far from being comatose, as the TV had reported. He had come out of it and taken physical therapy. Malavida scrolled the doctor's notes:
John Lockwood's current prognosis is mixed. He has suffered damage to all four regions of the brain due to loss of oxygen for a sustained period of time (estimated five minutes). This has resulted in the loss of brain cells and has left him with multi-diminished capacity. This includes difficulties in memory, speech, and coordination, due to brain oxygen starvation in the orbital gyri of both frontal lobes, as well as the cerebral choroid plexus. The lack of oxygen carried by the occipital artery, as well as the parietal branch of the superficial temporal artery and the deep temporal artery, has caused some damage in the infraorbital nerve affecting speech, as well as the superorbital nerve and the facial nerve. The patient's prognosis over time is good; however, he will require physical and mental therapy to regain normal functions.
It was signed Dr. Lawrence Sikes.
Malavida wanted to talk to Lockwood, but there was no phone in the Customs agent's room. It was then that Mal saw that his next scheduled therapy was at ten on Sunday morning. Malavida was determined to reach him.
The next morning, Fred T. Fred made things easier when he discontinued the surveillance of Karen, due to a light Sunday shift and a division commander who would not approve the overtime. The cops left after she promised not to move around and to call in periodically.
It was quarter to nine in the morning when Karen arrived at Bay-front Park. She was looking for the brown VW band bus that belonged to Baby Killer. She drove slowly past the park on Highway 41, scanning the area for any sight of it. From the highway, she could see Biscayne Bay. A brisk, gusting wind was pushing big sailboats across the angry water, driving their lee rails under, as they cut through the morning chop. As she drove on, she thought she saw the brown VW van parked next to one of the restrooms at the south end of the park. She pulled her rental van onto one of the access roads and drove toward it. As she got nearer, she could definitely tell that it was the same van that had been parked behind the Loomis. She drove toward it and stopped a few feet away.
The van appeared to be empty. She got out and looked inside. She could see nothing, so she knocked on the side door. "Tashay, it's Karen," she called out.
Nobody answered.
She looked at the restroom, which was a few feet to the right. After a moment's hesitation, she moved to the door, pushed it open, and called inside. "Tashay, it's Karen," she called again.
There was still no answer, so she carefully entered the ladies' room. Her heart was pounding in fear, not excitement, her own blood roaring in her ears.
The ladies' room stank. It was small and dirty. Wadded paper towels overflowed the metal basket like dead brown roses. There appeared to be nobody inside. "Tashay…? It's Karen!" she called again.
And then she heard the faint sound of somebody moaning from inside one of the stalls. She moved to it and looked under the door. She could see a girl's bare feet.
"Tashay?" she called. She heard more soft, painful moaning. Then she reached out and touched the stall door. It was unlatched. She pushed the door open.
At first, she couldn't tell whom she was looking at. There was somebody in the stall… a woman. Her long hair was streaked with blood. Then the person looked up; her face was beaten and swollen. Several of her teeth were missing. It took Karen a moment to realize she was looking at Tashay Roberts. Karen's mind quickly started collecting facts: Tashay was seated on the closed toilet. Her arms were tied behind her back. She was barely conscious.
"Oh, my God," Karen said as the pitiful half-closed eyes of Tashay looked up at her.
Karen rushed into the stall to pull the girl off the toilet seat. Then she was staggered by a terrible blow from behind. It knocked her sideways. As she went down she saw a hideous man grinning. He had ugly black tattoos under his eyes and he was holding a baseball bat. He swung it again.
Just seconds before she lost consciousness, she realized that her assailant was Satan T. Bone.
Chapter 36
Lockwood was struggling to stay on his feet. He had crossed half of the linoleum floor of the room on a walker. He was dizzy. His vision was so distorted that he had been fighting nausea for almost an hour. Ginger, his muscular PT nurse, kept shouting encouragement, but the words and the task reminded him more of the obstacle course in Marine boot camp than anything else.
The phone had been ringing for almost a minute before Ginger snatched it up. "PT, Ginger Cortland speaking."
"This is Dr. Chacone, I'm a cerebral control specialist," Malavida said with dignity. "The Lockwood case has been referred to me by Dr. Sikes. I understand the patient is with you. I'd like to speak with him, if he's available."
"Sure," she said and looked over at Lockwood. "If you can get your butt over to the phone, sweet cheeks, you can take this call and buy a rest."
Lockwood turned the walker around and put it out in front of him, shuffled forward, then repeated the motion. He could barely make his feet respond to mental commands. Once he was in the general vicinity of the phone, Ginger took pity and moved the rest of the way toward him, handing him the receiver.
"Yeah," he said weakly.
"This Lockwood?"
"Yep, Lockwood," he said, slurring his words and concentrating to keep them in the right order.
"How you doin', Zanzo?" Malavida said. "You sound limp as a plate of pasta."
"The fuck," Lockwood said, grinning.
"My thought exactly. You okay to talk?" Malavida asked. "You alone?"
"No. Ten feet standing Hitler me from is." He took a deep breath. "Fucked up my punch line," he said, depressed.
"Look, we gotta problem. It's Karen. Listen to me and tell me what you think-"
" Kay."
"She's down here taunting The Rat. She's been on TV, insulting him, trying to sound like his mother. I couldn't stop her."
"Got to stop her." He grimaced.
"I'm flat on my back, Zanzo. I can't go to the bathroom without calling in a committee. She snuck me out of the hospital, moved me to a motel on the Miami River called The Swallow Inn. Technically, I'm still a fugitive. I called the police department, pretending to be her brother. They told me they called off the stakeout this morning. She didn't come back here, so either this asshole got her or she's walking around without cover. Nobody knows where she is. She's way overdue."
"Shit," Lockwood said, the imminent danger helping to connect a few dots in his ravaged nervous system. He knew Karen was a daredevil. He prayed that she was safe.
"Look, Zanzo, I'm up for most anything, 'cept I can't get out of bed."
"Mal… I'm… my head works weird. I don't.. can't remember stuff."
"Can you drive? Can you get on an airplane? I don't have anybody else. We call the cops, I'm back in Lompoc."