By the time he returned with the Franklins to discover Dana's body, the doorknob would be a blur of finger and palm prints.
It was the best he could do. It wasn't quite the way he had planned, but…
He went out the side door and walked barefoot to the head of the driveway. Behind the house, through the trees at the end of the cul-de-sac, Harvey made his way carefully along the narrow path. Not much light, but enough. A thin spring rain tapped against the trees, which were just starting to get a new coat of green leaves, black in the moonless and starless night. He was a dark Santa carrying a dark bag of blood. No one in sight on Kilgore, the next street south, where he had parked the rented Geo Prizm. He opened the trunk, threw in die bag, closed the trunk quietly, and got into the driver's seat, where he closed the door just hard enough to turn off the "door ajar" light. He put on the socks and shoes he had left on the passenger seat and drove away slowly, watching the dark houses on either side of the street, listening to the rain start to beat harder on the roof.
It wasn't till he hit Howard Street and was heading for the expressway that he slammed the door firmly.
Check the time. A little over an hour since he had left tiie men's room at the Bismarck and walked quickly to the Geo in the Grant Park underground lot. He was way off, but he still had more than an hour, even if the quartet were incompetent and rushed through the Mozart and the Vivaldi.
He pulled the baseball cap over his eyes and drove, Kennedy to Eisenhower, back into the Grant Park underground lot, careful not to break the speed limit. The night attendant didn't even glance at him.
Still twenty minutes. Should make it easily.
Park in a comer. Car door echoing. Car trunk echoing. No one hi sight. No sound of approaching cars. Lot not full but not empty for this hour. He would wait a few days, maybe a week, pick up the car, and return it to Hertz.
Harvey took the garbage bag in his arms and hurried to the garbage can near the escalator. No footsteps behind or in front. Nothing moving in the shadows of the concrete pillars. He shoved the bag into the garbage can and heaped empty bottles and stale food-covered McDonald's bags over it.
Time left. Time left.
He moved quickly but didn't run up the escalator and onto the street. The hotel was half a block away. Raining harder. He couldn't go back wet. He ran down the escalator, which fought him with each step, and searched frantically for something to cover himself with. A cardboard box lay limp behind the garbage can in which he had hidden the plastic bag. He grabbed the carton, ran to the street, shielded himself as the wind off the lake tried to tear his cover from his hands. Down the alley behind the hotel, he found the service entrance door he had propped open. It was still open. He dropped the soggy brown carton and went up the stairs, shoes resounding, the smell of something stale and sweet in the air.
He opened the door carefully and struggled to catch his breath. No one in sight to his left. Down the corridor two old men in tuxedos who had ducked out on the conceit stood smoking. He pulled out his comb, used it, and decided he couldn't wait to fully control his breath.
Harvey eased out of the stairwell and into the men's room. Empty. He washed his hands, looked at himself in the mirror, brushed back his wisps of hair, splashed his face with cold water, and stepped into the hall near the performance room. Empty except for the two men smoking and whispering, not looking his way.
Harvey slipped into the conceit room. Rows of backs were to him. No one seemed to turn. On the raised platform before the several hundred people on cushioned folding chairs, a thin, young Oriental woman attacked a violin, eyes closed to show her intensity and commitment. Harvey eased into the chair he had moved to the rear of the room. Ken and Betty Franklin were hi the second row, wedged in.
Harvey picked up the small tape recorder from the floor under the chair, clicked it off, and dropped it into his pocket. He would listen to the tape as soon as he could, listen for anything unusual, a slight mistake or miscue, a coughing fit, something he could refer to, to prove he had sat through the performance.
The instruments came to a shrill decision to end. Applause. He had made it back with more than twenty minutes to spare. The two old men who had been smoking in the corridor came in and stood, joining the applause and the bows of the performers.
People filed past Harvey, talking of where they were going to get coffee or a drink, making soft patter about the performance.
The Franklins found him. They were older than the Ro/iers by almost twenty years, a pair of surrogate parents and much more. She a handsome society joiner. He the senior partner of the law firm of Kyle, Timkin, and O'Doul, with offices on the same floor as Harvey's in the John Hancock Building. Harvey had left his Lexus in the garage "in case Dana might need it" and had reluctantly agreed to go with the Franklins and let Ken drive. This was shortly after Dana had become nauseated just before they were scheduled to leave. Nothing terrible, but nothing pleasant either.
Touch of the flu. It was going around. People had even been hospitalized.
When the Franklins had arrived, Harvey insisted on staying home. Dana insisted that he go and have a good time. The Franklins promised to bring him right home after the concert.
"Did you call Dana?" Betty asked.
"No," said Harvey.
"Perhaps you should…" Betty continued.
"I don't want to wake her if she's managed to get to sleep."
"Let's just get you back home and see how she's doing," said Ken.
Harvey let himself be driven, forced himself to engage in small talk about brunch on Sunday and whether they should try to get a box together for the opera season. The Lyric was doing two Verdis. Dana loved Verdi.
Thirty minutes after they left the Bismarck, they stepped out of the Franklins' Lincoln and saw the broken dining room window and bloody footprints in the driveway.
Harvey ran to the door. Unlocked. He opened it and ran in, being sure that Ken was right behind him and Betty a few steps behind, bleating like a goat.
Harvey started for the stairway.
'This way," Ken shouted and led the way along the trail of blood to the kitchen.
The long night had just begun for Harvey Rozier.
Doctors
The doctor did not like Chicago.
The doctor, who had been in the city for almost four months now, thought that Chicago was a very dangerous place. Certainly much more dangerous than East Lansing, Michigan, where he had spent almost two years treating and being exposed to AIDS patients.
His name was Berry, Jacob Berry. He was thin, nervous, and wore a starched blue lab shirt with his last name stitched in an even darker blue on the pocket just to the left of his heart. Dr. Berry's principal source of income was giving annual physicals to Chicago Police Department officers and personnel, a noncontract deal Jacob's brother had wrangled through a political connection in the Cook County Democratic party.
Jacob turned to the policeman in the chair, hoping he was giving off the aura of an experienced, calm, and all-knowing physician. It was difficult with these policemen and women, nothing like the dead-eyed men and women at the AIDS clinic in East Lansing from which he had escaped 122 days ago. He counted the days but he was about to give up counting. East Lansing and the AIDS clinic were not as frightening as Chicago.
"You hate it in Lansing. So come to Chicago," his brother, also a Dr. Berry, had urged.
"Isaac," he answered. "I have no hospital affiliation, no patient history, very little saved, a…"
"I'll find you something," Isaac Berry said to his younger brother. "A deal here. Nice and simple. I find you something, let you know, and you can say yes or no. Can it hurt?"