Still kneeling, Mick Stranahan nudged George Graveline’s shoulder and said, “Penny for your thoughts.”
And George hit him square on the back of the skull.
Stranahan didn’t see the blow, and at first he thought he’d been shot. He heard a man shouting and what sounded like an ambulance. The rescue scene played vividly in his imagination. He waited to feel the paramedics’ hands ripping open his shirt. He waited for the cold clap of the stethoscope on his chest, for the sting of the I.V. needle in his arm. He waited for the childlike sensation of being lifted onto the stretcher.
None of this came, yet the sound of the ambulance siren would not go away. In his crashing sleep, Stranahan grew angry. Where were the goddamn EMTs? A man’s been shot here!
Then, blessedly, he felt someone lifting him. Lifting him under the arms, someone strong. It hurt, oh, God, how it hurt, but that was all right-at least they had come. But then he was falling again, falling or dying, he couldn’t be sure. And in his crashing sleep he heard the moan of the siren rise to such a pitch that he wanted to cover his ears and scream for it to stop, please God.
And it did stop.
Somebody shut off the wood chipper.
Stranahan awoke to the odd hollow silence that follows a sharp echo. His eardrums fluttered. The air smelled pungently of cordite. He found himself on his knees, weaving, a drunk waiting for communion. His shirt was damp, his pulse rabbity. He checked himself and saw he was mistaken, he hadn’t been shot. There was no ambulance, either, just the tree truck.
Al Garcia sat on the bumper. His gun was in his right hand, which hung heavily at his side. He was as pale as a flounder.
There was no sign of George Graveline anywhere.
“You all right?” Stranahan asked.
“No,” said the detective.
“W here’s the tree man?”
With the gun Garcia pointed toward the bin of the tree truck, where the wood chipper had spit what bone and jelly was left of George Graveline.
After he had tried to feed Mick Stranahan into the maw.
And Al Garcia had shot him twice in the back.
And the impact of the bullets had slammed him face-forward down the throat of the tree-eating machine.
26
Chemo got the Bonneville out of the garage and drove out to Whispering Palms, but the receptionist said that Dr. Graveline wasn’t there. Noticing the dramatic topography of Chemo’s face, the receptionist told him she could try the doctor at home for an emergency. Chemo said thanks, anyway.
After leaving the clinic, he walked around to the side of the building where the employees parked. Dr. Graveline’s spiffy new Jaguar XJ-6 was parked in its space. This was the Jaguar that the doctor had purchased immediately after Mick Stranahan had blown up his other one. The sedan was a rich shade of red; candy apple, Chemo guessed, though the Jaguar people probably had a fancier name for it. The windows of the car were tinted gray so that you couldn’t see inside. Chemo assumed that Dr. Graveline had a burglar alarm wired on the thing, so he was careful not to touch the doors or the hood.
He ambled to the rear of the clinic, by the water, and peeked through the bay window into Rudy’s private office. There was the doctor, yakking on the phone. Chemo was annoyed; it was rude of Graveline to be ducking him this way. Rude, hell. It was just plain stupid.
When Chemo turned the corner of the building, he saw a short man in an ill-fitting gray suit standing next to Rudy’s car. The man wore dull brown shoes and black-rimmed eyeglasses. He looked to be in his mid-fifties. Chemo walked up to him and said, “Are you looking for Graveline?”
The man in the black-rimmed glasses appraised Chemo skittishly and said, “Are you him?”
“Fuck no. But this is his car.”
“They told me he wasn’t here.”
“They lied,” Chemo said. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
The man opened a brown billfold to reveal a cheap-looking badge. “I work for the county,” he said. “I’m trying to serve some papers on the doctor. I been trying two, three days.”
Chemo said, “See that side door? You wait here, he’ll be out soon. It’s almost five o’clock.”
“Thanks,” said the process server. He went over and stood, idiotically, by the side entrance to the clinic. He clutched the court papers rolled up in one hand, as if he were going to sap the doctor when he came out.
Chemo slipped the calfskin sheath off the Weed Whacker and turned his attention to Rudy’s new Jaguar. He chose as his starting place the left front fender.
Initially it was slow going-those British sure knew how to paint an automobile. At first the Weed Whacker inflicted only pale stripes on the deep red enamel. Chemo tried lowering the device closer to the fender and bracing it in position with his good arm. It took fifteen minutes for the powerful lawn cutter to work its way down to the base steel of the sedan. Chemo moved its buzzing head back and forth in a sweeping motion to enlarge the scar.
From his waiting post outside the clinic door, the process server watched the odd ceremony with rapt fascination. Finally he could stand it no longer, and shouted at Chemo.
Chemo turned away from the Jaguar and looked at the man in the black-rimmed glasses. He flicked the toggle switch to turn off the Weed Whacker, then cupped his right hand to his ear.
The man said, “What are you doing with that thing?”
“Therapy,” Chemo answered. “Doctor’s orders.”
Like many surgeons, Dr. Rudy Graveline was a compulsive man, supremely organized but hopelessly anal retentive. The day after the disturbing phone call from Commissioner Roberto Pepsical, Rudy meticulously wrote out a list of all his career threatening problems. By virtue of the scope of his extortion, Roberta Pepsical was promoted to the number three spot, behind Mick Stranahan and Chemo. Rudy studied the list closely. In the larger context of a possible murder indictment, Roberto Pepsical was chickenshit. Expensive chickenshit, but chickenshit justthe same.
Rudy Graveline dialed the number in New Jersey and waited for Curly Eyebrows to come on the line.
“Jeez, I told you not to call me here. Let me get to a better phone.” The man hung up, and Rudy waited. Ten minutes later the man called back.
“L emme guess, your problem’s got worse.”
“Y es,” said Rudy.
“That local talent you hired, he wasn’t by himself after all.”
“He was,” Rudy said, “but not now.”
“That’s pretty funny.” Curly Eyebrows laughed flatulently. Somewhere in the background a car blasted its horn. The man said, “You rich guys are something else. Always trying to do it onthe cheap.”
“Well, I need another favor,” Rudy said.
“S uch as what?”
“Remember the hunting accident a few yeas ago?” Curly Eyebrows said, “Sure. That doctor. The one was giving you a hard time.”
The man in New Jersey didn’t remember the name of the dead doctor, but Rudy Graveline certainly did. It was Kenneth Greer, one of his former partners at the Durkos Center. The one who figured out what had happened to Victoria Barletta. The one who was trying to blackmail him.
“That was a cinch,” said Curly Eyebrows. “I wish they all could be hunters. Every deer season we could clean up the Gambinos that way. Hunting accidents.”
The man in New Jersey had an itch-on the line Rudy Graveline heard the disgusting sound of fat fingers scratching hairy flesh. He tried not to think about it.
“Somebody new is giving me a hard time,” the doctor said. “I don’t know if you can help, but I thought I‘d give it a shot.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s the Dade County Commission,” Rudy said. “I need somebody to kill them. Can you arrange it?”
“Wait a minute-”
“All of them,” Rudy said, evenly.
“Excuse me, Doc, but you’re fucking crazy. Don’t call me no more.”