Garth grunted, clicked on the Colt's safety catch, then stepped forward and slipped the gun under the sheet, next to my thigh. "Hang on to that until I get back," he said, then turned and left the room.
I gripped the taped butt of the Colt and waited, my heart pounding. Hours had passed since Harry Peal had been killed and the attempt made on my life. Everything indicated that Jay Acton, whoever he really was, was in a hurry to clean house, to eliminate everyone he thought could connect him to his Russian mother and birthplace and membership in the KGB, which meant that Mary Tree might already be dead. I would not like that at all. It would be my fault.
Garth returned twenty minutes later. "Did you reach her?" I asked as soon as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
"Yeah," Garth replied easily as he walked over to the bed, took the gun from my hand, and put it back into his jacket pocket. Then he went to the window, looked down. "No problem."
"What the hell does that mean? Does the Community have some other residence that's secure, and where she can hide?"
"I suppose so," he said in a tone of voice that I thought sounded oddly distracted under the circumstances.
"What the hell do you mean, you suppose so? Are you taking her to the airport?"
"No," he said evenly as he turned away from the window. "As a matter of fact, you and I are going to the Community residence here for an indefinite stay."
"What?"
"We both agree that your arrest is somebody's idea of a holding action, and we agree that said holding action isn't going to serve any purpose unless you're taken out before you can start talking to the media. Your police guard doesn't exactly remind me of Wyatt Earp to begin with, and when I came back from using the phone I found him down the hall trying to make time with one of the night nurses. I don't think you're safe here, brother, and I wonder how safe you'd be in police custody. If I were a KGB killer, I don't think I'd lose much sleep worrying about the prowess of the Cairn Police Department."
"I can't say I'm overjoyed with my situation, but I don't much care for the idea of putting you and Mary in the position of aiding and abetting a fugitive."
"I discussed that with Mary, and she and I agreed that the two of us have more serious things to worry about. As you pointed out, I'll be marked for death now that I've come to see you, so the three of us arc all in this together. Even if she did want to fly out of the country, there's no guarantee that the KGB wouldn't be able to trace her. But I doubt we'd even make it to the airport; by now my car has been identified, and somebody is probably keeping an eye on it. Mary says she can sneak us into that mansion and find a place for us to hide in there without anyone else knowing about it. We'll have sanctuary there and time to figure out our next moves." He paused, turned back to the window, continued, "I checked again with your night nurse, and she said you definitely don't have a fractured skull. You're under observation, and she figures you'll be released from the hospital into police custody in two or three days. I'm kind of hoping that means your head won't fall off if you're moved."
"It's all well and good for you to say things like that, since it's not your head that's likely to fall off. What's so interesting out the window?"
"Mary should be here in about ten or fifteen minutes to pick us up; she told me she could sneak out in one of the Community's cars that isn't used too much and shouldn't be recognized." He turned back to me, raised his right hand. "How many fingers?"
I squinted my unbandaged left eye in an attempt to focus on the blurred figure across the room. "Four," I said.
"Be serious."
"I am being serious. I can count four fingers when I see them."
"Two," Garth said with a sigh as he lowered his hand. "It looks like you've got a good case of double vision, but it can't be helped. You've been hurt worse. Just divide everything you see by two."
"Thanks a lot, Garth. There are times when I can't imagine what I'd do without your sage advice. What floor are we on?"
"The third."
"Great. I like all your thinking and planning up to this point except for one very minor little detail. Even assuming I can walk without a serious wobble, which I don't assume at all, how the hell do you plan to spirit me out of here without us being seen? The guard may not be Wyatt Earp, but he's obviously not blind either."
"Tsk, tsk. You've always been such a worrywart."
"Garth? What the hell are you planning to do?" Garth smiled sweetly, always a bad sign, and walked toward me. "You let me worry about spiriting you out of here, baby brother. It's as good as done."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Being lowered from the third story of a building by a rope of bedsheets, blankets, pillowcases, and towels knotted together and fashioned into a sling under my arms made for what I considered an ignominious exit. On the other hand, it occurred to me that a short flight in a car and a good knock on the noggin had done wonders for my sprained wrist, sore knee, and bruised left arm, since the stabbing pain in my head had made me forget all about the other injuries sustained while I was bouncing off and being bounced by Gregory Trex, the current scourge of my existence.
The window of my hospital room conveniently looked out over a wide alleyway used for deliveries and garbage pickup; Mary Tree, driving with her lights out, had backed into the alley just as I finished dressing and just as Garth was putting the finishing touches on my improvised escape route-remarking, with another of his ominously sweet smiles, that he hoped it would reach all the way to the ground.
As I continued my descent, with Mary craning her neck and peering anxiously up at me, I tried to improve on my undignified position by crossing my arms over my chest and proudly thrusting out my chin, posturing as if I were totally accustomed to this sort of royal transport. My vamping got a muffled laugh out of the woman. However, there was nothing but shock and concern in her face and eyes by the time I reached the ground and she managed to get a better look at me. She wrapped her left arm around me, used her right hand to undo the sling from under my arms.
"Mongo!" she said in a low, tense whisper. "Oh, my God, your head-!"
"It's okay," I said, gently pushing her arm away and taking a couple of tentative steps. I felt dizzy. "It looks worse than it is. You know how hospitals love to waste bandages."
I glanced up, found Garth half leaning out the window and looking down at me. I gave him a thumbs-up sign. He returned it, let loose of his end of the knotted linens, then stepped back out of sight. Mary gathered the tangle of linens and blankets together in both arms, dropped it all into a dumpster off to one side of the alley. Then she opened the back door of the car for me, supported me around the waist as I eased myself down across the back seat. She closed the door, hurried around to the other side of the car, and slid in behind the wheel. I noted with satisfaction that the interior lights had been disconnected; Garth had briefed her well. And the woman had more than her share of guts.
"What happens now, Mary?"
"Your brother said to wait here," she replied in a low voice that was breathy with tension. She twisted around in her seat to peer out the back window, then squinted down at me over the tops of her bifocals. "He said he's going to go down to the lobby, then try to find a way to sneak out the back without anyone seeing him. God, the way he acts and talks you'd think he does this kind of thing every day."
"Garth's a very good man to have around in a pinch, Mary. Or any other time, for that matter. He doesn't know the meaning of panic." I paused for a moment, then continued, "Mary, I'm really sorry about all of this. I hope you know that I'd never have contacted you if I'd known it was going to involve you like this."