Deadly Care Read online

  Deadly Care by Leonard S. Goldberg

  AN ONYX BOOK

  For I.M.

  Love is stronger than death.

  -Yizkor

  ONYX Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  Published by Onyx, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

  Previously published in a Dutton edition.

  First Onyx Printing, April, 1997

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright 0 Leonard S. Goldberg, 1996 All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK -.ARCA RE.“TRAIJA

  Printed in the United States of America Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHER’S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways. -SHAKESPEARE, King Henry IV

  Ppolope

  Someone had drowned.

  The search-and-rescue helicopter skimmed over the shoreline looking for the body. Dusk was falling, daylight almost gone. There would not be time for another run.” Karl Rimer sauntered down the boardwalk with its tacky stores on one side, the beach on the other. He glanced up as the helicopter whizzed by, paying it scant attention. Rimer strolled on, a man at his leisure, but he was acutely aware of his surroundings. He saw everything without watching. A shopkeeper, closing his T-shirt store, nervously peeked over his shoulder looking for some hidden danger. This was a mean neighborhood, particularly at night. An old drunk, smelling of stale urine, weaved his way off the walk and into an alley. A scrawny dog followed him. Soon the boardwalk would be completely deserted.

  Rimer was wearing a dark tan trench coat and floppy rain cap. It was an unusual outfit for most of Southern California, but not for the Venice-Santa Monica area.

  Here there were freaks in outrageous dress everywhere.

  Rimer would blend in, just like he wanted to.

  In his peripheral vision, Rimer again counted the few people remaining on the beach. There were four. A young couple walking in the sand at the water’s edge, a surfer hoping for one last perfect wave, and a man in a kayak paddling in the shallows against the current.

  Rimer concentrated on the kayaker. That was his target. Rimer watched the kayaker without seeming to watch him. The man was now paddling out despite a rough sea. A big wave smashed down on the kayak and nearly flipped it over. With great effort, the kayaker managed to right the boat. Rimer hoped the man didn’t get himself drowned and swept out to sea. He needed the man and his kayak intact, at least for a while.

  Rimer glanced down the boardwalk and saw a cop on a bicycle coming toward him. Rimer was instantly on guard. He didn’t see the cop’s partner. Policemen even those on bicycles-always worked in pairs. The cop got closer. An Oriental. Young. Beady-eyed. Rimer knew how to behave and not arouse suspicion. He didn’t stare and he didn’t look away. Rimer assumed a meek posture and waved slightly. He appeared to be a nobody, a nothing. The cop nodded importantly and Rimer nodded back. But he kept his head down, even when glancing up. All the cop saw was trench coat and cap.

  The cop slowed his bicycle to a crawl, keeping it balanced but barely moving. He stared down at Rimer, his expression impassive. Rimer looked at the ground submissively, wondering if he was going to have to kill the cop. There was no way he would allow the cop to search him.

  “Let’s go, Paul,” the cop called out over his shoulder. “Get a move on.”

  Rimer saw the second cop pedaling furiously down the boardwalk, trying to catch up. Another Oriental.

  Shit! They were like ants.

  Rimer walked on, keeping his pace even and unhurried. He let a full minute pass before bending over to retie a shoelace. He glanced quickly down the boardwalk. The cops were almost out of sight.

  He turned his attention back to the beach, The young couple was gone. The surfer was dragging his board toward the pier where the parking lot was located. The kayaker was still paddling, but now very close to shore, just beyond the surf.

  Rimer waited patiently, still walking. It wouldn’t be long now. An offshore fog was starting to roll in, bringing with it a brisk wind that made the sea even rougher. Choppy waves battered against the kayak, making it difficult to control. The twilight was turning into darkness and Rimer had trouble seeing his target.

  For a moment Rimer lost sight of the man, then picked him up again. The kayaker had had enough. He was paddling in to shore.

  Rimer took out two amphetamine pills and chewed them thoroughly before swallowing. The drug gave him the extra power and quickness he liked before he did a job. He also believed that amphetamines heightened his senses and enhanced his ability to respond to the unexpected.

  Rimer unbuttoned his trench coat but kept it closed with his hands. He stepped off the boardwalk and trudged across the sand, his gaze fixed on the kayaker, who was pulling his boat out of the water and onto the beach.

  Rimer looked away briefly. The boardwalk was deserted, its lights muted by the mist. He picked up his pace and headed toward the man leaning over the kayak. Rimer let his trench coat fall open.

  “Hi,” Rimer called out.

  “Hey,” the man said pleasantly as he glanced up.

  Rimer swung the baseball bat with all of his might. A Louisville Slugger. Thirty-four ounce. The kayaker’s hand came up. Too late. The bat hit the young man just over his eyes with a sickening thud. Rimer heard bones crack. The young man dropped to the sand like a deadweight.

  Rimer searched the body quickly and thoroughly, looking for a strip of microfilm. He had been told that it would be small, probably the size of a postage stamp, but it might even be smaller-like a matchhead. It could be anywhere. In his watch, tucked away in his wallet, inside a hollowed-out ring. Anywhere. Rimer removed the man’s watch and rings, then went through the kayaker’s wet suit, looking for secret pockets or a belt that might hold his wallet or keys. Nothing. Maybe he’d hidden it in the kayak. Rimer tore the boat apart, searching for the microfilm and finding nothing.

  Rimer heard the helicopter coming back. In the distance he saw the copter’s lights blinking. For a moment he felt panic, but he quickly pushed it aside. They didn’t have their floodlights on, Rimer noted, which meant their search was over and they were returning to base. But still, if they were flying over the beach rather than the water they might see him. The helicopter came closer and closer and they were over the beach. Goddamn it!

  Rimer quickly grabbed the kayak and, turning it upside down, covered the young man’s body. Then he sat on the kayak and stared out to sea. A man alone, contemplating.

  The helicopter passed over and Rimer was almost certain they hadn’t seen him. Too dark, too misty. And the crew wasn’t looking for anything. They just wanted to get home. Rimer knew all about copters from his tour in Vietnam. At night you couldn’t see a damn thing unless the floodlights were on. No, they hadn’t seen him. No
t a chance. Rimer watched the helicopter’s blinking lights fade into the night.

  From beneath the kayak, the young man groaned weakly. Rimer looked down and saw the man’s arm sticking out from under the boat. The fingers moved, clawing at the sand. The man groaned again. This time it sounded like a cry-a child’s cry.

  Rimer kicked the kayak aside and, picking up the baseball bat, went back to work.

  Lucy O’Hara held on tightly to her father’s arm and started up the steps to Los Angeles Memorial Hospital.

  She tried to maintain her composure and ignore the pain in her back and hips, but walking up an incline made it worse. A dull ache was rapidly becoming a throbbing, stabbing pain. Quickly she reached down and pressed on the morphine pump that was implanted beneath the skin in her abdomen. Eight milligrams of morphine sulfate flowed out into the subcutaneous tissue.

  At the top of the steps, Lucy paused and leaned heavily against her father, weak and exhausted by the short climb. She stared at the black glass doors to the hospital and studied her reflection. A young, attractive woman, tall and slender with a blond ponytail. But she couldn’t see the finer details of her face. The sunken eyes and the pallor. The signs of life slipping away.

  “Dad, suppose the transplant doesn’t work?”

  “Oh, it will work,” he assured her. “Remember we have the luck of the Irish. And we have a good Irish donor, too.”

  Her father held the door for her and Lucy entered the lobby, wondering if she would be alive when she left the hospital. She bit down on her lip, trying to hold her emotions in check. But tears welled up in her eyes and she had to sniff them back. Why me, Lord? Why me?

  Lucy eased herself down on a couch outside the Admissions Office and waited while her father went in to fill out the necessary forms. Across from her was an obese Hispanic woman holding a crying child. The little boy had red sores on his arms and legs, some open and draining. Suddenly he coughed, sending a visible spray into the air. Lucy quickly raised a hand to protect herself against the virus-laden droplets. She knew that an infection now could be disastrous. A viral infection would make her very in and the bone marrow transplant would have to be delayed indefinitely. A bacterial infection would be even worse. That could kill her.

  Lucy sighed sadly, thinking how her disease had turned her life upside down. Until eight months ago she had been a happy, healthy twenty-four-year-old law student, never sick, rarely taking any medicine except for birth control pills and an occasional Tylenol. Then the weakness and bone pain had started and she was diagnosed as having acute myeloblastic leukemia.

  The first cycle of chemotherapeutic agents induced a partial remission. Her blood counts rose and the normal cells returned. There was hope. Maybe she would be one of the few lucky ones to respond. But the leukemia recurred and a second course of chemotherapy had no effect at all. The disease progressed; the bone pain caused by proliferating leukemia cells became intolerable. The morphine pump helped, but the pain was always there, reminding her that a mass of tumor cells was growing inside her, expanding and crowding out the normal cells. Her white blood cell counts were always low, predisposing her to life-threatening infections. She had been hospitalized four times because of it.

  And now there were very few normal cells left in her bone marrow. The leukemia tumor mass had destroyed everything. A bone marrow transplant was her last and only chance. Without it she would die.

  “We’re all set, Pumpkin,” her father said, breaking into her thoughts.

  Lucy.looked up at her father and the orderly beside him who was positioning a wheelchair. She stood with her father’s help and plopped down heavily in the wheelchair. “You don’t have to come with me, Dad.”

  “Yes, I do,” Michael O’Hara said firmly.

  The orderly made certain Lucy was secure, then pushed the wheelchair in a wide semicircle, heading for the main corridor. Lucy stared down at the floor, hating the wheelchair. It made her feel helpless and dependent and self-conscious. She had to look up to see people who glanced down at her and tried to guess why such a young, attractive woman was in a wheelchair.

  They came to the bank of elevators. The area was crowded with doctors, nurses and visitors, all talking at once and creating a hum of conversation. Lucy stared up at the floor indicator for the patients’ elevator, disliking the crowd and feeling claustrophobic. But that wouldn’t be a problem much longer, she thought grimly. In a matter of days she’d be in total isolation, separated from the world and all its bacteria and viruses while she waited to find out if the bone marrow transplant would take. And what if the transplant didn’t take? Then there would be no hope, no chance of survival. She’d been told that straight out by the hematologist. For the hundredth time Lucy found herself wondering if there really was an afterlife.

  The elevator door opened. Another patient in a wheelchair was in the car, so Lucy and her chair had to be backed in. Her father touched her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. Lucy glanced over at the other patient, wondering if it was a boy or girl. All of the patient’s hair was gone and this accentuated the nose. It looked like a beak on a bird’s head. Lucy gazed at the IV running into the patient’s arm, and then she saw the patient’s fingernails, painted a bright red. A girl, Lucy thought, no more than sixteen and trying desperately to hold on to some vestige of femininity.

  And then Lucy cringed, now realizing that soon she would look exactly like that young teenager. No hair. It would all fall out, the hematologist had carefully explained to her. To prepare her for the bone marrow transplant she would be given large doses of radiation and chemotherapy. These would destroy all of her leukemic cells. They would also cause her hair to drop out. But the hair would grow back. If she lived.

  The elevator jolted to a stop and the door opened. As Lucy was wheeled out she smiled to the other patient.

  The teenager tried to smile back, but only one side of her face went up. The other side drooped down, paralyzed. She pursed her lips and with effort attempted to say “Bye,” but only a high-pitched squeal came out. It sounded like a cry for help.

  They went down a wide corridor and came to the nurses’ station. A ward clerk seated behind a counter began asking her father questions and filling out forms.

  Lucy tilted her head back and tried to see the clerk, but all she saw was the top of the counter. From down the hall Lucy heard a cry of pain, shrill and piercing, as if it came from a woman. A door closed and Lucy heard a second cry, muffled this time. The ward clerk kept asking questions, ignoring the cries altogether. Lucy wondered if the screaming woman was having a bone marrow aspiration. That hurt like hell, Lucy knew from experience.

  “You have to sign here,” her father said, handing her a form and a ballpoint pen.

  Lucy quickly scribbled her signature. She studied it for a moment before handing the form back. Even her handwriting had changed. Now it looked weak and uneven.

  Lucy was wheeled into a private room that had the distinct scent of an air deodorizer. It was not a fresh aroma, but a sickly sweet one. Lucy sniffed the air, wondering what had made the smell that they were trying to cover up. A young nurse with cold hands came in and took Lucy’s vital signs, then gave her hospital pajamas, a robe and a plastic identification bracelet. On the bracelet was her name, hospital number and date of birth. Her birthday was a month away. Lucy wondered if she would live to see it.

  “I guess I’d better let you get settled in, huh?” her father asked as the nurse left.

  “I guess,” Lucy said.

  “We’re going to come through this okay, you know.”

  Lucy tried to nod and smile, but now she saw tears welling up in her father’s eyes. “I’m going to be fine.”

  Her father hugged her tightly and quickly turned away.

  She watched him hurry from the room, knowing that he didn’t want her to see him crying. Lucy stared blankly at the door, her lower lip quivering as tears flowed down her cheeks. She had an almost irresistible urge to run away from the hospital a
nd find a hiding place where there were no doctors and needles and nurses. But she quickly pushed the silly notion aside. She was not going to run away from her only chance to live.

  Lucy reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose, sniffing back the last of the tears. She saw the mascara stain on the tissue and, muttering “Shit!” under her breath, went into the small bathroom.

  The sickly sweet aroma was even stronger now and Lucy hoped the odor wouldn’t permeate her clothes.

  She studied her face in the mirror and wiped away the green-black streaks, deciding not to add new mascara.

  But she did apply rouge to her cheeks, covering the marked pallor caused by the anemia. She also covered little, pinpoint red spots on her chin. Petechiae. They were small skin hemmorrhages caused by low platelets. The disease was eating away at her, leaving its mark everywhere.

  She walked over to the closet and undressed, then put on the hospital pajamas and robe. The pajamas were too big, the robe too small. Lying back on her pillow, she stared up at the television set that hung from the ceiling. It was nine-thirty A.m. and she didn’t feel like watching game shows or talk shows. Maybe there was an old movie on. She reached for the TV Guide.

  There was a knock on the door. Lucy looked over as Dr. Robert Mariner walked in.

  “Good morning, Lucy,” he said, his voice warm and friendly.

  “Hey, Dr. Mariner.”

  “I just stopped by to make sure they’re treating you well.”

  “So far, so good.”

  “Excellent! But if there’s any problem, you let me know. We’re going to make sure you receive the very best care possible.” The beeper on his belt sounded and he reached down, pushing the button to silence it.

  “May I use your phone?”

  “Of course.”

  Lucy watched him pick up the phone. She liked his voice and his bedside manner and his looks. He looked like a doctor and he sounded like one. Just over six feet tall, he was a well-built man in his early fifties with thick brown hair that was heavily grayed. His facial features were sharp with a jutting jaw and clear blue eyes.