West looked a little surprised: everybody knew about Alison. He put on a patient voice, as if talking to a village idiot, and said, "Where else are you going to meet rich guys that no other women want? I mean, there are always a bunch of guys in there for evaluation. Some got the big bucks. Especially the obsessive-compulsives; but the paranoids do pretty good, too."
"She's in there… to date?" Del asked. This was the kind of informational nugget he treasured.
"Yeah. What have I been telling you?" West finished the last of the Coney Island, held up a finger to the waitress, pointed at his plate, and mimed, "Another one."
LUCAS WRENCHED THE CONVERSATION back on course: "So give me two names," he said. "Who are two people most likely to have been taken over by the Big Three? Include women-do women work around them?"
"When they're not in isolation," West said. He twitched, said, "Don't," and pulled away from his invisible uncle, tears coming to his eyes. Lucas looked away, but then West went on, as if there'd been no interruption."Okay: Danny Anderson. He got out a couple of months before I did, and he was pretty… dim. Like you could take him over."
Sloan stirred, and asked, "Who else?"
West scratched his head with a fork and finally said, "You know what you're asking is, who knows those guys? The answer is, lots of people. But I don't know anybody who was likely to get taken over. I tried to stay away from them, and so did everybody else. I mean, those guys weren't just nuts, they were nasty. They'd yell shit like 'Hey, ugly boy, hey pimple boy, your dick as big as that pimple on your nose?' And Biggie was aways yelling at guys to show their asses. Or Taylor would yell at some woman that he had some grease for her pussy, and he'd have like a handful of come. I mean, who is gonna get taken over by somebody like that? When you're trying to stay away from them?"
Sloan said to Lucas, "Dan Anderson's been in California since two days after he got out, living with an aunt. He had to check in with the authorities out there because it was a sex crime, and they've tagged him ever since. He's not the guy."
West was disappointed: "Never liked him. He was an ass wipe."
"So you got no names," Lucas said to West. "You're not helping us much."
West was drinking a Budweiser through a straw. "No. That's not right. I got about a million names. I knew everybody in the place. But I don't know which one it is. Like I said, it all seems wrong to me. Hardly anybody hung around those ass wipes."
They all sat there for a minute, then West said, "What time is it?"
"Two o'clock," Lucas said.
"If somebody gives me a ride, I could still make it over to my light."
OUT ON THE SIDEWALK, squinting in the bright sunlight, West burped beer fumes and said, "Sorry I couldn't help. This guy sounds like a serious ass wipe."
"Ah," Lucas said and stepped away.
"You know, I do got an idea, when I think about it. Ones who might have got their brains changed," West said. He said it with the self-conscious smile of a bad comedian about to deliver a worse joke.
"Who?" Sloan said.
"Like O'Donnell and Jimenez and Grant and Hart and Sennet and Halburton and Grosz and Steinhammer… those are the guys who hung around with the Big Three all the time, talking to them. Docs and guards."
LUCAS STARED AT HIM for a long beat, then looked at Sloan and said, quietly, "Oh, shit."
Sloan said. "No way."
Lucas nodded: "Way. Ah, Jesus, Biggie told us, and I missed it."
"What?" Del asked.
"What?" West said after him. His eyes were sharp and blue: no sign of vagueness now.
Lucas said to Del, "Take Mike over to Dinky Town or get him a cab or something. Sloan and I gotta talk. Here." He dug into his pocket, took out two twenties and a ten, handed them to West. "Catch a cab, take a bus, I don't care, that makes your nut for the day. We gotta go."
LUCAS HEADED OFF, hurrying, Sloan jogging after him to catch up. They'd left Lucas's truck at the mission. Sloan caught up with him and said, "Wait, wait, wait-you think a staff member?"
"I think it's possible," Lucas said. "It's one thing we haven't looked at. Goddamnit. When we were talking to O'Donnell and Hart, they made a big deal out of how nothing goes into the cells and nothing comes out. Those guys are supposed to be super-isolated. Total information blackout."
"Yeah. So?"
"So Biggie yelled something about arresting the killer for not having a hunting license. Taylor knew it, too, that there'd been a hunter-oriented killing. And they didn't try to get any details out of us. You know why? Because they had the details. And the staff was specifically forbidden to talk to them about any of the crimes, right?"
"Yeah, but…" Sloan frowned.
"And down in the isolation wing, nobody goes in but staff."
Sloan thought about it, then said, "You know lockups, Lucas. People tip other people off, even when they don't mean to. Supper comes, Taylor asks the guy if the hunter has killed a woman yet. The guy looks away, and Taylor knows…"
"That's a possibility," Lucas admitted. "But the way they were behaving… C'mon, Sloan. Think about it. They knew all about it. This wasn't a tip." Sloan rubbed his head, looked back toward the disappearing figures of Del and West. "Jesus. I hate to think… they're doctors."
"Maybe a guard. Maybe a food guy. But we've hit a blank wall trying to find another candidate among the inmates…"
"Yeah…"
"We gotta go back there. We've got to look at tapes for the last two days."
"Goddamn," Sloan said, more to himself than to Lucas. "Is this possible?"
18
DR.CALE WAS WAITING in his office. Their escort dropped them, and Cale shut the door. "All right: What's going on?"
"We need to see the tapes for the isolation cells for the past two days," Sloan said.
Cale rocked on his feet, his hands in his jacket pocket: "Why?"
"We want to see who's been talking to the Big Three," Lucas said.
Cale drifted down his wall of books and papers, looked at a plaque, then said, sadly, "Nobody talks to them but staff."
Lucas said, "That's why we need to see them."
Cale continued drifting along the books, turned the corner at his desk, sat in his swivel chair, and turned until his back was toward them, and he was looking out the window at the Minnesota woods and the river valley beyond. "You think a member of the staff might be passing them information?"
"Something like that," Lucas said, his voice cool, neutral.
Cale hadn't become head of the hospital by being stupid: he swiveled to face them, took off his glasses, rubbed one eye with the heel of a hand, and said, "Oh, boy. Who are you looking at? Grant?"
"Why do you say Grant?" Lucas asked.
"He's the new guy. Been here less than a year. The other guys have been here longer."
"Grant would be interesting," Lucas said. "Any reason to think…?"
"He sometimes seems a little naive… uncertain of what he's doing. He seems to struggle," Cale said. "But that's often the sign of a good therapist-a guy who doesn't fall into routine and cliche."
"Is he good?"
"He is good," Cale said. "He has a fine touch with patients, especially the lost souls. You know, the quiet ones, the helpless ones-well, like Mike West. And I have to say, he came highly recommended."
"Doesn't have to be a therapist," Lucas said. "Could be anybody who's had intimate contact with the Big Three."
"That's a lot of people. Until they went into isolation, at least. Dozens of people, including staff members, in here," Cale said. "Then there are outsiders. We contract for some medical services, for exam-ple, and Biggie, in particular, has been having problems. He's a borderline diabetic, he's got circulatory problems, and his PSAs are out of sight. He's gonna lose his prostate in the next few years."
"We need a list of the outside docs," Lucas said. "We still want to see the tapes."