For the second time that day, Pittman explained.
Sean listened intently, on occasion asked a question, and tapped his fingers together when Pittman finished. “Congratulations.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been a thief since I was twelve. I’ve spent half my life in prison. I’ve had to go underground three times because of a misunderstanding with the mob. I’ve been married to four women, two of them simultaneously. But I have never ever had the distinction of being in as much trouble as you are. And all this happened since two nights ago?”
“Yes.”
“Worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records.”
“At least you’re amused. I can see I made a mistake coming to you.”
“Not so fast. Who sent the gunman to your apartment?”
“I have no idea.”
“Why would someone want to make it seem that you killed Millgate?”
“I have no-”
“Damn it, don’t you think you’d better start having some ideas? As near as I can tell, from the moment you killed that man in your apartment-”
“Accidentally.”
“I’m sure that makes a difference to him.… Ever since then, you’ve been running.”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
“You wasted time going to this computer expert. Why was it a waste of time? Because your only purpose was to find a way to get in touch with me. Why? Because you want advice on how to keep running. Sorry.”
“What?”
“In the first place, you don’t need that kind of advice. You’ve been doing damned well on your own. In the second place, if all you do is keep running, the only thing you’ll accomplish is to get tired. Then you’ll make a mistake, and they’ll grab you.”
“But there’s no alternative.”
“Isn’t there? Reverse direction. Hunt instead of being hunted. God knows, you’ve got plenty of targets.”
“Hunt? That’s easy enough for you to say.”
“Well, I didn’t expect you to leap for joy at my advice. From what you’ve told me, it seems to me that you’ve been running away since your son died. Running from everything.”
The suggestion that Pittman was a coward made his face became hot with anger. He wanted to get his hands on Sean and punch the shit out of him.
“Touched a nerve, did I?”
Pittman inhaled, straining to calm himself.
“I guess you don’t like the advice I’m giving you,” Sean said. “But it’s the only advice I’ve got. I’m an expert. I’ve been running from things all my life. Do what I say, not what I do.”
Pittman stared, then parted his lips in a bitter smile.
“What’s funny?” Sean asked.
“All this talk about running. For twenty years, I ran every day. All that time. Where was I going?”
“To the finish line, pal. And if you’re still thinking about killing yourself, if I were you I’d want to go out a winner, not a loser. You can destroy yourself-that’s your business. But don’t let the bastards do it for you.”
Pittman felt his face get hot again. But this time it wasn’t because he was angry at Sean. Instead, his fury was directed elsewhere. “Bastards. Yes.”
For a moment, he didn’t move or speak, didn’t breathe. His powerful emotion held him in stasis. Then he squinted at Sean. “When my son died…” he began to say, then hesitated.
Sean studied him, obviously curious about what Pittman intended to say.
“When my son died, I can’t describe how angry I was-at the hospital, at his doctors. Jeremy’s death wasn’t their fault. It’s just that I desperately needed somebody to be angry at. If somebody had made a mistake, then in a bizarre way Jeremy’s death would have made sense. Medical carelessness. The alternative is to accept that Jeremy died because of a cosmic crapshoot, that he was unlucky, that he just happened to get a type of rare, untreatable cancer. That kind of thinking-there’s no pattern or point; the universe is arbitrary-can drive a person crazy. When I finally accepted that Jeremy’s doctors weren’t to blame, I still needed someone to be angry at. So I chose God. I screamed at God. I hated Him. But eventually I realized that wasn’t doing any good, either. Because God wouldn’t scream back. How could I possibly hurt Him? What good is it to be angry if you can’t punish what you’re angry at? My anger was useless. It wasn’t going to bring Jeremy back. That’s when I decided to kill myself.”
The reference caused Sean’s gaze to narrow, his expression somber.
“Anger.” Pittman’s jaw muscles hardened. “When I was with Millgate, he said something to me. A name. At least it sounded like a name. ‘Duncan.’ Millgate said that several times. Then something about snow. Then a while later, he said, ‘Grollier.’ I didn’t know what he meant, and I was too damned busy to ask him. All I wanted was to put Millgate’s oxygen prongs back into his nostrils and get out of there. But the gunman who was waiting for me at my apartment sure thought it was important to find out if I’d repeated to anyone what Millgate had said to me. Anger.” Pittman stood. “Stop running away? Hunt them? Yes. When Jeremy died, my anger was useless. But this time, it won’t be. This time, I’ve got a purpose. This time, I intend to find someone to blame.”
THREE
1
Pittman stood across from the Emergency entrance to the hospital. It was shortly after midnight, and the same as two nights earlier, a drizzle created a misty halo around streetlights. His mind continued to reel from the trauma that so much had happened to him in the brief time since he had last been here. Chilled by the rain, he shoved his hands into the pockets of a wool-lined navy Burberry overcoat that Sean had pulled from a crate. In his right pocket, he touched the.45. It was the only thing that he had taken from the gym bag, which he’d left with Sean at the loft. He peered up toward the pale light in the tenth-floor window of what had once been Jeremy’s room. Determination overcame his weariness. Necessity insisted. There were so many things he needed to learn, and one of them was why Millgate’s people had taken the old man from the hospital that night. That was when everything had started. After waiting for a gap in traffic, Pittman crossed toward the hospital.
At this late hour, the front lobby was almost deserted. The few people who were slumped in the imitation leather chairs in the lobby seemed to pay no attention as he headed toward the elevators. Nonetheless, he felt exposed.
His nerves troubled him for another reason, for he knew the memories he would have to fight when he got off the elevator near the intensive-care ward on the sixth floor. He tried not to falter when he glanced toward the large area on his left, the intensive-care waiting room. A group of haunted-looking men and women sat on uncomfortable metal chairs, their faces haggard, their eyes puffy, struggling to remain awake, waiting for news about their loved ones.
Grimly recalling when he had been one of them, Pittman forced himself to concentrate on his purpose. Past the entrance to the children’s intensive-care ward, he turned to the right and went down a short corridor to the door for adult intensive care. He had never been in that area, but he assumed that it wouldn’t be much different from the children’s area.
Indeed, it was virtually identical. After pulling the door open, he faced a pungent-smelling, brightly lit ten-foot-long hallway, at the end of which was a counter on the left and glass cabinets behind it. The counter was covered with reports, the cabinets filled with equipment and medicines. Amid the hiss, wheeze, beep, and thump of life-support systems, doctors and nurses moved purposefully in and out of rooms on the right and beyond the counter, fifteen rooms all told, in each of which a patient lay in urgent need.
Pittman knew the required procedures. Automatically he turned toward a sink on the left of the door, put his hands under a dispenser of disinfectant, and waited while an electronic eye triggered the release of an acrid-smelling red fluid. He swabbed his hands thoroughly, then put them beneath the tap, where another electronic eye triggered the release of water. A third electronic eye activated the hot-air dispenser that dried his hands. He reached for a white gown from a stack near the sink when a woman’s grating voice stopped him. “May I help you? What are you doing here?”