‘Howie.’
‘What?’
‘Why did you kill her?’
He lay still, but smiled. ‘I knew you were trying to nail me for killing her. You’re so fucking stupid maybe I shouldn’t get involved with you after all.’
‘That’s not exactly a denial.’
His eyes opened and he bellered: ‘Of course I didn’t kill her, Conrad. Howie Ruskin doesn’t kill people.’
Overlooking the fact that he was referring to himself in the third person, I found his resentment at my question believable. At least for now.
‘How about this? I’m going to put you in my hotel room. There are two beds. Then I’m going to hire somebody with a gun to stand guard just inside the door.’
He was fading. ‘They gave me... a... pill.’
I let him doze off and walked to the door. When I leaned out to look up and down the hall I saw Dr Olsen talking to a nurse who held a clipboard. Clipboards don’t cost that much but in a hospital setting they can look imposing and important. Maybe the nurse was showing her some of the doodles she’d come up with tonight.
The doctor saw me, said goodbye to the nurse and walked up to me. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.
‘He nodded off.’
‘It’s about time. He never quit talking. I was impressed.’
‘What happens now?’
‘Somebody needs to take him home with some pain meds and some instructions I have for his caregiver. He keeps talking about a woman. Sarah.’
‘His girlfriend. She’ll take care of him.’
‘How does she put up with him?’
‘One of the mysteries of life.’
‘Can I give you his meds and the instructions? I’ll have to get his permission.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘He doesn’t have a shirt, either.’
I remembered his sport coat. ‘I’ll warm up the car.’
‘You’ll have to sign some papers taking legal responsibility for seeing that he is taken care of.’
‘I’ll be happy to do that.’
She paused and gazes met. ‘I still don’t understand your relationship. I’m bothered by the fact that you said you hated him and you didn’t seem to be kidding.’
‘I wasn’t kidding. But don’t you work with patients you hate but you take good care of them anyway?’
‘I wouldn’t say “hate,” but there are people who certainly piss me off.’ I like it when docs swear. A human touch.
‘Well, that’s what I’m doing here. Howie is an old political enemy of mine. But now — for a reason I won’t go into — I have given my word to Howie that I’m going to make sure that he’s safe.’
‘Safe from what?’
‘Maybe you’ve forgotten, Doctor. Somebody shot him tonight.’
‘I hardly forgot, Mr Conrad. I was the one who worked on him, remember? I’m simply asking why the police won’t be keeping him safe.’
Speaking of people being pissed off, that was what she was doing to me. She was going to gnaw on this forever. ‘Howie and I are now what you’d call circumstantial buddies. He’ll be fine with me. If the police want to talk to him just tell them he’s staying with me in my room at the Regency.’ I put just enough irritation in my voice so she’d finally let it all go.
She nodded but her expression said she not only didn’t like me, she didn’t trust me either. ‘I need to go see him now. Get his permission so you can take over.’
She left abruptly with no other words.
Jane was at the registration desk when I arrived there, looking smart and fresh in her blue Burberry coat, her hair slightly mussed by the winds. Her smile was the first thing I’d had to be happy about for a long, long time. When I walked over to her she touched my arm and it was like receiving a blessing from on high. ‘You look exhausted, Dev. Are you all right?’
She said this quietly as we moved over to the chairs. She smelled of wind, rain, chill, perfume and woman. I wanted to dive into her.
I spent a few whispered moments bringing her up to date on the evening. She kept shaking her head as I described the shooting and the immediate aftermath.
But Jane was fixed on Ruskin. ‘I don’t understand. Who exactly is he afraid of?’
‘From what I can tell, the people he’s working for.’
‘But why?’
‘He knows the police’ll keep on questioning him. And so will Hawkins from the US Attorney’s office. Ruskin knows enough to put a pretty fair number of people in prison and to launch a lot of scandals. He’s dangerous. He’s under the impression that I can get him to the right people in the Administration and they can protect him in exchange for immunity if he tells them everything.’
‘I doubt he’d ever get blanket immunity, and that’s what he’d be after.’
‘You know that and I know that but we’re dealing with Ruskin here. He thinks he’s got enough leverage to pull it off. By the way, he hasn’t said much of this to me. But I’m pretty sure this is the general drift of what he’s got in mind.’
‘What are the chances he killed the Cabot woman?’
‘I don’t think so. He’s not the type. And he’d know enough that his masters would have to have him killed if he did it. That’s what he’s fighting against now. They’ll blame him for it going wrong anyway, even though he had nothing to do with it. But now I’m going out to get the car started. And I want to check on something.’
She nodded. ‘So I’m going to meet the notorious Howie Ruskin.’
‘If he’s awake he’ll undoubtedly put the moves on you.’
‘Somehow I think I’ll be able to resist him.’
I needed the cold air and the wind. I needed to be revived. I needed to think clearly. I passed a blue-suited security woman on my way out.
‘I’m going to pull my Jeep up here. Warm it up for somebody I have to take home. Would you watch it for me?’
I took her hand and put a crisp twenty in it.
‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’
The wind slapped me in the face and the rain soaked my head. I opened the Jeep remotely then climbed in and fired it up. Once I had it going for a couple of minutes, the heater going full tilt, I got out and locked it up again.
And then I went to the back of it and felt under the bumper.
As I’d suspected, a nice little tracking device had been planted there. Somebody had been following me all right.
Eighteen
Ruskin didn’t put the moves on Jane. He didn’t do much of anything except slump down in the wheelchair that I stashed him in to get him to the Jeep. I used another wheelchair at the hotel to get him into an elevator, then the back door and a freight elevator in case a stray reporter who was staying there happened to notice who I was wheeling around. If we were spotted, we’d be the lead story on most of the morning cable news shows. Probably the network news shows, too, actually. Who shot Howie Ruskin last night? What did the shooting have to do with Senator Logan? Why was Logan’s consultant Dev Conrad pushing Ruskin around in a wheelchair and trying to sneak him into a hotel? Political junkies would have tears of joy and gratitude streaming down their cheeks.
I’d given Jane the room card. She’d gone ahead to get the bed set up and to request an electric blanket. I’d called before we arrived to make sure that somebody would be at the back door with a wheelchair and that they would lead me to the proper elevator.
So now here I was, pushing the slumbering Ruskin into my room.
‘He’s really out,’ Jane said as we struggled to lift him out of the chair and sit him on the edge of the bed.
‘Can you hold him there for just a minute?’
‘Sure.’
My suitcase was on the other bed. I threw it open and grabbed a T-shirt, brought it up and slipped it over his head.