Silent Treatment

'Drop it!' he barks. 'Drop it now or it'syour fucking head, Perchek. I mean it!'

The Doctor's ice blue eyes sear him. Hismouth is twisted in a snarling rictus of hate. Then, slowly, ever so slowly,Anton Perchek releases his weapon and lets it drop from his fingertip. .

Harry worked his neck around and realizedhe hadn't moved a muscle for some time. Across from him, Ray Santana saggedvisibly, exhausted from recounting the ordeal that should have killed him.Without speaking, Maura went to the kitchen and returned with coffee. Nobodyspoke until she had poured three cups.

'Can you tell us what happened afterthat?' Harry said.

'Nothing good. Perchek's injection didn'tkill me, but over the last seven years I often wish it had. Somethingirreversible happened to the pain fibers in my nervous system. They fire offwith no cause. Sometimes a little. Sometimes absolute hell.'

'I assume you've seen doctors.'

'Without the chemical Perchek used, theydidn't even know where to begin. Most of them thought I was crazy. You know howdoctors are about things they didn't learn in some textbook. They thought I wasjust after drugs or a government pension. Finally, I took a medical dischargefrom the agency and got one hundred percent disability. I go to AA and NAperiodically, but the pain always wins out. Fortunately, I have a doctor andpharmacist at home in Tennessee who understand. So getting Percodanprescriptions is no problem.'

'And your family?' Maura asked.

Santana shrugged sadly.

'My wife — Eliza — tried to understandwhat had happened to me and what I was going through. But with no encouragementor insight from any of the doctors, she finally gave up. Last year she gotmarried to a teacher from Knoxville.'

'And your son?'

'He's at the university. From time totime, when he can, he calls. I haven't seen him in a while.'

'This is very sad,' Maura said.

'I was managing — at least until a fewweeks ago I was. About a year after Perchek was locked up in the Mexicanfederal penitentiary just outside of Tampico, I got word that he was dead,killed in a helicopter crash during an escape attempt. I didn't trust the report.In Mexico, if you have enough money, you can make just about anything happen — or appear to happen. There had been an explosion over water, I was told. Thechopper blew up, there were several reliable witnesses. What was fished out ofthe Atlantic was identified as Perchek through dental X rays.'

'You sound as if you weren't convinced.'

'Let's just say that what I wanted tobelieve and what I believed in my heart were not the same thing.'

But how did you end up here?' Harry asked.

'I got a call from an old friend inforensics at the bureau in D.C. That expert of yours, Mr. Sims, had sent down anumber of prints for identification. One of them, a thumbprint, matchedPerchek's with about ninety-five percent certainty. I wasn't that surprised — especially when I learned it had been lifted from the room of a woman who hadbeen murdered in a hospital. I came here and began making plans to get close toyou. My friend in D.C. promised to give me a little time before identifying theprint for Sims.'

'But why didn't you tell us who you were?'

'Well, the truth is I wasn't sure whatside you were on. I thought maybe you had hired Perchek to kill your wife. Iwasn't even a hundred percent certain after that night in Central Park.'

Harry groaned.

'That was you. You shot that man.'

'You look upset.'

'I am upset.'

'I saved Maura's life. Maybe yours, too.'

'If you had taken those men in instead ofkilling one, Andy Barlow might still be alive.'

Now it was Santana who lashed out.

'Harry, don't be an ass. We're dealing withkillers, here. Not college professors, not social workers — killers. Got that?These people don't stand around and let someone escort them to thepolice. They kill. It's too bad about Barlow. He shouldn't've died. But get itthrough your head — it wasn't my fault.'

'You're dangerous, Santana,' Harry snappedback. 'A walking stick of dynamite with a short fuse. You don't really care whogets blown away as long as Anton Perchek goes along with them.'

'You've got that right, brother.'

'Well, I might get booted out of myhospital because of what you've done, brother.'

'Come on, Harry,' Santana said. 'You mightget reprimanded, but you won't get kicked out. Your lawyer's too good. Listen,we'll go take the posters down. They've been up most of the night now, and thatmeans they've already succeeded in rankling Perchek, which is pretty much whatI wanted them to do.'

'Rankling Perchek. You really are a piece ofwork,' Harry said, not at all kindly. 'Have you heard how many times thegoddamn phone has rung since you got here? That's a growing percentage of allthe nutcases in Manhattan, each one convinced I can be conned out of fiftythousand dollars. Rankling Perchek. Santana, just get out of here. I'mhaving enough trouble with my enemies without getting blindsided by myso-called friends.'

Maura had heard enough.

'Listen, you two,' she snapped. 'Sit downand shut up for a minute, both of you. I don't care how you feel about oneanother, but neither of you operating alone has much chance of getting thisPerchek. Harry, you're a doctor, not a cop. And Ray, you can't get insidehospitals, and that's where your man is. You two need one another. Face it.'

Harry glared at Santana. Maura stalkedacross the room and stood over him, hands on hips.

'Do you guys want me to make you shakehands like we used to do after fights in junior high school? Okay, then. Westick together, and we try to clear things with one another before we do them.Deal?'

'Deal,' the two men grumbled.

'Well, come on, then,' Maura cut in beforethey could get started again. 'We've got some posters to take down.'

A small crowd clustered around thebulletin board outside the MMC surgical suite. There were nurses, technicians,and physicians, including an anesthesiologist, an ENT specialist, and Caspar Sidonis.Everyone, it seemed, was talking at once about the posters that had appearedovernight throughout the hospital.

'You know,' one of the nurses said,pointing to the rendering of Perchek with a beard, 'I actually think I've seenthis guy.'

'Janine,' another nurse said, 'since youkicked Billy out last year you've seen most of the guys in the city.'

'Not funny,' Janine said.

'I agree, Janine,' Sidonis said. 'Andneither is this. . this latest humiliation for our hospital.' At the firstwords from the cardiac surgical chief, all extraneous conversation stopped.'Everyone in the hospital knows that Harry Corbett killed his wife. He couldn'tstand the thought of losing her and so he killed her. It's as simple as that.These drawings are just a smoke screen, a misdirection play. The man isabsolutely certifiable, and so is the woman who drew these. They are theproduct of an alcoholic's distorted mind, and nothing more. You'll all see.I've had it up to here with Corbett and the way he's manipulating everyone inthis place. Fifty-thousand-dollar reward, indeed.'

Embarrassed by the surgeon's ramblingoutburst and the stories they all knew about his involvement with the murderedwoman, the crowd quickly dispersed. As Sidonis turned to go, he nearly collidedwith a man in a full-length lab coat, whose photo badge identified him asHeinrich Hauser, a research professor from the department of endocrinology.

'I agree with you completely, Doctor,'Hauser said in a dense German accent. 'This Corbett makes trouble foreveryone.'

'Thank you, Doctor,' Sidonis replied.

He glanced at the man, who was four orfive inches shorter than he was, with gray-white, crew-cut hair, thick glasses,and yellowed teeth. The teeth disgusted Sidonis. Instinctively, he backed away,fearing a blast of bad breath. He had not seen the man before that he couldremember, but he seldom took notice of anyone with whom he didn't haveimportant business.