Amnesia (20 page)

Police across the country were eager to get their hands on Scardoni for crimes ranging from simple robbery to vicious rapes, torturing, and even several suspected murders. He had dropped off the radar screen several weeks earlier, the detective stated, and rumor had it he had been hired to do some job. Whatever it was, the man assured him it was bound to be nasty. Now he shows up in Boise, Idaho, under the watch of Captain Jack McConnell.

Jack’s instincts screamed at him that there was something big going on that brought Scardoni here, but he had no clue what it could possibly be. He also surmised that most of the other incidents he was investigating were somehow related, but no matter how he struggled to find the connection, it eluded him.

First there was Lenny Marconi. What was he doing in Idaho? How did he end up in the hospital? Doctor Clarissa Brandon had said it was a bad fall in the Cascade area. But what type of fall would do that type of damage? And why did Scardoni try to kill him? Were the two in cahoots?

That led back to Scardoni himself. Why was he after the Brandon girl in the first place? He could see no connection between them. Unless he was simply a hired gun, a mercenary paid to harass her. But paid by whom? For what purpose? They hadn’t found anyone suspicious surrounding her except that creepy apartment manager Ernest Dall. But even if Dall did want to scare her, and Jack doubted the greasy little man wanted that, he couldn’t afford to buy someone like Scardoni. No, there was something else there; he just couldn’t see it yet.

And now there was the Peter Frindle affair. He had been kidnapped and badly beaten for no apparent reason. That phone call from Lowell had verified that he had been found and was in the hospital now, and that was good news. At least he had escaped alive, which is more than McConnell had thought would happen. But was he the intended kidnap victim, or was it Beverley Windham? If so, for what reason?

Finally there was Beverley Windham, the good senator’s daughter. The obvious reason for her kidnapping would be for the family riches or leverage on the Senator’s political ties. But for either one of those there would have been some sort of ransom demand, or at least a suggestion of what was wanted. But there was still communication from the kidnappers. Of course he wasn’t part of that investigation. That was under the jurisdiction of the FBI. But he would have heard if anything had happened as the case was being managed out of his office. So why else would someone have taken the girl? The only other possibility he could see would be to physically violate her, but if that had happened the only logical conclusion would be to destroy what was left of her. Yet according to Lowell she was relatively well and untouched, convalescing at Lissa Brandon’s apartment.

Which led back to Doctor Clarissa Brandon. Somehow all of this seemed connected to her. Or at least to revolve around her. He felt certain that she had no part in any of it, but what else could it be? Perhaps the answer was in someone that was connected to her and the others. But so far no one had found that connection. None of it was adding up yet, but the picture was beginning to take better shape. He just needed more pieces to the puzzle.

He shook his head again. He hated puzzles. Both jigsaw puzzles and brainteasers like this. It was one reason he had never become a detective, deciding instead to take the route of a beat cop. Perhaps he should have just stayed the course and gone to Law school like he had originally planned. Heaven knows he would have been better able to support Nancy.

He could still remember telling her of his decision to not become a lawyer. He had been in the 97
th
percentile on the LSAT’s, but when
he started visiting the attorney
s that he met while on the force he just couldn’t see becoming one of them. They all seemed so deceptive and hypocritical. It was when his mentor had introduced him to a colleague, a rather successful defense attorney who seemed to be the epitome of all lawyers, that he knew he could never be one of them. When Jack had asked him about his career, he got the advice that changed his life.

“Son,” he had said, “it doesn’t matter if the man is guilty or not, or if the law is right or wrong. The only thing you need to remember is to watch out for yourself. Nothing else really matters.” That made his decision for him and he had dropped the idea that very moment.

Jack had been afraid of Nancy’s response at first, after all the working and dreaming of his career choice. But to his surprise she seemed almost relieved. Her only question was about what he wanted to do instead. Already working on the force so he could attend school, they decided to just keep it going. It proved to be a good decision, his natural leadership ability allowing him to rise quickly to the top.

He shook his head, chuckling at himself. No, he was glad he had taken the path he was on. He again reviewed the salient features of his puzzle, and again came to the conclusion that the solution could be found around Lissa Brandon, with whom he and his wife were having dinner that night. Bill will be there too, he remembered, and he smiled as he pictured the two of them together. It would be a perfect match.

First things first. He had to make two phone calls right now. The first was to the Windham’s to tell them that Peter Frindle had been found; Gregg should know that there was some news on the case. He decided not to tell him about his daughter just yet, however. He was worried that Gregg might charge in like a bull in a china closet, and McConnell needed to keep him out of things a little longer. He would have to keep things quiet if he were going to bring Scardoni’s plans into the open.

Yet it was the second phone call that would need to be delicate. He knew he would do fine, but he hated deception in any form. However, lives were at stake, and he had little choice. He just hoped they would forgive him some day.

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*

Marcuse knew now that Scardoni had screwed everything up. He seethed behind his carefully crafted mask, knowing that he would exact a heavy price for the failures. He sat in the library, his sanctuary from the imbecilic world that surrounded him, going through the options that were available. The one option that did not occur to him, however, was to back off his plans—to admit defeat. He could never entertain that eventuality—it was not possible that he wouldn’t win. He would simply revise his tactics.

Scardoni, however, had become a liability that must be eliminated. Of that there was no doubt. He had made a mistake hiring that buffoon and he would undo that particular mistake without hesitation. He had nearly destroyed everything Marcuse had worked for over these past several years, and he did so in just a matter of days. He would pay dearly!

Right now, though, the question was how to play the hand Scardoni had left him. He knew the boy had been found and could identify Scardoni. However he couldn’t identify Marcuse, only one person could do that, and he had been taken out of the picture. The Frindle kid shouldn’t prove to be much of an issue, he wasn’t the target anyway.

No, the problem was the girl. He had no idea where she was, or if she was even still alive. He didn’t real
ly care either way for her well-
being, or even where she was, as long as she didn’t turn up. As long as she was out of the picture he could still use her, just not how he had planned. He just had to find a new plan and ensure she didn’t suddenly reappear. This meant she had to be removed from the picture permanently.

He realized that his tumbler was empty, stood, walked over to the bar, and refilled it from the waiting decanter. He enjoyed
h
is cognac immensely, the warming liquid calming his nerves, the alcohol quieting the roar of voices in his head to mere whispers. He needed the voices to help him find the answers he needed, but sometimes their cacophony was just too overbearing, their clambering for attention too overwhelming to forge distinct thoughts.

He slowly rotated the glass in his fingers, holding it up to the light to gaze at the brown swirling liquid. He had once traveled to France, had visited the vineyards where the beverage was distilled, and had tasted the grapes straight from the vines. They were as delicious then as the brandy is now. He took a sip, feeling the warmth pour down his throat, spreading through the rest of his body. He smiled at the sensation, a feeling of artificial comfort enveloping him. He could do anything, have anything, he desired, and nothing could stop him. Nothing would stand in his way!

Suddenly one of the whispers stood out from the rest, like a fish jumping out from a whirlpool. He reached out and grabbed it, inspecting it from different angles. Then another jumped out joining the first. He compared the two trying to find how they fit together; piecing them together like a child connects his Lego’s. Then a third joined the pair, and a pattern began to emerge. Piece by piece, the items pulling together faster and faster, patterns and colors merging together like a tapestry, culminating into a brilliant picture.

He stood back, in his mind’s eye, viewing the completed masterpiece. Just as a painter would stand back from their easel, looking at it from every angle to ensure he had missed nothing. Detail after painstaking detail he combed the conception, finding no errors, just as he knew he wouldn’t.

Finally he looked at the picture as a whole, so perfectly fitted together, so masterfully conceived. He marveled at the utter simplicity of it all, much simpler than his original plans, and so much clearer. His voices had not failed him, just as they never had before, and had provided him the perfect solution.

He laughed aloud, euphoric with the knowledge that he would succeed again. He had breathed life into his destroyed plans, his design rising as a phoenix from the ashes Scardoni had left him. His laughed louder as he thought of what he would do to that man, throwing his head back and filling the hall with echoing peals. Once again he had things under his control, even holding lives in his hands, determining like a god who lived and who died. He was like a god in so many ways. Soon people would bow before him and worship him—just as they should.

He laughed louder. Soon, very soon now.

“This can’t happen to me! I’m Rudy Scardoni! I’m in control here, not you!” The desperate man banged the back of his head on the driver’s head rest in the stolen Oldsmobile. He clenched the Glock handle so tightly his knuckles turned white. He didn’t notice as hatred and rage colored everything around him.

The heat in the car should have been unbearable. Another triple digit day. Yet he didn’t notice. His emotions overpowered all other senses. He had spent most of the day in the blistering heat, trying to find the Windham girl and her wimpy boyfriend. But nothing was working out the way he planned. He didn’t know who was a step ahead of him messing up his plans, but he vowed he would get even.

At first he had been lucky, finding the boyfriend at St. Luke’s. Not quite dead, but almost, because of the beating Scardoni had delivered. He had almost laughed out loud when the cute CNA had told him about the mysterious patient who had arrived late last night. She remembered him because she had tried to get close to the hunky friend that brought him in. He had thoughtlessly snubbed her, only to be later seen with some tired looking doctor.

He then headed up to the room to exact his revenge, only to be nearly caught by the police captain and the Windham girl’s parents. He had waited in the car for nearly two hours before they left. When he went back in to see him the boy had been secretly moved to some unknown location. He had slipped right through his fingers.

Frustration fuelled his anger. He went from floor to floor dressed in surgical attire he had stolen to hide his scar.  Maybe they were just hiding him. Maybe the girl too, for that matter. He hadn’t found them, but did notice a room being guarded by another cop; the same room that Lenny had been in. He decided they must be in there.

Carefully concocting a ruse to get into the room, Rudy found the floor nurse, some baggy old lady called Dolores, pistol whipped her with the Glock, and took her place. He impatiently explained to the guard that Dolores had been called down to cover in emergency and that he had been asked to cover for her. Unfortunately the guard wasn’t buying it.

Scardoni was not about to let some insipid cop get in his way. He pulled out the gun, still slick with Dolores blood, and aimed it squarely at the cop’s heart. The man wouldn’t budge. Instead he pulled his own gun. The two stood face to face, pistol to pistol, Glock to Glock, each yelling at the other to move. Desperately Scardoni looked around trying to find some leverage to get around the stubborn sentry. He averted his eyes, only for a moment, but long enough to give the cop an opening.

Officer Putnam’s whole job at that time was to ensure only a limited number of people, those specifically listed by his captain, gained access to the hospital room. He was completely unfazed by the gunman before him. He had grown up in East L.A. and was used to punks like this. He was patient, knowing from experience that the man would drop his guard, and was bolstered by his trust in the mandatory body armor he wore. It was only a matter of time before the man looked away and Putnam sprang like a cat pouncing upon its prey.

Putnam hit Scardoni hard, the unexpected blow knocking the gun from his hand, sending it spinning across the floor. The two went down, crashing onto the floor with wrenching impact. Scardoni, already hurt, howled with pain. His battered body screamed at the damage already inflicted. Yet the pain only spurred him on.

The two grappled, each scrambling for a debilitating hold on the other. They were nearly equally matched given the extra strength Scardoni’s rage lent him. They rolled back and forth, delivering short ineffectual jabs at each other, trying desperately for some advantage.

Scardoni was starting to tire. Days with no sleep, the lingering effects of alcohol, and wounds delivered by the two prisoners were taking its toll. Still he would not allow his body to lose. Painful blows were better than mental defeat. He became frantic in his fighting.  He managed to free an arm long enough to crack the policeman’s head on the floor.

Stunned, the officer loosened his grip giving the other the chance to deliver the deciding blow—another sharp crack of his head on the floor. Putnam’s eyes rolled back into his head as unconsciousness enveloped him, freeing Scardoni to do his will.

The victor stood, staggered over to his discarded gun, and then returned, angrily delivering some rib cracking kicks to the officer’s side. Dimly he recognized some alarms going off, but none of it registered in his clouded head. All he wanted was to get into that room and dispose of the two brats he had kidnapped.

He opened the door, cocked the gun, and went up to the side of the bed. He vaguely registered that there was only one person in the room, but didn’t care. At least he could rid himself of one of the thorns that irritated his side. He shuffled up to the patient, put the gun to the side of the head, and slowly applied pressure to the trigger.

Something was wrong. What was it? He let off the trigger slightly and stared at the face. It wasn’t the boy at all. It was a face he knew, with a long scar just like his.

He looked closer. He knew this face. Something about the scar…. There was a scar running down the left side of the face just like….

Fear clutched at his heart. He knew that scar. He had stared at that scar in the mirror for more than thirty years. The scar was from a knife fight, delivered to an angry kid with a lot of guts but no brains. He felt the burning pain anew, as if the knife were again slicing open his jaw. His tormented mind stood staring into his own face!

He took a deep breath, telling himself that it couldn’t be his face. It just wasn’t possible. He just had to get a grip on what was happening. He put the gun back to the forehead lying in front of him. Again he applied that three pounds of pressure needed to fire the weapon, ignoring the fear that tore at him. He would be free of all of this. He would be in control!

Suddenly the eyes flicked open. They stared in astonishment back into his. Two mirrors reflecting his own fear. Terror flooded Scardoni’s body. His finger stopped paralyzed a hair’s breadth from its goal, saving the man’s life, his life, from the ravaging bullet. He thought he would pass out.

This couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be him! But it must be! The eyes, the scar, everything was a mirror to his own face. A face he had only seen in pictures and mirrors before, now staring up at him from a hospital bed. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He just stood there. Then he heard himself speak.

“Rudy” was the only word that escaped the lips before him, but it was enough. The spell was broken, and Scardoni knew he had seen his own future; a man dying with a gun pressed to his head. He had seen his own death, and he had been the cause of it.

He suddenly thought of his father. Hatred for his father was how his life of cruelty had begun. An incessant need to destroy the being that had created yet shunned him. The desire to avenge his mother’s agonized life and his own hated one the catalyst that spurred Scardoni into the life he had chosen. He had finally caught up with the despised vermin after years of hunting. He left him to live or die as fate would have it, uncaring as to which.

When he had finally found him, he saw a decrepit old man dying from lung cancer, the result of too many cigarettes and not enough willpower, whose body was ravaged by disease. The old man had welcomed a short death by bullet rather than the intense suffering from the lingering death from the disease. Scardoni had pulled the trigger easily enough, ending the miserable existence, but instead of finding relief, he felt only emptiness; a void he had tried to fill with alcohol, drugs, illicit sex and violence ever since. He never did realize that far from filling the void, he was simply enlarging it, until he was completely empty, a shell holding nothing but pain, longing, and regret.

It was that shell that he faced now, and from which he found himself running. He turned and ran through the door, toward the stairs, out to his car. He stopped only when he was inside the vehicle gasping for air to fill his burning lungs. Only then did he realize that he still held the gun and that it was still cocked.

He stared down at the pistol. He realized anew that he had just been shown his future, a terrifying shadow that had haunted him his entire life. He slowly pulled the gun up toward his head, turning the barrel until the long hole stared into his eyes. He placed the tip up to his forehead until it was directed exactly as it was with the other Rudy lying in the bed.

If his aim was right the bullet should pass through unhindered, destroying all in its path, taking his life with it. It would also erase the memories forever; not only of the haunting face he couldn’t dispel, but also those flashbacks of his mother that tormented him. It would all be over in a moment, too quickly to time on an ordinary watch.

Slowly he applied the pressure to the trigger. It provoked in him an instant replay of the scene he had just witnessed in the hospital room above. Again the terror that he had experienced then flooded through him. He again felt himself paralyzed with fear. Again he heard himself whisper the word “Rudy.”

He sat there for a few moments, pistol against his temple, finger on the trigger, panic in his heart, until finally his arm inexplicably dropped. He couldn’t do it. The fear was too much to bear. He had nearly shot himself twice now in a matter of mere minutes. His mind could take no more. He sat alone in a stiflingly hot car, oblivious to anything but the fear. He wept.

Hours later he awoke, still sitting in his car, sweat streaming down his face, his right hand still clutching the gun. He felt more himself now yet knew he was different in a way that he would never be able to undo. He also realized that he was hungry and very thirsty. Above all else his first priority, his only priority, was to satisfy his physical needs.

He drove down the street and ate at Chili’s, barely tasting the baby back ribs, trying to decide what to do. He sat there staring at the people coming into the restaurant, not seeing them, only registering that he was not alone. Finally he decided that all he really needed was to regain the control that he had lost. He didn’t know where the kids were, but he knew that somehow he would find them. He also knew he needed to rid himself of Brandon and Marcuse. He didn’t know where Marcuse was either, but he could find Brandon. He knew exactly where she lived.

He drove down to the River Apartments, swung into the tree-lined drive and into the parking lot. He backed his car into a stall hidden by two SUV’s, ready to flee at the first hint of trouble. He left just enough room to watch for Brandon.

He noticed that the Lumina wasn’t in her stall. That same stall he had visited just a couple of days earlier to destroy her car—a message from a “dear friend.” He wished then that he hadn’t stopped with the car and had taken care of her at the time too. It didn’t really matter though, he would make up for that now. He would fill his need with her in more ways than one this time, he thought nastily. He didn’t notice his saliva drooling onto his shirt as he imagined the torture he would inflict.

Finally there was movement at her apartment. A door opened and a man came down the stairs taking the trash out to the dumpster. The same dumpster he had rummaged through on his first visit to this apartment. He looked intently at the man, trying to size him up, to see what threat he might pose.

The first thing that he noticed about the man was that he was dressed like a surgeon, wearing the same blue scrubs that he had stolen earlier that day. Then he registered a slight recognition to the man, like he knew him from somewhere. He picked up the gun, checked that it was still ready to fire. He gripped it tightly, ready to use it on the figure growing closer.

The man in the blue walked past his car to the dumpster, tossed in the bag, and headed back toward the stairs. He looked over toward the Olds Cutlass Supreme, saw the man staring back at him in fright, and gave a small wave and smile before proceeding back up the stairs and disappearing into the apartment.

Scardoni just stared at the man, recognizing him at last as he passed, realizing that it was the ghost of the kid that he had hired Walters to throw out of the plane. It couldn’t be him—he was dead. Even if they hadn’t succeeded in throwing him out of the plane, the plane itself had crashed and everyone on board was dead. No one had survived—could have survived—that crash. No, it was the man’s ghost, come back to haunt Scardoni.

He yelled again at whatever entity had ripped control from him, condemning them to that purgatory of which his mother had taught him. He screamed at the chiding voices that invaded his thoughts. He pounded his fists on the steering wheel of the car in frustration, but was too terrified to do anything more.

Slowly his energy ebbed and his fit calmed. He noticed that the sun had set and still there was no sign of Brandon. It was time to go find Marcuse, even though he knew nothing of him but a single phone number.

That was okay though. He knew that the voices would lead him.

*
             
             
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*

The first thing she noticed was the soft sheets and comfortable bed. It wasn’t quite the same as she was familiar with, but it felt so good to just lay there and relax. She stretched her sore legs out, luxuriating in the warm cotton bedding, wondering if she could just stay here in this comfortable cocoon, free from the worry and pain of the past. The only thing that could be better would be to snuggle up with….