Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 (40 page)

I burst into the waiting room, where only one chair was taken—by Barney’s wife, Cathy, sitting reading a
Ladies’ Home Journal
.

“Nate!” Cathy said. Casually beautiful in white blouse and black slacks, her dark hair up, the former showgirl looked at me with the wide, horrified eyes of someone who’d seen a ghost.

“Hello, Cathy,” I said. “You just sit there, all right?”

Everything in the coldly modern reception area looked aboveboard, nothing suspicious, nothing remotely sinister. Fred Rubinski, typically natty in a brown suit and green-and-yellow-striped tie, stood chatting with Dr. Dailey, in front of the receptionist’s empty window.

Gray-haired, salt-and-pepper-mustached Dr. Dailey—not in his white jacket today, rather a rumpled blue-gray tweed suit—at first smiled, and began to say, “I’m sorry, sir,” possibly to inform me the clinic was closed; then the plumpish, grandfatherly gentleman’s expression froze. Senile or not, he’d noticed the weapon in my fist.

Seeing me, Fred’s cheerful demeanor disappeared and the Edward G. Robinson face turned cop-hard.

Dr. Dailey said, “What’s going on here? I don’t understand . . . ?”

“You rarely do, you old jackass,” Fred snapped, and he took the doctor by the arm and sat him roughly down in one of the waiting room chairs. “Sit there and shut up.”

And now Fred had a gun in his fist, too, a .38. Cathy was covering her mouth with a red-nailed hand, and looked as though she might cry. Behind his wireframes, the doctor’s rheumy green eyes were open wide, as was his mouth, as if he’d been struck in the belly.

Pointing down the hallway, to the right of the receptionist window, Fred said, “Third door on the left.”

Cathy rushed over, catching me just as I was starting down. She clutched my arm. “Nate, you don’t understand. . . . She just wasn’t ready. . . . Please don’t hurt her.”

I lifted her hand off my arm. “She’s in there with a murderer, Cathy—go sit the hell down.”

Swallowing, a hand splayed to the side of her face, backing up, Cathy stumbled into a chair and collapsed into it, just as Eliot blew into the office. Seeing him—he too had a gun in hand, a big nasty-looking .45—she looked like she might pass out.

“Back me up,” I said to Eliot.

He nodded, and followed me down the hallway.

Sick inside, trembling with fear, coldly enraged, I opened the third door on the left and the tableau within was one I would never forget.

Stretched out before me like an Aztec sacrifice, in a white hospital gown that had been lifted up and gathered about her waist, lay my wife—her private parts exposed, the unfolded flower of her in the centerstage spotlight of a ceiling-mounted flood—on crinkling white butcher paper on a shiny steel table with her feet in metal stirrups. Just beyond where she lay on the table was the sink, the faucet of which had been fitted with a hollow metal-and-rubber cylinder connecting to a coil of rubber hose attached to a hollow metal tube with a small slit on the end.

She looked so small, like a child, my petite bride; and quite astoundingly pretty despite the conditions and the locale—no makeup, her dark hair pinned up, her creamy pale skin lovely even under the harsh light, her big violet eyes startled, horrified, at the sight of me—and her mouth open but no sound coming out, as she stared at the intruder who was her husband, an intruder with a gun.

The smell of strong disinfectant made my nostrils twitch. The small operating room was as blindingly white and antiseptic looking as a House of the Future kitchen—cabinets and counters and sink and ceiling, chrome and Formica and tile and plastic—and I had not been in a room so blizzard-white since I awoke tied into a chair in Lloyd Watterson’s basement.

They both wore white smocks and surgical masks and rubber gloves. Dr. Maria Winter—the almost-beautiful amazon with the luminous brown eyes, her dark hair piled in a bun—stood at the end of the table, between my wife’s legs, a rubber pad beneath
Peggy’s hips, the doctor washing her with a soapy sponge from a stainless steel basin, water running down over her pubic region, moistening the pad, and streaming down into a catch bucket.

At the counter, tall blond Lloyd Watterson—ice-blue eyes frozen over the surgical mask—half-turned from transferring hot instruments from a sterilizer into a flat metal basin of steaming water. The instruments were mostly a delicate assortment of scalpels and curettes, and Lloyd held in his rubber-gloved hand a long, slender instrument with a rounded end, which I didn’t much like the looks of.

“Put down your spoon, Lloyd,” I said. “And put up your hands.”

Lloyd nodded and dropped the instrument into the water with a little splash.

Pushing herself up on her elbows, feet still in the stirrups, Peggy was looking at me, eyes huge, mouth moving, but nothing coming out. I yanked the hospital gown down over her. Dr. Winter stood there, soapy sponge in one hand, basin in the other, like a statue in the Abortion Museum.

A towering woman, Dr. Winter was, but when I shoved the snout of the nine-millimeter in her throat, just under the surgical mask, she seemed to grow even taller, as her chin lifted and long lashes fluttered over those patronizing dark eyes of hers.

Calmly, I asked the doctor, “Have you done anything yet?”

“What?” Her eyes and nostrils flared like a frightened horse. “No! We were just about to begin the procedure.”

“I see. . . . Lloyd! Keep those hands up, and away from those instruments! Try to imagine how much I’m looking for an excuse to splash your fucking brains across those cabinets!”

That gave Lloyd a spasmodic start, and he thrust his hands higher.

I returned my attention to Dr. Winter, yanking the mask down, exposing the entire olive oval of her face. I lowered the nine-millimeter from her neck, and smacked the barrel of the gun against the brim of the metal basin in her hands, knocking it out of them, sending it clattering, splashing to the floor.

The amazon abortionist jumped back, unnerved.

“Well, we certainly do thank you for your time, Doctor—but the little lady and me have had second thoughts. We’ve decided to have this baby.”

Peggy finally managed to say, “Nathan . . . please!”

I smiled over my shoulder at her. “Let’s not air our trivial little personal disagreements in front of the good doctor, here, and her estimable aide. . . .
Eliot
!”

My friend stepped in, the .45 in hand.

“Eliot, this is Dr. Maria Winter—Dr. Winter, Eliot Ness. Oh, and of course, you know Lloyd, already.”

“Dr. Winter,” Eliot said, nodding politely. “Hello, Lloyd.”

Lloyd said nothing, hands high, eyes twitching over the surgical mask.

“Would you mind watching these two for me?” I asked Eliot. “I have business with both of them, and wouldn’t want them to go running off.”

“Glad to,” Eliot said, the big automatic trained on Lloyd.

I slipped my nine-millimeter into its holster under my sportjacket, and moved alongside Peggy, whose body was in a cramped V, as she sat propped up on her elbows, her feet still in those damn stirrups, as she stared at me with an expression that managed to mingle indignation and alarm.

Then I scooped her up in my arms and carried her out of there like a bride over the threshold. Romantic and dashing as all hell, except perhaps for the way my wife looked up at me as if I were a lunatic.

Where could she have got that idea?

Once we were in the hallway, I eased her to her feet and asked her where her clothes were. Peggy had never seemed more tiny, more dainty, than when she stood there in her bare feet, pointing down the hall toward a door.

“Let’s get your clothes,” I said, as if to a child.

She nodded, and padded down the hall, and I followed her into a small dressing room, a cubicle with a couple chairs and barely enough room for both of us. I leaned against the wall, arms folded, as she took her clothes from the wall hooks and got into her bra and panties and a yellow blouse and tan slacks and brown sandals.

“How’s the period going?” I asked. “Any cramps?”

“I know I lied to you,” she said, dressing, voice trembling with emotion, some defensiveness mixed in, “but you had no right to make this decision for me. I wasn’t ready to have a child. You—”

“You’re just lucky an abortion was what I did interrupt.”

She was dancing on one foot, getting a sandal on. “What?”

I beamed at her; I had never loved her more, or hated anyone so much. “Do you know who was about to jam a surgical instrument into you, my darling? His name is Lloyd Watterson. Lloyd’s the guy I’ve been looking for lately—you know. . . . The maniac who killed the Black Dahlia.”

“What?” She was fully dressed, and stood with hands on hips, facing me, looking at me through narrowed eyes, challenging me. “You’re insane.”

“Possibly, but I’m well balanced compared to that ‘doctor’ of yours—oh, not the woman, she’s probably competent enough. Again I refer to Lloyd Watterson—that tennis-anyone blond fella? He is in fact, no kidding, the maniac who butchered Elizabeth Short.”

Hands still on her hips, Superman-style, she coughed a laugh. “You can’t be serious. . . .”

I pawed the air like a bored lion. “You’re right. I’m just kidding around. But you know, dear, just like before getting any medical treatment, maybe you really should seek a second opinion.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ask Eliot about Lloyd. You do recall why Eliot came to town?”

She knew very well that Eliot was here to consult on the Dahlia investigation.

Her eyes tightened. “You’re not saying . . .”

“That aging boy ingenue in there is the very psychopath who butchered all those whores and bums back in Cleveland, not so very long ago. A certified, certifiable fiend who, incidentally, I tracked down, the first time around—and helped lock up in the loony bin. So he may bear me a little grudge, though, hell, why would he take that out on you?”

She waved both hands, shook her head. “You’re just trying to scare me. . . . You’re trying to put me in my place. . . .”

I grabbed her by the arms—as if I were going to shake her. But I didn’t, not physically, anyway.

I looked right into her sweet freckled face and said, “All right, lover. You still want this abortion? Fine. Maybe at this point, I don’t want your goddamn fucking kid, any more than you want mine. I’ll round up Fred and Eliot and we’ll take a powder, and leave you to Lloyd. It might be interesting to see what he’d prescribe for you if you got back up on that table and spread your legs.”

I let go of her, shoving her, just a little.

Staggering back, then planting herself on shaky legs, she swallowed, or tried to; her eyes began to tear up, her lips quivering with fear. “Then . . . then it’s true?” She pointed toward the front of the clinic. “That . . . that
was
the . . . I was going to be . . . he could have been . . .”

I sighed. Nodded.

With a yelping little animal squeal, she threw herself into my arms and held me tight; she began to sob, and I patted her back, saying, “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” loving her, hating her, feeling so damn sorry for her, and so goddamn pleased she’d got what she deserved.

“I’m sorry, Nathan, I’m so sorry,” she said, sniffling, tears and snot streaming down her pretty face. “Can you ever forgive me?”

I took her face in my hands and I held her face and looked into the violet eyes and I asked, “Are we having this baby?”

She nodded emphatically. “We’re having it. We’re having it, and we’re going to love it and it’s going to be the best baby that two people ever had.”

“It’s not an ‘it,’ I told her sternly, face still in my hands. “It’s a boy or a girl, understand? Our baby—our child. And no butcher is taking that away from us.”

She hugged me and she kissed me, a sloppy snotty weepy kiss that was the sweetest I ever had.

We were halfway down the hall when Cathy came up to us, looking sheepish.

“I’m sorry, Nate,” Cathy said.

I said, “It’s okay. . . . You were just trying to help out a friend.”

Cathy nodded, chagrined.

“Please take Peg to the hotel,” I said, “and stay with her. I still have things to do, here.”

I handed Peggy into her friend’s care, and walked them out through the waiting room, where Fred was still holding the confused, slumping Dr. Dailey hostage in the doctor’s own waiting room. Seeing me with my arm around Peggy, Fred said, “She’s all right?”

“She’s all right,” I said.

“I’m fine,” she said.

I gave Peggy a quick kiss, stroked her cheek, and she and Cathy slipped out into the hall.

Frustrated, Dr. Dailey asked, “I demand to know what is going on here!”

“Shut up!” Fred and I said simultaneously, and the doctor jumped in his hard chair, and shut up.

I walked back to the operating room and curled a finger at Eliot, who joined me at the doorway. I told him to take Dr. Winter into Dailey’s office and wait for me. I had to talk to Lloyd—alone.

“All right,” Eliot said, taking my orders unquestioningly, “but do me a favor.”

“Don’t kill him?”

He nodded.

I shook my head. “No promises.”

After an “oh well” shrug, Eliot herded the amazon across the hall into the jade-adorned office of Dr. Dailey, and I returned to the blindingly white room with the delicate instruments and the butcher-papered table with stirrups.

Surgical mask dangling around his throat like a loose bandage, Lloyd was leaning with his back against the counter. I shut the door—the loud click was like the cocking of a gun. Speaking of which, my nine-millimeter was tucked away, under my left arm . . . but my sportjacket was unbuttoned.

“I didn’t know she was your wife,” Lloyd said, raising both hands, palms out. The ice-blue eyes were dancing with fright. “I
wasn’t going to hurt her, I swear to God. The name she gave was ‘Smith’!”

“I believe you, Lloyd.”

“You . . . you do?”

I stood across from him, leaning back against the operating table. “This was a last-minute referral, wasn’t it, Lloyd? A favor you did for a friend.”

Lloyd blinked. “She was just another patient.”

“No—tell me about your friend.”