Fair Game (28 page)

“Gerry, please call Lorraine and... tell her gently, okay? Be optimistic. Tony’s alive, and we all know how tough he is. That sort of thing.”

“I’ll call her,” Rourke replied, and his tone was more compassionate than Martin had ever heard it. “Don’t worry.”

“Thanks.”

“Keep in touch,” Rourke advised him, and hung up.

Martin set the receiver in its cradle and turned back to deal with the aftermath of tragedy.

* * * *

Ransom sprawled on the motel bed, fresh perspiration mingling with that which had already dried on his body. His adrenal glands were still pumping so hard that he could feel his pulse banging in his throat. He made a conscious effort to calm down, closing his eyes and relaxing his limbs. He began to tremble as his body cooled, and he pulled the threadbare spread on the bed up to his chin. He was still fully dressed, the gun concealed at his waist. He knew he would feel better if he took a hot shower, but the bathroom seemed too far away

The water probably wouldn’t be hot in this fleabag anyway, he thought. If there was water at all. Through the grimy window with its plastic curtain he could see the motel’s neon sign, with two letters blacked out, announcing “Vacancies.”

He had jogged the two miles from downtown Millvale to the Blue Star Motel in order to avoid using a traceable cab. He had never intended going back to the apartment, even though Meg believed he was away on a business trip.

Meg, he thought despairingly. She was the reason he had blown it, blown it sky high.

He’d had the Senator in his sights, a drilled shot, when she moved between him and his target, a rosy smudge on the magnified, computerized crosshairs.

And he had hesitated, pulled back.

He could not take the chance of hitting Meg.

Then she had moved out of range, and the Senator was in position again. But the timing was off; he had missed his chance. With his trained reflexes he was able to act anyway, getting off three shots, but there was a rhythm involved in the act, as in dancing, and he remained out of step. He was exposed too long in the crowd, and the shots weren’t clean. Fair was dead, he’d accomplished that much, but he’d heard on the motel clerk’s portable radio that both a cop and the daughter were wounded, the cop critically.

It was a sloppy job, and his trademark was precision. He had never injured anyone else but the target before, and he had never left such a mess.

He mopped his face with the sleeve of his sweater, then pulled it off over his head and dried his hair. At least nobody had seen him; none of the reports mentioned it. But he had made a mistake, and he didn’t like it.

He didn’t like the reason for it.

He hadn’t realized how emotionally involved he was with Meg until she had drifted across his gunsights like a deep-pink sunset cloud. His trigger finger had frozen, then erupted into delayed action, and now he had a bloodbath on his hands.

Look for the woman, he thought, rolling over and turning his face into the lumpy, foul-smelling pillow. The French proverb was correct. Meg had wormed her way into his life, not with the bold tactics others had used on him to no avail, but with a tenderness and concern that eventually left him defenseless.

Ramsom sat up abruptly, rubbing his eyes, suddenly composed enough to take charge again. He stripped off his clothes and stepped into the tepid shower, doing the best he could with the drizzle of water, ratty washcloth, and discolored sliver of soap.

He had to get out of the country, but before he could do that he had to get out of this bedbug paradise.

And he had to forget Meg Drummond.

The rest of the night was a blur for Martin. He rode in the ambulance with Ashley and her father’s body; her stepmother had collapsed and was under sedation.

Meg went with Capo in the paramedics’ van to meet Lorraine Capo at the hospital.

The admissions area was swarming with reporters and federal agents by the time they arrived. The press had not been officially informed that the Senator was dead, so his stretcher was whisked inside through a service entrance in order to dodge reporters.

Ashley was treated in emergency, where Martin left her in order to go with Capo, who was admitted to intensive care.

Lorraine was waiting for him there.

“Timmy,” Lorraine said as he embraced her. She was trying not to cry.

“He’s going to be all right, Lori, I know it,” Martin said, hugging her tightly. His expression was one of abject misery.

“I always thought that as long as he-was with you, nothing would happen to him,” Lorraine said as he released her.

Meg saw that this made Martin feel worse, if that were possible, and she said quickly, “Mrs. Capo, I’m Meg Drummond. Your husband regained consciousness on the ride over here. I’m sure that must be a very good sign.”

Lorraine took Meg’s hand and said, “Call me Lori. Mrs. Capo is my mother-in-law. Tony told me all about you. He got quite a kick out of some of the things you said.” Lorraine smiled bravely.

“The kick was more than mutual, Lori,” Meg replied, her throat tightening.

A doctor in surgical greens appeared and informed them that Sergeant Capo would be undergoing surgery immediately to repair a perforated intestine. The intern was reluctant to give an opinion, but when he mentioned that Capo would need several units of blood, Martin volunteered to be a donor.

He left the two women together and shortly afterward wound up in a pale-green cubicle screened off by a canvas drape. He had nothing to do for the next thirty minutes but stare at the ceiling and flex his hand as his blood ran through a plastic tube and into a plastic bag on a stand next to his cot. This gave him too much time to relive the evening’s events in detail, and he was very glad to see the nurse come back to remove the needle from his arm. She taped the incision and handed him a paper cup of orange juice. He bolted the juice and dropped the cup in the trash on his way into the hall.

He found that Capo was still in surgery, and he went looking for Ashley. It was now two in the morning, and the overworked night-staff people were not at their most helpful, but he finally found her installed in a private room on the women’s medical ward, guarded by a federal agent.

Martin displayed his badge for the man. “I’m Lieutenant Martin of the Philly P.D.,” he said to the fed, whose plastic lapel badge proclaimed that he was Special Agent Thomas Forsyth.

Forsyth looked unimpressed.

“I’d like to speak to Miss Fair,” Martin added.

“She’s asleep,” replied the fed, who made it clear that he was now in charge of the situation. “She’s spending the night here for observation. No visitors.”

“She’ll see me.”

“I guess I haven’t made myself clear,” Forsyth said. “Nobody gets in, and that’s final.”

“Look, I brought her here—” Martin began, but Forsyth cut him off in midsentence.

“Yeah, I heard all about it,” Forsyth said sarcastically. “You were assigned to guard her and her old man, and you did such a great job that Fair’s dead and she’s flat on her back in the hospital with a bullet wound. If I were you, buddy...”

Martin punched him so hard that he flew across the corridor and smashed into the opposite wall. He slid along it senselessly and then crumpled to the floor.

“You’re not me, buddy,” Martin muttered savagely as he bent to see if Forsyth was still breathing. Satisfied that he was, Martin looked up and down the deserted corridor and then hoisted the unconscious man onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He tried several doorknobs with his one free hand and finally dumped his burden on the floor of a linen closet and slammed the door closed.

Rubbing his sore knuckles on his shirtfront, he slipped into Ashley’s room.

She was lying in the bed, dozing, her face turned toward the window. He could just make out the contours of her body under the sheet in the dimly lit room.

She looked around when she heard him come in, peering at his dark shadow backlit by the light in the corridor.

“Tim?” she said, recognizing his outline.

“Yeah.”

“I thought I was dreaming.” She held out her hands, and he came to her side to take them in his.

“I was so afraid they wouldn’t let you in,” she murmured. “I heard the doctor tell that federal man...”

“Shh,” Martin said, holding her fingers to his lips. “Forget about him. I’m here.” He let her go long enough to pull a chair up to her bed and then leaned over her again, saying anxiously, “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes, I’m fine. The bullet just grazed my arm. The doctor insisted I spend the night, and I just didn’t have the strength to fight with him. They’re going to release me in the morning.”

“Good.”

“I’ve been so lonely, waiting for you,” she whispered.

These were the words he had longed to hear, but he would never have wished for these circumstances to elicit them.

“I was donating blood for Capo,” he explained.

“How is he?”

“They’re operating on him now.”

Ashley looked at him in silence until he bent his head and said in a choking voice, “I’m sorry.”

She reached up to touch his hair. “It wasn’t your fault, Tim. I know how hard you tried with my father, but he would never listen to you. Or anyone else, for that matter. It isn’t possible to protect someone who won’t cooperate. He always thought nothing could hurt him.” Her voice broke. “He was wrong.”

The door swung open, and a nurse entered with a hypodermic. “Here’s your sedative, Miss Fair,” she announced.

“Oh, please, I don’t want that,” Ashley said wearily. “I really don’t need it.”

“Doctor’s orders,” the nurse replied firmly. She snapped on the bed lamp and looked at Martin with a puzzled expression. “Are you the guard’s replacement?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Martin answered, standing, looking warningly at Ashley.

“Nurse,” Ashley said quickly, “could you check with the doctor and see if I can have something to settle my stomach? I’m feeling a little nauseous.”

“All right, Miss Fair,” the nurse said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She turned to go, then paused to say to Martin, “Aren’t you supposed to be outside the room?” She marched off, her nylon uniform swishing officiously.

“Tim, how did you get rid of that guard?” Ashley hissed as soon as the nurse was out of earshot.

“I sent him for a break,” Martin replied.

Ashley eyed him suspiciously.

Martin shrugged. “He wouldn’t let me in to see you, so I punched him,” he said, like a fourth-grader confessing to a snowball fight.

“Is he all right?” she asked, alarmed.

“I knocked him out and left him to sleep it off in a linen closet across the hall.”

She put her hand over her mouth, and it was a tense moment before he realized that she was laughing.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked fondly.

“At another time, I’d give you an answer to that question,” he said seriously.

The nurse returned, and Martin didn’t wait for her to take issue with his presence again.

“I’ll be back,” he said to Ashley, and went into the hall as the nurse prepared to administer the injection.

He was met by an FBI section chief who informed him that his lack of cooperation with the federal authorities had been noted and that he had two minutes to exit the building or federal assault charges would be filed against him.

He checked with Lorraine Capo on his way out and found that her husband was in recovery and holding his own.

Meg had already left the hospital to take charge of the staff people and pick up the pieces.

As Martin walked past the admitting desk, he saw Agent Forsyth holding an ice pack to his swollen jaw.

Martin kept walking.

There were three messages from Captain Rourke when he returned to the Millvale Hotel at 4:15 a.m. The local police had long since cleared the ballroom and cordoned off the murder scene, but patrolmen still milled about the lobby, conversing on walkie-talkies.

Martin got the house key from the desk clerk, who recognized him, and went up to Ashley’s suite, walking through the sitting area and going into her bedroom.

He was the only one of the group at the hotel; everybody else was either at the hospital or in the hospital.

The Senator’s aides and advisers and hangers-on had all dispersed, to regroup, rethink, and ultimately fasten their political ambitions to somebody else.

Martin tossed the messages into the wastebasket and undressed rapidly, climbing into Ashley’s bed.

The sheets smelled like her, and thus comforted, he fell asleep.

* * * *

The ringing phone woke him less than three hours later at seven-fifteen.

“What are you doing in the Fair girl’s room?” Rourke barked.

“She’s in the hospital. The bed was empty. I felt like a change from the sofa in the sitting room, okay?” Martin responded hoarsely, peering at the clock in disbelief. It seemed as if he’d been asleep for about ten minutes.

“What the hell is going on down there?” Rourke demanded. “I just got a call from some fed who wants to roast you on a spit.”