Harmful Intent (13 page)

 

Without closing the car door for fear that Carol might hear it, Jeffrey released the emergency brake and let the auto slip silently down the driveway and out into the street. Only then did he start the motor and drive off. He craned his neck for a view of the house for as long as he could, but Carol never appeared. A block away he slammed the door properly and put on his seat belt. It had been easier to get away than he'd thought.

By the time Jeffrey got to the congested Lynn Way with its used-car lots and gaudy neon signs, he began to calm down. He was still somewhat shaky from Devlin's visit, but it was a relief to know that he would soon be putting the man and the threat of prison far behind him.

As he got closer to Logan International Airport, he began to feel the same misgivings he had had that morning. But all he had to do was touch his tender ears to rekindle his resolve. This time he was committed to following through, no matter his qualms, no matter how high his anxiety.

Jeffrey had a few minutes' leeway, so he went to the ticket counter to have the agent change his Rio de Janeiro ticket. He knew the shuttle ticket was still fine. As it turned out, the night flight to Rio was cheaper than the afternoon flight, and Jeffrey got a considerable refund.

Holding his ticket in his mouth, the suitcase in one hand, and the briefcase in the other, he hurried toward security. It had taken longer than he'd expected to exchange the ticket. That was one flight he didn't want to miss.

Jeffrey went directly to the X-ray machine and hoisted the suitcase onto the conveyor belt. He was about to do the same with his briefcase when someone grabbed his collar from behind.

“Going on vacation, Doctor?” Devlin asked with a wry smile. He snatched the airline ticket from Jeffrey's mouth.

Holding on to Jeffrey's collar with his left hand, Devlin
flipped open the ticket folder and read the destination. When he saw Rio de Janeiro, he said “Bingo!” with a broad smile. He could already see himself at one of the gaming tables in Vegas. He was in the money now.

Stuffing Jeffrey's ticket into his denim jacket pocket, Devlin reached around to his back pocket and pulled out his handcuffs. A few people who had backed up behind Jeffrey to get at the X-ray machine stood gawking in open-mouthed disbelief.

The familiar sight of handcuffs jolted Jeffrey from his paralysis. With a sudden, unexpected move, he swung his briefcase in a violent arc aimed at Devlin. Devlin, concentrating on opening the handcuffs with his free hand, didn't see the blow coming.

The briefcase hit Devlin on the left temple, just above the ear, sending him crashing into the side of the X-ray machine. The handcuffs clattered to the floor.

The female attendant behind the X-ray machine screamed. A uniformed state police officer looked up from the sports page of the
Herald.
Jeffrey took off like a rabbit, sprinting back toward the terminal and ticket counters. Devlin put a hand to his head, and it came away with blood on it.

For Jeffrey it was like broken-field running as he tried to skirt passengers, missing some, colliding into others. As he came to the junction of the concourse with the terminal proper, he glanced back at the security area. He could see Devlin pointing in his direction with the uniformed policeman at his side. Other people were looking in Jeffrey's direction as well, mainly those he'd run into.

In front of Jeffrey was an escalator bringing people up from the floor below. Jeffrey ran for it and charged down, pushing irate passengers out of his way along with their luggage. On the arrival floor below there was a crowd milling about, since several flights had recently landed. Worming his way through the newly arrived, Jeffrey skirted the baggage area as fast as he could and ran out through the electronic doors to the street.

Gasping for breath, he paused at the curb, trying to decide where to go next. He knew he had to get out of the airport immediately. The question was how. There were a few taxis lined up, but there was also a long line of people waiting for them. Jeffrey didn't have much time. He could run over to the parking garage and get his car, but something told him that would be a dead end. For starters, Devlin probably knew where it was. He'd probably trailed Jeffrey to the airport. How else would he have known where to find him?

As Jeffrey weighed his alternatives, the intraterminal bus came lumbering along the roadway. Without a second's hesitation, Jeffrey rushed into the street and stood directly in its path, flailing his arms wildly.

The bus screeched to a halt. The driver opened the door. As Jeffrey jumped on, the driver said, “Man, you are either stupid or crazy and I hope it's stupid 'cause I'd hate to have a nut on board.” He shook his head in disbelief, put the bus in gear, and hit the gas pedal.

Steadying himself by clutching the overhead rack, Jeffrey stooped to get a look out the window. He caught sight of Devlin and the policeman threading their way through the crowds at the baggage carousel. Jeffrey couldn't believe his luck. They hadn't seen him.

Jeffrey took a seat and set his briefcase on his lap. He still had to catch his breath. The next stop was the central terminal, serving Delta, United, and TWA. That's where Jeffrey got off. Dodging traffic, he ran over to the taxi line. As before, there was a considerable number of people waiting.

Jeffrey hesitated for a moment, running through his alternatives. Marshaling his courage, he walked directly to the taxi dispatcher.

“I'm a doctor and I need a cab immediately,” he said with as much authority as he could muster. Even in emergency situations, Jeffrey was loath to take advantage of his professional status.

Holding a clipboard and a stub of a pencil, the man looked Jeffrey up and down. Without saying a word, he pointed to the next cab in line. As Jeffrey hustled in, some of the people queued up grumbled.

Jeffrey slammed the taxi's door. The driver looked at him through his rearview mirror. He was a young fellow with long, stringy hair. “Where to?” he asked.

Hunching low, Jeffrey told him just to drive out of the airport. The cabbie turned around to look Jeffrey in the eye.

“I need a destination, man!” he said.

“All right—downtown.”

“Where downtown?” the cabbie asked irritably.

“I'll decide when we get there,” Jeffrey said, turning around to peek out the rear window. “Just go!”

“Jesus!” the driver murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. He was doubly irritated to get such a short fare. He'd been waiting in the pool for half an hour and had hopes for a run to
someplace like Weston. And on top of the short fare, his passenger was a weirdo or maybe worse. When they drove past a police car at the far end of the terminal, the guy lay flat across the backseat. Just what he needed: a weirdo on the lam.

Jeffrey lifted his head slowly, even though the cab had to be well beyond the squad car. He turned and peered out the rear window. No one seemed to be following. There were certainly no sirens or flashing lights. He turned around and faced forward. Night had finally fallen. Ahead lay a sea of bobbing taillights. Jeffrey tried to clear his head enough to think.

Had he done the right thing? His reflex had been to flee. He was understandably terrified of Devlin, but should he have run, especially with the policeman there?

With a shock, Jeffrey remembered that Devlin had seized his ticket, proof he had intended to jump bail. That was reason enough to toss him in jail. What effect would his attempt to flee have on the appeal process? Jeffrey didn't want to be around when Randolph found out.

Jeffrey didn't know much about the finer points of the law, but this much he did know: with his bumbling, indecisive behavior he had managed to turn himself into a true fugitive. Now he would have to face an entirely separate charge, maybe a separate set of charges.

The cab plunged into the Sumner Tunnel. Traffic was relatively light, so they moved ahead swiftly. Jeffrey wondered if he should go directly to the police. Would it be better to own up and turn himself in? Maybe he should go to the bus station and get out of town. He thought about renting a car, since he'd have more independence that way. But the trouble with that idea was that the only car rental places open at that time of the night were at the airport.

Jeffrey was at a loss. He had no idea what he should do. Every plan of action he could think of had disadvantages. And every time he thought he'd reached rock bottom, he managed to find an even deeper quagmire.

“I got good news and I got bad news,” Devlin said to Michael Mosconi. “Which do you want to hear first?” Devlin was calling from one of the airport phones in the baggage section beneath the Pan Am departure gates. He had combed the terminal searching for Jeffrey, with no luck. The policeman had gone off to alert the other officers at the airport. Devlin was calling Michael Mosconi for additional backup. Devlin was surprised that the doc was lucky enough to have slipped away.

“I'm not in any mood to be playing games,” Mosconi said irritably. “Just tell me what you have to tell me and be done with it.”

“Come on, lighten up. Good news or bad?” Devlin enjoyed teasing Mosconi because Mosconi was such an easy target.

“I'll take the good news,” Mosconi fumed, swearing under his breath. “And it better be good.”

“Depends on your point of view,” Devlin said cheerfully. “The good news is that you owe me a few bucks. Minutes ago I stopped the good doctor from boarding a plane for Rio de Janeiro.”

“No shit?” Mosconi said.

“No shit—and I have the ticket to prove it!”

“That's
great,
Dev!” Mosconi said excitedly. “My God, the man's bail is five hundred thousand dollars! That would have ruined me. How the hell did you do it? I mean, how did you know he was going to try to jump? I got to hand it to you. You're amazing, Dev!”

“It's so nice to be loved,” Devlin said. “But you're forgetting the bad news.” Devlin smiled into the receiver mischievously, knowing what Mosconi's reaction was soon to be.

There was a brief pause before Mosconi said with a groan, “All right, give me the bad news!”

“At the moment, I don't know where the good doc is. He's on the loose in Boston someplace. I got ahold of him, but the skinny bastard hit me with his briefcase before I could 'cuff him. I never expected it, him being a doctor and all that.”

“
You got to find him!
” Mosconi shouted. “Why the hell did I trust him? I should have my head examined.”

“I've explained the situation to the airport police,” Devlin said. “So they'll be on the lookout for him. My hunch is, he won't try to fly away again. At least not from Logan. Oh, and I had his car impounded.”

“I want that guy found!” Mosconi said menacingly. “I want him delivered to the jail. Pronto. You hear me, Devlin?”

“I hear you, man, but I don't hear any numbers. What are you offering me to bring in this dangerous criminal?”

“Quit joking around, Dev!”

“Hey, I'm not joking. The doctor might not be all that dangerous, but I want to know how serious you are about this guy. The best way you can tell me is what kind of reward I'll be getting.”

“Get him, then we'll talk numbers.”

“Michael, what do you take me for, a fool?”

There was a strained silence. Devlin broke it. “Well, maybe I'll go have some dinner, then take in a show. See you around, sport.”

“Wait!” Michael said. “All right—I'll split the fee. Twenty-five thousand.”

“Split the fee?” Devlin said. “That's not the usual rate, my friend.”

“Yeah, but this guy is hardly the cold-blooded, armed killer that you usually have to deal with.”

“I don't see where that makes any difference,” Devlin said. “If you call in anybody else, they'll demand the whole ten percent. That's fifty grand. But I tell you what. Since we go back a long way, I'll do it for forty grand and you can keep ten for filling out those papers.”

Mosconi hated to give in, but he was in no position to bargain. “All right, you bastard,” he said. “But I want the doctor in the slammer ASAP, before they forfeit the bond. Understand?”

“I'll give the matter my undivided attention,” Devlin said. “Especially now that you have insisted on being so generous. In the meantime, we got to block the usual exits from the city.
The airport is already covered, but that leaves the bus station, the railroads, and the car rental agencies.”

“I'll call the duty police sergeant,” Mosconi said. “Tonight it should be Albert Norstadt, so there won't be any problem there. What are you going to do?”

“I'll stake out the doc's house,” Devlin said. “My guess is that he will either show up there or call his wife. If he calls his wife, then she'll probably go to wherever he is.”

“When you get to him, treat him like he's murdered twelve people,” Mosconi said. “Don't go soft on him. And Dev, I mean business on this. At this point I really don't much care whether you bring him in alive or dead.”

“So long as you make sure he stays in town, I'll get him. If you have any problems with the police, you can reach me on the car phone.”

 

Jeffrey's cabbie's mood improved as the fare mounted on the meter. Unable to decide where to go, Jeffrey had the man drive aimlessly around Boston. As they cruised the periphery of the Boston Garden for the third time, the meter hit thirty dollars.

Jeffrey was afraid to go home. His house was sure to be the first place Devlin would go to look for him. In fact, Jeffrey was afraid to go anyplace. He was afraid of going to the bus or train station for fear the authorities had already been put on some alert. For all he knew, every policeman in Boston could be looking for him.

Jeffrey thought he'd try to call Randolph to see what the lawyer could do—if anything—to turn things back to the pre-airport status quo. Jeffrey wasn't optimistic but the possibility was worth pursuing. At the same time, he decided he'd do well to check into a hotel, though not one of the better ones. The good hotels would probably be the second place Devlin would look for him.

Scooting forward against the Plexiglas divider, Jeffrey asked the cabbie if he knew of any cheap hotels. The cabbie thought for a moment. “Well,” he said, “there's the Plymouth Hotel.”

The Plymouth was a large motor inn. “Something less well-known. I don't care if it's a little on the seedy side. I'm looking for something out-of-the-way, nondescript.”

“There's the Essex,” the cabbie said.

“Where's that?” Jeffrey asked.

“Other side of the combat zone,” the driver said. He eyed Jeffrey in the rearview mirror to see if he registered a flicker of
recognition. The Essex was a dump, more of a flophouse than a hotel. It was frequented by many of the zone's call girls.

“So it's kind of low-key?” Jeffrey asked.

“About as low as I'd care to sink.”

“Sounds perfect,” Jeffrey said. “Let's go there.” He slid back in the seat. The fact that he'd never heard of the Essex sounded promising, since he'd been in the Boston area for almost twenty years, right from the beginning of medical school.

The driver took a left off Arlington Street onto Boylston, then made his way downtown. There, the neighborhood took a nose-dive. In contrast to the genteel areas around the Boston Garden, there were abandoned buildings, porn shops, and garbage-strewn streets. The homeless were scattered in alleyways and huddled on tenement steps. When the cab was stopped waiting for a light to change, a pimply-faced girl in an obscenely short skirt raised her eyebrows at Jeffrey suggestively. She looked like she couldn't have been more than fifteen.

The red neon sign in front of the Essex Hotel had aptly been amended to
SEX EL
; the other letters were out. Seeing how decrepit the place seemed, Jeffrey felt a moment's hesitation. Peering out the window from the safety of his cab, he warily surveyed the hotel's dirty brick façade. Seedy was too kind an adjective. A drunk, still clutching his brown-paper-bag-wrapped bottle, was passed out to the right of the front steps.

“You wanted cheap,” the cabbie said. “Cheap it is.”

Jeffrey handed him a hundred-dollar bill from the briefcase.

“You don't have anything smaller?” the cabbie complained.

Jeffrey shook his head. “I don't have forty-two dollars.”

The cabbie sighed and made an elaborate passive-aggressive ritual of giving Jeffrey his change. Deciding he'd be better off not leaving an angry cabbie in his wake, Jeffrey gave him an extra ten. The driver even said thanks and have a nice night before driving off.

Jeffrey studied the hotel again. On the right was an empty building whose windows except for the ground floor were covered with plywood. On the ground floor there was a pawnshop and an X-rated video store. On the left was an office building in equal disrepair to the Essex Hotel. Beyond the office building was a liquor store, whose windows were barred like a fortress. Beyond the liquor store was an empty lot that was strewn with litter and broken bricks.

With his briefcase in hand and looking distinctly out of place, Jeffrey climbed the steps and entered the Essex Hotel.

The hotel's interior was about as classy as the exterior. The lobby furnishings consisted of a single threadbare couch and a half-dozen folding metal chairs. A bare pay phone was the wall's sole decoration. There was an elevator but the sign across its doors said
OUT OF ORDER
. Next to the elevator was a heavy door with a wire-embedded window leading to a stairwell. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Jeffrey stepped up to the reception desk.

Behind the desk, a shabbily dressed man in his early sixties eyed Jeffrey suspiciously. Only drug dealers came to the Essex with briefcases. The clerk had been watching a small-screen black-and-white TV complete with old-fashioned rabbit-ear antennae. He had unkempt hair and sported a three-day-old beard. He had on a tie, but it was loosened at the collar and had a line of gravy stains across the lower third.

“Can I help you?” he asked, giving Jeffrey the once-over. Helping seemed the last thing he was inclined to do.

Jeffrey nodded. “I'd like a room.”

“You got a reservation?” the man asked.

Jeffrey couldn't believe the man was serious. Reservations in a flophouse like this? But he didn't want to offend him. Jeffrey decided to play along.

“No reservation,” he told him.

“Rates are ten dollars an hour or twenty-five a night,” the man said.

“How about two nights?” Jeffrey said.

The man shrugged. “Fifty dollars plus tax, in advance,” he said.

Jeffrey signed “Richard Bard.” He gave the clerk the change he'd gotten from the taxi driver and added a five and a few singles from his wallet. The man gave him a key with an attached chain and a metal plaque that had
5F
etched into its surface.

The staircase provided the first and only hint that the building had once been almost elegant. The treads and risers were white marble, now long since stained and marred. The ornate balustrade was wrought iron festooned with decorative swirls and curlicues.

The room Jeffrey had been given faced the street. When he opened the door, the room's only illumination came from the blood-red glow of the dilapidated neon sign over the entrance four stories below. Switching on the light, Jeffrey surveyed his new home. The walls hadn't been painted for ages. What paint remained was scarred and peeling. It was difficult to determine
what the original color had been; it seemed to be somewhere between gray and green. The sparse furnishings consisted of a single bed, a nightstand with a lamp minus the shade, a card table, and a single wooden chair. The bedspread was chenille with several greenish stains. A thin-paneled door led to a bathroom.

For a moment, Jeffrey hesitated to enter, but what was his choice? He decided to try to make the best of his predicament, or at least make do. Stepping over the threshold, he closed and locked his door. He felt terribly alone and isolated. He truly could not sink any deeper than this.

Jeffrey sat on the bed, then lay down across it, keeping both feet firmly planted on the floor. He didn't realize how exhausted he was until his back hit the mattress. He would have loved to curl up for a few hours, as much to escape as to rest, but he knew this was no time for napping. He had to come up with a strategy, some plan. But first he had to make a few phone calls.

Since there was no phone in the shabby hotel room, Jeffrey had to go to the lobby to place the calls. He took his briefcase with him, afraid to leave it unattended even for a minute or two.

Downstairs, the clerk reluctantly left his Red Sox game to make change so Jeffrey could use the phone.

His first call was to Randolph Bingham. Jeffrey didn't have to be a lawyer to know he desperately needed sound legal advice. While Jeffrey waited for the call to go through, the same pimply-faced girl he'd seen through the cab window entered the front door. She had a nervous-appearing, baldheaded man with her who had a sticker attached to his lapel that said:
Hi! I'm Harry.
He was obviously a conventioneer who was seeking the thrill of putting his life in jeopardy. Jeffrey turned his back on the transaction at the front desk. Randolph answered the phone with his familiar aristocratic accent.

“I've got a problem,” Jeffrey said without even saying who he was. But Randolph recognized his voice immediately. In a few simple sentences, Jeffrey brought Randolph up to date. He left nothing out, including his striking Devlin with the briefcase in full view of a policeman and the subsequent chase through the airport terminal.

“My good God,” was all Randolph could say by the time Jeffrey had finished. Then, almost angrily, he added, “You know, this is not going to help your appeal. And when it comes to sentencing, it is certainly going to have an influence.”

“I know,” Jeffrey said. “I could have guessed as much. But
I didn't call you to tell me I'm in trouble. I had that figured without benefit of counsel. I need to know what you can do to help.”

“Well, before I do anything, you have to turn yourself in.”

“But . . .”

“No buts. You've already put yourself in an extremely precarious position with regard to the court.”