Nonsense, Harper had said briskly, but William could tell he was scared too. The last few days, calm, controlled Harper Stokes hadn't seemed so calm or controlled. William had even caught him glancing over his shoulder from time to time, as if he expected to find something bad behind him.
“
Three more, tops
,” Harper had finally said. “
You can handle it, William. Your credit card debts will be clear and you can start over, clean slate. Still making over half a million as an anesthesiologist. As long as you don't resume gambling, you should be able to live a very good life, without anyone being hurt or anyone being the wiser. That's what you've always wanted, isn't it
?”
That was what William had always wanted. The fancy house, the fancy car, the fancy clothes. Every symbol of success dripping from his wrist, his feet, his body. So William had agreed. He'd had his whiskey, and an hour earlier he'd walked into the ICU, and in plain sight of God and everyone, he'd injected a vial of propranolol into the candidate.
Now he dug into the pocket of his lab jacket and fingered the second needle.
He stepped out into the hall.
At three in the morning the hospital had adopted a quiet, somber state. Lights were dimmed for patients. The nurses talked softer. Machines pulsed rhythmically. There was no one in the halls as William slipped into the ICU.
The candidate had been admitted that morning. That's how William categorized them in his mind: Candidates.
Tonight's candidate was a sixty-five-year-old male. Healthy. Active. History of heart disease in the family — he'd watched his father drop dead of a heart attack at fifty — so at the first signs of chest pains, the man had dialed 911 and hopped a ride to the ER.
He'd gone through the whole medical process, including a fluoroscopy, which had revealed he didn't have any blocked arteries. Now he was drugged in the ICU to keep himself from pulling out the catheter. His heart monitor looked good. They still weren't detecting any dangerous cardiac enzymes, and most likely he'd be released in the morning, none the worse for the wear.
Except an hour ago Dr. William Sheffield had injected him with the beta blocker propranolol, causing temporary heart failure that had been reversed only by the nurse administering .5 milligrams of atropine. That had been round one. Now it was time for round two, and the overworked nurse was once again out of the room, checking on someone else.
It was the fault of budget cuts, William thought dully. The fault of stupid nurses who didn't protect their charges from people like him. The fault of paranoid candidates who thought they could still eat pepperoni pizzas and garlic bread without repercussions.
The fault of everyone else but him. He was just a lonely, abandoned kid trying to make his way in the world. The rest of them should know better.
William grabbed the T-injection port on the IV and stuck in the second needle.
The candidate's heart rate plunged to below thirty beats per minute and the heart monitor screeched red alert.
William hightailed it for the door. He was just about to pass through, when he spotted the nurse racing down the hall, a second just coming around the corner behind her.
Shit, they would see him. How to explain leaving the room? What to do?
Hide. William dropped to the floor and rolled beneath a pile of soiled sheets just as one of the nurses rushed into the room.
“Come on, Harry, come on,” the nurse was saying. “Don't you do this to me again.”
The second nurse arrived on the scene. “I got a pulse.”
“He's still breathing, what's the blood pressure?”
The rasping sound of the blood pressure cuff. The nurse cursed at the reading while the blood monitor alarm still screeched because Harry's heart refused to speed up.
“We need atropine,” the first nurse declared. “Second time tonight. Come on, Harry, what are you trying to do to us? We like you here, I swear it.”
She rushed out, then returned moments later. William heard her tap the needle to remove air pockets.
The atropine, he guessed. Please, please, don't let her drop the needle and bend down to pick it up.
“Come on, come on, come on,” the first nurse muttered. Abruptly the beeping stopped. The atropine had successfully stimulated the heart rate back to normal.
“Well, he's stable for now,” the first nurse said with a sigh.
“Have you called Dr. Carson-Miller?”
“Not yet, but I'll give her a buzz now. This is Harry's second attack in just three hours. That's not good.”
“Anything you need me to do?”
“No, I'm all set. Thanks, Sally.”
“Anytime. M&M's at four, right?”
“Wouldn't miss it for the world.”
Sally exited. The first nurse picked up the phone and called the on-duty cardiologist.
Once again everything proceeded as planned.
Harper had explained it to him two years ago. “
What is the weakness of a hospital? The fact that it's all routine. Each crisis has a process. Everything we do is planned and predictable. In the end, medicine is much more cookie-cutter than doctors care to admit, and we can exploit that
.”
“He's gone bradycardic twice now,” the nurse was explaining to Dr. Carson-Miller, no doubt having woken her up from her sleep in another empty hospital room. “I've administered atropine both times to restore rhythm.”
William knew the cardiologist's response. “Twice, huh? Keep Harry NPO. We'll have his doctor check him out again in the morning, and bring in Dr. Stokes for a consult. Glance at his day, all right? Good night.”
The phone clicked. William managed to breathe again. Everything was done. He still felt hysterical but wasn't sure why. After all, it went just like all of them went, smooth as glass. Inject twice, giving the candidate two bradycardic episodes. Cardiologist does the sensible thing and recommends the installation of a pacemaker to regulate the heart, Dr. Harper Stokes agrees, and it's done.
Why wouldn't the nurse leave now? William needed her to leave now.
He heard footsteps, loud, ringing footsteps coming down the hall. Men's shoes appeared in view. Brown suede Italian loafers.
“I'm sorry, sir,” the nurse said immediately. “But you can't just walk into the ICU.”
“Um,” the man said. “I know …this is for family only—”
“During visiting hours,” the nurse said firmly. “These aren't visiting hours.”
“Ah, yes, um, I know. But I'm with the FBI…”
William bit his lower lip.
“I'm a friend of this guy. I mean, he's an old friend of the family. I understand he had some chest pains today and was rushed to the ER. We'd heard it was nothing, but then I found out he was in the ICU. I promised my pop I'd check in on him. Of course, my job doesn't let me come during normal hours. I was just gonna glance in, but the lady at the desk said he'd been having problems. Can't you at least tell me what's happening.”
The man was lying, of course. Even a four-year-old could tell the man was full of shit. FBI agent appearing in the hospital at three A.M. to look in on a “friend”?
And then William understood. That's what the note had said —
You get what you deserve
. And the organs, of course, the organs were a symbol of what he and Harper were doing. Someone knew. Someone had sent the agent for him. At any minute the agent would make a pretense of dropping his gun, bend down, and shoot William.
You've been a bad boy, a very bad boy. Bad Billy.
“Oh, dear,” the nurse said. “You really can't be in here. I'll have to ask you to step outside.”
“But is he all right?”
“Mr. Boer has had a rough night, I'm afraid. Most likely he'll have surgery in the morning, but his doctor can tell you more about that.”
“He needs open heart surgery!” The man sounded both stricken and triumphant.
“Well, he might.”
“Please, nurse, tell me exactly what happened.”
The feet started moving. The nurse was ushering the man to the door. But she was also beginning to explain.
William lay transfixed.
You get what you deserve.
Slowly he reached beneath his arm and pulled out his gun. He took off the safety.
He was ready, he promised himself. He wasn't some scared, spineless kid anymore. He'd learned a lot growing up as an undersized boy in a Texas orphanage.
Time to start thinking, William. Time to take control.
You get what you deserve.
William made his decision. If that's the way this thing was going to be played, he'd play it. Dr. Harper Stokes might think of William as harmless, maybe even a fall guy, but Dr. Stokes hadn't seen nothing yet.
IN A DARK suite of the Four Seasons, just across from the Public Garden, just across from the Stokeses' Beacon Street town house, Jamie O'Donnell sat on a blue velvet sofa, brandy snifter in one hand, TV remote in another.
An old goat like him shouldn't be surfing the channels with the lights out. He should turn off the TV, go to bed. Snuggle up with Annie and savor the soft sound of her breathing. Beautiful woman, Annie. The best thing that had ever happened to him.
He remained in front of the TV, flipping the channels.
In many ways Jamie considered himself a simple man. He'd worked hard all his life, fighting his way up from poverty tooth and nail. He'd killed men and he'd seen them die. He'd done things he was proud of, and he'd done things he knew better than to think about late at night. You did what you had to.
He'd arrived in Texas at the ripe old age of thirteen. He started working the oil fields when he was just fourteen. By the time he was twenty he'd developed the broad shoulders and thick neck of a day laborer. His face was generally stained black, his nails too. Definitely not a pretty boy, but he'd never let it get in his way.
Come sunset, Jamie was always the first person off the fields, into the showers, and then into town. College campuses, that's where he liked to go. College campuses were where he could dream. And that's where he'd met Harper Stokes.
Introduced by mutual friends, they'd sized each other up immediately. Shrewd Harper had recognized that Jamie didn't fit in — no way was this thick, dark man a student. In turn, Jamie had known that Harper didn't fit in — no way was this thin, overdressed Poindexter really an aristocrat. They were the outsiders, and they both knew it. So they spent the next few months competing against each other to see who would break into the golden clique of old money. They schemed against each other and ridiculed each other and somehow, along the way, they ended up friends.
Harper liked to talk of money even back then. He was obsessed with what other boys wore, what other boys drove. Jamie understood. He'd spent enough time in the oil fields to know he wanted to be someone someday too.
Harper lectured him nonstop about the power of education, the proper way to talk and dress. Jamie figured he might have a point. He cleaned up a little. Then he taught Harper how to throw a proper right hook. Now, that was something every man ought to know.
And then on Friday nights, the mutual education delved into deeper grounds. Bookish Harper, desperate for the perfect upper-class wife, couldn't even get a date. Jamie, on the other hand, went through women by the dozen. He adored them, and they sure as hell adored him. So every now and then he'd try to send one Harper's way. It seemed the least he could do.
Then Patricia walked into both their lives.
Ironic that the things men would do for love could be so much worse than the things they'd do out of hate.
Life worked itself out. Jamie knew that now. In many ways he and his old friend had gotten exactly what they wanted. Harper lived in a Boston town house. He had his showcase wife, his golden children, his glowing reputation. No third-generation blueblood would question the great Dr. Stokes these days.
And Jamie couldn't complain either. He jetted around the globe, he built a business empire. He stayed in all the right places, met with all the right people. Sure, not all his friends belonged in polite society. But he had power now. No one was getting rich off his sweat but him.
Two old men. So many years the wiser.
Perhaps when all was said and done, the biggest lesson of all was that familiarity did breed contempt.
One hour earlier Harper had called him on the phone, rousing him from his slumber. Harper's voice had been too calm. His anger too quiet.
“What are you doing, O'Donnell? It's been twenty-five years, I've kept my end of the bargain, and we are much too old for this shit.”
Jamie had yawned. “Harper, it's two in the morning. I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't feel like playing guessing games—”
“The note in my car, dammit. This little vendetta against William. Breaking into his house to plant a pile of pig organs? Classy, O'Donnell. Just plain classy.”
“Someone left a pile of pig organs in William's house?” Jamie laughed. “Did the poor boy get sick? I bet he did. I would've paid to see that, you know. I've always hated that spineless bugger.”
“Oh, cut the crap. I want to know why you're doing this. Dammit, we all have too much to lose.”
“You got it all wrong, sport. I don't know what the hell is going on or who the hell is doing it, but as of tonight, I also joined the club.”
“What?”
“I got a present too. Hand-delivered to the concierge downstairs. Wrapped nicely, I have to say. The ribbons even made those pretty little curlicues. You'd like it, Hap, you would.”
“What was it?” Harper sounded perplexed. He'd never liked the unexpected, and it was stealing his headwind of righteous rage.
“I got a canning jar. And floating in it, in some kind of shit I just don't want to know, is a cock and balls. A penis. A pickled penis.”
There was a moment of horrified silence, then Harper laughed. Then his voice grew cold. “A castrated penis, how charming. Tell me, Jamie, do you still dream about her? Do you still lust after my wife?”
“For God's sake, Hap, I'm telling you again, I'm not the one responsible for what's going on. It's been decades, man. I've moved
on
.”