The Sandman (22 page)

“Enrico,” Jack said. “You’re looking good. Late, but good. I already got an exclusive interview with Beauregard, and the kid. If she makes it.”

Enrico didn’t even dignify the slob with a response. He had a lot more to offer. He was thinking pilots, miniseries, and spin-offs to prime-time TV. Residuals floated through his brain like aspirin through cartoon intestines.

“What floor?” he said to Jacobs.

“Four,” he said. “It’s a zoo up there, baby. Over fifty cops in the hallway. They aren’t letting anybody through.”

“What’s the deal?”

“I don’t know. He’s holding her hostage.”

“The kid?”

“Yeah … but it’s strange. He hasn’t asked for TV or anything.”

“What’s he, nuts?” Enrico laughed.

But he wasn’t listening to Jacobs any longer. Behind him he heard sirens, and a minute later the police were rushing through the newspaper reporters who swarmed around them, and around a woman, a very battered, shell-shocked-looking blond with eyes as hard as marbles.

“See you later,” Enrico said. He tagged along behind the cops, moving quickly and signaling to his TV crew to come up with him. The cameraman stayed on his tail, and the cops were too busy trying to push their way through the flashbulbs to notice him. Enrico smiled. Nothing had stopped him from getting a story. He was going to be out of the newsbeat soon—be a producer of a medical series, and this could be a big, big break. He had seen this guy Beauregard on Broadway. Maybe if the kid got killed, he could help the bereaved by asking the good doctor to host the show. That was a smart ploy. Yeah, “East Side Medical” … hosted by a head administrator of a “famous New York hospital.” God, it was great. Probably get a fifty share in the ratings. He hugged tight to the backs of the police and kept moving. Soon they were in the elevators, on their way up.

Beauregard switched on the lights of the gallery and stared down on Peter Cross, and his daughter, strapped on the table beneath him. In a glance he saw the cyclopropane tanks, and turned to Lombardi and Heather, who stood by him.

“He’s got cyclo,” he said. “Tell your boys not to make any sudden moves … If anybody goes in there at all, and anything happens, it goes and Sarah goes with it.”

He picked up the microphone, sitting on the blond wooden desk.

“All right, Cross, I’m here,” he said. “This is the way you wanted it, isn’t it.”

He saw the man who held his daughter captive beneath him, and watched as that man smiled up at him, a terrifying smile, for Cross was in a position of absolute strength now. He had relinquished the burden of his humanity, and for the brief time that remained he was like a god. Beauregard looked and felt a terrible awe, a chill in his gut. He thought of things that he had long forgotten … early classes in ethics taken as “guts” way back in the beginning of his university days. The urge to play God … the urge to destroy, as well as create. Classes that he had long forgotten … Christ, that was it … There could be no doubt … Only it was his child being used down there to act out the proposition. His only daughter. He heard Heather cry, and he turned and put his arm around her.

The he heard Cross’s voice.

“What a touching scene,” Cross said. “You and the Missus … together again … brought together by the threat of a lunatic. That’s what you’re thinking, hey, Beauregard? … A lunatic? … I’ll bet in the future you and Mrs. Beauregard there—excuse me—Heather, will be able to sit down over some sole and have a serious talk about this. A little polite cocktail chatter, hey? Over some carrots and dip … a few drinks with a twist, hey? Only it’s going to be a little tougher keeping the old good humor this time, isn’t it … a little tougher because this time it’s going to involve you, do you understand that? This time when you talk about the looney who is killing the patients at Eastern, the patient’s going to be Sarah … You think you’ll be able to keep a nice detached professional view of that?”

Cross stopped and heard his voice echoing through the room. A rather good speech, he thought … rather good … How he hated them all … hated them … But don’t talk too long … for they were already massing at the door. They were talking to one another, signaling for men to lie down, to keep cool … He held the needle up for Beauregard to see.

“Potassium, Beauregard,” he said. “And along the floor … cyclopropane. And little Sarah has no cyclo slippers. You know what will happen if I fall. Everything goes up. You hear me, Doctor?”

“I hear you, Cross,” Beauregard said. He wanted to leap through the window and land on the bastard, grab the needle from him, and plunge it into his face. “I hear you … You sound very angry, Peter … very angry … but I don’t understand why. I thought you and I were friends.”

Cross laughed loudly, flashing his needle like a sword.

Beauregard gripped the chair back in front of him.

“That’s it, Doc,” Lombardi said. “Keep talking to him.”

“Where are you going?” Beauregard said.

“I’m going in there,” Lombardi said. “It’s time, Doc. We can’t wait any longer.”

“No,” Heather said suddenly.

“No,” Beauregard said, calm now. “No, you aren’t going in … I am.”

“Sorry, Doc.”

“Sorry?” Beauregard said. “That’s my daughter in there. This is … in some ways my fault … but there’s only one of us he wants to see. If you make a move, he’ll kill my daughter.”

“And if you make a move, he’ll kill you and your daughter,” Lombardi said.

“Maybe,” Beauregard said. “Just maybe … But maybe not, too.”

“All right, Doc,” Lombardi said. “We’ll risk it … but I’ll be right behind you.”

Beauregard nodded and pressed Heather’s hand. He picked up the hand mike.

“I’ll be coming down now, Peter,” he said, trying to sound as casual as possible.

Cross looked up and smiled at him.

“Come on, Doc,” he said, “I’ve been waiting for this.”

Beauregard turned, opened the door to the gallery, and walked out into the hall. Lombardi motioned to Heather.

“Listen,” he said. “Stand there. Talk to him … slowly … Don’t say anything disturbing …”

She nodded and began.

“Peter,” she said, “please don’t hurt Sarah.”

Beauregard worked his way down through the crowd. The police had cordoned off the entire fourth floor, and behind the wall of blue, he could see Yvonne, and then June … and when he looked at them, their faces seemed to melt … Then he was being grabbed at, handled.

“Hey, Dr. Beauregard, you going in there? I’m Enrico Estrada, from ‘Hello America’.”

“Not now,” Beauregard said.

“Hey, wait a minute, pal,” Estrada said, sticking a mike in Beauregard’s face.

Beau pushed Estrada back, and the jaunty little reporter tripped over his own heels and fell against a cop, who helped him by moving aside, leaving the little Latino to crash to the floor.

This is it, Beauregard thought, slipping on the paper slippers which would at least protect him from the deadly gas.

“How lethal is that stuff, Doc?” Lombardi asked.

“Like this,” Beauregard said.

He scratched his nail on the green tile wall.

“One good scrape and it’s all she wrote.”

“Take it slow, Doc.”

Lombardi reached up and patted him on the shoulder. Then they moved aside, and he started for the door.

Cross unlocked the door, stepped back into the room, then he saw him coming toward him now … shuffling his feet like a little old man. It was amusing … infinitely amusing how weak they were. There was nothing to their might. He recalled how, in the old days, a stern look from Beauregard at an M and M meeting would depress him for days, and he couldn’t resist laughing out loud.

“How you doing, Doc?” he said.

Beauregard sized him up, then stopped.

“I’m fine, Peter,” he said, “I’m just fine … How are you doing?”

“Terrific,” Cross said. “I’ve never felt better.”

“You feel good, Peter?”

“Except about Debby,” Peter said, suddenly sober. “I feel bad about Debby … that was your fault, Dr. Beauregard … It really was … I didn’t want to hurt her, but I had to protect myself—protect my patients.”

Beauregard took another step forward. He could smell the gas all around him, and he watched as Cross stood over his daughter, holding the syringe over her, her arm in his hand.

“I can understand that, Peter,” he said.

“Can you?” Cross said. “How could you understand how I felt?”

Beau made a quick decision—he had an audience—an audience that would hear what he’d been keeping in his gut for years.

“I understand you, Peter, because we’re a lot alike.”

“That’s what I always liked about you, Dr. Beauregard … you’re straight … dull but straight. Your options are so black and white.”

“Not that dull, Peter. You think you’re the only one who’s killed a patient?”

Cross stopped.

“You?”

Beauregard nodded again, slowly, three times.

“Twice,” Beauregard said. “Twice …”

Cross let the needle up a bit. He was slack-jawed.

“Twice,” Beauregard said. “One was an old man … he had so little time left anyway, it was easy to let him go.”

Cross had begun to sweat a little.

“You’re lying.”

Beauregard advanced a step, shook his head.

“No,” he said. “The second was a young girl … not much older than Sarah. She was thirteen and she had leukemia. So many tests, so many pints of blood, so many treatments … She had days—maybe a week. She didn’t want to go on … so I let her out … Isn’t that it, Peter … You want to let them out … Let them run free of their bodies … Isn’t that it?”

Cross was nodding, slowly. He was shaking badly.

“You see,” Beauregard said, moving forward, only two feet away from him, “I’m not that dull … nor do I hate you … I’m still your friend, Peter … You need friends.”

Cross nodded, and Beauregard started to move forward again. But now Cross’s eyes lit up, and he grabbed Sarah again.

“You are lying,” he said. “You have to be.”

“I don’t lie,” Beauregard said.

Cross blinked, ran his tongue around his dry lips.

“But if what you say is true,” Cross said, “then we’re the same … you and I, exactly the same.”

Beauregard shook his head again.

“No,” he said, “we’re not the same. Because when I killed, I didn’t celebrate. I forgot. You see?”

Cross’s eyes opened wide, and he gave out a startled cry. Then Beauregard was on him.

Cross screamed and hit Beauregard on the left temple, knocking him back. He moved toward Sarah, grabbing her arm, nearly getting the needle in, but Beauregard grabbed him and flung him across the room. Cross fell in the corner next to some old oxygen tanks. Beauregard grabbed Sarah in his arms and started for the door. Then he looked at his feet. The electrical grounding slipper had fallen off in the fight. He proceeded slowly … the door looked as though it were receding. He made it halfway across the room before Cross was on him, seizing him by the neck and pulling him back. Sarah fell to the floor, smashing her head, and Beauregard pushed hard, back into Peter, driving both of them down. He shot an elbow into Cross’s ribs, then he turned and smashed Cross in the face. But still Cross wouldn’t go down. He grabbed Beauregard’s lapel and tried to jam the needle into his cheek. Beauregard grasped his wrist and pulled it back, and Cross pressed forward.

“The eyes,” he said. “In the eyes …”

Beauregard caught his leg behind him and pushed him down on the floor. Cross fell backward and reached for the empty tank of cyclopropane. He grabbed it and started to grasp it again.

Beauregard watched it happen. He saw Lombardi’s hands reach out for Sarah. Heard the deafening blast, saw the red and blue flames. Then he turned and tried to cover his daughter who had been knocked to the floor. But he himself was thrown backward, blasted up against the wall … and he heard her scream out … and saw the flames again. Then he was gone, porous as gas.

“You don’t have to do this,” Debby said, as they sped along the Interborough Expressway.

Beauregard and Heather both turned around in the front seat, and Debby couldn’t help but stare at Beau’s bandaged right hand.

“No,” Beauregard said, “I want to.”

Heather smiled, and turned her attention back to the driving.

“Me too,” Sarah said, stretching out her left leg. The right one was still tightly bandaged. The doctors had done good work on her, and she was going to be all right … but the pain was still there. Both she and Beau had been lucky. Neither had been too seriously burned.

“Well, it’s just that I guess it seems crazy,” Debby said. “It isn’t often anyone goes to visit the grave of the person that tried to kill them.”

“That’s true,” Heather said. “If the papers got hold of this story, it would be on page one.”

“I know,” Debby said. “I know it …”

She looked out the window at the sparse trees on the side of the road. Some of them were actually beginning to bud, and on the ground beneath them she saw a patch of daisys. Up above them the sky was blue, and she let out a long sigh.

“It’s just that there were very few people like Peter Cross … I mean … in spite of what he did … to me and the others. I feel sorry about it. No, that wasn’t it. Not sorry. I feel as though his death was really tragic.”

“I understand, Debby,” Sarah said. “He was a real brain.”

The car turned off the little dirt road, and they went under the big sign which said Cypress Hills in black iron scrollwork.

When they passed through the wrought iron gate, Debby felt cold and foolish. She wondered what she herself would say if someone had told her they were going to visit the grave of the man who had tried to kill them. It was ghoulish, definitely very unliberated. She stared out the window at the hundreds of tombstones, the crypts, the vaults … and she thought that if you dwelt on it, if you picked out that one fact from all the others, that this was where it all ended up, then really what difference did anything make? She looked again and saw it the way Peter had … peaceful, beyond struggle, perfect. She had finally started to understand his view of it. After four months of thinking about it, after waking up with the cold sweats in the middle of the night, waiting for the hands to come down on her again, thinking of his leering face, something had happened … a breakthrough of a kind (although some people would probably call it a breakdown) … she had finally understood—at least as much as possible—Peter Cross’s motivations. And understanding them, while not reducing the horror of what he did, made it real for her. Humanly real. And being human, not merely a gothic fantasy, made it bearable. For he had acted perversely out of love. She saw that now, everything he had done had been out of love. Of course that was too simple … a blanket which covered an endless tapestry of subtle, but massive lies …