Robert Walker - Killer Instinct

“ Just the same, you people play false with me again, and you can forget any cooperation whatever with the agency. And that's no threat.”

Kaseem took her hand and she shook his.

“ Good,” he said.

“ Then we understand each other.”?

As Jessica Coran's plane flew over Indianapolis' lights at forty thousand feet, Teach was driving up to the parking lot at Grant Memorial Hospital on the outskirts of the city. He had seen all his regular clients, and he had seen Dr. Grubber, and now his time was his. He put on his medical supply sales badge and wandered the halls of the newly constructed hospital, breathing in the hospital smells, annoyed only by the fluorescent lights, which hurt his sensitive skin. Even though it was hot, he wore long sleeves. He also wore his dark glasses, but hospital people understood the need for dark glasses to protect the eyes from the brilliance of the lights. Everything was so white.

He liked to wander about the emergency waiting room where oftentimes young people were brought in, some in need of a place to stay the night. He knew how to approach those in need.

There was a young woman in a corner by herself looking frightened and alone. He went to her and told her he was a doctor, and he asked if she was being taken care of.

“ No, I've been waiting and waiting,” she said, “and they won't tell me how Jimmy is.”

“ Jimmy? Is Jimmy your little boy?”

She laughed at this. “No, Jimmy's my boyfriend. He ran himself off the road and I was called by the police, but I've been left to sit here all this time. I got no way of knowing if he's all right.”

“ What's Jimmy's last name?”

“ Pyles.”

“ Okay, good. I'll find out what I can for you, and I'll be right back,” he told her.

He went straight through the door separating the waiting room from the nurses' station and found chaos inside. Everyone was busy. He gave his stay a moment longer before returning to the distraught young woman in the waiting area. The girl was instantly at him for news.

“ He's stabilizing well, and it looks like he's going to be fine. Dr. Thornton said he was gotten here in time, so no serious damage was done.”

She almost collapsed. “Oh, oh… oh, thank you… thank you.”

“ Dr. Thornton suggests you go on home; that there's nothing you can do until tomorrow. Says Jimmy'll be out of it until then; doped to the ceiling.” He chuckled lightly.

“ No, I don't think I could leave him. I'll just wait and-”

“ No, no, child, nonsense. I have a good sedative I can prescribe for you, and once you've had some sleep-”

“ I can't sleep knowing Jimmy's in pain.”

“ But he's not in pain. He's out of pain, thanks to Dr. Thornton and his competent staff.”

“ I just want to see him.”

“ I'm sorry, but that's out of the question. Look.” He showed her some Quaalude tablets. You know what these are, don't you? These'll help you, I promise, and you'll get by this tragic time. You really do need to get your sleep, some peace of mind, and when you see him tomorrow, you'll be just fine, and when he sees you, you'll look so-”

A nurse pushed through the door and said, “Barbara, Jimmy's being X-rayed now for broken bones. He's been sedated, but he's in a lot of discomfort and there's some internal bleeding. We'll need to operate and we need the consent of his next of kin, so-”

“ What? What? But Dr. Thornton said-”

“ Dr. who?”

“ This man, this doctor here-” She turned and found no one there.

“ What man? Who're you talking about? Maybe we'd better get you a Valium.”

But the girl rushed to the hallway and saw the ghost trail of the man who had been so reassuring, and she shouted, “Come back, mister! Doctor! You!”

But he was gone.

The nurse tried to console her.

It had been a close encounter and he felt his nerves rubbed raw at having lost the opportunity which had been opening up to him with each moment before the nurse stepped in and destroyed his plans. He got back into his van, feeling great frustration and anger, but the night was young, and he had a great deal of patience, and the young woman would have to come out sometime. He could use the knockout injection, or chloroform or brute force, but there was a police car parked outside the emergency entrance.

Should he wait or go? Would she wait all night inside or would she come out?

He waited for fifteen minutes and this stretched into a half hour and still she did not show. He began recalling earlier blood-takings he had performed, going through each in its every detail, reliving the events one by one. He recalled the first, Toni. She'd been a scrubwoman at a small hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. She was not particularly pretty, but her blood was good.

He recalled how a year before Toni, he had gotten his idea for the spigot; how he had drawn it up with great care, sketching it in detail in pencil. He thought the design so perfect that no one could have trouble with manufacturing the device. He took it to Maurice Lowenthal, the so-called genius in the company who had designed medical instruments on demand for doctors in the past. Lowenthal's custom-made instruments sold for large sums, making money for Balue-Stork Medical Supply.

Lowenthal wanted first to know what job the spigot was supposed to perform, saying he could not create without full knowledge of the purpose of the instrument. He understood forceps, clamps, scalpels, mirrors, visors, but this was beyond him-a tracheotomy tube with a control device? Why? To punish the poor patient by shutting off his air supply when the doctor was so moved to do so? Lowenthal understood tubes and wires and cables, anything he could fashion with his hands and his mind, but he wanted to grasp the use of the instrument.

So he took it back from Lowenthal and did nothing with it for a time. Lowenthal remained curious, however, and one day asked him who was the doctor who had asked for this strange device to be designed. He'd told Lowenthal the first name that came into his head, Grubber in Indiana.

“ Ahhh, yeah, a strange bird, that Grubber.”

“ Yeah, strange,” he had agreed.

“ Did you ever find out what the thing was to be used for?”

“ Grubber thought it might be the answer to relieving the pressure of any liquid buildup in the body,” he had said with such confidence that he had surprised even himself. But he had been planning to come back to Lowenthal again with the design, and so he had practiced this answer. “Water on the knee, you name it.”

“ And water on the brain, I suppose?”

“ Why not, if it can be designed accurately.”

“ With a thing like this, it ought to be patented, my friend, and if we patent it, it becomes the property of the company, and what do we get?”

“ Yeah, I know, but those are the breaks.”

“ I'm up for retirement soon,” said Lowenthal. “Tell you what, if we can go halfies on the rights, I'll design it at my shop at home, but it can't be used until after November, when I retire, understood? If it's a success, then everyone will want it, and we will be rich men.”

He agreed with Lowenthal, and Lowenthal had created the prototype, unaware that he had also created the perfect murder weapon.

# # #

In Zion, Illinois, Jessica found what everyone feared, another Tort 9 with the markings of the Wekosha vampire. Maybe Kaseem was right. Maybe it was his man, after all. There was an all-points bulletin released on Kaseem's man, the description going out to every cop and law enforcement agent in the city and its environs. It appeared the killer did live somewhere in the greater Chicago area, and that it could be Davie Rosnich, living under an assumed name. He would be about the right age, and he was a known blood-drinker, or so the military said.