Stuart Woods: Son of Stone

Karen held up a calming hand. “Take it easy. If you feel strongly about it, we’ll leave it as it is. Knowing our readership, we may get some letters to the editor about the matter, but we can deal with that when it happens.”

“Thank you,” Kelli said, opening her laptop. “If I can use the edge of your desk, I’ll make your corrections now.”

“Great. We’re going to press tonight.”

Kelli opened her laptop and went to work.

Peter was staring blankly at a magazine when Hattie came through a door and sat beside him.

“All done?” he asked.

“No, I’m afraid not. They’ve examined me and told me I can have the procedure in ten minutes. Apparently, another girl had second thoughts and canceled her appointment. If I don’t do it now, I’ll have to wait another two weeks before they have an opening, and I don’t want to do that.”

Peter thought about it for a few seconds. “That’s fine. Just call your mother and tell them you want to do dinner and a double feature with me, and you’ll be home by eleven.”

“All right,” she said. “With the rest period, this will take about four hours. Why don’t you go to a movie or something, then come back for me?”

“All right,” he replied.

“Wish me luck.”

“You’ll be fine.”

They kissed, and she went back through the door.

Peter sat, a little breathless, and planned how they were going to do this. He checked his watch, then he left and walked down to the multiplex cinema on East Eighty-sixth Street. He had half an hour’s wait before the movie he wanted to see started, so he had a snack nearby, then returned for the film.

When Peter came out of the movie it was dark, and he still had another hour before Hattie could leave the clinic, so he walked slowly back in that direction, window-shopping, taking his time.

When he arrived at the clinic he sat down in the waiting room. A woman opened a glass partition. “You’re Ms. Springer’s friend, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“I’m afraid there’s been a complication, and she’s been taken to the emergency room.”

Peter’s heart jumped into his throat. “Where?”

“She’s at Lenox Hill Hospital,” the woman replied.

Peter ran down the stairs and looked desperately for a cab. It had started to rain, and there were none.

He began to run. Lenox Hill was in the upper Seventies, he wasn’t sure which street. He alternately sprinted, jogged, and walked, and the sweat was coming through his clothes.

He asked a cop for directions and got them, then he stood and caught his breath for a minute and called home.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Peter? Where are you? I was expecting you home from school.”

“Hattie and I went to a movie, and we want to go to a double feature now, so I’ll grab a bite between movies.”

“Is that all right with her parents?”

“Yes, she’s already talked to them.”

“All right, I’ll see you later.”

Peter ended the call and began to run again. He still had two blocks to go.

T im Rutledge stood in the rain across the street from Stone Barrington’s house and huddled under the flimsy umbrella he had paid a street vendor ten dollars for. As he watched, the light in a street-level window went off, and a woman emerged from the adjacent door and locked it. She put up her umbrella and hurried up the block toward Third Avenue.

Rutledge waited for her to disappear around the corner, then he crossed the street, went down a couple of steps, and peered through the window where the light had gone off. There were two or three pieces of office equipment with small screens that gave off enough of a glow for him to make out a desk, filing cabinets, and a pair of chairs. The woman must be Barrington’s secretary, because his residence and office addresses were the same, with an A added to the office street number. He tried the door, but it was securely locked.

Rutledge looked up the block and saw a police car coming, so he ducked under the steps to the upstairs residence until it had passed. On the other side of the steps was a garage door that, apparently, belonged to the house. He stepped back to the sidewalk and looked at the first-floor windows. Lights were on somewhere to the rear of the house, but he saw no sign of life. A light burned over the front door.

Turtle Bay, he knew, had a common garden, surrounded on two sides by rows of houses. The Second Avenue side was made up of a row of shops, and the Third Avenue side was taken up by an office building.

Rutledge walked around the block until he stood at a point even with the rear of Barrington’s house. Some of these common gardens had an entrance opening to the street, and he walked down the block slowly, looking for one. He found a heavy, wrought-iron gate and could see a corner of the gardens through that, but it was locked, and he knew nothing about picking locks. He walked down to Second Avenue, then up Barrington’s street again. He was going to have to catch him entering or leaving his house, but he had no way of knowing when that might be.

He finally gave up and went down to Second Avenue to find someplace to eat.

Peter found the emergency room entrance to the hospital and went inside. The waiting area was packed with people waiting for treatment, many of them wet. He went to the admitting desk, and a woman in scrubs looked up from her desk. “May I help you?”

“Yes, please. I’m looking for a young woman who was brought in by ambulance.”

“Name?”

“Springer.”

The woman consulted her computer screen. “I’m sorry, we don’t have a patient named Springer.”

“Try Patrick.”

The woman looked at him oddly. “She has two names?”

“She might have used either.”

The woman checked her computer again. “First name?”

“Hattie.”

“Yes, she came in about two hours ago and is being seen by a doctor.”

“May I see her?”

“Not until she’s admitted,” the woman replied.

“Will she be admitted? Will she have to stay overnight?”

“I won’t know that until the doctor who is seeing her makes his report on her condition.”

“May I visit her before she’s admitted?”

“You’ll have to wait until I get her chart back and see if there’s an admitting order. Have a seat, and I’ll call you. What’s your name?”

“Peter,” he said.

“Last name?”

“Just Peter.” He went and found an empty seat, one that allowed him to look down a hallway. He had been there for five minutes when a large double door opened, and two ambulance drivers wheeled in a patient on a gurney, pushing it down the hallway and taking a right turn.

Peter got up and followed the gurney. He found himself looking through a window in a pair of double doors at a row of treatment tables, some of them occupied by patients. Behind the treatment tables was a row of cubicles, most with patients on tables, some with curtains drawn. As he watched, a man on an examining table sat up, and an orderly brought over a wheelchair. The patient got into the chair, and the orderly took his chart from the foot of the table and put it in the man’s lap. Peter stood back to let them pass through the double doors. Apparently, the man was being discharged.

He pushed open the door and walked briskly into the room, wanting to appear as if he knew where he was going. He walked along the row of cubicles and, four or five down, found Hattie, lying on a table, half sitting up. She looked relieved when she saw him.

He went and stood next to her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I was bleeding, but it stopped over an hour ago.

The doctor said he would discharge me in a few minutes, and that was half an hour ago.”