Jonathan Kellerman - Devil's Waltz

“Maybe half of one phase. The plan was for an entire city. Junior’s own personal Levittown.” He laughed. “You should see the proposal he wrote up when he sent it to Daddy. Like a term paper — delusions of grandeur. No doubt the bank’ll go to Daddy first, before taking over the deed. And Daddy may just divvy up. Because he loves Junior, tells everyone who’ll listen what a scholar his baby boy is — another joke. Junior changed his major a bunch of times in college. Didn’t finish his Ph.D. — the old boredom thing.”

“One thing he has stuck with is teaching,” I said. “And he seems to be good at it — he’s won awards.”

Huenengarth let his tongue protrude through his small lips as he shook his head. “Yeah. Formal Organizations, New Age Management Techniques. We’re talking Marxist theory and rock ’n’ roll. He’s an entertainer . I’ve got tapes of his lectures, and basically what he does is pander to the students. Lots of anti-capitalist rhetoric, the evils of corporate corruption. You don’t have to be Freud to figure that one out, right? He likes rubbing the old man’s face in it — even the wife’s part of that program, wouldn’t you say?”

“In what way?”

“C’mon, Doctor. Milo, here, told me you found out about her military career . The woman’s a slut . A lowlife loser . On top of what she’s doing to the kid. Can’t exactly be what the old man had in mind for Junior.”

He grinned. Scarlet again, and sweating heavily. Nearly levitating off his chair in rage and delight. His hatred was tangible, poisonous. Stephanie felt it; her eyes were thrilled.

“What about Chip’s mother?” I said. “How did she die?”

He shrugged. “Suicide. Sleeping pills. Entire family’s fucked up. Though I can’t say I blame her. Don’t imagine living with Chuck was any barrel of primates. He’s been known to play around — likes ’em in groups of three or four, young, chesty, blond, borderline intelligence.”

I said, “You’d like to get all of them, wouldn’t you?”

“I’ve got no use for them,” he said quickly. Then he got up, took a few steps, turned his back on us, and stretched.

“So,” he said. “Let’s aim for tomorrow. You get ’em out, we move in and play Captain Video.”

“Great, Bill,” said Stephanie. Her beeper went off. She removed it from her belt and examined the digital readout. “Where’s your phone, Alex?”

I walked her into the kitchen and hung around as she punched numbers.

“This is Dr. Eves. I just got... What?... When?... All right, give me the resident on call... Jim? This is Stephanie. What’s up?... Yes, yes, there’s a history of that. It’s all in the chart... Absolutely, keep that drip going. Sounds like you’re doing everything right, but get me a full tox panel, stat. Make sure to check for hypoglycemic metabolites. Check all over for puncture wounds, too, but don’t let on, okay? It’s important, Jim. Please... Thanks. And keep her totally isolated. No one goes in... Especially not them... What?... Out in the hall. Leave the drapes open so they can see her, but no one goes inside ... I don’t care... I know. Let it be on my head, Jim... What?... No . Keep her in ICU. Even if things lighten up... I don’t care , Jim. Find a bed somewhere. This one’s crucial... What?... Soon. Soon as I can — maybe an hour. Just — What?... Yes, I will... Okay. Thanks. I owe you.”

She hung up. Her face was white and her chest heaved.

“Again,” I said.

She looked past me. Held her head.

“Again,” she said. “This time she’s unconscious.”

Quiet night on Chappy Ward. No shortage of empty rooms.

This one was two doors down from 505W. Cassie’s room.

That cold, clean hospital smell.

The images on the TV I was watching were black-and-white and fuzzy and small, a miniaturized, capsulated reality.

Cold and clean and a medicinal staleness — though no one had been in this room for a long time.

I’d been in it most of the day and all of the evening.

Into the night...

The door was bolted shut. The room was dark, except for a focused yellow parabola from a corner floor lamp. Double drapes blotted out Hollywood. I sat on an orange chair, as confined as a patient. The piped music barely leaked through from the hallway.

The man who called himself Huenengarth sat across the room, near the lamp, cradled by a chair identical to mine that he’d pushed up to the empty bed. A small black hand radio rested in his lap.

The bed was stripped down to the mattress. Resting on the ticking was a sloping paper ramp. Government documents.

The one he was reading had kept his interest for more than an hour. Down at the bottom was a line of numbers and asterisks and a word that I thought was UPDATE. But I couldn’t be sure because I was too far away and neither of us wanted to change that.

I had things to read, too: the latest lab reports on Cassie and a brand-new article Huenengarth had shoved at me. Five typed pages on the subject of pension fraud by Professor W. W. Zimberg, written in starchy legalese with lots of words blacked out by a broad-tipped marker.

My eyes went back to the TV. No movement on the screen other than the slow drip of sugar-water through plastic tubing. I inspected the small, colorless world from edge to edge. For the thousandth time...

Bedclothes and railings, a blur of dark hair and puffy cheek. The I.V. gauge, with its inlets and outlets and locks...

I sensed movement across the room without seeing it. Huenengarth took out a pen and crossed something out.

According to documents he showed Milo in the deputy chiefs office, he’d been in Washington, D.C., the night Dawn Herbert was butchered in her little car. Milo told me he’d corroborated it, as the two of us drove to the hospital just before sunrise.

“Who exactly is he working for?” I said.

“Don’t know the details but it’s some sort of covert task force, probably in cahoots with the Treasury Department.”

“Secret agent man? Think he knows our friend the colonel?”

“Wondered about that myself. He found out pretty damn fast that I was playing computer games. After we got out of the D.C.’s office, I shot the colonel’s name at him and got a blank stare, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the two of them attended some of the same parties. Tell you one thing, Alex — asshole’s more than just a field agent, got some real juice behind him.”

“Juice and motivation,” I said. “Four and a half years to avenge his father. How do you think he managed the million-dollar budget?”

“Who knows? Probably kissed the right ass, stabbed the right back. Or maybe it was just a matter of the right person’s ox getting gored. Whatever, he’s a smart cookie.”

“Good actor, too — getting that close to Jones and Plumb.”

“So one day he’ll run for President. Did you know you were going twenty over the limit?”

“If I get a ticket, you can fix it for me, right? Now that you’re a real policeman again.”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you pull it off?”

“I didn’t pull off anything. When I got to the D.C.’s, Huenengarth was already there. He gets right in my face, demands to know why I’ve been tracing him. I think about it and tell him the truth, because what’s my choice? Play hard to get and have the department cite me for improper use of departmental time and facilities? He then proceeds to ask me lots of questions about the Jones family. All this time, the D.C. is just sitting behind his desk, hasn’t said a word, and I figure this is it, start thinking private enterprise. But soon as I finish, Huenengarth thanks me for my cooperation, says it’s a shame, the crime rate being what it is, that a guy with my experience is sitting in front of a screen instead of working cases. The D.C. looks as if he just sucked pigshit through a straw, but he keeps quiet. Huenengarth asks if I can be assigned to his investigation — LAPD liaison to the Feds. D.C. squirms and says sure, getting me back on active duty was the department’s plan all along. Huenengarth and I leave the office together and the minute we’re alone he tells me he doesn’t give a fuck about me personally, but his case on Jones is just about to break and I’d better not get in his way while he moves in with the killing thrust.”