Gregg Hurwitz - Do No Harm

"Yes, can I help you? Hello? Can I help you?"

The form shifted, breathing heavily. The sound of a large person advancing.

Panic stirred and began to sharpen its claws inside Peter. Given his braces, it would take him nearly a minute to rise and shuffle to the light switch on the wall.

Clyde's sallow face pulled into the small ring of light, seeming to float as his body remained lost in shadows. He drew closer, resolving from the darkness. Held limply at his side was a pistol.

Peter's mouth went dry.

The arm holding the gun raised stiffly and mechanically, like a railroad crossing gate, and Peter was looking directly down the length of the Beretta. "We're gonna have some fun, you and me," Clyde said.

Moths clustered around the porch light, making a soft, leathery sound. David scanned the street, his eyes picking over the windows in the apartments facing him.

He expected Clyde to charge the porch.

He expected Yale to pull up and call off the stakeout.

He expected Rhonda Decker to appear on the porch and reprimand him.

The only thing he did not expect was Clyde's voice to cut in over the hum of the unit in his right ear.

He stood, forgetting to favor his wounded side, and leapt over the porch stairs, wincing when his feet struck ground. "He's got Peter Alexander!" David yelled down into his mike. "They're at Peter's procedure suite. Corner of Westwood and Le Conte."

Blake rolled over onto his feet, looking ineffective and Falstaffian in his bundle of grimy clothes. David passed him in a sprint, straining to make out what was being transmitted in his right ear. Jenkins spilled out of an alley behind him, shouting something David could not make out.

David reached his car, slid behind the wheel, and peeled out.

Peter struggled to keep his voice even. "I'm going to-"

Saliva flew from Clyde's lips as he spoke. "Don't you talk! Don't you talk to me. You're weak. You're what weakness is. I'm in charge here. I'm in charge of you."

Clyde took a step forward and swept the desk with his arm. Scopes, pens, and papers fell to the floor. The lamp dangled off the side of the desk from its cord, throwing light erratically around the room as it spun.

Peter felt along the desktop for something to grab-a pen, a letter opener-but there was nothing within reach. His eyes flicked across the desktop. The stun gun had caught beside the metal knob. Peter couldn't reach for it; it would be too obvious.

"What do you want?" Peter asked.

Clyde pulled a phone from the wall-mounted unit and punched in a number. Peter took advantage of Clyde's distraction to rest his hand over the stun gun and slide it slowly off the desktop into his lap.

The cord uncoiling across his chest, Clyde pushed the phone at Peter. "Here. You tell David Spier I'm gonna kill you right now. You tell him I know he's in with the cops to get me, so he better come down here alone if he wants to stop me."

Peter took the phone with his left hand, holding the stun gun in his lap with his right. Clyde leaned in close, pistol pointed at Peter's head. If Peter raised the stun gun from its hiding place, Clyde could shoot him instantly. Peter wouldn't even have a chance to aim.

Peter offered the phone back to Clyde. "It's the answering machine."

"We're gonna leave him a special message, then," Clyde said, pushing the phone back in Peter's face.

Peter felt the cold barrel pressed hard against his forehead.

"Make some noise," Clyde said. "Into the phone."

Peter's lips started to tremble, but he pressed them together, not wanting to show Clyde his fright.

Clyde cocked the pistol.

"All right," Peter said. His tone was hard, colored with more anger than fear. "Let me stand up. I'm not going to die sitting down."

"I'm gonna hurt you hard. And David Spier's gonna hear it all when he gets home."

Peter held the phone away from his head. "I'll leave your… noises in a minute." He turned his head and looked up past the pistol into Clyde's dead eyes, tightening his grip on the stun gun. He spoke slowly and adamantly. "But you let me stand up first."

Clyde studied him, then his chin dipped slightly. "You make one bad move, you won't have time to leave your farewell message." Clyde stepped closer, standing almost on top of him.

Peter pushed his chair out from the desk, but Clyde kept the pistol planted on his forehead. Still no opportunity to wield the stun gun. He couldn't move it much past his crotch without Clyde noticing and probably shooting him.

Pulling a lever beneath the seat cushion, Peter locked the wheels so the chair wouldn't roll out from under him. He leaned over and locked first his left brace, then his right, so they would support his weight. With a slight groan, he fisted the metal knob on the desktop and pulled himself up out of the chair and onto his reinforced legs. His left pant leg was still hiked up high over the knee from when he'd rubbed his ankle.

He released the knob, standing on his own. The gun barrel slid a bit on his sweat-moist forehead. He felt breathless, as though he'd had the wind knocked out of him. He leaned slightly to his left, bringing the metal of his ankle into contact with Clyde's thin scrub bottoms. He eased his calf over until he felt the press of Clyde's leg. Clyde did not pull away.

Peter turned into the pistol, looking past it again into the slick, depthless eyes. With excruciating slowness, he moved the stun gun over and touched it to the inside of the metal thigh band of his left brace. His thumb hovering over the power switch, he braced himself for the pain and prepared to duck.

"All right," Peter said brusquely. "I'm ready now."

David flew up Lincoln, narrowly missing a collision with a banged-up Pontiac, and floored it, screeching right on Wilshire and heading toward Peter's office. He was shouting into the mike and trying to listen to the earpiece simultaneously, which made both efforts ineffective. A blast of noise erupted through the earpiece, causing him to jerk back his head, then the unit went dead. What could have done that to the digital transmitter?

Concern did him little good, so he tried to think clearly and pragmatically. From what he had overheard, he knew Peter was in trouble, that Clyde had been planning on harming him to frighten David. The cops would arrive at Peter's building soon-maybe they even had by now-but David had to get there as quickly as possible. In the likely event of a standoff, he was certain Clyde would demand to talk to him.

The carpet cleaning van caught up to him after a few blocks but fell back again, and he lost sight of it when he ran the red at Federal. He spoke continuously into his mike, updating the cops on his location.

He careened through Westwood and pulled down an alley into the back lot of Peter's four-story building. Peter's car, a gray BMW with a hand brake sticking up near the wheel, was parked in its usual spot, but there were no police cars.

David got out of his car and glanced up the empty street anxiously. "Where the hell are you guys?" he said, bending his neck so he could speak into the mike. "Why aren't there police cars here already?" He stepped back, glancing up the side of the building at the third floor. No movement or light. Clyde could be there right now, torturing Peter.

David couldn't wait for the police to arrive. "I'm going in," he said to the mike and the empty parking lot.

He searched his trunk for a weapon, but he had nothing, not even a tire jack. An old-style otoscope was tucked into his father's doctor's bag in the trunk, the weighty metal handle protruding. He grabbed it, and snapped off the plastic head used for ear exams. It would have to do.

Tossing the Motorola and the dead earpiece into the trunk, he sidestepped a Dumpster and reached the building's back door, made of glass. The glass, evidently shatterproof, had been dented near the handle, but had remained intact. The lock had been gouged and scratched up with a tool of some sort. The door was slightly ajar, a Carl's Jr. Superstar wrapper wedged between it and the frame to prevent it from closing.