Gregg Hurwitz - Do No Harm

"Clyde, listen to me. This is very important. If you harm another person-one other person-I won't ever try to help you again. Do you understand me?"

A pause, and then a statement, ringing with the clarity of conviction. "I'll. Never. Stop." The line again filled with the woman's wrenching cries, then cut out.

David turned on a light, suddenly spooked by the dark bedroom, and paged Ed. Then, he called Diane's room.

She answered the phone, her voice cracked from sleep. "Hello?"

Relief poured through him. "Clyde called. He might have had someone captive." David's reflection in the window stared back at him, frightened. "Just lock your door. And call security. Have them post a guard at your door."

"Okay. I'll call someone to stay until I get out of here in the morning."

"All right," he said. "All right."

"Are you going to tell the police?"

"I have to." David cursed under his breath. "They'll probably think I instigated this somehow."

"Well," Diane said. "Didn't you?"

After they hung up, Ed called back. He sounded wide-awake. "Something's off," he said, when David finished recounting the call. "I doubt this guy is capable of holding a captive. Plus he no longer has his own space. Was there any background noise?"

"I don't know," David admitted.

"Make me a recording of the call before you turn it over to the cops," Ed said. "Drop it in your mailbox. I'll drive by and pick it up."

Yale returned David's page immediately, listened with a quiet intensity, and said he was on his way.

David found an ancient dictation recorder in his study, and dubbed a copy for Ed. He'd just finished when Yale arrived, and he handed off the answering machine tape at the front door. Yale's face reflected David's own exhaustion. Their exchange was wordless. David watched Yale striding to his car, his impeccable posture undiminished by fatigue or the late hour. David waited for him to drive away, then dropped the copy of the tape in his mailbox for Ed.

When he got back inside, he double-locked the door. After inserting a new tape into the answering machine, he slid beneath the covers, but only stared at the ceiling again, his heart pounding as the early light of morning spilled through the window. The phone rang at 6 a.m. and he readied his hand over the answering machine record button before answering. His voice sounded weak and shaky, even to himself. "Hello?"

"Don't worry about it," Ed said. "Clyde's not holding any captives. He played you a bootleg copy of the Bittaker-Norris torture tapes."

"I… I'm sorry?"

"Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. They raped and tortured girls in the back of their van, and recorded their screaming and pleading."

"But… where…?"

"You can get the tapes at any number of places. Like the Amok Bookstore, which I believe you're familiar with."

"Certainly a good place to find tools to scare the shit out of people," David said.

"Make sure you let the flatfoots in on the joke so they're not running circles all day. I'll be enjoying myself thinking about what it'll do to your ego to tell the police you recognized the recording after playing it a few more times. They'll think you have some pretty perverse interests." In the background, a computer monitor hummed. "When I come over to install security equipment, remind me to set a phone trap on your line so we can trace incoming calls."

"You're installing security equipment for me?"

"Don't make me repeat myself. I'm laconic and impatient."

David thanked Ed and set down the phone. He was not looking forward to calling Yale and stumbling through a fabrication about how he came to identify Clyde's recording.

He stared at the ceiling, trying to bring it back into focus.

Diane's footsteps echoed in the parking structure, the dull yellow glow of the lampposts turning her legs to elongated shadows on the concrete floor. The hospital had changed the arrangements; now all female employees parked in the PCHS usually reserved for the attendings. Because it was outside, well lit, and nearer to the hospital, it was a safer choice than the distant, enclosed P1 lot.

Even so, the pre-dawn quiet of the structure tinged the air gloomy and cool, as though the rising sun couldn't compete with the chill of silence. Diane heard the cars rumbling by on Le Conte, though a tall line of trees blocked them from view.

As the top tier of the parking structure provided the only access to the hospital, it was crammed with cars. A physician pulling out in a dark green BMW mock-saluted her, and she returned the wave, feeling slightly self-conscious about the gauze wrapped around her face. Though the bandages she wore were soft, they felt harsh against her raw skin. She practiced a smile beneath the wrap, testing the pain.

A few minutes ago, she'd finally been cleared by ophtho, and she was relieved to be out of the hospital room. Before this week, she'd never suspected that boredom could be such an intense affliction.

A fresh-faced security officer passed her with a nod and an obligatory double take. "Ma'am, would you like me to see you to your car?" he asked. "There's been some trouble lately."

Evidently he thought she was a patient. An ironic smile touched her lips beneath the gauze when she realized he was right. "I'm aware of that," she said. "Too aware, in fact."

A glimmer of recognition moved through his eyes, which she noted even through the dusty gray dawn air.

"Oh," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

Diane smiled again, a hidden, ineffective gesture. "I'll be fine. My car's the next level down." She raised an arm, pointing.

He glanced down the narrow concrete stairs at the line of cars he'd just patrolled. "I'd really prefer to escort you down." He was standing rigidly, shoulders back, chest forward. The posture seemed to match the "ma'am."

"You're right," Diane said. "You probably should."

They headed toward the thin, open set of stairs that led down to the next tier. His cheeks were flushed in neat, almost prepubescent circles. "Ma'am?"

She tilted her head slightly, a gesture she'd picked up to show she was listening. Now that she'd lost half of her face.

"I just want you to know, we're doing everything in our power to nail the bastard," he said. "Don't you worry."

When she felt the pain through her cheeks, she realized she'd flashed another useless, reflexive smile. "Thank you," she said. "Officer."

They emerged from the stairs. A few cars spotted the spaces sporadically; it was the farthest tier from the hospital, and usually abandoned. Her hand rustled in her bag for her keys. She heard a thud behind her and the sound of a body striking asphalt.

When she turned, she nearly collided with Clyde. She gasped once, a sharp, screeching intake of air, and then his meaty hand was pressed over her mouth, hard, the bandages grinding into her wounds. Something metal flashed in his hand-a twenty-gauge needle-then she felt the point against her throat.

Shock and pain were one and the same-sudden, intense, all-enveloping. Clyde's face was inches from hers, wide and thick.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the guard lying on his back on the ground, unconscious, a contusion blossoming across his temple. Beside him lay a sock where Clyde had dropped it. Judging from the few stray rocks that had spilled out, the sock's end had been weighted with white gravel.

"You move," Clyde growled, "you'll be eating through your throat."

Their closeness and position couldn't help but recall intimacy. His face was richly textured-the fat curl of his nostrils, the deep, pitted acne scars, the sparse patches of stubble and random, curling hairs. His loose belly pressed into her, filling the hollow of her back-drawn torso. A rich smell emanated from his pores, the smell of clogged sweat and sliced, low-grade meat gone slightly bad. He wore a pair of dirty green scrubs, and she felt the soft roll of his penis against her thigh.