Stephen Cannell - The Plan

"Maybe it was the brain aneurysm that made him act funny."

"Yeah, and maybe it wasn't. If he wakes up, I wanna be there."

They arrived at County Hospital at noon and went directly to the Neurology floor. The hubbub had died down and the press had left days ago. Now all that remained was the smell of sickness and Lysol. Nurses moved quietly, like green paper angels, their rubber-soled shoes squeaking on sanitized corridors, while music and doctors pagings came lightly over the intercom.

Kaz found the same intern he had talked to the day they'd checked Spencer in. He was in the office at the far end of the floor.

" 'Member me?" Kaz said, poking his head in. "How's Spence?"

The doctor had been up all night and was resting on the sofa with his shoes off, stocking feet propped on the arm rest. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Still about the same. Like I told you, it's gonna be a while."

"This is his brother, Carl. He's in the jewelry business. Just flew in from Zurich."

"Brenton and I haven't seen much of one another since I started buying gemstones abroad. It's hard to believe this happened," Cole said, rolling with the improv.

"He's still in the same room. You can look through the glass but don't go in."

They moved out of the intern's office.

"Guy's a doctor, he should wash his socks," Cole mumbled as they walked down the spotless corridor to the room where Brenton was being treated. There was an observation window, but Kaz ignored the instruction, opened the door, and entered.

Brenton had gone camping in an oxygen tent. They stood at the foot of the anchorman's bed and looked at him. His head was wrapped heavily in gauze. To their surprise his eyes were open and staring up at them.

"Is he awake?" Cole asked, looking down into his eyes. "Brenton, it's me. It's Cole Harris." Brenton didn't move his eyes. He was looking up into space.

"Brenton, it's Cole. Can you hear me?"

Brenton Spencer could hear but he couldn't move or speak. His eyes were directed at the ceiling, but saw nothing. He had lost all sight and much of his memory. None of his senses worked except his hearing. Several times a day, people would come and give him a shot and he would fall back into a deep, drugged sleep. But he would always come out of it sooner than they expected. He began to realize, each time he came to, that he was frozen in thi s b ody; trapped, unable to see or speak or move. Through the blind patchwork of his crippled brain, he was screaming silently at everyone who came into the room. Screaming, Help, help, let me out. I'm in here. He could hear them as they walked in and out.

"Can he understand us?" they would say. "Is he awake?"

Lemme out, lemme out, he would scream in his tortured mind, unable to move, unable to twitch. . trapped but alive. He lay there while they talked, first to him, then about him.

Brenton Spencer was locked in a nightmare that began anew every time he woke up.

Mickey tried to reach his mother three times that morning. Finally, he remembered her cell phone and dialed the number off the Rolodex from his office in the Jerse y h ouse. It rang three times and then a man answered.

"Who is this?" Mickey said to Kazorowski, who was just pulling his car into the motel parking lot with Cole Harris sitting beside him. Kaz recognized the voice from half a dozen wiretaps he'd heard of Mickey Alo over the years.

"This is the intercept operator." Kaz was flying blind, trying to keep Mickey on the line, not sure what to do. "Hey, shit-for-brains, there's no such thing."

"Hi, Mickey. How's everything in Goombah City?" "Who the fuck is this?"

Kaz was out of the car now and moving toward the motel with the phone to his ear. Cole got the door open and, as Kaz moved into the room, Lucinda got to her feet. Ryan was still asleep on the bed.

"Ms is Solomon Kazorowski."

"Whatta you doing with my mother's phone?"

"Confusing how shit like that happens, ain't it?" Kaz wrote "Mickey" on a piece of paper and showed it to Lucinda.

"Let me talk to him," Lucinda said.

"I've got somebody, wants to say hi." He handed the phone to Lucinda.

"Don't you dare send anybody else to hurt him, Mickey. Don't you dare!"

"I don't know what you're talkin' about, Sis."

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. You sent a killer to try and get Ryan. Leave him alone, he doesn't mean anything to you."

"Hey, little sister, you don't have a clue what means anything to me. You wanna play teacher to a bunch a' retards, I could give less of a shit, but you get in my world, you start fucking with my action, and you're dust. Put Kazorowski back on."

"I never knew you at all, did I?"

"You knew what I wanted you to know."

She didn't have to see him to know that his eyes were shining and blank. She handed the phone back to Kazorowski, trembling with frustration.

"Yeah."

"A million dollars right now, no questions asked, you deliver them both to me."

"Y' know, that's funny, Mickey. You and your friends think the world stops for money-but there's other things that count, greaseball. You took away all I ever wanted. You set me up ten years ago, because I was costing you money, but I don't give a shit about money. Ya know what gets my dick stiff. .?"

"What?"

"Sending guys like you to the asshole academy, and I ain't gonna quit till I put you there." He disconnected the phone before Mickey could answer.

"He offered me a million bucks to sell you out. I think your big brother means business."

"We've gotta get Bolt outta here. Mickey'll send out foot soldiers. He'll find you," Cole said.

"How?" Lucinda asked.

"He's no dummy. He knows Ryan is hurting. He'll look for street doctors like Dr. Jazz."

"I knew a mob guy once who sent button men down a highway with photographs, showed 'em to every gas station on the interstate," Kaz finished Cole's thought.

"Does Ryan still have his boat in Marina del Rey?" Cole asked Lucinda.

"I don't know."

"I'm sure he does. He took me out once when I was in L. A."

"That's perfect," Kaz said to Lucinda. "We get you two out to L. A., you get on that boat and get away. Don't tell anybody where. Drop anchor, stay outta sight. I'll hang onto this cell phone if you need to talk to me."

"Shouldn't I tell you where I am?" she said.

Kaz shook his head. "If Mickey catches either Cole or me, I can't guarantee we won't give up your location. A man tends to start talking when he's doused with kerosene and his clothes are on fire."

"You gotta drive," Cole said. "He'll be watching the airports."

"I can't drive him all the way to the West Coast in this condition. It'll kill him," Lucinda said.

"I've got a way to fly him out of here," Kaz volunteered. "Mickey will never find this airplane 'cause officially it doesn't exist."

Kaz was on the phone for almost two hours, trying to find Deke Metcalf. He finally found him through Deke's sister, who gave Kaz the number of his girlfriend's house in Vermont. Half an hour later, he had Deke on the phone.

"Kaz, I can't steal government equipment," Deke said after he heard what Kaz wanted. "That shit is all over with. They busted all the ranch hands outta Covert Ops.

"Look, Deke, I never asked you for anything, but you've gotta get this guy to the West Coast."

"Who is he?"

"You're better off not knowing. I'm gonna take him to the rabbit farm. You can pick him up there."

"How the hell did I ever end up with you for a friend?" "We were both fucking the colonel's wife at Fort Bragg, remember?"

"Oh yeah, right. Okay, I'll work something out. Meet me there in two hours."

Kaz doped Ryan up good for the flight, got him stretched out in the back of Cole's van, then called Dr. Jazz and told him Ryan needed more antibiotics. Kenetta met them in a Pay-Less parking lot with the drugs. She checked and redressed the wound while Ryan lay unconscious. Lucinda opened her purse and pushed several hundred dollars into Kenetta's hand. "Thank you; you and your father saved his life," she said.