Stephen Cannell - Final Victim

"Oh, my God," Karen said as the pitiful half-closed eyes of Tashay looked up at her.

Karen rushed into the stall to pull the girl off the toilet seat. Then she was staggered by a terrible blow from behind. It knocked her sideways. As she went down she saw a hideous man grinning. He had ugly black tattoos under his eyes and he was holding a baseball bat. He swung it again.

Just seconds before she lost consciousness, she realized that her assailant was Satan T. Bone.

Lockwood was struggling to stay on his feet. He had crossed half of the linoleum floor of the room on a walker. He was dizzy. His vision was so distorted that he had been fighting nausea for almost an hour. Ginger, his muscular PT nurse, kept shouting encouragement, but the words and the task reminded him more of the obstacle course in Marine boot camp than anything else.

The phone had been ringing for almost a minute before Ginger snatched it up. "PT, Ginger Cortland speaking."

"This is Dr. Chacone, I'm a cerebral control specialist," Malavida said with dignity. "The Lockwood case has been referred to me by Dr. Sikes. I understand the patient is with you. I'd like to speak with him, if he's available."

"Sure," she said and looked over at Lockwood. "If you can get your butt over to the phone, sweet cheeks, you can take this call and buy a rest."

Lockwood turned the walker around and put it out in front of him, shuffled forward, then repeated the motion. He could barely make his feet respond to mental commands. Once he was in the general vicinity of the phone, Ginger took pity and moved the rest of the way toward him, handing him the receiver.

"Yeah," he said weakly.

"This Lockwood?"

"Yep, Lockwood," he said, slurring his words and concentrating to keep them in the right order.

"How you doin', Zanzo?" Malavida said. "You sound limp as a plate of pasta."

"The fuck," Lockwood said, grinning.

"My thought exactly. You okay to talk?" Malavida asked. "You alone?"

"No. Ten feet standing Hitler me from is." He took a deep breath. "Fucked up my punch line," he said, depressed.

"Look, we gotta problem. It's Karen. Listen to me and tell me what you think-"

" Kay."

"She's down here taunting The Rat. She's been on TV, insulting him, trying to sound like his mother. I couldn't stop her."

"Got to stop her." He grimaced.

"I'm flat on my back, Zanzo. I can't go to the bathroom without calling in a committee. She snuck me out of the hospital, moved me to a motel on the Miami River called The Swallow Inn. Technically, I'm still a fugitive. I called the police department, pretending to be her brother. They told me they called off the stakeout this morning. She didn't come back here, so either this asshole got her or she's walking around without cover. Nobody knows where she is. She's way overdue."

"Shit," Lockwood said, the imminent danger helping to connect a few dots in his ravaged nervous system. He knew Karen was a daredevil. He prayed that she was safe.

"Look, Zanzo, I'm up for most anything, 'cept I can't get out of bed."

"Mal… I'm… my head works weird. I don't.. can't remember stuff."

"Can you drive? Can you get on an airplane? I don't have anybody else. We call the cops, I'm back in Lompoc."

"I don't know… I'm… I can't. Hold on." He put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Ginger. "Could you water me?" He smiled, then looked embarrassed.

"Don't blush, I know what you mean, sugar." She pushed herself off the table and went to get him water. As soon as she was gone: "Mal… driver… need car…"

"I'll send you a limo. I've been stealing limo rides since I was sixteen."

"Fly… I can't get…"

"I know. I can handle that too. There's an Executive Terminal at National Airport. The limo will have your jet's tail number. John… can you focus on this? You know what I'm telling you?"

"Trying."

"Can you get to the main hospital entrance?"

"Think so."

"Be there at twelve noon today. I'll have a car waiting. I'll set the whole thing in motion and have you delivered to my room here, just like a basket of fruit… no disrespect intended."

For Lockwood, the hardest part of the trip was putting on his pants, then moving the twenty or so yards from his room to the main entrance of the hospital in Washington. He scraped the metal walker along the yellow linoleum floors and shuffled after it. He finally made the front door, where a black stretch limo was waiting. He was delivered to National Airport and a Malavida-supplied charter jet. Lockwood had to hand it to Malavida; the cracker was amazing.

At three o'clock Sunday afternoon, John Lockwood was delivered to The Swallow Inn on the Miami River. He struggled to get his walker out of the cab, unfolded it, and told the driver to go on. He made a slow, awkward trip to Bungalow 7, pushed the door open, and shuffled in. He found himself looking into the much thinner, but smiling face of Malavida Chacone.

"You look like the last reel of a Frankenstein movie," the Chicano said.

Lockwood shuffled across the room until he was looking down into Malavida's dark eyes. "Least don't need a tube to piss," he replied.

Then, exhausted, Lockwood collapsed in a chair, and Malavida brought him the rest of the way up to date.

At first it sounded like something growling. It vibrated, shaking her whole body. She tried to ignore it, to push it down into her subconscious, but it would not go away. As her mind began to focus, she realized there was more. Drums and guitars, discordant and angry, and then something else… a low whimper that ended with a strangled high whine. She tried to move but couldn't. Her head throbbed horribly with the constant vibration and, as she came closer to the surface of consciousness, she began to realize she was badly hurt. Her jaw was in agony; her whole body ached. She didn't know where she was or what had happened. She had loose pebbles in her mouth… She wondered why. Slowly she moved her tongue to touch them. In horror she realized they were pieces of her own broken teeth. She spit them out and slowly opened her eyes.

It took her a moment to focus. She was looking at something big and curved. She struggled to identify it. A tire well. She was on the floor in the back of a truck or van. She felt a change in direction and then the sudden vibration of wheels passing over lane dots. She knew then that the vehicle was in motion. She didn't know why she was there or why she hurt so badly. Her mind struggled to remember. She could see the back of a man's skinny right arm as he drove. She tried to ask him for help but she couldn't move her mouth. Where was she? What was that horrible music that was playing?

She fought to put more pieces in place and then she heard the moaning again. Her body wouldn't move; she tried to turn her head and finally managed. She was looking into a tangle of blood-soaked blond hair, not three feet from her. She tried to see through the mess but couldn't, and then the head moved and the hair fell away and she could see the face. It was bloodied and swollen. A girl, vaguely familiar. Karen thought she remembered her… and then a big piece fell back into place. The public toilet… the attack… the baseball bat swinging at her.

"Tashay," she finally whispered to the girl, "Tashay?" The girl opened her eyes and the two exchanged a long look. A silent message of desperation passed between them. Then Tashay Roberts closed her eyes without speaking, cutting off the unspoken communication. Karen tried to roll into a better position. She struggled to turn over. It was then that she discovered she had been lashed to speaker hooks that were screwed into the floor of the van.