Harlan Coben - Miracle Cure

Winston rubbed his face.

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't. But if you don't cooperate, I'll pin Martino's murder on you. That's a promise."

For a brief moment Max and Winston locked eyes. It was Winston who looked away.

"What do you want to know?"

"Who are you working for?"

"All confidential, right?"

"Right. Who are you working for?"

Winston took a deep breath and released it.

"I don't know.

I'm a CIA operative, but I report to the Department of Health and Human Services."

"To whom?"

Winston shook his head.

"No names."

"Raymond Markey?" "I said, no names."

"What is your function?"

"Gathering information on the clinic."

"What kind of information?"

"Any and all."

"And how do you go about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"How do you gather your information?"

Winston shrugged.

"Simple. I snoop around. I break into the confidential files.

Whatever it takes."

"Is that what you were doing the night Harvey stumbled across you?" Winston paused. He took a cigarette out of his pocket and put it in his mouth.

"You gotta light?"

Max shook his head.

"I don't smoke. It's bad for you."

"Yeah, sure, and chewing pencils is healthy, right?"

"Were you in the clinic the night Martino was killed?"

"I'd rather not answer that."

"Then I'll take that as a yes."

Winston O'Connor found a set of matches near a Bunsen burner. He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, as though the cigarette were an oxygen mask and he was caught in a fire.

"Take it anyway you want, Lieutenant. But I did not kill anyone."

"Why did the NIH want all of this information?"

"I don't like to theorize, Lieutenant."

"Try."

Another deep puff.

"I assumed that the NIH wanted to check up on the clinic's progress independently. They got a big investment here, and Harv and Bruce can be pretty damn secretive." Max thought for a moment.

"Okay, tell me this: why did you report to Washington in person three days ago?"

"My contact was worried."

"About what?"

"He didn't like the positive media reports about the clinic."

"Why not?"

Winston shrugged.

"He wanted to know what Harvey was up to what he was going to do next."

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth. I can break into files and I can snoop around, but I cannot read another man's mind. I told them I had no idea."

"What has the NIH said to you about Michael Silverman's kidnapping?"

"Not a thing. I haven't spoken to them since the day I flew into Washington."

"Has your contact ever mentioned the Gay Slasher?"

"Never."

"Do you think your employers are behind it?"

Winston smiled, the cigarette dangling from his lip.

"How fuckin' crazy do you think I am, Lieutenant?"

Shrug.

"How often did you break into the clinic's confidential files?"

"About once a week, I guess."

"During the daytime or the night?"

"Night usually. When I thought no one would be around."

Max nodded, pacing.

"Except you didn't know Michael was on the third floor, did you, Winston?"

"Huh?"

Max walked toward him.

"A few hours before Martino was murdered, a new patient had been secretly whisked into the room down the hall Michael Silverman.

Naturally, you wanted to find out who he was. So you broke into Harvey's private files that night."

"Now hold on a minute." "But you screwed up," Max continued.

"Dr. Riker was on the floor at the time. He heard you in the lab. So you knocked Harvey out."

"Slow down a second."

"Then you went downstairs, killed Martino "

"I didn't kill anybody!" he interrupted.

"Okay, I admit it. I was in the lab that night. I broke into the file cabinet and saw Silverman's name. I knew the NIH boys would be interested in him so I tried to find out more. That's when Harv interrupted me.

I guess I panicked a little. My instructions were not to get caught under any circumstances. So when Harv came in the lab, I hit him in the back of the neck. But I didn't kill Martino, I swear it."

"You're a martial arts expert." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yeah, so?"

"And the blow to Sara's neck was delivered by a martial arts expert."

"Whoa, back up a second, Lieutenant. I didn't touch Sara Lowell. For that matter, I never touched her husband or Janice or that Martino guy.

Christ, I felt awful when I heard about Janice.

She was a fine woman." Winston lowered his head into his hands.

"I never hurt anybody, I swear. I was just trying to gather information for a branch of the government that has every right to know what was going on in here. There is nothing illegal in that."

"What else do you know?"

"Nothing. I swear."

Max stopped his pacing and restarted his nodding. "You better not be holding out on me. Or else."

He had tried to sound tough, but it came out too whiny.

Damn.

"Tuck me, big stallion. Oh yeah, that's it. Yes. Ohhhh, Ohhhh, I'm commnngggg!"

Michael tried to ignore the continuous cries of the prostitute in the next room and consider his options.

One, he could try to break the chain manacled to his ankle.

The problem lay in the fact that the steel was rather secure; more to the point, it would not budge.

He could yell out the window for help. But suppose George or his accomplices heard him?

Three... There was no three. He stood and tested how far the chain would allow him to roam. He could get close to the window but not to the door.

George probably did that on purpose. The door was a scrawny-looking thing with rotted wood and a lock that a strong gust of wind could break in two.

He sat back down, his nose throbbing painfully. Downstairs, the topless bar was in full swing now. The music was considerably louder than earlier, the vibrations from the deep bass potent enough to reach inside Michael's chest. Prostitutes and their clients walked about freely in the hallway. Michael heard doors shut on both sides of his room. Then a woman yelling:

"Fuck me, big stallion. Oh yeah, that's it. Yes. Ohhhh, Ohhhh, I'm cominnngggg!"

The woman screamed into her fake orgasm. The man grunted into his real one.

The sessions never lasted more than a couple of minutes.

Then it would all start again. The prostitute would come upstairs with a new John. There would be the same giggling. The same fake orgasm.

The same

"Fuck me" words shouted at the same rehearsed pitch. Over and over. Performance after performance.

The woman's high-pitched squeals of delight were incessant, monotonous, passionless, as though Michael were listening to a robot or an actress who had learned her lines too well.

Okay, let's think this through. Harvey tells me Raymond Markey wants to use me as the clinic's guinea pig. Next thing I knew, I'm in the Orient with a psychopath. So what can we conclude from all this.

Just one thing:

I have to get the hell out of here.

Cramps ripped through his stomach. The cause, he knew, could be his hepatitis or withdrawal from the addictive SRI or... or something new.

Something AIDS-related.

"Fuck me, big stallion. Oh yeah, that's it..."

The very air had mingled with the sleazy surroundings, giving everything around him a dense and seedy feel. Breathing nauseated him.

The women's cries were maddening in their repetition, hour after hour, endless. He put his hands to his ears and tried to block them out, but the sounds were right outside his door:

"Come on, Frankie," a whore purred with a thick Asian accent.

"Right behind you, sweetheart. Damn, I spilled my drink."

"This way, Frankie. Tawnee going to show you good time, you see."

"Might just be the other way around, honey," the man, an American, slurred. He was clearly inebriated.