Robin Cook - Blindsight

Catching a cab was easy as they came in from the Brooklyn Bridge. With just about a straight shot up First Avenue, she was home in no time. Getting off the elevator on her floor, she glared at Debra Engler, then slammed her door.

“And at one point you thought he was charming,” she said out loud, ridiculing herself as she stripped down and got into the shower. She couldn’t believe that she had allowed herself to sit for as long as she had in Lou Soldano’s office absorbing all that abuse in the futile hopes that he might deign to help her. It had been a degrading experience.

Ensconced in a white terry robe, Laurie went to her answering machine and listened to her messages while a hungry Tom rubbed across her legs and purred. One was from her mother and the other was from Jordan. Both asked her to call when she got home.

Jordan had left a number different from his home number with an extension.

When she called Jordan at the number he’d left, she was told that he was in surgery but that she should hold on.

“Sorry,” said Jordan once he picked up a few minutes later. “I’m still in surgery. But I insisted on being told when you called.”

“You’re in the middle of an operation right now?” Laurie couldn’t believe it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jordan said. “I can break scrub for a few minutes. I wanted to ask if we could make dinner tonight a bit later. I don’t want to keep you waiting again, but I have another case to go.”

“Maybe it would be just as well if we took a raincheck.”

“No, please!” Jordan said. “It’s been a hell of a day and I’ve been looking forward to seeing you. Remember, you took a raincheck last night.”

“Won’t you be tired? Especially if you have another case.”

Laurie herself felt exhausted. The idea of going straight to bed sounded wonderful to her.

“I’ll get a second wind,” Jordan said. “We can make it an early evening.”

“What time can you meet for dinner?”

“Nine o’clock,” Jordan said. “I’ll send Thomas around then.”

Reluctantly, Laurie agreed. After she hung up, she called Calvin Washington at home.

“What is it, Montgomery?” Calvin demanded once his wife called him to the phone. He sounded grumpy.

“Sorry to bother you at home,” Laurie said. “But now that I have twelve cases in my series, I’d like to ask that I be assigned any more that might come in tomorrow.”

“You’re not on autopsy tomorrow. It’s a paper day for you.”

“I know. That’s why I’m calling. I’m not on call this weekend so I can catch up with my paperwork then.”

“Montgomery, I think you ought to cool it. You’re getting much too carried away with all this. You’re too emotionally involved; you’re losing your objectivity. I’m sorry, but tomorrow is a paper day for you no matter what comes through the door feetfirst.”

Laurie hung up the phone. She felt depressed. At the same time she knew there was a certain amount of truth in what Calvin had said. She was emotionally involved in the issue.

Sitting by the phone, Laurie thought about returning her mother’s call. The last thing she wanted to go through was the third degree about her budding relationship with Jordan Scheffield. Besides, she hadn’t quite decided what she thought of him herself. She decided to wait on calling back her mother.

As Lou drove through the Midtown Tunnel and out the Long Island Expressway, he wondered why he insisted on continually bashing his head up against a brick wall.

There was no way a woman like Laurie Montgomery would look at someone like himself other than as a city servant. Why did he keep entertaining delusions of grandeur in which Laurie would suddenly say: “Oh, Lou, I’ve always wanted to meet a police detective who’s gone to a community college”?

Lou slapped the steering wheel in embarrassed anger. When Laurie had suddenly called and insisted on coming down to his office, he’d believed she’d wanted to see him for personal reasons, not some harebrained idea of using him to publicize a yuppie cocaine epidemic.

Lou exited the Long Island Expressway and got onto Woodhaven Boulevard, heading to Forest Hills. Feeling the need to do something rather than play with paper clips at his desk, he’d decided to go out and do a little gumshoeing on his own by visiting the surviving spouses. It was also better than going back to his miserable apartment on Prince Street in SoHo and watching TV.

Pulling up the Vivonettos’ long, curved driveway, Lou couldn’t help but be awed. The house was a mansion with white columns. Right away, lights went off in Lou’s head. This kind of opulence suggested serious money. And Lou had a hard time believing a simple restaurateur could make that kind of dough unless he had organized-crime connections.

Lou parked the car by the front door. He’d called ahead so Mrs. Vivonetto was expecting him. When he rang the bell, a woman wearing a ton of makeup came to the door. She was wearing a white, off-the-shoulder wool dress. There was not much suggestion of aggrieved mourning.

“You must be Lieutenant Soldano,” she said. “Do come in. My name is Gloria Vivonetto. Can I offer you a drink?”

Lou said that just water would be fine for him. “You know, on duty,” he muttered by way of explanation. Gloria poured him a glass at the bar in the living room. She fixed herself a vodka gimlet.

“I’m sorry about your husband,” Lou said. It was his standard intro for occasions like this.

“It was just like him,” Gloria said. “I’d told him time and time again he shouldn’t stay up and watch television. And now he goes and gets himself shot. I don’t know anything about running a business. I’m sure people are going to rob me blind.”

“Was there anyone that you know of who would have wanted your husband dead?” Lou asked. It was the first question in the standard protocol.

“I’ve been all over this with the other detectives. Do we have to go through it again?”

“Perhaps not,” Lou said. “Let me be frank with you, Mrs. Vivonetto. The way your husband was killed suggests an organized-crime involvement. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“You mean Mafia?”

“Well, there’s more to organized crime than the Mafia,” Lou said. “But that’s the general idea. Is there any reason that you can think of why people like the Mafia would want your husband killed?”

“Ha!” Gloria laughed. “My husband was never involved with anything as colorful as the Mafia.”

“What about his business?” Lou persisted. “Did Pasta Pronto have any connection whatsoever with organized crime?”

“No,” Gloria said.

“Are you sure?” Lou questioned.

“Well, no, I guess I’m not sure,” Gloria answered. “I wasn’t involved with the business. But I can’t imagine he ever had anything to do with the Mafia. And anyway, my husband was not a well man. He wasn’t going to be around much longer anyway. If someone wanted him out of the way they could have waited for him to keel over naturally.”

“How was your husband sick?” Lou asked.

“In what ways wasn’t he sick?” Gloria shot back. “Everything was falling apart. He had bad heart problems and had had two bypass operations. His kidneys weren’t great. He was supposed to have his gallbladder removed but they kept putting it off, saying his heart wouldn’t take it. He was going to have an eye operation. And his prostate was messed up. I’m not sure what was wrong with that, but his whole lower half didn’t work anymore. Hadn’t for years.”

“I’m sorry,” Lou said, unsure of what else to say. “I suppose he suffered a lot.”

Gloria shrugged her shoulders. “He never took care of himself. He was overweight, drank a ton, and he smoked like a chimney. The doctors told me he might not last a year unless he changed his ways, which wasn’t something he was about to do.”