Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

At the airport, waiting at the gate, she listened to Hersh’s voice mail. “I have a file for you,” he said. “I don’t want to e-mail it — I don’t trust your e-mail, frankly. So it’s a paper file. I’d be happy to drop it off wherever you are. Happy to bring it to your office. Maybe I’ll do that. Or you can stop by my office and pick it up, if that’s on the way. But I think you need to see this. Okay?”

I think you need to see this .

She wondered. The businessman sitting next to her caught her eye. “Heading back to Boston?” he said.

She nodded, smiled vaguely. “Yep.”

“Looks like your meetings weren’t all that successful, were they?”

She looked at him. A business traveler, a generic road warrior, like a thousand others at the airport, with their Mophie chargers and their noise-canceling headphones and their non-iron shirts.

The only thing that was off was the man’s fingernails. They were overgrown and a little grubby. Not a road warrior at all. She remembered her father always said you can tell everything about a guy from his fingernails and his shoes.

“What do you want?” she said coldly.

“You’re very interested in a friend of mine,” he said. “Mr. Protasov.”

It was the way he pronounced the name that gave away he wasn’t an American. His American English accent had been nearly perfect. But he spoke Russian like a Russian.

“Yeah?” Her heart was thudding.

“Why such an interest?”

“That’s my business.”

“Well, that’s the thing. I’m afraid it’s not just your business. My friend, he’s a very private person. He doesn’t like it when people start asking all kinds of questions about him. Live and let live, he says. You know? Everyone’s entitled to their own zone of privacy.”

“Even me?” she said.

The man’s bland smile faded. “Tomorrow you have a deadline, I believe. On a motion for summary judgment , I think it’s called. Maybe you shouldn’t be so casual about it. Things can happen. Actions have consequences.” The more he talked, the more he flattened his As, exaggerating his American accent, too much now.

She took a breath. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

The man shrugged, as if to say, It’s not important .

She went on, “You know, I’m actually not so interested in talking to you. Mister Protasov sent a flunky? Not for me. Pardon my bluntness. But I’d be very interested in talking to your boss. See if you can set that up, will you?”

Her phone rang. She turned away to answer it. The caller ID gave a number in the Boston area code, 617.

“Yes?”

“Hello, my name is Doctor Kapoor calling from the emergency room at Boston Medical Center. Who am I speaking to?”

“Oh, my God,” she said. “This is Juliana Brody.”

“The reason I’m calling you is that this number came in with a patient who’s critically ill.”

“Who is it?” she nearly whispered.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. There’s no wallet. No ID. Just—”

“How did you get my number?” Her heart was racing wildly.

“It’s on a piece of paper, a little sticky note. Just this number.”

She closed her eyes. Please not Jake, please not Duncan .

“Male or female?”

“Male.”

“How... how old is this person?”

Not Jake, not Duncan, please God .

For a moment it felt as if her life was balancing on a precipice, in absolute stillness, poised to turn into a tragedy.

“It’s... it’s hard to say. Forty or fifty, I’d say?”

She swallowed. “Hair?”

“Ma’am, this patient is critically ill. You need to come to the hospital so we can speak in person. Please get here as quickly as possible.”

And then the caller hung up.

The man who’d been sitting next to her was gone.

She hit Duncan’s mobile number. It rang and rang. She listened to the rings, her heart thumping away, her jaw clenched. Please not him. Not him . Three rings, four, five... Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system .

She didn’t leave a message. She hit Jake’s number. He picked it up after two rings. “Hey, Mom.”

“Jake, where’s your dad?”

“He’s upstairs.”

“You’re sure?”

“He’s here. Was that you who just called?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, he left his phone downstairs as usual. Want me to get him?”

“No, that’s fine. I wanted to make sure he’s okay. Thank God.”

“Why?”

“I’ll — I’m at the airport, on my way home. I’ll see you soon, honey.”

So she knew who it was, who it had to be: Philip Hersh. What had the doctor said? This patient is critically ill .

Who else could it be?

She called his mobile phone number, and it went right to voice mail.

The 10:00 P.M. American Airlines flight out of Reagan National Airport arrived in Boston at 11:30 P.M. Just about everything in the airport, every concession, was closed. Whole sections were dark.

She told the cab to take her to Boston Medical Center. She got there a little before midnight. She had court in the morning and needed her sleep, but there was no choice. She had to see Hersh.

She told the nurse on duty that she was looking for a patient who’d been admitted to the ER within the last few hours, no ID on him.

“And you are—?”

“Juliana Brody.”

“Are you a family member?”

She hesitated a second or two. “No. I’m a friend. Dr. Kapoor called me a few hours ago from the ER because my number was in the victim’s pocket.”

“Ah, yes.” She directed Juliana to the neuro ICU. There, she identified herself the same way, and a nurse came around from the counter, a stocky redhead of around forty, holding a metal clipboard. “The patient I think we’re talking about was around fifty? Balding? He had no wallet or ID on him, just your number in his back pocket.”

“Can I see him, please?”

“I’d first like to get some information.”

“Take me to him and we can talk on the way.”

“Okay,” the nurse said with a shrug. She pressed a disc on the wall and buzzed them both into the ICU.

“How is he doing?” Juliana said.

“He’s out of surgery, in recovery.”

“Surgery.”

“I’ll let the doctor fill you in.” They arrived at a glass-walled room, a glass box.

The man on the bed looked nothing like Hersh. His eyes were purplish and grotesquely swollen shut. His nose was broken and bloodied, crooked and out of place. There were black sutures on his cheek. He had tubes coming out of his nose and mouth, and more tubes coming out of his head and his arms. His head was covered in white bandages. Each arm was in a splint. Only when she saw the fat gold wedding band on his left hand, the knuckles bloody, did she know it was Philip Hersh.

“Oh, my God,” she said.

He had been beaten nearly to death.

But he was alive.

It was oddly quiet, for everything that was going on, the monitors and the IV stands and the tubes and the wires. She heard only the soft whooshing of the ventilator, in time with Hersh’s breaths, and a low beeping.

“You’re a friend?” the nurse asked.

Juliana nodded.

“What’s his name?”

“Philip Hersh.” She spelled it for her.

“Do you know where he lives?”

“I can give you his office address. I don’t know his home address.”

“What about next of kin? Do you know anyone who might—?”

“I don’t. I don’t really know him that well.”

“I’ll page the doctor,” the woman said, and left.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked at Hersh’s brutalized, misshapen face, listened to the whooshing. She wondered what exactly had happened.