James Gunn - The Immortals

He never did identify the man or men who shadowed him, then or later. The feeling lasted for weeks, so that when it finally vanished he felt strangely naked and alone.

When he got to his apartment, the phone was ringing. That was not surprising. A doctor’s phone rings a dozen times as often as that of ordinary people.

Dr. Easter was the caller. The essence of what he wanted to say was that Pearce should not be foolish; Pearce should cooperate with Mr. Weaver.

“Of course I’m cooperating,” Pearce said. “I cooperate with all my patients.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Dr. Easter said. “Work with him, not against him. You’ll find it’s worth your while.”

“It’s worth my while to practice medicine the best way I can,” Pearce said evenly. “Beyond that no one has a call on me, and no one ever will.”

“Very fine sentiments,” Dr. Easter agreed pleasantly. “The question is: Will Mister Weaver think you are practicing medicine properly? That’s something to consider.”

Pearce lowered the phone gently into the cradle, thinking about the practice of medicine, about being a doctor—and he knew he could never be happy at anything else. He turned over in his mind the subtle threat Easter had made; it could be done. The specter of malpractice was never completely absent, and a power alliance of money and respectability could come close to lifting a license, or at least of making practice too expensive. Malpractice insurance premiums were already steep—a number of his colleagues, particularly in obstetrics, had left their professions as a result, or practiced defensive medicine in a way that sent hospitalization and Medicare costs soaring—and a lawsuit, won or lost, might send his rates beyond his income.

He considered Easter, and he knew that it was better to risk the title than to give away the reality.

The next week was a time of wondering and waiting, and of keeping busy—a problem a doctor seldom faces. It was a time of uneventful routine.

Then everything happened at once.

As he walked from his car toward the front door of the apartment house, a hand reached out of the shadows beside an ornamental evergreen and pulled him into the darkness.

Before he could say anything or struggle, a hand was clamped tight over his mouth, and a voice whispered in his ear, “Quiet now! This is Locke. The private eye, remember?”

Pearce nodded as well as he could. Slowly the hand relaxed. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Pearce made out Locke’s features. His face was heavily, darkly bearded, and something had happened to his nose. Locke had been in a brawl; the nose was broken, and the face was cut and bruised.

“Never mind me,” Locke said huskily. “You should see the other guys.”

As Pearce drew back a little, he could see that Locke was dressed in old clothes looking like hand-me-downs from the Salvation Army. “Sorry I got you into it,” he said.

“Part of the job. Listen. I haven’t got long, and I want to give you my report.”

“It can wait. Come on up. Let me take a look at that face. You can send me a written re—”

“Nothing doing,” Locke said heavily. “I’m not signing my name to anything. Too dangerous. From now on I’m going to keep my nose clean. I did all right for a few days. Then they caught up with me. Well, they’re sorry, too. You wanta hear it?”

Pearce nodded.

For a while Locke had thought he might get somewhere. He had registered at the Abbot, got friendly with the room clerk, and finally asked about his friend, Cartwright, who had flopped there a couple of weeks earlier. The clerk was willing enough to talk. Trouble was, he didn’t know much, and what little he knew he wouldn’t have told to a stranger. Guests at the Abbot were likely to be persecuted by police and collection agents, and the clerk had suspicions that every questioner was from the health department.

Cartwright had paid his bill and left suddenly, no forwarding address given. They hadn’t heard from him since, but people had been asking about him. “In trouble, eh?” the clerk asked wisely. Locke nodded gravely.

The clerk leaned closer. “I had a hunch, though, that Cartwright was heading for Des Moines. Something he said—don’t remember what now.”

Locke took off for Des Moines with a sample of Cartwright’s handwriting from the Abbot register. He canvassed the Des Moines hotels, rooming houses, motels. Finally, at a first-class hotel, he noticed the name “Marshall Carter.”

Cartwright had left the Abbot on the ninth. Carter had checked into the Des Moines hotel on the tenth. The handwritings seemed similar.

Locke caught up with Carter in St. Louis. He turned out to be a middle-aged salesman of photographic equipment who hadn’t been near Kansas City in a year.

End of the trail.

“Can anyone else find him?” Pearce asked.

“Not if he doesn’t want to be found,” Locke said. “A nationwide search—an advertising campaign—they’d help. But if he’s changed his name and doesn’t go signing his new one to a lot of things that might fall into an agency’s hands, nobody is going to find him. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Pearce looked at him steadily, not saying anything.

“He’s got no record,” Locke went on. “That helps. Got a name check on him from the bigger police departments and the FBI. No go. No record, no fingerprints. Not under that name.”

“How’d you get hurt?” Pearce asked, after a moment.

“They were waiting for me outside my office when I got back. Two of ’em. Good, too. But not good enough. ‘Lay off!’ they said. Okay. I’m not stupid. I’m laying off, but I wanted to finish the job first.”

Pearce nodded slowly. “I’m satisfied. Send me a bill.”

“Bill, nothing!” Locke growled. “Five thousand is the price. Put the cash in an envelope, take it out a little at a time to avoid notice, and mail it to my office—no checks. I should charge you more for using me as a stakeout, but maybe you had your reasons. Watch your step, Doc!”

He was gone then, slipping away through the shadows so quickly and silently that Pearce started to speak before he realized that the detective was not beside him. Pearce stared after him for a long, speculative moment before he turned and opened the front door.

Going up in the elevator, he was thoughtful. In front of his apartment door, he fumbled the key out absently and inserted it in the lock. When the key wouldn’t turn, he took it out to check on it. It took a moment for the realization to sink in that the door was already unlocked. Pearce turned the knob and gave the door a little push. It swung inward quietly. The light from the hall streamed over his shoulder, but it only lapped a little way into the dark room. He peered into it for a moment, hunching his shoulders as if that might help.

“Come in, Doctor Pearce,” someone said softly.

The lights went on.

Pearce blinked once. “Good evening, Mister Weaver. And you, Jansen. How are you?”

“Fine, Doctor,” Weaver said. “Just fine.”

He didn’t look fine, Pearce thought. He looked older, haggard, tired. Was he worried? Weaver was sitting in Pearce’s favorite chair, a dark-green leather armchair beside the fireplace. Jansen was standing beside the wall switch. “You’ve made yourself right at home, I see.”

Weaver chuckled. “We told the manager we were friends of yours, and of course he didn’t doubt us. Solid citizens like us, we don’t lie. But then, we are friends, aren’t we?”

Pearce looked at Weaver and then at Jansen. “I wonder. Do you have any friends—or only hirelings?” He turned his gaze back to Weaver. “You don’t look well. I’d like you to come back to the hospital for a checkup—”