Warren Murphy: Last Call

He watched. The red light flashed once, long, then two shorter flashes, then three even shorter flashes. There was a pause, then it repeated the one-two-three sequence.

He watched the light for a full minute until he was sure in his own mind that it was flashing in a clear, unmistakable pattern. He realized his hands were clenched tight on the steering wheel and he forced himself to relax his grip.

Finally he sighed and turned off the car's motor.

He removed the key, got out, and put his old leather bag back into the trunk.

Then he walked over to a shiny new Ferrari, which sat in the other half of the garage. From its trunk, he took another doctor's bag, this one rich brown cordovan, highly polished and glistening in the dim overhead light of the garage. It was a bag he replaced every six months, even though in such a brief period of time, it had not even begun to show signs of wear. It was just that his wealthy patients expected that everything about him should be new and rich. Only the

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poor trusted a doctor with holes in the soles of his shoes, and only because they had to.

Dr. Giovanni started the car's engine, which roared powerfully to instant life. He let the car idle as he went back into the house.

His wife, Rosanna, looked up surprised as he came back into the kitchen.

"What'd you forget now, Rocco?" she asked. She smiled at him from the kitchen sink where she was rinsing dishes before putting them in the automatic dishwasher.

"This," he said. He came close behind her and kissed her lightly on the neck. His arms went around her trim body and squeezed her lovingly.

"You already kissed me goodbye," she protested mildly. "You horny thing."

"Do you know how much I love you ?" he asked.

"Sometimes I get the hint," she said. She turned and he took her in his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.

"I love you forever," he said.

"And I love you, too," she said. "And if your patients weren't waiting, I'd show you how much."

He looked in her eyes and she thought she saw a glint there of something she had never seen before, then he buried his lips against her throat, said a muffled "goodbye" and left.

When she heard the car pull out of the garage, she walked to the front window. She was surprised to see the Ferrari pulling away. He hated that car and had only bought it to impress his wealthy patients, whose riches helped finance the real love in his life, the free clinic he ran for the poor.

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His nurse and receptionist were surprised to see Doctor Giovanni show up at his private offices only a few blocks from the Vatican, but he sloughed off their unspoken demands for an explanation about his presence.

Inside his office, he called a young doctor who owed him a favor and arranged for the other doctor to handle the patients at Giovanni's free clinic.

Next he dialed the number of the Russian embassy. When he mentioned his name, the call was transferred directly into the Russian ambassador's office.

"Doctor Giovanni, how are you?" the ambassador said in guttural Italian. He managed to make the musical language sound like German.

"I'm fine," Giovanni said. "But I have to talk to you."

"Oh? What's wrong?"

"Your blood tests just came back," the doctor said, "and we must discuss them."

"Is something wrong?"

"Not on the telephone, Ambassador. Please."

"I will be right there."

While he waited, Doctor Giovanni took something from his office safe and put it into the bottom of the leather medical bag. Then he folded his hands on his desk and rested his head on them.

The ambassador was there in less than ten minutes, accompanied by his ever-present bodyguard, a hawk-faced man who viewed everyone and everything with suspicion. Parking meters, restaurant checks, street peddlers, he watched

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them all as if each were capable of overturning the glorious Communist revolution. He followed the ambassador into Doctor Giovanni's office.

"Can he wait outside, please?" the doctor said.

The ambassador nodded. With obvious reluctance, the bodyguard went into the waiting room where he leaned against the wall next to the door to the doctor's private consulting room.

The receptionist glared at him. He stared back blankly, until he forced her to turn her eyes away.

"I know what it is," the ambassador said. "The saintly doctor has decided to defect to Mother Russia." He was smiling but there was a faint film of nervous perspiration on his forehead.

Giovanni smiled back. "Not just yet," he said.

"Ah, but someday," the ambassador said. "You and your free clinic. Your modest life. You are the most communistic of all."

"And that is why I could not live in Mother Russia," Doctor Giovanni said. "Please sit here."

He pulled out a chair and sat the ambassador on it, facing an X-ray display board. Onto the glass screen, he put two large chest X-rays.

He flicked on the switch for the display panel and turned off the office light.

"These are your most recent X-rays," he said. "They were taken when you had that slight chest cough during the winter." As he spoke, Doctor Giovanni walked behind the ambassador toward his desk.

"You'll notice the slight darkish spots at the bottom of each lung," he said. He opened the brown leather bag and reached into the bottom.

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"Yes. I see them. What does that mean?" the ambassador asked nervously.

Doctor Giovanni's hand closed on the butt of a pistol.

He walked up behind the ambassador.

"Nothing," he said. "Absolutely nothing." Then he put a bullet into the Russian's skull from behind the left ear.

Doctor Rocco Giovanni was glad the gun had worked after all these years.

The report of the pistol resounded through the small consultation room. Outside, the nurse and receptionist looked up at the unusual loud sound.

The Russian bodyguard reached under his jacket for his gun and pushed through the unlocked door into the inner office.

But before he could do anything, Doctor Rocco Giovanni raised the pistol to his own right temple and squeezed the trigger.

The gun worked again.

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CHAPTER FOUR

When Admiral Wingate Stantington came through the private entrance to his office, his secretary intercepted him.

"Here it is," she said, holding out her hand. There was a shiny brass key on it.

"All right," he said. "And you've got the other one?"

"Yes, sir."

"You put it in a safe place?"

"Yes, sir."

"Better tell me where it is, in case I lose this one and something happens to you."

"It is in my top left desk drawer, in the back, behind my box of Tootsie Rolls."

"It'll be safe there?"

"Yes, sir. Nobody goes in my desk."

"Okay. Thank you." He took the key and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

"And there's somebody waiting to see you, Admiral."

"Oh? Who is it?"

"He wouldn't give his name."

"What's he look like?"

"Like Roy Rogers," the secretary said.

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"What?"

"He does, Admiral. He's got on a ten-gallon hat and tooled boots with the pants tucked in and he's got a gabardine shirt with white piping all over the chest. If he was a woman, he'd look like Dolly Parton."

"Send him in right away," Stantington said. "No, have him wait a minute. I want to test this bathroom key first."

Stantington was sitting behind his desk when his visitor came in, looking like everybody in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

"Well, well. Vassily Karbenko," Stantington said, as he rose, leaned across the desk, and extended his hand. The Russian was as tall as Stantington and his handshake was bony and firm. He kept on his carefully blocked cowboy hat.

"Admiral," he said. Even his voice had a slight western coloration.

"And how are things on the cultural attache front?" Stantington asked.