Robin Cook - Harmful Intent

"No shit?" Mosconi said.

"No shit-and I have the ticket to prove it!"

"That's great, Dev!" Mosconi said excitedly. "My God, the man's bail is five hundred thousand dollars! That would have ruined me. How the hell did you do it? I mean, how did you know he was going to try to jump? I got to hand it to you. You're amazing, Dev!"

"It's so nice to be loved," Devlin said. "But you're forgetting the bad news." Devlin smiled into the receiver mischievously, knowing what

Mosconi's reaction was soon to be.

There was a brief pause before Mosconi said with a groan, "All right, give me the bad news!"

"At the moment, I don't know where the good doc is. He's on the loose in

Boston someplace. I got ahold of him, but the skinny bastard hit me with his briefcase before I could 'cuff him. I never expected it, him being a doctor and all that."

"You got to find him!" Mosconi shouted. "Why the hell did I trust him? I should have my head examined."

"I've explained the situation to the airport police," Devlin said. "So they'll be on the lookout for him. My hunch is, he won't try to fly away again. At least not from Logan. Oh, and I had his car impounded."

"I want that guy found!" Mosconi said menacingly. "I want him delivered to the jail. Pronto. You hear me, Devlin?"

"I hear you, man, but I don't hear any numbers. What are you offering me to bring in this dangerous criminal?"

"Quit joking around, Dev!"

"Hey, I'm not joking. The doctor might not be all that dangerous, but I want to know how serious you are about this guy. The best way you can tell me is what kind of reward I'll be getting."

"Get him, then we'll talk numbers."

"Michael, what do you take me for, a fool?"

There was a strained silence. Devlin broke it. "Well, maybe I'll go have some dinner, then take in a show. See you around, sport.,,

"Wait!" Michael said. "All right-I'll split the fee. Twentyfive thousand."

"Split the fee?" Devlin said. "That's not the usual rate, my friend."

"Yeah, but this guy is hardly the cold-blooded, armed killer that you usually have to deal with."

"I don't see where that makes any difference," Devlin said. "If you call in anybody else, they'll demand the whole ten percent. That's fifty grand. But

I tell you what. Since we go back a long way, I'll do it for forty grand and you can keep ten for filling out those papers."

Mosconi hated to give in, but he was in no position to bargain. "All right, you bastard," he said. "But I want the doctor in the slammer ASAP, before they forfeit the bond. Understand?"

"I'll give the matter my undivided attention," Devlin said. "Especially now that you have insisted on being so generous. In the meantime, we got to block the usual exits from the city.

The airport is already covered, but that leaves the bus station, the railroads, and the car rental agencies."

"I'll call the duty police sergeant," Mosconi said. "Tonight it should be

Albert Norstadt, so there won't be any problem there. What are you going to do?"

"I'll stake out the doc's house," Devlin said. "My guess is that he will either show up there or call his wife. If he calls his wife, then she'll probably go to wherever he is."

"When you get to him, treat him like he's murdered twelve people," Mosconi said. "Don't go soft on him. And Dev, I mean business on this. At this point I really don't much care whether you bring him in alive or dead."

"So long as you make sure he stays in town, I'll get him. If you have any problems with the police, you can reach me on the car phone."

Jeffrey's cabbie's mood improved as the fare mounted on the meter. Unable to decide where to go, Jeffrey had the man drive aimlessly around Boston. As they cruised the periphery of the Boston Garden for the third time, the meter hit thirty dollars.

Jeffrey was afraid to go home. His house was sure to be the first place

Devlin would go to look for him. In fact, Jeffrey was afraid to go anyplace. He was afraid of going to the bus or train station for fear the authorities had already been put on some alert. For all he knew, every policeman in Boston could be looking for him.

Jeffrey thought he'd try to call Randolph to see what the lawyer could do-if anything-to turn things back to the preairport status quo. Jeffrey wasn't optimistic but the possibility was worth pursuing. At the same time, he decided he'd do well to check into a hotel, though not one of the better ones. The good hotels would probably be the second place Devlin would look for him.

Scooting forward against the Plexiglas divider, Jeffrey asked the cabbie if he knew of any cheap hotels. The cabbie thought for a moment. "Well," he said, "there's the Plymouth Hotel."

The Plymouth was a large motor inn. "Something less wellknown. I don't care if it's a little on the seedy side. I'm looking for something out-of-the-way, nondescript."

"There's the Essex," the cabbie said.

"Where's that?" Jeffrey asked.

"Other side of the combat zone," the driver said. He eyed Jeffrey in the rearview mirror to see if he registered a flicker of rec-

ognition. The Essex was a dump, more of a flophouse than a hotel. It was frequented by many of the zone's call girls.

"So it's kind of low-key?" Jeffrey asked.

"About as low as I'd care to sink."

"Sounds perfect," Jeffrey said. "Let's go there." He slid back in the seat.

The fact that he'd never heard of the Essex sounded promising, since he'd been in the Boston area for almost twenty years, right from the beginning of medical school.

The driver took a left off Arlington Street onto Boylston, then made his way downtown. There, the neighborhood took a nosedive. In contrast to the genteel areas around the Boston Garden, there were abandoned buildings, porn shops, and garbagestrewn streets. The homeless were scattered in alleyways and huddled on tenement steps. When the cab was stopped waiting for a light to change, a pimply-faced girl in an obscenely short skirt raised her eyebrows at Jeffrey suggestively. She looked like she couldn't have been more than fifteen.

The red neon sign in front of the Essex Hotel had aptly been amended to SEX

EL; the other letters were out. Seeing how decrepit the place seemed,

Jeffrey felt a moment's hesitation. Peering out the window from the safety of his cab, he warily surveyed the hotel's dirty brick fagade. Seedy was too kind an adjective. A drunk, still clutching his brown-paper-bag-wrapped bottle, was passed out to the right of the front steps.

"You wanted cheap," the cabbie said. "Cheap it is."

Jeffrey handed him a hundred-dollar bill from the briefcase.

"You don't have anything smaller?" the cabbie complained.

Jeffrey shook his head. "I don't have forty-two dollars."

The cabbie sighed and made an elaborate passive-aggressive ritual of giving

Jeffrey his change. Deciding he'd be better off not leaving an angry cabbie in his wake, Jeffrey gave him an extra ten. The driver even said thanks and have a nice night before driving off.

Jeffrey studied the hotel again. On the right was an empty building whose windows except for the ground floor were covered with plywood. On the ground floor there was a pawnshop and an X-rated video store. On the left was an office building in equal disrepair to the Essex Hotel. Beyond the office building was a liquor store, whose windows were barred like a fortress. Beyond the liquor store was an empty lot that was strewn with litter and broken bricks.

With his briefcase in hand and looking distinctly out of place, Jeffrey climbed the steps and entered the Essex Hotel.

The hotel's interior was about as classy as the exterior. The lobby furnishings consisted of a single threadbare couch and a half-dozen folding metal chairs. A bare pay phone was the wall's sole decoration. There was an elevator but the sign across its doors said OUT OF ORDER. Next to the elevator was a heavy door with a wire-embedded window leading to a stairwell. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Jeffrey stepped up to the reception desk.