|^ou should stay back,” Ricci said to the building ger.
-didn’t need encouragement, i” he said shakily. “I got to call the cops-” pHave a cellular on you?” ez nodded.
Ricci inclined his head toward the telephone bedside stand. “I don’t think you want that one
i near your mouth.”
ez nodded again and crossed himself, staring inside i the entrance.
cci produced a business card and pen from inside ? sport jacket, wrote hastily on the back of the card, I handed it to him. “Do me a favor; contact the guy i name and number I jotted down. That’s Pete Me, at UpLink. Let him know what we found here. If i don’t mind, I think it might be better if he’s the one 1 gets in touch with the police.”
ez nodded a third time and took the portable phone || of his pocket.
cci turned back into the room, reached into his own : for the scrub mask and latex gloves he’d brought him, and put them on. Then he went over to the I for a closer look at the dead man.
291
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
The skin at the back of his neck pebbled.
Palardy’s stomach had tossed up whatever was inside it. His gaping, cyanotic lips were crusted with vomit. His face, too. It had overflowed onto his pillows, sheet, and blanket, leaving them splashed with yellowish stains.
Ricci examined the nightstand. Besides the phone, it held a small reading lamp and a half-filled glass of something that might have been apple juice or a soft drink. The glass was on a coaster between the bed and phone. Ricci frowned, thinking. Or rather, letting a thought that had already occurred deep in his mind rise to a conscious level. Had he felt an attack or seizure coming on, Palardy surely would have attempted to call for help. Very likely overturned the glass when he was groping for the phone. Dropped the receiver, if he’d managed to get his hand around it. But they were neatly in place. And the way Palardy’s blanket was pulled up to his chest, he almost could have been tucked in. Passed away without stirring from his sleep.
But his contorted features and hand signified that his death had been neither peaceful nor painless.
Ricci’s frown grew. So far, the picture wasn’t coming together for him.
He looked around the room. The two windows to the left of the bed were closed. On the right wall was what looked like a vintage baseball-dugout clock, the Brooklyn Dodgers logo on it. Quite a collector’s item. The rest of the sparse furnishings were contrastingly unremarkable. A television on the small dresser opposite the foot of the bed. A desk with one of those inexpensive fabric office chairs pushed underneath it. Next to the desk, a
292
BIO-STRIKE
liter printer on a wheeled stand. AH he could see desktop was a small stack of billing statements 1 to their payment envelopes, a few pens and pen- f