“Answer it.” Heather Chappell’s muffled command came from beneath a pillow. “Answer the damn thing.”
Rudy reached out from the covers and seized the receiver fiercely, as if it were the neck of a cobra. The grim gassy voice on the other end of the line belonged to Commissioner Roberto Pepsical.
“You see the news on TV?”
“No,” Rudy said. “But I got the paper here somewhere.”
“There’s a story about two policemen who died.”
“Yeah, so?”
“In a boat accident,” Roberto said.
“Cut to the punch line, Bobby.”
“Those were the guys.”
“What guys?” asked Rudy. Next to him, Heather mumbled irritably and wrapped the pillow tightly around her ears.
“The guys I told you about. My guys.”
“Shit, “said Rudy.
Heather looked up raggedly and said: “Do you mind? I’m trying to sleep.”
Rudy told Roberto that he would call him right back from another phone. He put on a robe and hurried down the hall to his den, where he shut the door. Numbly he dialed Roberta’s private number, the one reserved for bagmen and lobbyists.
“Let me make sure I understand,” Rudy said. “You were using police officers as hit men?”
“They promised it would be a cinch.”
“And now they’re dead.” Rudy was well beyond the normal threshold of surprise. He had become conditioned to expect the worst. He said, “What about the money—can I get it back?”
Roberto Pepsical couldn’t believe the nerve of this cheapskate. “No, you can’t get it back. I paid them. They’re dead. You want the money back, go ask their widows.” The commissioner’s tone had become impatient and firm. It made Rudy nervous; the fat pig should have been apologizing all over himself.
Rudy said, “All right, then, can you get somebody else to do it?”
“Do what?”
“Do Stranahan. The offer’s still open.”
Roberto laughed scornfully on the other end; Rudy was baffled by this change of attitude.
“Listen to me,” the commissioner said. “The deal’s off, forever. Two dead cops is major trouble, Doctor, and you just better hope nobody finds out what they were up to.”
Rudy Graveline wanted to drop the subject and crawl back to bed. “Fine, Bobby,” he said. “From now on, we never even met. Good-bye.”
“Not so fast.”
Oh brother, Rudy thought, here we go.
Roberto said, “I talked to The Others. They still want the original twenty-five.”
“That’s absurd. Cypress Towers is history, Bobby. I’m through with it. Tell your pals they get zippo.”
“But you got your zoning.”
“I don’t need the damn zoning,” Rudy protested. “They can have it back, understand? Peddle it to some other dupe.”
Roberta’s voice carried no trace of understanding, no patience for a compromise. “Twenty-five was the price of each vote. You agreed. Now The Others want their money.”
“Don’t you ever get sick of being an errand boy?”
“It’s my money, too,” Roberto said soberly. “But yeah, I do get sick of being an errand boy. I get sick a dealing with cheap scuzzbuckets like you. When it comes to paying up, doctors are the fucking worst.”
“Hey,” Rudy said, “it doesn’t grow on trees.”
“A deal is a deal.”
In a way, Roberto was glad that Dr. Graveline was being such a prick. It felt good to be the one to drop the hammer for a change. He said, “You got two business days to cover me and The Others.”
“What?” Rudy bleated.
“Two days, I ‘m calling my banker in the Caymans and having him read me the balance in my account. If it’s not heavier by twenty-five, you’re toast.”
Rudy thought: This can’t be the same man, not the way he’s talking to me.
Roberto Pepsical went on, detached, businesslike: “Me and The Others got this idea that we—meaning the county—should start certifying all private clinics. Have our own testing, license hearings, bi-monthly inspections, that sort of thing. It’s our feeling that the general public needs to be protected.”
“Protected?” Rudy said feebly.
“From quacks and such. Don’t you agree?”
Rudy thought: The whole world has turned upside down.
“Most clinics won’t have anything to worry about,” Roberto said brightly, “once they’re brought up to county standards.”
“Bobby, you’re a bastard.”