Willie said, “Romania. What he told me, his old man was with the Romanian underground.”
“His old man sold Whirlpools in Larchmont, I know for a fact. Let’s see the rest.”
Willie pressed the Fast Forward and squeaked the tape past the part when he confronted Dr. Rudy Graveline about Victoria Barletta; he didn’t want his producer friend to hear the dead woman’s name, on the off chance that the story could be salvaged. Willie slowed the tape to normal speed just as he zoomed in on the doctor’s quavering eyes.
“Boris Karloff,” said Willie’s friend.
“Watch.”
The camera angle widened to show Rudy Graveline feverishly toiling over Reynaldo’s belly. Then came a mist of blood, and one of the nurses began shouting for the surgeon to stop.
“Geez,” said Willie’s friend, looking slightly queasy. “What’s happening?”
The doctor abruptly wheeled from the operating table to confront the camera directly. In his bloody right hand was a wicked-looking instrument connected to a long plastic tube. The device was making an audible slurp-slurp noise.
“Your turn, fat boy!”
Willie’s friend gestured at the monitor and said: “He called you fat boy?”
“Watch!”
On the screen, the surgeon lunged forward with the pointy slurp-slurping device. There was a cry, a dull clunk. Then the picture got jerky and went gray.
Willie pressed the Stop button. “I hauled ass,” he explained to his friend. “He came at me with that sucking … thing, so I took off.”
“Don’t blame you, man. But what about Ray?”
Willie took the videotape out of the editing console. “That’s what’s got me scared. I get in the van and take off, right? Stop at the nearest phone booth and call this clinic. Whispering Palms is the name.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”
“So I call. Don’t say who I am. I ask about Reynaldo Flemm. I say he’s my brother. I’m s’posed to pick him up after the operation. Ask can I come by and get him. Nurse gets on the line and wants to know what’s going on. She wants to know how come Ray was using a phony name when he checks in at the place. Johnny Tiger, some shit like that. I tell her I haven’t got the faintest—maybe he was embarrassed, didn’t want his nose job to turn up in the gossip columns. Then she says, well, he’s not here. She says the doctor, this Rudy Graveline, the nurse says he drove Ray to Mount Sinai. She says she’s not allowed to say anything more on the phone. So I haul ass over to Emergency at Sinai and guess what? No Ray anywhere. Fact there’s nothing but strokes and heart attacks. No Reynaldo Flemm!”
Willie’s friend said, “This is too fucking weird. Even for Miami.”
“Best part is, now I gotta call New York and break the news.”
“Oh, man.”
Willie said, “Maybe I’ll ship the tape first.”
“Might as well,” agreed the producer. “What about Ray? Think he’s all right?”
“No,” said Willie. “You want the truth, I’d be fucking amazed if he was all right.”
The nurses had wanted to call 911, but Rudy Graveline had said no, there wasn’t time. I’ll take him myself, Rudy had said. He had run to the parking lot (stopping only at the front desk to pick up Reynaldo’s $15,000), got the Jag and pulled up at the staff entrance.
Back in the operating suite, the anesthetist had said: “Everything’s going flat.”
“Then hurry, goddammit!”
They had gotten Reynaldo on a gurney and wheeled him to Rudy’s car and bundled him in the passenger seat. The scrub nurse even tried to hook up the safety belt.
“Oh, forget it,” Rudy had said.
“But it’s a law.”
“Go back to work!” Rudy had commanded. The Jaguar had peeled rubber on its way out.
Naturally he had no intention of driving to Mount Sinai Hospital. What was the point? Rudy glanced at the man in the passenger seat and still did not recognize him from television. True, Reynaldo Flemm was not at his telegenic best. His eyes were half-closed, his mouth was half-open, and his skin was the color of bad veal.
He was also exsanguinating all over Rudy’s fine leather seats and burled walnut door panels. “Great,” Rudy muttered. “What else.” As the surgeon sped south on Alton Road, he took out the portable telephone and called his brother’s tree company.