“George Graveline, please. It’s an emergency.”
“Uh, he’s not here.”
“This is his brother. Where’s he working today?”
The line clicked. Rudy thought he had been cut off. Then a lady from an answering service came on and asked him to leave his number. Rudy hollered, but she wouldn’t budge. Finally he surrendered the number and hung up.
He thought: I must find George and his wood-chipping machine. This is very dicey, driving around Miami Beach in a $47,000 sedan with a dead TV star in the front seat. Bleeding on the front seat.
The car phone beeped and Rudy grabbed at it in frantic optimism. “George!”
“No, Dr. Graveline.”
“Who’s this?”
“Sergeant Garcia, Metro Homicide. You probably don’t remember, but we met that night the mysterious midget Haitian blew up your car.”
Rudy’s heart was pounding. Should he hang up? Did the cops know about Flemm already? But how—the nurses? Maybe that moron with the minicam!
Al Garcia said: “I got some bad news about your brother George.”
Rudy’s mind was racing. The detective’s words didn’t register. “What—could you give me that again?”
“I said I got bad news about George. He’s dead.”
Rudy’s foot came off the accelerator. He was coasting now, trying to think. Which way? Where?
Garcia went on: “He tried to kill a man and I had to shoot him. Internal Review has the full report, so I suggest you talk to them.”
Nothing.
“Doctor? You there?”
“Yuh.”
No questions, nothing.
“The way it went down, I had no choice.”
Rudy said dully, “I understand.” He was thinking: It’s awful about George, yes, but what am I going to do with this dead person in my Jaguar?
Garcia could sense that something strange was going on at the end of the line. He said, “Look, I know it’s a bad time, but we ‘ve got to talk about a homicide. A homicide that may involve you and your brother. I’d like to come over to the clinic as soon as possible.”
“Make it tomorrow,” Rudy said.
“It’s about Victoria Barletta.”
“I’m eager to help in any way I can. Come see me tomorrow.” The surgeon sounded like a zombie. A heavily sedated zombie. If there was a realm beyond sheer panic, Rudy Graveline had entered it.
“Doctor, it really can’t wait—”
“For heaven’s sake, Sergeant, give me some time. I just found out my brother’s dead, I need to make the arrangements.”
“To be blunt,” Garcia said, “as far as George goes, there’s not a whole lot left to arrange.”
“Call me tomorrow,” Rudy Graveline said curtly. Then he threw the car phone out the window.
When the phone rang again in the Bonneville, Chemo gloated at Maggie Gonzalez. “I told you this would come in handy.”
“Quit picking at your face.”
“It itches like hell.”
“Leave it be!” Maggie scolded. “You want it to get infected? Do you?”
On the other end of the phone was Rudy Graveline. He sounded worse than suicidal.
Chemo said, “Hey, Doc, you in your car? I’m in mine.”
He felt like the king of the universe.
“No, I’m home,” Rudy said. “We have a major problem.”
“What’s this we stuff? I don’t have a problem. I got a hundred-twenty-odd grand, a brand-new face, a brand-new car phone. Life’s looking better every day.”
Rudy said, “I’m delighted for you, I really am.”
“You don’t sound too damn delighted.”
“He got Heather.” The doctor choked out the words.
“Who’s Heather?” Chemo said.
“My … I can’t believe … when I got home, she was gone. He took her away.”
Maggie asked who was on the line and Chemo whispered the doctor’s name. “All right,” he said to Rudy, “you better tell me what’s up.”
Suddenly Rudy Graveline remembered what Curly Eyebrows had warned him about cellular phones, about how private conversations sometimes could be picked up on outside frequencies. In his quickening state of emotional deterioration, Rudy clearly envisioned—as if it were real—some nosy Coral Gables housewife overhearing his felonious litany on her Amana toaster oven.
“Come to my house,” he instructed Chemo.
“I can’t, I’m waiting on a call.”
“This is it.”
“What? You mean this is the phone call he—”