“All right,” Chemo said, “how do you know?”
“Because,” the doctor said, “the bastard just blew up my Jag.”
11
Christina Marks knocked twice, and when no one answered she walked in. The man in the hospital bed had a plastic oxygen mask over his mouth. Lying there he looked as small as a child. The covers were pulled up to the folds of his neck. His face was mottled and drawn. When Christina approached the bed, the man’s blue eyes opened slowly and he waved. When he lifted the oxygen mask away from his mouth, she saw that he was smiling.
“Detective Gavigan?”
“The one and only.”
“I’m Christina Marks.” She told him why she had come, what she wanted. When she mentioned Vicky Barletta, Timmy Gavigan made a zipper motion across his lips.
“What’s the matter?” Christina asked.
“That’s an open case, lady. I can’t talk about it.” Timmy Gavigan’s voice was hollow, like it was coming up a pipe from his dead lungs. “We got regulations about talking to the media,” he said.
“Do you know Mick Stranahan?” Christina said.
“Sure I know Mick,” Timmy Gavigan said. “Mick came to see me a while back.”
“About this case?”
“Mick’s in my scrapbook,” Timmy Gavigan said, looking away.
Christina said, “He’s in some trouble.”
“He didn’t get married again, the dumb bastard?”
“Not that kind of trouble,” Christina said. “This time it was the Barletta case.”
“Mick’s a big boy,” said Timmy Gavigan. “My guess is, he can handle it.” He was smiling again. “Honey, you sure are pretty.”
“Thank you,” said Christina.
“Can you believe, six months ago I’d be trying to charm you right into the sack. Now I can’t even get up to take a whizz. Here a gorgeous woman comes to my room and I can’t raise my goddamn head, much less anything else.”
She said, “I’m sorry.”
“I know what you’re thinking—a dying man, he’s likely to say anything. But I mean it, you’re something special. I got high standards, always did. I mean, hell, I might be dead, but I ain’t blind.”
Christina laughed softly. Timmy Gavigan reached for the oxygen mask, took a couple of deep breaths, put it down again. “Give me your hand,” he said to Christina Marks. “Please, it’s all right. What I got, you can’t catch.”
Timmy Gavigan’s skin was cold and papery. Christina gave a little squeeze and tried to pull away, but he held on. She noticed his eyes had a sparkle.
“You’ve been to the file?”
She nodded.
“I took a statement from that doctor, Rudy Something.”
Christina said, “Yes, I read it.”
“Help me out,” said Timmy Gavigan, squinting in concentration. “What the hell did he say again?”
“He said it was a routine procedure, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Yeah, I remember now,” Timmy Gavigan said. “He was a precious thing, too, all business. Said he’d done five thousand nose jobs and this was no different from the others. And I said maybe not, but this time your patient vanished from the face of the earth. And he said she was fine last time he saw her. Walked out of the office all by herself. And I said yeah, walked straight into the fucking twilight zone. Pardon my French.”
Christina Marks said, “You’ve got a good memory.”
“Too bad I can’t breathe with it.” Timmy Gavigan took another hit of oxygen. “Fact is, we had no reason to think the doctor was involved. Besides, the nurse backed him up. What the hell was his name again?”
“Graveline.”
Timmy Gavigan nodded. “Struck me as a little snot. If only you could arrest people for that.” He coughed, or maybe it was a chuckle. “Did I mention I was dying?”
Christina said yes, she knew.
“Did you say you were on TV?”
“No, I’m just a producer.”
“Well, you’re pretty enough to be on TV.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not being very much help, I know,” said Timmy Gavigan. “They got me loaded up on morphine. But I’m trying to think if there was something I left out.”
“It’s all right, you’ve been helpful.”
She could tell that each breath was torture.
He said, “Your idea is that the doctor did it, is that right? See, that’s a new angle—let me think here.”