Black River (22 page)

Ponytail’s mouth was agape as he knelt by his
partner’s side. “Gerardo,” he said quietly, shaking
the little man’s shoulder as if to rouse him from sleep.
“Oh, Gerardo!” The muscles along his jaw moved like knotted
rope, but by the time he turned his fury toward Corso it was too late.
The silencer was no more than a foot from his temple when Corso pulled
the trigger, sending the man’s brains spewing out over his
partner’s body. He toppled onto his back and lay motionless. A
small trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. And suddenly
the night was silent.

Corso stood for a moment, breathing deeply and
listening to the hiss of the rain. Only then did the burning red pain
in his left hand float to the level of consciousness. Clutching the
hand to his chest and moaning, Corso walked over to the men. He stood
there rocking on unsteady legs for a moment, and then he pointed the
gun and again shot each man in the head. Then again and again, until
nothing was happening because the gun was empty.

He dropped to one knee. Set the gun in the grass and
used his good hand to pat each man down. Extracted a wallet from each
man’s pocket and used his foot to roll one and then the other
down the levee, into the water. He then retrieved the gun and, with all
his might, heaved the automatic out into the marsh, before he started
stumbling toward the car.

Monday, October 23

9:09 p.m.

T
he
desk clerk didn’t like what he saw, not a bit. Guy standing there
with one hand jammed in his coat pocket, like he had a gun or
something, looking like he’d spent the last week holed up under a
bridge. As the man approached the registration desk, the clerk’s
index finger hovered over the button marked
SE
-
CURITY
. He
pushed it.

“Robert Downs, please,” the guy
croaked.

Wasn’t till he got close that the clerk noticed
he was leaving wet tracks on the carpet. That he wasn’t wearing
socks. That his pants were soaked from the knees down and that, despite
having his coat buttoned all the way up, his throat appeared to be
circled by an angry purple welt. He fingered the button again.
Twice.

“Room number?” the clerk said.

“I don’t know the room number,” the
guy said in his rough voice.

“I can’t connect you, sir, unless you know
the room number.”

“You call him,” the guy rasped. “Tell
him Frank Corso is downstairs and needs to have a word with
him.”

Over the guy’s left shoulder, a pair of hotel
security guards emerged from the luggage room. The desk clerk breathed
a sigh of relief as they advanced toward the desk.

The guy picked up something in his eyes and looked back
over his shoulder. The movement brought a grunt from somewhere deep
inside. “Please,” the guy said. “I know I look like
hell. Just call Mr. Downs for me.”

The clerk held up a hand. Security stopped about six
feet away. He dialed the phone and waited for a moment. “Mr.
Downs,” he said. “This is Dennis at the desk. Yes, sir.
Sorry to bother you, sir, but there’s a gentleman down here in
the lobby asking for you.” He listened and then looked up at
Corso.

“Frank Corso,” the guy said.

“Frank Corso,” the clerk repeated. He
pressed the phone tighter to his ear.

“Ah, yes…. Mr. Downs, I was wondering if
insteadof sending the gentleman up—I was wondering if it might be
possible for you to come down to the lobby instead.” He nodded.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He hung up. “Mr. Downs
will be down in a moment.”

It was more like five minutes before Robert Downs
appeared, wearing a black turtleneck over a pair of rumpled gray
slacks. His hair was tousled and his face puffy. He crossed the lobby
to Corso’s side. “I was—I have an
early…” He stammered as he took Corso in. He stepped in
closer and studied Corso’s throat. “What—?” he
began.

Corso touched him on the shoulder and pulled him
closer. “We need to go upstairs,” he whispered.

Robert Downs hesitated for a moment and then nodded his
head. He took Corso by the elbow and, under the baleful gaze of the
security guards, led him back across the lobby to the elevator, where
they waited no more than thirty seconds before a muted
ding
announced the arrival of the car. Downs put
his arm around Corso’s waist and drew him into the elevator.

They didn’t speak on the ride up to the third
floor or on the walk down the long hall. Corso leaned against the wall
as Downs took three tries at swiping his card before he got the door
open. He stepped to one side and ushered Corso into the room. Downs
gestured toward the desk. “Sit down,” he said. Corso shook
his head and walked slowly into the bathroom. Downs followed.
Corso’s face twisted into a knot as he slowly, incrementally,
pulled his left hand from his coat pocket and set it gently in the
sink.

The black sock covering his hand was completely soaked
with blood. He’d used the other sock for his right hand as he
drove the Mercedes, so as not to leave fingerprints.

“Jesus,” Downs muttered, his hands
beginning to peel the sock from Corso’s hand. The sink’s
drain was closed. Blood was beginning to collect. Corso groaned as
Downs lifted his hand and inched off the last of the sock.
“Steady now,” Downs said, as he turned on the water and
then tested it with his finger.

Satisfied, he gently moved Corso’s palm beneath
the warm trickle. Again Corso groaned. Downs scowled as he turned the
hand over and washed off the back.

“This is a—” he began.
“You’ve been shot.”

“Nice to see a Harvard education paying
dividends,” Corso said through gritted teeth.

Despite himself, Downs managed a weak smile.

“Fix it,” Corso said.

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital,”
Downs declared.

Corso shook his head. “I can’t go to a
hospital. They’ll report it as a gunshot wound. You’re
going to have to fix it for me.”

“The hand is a maze of nerves,” Downs said.
“There’s no way I can possibly—” He looked
around. “In a setting like this—”

Corso got nose to nose with him. “You’re
going to have to do the best you can.”

“Your hand will never function properly
again.”

“That’s a chance I’ll have to
take.”

Downs broke the stare-down, stepped out into the hall,
and ran a hand through his hair. “Did this…is this about
my father’s death?”

“Yes,” Corso said.

“Do you know who—”

“I’ve got an idea,” Corso said.

Downs thought it over for a moment. Corso imagined him
weighing his obligations against his medical license. Then, without a
word, he took Corso’s hand again and ran it beneath the warm
stream of water until it was free of blood, took a washcloth, doubled
it over the exit wound in the palm, and then did the same for the
back.

“Stay still,” he said to Corso. “This
is going to hurt for a minute.” He took a hand towel and twirled
it into a tightrope, then slipped the middle beneath Corso’s
hand. “Hang on,” he whispered, as he tied the towel around
the hand as tightly as he was able. Corso’s vision went white for
a moment. When his knees buckled, he braced himself against the
sink.

Downs put an arm around Corso’s waist and led him
over to the small sofa by the window. “Take off your
coat,” he said, and helped Corso remove the jacket. He gently
pushed Corso’s head back and inspected the oozing line of purple
flesh encircling his neck. “Nasty,” he muttered to
himself.

Corso didn’t seem to hear.

“Is there an all-night drugstore in the
city?”

“Bartell’s on Broadway,” Corso
croaked.

“How do I get there?”

Corso gave him directions. “I’ll be
back,” Downs said.

Corso waited until he was sure Robert Downs was gone
and then retrieved his jacket from the floor. He put the two wallets on
the bed and went through them. Pair of Florida driver’s
licenses: Gerardo Limón and Ramón Javier. Cubans, Corso
guessed: Limón with a Miami address, Javier from Boca Raton. He
dropped the licenses onto the couch and sat for a moment with his head
thrown back, trying to muster his strength.

He felt nauseated and unsteady on his feet as he made
his way to the closet and pulled open the door. On the shelf above the
ironing board, he found what he was looking for, the extra pillow. He
carried it back to the couch, where, using his good hand and his feet,
he managed to remove the cover.

He rested again and then fished the keys to the
Mercedes from his pants pocket and dropped them into the pillowcase,
followed by the wallets and the licenses. He crossed to the desk,
hefted a large glass ashtray, and returned to the couch, where he added
the prize to the pile in the sack.

He tied a knot in the pillowcase and carried it over to
the curtain covering the west wall. He found the cord and pulled until
the sliding glass door was exposed. It was one of those fake
balconies; little more than a railing to keep guests from falling into
Puget Sound. As he leaned against the wall, gathering himself, he
remembered the famous picture of the Beatles, fishing out of a window
in this very hotel, back in the sixties. During the last remodel,
they’d added the faux balconies and banned angling.

When his stomach settled down, he popped the lock and
slid the door open. He could hear the lap of waves under the hotel and
the shrill cries of gulls. His nostrils caught the smells of creosote
and salt water. His mouth hung open as he leaned against the rail,
twirled the bundle in the air, and let fly. The pillowcase hit the
water, floated for a moment, and then quickly disappeared beneath the
waves.

The strain sent his senses ajar again. He reeled across
the room and threw himself on the couch. Next thing he knew, he was
dreaming of flying. Just holding his arms out and being borne above the
branches by a spring wind. Of soaring and gamboling in the sky,
beneath a bright yellow sun.

When he opened his eyes again, Robert Downs was
kneeling by his side, opening a blue-and-white box of gauze.
“You passed out,” Downs said.

“Yeah,” was all Corso could manage.

“Probably for the best. It let me stitch you up
without you twitching on me.”

Corso looked down at his hand. The jagged hole in his
palm had been drawn together by half a dozen black stitches. Same thing
on the back.

“In about a week, take a pair of nail scissors to
the knots and then pull out all the pieces,” Downs said. He
looked into Corso’s eyes, trying to get a read on him.
“Okay?” he said.

“Yeah.”

Downs took Corso’s hand in his and began to wrap
it with gauze. By the time the gauze ran out, the hand looked like that
of a boxer, ready for the ring. Downs secured the end with a piece of
tape and looked up at Corso.

“I’m going to call the airlines and change
my flight,” he said.

Corso swallowed several times. “Go back to
Boston,” he said finally.

“There must be something I can
do….”

Corso reached out and grabbed the young man by the
shoulder, squeezing hard.

“Go home. Go back to your girlfriend. Get
married. There’s nothing you can do here except get in the
way.”

“Are you—?”

“I’m sure.”

Robert Downs searched Corso’s face and then
reached into the white plastic bag that lay on the floor by his side.
He pulled out a plastic prescription bottle and placed it on the table
next to Corso; then he got to his feet and walked into the
bathroom.

Corso heard the water running. In a minute Downs
reappeared, carrying a glass of water, which he set down next to the
prescription. “You take two of these, three times a day,”
he said, shaking a trio of orange capsules out into his palm.
“For infection. Make sure you take them until they’re
gone.”

The plastic pills stuck in Corso’s mouth like
stones; it took the whole glass of water to wash them down. Corso
lifted his bandaged hand toward his throat, winced, and returned it to
his lap.

“I cleaned the throat laceration,” Downs
said. “There might be a little permanent scarring, I can’t
tell. It’ll be all right, but there’s nothing I can do
about the short-term cosmetics.”

Corso whispered his thanks and got to his feet, at
which moment he realized he wasn’t wearing trousers. He looked
around the room and found them hanging over the heater, crossed the
room gingerly, making no sudden moves. Took him about twice as long as
usual to get his pants on, and he probably would never have gotten the
belt hitched if Downs hadn’t taken pity on him and lent a hand.
Corso sat on the edge of the bed. “Could you spare a pair of
socks?” he said.

Downs furrowed his brow and said, “Sure.”
After maybe thirty seconds of messing with his suitcase, he came up
with a rolled pair of athletic socks. “Clean,” he
announced, pulling the socks apart and dropping them in Corso’s
lap.

The socks were easier than the pants, his shoes easier
still. Corso looked down over the front of himself. The once
forest-green polo shirt was streaked with blood and littered with bits
of wood and straw. Corso eased it over his head and dropped it on the
floor. He smirked at Robert Downs. “Sooner or later, it was bound
to happen,” he said.

Downs looked confused. “What’s that, Mr.
Corso?”

“Somebody was gonna want the shirt off your
back.”

The younger man looked down at himself. “You mean
this?” He fingered the turtleneck. “My shirt?”

“The very same,” Corso said.

“It’s not clean. I’ve worn it a
couple of—”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Downs shrugged and pulled the shirt over his head. He
started to hand it to Corso, changed his mind, and took it back.
Pulling the sleeves right side out, he rolled the neck down and put it
over Corso’s head. Getting his left hand the length of the sleeve
left Corso panting. The sleeves were a couple of inches short, but
otherwise the shirt fit fine.

Robert Downs adjusted the turtleneck and then stepped
back to admire his handiwork. “For a guy who’s been shot
and strangled in the same night, you don’t look half bad,”
he announced.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,”
Corso said.

Downs helped Corso into his jacket, then went around
brushing and picking the coat free of debris. “You’re going
home, right?”

“I’d hate to have to lie to my
doctor,” Corso said, patting himself down. He found his other
sock in the outside pocket and dropped it to the floor on top of his
shirt. In one inside pocket, he found the pages from Accounts Payable,
soaked nearly through, but readable. From the other inside pocket he
pulled his phone. He wiped the damp plastic on the side of the coat and
pushed the power button with his thumb. It worked. He started to
switch hands, thought better of it, and set the phone on the bed
before he dialed.

“Send a cab to the Edgewater Hotel,” he
said. He turned to Robert Downs. “Thanks for taking care of
me.”

Downs shrugged. “Makes us even, I
guess.”

Corso grudgingly nodded.

“You should get some rest,” Downs said.

Corso almost smiled. “Thank you,
doctor.”

“I’m serious.”