Creepers (23 page)

"Says you." Matthews leaned forward and fished a manila envelope from under a pile of papers and inched it toward Dolchik. "Take a look at this."

"Why don't you just tell me about it, Russ?" Stan sat down and sipped his bourbon. One thing about the mayor, he had a highly refined taste in liquor.

"This is a doctor's report on Ben Mason's health. Seems he's in the first stages of rheumatoid arthritis. And he didn't bother to tell anyone about it, even his wife."

"You sure?"

"My men asked his wife; she drew a blank," Matthews said proudly.

"Shit, and he isn't even cold yet." Dolchik took another revitalizing swig of the bourbon.

The mayor ignored the swipe. "We can play it two ways if the lie doesn't hold: his arthritis crippled him, or he was so distraught over having the disease he killed himself."

"And took nine others with him?" Stan shook his head. "No one would buy that crap."

"I'll see to it they do." Matthews pushed the folder aside. "Now, tell me about Frank Corelli. You have him in protective custody, I presume. The minute he hears what happened tonight, he'll know what really happened."

Dolchik immediately saw red. He slammed his drink down on the table, spilling some of the high-octane fuel on the desk's shiny surface. "Don't hand me that holier-than-thou shit, Russ. You know Corelli and the woman got away. It was your men who fucked up. If you'd listened to me, he'd be with us right now, helping us. Now nothing will get him to turn himself in, and I can't say I blame him. Hell, if I were Corelli, I'd already be at the Daily News."

"What are the chances of that really happening?" The mayor's cool facade crumbled.

"Corelli isn't crazy. Hell stay put...for a while."

The intercom on the desk buzzed and Matthews was informed that Detective Quinn was waiting outside. He had Quinn sent in, then leaned back in the chair, once again assuming his "benevolent-leader" pose. "Detective Quinn, come in, come in," Matthews invited amiably. "You know Captain Dolchik, I believe."

Quinn was so stunned to see Stan Dolchik, he merely nodded. As far as he knew, the captain was on vacation. And also as far as he knew, the captain was a loudmouth redneck who had no place sipping drinks in the cozy company of New York's mayor.

"Now, I'll get right to the point." The mayor's benevolent smile vanished. "I need to know where Frank Corelli is."

"How should I know that?" Quinn meant to sound offhand, but he sounded scared.

"Stan tells me that you're Corelli's best friend. And from my own experience, best friends tend to know where the other is most of the time. Am I wrong?"

Quinn shifted uneasily from foot to foot, but didn't answer.

"Quinn, this is important," Dolchik added. "Corelli's in trouble and we're trying to help."

Quinn knew Corelli was in trouble without being told so. Why else would he have asked for a safe place to stay with that woman for a couple of days? Frank hadn't had time to explain exactly what the trouble was, but from the worried sound of his voice, Quinn knew this wasn't kid stuff. So he'd turned over his nephew's apartment without question. But now, in the goddamned mayor's office, he began to sense just how deep was Frank's trouble. And unless he was wrong, he knew that the two men who waited impatiently for his reply to the question were the very men Corelli was running from.

"I don't know where Frank Corelli is, Captain," Quinn said finally.

"He called you earlier today. What'd he want?"

"He was just checking in," Quinn stuttered. Shit, they'd even monitored the office calls.

Dolchik sighed ominously. "I know how much you two boys like to play games, Detective Quinn, but right now I don't have the time or the patience to play hopscotch with you." Dolchik finished his drink. "Either you tell me where Corelli is right now, or not only will you never work for the city government again, but in ten minutes you'll find yourself in the Tombs without bail, awaiting trial for obstructing justice."

"Jesus, this ain't fair..." Quinn complained.

"Life ain't fair, Quinn." Dolchik leaped to his feet and pounded his fists on the tabletop. "Nothing in this fucking world is fair. But if you don't cooperate, you'll wish you never heard the name Frank Corelli. You've got one minute." He immediately gazed at his watch and waited.

The minute passed. "Okay, Quinn. Where is he?"

"Goddammit, he's at my nephew's place in the Village--628 Bank Street," Quinn spit out, hating himself for being such a coward. "And I hope like hell he's gone when your goons get there."

"That's a very admirable sentiment, Detective Quinn," Matthews said. "I know you feel you've betrayed your friend, but trust me; you're doing him--and the city of New York--a big favor."

Dolchik went over and put his arm around Quinn's shoulder. "He'll never know you told us," he promised.

Quinn shrugged Dolchik's arm off. "Who else could tell you? He'll know. Now, if you're through with me..." He started toward the door.

Matthews pressed a button on his desk, and two uniformed guards entered immediately. "Take Detective Quinn to the visitors' lounge and get him anything he wants." Quinn began to protest about being held against his will, but the mayor silenced him. "Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that there's too much at stake here to sacrifice in the name of camaraderie. As soon as we have a fix on Corelli, you'll be released." He nodded, and the guards escorted Quinn out.

The moment the door was closed, Matthews turned to Dolchik. "I want you to get Corelli personally. Bring him back here. I have to know how much he knows and if he's talked to anyone else."

"He'll be a good man for the team, Russ," Dolchik urged once again.

"He'll be better off out of sight in the Tombs," Matthews countered angrily. "Now, get going, and don't come back without him."

Like an all-night diner catering to those who feel the need for a bite to eat at three A.M., the morgue at New York Mercy Hospital was always open for business. In a hospital as large as Mercy, people died at all hours. It was the morgue's grim duty to store the cadavers until they were released to the undertakers or until it was time for them to be autopsied.

During the day at Mercy, a full-time attendant took care of human deliveries from various parts of the hospital. But at night when the great building slumbered, the dying were handled less officially; they were shunted downstairs by orderlies who, unused to the work, quickly dispatched their plastic-wrapped packages into the refrigerated storage lockers, then vanished back upstairs, glad once again to be with the living.

Washington "Bimbo" Calhoun was not overly fond of the dead; He'd worked in the ER--emergency room--long enough to have seen every manner of death the city could provide. He'd washed corpses, tucked dismembered limbs next to bodies before hauling them downstairs, and had even been present at an actual death or two. Bimbo, like everyone else in the hospital, had an automatic shutdown mechanism that slipped into gear each time something truly tragic--or something awfully grotesque and macabre--came his way. Living off emotions in a hospital was one sure way to line up for the next nervous breakdown. Bimbo Calhoun was tough as nails, except when it came to corpses.

Bimbo crept along the darkened hospital corridor with Corelli and Louise right behind. He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead. The morgue was tucked away in a far corner of the hospital basement, far from the mainstream traffic; it just wouldn't do to have visitors come face to face with a shroud-covered body as it disappeared into an elevator or around a corner. Even in the daylight the corridor to the morgue was foreboding. There was a different smell from the rest of the hospital down here; it was something visceral, something animal, maybe something to do with death and decay. Whatever it was, Bimbo didn't like it. And had it not been for the twenty bucks Corelli'd slipped him upstairs, there was no way he'd be down here at night, Willie Hoyte's personal request or not.

"Here's where you want," Bimbo whispered as they reached an unmarked door. "This is the office where they keep records--the stiffs are next door."

Corelli moved around Bimbo and turned the door handle; it was locked. He twisted it back once again to be sure, then turned to the orderly. "You have a key?"

"The chairman of the board musta forgot to give it to me," he joked to relieve the fear that was centering itself at the back of his neck.

"Is there an entrance into the office through the morgue?"

Bimbo nodded. "I'm 'fraid so. You go in. I'll just stay guard."

"You come with us. I don't want you to be seen down here." Corelli stepped back and pushed Bimbo ahead of them. He then linked arms with Louise and gave her a little squeeze. "You okay?"

"Ask me when I regain consciousness." She was beginning to wish she'd stayed in the Village. Spending a night in the morgue wasn't exactly her idea of an exciting way to celebrate the best sex she'd had in years. Far from it.

Corelli winked at her for being brave and followed Bimbo into the morgue. The cool, dank air immediately assailed his nostrils, and for a moment his stomach protested. Corelli knew that if he let himself go he could get bothered about being here, but there was no time for that, no time for squeamishness. The room was depressingly gloomy, and as Bimbo felt his way toward the connecting door to the records office, he bumped against something--it didn't take two guesses to know it was a corpse-laden gurney, apparently awaiting a late-night autopsy.

"Let me outta here," Bimbo screamed as he pushed past Corelli.

"Hold it, Calhoun!" Frank ordered, but it was too late. The orderly had already fled and was scampering out of sight down the hallway.

"Think hell tell?" Louise asked hopefully. If he did, they'd have to leave. Despite her earlier resolve to be strong, she was terrified. The very idea of being here in a roomful of dead people was enough to give her nightmares for a year.

"He'll keep his mouth shut. Don't worry." Corelli opened the connecting door and walked carefully into the records office. He turned on a small flashlight and shone its faint beam ahead of him, scouring the walls for the filing cabinet. After a moment he found what he was looking for and began to check the alphabetical listings for the name Slade, Ted. If he were lucky, it would still be there.

Louise hung back near the doorway, forcing herself to watch Frank rather than let her curiosity about the morgue get the best of her. But when she heard a slow, steady beat of water dripping into a sink from behind her, it conjured up images of autopsies and fresh blood sluicing down drains, dismemberment and organs lying in trays like variety meats at the A&P. She closed her eyes for a moment, forcing the sounds from her consciousness--if Frank didn't get on with it, she'd scream.

"Find anything?" she asked to shatter the silence. Her voice was weak and childlike.

"Not yet, but . . . Here it is! Come over here and hold the light."

Louise gladly deserted her post by the morgue door. She'd begun to hear other noises, and the image of the refrigerator doors being slowly opened by the dead just wouldn't leave her mind.

Corelli scanned the autopsy report. Most of the medical jargon was meaningless to him. The size and depth of Slade's wounds were no more than grotesque curiosities; the content of the stomach was merely disgusting; the lividity of the body only showed him how much blood had been lost at death. Corelli was looking for one fact; if that wasn't there, the whole trip--the whole idea of the creepers--was a bust.

"Here it is!" he exclaimed. "Jesus!" Reread, then reread the report to be sure he hadn't misunderstood. Corelli had asked Dr. Tom Geary if he'd done tests on the saliva found in Slade's wounds--and here were the results. It wasn't canine or lupine saliva that had been found in the wounds. It was human!

He replaced the folder and slid the cabinet door quietly closed. "Let's get out of here."

"There's someone coming," Louise whispered. As the doorknob to the office turned once, then twice, and a key was inserted in the lock, Corelli grabbed Louise by the arm and pulled her through the door back into the morgue. The unseen visitor was probably just a guard making his rounds; still, explaining their presence would be impossible. The door opened, and Corelli silently closed the door between the two offices and held his breath.

Louise backed away. She was terrified. She heard threatening sounds all around her. And the smell of chemicals was making her gag. What was she doing in such a place, anyway? She belonged away from here, out of the hospital, and away from death. She belonged at home...with Lisa. And with that thought came a new image--Lisa wrapped in a plastic shroud, lying cold and lifeless behind one of the refrigerator doors. Her little girl, chewed up by those things in the subway, dead. She'd thought it before but hadn't let herself give in to the terror. Now she was defenseless. Lisa dead. Stacked with strangers to await the pathologist's scalpel. Or worse yet, being in the hands of the things. That was the truth. Lisa was still in the subway. The monsters had her. And Corelli had known it all along! She'd been used and betrayed.

"No, no . . ." Louise started to whimper quietly as she edged away from Frank. "They can't do it to her, not to my Lisa. You lied to me, Frank, you knew all along . . ." She bit on her knuckles to silence the scream that was welling up in her throat.