The Sandman (13 page)

Beauregard smiled and pulled out another bottle.

“Here we go,” he said. “One of my personal favorites … a Château Latour, 1964. They say the ‘59 is better, but I love the taste of this one. Perhaps we should take this one upstairs …”

Peter nodded, and Beauregard handed him the bottle, but suddenly there was a call from up above.

“Beau?”

It was Heather.

“Yes?”

“There is someone here to see you. He says it’s important.”

Beauregard smiled at Peter and shrugged. “Even tonight,” he said, patting Peter’s arm. “I wanted to show you the rest of the place … but why don’t you look around on your own. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Peter held the wine in his hands.

“Sure, Beau,” he said.

Beauregard smiled and left the room, and Peter heard his footsteps as he went up the steps.

He stood in the cool, dark room, trying to enjoy it as he had a minute ago, but something had changed. It didn’t seem as wonderful as when Beauregard had been there. No, it was empty without Beauregard … almost as if the room itself responded to the real aristocrat, but as soon as he left, the room knew that Peter was a fake. He began to feel uncomfortable; he put the wine back in its rack and went up the steps.

Then he saw Jimmy Myers walk by the kitchen door. He ducked back, felt the sweat on his neck. Jimmy Myers … the oscilloscope … he saw himself cutting the wires … He took a deep breath and finished climbing the steps to the kitchen. He looked into the room. No one there. Then he heard footsteps from the hallway and heard Mrs. O’Shea. He ducked back onto the top step, heard her walk by him, open the refrigerator, get something, then head back to the dining room. He entered the kitchen, saw a hallway to the left. He slid close to the wall and came upon a half-open door.

“You’re sure,” Beauregard said.

“Absolutely, Doc,” Jimmy said.

“Christ, Jimmy, don’t spill your Ho Ho’s all over the rug. Mrs. O’Shea will throw a fit.”

“Sorry, Doc. But that’s the lowdown. I checked the switch. It was broken all right, but the way it was broken showed it was still off. So there is no reason for anybody to tamper with the wires inside.”

“Unless,” Beauregard said, “they weren’t sure the switch was off, and the only way they could really be sure was to clip the wires. But that’s crazy. You know what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, Doc. I know exactly what I’m saying. Look, I’ve seen wires that wore out before. First of all, they get a kind of corroded look … you know, they are just too old. Well, this wire was new. Do you understand? There was no way for it to wear out. And what’s more, it was clipped. You don’t have to be an electronics expert to tell the difference between a clipped wire and a beat-up one. That’s just the way it is.”

“Yeah,” Beauregard said, “I understand that. But isn’t it perfectly possible that the wire was put in broken. You said yourself that it was off center … almost touching but not quite. So who’s to say that the wire wasn’t that way when we put it in. It was just a lemon.”

“The same thing occurred to me, Doc. Two days ago I had that bum Calvin testing these things out. He was supposed to go over every one of them, since we had that trouble with the ‘scope on the ninth floor.”

“So—did he check?”

“Well—I can’t reach him. His old lady says he’s out.” Jimmy laughed around the wad of gum in his mouth. “Out my ass—he’s probably too scared to come to the phone. Anyway, tomorrow is payday—he’ll be in—I can get the story then.”

“Seems to me if he tested it, he’d have picked up on the stuck knob.” Beau was frankly glad to have Calvin to blame instead of his staff. “I bet he never checked the damn thing and we lost a patient—there’s going to be lots of trouble, Jimmy. I’m not losing one of my best nurses because your assistant was too stoned or too stupid to do what you told him to.”

Jimmy stopped chomping and was silent, wrapping his mind around the implications of what would happen when he nailed down Calvin.

There was a silence, and Peter breathed a little better. There was nothing Myers could say to that.

“I don’t know, Doc,” Jimmy said. “This kind of thing happens, but the wires, that seems mighty strange to me. You might find one oscilloscope with one bad wire, but one with a bad wire and a bad switch … that’s almost impossible.”

Again there was a silence. Then Peter heard movement in the kitchen and quickly ducked into the bathroom. He locked himself in and stared at his face in the mirror. Amazing how relaxed he looked, how together. He knew the rest of the dinner was going to be anything but calm.

“Peter, you’re acting extremely childish.”

He looked down at her as they rode up Second Avenue. There were tears in her eyes, and he wanted to stop and hold her, but there was no way. He had been so damned happy … so ecstatic … He had thought for a while … Christ, it was pathetic really … thought that he was like everybody else—make clever conversation, enjoy the good food, drink good wine, be successful … but it wasn’t true. He was marked out now, changed utterly by what he had done. They were moving toward him, getting ready to nail him … Oh, they still acted friendly, still patted him on the back, but soon, soon they would start to hunt … unless he stopped completely … but there was no way to do that … He had the Space to answer to … and he was taking it out on her. He didn’t want to … He really didn’t … but he couldn’t help it …

“I got so sick of it all,” he said. “The fancy conversation, the fucking talk about Paris and Germany, the goddamned wine cellar. It was all so Upper East Side la-di-dah, and if that wasn’t bad enough, you seemed to be taken in by it.”

He pounded his hands on the steering wheel.

“But I don’t understand,” she said. “What you’re saying just doesn’t make sense. You seemed to be having fun too … until … I don’t know … until you came back from the wine cellar. Did you and Beau have a disagreement?”

“Beau?” he said. “It’s ‘Beau,’ is it? I love that … I really do. We go over there one night and you start calling him fucking Beau. It makes me sick. It really does. You were so sucked in by all that slick shit. I can’t believe it.”

“But he’s your friend. Come on, Peter. Tell me what happened between you. What is it?”

She tried to reach for him, but he smacked her hand away.

“You were flirting with him,” he said, surprising himself with the absurd allegation. “You like him, don’t you? Maybe you’d like to sleep with him … huh? You’ve had the lackey … Maybe you’d like to make it with the suave, debonair rich boss?”

“Peter?”

She began to cry for real now, and he looked out the window at miserable, corroding Second Avenue and it seemed the perfect reflection of his soul. How they had tricked him … Letting him have a taste of it and then pulling it all out from under him … He would never be safe … never … and never be taken in again.

“Peter,” she said, as they pulled up to her apartment, “I’m sorry you feel this way, but I never flirted with Dr. Beauregard. I just want you to know … that I love you. I do. I don’t like to see you like this. I feel like there is something wrong … something you’re not telling me … that’s making you take off at me like this.”

“No,” he said, “there isn’t anything. I’m just disgusted with myself for going along with all that crummy, phony, charming crap … and with you, too.”

She looked over at him, and the sight of her eyes and long blond hair pierced him; he felt it all the way to the bone.

“Peter,” she said, reaching over again. But he slapped her hand hard, and she got out of the car and ran up to the apartment house, crying.

He gunned the motor, tires squealing as he headed up the long, dark block.

Dios paced nervously up and down his office. He picked up the statue of the Su God that he kept with him at all times. The things he had been through with it. He felt dislocated, nervous, and when the door opened behind him, he jumped, nearly dropping the statue on the floor.

“Hey, pardner,” Harry Gardner said, “calm down.”

“Yeah,” Dios said, “calm down. You’re right, Harry. The truth of the matter is, I’m the one should be calm—you nervous.”

“Why’s that?” Harry said, sittting in the rocker across from Dios’s desk.

“They are gonna hang you if they find out,” Dios said.

“Find out what?” Harry said.

“Oh, come on, Harry,” Dios said. “At least three of the nurses I know say they saw you with June Boswell the night that lady died in CCU.”

“When?” Harry said. He walked toward Dios and snorted out his breath.

Dios reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of Rémy Martin, and poured them both a drink.

“What’s the story?” Harry said, accepting the glass from Dios.

“You should be tense because a couple of the nurses have been talking about you and June Boswell. There’s a rumor going around that you were with her. Though I don’t think it’s gotten back to Beauregard yet.”

“That’s a lie,” Harry said. But he drank the cognac quickly, then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and drew in a deep breath.

“Is it?” Dios said. “Tell me the truth, Harry. Were you with her that night—getting a little?” Dios liked to use these Yankee phrases. So descriptive.

“No,” Harry said. “Hey, what is this—the Spanish Inquisition?”

“No, Harry,” Dios said. “Just some talk among friends.”

Harry walked over to the desk, cracking his knuckles.

“Nervous, Harry?”

“No … well, yeah … You’re making me nervous. Hey, you’re the one who got all hot about Cross after that gomer died. I think you’re a goddamn paranoid—I think you got a thing about anesthesiologists.” Harry was trying to keep it light, but he sipped steadily at the drink.

“I don’t like Peter,” Dios said, running his hand over his huge ivory face. “I don’t like him, but he wasn’t seen up there, Harry; you were.”

“Yeah? Well, so maybe I was up there—and visiting June—so what?”

“Maybe you visited her for a while, then walked in and greased that Goldstein lady.”

Harry looked down at Dios and then reached across the desk and grabbed him by the lapels.

“Listen, you asshole, I don’t want to hear any more of this shit, you hear me. Or your ass will be back cutting sugarcane. You get me?”

He pushed Dios back hard in the chair and started out the door.

“I’d be careful,” Dios said in a monotone. “If I was you, Harry, I’d look out for my ass.”

“Hello, June?”

“Harry … Harry … I’m afraid.”

“It’s all right, baby. It’s all right. I’ve been keeping it cool for you. You aren’t going to get suspended. It’s okay.”

“I’ve got to face the board, Harry. They are going to be rough, Harry. They are going to ask me a lot of questions … you know that? Like what kind of sickness did I have?”

“You tell them you had the flu.”

“Why didn’t I tell them before?”

“It came on sudden. The stomach virus. It’s happening all over the Big Apple. No sweat.”

“But it’s not going to be easy, Harry. Beauregard was back over here. He questioned me again. There’s a problem. They talked to Yvonne again and asked her what hallway I was coming down when she saw me, and she said the north hall.”

“So?”

“Harry, the women’s room is on the south hall. What was I doing on the north hall? Harry … can you come over?”

“Ah, not right now, Junie. Got some work. But I’ll call tomorrow. I love you, June.”

“I love you, Harry.”

Harry hung up and turned to the tall girl with the black hair who was waiting for him at the bar.

“Back from the dead,” he said, smiling at her.

“Oh, Harry,” she said, “you’re such a card.”

Beauregard sat in his office holding the wire, while in front of him Jimmy Myers worked on his Tasty Pie.

“I don’t know,” Beauregard said. “Now that you’ve looked over the other machines, what have you found?”

Jimmy stuffed the Tasty Pie in his mouth and spoke while he chewed. “It’s like this,” he said. “The deal is, twenty of these ‘scopes came in about three months ago. I looked at every one of them, tested them out—two of them had bum switches. I sent them back. When they came back, we retested them—AOK—so when the ‘scope upstairs went out, I asked Calvin to check out the insides, just to make sure.”

“And did he?”

“Look, Doc. Calvin’s a little spacy, but he doesn’t bullshit. He says he checked them out—he opened up every machine we got back.”

“So how come the switch didn’t work?”

“I don’t know—sometimes they get stuck—sometimes you turn them in a hurry, you don’t move them just the right way—these are sensitive machines.”

Beauregard sighed deeply and tapped the wire on his desk. It was, the more he examined it, a pretty ragged clip mark.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “What you’re telling me is that somebody clipped that thing after Calvin checked these machines—sometime right before the CCU death.”

Jimmy wiped the strawberry filling from the Tasty Pie on his pants and picked at his teeth. Then he took a long swig of Yoo Hoo.

“Doc,” he said matter-of-factly, “this thing is … I seen wires that were cut and I seen ones that were broke. This one was cut. That’s all there is to it.”

“Jesus!” Beauregard said, “This is too much. Jesus Christ!”

He sat down and stared at the wire.

“The only thing we don’t know,” Jimmy said, “is why anybody would cut it. Who would want to murder that old lady?”

“Jimmy,” Beauregard said, “I’ve got to have time to think about this. So don’t say a word to anyone.”

Jimmy took a big hunk of pie and chewed with his mouth open.

“My mouth is full,” he said, laughing and dropping some crust on Beauregard’s floor.

The red light flashed on Beauregard’s phone. He stared at it for a second, rubbed his hand over his cheeks, and sighed. “Hello.”

The voice was a falsetto, both comical and hysterical.

“Dr. Beauuuuregard. This is Charles.”

“Charles who?”

“Charles—with Lauren Shaw. You know. I’m her personal assistant.

“Right, Charles. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Doctor. It’s Lauren. She just collapsed.”

Beauregard sucked in his breath. The minute he heard the words he knew he had secretly expected this call, and he cursed himself for not insisting she come into the hospital.