George paused. “Okay. But I assure you it was for the best.”
There was a long release of breath and then the voice said, “The situation is different now. You’ll have to be more careful. The police are going to start watching.”
“Watching what?” George asked. “The police force can’t guard every faggot in Manhattan . . . unless there’s something else.”
“Something else? I don’t understand.”
“I think you do,” George said. “Listen, I don’t care who you are. I don’t care why you want these people killed. It’s not my concern. But I need to know what the police are thinking. I need to know what the real connection is between the victims so that I can prepare properly. Otherwise, mistakes can be made.”
Silence.
“Can I assume,” George continued, “that these men have more in common than being gay?”
“They’re all patients at an AIDS clinic,” the voice said.
“So that explains why you told me to wear the mask and gloves.”
“Yes.”
“And Dr. Grey worked at this clinic?”
“Yes.”
“So let me get this straight: Trian, Whitherson, and Jenkins were all AIDS patients at a clinic operated by Bruce Grey?”
“Yes.”
“And the police know this?”
“They know most of it. The rest they’ll figure out.”
“So they may look into Grey’s suicide again.”
“They might.”
George thought for a moment. “I have an idea, but it’ll cost you.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll kill a couple of random faggots—”
“No!”
“Hear me out. I kill a couple of faggots who don’t have AIDS or aren’t being treated at this clinic. It’ll throw the cops off the track. Make it look even more like the work of a psychotic gay hater.”
“No!”
“Then I’ll change the way I kill the next few. I’ll make it look like an accident or, better yet, a suicide. If these guys have AIDS and are on death row anyway, a suicide might not be looked into too closely.”
“The police will be looking for something like that. You’ll never get away with it.”
“Worth a try.”
“No. I want you to use the same methods unless I say otherwise.”
George shrugged. “Your money.”
“And remember—the only people who are to be put to death are the ones I say.”
“Not put to death,” George said.
“Excuse me?”
“They’re not being ‘put to death,’ ” George continued. “They’re being murdered.”
“DO you eat here every day?” Sara asked.
“No,” Eric Blake replied. They both slid their trays along the hospital cafeteria girders. The room was packed with doctors, nurses, lab technicians—everyone dressed in white coats or blue hospital scrubs with the words “Property of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center—Removal from Premises Prohibited” emblazoned across the chest. Everyone looked exhausted, the men unshaven, the women baggy-eyed. Working forty hour shifts can do that to a person.
Sara looked down at the hospital pizza and frowned. “Eric?”
“Yes?”
“Is mozzarella cheese supposed to be green?”
“It’s one of the better items on the menu.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“I can order in Chinese, if you’d like.”
She shook her head. “Michael would kill me. He hasn’t eaten Chinese in two days and he’s already suffering withdrawal pains.”
“He always did love Chinese food.”
They found a table toward the back where the room was relatively quiet.
“How’s Michael feeling?” Eric asked. “I haven’t had a chance to check in on him today.”
“About the same,” Sara replied. “He’s taking a nap right now. I don’t know, Eric . . . he just doesn’t look right to me.”
“He’ll be fine.” Eric carefully opened his container of milk. While everyone around them drank directly from the carton, Eric poured the milk into a glass and then lifted it to his lips. “It’s kind of spooky seeing Michael here, though. Like a bad déjà vu.”
“What do you mean?”
“It reminds me of when we were kids,” he said. “Of when Michael’s stepfather beat him.”
Sara winced. “He doesn’t talk about it much.”
“I know. I don’t blame him. It was a bad time, Sara, best forgotten.”
She nodded slowly, picturing Michael as a helpless child in a hospital bed. A flush of anguish and anger rose in her. Her mind traveled back five years to the first time she had learned about Michael’s past, a few hours before she met him for the first time.
“I want you to interview Michael Silverman,” Larry Simmons, managing editor of the New York Herald, told her.
“The basketball player?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Why? Basketball is hardly my area of expertise.”
“I don’t want a story about basketball. I want a story about Michael Silverman, the man. Look, the NBA finals are on now and everyone is applauding Silverman’s skill on the court. But where did he come from? What made this Jewish kid from New Jersey become such a fantastic athlete?”
“Hasn’t this story been done before?”
“Others have tried. Others have even dug up some of Silverman’s tragic past.”
“Tragic past?”
“It’s all in the file. But I don’t want you to look at it right away. I want you to start by going directly to Silverman.”
“So why hasn’t the story been done before?”
“Because Silverman won’t talk to the press about his personal life. Ask him about a jump shot or a quick move to the basket and he’ll be as poetic as Proust. But ask him about his precollege years and forget it.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Get him to talk. Find out what he’s all about. Be honest and open with him. If that doesn’t work, be sneaky.”
She laughed. “And if all else fails, I’ll hit him over the head with my cane.”
“Now you’re talking.”
A half hour later she called Michael’s apartment in the city.