More Deaths Than One (27 page)

Three people stood in the elevator when they
entered. By the time it reached the main floor, four more had
joined them. Bob waited until he and Kerry left the building before
responding.

“I appreciate your letting me use your
address.”

“I wanted to make sure you got Harrison’s
papers.” She stopped short and had to run a few steps to catch up
to him. “Harrison’s papers! That’s what those guys were looking for
at your boardinghouse.”

“You could be right.”

She elbowed him. “‘Could be’? All I get is
‘could be’? No ‘That’s a brilliant deduction, Kerry’? Or what about
‘I don’t know what I’d ever do without you, Kerry’?”

“I don’t know what I’d ever do without you,
Kerry,” Bob said.

A blare of horns drowned out the quietly
spoken words, but she must have understood because he saw her nod
in satisfaction.

A taxi pulled out of traffic and discharged a
young couple. Bob and Kerry dashed for the vehicle. Climbing
inside, Bob gave the address for O’Riley’s Bar.

***

Bob stood under the green domed canopy, a
hand on the brass doorknob. He tried to peer in through the
diamond-shaped stained glass window, but all he could see were
vague shadows.

“What’s wrong?” Kerry asked.

He felt the itchiness between his shoulder
blades. It was as if an ant had crawled under his skin and was now
trying to find its way out.

“I don’t know.” He released the knob. “Let’s
find a telephone.”

They passed three phones. By the time they
reached the fourth one, a few blocks away from the bar, the
itchiness had abated somewhat.

A female with a young-sounding voice answered
the call. Bob asked to speak to Hamburger Dan.

A minute later Hamburger Dan picked up the
phone. “Yes?”

“This is—” Bob paused, trying to remember the
name he’d given in the bar.

“I know who you are,” Hamburger Dan said. “We
missed you yesterday. Jim Keating has been speaking of you. But
just you.”

“I understand.” Bob kept his voice even.
“We’re taking the train to the gulf, maybe stay at Bangphra for a
few days. I wanted to let you know I talked to Harrison’s lawyer.
He told me Kalia and Dave have the use of the brownstone while
they’re going to school. Harrison left the place to me, but I have
no interest in it. They can stay as long as they wish.”

“That’s good of you. I’ll let them know.” A
significant pause. “Take care.”

“I will. And thanks.”

“Why are you thanking him?” Kerry asked when
he hung up. “You’re the one giving away a fortune in real
estate.”

“Lending, not giving. And I thanked him for
the warning.”

“Warning?” Her voice rose. “What
warning?”

“A guy I know told those men with the cop’s
eyes that I’m here, but at least he didn’t mention you.”

“So we’re not going to the gulf? You said
that for the benefit of the people who tapped his phone?”

“Exactly.” Bob looked around for a cab. “As
soon as we get a taxi, we’ll be heading for the airport to catch a
plane to Manila, then back to Colorado before they figure out where
we are.”

At that moment, it started to rain.

***

The monsoon delayed their flight. It was
still raining when they finally landed in Manila six hours
later.

The taxi inched its way through the crowds of
people spilling over into the narrow muddy street in a part of
Manila tourists generally did not see. Bob stared out the window at
the makeshift shacks. The stench burned the lining of his nose.

Hearing Kerry gag, he turned his head toward
her. She had a hand to her mouth, and she breathed shallowly.

“How can people live like this?” she
said.

“Maybe they have no choice.”

“Isn’t this the country where the first lady
had five thousand pairs of shoes?”

“Yes.”

“I guess all countries are alike. The public
servants are better off than the public they serve.”

Smothering another gag, she clamped her mouth
shut and held it shut until the taxi pulled up in front of a long,
low building that seemed well built. In the rain it looked as gray
and as dreary as its surroundings.

After Bob paid the fare, he held out three
fifty-dollar bills.

A look of longing crossed the cabdriver’s
face.

“They’re yours if you wait for us,” Bob
said.

The man snatched at the bills, but Bob held
them out of reach.

“One now, the other two when we’re
finished.”

The cabdriver nodded eagerly, never taking
his eyes off the money.

Bob handed him one bill, then folded the
other two and put them in his shirt pocket. “These are for
later.”

“How long I wait?”

“Thirty minutes. No longer than an hour.”

“Okay.”

Bob climbed out of the cab, opened an
umbrella, and offered Kerry a hand. He slammed the door shut. The
cab driver pulled away.

“Hey,” Kerry yelled.

The cabdriver waved an index finger. “I come
back one hour.”

Huddling under the umbrella, Kerry asked in a
small voice, “Do you think he’ll come back?”

“Yes,” Bob responded, hoping he sounded more
certain than he felt.

To his surprise, she laughed. “You don’t lie
very well, do you? At least not to me. I like that in a man.” She
linked arms with him. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

***

Dr. Brewer looked about fifty. He had a
sallow, heavily lined face and wiry gray hair. Dark-framed
eyeglasses kept sliding down his ski-slope nose. He didn’t act
friendly, but once he got to talking, he was open and effusive
about his work.

In the clinic’s business office, Bob and
Kerry sat on a faded red couch. Springs and wisps of horsehair
protruded from a fist-sized hole between them. Bob heard a rustle
in the hole, and he expected to see a rodent head come popping out
at any moment.

Kerry seemed unaware of the sound; she was
still struggling to breathe. The overpowering stench of
industrial-strength disinfectant made the air inside worse than the
air outside.

Bob tried to look interested as Dr. Brewer
droned on about the success of the clinic and his plans for
expansion.

When the doctor paused, Bob said, “You’re
doing a wonderful thing here, but to be honest, we wish to speak
about your work at the private trauma hospital operating outside of
Quezon City during the Vietnam War.”

Dr. Brewer stared at him for a long time as
if taking his measure. Finally, he sighed.

“You’re the second person to ask me about
that in the past few months.”

“Who else asked?” When Dr. Brewer didn’t
respond, Bob asked, “Was it William Harrison, the writer?”

“Why, yes. How did you know?”

“He passed away, and I’ve been hired by the
estate to finish his last book, which touches on the works of that
hospital.”

“I’m sorry to hear he’s dead—he was a
personable fellow—but I would just as soon his project died with
him.”

“Why?” Kerry demanded. “Don’t people have the
right to know about the human experimentation you did?”

“Human experimentation?” Dr. Brewer took off
his glasses, polished them with a corner of his handkerchief, then
put them back on. “Trauma care, especially during war time, does
tend to be cutting edge—I suppose some may call it experimental—but
I assure you, every single procedure was safe and precedented.”

“How did you get a job at the hospital?” Bob
asked. “You must have been very young.”

“I was young. I had finished my residency at
Boston Memorial when I received an invitation to apply for a
position at a new hospital associated with the military but neither
owned nor controlled by it. The successful applicants would have
all the benefits of being a military doctor, meaning a lifetime of
experience in a few short years, together with all the benefits of
working in a well-equipped civilian hospital. Also, pay would be
generous, and for every year of service, a large chunk of our
student loans would be paid off.

“It sounded like a dream come true. Most of
the doctors I had gone to school with started out idealistic,
wanting to help humanity, but by the time they got to their
internships, they were so sick of being poor, they wanted as much
money as they could get their hands on.”

Dr. Brewer laughed, gesturing to his shabby
office. “As you can see, poverty doesn’t bother me, but being in
debt does. Also, I never lost my desire to help people. I was
thrilled when Dr. Rutledge hired me to work at his hospital.”

He looked from Bob to Kerry, his brown eyes
serious. “No matter what else ISI might have done, they did one
very good thing. They brought me here. This is where I was always
meant to be—these people need me.

“By the time the Americans pulled out of
Vietnam, making that private hospital redundant, my school loans
had been paid off, and I had saved enough to get this clinic
started. Dr. Rutledge arranged for a grant from ISI to keep it
going. Also, before he shipped the hospital’s equipment back to the
States, he let me have my pick. So you can see why I don’t believe
those people did anything unethical.”

“I understand,” Bob said noncommittally.
“What happened to the hospital?”

“ISI had leased a sugar plantation for the
duration of the war. We used the house for the hospital. It
reverted to its owners after the peace accords were signed.”

“This Dr. Rutledge you keep talking about,”
Bob said. “Is his name Jeremy by any chance?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“He’s a great man. A visionary.”

“What about Cerberus?” Kerry burst out.

Dr. Brewer pushed up his glasses with an
index finger. “Cerberus?”

“That’s the codename for the project
concerned with eradicating phantom pains.”

Dr. Brewer’s brows arched above his glasses.
“Is it? I didn’t know that. Of course, by the time I got involved,
it was an established procedure, well beyond the codename
stage.”

Kerry’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t deny
there was such a project?”

“No. Why should I? Saving patients years of
agony is a great advancement in medicine.”

“A great advancement? How can you say
that?”

“Look, Miss—what did you say your name was?
Alice Baker?”

Kerry nodded.

“Look, Miss Baker. I don’t have to justify a
damn thing. Have you ever seen a man driven crazy because of an
itch he couldn’t scratch? Have you ever heard a man scream in agony
because he has a cramp in a muscle that no longer exists? I have.
The relief of such pain is justification enough.”

“Did you perform the procedure?” Bob
asked.

“No. I created the pain by removing rotting
body parts and limbs mangled beyond repair. I’m glad someone could
keep them from suffering another horror on top of that one.”

“But they didn’t give their consent,” Kerry
protested.

“Did they give their consent to get drafted?
Did they give their consent to get blown up?”

Kerry raised her chin a notch, but her voice
sounded subdued. “I guess not.”

Dr. Brewer made a sweeping gesture over the
file-laden desk. “As you can see, my day doesn’t end when the
clinic closes.”

“I understand. Thank you for your time.” Bob
rose.

“One more thing,” the doctor said.

Bob settled back on the couch. “Yes?”

“When you write Harrison’s book, I’d
appreciate it if you left off any mention of the man in the locked
room.”

Chapter 24

The man in the locked room?

“Why don’t you want us to mention him?” Bob
asked, hiding his lack of knowledge behind a bland tone.

Dr. Brewer took off his glasses and rubbed
his eyes. “I was pleased when Harrison told me he planned to write
about what we accomplished back then, but toward the end of the
interview all his questions centered on that particular patient. I
was afraid he would make that patient the focus of the book. I’m
proud of the work we did and proud of the direction my life has
taken. I’d hate to see all that overshadowed by a mystery figure
when in truth there was no mystery, just a lot of rumors and myths
and fanciful stories.”

Bob sat straight and tried to act as if he
knew what the doctor meant. “How fanciful were these stories?”

Dr. Brewer scowled at the eyeglasses in his
hand, then repositioned them on his nose. “Oh, the foolishness of
gossip. They called him the Freak, the Switcher . . . no, not the
Switcher. The Sweeper? The Sweeper, that’s right. They also called
him The Human Chameleon, as if he were a comic book hero. It always
happens. Whenever access to a patient or a room is restricted, the
rumors fly.”

Kerry’s eyes were bright. “The Sweeper
lived!”

“This may not be the same sweeper,” Bob
pointed out.

“Of course it is. How many people with
chameleon-like abilities can there be?”

“At any rate,” Dr. Brewer said, “he didn’t
live long. The doctors at the hospital in Vietnam patched him up,
but he was in critical condition when I saw him.”

“Do you know his name?” Kerry asked.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” He sighed. “We
treated so many . . .”

After a moment he gave himself a shake. “Not
only had the poor man been severely wounded, but his ordeal had
been so great he was completely spent. He was awake a lot of the
time, he might even have been aware of his surroundings, but he was
non-responsive.

“I’m sure you’ve heard people say, ‘I was
wearied to death,’ when all they meant was they were tired, but
that patient truly was wearied to death. It seemed that any
exertion, no matter how trivial, would drive him right over the
edge.

“Eventually his physical wounds healed, but
not his mental ones. I recommended sending him to a stateside
psychiatric hospital, but Dr. Rutledge disagreed. He said the man
was a prisoner of his memories. Once the memories of his ordeal
were gone, he would be restored to mental health. So I did as
Rutledge instructed and transferred the patient to him in the
psychiatric ward.”