Blood Test Read online

  The procession stopped.

  From that point on everything seemed to happen in fast-forward.

  The sky filled with thunder. Whirring blades and blinking lights assaulted the gathering dusk. A pair of helicopters circled overhead. From one of them boomed an amplified voice:

  “This is Agent Siegel of the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency. The shots were a warning. You are surrounded. Release Dr. Delaware and lie face down on the ground.”

  The message was repeated. Over and over.

  Graffius started screaming unintelligibly. The rest of the cultists stood rooted in place, looking up to the heavens, as baffled as primitives discovering a new god.

  The helicopters swooped low, rustling the trees.

  Agent Siegel continued to reiterate his command. The cultists didn’t comply—out of shock, not defiance.

  One of the helicopters aimed a high-intensity beacon on the group. The light was blinding. As the cultists shielded their eyes, the invasion began.

  Scores of men, flak-jacketed and wielding automatic weapons, converged on the grounds with the silent efficiency of soldier ants.

  One group of raiders materialized from beneath the viaduct. Seconds later another emerged from behind the main building transporting a downcast herd of shackled cultists. A third swept in from the fields and stormed the cathedral.

  I tried to break loose but Blackbeard and Snaggletooth held catatonically firm. Graffius pointed at me and jibbered like a monkey on speed. He ran over and raised his fist. I kicked out with my right foot and caught him hard in the center of kneecap. He yelped and did a one-legged rain dance. The big men looked at each other idiotically, unsure of how to react. Within seconds the decision had been taken out of their hands.

  We were surrounded. The raiders from the viaduct had formed a concentric ring around the circle of cultists. They were a mixed group—D.E.A. agents, state police, county sheriffs, and at least one L.A. detective whom I recognized—but functioned with the smoothness of a seasoned unit.

  A Hispanic officer with a Zapata mustache barked the order to lie down. This time compliance was immediate. The big men released my arms as if they were electrified. I stepped away and observed the action.

  The raiders made the cultists spread their legs and frisked them, two officers for every captive. Once searched, they were handcuffed, removed from the group one by one like beads pulled off a string, read their rights, and taken into custody at gunpoint.

  With the exception of Graffius, who was dragged away kicking and screaming, the men and women of the Touch offered no resistance. Numb with fear and disorientation, they submitted passively to police procedure and shambled off to captivity in a forlorn procession periodically spotlit by the circling helicopters.

  The heavy door to the main building swung open and disgorged another parade of captors and captives. The last to exit was Matthias, guarded by a phalanx of agents. He walked woodenly and his mouth worked frantically. From a distance it looked like one hell of a closing statement but the din from the copters blotted out the sound. Not that anyone was listening.

  I watched his departure and, when the grounds were still, became once more aware of the heat. I removed my jacket and tossed it to the side, and was unbuttoning my shirt when Milo came over in the company of a hatchet-faced man with a five o’clock shadow. The man wore a gray suit, white shirt, and dark tie under his flak jacket and walked with a military stride. This morning, I’d found him humorless but reassuringly thorough. The boss D.E.A. agent, Severin Fleming.

  “Great performance, Alex.” My friend patted my back.

  “Let me help you with that, Doctor,” said Fleming, untaping the Nagra body recorder from my chest. “I hope it wasn’t too uncomfortable.”

  “As a matter of fact it itched like crazy.”

  “Sorry about that. You must have sensitive skin.”

  “He’s a very sensitive guy, Sev.”

  Fleming conceded a smile and concentrated on checking the Nagra.

  “Everything looks in order,” he announced, returning the machine to its case. “Reception in the van was excellent—we got a first-rate copy. An attorney from Justice was sitting in and she’s of the opinion there’s plenty to work with. Once again, Doctor, thanks. Be seeing you, Milo.”

  He shook our hands, gave a small salute, and walked away, cradling the Nagra like a newborn.

  “Well,” said Milo, “You keep revealing new talents. Hollywood’s bound to be knocking on your door.”

  “Right,” I said, rubbing my chest. “Call my agent. We’ll take a meeting at the Polo Lounge.”

  He laughed and undid his flak jacket.

  “Feel like the Michelin tire man in this thing.”

  “You should be so cute.”

  We walked together toward the viaduct. The sky had darkened and quieted. Beyond the gates engines rumbled to a start. We stepped onto the bridge, treading on cool stone. Milo reached up, plucked a grape from the arbor, split it with his teeth, and swallowed.

  “You made a big difference, Alex,” he said. “Eventually they’d have gotten him on the drug thing. But it’s the murder rap that’ll put him away. Combine that with lowering the boom on Stinky Pants and I’d say it’s been a fine week for the good guys.”

  “Great,” I said wearily.

  Several yards later:

  “You okay, pal?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Thinking about the kid?”

  I stopped and looked at him.

  “Do you need to head back to L.A. right away?” I asked.

  He put a heavy arm around my shoulder, smiled and shook his head.

  “Getting back means diving into a mess of paperwork. It can wait.”

  27

  I STOOD at a distance and looked through the wall of plastic.

  The boy lay on the bed, still but awake. His mother sat by his side, rendered nearly anonymous by spacesuit, gloves, and mask. Her dark eyes wandered around the room, settling momentarily on his face, then upon the pages of the story book in her hands. He struggled upright, said something to her and she nodded and held a cup to his lips. Drinking exhausted him quickly; he fell back against the pillow.

  “Cute kid,” said Milo. “What did that doc say his chances are?”

  “He’s severely infected. But the I.V. is pumping in high-dose antibiotics and they feel it will eventually clear up. The original tumor has enlarged—it’s begun to press against the diaphragm, which isn’t good—but there’s no evidence of any new lesions. Chemotherapy will start tomorrow. Overall, the prognosis is still good.”

  He nodded and went into the nurses’ office.

  The boy was asleep, now. His mother kissed his forehead, drew the blankets around him, and looked at the book again. She flipped a few pages, put it down and began straightening the room. That done, she returned to sitting bedside, folded her hands in her lap, and remained motionless. Waiting.

  The two marshals emerged from the nurses’ office. The man was thick-waisted and middle-aged, the woman petite and dyed-blond. He looked at his watch and said “It’s time” to his partner. She walked over to the module and tapped on the plastic.

  Nona looked up.

  The woman said, “It’s time.”

  The girl hesitated, bent over the sleeping child and kissed him with sudden intensity. He called out and rolled over. The movement caused the I.V. pole to vibrate, the bottle to sway. She steadied it, stroked his hair.

  “Come on, honey,” said the female marshal.

  The girl stiffened, stumbled out of the module. She took off the mask and gloves and let the sterile suit fall around her ankles, revealing a jumpsuit underneath. On the back was stenciled PROPERTY SAN DIEGO COUNTY JAIL and a serial number. Her copper hair was drawn back in a ponytail. The golden hoops had been removed from her ears. Her face looked thinner and older, the cheekbones more pronounced, the eyes buried deeper. Jailhouse pallor had begun to dull the luster of her skin. She was beautiful, but d
amaged, like a day-old rose.

  They handcuffed her—gently, it seemed—and led her to the door. She passed by me and our eyes locked. The ebony irises seemed to moisten and melt. Then she hardened them, held her head high, and was gone.

  28

  I FOUND Raoul in his lab, staring at a computer screen on which were displayed columns of polynomials atop a multicolored bar graph. He’d mutter in Spanish, examine a page of printout, then turn to the keyboard and rapidly type a new set of numbers. With each additional bit of datum the height of the bars in the graph changed. The lab was airless and filled with acrid fumes. High-tech doodads clicked and buzzed in the background.

  I pulled up a stool next to him, sat and said hello.

  He acknowledged me with a downward twist of his mustache and continued to work with the computer. The bruises on his face had turned to purplish-green smudges.

  “You know,” he said.

  “Yes. She told me.”

  He typed, hitting the keyboard hard. The graph convulsed.

  “My ethics were no better than Valcroix’s. She came wiggling in here in a skintight dress and proved that.”

  I’d come to the lab with the intention of comforting him. There were things I could have said. That Nona had been turned into a weapon, an instrument of vengeance, abused and twisted until sex and rage were inexorably intertwined, then launched and aimed at a world of weak men like some kind of heat-seeking missile. That he’d made an error in judgment but it didn’t negate all the good he’d done. That there was more good work to be done. That time would heal.

  But the words would have rung hollow. He was a proud man who’d shed his pride before my eyes. I’d witnessed him ragged and half-crazed in a stinking cell, obsessively intent on finding his patient. His quest had been ignited by guilt, by the mistaken belief that his sin—ten lust-blinded minutes of Nona kneeling before him, ravenous—had caused the removal of the boy from treatment.

  Coming to see him had been a mistake. Whatever friendship we’d had was gone, and with it, any power I might have had to reassure.

  If salvation existed, he’d have to find it for himself.

  I placed my hand on his shoulder and wished him well. He shrugged and stared at the screen.

  I left him with his nose buried in a pile of data, cursing out loud at some arcane numerical discrepancy.

  I drove east on Sunset slowly, and thought about families. Milo had once told me that family disputes were a cop’s most dreaded calls, for they were the most likely to erupt in violence that was murderously sudden, stunningly intense. A good chunk of my life had been spent sorting out the scrambled communications, festering hostilities, and frozen affections that characterized families in turmoil.

  It was easy to believe that nothing worked. That blood ties strangled the soul.

  But I knew that a cop’s reality was skewed by the daily struggle against evil, that of the psychotherapist distorted by too many encounters with madness.

  There were families that worked, that nurtured and loved. Places in the heart where a soul could find refuge.

  Soon a beautiful woman would meet me on a tropical island. We’d talk about it.

  The End

  ATHENEUM New York 1986

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kellerman, Jonathan.

  Blood test.

  I. Title.

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  PS3561.E3865B5 1985 813’.54 85-20020

  ISBN 0-689-11634-9

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4516-0986-8

  Copyright © 1986 by Jonathan Kellerman

  All rights reserved

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Collier Macmillan Canada, Inc.

  Composition by Westchester Book Composition, Inc., Yorktown Heights, New York

  Manufactured by Fairfield Graphics, Fairfield, Pennsylvania

  Designed by Harry Ford

  First Edition

  As always, for Faye, Jesse, and Rachel, and welcoming Ilana