Do No Harm

Saliva flew from Clyde's lips as he spoke. "Don't you talk! Don't you talk to me. You're weak. You're what weakness is. I'm in charge here. I'm in charge of you."

Clyde took a step forward and swept the desk with his arm. Scopes, pens, and papers fell to the floor. The lamp dangled off the side of the desk from its cord, throwing light erratically around the room as it spun.

Peter felt along the desktop for something to grab-a pen, a letter opener-but there was nothing within reach. His eyes flicked across the desktop. The stun gun had caught beside the metal knob. Peter couldn't reach for it; it would be too obvious.

"What do you want?" Peter asked.

Clyde pulled a phone from the wall-mounted unit and punched in a number. Peter took advantage of Clyde's distraction to rest his hand over the stun gun and slide it slowly off the desktop into his lap.

The cord uncoiling across his chest, Clyde pushed the phone at Peter. "Here. You tell David Spier I'm gonna kill you right now. You tell him I know he's in with the cops to get me, so he better come down here alone if he wants to stop me."

Peter took the phone with his left hand, holding the stun gun in his lap with his right. Clyde leaned in close, pistol pointed at Peter's head. If Peter raised the stun gun from its hiding place, Clyde could shoot him instantly. Peter wouldn't even have a chance to aim.

Peter offered the phone back to Clyde. "It's the answering machine."

"We're gonna leave him a special message, then," Clyde said, pushing the phone back in Peter's face.

Peter felt the cold barrel pressed hard against his forehead.

"Make some noise," Clyde said. "Into the phone."

Peter's lips started to tremble, but he pressed them together, not wanting to show Clyde his fright.

Clyde cocked the pistol.

"All right," Peter said. His tone was hard, colored with more anger than fear. "Let me stand up. I'm not going to die sitting down."

"I'm gonna hurt you hard. And David Spier's gonna hear it all when he gets home."

Peter held the phone away from his head. "I'll leave your… noises in a minute." He turned his head and looked up past the pistol into Clyde's dead eyes, tightening his grip on the stun gun. He spoke slowly and adamantly. "But you let me stand up first."

Clyde studied him, then his chin dipped slightly. "You make one bad move, you won't have time to leave your farewell message." Clyde stepped closer, standing almost on top of him.

Peter pushed his chair out from the desk, but Clyde kept the pistol planted on his forehead. Still no opportunity to wield the stun gun. He couldn't move it much past his crotch without Clyde noticing and probably shooting him.

Pulling a lever beneath the seat cushion, Peter locked the wheels so the chair wouldn't roll out from under him. He leaned over and locked first his left brace, then his right, so they would support his weight. With a slight groan, he fisted the metal knob on the desktop and pulled himself up out of the chair and onto his reinforced legs. His left pant leg was still hiked up high over the knee from when he'd rubbed his ankle.

He released the knob, standing on his own. The gun barrel slid a bit on his sweat-moist forehead. He felt breathless, as though he'd had the wind knocked out of him. He leaned slightly to his left, bringing the metal of his ankle into contact with Clyde's thin scrub bottoms. He eased his calf over until he felt the press of Clyde's leg. Clyde did not pull away.

Peter turned into the pistol, looking past it again into the slick, depthless eyes. With excruciating slowness, he moved the stun gun over and touched it to the inside of the metal thigh band of his left brace. His thumb hovering over the power switch, he braced himself for the pain and prepared to duck.

"All right," Peter said brusquely. "I'm ready now."

Chapter 75

DAVID flew up Lincoln, narrowly missing a collision with a banged-up Pontiac, and floored it, screeching right on Wilshire and heading toward Peter's office. He was shouting into the mike and trying to listen to the earpiece simultaneously, which made both efforts ineffective. A blast of noise erupted through the earpiece, causing him to jerk back his head, then the unit went dead. What could have done that to the digital transmitter?

Concern did him little good, so he tried to think clearly and pragmatically. From what he had overheard, he knew Peter was in trouble, that Clyde had been planning on harming him to frighten David. The cops would arrive at Peter's building soon-maybe they even had by now-but David had to get there as quickly as possible. In the likely event of a standoff, he was certain Clyde would demand to talk to him.

The carpet cleaning van caught up to him after a few blocks but fell back again, and he lost sight of it when he ran the red at Federal. He spoke continuously into his mike, updating the cops on his location.