He read the rest of the item—Ontario license number SYW 567; driven by Richard Gruber, 6’2”, light brown hair, age 23, weight 195 lbs. Wanted for kidnapping and assault. Bastard, he thought. Kidnapping. He rested his hungover head on the chair back. That license number seemed somehow familiar. Shit! He reached for his phone, moments later for his car keys, and was out of the door.

And so it was that one aficionado of sexy white cars and lively women met up with another—only these two, who should have been soul mates, ended up in a spirited battle in room sixteen of the Flying Fish Motel. Des had the back-up, however, and by Monday morning Rick was at the Miami airport, sullenly awaiting a free trip home.

When Sanders came in on that Monday morning, he found Dubinsky already hard at work. He looked up from the pile of things on his desk and nodded. “I heard about Saturday night. Sorry. I was at my niece’s wedding. I wouldn’t have been much use to you by the time they called, anyway.” He shrugged apologetically. “Did you figure out what happened?”

“Sort of. If you put everything together. It looks as if someone came out into the corridor outside room 526, all excited, saying that his daughter was screaming in pain and no one was answering the bell. He grabbed a nurse who happened to be passing by from another ward. She passed the message on to Miss Beatty’s relief, Mrs. O’Connor. She assumed that the first girl had gone in and looked at 526, and so she put in a call for the resident who ordered a standard dose of painkiller. Very simple. He obviously counted on the floor being slightly short-staffed because of the holiday. It’s harder to tell exactly what he had in mind from there, but someone had been camping out in the empty room across the hall. There were sandwich wrappers and some empty coffee containers in the garbage. And a couple of orderly’s outfits—one of them worn. I suppose they were going to try to take out the man on duty and get at her when she was unconscious. It’s a damned good thing the Griffiths girl is getting very suspicious of people in uniforms,” grunted Sanders as he headed for the door. “Anyway, let’s get out to the airport and meet our dear friend Mr. Gruber. We wouldn’t want him to be kept waiting.”

Sanders and Dubinsky faced a new Rick Gruber, stripped of whatever status he might have enjoyed, sitting on the wrong side of the table in the interview room. He was pale and bedraggled, but stubbornly defiant still.

“I had some time coming to me, that’s all. I was tired, so I took off for Florida.” He attempted a casual shrug of his shoulders and winced. Des had inflicted a few nasty bruises before he got finished. “So is that a crime? I mean, I should have gotten permission for leave, but that’s no reason to haul me back like a bloody fugitive.”

“You left in a hell of a hurry for someone who just thought he had a few days coming to him, Gruber,” said Dubinsky. “Not very convincing.”

Gruber looked at him with one raised eyebrow and said nothing.

Sanders brought his fist down on the table in front of him with a crash. “Get the hell off the pot, Gruber. Let’s stop playing games. The girl has identified you. That was a pretty stupid thing to do if you didn’t want to spend the next twenty years in maximum security. You know what they do to cops in there, Gruber? It’s not very nice. You don’t want to spend twenty years watching out for a knife in your back every time you turn around.”

“What girl?” said Gruber. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The girl you went off so nobly to help us find on Thursday morning, Gruber. The one who screamed as soon as she saw you again and ran like hell. Why do you suppose she screamed, Gruber?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Rick. “I suppose the poor kid was confused.”

“No—she was the one you were planning to murder, only she got away from you. You bungled it, Gruber, and you got caught.” Gruber looked at the ceiling, apparently fascinated by some non-existent pattern traced on its plain white surface. Sanders’ voice got lower and lower until it was almost a whisper. “She was awake, Gruber. All that time you were farting around figuring out how to finish her off, she was awake. And listening. Your little friend, Jimmy, gave you bad advice about putting people out. You didn’t give her enough, and she woke up. And so we know what you were going to do, only we don’t know why. And that’s what you’re going to tell us, Gruber. You’re going to tell us why, and you’re going to tell us the names of everyone else involved in this.” He stopped to let it sink in. Gruber continued to stare at the ceiling, apparently oblivious to his surroundings, happy to sit quietly and observe.

“I think maybe we should just leave him for a while to think about things, don’t you, John?” said Dubinsky, in a pleasant, reasonable tone of voice. “I mean, like he has to think up a story about where he got that car from, and all that fancy equipment in his expensive apartment. That might take him a while, don’t you think?” Sanders nodded, and Dubinsky went to the door and signaled to the constable waiting outside.

“We’ll be back,” said Sanders. “Soon. Think about what you’re going to tell us, Gruber. It had better be good.” He turned to the man coming in. “Give him some dinner. We wouldn’t want him to complain about the way we treat prisoners in here. We’ll be back in an hour.”

“You eating?” asked Dubinsky, as they headed for the collection of little fast-food stands and restaurants in the complex nearby.

“Not yet,” said Sanders, sliding into a quiet table. “Get me a coffee while you’re up there, will you?” He flipped him two quarters.

“I think,” said Dubinsky, when he had finished with his chow mein, “that he’s ready to do a deal, don’t you?”

“I’d say so. He knows we’ve got him and he’s worried. I hope he knows it, anyway. By the way, has anything come in on the Parsons woman today?”

“Kranik said that they were going to try to operate on her head again, maybe tomorrow morning. They’re surprised she’s still alive—think maybe if they get the crud out of her skull”—Sanders looked greenly at him—“bone chips and stuff like that, you know. Anyway, Kranik’s word, not mine.”

“Do you think she’ll regain consciousness?”

“Maybe. There’s a chance it’ll work, I guess.”

Half an hour later they were back in the little room. Gruber didn’t look as if dinner had improved him much.

“Let me put it this way, Gruber,” said Sanders, quiet and confidential. “We might be willing to believe that kidnapping the Griffiths girl wasn’t your idea in the first place. I mean, you’re probably not bright enough to have worked out a plan like that. And we have lots of evidence that you’re on the take, Gruber. You’re going to have trouble explaining all that money in your bank account, all those expensive toys in your apartment. Have you considered what we have on you? Kidnapping, attempted murder, accepting bribes, just to start with. But you’re a very small minnow, and we want the big fish, Gruber. Who is he?

What was the idea behind kidnapping the girl? Who’s Jimmy? We would like to talk to Jimmy, Gruber. We really would.” His voice trailed off. He smiled at Gruber.

There was a long pause. Gruber looked from Sanders to Dubinsky. “I want a new identity,” he said, suddenly. “And immunity from prosecution.”

“You won’t need a new identity if we catch the big fish. He won’t be around. And I doubt, somehow, that I could get immunity past the Crown. Not for a police officer. The public doesn’t like its police on the take. But I might get charges reduced. Maybe even enough to make you eligible for a provincial institution. You don’t want to go to a federal institution, do you?”

“Christ,” he muttered. “You guys don’t realize what could happen to me if I open my mouth.”