Criss Cross (Alex Cross #27)(58)

I climbed the stairs to the suite of Cana Medical Arts to find a handwritten sign on the door that said Clinic Hours 9:00 to 12:00 and 2:30 to 5:00, Monday through Friday.

It was ten minutes to two, forty minutes until the clinic reopened, but I was there, so I tried the doorknob. It turned and I stepped into an empty, dimly lit reception area.

The front desk was unmanned, and the area behind it equally dim. I was about to call out when I heard snoring from down the hallway.

I followed the sound of the snoring and reached an office lit by a single lamp sitting on a large wooden desk. Behind the desk, a heavyset man in a rumpled blue shirt and jeans was sleeping in his chair, bare feet up on the desk.

His toes were positioned right under the lamp, as if he’d put them there for warmth. Unfortunately, the light revealed toenails that were long, abnormally thick, and yellowish with dark streaks, as if they were infected with something fungal.

I curled a lip at that distasteful sight but got out my ID, walked in, sat in the chair opposite him, and knocked on his desk. He didn’t stir, so I knocked louder.

He woke mid-snort, flailed, and almost fell over backward, then he heaved his feet off the desk and lurched forward in his chair, looking befuddled. He had a jowly face, wrinkled, tobacco-colored skin, and bloodshot eyes and he appeared to be in his late sixties, though I knew for a fact he was only fifty-one.

The man’s eyes widened and focused on me. He leaned back in alarm. “What is this?” he said. “Who are you?”

“I’m a detective, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Dr. Julius Bombay got angry and started sputtering. “Will this never end? I have paid my fines and endured the penalties and indignities. Enough already!”

“I’m not here about you losing your license to perform surgery, Dr. Bombay,” I said. “I’m here about an old client of yours.”

The disgraced plastic surgeon’s entire demeanor changed. He quieted and studied me closely. “Who do you work for?” he asked. “I sense you’re not real law enforcement.”

“Try me. I’m here about Kyle Craig.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said, taking his eyes off me and opening a desk drawer.

“He knew you. He told me you gave him a whole new face. This was back when you were operating at night and under the radar to fund your gambling addiction.”

Dr. Bombay came up with a pistol and aimed it at my chest.





CHAPTER 74





I LOOKED AT THE PISTOL, a stout Remington 1911, probably .45 caliber. In the right hands, it was probably deadly.

But Dr. Bombay’s gun trembled like his voice when he said, “Whoever you are, get out! This is persecution!”

I put up my hands and stood. “I’m not looking to pin another illegal cut job on you, Doctor. I’m just looking for corroboration that you did give Kyle Craig a new face.”

He leaned across the desk and shook the gun at me. “Get out!”

“Calm down,” I said, starting to pivot. “I’m going.”

The instant I saw him begin to retract the weapon, I spun back and smashed the inner wrist of his gun hand so hard, he howled in pain. The pistol went flying and disappeared behind him with a clatter.

“Asshole,” he said. He looked miserably at his wrist, then up at me in alarm, and then he dropped behind the desk.

Knowing he was after the gun, I came around behind him, grabbed him by the shirt collar, and jerked him to his feet. I spun him around and drove my right fist into his solar plexus.

Dr. Bombay doubled over, his eyes bugging out, weird choking noises erupting from his throat. I guided him around into the chair I’d been sitting in, then went back behind the desk, found the gun, and unloaded it.

By the time I was done, he’d almost regained his breath.

“It’s an easy question, so I want an easy answer,” I said. “Did you give Kyle Craig a new face? The face of an FBI agent named Max Siegel?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe? Jesus, man, whoever you are, we didn’t use names. I didn’t want to know names. If I knew names, I could give them to people like you, so no names. Ever. Get it?”

I showed him the still shot from the jail-security footage. “You ever see him?”

Dr. Bombay leaned forward to look and then shook his head. “No. I mean, maybe, but I don’t remember much about their faces beforehand. It’s the after shot I always treasured.”

“What about an after shot? Is there one in your old files? I know the approximate date you would have operated on him.”

His eyebrows raised. “Well, that might have worked, actually. But all my old records were in a storage unit in Tampa until the last hurricane tore the place apart.”

“Dr. Bombay?”

A young woman with purple hair was standing in the doorway. She looked from me to the pistol and bullets on the desk to the doctor.

“Yes, Emma,” he said.

“Your patient is here.” He shifted his gaze to me. “As you’ve heard, duty calls.”

The doctor said this with such an air of resignation that I nodded.

He sighed, getting to his swollen bare feet. “Emma, where are my sandals?”

Emma glanced at his feet. Her nostrils flared in revulsion, but then she pointed at a corner and moved aside to let me leave.