London Bridges

won’t be needing general anesthesia. As I said, I’m
ready.
So are you.”
    “Sir, you have no idea what you’re saying. None, I assure you. The procedures we have scheduled include a face, neck, and brow lift. Liposuction. Jaw and cheek implants. And a nose job. The pain will be unbearable. Trust me on that.”
    “No, it will be bearable. I’ve known much worse pain,” said the Wolf. “I will allow you only to monitor my vital statistics. There will be no more stupid discussion about anesthesia. Now, get me ready for the procedures. Or else.”
    “Or else
what?
” Dr. Levine bristled. The small woman rocked back on her heels.
    “Just
or else,
” answered the Wolf. “That covers a great deal of territory, don’t you think? It covers pain beyond what you believe I cannot endure. Can
you,
Dr. Levine? Can your two children, Martin and Amy, endure such pain? Or your husband, Jerrold? Let’s begin. I have a schedule to keep.”
    Always a schedule.
    And a plan.

Chapter 115
    HE NEVER ONCE SCREAMED, never made a sound during any of the grueling procedures, and neither the surgeon nor the nurse could comprehend what they were witnessing. The patient seemed to have no feeling at all. As males often do, he bled a great deal during the operations, and there was already a lot of deep purple bruising on his face. The pain he endured during the hour-and-a-half rhinoplasty, or nose job, was the worst by far, especially when large chunks of bone and cartilage were removed without even a topical anesthetic.
    At the conclusion of the rhinoplasty, the final procedure, he was told by Dr. Levine not to stand, but he did anyway.
    His neck felt tight and tender, and there was Betadine all over his scalp and throat. “Not bad,” he rasped. “I’ve experienced much worse.”
    “Do
not
blow your nose. For at least a week,” the doctor insisted, seemingly trying to maintain her dignity and a tenuous sense of control.
    The Wolf reached into his trousers and produced a handkerchief, but then put it back. “Just kidding,” he said, then frowned. “Do you have
any
sense of humor, Doctor?”
    “You can’t drive, either,” said the doctor. “That I will not allow. For the sake of
others.
”
    “No, of course not. I wouldn’t think of it, putting others in jeopardy. I’ll just leave my vehicle here on the street to be carjacked. Let me get your money. It’s become boring to be here with you.”
    It was then, as he walked to fetch his briefcase, that the Russian staggered slightly—and also got the first look at himself in a mirror, his incredibly bruised and swollen face, at least what showed around the bandages.
    “You do nice work,” he said, and laughed.
    He opened the briefcase and pulled out a Beretta with silencer. He shot the astonished nurse in the face, twice, then turned to Dr. Levine, who had hurt him so much.
    “Any other things I should or shouldn’t do?” he asked. “Any last bits of advice you wish to impart?”
    “My children. Please don’t kill me,” the doctor begged. “You know I have children.”
    “They’ll be better off without you. I think so, bitch. I bet they would agree.”
    He shot her through the heart.
A mercy killing,
he thought to himself, especially after the way she’d tortured him. Plus, he just didn’t like her, the humorless bitch.
    Finally, the Wolf left the office and walked to his Range Rover. He was thinking that no one knew what he looked like now. Not a single person anywhere.
    And that got him laughing, almost uncontrollably. This was
his
piece of the puzzle.

Chapter 116
    “THERE HE IS— has to be.”
    “He’s laughing! What’s so funny? Look at him. Can you believe it?”
    “He looks like he was scalped, then had his skin flayed,” Ned Mahoney said when the heavily bandaged man in a gray overcoat emerged from the brownstone. “He looks like a goddamn ghoul.”
    “Don’t underestimate him,” I reminded Ned. “And don’t forget, he
is
a ghoul.”
    We were watching the Wolf—at least, the man we believed to be the Wolf—as he left a plastic surgeon’s office on the East Side of Manhattan. We had just gotten there, less than sixty seconds before. Almost missed him again.
    “Don’t worry, I’m not underestimating him, Alex. That’s why we have half a dozen teams getting ready to pounce on him. If we’d gotten here sooner, we could have grabbed him inside the doctor’s office.”
    I nodded. “At least we’re here. It was a complicated