Steel Town

by Richard Whitten Barnes

  Grant knew all of that, had even helped her transform the old farmhouse into the little cottage she so loved. How could he callously expect her to pull up those deep roots and follow him to South Carolina? It was beyond understanding.

  She reached over to stroke Mort, turning her thoughts to other things—like the work she thrived on. It was what made her relevant. It validated her. Something else Grant Stacey couldn’t grasp.

  ~ * ~

  “You insisted on getting your money on time,” the voice on Dale Urban’s phone was saying. “I had no choice. You’re the one who said I should keep Teach at a distance. I had to send the new guy.”

  “The hell you did!” Urban was furious. “You come yourself in that case. I made it clear from that first day—you and that gorilla of yours are the only two people that know about me and our arrangement. You don’t send some punk kid around with a hundred eighty-five grand in cash, knocking on my door!”

  “I can control him, for chrissake,” Nick Savos argued. “I don’t like leavin’ this place unattended. He’ll have to be making the deliveries.”

  “Forget it,” Urban said. “I’m making other plans that don’t involve cash. I’ll fill you in later.”

  “Plans. What plans?”

  “We’ve talked too long on the phone. I’ll be in touch.” Urban disconnected.

  Since the incident with Mrs. Pearl finding the envelopes on the foyer floor, Urban had been arranging to transfer funds more securely. Systems like PayPal and other online banking services required too much documentation. He decided to use Bitcoin, the digital currency that trades like any other specie, but can be transferred through the internet as a payment without the use of a bank. If needed, it can be converted into hard currency through agents who specialize in doing it for a fee.

  He had returned that day from a trip to Michigan, setting the three distributors up with Bitcoin accounts and teaching them the basics. Urban had been familiar with the system since its earliest days in dealing with the Chinese, and he’d learned the trickiest part in using it was converting back to hard cash when needed. Urban trusted this would take care of the issue of the money having been stuffed through his mail slot, followed by that new kid being trusted with the deliveries. It was his first experience with Savos’ lack of good judgment. It was a sloppy mistake. Sloppiness would land you in jail.

  Twelve

  Eddie rolled over on the pillow and caught a whiff of his own stink in the bedding. Time for laundry and a shower. By the time he’d bathed and thrown the sheets—the old ones with the Buzz Lightyear print—on the bed, he was beginning to sag.

  It had been two days since his overdose. He found the package of Suboxone the EMT people had given him to fight the urge for oxy and slipped one under his tongue. Shortly the anxiety began to wane. It was never gone, but he could cope.

  Eddie had had lapses in the past while trying to kick the pills, but this time seemed different. He had a will to do it. Why? He kept coming back to one thing: his desire not to disappoint that bossy girl. She’d said she’d done it…gotten clean from more than just oxy.

  It wasn’t just that.

  No, he needed her approval.

  His phone buzzed, almost vibrating off the nightstand. “Yeah?”

  “Where are ya?” It was Savos.

  “At home, Nick, I’ve been…sick.”

  “Get your ass over here. I got an unscheduled trip for you.”

  ~ * ~

  Savos was on the phone when Eddie arrived. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he was saying. “But the motherfucker didn’t show like he said. I can control…” He glanced at Eddie. “…I can count on this guy, trust me.”

  He listened to whomever it was on the other end who was speaking loud enough for Eddie to hear.

  Savos persisted. “You got my say on this. I got nothin’ more to give you.” Another torrent of words ending in a disconnect.

  He set the phone down with a weary shake of the head. “I gotta be here for somethin’, so you gotta bring this here to that address you went to on the River.”

  Eddie watched Savos stuff what looked like ledger paper, lists of numbers, into a thin manila envelope.

  “The man insists on his own fucking copy,” Savos was muttering to himself. Then to Eddie he said, “Good news is you won’t be bringing cash back across the bridge no more.”

  To Eddie this was good news, for sure. The envelopes, fat with hundred dollar bills, were targets for an inquisitive border agent. He had never been pulled over but had seen other cars selected for random searches. The bad news was that it might mean he was out of a job, still owing the debt.

  ~ * ~

  The trip out Queen Street East was easier in the daylight on this Sunday morning. Eddie turned in onto the driveway looking for a name on the mailbox, but there was only the house number. The way opened onto a large lawn within the circular drive that he hadn’t noticed before.

  He was pulling to a stop when the front door burst open and that same kid he’d spoken to the last time came rushing out. He was followed close behind by the same man he’d seen before, dressed in a business suit, hair slicked back like he was ready to go somewhere.

  “Joey!” the man was shouting, “come here, you little prick! I’ll give you something to cry…” He stopped mid-sentence when he noticed Eddie’s car.

  The boy was having some sort of tantrum, rolling on the lawn and kicking with his heels on the turf. His small fists were tightly clenched. Tears rolled down his reddened cheeks. He was screaming something Eddie couldn’t make out.

  The man tried to grab him, but the boy wriggled free. He gave up and faced Eddie, just exiting his car. “He’ll get over it. Always does. You have something for me?”

  Eddie nodded, fetched the envelope. The man took it and retreated into the house, leaving the boy there on the lawn.

  As the father predicted, the boy was calming down. Eddie felt odd just leaving the boy like that and spoke.

  “Hey, Dude. Feeling better?”

  No answer, but the boy was breathing easier.

  “Joey, right? I’m Eddie. You all right out here Joey?”

  The boy wiped his face with his palms and spoke. “Uhh-eight-six T-aurus man.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “I like you.”

  “Same here, Joey. So, you like cars?”

  A weak smile developed across Joey’s face.

  “Me too,” Eddie encouraged. “I still have my Hot Wheels from when I was your age.”

  That brought a grin, and just as fast, a frown. “Twenty-three!”

  “What, you got twenty-three cars?”

  “Prime n-umber.”

  Eddie remembered what that was. Something from math class. “So?”

  “Doesn’t fit. L-ost one.”

  “A Hot Wheel?

  Joey’s fingers began to splay out and fist intermittently. “Tw-enty-three is n-no good.” He began to get upset again.

  Eddie empathized with the boy but wasn’t sure what was the matter. “Tell ya what, Joey. Maybe I get a chance to come back and bring you a car.”

  He could feel Joey’s eyes searching his face for—what—honesty?

  “Look, you okay now? I gotta go, or your pop will think I’m a perv.”

  Joey was still sitting in the grass, watching as Eddie steered his car around the circle and left.

  ~ * ~

  Andy was late arriving at the OPP Detachment on a Monday morning. A CN freight train of seemingly endless oil tankers had picked morning rush hour to lumber through town at five mph, cutting off any access to the town’s north side. She showed up to find Terry returning from the men’s room, clearly indicated by the morning Sault Star folded under his arm.

  “So how was your time spent at the Hub?” she asked, settling in at her desk.

  “And your date with the good doctor?” he countered.

  “You first.”

  “A bonanza, if you want to know.”

  She waited. />
  “At least two, both male, working the strollers and boat watchers. Together they must have made almost a dozen sells. I followed one of them back to a flat over an empty storefront on West Wellington. I asked the boss for a constable to stake it out for a day or two and see who comes and goes. Your turn.”

  Andy recounted Kevin Campbell’s lecture, promising Terry a typed copy of her notes.

  “Interesting, but does it help us find who’s supplying the stuff?”

  “Campbell says there are several sources for anyone determined enough to find any of the various forms of opioid but says there is a new source of fentanyl that has flooded the area. That’s got to be our target. We’ll never completely dry up the sources. We’d have to stop the sale of perfectly legal fentanyl.”

  “Legal?”

  “For instance, Campbell told me fentanyl is available in twenty-five to one hundred microgram time-release patches for pain relief and to help in kicking the habit.”

  “Like nicotine for smokers?”

  “Exactly. But users and small-time dealers will leach out the active ingredients.”

  “Microgram? Sounds like a lot of work for not much.”

  Andy grinned. “Those were my exact words. Opioids like hydrocodone, OxyContin and morphine have a street value of about one dollar per milligram. Fentanyl sells for right around a dollar per micro gram!”

  “Come on!’

  “Arnold, this is why it’s going to be hard to trace the stuff coming in to the city. It’s not like a transport comes here and dumps barrels of fentanyl off at a warehouse somewhere. Enough of the stuff can be shipped in an envelope to service the area for weeks. That is, after it’s been cut and re-pressed into phony pills that look like legal opiates.”

  “Someone’s got to have a clue where the stuff comes from, “Terry said.

  “The ‘good doctor,’ as you called him, says labs in China and Mexico, mostly. Ingenious methods—some of them bizarre—to get into the country have been largely successful.”

  Terry flipped his glasses to the top of his head and rubbed his eyes. “So, these pushers we’ve been following—”

  “No guarantee they lead to the big boys,” Andy said.

  “If the fentanyl is cut by the time the user sees it, we can find who does the cutting, but that’s all.”

  “That would be a good start,” Andy said.

  Terry sighed dramatically. “Back to the streets. I was thinking Cambrian Mall.”’

  “Sounds good as anywhere,” Andy said. “I’m taking another stroll down Hub Trail. Let’s get these guys.”

  Thirteen

  The gravel lot in front of Nick Savos’ shop was empty. It was the first time Eddie hadn’t seen either Teach’s blue pickup or Savos’ vintage Corvette parked there. At first, he thought Nick had forgotten about this morning, but he saw movement inside as he exited his car.

  “Where’s the ‘Vette?” Eddie asked his employer. The door banged closed behind him.

  “Gettin’ new shocks. Listen, I gotta use your car.”

  Eddie wasn’t sure he’d heard right. He’d taken abuse from both Teach and Savos about the “piece of crap” he drove. “Sure, I guess. You can’t use Teach’s truck?”

  “Teach ain’t around no more. Let it go at that.”

  “Okay.” Eddie reached for his keys. “I can make a delivery, if that’s what it is.”

  Savos held out his hand. “No good. I gotta go get some instructions first hand. You stay here and mind that phone. Don’t say nothing. Just take messages. Got that?”

  ~ * ~

  Dale Urban had had enough. Joey was getting increasingly obstinate, today refusing to go to school and fixating on something or other about his car collection. He’d given up and left the boy to his own devices, talking nonsense to himself and repeating meaningless phrases on end.

  Making matters worse, Urban expected Savos to show up at any minute. He was breaking his own rule of not having that thug at his home, but Savos needed to learn the basics of Bitcoin if he was going to manage the Michigan territory for him.

  Usually they’d meet briefly at some out of the way location, but Urban needed the use of his secretly hidden computer to give Savos a primer course on the currency.

  The front door chime sounded and the babble from Joey’s room abruptly stopped. Thank God. Now, if the little brat will just stay there! He opened the door and, not for the first time, wondered how he’d come to trust this hoodlum with his business. Savos stood there, filled out in his muscle shirt and Levis. His black hair was pulled back into a bun accentuating severe cheekbones and dead eyes on a pale, emotionless face. On his neck the head of a snake tattoo peeked up from under the tank top.

  “Good,” Urban said. “Let’s get started. This shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

  ~ * ~

  Eddie disconnected from only his fifth call in as many hours, having taken only one message. The other callers had eschewed talking to anyone but Savos himself, refusing even to leave a name. He heard the crunch of tires outside and saw his Chevy come to a stop through the dirty window.

  “Only one message,” he told Savos as the man strode into the store. “Some insurance guy. I left his name and number on your desk.”

  Savos was carrying a manila file folder and a small package. “Yeah, okay. Beat it for the rest of the day but come in tomorrow around nine. You gotta make another run over the bridge.

  ~ * ~

  Marly was returning from her shift just as Eddie was closing the garage door. Usually, she would get home well before he did, with that Savos guy typically making Eddie hang around all day. She walked back into the kitchen and waited for him to come up the back steps.

  She saw his face brighten when he saw her there. It gave her a good feeling. Since his overdose of the dope he’d gotten sick from, he was looking healthier than ever. It occurred to her that she felt an affection toward Eddie. A lesser person could not have come back from that episode as well, and certainly not stay clean as he was apparently doing.

  “You look good,” she said. He slipped into a chair and she sat across. It was a fact. Not only did he look more robust, he’d begun to pay more attention to his grooming. Was it for her benefit? If so, how did she feel about that?

  “Yeah. I’m okay.” He paused a moment before going on. “I had a lot of time to think today.”

  She waited for him to say what was clearly on his mind.

  He stared at the opposite wall for a time before speaking. “I can’t stay there. Nick may have someone bust my nuts for his money, but the guy’s a crook, and he’s going to jail someday. I don’t want to go too. I could take an ass-kicking, but I couldn’t handle jail.”

  “What are you going to do…just not show up?”

  “I dunno. Haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “If you’re going to do it, then don’t put it off.”

  He was surprised at this. She was the one who’d urged him to work off the debt. “Jesus, Marly. I’m scared.” He returned his gaze to her.

  “I know what I’d do. I’d call the cops.”

  “And tell them what? That I delivered drugs for him? I’d probably get arrested and he’d have some lawyer get him off.”

  Marly reached across, covering his arm with her hand. “If you don’t go to the police, you’re going to wind up in jail sooner or later.”

  Eddie fixed his attention on her hand, and she pulled it away. “Don’t—I mean…it felt good.”

  His transparency caused Marly to smile. “Oh, it does, does it? She started to kid him some more, but his attention jerked to the window next to the kitchen door. “What??”

  “Shh!”

  “Wh—”

  “Quiet! Someone’s out there,”

  Marly turned to look. He was right. The top of someone’s head ducked down under the sill. She rose from her chair to see better despite Eddie’s attempt to hold her back.

  Eddie had found a kitchen knife and was edging
toward the door.

  “Wait! Let me look.” Marly held her hand out like a traffic cop and crept to the window.

  “Who is it?” Eddie whispered.

  Marly relaxed at the sight of a figure sitting on the steps “You have a caller,” she said, opening the door. “Hello,” she greeted. “Come on in!”

  ~ * ~

  A week had passed since Andy attended the lecture at the Ministry of Health, so she was surprised when she was told a Kevin Campbell was waiting to speak with her on the land line.

  “Dr. Campbell?” she answered her phone.

  “Kevin will do just fine,” he said. “I got to thinking about you…um, your case…so I wondered if we shouldn’t discuss the situation a little further.”

  “So…what did we miss last week?”

  “The issue is a lot more complicated than I was able to delve into in the presentation. I thought perhaps lunch somewhere.”

  “Why, Doctor Campbell! I do believe you may have ulterior motives! You wouldn’t be hitting on a poor defenseless cop, would you?”

  “Caught me red-handed. But I wasn’t lying. There’s more to the crisis you should know about.”

  She wanted to say, for all you know, I’m married, but Terry had just walked into the room, taking his chair not ten feet away. “I guess that could be worked out. When?”

  “How about tomorrow?” He suggested a restaurant in a remodeled old house on Bruce St. that she knew was good.

  “All right,” she agreed. “Noon? I’ll be there.” She put the receiver down, noticing Terry’s eyes on her. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “That was Dr. Campbell, if you want to know. He’s got more background on the problem.”

  “Sure.”

  Andy wondered why she was so flustered. Terry hadn’t said, or even implied, a thing. Was it that she was still mad at Grant or the fact that Kevin Campbell was more than a little bit attractive? She was relieved when Terry changed the subject.