by Ray Garton
She almost looked cleaned up—at least, what passed for cleaned up for Phyllis. She was gaunt and pale, looked older than her years, and her clothes had come from a second-hand store, but she was coherent. She took him to an empty Burger King for lunch where they were waited on by grumpy teens upset about having to work on Christmas. She talked a mile a minute, told him how his brother and sisters were doing. She was constantly in motion, jittery and flighty, and he knew she was hungry for a hit. As soon as she dropped him off, she’d go straight for a needle. He didn’t care. He asked her about Ty Burke. Ty had been her pimp for awhile, and he’d been her dealer even longer. She didn’t think it at all strange that he would ask, mostly because she wasn’t thinking. She said Ty hung out in a hotel, the Merrimont, an old dinosaur of a place.
The evening of his eighteenth birthday, Gall packed his few belongings into a single bag, went to the Merrimont and found Ty, a small, bony black guy with a prosthetic leg from his right knee down. He was in his early forties but was so shriveled and malnourished he looked at least fifteen years older.
“I want to work for you,” Gall said.
Ty squinted at him as if they were in a fog. “Huh? What’d you say? Who’d you say you are?”
“I’m Victor Gall. Phyllis’s son. And I want to work for you. If you give me a place to stay until I can get some money together, I can start anytime. Right away, if you’d like.”
“What can you do?”
“Anything that needs doing.”
Within six months, Gall became Ty’s right hand man, but he kept out of sight. He managed Ty’s books, arranged payoffs to the cops, and arranged all the drops by phone. He hired others to deliver the money and the drugs. Gall never got his hands dirty and was never seen in public with Ty or any of the customers or other employees. He operated the entire business from top to bottom without ever being seen by any of the customers or cops.
Ty was already winding down by then, not as sharp as he’d once been, and he was grateful to Gall for overhauling his business and making it run so smoothly. It had never been as efficient or as profitable as it was under Gall. One day when it was just the two of them in the hotel room that Ty called his “office,” Ty had a heart attack. Chest pain, difficulty breathing, pain shooting down his left arm. He told Gall to call an ambulance. Gall sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Ty dropped from the chair he was sitting in to the floor, where he curled up in agony, gasping for air. Gall sat there watching till Ty stopped moving. He waited awhile, then checked his pulse, which had stopped. A few minutes later, he called an ambulance, then left the hotel before it arrived.
He took over Ty’s operation entirely after that, built it up, moved it out of the Merrimont and into a townhouse and improved the clientele considerably. He lived a rather frugal life while he invested his money conservatively and he never, ever tried the drugs. He’d seen the problems drugs caused among his housemates back in the foster homes. He had remained clean up to that point and intended to stay that way. No addiction, no arrests, no trouble at all.
In the nearly three and a half years he worked that business, he kept a sharp eye open for opportunity. If it were going to show itself, Gall suspected it would be in the clientele. So he kept track of them, learned all he could about them, and watched for anything he could use.
One of the clients was a man who called himself T.J. T.J was actually Thomas Janeway, a high-powered attorney and lobbyist, a mover and shaker in D.C. who had more connections than pores in his skin. Gall researched him, paid a P.I. to gather information about Janeway’s personal life, learned all he could. Then he made an appointment with Janeway one day, walked into his office in a nice suit, introduced himself, and told Janeway everything he knew about him. Gall smiled the entire time. Janeway did not.
“Who are you?” Janeway said when Gall was finished. “I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“No, you haven’t. I’m your dealer. I supply you with your cocaine, Mr. Janeway, and I can prove it.”
Janeway said nothing for a long, nervous moment. “What do you want? Money?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Gall said, still smiling. “But no. I don’t. All I want is your help. Sure, I want money, but I don’t want it from you. I want you to help me become the kind of man who can make his own money. I want you to set me up.”
“Set... set you up? Whuh... what does that mean?”
Gall’s smile fell away and he became very serious. “I’m very smart, I’m resourceful, and I’m eager, Mr. Janeway. With your connections, I could go places. And that’s what I want. Your connections.”
“Connections?”
“I’d like to start with an education. A good education. The kind of education you had. I’m thinking a master’s degree. Political science, maybe. I haven’t quite decided. You went to Loyola Marymount. You did very well there.”
“You-you-you... wait, wait,” Janeway said, holding up his hands, palms out. He closed his eyes for a moment, hands still raised. Then he took in a breath, lowered his hands, and looked at Gall. “You want me to... get you into Loyola?”
“For starters. You have strong connections there, you carry some weight. Shouldn’t be too hard for you to pull some strings. All I want is entree. I’ll do the heavy lifting. I intend to earn whatever degrees I get. Then, after that, I figure you could usher me into some good work. You’re very prominent in this town. A respected attorney, a lobbyist with a lot of important connections. Set me up with something that will provide plenty of opportunity for growth and advancement. That’s all. Beyond that, I’ll do all the work.”
Janeway laughed without smiling. “That’s all? That’s all?” He laughed some more, slowly turning his head back and forth. “What... what if I say no? What if I just tell you to get the hell out of my office and stay out of my sight?”
Gall smiled again. It was a big smile, pleasant and sincere. He said, “Then I ruin your life and you lose everything you have.”
After that, things just sort of fell into place.
Later, Gall worried that Janeway might decide to turn on him. He could hurt Gall’s chances of getting the kind of work he wanted and achieving the kind of position he hoped for by revealing information about Gall’s background to the wrong people. Even after Gall was in a solid position and poised to acquire greater success and more power, he remained concerned that Janeway would ruin it all. But that possibility disappeared when Janeway was killed during an armed robbery of his house.
Unfortunate.
3.
Gall picked up the phone and called Ed Smurl. He didn’t like Smurl, but that was irrelevant. It seemed they both believed in doing whatever was necessary to get what they wanted, and what they both wanted was for the Paaxone deal to succeed. The problem—well, one of the problems—was Smurl’s mouth. It had already caused an information leak that had to be plugged quickly—a nosy woman, Smurl’s loose-tongued wife, and a gossiping, cancer-ridden old weirdo. Smurl had agreed that he would deal with his wife and the old weirdo himself while Gall saw that the nosy woman was handled. But now... this.
When he heard Smurl’s voice on the phone, Gall said, “How’s your wife?”
“Delia? She’s... recovering. But she’s learned her lesson.”
“We have some trouble.”
“Trouble?” Smurl said. “What trouble?”
Gall told Smurl what he had learned.
A silence came over the phone. Then, finally, Gall said, “How did this happen?”
Smurl released a long sigh. “The reporter,” he muttered.
Gall’s teeth clenched for a moment. “Reporter? What reporter?” But he knew, of course.
“A friend of Lionel Renquist. He was the one who originally asked why Paaxone was unavailable in California. He wanted Renquist to see what he could learn through his friends. All those lonely wives he hangs out with,” Smurl added with quiet disgust. “Renquist asked Lauren Parks about Paaxone, Lauren
asked Delia, who’d heard me talking to you on the—”
”I thought you were going to shut Renquist up.”
“I thought we had.”
“You thought?”
“The man is made of putty. I knew a little intimidation would—”
”Intimidation? Intimidation? Didn’t you say this man is dying of cancer?”
“Yes.”
Gall felt a shudder of rage pass through his body. It moved out from his center and passed down the length of his arms and legs until he had to fight back the urge to stand and flip his desk over, to move through his office like a storm and tear the place up. He squeezed the phone so hard it made tiny crackling sounds as he battled that urge back like an attacking animal. He pulled those shudders backward from his arms and legs and compressed it all in the center of his body until it was a diminishing speck, until it was gone. “Let me get this straight. You intimidated a dying man?”
When he spoke again, Smurl’s voice sounded tight, nervous. “Well, like I said, he-he’s a—”
”You fucking imbecile,” Gall said angrily, but quietly, nearly whispering the words. “A dying man can’t be intimidated. He has nothing to lose. He’s dying. The only way to shut up a dying man is to kill him, you fucking idiot.”
The sound of Smurl’s voice catching in his throat came over the line. “You... you wanted me to... to kill him?”
“What did you think? That I wanted you to give him a good talking to?”
“Well, I thought... I thought that’s what you were going to do with Lauren. As it turns out, you didn’t have to do anything because she had a wreck. She’s in a coma. I suppose you knew that.”
“Knew it? Who do you think was responsible for it?”
A silence stretched out over the line, then Smurl said, “You... you did that?”
Gall closed his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m talking to the CEO of one of the world’s pharmaceutical giants and we’re having this conversation. I thought you realized how serious this was, how important it was to keep this under wraps.”
“Well, yes, I did, but I didn’t think—” Suddenly, his voice became firm, indignant. “Yes, I’m the CEO of Braxton-Carville, not the head of a crime family. When I got involved in this, I had no idea that I would be dealing with—”
”Shut up. Just shut up!” He shouted the last three words, then pressed his hand over his mouth and took a deep breath. He froze, looked at the door of his office and waited to see if it would open, if someone would come in to ask what was wrong. When no one did, Gall pulled at the flesh of his face, closed his eyes, and willed himself to calm down. Speaking just above a whisper, he said, “Listen to me. If this goes wrong? If this gets screwed up? If any of this gets out because of what you’ve done? Or because of what you haven’t done? I’m going to kill you. Do you understand? I won’t have anyone else do it, I’ll do it myself. I’ll kill you with my bare hands. Understand me?”
Smurl said nothing. Even his breathing could no longer be heard over the line.
“Now,” Gall said, still very quietly. “This reporter. Who is he?”
Smurl cleared his throat. “Uh... I, uh, I forget his name. It’s, uh... “
”Falczek? Is that the name, by any chance? John Falczek?”
“Yes, that’s it. You know him?”
“I’ve heard of him. A little while ago, in fact. Just before I called you.”
“What did you hear? Who told you?”
Gall sighed. “I have to go. This needs to be dealt with immediately. And once again, it will be on your dime. You’re working up quite a bill, Smurl.”
“Look, this is getting a little expensive. And I’m not comfortable with putting money into a—”
”You do not want to argue with me, Smurl. Trust me on this. I said I’d kill you if this goes wrong, and I will. But from now on, if you rub me the wrong way? If you so much as annoy me with bad grammar? You’ll wake up to find the heads of your twins in your bed. Got that?”
No response.
“Got it?”
“Yuh-yes.”
“Now, I’m going to repair your fuck-up, and you’re going to pay for it.”
Gall hung up. He got up and walked around his office taking deep breaths. He’d had no idea Smurl was such a lightweight. How had the man reached the position he held with no apparent knowledge of the way things worked? With no apparent knowledge of the things men in positions of power had to do in order to keep those positions and increase their power? It was such a waste. He stretched, then pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and once again willed himself to relax and concentrate.
He sat down at his desk again and spent several seconds chewing at the flesh along the edge of his left thumbnail. Then, with a couple of clicks of his mouse, he opened his phone directory and scrolled down through a short list of phone numbers that were accompanied by codes that included letters and numbers rather than names. The best man for the job—the man at the top of his list—would be Rubinek, of course. But he wouldn’t be very happy about such short notice. He would want a lot more money for a last minute job like this. But how hard could it be? Whoever did the job would not be going up against pros. Quite the opposite. A retired newspaper reporter in his fifties—how much of a challenge could he be? Gall skipped Rubinek’s number and chose the one at the bottom of the list.
He picked up the receiver and punched the number into the phone, knowing that no one would answer. It rang once, then there was a muted click followed by a soft, abrupt beep. Gall recited his private phone number, then hung up.
He leaned back in his chair and chewed on his thumb, hoping he would get a call back soon.
Chapter 11
Intruder the First
1.
His visit to Braxton-Carville’s sprawling industrial complex in northern Virginia that day had been fruitless, as he’d expected. He had been made to wait for nearly half an hour before meeting with an officious little PR man whose forced smile—which was not reflected in his dull, bored eyes—remained frozen on his face. The little thirtyish man was named Arthur Merkel, and he assured Falczek that wherever he’d gotten the ridiculous notion that Braxton-Carville was engaged in some secret deal that withheld Paaxone from the patients to whom it had been prescribed, it was absolutely untrue and slanderous and possibly actionable, so he should stop repeating it. The fact was, Arthur Merkel said, that a simple unforeseen malfunction in the manufacturing process had created a shortage of Paaxone that was, as he spoke, being remedied, and the drug would once again be readily available in California very, very soon, and might, in fact, be available there again already. As Falczek persisted with his questions, Arthur Merkel’s smile became more and more forced and the boredom in his eyes morphed into irritation, then repressed anger. The smile remained, but it went from looking forced to looking painful. Falczek gave the man one of the long-unused business cards he’d dug out of a desk drawer before leaving his house in Santa Vermelha.
He’d finally left Braxton-Carville with the hope that Arthur Merkel would start a chain reaction of information that would, at some point, reach someone who knew the truth and who—alarmed by what Falczek knew and curious about how he knew it—would call the number on the card and have a real conversation about Paaxone.
When he left Braxton-Carville and drove toward the suburb of McLean, in Fairfax County, for dinner with the Ims, he found that the day had darkened. Storm clouds had gathered in the sky and as he drove, fat drops of rain began to splat on his windshield. They were few and far between at first, but soon his wipers could barely keep up with them.
He turned on the radio and almost immediately heard the words “Santa Vermelha.” He turned up the volume and listened to the coverage of the Whiskey Lake Mall shooting. The story made him feel queasy. He went to the mall frequently, and as he listened to the coverage, he couldn’t avoid imagining himself being there when the shooting had taken place, possibly even being shot.
It would have been time
consuming to drive back to his hotel because the route took him past the Ims and he would have to double back to go there for dinner. So he killed some time by visiting the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum in Dulles, which was new since Falczek had last been in the area. He perused the exhibits until the museum closed at five.
It was still pouring when he arrived at the Im house. They lived in a two-story colonial style house on Lodgepole Street in a quiet, pricey neighborhood where the homes had large yards and healthy distances between them. They could not have afforded a house in that neighborhood on Toby’s salary alone; Cherie was a pediatrician with a busy practice in Arlington. Their house had been repainted in the years since Falczek had been there last, and the large front yard was lush with trees and plants that hadn’t been there before.
It was still raining, and he ducked his head as he hurried up the curving stone path that cut across the lawn. The front door opened as he was going up the steps of the large porch.
“Falczek!” Toby said. “Come in, come in. Cherie’s not home yet, but she’ll be here soon.”
They shook hands, then Toby led him through the grand foyer and into the house.
“How’s Cherie’s practice going?” Falczek asked as they went down a spacious tiled hall.
“She’s doing so well, she moved to a bigger building with a couple of other doctors. They’ve had to turn patients away.” Toby led him into the kitchen. “Take a seat at the bar. I’m doing dinner tonight.”
“I get to watch you cook?” Falczek said as he sat down at the broad tile bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room, both of which were spacious. “You didn’t say anything about a comedy floorshow.”
“Hey, I’ve gotten good. We’re having swordfish steaks with a delicious mushroom-garlic sauce—my own recipe, by the way—with asparagus and almond wild rice. And you’re going to be amazed, I promise. You still drink scotch? On the rocks? I’ve got some good stuff.”