ColdScheme

  “They’re advertising for subjects to test a new product line,” he said, tipping his brows at me. “They’re offering a thousand dollars for two days of blood tests.”

  “Amato had said that Jeffries did this for easy money.”

  “Very easy. He should have questioned it.”

  “How would an armored car service be connected to a laboratory?”

  He sighed. “It’s hard to say. They could have had a deal with the lab to chauffeur their subjects.”

  “In armored limos?”

  “That would appeal to a lot of potential subjects. The prestige angle, vanity and perks.”

  “People who volunteer to spend two days to take drugs and have needles stuck in their arm, do it for money.”

  “That’s true but once they’re in the armored limo—who knows what else might be tested on them.”

  “Are you suggesting that the volunteer would be sedated in the limo?”

  “Maybe that’s how they could stick a device into someone’s chest. Jeffries was a paid drug-tester. His chest exploded.”

  “Do you think he would have told Amato about the other perks besides the money?”

  “He might have. If you’re paid a thousand bucks for two days of discomfort and driven back and forth in a limo, wouldn’t you try to get your friends to join you?”

  “Then why didn’t Amato tell us?”

  He smiled. “We didn’t ask him. A twenty-eight year old vegetable whose mother serves him snacks as he watches TV, can’t be very bright—or inquiring.”

  An hour later, we faced Amato’s mother. I asked her to wake up her delicate darling from his nap.

  “I’m back at work and on a night shift,” he greeted us, obviously irritated by our unexpected visit.

  “This won’t take long,” I assured him pleasantly. “You have all afternoon to sleep. Did Jeffries ever talk about the drug-testing jobs that he did on the weekends?”

  “They were legal drugs,” he said, scowling.

  “No doubt. I don’t know of any commercial laboratory that would dare to advertise in a newspaper for subjects to test illegal drugs. The police read the papers too, you know. Did he talk about it at all? Did he ask you to join him?”

  He yawned, reached to scratch his armpit and reconsidered. “Yeah, sure. It was good money. I think he made a couple grand one weekend. He wanted me to come along.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Ken asked.

  “I’d go to test foods but the kind of shit Pete had to take ruins your stomach—and your nerves. They stick needles into your arm, you know. That’s not for me.”

  “Did he ever talk about any other benefits?”

  “Benefits? Well, no. I mean it wasn’t a real job. You don’t get medical insurance or stuff like that. We hardly get that at the hotel.”

  I sighed. Ken turned and cleared his throat.

  “Did Pete ever say that these commercial laboratories provided transportation—to the lab and back home?”

  He yawned again and this time vigorously scratched his armpit. “Oh yeah, sure. They would send a car to get you and bring you back. You know, they don’t want you falling down if you’re still woozy from taking that shit.”

  “Was Pete ever woozy?” I had to work quickly, before he went for the other armpit.

  “Well, yeah, once or twice. Like I said, that shit ruins your stomach so you can’t eat.”

  “Did he ever mention what kind of car they sent?”

  “A limo,” he snorted. “Pete liked that. It made him feel important.”

  “Did Pete always go to the same laboratory on the weekends?”

  “Nah, I don’t think so. Maybe just a couple of times.”

  “But they had always sent a limo to get him.”

  “Yeah, that’s why he kept asking me to come along. He said the limo was stocked with booze and the kind of foods we serve at the hotel. You know, caviar, pates and truffles. He could eat on his way there and back.”

  “Would you remember the name of the limo service and the laboratory outfits?” I asked.

  “Creepy something or other and spaghetti something…Lancia, nah. I didn’t pay much attention. The guys at the hotel kitchen are decent. They let me taste all that caviar and truffle shit. It’s not all that great either.”

  “Pete was a room-service waiter. He would be on good terms with the kitchen staff. Why would he be attracted by a limo service that offered free treats, when he could have had them in the hotel kitchen?”

  He stared at me, as if measuring me for a coffin. “You’re not vice, are you?”

  “No. We’re homicide,” I assured him.

  Ken moved closer. “Was there another benefit that the laboratories provided, in addition to the limo ride and the free refreshments?” he asked.

  “You are vice,” he growled. His brows knit into a forbidding V-notch.

  “We’re homicide,” Ken assured him again. “We’re investigating the murder of your friend. Now, did this limo service also include live entertainment—of the female persuasion?”

  “Yeah, that’s why Pete went. It wasn’t just the free booze and snacks and a thousand bucks,” he answered in a tired voice.

  We thanked him and let him go finish his nap. His devoted mother tiptoed to the door and saw us off. She smiled and thanked us for letting her darling get his much needed rest.

  “That was good thinking, Ken,” I complimented him when we were out on the street. “I wonder why it didn’t occur to me? Did you ever work in vice?”

  “No.”

  “So it was intuition.”

  “No limo service is complete without female entertainment.”

  “Have you ever been in a limo that provided such fancy service—free alcoholic refreshments, exotic snacks and blowjobs?”

  He burst out laughing. “We hired a limo for our high school prom night,” he confessed when he settled down.

  “Does Brenda know about this?”

  “That was before I met her. Yeah, she knows. She was in a limo on her prom night too.”

  “I was in a moving vehicle on my prom night,” I said, knowing how he would interpret it.

  “It sure is an old tradition,” he laughed.

  I agreed. It was time to find a place for lunch. As I parked the car in Denny’s parking lot, I wondered whether Ken would have still laughed if I’d told him that I was in a corporate jet, cruising at thirty thousand feet, with twenty classmates and Bruce Springsteen.

  * * * * *

  Bourke told us about a new protocol. We had to attend a daily meeting at three o’clock with the FBI, to exchange information and plan the next day’s activities.

  When we walked in, we found that our team had increased. The original nine who were present yesterday had swelled to fifteen. I didn’t mind. Actually, I liked it. We had many leads to pursue.

  Gould briefed us on the banking visit. She was a sight for sore eyes—an accountant’s. She achieved an androgynous look in a blue pinstripe suit, a white blouse and a silver bar, pinned on her lapel. She looked like a piece taken out of a financial board game.

  As she searched for overheads, I entertained myself by dressing her in different costumes. I moved her from one cardboard scenario into another. When I had her dressed like a construction flagman and was about to drop her down a manhole, she started talking in her dry, lecture voice. I had to abandon my pastime.

  Tavistock and six other major financial institutions were jointly developing a system. It would replace the existing safeguards imbedded in banking practices. It would enable discreet two-way communication between the banks and various law and government agencies if money routes suddenly filled with indecent amounts of transactions.

  Sometimes, those laundering money from an offshore fortress, would purposely create such traffic—all of it bona fide—in order to flush through one significant transaction they really wanted to push through. A team of programmers, analysts, economists and mathematicians were working on a program. It would
flag down this kind of elusive shadow, trying to slink through the financial hoops. The system, when finished, would basically define the new infrastructure of banking practices.

  “This is the second effort to develop such a system, correct?” Ken asked her.

  Agent Gould looked at her boss before replying. “Yes. The first venture was halted for lack of expertise when difficulties arose. I believe that system was being developed for Tavistock by a contractor who failed to deliver.”

  “Who was the contractor?” Ken wanted to know.

  Once again she sought direction from her boss. He chose to answer.

  “More than four years ago, the IMF was awarded a contract to develop an integrated system. It would address a wide array of banking practices in existence, an all-encompassing application. They had the expertise. Their staff had the experience with international banking institutions. That’s what the IMF is renowned for. We’re going to visit their offices tomorrow to discuss the issue.”

  Ken thanked him and sat back in his chair. We could have mentioned what we’d learned at the IMF offices. I knew Ken didn’t want to since we would have nothing to compare our information against. We’d carried away an impression from our visit. The FBI might bring back another.

  Brick was a key factor in developing the system for Tavistock. The IMF would have bid on the contract on the strength of Brick’s talent alone. We wanted the FBI to confirm this. Then we would share our observations—and suspicions.

  Sven Olsen spoke up. “I went to see Joe at Hopkins.” He tapped his finger on the table twice and continued, “He’s alienating a lot of colleagues. He’s campaigning to implement unorthodox procedures. He almost came to blows with the Chief of Neurosurgery, Dr. Quigley. He asked him to have a watchdog—a neutral observer—during all surgeries that dealt with implants, not just cranial but routine hip replacements, wrist shanks and splints. Joe wants this as an interim measure since we have two victims of explosive pacemakers. Quigley used street language to tell him that he’s not going to have anyone peer over his shoulder during an operation, routine or otherwise. He said that Alfonso and his staff in heart surgery would back him up. Your wife was there too,” Sven said, looking at Ken. “If not for her, we would have had an emergency in the emergency room.”

  I lowered my head to study my hands. Sven knew damn well Ken and Brenda’s situation. I wondered whether Brenda had put him up to it.

  Sven continued, “Joe believes that we’ll get more of the walking ghosts—dropping dead with exploding chests. He thinks it’s someone in the hospital, using the facilities, without anyone’s knowledge. He informed Quigley in no uncertain terms that the kind of expertise that went into an explosive pacemaker, could only be found in a research hospital like Hopkins. He insisted that one of Alfonso’s staff, Dr. Paxton Morris, be put immediately under observation. Apparently, Morris is a social maverick. He’s already been suspended once. He’s been warned not to order expensive tests for patients with no insurance. Quigley was about to explode himself. I stepped in. Joe sneered at Quigley and told him he should be flattered that such pioneering research came out of his hospital. I think what Joe suggested might not be a bad idea,” he finished.

  I glanced at Ken. We knew why Joe had risked alienating his colleagues. He was worried about Dr. Martin working in Hopkins under a different name. Maybe he suspected Paxton Morris of being Dr. Martin.

  “Joe believes it’s far more important—and urgent—to find who is producing these explosive chest implants than to follow up on the motive,” I said. “Perhaps that’s how we should divide the work.” I looked at Bourke. “Inspector Weston and his staff have already started to trace routes that may lead to the motive. It would make sense for the rest of us to concentrate on finding out who is producing these devices and where.”

  Bourke passed my suggestion to the FBI with a look. I saw that Inspector Weston was not happy with it. We wouldn’t be working together. But he saw the logic and agreed.

  “The first victim,” Ken said, “Jonathan Brick, lived for four years with the device in his chest. We’ve tracked down a car dealership where he had worked for two months as Jonathan Twain. Guilford Exotic Cars should have been bankrupt by now. However it’s not just thriving—it’s soaring. We think that Brick set up the dealership as a money laundering operation. It might be a good idea to alert the I.R.S. and suggest an audit.”

  “No!” I grabbed his arm. “Not yet. Later, when we’re closer. If we shut down one of their money laundering operations, they’ll retaliate.”

  “By exploding another messenger’s chest.” Ken caught on quickly.

  “Or someone more important,” I said.

  “How many people could they have tagged with this device?” he asked, frowning.

  “Joe thinks there might be quite a few. We don’t know. And we don’t want to find out by filling up the morgue.”

  The armored car business would have had many customers while in operation. Not necessarily every customer would have been a target for a chest implant but quite a few might have fallen into Jeffries’ category.

  “Do you think that Joe is right and there are more of these walking dead-on-demand?” Bourke asked me.

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Then we should help him implement those unorthodox hospital procedures he’s fighting for,” Bourke suggested.

  “You could talk to the Hopkins administrators,” I told him.

  “Money laundering is a high profile issue and a profitable business,” Weston replied pensively. “But there has to be more at stake than just intimidation of banking principals. It’s a lot easier to plant an assassin in the vicinity of the target and then eliminate him as a lesson.”

  “Intimidating and eliminating are two different concepts, Inspector,” I said. “You can eliminate those who stand in your way but it’s a temporary solution. A replacement will always rise to block your way again. Elimination is limiting. Intimidation, however, is control. If you turn a person into a walking corpse, you’re in control, all the time. You dictate your conditions and if they’re not met you’re—as Captain Bourke aptly put it—dead-on-demand. If the subject doesn’t obey, you execute him and move on to the next target.”

  “The current target is the banking circles.” He stared at me with uncomfortable intensity.

  “That’s correct.”

  “While the next target may be in the political ranks.”

  “Ahhh…” I breathed out softly, because I had just figured out one possible—and very likely—connection between the armored limo service and the human time bombs.

  * * * * *

  “Sven was just teasing you,” I told Ken when I drove him home.

  “Suddenly everyone has a vested interest in my private life,” he murmured.

  “You’ve been dating Brenda for fourteen years,” I said, stifling laughter. “I’m surprised it hasn’t driven her berserk.”

  “Even that doctor at Mongrove was smirking.”

  “I’m sure that was just your imagination—or guilt. Did you ever think about it that way?”

  “It’s not driving her crazy. We’ve had discussions—often.”

  I believed him but I also suspected that those discussions had been one-sided—Brenda’s. “Everyone is on my case.”

  “Not Brenda,” I assured him. I thought it was more Sven’s sense of humor, rather than Brenda’s urging—though it may have been a small component.

  “What was she doing with Joe again, anyway?” he asked. “She told me that she thinks he’s charming—and a good listener.”

  “He probably is. I’d be more worried if she’d said that he was a good conversationalist. He doesn’t get much of it from his clients. He works surrounded by death, gadgets and medical journals all the time. What else is there to do but to listen to the ticking and humming of his machines? He likes human company.”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “Not at all. I’m just wondering when Brenda’s going to
put a full announcement in the papers, to end the rumors.”

  “There! You are laughing.”

  “No I’m not. Sven and Jasper were probably laughing. I’m trying to help you make up your mind.”

  I dropped him off at home and reminded him that tomorrow, our lab had promised to return his Malibu. I hoped it would cheer him up.

  “Yeah, it’ll probably look like it’s been through a sandstorm,” he murmured, as he got out of the car.

  I drove home, by habit glancing often in the mirrors. A dark red car was definitely following me. I’d seen it earlier, in our headquarters’ parking lot. It was a Chrysler Concorde, an obvious rental. He knew where I lived. There was no use cruising around the neighborhood.

  I parked beside Mrs. Tavalho’s van and went inside.

  I entered into a hostage crisis. The housekeeper would not let Jazz use the phone to call another People Finders’ agency. Jazz had taken her car keys and locked herself in the bathroom.

  “She hasn’t flushed them down the toilet,” she told me with a heavy sigh. “I would have heard it. She’s pretty upset. You should go have a talk with her school. Her social studies teacher sounds like a tyrant. Jazz put down generic names on her tree. The teacher sent her down to the principal’s office. He gave her a three-day suspension for being rude and impertinent. There’s a letter on the counter. It sounds as if it was written by a prison warden, not a teacher. The child didn’t do anything wrong. She put down what she knew—to show the teacher that she understood a family tree. There’s no need to be heavy-handed,” she finished with another sigh.

  “Perhaps not. But there’s no need for her to behave this way.” I walked down the corridor and was about to bang on the bathroom door, when Mrs. Tavalho reached out and stopped me.

  “Don’t do it with anger. She has too much of that inside her already.”

  “Jasmine, come on out. Mrs. Tavalho wants to go home. She needs her keys.”

  “Go away! I flushed them down the john.”

  “If you did you won’t get your allowance for as long as it takes to pay for Mrs. Tavalho’s new keys.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t give a shit.”

  “Jasmine!”