Spare Parts: A Ted Mitchell Detective Novel (Ted Mitchell Detective Novels Book 4)

by Jeffrey Kinghorn

  I leaned toward a preference in Reznikov for a second story room because of its high-ground vantage point, and its virtue for egress facilitation via a number of routes. It seemed a neat tying- up of supposition. It also resonated my ruminations about aloneness and detachment, sufficient in projecting such a preference as I coveted onto Reznikov so that he might spot those coming at him before they arrived.

  At 8 a.m. the next morning the E150 van returned. Reznikov stepped out of the stairwell and out of the side door in time to be at the curb for a moving pick-up. Piecing together the presumed particulars of his behavior had gotten me through the night. It was past time to actually discover some goods. I resolved to stay on him no matter how long it took. My longest stretch to date without sleep was something like sixty-three hours. I was willing to set a new personal record.

  First stop, a fast food drive-through for breakfast. I was right behind him and wondered if he’d have the decency after they’d pulled through to wait while I availed myself of a cup of coffee? I decided not, but noted that, in addition to a tray of coffee cups, a large and bulging bag of food was passed out the pick-up window to the van’s driver. Obviously unconcerned about the quality of food he put into his system in favor of its being obtained on the move was filed away, as it had become impossible not to collect information at this point, even if it seemed trite. I felt my own inflated sense of virtue rise up, having sworn off such poison years before. Coffee notwithstanding.

  As I made no effort to conceal my presence in the shadow of the van, nor of my intent to stay with him, I had to assume they knew I was there. I further assumed that my presence off his rear bumper worked against my desire to uncover a solid connection to the ghoulish business that was his real commodity. Still, I saw no benefit in losing sight of his roving headquarters. If I succeeded in preventing him from conducting his planned business because I was tailing him, he would eventually have to do something about it.

  Good enough!

  Seventeen

  Upon arriving back in downtown via Allen Parkway, just past Smith Street, the van pulled to the curb and came to a full stop, after which nothing happened for several moments. It seemed interminable relative to what I had come to expect of its still-rolling loadings and unloadings. Reznikov stepped down out of the sliding side-door with two cups of coffee and walked with lanky ease back to my passenger door. I unlocked it on his approach. He slid into the shotgun seat at my side and handed me a cup of coffee. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  The coffee was black, darkly roasted, and delicious. It filled the Chrysler with a fresh brewed aroma that made the tightest of wound-springs unwind…just enough.

  “Welcome opportunity to make of myself brief scarcity,” he said, “while heathens eat what is alleged to be food.”

  “You’re the boss,” I said, “yet you’re the one who vacates?”

  “Comrades have to eat,” he said. “I do not.”

  I said, “But breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  “For some, okay,” said Reznikov. “Not for me. Food is fuel only.” The van pulled away from the curb and headed into the center of downtown. “We will follow vehicle, please,” he said, jutting that blade-nose of his toward the moving van.

  I fell in as before, just off its rear bumper, allowing no room for anyone to cut in between us. We enjoyed the coffee and an extended review of the sidewalk parade through the intersections at Main and at Travis, and then cut south on Fannin. Luck was with us with the lights. Our first full stop and wait was at the corner of West Gray. The Greyhound Station was on the right. I thought about Rhonda and hoped she had landed well.

  “Did you get sleep last night?” said Reznikov.

  I said, “Not that I recall.”

  “Used to have insomnia myself,” he said. “But not for long time. Last night I slept, how do you say, like infant?” He looked fresh and smelled of masculine soap, perhaps an amber-colored bar, with some kind of sea grass as part of its name? He wore an open collared shirt and black dress slacks. He was freshly shaved, the mole under his eye popped in contrast to his white, Russian skin.

  “How did you manage that?” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow and tipped his head, as if it went without say. “Clear conscience,” he said.

  “Is that the same as no conscience?” I asked.

  “Excellent response,” he said. “Am impressed with your speed with words and with the many meanings you invest in them.”

  “Where are we headed?” I said.

  “We are just following,” he said. “Nowhere special.”

  “Random roving,” I said. “Not a problem.”

  “Random,” he said. “I like this word. After disgusting food is ingested and van aired out, I will want to return to vehicle to resume random business of day. Random…yes, that is good.”

  “What’s on the docket?” I said.

  “Okay,” he said, “I do not know this expression docket?”

  “What business will you be conducting today?” I said.

  “Ah,” he said, “docket, yes. Okay. I will remember this. Also random. Day is going to be busy. Very busy. The way I like it.”

  I decided to get to it. “What’s your connection,” I asked, “to Bayou Urgent Care down off Old Spanish Trail?”

  “Pleasantries dispatched,” he said, “straight to heart of matter.” He took his time with a bit more coffee, then turned to take some kind of measure of me. “Am going to surprise you.”

  I said, “Again?”

  He slid an open hand in the air between us, as if spreading a fresh picture against the view out the windshield. He said, “Will tell you everything.”

  “Let’s start with Bayou Urgent Care,” I said.

  “One of several we use,” he said. “I do not care for restriction of formal appointments.”

  “Appointments require advanced notice,” I said.

  Reznikov said, “Yes. Intentions revealed early. Prefer spontaneity.” A moment later he added, “And random.”

  I said, “The upper hand.”

  “Initiative,” he said.

  I said, “Surprise.”

  Reznikov regarded me again and did not hurry. “There is place for you in my organization,” he said.

  “You trying to turn me?” I said.

  “Could use individual like you,” he said.

  I nodded but did not say anything.

  He inferred incredulity from it. “You think I am making idle comment?” he said.

  I had not, actually, and shook off the suggestion.

  “Am quite serious,” he said.

  “I work alone,” I said with finality.

  His turn to use his head now; he nodded. “Like all good cowboys,” he said.

  More coffee. More sidewalk scrutiny. As we approached Westheimer, the van moved left in preparation of turning. Its signal light blinked. In previous followings, I did not recall the van ever displaying a turn signal. As Reznikov had just characterized about the making of appointments, it involved too much advance notice of intended direction. Here, now, however, I understood its purpose was to facilitate my staying close behind.

  Reznikov got back to our discussion about the clinic and confirmed what I had put together for myself. ‘Too many limited partnerships,” he said. ‘Was miscalculation. Many shirts have been lost. Contained losses became gallows. We have slowed some bleeding.’

  “How did that happen?” I asked, to see if we had parsed it the same way.

  “Government regulation,” he said. Only he said it as if it had been an unexpected but welcomed opportunity.

  “Of course,” I agreed, encouraging more of his take on having turned the situation into an opportunity.

  “Blood bath,” said Reznikov. “Russians understand this.”

  “The Communist experiment.” I said.

  “Only for the west was Communism an experiment,” he said. “Russians like strong leadership,
fathers who do not smile.”

  I offered, “Some might say brutal.”

  “Necessary,” he said. “Who is more brutal than parent?”

  I said, “Stalin.”

  “Before my time,” he said. “Even so, many remember him well. Russia was a land of peasants. Ignorant. Lost.”

  “And now?” I said.

  He turned to me and curled his lip in disgust when he said, “Gangsters.”

  “We’ve had our share of those,” I said.

  We were jumping ahead of each other. And to our credit, each staying up with the other. But then he jumped a little too far ahead of me. “Along with limitless low-end supply,” he said, “and abundant high-end demand.”

  I took a guess and said, “The motherload.”

  He turned to me and asked, “What is motherload?”

  I said, “You’ve tapped into Capitalism’s vein of gold.”

  “Ah,” he said, “motherload. Very good. I like this.”

  “By low-end supply,” I said, “you mean undocumented?”

  “Especially undocumented,” he said. “By all means, undocumented.”

  I said, “Untraceable.”

  “The motherload,” he said, with not a little self-satisfaction.

  “Runaways?” I said.

  “Some,” he said. “They can be tricky. Families wonder about them. Appear out of nowhere. Asking too many questions. An inconvenience.”

  I thought we were headed for I-59. Instead we turned right onto 288, heading southwest toward Sugarland. The southbound lanes were ours. We picked up speed. “Okay, then what?” I said. “You have only to direct the high-end client to get him or herself to Indonesia, or Russia?”

  “If price point is right,” he said. “Such clients often have capacity to fly private. We get required organ packed and on board before take-off.”

  “So,” I said, “they carry their own replacement parts with them. Just more of the matching luggage. And there is nothing to declare.”

  “Indonesia is very good that way,” said Reznikov. “Also Mexico. Some of former Soviet satellite states have discovered miracle of incoming cash flow. Keeps them less dependent on Russia. India, also very good for business. Pakistan. Markets are growing everywhere.”

  I said, “Maybe I should spend some time at surrounding airports.”

  “Comings and goings not interfered with,” he said. “Texas is huge, especially to west. Landing strips out in open. Middle of nowhere. For jet aircraft even. Plentiful. This is not problem.”

  “Unhidden?” I said.

  “Plain sight,” said Reznikov, “if anyone cared to see them. Most don’t want to see. This country does very good job of obscuring what it does not want to find. Those working drug trade know all such landing strips. Believe it.”

  “But you’re not running drugs,” I said.

  “Which is why we are not seen,” said Reznikov. “Is filthy business, drugs. I know this from my own experience. We save lives. Not waste them.”

  “Of your clients, you mean,” I said. “Some of your donors die.”

  “Many more do not,” he countered. “Most even.”

  No time for values clarification when he was being so forthcoming.

  “So,” I said, “organs are harvested at places like Bayou Urgent Care?”

  “Again, some,” said Reznikov. “Hotel rooms also. I prefer them. Clean like new afterward. Move on. No trace. No repetition of location. The virtue of random.”

  “Itinerant business,” I said. “Ever on the move.”

  “Standing still is communist practice,” he said, “not capitalist one.”

  “Nothing like the converted,” I said, “to propagate a party line.”

  “More than business,” he said, “is important service to those in desperate need. Clinics like Bayou Urgent Care are essential for product safety. Matching. Disease control. We guarantee clean product. Constant screening. We are most vigilant and highly trusted.”

  “A real humanitarian,” I said.

  “Derision,” said Reznikov. “Dripping all through your voice. Misplaced. Ignorant.”

  I was chastened in spite of myself. “What about the medical records?” I asked.

  “Duplicate records are maintained,” he said. “Common practice for many businesses. Ask any DBA entity in Chicago, Atlantic City, New Orleans, Miami. This is not problem. This is convention. Goes even without saying. Am surprised you had to ask.”

  DBA. It took a second to recognize the acronym. Doing Business As. Nomenclature with a thick accent can give pause. “Too bad you’re stuck with old-world invasive surgery methods,” I said. “Nowadays kidney removal is almost a same-day procedure.”

  “We will get there,” said Reznikov. “Very soon.”

  “And why compromise product,” I said, “with potential exposure to all the diseases on the street?”

  “Debilitating cost of maintaining inventory,” he said. “Treatment is cheap. Wastage of little to no consequence.”

  I said, “Your inventory works for its keep.”

  “Every sector of business,” said Reznikov, “designed to be profitable.”

  “Is this an American operation?” I asked.

  With a hand held up as if in devotional witness, “Multi, multi-national,” he said.

  “Where’s the head?” I said.

  “No one knows,” said Reznikov, with a single nod of his own head. “Complicated structure. Necessary for safety.”

  I said, “You have a global network.”

  “Am connected to global network,” he said. “Demand, like money, is everywhere.”

  We arrived at a stretch of open grassland. To the left, fifty feet down off the highway, there was a wind break of pine, beyond which a vast flat plain disappeared into light blue sky. To the right, the same sea of grass continued without an equivalent wind break of trees, though here and there gnarly mesquite broke the impressionistic brush strokes of wind-flattened grass. It, too, was connected at its farthest reach to sky that was by far the most dramatic element of the landscape.

  Outside the avenued canyons of downtown, the sky’s magnitude was everything. Human endeavor, despite the extent to which man endowed his own behavior with meaning, was trumped in every way by nature. Even Texans, proverbially at home to all things huge, when born and bred and too much in the city, are humbled upon venturing outside of it. The endless open space over which an eternity of sky reigned could easily undo he who stayed too long in man-made, urban enclosures. I was not immune.

  The van slowed and pulled off onto the gravel shoulder. Reznikov said, “Have never enjoyed coffee more. You are good company. Convivial American. I like this. Another life maybe we could be friends.”

  “Comrades?” I said.

  He corrected me. “Friends,” he said.

  “Then we should do it again,” I said. “I don’t know about the friendship part.”

  “Not possible,” he said. “Am already ignoring rules I made myself. You are hard to resist.”

  I said, “Likewise.”

  “I do not have friends,” Reznikov said, what, wistfully?

  I said, “I’m getting to be that way myself.”

  “I do not have family,” he added.

  “As it happens,” I said, “neither do I.”

  “Perhaps what we sense in each other,” he said. “Kindred spirits. This is correct to say?

  I said, “Grammatically.”

  He shrugged it off. “Who knows,” he said.

  “I’m okay,” I said, “with fewer friends.”

  Reznikov said, “Not everyone would understand such things.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “You are white hat,” he said. “I am black?”

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  “American perspective,” he said. “This not that. Nothing in middle between them. Chekhov would have something to say about that.”

  I said, “Clarity is good.”

  “Naïve,�
�� he said.

  “Guilty,” I said.

  “Still,” he said, “maybe we are little bit simpatico, no?”

  “Stefan,” I said, “we are not alike.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Well then.” It was clear, he did not want our visit to end. “Enough conviviality.”

  I said, “How about a little courtesy instead?”

  “Of course,” he said, “what?”

  “Some sleep would be nice,” I said. “Your consideration in telling me where I might pick you up again later today would make things easier on both of us.”

  “But you are excellent at finding me,” he said.

  “I enjoy good luck,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “We have previously covered that. She is a stranger to me.”

  “I’m willing to share,” I said.

  Reznikov canted his head and smiled. “You are patronizing me, Mr. Mitchell,” he said. I could hear him exhale through that prominent nose of his, blade-like, again, in profile. “But you have assumed incorrectly what drives my willingness to confide in you.

  “Enlighten me,” I said.

  He said, “Am not sure I know. I have indeed compromised myself with you.” The sky did its work on him. “Looking inside to see if I might want to change decision.”

  “Decision?” I said.

  He ignored my question as he drank in the bounty of vista in the middle of which we sat. “Describe this place,” he said. “You are adept with language.”

  “Breathing room,” I said.

  He nodded continuously for several moments. Something appeared to close for him. “In our short time together,” he said, “have come to appreciate your thoughts, your humor. As I have said, your way with words. Finely chosen.” He hesitated before adding, “Breathing room. Yes, I am liking you, Ted Mitchell. One-sided, no matter, okay.”

  We both grew small surrounded by what we saw. I broke the silence. “You are going to have answer for what happened to Allison,” I said.

  Something in him retracted. Or maybe instead it fitted into place. “Allison?” he said.

  “You bought her under the name of Juice,” I said. “She wanted out of the life.”