by Mike Knowles
“The other two?”
“Just said that they were busy.”
“Write down where I can find them.”
“Fine, fine. You know if this gets out, I’m dead.”
“If your pen doesn’t start moving, I don’t like your chances.”
Ox said “asshole” under his breath. I let it slide.
“The addresses you’re giving me. This is their offices?”
“Yeah.”
“They do house calls?”
“They might, but if we’re talking a bullet wound like you said, they’d want to deal with it at their office.”
“Seems risky.”
Ox lifted an eyebrow. “These aren’t your average give you a lollipop after your checkup kind of doctors. They moonlight with some dangerous guys mostly because they’re in debt to someone worse. They could be addicted to anything — drugs, whores, gambling, whatever it is it put their services on the black market.” Ox pulled the cigar from his mouth and looked at the dead end. He gave it another dose of fire from the lighter and pulled hard on the stogie until it smouldered again. He pointed the cigar across the table like a professor gesturing with a piece of chalk and went on. “Most of these guys aren’t even good doctors. How could they be? How many addicts do you know that are good at what they do? They’re too busy using to care about anything else. Locking a guy away in a back room isn’t an issue when your waiting room is mostly empty. They would rather take care of things on their turf. These guys might be shady doctors, but you got to remember they’re not workers like you. They don’t want to be anywhere near a place that might suddenly be full of cops. In the office they can always make the claim that they were just doing their job and they planned to report what they saw when the patient was stable. Plus, no one is going to hire someone who can’t deliver. They want to be in their office so that they have access to everything they might need. If they travel, who knows what problems they might run into. If you let a guy die, maybe his partners won’t want him to go alone. You keep things in an office and the patient’s life expectancy rises, as do the chances that everyone will keep their cool.”
I nodded — Ox made sense. “Give me the married guy’s address too.”
“I told you he’s fuckin’ tonight, not workin’.”
“Put the address down on the paper.”
Ox looked around the room as if someone might suddenly come to his aid, but none of the senior citizens in the joint were giving us any attention.
When he finished writing, I said, “Get up and grab your coat.”
“What?”
“You’re coming with me,” I said.
“That wasn’t part of the deal. You said you wanted numbers and that is what I gave you. I can’t get involved in anything.”
Ox didn’t see my foot move; he just felt it as the steel toe of my boot drove into the underside of the wicker chair he was sitting in. There was the sound of some of the woven strands under his testicles snapping from the impact and then a grunt from Ox. The sound got a lot of attention from the other old timers in the room.
“Ox?” I said. “You okay?”
I pocketed the Glock, got out of my chair, and put an arm around the back of Ox’s neck. “Is it your heart, Ox?”
My hand subtly changed from caring touch to violent choke as my thumb dug into Ox’s voice box. He got out a weak croak until I let up enough for him to gasp.
“I think we need to get you to a hospital, Ox.”
“I’ll call an ambulance,” someone yelled.
“My car’s out front,” I said. “I’ll take him.”
I put more pressure on Ox’s throat and whispered, “Get up,” in his ear. He managed a nod. I scooped up the hat and gun and led the doubled-over man out the door to my car. A few people followed us to the sidewalk, but they kept enough of a respectful distance to never notice what was really going on. I got Ox in the car and pulled away from the curb. He was breathing heavy and I could hear him wheeze every few seconds.
“What the fuck was that?”
“I told you to get your coat. You wouldn’t listen. I can’t have you making any more calls until I’m done, Ox. You’re a broker, which means if you get it in your head that you want to pick a fight, you could send some people to meet me when I make a house call with the docs.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Why, because we’re such good friends? It doesn’t matter what you would do; it’s what you could do that I care about.”
“I was wrong,” Ox wheezed. “You’re just like your uncle.”
I left Ox at Sully’s. I told Steve to watch him and to keep him away from the phone. Steve nodded without looking up from drying the glasses coming out of the dishwasher. I took Ox’s BlackBerry and told him that he would get it back later. Ox didn’t try to argue with me — dragging him out of the social club took most of the fight out of him.
I got in the car and checked the clock; it was five. If the first doc really had a hot date, his office would be closed and he’d be long gone. If he had lied to Ox because he was working late on a bit of off-the-books patching up, I would find out. I used Ox’s BlackBerry to pull up Google Earth. I zoomed in on the building and accessed the street view option. I used the phone to virtually survey the building. The office was a single-floor building just off Main Street that looked to be less than 500 square feet. Google let me zoom from several different angles and I saw from the window placement that it would be easy to see if anyone was home.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The doctor’s office was dark. No one came to the door when I knocked, and no one came to investigate when I pounded. I walked around the building and scaled the fence around back to look in the windows that faced the small bit of yard. All of the windows had been frosted from the bottom to the middle. This let light in while still providing privacy to the patients who had to disrobe. Each window was dark. I walked back to the front door and looked for an alarm pad. I didn’t see one from the door. The lack of an alarm didn’t surprise me. The office on Percy Street was close enough to the burbs to be secured by the two locks on the door. I looked each lock over; they weren’t ancient and they looked strong. The two locks would keep someone busy; the glass pane above them wouldn’t. I took a look around and saw no pedestrians on the sidewalk. There were a lot of cars around so I waited for the light at the corner to turn. The red light briefly brought silence to the street. The quiet was interrupted by the sound of my elbow connecting with the pane. The impact was just a love tap and the thick peacoat muffled the sound.
I made sure the street was still clear and then snaked my hand through the broken window. The locks rolled back without any trouble and I stepped inside. Inside the office, I scanned the walls for evidence of a security system that I wouldn’t have been able to see from the door. Nothing caught my eye and I didn’t hear any sounds that would indicate that a sensor had been tripped. I drew the Glock and moved through the empty waiting room. There was a short hallway with three open doors. The bathroom and both examination rooms were empty. I checked every garbage can and found that they hadn’t been emptied recently. None of them contained anything bloody. I walked back to the waiting room and went behind the receptionist’s desk. There was a large stack of files next to a computer. I nudged the mouse and the computer woke from sleep mode. The OS prompted me to input a password. I checked the desk for anything written down, but there was nothing. I gave up on the computer and looked through each of the files. The name on the file at the top of the pile had a log from four thirty. I worked my way back in time and saw that the doc had been busy almost every hour of the day. He wasn’t my guy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The second doctor had an office near St. Joseph’s Hospital. This doctor was doing better than the last; he had a whole house dedicated to his practice. The building was an old two-storey brick home. It looked to be at least fifty years old. Unlike the first office, this place was lit up. The lights on the first floor wer
e out and the front door was locked. The second floor had light streaming through each window and a person moved the curtains every few minutes to check the street. There was only one car in the driveway and it was in a spot marked as reserved. The doc was working late.
I sat across the street for a few minutes watching the darkness creep down from the sky. The seasons were changing and the days were getting shorter. It was dark at six fifteen. I smiled and turned up my collar. I liked the dark. After three more window checks, I opened up Ox’s BlackBerry and pulled up the second doctor’s number. I dialled it on the prepaid phone I had bought earlier and waited. The phone rang three times and then a man answered.
“Yeah?”
“You got cops on the way. Tell everyone to clear out now. They’re five minutes out — hurry!”
I hung up the phone and watched the building. The curtains on the second floor moved again, but this time it wasn’t so casual. The man in the window pressed his face to the glass so that he could see every inch of the street. A minute later, the front door opened and a man stepped out to check the street. When he saw that it was clear, he ran back to the door, opened it, and waved frantically. Another man ran out and crossed the street. He got into a Toyota Camry parked up the street and reversed the car down the one-way street to the curb in front of the doctor’s office. The guy at the door started waving again and two other guys dragged a fifth man out of the building. The two men had a shoulder under the third man’s arms — he was hurt bad. The injured man’s feet never touched the ground once as he was carried from the office to the Toyota. They shoved him in the passenger seat and everyone else climbed in back. The car screeched away from the curb just as the doctor emerged from the office and locked up. He ran to the car in the reserved spot and made his own loud exit. I watched him go from inside the Neon. I had no reason to rush — the cops weren’t coming and the man carried out wasn’t Franky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The third doctor had an office on the second floor of a medical complex. The medical complex shared a rundown wall with a drugstore. At seven o’clock, the drugstore was still open; the medical building was locked. I parked on the street and walked around to the back of the building. Out back, there was a parking lot reserved for patients and customers. The light posts scattered around the parking lot gave off a dull glow that gave me a long shadow as I crossed the pavement. There were no cars parked near the rear entrance to the drugstore. The store was open until midnight, but it didn’t look like it needed to be. I saw a counter inside the rear door but there was no one behind it; there was just a sign beside the register. Customers probably had to use the checkout near the main entrance. The only person I saw inside the store was a stock boy carrying an armful of small boxes. I could see his lack of effort from across the lot. The only cars parked out back were near the medical complex entrance. There was an Escalade, a Porsche, and a Mercedes two-door parked in the three spaces closest to the building.
There was no way inside the building without a key. Breaking in would be a bad idea. I saw a large alarm pad inside the door. I could make out the name brand on the pad and I knew that there would never be enough time for me to disarm it without a schematic in my hand. I saw that there were still lights on upstairs. No one checked the windows, but someone was up there. The three cars could have all belonged to doctors, but the black Escalade had mob written all over it. I pegged the white Porsche 911 as the doctor’s car, and the black two-door Mercedes as upper management of whoever was riding in the Escalade. Two doors says something. It says, I don’t ride with a crew, ever, so what do I need more than two seats for?
I found a chunk of concrete that came from a pothole in the asphalt and picked it up. I hefted the rock and judged it to weigh about three pounds. I walked to the passenger side of the Mercedes so that the car blocked the view from the back door of the drugstore. I took a step back, wound up, and launched the rock through the passenger side window. The cold evening air was quiet — only the sounds of cars driving by the other side of the building could be heard. The sound of three pounds of concrete shattering a window was like the strike of church bell on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It echoed in the lot as the remaining pieces of glass fell inside the car and onto the pavement.
I unlocked the door and got into the car. When I leaned across the seats to get at the panel below the ignition, I snuck a look up through the windshield to the second floor. I could see someone upstairs gesticulating wildly at the Mercedes. I had chosen the car on purpose. Management drove a two-seater. Management also sent underlings to stop people from breaking into their car. I slid back from the steering wheel and got out of the car. I left the door open and stepped into the shadows formed by the corner of the building meeting the fence separating the parking lot from its identical twin on the other side. The corner of the lot was out of the reach of the light posts; it was a small patch of midnight at seven p.m.
My heart wasn’t beating fast to begin with, but in the darkness it slowed even more. My knees loosened with my shoulders and I relaxed into stillness. I was there in the corner, but no one would see me. A hungry cat walked along the top of the fence on its way to my spot. I watched as it quickly padded towards my shade. I didn’t try to shoo the cat or hiss angrily to alert it. I let the cat come. The cat got within five feet of me when a loud bang froze it in its tracks. The bang was easy to identify; it was the sound of the glass door of the medical complex bouncing off the brick exterior of the building. The cat gave the sound a moment’s consideration before it dashed the few remaining feet in search of a hiding place. The cat got to the end of the fence and was about to jump down when it suddenly froze again. I saw the cat twitch as though it had stepped on a live wire — it had gotten my scent. I reached out and plucked the feline off its perch. The cat tried to wriggle away as it hissed an angry warning, but my hands closed around its throat, silencing it.
Two men came into view; the cat didn’t notice them — it was too busy struggling. The men were textbook mob — big, leather jackets, crooked noses. Their skin was light, lighter than something that could have been produced off the coast of the Mediterranean. What I saw looked like it had roots closer to the Crimean Sea — they were Russian muscle. They both went straight to the Mercedes and bent to look inside. I had been rough with the car and the two Russians gave it some consideration. The first one to give up, a large man with a shaved head and a small patch of hair sprouting from his chin, stood and scanned the lot. I watched him notice the light from the drugstore and the stock boy inside. I could imagine the wheels turning in his thug brain. After a few seconds, he said something in what sounded like Russian to the other man. There was a short reply from his partner, who was still leaning into the car, and then the bald guy started for the drugstore.
The second man got out of the car and pulled out a cell. He hit a few keys and then held the phone to his ear. Whoever was on speed dial picked up fast. There was a conversation in rapid Russian and the thug seemed to only be able to keep up by firing off answers in short one-word bursts. I considered the thug and what was upstairs. The doctor could have had more than one patient. Ruby could have gotten Franky to the doctor before the Russians showed up. Having two off-the-books patients at once seemed like a really bad idea, but no one would tell the Russian mob that there was no room for one of their guys. My gut told me that Franky wasn’t upstairs, but I had run out of doctors — I had to be sure.
I interrupted the Russian by lifting my foot and ramming it back into the building. The rubber sole of my boot did little to prevent the impact from running up my leg, but the thick cushion of the boot did make the sound little more than a dull thud. It didn’t carry like the sound of breaking glass, but it did get the attention of the Russian on the phone.
He whispered something to whoever was on the other end and then put the phone away. The Russian wasn’t stupid; he reached inside his coat and freed a pistol from the small of his back. He took a low, two-handed grip and approached
the shadows where I stood. I watched him as he moved towards me. The Russian was a little over six feet tall and more than two hundred pounds. He had a well-trimmed beard and hair that hung down over his eyes like a pre-teen pop star. He edged closer to the corner of the lot, each step bringing the gun up more. When the gun was almost chest high, I threw the cat.
The small animal was scared and oxygen starved; it made a guttural sound as it passed through the air between the goon and me. I flattened against the side of the building in case the Russian pulled the trigger in fright, but nothing happened. The man jumped back, avoiding the feline projectile, and the cat missed him by a few inches. The man cursed at the cat — I knew enough Russian to recognize the words — and lowered his gun. I heard him breathe a sigh of what must have been relief as the adrenalin faded, and watched him turn around.
I stepped out of the darkness into the dim light of the parking lot and closed the distance between me and the relieved Russian. He didn’t hear me get in close; he just felt it when my hand closed around the Sig P220 he was holding. My left hand braced his wrist, locking it in place, while my right hand wrenched the barrel of the gun down. The Russian’s finger lost its connection with the trigger as the Sig pitched forward and out of his hand. The gun was at the back of the Russian’s head before he even had the chance to turn around.
The man knew better than to scream. The second he felt the gun against his scalp, he stopped trying to recover it. He just lifted his hands away from his hips and opened his fingers. I took hold of the collar of his jacket and walked him back into the darkness. As soon as the black tide rolled over his face and erased him, I spoke into his ear.