[Lady Justice 06] - Lady Justice and Dr. Death

by Robert Thornhill

Reginald Baldwin

  District Director

  Bingo!

  This was what we had been waiting for.

  “So what do we do now?” Bob asked. “Remember, I’m too old to go to jail!”

  I assured him that nothing was going to happen, but if it did, we would try to arrange for he and Kay to have adjoining cells.

  He didn’t find that amusing.

  I faxed the letter to Agent Blackburn and advised him to circle the wagons because the savages were just over the hill.

  He liked my old west metaphor.

  The ads continued to run and the customers continued pouring in.

  We should have anticipated that the extra cash in the daily till would attract the attention of some unsavory individuals, but our attention was so fixed on the white-collar crooks, we weren’t prepared for villains of the blue-collar variety.

  One afternoon, just before closing, the gal that ran the register was filling the bank bag when a scruffy guy with a full beard and his hair pulled back in a pony-tail approached the counter.

  Ox and I had just finished cleaning the elderberry press and were looking forward to a meal of country BBQ.

  We rounded the corner just in time to see Mr. Ponytail level a gun at the clerk and point to the cash bag.

  We ducked back before the guy saw us.

  Our weapons were, of course, locked in our car.

  Farm hands typically don’t carry side arms, even in Osceola.

  “We can’t rush him,” Ox said. “There’s a good fifty feet of open space. He could get off two shots easily before we get to him.”

  Then I saw it.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “You go out the back, circle around and wait for him just outside the door. I’ll flush him out and you can take him down.”

  “So how will this flush thing work?” Ox asked.

  I pointed to the forklift.

  “An apple a day, keeps the scumbag at bay.”

  He nodded and took off.

  I climbed into the forklift, fired it up and loaded one of the huge crates of apples.

  I was hoping that the two wooden sides of the crate plus the four feet of apples would be of sufficient density to stop a slug.

  I’d soon find out.

  I rounded the corner, got my bearings and just as the thug raised his gun toward me, lifted the apples to block the trajectory of the bullets.

  I heard the sound of the six shots and felt the impact as the slugs buried deep into my Honey Crisp armor.

  The creep, being out of ammo and seeing the lift bearing down on him, turned and fled out the door, running headlong into a mountain of flesh.

  It only took one swing of Ox’s meaty fist to drop the jerk to his knees.

  The sound of the shots drew Bob and Kay from their home.

  Bob looked at the perp lying on the ground and then his attention focused on the crate dripping juice from the dozens of apples that had been perforated by the slugs.

  His only comment was, “You city boys sure have a strange way of making cider.”

  It was business as usual for the next few days.

  Then I received a call from Blackburn. He said that his informants had told him that the raid was imminent.

  I hoped so.

  I had been away from Maggie way too long.

  She would drive down for an evening and we would have supper together, but it just wasn’t the same.

  I had just finished an undercover stint as a dead man in the Dr. Death sting that had taken me away from home and now with this, I had been away from her for almost a month.

  I had grown quite fond of Kay’s apple pie, but it just couldn’t take the place of Maggie’s sweet kisses.

  The day began like any other; the frost on the pumpkin melting away under the bright morning sun.

  About ten o’clock someone pointed to Highway Thirteen.

  Coming from the north was a line of cars that, at first glance, appeared to be a funeral procession.

  A closer look revealed that the vehicles were big black SUV’s and not stretch limos.

  “This is it,” I said. “Let’s prepare a special welcome for our guests.”

  We knew that the purpose of the raid was to seize all of the bottles, juice and berries and put Gordon’s Elixir out of business just as they had done with the bread company.

  Bread was one thing, but sticky elderberry juice, the consistency of India ink was quite another.

  We had figured out how to rig the storage vats holding the juice so that an unsuspecting interloper would have a rude surprise.

  The SUV’s rolled into the parking lot with red and blue lights flashing from under their grills.

  They poured out of the cars with guns drawn and swarmed the market.

  “U.S. Marshals! Everyone stay where you are and put your hands in the air!”

  All of the market employees had known what was coming, but the half-dozen customers who had been milling about, stood frozen with fear.

  The whole scene was reminiscent of the old movies depicting the Nazi Gestapo raiding a village looking for Jews in hiding.

  Quickly, the guy in charge separated the employees from the customers.

  He herded the employees into a corner and ordered us to stay put.

  He grabbed bottles of elderberry juice from the shaking hands of terrified customers and ushered them out the door.

  When all that was left was market employees, he addressed the group.

  “Which one of you is Robert Gordon?”

  Bob raised his hand and stepped forward.

  The marshal handed Bob an official-looking document.

  “This is an order from the Food and Drug Administration authorizing us to seize everything associated with the production and sale of Gordon’s Elderberry Elixir.”

  “Have at it,” Bob said with a smile.

  The marshals backed a truck up to the door of the market and began loading the bottles of juice from the display shelf.

  When they had finished, they asked Bob for the bottles waiting to be filled.

  He showed them where they were located in the storage area and the marshals loaded that too.

  With that job completed, the guy in charge approached Bob again.

  “Is there anything else on the premises associated with the illegal drug?”

  “Well, if you’re talking about my juice,” he replied, “there’s a whole vat of it back in the cooler that we were about to put in bottles.”

  The guy motioned for one of his underlings to check out the juice.

  “What am I supposed to do with a vat of juice?” the underling asked.

  “Our orders say to remove EVERYTHING associated with the drug, so figure it out!”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The man disappeared into the cooler and in just a few minutes we heard ---

  “OH SHIT!”

  At that moment, another procession of SUV’s stormed into the parking lot.

  Blackburn hopped out of the car followed by small army of guys in FBI jackets.

  “I’m Agent Blackburn with the FBI,” he said, handing the marshal an official-looking paper.

  “This is an order signed by the Attorney General ordering you to stand down. Please surrender your weapons and your car keys. We’re taking you into custody.”

  The marshal handed Blackburn his weapon just as the underling emerged from the cooler covered from head-to-toe with black sticky goo.

  Blackburn gave me a grin and said, “Well, Br’er Bear. Looks like we got us a tar baby.”

  We wrapped up the elderberry caper and headed home.

  The Gordon’s got to keep the berry press as promised and the Feds even gave them new bottles with labels more in tune with the current law.

  Plus, he had raked in a bundle from the sale of the new juice.

  The word spread rapidly that the Bob and Kay were part of an FBI undercover operation and they soon became local heroes.

  On the day we parted company,
Kay gave Ox a pie fresh out of the oven and Bob handed me a peck of apples.

  “Got you some without bullet holes,” he said, smiling.

  Blackburn kept me informed about the progress of our sting.

  The marshals, it turned out, were simply unsuspecting pawns in the ‘selective enforcement’ scheme.

  Their orders had come from the Kansas City office of the FDA.

  The order had been passed down to them directly from the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

  The Center’s director, coincidently, had a son on the board of directors of Martin Pharmaceuticals.

  One of their most profitable drugs just happened to be a statin whose purpose was to regulate cholesterol.

  Based on our work, the Attorney General launched an investigation into the regulatory practices of the FDA and its relationship with the large drug companies.

  While our little victory couldn’t be classified as a knockout punch, it was a start.

  Undoubtedly there would be stonewalling and arm twisting, and congressmen and bureaucrats who had been on the take would be getting calls from the CEO’s of the drug giants calling in their favors.

  Years could pass before there would be any real reform in the system that had become so badly corrupted, but if it happened in my lifetime, I would be proud to say that I had a small part in it.

  I had been in Osceola for the better part of two weeks and on my return, my friends and family insisted on throwing a party.

  I appreciated the gesture, but my goal was some alone time with Maggie.

  I enjoyed the laughing and the jokes and the food, but I was relieved when the last guest departed.

  Maggie smiled and gave me her ‘come hither’ look.

  I didn’t have to be asked twice.

  We had some ‘catching up’ to do.

  I just didn’t realize that we were going to do all our ‘catching up’ in one night!

  A cop’s schedule can be frustrating, but a realtor’s can be just as bad.

  A good agent must work when their clients are available.

  Maggie had been working with a gal whose husband was being transferred into Kansas City.

  They had pre-selected several homes in anticipation of his arrival.

  His plane had landed and he was anxious to see the homes that evening.

  Maggie called and said that she would just grab a quick bite on the run and that I was on my own for supper.

  While I would miss my sweetie, I realized that this wasn’t all together a terrible thing.

  Maggie had succeeded in steering my diet from fried things to grilled things and from tasty starches to green things.

  I was slowly being morphed from a carnivore to a herbivore, but old habits die slowly.

  I figured that this was my night to pay Mel a visit.

  Prior to my nuptials, Mel’s Diner was my eatery of choice.

  Most everything on his menu was either deep-fried or fried on the grill in butter.

  I decided on a chicken-fried steak with fluffy potatoes, all smothered in greasy gravy. Of course it came with a huge slice of Texas toast, buttered and grilled.

  I topped it all off with a generous slice of lemon pie with meringue three inches high.

  I figured that I would have to graze on greens for a month to make up for my debauchery.

  I left the diner so full I could barely waddle.

  I was on the way to my car when two men came up beside me.

  I felt something being pressed into my side and guessed that it wasn’t the guy’s finger.

  “Just keep walking,” the guy said. “We’re going to that black van just ahead.”

  When we reached the van, one guy opened the cargo door while the other one patted me down.

  I had left my gun in my car before going into Mel’s. I suppose it was just as well. They’d have just taken it anyway.

  After determining that I was unarmed, he gave me a shove. “Get in.”

  One guy hopped into the driver’s seat and the other sat on a bench opposite me with a gun trained at my chest.

  “Who are you guys?” I asked.

  “I guess it really doesn’t matter if I tell you since you won’t be in a position to tell anyone else.”

  That wasn’t a message that I wanted to hear.

  “Apparently you’ve pissed off some very powerful people,” he said. “The marks that my partner and I usually get are drug lords, crime bosses or other assassins. We’ve never been hired to do an old cop.

  “They don’t give us details, but I hear you’ve been stepping on the toes of some drug company bigwigs with political connections.

  “That’ll get you killed, you know.”

  “Can we talk about this?” I asked.

  He looked at his watch. “You can talk all you want for the next ten minutes, cause after that, you won’t be talking no more.”

  I realized that bargaining with a hired assassin was a waste of what little breath I had left.

  I burped and got a second taste of the lemon pie.

  Well, I thought, at least my last meal was a dandy.

  “Exactly how do you plan to do this?” I asked.

  Then I remembered the old guy on the front porch of the Three Trails who said that if he knew where he was going to die, he simply wouldn’t go there.

  I didn’t think that was going to be an option under these circumstances.

  “We’re professionals,” he said. “No guns or knives --- too messy and they leave too many clues. You’re going to have a terrible accident.”

  I looked out the window and saw that we were in downtown Kansas City.

  The van turned into a parking garage and began to slowly wind up the ramps to the top floor.

  I counted six levels before we reached the roof.

  The driver parked and opened the cargo door.

  “Out!” he barked.

  They each grabbed an arm and drug me to the roof railing.

  I looked over the edge. It was a long, long way down and I was afraid of heights to begin with.

  I had heard of cruel twists of fate where guys who were afraid of water drowned and here I was, an acrophobic who was about to be tossed over the edge.

  “Any last words?” the guy asked.

  I turned to speak, but instead of words coming out of my mouth, it was Mel’s delicious dinner.

  Lemon pie, Texas toast, chicken fried steak and fluffy potatoes all smothered in gravy erupted and covered the guy from head to toe.

  “Arrrrrrrrghhhhh,” he shouted.

  The next thing I knew, I was being hoisted over the guardrail.

  I hung suspended for just a moment and a final shove pushed me over the edge.

  The last thing I heard was the guy screaming, “Have a nice trip, you puke!”

  I had experienced dreams where I was flying. It had been exhilarating. I would launch out and glide over the hills and trees and I always awoke refreshed and comfortable in my bed.

  This was nothing like that at all.

  I saw the pavement coming at me from six stories below and realized that I wouldn’t be waking up in my comfortable bed.

  About midway into my swan dive, I saw the red and white umbrella of a tamale cart moving my direction.

  At the last moment I realized that the cart and I were on a collision course.

  I suddenly realized the irony of the situation. I was going to die on top of a tamale cart and I didn’t even like tamales.

  CHAPTER 14

  When I opened my eyes, I was totally disoriented.

  I looked down and there, far below, I saw the body of Walter Williams lying in a hospital bed.

  The face was covered with an oxygen mask, bags of liquid were dripping into tubes inserted into the arms and an overhead machine displayed digital readouts of his vital signs.

  Maggie was at the bedside holding his hand.

  A small circle of friends and family stood quietly in the corner.

  The drama bei
ng played out below, reminded me of a play in which I acted in high school.

  It was called Balcony Scene.

  I played St. Peter and my best friend, Kenny, played the part of a man who had died.

  St. Peter and the man were in the balcony of the funeral home looking down on the service below.

  The gist of the story was that St. Peter was giving the man the opportunity to see and hear what his friends and family thought of him, based on the life that he had lived.

  Fifty years had passed and I still remembered the two opening lines of the play.

  Are you sure we won’t be seen?

  Yes, I am quite sure.

  My first thought was that surely they must know that I am up here --- wherever ‘here’ might be.

  Then I remembered that in the play, the guy was dead, and my second thought was wondering whether I might have cashed in my chips as well.

  At that moment, a man in a white coat entered the room. The stethoscope around his neck led me to believe that he was a doctor.

  He read the chart attached to the foot of the bed and then studied the digital readouts.

  He spoke and I heard every word as clearly as if he were standing right beside me.

  “The good news is that his vitals are stable.”

  “And the bad news?” Maggie asked.

  “He is still in a deep coma. With a head injury like he sustained, there is no way of knowing how soon --- or even if, he will wake up.”

  He turned to the little knot of family and friends.

  “You all might as well go on home and get some rest. He might regain consciousness in a matter of hours, or it could be days, or maybe never. He’s stable for now and we’ll call you if there’s any change.”

  Dad came over and put his hand on Maggie’s shoulder.

  “Come on, honey. You need to get some sleep.”

  “I can’t leave him,” she replied. “You all go. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

  Each one, in turn, gave Maggie a hug, and a pat on the hand to the body in the bed.

  After they were gone, Maggie laid her head on the side of the bed, never letting go of the limp hand.

  I suddenly became aware of the presence of a bright light that grew in intensity.