But the Children Survived (30 page)

On the morning of Trixie’s appointment, Vinnie told Cash to bring her into the office again.  He told Cash to have Trixie fill out the paperwork at the doctor's office with false information. 

“Just tell them anything.  Make sure it's all bogus.”  He handed Cash $120.  Then Vinnie turned to Trixie.

“When you get the doctor alone, I want to you tell him that Antonio sent you.  You got that?  Antonio.”

“Antonio sent me,” Trixie repeated.

“Right.  When he asks you ‘who,’ you say 'I have the plants.'  That's all.  Then give him this number.”  Vinnie gave Trixie a slip of paper with a number from a throw-away phone he’d purchased just for this occasion.  “Then get the hell out of there.  Don't stop for nothin'.  They won't have anything on you anyway.” 

When Cash and Trixie got to Tomlinson's office, she filled out the paperwork as instructed.  Cash paid for the visit and they waited their turn.  When she was called, Trixie was led to an examining room. 

She was asked to take off her clothes and put on a gown.  Trixie had no intention of staying, so she put the gown on over her tube top and mini-skirt.  It looked like she was naked underneath.  When the doctor walked in, her first thought was of course, Santa Claus. 

“Good afternoon, Mary is it?”  He walked over and shook her hand.

“Antonio sent me.”  Trixie had wasted no time.  “He said to give you this.” 

She handed him the slip of paper with the phone number on it, ripped off the gown and ran out of the room.

  She and Cash high tailed it out of there and into the parking lot.  Cash put the key in the ignition and the pedal to the floor.  When Dr. Tomlinson came out to find them, they were too far away for him to read their tag.

Vinnie asked Cash to bring Trixie to the office to wait for Tomlinson's call.  She told Vinnie she forgot to tell him about the plants.  Vinnie wasn’t worried.  He said just the name Antonio should do the trick.

Around 6 that evening, the throw-away rang.  Trixie picked it up and said “Hello.”  Tomlinson demanded to know what she was talking about.  Vinnie had instructed her to say she had his plants.  When she did, there was silence on the other end.  She asked if he was still there and he said yes.  Finally, Tomlinson asked what she wanted.

“I want to give you the plants.  I'm sure you’d be willing to give me some kind of reward.” 

“What kind of
reward
?”  Tomlinson didn’t sound happy.

“$50,000 should be okay.”  Vinnie gave Trixie the thumbs-up.  There was another long pause.

“Fine.  Where should I bring it?” 

Trixie gave Tomlinson an address in Tarpon Springs by the docks.  There was an old warehouse there that belonged to a friend of Vinnie's.  She told him to meet her there in two hours at nine o’clock.  

“And Doc, no cops.  If I see cops, I burn the plants, capice?”  Vinnie cringed at the way she said “capice.”  The Southern accent killed it. 

“I'll be there, you little slut.”

Trixie frowned.  Vinnie told her to hang up.  Vinnie told Cash to go to the warehouse and wait until he saw the good doctor arrive alone.  If he wasn’t alone, Cash was to call Vinnie immediately.  Vinnie was counting on the doctor's greed.  He believed Tomlinson would show up alone.

Two hours later Cash called.  He said the doctor was there alone.  Vinnie was sitting just down the road with a plant.  He drove to the warehouse and parked next to the doctor's car.  The doctor was sitting in it waiting for Trixie. 

“You must be the good Dr. Tomlinson.  Antonio told me so much about you.”  Vinnie was smiling at the doctor.  He was holding the plant. 

“Where’s the girl?”  He asked Vinnie.

“Oh, it was past her bedtime.  She asked me to take care of you for her.  Won't you come in?” 

Vinnie walked over to the warehouse and opened the door.  The doctor got out of his car and reluctantly followed.  The warehouse was brightly lit, which helped assuage the doctor's growing anxiety.  He now wished he’d called his brother the police captain to come with him, but he hadn’t wanted to jeopardize this exchange.  Only someone with the plants would know about him and Antonio. 

Vinnie placed the plant on a table by the warehouse office. 

“I thought there were more,” Tomlinson said.

“Well, there are, of course.  This is kind of a teaser, if you will.  Have you ever seen one of these beauties?”

“No, there was no need.  Mr. Russo made the drug.  He duped me into believing he had FDA approval.”

“Yeah, that's our Antonio.  A real lowlife.”   Vinnie pulled the cord on the overhead light.  “So, whadda ya think?”

The plant Vinnie chose was in full bloom.  The leaves were big and the purple edges sublime.  The doctor sucked in his breath when he saw it under the light. 

“It’s quite breathtaking isn't it?”  He came closer to the plant. 

“Yeah, and you should smell it.  Like a rose.” 

“Really?  The purple solution smelled like wet plants.”  Dr. Tomlinson leaned closer.

“You gotta get right on top of it, Doc.  Put your nose right to it.” 

Tomlinson put his nose closer.  He was less than an inch from the large green center of the leaf. 

“I don't smell anything,” Tomlinson said. 

“You actually have to touch the plant, Doc.  Rub your nose to release the oils.” 

Antonio had never mentioned the plants poisonous centers to Tomlinson.  He put his nose to the leaf and rubbed it.  He fell over so fast it surprised Vinnie.  There was blood dripping from his nose. 

Vinnie picked up the plant put it back in his car.  He called Cash to come in and remove the body.  Cash came in and dragged Tomlinson's body to the back of the warehouse.  There was a dock outside where the river ran.  Cash hoisted Tomlinson's body over the edge of the dock, sending him into the river after carefully placing some nice smooth rocks in his pockets.  Vinnie spit into the water. 

“That's for Antonio you son of a bitch.”  He then paid Cash and waked back toward his car. 

He opened Dr. Tomlinson's car door and found a bag containing $50,000.  Vinnie was surprised the good doctor was ready to pay.  He took the money and put it in his trunk.

“Hey, Cash, wipe for prints and make sure there's no blood on the floor, will ya?”

“Okay, boss.” 

Cash walked through the warehouse, washing up the drops of blood leading to the dock.  He checked the floor and the dock for traces of blood and wiped the door and table for prints before locking up and going home.

When Teresa read about Dr. Tomlinson's disappearance in the St. Petersburg Times, her first thought was Vinnie.  When his body washed up on the shores of the Anclote River, she knew it was Vinnie.  He had avenged her Antonio, and even though she found what he’d done morally repugnant, she secretly cheered him.  He had done what she couldn’t do.  He had protected her Antonio's memory.

*****

Jason was thirteen years old when Teresa decided to send him to a good prep school in Connecticut.  Lorraine had investigated it for her and said it was one of the best on the East Coast.  Jason was adamant that he wouldn’t go, but in the end Teresa won out and he left for New England.  Teresa missed him terribly, but she felt he needed to be around boys his own age and men other than her father.

Teresa had always felt inadequate when it came to Jason's needs.  She had been an only child and a girl at that. She hoped he wouldn’t blame her one day for his abandonment issues, and that he would understand why she had sent him so far away.  Jason would come home during breaks and summer vacation, and each time he’d grown an inch. 

By the summer of his seventeenth year, he was a strapping six feet tall.  He looked like Antonio with her father's build.  He had brown hair with a slight wave to it and brown eyes.  He was a good-looking boy who turned heads at the mall when Teresa took him shopping for school clothes.  Antonio would have been proud.

One day shortly after Jason had returned home for summer break, while Teresa was cooking Jason some eggs, she fell to the floor with blood running from her nose and was dead before she hit the ground.

PART THREE

JASON RUSSO

Chapter 38

St. Pete Beach, Florida

When Jason Russo woke up, he could see Ricky sleeping in his bed next to the wall.  Ricky was snoring.  He was eighteen years old, but he hadn't changed much since Jason’s eighth birthday.  He had no gray on his snout or his body.  His belly skin looked fresh and pink, not mottled and dark like some older dogs.  Jason was happy Ricky hadn’t aged because that meant he might be around for a little while longer. 

Ricky was the only living, breathing being he’d seen in weeks.  Ricky's mother, Chloe, had died when Jason was eleven, leaving the little dog in a state of grief for several weeks after.  Jason and Ricky had always been close, even though Jason had been gone for months at a time.  Now they depended totally on each other for survival. 

Jason got out of bed and stretched his six-foot frame until his hand touched the ceiling.  He walked over to the sliding glass door that looked out onto the beach and slid it open. 

He stepped onto the porch and felt the sun on his face.  He had cleared the beach the first week. Then he’d tackled the street in front of his house and in the surrounding area for about a mile around so he could travel without encountering death at each turn. 

Jason took a few deep breaths.  The smell of rotting flesh was still faintly wafting through the air.  Jason had done a good job.  With the beach and streets clear, he could begin using the table on the deck to eat his meals.  He liked the fresh air, and now that the air was clear, Ricky would join him.  For the first week Ricky had refused to come outside except to relieve himself.  Now he stayed outside a little longer. 

Jason went back inside and closed the sliding glass door.  Ricky was still asleep.  Jason walked to the stairs going down to the lower level of the house, passing his mother's room.  He kept the door closed as the smell of her perfume always made him tear up and he refused to give in to that weakness.  He’d shed enough tears.  With the door closed, the smell in the hallway had dissipated.  He took the stairs two at a time until he reached the bottom three at which time he jumped, landing in a squat and giving himself a perfect 10.

Jason walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge.  He was happy the electricity was still on.  As most of the neighborhood had, his mother installed solar panels when the Bennetts had petitioned them to.  It was a good investment. They had been able to sell some of the power back to the electric company. 

This had been a very hot summer so far, but Jason's frozen food supply was safe.  He had emptied Granger's freezers a few days after the disaster, so he had plenty of frozen waffles and concentrated orange juice.  He also was able to salvage eggs.

 His mother had shown him how to freeze raw eggs by adding a little salt or sugar to them before freezing them.  He’d spent a good part of that day preparing the eggs.  He had grabbed some ice cube trays at the store and used them to freeze the eggs.  Now he just popped one or two “cubes” out a day and had eggs every morning.  He was running out, though.  Soon he’d have to change his breakfast menu.

The first day had been almost unbearable for Jason.  His mother died right before his eyes while he was on the phone with his friend Justin.  As Teresa fell, he heard a thump on the other end of the phone and then nothing.  He knew the phone was still on because he could hear the sound of the ocean in the background.  But Justin wouldn’t answer. 

He dropped the phone and ran to Teresa.  He started CPR but he could hear no heartbeat.  He tried to dial 911, but no one answered the call. 

Justin looked at Ricky, who was whimpering over Teresa's body.  He sat down on the floor near his mother with his back up against the kitchen island and for a long time, he just stared at her.  He was tired from the night before.  He had gotten home late from Justin's house.  He closed his eyes for just a minute and soon fell asleep.

When he woke up a few hours later, Ricky was licking his hand and trying to get his attention.  Teresa was still lying where she had fallen.  He looked at Ricky and the little dog jumped up on his shoulders and licked his face.  He had to go out.

Jason hauled himself off the floor and walked over to the sliding glass door leading to the first floor deck.  He opened the door without looking up.  Ricky hesitated as he sniffed the air.  Jason gave him a little shove his foot, and then looked up. 

He saw bodies littering the beach.  The shock made him step back.  There had to be at least 50 people on the stretch of beach behind his house.  He could see them for at least half a mile each way. 

Ricky ran to the side of the house where there was grass.  Jason couldn’t move.  He just looked at the beach.  Ricky ran back to the deck and barked at Jason.  He was hungry.  He broke Jason's concentration and snapped him back to reality.  He barked again.

“Okay boy, okay.”  They both walked back into the house. 

The dog food was in a cabinet next to Teresa's body.  Jason went to the refrigerator and pulled out some cold cuts.  He ripped them into little pieces and put them in Ricky's bowl.  He set the bowl down on the other side of the kitchen near Ricky's bowl of water.   The little dog sniffed it and gobbled it up voraciously.  Then Jason turned his attention once more to his mother's body.