Megan's Cure (14 page)

Chapter 28

ENZO LEE WAS in the newsroom working on his story about the decline in attendance at the annual San Francisco Flower Show.
 
Organizers believed gardeners were shifting from tulips and roses to cucumbers and tomatoes.

“Old gardeners never die,”
the story began
. “They just vegetate.”

As he labored over the second paragraph of the story, Lee’s phone rang.

“Mr. Lee,” said the caller.
 
“This is Roxanne Rosewell.
 
I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversation on the weekend.
 
I’m…I’m very worried about Walter.
 
And…I..uh.
 
I’m wondering if…well, if I put you in touch with him…could you talk to him?
 
I mean.
 
Would it have to be public or could you just listen and…and maybe give him some advice?”

“Call me Enzo, Roxanne,” said Lee.
 
“I’ll be happy to talk to him off the record, just as I did with you.”

“Oh.
 
Good,” said Rosewell.
 

“You understand, though, that my main interest is whether there is anything that can help my grandmother, right?” said Lee.

“Of course,” said Rosewell.
 
“It’s just.
 
Well, I don’t know.
 
I mean Walter is…is a good man.
 
His intentions…they are always good.
 
But there is a lot more going on.
 
A lot that I don’t understand.
 
And I think Walter is confused. I just felt…well…you seem to have good intentions.
 
Maybe you can help steer him a bit.
 
He needs someone he can talk to.”

Lee wondered exactly what mess Novak could be in.
 
Well, why not? Often when he interviewed someone, he had no idea if it would be a complete waste or the beginning of a great story.
 
It was just a little of his time. And maybe something would come out of it that could help his grandmother after all.
 
It wasn’t impossible.
 

“I’ll be happy to talk to him,” said Lee.
 
“Do you have a phone number?”

“I’ll try to get him to call you,” said Rosewell.
 
“He’s quite…well, I suppose ‘paranoid’ isn’t too strong a word.
 
It’s a very tortuous process.
 
But I can get word to him.”

“Okay,” said Lee.

“Oh.
 
And one more thing,” said Rosewell.
 
“The police called here asking about Walter.”

“The police?” said Lee, his reporting side now kicked into high alert.
 
“What did they want?”

“I have no idea,” said Rosewell.
 
“All I have is a note someone left on my desk.
 
Do you know a detective named Bobbie Connors?”

* * *

The Tadich Grill in San Francisco’s business district boasts that it is the oldest restaurant in California, tracing its roots to a makeshift coffee-and-grilled-fish stand erected on one of the city’s main shipping piers in the midst of the 1849 Gold Rush.

It’s a throwback with rich wood paneling, white table cloths, dry martinis and waiters wearing starched linen jackets.
 
The extensive menu was too rich and fried to ever be mistaken for health-conscious cuisine – but delicious nonetheless.

Lee had two dry martinis and a half dozen Oysters Rockefeller at the ready – steam still rising from the cream spinach and cheese topping baked to a crisp gold – when Detective Bobbie Connors arrived at his table.

“Enzo!” she exclaimed, barely giving the reporter time to stand before enveloping him in a bear hug that only ended when she had a chance to peer over his shoulder and see the chilled drinks next to the plate of oysters.

“You devil,” she said, dropping a huge purse on the floor and taking off a purple velvet jacket which she draped over her chair.
 
She sat down, swept her long braids back out of her way and took a long sip of her martini.

“Okay?” said Lee.

Connors was silent for a moment, feeling the drink descend and the beginning of a warm glow start its ascent.

“Yah,” she said.
 
“Hell, yah.”

“So,” Connors continued, picking up a stuffed oyster and attacking it with her fork. “You’re plying me with food and drink so I’ll spill my secrets, huh?”

“Well, you can pay half if it will make you feel better,” said Lee.

“Let’s not be rash,” said Connors laughing.

Lee and Connors had become good friends after having helped each other on various stories and investigations over the past few years.
 
They were close in age – 40 and counting.
 
Connors was a veteran in the San Francisco Police Department.
 
She was also active in gay and lesbian rights.
 
She had jolted her superiors early in her career when she openly marched in the city’s annual Gay Pride parade in full uniform.

Lee thought the fact that they both had grown up outside the white mainstream of America enhanced their friendship.
 
Connors was African-American and Lee had weathered his fair share of taunts and slights that came to a boy raised in Chinatown.
 
They both fit comfortably into the current mélange of cultures, lifestyles and ethnicity in the San Francisco area.
 
But both had grown up feeling like outsiders, not really eligible for the first-class cabin of power and privilege.

The waiter returned and Lee ordered his usual sautéed sand dabs, lightly breaded and cooked with butter and wine.
 
It came with braised asparagus.
 
Connors opted for the cioppino, a light tomato-based stew crammed with shrimp, scallops, clams, mussels, crab, fish and garlic toast thrown in for good measure.
 
They asked for a Loire white to accompany the dinner.

“So,” said Connors after the waiter left and she was able to attack her second oyster.
 
“The elusive Mr. Novak.”

“Hmmm. ‘Elusive,’” said Lee.
 
“That sounds right.
 
Where is he and what is he eluding?”

“Okay,” said Connors.
 
“Let’s just cut to the chase.
 
Here’s what I got.
 
The guy snatches a 10-year-old girl in nowhere Alabama.
 
Looks like a kidnapping.
 
Molestation.
 
The whole damn thing.
 
Then the guy – or the girl – calls the mother and somehow convinces her everything is okay.
 
No problemo.
 
But no other explanation.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?” said Lee.
 
“I’ve got a 50-something
 
cancer researcher – maybe a brilliant one – who possibly develops something important, a better drug or some such thing.
 
Then weird stuff turns up in his drug trials.
 
Unexplained results.
 
Things that don’t make sense.
 
Then he disappears saying he’s got to save someone.”

“Well, my guy works at Merrick & Merrick,” said Connors.
 
“So that sounds like a match.
 
I don’t know anything about his professional life.”

 
“And why are you interested in Novak?” asked Lee.

“Just between us, it’s unofficial,” said Connors.
 
“It’s more of a favor.
 
I know the guy – the police chief – where this happened.
 
Where the girl was snatched...or whatever.
 
Nice guy.
 
Salt of the earth.
 
Small town.
 
Wants to make sure this kid is okay.
 
You’d think it was his own daughter.
 
And why are you onto this?
 
A story?
 
Outside your normal features beat, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what it is,” said Lee.
 
“I mean I got into this because of my grandmother.
 
She’s very sick – leukemia.”

“Oh, God,” said Connors.
 
“I’m sorry, Enzo.
 
I know you’re close to her.”

“Yeah,” he said with a long sigh while he rubbed his forehead with his left hand.
 
“Thanks.
 
It’s been a rough time.
 
She’s about my only family.”
 

“Anyway,” Lee continued.
 
“I heard Novak had developed a drug just for this…what my grandmother has.
 
So, I was trying to find out about it.
 
And one thing led to another…”
 

Connors was silent for a moment.
 
She finished her second oyster and stared at the third before picking it up.

“Why don’t I put you in touch with my guy?” she said.
 
“Cliff.
 
‘Ol Cliffy in Alabama.
 
You two put your heads together and see what you can figure out.
 
Just let me know what you find out.
 
Sounds as if whatever is happening is a long way from here.
 
But you never know.”

Connors held the third helping of Oysters Rockefeller up to her lips and used her fork to push the spinach, cheese and bivalve into her mouth.
 
She chewed for 15 seconds and then washed it down with the last of the martini.

“Man, that was good,” she said grinning.
 
“You can pump me for information any ‘ol time...please!”

Chapter 29

THE MAN WITH the single white streak in his hair was called “Whitey” by everyone who knew him.
 
It was a nickname he had hated since childhood in no small part because it reminded everyone – including him – of the birthmark in his scalp that robbed the strip of hair of its natural brown pigment.

In high school, the class clown had tried to stick him with the alternative handle of “Skunk.”
 
The result had been a mouthful of broken teeth for the clown and the realization that there were worse nicknames.
 
He grudgingly accepted that he was stuck with ‘Whitey.’

Late in the afternoon, Whitey would have preferred to be inside the house of Walter Novak’s cousin near Charlotte before its owner came home.
 
But when he went up to the front steps to see if anyone was there – ready to adopt the pose of a salesman offering deals on new roofs should anyone answer – the loud barking that greeted him changed his plan.

Instead, Whitey parked his rental car in the shade down the block and settled in with his paperback, a history of World War II.
 
He had learned the cousin was an accountant.
 
Hopefully, he kept normal work hours.
 
Whitey had made it through the German invasion of France when a Jeep Cherokee pulled in front of the house.
 
The garage door slowly opened and the Cherokee parked inside before the door began to wind its way closed.

 
Whitey waited five minutes before leaving his car.
 
Before he got out, he took the newspaper he had bought at the airport and folded it until it sat neatly tented over his Glock 19 with the silencer screwed onto the barrel.

Novak’s cousin was pudgy, wore wire-rimmed glasses and had on his slippers when he answered the door.
 
He opened it six inches.

“Hello,” said Whitey, smiling and pointed the newspaper with the concealed gun downward at the man’s legs.
 
He held the newsprint pinched closed with his free hand.

“I found this in the gutter and thought it must be yours,” he added.

When Novak’s cousin opened the door another foot, Whitey let the newspaper fall away and thrust the gun into the accountant’s midriff.
 
He used his other hand to guide the smaller man backward into the house.
 
He shut the door behind him with a kick.
 

“Whaaa.
 
What are you doing?” said Novak’s cousin.

Whitey put the end of the silencer under the man’s jaw carefully, pressing it up hard enough to get the guy’s undivided attention without accidentally blow his head off.
 
Then he spun him around.
 
The dog, a knee-high mutt, was five feet away, growling menacingly.

“Lock him up,” said Whitey, through gritted teeth.
 
His voice was quiet but insistent.
 
He grabbed Novak’s cousin by the back of his shirt under the collar and pushed him in the direction of the dog.

He stayed behind the accountant holding the fistful of shirt as the dog was corralled and locked into a guest bathroom off the entry hall.
 
Then Whitey walked him into the middle of the living room and made him sit flat on the floor with his legs in front of him.
 

“What’s your name?” asked Whitey.

“It’s…uh…it’s ‘Andrew.’”

“Do you want to live, Andrew?” asked Whitey.

“Yes…yes,” said Novak’s cousin, looking up hopefully at his assailant.
 
He was terrified.

“You won’t unless you tell me right now where Walter Novak is.”

“He uh…he uh…left,” said Andrew.
 
“I don’t know where he went.
 
He didn’t tell me.
 
You’ve got to believe me.
 
Please.”

Whitey was still for a moment, his eyes boring into the man on the floor.

“
That’s not the deal, Andrew,” said Whitey.
 
“I don’t mind killing you.
 
I’ve killed a lot of people.
 
One more?
 
It’s nothing to me.”
 
He sat down on the sofa four feet away from the accountant on the floor and pointed the gun at his face.

“Listen…listen,” said Andrew.
 
“I don’t know him really.
 
He was here but I hadn’t seen him in 20 years.
 
I don’t even
like
Walter.
 
I never did.
 
He was always…just strange.
 
I wanted him out of here.
 
I didn’t care where he was going.
 
I didn’t want to know.”

Whitey exhaled slowly.

“This is not going well,” he said.
 
“You are not holding up your end of the bargain.
 
You need to come up with something better than this.
 
Can you call him?
 
How do you get in touch with him?”

Andrew shrugged and held his hands out plaintively.
 
He was sweating.
 
His eyes raced around the room, looking for a way out…an answer…anything.
 
Then he closed his eyes.

“He said...he said…I think he said he knew someone,” said the accountant. “It was a professor at Duke with a place in Georgia.
 
A professor at Duke with a place in Georgia.
 
That was it!
 
It was a Middle Eastern name.
 
Like Rasheed or something like that.
 
Rasheed or..or..maybe something that sounded like that.
 
Foreign.”

“Roll over!
 
Face down!” Whitey ordered.
 
Andrew immediately flopped onto his stomach.
 
Whitey stood up, bent over the prone man and pressed the gun into the back of his head.

“You’ve failed, Andrew.
 
I’m sorry,” he said.

“Oh no!
 
Oh no! Oh no!” wailed the accountant.
 
He clenched handfuls of carpet in a death grip and made wet slobbering noises.
 
Whitey could see a wet stain starting to grow in the crotch of his pants.
 
It was then that Whitey was sure he had gotten everything he was going to get from the poor slob.
 
He stood and listened to the crying for a moment.

“If you try to contact Novak, I’ll know,” said Whitey.
 
“Every phone call.
 
Every email.
 
I’ll know.
 
And I’ll come back and finish this.”

On his way out, Whitey stopped at the guest bathroom, threw open the door and shot the snarling mutt twice.

“God, I hate dogs,” he muttered to himself as he left the house.