Toxin (39 page)

“Reggis,” Shanahan said. “Dr. Kim Reggis.” Once again he scanned the faces around them. Thankfully there were no signs of interest or recognition. “Here's a recent photo,” Shanahan said. He handed the picture to Derek. It wasn't very good. It had been copied from a newspaper article.

“This is quite grainy,” Derek said. “I'm going to need more information.”

“I've put together a bio,” Shanahan said. He handed the paper to Derek. “You'll notice it has a physical description of the man. There's also the year, model, and type of his car along with the tag number. You have his address, but we have reason to believe he's not staying there at the moment.”

“This is more like it,” Derek said as he scanned the sheet. “Yes, indeed. Very complete.”

“We believe Dr. Reggis spent last night at his former wife's residence,” Shanahan said. “She bailed him out of jail yesterday morning.”

“Jail?” Derek questioned. “Sounds like the doctor has been misbehaving.”

“That's an understatement as far as we are concerned,” Shanahan said.

They reached the baggage carousel and pressed in among the other passengers. The baggage from Derek's flight was just beginning to appear.

“There's one thing that I think you ought to know,” Shanahan said. “There was a botched attempt on the doctor's life last night.”

“Thank you for your forthrightness,” Derek said. “That is indeed an important point. What you mean to say, of course, is that the man will be highly vigilant.”

“Something like that,” Shanahan said.

A shrill beeping sound made the tense Shanahan jump. It took him a moment to realize it was his pager. Surprised at being paged since Bobby Bo knew where he was and what he was doing, Shanahan snapped the pager off his belt and glanced at the small LCD screen. He was further confused because he didn't recognize the number.

“Would you mind if I used a phone?” Shanahan said. He pointed to a bank of pay phones lining a nearby wall.

“Not at all,” Derek said. He was contentedly studying the information sheet on Kim.

Finding a few coins in his pocket en route to the phone, Shanahan quickly dialed the mysterious number. The phone was picked up on the first ring. It was Carlos.

“The doctor is here!” Carlos said in an excited, forced whisper.

“Where the hell are you talking about?” Shanahan asked.

“Here at Higgins and Hancock,” Carlos said, keeping his voice low. “I'm using the phone in the lunchroom. This has to be fast. The doctor is working here as a slop boy. He looks crazy, man.”

“What are you talking about?” Shanahan asked.

“He looks weird,” Carlos said. “He looks like an old rock singer. His hair's cut short and what's left is blond.”

“You're joking,” Shanahan said.

“No, man!” Carlos insisted. “He's also got stitches on his face where I cut him. It's him, I know it is, although I had to look at him for a couple of minutes before I was sure. Then he came all the way around to my station and stood there for a couple of minutes until the boss came and dragged him away.”

“What boss?” Shanahan asked.

“Jed Street,” Carlos said.

“Did the doctor recognize you?” Shanahan asked.

“Sure, why not?” Carlos said. “He was staring at me. For a minute I was thinking he might come after me, but he didn't. If he had I would have done him in. You want me to do it anyway? I can get him while he's here?”

“No!” Shanahan shouted, losing control of himself for a moment. He knew that if Carlos killed Kim in the middle of the day with a hundred witnesses it would be a disaster. Shanahan took a deep breath and then spoke quietly and slowly. “Don't do anything. Pretend you don't recognize him. Just stay cool. I'll get word to you. Understand?”

“I want to do this guy,” Carlos said. “I told you I don't want the money.”

“That's very generous of you,” Shanahan said. “Of course, you were the one who screwed up to begin with, but that's not the point at the moment. I'll get word to you, okay?”

“Okay,” Carlos said.

Shanahan hung up the phone. He kept his hand on the receiver while he looked over at Derek Leutmann. This was a quandary. For the moment he didn't know what to do.

 

A
n unexpected tapping on the driver's-side window made Tracy's heart skip a beat. During the time that she'd been parked at the end of the slaughterhouse, she'd seen occasional people coming and going from their vehicles. But no one had come near her car. Hastily Tracy pulled off the stereo headphones and turned to look out the window.

Standing next to the car was a grisly man clad in soiled overalls and a dirty turtleneck. On his head was a
baseball hat turned backwards. Glued to his lower lip was an unlit cigarette that bobbed up and down as he breathed through his open mouth.

Tracy's first impulse was to start the car and drive away. That idea was abandoned when she remembered the antenna teetering on the roof. Feeling she had little choice, she cracked the window.

“I saw you from my truck,” the man said. He pointed over his shoulder at a neighboring van.

“Oh, really,” Tracy responded anxiously. She didn't know what else to say. The man had a vivid scar that ran down the side of his face onto his neck.

“Whatcha listening to?” the man asked.

“Not much,” Tracy said. She looked over at the tape recorder. It was still rolling. “Just some music.”

“I like country music,” the man said. “You listening to country music?”

“No,” Tracy said with a weak smile. “This is more New Age. Actually, I'm waiting for my husband. He's working here.”

“I've been doing some plumbing work here myself,” the man said. “They got more drains and pipes here than anyplace in the county. Anyhow, I was wondering if you've got a light. I can't find my lighter noplace.”

“Sorry,” Tracy said. “I wish I could help you, but I don't smoke, and I don't have any matches.”

“Thanks anyway,” the man said. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No bother,” Tracy said.

The man walked away, and Tracy breathed a sigh of relief. She rolled up the window. The episode made her realize how tense she was. She'd been on edge from the moment Kim had disappeared inside, but her anxieties had skyrocketed ever since Kim's confrontation with the
killer in the bathroom. The fact that she'd not been able to talk to Kim didn't help. She truly wanted to tell him to get out of there: It just wasn't worth it.

After a furtive glance around to make sure no one else was watching her, Tracy slipped the stereo headphones back on and closed her eyes. The problem was she had to concentrate to hear what Kim was saying. The general din inside the plant had forced her to turn the volume down quite low.

 

K
im had moved all the way around the eviscerating area and now had a view of the whole slaughtering process. He could see the cows being killed, hoisted up, and their throats being slit. Next they were skinned and decapitated with the heads going off on a separate overhead conveyer system. After the evisceration the carcasses were sawed in half lengthwise by a frightful saw far beyond the gruesome conceptions of Hollywood horror movie producers.

Kim glanced at his watch to time the rapidity with which the wretched animals were killed. He was astonished. With his chin down on his chest he spoke into his microphone.

“Let's hope Lee Cook can come up with an appropriate video system,” he said. “It's going to be a snap to document Marsha's major point. She said the problem concerning contamination in the meat industry was in the slaughterhouse. She said it was simply profit over safety. I just timed the activity here. They're slaughtering the cattle at the unbelievable rate of one every twelve seconds. At that speed, there's no way to avoid gross contamination.

“And talk about collusion between the USDA and the
industry; it's even evident on this operational level. Up on the catwalks there are a few inspectors. They stand out like black sheep. They wear red hard hats instead of yellow and their white coats are comparatively clean. But they're doing more laughing and joking with the workers than inspecting. I mean the inspecting is pure sham. Not only is the line moving too fast; these guys are hardly even looking at the carcasses as they whip by.”

Kim suddenly caught sight of Jed Street nosing around the eviscerating tables and sinks. Kim recommenced his sweeping with his push broom. He moved away from Jed in a counterclockwise direction and soon found himself in the decapitation area. The beheading was done by another saw only slightly less appalling than the saw used to cut the carcasses in two. Just before the spine was completely severed by the man wielding the saw, another man caught the hundred-plus-pound head with a hook dangling from the head conveyer rail. It was a process that required coordination and teamwork.

Continuing his cleaning efforts, Kim followed the line of the skinned heads. With their lids gone the lifeless eyes gave the heads a curiously surprised look as they clanked along.

Kim followed the head conveyer to a point where it disappeared through an aperture into an adjoining room. Kim immediately recognized the room as the place where he'd been attacked Saturday night.

Glancing over his shoulder, he looked for Jed. When he didn't see him in the pandemonium, Kim took a chance that Jed wouldn't miss him and walked through the doorless opening into the head-boning room.

“I've come into the room where the heads go,” Kim said into his microphone. “This is potentially important in how Becky happened to get sick. Marsha had found
something in the paperwork about the head of the last animal on the day the meat for Becky's hamburger might have been slaughtered. She said it was ‘revolting,' which I now find curious, since I find the whole process revolting.”

Kim watched for a moment as the head conveyer dumped a head every twelve seconds onto a table where it was attacked by a team of butchers. Knives similar to the ones used to slit the animals' throats quickly cut out the huge cheek muscles and the tongues. The workers took this meat and tossed it into a two-thousand-pound combo bin similar to those Kim had seen at Mercer Meats.

“I'm learning something every minute,” Kim said. “There must be a lot of cow cheeks in hamburger.”

Kim noticed that after the cheeks and tongues were removed, the cow heads were pushed onto a flat conveyer belt that dumped them ignominiously into a black hole that presumably led to the basement.

“I think I might have to visit the basement,” Kim said reluctantly. He had the sense that his childhood fear of basements would be put to the test.

 

S
o far it had been a good day as far as Jed Street was concerned, despite its being Monday. He'd had a great breakfast that morning, had gotten to work early enough to sit and have a second cup of coffee with several of the other supervisors, and had had to face fewer absenteeisms than usual. Finding and keeping decent help was Jed's biggest headache.

With none of his key day employees having called in sick, Jed was confident that his team would have processed close to two thousand head by the lunch break.
That made Jed happy because he knew it would make his immediate boss, Lenny Striker, happy.

Jed slipped out of his white coat and hung it up. Wanting to catch up on his paperwork, he'd retreated to his office with his third cup of coffee of the day. He walked around his desk and sat down. Pen in hand, he went to work. He had a considerable number of forms that had to be filled out each and every day.

Jed hadn't been working long when his phone rang. He reached for his coffee before picking up the receiver. He was relatively unconcerned about getting a call so late in the morning and could not imagine it would be particularly serious. At the same time he knew there was always a chance. Being in charge of something as potentially dangerous as a kill floor, he knew that disaster was never far away.

“Hello,” Jed said, overemphasizing the first syllable. He took a sip of coffee.

“Jed Street, this is Daryl Webster. Do you have a moment to speak with me?”

Jed spat out his coffee, then scrambled to wipe the brew off his forms. “Of course, Mr. Webster,” Jed sputtered. He'd worked for Higgins and Hancock for fourteen years, and during that time the real boss had never called him.

“I got a call from one of Bobby Bo's people,” Daryl explained. “He told me that we've employed a new slop boy just today.”

“That's correct,” Jed said. He felt his face heat up. Hiring illegal aliens was tacitly condoned while the official policy was that it was forbidden. Jed hoped to God he wasn't going to end up being a scapegoat.

“What's this man's name?” Daryl asked.

Jed frantically searched through the papers on his
desk. He'd written the name down, although not on any employment forms. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found it.