James Grippando - Beyond Suspicion

“That’s between me and him. You want to sell your ticket or not?”

Yuri grabbed him by the back of the neck, smashed Pedro’s head into the sink. A crimson rose exploded onto the white basin. Pedro squealed and fell to the ground, his face bloodied, a broken tooth protruding through his upper lip.

“What the… hell?” he said, dazed.

Yuri grabbed him by the hair and looked him straight in the eye. “Two months, huh? That’s a thousand bucks a day for fifty race days you been skimming. You got two days to cough up a fifty-thousand-dollar present to your boss. Or I’ll come find you, and you’ll be spitting up more than just your teeth.”

The bathroom door opened. Two men walked in, then stopped at the sight of blood on the sink and Pedro on the floor.

Yuri walked past them and, on his way out, said, “It’s okay. He slipped.”

The door closed behind him, and Yuri walked calmly into the common area beneath the grandstands. A group of dejected losers watched the replay of the third race on the television sets overhead. Winners were lined up at the cashier window. Dreamers were back in line for the next race, wallets open. Yuri bought himself an ice-cream bar and returned to his box seat near the finish line. It was an open-air seat in the shade, with a prime view of the nine-hundred-and-fifty-two-foot straight-away finish from the final turn.

Vladimir was in the seat next to him. “Flies all under control?”

“Totally.”

“I think I’ll call you the bug zapper.”

“You do and I’ll squash you like a cockroach.”

Horses with shiny brown coats pranced across the track. The big black scoreboard in the infield said it was five minutes until post time.

“I had an interesting meeting last night. A friend of one of my employees from the blood center claims he can hook us up with fifty million dollars in viatical settlements.”

“How?”

“He has connections with some AIDS hospices.”

“Fucking AIDS. That’s how we got into the mess we’re in. All those homos were supposed to be dead in two years. Then they get on these drug cocktails, AZT, whatever, and live forever.”

“Well, not forever. We both know that a weak immunity system offers a great many opportunities to expedite the process. How’d your meeting in Paraguay go?”

“I set them straight, but it doesn’t do us any good.”

“What do you mean?”

“Brighton Beach canceled our contract.”

The trumpet blared, calling the horses to the gate. “What?”

“No more money. Not fifty million, not fifty cents.”

“Why?”

“They didn’t give me a reason. I think it’s because of all the attention this West Nile virus is getting from the Centers for Disease Control. They’re probably getting nervous.”

“Why would they be nervous?”

“Because there just aren’t that many cases of West Nile virus in the United States. It could start to look pretty fishy when the authorities figure out that half the reported cases in the United States involved AIDS patients who had viatical settlements.”

“How many of our targets ended up getting West Nile?”

“One woman in Georgia’s dead from it already. Could be a few more to follow.”

“You don’t know how many?”

“Not off the top of my head. You know how Fate works, his little game. Only the ones who chose a slow, painful death would have gotten stuck with West Nile. The others got something quick and painless. Relatively quick and painless.”

“I’m beginning not to trust this Fate. I think I should meet him.”

“I can probably arrange that,” said Yuri. “Someday.”

Vladimir pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, as if to stem a migraine. “I don’t understand this. This was such a perfect plan.”

“It was never perfect. Look at the Jessie Merrill situation. The minute we branch out from AIDS patients who need a little help dying, we get scammed.”

“That’s a whole ‘nother situation.”

“Yeah,” said Yuri. “Whole ‘nother situation.”

The bell rang and horses sprang from the gate. Yuri and Vladimir raised their binoculars and watched through the cloud of dust as the sprinting pack of thoroughbreds rounded the first turn.

•

Saturday was moving day for Jack and Cindy. Theo was supposed to have dropped by at noon to help with the big stuff, but by one o’clock he was looking like a no-show.

Jack was hauling boxes up the front steps of their new rental house when his cell phone rang. He was pretty sure it was Theo, but the caller’s voice was drowned out by loud rap music playing in the background. It was one of the few forms of artistic expression that Jack just didn’t get. The lyrics, especially. Junkies in the gutter all better off dead, Blow-Job Betty sure gives good head -rhymes for the sake of rhymes, as if the next line might as well be I like to drive barefoot like my Stone Age friend Fred.

“Can you turn the music down, please?” Jack shouted into the telephone.

The noise cut off, and Theo’s one-word response confirmed that it was indeed him on the other end of the line. “Turkey.”

“How can you listen to that stuff?”

“Because I like it.”

“I understand that you like it. The implicit part of my question is why do you like it?”

“And the implicit part of my answer is what the fuck’s it to you? Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

“So,” said Jack. “What’s up?”

“What do you mean, what’s up? You called me.”

“No. I’m quite certain-oh, what does it matter? When you getting your butt over here?”

“Not today, man. Gotta work. I was just calling to tell you about my meeting with the folks from Viatical Solutions.”

“What?”

“After our meeting with Katrina the Snitch, we both agreed that the only way to find out who might have killed Jessie Merrill is to find out who the money people are behind the company. So I met with them.”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Just a little digging, that’s all.”

“Theo, I mean this. I don’t want you messing around with these people.”

“Too late. I gotta do it, man. You got me off death row. I can’t go around owing you forever.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

The rap music was back on, even louder than before. Theo shouted, “What did you say?”

“I said, you don’t owe-”

Gonna find that motha’ an’ pump him full a’ lead.

“Sorry, Jacko, can’t hear you, man.”

Jack tried once more, but the music was gone, and so was Theo. “Damn it, Theo,” he said as he hung up the phone. “Sometimes you help too much.”

Jack went back inside the house. The rental furniture was stacked in the middle of the living room, and it was up to him and his own aching back to rearrange things the way Cindy wanted them. “And sometimes you help too little,” he said, still thinking of Theo.

“What?” asked Cindy.

“Nothing. Just a little sole-practitioner syndrome.”

“Huh?”

“Talking to myself.”

She gave him a funny look. “Oooo-kay. How long has that been going on?”

“Long enough for me to think it’s normal.”

“We should get out more.” Cindy gave him a little smile, then returned to her unpacking in the kitchen.

The move was actually quite manageable. The old Swyteck residence was still a crime scene, and the prosecutor had released only limited portions of it, which basically meant that Jack and Cindy could take to their new house only those things that the forensic team had determined were irrelevant to their investigation of Jessie’s death. They’d been able to take a few things with them to Cindy’s mother’s. Earlier that day, a police officer had met Jack at their old house and told him exactly what more he could take. It amounted to an additional thirty-seven boxes, a television set, some clothes, a few small appliances, and their stereo, all of which Jack had packed into a U-Haul van and hauled out by his lonesome. Cindy just didn’t want to go back there, and the prosecutor had refused to allow more than one person inside the house anyway.