Dues of Mortality (26 page)

“
Oh
please, he could've gotten that jacket anywhere. Look at him. I see
dozens of people just like him every day jingling a cupful of
quarters in my face.”

“
I’m
pretty sure the man I saw with Glenda Jameson was wearing a jacket
just like that. Could be the same guy.”

“
Don’t
give me pretty sures and could bes...Not when I already have a cop
questioning my researchers, the same cop that Glenda Jameson talked
to at the precinct! That means she told him about the phone calls!”

“
Those
phone calls are nothing more than a desperate puppy with a hard-on
for a woman light years out of his league. The cop didn’t
request a meeting with
you
,
did he?”

“
It’s
only a matter of time! If he’s smart enough to look this
far...”

“
He
can’t prove anything, Jerome! Even if he did want to talk to
you, it would still be about Kelmer and the woman, not Millenitech.
Glenda Jameson has no ties to you, me, or this company. He thinks
Kelmer is a long shot to her anyway. If he can’t find
him
,
he’ll take another course. All we have to do is keep cool and
give him zero reasons to keep sniffing around here.”

Wallace
gazed down, sneering at the back of Gabriel’s head. “He
asked Ruiz about Kelmer's implant.”

“
Only
as it relates to Kelmer's despondency,” Gabriel pointed out.

“
And
if he finds Kelmer first?”

“
Kelmer
went into hiding for a reason. He doesn’t have any proof to
take to the police. He’s just a lonely science nerd with a
closet full of porn, who finally snapped under the weight of his
empty, unfulfilling graduate degrees.”

Wallace
drove his fists into his pockets, bowing to Gabriel’s grasp of
the situation.
He’s
right
,
Wallace admitted silently. That Det. Roberts
would have to be exceptionally intuitive to formulate a connection
between Glenda Jameson's misfortunes and Millenitech's operations. If
Kelmer did bubble back up to the surface, it would be with an obvious
ax to grind and industrial pioneers like Wallace had been the victims
of radical smear campaigns throughout history. Kelmer would be
slinging mud with his hands while Wallace could do it with a
catapult.

“
Really,
you give the police too much credit,” Gabriel said. “Besides,
I’ve got a department man with his ear to the ground. If
anything develops, we’ll know.”

“
And
I
give them too much credit? I’d
never trust anyone that easily bought.”

“
Not
everyone needs to be
hardwired
to cooperate. How else do you
think we knew where the police were hiding her? There’s a
reason the old-fashioned way has withstood the test of time. ”

Wallace
harrumphed. “Yes, it worked wonders with Bonanno, didn't it?”
he said sarcastically.

“
Just
be glad Bonanno is no longer an issue,” Gabriel said. He then
sighed, not sure to be grateful or disgusted that
Sanford
Bonanno's
death had so
far been the
only
thing that had gone
right
.
That and the delivering from the Jones unit the personal records
Bonanno had kept on the illegal dumping sites. The downside of hiring
someone who wasn't a complete moron was that they were usually smart
enough to hold onto something with which they could later bargain or
otherwise use to get out of a jam. Bonanno had used his contacts from
his days as a county civil engineer most efficiently in helping
Wallace's undocumented lab sites—mostly the upstate
facility—dispose of its toxic waste. Unfortunately, that wasn't
the only one of Bonanno's ways of expanding his financial portfolio.
He was also running a small-scale cooking lab for Halloxiphen. Traded
it through some old mob ties he had back in New York. After the
investigation of the corrupted cops in Cleveland had hit its peak, he
was promptly ratted-out to Det. Perry Jones through one of Bonanno's
own dealers. Gabriel knew Bonanno better than anyone. He knew the
scummy little shit would gladly offer up everything on the illegal
dumps to secure a deal from Camille Cosgrove in the state attorney's
office. Gabriel had no problem at all arranging Bonanno's demise
inside the walls of the county lockup. But Bonanno had already begun
passing limited information to Jones. Information Bonanno would only
verify once his sentencing deal was in the bag.

As
Gabriel thought back, he still considered his solution to the whole
thing a flash of genius.

The
clone of Perry Jones would have all the original's biological
memories...
including
the brokered information from Bonanno.
Yet, the unit would be entirely controllable, working for Gabriel.
Once it was fully formed, and properly programmed, Gabriel could
deploy it with subconscious commands. Namely, to deliver him the
information. Gabriel would then “arrange” its death in a
manner that hopefully would divert suspicion onto Jones as one of the
departments many corrupted weak links. The only issue remaining had
been that the real Perry Jones was still breathing. Jones was already
scheduled to leave on vacation after all his hard work on the
corruption case came to fruition. The computer-work alone would take
eons and he had successfully convinced Bonanno that Jones, himself,
was the only one Bonanno could trust to help keep the lawyers from
screwing him over. On his second night in Florida, Bonanno’s
former partners from New York had been waiting for Jones outside his
hotel. In a poorly lit parking lot, one suppressed round in the chest
and from under the ribcage made a fairly clean body—mostly
internal bleeding. Gabriel then paid them extra to get it on ice—or
in this case, refrigerated truck—so it could be hauled back to
Cleveland before the sunlight hit sand. Gabriel shook his head. Up
until it was deployed against Glenda Jameson, the unit that was born
of the corpse performed flawlessly. He should never have agreed to
Wallace's order. There were just too many ways it could go wrong. How
perfect, the ways it chose.

“
Won’t
they be curious as to how a cop they murdered less than three weeks
ago ended up in a motel firefight twelve-hundred miles from where
they left him?” Wallace asked.

“
Why
should they? Dead is dead. They’ll be too giddy over knowing
the police will have no reason to suspect them of having anything to
do with it. If my name
does
come up, they’ll figure the
fancy-pants lawyer worked some more of that well-connected black
magic and made a lie appear to be the truth.”

Wallace
looked galled. “Thought of everything.”

Gabriel's
nose drew closer to the screen. “Not everything.”

“
Find
him fast. I don’t want this thing going on any longer than it
already has.” Wallace glanced at his comwatch. “What
about our other liabilities?”

“
Taken
care of,” Gabriel said, slightingly.

Somewhere
on a slab in Case Western Reserve's medical school was the body of
the man called Hobson, tagged as just another donated cadaver
consigned for research. The idiot thought he could just waltz out on
Gabriel after having failed to both complete the job on Glenda
Jameson and gain any information on Richard Kelmer's whereabouts.
Gabriel wouldn't say precisely
how
Hobson met his end, although Wallace got off on the notion of
Gabriel having to rinse the blood-spatter from those resplendent
monogrammed cufflinks.

“
And
the other?” Wallace asked.

“
As
we speak.”

“
Good.
Dumb fuck didn't even have the presence of mind to dump the drugs
before he got caught.” Wallace gazed again at the screen. “If
it is the same guy, doesn’t it seem like a bit of a coincidence
that he's intervened twice with our target? How do we know he's not
working for someone?”

Gabriel
pinched his lip. “I considered that. Whoever this guy is, he’s
no pro. He’s operating on his own. Throwing up booze on people
isn’t part of any training course I’m aware of.”

“
How
do we even know he’s still with her?”

“
We
don’t, but it’s the only lead we have. All we can do at
this point is keep looking and...tie up any loose ends.”

****

The white drone of large capacity
washers and dryers dampened Malcolm Block's senses to the shadowing
activity of the inmates around him. He was alone now, or so he
thought, in the steam-laden air, grinding his teeth and blowing the
streaming droplets of sweat from his lip. The dank smell of the
prison laundry festered in his nostrils as he shoved bulky armfuls of
grungy linens into a washer's center drum. He retched every so often
at the piss and shit stained sheets under his nose. When it really
got to him, he just thought how it would only make his impending
freedom that much sweeter.

Ian
Shaw had had a very productive chat with Miles Gabriel. Shaw
communicated to Block that it would take a little doing to secure his
release, but an extra day or two would be the most he’d have to
endure. Block didn’t much like that, but, regardless, the cops
weren't going to pay him three times as much for talking as his
employers would for keeping his mouth shut.

On
either side of the row of laundry machines, two ugly, hulking pairs
of men, dressed in prison fatigues closed in on Block’s
position. The pair on his right clenched small hollow pipes in their
sweaty palms, while the pair approaching from the left carried
nothing but splenetic scowls that corroded the very air around them.
Block lifted another heavy pile of linens above his face and stuffed
them into the machine. When he turned away from it, he jerked at the
sight of two malignant inmates posed at his left. Two more stood to
his right. Their subzero stares bored through Block's flesh. Before a
word could be uttered, a urine-stained sheet cocooned Block’s
head and the two men on the left began battering Block about the face
and body, the pipes in their mitts adding ranked solidity to their
blows. The sheet covering Block's face ran red around the mouth and
nose as fresh blood soaked through. A curdled howl or two seeped from
the stains and one of the men was sure their victim was pleading for
his life. When Block’s arms and legs finally went limp, the
inmates hoisted him into one of the large half-filled washing
machines. They locked the machine's door and activated the longest
wash cycle. Like preschoolers engulfed in a television show, the
inmates stayed just long enough, to watch the water rise above
Block’s head.

“
I
can’t believe I’m doing this, Cass,” Bennet said.
“I just can’t believe it.”

“
You’re
doing the right thing,” Cassandra said reassuringly. It was the
third time Bennet had said “I can't believe I'm doing this”
out loud.

“
If
I get even a hint of him pulling something...” he proclaimed.
“I'm not going to let him disrupt our family. There’s no
compromise when it comes to you and the baby. No deals. No second
guessing.”

Cassandra
gently fingered his curly hair.
“
I
know,” she said and kissed her husband with the breath of a
teenager with her first love. Afterward, she gently pressed her
forehead to his and they stood joined at the brow, allowing their
respective pulses to synchronize.

Glenda
blushed at the couple's embrace as she watched from the kitchen,
politely out of earshot. It was so shitty not having someone when all
hell was breaking loose, she thought. She wasn’t sure how good
it was that misery loved company, but
she
was sure
that it was a lot truer for women than it was for
men.

“
I
can't stand myself,” Benny said. “I complain about Clyde
not changing, but I'm no different. Why do I keep forgiving that
asshole? Of all the people in the world who deserve to have his
misdeeds lorded over him, believe me, it’s that shithead
brother of mine.”

Cassandra
placed a finger against her husband's lips. Whenever Bennet was wound
up, he’d sometimes forget her aversion toward profanity. It
wasn't that his wife was prudish. In fact, Cassandra could be quite
raunchy when she wanted. She just had a clear definition of who her
husband was and such language often fit him like a pair of shoes two
sizes too big.

“
Here
it comes, time for me to revel in the miserable existence he’s
created for himself, and I can’t enjoy it.”

Cassandra
smiled with the warmth of a cozy campfire. She lovingly slid her arms
up Bennet's back, pulling his body to her swelled breasts. “Well,
now, I knew there was a reason I married you.” She thought a
moment, and then said, “Honey, I might not have a right to
ask...”

“
Aw,
Cass, what are you talking about? You’re the only one who
does
have the right.”

“
I
don’t want to bring back any painful memories...but were things
really
that bad
between you and your brother?”