by Ron Fisher
I had obviously caught him flat-footed. He stood looking at me like he was trying to decide how to answer—or if he was going to answer.
I added, “I first thought the name was an acronym, but I guess not, huh?”
The doctor must have decided that I already knew too much for him to deny. Wearing the forced smile again, he said, “OMSK is the name of the town where my parents were born. But why would you be interested in that, or my investments?”
Question number two answered. Stefans had just admitted that he was the Beneficial Owner of the OMSK Corporation.
He said, “I am not one for gambling on the stock market. I would just as soon take my money to Las Vegas.”
“But your investments sound a lot like a money-laundering scheme,” I said.
He suddenly lost the fake smile.
“That is the kind of talk that can get you sued for slander, Mr. Bragg. And libel, if I ever see a false accusation like that in that insignificant little newspaper you run. What money am I supposed to have that needs laundering?”
Insignificant? I thought. I’d finally touched a nerve. “How about drug money? The manufacture and distribution of opioids, to be exact. The very thing you pretend to be so against. Your association with the Dollar brothers hasn’t just been as their anonymous landlord, has it?”
I wanted to ask him a question about May Burgess but didn’t think he would answer it. Besides, I thought I knew the answer, anyway. Stefans wouldn’t tip off Doughboy directly, he wouldn’t deal on that level, but I was sure he passed May’s vulnerable condition on to the Dollars, and they sent Doughboy to sell her what Stefans would no longer provide her. What kind of man would do that? Certainly not one who had taken the Socratic oath. That made him even more vile and greedy than I’d thought. Instead of curing her, he killed her. For what gain? Several bucks profit for OMSK? He disgusted me.
Stefans was giving me a hard look. He said, “My only connection with the Dollar brothers was keeping one of them on as manager of that establishment when I bought it—which, based on what I have seen in the news about their nefarious activities, was a regrettable mistake. But I certainly was not involved in any part of that. Now, I will ask you to leave, Mr. Bragg.”
I pulled out the New York Post article. “What do you have to say about these nefarious activities—running a pill mill operation with the Russian mafia. It says you escaped and are hiding out in Russia. Guess we both know that isn’t true, don’t we? Should I call you Mikhail Stefanovic as it says here? I guess you’ve anglicized yourself a little since this, huh? But the similarity of Mikhail Stefanovic to Michael Stefans is a little hard to miss.”
I pushed the clipping at him. He took it, looked at it quickly, and handed it back. I got the feeling it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it.
“This is all absurd. I don’t know this Mikhail Stefanovic or anything about him. And he is certainly not me. You were looking at my medical degrees on the wall in my office when you came there. I saw you. You must have noticed my name and the date on them.”
Before I could reply, he jabbed a forefinger on the article in my hand, almost hard enough to tear it. “This article is dated years later. My degrees and medical documents precede it by a decade. Any similarity between the name in this story and mine is purely coincidental. I am outraged that you would come to my house and make these accusations. I will ask you again to leave, sir.”
“So, you’d anglicized Mikhail Stefanovic to Michael Stefans before you reached college age,” I said. “What I noticed about those documents on your wall was that they were all from schools or hospitals in the New York area. You have a degree, for instance, from Brooklyn College. Did you grow up there? Perhaps in Brighton Beach, in an area known as Little Odessa? Russian neighborhood? Russian friends? Russian mafia? Like the guys working with you at this pill mill?”
I waved the article at him again, and he ignored it.
I said, “Ever since I met you, I’ve been curious about the way you speak. So deliberate. So precise. It’s because English is your second language, isn’t it? What I don’t understand is why you de-anglicized your name for the pill mill operation when the two names are so obviously similar. Anyone would make the connection. That seems like a dumb mistake for someone smart enough to be a doctor. If you thought you could get away with living two different lives, it didn’t work. The Mikhail Stefanovic in this article is you and I can prove it.”
“How can you prove it?” he asked. “You are delusional, and these allegations are ridiculous. Do not tell me that you are basing them entirely on such a sheer coincidence of names. I see nothing factual here that ties me to this man, not a photograph, not anything. Go away, Mr. Bragg, and take your psychosis with you.”
“In the parlance of a friend of mine called the Big Hurt, go fuck yourself, Ivan,” I said. “You’re responsible for trying to kill the woman I love, and I will make sure you pay for that, regardless of what else you’re guilty of. I’ll let the police and the DEA take care of that part.”
“My God, now you are accusing me of another crime. You are certifiably mad, Mr. Bragg, and I would recommend serious psychiatric help.” He pushed past me and walked away. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said, “I’m calling the police.”
“You called her ‘a fucking bitch’ in Russian,” I said. I can’t think of any other suspects around here who speak that language. And I believe the cops will agree with me. So, call them.”
He had stopped walking and turned to glared at me.
“Who told you that?”
“Kelly, she’s awake. She understands Russian, and thinks she might even be able to recognize your voice in a lineup. That part was a lie, but he didn’t know it. Who knows what else she can tell us? You’re done, Stefans—or Stefanovic—whatever name you choose to go by.”
Suddenly he was pointing a large pistol at me. He’d taken it from a drawer in a table in the foyer before I even knew what he was doing or could react. But he had answered question number three, the most important one. He was the asshole who assaulted and beat Kelly.
Dropping all pretenses of who he was or wasn’t, he said, “You called me dumb? But it is you who are dumb for coming here today. If I am who you say I am, with the friends you say I have, what makes you think you will live long enough to make me pay for anything?”
He had a point. Maybe I should have thought this visit through a little more before I came. “So what do we do now? You’re the one with the gun.”
“I admit going by my birth name in the New York business was a mistake, but I didn’t make it. The person responsible for me being identified by that name was someone who had known me since childhood. It’s what he had always called me. So everyone else involved in our little operation did the same. Had I the choice, I would have chosen a dissimilar name, but we had begun using it already. All I could hope was that when I became a doctor here with my official certifications in the name under which I earned them that no one would ever come looking and see the similarities. Amazingly, you did. But as they say around here, that is now water over the bridge.”
“Dam,” I said. “Water over the dam. Or under the bridge, whichever you prefer. This English is hard to learn, isn’t it? All these years and you still don’t have it quite right.”
I heard the front door open and shut behind me. The doctor glanced over my shoulder, and smiled broadly. “I guess I won’t have to shoot you after all, Mr. Bragg. He will.”
I turned to see a man wearing a flat newsboy hat, a windbreaker, dark shades, and a droopy mustache so obviously phony it would have been laughable if it weren’t for the sizeable automatic silenced pistol he was holding.
“I was not expecting you back so soon,” Stefans said to him. “But I am glad you are here. You can help me with this new problem that has arisen. This gentleman and his girlfriend have sped up my departure date.”
“Good. Nachal’nik tell me to come and help you leave,” the man said in a heavy Russian accent
.
Great, I thought. The Russian mob had arrived.
“You can assure the Nachal’nik that everything is going to plan,” Stefans was saying to the man. “The Dollars are no longer here to implicate us, as you well know, and the authorities do not have a clue as to who disposed of them. And you can tell him I do not need him to bank-roll me on this next operation. I will use the money we took from the cabin, along with some of my own, and as soon as I find the place and the people to help me run it, I will be setting up in new territory. We will be back up to speed in no time. But he needs to know that my piece of this operation will have to be more. I have shown him how successful it can be.”
“Which one of you tried to kill Kelly?” I interrupted. “If you’re going to shoot me, you owe me that much.”
Stefans said, “With all the trouble you and Ms. Mayfield have caused us, asking your questions and sticking your nose in business that does not concern you, we do owe you something. A comfortable spot at the bottom of Lake Hartwell would be my suggestion. Like they say in that movie The Godfather. You can sleep with the fishes. Literally.” He chuckled at his wit.
I didn’t laugh, and neither did the Russian behind me. At least I knew what they had in store for me. I turned to the other Russian. “Did you do it? Assault and beat the woman I love?”
He stared at me with a curious look, either contemplating the question or deciding where to shoot me.
“Nyet,” he said and nodded at Stefans. “This man,” he said. “With man name Sonny. Stupid mistake. Unnecessary.”
I saw that his words surprised Stefans.
“She hit me,” Stefans said. “I lost my temper. So? We went there to scare her, and I did scare her.”
Stefans had answered question number three, the most important one to me. He was the asshole who assaulted and beat Kelly.
“Stupid mistake. Unnecessary,” the Russian repeated. “Cause too much attention, and Nachal’nik not like it.”
He raised his pistol and shot Stefans between the eyes. The doctor collapsed to the floor. The Russian moved closer and put another bullet in Stefans’ head.
My knees went weak, and I almost fell on top of Stefans. I stared at the Russian, waiting for his next shot, this one to my head.
Instead, in his heavy accent and entirely without emotion, he said, “The Nachal’nik tell me to come. Help doctor leave. So I help. He leave.” He smiled, an unnerving sight. “You must forget about me. This is not your business. Or I will come back for you, and maybe girlfriend. I am ordered to kill him. Not you. Do not make that become so.”
He looked at me until I gave him a nervous nod. But I’d never learned not to look a gift-horse in the mouth. I said, “I don’t suppose you’d tell me who or what Nachal’nik is, would you?”
He looked at me a moment longer. “Nachal’nik mean ‘boss man’ in Russian.”
I watched as he put the gun inside his jacket. Then he said something else to me that sounded like, Coro shego dinya. I gave him a puzzled look.
“That mean, ‘Have nice day,’” he said, and then he was gone.
Once I’d come to grips with the enormous sense of relief that I wasn’t lying there next to the doctor, my thoughts went to the man who shot him. His disguise was almost ridiculous, but I still wouldn’t be able to describe him to anyone.
I took out my phone and with shaking hands dialed 911.
EPILOGUE
I was back in Kelly’s hospital room, sitting there holding her hand again and talking to her. She was still groggy and kept dozing off. Her recovery was coming along, and the doctor was giving her good marks for it.
The room was practically floor to ceiling flowers from friends and co-workers—and I had contributed two dozen roses myself. The fragrance was cloyingly overpowering from them, but I would have put up with anything to be able to sit there, look upon her beautiful face, old bruises aside, and have a conversation with her. I’d told her everything that had gone on. I wasn’t sure Kelly heard it all. She kept going to sleep on me.
The authorities hadn't been able to find the Russian who shot Stefans. That didn’t surprise me. They guessed that while he may have been Russian mafia, he didn’t live in this country and he was already long gone. I had not seen hide nor hair of DEA Agent Underwood. Apparently, he had moved on to other investigations and was probably happy that I hadn’t popped up in of any them. “Yet,” I thought, and chuckled at that prospect.
Alvin came walking in and went straight to the bed. He leaned down and kissed Kelly on the forehead. “I’m heading home,” he said.
Kelly pulled her hand from mine and took his. “You’re leaving, and I’ve just arrived,” she said. “Can’t you stay a little longer?”
“Wish I could, but I got business to attend to back home.”
“They said you sat outside my door . . . watching over me,” Kelly said. “Thank you, Alvin. I love you,” she added, her eyes tearing up.
He leaned over and kissed her again. “I’ll watch over you anytime, sweet thing,” he said. “All you got to do is call, and I’ll be right here. I love you too.”
He stood up and turned around to face me.
“You, on the other hand, ain’t got no love coming,” he said. “You don’t deserve it.”
“You’re still mad I went to see Stefans-Stefanovic without you,” I said.
“You remind me of that clichéd scene in bad horror movies, where the innocent young girl, knowing there’s a crazed killer in a hockey mask on the loose, goes into the dark cellar in a run-down old mansion, when everybody in the theatre knows that only an idiot would do that.”
“I suppose I did have a hiccup in my decision-making process there,” I said, and laughed.
We bumped fists and exchanged a bro-hug, same as we did when he arrived.
“I put the key to the rental house back in the flowerpot,” he said. Are Eloise and Mackenzie here?” he asked. I need to say goodbye to them.
“They’re around somewhere,” I said. “Maybe in the waiting room.”
He gave me a nod, turned, and went looking for them.
I watched him leave, the nurses at their station all raising their heads as he walked by.
I sat down by the bed and picked up Kelly’s hand again. We would be able to take her home soon, but Doctor Mathis said she would still require bed rest and attention until she was one-hundred percent—which he said would happen before we knew it.
I’d promised to stay on and help with the Clarion as long as needed. In the last few days, my thoughts on that took a surprising turn. The last thing I’d ever wanted was to take over the Clarion and run it, as my grandfather had always wanted. After having done it for a while, I discovered that I actually liked it. I’d talked to Joe Dennis at SportsWord, and he was amenable to allowing me to freelance for the magazine from Pickens on specific SportsWord assignments, rather than losing me altogether. I was considering it.
I could handle that job no matter where I lived. I only needed an airport nearby, and I had that with the Greenville Spartanburg Airport. Not as handy as living in Atlanta, but without the ATL traffic, it would almost be as convenient.
As to the Clarion, I still had no desire to run it day to day, nor to usurp Kelly’s position or authority. When she got back to a hundred percent and able to return, she would be the boss, and she and Eloise would run the place as before. I would help when and where I could, keeping a toe in that water, but SportsWord would be my main job. If there was ever a “have your cake and eat it too” situation, this had to be it.
I hadn’t told Kelly this yet. I had something far more important to ask her. I looked over and saw her smiling at me, and somehow found a burst of courage to do it—something I had wondered if I’d ever do. It felt right, and it was what I wanted more than anything in the world.
I looked down at her hand, which I was holding a little too tightly.
“Kelly, will you marry me?”
When I looked up, she was asleep again.
Thank you for reading this collection. I hope you enjoyed it. As an independently published author, without the big bucks of the giant New York publishers, I rely on you, the reader, to spread the word. So, if you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends, and if it isn’t too much trouble, I would appreciate a brief review on Amazon. Thanks again. All the best to you and happy reading.
–Ron
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ron Fisher has been a creative director and writer for several of the top advertising agencies in the country, including his own, and has won numerous awards including a Gold Lion at Cannes. Originally from South Carolina, he’s lived in San Francisco, Dallas, and now Atlanta, where he can be found happily writing more J.D. Bragg mysteries
BOOKS BY RON FISHER
CADILLAC TRACKS (J.D. Bragg Mystery #1)
DARK CORNER (J.D. Bragg Mystery #2)
THE JUNKYARD (J.D. Bragg Mystery #3)
COMING SOON
WILD THING (J.D. Bragg Mystery #4)
STILL WATERS (J.D. Bragg Mystery #5)
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