“Whisky.”
“I have Wild Turkey.” He surveys the counter. “Not sure where I put it though.”
“It’s in your hand.”
Janwar lowers the bottle. “Right.”
“And you’re holding it wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Hold it by the other end, because if you smash—”
“Whatever,” Janwar says. “Okay, I’ll pour you a drink, but then you’re going to answer some questions.”
“You’ll pour me a drink and then we’ll talk about it.”
“We’ll talk about you answering my questions.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll go with that.”
“Make it a double.”
Janwar pours a tumbler for Susan. He could get the rum for himself, but it’s easier to just pour a second whisky. He empties the dregs of the bottle into his glass. “Here’s your dirty bird.”
“Dirty bird for a dirty bird?”
“How dirty are you?”
“Depends on what kind of dirt we’re talking about.”
“Let’s start with legal hygiene. Now’s a good time for you to spill. Or come clean, I guess, if we’re keeping the dirt metaphor consistent. What’s your angle on all this?”
“You tell me exactly how Diego Acosta died,” Susan says. “And I’ll see what I can do about answering your questions.”
“How do you know about Diego?”
Susan doesn’t say anything.
“And how do I know you’ll tell me anything after I tell you what I know?”
Susan’s smile fades away, leaving nothing but Susan, a reverse Cheshire cat. “You don’t. But you don’t have any choice. Look at it this way. We both have information the other wants. It’s in our mutual interest to share.”
“So why do I have to go first?”
“Because I’ve got the power in this situation.”
“Do you?”
“You were brandishing the whisky bottle earlier. Would you really have hit me with it?”
“I—”
Susan picks up the whisky bottle from between them and smashes it on the edge of the table. Amber liquid arcs through the air, carrying with it tiny shards of glass. The jagged edges of the neck point toward him.
Janwar jumps up and backs away instinctively, his forearms in front of his face, facing out, as he once heard you should do in a knife fight, to protect the arteries on the inside.
“QED.” Susan puts the bottle back down again. “I’ll clean up the glass later. If everything goes well. Now, tell me about Diego Acosta.”
“How much do you know?”
Susan looks pointedly at the bottle and its sharp teeth. Amphora dentata, Janwar thinks.
“Okay. Diego Acosta was a middle-aged man. Originally from Argentina. Some sort of building engineer. He was mugged and the muggers got a little feisty with his kneecaps. That’s why he was in the hospital.”
“I know that part. Walk me through the operation. Who brought in the drugs?” Susan asks.
“One of the nurses. José Almeida.”
“Who filled the syringe?”
“I drew it. We call it drawing a syringe. Can I ask a question now?” Janwar says. He could lunge for the kitchen and try to grab a knife, and then they’d both have sharp items, but whether or not she’d actually injure him, she knows he’d hesitate. And she’s not exactly holding him prisoner. “Who the fuck are you, besides a badass lady?”
“A journalist.”
With the hanging lamp above the table unlit, Susan’s face is in shadow, but the fluorescents in the kitchen light her from behind, turning her short blond hair into a bent halo.
“So I’m guessing this means you’re on the side of good.”
“I like to think so.”
“Or, at least, not the side of Shaughnessy.”
“Correct.”
“Are you a journalist or a journalism student?”
“Same thing.”
“Didn’t you say you were doing your MA? Do you work for a newspaper?”
“A journalism student.”
“So you’re the one who called the police to find out more about Diego’s mugging.”
Susan wrinkles her nose. “How—? But yeah, that’s right. Listen, can I smoke on the balcony?”
“Only if we agree to put the broken bottle away.”
“All right,” Susan says. “I just always really wanted to do that, anyway. To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to do it until I did it. It’s been a weird couple weeks. Do you have a cardboard box for the glass?”
Janwar locates a wine-bottle box and and a roll of masking tape, and Susan places the bottle and shards inside it. Janwar seals the box, which is branded “Dark Tower,” and places it by the door to dispose of in the garbage chute. He opens the sliding glass doors. The cool air of Dr. Flecktarn’s apartment swirls out into the humid night, visible as a fine mist. Susan follows it out. She leans against the railing and her lighter clicks. The cherry flares at the end of her cigarette and a couple of sparks crackle off into the darkness.
Janwar joins her at the railing. Down below, he can see the young professionals walking their backpack-wearing, hypoallergenic dogs along Bank Street, stooping and picking up their dogs’ shit from the sidewalk in compostable bags and depositing the bags in trash cans outside organic cafes—safe despite the hour. In this neighbourhood, the yuppies own the night. But this is where Dr. Flecktarn lived and fantasized, if not, to Janwar’s knowledge, acted. One after another, pigeons dive off the roof of the building across the street.
“What are you looking at?” Janwar says.
“Glass fell off this condo building and killed someone last year,” Susan says.
“For real?”
“Just walking along. Cut him right in half like one of those Body World exhibits. Freak accident. Totally painless, at least.” Susan takes a drag on her cigarette.
B, A-B, A, B, A… “Speaking of accidents, and things that aren’t accidents, I’m starting to think the mugging was really a targeted assault to get Diego into the hospital,” Janwar says. He hasn’t been able to articulate any of his theories out loud to anyone, and although he can’t fully trust her, this is a good venue for him to try to get his thoughts in order.
Susan exhales through almost closed lips, the smoke eddying upward through the still air in a perfect ribbon. “Yeah, seems like it.”
“Why?”
“Maybe he knew something about the Pushers they didn’t want him to know. Still hazy on that.”
“I’m slowly putting together the pieces here,” Janwar says. “The Pushers are maybe connected to the Oxy epidemic in the news? They’re actually pushers?” Uptalking like Katerinka.
“Bingo. At least, that’s what I think.”
“And maybe that’s where Jacques fits in?”
“Wait, Jacques who? A Jacques popped up in my investigation too. Wonder if it’s the same one.”
Janwar fills her in on his Jacques: a Hells Angels–type dude the anaesthesiologists spoke to in the bar the night he and Susan had met, but it was Horace, a Mixer, who recognized him and interacted with him. And today Janwar saw Shaughnessy and Jacques meeting in the parking lot of the National Resources Canada building.
“Could be the same guy,” Susan says. “I saw a drug mule threaten a biker-looking guy named Denis by saying she’d tell Jacques on him.”
“Okay, now, your turn, for real this time,” Janwar says. “Why did you get involved in Shaughnessy’s scheme?”
“It seemed a reasonable enough thing to play along with if it led me to the Oxy ring. Ah—I’ll start at the start.”
A couple of army-green trucks rumble by.
“Shoot.”
Susan watches the trucks until they disappear from view before she begins.
Now that her story’s over, Janwar stops looking at Susan’s lips, which are very red. He’s heard men are attracted to red lipstick because it reminds the
m of engorged, hot-to-trot ladybits. He returns his gaze to her eyes.
“So…” Janwar says.
“Bottom line is I think the Pushers are shifting Oxy out of the hospital with these therapy dogs,” she says. “Then at least one dog walker, maybe more, is transporting it around the city and eventually passing it off to the Angels. Like I said, the dog walker even mentioned a Jacques to Denis. Maybe the Angels smashed Diego’s kneecaps to get him into the hospital?”
“But, Horace, the Mixer, was the one who knew Jacques, because Jacques was his patient.”
“Maybe he was Horace’s patient, but he also met Shaughnessy at the hospital.”
“Maybe,” Janwar says. “Yeah, that could be it. Horace and Jacques were talking, though, like having some sort of meeting at the bar. And, I don’t think I said, Jacques seemed angry with Shaughnessy when he let him into the car.”
Susan grinds her cigarette out on the railing, and looks around for an ashtray.
Janwar examines his now-empty glass. “Just put it in here.”
Susan’s fingers brush his as he passes her the glass, and then again as she hands it back with the butt sitting at the bottom like a compressed tequila worm. His fingers have really taken a beating this trip, between the dry air and the stress and the fight with Shaughnessy. At least they look relatively clean now, with the wounds all adequately bandaged.
“Give me your phone,” Janwar says. “I have an idea.”
“Come on, Janwar. You should know better than to ask for a lady’s cellphone. It’s the twenty-first century ‘don’t look in a lady’s purse.’ Plus, I’m a journalist.”
“Journalism student.”
“Fuck off. Anyway, sensitive material.”
“Do you have Shaughnessy’s cell number?”
“Of course.”
“Read it out to me.”
“One sec.” Susan fiddles with her phone. “Six one three—”
Janwar snatches the phone, hits dial. He backs up into the apartment. Any possible weapons are behind him.
“Not cool,” Susan says. “Not cool at all.” Maybe this was a mistake, but now is not a time for Janwar to have second thoughts. He holds his finger to his lips. Susan arches an eyebrow and crosses her arms.
“Susan?” Shaughnessy says, suavely.
“Heeeeeeere’s John G!” Janwar’s voice riding a crest of inappropriate laughter he hopes makes him seem dangerously unhinged, rather than imbecilic.
“What the sainted fuck? I told you to stay—”
“Listen, I know the fat man told you to lay off and I know you’re still doing it.” Janwar rushes through his words, afraid Shaughnessy will hang up, meaning his use of Susan’s cellphone would come out a net negative.
“What the shite are you talking about?” Shaughnessy says. “What fat fella? What am I doing? What did he tell me to lay off?”
Janwar hasn’t thought this far ahead. Position. Leverage. “I saw you with Jacques.”
“Who?”
“Jacques. The biker. The Hells Angel.”
“Whatever.”
But this isn’t an “I don’t know” whatever. It’s a “You don’t scare me” whatever.
“I’ll tell the fat man,” Janwar says.
“You don’t even know who he is.”
“So there is a fat man.”
“Somewhere there is a fat man. Obesity—”
“The fat man is…”
Janwar looks at Susan. She’s lighting another cigarette and pretending to ignore him.
Janwar has a bolt of inspiration. “The real-estate developer.”
He’s not sure why he didn’t think of this before. It was too easy, somehow. But maybe that’s it. Silence on the other end, but somehow by the quality of the silence Janwar knows he’s hit home. “Lowell Chilton.”
“Keep guessing,” Shaughnessy says.
“No, it fits,” Janwar says. “Diego was a structural engineer. Chilton is a condo developer. And fat.”
“Do you know how insane you sound?”
“Paddy shitstain,” Janwar says through his nose, aiming for a New Zealand accent.
“What?” A thrum of panic in Shaughnessy’s voice.
“You heard me.”
“Okay, fuck. Fuck. What do you want?”
“Blow the whistle. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“I can’t.”
“Won’t.”
“Can’t. Can’t make the words come out of my mouth. I’m not scared of the fat man. But there’s someone else I’m a lot more scared of.”
“But you don’t want me to tell the fat man.”
“No.”
“You’ve got to give me something. Let’s start at the start. José switched the vials, right?”
“…”
“Right?”
“Fuck.”
“Like, José and someone else?”
“In a way. Listen, just…think about the drawers. Think about how it could have happened.”
“For real? I’ve been trying to figure that out this whole time. If you don’t tell me more I’m calling that number on all the Lowell Chilton advertisements. Come to think of it, Dr. Flecktarn even has a Lowell Chilton mug here. The number’s probably on that.”
“Go ahead. He’ll be mad, but I’d rather have him mad than end up like Diego.”
Shaughnessy disconnects. Janwar tries to call back but gets Shaughnessy’s voice mail: “This is Shaun’s answering machine’s answering machine. Shaun’s answering machine can’t come to the phone right now—” Janwar hangs up, thinking, Christ, what an asshole. Then he realizes that if the line is busy, who is Shaughnessy calling?
“Impressive,” Susan says. She holds out her hand. Janwar steps back outside and returns the phone. Their fingers brush again, and Janwar has to tell himself not to grab her knuckles and run his fingers around the bones, even if he wants to show he’s interested, because that probably isn’t appropriate right now. “Although, you could have just told me your plan,” Susan continues. “What did he say, besides, I guess, confirming José was involved? And what does Lowell Chilton have to do with anything?”
“He’s the fat man.”
“Which means…?”
“My brain’s getting pretty fried. Not just mush but fried mush. This might take me a while. Just going to get another drink.” He goes back inside to fill a new glass with rum, but Susan follows him and stops his arm before he pours. She points at the unopened bottle of bourbon on the shelf.
“Drink whisky,” Susan says. “Let the dirty bird raise you from the ashes.”
Janwar sighs and fills a new glass with Wild Turkey. He gives her the rundown on the meeting he overheard in Sylvie’s office. “And like I said to Shaughnessy, a condo developer and a structural engineer are both in the same industry, sort of. Which isn’t exactly a motive, but it’s, I don’t know, a commonality. Maybe Diego was blackmailing Lowell over something? And I don’t know what Lowell’s connection is to the Pushers, except that he was talking to them.”
“Right.”
“And so what Shaughnessy said at the end was ‘Check the drawers.’”
“What drawers?”
Janwar tries really hard not to say anything about his or Susan’s drawers here and, amazingly, succeeds. “On the anaesthesiology carts.”
“Why?”
“I’m thinking. Someone switched the vials in one cart, probably José somehow. Whoever set me up had to know I’d use one particular drug from the cart.”
“Would you normally use that one drug? What did you call it?”
“Lidocaine. No, there are a bunch of different options. Oh, no, scratch that. Shit. I’m an idiot.” Giant forceps clamp around Janwar’s head. “There was a shortage of the coinduction agents that weren’t lidocaine, so they knew I’d use lidocaine. But I still don’t know how José switched them. The carts are electronically locked. Only an anaesthesiologist can unlock them.”
“With what?”
�
��One of these…” Janwar holds up the tablet on the kitchen counter. He opens the app, presses his thumb against the metal pad, and a green light flashes.
“Now it’s authenticated for five minutes.”
Outside a car’s tires squeal, which reminds Janwar—“Wait, fuck, when José was bringing the cart down the hall, Llew told him to watch out.”
“So you think José almost hit Llew with the cart?”
Janwar nods. “Maybe that could have let him use Llew’s tablet to unlock the drawers, if Llew’s tablet was still authenticated. Maybe that’s what Shaughnessy meant. That’s a long shot, but I can’t think of what else he was getting at. I’ll go look at the carts tomorrow and see how close the tablet has to be to work.” He smiles at Susan.
She smiles back. Usually running out of words feels like a personal failure, but there’s something behind this smile exchange that transcends rational meaning.
Susan is the first to speak. “So, until then.”
“Until then?”
“I—” Susan hiccups.
Janwar laughs.
Susan takes a step closer to him. “Hey, you’re a doctor, or practically one. How do you cure hiccups? I’ve heard hold your breath, drink a glass of water upside down…”
“It has to do with spasms in your diaphragm, so yeah, try to hold your breath, and then do a few squats to work it out.”
“All right.” Susan breathes in and closes her mouth, and looks him in the eye.
Janwar feels a giggle rising in his chest. He fights it down. “Okay, now squat! Squat! Squat!” he shouts.
All of Susan’s breath comes out in a rush. She laughs until she’s crying, and Janwar laughs because Susan’s laughing, and by the time they stop laughing Susan’s hiccups have disappeared.
“So until then?” Janwar moves closer to Susan.
Susan puts her head on Janwar’s chest. He kisses her hair and things take their natural course.
“Watch the ribs,” Janwar mumbles into her mouth, and then he doesn’t say much for a while after that, until he has to get up to turn off the speaker dock because his phone has changed from playing electronica to 1960s soul, and the soul singer is so macho that Janwar feels a bit awkward and emasculated. Later he says that he has condoms, and Susan is glad, and Janwar is glad too.
Death and the Intern Page 18
