And that’s when the magic lightbulb goes off over my head.
“Terry,” I say. “Terry was paying you for the use of your daughter, wasn’t he? He was paying you the one hundred grand.”
Janice starts to cry again.
“And her,” I say, nodding in Janice’s direction. “She knew it all along.”
“Da,” he says. “And my daughter. My lovely daughter. She came to enjoy her time with these two twisted McGoverns.” When he says twisted, it sounds like tweeested.
“I guess that explains why Natalia’s still tied up,” I say more to myself than anyone else. But then she’s also still passed out.
“Janice,” I go on, “did you drug Natalia? Did you touch her with that poison plant? Who else have you drugged?”
More lights going off over my head.
“Terry,” I say. “Yesterday afternoon, Terry did a lot of napping. Did you drug him, so you could leave the nest, drive to The Flower Man shop? Did you drug him after he hit you in the eye? Did you plead with Anatoly to stop it with his threats?” I turn to him. “What did you do, Anatoly? Did you pass down a death sentence on Megan Barker? Did you order her assassination in a manner that would send a message not only to Terry, but to the entire Albany Russian underworld that you were a boss not to be messed with?”
He smiles, but it’s not a happy smile by any means.
“Yes,” he says. “I have become the very man I once detested. Now I am govnyukee. Now I am big boss. Now I call the shots. Like your famous song says, Mr. Jobz, Oh, but ain’t that America, home of the free . . . baby.”
“Yes,” Janice breaks in. “He calls the shots because he controls the drugs and the money. The heroin.”
“And you were selling for him,” I say. “Weren’t you, Janice?”
She shakes her head, smiles.
“I’m not a drug dealer, Jobz. Please, have a little more respect for me than that.”
Her wet eyes shift from me to the white vase filled with orchids. She leans into them, extends her hands, the wrists to which are still duct taped together. She takes hold of one of the red poppies, brings it to her nose, inhales.
“You see this lovely little red flower, Jobz? It’s not just for decoration. Like the poison flower, it serves a particular purpose.”
And yet another light shining brightly over my head.
“It’s heroin, isn’t it?” I say.
She sniffs the flower again, not as if she enjoys the fragrance, but as if she adores the flower like it were her own baby. And I guess, in a way it is her baby.
“The flower that belongs to an opium poppy to be precise,” she confirms. “And not just any opium poppy, Jobz. You see, by experimenting in my greenhouse, I was able to cultivate a plant that would pack a major punch. A plant that’s sticky, sappy resin, when cultivated, would not only be turned into high-grade heroin, it would provide a high that is far stronger than the chemical fentanyl-laced junk you find in the high schools and the suburban neighborhoods today. It’s high would be irresistible and worth an absolute fortune to the growers.”
I turn to Anatoly.
“That’s you, The Flower Man,” I say. “The grower, the harvester.”
“Da,” he says. “But I am ready to back out of deal with Janice if Terry continues to go after my little girl.”
“So, you killed Megan Barker,” I say, “to send a message to the McGovern’s and the world. You will not be fucked with.” My eyes back on Janice. “Is that how it all went down, Janice?”
Tears once more falling from her eyes.
“You might as well come out with the truth,” I go on. “The Flower Man is the last one standing. No way he’s letting us live through this, so why not confess?”
I gaze at Anatoly, he’s pacing the floor behind the couch, looking forlornly out the window. That’s my cue to slip my hand quickly into my jacket pocket, feel for my smartphone. I don’t bother to hide what I’m doing. Something tells me Janice doesn’t give a fuck. That what she’s about to tell me will prove Anatoly is not only a local drug dealer and high-ranking member of the Russian mob, but in fact, a monster. Working as quickly as I can, I hit the recording app on the device and just as quickly, shove it back into my pocket.
“Tell me, Janice,” I say. “What happened on the night Megan Barker was killed?”
Big tears fall from eyes that do not blink but instead gaze into the bloody past.
“That evening, I drugged Terry and snuck out of the house,” she says calmly, coolly. “You were already gone, so I knew you wouldn’t see me leave. Not with your own eyes anyway. But then I knew it was possible I’d be recorded on that RING home surveillance setup you installed. Didn’t matter, I just needed to leave the house without being stopped.
“I drove to The Flower Man shop, demanded a meeting with Anatoly. It must have been around six o’clock because they were closing for the day. Anatoly’s main man, Sergey, tried to stop me, but I got through. Anatoly was in his office. He was drinking vodka and listening to music. Loud classical music.”
“Wagner,” Anatoly breaks in, revealing the composer she’s referring to.
He’s still peering out the big picture window.
“I told him we had to end this. That the death threats had to stop. He told me that my husband’s lawsuit against his daughter was more than just a lawsuit. That Terry had insulted him. Our two families had a shared history, for better or for worse. We had been intimate together. Christ, Anatoly and I had become lovers. But we had sponsored he and Natalia as citizens too. We had given them money. But now it was us who needed the money, and we could make huge sums with my new poppies.
“But Terry had to go and fuck it all up by sending Natalia those pictures of himself over his cell phone. And he made it worse by suing her when she reported it to her bosses at the station. She was no longer his one hundred-thousand-dollar whore. She was no longer a child who had no idea what she was doing. She was an adult who was making a life for herself. A life separate from Terry and me. Separate from her father and his underworld associations.”
She hesitates for a beat, as though what she’s about to reveal next is so horrible, no words can describe it.
“Anatoly stood from his desk. He said it was time to teach Terry and me a lesson. He called in his men. He demanded they drive to Megan’s office, bring her back to The Flower Shop. The men immediately obeyed the order. They found her in her office, alone, drinking scotch. They dragged her back to the flower shop. By then, Anatoly was in a rage. He wanted to make an example of her. He wanted to scare Terry, and he wanted to scare me. He wanted to scare everyone. He ordered her to be placed on one of the tables inside the flower cutting room. He instructed Sergey to cut her head off. And then . . . then . . .”
“Then what, Janice?” I push.
“He ordered me to help Sergey. And when I refused, he put a gun to my head.” She weeps more, breathes in and out rapidly like she’s having a panic attack. “He kept that gun to my head while we took turns holding her down, took turns with the knife. It was either that, or I would die on the spot.” Exhaling. “And now I’m going to die anyway. Soon, I will be in hell, along with my husband.”
“And the next day, it was Terry who drove to Natalia’s apartment to retrieve Natalia and the film that you had given her?”
“Yes, the cop saw him leave. Maybe you saw him on the RING device. The walls were closing in, now that Megan was dead. Terry knew he had to do something. Something proactive, so he kidnapped Natalia after taking back his film.”
“And of course, Terry hated you for having sent the film to her in the first place.”
She nods. “I did it on impulse. To hurt him. It worked.”
A pall shrouds the room. The sun might be out, but the shroud is dark, and it is evil. Reaching into my pocket, I slip the damaged smartphone back out, press stop on the recording app. I also engage the RING app. Sure enough two alerts show up. The first shows Janice leaving the house while I was asleep
in the cottage. The next shows Terry leaving the house the next afternoon. And why didn’t I pick up the alerts as they happened?
I press the phone’s volume button.
The fucking phone has been muted, or the volume all the way down anyway. When the hell did I do that? Or maybe I didn’t do it at all. Maybe it’s not just the screen that’s broken. Maybe when I dropped the phone outside Henry’s office, I also damaged the phone’s insides. Crap, no choice but to buy a new phone. Rather, I’ll buy a new phone if I live through this afternoon. Funny the shit you think about when your life is on the line.
I glance over my shoulder at Anatoly. He’s still gazing out the window, both his hands on the AR15, the blood from the wound on his arm soaking his jacket sleeve and hand.
I gaze over the opposite shoulder, at the weeping Janice, at the still unconscious Natalia. That’s when I hear it. The sound of an automatic rifle being cocked.
“What’s done is done, Mr. Jobz,” Anatoly says. “Now is time to die, da?”
About-facing, he raises the butt stock to his shoulder, aims for me, for Janice, for his only daughter.
“Say hello the devil for me,” he says, a split second before the explosion.
When I come to, I’m on my belly. I see nothing but darkness. There’s a heavy weight on my back, and I quickly realize the couch is on top of me. Or what’s left of it. I shrug off the shredded piece of furniture and things begin to come into focus. When light replaces darkness, I see something. Something horrible. Anatoly is laid out flat on his back, his body separated into two halves at the waist with only shreds of skin, veins, and capillaries still connecting the two ends together. His left arm is blown off, and his rifle is nowhere to be found. The site of him comes as such a shock, it doesn’t even make me nauseous.
The wall behind him is obliterated. My thoughts immediately revert to Gary the Glass Man. No doubt he didn’t use caulk to set the glass in place but instead, C4. A bomb planted on behalf of The Flower Man’s right-hand man, Sergey . But here’s the thing, Anatoly’s still alive. It tells me that I was only passed out for a few seconds after the blast and that the couch protected me. That was my good luck. Anatoly’s decision to stand in front of a wall of windows meant to assassinate Terry was his bad luck. If only Sergey had revealed the precise location of the bomb, Anatoly might not be laying in two pieces on the floor.
I hear a gurgling sound and some words coming from The Flower Man’s mouth. I crab my way around the couch, position my ear near his mouth.
“Grafton,” he whispers, his voice coarse and dying. “Grafton . . . Burn it . . . Burn. It.”
His body convulses. He coughs up a dollop of blood that lands on his chest. He releases a profound exhale, and then he dies . . . with his eyes wide open. I stand, feeling the frigid air now blowing in from the hole in the wall. Coming from out of the distance, sirens. The cops and the police are on their way.
Through the hole in the wall, I see the neighbors gathering around, staring at the house in horror. One woman dressed in a mink coat peers into the driver’s side window of the cop car parked at the top of the drive and screams. I have no doubt the Albany cop seated behind the wheel is dead. That Anatoly took care of him as soon as the Russian mobster arrived at Mr. TV’s house. In my head, I’m seeing the cop’s brains spattered all over the interior of the cruiser.
I turn, gaze at Janice.
A piece of glass shaped like a giant arrowhead is protruding from her forehead. Like Anatoly, her eyes are wide open, her mouth slightly ajar, her face pale aside from the two separate trickles of blood that fall from her wound. She never knew what hit her. My eyes shift to Natalia. Her eyes are blinking, and she’s moving. Squirming. It’s as if the blast brought her back to life rather than killing her.
I manage to get back up on my feet. I go to her, tear the tape off her wrists and then her ankles.
“Can you walk?” I say, my words peeling themselves from the back of my throat like dead skin.
The sirens are so loud now, they fill the house. I see a squad of police cruisers pull up outside accompanied by two firetrucks and an EMT van. Natalia mumbles something that sounds like, “Sleep. I want to sleep.”
Reaching under her, I pick her up in my arms, cradle her like a baby, carry her not out the front door but through the hole in the wall and out onto the porch and down to the frozen ground. Miller approaches me. He’s not casually walking but running.
“We got wounded here!” he barks over his shoulder. “We need a medic.”
One of the EMTs sprints passed Miller, holds out his arms.
“I’ll take her from here,” he insists.
I place her in his arms. Only then do I realize the strength it took to carry her out of the house. Strength I didn’t realize I possessed.
“Listen,” I say to the EMT. “It’s possible she was poisoned by a plant called an English Bloom. Look it up. She needs treatment right away or she could slip into permanent coma and die.”
“I’m on it,” the EMT nods.
“Jobz, you okay, man?” Miller asks.
“Took you long enough,” I say, catching my breath.
He asks me about Anatoly, about Janice, and Terry.
But all I can manage for an answer is two simple words.
“Blood. Bath. Terry’s body is in the basement, Janice’s is in the living room only a few feet away from The Flower Man.” Then, “The cop parked at the top of the drive . . .” My sentence trails off.
The old detective shakes his head.
“Somebody got him. Either Anatoly or one of his goons. Poor kid is still holding his smartphone with his own brains spilled all over it.”
In my head, I once again imagine the carnage. It’s not hard to imagine it. I dig in my jacket pocket for my phone.
“I’ve got Janice’s full confession here,” I say. “She wasn’t selling for The Flower Man. She was growing.”
I open the phone, go to text messages. I open Miller’s contact information, attach the voice recording file, press send.
“Now you have Janice’s confession,” I add, hoping the broken phone is still capable of forwarding the file.
He’s wearing his long trench coat and fedora. He shifts his gaze from me to the blasted-out window wall, pulls off the fedora, runs his hand over his gray/white hair, then puts the hat back on.
“Whaddaya mean she was growing?” he asks.
I tell him about the poppies she is, or was, cultivating in her arboretum.
“It’s all there in the voice recording,” I go on. “The tables between the McGoverns and Brezinskis had turned. When the Russians first came to this country, they were at the mercy of Terry and Janice. Terry took advantage. He abused Natalia when she was very young and didn’t know any better. Janice was not without guilt either. There’s a film reel attached to a projector down in the basement that will provide the proof.”
“A film,” Miller says. “The one Terry was looking for in Natalia’s apartment?”
I nod. “You were right about Terry wanting to film his conquests, sick son of a bitch that he was.”
“So, Terry had Anatoly by the balls, but only for a while,” Miller adds.
“As time wore on, Anatoly—The Flower Man—began to grow more and more powerful. He became rich. Meanwhile, Terry’s fortune dwindled with each woman he abused, each woman he paid to keep quiet about the illegitimate child she bore, or the abortion he forced on her, or the lawsuit she threatened him with. It all added up until every penny they’d earned was gone and then some.”
“Janice thought the prudent thing to do was get into the drug business,” Miller surmises. “I guess getting a real job was beneath Mrs. TV.”
“With the very man she should have been running away from.”
“And when Terry sexts with Natalia, she alerts her bosses, taking Terry by complete surprise.”
“He’d always been able to control the situation until Natalia, the very person he abused as a girl, grew up. He sued
her to make it look like he was in the right, and of course, that enraged Anatoly.”
Miller shoves his hands in his pockets. If we were still smokers, this would be the part where we’d share a cigarette together.
“The rest as they say,” he comments, “is history.”
“Not exactly,” I say. “First off, your men need to scour the house for what I’m guessing is a few dozen Super-8 films that belong to Terry. I’m guessing there’s a treasure trove of information on them. Men and women caught in compromising situations you could say.”
“My God,” Miller says, his eyes lighting up. “You’d think a guy like Terry, a guy with zero moral scruples, would have used those films to blackmail some of these so-called compromised individuals in exchange for some much-needed currency.”
“Who knows?” I say. “Maybe he did. We could ask him, but his entire respiratory system was blown out by The Flower Man’s AR15.”
Miller’s face goes tighter than it already is. “So, that’s it then. Terry and Janice are dead. Damn, I hate it when crooks die on me before I get the chance to bust them.”
“They are as dead as they’ll ever get,” I say.
“Okay, but we still need Terry’s films. And if finding them is the first thing my uniforms need to work on, what’s the second item?”
The Flower Man Page 20
