The Fixer mg-1

by T. E. Woods

  The Fixer

  ( Mort Grant - 1 )

  T. E. Woods

  T. E. Woods

  The Fixer

  Chapter One

  The prospect sat in the hot tub, fat and doughy. Looking like he would leave an oil slick as he melted in the steaming water. The Fixer crossed the redwood deck, dropped a robe, climbed down three steps and sat across from the sweating mound of human flesh.

  “You Martin?”

  The prospect’s mouth flapped up and down. No words. A three hundred pound manatee gurgling as the whirlpool teased bubbles around his hairy D-cup breasts.

  “I asked if you’re Martin.”

  The fat man scanned the pool area. Two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon at an airport conference hotel. The Fixer knew the place would be empty. Perfect for sensitive conversations.

  Martin brought his hand to his face. Two pink hams rubbing water out of his eyes. “Graham? You’re Graham?”

  The Fixer nodded.

  A slow smile crossed the fat one’s face. “You’re not what I expected.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  Yellow teeth peeked out between Martin’s fleshy lips. “I like your tattoo. A dagger through the heart. Nice for your line of work. What I don’t like is meeting in a jacuzzi.” He leaned his arms across the back of the tub. A porcine crucifix. “What’s the deal?”

  “Bathing suits and hot water. Great for making sure no one’s wearing a wire.”

  “I get it. Brings whole new meaning to the term ‘wet work’.”

  “You have a job for me, Mr. Martin?”

  The prospect craned his fat head, scanning the pool area again, assuring himself no one was within earshot. “My wife.”

  “What about your wife, Mr. Martin?”

  He fidgeted in his seat. “What? I gotta say it? That how this works?”

  The Fixer stared at him. Steel blue eyes shut down any resistance the obese man may have considered.

  “I want her gone, okay?” He swiped a hand through thinning brown hair. “I need her gone.”

  “Tell me why, Mr. Martin.”

  “What? You got standards?” Martin regretted the challenge the moment it left his lips. “Sorry. That was rude. You’re a professional. I respect that. It’s just you gotta understand.” He made a failed attempt at humble. “It’s not like I do this every day, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Tell me why, Mr. Martin. Why do you want your wife gone?”

  The enormity of the man made his subservience all the more pitiful. This was the Fixer’s favorite part. When the prospect realized who held the power.

  “She’s become a liability, let’s just say. Spends my money like a sailor on shore leave. She’s drunk every day by three. She used to be gorgeous but I gotta face it. She’s really let herself go. My business, I need a looker on my arm.”

  “Why not divorce her, Mr. Martin?”

  The prospect narrowed his eyes, considering another stab at defiance. The Fixer’s steadiness stopped it. The smell of chlorine mixed with his sweat to produce an unctuous odor of sanitized panic. “It’s complicated. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Which means there’s money involved. Money a judge might think she deserves but you don’t want her to have.”

  “It’s not just the money. It’s a whole thing. Like I said, complicated.”

  “Which means there’s another woman. Someone who doesn’t want to wait through a messy divorce.”

  Martin found a sliver of backbone somewhere in his fleshy insulation. “Listen. I don’t gotta explain myself to you. You gonna do this thing or not?”

  The Fixer’s hand toyed with the bubbles. “No, Mr. Martin. I’m not. I do have standards. You don’t meet them.” Rising and grabbing the rail, The Fixer climbed the stairs and reached for a robe.

  “What the fuck is this? You jerking me around?” Martin attempted to stand but slipped, sending a chemically-treated tsunami over The Fixer’s feet.

  “Relax, Mr. Martin.” Robe tied tight. “I have colleagues whose criteria aren’t as high as mine. Consider this a first interview. The good news is you made it to the next round. Be here tomorrow. Same time. Same tub. My colleague will meet you. Name’s Allen. I think the two of you will make perfect partners.”

  “What is this? You got the rep, Graham. Who the fuck’s Allen? I need you. Not some dumb fuck associate of yours.”

  The Fixer looked down at the floating flesh flailing in the spa. “One more word, Mr. Martin and Allen takes another job. Are we clear?”

  Martin settled back onto the hot tub bench and nodded. “Tell that Allen of yours I want to do business.”

  The Fixer smiled and headed toward the locker room. A quick shower and change before heading home. Special attention to scrubbing off the heart-and-dagger tattoo. A long walk to the far end of the hotel’s parking lot. The Fixer pulled out a pre-paid cell phone, fitted a small voice digitizer over the mouthpiece, and punched in a number. An answer on the second ring.

  “West Grove Station, Officer Jenkins speaking.”

  “Detective Llaird, please.”

  Officer Jenkins reacted to the synthesized voice. “Who is this?”

  “Put me through to Detective Llaird. I won’t ask again, Officer.”

  A brief pause followed by a click signaled Jenkins had weighed her options well.

  “Llaird, Homicide.”

  “Detective Llaird, listen carefully.” The Fixer knew the digitizer sometimes garbled sounds. “Have one of your plainclothes meet a man at the airport Hilton tomorrow at two p.m. His name’s Martin. He’ll be the fattest guy your man’s ever seen and he’ll be waiting in the hot tub.”

  “Who the hell is this?” The digitizer attracted that question a lot.

  “Listen to me, Detective and you’ll save a life. Ignore me and you’ll have a homicide on your hands. Martin’s looking for somebody. Wants his wife dead and is ready to pay. Tomorrow. Two o’clock. Hot tub at the airport Hilton. He’ll be expecting a shooter named Allen.”

  “What the fuck is this?” Llaird offered a variation on the theme.

  “This, Detective, is a guaranteed head’s up. I’ve done my job. Now you do yours.” The Fixer clicked off. Digitizer removed and returned to pocket. Pre-paid’s battery ejected. Crossing the parking lot back to the hotel, The Fixer passed several cars with windows open to the July heat. Cell phone mechanism placed under the tire of a six-year-old Ford. Cell phone battery tossed into the open dumpster behind the coffee shop. Never breaking stride, The Fixer moved through the lobby and out the main entrance, nodding to the nearest bellman past the revolving door.

  “Cab, please. Airport.”

  The bellman whistled the first car in the taxi line forward. The Fixer stepped to the open door and handed the bellman a five before settling into the back seat. Two doormen and three bellhops watched the cab pull away.

  “That,” said the twenty-year old bellhop, “is one gorgeous woman.”

  Chapter Two

  Lydia Corriger clenched the paper coffee cup in her teeth, tucked her files under her left arm, fumbled with the keys, and bumped the door open. Stumbling three steps, she shrugged her briefcase off her shoulder and tossed the files onto her waiting room couch, pleased she hadn’t spilled a drop of her four dollar latte. She took a long sip before setting the cup on a side table. Gathering envelopes from beneath a bronze slot, she scanned them as she crossed into her office, settled down behind her secondhand oak desk and divided the mail into piles. Reaching for her coffee somewhere around the fourth credit card solicitation, she cursed her absent mindedness and returned to the waiting room to retrieve it.

  Lydia had a light day. One patient in the morning. Three more scattered throughout the afternoon. With any luck ho
me before five. She ran a letter opener across the first envelope on a stack of remittances. If she hurried she could make her deposit before Jeffe Moldanado arrived for his ten o’clock appointment. She took another sip of coffee and promised herself a bagel on the way back from the bank.

  “Jeffe?”

  The tall Hispanic man stood on two aluminum crutches, moving slower than usual.

  “Back bothering you?” She motioned toward the recliner opposite her desk. “Want the La-Z-Boy today?”

  “I am good, thank you, Dr. Corriger.” Jeffe had arrived in Washington two years earlier. Up from a dusty backwater seventy miles south of Juarez. The only English he brought was “Yes, Boss.” He was eager to make his fortune following the crops. Apples, soybeans, lettuce, onions. Yakima, Moses Lake, Ellensburg, Walla Walla. He’d been in Yelm, unloading a flatbed of pumpkins at the end of a twenty-hour day when an exhausted tractor driver backed up and left him with six cracked vertebrae and one broken hip. Excellent surgeries were followed by medieval rehab in a filthy hellhole that warehoused him as long as the charity dollars held up.

  “My therapist is working me hard. I tell her to go fight the terrorists, she is so strong.” Jeffe smiled through his pain. “But I am walking now. So it’s good.”

  Lydia settled onto the sofa. “Eastview is working well for you, then?”

  “Ah, Madre de Dio, Dr. Corriger. You did not see the other. I was there for a year. It was no good. Bad food. Dirty sheets. No help. Now I am in Eastview less than one month and I am walking. I tell my wife not to worry. She can expect checks from me soon.”

  Lydia reached for her notebook. “Last week we talked about how you wanted to kill the farmer who hired you. What are your thoughts today?”

  Jeffe’s face hardened. “Bastardo!” He raised one crutch. “For three dollars an hour I sacrifice my legs. I cannot work. I cannot send money to my home.”

  “I hear your anger, Jeffe. But if you go after that man, you’ll end up in jail. How will you help your family then?”

  Jeffe leaned forward, his words cold and hard. “I will give them a greater gift.” He winced in pain. “Justicia!”

  Lydia opened the door to her waiting room at two o’clock sharp to greet a new patient. Savannah Samuels had called last week saying she was familiar with Lydia’s success with tough cases. Lydia had asked routine insurance information, but Savannah told her not to worry. She’d pay in cash at each appointment. Savannah stood at the window, gnawing a cuticle. Shoulder length hair, expertly cut with sharp angles, so shiny-black it gleamed blue in the afternoon light. Creamy skin, smooth as Dresden china. Three hundred dollar jeans and a soft silk shirt. Coach shoulder bag matching knee high leather boots. Burberry trench draped over her arm.

  Savannah looked up. Delicate cheekbones and chin gave her face an air of elegant fragility. Blue eyes, framed by thick dark lashes, telegraphed a silent sadness. Lydia put on a gentle smile and ushered her into her office.

  “You look just how I knew you would,” Savannah said.

  Lydia raised an eyebrow. “You’ve imagined what I look like?” She watched her newest patient settle onto the sofa and tried to interpret the wistful expression on her face. “Do I pass inspection?”

  “You look fine.” Savannah shifted into a mask of business cordiality. “It’s good to see you.”

  Lydia sat in an opposite chair and began her routine orientation to the confidential nature of therapy.

  “I’m not worried about confidences, Dr. Corriger. Is that what I should call you?” Savannah’s voice hummed with a slight accent Lydia found familiar, but couldn’t quite place.

  “Would you be more comfortable calling me something else?”

  “A question answered with a question. How very expected. Will I always be able to anticipate what you’ll say next?”

  Lydia had long ago grown weary of power dances. “Were you expecting me to ask what has you so frightened that you’re being immediately confrontational?”

  Savannah sat still. A slight smile crossed her pillowed lips. “Now there you go, Dr. Corriger, I wasn’t expecting that at all. Well played.”

  “Is that what we’re doing, Savannah? Playing?” Lydia didn’t wait for an answer. “Tell me why you’re not worried about keeping our work confidential.”

  Savannah drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly as she glanced around the room. She crossed her long legs and leaned back in the chair, her voice a world-weary monotone. “It won’t matter one way or the other what you tell to whom. Everything I say will be lies.”

  Lydia was intrigued with this new step. “How do you expect that to help?”

  Savannah fixed her sapphire eyes on her therapist. “Everything I tell you will be lies, but all of it will be true. You’ll be able to figure it out, Doctor. I’ve read every article you’ve written. I know about the award you got. You’ve always been able to figure out a way to help people and you’ll do it again for me.”

  Lydia’s impatience was rising. “Why would I enter into such an arrangement, Savannah? Therapy is predicated on trust.”

  “Trust is earned, Dr. Corriger.” Savannah’s voice took on a hostile edge. “And you already have mine.” Her tone softened. “I need you. There’s something fundamentally broken in me. I need you to fix it.”

  Lydia stared at her while diagnostic impressions clicked through her mind. Savannah was intriguing, certainly. Lydia wondered if she was a good enough psychologist to break through her defenses.

  “Why don’t we finish this session before deciding if this is a good match?” Lydia offered. “How does that sound to you?”

  Something like hope brightened Savannah’s countenance. She nodded.

  Lydia reached for her notepad and pen. “Why don’t we start with what you think is broken?”

  Savannah brushed her hair behind a perfect shell of an ear. “No notes, please, Dr. Corriger. No chart, either. There’s to be no record of my being here.”

  “Savannah, to make this work we’re going to have to respect one another’s needs.” Lydia’s irritation returned. “I’m required to keep a chart on every patient I see.”

  “But I’m paying you in cash. Can’t we keep this just between us?”

  “No. I’ll call you any name you’d like and perhaps I’ll even listen to your lies as we try to reach the truth, but I’ll not jeopardize my license for you.”

  Lydia watched Savannah weigh her options.

  “Can you tell me the bare minimum you have to keep in those charts of yours?”

  “Of course. Your name. The date. Your diagnosis. Length of session. Brief description of what we worked on.” Lydia sensed Savannah’s anxiety. “I can keep it vague.”

  Savannah pulled her bottom lip under her teeth. Lydia knew she was slipping away.

  “Tell you what, I can dispense with notes in session. But I must have a chart. Fair?”

  Savannah pushed herself taller in the seat and nodded. A scared child recognizing her impotence.

  “Maybe this is our first opportunity to learn we can trust each other,” Lydia said.

  Savannah nodded. “Like I said. You already have my trust.”

  “Good.” Lydia tossed her notepad and pen to the floor. “Now, tell me what you think is so fundamentally broken.”

  Lydia saw Savannah’s subtle flinch and assumed she didn’t know what string in the chaotic tapestry of her life to tug on first. She watched her take a deep breath, swallow hard, and fold her hands in her lap. “I’ve grown into a bad person, Dr. Corriger. Quite possibly the worst you’ll ever meet.”

  Lydia wondered if Savannah had any idea how pedestrian her self-assessment was. She’d worked with scores of patients who held that same belief. Part and parcel of the danger of self-awareness. Look at yourself long enough and you’ll meet the monster inside. “Shall we take a look at that?”

  A weary smile crossed Savannah’s perfect face. “You’re going to ask me what evidence exists that I’m the worst person in the world. Then y
ou’ll ask me what evidence disputes my belief. Then you’ll convince me to listen to all the alternatives and see myself in a new, balanced light. Is that your plan, Dr. Corriger?”

  “You’ve been through therapy before.” Lydia added narcissist and passive-aggressive to her list of potential diagnoses.

  “I’ve been through it all, Doctor. Name a therapy and I’ve tried it.”

  “Then what are you looking for, Savannah? What do you want from me?”

  Savannah flinched. “I want you to make me feel safe again. What’s missing in me? I do terrible things and I don’t care. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t second-guess. I’m cold. Flat.”

  “I disagree.” Lydia knew this might be her only session with Savannah so she pressed hard. “I see sheer terror in your eyes. You don’t like your life and you’re scared to death it’s never going to change. That’s not cold. That’s not flat. You’ve gone to great lengths to research my background. That’s not the work of someone who doesn’t care. You’ve told me you’ve developed a wonderful story to simultaneously show and hide the truth. That’s certainly not the work of someone who doesn’t second-guess themselves or feel guilty.” Lydia leaned forward, arms crossed over her knees, inches from her patient. She inhaled Savannah’s perfume. Roses wrapped in money. “Please tell me what terrible things you do and we’ll see what we can figure out.”

  Savannah sat motionless. “Another opportunity to trust each other?” she whispered.

  Lydia nodded. “Try me, Savannah.”

  Savannah paused before sliding her sleeve to check her Rolex. “I see our time is up. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say?”

  “We have time.” Lydia wasn’t ready for the dance to end. What new steps might Savannah offer?

  “Perhaps next time, Dr. Corriger.” Savannah stood and reached for her purse. A raven haired goddess regaining her celestial stature after a brief romp with a mortal. She pulled three hundred-dollar bills from her wallet and held them out to Lydia. “It was wonderful seeing you.”