Brighton Beach

by Robert I. Katz

  “Yup.”

  She yawned and pulled on her clothes. Twenty minutes later, they were seated in the dojo. David Chao, Kurtz’ partner, and David’s fiancée, Carie Owens, a small, blonde ER doc, walked in five minutes after and sat down next to them. David wore his gi.

  The first bout was between two brown belts. They were evenly matched and both seemed more interested in defending than attacking but finally, one got through his opponent’s guard with a snap kick. They bowed and exited the circle. The next bout was a little more interesting, two black belts, one a young guy, the other much smaller and older. The old guy didn’t look like he had much chance but he moved around the ring like liquid. A roundhouse kick swept by his face. He stepped in and hit the younger guy with a palm strike to the chest.

  “Point,” the referee said.

  The young guy gave the referee a peeved look, which the referee ignored.

  The young guy won the next point with a left jab, after which he raised both arms above his head and bounced around the ring.

  “Jerk,” David muttered.

  Kurtz agreed. Carrie and Lenore, chatting between the two men, ignored this byplay.

  The referee held up his hand and dropped it. The young guy charged. The older man slid to the side and connected with a fist to the young guy’s head.

  “Bout,” the referee said.

  The young guy shook his head, a disbelieving expression on his face. “Shit,” he muttered. The referee gave him a level look and cleared his throat. The young guy sighed and bowed to his opponent, who bowed back. They both exited the ring.

  “I’m up,” David said.

  David was good. Kurtz and David sparred frequently. It’s a truism that a good big man almost always beats a good little man. Kurtz was two inches taller than David and thirty pounds heavier. Kurtz almost always won but David knew what he was doing. His opponent was a middle-weight named Jordan Chance, who had ambitions of turning pro. Chance, like a lot of guys in this business, had an ego. He was barely twenty and thought he was hot stuff. As soon as the referee dropped his hand, he swept in, aiming a kick at David’s ribs. David stepped inside his guard and tapped him on the cheek.

  “Point,” the referee said. Chance gave the referee a dirty look.

  He was a little more wary after that. The two men circled, looking for an opening. David stepped in. They exchanged blows, each deflecting punches. Chance feinted to the side and David fell for it. Chance connected with a punch to the abdomen.

  “Point,” the referee said.

  Two minutes later, David swept Chance’s legs out from under him with a lateral sweep and the bout was over. Chance looked grim but he bowed when he was supposed to and exited the ring.

  Forty minutes later, David had showered and changed and they were sipping a bottle of 2002 Rodney Strong Cabernet at Smith and Wollensky. “Excellent bout,” Kurtz said.

  “The guy’s pretty good,” David said. “Cocky but good.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Kurtz said, “or he’ll get his head beat in.”

  David sipped his wine and solemnly nodded.

  “Carrie was telling me that she has something you might be interested in,” Lenore said.

  “Oh?” Kurtz looked at Carrie.

  “Yeah,” Carrie said. “I admitted a guy the night before last, an apparent overdose.” Carrie grinned and glanced at Lenore. “I won’t mention names but I think you’ll know who I mean. His chart was interesting. You operated on him and drug abuse had been suspected on his last admission. The 10-panel screen showed traces of heroin, but the amount seemed too small to account for his symptoms and he didn’t wake up with naloxone, so this time, we sent the blood for forensics, which includes mass spec. We should know in about a week if he was on anything else.”

  Kurtz waited while their waiter placed the appetizers on the table, then he asked, “What happened to him?”

  Carrie dipped a lump of cold blue crab in some cocktail sauce. She shrugged. “He was intubated at the scene. There wasn’t much for us to do beyond the initial workup. We sent him to ICU. I took a look at the chart this afternoon. He’s still there.”

  Jeffrey McDonald…had to be. “Thanks,” Kurtz said. “I’ll wander by there in the morning.”

  “It’s too soon to tell.” Joe Ressler was a medical intensivist. He was short, squat and hairy, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest.

  “Go on,” Kurtz said.

  “He’s got bisynchronous spikes and a lot of high amplitude delta waves, and the alpha waves are almost gone.”

  Kurtz, who had never had occasion to read an EEG, nevertheless could read the bottom line. “At least he’s not brain dead.”

  Ressler shrugged. “You get patterns like this with high dose opioids, but it’s been two days, already. It shouldn’t be lasting this long.”

  No, Kurtz thought, morphine, heroin, even methadone should not have lasted this long, particularly since they had already administered IV naloxone, which was supposed to counteract narcotics. It could be that a higher dosage of naloxone might do the trick but naloxone had been associated with problems of its own, particularly sudden onset pulmonary edema. All things considered, it seemed wiser to wait the situation out. “We’ll know in a few more days,” he said. “Maybe he’ll wake up before then.”

  Ressler shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Audrey Schaeffer sat at Jeffrey McDonald’s bedside, staring at the monitor, her face pale. According to the nurses, she had said very little. Kurtz had met her on the prior admission and she obviously remembered him. “How are you doing, Miss Schaeffer?” he asked.

  “Not so good. I’m wondering if I’m to blame for this.”

  That was unexpected. Kurtz looked at her. “In what way?”

  “I had just told him that we were through. The very next night, this happens.” She shook her head.

  “It was his decision, not yours. You’re not responsible for his actions.”

  “That’s easy to say but it’s hard to believe.” She shook her head. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s just not the guy for me.”

  “I imagine that you’ve already been asked this, but have you any idea if he was taking anything? And what it was he might have been taking?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Who might know?”

  She frowned. “Steve Hayward, Howard Mather or Douglas Jefferson: his so-called friends. I don’t like any of them.”

  “Steve Hayward, Howard Mather, Douglas Jefferson…” Kurtz said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You could try them.”

  “Thank you, Miss Schaeffer, I will.”

  Well, actually, he wouldn’t. Kurtz had stuck his nose into police investigations before, with variable results. This time, he decided to let the cops do their job.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Barent said. “You have information that might pertain to a crime and you’ve brought this information to us.”

  “Yeah,” Kurtz said.

  Barent scratched his head. “That’s very mature of you.”

  Kurtz frowned at him. “I’m a married man. I have responsibilities.”

  “This is true. So, what do you want us to do with this information?”

  “Investigate?”

  Barent leaned back and thought about it. The initial screen had shown traces of heroin. Possession of heroin was of course, a crime, but the court system was jammed with people who abused narcotics and unless the guy was dealing the stuff, a case like this was hardly worth their time. “Let’s wait until the mass spec comes back. If it’s positive for anything else, we’ll look up the guy’s friends. Until then, we’ve got better things to do.”

  “Okay,” Kurtz said. “Fine.”

  “Give my love to Lenore,” Barent said. “Let me know how it turns out.”

  Chapter 8

  “Huh?” Moran said. “What is this?”

  Kurtz smiled. “Don’t recognize it?”

  “It’s been awhile since High School chemistry, and
even then I wouldn’t have recognized it.”

  “Methyl 1-(2-phenylethyl)-4-[phenyl(propanoyl)amino]piperidine-4-carboxylate is the chemical formulation of carfentanil.”

  Barent looked up. “What?”

  “This is the tox screen on Jeffrey McDonald. Heroin mixed with carfentanil. A lot more carfentanil than heroin.”

  Barent sat back in his chair and frowned. “Well, that’s not good.”

  “Gray Death,” Moran said.

  Kurtz winced. “Is that what it’s called on the street?”

  “It’s got a few different names on the street,” Barent said. “Gray Death, C-50, Serial Killer…”

  “Carfentanil…” Moran said. “Gray Death, not China White.”

  “Either one is bad news,” Barent said.

  Carfentanil was an ultra-potent, long lasting analogue of fentanyl. While fentanyl was commonly used as an adjunct to anesthesia in humans, and alpha-methylfentanil had no legitimate uses at all, carfentanil was used to anesthetize large animals, like elephants and giraffes. It was ten thousand times more potent than morphine, colorless, odorless, water soluble and easily absorbed through the skin.

  “In 2002, some Chechen terrorists took a theater full of people hostage in Moscow,” Barent said. “The Russian Special Forces pumped an unknown agent through the theater’s ventilation system and then moved in. They had medics on standby. The medics had been told to bring narcotic antagonists but they weren’t told why and they weren’t told how much. They didn’t realize what was about to happen and they didn’t bring nearly enough. Over two hundred fifty people died, including all the terrorists and about a quarter of the hostages, over two hundred of them. The Russians never disclosed what agent they used but a later analysis by a British firm on the clothes of some of the survivors revealed a mixture of different narcotics, primarily carfentanil.

  “The stuff is more potent than nerve gas. A kilo of pure carfentanil can kill up to fifty million people.”

  “Oh,” Kurtz said.

  “Most of it comes from China,” Moran said. “Amazingly, it’s legal there. Anybody can make it and there are no restrictions on selling it. It’s not hard to synthesize and it’s a lot cheaper than heroin. If you go on the internet, there are Chinese websites that offer it for sale. They even give advice on how to import it into other countries illegally.”

  Kurtz shuddered. “In that case, I’m surprised there isn’t more of it around.”

  Barent shrugged. “The problem tends to be self-correcting. It’s easily absorbed through the skin and if you breathe in even a tiny amount, you’ll never breathe again. People who mess with it have a habit of dropping dead. Also, the DEA works hard to keep it out of the country.”

  “Obviously,” Moran added, “with less than complete success.”

  “So, now what?” Kurtz said.

  “Now?” Barent picked up the phone. “We call the Narcotics Squad. Maybe they can give us some insight.” He grinned. “And then we interview…what were their names?”

  “Steve Hayward, Howard Mather and Douglas Jefferson,” Kurtz said.

  “Yeah. Them. And whatever happened to Jeffrey McDonald, by the way?”

  Kurtz shrugged. “He woke up. They sent him home.”

  “Good,” Moran said. “We’ll talk to him first.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Jeffrey McDonald said. Barent and Moran stood on the front porch of Jeffrey McDonald’s small house in Brooklyn. McDonald was standing inside with the door barely cracked, the security chain still attached.

  Barent glanced at Moran and raised an eyebrow. “No,” he said.

  “Then I’m not saying a word.”

  Barent frowned. “We could arrest you. Would that make you feel better?”

  “Huh?” Jeffrey McDonald said.

  “Never mind. What exactly will it take to get you to cooperate?”

  Jeffrey McDonald looked at him and frowned, then he seemed to come to a decision. “Come inside,” he said.

  McDonald led them down a narrow hallway into the den and sat on the couch. Barent and Moran took easy chairs. The room was neat. Somebody had made an effort to keep the place clean and organized.

  Jeffrey McDonald sighed. “I realize that I have a problem.”

  Barent glanced at Moran. Moran’s face remained impassive.

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” McDonald said. “I’m not blaming anybody, except maybe myself.” He shrugged. “I don’t even know why I do it.”

  Barent didn’t know, either. He had some sympathy for the guy, but in the end, it was hard for him to relate. Why did people do things that were stupid and self-destructive? “This is twice that you’ve almost killed yourself. Have you considered rehab?”

  “Yes. I’m going to Ambrosia tomorrow. In New Jersey?”

  Ambrosia Treatment Center was a well-known and highly respected rehabilitation center. “I’ve heard good things,” Barent said. “That’s smart of you.”

  Moran leaned forward. “How long have you been abusing drugs?”

  Jeffrey McDonald frowned. “Things are already tough enough. I don’t need to go to jail.”

  Barent shrugged. “We have no intention of arresting you. You’re entering treatment. A judge would take that into account and for a first offense, you would get probation. We’re interested in arresting the people who are selling the stuff, not the victims.”

  Barent, like a lot of cops, believed in legalization. In Barent’s opinion, most of the harm that drugs brought came from the criminality. The last people on Earth who wanted drugs to be legal were the criminals. If it wasn’t a crime, the stuff would be cheap. If it was cheap, there wouldn’t be any profit. Those countries where addiction was treated as a disease instead of a crime not only had less drug violence, they also had less addiction, the addiction that they had was less harmful to the patients and they had much better success at treatment.

  Jeffrey McDonald nodded. “It’s a compulsion, you know? I realize that it’s stupid, that it’s doing me more harm than good, but somehow, that realization just doesn’t seem to matter. It doesn’t even seem real. When you’re high, it just feels so good…and without it, it’s like I’m just going through the motions. Life has no meaning. Nothing is worth doing. Everything is just…gray. You know?”

  Jeffrey McDonald was describing the classic symptoms of both clinical depression and drug addiction. A lot of depressed people turned to drugs. Barent knew this. The trouble was that, aside from the very temporary high, the drugs didn’t help the depression. The drugs, by reducing the normal levels of dopamine and endorphins in the brain, made depression worse.

  Barent nodded. “Do you know a guy named Mitchell Price?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Where do you get the stuff from?” Moran asked.

  “Friends.” McDonald looked away.

  “Steve Hayward?” Barent asked. “Howard Mather? Douglas Jefferson.”

  Jeffrey McDonald’s eyes narrowed. “Audrey’s been talking.”

  Barent just looked at him and after a moment, McDonald dropped his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Steve Hayward. Not Howard. Howard has nothing to do with it.”

  “How about Jefferson?”

  “No. Not that I’m aware of.”

  “We asked you before how long you were using,” Moran said.

  McDonald nodded. “It started in High School, marijuana mostly. This stuff? Only a couple of years.”

  “But you never OD’d until very recently.”

  “True.”

  “So, what’s changed?”

  McDonald frowned. “I’m divorced. That’s different. I have a girlfriend.” He grinned ruefully. “Well, I had a girlfriend.” He sat back in the couch, apparently thinking. “Am I more depressed? I’m not sure. Maybe, but I’m not using more, not deliberately. I understand the difference between getting high and killing myself. Or I thought I did…”

  Barent looked at Moran and shrugged.

  Moran shook his head, looking skep
tical. “And yet you’ve OD’d twice.”

  “Are the drugs any different?” Barent asked.

  “Maybe.” McDonald frowned. “I’m getting high quicker. It’s like lights exploding in my brain. It feels…wonderful.”

  “And then you stop breathing,” Barent said.

  McDonald gave him a wounded look.

  “Where does Steve Hayward get it?”

  “No idea,” McDonald said.

  Steve Hayward worked for a company that manufactured household supplies. It wasn’t glamorous and the pay was barely above minimum wage. It was a job, not a career.

  Steve Hayward and Jeffrey McDonald had been friends for years. They had lived on the same block, gone to the same schools and had naturally gravitated toward each other, sharing an interest in sports, video games and, ultimately, drugs. Steve Hayward was a short, tubby little guy with a quick wit but little academic talent or interest. He got decent grades but was nowhere near the top of his class.

  “It started in High School,” McDonald had said. “Everybody knew that Steve was the guy you went to if you wanted to score.”

  Like a lot of guys who wanted to get rich but had neither the talent nor the motivation to put in long hours in a demanding field, Steve Hayward found himself a shortcut.

  “High School kids rarely peddle heroin. Usually, it’s marijuana, maybe a little cocaine,” Barent said.

  McDonald nodded. “That’s how it started.”

  The two had gone to separate colleges and hadn’t seen each other very often for the next few years, but they kept in touch. McDonald moved to New York after finishing school, and a few years later, Hayward did so as well. Hayward, like McDonald, was divorced. He had quickly re-married a much younger woman. He and the new wife liked to party. They also liked expensive wine, expensive cars and expensive vacations, none of which could legitimately be purchased by Hayward’s legitimate employment.

  “It’s more of a front, really,” McDonald said. “I don’t think he spends much time, there.”