by Julie Hyzy
“Like a police radio.”
He laughed. “Yeah, just like that. That way it’ll pick up the scene of whatever you’re looking at.” He tapped another small area below the camera, indicating a hole just about big enough to fit a pencil point. “And here’s your mic. Your voice will be the clearest of course, but it should pick up anything within twenty feet, nice and sharp.”
I felt like James Bond as I attached it to my down coat, right at the collar. It was light enough to ride there without banging me in the face while I walked to my meeting with Patel. He’d agreed to meet me at a restaurant on State Street, not far from my office, seven o’clock.
I hadn’t minced words when I told him I needed to see him in person. To talk about Calypso Drugs.
Bass and Justin had parked the surveillance van around the corner from the restaurant a half-hour earlier. Close enough for the signal to transmit every word of our conversation.
I left the office at six-forty-five to walk the short distance. At the corner of State and Lake, I’d just started to cross the street, a half-block away from the deli-restaurant, when an el train rattled by on the tracks over my head. As though timed to perfection, at that same moment a Calypso Drugs van lurched up to the curb.
I jumped back, surprised, my mind not quite making the proper connections. For a moment I was astounded by the coincidence until I noticed Dr. Patel in the passenger seat.
He’d started to roll his window down, when the sliding door opened and a man stepped out. Rath Chander, owner of Calypso and the man I’d seen with Cindy the night she died.
“Get in,” he said.
I knew better. People who got into hostile cars were usually never seen alive again. I turned to run, and I yelled.
He moved fast for a big man. His arm shot out, and he pinned me to his body, dragging me into the van, one hand over my mouth. From the moment they grabbed me, till I was thrown onto the cold metal floor of the cargo van with the sound of the slamming door reverberating through the empty van, no longer than six seconds had elapsed. So this was how people were kidnapped every day, I thought, as I tried to sit up. It’s so fast, no wonder no one sees anything.
I tugged my skirt down and scooted backward, to have the wall of the van against me, and to get as far away from Rath Chander and the .45 Smith & Wesson he had pointed my direction. Dr. Patel, sweat-faced, and pale turned to watch me. The kid who was driving was the same one I’d seen make the pickup at Patel’s office.
I regained a bit of my presence of mind. We’d started driving away immediately. Not so fast as to encourage speed enforcement, but fast enough that I didn’t think Bass and Justin could know where we’d gone. The flower-phone-camera had gotten tucked into my neck when I fell into the van, and I twisted my collar back out now, aiming it Chander’s direction.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked. My knee had started to bleed.
The camera had taken a hit. In my peripheral vision I could see a significant crack along one of its petals. Please let it still work, I thought.
“Shut up.”
I started to boost myself up, catching a glance out the windshield, enough to see our direction. Bass and Justin had been parked a block south of the restaurant. And our relay only had a range of about two miles. If it was still working. “Why are we heading north on State Street?” I asked, enunciating clearly yet trying to sound conversational. “Where are you taking me?”
“You ask too many questions,” he said. “That’s what got you into trouble in the first place.”
In profile I saw Patel lick his lips. I turned toward him. If my camera was still working, I needed it to record his face. “I got something wrong, though,” I said, causing him to turn my direction. Neither he nor Chander stopped me from talking. “I thought you were innocent. I thought it was just Cindy and him,” I used my chin to gesture toward Chander, “that were running the scam.”
I glanced again at the driver and thought about all the boxes he’d picked up from Patel’s office even though Calypso rarely took returns. And the fact that Patel didn’t have a valid account at the distributor. And Cindy’s drug conviction. Slowly, the pieces started to fall into place. I addressed Patel again. “You were using your laboratory to dilute the drugs and return them to Calypso for sale, weren’t you?”
Patel’s eyes shifted Chander’s direction. Enough to tell me I was right. The bigger man shrugged. He fixed me with a glare and pointed the gun at my face. The barrel stared at me and I wondered what would happen if he shot me. Would I be aware, or would I be dead before I knew what happened?
Chander narrowed his eyes. “That was you who came out to the plant to snoop around, wasn’t it?”
I didn’t answer.
His voice was a whisper, menacing, when he said. “Did you really think I’d let a nosy girl like you ruin our efficient little system?” he said, leaning back and smiling in such a way that I got goose bumps of fear. “Cindy was a whole lot more valuable than you are. And look what happened to her.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “It’s gonna be tough finding her replacement.” I could have sworn he said, “Tsk.”
I felt the van take a left turn. I boosted up again. “Where are we?” I asked. If there was any way to give Bass a clue, I had to try. “Orleans Street?” I hoped they were following and could hear me. We had to be heading to the expressway and I knew how easily the signal could be lost.
If any signal was getting through at all.
Chander eyed me with suspicion. I’d have to be clever with further directional guidance, I thought. Any more and he’d have to know I was wired. His dark eyes narrowed and I felt in that split second that he read my mind. I tucked myself into the corner, my back against both the driver’s seat and the wall. I was cold, I was uncomfortable, and every time we hit a Chicago pothole my rump made an answering bounce that my tweedy skirt and down coat weren’t thick enough to cushion.
Patel half-turned in his seat. His dark eyes swept over me before focusing on Chander. “She has many colleagues at her television program.” He cleared his throat. The lilting voice cracked, hesitated, as he spoke. “Do you think that perhaps she has alerted them as to her suspicions?” He looked at me, as though for support.
“Of course I did,” I said trying to use the tension in my voice to sound more like venom than fear.
“Bipin,” Chander said, “unlike you, I’m meticulous. Unlike you, I don’t make stupid mistakes. Everything is planned to perfection. All the weak links will be severed.”
Chander leaned forward to stare out the windshield. I heard the wipers kick on. From my angle it looked as though snow started, dropping heavy wet flakes from the sky.
“Darryl.” The driver’s head perked up at his name. “Take ninety-four east.” Looking at me, he grinned. The minimal light from the outside kept most of his face in shadow, but the street lights outside were enough for me to see the malevolence in his smile. “I think people should be allowed to die at home, don’t you?”
“You’re taking me to my house?” I said in a clear voice.
Chander canted his head. He reached over and yanked the flower off my lapel. He held the camera aloft and studied it for a half-second before crashing it against the side of the van with the unmistakable sound of splintering plastic. Pieces flew throughout the cargo cabin and I held up my hands to shield my eyes. Maybe, I thought, as he preoccupied himself with taking the rest of it apart and cracking whatever circuit boards had survived, maybe I could overpower him and grab the gun.
I looked over at the other two passengers. Darryl drove through the wet snowy night without seeming to pay us any attention. Patel sat with his body rigid, staring straight ahead.
“Change of plans, Darryl,” Chander said, tossing the rest of the phone onto the floor between us. “Head to the plant.”
I stared at the broken phone. If they’d heard anything at all, they’d be heading for my house right now. And I wasn’t going to show up there, ever.
Ra
th Chander grinned at me as though he could read both my desperation and my sense of helplessness. We rode along for nearly fifteen minutes, his big head moving with the sway of the van as we drove. “You thought you had us figured out,” he said. “But now the tables are turned. How does it feel?”
I ignored him until I heard the rumble bumps under our wheels signaling that we were nearing a toll booth. Another set of rumbles, then another, as we started to slow.
“Why are you stopping here?” Chander asked Darryl. I peeked over the tops of the chairs. We were still a good hundred feet away from the toll plaza.
I could see Darryl’s skinny shoulders lift and drop. “The I-Pass is closed.”
“What?”
“They got it blocked off.”
I-Pass was the Illinois Department of Transportation’s answer to clogged tollway passages. For regular commuters and for business vehicles that traveled the tollways daily, several lanes stayed open constantly, video-taping all those who passed through. Companies then were able to pay the tolls on a monthly basis. The best part of course, was not having to stop and throw money into a basket or get change from the booth attendant. The I-Pass lanes had been in service for some time; I’d never seen one closed down before.
“Go through the automatics, then,” Chander said, his voice sounding strained. “We can’t afford to go through one of the manned booths.”
Darryl turned. “I don’t got any change.” He looked at Patel. “Do you?”
Patel shook his head. “I have only currency.”
Chander glared at me, bringing the gun close to my chest. “One word out of you and you’re dead, got it?”
I nodded but my mind was racing. Once I got to the Calypso plant I was dead anyway. I knew that. So what did I have to lose by taking a chance now?
Darryl’s window rolled down, I heard the booth attendant say, “Good Evening, sir. Coming down pretty hard, isn’t it?”
Just as I’d hoped, Chander’s eyes flicked away from me for a split-second. I arced my left arm against the barrel of Chander’s gun as I rolled to the right. The blast echoed in the van’s metal interior, clanging in my ears and making me wince.
As if in slow motion, I noticed two things at once. That the bullet had gone to Chander’s far right, piercing the back of Darryl’s seat. And that Darryl had immediately slumped forward.
I took advantage of Chander’s disorientation to leap toward the door. He sighted me just as I grabbed the door handle. I yanked hard and kicked my left foot out, grazing his right arm. No shot this time. He was bigger, and stronger, but in the cramped quarters, my small stature gave me the advantage. I could nearly stand up, while he had to remain crouched. Time to use it.
He was slightly off balance when my foot connected with him again. He tried to grab at me, but missed. Both his hands reached for me, one still holding the gun. As I pulled the door open all the way, he lunged, grabbing at the hem of my down coat with his free hand. His momentary grasp messed up my trajectory and I started to topple out of the van. Out of my peripheral vision I could see his right hand bringing the gun up to the level of my face. And I heard it go off. But this time it sounded farther away. And I heard yelling. Lots of yelling. Horns. Screams.
I fell to the pavement outside the van, knowing only one thing for certain. I hadn’t been shot. The van kept moving forward, not fast, but enough that as I fell and my foot caught in the doorway, I had to wrench it away in order to keep the rest of me from being rolled over by the back tires.
Rath started to emerge from the side of the van, and though my knees were on fire, I moved as fast as I could on all fours to take cover between the columns of the plaza and the next booth over. With blood dripping from the side of his face, Chander’s big dark head turned my direction and he aimed at me. Strangely, as though disassociated with my own predicament, I noticed the snow falling quietly behind him.
The van continued to roll.
I heard the crunch of metal, yelling, and then another shot. Chander’s body shuddered, then crumpled as he dropped to his knees, then fell onto his face. A car had pulled perpendicularly across the lane, stopping the Calypso van’s forward movement, and someone had put a bullet into Chander’s head.
Justin came around the back of the van and grabbed me, dragging me into the next lane, to relative safety. I saw Tommy, ahead, yelling at Chander to remain still while he approached. But Chander wasn’t going anywhere. In the distance I heard sirens and as the flashing lights approached I relaxed against the wall, breathing in the cold night air. Nothing had ever felt so good.
“Yep, we saw some action,” Bass told the rest of the staff Monday, after they’d seen the excitement on the weekend news. “We alerted Detective Fayne—told him we had a pursuit in progress. Gave him our location and our heading, but I knew it was going to take them a while to catch up.” His head swaggered as he continued. “Especially when the perps changed direction. That’s when Justin and I decided to follow them.” He winked, at no one in particular. “We stayed with our quarry and kept in contact with our backup. That’s how Fayne and his team knew to set up the blockade at the toll plaza.”
I sidled up to my assistant, Jordan, as Bass filled everyone in on the rest of the story. With Darryl dead, Patel had jumped on the opportunity to negotiate for a reduced sentence. We’d been right on most of it.
Cindy and Patel had diluted expensive chemotherapy drugs, transforming each individual dosage into as many as ten lesser treatments. Patel’s Family Hope Clinic took a sizeable cut, plus kept whatever they needed for their own patients at no charge, thus bilking the insurance companies, who covered their clients’ medical claims.
Calypso’s other accounts, hospitals and clinics, unknowingly gave the weakened dosages to their patients, but paid Calypso full price. At an average of $1,000 per treatment, Chander had a multi-million dollar operation clicking.
Cindy had made the mistake of trying to leverage a bigger cut in the profits. She’d made the phone call to us, and then, after my visit to the clinic, told Patel she would drop a few hints about the operation unless he granted her a bigger stake. Panicked, Patel called Chander, who took matters into his own hands.
Bass seemed to have grown about three inches as he talked. His chest heaved with another deep breath as he continued. “Yep, if it wasn’t for our keen observations, we might’ve lost our best researcher.” He nodded my direction. “And not only did my quick thinking save her behind, but I might just be looking at my second Davis award.”
I raised my eyebrows and glanced at Jordan. She leaned closer. “There’ll be no living with him now.”
Later, Bass appeared in my office doorway. “Hey, I got a story I think we ought to look into. This one’s got Davis Award written all over it.” His eyes glittered and he grinned. “Interested?”
Panic
Jen slowed at the yellow light, braking as it turned red.
A pickup eased to a stop next to her.
At the sound of a quickening engine, Jen glanced to her right, surprised to find the pickup’s driver looking at her. When she averted her eyes, he gunned his motor again.
She probably should have run the yellow, but the long day’s frustrations had sucked out all her energy. Maybe it was her imagination, but the red lights here in Sarasota seemed to take forever to change.
The truck lurched forward an inch. She’d noticed it earlier because it seemed to keep pace with her, and also because it bore the unusual name, “Geeks and Freaks, Inc.” lettered on a magnetic placard on the driver’s side door. Beneath it, the logo depicted a satellite in silhouette. The driver stared ahead now, and Jen chanced a look at him. Scraggly blond hair, beard, mustache and t-shirt. Back when Jen was a kid, he’d have been referred to as a hippie.
But, Jen thought, I’m far from being a kid.
Raising a lazy index finger upward, she began to trace circles inside the filmy windshield of her rental car. She should have invested in a bottle of cleaner and some paper t
owels, but over the past three days, Jen’s entire focus had been getting Carrie settled at school.
Aware suddenly that she was being watched, Jen looked up to see Mr. Hippie staring at her again. She sat up and gave an embarrassed shrug.
He smiled, bright white teeth appearing beneath the bushy beard and mustache.
It was the first personal interaction she’d had all day, if you didn’t count coffee shop baristas. She smiled back.
Dropping her only child off at college was tough enough, but the prospect of having to return to Chicago—to their small Southside apartment by herself—was too much. Yesterday, their last day together, Jen had suggested relocating her freelance business to Florida, and Carrie had been ecstatic at the prospect of Mom living close by.
Carrie was a good kid, but she would be alone out here, making grown-up decisions in an uncertain world. Even though Carrie insisted she was ready for it, Jen wasn’t so sure she was ready to let go.
Stinging heat threatened to form behind her eyes. Jen blinked, and looked away. No time to feel sorry for herself. She needed to eat—soon, before the crawling pains in her stomach consumed her body from the inside out.
Two blocks later, another red light.
And the white pickup settled in next to her, again.
According to the bright Global Positioning System screen next to the dashboard, there was a fast-food restaurant on the far right.
Hoping the hippie was a kind soul, she turned, surprised to find him facing her again. She pantomimed cutting in front of him. He smiled, bigger this time, and nodded.
When the light changed, she eased over and gave a jaunty wave of thanks.
She made the sharp turn and was surprised to find the white pickup following. It passed her on the left. She noted his Florida plates, three digits and three letters—PIK. She wondered briefly if the letters stood for anything. Then she promptly forgot about him.
Jen pulled up to the chicken place and angled into the drive-thru lane. A sign taped on the speaker read: “Drive-thru broken. Come inside.”
