The Poison Secret

by Gregg Loomis

  “Jus’ hustlin’. You good, dawg?”

  The words were friendly enough, but the tone suspicious.

  “Yeah, man,” Leon responded. “I lookin’ for Smoof an’ Little Boy.”

  The group went silent until one of the group, a tall silhouette with a backward baseball cap, detached himself from the group and made a point of slowly circling the newcomers. “What fo’ you lookin’?”

  “Got a job fo’ em.”

  “What kinda job?”

  “Tween us an’ Smoof an’ Little Boy.”

  The man kept circling. “You dunno some white ho done busted a cap on dem?”

  Leon did a credible job of being surprised, most likely because he was. Lang hadn’t told him of the demise of the two would-be kidnappers.

  “No shit? They dead?”

  Baseball Cap stopped circling. “Meybbe you tell us what you want wid ‘em, we can hep.”

  Leon was turning out to be quite the performer. “No, dawg, we ain’ red arrowing this here. Smoof an’ Little Boy serious bad asses what we need.”

  Another man left the anonymity of the gazebo to join the first. “Smoof an’ Little Boy ain’ the only bad asses. Paper be enough, I find you somebody.” He looked Lang up and down. “‘Less you be po-po.”

  “Paper?” Lang asked. “Po-po?”

  The poor light prevented him from being sure but he thought he saw the man roll his eyes.

  “Money,” Leon translated, “police.”

  Lang raised his arms to shoulder level to show he had no concealed weapon. Not in a shoulder holster anyway. “I’m not the cops. What kind of heat would come down here and solicit someone to do a job and then arrest him for it? You gentlemen ever hear of entrapment?”

  “Whee!” came an unidentified voice. “Don’t he talk funny!”

  The recent addition to Lang, Leon, and Baseball Cap outside the gazebo spoke over his shoulder to the group under the roof. “Tell th’ mu’fucker shut his mouth!” He turned back to Leon and Lang. “You wants a special job? Meybbe you come back here tomorrow when it be light, know what I mean?”

  Leon said, “The man wants to do business tonight.”

  “Keep it real, bro! Ain’t nobody do no business some white-bread dude he never seen before. All I know, the bushes be full of the man, jus’ waitin’ to make a bust. You be back here, say 3:00.”

  As if to emphasize the finality of the offer, he spun on his heels, his form merging into the others in the gazebo.

  CHAPTER 47

  Rosa Burney Park

  6:26 A.M.

  The Next Morning

  The Angry red streak in the eastern sky, the zipper between light and dark, was widening as the gray began to chase night’s shadows into their daytime hiding places. The patches of grass were turning from blotches into islands of white as the infant day reflected from a heavy dew. Other than a couple of homeless men snoring peacefully on the picnic tables under the roof of the gazebo, the park was deserted. Loose wrappers from fast food, borne by a gentle morning breeze, skittered across mostly bare clay. The sounds of an awakening city included the grinding gears of an approaching garbage truck.

  The surrounding homes, mostly cottages, showed substantial deferred maintenance: rashes of bare wood spotted painted surfaces; front steps were frequently less than aligned, leaning drunkenly to one side or the other; plastic sheeting was almost as common as glass in windows. Some roofs displayed patches of varying colors. A few flowers valiantly struggled in yards of hard-packed clay that seemed to mostly grow oil puddles and disabled or vintage automobiles. The most common element was the bars: a barred door in front of every entrance, burglar bars on every window. Lang had little doubt the residents had not only fortified their homes but were prepared to defend them. It was not a community a burglar would make his first choice.

  The neighborhood had the appearance of defiance in defeat, a stubbornness against hopelessness.

  The good news was that no one was stirring other than the sanitation department.

  Lang had timed his arrival perfectly: there was just now sufficient light to see what he was doing, but it was far too early for there to be anyone around to notice him.

  In the parking lot of the City View Apartments across the street, the garbage truck’s lift whined a dumpster overhead, banging it noisily. Lang ducked behind a scraggly plant that had somehow survived years of the park department’s less-than-benign neglect. He waited until the truck’s crew was back on board and the vehicle grumbled out of sight.

  He stood, searching. A squirrel, the only animal he had seen this morning, scolded him from an oak that seemed to be flourishing.

  “I don’t suppose you have any ideas?”

  In the predawn solitude, speaking to an animal seemed a perfectly normal thing to do. He addressed Grumps all the time.

  With an indignant flip of his brush, the squirrel disappeared up the tree trunk and into a clump of foliage. He emerged seconds later, dashing along a limb and making a dive an Olympian might have envied onto the lip of a trash barrel behind a bench. With another flick of its tail, it disappeared inside.

  The trash barrel. Of course.

  Lang took a final look around to make sure he was unobserved before walking over to it.

  That afternoon at 2:30, the park was alive with the noise of children at play, music, and passing cars with tuned exhausts. Somewhere a kids baseball game was in progress, judging by the sound of an aluminum bat. The gazebo was filled with the fragrant smoke of barbecue and people in a festive mood.

  It was as though the park of the early morning hours might have existed on a distant planet.

  In the direction of the ball game, a man sat on a bench reading a newspaper. The jacket he wore belied the warmth of an afternoon in late spring. His eyes, barely visible under a hat, were on the gazebo, not his paper. Two others stood on the edge of a path in a conversation not intense enough to prevent them watching Lang and Leon’s approach. Their pants were low enough to expose underwear had it not been for concealing shirttails that could also have hidden a weapon. A fourth sat in an old Lincoln Town Car with mirror-shiny wheels. The vehicle seemed to vibrate with the blasts of hip-hop from a sound system that would have done credit to an opera house.

  Leon’s gaze followed Lang’s. “We early. He be here after he sure we alone.”

  Confirming the observation, the man with the newspaper produced a cell phone, spoke briefly, and returned to his vigil.

  Whether through caution or just tardiness, it was well after the half hour before a black BMW 760Li glided to the curb. Its tinted windows made it impossible to ascertain who or how many were inside. Two men got out. One, short and stocky, was the driver. The other could have been the one who had joined Baseball Cap outside the gazebo last night. It had been too dark to be sure.

  The afternoon sun glinted off his shaved scalp, already beading with sweat from the warmth of the day. Even though reflective sunglasses hid most of the upper face, Lang guessed him to be in his mid-thirties. His most noticeable characteristic was the diamond embedded in a gold incisor, an adornment that sparkled when he smiled, which he did often, though there was neither warmth nor humor in it. He wore an expensive golf shirt and slacks that could have been tailored. Some species of lizard had died to cover the otherwise bare feet. He moved with assurance, the near-swagger of one in total control of his environment.

  The man in the sunglasses surveyed the scene as two more men climbed out of the back seat. Bodyguards, certainly. Big men whose heads were shaved and whose faces were hidden behind mirrored eyewear. Tattoos on the arms had been done with a crudeness that could only have been the work of a prison artist. Lang saw no replication of the artistic dentistry.

  Lang sensed Leon tensing as the man approached flanked by his bodyguards. “Be cool, man!”

  “You know who that is, dude?” Leon whispered.

  “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

  “Hoarus ‘Scoop’ Meadows. He Big Meech’
s main man.”

  Big Meech was — or had been — Demetrious Flenary, in another crime organization’s lexicon, the BMF’s capo di tutti capo. He was now merely another number on the Feds’ guest list. Meadows was, Lang guessed, playing Nitti to Flenary’s Capone.

  The two men from the backseat approached, one signaling Lang to raise his arms.

  The man Leon had identified as Meadows worked a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other as he watched Lang being roughly frisked. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, no. Happens every day.”

  Again, the humorless smile. “No problem, dude, ‘less you strapped or wired.”

  “He mean carryin’ or wearin’ a wire,” Leon explained, submitting to the same procedure by the other bodyguard.

  As far as Lang could tell, no one in the park seemed to notice.

  “He’s clean,” the man searching Lang announced.

  “So’s mine,” the other said.

  “Well, now,” Meadows said, “we can get down to business. ’Xactly what did you have in mind for Smoof an’ Little Boy?”

  Lang made a show of glancing around. “Something I’d as soon keep private. Let’s you and me take a walk.”

  Meadows nodded approval to his bodyguards. “Which way?”

  Lang took a second or so to reply, a man making an inconsequential decision. “Over toward the oak?”

  He paused long enough for Meadows to catch up before walking along the path. A few irregularly spaced dogwoods had survived a few feet from the pavement. The corpses of more were a monument to the City Parks Department’s less-than-successful efforts to line the path with white or pink blossoms in spring.

  The two moved in silence until Lang stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Guess this is far enough.” He indicated a park bench just out of reach of the branches of the oak. “Why don’t we have a sit?”

  Meadows sat. “Okay, dude, what you want wit’ Smoof an’ Little Boy?”

  Lang sprawled beside him, arms draped over the back of the bench. “’Spose I wanted somebody snatched, kidnapped?”

  Meadows expelled a breath loudly. “That be a federal rap. Mighty risky.”

  Lang shrugged and started to get up. “Okay, I won’t waste any more of your time.”

  A hand grasped his wrist. “Chill, dude. No need to bail. Didn’t say I couldn’t.”

  Lang let himself be pulled back down on the bench, again, arms along the back. “I’m listening.”

  “Takes a dude with some juice, pull something like that off. Smoof an’ Little Boy assed out, they tried it.”

  “You telling me that’s how they got killed, trying to kidnap someone?”

  Meadows nodded. “That’s what I . . .”

  He stopped in mid-sentence. His head didn’t move but his eyes did, “What th’ fuck . . . ?”

  “What you feel against the back of your head,” Lang said calmly, “is exactly what you think: a .40 caliber Glock. You so much as wiggle your ears and your brains will be on the path there.”

  “But you frisked clean . . .”

  “Your guys didn’t frisk the trash barrel. I’d fire the incompetent bastards, I was you. If I lived long enough to, that is.”

  “You crazy? My guys . . .”

  “I could empty the clip in your ear before the first one could get off a shot. You’d be dead before they had a clue. They can’t see the gun from where they’re standing.”

  Meadows seemed to relax. Or go limp. “Okay, dude, you bad ass. What you want?”

  “The name of the person who wanted you to kidnap the little boy.”

  “How the hell would I know who sent Smoof an’ Little Boy?”

  Lang pressed the muzzle of the gun into the man’s skull a little harder. “Don’t fuck with me, Meadows! Those two wouldn’t order in pizza, you didn’t tell ‘em what topping. You don’t want to make your last mistake thinking I won’t kill you.”

  Meadows cut his eyes even further toward Lang. They suddenly widened with recognition. “Shit! You . . .”

  “Good guess. It was my son those two goons were going to snatch. I’m making sure it doesn’t happen again. I could begin the process by whacking you. Or I could go after whoever had you send those two. Your choice. Just make it quick.”

  “How do I know you won’t do me if I tell you?”

  “Same way I figure you won’t try to harm me or my family again: You’re a businessman, Meadows, not a revenge killer. There’s no profit in risking coming after me or my family unless you’re paid to do it. Whoever had you send those two guys to take my son won’t be around to pay you again, I promise. On the other hand, you don’t tell me, there’s not a reason in the world to make sure you don’t complete the job. Follow me?”

  Meadows nodded slowly. “Yeah, I gets you. Truth is, I don’t know the man’s real name. Big Meech done some deals wit’ him when we started gettin’ into smack, heroin. He had some ships . . .”

  “You’re doing fine, Meadows, but I need a name, a location, something.”

  “I tell the truth, man. This Greek . . .”

  “You sure he was Greek?”

  “S’what Big Meech called him, the Greek.”

  “The name Alex mean anything to you?”

  “Yeah. That was the name I heard Big Meech use once when they talked on the phone. You satisfied?”

  “You done good. Now, one more thing: Can you count to a hundred?”

  “Course I can! How dumb you think I am?”

  “You really don’t want to know. You can start now. Just don’t move, don’t even turn your head till you get to a hundred, understand?”

  “But why . . . ?”

  Lang jabbed him with gun’s muzzle. “Just do it!”

  By the time Meadows finished counting, Lang and Leon were gone.

  CHAPTER 48

  472 Lafayette Drive

  That Evening

  Shouts of Glee and Moans of despair were clear over engines at high rpm coming from the library as Manfred battled Leon on the world’s fastest road course, Le Mans, through the magic of a video game. On the actual track, nearly eight and a half miles with few chicanes, or turns, speeds had reached 250 mph until both engine power and track configuration had been modified to slightly reduce the lethal speed. There were no such limitations placed on the virtual competitors.

  The kitchen featured a much duller scene: Lang and Gurt loading the washer with the dinner dishes. Months ago, Lang had insisted Manfred be given a share of the duties, but small hands had proven far more adept at the joystick of a video game than handling breakable china and glassware.

  “You think he’ll be safe at the farm?” Lang asked for at least the third time.

  Gurt was placing plates in the machine’s rack. “Larry saved our lives, remember? He and Darleen can take care of Manfred.”

  The conversation concerned acreage Lang owned about an hour south of Atlanta, “the farm.” Four or five years earlier, Lang and Gurt had retreated there after an abortive attempt on Lang’s life. The then would-be assassins had attacked the small two-room farmhouse to be met with shotguns from the next-door neighbor, Larry Henderson, and his tenant, who had mistaken the criminals for poachers of their well-hidden marijuana crop. Lang had reciprocated by getting the drug charges against Larry dismissed on an evidentiary technicality. Since then, Larry and his wife Darleen had become friends as well as guardians of Lang’s property.

  It had been Larry who had taught Manfred the joy of catching (if not cleaning) the bass and bream that populated the six-acre pond. For reasons Lang would never understand, the child was happier sharing the seat of Larry’s 5E John Deere as he plowed fields prior to planting soybeans than riding in his father’s turbo Porsche. Grumps viewed the noisy green tractor with suspicion if not open hostility, pacing and whining pitifully until his young master returned sweaty, dusty, and laughing. Lang suspected canine jealousy.

  “What about Leon?”

  Gurt was wiping her hands with a
dish towel. “What about him?”

  “I’m not sure I’m comfortable leaving him with Manfred. The guy is — was — a meth head, after all.”

  Gurt folded the towel, sat at the kitchen table, and intertwined her fingers, a sure sign she had given the matter thought. “First, Manfred will be with Larry and Darleen. They could not be more protective than his own Grosseltern. Perhaps more so when you consider what Larry and his man, Jerranito, can do with their shoot guns . . .”

  “Shotguns.”

  “Shotguns.” She held up two fingers. “Second, Leon has been off the drugs for some time, and who knows where he could get it in Lamar County.”

  Lang wasn’t sure the few days Leon had become a member of the family equated “some time,” and he was certain Gurt had no idea of the pervasiveness of the homemade drug.

  “Third,” she held up three fingers, “you are not going without someone to cover your backside.” The fingers now became the palm of her hand, divided by the ugly scar from Turkey. “Besides, I am — how you say? Invested, yes, invested in getting this matter settled.”

  The crux of the discussion.

  Lang placed the last glass in the dishwasher, shut it, and pushed the start button. “If we’re going to go, we may as well move.”

  Gurt glanced out of the window at the late spring dusk. “It is better to wait until dark. I am not certain your BMF friends will be quick to forgive and forget that you have hissed them.”

  “Dissed. I disrespected their leader. But I’m sure they have better things to do than retaliate.”

  “Hissed, dissed. Amounts to same. People like that do not take insults lightly.”

  “That guy Meadows is a businessman. Revenge is a waste of his time.”

  Lang was rarely as mistaken as he was now.

  CHAPTER 49

  I-75 South

  Fifty Minutes Later

  Manfred and Leon occupied the middle seats of the Mercedes ML 320 CDI, a Genesis portable game player between them. Grumps snored softly between suitcases and toys in the rear.

  Lang slowed and glided onto an off-ramp.

  “We are not an hour from the house,” Gurt observed. “We need no fuel. Surely you do not already need to go to the toilet.”