Miracle Man

by William R. Leibowitz

  Susan threw her hands up. “Good choice of words—creatures. Bimbos, like I said.”

  Bobby grinned. “Are you implying that only promiscuous floozies are interested in me?”

  Susan shook her head and sat down next to Bobby. “If you’d give nice girls a chance –girls of the caliber you should be going out with, of course they’d be interested. But you have this craziness in your head about ‘no relationships,’ so you limit yourself to these harpies of the underworld. Maybe one day, you’ll stop with the BS and accept that you’re worthy of being loved.”

  “Now you’re kicking below the belt. You’re such a ball buster, Susan. I’m your boss—remember?”

  “And I’m quaking with fear. Now go into the apartment and clean yourself up. When was the last time you ate?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I thought so. I’ll make you some bacon, eggs and coffee. Jesus. You boys are all the same. Doesn’t matter how smart you are. You still got no sense. How much have you been drinking?”

  “More than you could ever comprehend,” he said.

  Picking up Bobby’s shoes, she waved him into the apartment. “Into the shower—and then put on some nice clothes. Remember, you have a staff that looks up to you. You’re not supposed to look like a bum.”

  When Bobby reappeared, clean shaven, hair shampooed and brushed, Susan was once again struck by how good looking he was. This was particularly apparent when he came back rejuvenated after one of his “mini-vacations,” as he called his descents into dissipation.

  “Now look how handsome you are when you’re all clean and shiny. Sometimes I almost wish I wasn’t gay,” she said.

  “I still got some left,” he teased.

  Susan laughed. “Oh, shut up. You’re so crude.”

  “My best personality trait,” Bobby said, playfully planting a kiss on top of Susan’s head.

  Bobby dove into breakfast and Susan watched him like a doting mother. Clearing the dishes away, she paused to pour herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. “You were gone five days. What’s up with that?”

  Bobby glanced away and then rested his chin in his left hand as he leaned into the table. Looking into Susan’s eyes, he said softly, “The nightmares. They’re really bad. I had to turn them off. This is the only way I can.”

  “Can’t you wake yourself up when they happen?”

  “I do—all the time. And then I’m afraid to go back to sleep because they’re waiting for me.”

  Bobby looked down at his cup as he sipped his coffee. “Susan—if I show you something, I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”

  “I’ll never judge you, Bobby. Except when it comes to your choice of women, your drinking and your being a slob,” she said.

  Bobby didn’t smile. “I can’t have you thinking I’m nuts. I have a lot of work to do in the future and I need you to be at my side.”

  He went into his bedroom and came back with several sketch pads, one of which he handed to Susan. “Sometimes when I get up in the middle of a nightmare, I try to sketch what I’ve seen in my dreams while it’s fresh in my mind. Take a look.”

  Susan put the pad on the kitchen table and cautiously opened it. She slowly examined the first two pages of his detailed drawings.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. She sat down and pulled the pad toward her face as she continued to look at the sketches carefully, page by page. The images were gruesome, bizarre and other-worldly, and the context of it all was death, physical decay and mayhem. Interspersed among the images of misery was Bobby’s face—apparently at different stages of his life.

  “These are horrific. I don’t know what to say.”

  “And imagine it with sound and action like in my dreams,” he muttered.

  “Has it always been this bad?” she asked.

  “It’s always been terrible— ever since I can remember. But it gets worse. It constantly gets worse.”

  33

  Toward the end of their second year together, Bobby called Susan into his office and closed the door. “Susan, I need you to do something and I can’t go into details right now as to why. You have to be at your discreet best on this —it’s private and I need it to stay that way.”

  “Of course, just tell me what it is,” Susan said, as she took a seat in front of his desk.

  “I need you to hire a private detective. Use your own name,” he said, pulling on his chin. “Actually, don’t use your name, make one up and pay him in cash. You’ll ask him to find a certain person and report back with a detailed dossier as to this person’s whereabouts —assuming he’s alive—- health, job, finances, marital status, family, the works.”

  “Wow, that’s weird. Who is the guy?”

  Bobby walked to his desk and picked up a sealed envelope which he handed to Susan. “His name and the details that will help the PI find him are in here. The contents are for his eyes only. I appreciate your respecting my privacy on this.”

  Susan stared at him. “Bobby, are you in some kind of trouble?”

  Combing the advertisements in the Boston telephone directory, Susan picked the Bay Colony Detective Agency because it offered “national services and had assisted clients across the country.” At the company’s headquarters, she was escorted to the office of one of their investigators, Rollie Carter. About thirty five years old, he was tall and wiry and had a blonde crew-cut that was stiff and shiny from too much styling wax. His compact GI Joe facial features, restless blue eyes and an ever present smirk completed the picture of someone who had been the perennial wise-guy in high school.

  “You’ve come to the right place, Miss Jones. We can find anyone, anywhere. It’s just a question of cost and time. I defy anyone to elude us. We are the best.”

  “And how much does the best charge?”

  “Do you want us to just locate him—an address, or do you want more?”

  “Mr. Carter—I want the works. Address, phone number, photographs, background info, financial info, what he’s been doing since he was born. To be blunt, I want to know how often he has a bowel movement and how firm or loose it is.”

  Rollie half-smiled. “So you want what we call the ‘deluxe package.’ That can mean travel expenses. But, to minimize that, once we locate him—if he’s out of state, we can get a local agent to do the footwork.”

  “So how much are we talking about here?”

  “Eighty-five dollars an hour, plus out-of-pocket expenses. A deposit of three grand up-front. You bring the account up to date when we find him, and the balance is due simultaneously when we hand over the report and photos. No checks—unless they’re certified. We take all major credit cards.”

  “Is cash okay?”

  “That’ll work.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “To get you the level of detail you want—three weeks or less if he’s in the tri-state area, five weeks if he’s elsewhere in the U.S. If he’s overseas, it all depends. Why do you want to find this guy anyway? Does he owe child support, or you need him as a witness in a lawsuit?”

  Susan’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Carter, your ad says that your company offers a discreet service.”

  “Sorry, Miss Jones. Point taken.”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow with the deposit.”

  34

  Cruising down New York City’s elegant Park Avenue, a midnight blue Bentley limousine stopped in front of # 550, a sleek glass and steel palace of capitalism which was home to the corporate offices of several Fortune 500 companies.

  The imposing looking bodyguard sitting next to the driver exited the vehicle. An observant passerby could have caught a glimpse of the shoulder holster under his left arm. Speaking into his earpiece, he alerted the waiting security guard in the building’s lobby that he and Mr. McAlister woul
d soon be entering. As they approached the building’s entrance, they were joined by building security and then were ushered into an awaiting elevator which had been taken out of service and placed “on standby.” The guard checked the elevator’s control panel to ensure that the elevator would make only one stop, the sixty-eighth floor, penthouse level.

  Floor sixty-eight was one of twenty-three floors at 550 Park Avenue that were fully occupied by Bushings Pharmaceuticals, a New York Stock Exchange listed corporation and one of the largest drug companies in the world. The entire sixty-eighth floor, comprised of over twenty thousand square feet, was used solely for the offices of Bushing’s eight top executives.

  Looking like finalists from the Miss Universe pageant, McAlister’s two secretaries sat at matching zebra wood desks in McAlister’s opulent private reception area. “Good morning, Mr. McAlister,” they said in unison.

  Without acknowledging their presence, McAlister commanded, “Coffee. And have Turnbull come in right away.”

  No more than three minutes after McAlister barked his orders, the CFO, Martin Turnbull, entered McAlister’s office holding a thick folder. Turnbull pulled a crumpled wad of tissues from his pocket and patted the perspiration from his nose and forehead as he glanced at the re-circulating waterfall which comprised an entire wall of the immense office with its soaring fourteen foot ceilings. One of McAlister’s secretaries hurried in behind Turnbull with a large sterling silver serving tray.

  Colum McAlister was the CEO of Bushings. Standing six feet tall and at one hundred seventy pounds, he was trim and in good shape for a man of sixty-three. Working-out every day under the supervision of his personal trainer in the private gym of his office suite helped in that respect. He had a perennial tan and his sparse silver hair was perfectly groomed, as were his manicured highly polished finger nails. His complexion had the toned radiance usually reserved to movie stars and only obtained through a regimen of weekly facial treatments. He dressed in “bespoke” shirts, suits and neckties from Saville Row and his shoes were custom made in Italy. His gold and sapphire Cartier cuff-links and tie-pin perfectly complemented his gray suit and pale blue monogrammed shirt. The only items that he was wearing which weren’t personally created for him were his argyle socks, underwear and Hermes belt. Even his pink gold Patek Philippe wristwatch was custom designed at a cost of almost two hundred thousand dollars, a sixtieth birthday gift from his wife. While McAlister’s appearance had been painstakingly tooled, there was an inherent roughness to the man which was discernible in his eyes and the way he carried himself. The street fighting kid who grew up in one of Brooklyn’s worst neighborhoods wasn’t far beneath the polished veneer.

  “How bad does it look, Marty?”

  “The Board’s going to be all over our ass again at the meeting.”

  “What the hell do they want us to do? Our product line is being eroded. How much are we losing because of the discontinued meds?”

  “We’ve seen seventeen of our drugs go into the shitter because they’re obsolete. Nobody needs them anymore, and on six of them we didn’t even recover our research and development costs so we took a huge hit to the P&L. Bottom line, our sales are down 21% this year alone. We’ve lost some of our real ‘cash cows.’ But it’s not just us. Everyone’s suffering.”

  McAlister slammed his desk as he leaned forward toward Turnbull. “Exactly. And that’s what we have to stress to the Board. It’s that guy. He’s killing us all.”

  “You’re absolutely right. Look,” said Turnbull, as he placed a list in front of McAlister. “Here are drugs that you can’t even give away now.”

  McAlister held the piece of paper and shook his head. “Has Collins been reaching out to him? Can’t we make a deal?”

  “He’s reached out, several times. But Austin’s not playing ball. You can’t even get to him. He has this gatekeeper bitch. No one gets past her.”

  “Did we try to buy her?” asked McAlister.

  “We got nowhere. She’s another goody two shoes.”

  “If we could make a deal with him, and get a license on his patents, we’d be fine even if we took a haircut on our margins.”

  “It’s not going to happen. He has his damn Uniserve company, and he’s having it do non-exclusive deals with generic drug manufacturers to make his meds available as cheap as possible.”

  McAlister’s eyes narrowed and he chewed on one of his lips. “The guy’s crazy. He’s giving his stuff away. Who the hell does that?”

  “I just read an article in Forbes that said that if Austin operated Uniserve for profit, he’d be one of the richest guys in the world inside of ten years.”

  McAlister’s face reddened and a vein on his right temple began to throb visibly. Seeing these familiar signs, Turnbull stepped back, as McAlister’s temper was legendary. He always tried to deflect the brunt of McAlister’s anger to someone else in the organization which was one of the reasons he had survived so long at Bushings. McAlister’s eyes took on a wild look.

  Glaring at Turnbull, he said, “Enough of this crap. You’re not helping me. Something better get figured out soon. Austin’s young. Who knows what else he’ll do. The damage could be limitless.”

  35

  A dusty old silver Hyundai pulled up to a parking spot at “The Conch Shack.” When Bill Owens finally managed to maneuver himself out of the driver’s seat, the car rose two inches from the ground and you could almost hear it hissing air in relief. Owens was wearing black wrap-around sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt that featured dice, martini glasses and hula dancers in an assortment of jarring colors. The shirt had to be a XXL, but it was barely able to stretch around his protruding belly. A camera hung low from his negligible neck and rested soundly on his gut. His face looked like a sunburned jack-o-latern. Owens was hungry. Sizing up the little roadside take-out joint, he tried to determine how likely it was that he’d get food poisoning if he ordered any of the fish specialties. He read the handwritten menu which was posted at each of the three take-out windows that were equipped with slide-up screens to keep the flies out. The word “fresh” appeared next to almost every item on the menu—even the hamburgers and hot dogs. What does that mean? he wondered. A fresh hot dog?

  Finally, he said, “I’ll have a bowl of the conch chowder, and the fish and chips. How fresh is that?”

  The old-timer behind the take-out window wore a white apron that looked like it had been new ten years ago. “Caught this morning. That’s what we’re famous for.”

  “This place is famous?”

  “Everybody knows you come to The Conch Shack for the freshest. We’ve been here before most, and we’ll be here when the others pack it in.”

  “Is this your place?”

  “Yup. Built it myself from scratch. Over twenty years ago. Of course, it wasn’t always this big.” Turning his head from side to side, Owens estimated it was under nine hundred square feet.

  “So you’re the owner?”

  “I’m the owner, the chef and sometimes the fisherman too.” Let me get movin’ and cook your food. Listen for your number.”

  Walking back toward his car, Owens snapped a few photos of the front of the Conch Shack and then walked around the side and back, taking a few more. The Shack was located in Islamorada on the Overseas Highway, a 127 mile section of Route U.S. 1 which runs the length of the Florida Keys and connects them to the U.S. mainland.

  After eating his meal, Owens walked back to the take-out window.

  “That was delicious. You’re right. It was incredibly fresh. I’m Bill Owens, by the way.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Alan Gottschalk.”

  “You live around here?”

  “Just two miles down the road,” Alan said. “Used to be my only neighbors were gators. Now everyone lives here”.

  “Do you have a menu I can take back home
? I’ll spread the gospel.”

  “I can even sell you a T-shirt.” Alan laughed as he handed Owens a copy of the menu, which was stained with tartar sauce. “Just kidding about the T-shirt. Maybe we’ll get to that next year.”

  Before pulling out of the parking lot, Owens surreptitiously took a few close-up shots of Alan in the take-out window as he wrote down orders from some more customers. Owens had driven in from Miami two days ago at Rollie Carter’s request when Bay Colony’s research over the prior four weeks indicated that Alan might live in Islamorada.

  He had already photographed Alan’s house on Madiera Road, including shots of Alan coming and going. Owens’ search of the town’s property records showed that twenty five years ago, Alan had purchased a run-down two room cottage on an over-grown acre of water-front land. In those days, Islamorada was just a sparsely inhabited pit-stop on the road to Key West. Alan had paid fifty-five thousand dollars cash for the house, which at that time, was considered a lot of money. Owens couldn’t find out where Alan had obtained the purchase money, but Rollie had determined that already.

  Over the years Alan had hacked through the tropical vegetation surrounding his cottage, planted a garden and fixed the place up and expanded it to two bedrooms and one and a half baths. It was his little slice of paradise that he owned, free and clear so no one could ever take it away from him. And now, two decades after his purchase, Islamorada had become known as “The Sport Fishing Capital of the World” and resorts, marinas and real estate developments had sprung up throughout the area. His small house was in the midst of an upscale luxury development that had grown up around him and although his home was not much bigger than the garages of some of his neighbors, his full acre of waterfront property was the envy of the community.