Dead Ringer

by Allen Wyler

  “Shoot.”

  Ditto recited the address, then added, “Oh, I forgot to ask if he wants the ashes. But unless he mentions it, just skip it and get the contract signed. Got that?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Good. Call when you get back. I’ll be sure to be up. We can see what kind of condition it’s in. If it’s fresh, we take care of it tonight.”

  After disconnecting, he picked up the remote and looked at the girl again before hitting play. Damn, she’s cute.

  LUCAS CROUCHED BEHIND A green Browning-Ferris Dumpster, waiting for the metal garage door to start rolling up. When it did, it made a racket he couldn’t believe. Then a black Suburban climbed the short sloping driveway to the street. Lucas was poised to be on the right side of the vehicle because it’d be harder for the driver to notice him there. The downside, he now realized, was not being able to see who was driving. Could be Ditto. Could be the person on call. Then again, did it matter?

  The Suburban’s brake lights flashed as it stopped at the top of the drive. Shit. The driver was making sure the door was completely shut.

  The metal door reached its apex, remained still for five seconds before starting down with a fresh symphony of metallic screeches.

  The door was half closed, leaving Lucas no other option but to risk being seen. Crouching, he scurried down the short driveway and rolled, clearing the door a second before it clanked shut. But he must have broken a safety beam because the door immediately began to raise again.

  Lucas frantically glanced around, saw a black Chrysler and scurried to it as he heard the Suburban’s door open. He crouched between the Chrysler’s trunk and concrete wall and held his breath. He heard the slap of shoes enter the garage and then stop. For several long moments he waited. Then he heard the footsteps move away from the garage entrance, followed by the slam of the Suburban’s door. A moment later the garage door began to lower, probably triggered by a remote inside the vehicle. The door clanged shut. Lucas stole a glance around the rear fender and saw the glow of red taillights through the other side slats of the garage door. For another long moment both the vehicle and Lucas remained frozen. Then the vehicle began accelerating and the taillights vanished.

  Only then did Lucas glance at the ceiling for a security camera. Sure enough, one was aimed at the door and probably had covered him as he rolled under. Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. Either he’d been noticed or not.

  He took a few moments to study his surroundings but didn’t see other obvious security measures. This part of the basement was brightly lit from overhead fluorescents. By its size, he assumed it accounted for maybe a third of the building’s garage space and was obviously used exclusively by DFH. A wall of bare cinder blocks separated this section from the remaining garage. A black Mercedes-Benz was also parked here.

  Besides the garage door, the only other exits were a metal fire door immediately to his left and an elevator across from him, probably for transporting bodies. His cell still showed good signal strength so he speed-dialed Ruiz.

  “I’m in and he’s on his way,” Lucas whispered, then powered off the phone. Last thing he wanted was for it to ring. Even if he set it to vibrate, it could give away his location.

  He checked once more for hidden cameras, thinking he’d put up an obvious one as a decoy but hide the others. Assuming, of course, Ditto was all that security conscious.

  Only way to find out was to get moving. Lucas debated whether to use the stairs or elevator and decided on stairs. He looked for something to prop the door open with and noticed a rubber wedge on the floor next to it. After pulling on latex exam gloves, he slipped into the stairwell and used the wedge to hold the door open before he started up a flight of bare concrete steps.

  60

  LUCAS STOPPED ON THE first-floor landing to listen for sounds from the other side of the door. He realized the door was metal. A mariachi band could be playing on the other side, and he probably couldn’t hear it. He slowly pushed the horizontal door release to see if the door was locked. It opened with no more than a soft click. Leaning in, head cocked, he listened for sounds of approaching footsteps but heard only an eerie silence.

  Now in the darkened lobby of DFH, he allowed the door to reseat itself. Rubbing a bit of warmth back into his arms, he waited for his eyes to adapt to the weak light that came in through the windows from the streetlamps. He mentally reconstructed what he’d seen during his brief visit here. Jesus, his fingers were freezing, his heart racing.

  It dawned on him that although he hadn’t used force to enter, the criminal charge of breaking and entering might still apply. Officially he was committing a felony. Worse yet, he could imagine himself lying on the floor in congealed blood, Ditto calmly explaining to the police, “It looked like he had a gun, so I fired.”

  On second thought, if Ditto caught him, he’d probably just shoot him and send his head in the next shipment to Hong Kong or Berlin or wherever.

  Turn around and leave? It’d be easy enough to do.

  But he couldn’t go back, not after what he owed Laura and Andy.

  By now his eyes were adapted to the weak light, so he headed down the hall to Ditto’s office.

  Once inside, he closed and locked the door, angled the blinds shut before turning on the overheads, and settled in at the desk. He wasn’t certain how he knew—maybe from his previous visit, or maybe Wendy had mentioned it—that Ditto used the computer to check the records of the Hong Kong specimens, so that seemed the most logical place to start searching.

  The tiny LED at the bottom of the blackened display glowed amber, meaning the system was probably in hibernate mode instead of off. He swiped the mouse, heard a faint screen crackle followed by the hum of the power supply fan. The screen brightened into a standard Windows log-in box.

  Shit!

  Stunned, he sat in silence. Had he really expected to gain access to Ditto’s records by simply sitting down at the computer?

  DITTO CHECKED HIS WATCH. Gerhard should be at the beaner’s place by now. He should’ve asked him to call in a report. Not that it really made any difference. Business was business. But an unusable body would make for a short night. They’d simply throw it in the oven and flip the switch and clean out the ashes in the morning for the bank. On the other hand, a primo body always required a good deal of effort. So, factoring in the time Gerhard needed to load a body and drive back, they should have things wrapped up by three at the latest. Which might give him four hours sleep before he needed to be up and dressed for the first appointment of the morning.

  Either way, something would need to be cremated, so he might as well save a couple minutes by going downstairs to set out the instruments and start warming Old Smokey.

  SHIT, SHIT SHIT! HOW could he have not thought of this? Lucas stared at the screen and felt like an idiot. The user name wasn’t the issue. That was already filled in. The password was the problem.

  Yeah, sure, he’d heard stories of people cracking machines by guessing passwords, but that meant knowing personal things about the user. Anniversary, dog’s name, birthdays, that type of bullshit. He didn’t know squat about Ditto. Plus, that kind of guesswork took time.

  He glanced at two Detroit Tigers posters. Another of some hockey player and some other crap. But saw nothing that reached out to him and said, “Here you go. A password clue.” He could try typing in tigers, but any security-conscious systems allowed only a limited number of incorrect log-in attempts before shutting down and Tigers seemed too easy.

  Lucas moved to a large file cabinet and pulled on the top drawer. Locked. He pulled harder, but the damned thing wouldn’t budge. The lower drawers opened without a problem, so this told him the most important papers were in the top drawer.

  Back at the desk, he found a letter opener and used it to try to pry the drawer open, but all it did was bend the opener. Next, he tried to push the entire cabinet over, but it didn’t move. Probably bolted to the wall. This only increased his suspic
ions it held Ditto’s sensitive records. But short of an acetylene torch or dynamite, he wasn’t getting in there tonight.

  Royally pissed, Lucas returned to the desk and stared at the screen. Stupid damn oversight. Damn it! He’d come this far, only to be turned away. Every second he stood here was one less second he’d have to search. He sat down in the desk chair and looked around him. The computer monitor was a sleek flat-screen without Post-its or any other notes attached. Which was, he remembered, a place people often leave a password.

  He scanned the few things on the desk. A phone, an old fashioned address book, a pen holder. He picked up the pen holder and turned it over. Nothing taped to the bottom surface. Shit. He opened the address book. Nothing on the first page. He opened the P-tab. On the first line was an eight letter alphanumeric string with two letters capitalized. If anything was a password, this was it. Carefully, making certain of no mistakes, he entered the string. Satisfied it was entered correctly he took a deep breath and hit enter.

  DITTO HUMMED CONTENTEDLY WHILE arranging two scalpels and an air-driven hacksaw. The call out tonight removed some of the pressure of meeting the monthly quota. In fact, it put them ahead for the month, leaving him in a jubilant mood. He toyed with the idea of asking Cathy to fly up to one of the San Juan Island resorts tomorrow. Just call around for a bed-and-breakfast at a place she liked. Gerhard could handle the business until they returned Sunday.

  Life was good.

  Then again, he philosophized, we don’t realize how well off we are until something comes along to threaten the foundations of our life. Only after surviving a threat do we look back and take stock of those things we presently take for granted. This gave him pause, causing him to step back to admire the equipment he owned and the business he’d painstakingly grown from nothing. The sight swelled his chest with pride. It was a damn shame Dad wasn’t here to see how well he’d done.

  But the incident with McRae had taught him another very important lesson. He needed to take time out for a complete reassessment of DFH. A risk analysis to consider better methods to protect his assets. He and Gerhard should analyze ways to improve procurement that minimized risk and maximized gain. This McRae incident should instigate a lessons learned discussion.

  One thing was for sure—it’d been a huge mistake to take the hooker and her john at the same time. Worse yet, the john turned out to be someone who was missed, thereby breaking one of his cardinal rules: minimize risk. Risk management was precisely the reason for having set up the rules. Looking back on the incident, that one mistake ultimately caused the problem. The hooker? Fuck, no one had a clue. Well, except the detective. Taking Baer caused it all.

  Yeah, life was passing him by. Ditto needed to spend more time with Cathy enjoying himself.

  Feeling restless, he went to the window and looked out onto Dexter Avenue. Not much traffic. Typical. Yet something didn’t feel right. What was it?

  61

  “FUCK!” GERHARD SLAMMED THE steering wheel with his palm.

  He checked the GPS again and then looked out the driver’s side window at an industrial park. On the passenger side was razor wire, a few clapboard buildings, and what looked like warehouses. The fucking address didn’t exist. Or if it did, it sure as shit wasn’t in this ratty part of town. Barely able to steady his fingers from the anger, he punched Ditto’s number on speed dial.

  RETURNING FROM THE CREMATORIUM, Ditto opened the apartment door in time to hear the phone ring. He moved to the kitchen to check the display and saw Leo was calling on the private line instead the DFH number. “Yes?”

  “That address you gave me. Give it to me again.” Gerhard sounded irritated. Which was unusual for him. Of all the people Ditto knew, Leo was the most even tempered.

  “Sure. What’s up?” He walked to the living room where the note was on the coffee table.

  “I’m not seeing what I should be seeing.”

  Ditto read the address to him.

  Gerhard said, “In that case, we got us a big mother problem. All I see is fucking warehouses. This is an industrial area.”

  Ditto’s anxiety ratcheted up a notch. “You sure?”

  “Fuck, yes, I’m sure. Only thing in front of me is razor wire.”

  Ditto didn’t believe he’d copied down a wrong address. He’d had the guy recite it twice, just to be sure. “Hold on a moment. Let me call to verify.”

  Setting the phone on the table, he used his cell to dial the number the caller, Robert Gonzales, had given him. It rang once before switching over to a recording. “The number you called is out of service.”

  He disconnected and traded phones again, his suspicions crystallizing. “Get your ass back here ASAP. I’m going to check something. Anything changes, I’ll call.”

  If nothing else, Ditto liked to think of himself as conscientious when it came to business. Like routinely copying down incoming telephone numbers when answering a call. Any call. It might gain importance two minutes after hanging up. Like right now, there it was, the number that had appeared on caller ID, which was different than the one Gonzales had given him.

  He dialed this number. It rang until eventually clicking over to voice mail. “Yo, sucka. You reached me. Leave a message.” It was Gonzales’s voice but without the heavy fucking Cheech and Chong accent.

  Why call a funeral service and dish out a bogus story? He could think of only one reason, and it wasn’t good. Like maybe someone wanted him out of the building. But that didn’t make sense.

  Something was definitely wrong. Time to batten down the hatches.

  He pulled his Beretta 92 from the nightstand. After making sure it held a full clip and a round in the chamber, he set out to search the building, figuring he’d end up in the basement about the time Gerhard pulled in.

  Assuming, of course, no one else was here.

  LUCAS ENTERED “RALPH THOMPSON” in the database and hit enter. Thompson’s record popped up immediately, making it the third unclaimed body on the books of both the King County coroner and DFH. The coroner recorded it as an identified but unclaimed body with no known next of kin. In contrast, the DFH records claimed the body had been donated by Thompson’s wife. Both records were tied to the same valid death certificate.

  He had to hand it to Ditto, coming up with such an intricate scheme. It flew totally under the radar, unless someone intentionally cross-checked the names like he was now doing. And why would anyone ever do that?

  As he started to push back the chair, a voice said, “Step away from the computer, McRae.”

  Lucas jumped, adrenaline jolting him. He turned toward the voice, saw Bobby Ditto in the doorway aiming a gun at him. Lucas zeroed in on the barrel and became paralyzed.

  “I said step away from the computer.”

  Lucas looked from the barrel to Ditto’s face, then back again, unable to move.

  “Move,” Ditto ordered.

  Lucas slowly raised his hands and walked away from the desk.

  “Move right.” Ditto flicked the gun in that direction. “Completely away from the desk so I can see all of you.”

  Lucas did as instructed.

  “You just had to keep at it, didn’t you? Couldn’t give it up. Wouldn’t believe what we told you.” Ditto entered the room, motioned the barrel toward the door. “You first.”

  Lucas moved in that direction. “Take it easy.”

  Ditto stepped back, keeping about ten feet of distance between them. “Out the door to your right.”

  Lucas tried to calm the panic in his chest. He had to do something before Ditto killed him. But what? For now, the best thing to do was keep Ditto talking and burn as much time as possible.

  “People know I’m here,” Lucas said.

  “So fucking what? What are they going to do about it?”

  Lucas realized how lame his statement sounded and tried again. “Just so you don’t do something stupid.”

  “Stupid?” Ditto laughed. “I don’t do stupid things. Careless? Maybe a few times. Bu
t never stupid.” He waved the barrel again. “Through that door, asshole.”

  Lucas entered a room of yellow tiles and well-sealed cement floor with a drain under a stainless steel table. In one corner was a crematorium. His bowels turned to ice. Ditto planned to kill and dismember him. He had to keep him talking. He turned to Ditto. “How do you justify killing people for parts? That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

  Ditto flicked the barrel left to move Lucas toward the center of the room. “I’m shocked you even ask when the answer’s so self-evident.”

  Lucas didn’t budge. Fuck him. He can drag me over there. “Not self-evident to me. Explain it.”

  Ditto eyed him a moment, as if torn between shooting and answering. “Sutton’s law, man. ‘Because that’s where the money is.’”

  Ditto added, “If you don’t buy that one, maybe this one will appeal to your left-wing liberalism. Let’s say you’re the minister of health for some godforsaken third world country, and you find a windfall of three million bucks. Suddenly, this gives you the choice between providing free dental care to hundreds of thousands of your people or building a state-of-the-art heart transplant center that might treat a few people a year. Which would you choose?”

  Lucas stayed frozen in place, searching for something to fight with. “I don’t get it. What’s your point?”

  “The answer’s obvious. Or at least it should be. The right choice is the one that provides the greatest good. In this case, dental care for the masses. You can’t argue with that, can you?”

  “No, but it’s irrelevant. What’s that got to do with murdering people for body parts?”

  Ditto shook his head. “You make it sound so arbitrary, so capricious. It’s not like that at all.” He raised the gun and aimed at Lucas’s heart.