The Bitterest Pill

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  ARAKEL WAS PLEASED to hear the news about the deflection, but not about the girl clinging to life.

  “You should have made sure,” he said, his anger obvious.

  “I made the stuff so strong, it should have killed her.”

  “Yes, should have.” He paused in order to take a gulp of vodka. “There have been many should-haves that have not been where you are concerned. Have you read a Boston paper recently?”

  She swallowed hard before answering. “Yes. I’ve read about the mur—the deaths.”

  “Then you understand. I will see about the girl, but you have to disappear . . . soon.”

  “But I need—”

  “At the moment I care very little for what you need. What I need for you is to prepare to go away.”

  He was off the line, but she had already stopped listening to him. She was staring at the white plastic container on her dresser. The one that was nearly empty of everything but the silicate drying packets. It held the few pills she had left to her. She had no choice but to score.

  * * *

  —

  COLE’S FACIAL BRUISES had darkened and he looked worse than he had the day of the accident. Even so, he claimed to feel better. Jesse had already explained that the car accident was no accident and that he, not Cole, was the intended target.

  Cole had laughed it off and said, “Jeez, Dad, it was safer when I hated you.”

  It stung, but Jesse realized his son was in no shape to comprehend how that comment hurt. Two important women in Jesse’s life had been murdered due simply to having a relationship with him: Abby and Diana. And there it was again, the thirst. So he was learning how important the meetings were, because there was no way to control what would trigger the thirst. With Maryglenn in a cell and the real suspect still out there, he had no time for a meeting. He excused himself and went into his bedroom to call his sponsor, but as he was scrolling for Bill’s number, the cell vibrated in his hand. His landline rang as well. For once, the simultaneous calls were a good omen.

  * * *

  —

  ARAKEL TURNED TO Stojan and Georgi. He despised these men for what they were and for what they had forced him to become.

  “The time is here,” he said. “Go to Paradise. The girl and the teacher. No torturing them, none of your twisted pleasures. Just kill them and be done with it.”

  Stojan screwed his ugly lips up into a sneer. “The teacher, yes. We are already told to do this. We know where she is. She is a threat.”

  “I said no torturing. Just kill her.”

  Stojan laughed. “We have instructions. We do not listen to weak fools.” He pointed his thick, gnarled index finger at Arakel. “The girl, you. You, you do the girl.”

  Arakel thought he had not heard correctly. “What did you say to me?”

  “You are hearing right, rug merchant.” He stepped close, jabbed his big ugly finger into Sarkassian’s chest. “You are wanting the girl dead, you do it. You have gun. You have killed. Is easier the next time. I know it. Right, Georgi?”

  Silent, Georgi nodded.

  “See, Georgi says so.”

  “The girl is in a hospital under police guard.”

  Stojan frowned and shrugged. “Too bad on you. You wanting the girl dead, is for you to make it so. Georgi, neka trugnem. Let’s go!”

  As the men walked away, Arakel grabbed Stojan by the shoulders. Stojan turned and slapped Arakel across the face, knocking him to the floor.

  “We do not work for you, idiot. Yes, the teacher, she is a threat, maybe to all of us. The girl, she knows nothing of us, only of the teacher and maybe of you. Why should we kill this girl? Think of how you will enjoy prison when you are squeezing the trigger.”

  Arakel Sarkassian, the taste of his own blood in his mouth, was stunned and frightened. Frightened because the thug had confirmed for him what he always believed—that Stojan and Georgi were tools not of Mehdi and him, but of the people who had entrusted the franchise to them. Frightened, too, because the brute was right.

  Seventy-nine

  Petra North’s face went blank when she saw Jesse walk into the ICU. Her parents were on either side of her, and it was clear Annette had been crying. The shocking thing for Jesse was that Ambrose North’s eyes were no less red. Maybe, Jesse thought, it isn’t so shocking after all. He couldn’t imagine how he would have reacted had the Explorer crash been worse and Cole’s injuries more serious.

  “Hi, Petra,” he said. “Can I borrow your parents, just for a minute?”

  She seemed relieved and a bit confused. “Sure.”

  The three of them stepped outside the unit, where Robbie Stanton was now stationed.

  “Go get a cup of coffee, Robbie.” Jesse tilted his head at the stairway door.

  Before Jesse could speak, Ambrose said, “She’s scared, Chief.”

  “Of what? We don’t want to get her into trouble, we just want to get her help.”

  Ambrose turned to his wife. “Annette, go be with her. I’ll be in momentarily.”

  Annette looked scared, opened her mouth to protest, but instead placed her hand on Jesse’s forearm. “She was desperate, Jesse. Please remember that.” Then she walked past him and back into the ICU.

  “Jesse, I heard you have a teacher in custody. Is that correct?”

  “Am I speaking to Ambrose North, Petra’s father, or Ambrose North, attorney at law?”

  “Both, I’m afraid.”

  “We have someone in custody.”

  North took Jesse by the left biceps and began walking down the hospital corridor. Jesse walked with him. “What if I told you I have it on good authority that you have the wrong woman in custody?”

  “I know that already, but the evidence is damning. Until I can have someone or something to refute—”

  “And what if I could give you the identity of the person you should have in custody? Would you be willing not to press charges of distribution of a controlled substance? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

  “She dealt drugs, your hypothetical daughter?”

  Ambrose flushed red, coughed. “This isn’t easy for me to say, Jesse. This person, this other teacher, she . . . she seduced Pet—my hypothetical daughter. She promised to . . . God, this is difficult. She promised to continue their affair and to supply this daughter with drugs if she . . . did what she asked. It lasted for only a few days. Jesse, please. I’m begging you as a father not to imperil her future.”

  Jesse dropped the hypotheticals. “You know the charges are up to the prosecutor, but if you give me the name now and Petra is willing to testify, I will go to the wall for her with the prosecutor.”

  “That’s not a guarantee, Jesse.”

  “Not mine to give, but I’ll keep my word. I don’t want to hurt any of these kids.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ambrose North said, the strain evident on his face. “She’s already been through so much and we didn’t do the best for her in the past. Now we must. Call the DA’s office and get someone over here.”

  “You’re willing to let an innocent woman sit in jail?”

  “I’m afraid so, if it means protecting Petra.”

  Jesse glared at the lawyer. “Then don’t expect help from me, Mr. North. I was a professional baseball player. Trust me when I tell you, you don’t know what hardball is. I walk out the front door of this hospital without that name and Petra’s on her own with no backing from me.”

  Robbie Stanton returned, a white foam cup in hand, steam rising through a hole in the lid. The aroma cutting against the medicinal smells of the hospital.

  “She’s a target now,” Jesse said to Robbie, loud enough for North to hear. “No one in but the parents, the doctors, and the nurses. Any of the visitors you don’t recognize need approval from a nurse or a doctor. No excuses, no stories. I’ll have Suit send someone down to help, but n
o bathroom breaks until your backup arrives.”

  “Okay, Jesse.” Stanton took a sip of his coffee and put the cup on his chair. He stood outside the ICU entrance, arms folded across his chest.

  Before leaving, Jesse turned to Ambrose North. “Remember what I said.”

  * * *

  —

  SHE HAD WHITTLED DOWN her essentials to two suitcases and a gym bag, but she knew her only real essentials were the dwindling tablets she rattled inside the white pharmaceutical container. She had just crushed up one of the few left to her and snorted it. It helped calm and focus her, but it removed some of the urgency from her packing.

  Her plan, such as it was, was to head down to Boston. She still had some connections there that might help her out, at least enough to get her through for a few days. Then she was going to head west, call in to work from the road about a dying aunt or a sick uncle. Maybe if the girl died and things calmed down, she could come back and reclaim her job, but that was all too far ahead for her. At the moment, she was waiting for a call back from her old boyfriend from Boston, a doctor who had once professed love for her. If he allowed, she would put that faded love to the test. She was perfectly willing to prove herself to him. She hoped he would ask. She liked the idea of sleeping with an adult again, especially one who could write scripts and make her healthy.

  The phone rang, and when she answered, she fairly purred into the mouthpiece.

  Eighty

  As the first set of automatic doors at the front entrance of Paradise General slid open, Jesse thought he spotted a vaguely familiar face coming toward him. The man, thirty yards away, illuminated by a pole lamp, seemed to spot Jesse at the same moment. The man stopped walking and turned away as Jesse came quickly through the second set of automatic doors. Approaching him, Jesse tried to put a name to the man’s face. Then it came to him. Arakel Sarkassian. And when the name came to him, Jesse realized there was only one reason that made any sense for Sarkassian to be at the hospital.

  “Mr. Sarkassian,” Jesse said calmly, reaching for his nine-millimeter.

  Sarkassian jumped to his left, taking cover behind a granite wall. But before he could go after Sarkassian, someone called to Jesse.

  “Jesse! Jesse! Chief Stone!” Jesse looked over his shoulder to see Ambrose North coming at him in a full run. “I’ll give you the name.”

  “Get down! Everybody get down!” Jesse was shouting. “North, get down!”

  The few people around the hospital entrance at that hour of the evening fell to the ground, facedown, instinctively covering their heads with their hands. But Ambrose North was still coming toward Jesse. When he looked back to check on Sarkassian, Jesse saw Sarkassian’s upper body was above the wall ledge, a pistol in his right hand aimed in his direction. Jesse had a choice to make and no time in which to make it. He turned, dived, and knocked Ambrose North to the ground, bullets whining over their heads. The glass of the hospital doors shattered. People screamed. Sarkassian ran.

  North grabbed Jesse’s collar, pulled him close. His voice was strained and cracking, his fight-or-flight reflex in high gear. “Brandy Lawton,” he said. “It’s Brandy Lawton.”

  Jesse pushed himself up, fished his cell phone out of his pocket, and took off after Sarkassian.

  * * *

  —

  BRANDY LAWTON BROUGHT HER suitcases to the door. Foolishly and out of habit, she went back through the house, checking to make sure the lights were all out and that the stove was off. It was amazing how some routines persisted in the face of everything. Satisfied, she went back to retrieve her bags and take them out to her car.

  * * *

  —

  ACROSS THE STREET, leaning on the side of the van, Georgi waited for Stojan to give him the signal. If he had had his way, Stojan would simply have broken into the apartment or rung the bell and killed the woman when she came to the door. His first preference would have been to use a Kalashnikov, to drive past, spraying the woman with bullets. Witnesses shocked and frightened, escape made easy because he would already be on the move. But their bosses had been explicit in their instructions. Kill her quietly by her car. Put her in the car. Make her disappear. Stojan once again saw the teacher’s silhouette at the door. The door opening slightly. Stojan banged his hand against the van. Georgi made his way to the opposite sidewalk.

  * * *

  —

  JESSE, PHONE BACK IN HIS POCKET, weapon drawn, took off in a sprint. Sarkassian was darting in and out between cars in the hospital parking lot. Jesse had a few clear shots but did not fire for fear of hitting a passerby. Arakel Sarkassian had no such worries. As he ran, he would half turn, fire blindly behind him in Jesse’s direction—windshields spiderwebbing, side windows shattering, alarms shrieking. Above the din of the car alarms, Jesse heard sirens. He thought to pen Sarkassian in at a corner of the fence surrounding the lot until backup arrived. Until then, he would bait Sarkassian into exhausting his ammunition.

  * * *

  —

  BRANDY LAWTON PUT HER suitcases on the front porch, the gym bag slung over her shoulder. She locked the door, pulled up the handles on both suitcases, and walked toward her car, wheeling the rollerbags behind her. She stopped, hearing sirens in the distance. She snickered at herself, realizing the sirens probably had nothing to do with her. She pressed the key fob and popped open the trunk of her car.

  * * *

  —

  STOJAN AND GEORGI HEARD THE SIRENS, too. They were louder, coming closer, very close.

  Stojan yelled to Georgi. “Hurry up. Bürzam! Bürzam!”

  Instead, Georgi froze and stared across at Stojan. Then saw the cruiser coming down the street.

  * * *

  —

  BRANDY HEARD THAT VOICE, recognized it. It was the voice of the man who had threatened her the night she had taken the stash bag back from the girl. She dropped her bags and ran back to the front door.

  * * *

  —

  GEORGI SPRINTED, his .22 Ruger with sound suppressor held in front of him as he ran.

  * * *

  —

  ONE PARADISE POLICE car and Suit’s pickup skidded to a halt in front of Brandy Lawton’s driveway. Neither Suit nor Peter Perkins looked at the white van, focusing instead on the man with the pistol in his hand turning into the driveway. A bullet smashed the passenger-side back window of Perkins’s cruiser. He hit the floor. Suit dived out the passenger side of his pickup, grabbed his nine-millimeter.

  * * *

  —

  BRANDY LAWTON, panicked, nauseated with fear, dropped her keys at the door, bent down to pick them up.

  * * *

  —

  GEORGI TURNED THE CORNER of the driveway and rushed toward the teacher. He raised the .22, squeezed the trigger once, heard a moan, glass breaking, but also heard more than one shot. He fell forward, facedown in the gravel, unable to move, confused because he felt no pain. His confusion came to an end as his hand relaxed around the butt of the gun and his blood spilled out of his wrecked veins and arteries into the cavities in his body. He laughed a short bark of a laugh, a laugh wet and red. The last sound he would ever make.

  * * *

  —

  STOJAN HIT THE GAS, firing out the window as he went, bullets flattening tires on the cruiser and pickup. Peter Perkins rolled out of the cruiser, took aim at the van, and fired. Two bullets hit the van’s rear doors, the hole visible to him. But the van was quickly out of range for an effective shot and, like Jesse, Perkins feared ricochets or stray bullets hitting civilians. The taillights disappeared.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER CALLING IT in, Perkins stopped by Georgi’s body. He checked for a pulse, found none. Suit had already kicked the .22 far away from the dead man. Perkins found Suit hunched over Brandy Lawton. He was pressing his hand to her neck, blood spurting out between his
fingers. She was clutching at him with one hand, clawing at her gym bag with the other. Her eyes were big with fear, her mouth open. Perkins ran to the car to put a rush on the ambulance and to get the first-aid kit. By the time he returned, the blood had stopped spurting between Suit’s fingers. Brandy Lawton had stopped clutching and clawing forever.

  Suit’s hands and uniform were covered in blood. He fell back against the wall next to Lawton’s body and hung his head. “What do you think she was clawing at in the gym bag, Pete?”

  Perkins, hands now gloved to begin doing the forensics, knelt down beside the dead woman and unzipped her gym bag. He pulled out a white pharmaceutical bottle and shook it at Suit. “This, probably.”

  “But she was dying.”

  “These damn things are why she’s dead, Heather Mackey is dead, and why he’s dead,” Perkins said, pointing at Georgi’s body. “It’s a plague, Suit, a goddamn plague.”

  Eighty-one

  Jesse saw the light bars flashing a block away, and the sirens were deafeningly loud. It wouldn’t be long now until Sarkassian would have no place to go. Jesse wasn’t certain about the man’s weapon, but it didn’t seem to have an extended magazine, and he’d used a lot of ammo already. If he could only get Sarkassian to waste a few more bullets . . . But just as he was feeling confident, a yellow Camaro convertible backed out of a spot near the corner of the lot Jesse had worked so hard to herd Sarkassian into. Jesse understood Arakel Sarkassian was many things, but he didn’t think stupid was one of them. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Jesse almost had him penned in.

  He ran toward the Camaro and jumped in just as the driver, a woman in blue nurse’s scrubs, stopped to put the car into drive. Sarkassian pressed the muzzle of the gun to her neck. But instead of freezing, the woman screamed and flailed at him. He slapped her across the face with the side of the gun and pressed it once again to her throat.