“Alright, Peter!” Julio shouted joyously. The connection was not great, so he probably
was at his compound in Mexico. “We have found a new drug trial to focus on and a new doctor
target has come to our attention. This guy is on the trial committee and will have the inside
information we will need.”
“That was fast,” I said. “Where is this doctor and what trial is it?”
“Oleg found out about this doctor Nick Johnson who was recently appointed to the
committee for the drug Zyptorin which is made by Distal Pharmaceutical.”
My heart took a few extra beats. “Say the name of the doctor again, please?”
“Nick Johnson,” Julio repeated. “Why do you know him?
“Yes, I know him!” I shouted. “He lives in my neighborhood.” This was bad, really,
really bad. I ran my hand through my hair, something I've been doing a lot lately. If I had opened
up my chest and yanked my heart out just then, the sucker would have definitely jumped off my
desk.
“Wow, small world,” Julio said. “Peter, this isn't going to be a problem for you is it?”
“Well, now that you know which drug trial it is, can't you just find some other doctor on
the committee?”
“No, that would take too much time,” Julio replied. “We've already spent a lot of time on
this doctor Nick Johnson.”
“Well, if you hadn't murdered the last doctor, I wouldn't be so worried, right?” I shot
back.
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“Okay, Peter, this is going nowhere,” Julio declared. “Nick Johnson is our guy, like it or
not.” Julio sneezed loudly. “Oh, and by the way, we only killed the Linders because they didn't
cooperate.” He really wasn't a guy you could argue with.
“Keep me posted,” I told my drug cartel boss, then sunk back down into my office chair.
I put the phone back into the receiver, quickly reached for the waste basket under my desk, and
threw up my lunch. “No! No! No!” I whispered loudly.
I put my hand over my face and thought about the Johnson family. I had just seen them
three nights ago at a soccer game, and our two families tried to play cards a few times a year.
Claire and Susan really liked to play bridge. I should have asked Julio if Oleg had already talked
to Nick. Julio didn't tell me how long they had been doing there homework on him. If they hadn't
talked to Nick, maybe I could have headed them off at the pass to warn him.
It was one thing to bring this plague upon my family, but I was responsible for bringing it
upon the Johnsons, and, since Oleg murdered the last doctor he was threatening, there was every
reason to fear the worst for Nick, Susan and Tom. Oleg certainly would try his best in making
Nick believe that he would leave him and his family alone if Nick did what they told him to do.
But I had complained about the Linder murder to Julio on several occasions and this was the first
time that he even intimated that he wouldn't do it again. I was not sure I believed him, though, so
Nick needed to know what I knew about who he was dealing with.
I wiped my mouth, spat some more into my waste basket and took a sip of my diet cola.
It struck me while leaning back in my chair that Julio must have known that I knew Nick Johnson
– he probably wanted to set me straight before they really put their plan into action – mainly
because he didn't need to keep me in the loop like that. They told me about the Linders way late
into the process, and I only learned their name, fate, etc. from Martin, not Julio. It sure sounded
from Julio that they were in the early stages of targeting Nick Johnson. Why did I tell Julio that
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Nick and I were friends? I should have quickly realized that Julio wasn't going to change his
mind, as it would have been nice to leave him a little confused by not saying anything. During the
conversation, Julio didn't ask me at first if I knew Nick. If I had left it alone and steered the
conversation away from such a question, Julio may have walked away flummoxed. That was the
least that son-of-a-bitch deserved.
“Maybe I should go over to Nick's house tonight,” I muttered to myself, but then realized
that it may be difficult to get him alone.
Crap. Just when I thought I had the money laundering thing under control, this damn drug
trial scheme was starting to bite me in a new part of my ass.
“I should bring a helmet when I explain to Nick what is about to happen to him,” I
whispered. “He's gonna be really pissed at me, will want to take my head off. How am I going to
explain my involvement with a Mexican drug cartel and its new business of trading inside
information on pharmaceutical drug trials?”
While I didn't think he'd ever want to speak to me again, I needed to get him away from
that immediate feeling of utter despair so as to focus on how he was going to help his family.
Unlike me and Claire, Nick had a lot of family in the immediate area, so leaving in the middle of
the night would be much harder for him. My mother passed away five years ago from lung cancer
and my father lived in Ft. Lauderdale. Claire only had her mother alive, and she lived in
Jacksonville. We took the kids to the east coast of Florida twice a year, in the summer and winter,
to see their grandparents.
The police would be no help at all, given that the real criminal was in the middle of
Mexico, shielded from any authority. I had thought about turning over my taped phone
conversations to the police last year, but quickly realized the futility of such an effort. Even if the Timothy Gilbert
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police arrested Martin or Oleg, Julio would quickly find replacements who would certainly teach
me a lesson for talking to the police.
I got up to tell Judy and Darryl that I was taking the rest of the day off. We always left
around 3:30 on Fridays, anyway, so I was sure they wouldn't find it too suspicious. I had
wondered over the last year if they had heard the various episodes of me yelling at Martin and
Julio - no one said anything, though.
Darryl had been with me for five years. I made sure to treat him well, given the major
headache it would be in replacing him if he were to leave me. Darryl was gay, lived with his
partner in Summit, NJ, and recently bought a home there. His partner, Jonathan, was a lawyer for
some New York firm. Claire and I went to their home welcoming party, which turned out to be a
whole lot more fun than we had imagined, on the account of the game Taboo.
Claire really loosened up that night - it was fun to see her enjoying things again. She was
an ER nurse, had been for seventeen years, and recently witnessed two separate child deaths from
car crashes over a two month span up until Darryl and Jonathan's party. Claire had to take a week
off after the second incident. Our marriage went into the toilet around that time, mainly because
my head was so twisted around Julio and the gang, rather than supporting my wife through this
painful period for her. I made the mistake one evening of suggesting that she retire from the ER
wing and move somewhere else in the hospital.
Darryl had four brothers, all in the area, who were married with many kids among them.
As long as I had known Darryl, it had only been recently that his whole family agreed to put aside
his sexual nature and love him like a brother. I had never seen Darryl happier. That was right
around the time that I first met Oleg in my office.
“You got plans for the weekend?” Darryl asked me.
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“We have a party to go to tonight, but, outside of that, not much going on for us this
weekend. You?”
“Oh, we're having some friends over tomorrow night, so Jonathan and I are having
dinner in the city, tonight.”
Darryl and Jonathan had dinner in New York City every weekend, causing me to wonder
aloud on several occasions why they didn't simply choose to live there. Jonathan didn't like me
too much and certainly didn't appreciate my suggestions for their life together.
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Friday, October 18th