Diversion 2 - Collusion (9 page)

“Is that all?” Sammy asked, peering into the back of the delivery van.
“Three cases,” the driver replied, handing over three Styrofoam coolers.
The clerk checked the inventory in and disappeared back into the office. Two days on the job, and Lucky had yet to hear the woman speak.
“Damn.” Sammy unloaded the coolers onto a cart. “Reggie, take this up to the pharmacy. They ain’t gonna be happy. That’s half as much as we usually get.”
Lucky rode the elevator up, staring at the coolers. Regardless of the contents, three packages of anything seemed too little for a two-hundred bed hospital specializing in pediatric cancer treatment.
The door opened and his throat tightened when a familiar head of brown hair caught his attention. Bo. Handon the small of Bo’s back, a handsome older man steered him out of a conference room.
Bo hung his head and swiped a hand though his hair. Lucky tamped down his protective instincts. Storming down the hall, knocking the man’s hand away, and demanding, “What’s wrong,” wasn’t the way to stay uncover. Others followed Bo from the room. Not a smile or even a hint of one marked any of their faces.
A woman stepped between Bo and Lucky, and when she moved, Lucky found himself staring straight into Bo’s eyes. Their gazes held momentarily, Bo glancing away first when someone spoke to him. He moved in the midst of a group past Lucky and down the hall. What the hell was going on? Did somebody die?
The rest of the day Bo plagued Lucky’s mind. That evening he took a cab to his apartment—he refused to call it home—to find new tires, new plastic hubcaps, and the same old Malibu. While heating a can of soup on the stove, he checked his personal cell phone. A text from Bo said,
“Coming over.”
Lucky showered and shaved. He waited until nine P.M. before a knock penetrated the heavy thudding from the neighboring apartment. Lucky opened the door and Bo grabbed him, cutting off Lucky’s air. “Oh my God. It’s fucking awful!”
Lucky guided Bo inside. “You didn’t park on the street, did you?”
“Are you kidding? In this neighborhood? No, I called a cab. I barely found the place, and when I got here, the driver asked me four times if I was sure I wanted out.” Bo wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
“Good God, Bo! What happened?” Lucky led Bo farther into the living room and dashed into the kitchen area for a handful of paper towels. Bo sagged down onto the couch.
Lucky plopped down beside him. “Now, tell me. What’s wrong?”
Bo rubbed his face with an offered towel. “I had no idea what we were getting into. It’s a whole lot worse than I imagined.”
“What do you mean?” Surely things hadn’t gone south already. They’d only been on the case two days.
“Today I sat in a meeting and explained to a panel of doctors and nurses why the drugs they need aren’t available through legitimate suppliers, at any price. And then they decided patient by patient who gets what little we have, and who gets less effective substitutes.” He slammed his balled up fist against his thigh. “We’re talking about children, Lucky, innocent lives, and we’re triaging and rationing like on a battlefield. One of the best cancer centers in the country and we can’t come up with enough drugs to even keep the patients comfortable, let alone save them.
“We don’t have enough. We don’t have a fraction of enough, to give those kids what they need.” Tiny clear droplets glittered on Bo’s lashes. He collapsed against Lucky’s shoulder. “What’s the world coming to when a hospital can’t even get morphine?”
“What about your salesman last night? That didn’t pan out?” Lucky wrapped his arms around his partner. Bo’s shudders rocked them both.
“Smoke and mirrors. His company wants to keep our business, but everything we ask for goes straight into backorder. Calling the company directly doesn’t help. They have no idea when they’ll get the facility up and running at full speed again.”
Lucky gave Bo’s arm a few awkward pats. Charlotte always knew the right thing to say when folks cried. She got the comforter genes in the family, leaving Lucky to inherit all the asshole tendencies. He stayed quiet, holding Bo and rubbing circles against his back.
“I’ve been worrying all afternoon, and have no earthly idea how to make this right.” Bo sighed.
Uh-oh. Time to draw the line between personal feelings and professional duty.“It’s not your job to make it right. It’s your job to stop anyone who tries to make a shady deal.”
“Shady deal? Shady deal! I’d be willing to deal with anybody to make sure those kids got a fighting chance, but the administrator won’t budge!”
Now wasn’t the time to mention the number of people Lucky had put behind bars for that same reason. Regardless of motivation, law was law, and not open to negotiation. “You take your chances when you’re not careful—you may get the right stuff, you may get poison. It’s a crapshoot. The administrator knows that and made a decision.”
Thumpa, thumpa
reverberated through the living room. “Jeez, Lucky! Are your neighbors always that loud?”
“Pretty much.” If Walter hadn’t warned him repeatedly about keeping a low profile while undercover, Lucky would have taken the .38 out of his closet and emptied the chamber into the neighbor’s stereo. “Have you eaten?”
“Not hungry. Can we go to bed? I’ve had a rough day and need some sleep, if we can manage to sleep through Armageddon-fest next door. But fair warning, all I want to do is sleep.”
Lucky turned off the living room light and locked his door, beating on the wall and shouting, “Would you quiet down already!” through paper-thin walls. If anything, the folks next door cranked the music louder. One little whiff of pot smoke and he’d have a warrant in hand within the hour.
Hmm…now there’s an idea.
The shit they’d cooked earlier
might
have smelled a little…herbal.
“Lucky? You coming?” Bo shouted from the bedroom.
“Not tonight,” he mumbled, the throbbing tempo drowning his words.
When he undressed and crawled into bed, Bo latched on. His fingers dug into Lucky’s shoulders. After a few minutes the grip gradually lessoned and Bo’s breathing evened out.
Lucky lay staring at the ceiling. If he knew where to find them, he’d gladly steal all the drugs Bo needed.

At 5:53 A.M. Lucky pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex worlds away from his. “This is where you live?” Too fucking early for even criminals to be up had to be the reason the car tires survived the night.

“For now.” Bo uttered the first words since he’d gotten into the car. “Listen. You could stay with me if you wanted.”
Lucky peered up at the pristine complex, guaranteed to have a working elevator, though the buildings consisted of only three floors. “Nobody’ll notice you slumming, but they’d sure as hell peek out their windows at the pimpmobile parked here overnight, or at me hanging around.”
And probably call the cops.
“It’s too risky.” Otherwise, Lucky would have already moved in.
“I don’t like staying here and you staying there.” Bo opened the car door and stepped out.
“I’m not staying there,” Lucky replied. “Some minimum wage worker is.”
“Wanna come up for coffee…or something?” Big brown eyes pleaded.
If Lucky went up to Bo’s apartment, he might never leave again. Though he didn’t like being at someone else’s place, when it came down to a choice between his temporary digs and Bo’s, he’d go where Bo was, no contest. It took every bit of his strength to say, “I reckon I’ll have to take a rain check.” They stared at each other a long moment through the open door.
“Well, if you’re sure. I’ll see you at work.”
“Bo?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s just a job. Remember that.” Lucky left Bo standing on the sidewalk before he lost his good judgment and took the man up on his offer.

Damn, I’d have taken him up on his offer if I’d guessed that’d be the last time he’d make it.
Lucky stared at the message on his phone.
“Working late, can’t come over.”

He s at in his apartment, with only Walter’s voice for company, should he be desperate enough for conversation to call his boss. The ever-present bass beat rattled the window. If he planned on sleeping, he’d need a good, strong sedative. Or Bo.

Maybe a drive might help. Lucky zipped up his leather jacket, pulled on a ball cap, and stepped out his door in time to observe a palmetto bug the size of a mouse skitter from under his neighbor’s door and race across the landing. Lucky raised his foot. He lowered it back down gently and let the insect slink away. Poor bastard had been through enough already if he’d escaped apartment 7B.

The ugliest Malibu this side of hell sat in the parking lot. Damn, still there. A foray into the glove compartment produced the attachment for his IPod—his salvation from the tasteless shit his neighbors pulsed 24/7. The strains of Pachelbel’s Canon soothed his soul.

The traffic on Clemson Boulevard didn’t fade with the sunset, and he soon remembered why he hated Clemson Boulevard—no matter how he timed it, he got stuck at every single red light. Start, roll forward a few feet, stop, until he reached the turnoff for the hospital. At that hour of night the building seemed even more imposing, lights in most windows, and a spotlight aimed on a big purple hippo in the front yard.

He edged around the building to the employee parking lot. There sat Bo’s high-class SUV. Lucky rolled his gaze upward. Administrative offices were located on the top floor. Which one was Bo’s? Only a dim light shone in one window, not providing enough illumination for someone working. Could someone be up there with the lights off? Bo’s new boss certainly hadn’t been beaten by any ugly sticks, and with his high-dollar shirts and salonstyled hair, he might even impress somebody who didn’t recognize him for the snake in the grass that he was. Evie or Eva or whatever the hell her name was called Bo’s boss straight, but Danvers wouldn’t be the first man to be on the down low.

And not spotting Danvers’s BMW didn’t mean he wasn’ t around somewhere. Something about the man set Lucky’s asshole alert to pinging, and he’d be willing to bet more than a few skeletons hung in the bastard’s closet.
Takes an asshole to know an asshole?
Lucky’s conscience chided. Lucky hated his damn conscience. He’d gotten along without it for years, drugging it into a stupor, and now it decided to prance back into his life uninvited and take over. Fucking conscience. Who needed one?

A snippet of a conversation came back to him, Bo confessing a weakness for prescription drugs. Somewhere in the confines of the hospital, was Bo in need of a good asskicking? “God, I hope not,” Lucky mumbled aloud. He dug his cell phone out of his pocket. It’d be easy, a few short words, ask a direct question. Bo would answer,and they’d be done with the matter—if Bo told the truth. Instead, Lucky texted:
“What u want 4 supper?”
Their old code for
“Are you tempted?”

If Bo and Mr. Supermodel Danvers were in a clinch somewhere, no way in hell would Bo answer. Lucky breathed easier when his phone chimed a few seconds later. A message displayed:
“U 2morrow nite.”

Lucky returned to his apartment reassured, even managing to sleep a few hours through the neighbor’s all-night jam session, thanks to a pair of drug store earplugs.

“Are you coming over tonight?” The sigh and long pause confirmed Lucky’s date with his right hand for stress-relief tonight. He squeezed his cell phone between his shoulder and ear while spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread.

“I’m exhausted.” Bo sounded plain worn out. “I’m going back to the apartment, maybe throw together a salad or something, and go to bed. I sent you an email with the names of a few vendors from our ‘do not talk to’ list.”

Four days spent working at Rosario, and four days without sex. “You sure? I’ll come over if you want.”
“No, that’s okay,” Bo answered a bit too quickly. “It’s late, and you need your rest.”
Did Bo think for a moment he fooled anyone? Neither of them slept for shit without the other. Lucky’d heard of relationships based on sex, but his and Bo’s “sleeping together” took a literal turn.
Unless something had suddenly changed for Bo, he wasn’t sleeping any better alone than Lucky managed. What could he possibly be doing at the center that kept him drained? Lucky didn’t buy his excuses for one minute. An accomplished liar himself, reading through a novice like Bo didn’t take much skill. If Bo couldn’t deal with the pressure of the assignment, Lucky’d have him pulled and back in Atlanta.
“Tomorrow night, I promise.” Bo yawned through, “Good night.”
Resigned to another munched his sandwich legitimate wholesalers whose products arrived regularly at the center. Other than an FDA warning letter dated five years previously for a matter now corrected, they appeared squeaky clean.
Next, he checked the businesses Bo emailed from the center’s “do not talk to” list, peeling back layers to find owners, employees, or anything else attention-getting. One entity lost its license to operate in New Jersey for selling counterfeit contraceptives. The owner wasted no time setting up shop in Kentucky, under a new business name. Lucky fired off an email to his department’s legal team, asking them to check the laws of New Jersey and Kentucky. Some states conducted thorough background checks, others lacked the necessary resources—a fact unscrupulous businesses took advantage of. Lucky would lay money on the new Kentucky shop closing soon.
Restless thoughts circled ’round and ’round, always returning to Bo. He snatched up his jacket and headed out the door.
One of the advantages—the only advantage, in Lucky’s mind—of traffic creeping down Clemson Boulevard was the opportunity the snail’s pace provided to become acquainted with the area. He’d spotted an Italian restaurant a few days ago, and took the opportunity to stop by. Bo needed to eat more than a few lettuce leaves and cucumber slices. If his favorite eggplant parmesan didn’t tempt him, nothing would.
A half hour later a togo tray scented the Malibu’s interior with spices and tomato sauce. Lucky made his way to Bo’s apartment night of his own company, Lucky and busied himself researching the building, suddenly realizing he hadn’t a clue which apartment Bo lived in. A few clicks on his work phone gave him his answer. He waited, expecting Bo to show up at any minute. Fifteen minutes went by, then thirty. Giving up after an hour, Lucky drove to the hospital. Bo’s SUV sat in the parking lot. No lights shown from the building’s top floor. Well damn. In a choice between Lucky or whatever’d caught Bo’s attention inside the children’s center, Lucky’d lost out. He gave up and went back to his apartment.
“Here,” he said, shoving Bo’s meal into the hands of the guy sitting outside the apartment’s main entrance. Instead of his own apartment, he approached his neighbor’s.
It took several minutes of pounding to get their attention over the raucous music blaring. A man opened the door, wearing blue jeans and a stained wife-beater shirt that might once upon a time have been white.
“Yeah, what you want?” A cigarette hung from his lips and he glared at Lucky with bloodshot eyes. How the hell did the asshole stand the music blasting with a rather obvious hangover? His breath reeked of day-old Jack Daniels.
“I’m asking you nicely to turn your music down.”
“I ain’t gotta listen to you. I pay rent. I can do whatever the fuck I want.” He slammed the door in Lucky’s face. A moment later the volume shot up to painful levels.
If not for the need to keep his cover, Lucky felt sure he’d be on the front page of the newspaper the following day, facing some serious assault charges. Instead, he marched back downstairs, where shirtless guy sat in his usual chair, licking tomato sauce from his fingers.
“You got any idea where the breaker box is?”
“Man, whatever you up to, I ain’t…”
Lucky hunched down, putting them eye-toeye. “I fed you, and I’m not in the mood for any more shit. Now, can you show me where the breaker box is?” Lucky let the guy see every bit of the homicidal asshole living inside of him.
“Yeah, man. Calm down. I know where it is.” He stood and dug possibly the world’s largest keychain from the pocket of the toobig jeans hanging nearly off his ass. “Follow me.”
“You’re the super?”
“Shh…don’t tell anybody, or folks might ask me to actually do something around here.” He gave Lucky a conspiratorial grin.
Lucky ducked his head in a “lead on” gesture.
The guy led him down to the basement and tried a few keys before opening the door to an unfinished concrete block room filled with mops, buckets, ladders, and other tools of a building superintendent’s trade.
On the far wall a gray panel door beckoned. Lucky flipped it open. “Are the breakers by apartment or floor?”
“Apartment. I’m taking it you want a good night’s sleep?”
Lucky nodded. The guy reached out and flipped a switch. The evening grew much quieter.
“Thanks, man.” Lucky dug a twenty out of his pocket.
“Don’t mention it.”
After a brief side trip to the Malibu, Lucky returned upstairs, plugged his iPod into the cheap stereo he’d found in the place, and turned up the volume to full blast. Not a peep came from next door. Lucky scrolled to his “Crazy” playlist, as in “Songs to Drive Coworkers Crazy,” hitting the “play” button on his favorite form of torture.
Positioning himself as close to his neighbor’s wall as humanly possible, he screeched loud and off-key, and not necessarily in tune with Billy Ray Cyrus’s crooning.