Sheer Gall (20 page)

“So that means there's an annual U.S. harvest of less than one thousand ounces of high-quality cattle gallstones?”

Melvin nodded. “You are correct, Miss Gold. However, the unit of measurement in Hong Kong is the kilo, which is, as you may recall from your high school chemistry class, thirty-five point two ounces. That translates into an annual harvest of less than thirty kilos.”

I was taking notes. “How valuable are they?”

“Excellent question, Miss Gold, the answer to which depends upon your location within the chain of commerce. A kilo of sheer gall can be worth anywhere from twenty-five to seventy thousand dollars.”

“And how many kilos could one slaughterhouse produce a year?”

“The numbers vary, Miss Gold. The average slaughterhouse kills five hundred cows and bulls a day. The larger houses, however, can double or even triple those numbers. I'd say a good annual production would be eight to twelve kilos. With good market conditions in Hong Kong, that could yield more than half a million dollars, although a slaughterhouse would never sell them for anywhere close to that.”

“Why not?”

Melvin cackled. “Come, come, Miss Gold. Economics 101. Too many middlemen, commencing with the local by-products dealer. That's the outfit that buys the gallstones, pancreas glands, fetal blood, and other byproducts. It sells them to one of the national houses, and so on and so on, until the gallstones finally reach the ginseng houses and folk medicine shops in Hong Kong. The only way to get the top prices is to hop on a plane to Hong Kong and peddle them direct to the retailers.”

I quietly absorbed this information.

“If the disclosure is not prohibited by the attorney-client privilege,” Melvin said, “I am curious to learn the reason for your sudden preoccupation with the subject of cattle gallstones. I trust it is not because you suffer from pyorrhea, laryngitis, virulent carbuncles, or chronic hemorrhoids or seek alleviation from what the Chinese obliquely refer to as, ahem, endogenous wind.”

I laughed. “No, thank goodness.”

I explained why cattle gallstones seemed to provide a compelling explanation for Sally's multiple trips to Hong Kong, her Swiss bank account, and her numerous odd-hour calls to Brady Kane, plant manager of the Douglas Beef slaughterhouse in East St. Louis. Even if one assumed a low-end slaughterhouse that processed “just” five hundred animals a day, direct sales of gallstones in Hong Kong—especially ones graded sheer gall—could generate more than a quarter of a million dollars a year. Whatever Sally's cut had been, the money was also apparently tax-free—she certainly hadn't declared it on any of the tax returns that I had reviewed.

“Fascinating, Miss Gold,” Melvin said, nodding his head rapidly, his shoulders hunched forward. “How do you propose to test your hypothesis?”

“I'm going to start at Bennett Industries. Douglas Beef is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bennett and operates five slaughterhouses. If someone is skimming gallstones, the numbers ought to show up in the books.”

Melvin pounded his fist on his desk. “Superb idea, Miss Gold. By comparing gallstone harvests at the various slaughterhouses, you may be able to identify manifest evidence of gallstone embezzlement. Splendid forensic strategy, Miss Gold. Where is Bennett Industries located?”

“About two blocks north of us on LaSalle. I'm meeting with Betsy Dempsey in thirty minutes. Remember her?”

“Of course. Indeed, I specifically remember a research memorandum that she did for me on a somewhat complex issue under the Lanham Act. An admirable piece of scholarship.”

I leaned back in the chair and smiled at him. “Hey, you want to come along? You can say hi to Betsy and maybe help me figure out the financial statements.”

He glanced at his calendar and looked up at me, his lips pursed as he weighed my proposal. He started slowly nodding his head. “I believe I will, Miss Gold.” His head was bobbing more rapidly now. “Yes, indeed. As you may know, I am somewhat familiar with the manner in which slaughterhouse records are maintained.” He placed his hands on the top of his desk and stood up. “Actually, I may be of material assistance to you on this matter, Miss Gold.”

While we waited for the elevator, I said, “Melvin, how long have we known each other?”

He gave me a curious look and then tilted back his head and squinted at the ceiling for a moment as he did the mental calculation. He lowered his gaze and said, “Next Tuesday it will be eight years and five months.”

“Back when I was at Abbott and Windsor, we worked on several cases together, right?”

“We did, indeed, Miss Gold. I think especially of the
Bottles & Cans
case, and the work we did on the multifarious Robinson-Patman legal issues therein. I can fairly characterize the weekend we spent at the office preparing that emergency petition for mandamus as quality time, Miss Gold.”

I nodded, trying to suppress my smile. “We've also had dinner together in St. Louis.”

“Ah yes, an excellent Mexican repast, as I recall.”

“In fact, I even got you out of jail in St. Louis.”

“You performed laudably on that occasion, Miss Gold, in the face of a gestapo police force and a disgraceful criminal justice system.”

I looked at him sincerely. “I consider you a friend, Melvin.”

“I'm pleased that you do, Miss Gold.”

“Do you consider me a friend?”

He smiled awkwardly. “Yes, indeed.”

“Finally,” I said, turning to him with a wink, “I believe you've even seen me naked.”

He blushed scarlet and coughed. “Purely unintentional, Miss Gold. As I hope you recall, the dressing rooms were unmarked. Upon discovery of my egregious mistake, I immediately averted my eyes. Nevertheless, I can assure you that I continue to feel remorse for that entirely inadvertent mishap.”

I smiled. “Forget the remorse, Melvin. My point is that we've known each other for a long time, we're friends, we've been through a lot together, and you're older than I am. So why, after all these years, do you continue to call me Miss Gold?”

The doors slid open and we stepped into a half-full elevator. Melvin turned to face the door as it closed. For the entire forty-one-floor ride, he frowned at the elevator door with a look of total bewilderment.

***

“Reprehensible,” Melvin snarled, shaking his head furiously.

We were walking along LaSalle Street on our return from the Bennett Industries headquarters.

I nodded glumly. “It is disappointing.”

Melvin spun toward me, his eyes wide with indignity. “Disappointing? May I remind you, Miss Gold, that that is a publicly held corporation?”

Melvin was quite a spectacle. His shirt had come untucked in back so that the tail hung below the bottom of his suit jacket. He had forgotten his belt that morning; as a result, his pants were sagging so low that the backs of the cuffs curled under the heels of his shoes. He gesticulated wildly as he talked, his arms jabbing spastically in all directions. Although the sidewalk was crowded, people gave us a wide berth as we passed by.

“Just as appalling,” Melvin continued, spraying saliva, “is their inexplicable decision to delegate that level of responsibility to”—he paused, overcome with disgust—“to Jabba the Hut. That distended slug is an embarrassment, and his records are a disgrace.”

To say the least, it had not been love at first sight for Melvin and Lamar Hundra. It turned out that oversight of the meat by-products records fell within Lamar's jurisdiction. He was in the process of scarfing down his last jelly doughnut of the day when Melvin and I arrived at his door at three-fifteen. Although I've never thought of Melvin as overly fastidious in the area of personal hygiene, he visibly blanched when Lamar extended his hand for a handshake after first licking his fingers clean.

They were a complete mismatch. Lamar's slack, torpid style was the polar opposite of Melvin's rabid, meticulous approach. I could actually hear Melvin grinding his teeth as Lamar took us on a leisurely jaunt through the financial records of the five slaughterhouses. Eventually, Melvin had exploded, “Goddammit, Mr. Doughnut, we don't care about that rubbish! I want gallstones, and I want them now!”

We eventually got gallstones, but we got them mingled with pancreas glands, fetal blood, bull testicles, beef warts, hanging tenders, and the rest of the by-products. Apparently, Douglas Beef had stopped separately accounting for the sales of particular by-products, such as gallstones, a few years after Bennett Industries acquired the company. Instead, all by-products sales figures were lumped together, thus generating for each plant a single, undifferentiated number. There was no way to determine from Lamar's numbers whether the “official” gallstone harvest at the East St. Louis plant was lower than elsewhere. Further muddying the numbers and our efforts to find meaning in them was the fact that the East St. Louis plant was the only one of the five Douglas Beef slaughterhouses that processed cows and bulls; the other four handled fatted cattle. All we could determine from the numbers was that the East St. Louis plant was processing twelve hundred animals per day, which meant that the monetary value of its gallstone harvest was on the high side of Melvin's estimates, perhaps as much as five hundred thousand dollars a year. Add in a barrel of fresh testicles, a duffel bag of freeze-dried bulls' penises, and a few other equally bizarre items and you'd have ample reason to visit Hong Kong several times a year. And thanks to Lamar Hundra's lack of vigilance, no one at headquarters would ever suspect a thing.

Melvin was still fulminating when we reached the entrance to Abbott & Windsor's building. “I am mightily tempted, Miss Gold, to report that tub of lard to one of the sharks in the plaintiff's class action bar. I should think a nasty lawsuit for securities fraud might be just the thing to turn that bloated buffoon into a genuine Douglas Beef by-product.”

“Don't get yourself worked up, Melvin,” I said in a pacifying voice. “He's not worth it.” I held out my hand. “Thanks. You were really helpful.” I gave him a warm smile. “It was awfully good to see you.”

“Certainly,” he said, eyes averted. He stuck out his hand.

We shook. Instead of letting go immediately, I gave his hand a friendly squeeze. “So long, Melvin.”

“Yes, uh, good-bye, uh, Rachel.”

He turned and pushed through the revolving door. With a feeling that was almost maternal, I watched him march through the lobby toward the elevator banks. I couldn't begin to imagine what it was like to pass through life as Melvin Needlebaum. He was a true eccentric. Nevertheless, on three separate occasions when he had an opportunity to do so in my presence, Melvin had acted nobly and without hesitation. And, after all these years, he had actually called me by my first name.

With a smile, I turned toward the street and flagged a cab. I checked my watch. With any luck, I could make the five-fifteen flight out of Midway.

Chapter Twenty-four

The skies were clear heading south. I'm one of those travelers who always request a window seat, and normally I would have spent most of this short flight peering out the window and watching the farmlands and plains and meandering rivers and small towns slowly scroll beneath the plane.

But not today. Although I did spend most of the flight staring out the window, the scenery didn't register. Instead, I was thinking about gallstones and mulling over what Betsy Dempsey had told me when I checked back with her on my way out of Bennett Industries.

I had dropped by her office to thank her for her help. When I explained that the financial records in Chicago didn't include meaningful detail on by-products sales, she told me to wait a moment. She went down the hall to check with the in-house attorney who headed up the environmental law division. Five minutes later she returned with a slip of paper. She explained that slaughterhouses run into lots of EPA compliance issues, especially with the disposal of carcasses and by-products. It was a long shot, she conceded, but if anyone might have more specific numbers on gallstones, it would be the St. Louis law firm that handled environmental matters for the slaughterhouse.

As the plane crossed the Mississippi River in its final descent into Lambert International Airport, I removed that slip of paper from my briefcase and stared at it again:

St. Louis environmental law counsel:
Tully, Crane & Leonard—Contact: Bruce Napoli

“Well?” Jacki said.

I stepped back, crossing my arms as I studied the poster. It was a blowup of a color photograph of two cars parked side by side on a wide circular driveway. The car on the left was a silver Corvette. The car on the right was a silver Mercedes-Benz coupe with gold trim. An ornate Spanish-tile mailbox was visible in the left foreground with the address stenciled in gold: 6 Sienna. Looming above the cars in the background was the 21,000-square-foot mission-style home of Richie and Cissy Thompson. The vanity plate on the silver Corvette read I'M RICH. The vanity plate on the Mercedes read ME TOO.

I looked over at Jacki and smiled. “I like it. I like it a lot.”

“Mark it?” she asked, reaching for her trial exhibit stickers.

I nodded. “Definitely. Exhibit H, right?”

“Yep.”

It was eight-thirty that night and we were at my office doing the usual last-minute trial preparations—marking trial exhibits, making copies of key documents, outlining direct examinations, making notes for cross-examination. Benny had dropped by to help. He was in a chair in the corner reading through a pile of recent libel decisions in an effort to beef up Vincent Contini's affirmative defenses.

I watched as Jackie peeled off the back of the exhibit sticker and carefully affixed it to the upper right corner of the poster.

“Good,” I said. “Now we need to wrap it with the brown paper and write ‘Defendant's Trial Exhibit H' on the outside with the black marker.” I pointed to the other poster. “Let's mark that ‘Exhibit I' and then wrap it up.”

I turned to the third poster, which was already wrapped in brown paper and sealed with tape. I picked up the black marker, took off the cap, and walked over to it. “Which makes this one Exhibit J.” I bent down and wrote DEFENDANT'S TRIAL EXHIBIT J across the brown paper. I straightened up and replaced the cap on the marker. “There,” I said, stepping back to admire my handiwork.

Benny looked up from his cases and chuckled. “Oh, brother. Let's hope you never have to unwrap that present, Santa.”

I turned toward him and crossed my fingers. “As my father used to say, from your lips to God's ears.”

“Have you told your client about Exhibit J?” Benny asked.

I shook my head. “Not yet. He's nervous enough as it is.”

“He's nervous?” Benny said. “Shit.” He looked over at Jacki. “What's your reaction to Exhibit J?”

She shook her head and shuddered. “I don't want to even think about it.”

Thirty minutes later I announced that we were done for the night. “I'm bushed,” I told them. “Vincent is meeting me here tomorrow at eight to go over his testimony. I need some sleep.”

On the drive home I remembered I was out of dog food. I stopped by my local Schnuck's supermarket to buy some. As I walked through the parking lot toward the store, I recalled Benny's amused disbelief when he first moved here and discovered that the name of the major supermarket chain in St. Louis is pronounced exactly the same as the Yiddish word for idiot. “Just exactly who are these poor schnooks?” he had asked. “The customers? What's that make the owners? Schmucks?”

I arrived at the checkout line with a ten-pound sack of dog food, two pounds of apples, a half gallon of milk, and a bag of fresh carrots. But by the time I reached the counter, my cart also contained a
Vogue
magazine and a Snickers bar. With the day I'd had and the prospect of a full day of trial tomorrow, I'd decided I deserved some bedtime treats.

It was after eleven when I left the supermarket. I was lost in one of those night-before-trial reveries as I pushed the shopping cart across the dark parking lot toward my car. I was vaguely aware of several delivery trucks on the lot, and a few cars and vans scattered here and there.

I pushed the cart around to the trunk of my car and reached into the pocket of my trench coat for my keys. They were on the end of my choke-chain weapon, along with all the extra keys from the hardware store. I found the correct key, opened the trunk, and dropped the chain back in my pocket.

That's when I heard the sudden rasp of footsteps behind me. Before I could turn, something hard jabbed into the center of my back.

“Don't move,” said a deep hoarse voice as he pressed me against the rear fender of my car.

I could feel my knees go weak. “You can have my money,” I said.

“Be quiet.” I felt his warm, garlicky breath on my neck.

“What do you want?”

“Shut up,” he growled.

I waited in the dark, my heart racing, almost dizzy from fear.

He leaned closer. “Get in the trunk.”

I looked in the trunk. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why?” I said, my voice trembling. I struggled to remember what Faith Compton had tried to teach me in the self-defense class. I tried to contain my emotions.

“Just get in it.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“I said get in the fucking trunk, lady.” He shoved the hard thing into my back again, and then he moved back a step. “Now, goddammit.”

My right hand was in my coat pocket, clenched around the key chain. I looked down to the side, still struggling to control my breathing. I tried to fix his position. I could see black jeans and black running shoes. He was standing about two feet behind me. I tensed my muscles as I tightened my grip on the keys.

“Come on,” he said gruffly.

Closing my eyes, I tried to visualize what I had to do. I took a deep breath, held it for the count of three, and then let out a yell as I swung upward with the chain.

The keys snagged for a split second on the coat pocket, throwing the entire swing out of whack. With a grunt, he caught me by the wrist and quickly twisted my arm behind my back and shoved up hard. The fierce stab of pain made me cry out as the key chain crashed to the ground.

“Stupid cunt,” he grunted in irritation.

Keeping my right arm pinned behind my back, he reached between my legs with the other hand and hoisted me into the trunk, shoving me in facedown.

“Turn your head away and close your eyes.”

I obeyed him.

“What are you going to do?” I said, my eyes squeezed shut. I was shivering, close to tears.

“I got a message for you, and it's real simple. You keep sticking your nose where it don't belong and you're going to get it cut off. Understand?”

I nodded, my eyes still closed. The trunk carpet was rough against my cheek.

“Now,” he said, “I want you to count backward from thirty. I want you to do it loud and slow so I can hear you. Understand?”

I nodded.

“Good.” He chuckled. “‘Cause when you reach zero, I got a nice surprise for you. Start counting.”

I tried, but the words were barely audible. “Thirty, twenty-nine—”

“Louder. Start over.”

I took a breath, fighting for self-control. “Thirty,” I said in a louder voice. “Twenty-nine…” My voice was shaking, but I kept counting.

By the time I reached ten I was on the verge of hysteria, my eyes squeezed shut, my body rigid with dread. What was his surprise? By the number five I had pulled myself into a ball.

“Three, two, one”—I winced—“zero.”

I waited. Silence. The only sound at first was the zinging of blood in my ears. In the distance I heard a truck shift gears. Seconds passed. Then a minute. I opened my eyes. I was staring into the black interior of the trunk.

Hesitantly, I turned my head. The trunk lid was open. I moved my eyes up its length. Beyond the curved end was nothing but stars and the night sky. I waited, straining my ears. Nothing.

I sat up. There was my shopping cart, resting against the side of the car, just where I had left it. I looked around. I saw no one.

I climbed out of the trunk, scanning the parking lot in every direction.

I kneeled down and peered under the car.

I stood up, rubbing my sore right shoulder. As I did, I saw my key chain on the ground right where it had fallen. I leaned over and lifted it up, the keys clinking together softly. I stared at it and shook my head. Turning with a sigh toward my grocery cart, I dropped the key chain into my coat pocket.