Crack-Up (23 page)

I didn’t know how to hotwire an automobile, but I could start one by rolling it down a hill, and
Georgetown
hardly lacked for downward slopes.
 
The Tudor’s own downward sloping driveway would be sufficient, I thought, to turn over the engine.
 
At least it would get me coasting in the right direction.

And once I’d popped the clutch and chugged the engine to life, I planned to drive the vehicle straight to a supply store and leave it idling while I spent the last of Keisha Fallon’s cash buying myself a cheap work uniform, with a matching cap, if I could afford it.

Then my plan was to drive the van right up to my own house and park in my own driveway, as if
I
was the gardener.
 
I’d step into the backyard with a pair of hedge trimmers, and from there, sneak inside the house through the back door and find Sarah and—.

I froze.
 
I’d just rounded one of the van’s open rear doors and found Hideo Mori sitting on the back bumper in his blue work overalls, sipping hot green tea from a porcelain cup.

“Mister Argus!”

“You!”
 
Hideo stood and bowed.
 
He’s not too startled
, I noted,
and certainly not afraid.
 
Maybe he doesn’t know about me.
 
Maybe he can’t read English, being a Japanese immigrant and all.
 
Maybe he doesn’t watch much TV
.
 
“I need your help, Hideo.”

Hideo grunted.
 
Or chuckled.
 
“Yes, I think so.
 
Police looking for you.
 
They say you kill a man.
 
Say you crazy.
 
Tea?”
 
He handed me an empty cup and began pouring.

I considered hog-tying Hideo in the back of the van long enough to execute my original plan.
 
But kidnapping?
 
Again?
 
Kidnapping a little man pouring me tea?
 
I held my cup steady.

“I’m not crazy, Hideo.
 
Not now.”

“Not now?”

“And I didn’t kill anyone.
 
Not . . . not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“Yes, I did.
 
No, I didn’t.”

“You sound like Buddhist.”

“I can explain, Hideo, but not now.
 
Now, I need your help.
 
Please.
 
I’ve got to . . . I’ve got to slip into my house without the cops seeing me, and speak to my wife.
 
It’s urgent.”

“Not possible.
 
I just leave your house.
 
Note say your wife gone to
Annapolis
.”

“Oh, shit,” I said, instantly dizzy.

Hideo Mori weaved his van through traffic along
Wisconsin Avenue
.
 
“Your wife, she cry these days, very, very much.”

Missing her, needing her, feeling for her, my own eyes watered, but I didn’t break down crying.
 
I couldn’t afford to.
 
I had to think, plan, stay one step ahead of the cops, find the enemy who’d ruined me, destroyed me.
 
And, even more immediately, I had to decide whether I could really trust my little gardener.
 
For all I knew, he was only biding his time until he could turn on me with maximum impact, kiss the bumper of the first cop car that crossed our path, or something like that.

Hideo was no more than five feet six inches tall.
 
He looked to be in his early sixties.
 
Through Sarah, I knew him to be a widower, who’d emigrated from
Japan
to live with a grown daughter and a grandchild.
 
I hadn’t had many conversations with Hideo over the years, but Sarah was fond of him, thought him unusually kind and wise, and she enjoyed his oriental take on things—as well as his gossip about other people’s horticulture.

“Are you doing this for Sarah?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Fair enough,” I said.
 
Not that I entirely believed him.
 
“But thank you for helping me, just the same.”
 
Hideo grunted.

Then I told him my story.
 
The gardener’s shaky English and the cultural barriers between us complicated the telling as much as the tale itself.
 
By the time I’d finished, two hours had passed, and we’d driven by a dozen police cruisers uneventfully.

“We must eat,” Hideo said, parking in front of a sushi bar somewhere in
Silver Spring
,
Maryland
.
 
He wasn’t offering me any choice on where we’d eat.
 
I took my Glock with me inside the restaurant, hiding it in my waistband, rugby shirt tucked out.

“You stay with me,” Hideo said when we were eating, lifting his wrinkled, box-square face from a bowl of hot noodle soup he slurped deliriously, like a vampire at the scene of mass genocide.
 
“Not hotel room.
 
Too dangerous.
 
Too lonely too.”

“Thank you,” I said.
 
“I’d like that.”

I almost felt sure Hideo had bought my story.
 
I almost thought I could trust this man too, like Sarah obviously did.

“So who wish to harm you so bad, huh?”

“I don’t know,” I said.
 
“But it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.
 
Whoever it is who would go to the trouble of stealing my meds, and replacing them with dummy pills, and then switching them back again, must hate me, don’t you think?”

Hideo grunted.
 
“Very, very much.”

“And I ask you—how many people could there be who hate me?”

“Hmm.”
 
Hideo’s eyes swayed from side to side with intense concentration, like he was multiplying by the tenth power.

“Not that many!”

“If you say so.”

“I’d like to use your cell phone now, if you don’t mind.”

“In truck.”
 
Hideo tossed me the keys.

From the passenger seat of the van, I was able to keep my eye on Hideo through a large restaurant window.
 
But his head never raised from his bowl, except to sip tea.
 
And he didn’t hail the waitress for a furtive conversation or take out a pen and scribble down any desperate messages on his napkin.

Without much trouble, I obtained the
K Street
office number for my defense attorney, Lester Cravey.
 
He was in.

“Surprised and delighted!” Les said.
 
“You’ve got to turn yourself in, Argus!
 
Right this minute!”

“I don’t think so.”

“Your life is on the line here, boy, and this can’t do anything but hurt your case.”

“We’ll see.
 
What about the pills?
 
Did the results come back yet from the lab?”

“I was just going to mention that.
 
They came back today.
 
Interesting result.”

“How so?”

“The bottle of pills is indeed filled with Risperdal.
 
Every last pill.
 
But a few of the pills contained microscopic traces of an unknown substance, traces too small, in fact, to test, until the lab technician thought of testing the residue inside the plastic pill bottle itself.”

“And?”

“She identified glucophage.”

“Gluco what?” I said.

“It’s a medication for diabetics.
 
At some point earlier in time, it appears, your pill bottle had contained glucophage.”

“Counselor, I’m not diabetic.
 
There’s no one in my family who is diabetic.”

“I know,” Les said.
 
“I telephoned your wife.”

“Wouldn’t taking that kind of medication harm me?”

“No,” Les said.
 
“I asked.
 
Glucophage is unique in that it won’t harm a non-diabetic if swallowed by accident.”

“This was no accident.”

“I believe you,” Les said.
 
“I believe you now.
 
Truly.
 
The lab technician says your pills and the glucophage pills are nearly identical to the naked eye.
 
In addition, they’re approximately the same weight, and they both have a similar, metallic-like taste to them.
 
It’s no wonder—”

“And Sarah?
 
Does my wife believe me now too?”

“That’s how I’d interpret her blubbering, yes.”

Pressurized euphoria expanded my chest.
 
“What about the district attorney?
 
Have you spoken to—”

“I left a message with Millard to call me.
 
But I can tell you right now, Argus, he won’t buy your theory.
 
Not a chance.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll say it doesn’t prove a thing.
 
The switch could’ve happened at the pharmacy, for example, when someone failed to pick up a glucophage prescription, and no one rinsed the bottle clean before filling it with your prescription.
 
Another possibility he might mention is that your wife did this, to try and free you from the murder rap.
 
And that’s just off the top of my head.”

“Someone’s trying to destroy me, Les.”

“I know, I know.
 
It’s diabolical, that’s what it is, Argus, absolutely diabolical.
 
But you can’t—”

“I’m not coming in until I catch the bastard who did this to me.
 
Or until I start losing my mind again.
 
And that’s final.”

“But if you lose your mind, how will you know—”

I hung up.
 
Returning to the sushi bar by sidewalk, I crossed paths with a briefcase-bearing Black man in a gray suit.
 
The man skirted wide of me, for I was scowling, scowling like a lone, determined T-cell in a village of virus.

Anger foamed my blood, indignation stiffened my sinew, and with a stirring sense of vindication, I punched the air with my fist.
 
I punched one more time for Darth, now silent Darth, who had once told me,
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you
.

Chapter 26

“You little shit stain!” Darth said.
 
His voice was coming from the air duct in the ceiling of my Georgetown office.
 
It so terrified me to suddenly hear Darth’s voice again that I awoke from my dream already launching a sit-up in bed.

My heart pounded as if it wanted to see the outside world.
 
Beads of sweat strung every line in my forehead.
 
The back of my neck was soaked.
 
I didn’t know where I was.