Yuli decided he would wait one hour, then go out and make his call. There was a convenience store three blocks away, with indoor pay phones. He could duck in, make the call, then buy some beer and stuff, come out with the goods and look like he was shopping, if he had an audience.
No sweat.
Now all he had to do was fabricate a logical excuse for spilling everything he knew about his father’s dealings with Eugenix Corporation. Maybe claim the federal man knew all about it, going in, and simply pressured Yuli to confirm the details. It was weak, but he could sell it from the heart.
And in the process, maybe he could save himself.
Chapter 6
Brandenburg, Kentucky, is a peaceful town on the Ohio River, twenty miles southwest of Louisville. Two thousand residents call Brandenburg their, home, and most of them are law-abiding citizens who work or go to school five days a week, reserving Saturdays for sport or chores around the house, and Sundays for the Lord. The children tend to leave home after high school—college or the military, jobs or travel, anything to glimpse the world outside Meade County. Later, if they come back home to stay, at least they know what they are giving up.
Few residents of Brandenburg knew Dr. Quentin Radcliff. Possibly a hundred would have recognized him passing on the street, but less than half that number could have put a name together with the face. Of those, perhaps two dozen could lay claim to having spoken with the man. No more than six or seven would have said they knew him well.
And they would all be wrong.
How could they hope to recognize his genius? Small towns enforce a kind of intimacy that the natives take for granted. Everyone knows everybody else’s business. It is neither good nor bad, a simple fact of life. Tongues wag, and in the finest Biblical tradition, every secret thing is finally revealed. In Dr. Radcliff’s case, however, no one knew enough to talk with any kind of credibility. His few employees were outsiders, and they were good at keeping quiet. Dr. Radcliff and his daughter mostly shopped in Louisville, or had their things delivered from away. No one in town had ever called them rude, exactly, but they loved their privacy, and no mistake.
Back in the good old days, a nosy operator might have eavesdropped on their calls and spread the word that way, like on Green Acres or The Andy Griffith Show, but that was ancient history. There was no one to listen in when Dr. Radcliff took a call at half-past midnight, no one to remark on whom the doctor called five minutes later;
It was 1:05 a.m. before a jet black Buick Skylark pulled into the broad circular driveway of Radcliff’s home. The new arrival had a stunning, moonlit river view as he stepped from his car, but he paid no attention. He had seen it all before, and there were chestnuts to be rescued from the fire.
Radcliff observed the new arrival’s progress on closed-circuit television in his den. Six compact monitors were mounted in a cabinet on Radcliff’s left, against the wall, allowing him to swivel in his high-backed chair for a fragmented view of house and grounds.
Security was critical. The doctor had too much at stake to let his guard down now.
A trusted servant brought the visitor to Radcliff’s study, showed him in and closed the door behind him, leaving them alone. The doctor didn’t rise or offer to shake hands. No social visit, this. They had important business to discuss.
“What’s so important, Quentin?” Warren Oxley sounded curious, a bit concerned but light years away from panic.
“I received an unexpected call this evening,” Radcliff told his second-in-command.
“You told me that much on the telephone,” said Oxley.
“It was relayed from Nevada. Carson City.”
Oxley blinked at that. “I don’t believe it. After all this time?”
“Indeed. It seems he had a visitor, some kind of federal agent asking questions.”
“Jesus, Quentin!”
He had Oxley’s full attention now. Radcliff felt better, seeing the fear behind the sky blue contact lenses Oxley wore. The nonchalant facade was breaking down before his very eyes.
“We always knew that it might happen sometime.”
“Sometime, right. But after thirty-plus years? The Feds are asking about Hardy?”
“Why else would they be in Carson City?”
“Well…”
“It has to be the fingerprints,” said Radcliff. “Someone’s checked the older files. I was afraid they might.”
“We’re screwed,” said Oxley.
“I’m inclined to disagree. The prints create more problems than they solve,” said Radcliff. “Think about it for a moment. If they get an exhumation order, all they’ll have to show for it will be an empty casket. There’s no paper trail of any kind. The slug in Carson City has no names to pass along.”
“The contact number—”
“Has been canceled,” Radcliff said. “He’s on his own.”
“Still dangerous,” Oxley argued.
Radcliff sighed. His chief lieutenant would not be mistaken for a man of vision. “We can deal with that, don’t you suppose?”
“Of course. But if the FBI—”
“Let’s take a look at the worst-case scenario,” said Radcliff, interrupting him. “Suppose they manage some connection on a thirty-year-old body-snatching case. The subject had no family—he had been executed by the state. We could have dumped his body on the street, and it would only be a misdemeanor. After thirty years, they have no case at all.”
“But, Quentin—”
“They can only get to us through us! If you believe that, Warren, then we’re covered.”
“Right. Okay.”
“It wouldn’t hurt, however, to dispose of some deadwood as expeditiously as possible.”
“I understand.”
“You’ll get right on it, then?”
“Of course.”
“Let our associate cope with the details. He has specialists on staff.”
“I will.”
“You have the necessary information?”
“Certainly.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“It’s done.”
Not yet, the doctor thought, but soon. And when the deadwood was eliminated, any chance of drawing an indictable connection would be gone forever. Let the FBI match fingerprints from how till Judgment Day, for all the good that it would do them. What fools they were, to think they could match wits with genius and emerge with anything but absolute frustration and humiliation as their just deserts.
Radcliff poured himself a double Scotch and drained half of it in a single swallow, feeling liquid heat spread through his body, calming him.
Another crisis narrowly averted. Such is life, he thought.
And life goes on.
For some.
It was a thirty-minute drive across the river, back to southern Indiana and his home, but Warren Oxley shaved ten minutes off the normal time by speeding, watching out for cops and taking full advantage of the empty roads. There was no on the highways at this hour, and the raw demands of driving at top speed distracted Oxley from his larger worries.
Christ! The fucking FBI!
The risk had been there from Day One, of course, but he had. slowly come to think of it as ancient history. Each passing year had seemed to make the prospect of exposure more remote. Two losses in the past twelve months were troublesome, of course. They gave the Feds more raw material to work with, but you had to know the secret, starting out from scratch, before it all made any sense. If they were onto Hardy now…
Radcliff was right, actually: there was no Hardy anymore. His pitiful remains had been consumed, the dregs cremated, decades earlier. The undertaker in Nevada didn’t know enough to really hurt them, even if he lost his nerve and started talking to the Feds.