CHAPTER 25
John Ashby leaned his head back against the pillow and ran his Montecristo cigar back and forth under his nose while he watched the men standing in front of him. He considered himself an expert at evaluating men and knowing when they were telling the truth and when they were lying. In the many years of his early days in the oil fields, it had often meant the difference between life and death.
Harold Gelb and his two minions were standing at the foot of Ashby’s bed, a fine sheen of sweat beading their brows. This in itself meant nothing—most men tended to sweat under Ashby’s steely gaze. Gelb himself had a stellar reputation both for getting the job done and for being discreet about it afterward; Ashby wouldn’t have hired him otherwise.
Finally, satisfied he was getting the truth, Ashby moistened the cigar with his lips and pulled a gold lighter from beneath the covers and lit up, his eyes steady on Gelb as he rotated it to get it burning evenly. As he replaced the lighter under his bedcovers, he felt the cold steel of the Beretta forty-caliber semiautomatic pistol he kept next to him, hidden from view.
He’d named the piece his “Enforcer,” and he had only needed it once. A foreman on one of his numerous projects had been skimming from the expense budget, thinking that the bed-bound Ashby would never find out. When called into Ashby’s bedroom and informed that he was being fired and would never be allowed to work in construction again, the man had lunged at Ashby and had gotten so far as to climb up on the foot of the bed before the Enforcer blew him head over heels to land flat on his back, bleeding profusely from a massive chest wound.
Ashby had calmly replaced the gun beneath his covers, lit a cigar, and waited for the bleeding to stop before he let the house staff call for an ambulance and the police.
Ashby had never had the rug cleaned, and he delighted in telling anyone who asked about the stain exactly what it was, using it as a lesson to never, ever think about crossing him.
Now he motioned at Gelb with his cigar. “Go on, Mr. Gelb. Tell me what you’ve found out about the subjects of your investigation.”
Gelb licked his lips and began, glancing at notes in a small notebook he carried. “Each of the subjects is a well-respected citizen, and none of them have any sort of criminal history.”
He went on to give a brief synopsis of the lives of Kat, Ramsey, Kevin, and Sheila Goodman. “In short, Mr. Ashby, none of the subjects has significant financial resources, other than Dr. Goodman, whose net worth is probably a little over two hundred thousand dollars. Doctors Williams and Ramsey live hand to mouth, and Kevin Paxton, as you know, is a grad student dependent on his uncle, Dr. Alexander, for his living and college expenses.”
Ashby pursed his lips. “So, what you are telling me is that without my financing, these people do not have the resources to double-cross me or to run and hide if they feel threatened?”
“That’s correct, Mr. Ashby.”
Ashby inclined his head toward Johnson and Gomer standing slightly behind Gelb. “Have you two found anything when you searched their laboratories and homes?”
Both men shook their heads. Johnson spoke up, “Nothing as relates to any chemical formulas, which you asked us to look for, boss. We even copied their computers’ hard drives and had the professor you recommended look ’em over. He said the stuff on the drives was rather routine and didn’t represent any breakthroughs in medical treatments of any kind.”
Ashby grinned. “They are smarter than I gave them credit for. They knew I’d come looking, and they’ve managed to hide the formula from me.”
He suddenly frowned. “Are you sure they haven’t made you two? You’re sure they don’t know they’re being followed?”
Both Johnson and Gomer nodded vigorously. “We’re sure, Mr. Ashby. We’ve been very careful not to let them see us, and we switch cars a couple of times a day so they won’t see the same one following them.”
Ashby nodded. “Okay, so what did you find when you followed Williams and Palmer to Mexico?”
Johnson pulled a small notepad from his shirt pocket. “They flew directly to Monterrey, and met with a lawyer named Felix Navarro and a doctor named Humberto Garza. At the meeting, the doctor handed Dr. Williams a thermos container, and she handed him a wad of cash.”
Ashby leaned forward, a look of intense anticipation on his face. “Did you find out what was in the thermos?”
“Not right then,” Johnson said. “But later, after crossing Dr. Garza’s hand with five hundred dollars, he told us the thermos contained human fetal brain tissue.”
Ashby’s eyes widened for a moment. “Aha,” he said, while thinking to himself the formula was at least in part using fetal stem cells. Not wanting to give the detectives anything else to think about, he changed the subject.
“And what about the lady doctor and her husband? I assume you have had them under surveillance.”
This time Gomer nodded and consulted his own small notepad. “The couple went out the other night and drove to a really seedy part of town down near the ship channel . . . Navigation Boulevard, I believe,” he said.
“What the hell were two yuppie doctors doing in that part of town at night?” Ashby asked, eyebrows raised.
“They were looking for someone,” Gomer answered. He checked his notepad again. “Someone whom the locals called ‘the Professor.’ A longtime drunk and homeless man who evidently used to be some sort of college teacher.”
“What did they do when they found him?”
Gomer smiled. “According to another homeless drunk named Billy, they stuffed him in the trunk of their car and took off.”
“The hell you say!” exclaimed Ashby.
Gomer nodded. “I can only assume they took him to their apartment, since I lost track of them by staying behind to question Billy and other witnesses.”
“I see,” Ashby said in a distracted voice. He suddenly realized that this man must be the human patient the doctors were going to try their serum on to see if it worked. “Okay, Mr. Gelb, I want you and your men to back off the surveillance temporarily. Continue to monitor the GPS trackers on their phones, but I want all audio and visual surveillance to cease until I tell you otherwise.”
Gelb looked puzzled but slowly nodded his head. “Okay, Mr. Ashby, if that is the way you want it.”
“That is exactly the way that I want it, Mr. Gelb, and,” he added with narrowed eyes, “if I find out you are doing otherwise, you and your men will face dire consequences.”
Gelb held up his hands, palms out. “No need to make threats, Mr. Ashby. We work under your orders, and if you want us to back off, then of course we’ll back off until you tell us otherwise.”
“Good,” Ashby said, nodding. “Now, take off and I’ll call you with further orders unless you see something out of the ordinary on the GPS tracking devices.”
As they nodded and filed out of the bedroom, Dr. Tom Alexander stuck his head around the doorjamb and waved. “Mind if I come in, John?”
Ashby smiled and waved the doctor in. “Not if you will reach me one of my Montecristos and turn on the exhaust fan so I can have a smoke.”
Alexander wrinkled his nose. “Smells like you’ve already had a smoke or two recently.”
“Come on, Doc. I’m about to become younger and smarter, so a couple of cigars won’t hurt me any.”
Alexander turned on the exhaust fan next to a window and cracked the pane so the smoke could be drawn out, then he picked a cigar out of a box next to the bed and handed it to Ashby.
As he got the cigar going, Ashby raised his eyebrows and said out of the corner of his mouth, “So, did you hear what those idiots said?”
The doctor nodded, a concerned look on his face.
“What’s the matter, Tom? You look worried about something.”
“I am just wondering why you have placed the doctors and my nephew under surveillance, and I am also a little worried about what you might be planning, John.”
“What? Why?” Ashby asked, his face a mask of innocence, at least half of it anyway.
Alexander smiled grimly. “Let’s not kid each other, John. I know you as well as anyone on earth, and I know you are a shrewd and ruthless and greedy bastard. In fact, those are the things I like about you. You don’t pretend otherwise, and generally you tell me the truth ’cause you know I am on your side and in your corner.”
Ashby nodded. “Uh-huh, but how about this time, Tom?”
Alexander shook his head slowly. “This time I am conflicted, John. I don’t particularly care about the doctors, but I love my nephew Kevin dearly, and I would hate for anything. . . untoward to happen to him.”
“First, let me assure you that I do not plan for anything ‘untoward’ to happen to either the doctors or to your nephew, Tom. Of course, I cannot just ignore the unbelievable opportunity having this serum would provide, not to mention the power-wielding potential such a formula would give a man. However, other than eventually controlling and owning the formula, I have no dastardly plans for the doctors or your nephew. Hell, even if they wanted to, they couldn’t tell anyone that I’d stolen a formula from them that they, in fact, had stolen from their previous employers.”
Alexander leaned forward in his chair. “So I can rest assured that no matter what happens with the formula, Kevin will be taken care of appropriately?”
Ashby nodded. “You have my word as a friend that Kevin will come out of this so rich that he will never have to work again as long as he lives . . . and you, too, pal. I won’t forget it was you who brought this formula to my attention.”
“Speaking of the formula, John, there is something that we need to talk about.”
“Oh?”
“Unless you want everyone in the world to know of the existence of the serum, you are going to have to fake your death and take on a different identity.”
Ashby laid his head back on his pillow and blew smoke rings at the ceiling, staring at them as he thought. Finally, he said, “I see what you mean, Tom. The formula is much more valuable if no one knows of its existence.”
“With your contacts, it shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange a false identity, one that could be mentioned in your will as a sole-surviving relative who would inherit all of your assets,” Tom suggested. “That way you could start fresh, with all of your ‘inheritance,’ without having to look over your shoulder for old enemies who might be coming after you.”
Ashby smiled. “I can see you’ve given this some thought.”
Alexander shook his head. “No, actually it was Kevin who suggested it. He is much shrewder about all of this than I am.”
“I can see that, Tom. Perhaps I should think seriously about inviting this young man into my employ. I can always use a man who can think on his feet.”
Alexander laughed. “You could do worse, John.”
Ashby squinted and stared at the doctor. “Tell me something, Tom. Everyone else in the world calls me J.P., yet you persist in calling me John. May I ask why?”
“Everyone else you know is either an employee or an underling of some sort, John. They call you what you order them to call you. I, on the other hand, consider us to be friends, not an employer and employee. That’s why I call you John and not J.P.”
“You don’t consider yourself my employee, yet you take my money to provide care for me. How is that different?”
Alexander smiled. “As I said, I consider us friends, John, and the difference is that I would continue to care for you if you lost every cent you owned and were destitute and could pay me nothing. I do take your money ’cause it means little to you and it is a great deal to me, but the money is not why we are friends. It is just a convenient by-product of our friendship.”
Ashby grinned, tears in his eyes, and pointed his cigar at Alexander. “Maybe we could make hiring Kevin a package deal, Tom. After all, it shouldn’t be too difficult for the doctors to make two doses of serum instead of one. How would you feel about joining me in taking the serum?”
Alexander nodded and smiled, not bothering to tell Ashby he’d already decided to do just that. “How about I pour us a nip of that Napoleon brandy on your side table and we’ll drink to it?”
“Sounds good . . . partner.”
When he stood and went to the table and poured the brandy, Alexander didn’t notice the small camera and parabolic microphone attached to the top of the window drapes behind Ashby’s bed.
* * *
Two hundred yards away, in a vacant house next door to Ashby’s sprawling mansion that had a FOR SALE sign in the yard, two FBI agents sat watching a monitor and listening to the voices in Ashby’s bedroom.
One turned to the other, a quizzical look on his face. “What the fuck do you think that is all about? Mysterious doctors importing human fetal brains and kidnapping homeless bums down near the ship channel?”
The other answered, “Yeah, and then there’s this super-secret formula Ashby keeps harping about. Maybe we’d better reach out to the boss and see what he thinks about these latest recordings.”
“Yeah, won’t hurt to cover our asses in case it’s something important.”