Chapter 4 - The Poison in the Well
I pulled the phone from my pocket and answered it without looking at the screen.
"Speak," I said.
"The girl's clean," Luca's voice came through, raspy and thin. "Her father was Thomas Willis. Worked the gantry cranes at Pier 14 until ninety-eight. Broke his back on the job, died of sepsis two weeks later. The company paid off the mother, and the family went into the gutter. She’s worked three jobs since she was sixteen. No criminal record, no ties to the Leones, no ties to Carmine."
"I know," I said, glancing at Fay, who had walked over to the sideboard to collect Sal Leone’s half-empty scotch glass.
"That's not the problem, Dominic," Luca continued, his tone dropping an octave. "I pulled the maintenance logs for the mansion elevator. Carmine didn't blow the hydraulic line. He had a mechanic named Tico cut the copper feeder valve at nine this morning."
The air in my lungs went cold. "Tico works for our fleet garage."
"Not anymore," Luca said. "Tico took a cash transfer from a shell company in Jersey two hours ago. Carmine didn't just invite Sal over to test you. He wanted you trapped on the second floor so Sal could see you being carried down like a sack of grain. It was a planned demonstration to the commission that you’re unfit to hold the territory."
"Where is Tico now?"
"In the trunk of my car," Luca said matter-of-factly. "He started talking before I even took the pliers out. Dominic... Carmine isn't acting alone. He’s been meeting with Dr. Mercer."
My hand froze on the satellite phone.
Dr. Alan Mercer was the head of neurosurgery at St. Jude's. He was the man who had performed the seven-hour emergency laminectomy after the shooting. He was the man who had spent six months prescribing my nerve blockers, my muscle relaxants, and managing my post-operative therapy.
"What does Mercer have to do with this?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"Tico says Carmine paid Mercer fifty grand three weeks ago to adjust your medication," Luca said. "Mercer told Carmine that with the right combination of baclofen and synthetic neuro-inhibitors, your spasms would get so severe you wouldn't be able to sit upright for more than twenty minutes at a time. The plan was to let you deteriorate naturally until the family council had no choice but to appoint Carmine as acting boss."
I stared at the Persian rug, the world tilting beneath my wheels.
For six months, I had cursed my own body. Every time my legs jerked, every time the searing fire ripped through my hips, every time I collapsed in front of the caretakers, I had believed my nervous system was falling apart. I had believed I was rotting from the inside out.
It wasn't my body failing.
It was poison.
"Dominic?" Luca's voice broke through the haze. "Are you there?"
"Bring Tico to the old cold storage locker on Eighth," I said, every word dropping from my mouth like frozen lead. "And bring Mercer there by midnight."
"What about Carmine?"
"Carmine thinks he's meeting me tonight to explain himself," I said. "Let him think he still has time. I want the doctor first."
I ended the call and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
Across the room, Fay was wiping the glass table with a clean cloth. She had heard every word of my side of the conversation. She didn't ask questions, but her movements were slower, her eyes watching me in the reflection of the glass mirror above the fireplace.
"Mr. Corso?" she said tentatively.
"Bring the medical kit from my bathroom," I ordered.
She frowned. "Why?"
"Bring it."
She didn't argue. She moved quickly, disappearing into the service lift. Three minutes later, she returned carrying the blue zip-up medical bag containing the amber prescription bottles Mercer had delivered on Monday.
She set it on the desk in front of me.
I unzipped the bag and dumped the six bottles onto the mahogany surface. I picked up the small white bottle labeled *Baclofen - 20mg - Take three times daily with food.*
"You said your brother had spinal issues," I said, looking up at her.
"Transverse myelitis," she repeated. "He took muscle relaxants every day for three years."
I handed her the bottle. "Look at the pills inside."
Fay unscrewed the child-proof cap and tipped two small white tablets into her palm. She held them up to the chandelier light, squinting at the tiny imprint stamped into the chalky surface.
"These aren't 20-milligram baclofen," she said immediately.
My heart slammed against my ribs. "What are they?"
"They're clonidine compounds," she said, her voice dropping into a tense whisper. "See the score mark and the double 'C' stamp? My brother was given these by mistake once at the county clinic. They're heavy central nervous system depressants. If you take them with your regular dose of gabapentin, they don't stop the spasms. They trigger peripheral neuropathy. They make your legs misfire twice as hard while making your blood pressure tank."
She looked from the pills to my face, her eyes widening as the pieces fell into place.
"Who gave you these?" she whispered.
"My doctor," I said. "On the recommendation of the man you stood up to in my bedroom."
Fay dropped the pills back into the bottle and slammed it down on the desk.
"You've been poisoning yourself for weeks," she said, her voice shaking with sudden, fierce anger. "That's why you were sweating this morning. That's why your pulse was over one-forty when I held your leg. They're trying to give you a heart attack, Mr. Corso."
"They're trying to make me look weak," I corrected her. "In my world, looking weak is the same as being dead."
I took the bottle, dumped the entire contents into the copper trash bin beside the desk, and pushed the other five bottles aside.
"You aren't taking any of it?" she asked.
"Not until Luca brings me Mercer's personal notes," I said. "Which means tonight, when the real withdrawal from those compounds hits, my nervous system is going to tear itself apart."
Fay stood there, staring at the empty pill bottle in the trash.
"Then you need cold compresses," she said, her practical, no-nonsense tone returning like armor. "And you need electrolytes. If you try to sweat this out in that chair without fluids, your kidneys will shut down before your men even get back from the docks."
"I don't have time to lie in bed, Fay," I growled. "Carmine is coming back at eight o'clock. If I'm not sitting in this chair looking like a king, the docks fall tonight."
Fay leaned over the desk, resting both palms flat against the wood, her face barely six inches from mine.
May you like
"Then you better drink the damn soup, Dominic," she said, using my first name for the first time without a trace of fear. "Because if you pass out in front of Carmine tonight, I'm the one who has to mop up your blood."
***
