“You got one in your pocket?”
“Just saying. Who gave you the polonium?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Ranger.”
“Figures. Look, I got nothing personal against him, even though he ruined my dinner with my friends.”
“Then help me out here. Who gave you the polonium?”
“Some guy with a weird tattoo on his neck. I told the FBI, and they looked at me like I was nuts. I don’t think they believed me.”
“Does this guy have a name?”
“I didn’t get one. He approached me. Said he knew I needed money. Said he had a lot of money and needed a job done.”
“What did this guy look like?”
“Average height and build. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. Caucasian, but I couldn’t see his hair. He had on mirrored sunglasses, but I could see he had a scar above one of his eyes. He had some kind of accent. Sort of British. And he had that tattoo on his neck.”
“What did the tattoo look like?”
“It was a skull with a flower.”
“And he told you he wanted you to deliver the polonium?”
“Yeah. He said if I got it on me it was deadly so I should be careful. I guess he got that right.”
“But you agreed to do it anyway.”
“It was a lot of money. And it seemed safe. The canister had a timer on it. I pushed the button, and I had a half hour before it spewed out the shit. Except the stupid thing got busted in the scuffle with the Rangeman guy, and it all leaked out on me.”
I went into the bathroom and gathered up his towels. “How did Skull and Flower pass the canister to you?”
“He got me a hotel room in New York. The Gatewell. The canister was in the room when I checked in.”
“And the money?”
“Cash. Delivered to my … financial partners.”
“Jeez, Emilio, this sucks.”
“Is my hair falling out yet?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“If I beat this thing, I’m debt free.”
“Yeah, well, good luck.”
I left the room and shoved the orange bag of linens into the cart.
“We all done here?” Lula asked.
“Yep. All done.”
We put our heads down and walked the laundry cart to the service elevator. We got off at the ground floor, pushed the cart beyond the point where there were security cameras, and shucked our masks, gloves, gowns, and scrubs. We left the cart in the hall and exited the building. Connie and Briggs were waiting at the curb. A black SUV that I suspected was a Rangeman vehicle was idling across the street. Lula and I got into Connie’s car, and she drove us back to the office. The black SUV pulled up behind Connie’s car, and Hal got out.
“Ranger would like to see you,” Hal said.
I got into the SUV, and Hal drove me to the safe house on Bender Street. I took the elevator to the third floor and found Ranger at his desk.
“You didn’t have to make your one phone call,” he said.
“No. I got in to see Gardi, and so far no one’s come after me.”
“How is he?”
“He looks terrible, but he was coherent. He’s been talking to the FBI, but it sounds like they don’t think the information is worth anything. Gardi doesn’t have a name. He said it was a business deal. He needed money bad, and this guy came to him and offered him the job. Gardi saw the man once. The money was paid in cash to Gardi’s business partners. The canister of poison was left in a New York hotel room for pickup. That’s it.”
“Did he give you a description?”
I told Ranger everything Gardi had told me, from the FBI interrogation to the guy with the scar and the tattoo.
“Let me guess,” Ranger said. “It was a skull and a flower.”
“Yes! Do you know him?”
“Only as Vlatko. Our paths crossed while I was on a search and rescue mission in North Korea, and he was a Russian SVR thug. SVR is the new KGB.”
“Did you work together?”
“No. We were on opposite sides. He was Russian intelligence, and I was point man for a ground troops unit.”
“And?”
“The operation was a success, but it wasn’t clean. Troops were lost on both sides. I was captured and handed over to Vlatko for torture. His specialty was disembowelment. He put a six-inch slice into my belly before I managed to get the knife from him.”
“I thought that scar was from an appendectomy.”
“If the knife had gone deeper, it would have been.”