Black Friday Read online

  “Huh?”

  “The story of Cain and Abel—in Genesis? When God asked Cain about his brother, Cain said—”

  Heather finished the line. “‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ So . . . do I get a star now?”

  Jodi didn’t respond.

  “I’m sorry, Jodi. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Jodi took a deep breath. “Faith is hurting right now. I happen to think we should do what we can to help her. I think that would bring a smile to God’s face.”

  It was Heather’s turn to be silent.

  “And you’re wrong about something else, Heather.”

  “Like what?”

  “That things can’t change,” Jodi said. “What about Mothers Against Drunk Driving? We studied that in Mrs. Meyer’s class, remember?”

  “So?”

  “I did a paper on them. Before MADD came on the scene, only a couple of states had anti-drunk-driving laws. But,” Jodi said, thinking back to her report, “they worked to change things so that, like, all fifty states now have made it a crime to drink and drive.”

  “Wow, I didn’t realize I was back in summer school—”

  Jodi ignored the insult. “And there’s Martin Luther King, who did so much for the civil rights movement. And Abe Lincoln, who helped to bring an end to slavery.”

  “Time out, Jodi. This isn’t social studies—”

  “All of them prove that bad laws can be changed when we—or somebody—stand for what’s right.”

  “All right already,” Heather said. “So, where do I go to sign up for your crusade? Got any petitions for me to circulate?”

  Jodi bit her bottom lip. She was tempted to just hang up. “You know something, Heather? You’re being such a dork.”

  “Whatever—”

  “And another thing,” Jodi said. “Not that you care, but it looks like Faith wasn’t even pregnant when they did the procedure.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Stan found her file. Her pregnancy test was listed as having a ‘false-positive’ finding.”

  “Which means?”

  “The results were inconclusive at best.”

  “So now you think that quack Gus was right—that they’d actually operate on women who aren’t pregnant?”

  “Looks that way,” Jodi said, walking out the back door onto the deck. “I’ll know for sure in the morning.”

  “Like how?”

  “I’m going there myself—and we both know there’s no way I’m pregnant.”

  “But,” Heather said after a moment. “I don’t get it. Why would they do that to you?”

  “It’s all about the money, Heather.”

  “Wait a sec,” Heather said. “You may be the debate queen, but how can you say that? You don’t know what their motives are.”

  Jodi shrugged. She switched the phone to her other ear. “Think about it. Stan told me Dr. Graham does, like, twelve aborts an hour.”

  “Gosh, is he sure about that?”

  “He worked there today, remember?” Jodi sat down on the picnic table.

  “Oh, right.”

  “And, when I called, they said it’ll cost three hundred dollars to terminate my pregnancy,” Jodi said. “Gus claims Dr. Graham gets a third of that in cash—”

  “Which is one hundred dollars,” Heather said.

  “Times twelve. Do the math.”

  “Gee, you’re right. That’s twelve hundred dollars an hour.”

  “And he’s not even a real doctor,” Jodi said.

  Neither spoke for a moment. Jodi listened to the wind chimes as they danced in the evening breeze.

  “Still, even if I were to agree with you and Gus that, like, Dr. Graham is whacked, come on, Jodi. How many other clinics are like his?”

  “Great question,” Jodi said. “What I want to know is how many could you live with before you thought it was time to do something?”

  Chapter 23 Wednesday, 11:25 p.m.

  Gus finished eating at the burger joint next to his hotel. He paid and then shuffled back to his room. He had specifically requested room 101 in the two-story building. It had been a Days Inn years ago. Now everything about the place was tired and worn.

  The new owners had renamed it Night-Night Inn and spent as little as possible to remodel. They tossed a coat of fresh paint on the walls, reglazed the tubs, and cleaned the carpets. The in-room phones still had the original Days Inn placard around their rotary dials.

  Gus walked into the lobby. He noticed the attendant, a man of about three hundred pounds, was watching TV. Gus stopped at the front desk and waited. After a long minute, he rang the bell and then rested his palms on the counter.

  The attendant turned around. “Gus, my man, whaz-up?”

  “My man . . . ,” Gus repeated. “Did you mail my letter . . . my man?”

  “That greasy thing? I’d be surprised if the postman would touch it, what with all them anthrax scares.” He leaned over and checked the slot for outgoing mail. “Well, look at that . . . yes-sir-ee, Bob. It’s gone.”

  Gus’s head jerked to the left, then the right. “Bob? I’m Gus.”

  He laughed. He turned back to his show. “Chill, my man. It’s just a saying.”

  Gus considered this. He pulled on his beard as he walked toward his room. “A saying . . . just a saying . . . we’re all just saying . . . my man.”

  Gus returned to his room. He opened the door and noticed the bed had been made. Puzzled, he looked at the door to see if the Do Not Disturb sign was still hanging from the handle. It was. With a grunt, he closed the door.

  Once inside, he turned off the noisy air conditioner, pulled back the tattered drapes, opened the window, and lingered by the screen for a moment. A blanket of soft, black clouds muzzled the moon, choking off most of its dim reflection. The sound of a passing truck on Easton Road interrupted the chorus of crickets.

  He wandered over to the floor lamp and clicked it off. He moved toward the bed and, with a click, turned off the wall-mounted lamp to the left of the headboard. A sodium-vapor streetlight at the edge of the parking lot cast a wisp of light into his otherwise dark space.

  He sat down on the edge of the queen-size bed, removed his shoes, and, without undressing further, lay on top of the covers. His head fell against the pillow. In the near darkness he folded his hands across his chest and stared at the barely visible cottage cheese–like formations on the ceiling.

  It was nice of them to have provided a hotel, such as it was. Had it really been almost two months since he first checked in? The place was starting to feel like home.

  Home.

  It had been years since he’d had a home.

  Back in Maryland.

  Back where it had all started.

  And ended.

  Back before they took it all away. He tried to picture his mansion in Annapolis, Maryland, home for the better part of twenty years, but nothing came. He was losing his mind, that much was sure. He even had difficulty recalling his ex-wife’s face. In an odd sort of way, he couldn’t remember the things he loved, just the things he hated.

  He had lost his home.

  He had lost his wife.

  He had lost his career.

  And now he was losing his marbles.

  If only he could lose the guilt.

  Gus closed his eyes, as if doing so would shut out the past. Within moments, he struggled to control his breathing as the memories, like a parade, marched into his mind.

  He was in his late twenties, an idealist, and fresh out of medical school when he met and married his wife, Vikki, a hippie leftover who became a women’s rights activist. He remembered her excitement when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its verdict in the Roe v. Wade case, which happened to coincide with the year he received his medical certification.

  At the urging of Vikki, and not wanting to disappoint his new bride, he had opened the first women’s health clinic in Annapolis to provide women a safe, professional environment to termina
te their unwanted pregnancies. With the blessing of the law, he was convinced he was acting in the best interest of women.

  Business had been good.

  Almost too good.

  Within three years, it was so good, he couldn’t keep up with the demand.

  Over a heaping plate of spicy wings and beer, he had explained his dilemma to a former college roommate, Victor Graham. Vic, who had graduated with a marketing degree, worked across town in his parents’ funeral home where, as Vic used to joke, people were dying to get in.

  Gus couldn’t recall whether it had been his or Vic’s idea to become partners. It didn’t matter. Gus never should have compromised his training, his ideals, and his medical practice by opening the door to Vic. Even now, Gus dragged with him the weight of that fateful decision like a ball and chain around his legs.

  By the end of the meal, Vic had convinced Gus to show him the ropes. After all, Vic had argued, how difficult would it be to do the same thing ten times an hour? This wasn’t like brain surgery. When Gus balked, citing the need for a medical license, Vic had said, “As if anybody needs to know—besides, we have yours hanging on the wall. That’s good enough.”

  Vic had proved to be a fast study, a hard worker, and a skilled liar. It was Vic who cooked up a scheme to advertise Gus’s clinic under thirty different names in order to attract different segments of the market— with all the phone numbers linked to one central facility.

  Vic had been quick to give a five-dollar incentive to the clinic’s phone operators for each client they successfully talked into a procedure. He had posted signs on each phone that read, “The call you miss, our competition gets.” And it was Vic who had hatched the idea of the low-dose birth-control pills to “stimulate repeat business.”

  The best part, according to Vic, was that they had become millionaires by age thirty. To top it off, Vic had devised a system where they were paid in cash at the end of each day for the number of pregnancies terminated.

  Once again, Vic had beat the system.

  Cash was king.

  And, with no W-2 forms, no 1099 forms, and no set of official figures turned in to the IRS, they could report whatever income they wanted and avoid paying added income taxes.

  Vic was spinning out of control, and Gus knew it but didn’t put the brakes on him. Half the time, Gus found himself warning Vic to slow down, to be more precise when determining the gestational age of the fetus—or, during the pelvic examination, to make sure the woman was even pregnant.

  Vic wouldn’t hear of it.

  He was too busy overcharging the government for Title X funds, the taxpayer funds that were supposed to be used for the care of the poor. Vic cooked the books and soaked the government by billing it two to four times what a cash-paying customer was actually charged for the services. Who would ever know? The government was nothing more than a big, bloated, incompetent collection of bureaucrats.

  When the State of Maryland first investigated the clinic based upon a complaint filed with the Health and Human Services Department, Gus knew something drastic needed to be done.

  He immediately confronted Vic about the shady dealings.

  About the premature shredding of files.

  About falsifying vital signs, if providing them at all.

  About Vic’s pet dog who, on more than one occasion, licked the floor clean at the end of a day.

  Vic, who had become so cocky and so verbally abusive even members of the staff were complaining, dismissed the whole inquiry as a joke. Vic hired the most expensive lawyer in town, and the charges were dismissed. He returned to business as usual and dreamed of franchising the clinic.

  Gus couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he had snapped. But somewhere along the way, Vic’s arguments about women’s rights, freedom of choice, and compassionate care got lost in the business of making money.

  Big money. Blood money.

  Back then and late at night, in the rare moments when he wasn’t reaching for a bottle of alcohol to escape, Gus conceded that the fight over Roe v. Wade was really about preserving a way of life for an industry—his industry—one that profited from the pain of those it served.

  Although he didn’t consider himself to be pro-life, he couldn’t live with the dishonesty of his own idealism any longer. He had lost all respect for his profession and didn’t want to be associated with it any longer.

  That realization, together with an out-of-control partner, was the final straw. Gus ended his partnership with Vic and left the business in order to take some time to rethink his priorities.

  Vic made sure that wasn’t an option.

  Vic phoned in an anonymous tip to the IRS about Gus’s unpaid back taxes. Overnight, the IRS seized Gus’s home, boat, and cars, and froze his stocks and bank accounts. Stunned and wounded by the sudden loss of everything she had, Vikki left Gus.

  Homeless, Gus took to the streets where, for the better part of a decade, he somehow survived as he followed the movements of Vic, who ran from the law in Maryland, to Delaware, and then to Pennsylvania.

  But when Gus went to collect a Social Security check in Philadelphia, the IRS, like a six-hundred-pound gorilla, ambushed him. They threatened him with a heavy jail sentence unless he cooperated by turning on his old partner.

  Gus rolled to his side and, with his back to the window, curled up into the fetal position.

  What he wouldn’t give for a little peace of mind.

  Or just one peaceful night’s sleep.

  And yet somehow he believed the nightmare would be over any day now. It had to be. He was sure of it. Once the truth about Victor Graham was revealed and the IRS goons were finally off his back, he’d be free.

  Gus closed his eyes. It felt good to be off his feet. His shoes had several holes in the bottom, and a blister was forming on his right big toe. With a tug, he pulled a pillow from underneath the covers and snuggled it against his chest. The scent of a freshly washed pillowcase greeted his nose. He felt the tension start to drain from his limbs, and his breathing slowed. Even the burning sensation from behind his tired eyes seemed to cool.

  Eyes still closed, he rolled over onto his other side, facing the window. As he shifted his weight on the bed, the pillow fell over the edge and onto the floor.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” a voice said from somewhere in the darkness.

  About all Gus caught was a glimpse of the silhouette of his assailant before the pillow was shoved, with the force of a trash compactor, over his face. Strong arms held the pillow in place, his mouth and nose buried. His mind raced for an explanation.

  This had to be one of the wrong people.

  Gus kicked and twisted his tired legs, trying to break free. His heart beat wildly at the unexpected attack. Like a crazed animal, Gus clawed at the pillow. His lungs burned, starved for even an ounce of precious air.

  Through the layers of polyester filling that encased his world, he heard a muff led voice say, “I’m going to release you in a moment. I don’t want to hear even a peep—or I will kill you.”

  Gus struggled for another couple of seconds. On the verge of passing out, he fell deathly still. He waited for what felt like an eternity before the pillow was raised. He gulped air like a thirsty man gulps water in the desert. As his lungs worked overtime to replenish the stolen breaths, he tried to focus on the towering figure over him.

  The invader was dressed in black and wore a ski mask over his face. He stood motionless, ready to pounce again, of that Gus was sure. Out of the corner of his eye, a glint of light from the reluctant moon reflected off an object in the man’s hand.

  At first the item hadn’t registered.

  He squinted. No mistake now.

  A scalpel.

  Not much of a weapon for a layman. But, as Gus knew all too well, in the hands of a trained person, the thin, sharp blade might as well be a butcher’s knife.

  “Roll over, facedown,” the man commanded.

  With a yank, the mugger wrapped a blindfold aroun
d Gus’s head. He pulled the bandaging tighter before tying a knot at the back of his head. Gus felt his temples throbbing against the bindings.

  The assailant jerked Gus’s arms backward. “Don’t move,” he said, now taping together his wrists with duct tape. Gus groaned as the hair on the back of his hands was snagged by the tape adhesive. Gus, still facedown on the bed, heard another strip of tape being pulled from the roll.

  “Answer me this,” the man said in a low, cold tone. “Where’s the videotape?”

  Gus, his nose smashed against the bed, mumbled an answer through his beard, its thicket of hairs soaked with a mixture of sweat and saliva.

  The man smacked the side of Gus’s head. The spot where his hand made contact stung as if attacked by hornets. “Speak up when I ask you a question.”

  Gus wanted to swallow, but no moisture remained in his throat. “Mail. I . . . mailed.”

  “You stupid, worthless bum.”

  Another smack, this time to the base of the neck. A gush of air escaped Gus’s open mouth.

  “Where did you mail it?”

  “Newspaper . . . up the street . . . the right people.”

  Gus knew there was no point hiding the truth. Not from this man. He knew the intruder had to be Victor Graham. In fact, Gus had figured it would be only a matter of time before Vic came here to get the video after what Gus had said in his letter. Oddly, he had almost hoped Vic would come, make a scene, and even kidnap him.

  What better way to prove the man’s guilt.

  He got his wish.

  Dr. Graham used the tape to muzzle Gus’s mouth. He seized Gus by the arm and, with a pull, said, “Stand up, scumbag. We’re going for a drive.”

  Gus, blindfolded, gagged, and with his hands tied together at the wrists, shuffled forward, shoeless. He heard the door to the room open. He sensed Vic standing still by the door, probably to make sure nobody was around.

  With a sudden pull on his arm, Gus lurched forward, stumbling blindly into the hall. More prodding. They turned left and then outside through a side entrance. They went a few steps more and then halted as Vic, still holding his arm, abruptly stopped.

  A car door opened.

  “Get in.”

  Gus stumbled into the seat. Pain shot though his shoulder blades as his arms, still bound behind him, were wedged against the seat. The door closed. Gus felt Victor’s face hovering like a gnat next to his right ear. Vic spoke just above a whisper.