issue with the “Vike” when I was recovering from the shooting. But at this point I couldn’t rule it out.
“So imagine you keep coming back,” she said. “You keep telling the doctor that your back isn’t better yet. The doctor has no way of knowing how bad your back really feels…”
“So he keeps giving me the drugs,” I said. “But eventually he’ll start to suspect something.”
“Eventually, yes. Of course. So maybe he finds some reason to give you a blood test. If you’ve got an abnormally high level of the drug in your system, he’ll know that you’re abusing them.”
“I understand what you’re saying. Believe me. I don’t know who we’re talking about, and I guess I’m not supposed to even ask. But what does this have to do with me? Or Vinnie?”
She looked around the room. Then she lowered her voice a little bit and delivered the punch line. “What if the drug test was perfectly clean?”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Clean test. No drugs at all. Not a trace.”
I thought about it for a moment. “So I’m not taking the drugs at all…Even though I keep asking for them… I’m either giving them to someone else or-”
“Stop right there,” she said. “You don’t even have to say it.”
“Okay. So, look…If this is happening, you need to tell somebody about it. Not me. Not Vinnie. You tell whoever’s in charge of the clinic, and you tell the police.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
She shot Vinnie a quick glance. “I told this to Vinnie because I thought he could help. It was his choice to involve you. If he wants to tell you anything else, that’s up to him. But I’m done here.”
She started to get up from the booth, stopped herself, and sat down again.
“One thing you have to understand,” she said. “These are serious drugs, and if you become dependent on them, you’ll do anything to keep getting them. Do you understand what I’m saying? You’ll do anything.”
“Terry, I understand. I’m just trying to-”
“If it was the patient who had the problem, then we’d be able to do something directly. The pressure would be on us to fix it, because we’re the ones supplying the drugs. You follow me? But if it’s somebody else out there, somebody we don’t even know…Then it’s out of our control. And the pressure gets put on the person who’s passing along the pills. They’re stuck right in the middle.”
This time she got up for good.
“Right in the middle,” she said. “And God help them.”
Then she was out the door.
A few minutes later, we were out the door, too. Vinnie’s truck is a lot newer and a lot cleaner than mine, but the real reason he was driving was because he was the only one who knew where we were going next. Once again, I was just along for the ride.
It was late in the day now. Dark gray instead of light gray, and a few degrees colder. It looked like it was going to start raining again any second.
“At some point,” I said, “you’re going to tell me where we’re going next, right?”
“You can probably figure it out.” He was taking us due north, to the heart of the Soo.
“We’re gonna meet the middleman. Or is it the middlewoman? Will you tell me that much, at least?”
“Her name is Caroline.”
“Okay. How do you know her?”
“She works at Bay Mills. She wants to deal blackjack someday.”
“Why does she live here in town?”
“She’s not a Bay Mills member. She’s Sault.”
“Wait, if she’s a Sault member-”
“She was working at the Kewadin,” he said, “but she ran into some trouble there. So she came over to Bay Mills.”
“Ran into some trouble?”
“She had a drinking problem. Now she’s clean. But she sort of wore out her welcome there, so we took her on at our place. It actually happens quite a bit. Both ways. I know a few Bay Mills people who work at the Kewadin now.”
“Despite the rivalry?”
“We’re all part of the same family. We take care of each other, no matter what.”
That much I didn’t doubt. I’d seen it in action enough times to know. Apparently I was about to see it yet again.
“So we’re going to go see this Caroline,” I said. “So tell me, why exactly am I part of this? Aside from being an all-around good guy to ride along with you…”
“Because I promised you,” he said. He kept his eyes straight ahead as we drove down the quiet, dark streets.
“Promised me what?”
“That I wouldn’t do anything stupid without you.”
“This is good. I’m glad you take everything I say so literally.”
“There’s another reason.”
“What’s that?”
“You know about this stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Painkillers. Vicodin.”
I looked over at him. “Are you serious?”
“Let me ask you this… Would you recognize if somebody was high on Vicodin?”
This is great, I thought. All of a sudden I’m the consultant from the Betty Ford Clinic.
“First of all,” I said, “you don’t really get high on it. It’s more like you get…I don’t know…you get ‘warm’ on it.”
“Warm?”
“That’s the best word I can think of. It just makes everything feel…good. Like you’re wrapped up in a security blanket.”
“What happens if it wears off? And you don’t have any more pills?”
“Well, you understand, I never got to the point where it was a huge issue. I had a little thing with it, way back when. After I got shot and it felt like my whole life was falling apart.”
“Okay, but you can imagine-”
“I can imagine that it would be hell. If you were really hooked on it, it would be like somebody taking away your oxygen.”
“The guys from the boat,” he said. “Do you think there’s a chance at least one of them is taking this stuff?”
“I was wondering when we’d get around to them.”
“They were with Caroline last night. Right before I threw them out.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I’m telling you now. That’s what I was checking out today. I knew Terry’s been working at the clinic, so she was the first person I went to see. I think she was waiting to tell somebody.”
I shook my head at that one. I didn’t say what I was thinking. I didn’t have to.
“You heard her,” Vinnie said. “Caroline could be caught right in the middle here. Those guys could really hurt her. I know it. Did you look in their eyes today?”
“All the more reason-”
“To send her to prison for selling drugs?”
“If what you’re saying is true, then these guys are using her. She’ll get off easy.”
“If they don’t kill her, and if the judge doesn’t look at her prior record.”
“You said she had a drinking problem.”
“That was one of her problems,” he said. “She’s had others.”
