Fever Pitch

Sepia
and I drove to the bus station. We had no trouble at all finding Locker 99 or getting inside of it. We found two large photo albums. One Photo album had photos of , well what else...Eric Derricote playing football in High school and in college...and photos of him at tryouts for the Giants ,Redskins and Patriots. There was a surprising photo of Him and Cock Robbins and someone both of us knew...Jean Cokely....Sepia's mother....now imprisoned for masterminding a series of murders last year. This photo was taken when Cock Robbins and Sepia's mother were dating. This was the same time that Sepia and Cock Robbins were also dating. Not surprising that both men, so alike..would know each other!
Other photos included Eric and Lolita and several other women, some now deceased, who Cock had also been dating. The two men went through some of the same women also.

"Sepia...you were dating Cock around this time...He never mentioned Eric?" I asked.

"No...never...but I see he mentioned him to my mama.." she said derisively.

Knowing how she still felt about Cock Robbins dating her and her mother at the same time and being partially responsible for her mother's murderous plot and imprisonment, I decided to change the subject by opening the second book..The one that was on the bottom.

This book had photos of Eric and Lolita, Eric and the Asian chick, Kathy Oh and another voluptuous Black woman who I guessed was Odessa Mason, nude and in various sexual positions. Sepia turned her head in disgust, but I kept peering through the pages...It ,uh was part of the case!

There was a small black book that had names and phone numbers and addresses in it of people of interest that I guess , Eric wanted me to talk to. The first of whom was a guy named Rubin
Dowell. A white guy and an attorney.

Sepia drove , while I peered through the photographs again and again. She looked at me and seemed to just shake her head in disgust. I hope she understood that this was part of the case.
When we got to Dowell's house...the first thing I noticed was that the door was wide open....This didn't look well and when we entered....both Sepia and I could see that the place was a mess...Someone had been here before and had tossed the place..The safe was empty, his drawers were opened and empty, contents spilled all over the floor and in the back room ,laying on the floor with a nice neat round bullet hole in his temple was a white man ,who I suppose was Rubin Dowell. Very,very dead.

I didn't have to tell Sepia..She followed me and we both got the hell out of there, making sure we wiped down anything we had touched. What started out as a simple poisoning, possibly done by a jealous lover had turned into something a little more. We headed to the hospital to talk to Eric.

"That's not going to be possible , Mr...uh what did you say your name was?" said the head Doctor.

"Kevin...Kevin Morris." I said.

"You his next of kin?" He asked.

"Yes ." I lied.

"Well, his fever is off the charts...he should be dead...high as that fever is and he's sweating so profusely that we have had to change the sheets three times...Every last bit of his hair has fallen out and he has lost weight at an alarming rate." said the doctor.

"What is this? How did he get like this? " asked Sepia.

"Well, I haven't seen anything like this ever...Not here..Not in the United States.. Your friend has been poisoned by a chemical agent known only as "Agent Purple" ..but here is the funny thing.
The Russians used to use this ,in fact, they were the only ones...and it was one of the weapons of mass destruction, banned by the UN at the World Peace Conference , which I and several U.S. Doctors attended last year." he said.

"So you're saying this guy here was poisoned by the Russians?" I asked.

"No..No..but when they banned it..we suspected that a rogue part of the old KGB might have put it on the Black Market to be sold. Somebody could have ordered this on line...but they would have to be a Doctor...someone who knew just what they were ordering...No Street punk would even know of it's existence." He said.

"How did this get into Eric?" I asked.

"It could have been cooked into his food....or slipped into his drink....and it had to be done within the last four days.....the last week..." said the Doctor.

"We were all on a cruise together about two months ago....it couldn't have happened on the ship or in the islands ?" asked Sepia....which was a very good question, I question I was thinking of asking myself.

"No...this was done by somebody within the last week...If it had been done two months or two weeks ago, he'd be dead by now." said the Doctor.

"Can I see Him, can I ask him some questions?" I said.

"No, not until we break this fever....We are using anti-biotics and other medicines to halt the speed of the chemical and we have him in a deep freeze unit right now, trying to stabilize him...
but he's in bad shape...whoever did this to him wanted him dead and wanted him to suffer..your
boy here must have really pissed somebody off." said the Doctor.

"Yeah..seems like he had a knack for doing that." I said as Sepia and I turned and walked out of the hospital.

"So what do we do next?" she asked.

"I'm going to drive by that lawyer's house again.....see if anybody is stirring around..then I'm gonna call Chess." I said.

"Chess? What for?" she asked.

"You'll see." I said.

I called Chess and he and Chris drove up behind me, about a block from Dowell's house. The Police had already discovered the body and had the place blocked off, while they pulled the body out and Homicide detectives surrounded the place. I walked over to Chess's car.

"Hi Chess...What's happenin Chris?" I said as we greeted each other.

"Man, can you set up a meeting between me and Fathead?" I asked.

"Yeah,I suppose we can, but what's this about?" asked Chris.

"I need to find a guy... a Black Market kind of guy who might be peddlin a foreign substance..a deadly foreign substance."I said.

"Aww man, you talkin some James Bond type stuff...Fathead don't know nothing like that." laughed Chess.

"Yeah man, He thinks the KGB is a new cable network...You need to be talkin to me..Cause when I was in the game, I was aware of everybody and everything Kev." said Chris Thompson.

"Here's the long and short....A guy I know has been poisoned....He aint dead yet, but he's fadin fast and the Doc at the hospital told me that it's WMD that only the Russian's used...and that it was ordered on line or purchased through the black market by someone well connected or a doctor." I said.

"So what does that poor dead shyster have to do with this?"asked Chess.

"Him? He was the poisoned guy's lawyer...Somebody tossed the joint...they were looking for something..I don't know what." I said.

"You need to find a guy we call "Chemical Ali Brown" He deals in that stuff...He's connected to the Russians...He don't roll with us like that. He won't talk to you Kevin, We'll send Smooth over to help you...and some more muscle if you need it." said Chris.

"Send him...I got a tight crew that can help me out too." I added.

"I hope you aint talkin bout Clerow and The Deacon and Cock Robbins...They aint the ones for this kind of caper...Kev, Chemical Ali Brown is a stone cold killer..." said Chris.

"I aint talkin bout them either..I got two ex-Marines and another person who's pretty good with a gun that I use for heavy lifting." I said.

"Oh cool...okay..I'll send Smooth over in the morning...We'll meet up in Josie's, okay?" said Chris.

"Cool beans...now get out of here...cops are all over this peice." I added.

"You aint gotta tell us twice...Peace out Kev." said Chess as he and Chris pulled off.

I got back in the car...Sepia looked at me....

"Well , what now?" she said.

I rubbed her legs, smiled at her and said-

"We've done all we can do today....right now, we are going and get something to eat..then we are going home and get some rest...Tomorrow I'm gonna see a man about a WMD." I said as Sepia took the wheel and we pulled off.


(To Be Continued.......)