Cafe Underground Presents
It was noon when they got to Andi's car and headed east over the river.
"Hungry?" Lena asked conversationally, she chewed a broken fingernail.
"Not particularly." Andi mumbled.
"How about visiting your mom?"
Andi nodded, but a profound silence expanded about a mile in all directions. The knots taking up residence in her stomach and throat began wringing themselves tight. She glanced over to Lena, then back to the road.
A block later she turned right and glanced over again. "I’m OK." A whisper was all she could muster.
As they pulled in front of the apartment house Andi felt the blood in her face and ears, she was weak and knew that if she held out her hand it would shake. She noticed that there wasn't an ambulance or morgue wagon out front--then she kicked herself for noticing.
They passed through into the cool hallway and called "Hello?" as they opened the apartment's door.
Nancy called out from the kitchen, she sounded relieved. "Come in, I'm glad you got my message." She wiped her hands with a cup towel and crossed swiftly to the bedroom.
Andi and Lena followed silently behind, exchanging a glance. “Message?” Lena whispered.
Nancy stood at the edge of the bed with a hand on the unconscious form under sheet, talking in the professional tone of a nurse giving report. "Yesterday afternoon she asked me to stop IV fluids and hasn’t had any oral fluid since then. We’d talked enough for me to know she was making the decision. She thought it easiest on you if she just went ahead and asked me not to say anything until she was on her way. I've given pain medicine with a syringe. This morning she was in a normal sleep, but two hours ago hour ago she slid into coma. That was when I called and left the message." She looked up, her concern in her eyes if not in her voice. "She's not suffering now at all."
A million anxious thoughts strafed Andi's mind--re-affixing the IV--calling 911, doing anything at all to change things. But she stood, feet glued to the floor, her heart aching, knowing there was nothing to do be done but wait.
Her mother had been explicit, as she always had been. There'd be no intervention, no heroic measures, no call to 911. Andi wished there something to do; she took her mother's thin hand, it seemed to have no weight, the limp fingers could have been soap bubbles, only the slight tug of the wrist connecting the arm gave substance.
She sank to her knees holding the hand, wishing she could cry, wishing for something profound to say, some thought that could sum things up and give meaning. "Mom." she said, looking up hopeful into the pale, wrinkled face. Her mothers face was clean, her eyes shut and she was arranged on her back, legs straight, both arms over the top of a clean, starched sheet. It was Nancy's work no doubt, done after her mother had slipped into her coma; and obviously for her, not her mother.
They held that pose like a tableau for almost fifteen minutes, as focused as if it were meditation. Then doorbell rang. Nancy exited as if filling a priestly duty, her eyes to the floor as she passed behind them.
It was Roshi Sarah, Doris Wicksham's long-time friend. After a few whispered words in the living room she came into the bedroom.
Andi suddenly felt silly kneeling on the floor. She rose self-consciously, still holding her mother's limp hand. "She." Andi tried to say something, but her voice gave out in a croak and her mind couldn't hold anything long enough to try again. Her eyes met Sarah's and hung briefly.
Sarah and her mother had known each other for decades. A fixture in Pacific Northwest Zen circles, Sarah’d known Lena ten years; through Lena’s training as a lay priest--long before she met Andi and stepped into Andi’s life. Andi could remember her coming to visit both in street clothes and Buddhist robes since she was a girl, now she was dressed in a casual business suit--evidently in midst of her day-job.
"I’ve been coming by every day or so." Sarah smiled.
Andi looked up again, asking without moving her lips.
"She knew her place within this miracle. She knew only this body would die. That of her with you and Cinny and Lena will live." Sarah smiled. "She loves you very much."
"What do we do now." Andi's heart ached. She looked from Sarah to Nancy.
"Go on about your life." smiled Sarah. "It's what she wanted. Rabbi Aryeh'll be here in a while. We'll stay maybe forty minutes to share some prayers that might help her let go. It might take a few days to die...she's a tough old bird." Roshi Sarah's eyes were filled with undimmed love for her friend. "She'd hate it if any of us waited around by her bedside." Her palms came together and she bowed slightly in dismissal.
"Someone will call you." reassured Nancy, nodding toward the door. “She asked for it to go this way.”
Andi wasn't interested in lunch; all she wanted to do was go home and sleep--wishing she had a drug strong enough to make it all go away. The way she felt, she'd settle for seventy-two hours of sleep.
Lena tucked her in bed, pulled the blinds and retreated to the kitchen for a peanut butter sandwich and glass of iced tea. Then, as Andi napped, she called Tanya to discuss dinner plans, explaining why they couldn't guarantee a time and promising fresh fruit for garnish if they made it by at all. She was still sitting there when Francois called on Andi's cellphone.
It took three buzzing rings of frantic searching to find it in a coat pocket at the head of the stairs. "Yeah?" she answered, momentarily out of breath.
"Andi?" Francois asked, a bit confused.
"No, it's Lena. She's napping. What do you want?"
"Scramble." he murmured.
There was a click in her ear. She looked across to the far wall to see the time, set the dials and repeated, "Yeah?"
"I traced the Janus Chemical stuff. It's quite a scheme, set up so the nebbishes pushing paper would ever guess." He was excited, speaking fast, emitting enough ebullient energy to light a school.
"Do I need to take notes?" Lena asked cautiously.
"No, just listen. Andi'll want the general idea. I just need to tell someone. I've been on it almost twenty hours and it all came together in the last twenty minutes."
Lena could imagine him in his office, a smile bursting his face and his feet on his desk. She leaned back in her chair put her feet on the kitchen table. "Sounds neat." she encouraged. "So tell."
"Janus buys toxic waste for pennies calling it a compound specially formulated to include whatever nasty chemicals happens to be in it. Then, Janus sells the stuff to an intermediary that passes it on to a company stockpiling it in Utah. There's a hint that they use an abandoned mine. Both companies are owned by Sauturne and her executives They don't ever bother to hide it, the one in Utah even advertises the compounds for sale, though not surprisingly, they haven't sold a drop. My guess is that they'll eventually throw up their hands, say ‘Oh well, it was a bad idea’ and go bankrupt, leaving the rest of us to pick up the clean-up.”
“How can they do that?”
“Because they’re claiming it’s a useful product. Fifteen years from now those drums are liable to be listed as an asset in bankruptcy court. Somebody will buy the land and find the stuff gathering dust. By then it'll be nearly impossible to track and fix blame. It's a doozie of a scheme."
"Why." Lena asked dryly.
"Why what?" Francois returned defensively.
"Why is Janus doing it? They were being paid to haul the stuff away before. Makes no sense that they buy it now...even cheap."
"Ahhh...astute business mind you have, my dear. I knew there was a reason besides lust that Andi’s with you. Since everybody’s owned by Sauturne, they have a lock on both buying from and selling stuff to Riparian companies; an exclusive distributorship with millions of dollars of sales and it's all computer bookkeeping. Say A&C orders a barrel of soap...the paperwork shows some grossly inflated list-price minus a substantial discount...you know how that works?"
"Of course." Lena assured him.
"Well, in Janus’s software there's a hidden computation that keeps a running balance that it collects by changing the discount actually charged for everything from solvents to toilet paper. Where A&C used to pay a hundred and eighty dollars a barrel of soap, now they pay two-hundred and thirty.”
Lena murmured “Uh huh...” and scrambled frantically for pencil and paper.
“OK. That type of discount is standard issue bookkeeping and the clerks never know what anything's supposed to cost. Titan or A&C pay the higher price without complaint and their hazardous waste disappears as a theoretically profit making product. Everybody's happy...all the numbers add up and because they aren't mislabeling anything it's technically not even fraud." Francois sounded honestly impressed.
"That's depressing."
"The bookkeeping change, the hidden accounts and the program controling the discount percentage were brought in when they discontinued their waste handling. It matches to the day." Francois sighed. "It’s brilliant. Nobody’ll complain and what legitimate reason would the cops ever have to pull apart all that bookkeeping code? A bush league geek couldn’t do it, it's really obscure. It’s no surprise they figure they’re safe."
An stretch of silence long enough to whip eggs for an omelet followed. Then Lena put in. "I got no answers. What do we do?"
"That's the problem. On the surface at least it's probably legal. Maybe, with a lot of effort, somebody might prove that toxic disposal laws have been broken.”
“But the company buying the stuff...”
“The Utah company's business sense is questionable, but it's not against the law to make bad business decisions. Riparian itself is doing everything above board...even advertizing for God’s sake, so I don't know if conspiracy charges could hold and on the surface there's no victim so no crime right now."
"But there will be when the barrels rust out and the Utah company's bankrupt." Lena observed.
"Well, sure...but that's not now."
There was silence on the line as Lena struggled futilely to figure another angle. "It's a drag." she finally offered with a sigh.
"Yeah." Francois replied, his initial enthusiasm had worn off and he sounded defeated too.
"Andi's mother's dying." Lena murmured. Might as well get all the bad news out at once.
"I heard." Francois's voice was hushed.
"She went into a coma today."
"Oh." There was a long moment when the light static in the phone line seemed to fill the universe. "How's Andi?"
"About as could be expected." Lena blinked back tears and took a breath to fight the sigh her lungs were demanding.
"Let me know." He said quietly. "There's a lot more but it's not as interesting. We'll talk later."
"Sure. I'll tell Andi when she wakes." She pushed the off button and set the phone on the table.
"Tell me what?" Andi appeared at the kitchen door with pillow hair and bleary eyes.
"It was Francois. You could have spoken to him."
Andi waved her hand to dispel any thought of it. "What'd he want?" She pulled a chair next to Lena and sat leaning against her, still half-asleep.
"He figured where the hazardous waste is going and how they do it. The bad news is that its ingenious and depressing...maybe legal. Sounds like it's out of our league."
Andi scrunched her forehead, then relaxed. "Oh."
Lena stroked Andi's hair with her hand. "We have dinner at Tanya and Ramirez's tonight if you feel up to it."
"I'm up to it. No problem. How long was I sleeping?"
"Only an hour. How do you feel?"
Andi stretched and yawned. "Like I was dragged through storm drains by my heart."
Lena didn't answer as she massaged Andi's shoulders--those feelings might get worse before it was over.
Through the next three hours, Andi paced from kitchen to front room and back, unable to settle down and work. She was staring blankly at the bookcase when Francois called again. Andi answered and punched in the scrambler code. "Yeah?" she said, surprising herself at the bitterness in her voice.
"I'm sorry about your mom." Francois opened.
"Thanks." Andi returned grudgingly. Even well-meaning remarks seemed like tasteless, empty platitudes. She even despised herself for the shallowness of saying "thanks."
"This can wait." he offered.
"No." With any luck she could bury herself in work; listening seemed about all she was good for. "Lena said you chased down Janus's toxic waste."
"It's pretty clear. It’s obvious their management team of half-assed lawyers put it together...it's set up with supporting props that are nothing but window dressing."
"Like what?" Andi settled sideways on the couch and pulled her feet up.
"The intermediary doesn’t even have a full time employee. It’s nothing but a ream of letterhead registered with the board of corporations. And, not only does the company in Utah advertise their crap as if it was something useful, but Janus and Titan have done token adds as well. They've even pasted together an industry organization to lend it all credibility."
"Ramone Bodega tried to explain it." Andi noted quietly. "But try from the top explaining why toxic waste isn't toxic waste."
Francois paused a moment and Andi glanced out the window. He started by saying, "In environmental law, things like waste aren’t defined by what they are...things are defined by their place in the economy." After another pause giving time for her to respond, he continued. "If your table-scraps can be sold as chicken feed, by definition they aren't garbage. They're chicken feed. It's a solid gold loop-hole industries have probably been exploiting for years, but trade secrets laws let them hide that sort of thing."
It took a moment for Andi to take that in. "But toxic is toxic, right? Hazardous waste is hazardous waste?"
"No, sorry to disillusion you, that ain't so. It's only nasty chemical parts and parts are only parts." He was almost apologetic. "They're doing it in the open, labeling the stuff with chemical names that take half a page to list. It's exactly what they were paying big bucks to have hauled to a class one chemical dump, but now they claim it's a product."
"American marketing and ingenuity." Andi quipped morbidly.
"Making this country great." returned Francois with a sigh. There was a long silence on the line.
"Is there anything else?" asked Andi responsibly.
"I've hacked a virtual freeway into Riparian's mainframe." He mentioned it like an after thought. "Made a backdoor using their in-house network, ran it parallel to the access their sys-op uses so it’s all but invisible. We’ve got a straight shot into their VAX, I’ve installed myself as an invisible super user, set up a utility ignoring all the counts that nudge up as I work. I've got access to everything, hidden files, encryption. Everything."
He was so excited, Andi couldn't see how he kept from bringing it up first thing. "So, tell me what you know." She settled back, ready to listen awhile.
"First thing I did was pull out the account codes for materials and contractors so we can make sense of their bookkeeping. Then I went for hidden files, using a resident search program with our list of key words, but got such a flood all I could do was glance through it."
"Neat." Andi encouraged.
"Exporting that quantity was going to be a problem, so I set it up through regular encrypted channels to the three Mardell phone numbers I took off line, shunting the data to a cache at PSU. If anybody catches the transfer, it'll look like Mardell is raiding Riparian to set up a double-cross."
"You sure?"
"Output cycles on and on every ten minutes or so. Nobody’ll even notice. The PSU dump gets bounced twice. We’ll get away clean."
"Famous last words." Andi teased humorlessly.
"There’s a mountain of stuff to look through. The best place to stick what you want is in Adolf." Francois was not amused.
"Can I look through it now?"
Francois coughed. "Your security sucks. Nine or ten months ago that crazy woman who shot your client broke in? How much trouble do you think it'll be for Riparian's goons?"
"Come on. We’ll keep it on Adolf." Andi pleaded.
"OK." he relented. "What flavor of information do you want? There's DEQ, Mardell, hazmat and oversight. There's more stuff in each than you’ll look through in a year. How about a gift sampler with a handful of each?"
Andi laughed, "Who could resist? Does it come with nuts as well as soft centers?"
"It's take what you get. If I had time to look through it, we wouldn't have the problem. But this is the dirtiest of the inner dirt. Beside Sauturne and her top VP's, I’m the only one with access. I was going to dump their entire works onto Snowden’s new tape storage, but I don't have a way to get the machine in here."
"Snowden got a little ahead of himself?" Andi chuckled.
"Typical OHSU academic. Head in the clouds." Francois laughed. "I'm glad to bring a little humor to your life. When do you want your gift pack?"
Andi thought a moment and looked at her watch. "We'll be off to Ramirez's...so I guess by tomorrow. I'll have Lena call."
"Fine and dandy, neighbor." Francois used his Mr. Roger's imitation. "Over and out."
Andi was still chuckling when she went into the kitchen to find Lena standing over the stove.
"You've recovered some of you humor." Lena observed.
"Just talked to Francois. He says he's stripping Riparian bare. What'cha making?"
"Sugar-lemon peel sauce to go with the grapefruit and gin dessert for Tanya's."
"The thing we did at Gloria's?" Andi asked with a grin.
"With a mint sprig for garnish." Lena rolled her eyes. "I already asked if we can spend the night."
The arrived at Ramirez and Tanya's at five thirty, met at the door with kisses and hugs and escorted to the living room where they did their usual division; Andi and Ramirez to the living room to choose music and Tanya and Lena to the kitchen to talk food and share a toke.
"I think the Riparian thing's going to blow wide open." Andi murmured casually. She ran a finger down the row of disks, pulling an old Talking Heads and handing it over while debating an even older Aretha Franklin.
"Aretha's good. Is it oldies night? What do you know that I don't?" He didn't even turn her way, just casually loaded the disks into the player.
"I know Robert Greg's partner's in crime. And witnesses seem to be coming out of the woodwork...the one who witnessed the DEQ guy’s killing and another who'll tell you the basement room at A&C where you’ll find Jimmy Tuft's broken teeth. I got a lead on a major amount of toxic waste getting shipped to Utah in a scam and, with a bit of luck, some dirt our state senator Hyde will find hard to scrape off."
"Major detective work, Wicksham." Ramirez returned quietly. "You know where Jimmy Hoffa and Anastasia Romanov are?"
"You professionals would be made redundant if I did it all." Andi returned sarcastically. "There's more you need to know, but I got a problem with Max's prime directive."
"Overstepped our bounds a little, did we?" he asked musically, accepting Miles Davis's All Blue without looking up.
"I'm getting access to computer files that will probably ice Riparian. The problem is that they might have been borrowed without express permission, so I'm not sure how to hand it over to the DA."
"Want a glass of wine?" Ramirez turned and smiled. "I got a nice dry merlot and a spicy zin...maybe something white? A pinot gris?" He started toward the kitchen.
It took Andi a moment to follow and three steps to catch up. "Were you listening?" she whispered urgently.
He smiled and raised his eyebrows. "Wine?"
"OK. Fine. The merlot." she shot him a glare and stepped into the kitchen shoulder to shoulder with him.
Lena and Tanya were giggling to each other by the stove. "Whoops...busted." Lena blurted, as they entered. She and Tanya turned around with chocolate on both lips and fingers.
"Can't leave the two of you alone for a minute..." Ramirez teased as he pulled a bottle from the wine rack and rummaged for a cork puller.
"Quality control. The lengths we go through to keep your deserts to the highest standards. And what do we get? Grief and abuse...the injustice." Tanya lifted her chocolate smeared hands in an appeal to heaven while trying to keep a straight face.
"Yeah. That's right...injustice." echoed Lena like a deacon crying "Amen."
"I can see you've already started your party. Do you ladies want a glass of merlot as well?"
"Of course." declared Lena self-righteously.
Ramirez shared a smile with Andi as he got down four glasses. Handing Andi hers, he snagged the bottle and they gracefully retired to the living room.
He settled himself at the end of the couch as Andi carefully sank into the rocker. He silently toasted to her health, sipped and confided, "Max's talked to the DA and Federal prosecutor, but he wants the DEQ witness under his protection before making commitments."
"Too bad." Andi tossed out the casually blunt observation. "He loses. Just because he wants something doesn't mean it makes sense for him to have it." She blinked and watched Ramirez feign nonchalance.
"He doesn't look at it that way." Ramirez held his glass up to the light and peered into it.
"He's a narrow-minded mini-Hitler with a self-discipline problem. The police force supports his fantasy that his priorities are the only ones that count."
Ramirez slouched down on the couch, pursing his lips as if deep in thought.
Andi gave him a minute to contemplate that truth before changing the subject. "Got advice on passing on possibly tainted evidence?"
Ramirez gave a stoic shrug and a lopsided smile. He raised a finger like a baton and lectured, "Standard police procedure is to plant it on somebody else and set them up on a different charge with it in possession. When they go down, the plant becomes evidence that's fair game against anybody...and they don't fight it because it's not relevant to their case."
"Dirty pool." Andi chastised.
He shook his head at her self-righteous tone. "You asked and that's how it's done. Whatever computer crime might slip you computer files is dirty pool too." He gave a little, tight-lipped nod as he made the point, then he contemplated the light through his wine again. "The issue really is how to pass on stuff and keep it credible. If it looks too much out of context, a lawyer with a correspondence school degree can show it to be as phoney as corporate morality. Where it’s found has to seem perfectly natural."
Andi stretched her legs and bobbed her toe in time to the music. There wasn’t much she could say without incriminating herself. She mused on the problem and savored the wine. Ramirez must have raised his price threshold or gotten an exceptional deal--the wine rolled in her mouth like warm fudge, with hints of fruit and oak and berries.
They listened to Miles Davis without bringing the subject up again, Ramirez was evidently willing to let her tell him what she could.
The dinner was its usual incredible experience. Tanya gave the impression that scrumptious food and exquisite presentation was little more than chopping vegetables and turning on the stove.
Andi answered questions about her mother and endured their commiseration, but quickly changed the subject.
Lena served their first desert, pouring two jiggers of iced gin over bowls of chilled grapefruit slices and liberally adding the lemon sauce. Tanya swooned, throwing Lena a kiss and raving that it was incredible.
Then the table was cleared and they got out dominos for Texas 42--a bit woozy and chattering excitedly as one tasty bit of gossip led into another.
Two games later, cheese, fruit and crackers were served with small glasses of a rich port. It seemed the sort of wood-paneled ritual old Cuban cigars had been made for. More dominos followed, then rounds of ma jong, then Tanya’s “chocolate heart attack.”
Lena and Tanya disappeared to the back porch, leaving Andi with Ramirez and another glass of port, "If Max pushes the witness protection, you'll have the case gift-wrapped. Don't you think that warrants a ‘thank you?’"
"You offering one-stop shopping? You find witnesses and arrange a lawyer before we even see their faces. Max sees that as interference worth ten days in county jail."
"Give me a break. Max would wring them out and leave 'em for the vultures if I didn't get Thompson involved."
"True." Ramirez answered evenly. He smiled indulgently and shrugged. "But there'll be a price to be paid. Max feels you’ve gotten the best of him."
Andi gave a sour look, then took off on a tangent. "If this toxic waste thing is what we think it is, it's a coup. The problem is that it might be legal."
Ramirez turned and raised his eyebrows. "I’m impressed. Your understanding of the law is getting sophisticated. Just because something's bad and immoral doesn't mean it's illegal. I deal with that problem every day."
"You used to admit that just because things were illegal, that didn't make 'em bad." She skewered him with a scowl. "And Max pulls things that are both bad and illegal and none of your brother cops say a word." She favored him with another glower, then changed it to a smile. "To the imperfection of the universe." She raised her glass of port.
"To imperfection. L'chayim." Ramirez saluted. Then they grinned at each other like a couple of four-year olds in a candy store.
Lena and Andi stayed late and welcomed Tanya’s offer to spend the night. The extra room had its own bath and shower, the bed was stocked with five fluffy pillows, a firm mattress and down comforter. It was like a night in a B&B with gracious hosts and breakfast of hot cereal, grapefruit, toast, cinnamon rolls, pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausages and coffee.
Ramirez went to answer the telephone. "What do you say we put ourselves up for adoption?" Lena pushed her plate away, dabbed her lips with a napkin and accepted a coffee refill.
"Let me think on it." returned Andi doubtfully. She was mentally ranking the morning's responsibilities--Sam, Janice Thompson, Francois and unavoidably, Nancy. She tapped her finger on the table and wondered how to get them out the door.
Ramirez strode in from the kitchen. "I've got to deal with Max over your witnesses." he rumbled, struggling into his coat.
"We’re taking off anyway." She popped to her feet and retrieved their coats and Lena's bag.
Lena looked up in dismay. "Already?" she whined playfully, "Tanya and I were going to make pies..."
"Not a problem, stay and make pie, but I need to call Nancy."
Lena looked more worried than pleased.
Andi dropped Lena's coat and bag on a chair, gave her a quick kiss and whispered "Thanks," yelled "So long, Tanya." and called to Ramirez, "Wait up, I'm coming too."
They paused at Ramirez' car before going their sperate ways. "Max is liable to go after you to produce Sam." he warned.
"I don't know where he is." Andi responded happily.
"But Max knows you know how to get him."
"He'd kill a goose laying golden eggs." she quipped, trying what she hoped was a warning stare.
Ramirez held her gaze. "He thinks the eggs are rotten."
"Gee...a persecution complex in a guy that pulls wings off flies." She made a face in disgust.
Unlocking his car door, Ramirez chuckled. "I'm forming the impression you don't like him."
"That sort of insightfullness is why you're making the big bucks, Sergeant." Andi waved and moved on to her car. "Ask him when we can get back into our office..."
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