Puerto Rican Rum Rollovers

"Valerie, I gotta go downtown for lunch. You wanna join me?"

"No thanks. I've got plans already made."

"Without me?"

"Yep. But you're still my favorite."

He leaned forward and pushed himself out of the Adirondack chair, shuffled across the deck of the woodland gazebo and opened the door to the changing room, a closet lift they used when they wanted to go into the forest without being seen. Down at the bottom, he sat in one of the fleet of electric carts, and drove under a few neighbourhoods until he got to the lift sitting under a house in a dingy part of town. He laughed, remembering the arguments his associates made in City Council chambers why the Junior League couldn't be allowed to rejuvenate the homes in this area.

In the house, he went to the master bedroom closet and changed into some oil-streaked clothes, looking like a typical guy getting off work from his job at the factory.

He walked out to his beatup Fiat and drove into town, picking a carpark a few blocks away from the city morgue.

"I got a dead brother down there."

The clerk looked up from her iPhone. "Yeah, I know who you are. Go ahead."

He walked through the door, wondering why they put two deadbolts in it, as if the dead in this place had extra incentive to get out.

"Hey, mój przyjaciel! Are you all right?"

"He was my brother."

"Of course, of course. Thank you for coming so soon. I know you are busy man."

"For you, I'd go to the moon. What did you find out?"

"At your suggestion, I called the...let me see...the word is...gastroenterologist?"

"You mean Niel?"

"Tak. He told me your brother had come to him with design for special pill."

"Pill?"

"Umm...well, not pill. But like pill. Niel say the pill is like one he uses for remote camera operation in colon area."

"Fine. It was a pill. So what about it?"

"This pill your brother give him is no camera. More like pen. Permanent marker. Tiny tattoo maszyny."

"Good for Rick. He put his hands in everything. Any money in it?"

"I do not know. You ask Niel. I only tell you because of what I find. Come with me."

They walked over to a table with a sheet covering a body.

"I know this uncomfortable for you so I cover your brother."

"No, that's okay. I've seen him before. Alive, of course, but still, he's my bro'."

"Very well, let me tell you. At your permission, I open his belly. We run test on stomach and intestinal fluids. Find nothing. Look at this. Inside his colon we find pill."

"Let me have it. I've got guys who can analyze the thing."

"Okay. But you will want to look more closely at your brother."

"So he had more guts than I thought. What of it?"

"No, let me point light for you. See, on inside of intestinal wall is message meant for you."

He pulled a jeweler's loop out of his coat pocket and bent down to read his brother's insides.

"Holy fuckin' mother of Pearl Buck! Have you read this?"

"I see it is your language so I read nothing. I call you. End of story."

"That son of a bitch. He was right!"

"May your mother rest in peace."

"Yeah, yeah, of course. A habit of mine. Can you preserve this for me?"

"For you, yes. You want it now?"

"Naw, I'll send someone to clean out the garbage. Put it in that can under that desk over there. Include his balls and his brain, too."

"For you, yes."

"Hey, my family is your family. What can we do for you?"

"My sister. She has trouble in Poland with boyfriend. Wants to come here but you know your country. A criminal record..."

"Your sister is my sister. We'll take care of her. She need a new name? New face?"

"I ask her tomorrow."

"You can get us the details whenever." His phone buzzed. "I got 'nother appointment. Let the garbage man know what you need."

He walked to the toilet in the back of the morgue and locked the door. He removed the fingertip covers and burned them over the urinal, flushing the ashes down the drain. He left the morgue and found the nearest bus station, taking a random route back to another house, leaving the Fiat for the police to find with a package of cocaine in the boot, the car and plastic packaging covered with the fingerprints of an associate who had stepped out of line.