“Shandra and me are here to get the contaminated linens in this room,” she said. “We’re sort of new at this, so you might want to stand back in case we accidentally spew some bad shit out at you.”
All three men took several steps back.
I pulled on double gloves, took a large heavy-duty orange plastic bag with a radiation symbol on it from the cart, and went into the room.
Gardi was in bed, hooked up to a bunch of tubes that were dripping stuff into him. His eyes were closed, and his skin was the color of wet cement.
“Hey,” I said to him. “How’s it going?”
He half opened his eyes. “Great.”
“Sorry about the polonium.”
“Shit happens.”
“I heard someone set you up.”
“You heard wrong. I set myself up. It was a business deal. I needed money. Bad. Now I’m a dead man.”
“There might be an antidote.”
“You got one in your pocket?”
“Just saying. Who gave you the polonium?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Ranger.”
“Figures. Look, I got nothing personal against him, even though he ruined my dinner with my friends.”
“Then help me out here. Who gave you the polonium?”
“Some guy with a weird tattoo on his neck. I told the FBI, and they looked at me like I was nuts. I don’t think they believed me.”
“Does this guy have a name?”
“I didn’t get one. He approached me. Said he knew I needed money. Said he had a lot of money and needed a job done.”
“What did this guy look like?”
“Average height and build. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. Caucasian, but I couldn’t see his hair. He had on mirrored sunglasses, but I could see he had a scar above one of his eyes. He had some kind of accent. Sort of British. And he had that tattoo on his neck.”
“What did the tattoo look like?”
“It was a skull with a flower.”
“And he told you he wanted you to deliver the polonium?”
“Yeah. He said if I got it on me it was deadly so I should be careful. I guess he got that right.”
“But you agreed to do it anyway.”
“It was a lot of money. And it seemed safe. The canister had a timer on it. I pushed the button, and I had a half hour before it spewed out the shit. Except the stupid thing got busted in the scuffle with the Rangeman guy, and it all leaked out on me.”
I went into the bathroom and gathered up his towels. “How did Skull and Flower pass the canister to you?”