JJ08 - Blood Money (30 page)

He seemed to consider this a moment.

Eventually,
Merrill hit him in the back of the neck with the butt of his gun.

“He harvests organs and sells them to wealthy people around the world. They
go
from here to Miami and then to Cuba or
Mexico.
Sometime other
places.”

“Who’s
giving up their organs?” I asked. Merrill added,
“And
are they doing it willingly?”

“Inmates
mainly,”
he said. “Sometimes
women
who come to his clinic for abortions. Can I
go
now?”

“He use
Dr.
Baldwin to hypnotize them?” I asked. “The prison shrink lady?
Yeah.”

“For
anesthesia?
To
make them forget?”

“Both, I believe . . . and . . . to stop the
bleeding.

Please.
We’re
saving
lives.
No one is getting hurt.”

“How you figure that?” Merrill said.

“We
are stopping
anyway.
Uncle wants out. One more.
That’s
it. Then no
more.”

“One more?” I asked. “Si.”

“After
this one?”

“Si.”

That’s
it, I thought. “I’ve got to call the institution.” I pulled out my phone and punched in the
number.
“Why he quittin’?” Merrill asked.

Justo
shrugged.

“Danny and Brent dying,” I said.
“Too
much
heat.”

“Don’t
think your ass
ain’t
testifying against these sick
fucks,”
Merrill said.
“You
said I could
go.”

“No,
he
said you could walk. I said—”

Shots began to ring out, pocking metal, shattering glass all around
us.

Merrill and I
dove
to the ground and rolled for
cover.
Justo fell to the ground after being shot twice in the chest. He was dead.

When the shots stopped
we
jumped up to see the Hispanic cowboy who had warned me off at the convenience store speeding out of the parking lot.

He yelled, “Hey amigo. I shot someone
now,
haven’t
I? Mother
fuck.”

I
was racing back toward the institution in
Merrill’s
truck.

He was at the airport awaiting the arrival of the
cops.

“Sure,”
he’d
said before I left, “leave the black man to deal with the police. What could
go
wrong?”

On my
way,
I called Dad and had him call the sheriff of Bay County and ask him to personally respond to the scene to preclude the possibility of anything going
wrong.

I then called the institution and asked the control room sergeant to find the inspector for me and to let me know if Alvarez or Baldwin
try
to reenter the prison.

“John,
they’re both already
here,”
she said.

“Find the inspector,” I said. “Have him call me as soon as
possible.”

W
hen I reached the institution, I ran to the control room.

In the parking lot not far from
Alvarez’s
and
Baldwin’s
cars, I saw
Hahn’s.
The
way
I had things figured, she
wasn’t
involved
in any of
this.
Was
I wrong? Had she been
playin’
me all along?

“Inspector’s not answering his
phone.”

“Keep trying.
Tell
him I’m in Medical.
To
get down there as soon as he can.”

The control room sergeant buzzed me in and I
jogged
down the dark compound and entered Medical.

The empty waiting room was dim, the hallways eerily quiet.

Mom is dead.

The unbidden thought rose out of the darkness and silence, and I was overcome by an oppressive sadness.

Pausing a moment, I leaned against the wall in the narrow hall, squinting against tears and trying to catch my breath.

The heaviness on my chest was severe, the hollowness inside cavernous, and I was separated from everything, even my own
body,
by a great dark distance.

Wasn’t
really until this moment that I realized the extent to which I was still in shock.

How is this possible?
We
weren’t
close. I
was
prepared. I dealt with death all the time.

I started laughing. It was all I could do in the face of such thoughts. I should know better, but I had been reduced
by
the great reducer, regressed by death.

“I
want you to continue to focus and concentrate on that spot,” Bailey Baldwin was saying to Lance Phillips, “and listen fully as I speak to you. As you focus on that spot,
I’d
like you to begin by just resting back in the
way
that’s
most comfortable for
you.”

Lance had been sitting up in an infirmary bed.
Now,
he was lying back on the stack of
pillows.

“Good,” Baldwin continued.
“As
you recline,
you
begin to notice the feelings and sensations in your
body.
Just notice some of them.
For
instance, as you continue staring at the spot, you may become
aware
of your feet, or you may become
aware
of the bed
you’re
lying on, how soft it
is,
how comfortable. And as you
do,
you can pay attention to your breathing, and the sensations
you
experience with every breath you
take.”

I was standing near the open door of the infirmary, the dark hallway hiding my presence. From where I stood, I could see not only Baldwin hypnotizing Lance, but Alvarez preparing for surgery in the first exam room.

“As
you continue concentrating on that spot, I’m going to begin to count. Each time I say an odd number,
I’d
like you to close your
eyes.
Each time I say an even number,
I’d
like you to open them and see that spot again.
So,
when I say
one
, you will close your eyes, and when I say
two
, you will open your
eyes.
Do you understand?”

Lance nodded very
slowly.

“Close your eyes on each odd number and open them on each even
number,”
she said.
“And
as you open and close your eyes, they will begin to become more and more tired and relaxed, until before long, they’ll feel so tired that they’ll simply remain closed. And then you will sink into a very peaceful hypnotic sleep.

“One.
Two.
Three. Allow your body to become more and more comfortable and at ease.
Four.
Become
aware
of that spot again.
Five.
Six. Seven.
Your
comfort is increasing.
You
are
relaxing.
Eight. Nine. Just let
go.
Ten.
Eleven.

Twelve.
Now,
your eyelids stick.
You
can’t
open them . . .
It’s okay.
Be at peace. Perfect peace.
Total
rest. After this procedure, you’ll never
have
felt so rested and so well in all your
life.”

The door to the exam room opened, and I ducked into the nurses’ station.

Alvarez walked into the infirmary wearing green surgical scrubs, his thick black-and-gray hair covered by
 
a sterile green head
covering.

I pulled out my phone and began to record.

After a few moments, they rolled him out of the infirmary, down across the hall, and into the exam room.

I followed.

I recorded as they continued to make all the preparations, then snuck back into the nurses’ station to call
security.
I
didn’t
think handling Alvarez or Baldwin
would
be a problem, but
it’d
be nice to
have
more witnesses to what was going on.

I punched in the number for the control room. The officer on duty answered on the second
ring.
“Did y’all find the inspector?” I whispered.

“Hold on. Let me
check
with the sergeant,” she said.
“It’s
the chaplain.
You
find the inspector yet? Hold on,
she’s
on the phone
now.
You
still looking for Miss Ling?

She’s
on her
way
out. I can—”

“
Yeah.
Let me speak to
her.”

“John?” Hahn said. “Where are you?”

“Brent
Allen’s
grandfather was the
motive,”
I said. “Find the OIC. I need backup in—”

Something bit me on the neck. I slapped at it, hitting a hard plastic object and a . . . what? Hand?

I spun around to see Alvarez standing there with a syringe.

I swung at him, but
my
knees buckled and I fell to the floor.

“What’d
you
give
. .
.”
was all I could get out.

From the fallen receiver next to me on the floor I could hear Hahn, but I
couldn’t
respond,
couldn’t
. . .

Everything grew dim, distancing itself from me, as if I were sinking into a . . .

“T
hey’re
criminals,” Baldwin was
saying.
“You
really think
it’s
wrong to
save
an innocent
person’s
life by taking an organ a criminal can
live
without?”

I tried to say something but was unable.

“He cannot respond,” Alvarez said.
“All
he can do is breathe and blink.”

“Well, we’re
saving lives and I want him to
know.

Innocent
lives.
People who deserve to
live,
who are doing good in the world, not killing and stealing and cheating and hurting their
wives
and abandoning their children like these poor excuses for human beings
we’re
removing non-essential organs from.”

The
two
thieves hovered
over
me, their faces floating in and out of
view.

I was lying on one of the infirmary beds, unable to do anything but breathe and blink, wondering if the death that seemed to always surround me was about to lay claim to me.

“This gives us the second kidney
we
were looking
for,”
Alvarez said.

“
His
?” she asked, nodding toward me, eyes wide. “I
don’t
have
time to put him under and—”

“There is no need.
We
are
leaving.”

“
Well,
be quick.”

He drifted
away
from view and I wondered if he
was
already slicing me open.

“He’s
looking at
us,”
Baldwin said.
“Can’t
you put him to sleep?”

I
didn’t
hear him
answer,
but within another few moments, unconsciousness rolled in on me. I fought to stay
awake,
to keep my eyes open, but . . .

W
hen I
woke
up,
I was lying on a bed in the infirmary, Merrill looking down at me.

I tried to sit
up,
but only got part of the
way.
In the process, I noticed a needle in
my
arm.

“IV,”
he said. “They pumpin’ out the shit Alvarez put in
you.”

“Where is . .
.”

“In
custody.
Lawson’s
with them in the security building, making the handoff to your dad. He’ll hold them for FDLE. Both kept
sayin’
they
ain’t
killed nobody and can
prove
it.”

“Hahn?”

“She the one brought backup down here. Saying something about
Allen’s
granddad.
Told
Lawson
you’d
explain everything when you
woke
up.
She took Phillips back to the quad. Down there checking him out
now.”

I tried to get up again, and again I got about halfway up and fell back down.

“Help me
up.”

“Just tell me what to
do.
You
stay—”

“
We
gotta get down
there.”

He pulled me up as I snatched out the
IV.
The nurse ran in, but we
waved
her
away.

“Tell
me Hahn
ain’t
involved
in
this,”
he said.

I stepped and stumbled and he half carried me through Medical, out into the night, and through the center gate toward the lower compound.

My hands were tingling,
my
whole body stiff and weak, not responding the
way
I wanted it
to.