The Angel Maker - 2 (13 page)

"What we just did will carry more significance, mean more, if it is not discussed."

"Message received."

"I didn't mean-"

"Yes, you did." She added, "I'll live."

He glanced at her again. He didn't like to see her angry at him like this; he had come to expect that look of reverence in her eyes. He had come to like it. "Here we are," he announced, as he slowly extracted the cherished organ from the retracted incision, cradling it in his cupped hands like a newborn infant. "Saline!" he commanded.

She presented the chilled stainless container to him. The clamped, pink organ sank down into the cool water. She added some saline to completely cover it and returned the dish to the bucket of ice where it had been waiting. "Let's close," he said, pleased with their success. The organ in that dish represented a saved human life, and it was the product of the work of his hands. No such feeling of accomplishment could ever be properly explained, he thought, still looking at it. No one, not even Pamela, could fully understand the magnitude of his happiness at such moments.

They returned to their teamwork, four hands working as if controlled by a single brain. And maybe they were, he thought in a moment of conceit. Maybe this woman at his side was a far greater part of him than either of them understood. It had begun to feel that way of late. And why not? What was wrong with that?

As they closed the various levels of muscle and tissue he instructed, "There's a UNOS container in the back room." This transplant container, one of many stolen by Maybeck from the trash bins of the University Hospital, had been intended for the heart. It was a good size for the heart, slightly smaller than the ones they normally used for the kidneys. "Make sure you triple-bag the organ-use Viospan, as always-check for leaks, don't forget and don't scrimp on the ice! We received a complaint the last time!"

"I always check the ice!" she protested. "It was the cabin temperature. It wasn't us. There's nothing we can do about some old pilot who insists on flying in a sauna."

"Just make sure."

"I will. You know I will." She then inquired, "What flight am I on?"

Tegg spoke quickly. "This is a private. Maybeck's delivering."

He awaited her reaction. He didn't dare look at her, she might see something in his eyes. To cover himself he added sternly,

"We talked about this. Hmm? I think it's better this way. You said so yourself: You don't like delivering the privates."

She didn't say anything. just right. He didn't approve of the continuous stitch, subcutaneous closure he had performed. He removed it and began again, this time in silence. "Forehead,"

he warned. She caught the perspiration in time. This contact between them seemed to settle her down some. The remainder of their work went flawlessly.

He oversaw her efforts as she packaged the organ in the Viospan.

She did a splendid job of it-he could have done no better. When the small Styrofoam container with its bright orange label was sealed and ready to go, Pamela retrieved her sliced-up jeans from the floor.

Tegg added quickly, attempting humor, "It's a good thing Maybeck's handling this one. After all, what would you wear?"

She forced a smile; she wasn't pleased with any of this. But hers was a role of obedience. Five minutes later, she was gone.

Like most of the rooms in the small cabin, the kitchen was in disrepair from years of neglect. Maybeck entered shaking off the cold, looking like a biker with lockjaw-he had the remarkable ability to talk most of the time without showing his grotesque teeth. "We got trouble."

Problems? Tegg wondered. He was proud of the way he had improvised with Pamela. The only problem he could conceive of had to do with transporting Wong Kei's wife to Vancouver. "She died?" he gasped. "Connie, says a cop was nosing around Bloodlines yesterday. Had that girl Chapman's name. Knows she's in the database."

The police? The room suddenly seemed to be without air. "Calm down," Tegg said, though rattled himself. The guy was pacing faster than a hungry pit bull, rubbing his thumb and fingers together like he was trying to remove something sticky from them.

The police? Now? He felt broadsided. Maybeck said, "We're gonna shut it down, right? You got plans for shuttin' it down, right?

That's what you said before."

Tegg found it difficult to think with Maybeck circling the table like a predator. "Sit down!" he instructed. When issued this order for a second time, Maybeck sat. "We are gonna shut it down, right?" Maybeck repeated. "We can't shut it down,"

Tegg informed him. "We have Wong Kei to think about. I took an advance payment. He's counting on us. You know what that means as well as I do." Tegg had his own personal agenda, his own reasons for wanting to see this heart harvest to completion, but he wasn't going to share them with a little person like Maybeck who would never understand. Maybeck would respond better to his fear of the Chinese mafia than to Tegg's needing to right his own past mistakes. "What advance?" Maybeck asked.

Tegg decided to play to the man's greed. "Don't forget: You have fifty thousand dollars coming to you from this heart harvest-if there is a heart harvest. No advance for you until the job is completed."

Maybeck brooded. Tegg needed to settle him down. He offered, "I have some vodka."

"Gimme some."

"Not too much," Tegg warned.

"There's still work to be done."

He poured him a glass, no ice. Tegg seldom drank. He put the bottle away. A thought occurred to him: If worse came to worse, he could always tell Maybeck that he was closing up shop. He could courier the organs himself, if absolutely forced to. But with possession nine-tenths of the law, he would rather have Maybeck do it.

No more work to do tonight," Maybeck corrected, spinning the warm vodka in the glass as if it were cognac. "Word from up north is that the old bitch barely lived through the flight.

The Chink said that the doctor says we gotta wait at least a week. He mentioned next Friday."

"Next Friday? But that's insane!" Tegg protested loudly. "We've already abducted her. She's lying on my table downstairs right now!" He felt dizzy. "Fuck her! It's the cops I'm worried about. We gotta shut this down, Doc. We gotta do something fast!"

"Whom do you fear more, Wong Kei or the police?" Tegg let the question hang there.

Maybeck drank half the vodka, swallowing it like water. He cringed and then coughed out an appreciative, "Ahhh." He answered, "The Chink, hands down. Goddamn gooks'll kill you for pocket change. I hear what you're saying, Doc-I hear ya, all right, but I don't know. I just don't know."

Tegg marveled at the incomplete mind of a little person. Most of all, little people wanted the answers decided for them. He debated several possibilities and said confidently, "I suggest the following: First, we explore the extent of their knowledge.

Police muck about all the time. Doesn't mean they're necessarily onto something here. Hmm? Connie keeps us up to speed on everything that's going on at Bloodlines. Her time has come to perform for us this is where she earns her bread and butter."

"She gives us the database updates-that's how she earns her bread and butter."

"Don't toy with me, Donald," Tegg warned, a mixture of anger and paranoia sweeping through him. The police?

Maybeck killed the vodka and looked around for the bottle. Tegg edged the glass away from the man using the back of his wrist-he wanted a glass with Maybeck's fingerprints on it in case he needed it later for damage control. An ounce of prevention ...

"The point being: if the police remain interested in Bloodlines, then we must know about it. You have to arrange this with Connie. No telephones, you understand, unless it's just a signal of some sort-no discussions on the telephones!

That's imperative! Even a person like you can understand that.

Hmm?" He didn't care if he insulted the man. He was beyond caring about such things: It was the police he was concerned about now. That and a successful harvest. Maybe he could up the schedule-a week seemed an interminable time-he'd have to look into changing that. "If the cellular worked from out here, I'd call the man right now," Tegg said. "But as it is, we'll just have to wait on that."

He wrestled with the next thought that came into his mind because it was more something that Maybeck would think to do, not Dr. Elden Tegg; and yet it persisted, nagging at him, refusing to go away. They needed time. They needed to distance themselves from the police. There were ways to buy insurance that little people like Maybeck understood perfectly well.

He said, "You understand what kind of trouble youlre in, don't you? You personally? After all, it was you who made the contacts with these donors minors, don't forget. it was you who delivered them to me. You who arrange to steal . You who paid them. You who put them back onto the streets."

It was both of us," Maybeck complained. "Oh, no, not at all.

Think for just a moment-if you're capable of thinking-think about what I've just said, and I believe you will see that I'm correct. Hmm? Yes, I can see it in your eyes."

"It was you who sliced them open, Doc. What I done ain't nothing compared with that."

He wanted to encourage the man without directly giving him an order. "If Connie poses a problem for us, we should take care of her. She's the only direct connection between you and Bloodlines. Perhaps I can advance the schedule. Another week and you could have your fifty thousand," he reminded, /'and be out of town."

"Take care of her?"

"Is this stupidity an act of yours?"

That inflamed the man. Good. Tegg wanted him angry. Intense anger was a precursor to violence tegg felt this same anger himself at the moment and violence was perhaps required of Donnie Maybeck. "You're saying we zoom Connie?" Maybeck asked incredulously, trying to appear smart. "I didn't say anything of the sort. I merely pointed out that you're in a hell of a lot of trouble if this investigation goes ahead. We can't stop the police from investigating, but we can stop them from having any luck. Things just might work out if Connie took a two-week vacation. Hmm?"

"But what if she freaks out?" Now he was catching on.

Tegg remained silent. "Oh, I get it," said Maybeck. He smiled.

Those teeth were anybody's nightmare. "Yes, I think you do, Donald," Tegg encouraged. "I think you're finally catching on."

Michael Washington was lost. He had followed the old railroad grade for most of Saturday, had slept near a marsh that wasn't on the topo-map, and now was stuck in a thickly wooded, second generation forest. A moment before, having climbed high into a treetop, he had spotted a small cabin and Quonset hut poised in a remote and secluded clearing. He consulted the map once again, hoping this old homestead, a few of which appeared as small black squares on the map, might serve as a landmark and help him to determine his location. Nothing doing. He couldn't find anything like it on the map.

The problem was not the map, he thought, but him. For the better part of the morning he had been consumed with trying to debug a software subroutine, all in his head, while hiking the old railroad grade. He worked as a programmer for Microsoft in a division developing a database program that remained a closely guarded company secret. Weekends, he backpacked alone, exploring new territory-this part of the country was sure a hell of a lot different from Cleveland!-working out problems in his head, de-stressing. It left him mentally refreshed and physically satisfied by Monday morning when his twelve-hour, work-a-day world began again. Not infrequently, these sojourns left him briefly off-trail-lost.

This was not his first venture into this region. Through trial and error he had explored quite a piece of the South Fork of the Tolt and areas south toward Snoqualmie Falls. Even the old railroad grade was no stranger to him-it provided sure footing and a slightly elevated trail to follow. Each weekend, he expanded his knowledge of the area as he mentally ticked down imagined lines of source code in his head, searching for solutions to various problems inherent in the program. He was something of a superstar in a company of superstars. He didn't think of himself this way, but he knew that others did.

Probably because he was Afro-American. If you had any brains at all, if you made it up even one rung of the ladder, coworkers and supervisors took notice. You were the exception not the rule. If you solved all the problems that stumped the Golden Wizards, they considered you a genius. Unwittingly, Michael found himself in this strange, even burdensome position. Now he was expected to solve the more difficult problems.

His immediate problem was to find his way to his car. By his calculations he was still a good two or three miles from where he had parked it, and none of this looked like familiar territory, especially the cabin and Quonset he had momentarily glimpsed. About all he could do now was to ask directions or try to connect with a dirt road that might eventually lead him to an identifiable landmark. It would be dark in another three or four hours; he couldn't afford too much more "exploring."

Despite the numerous NO TRESPASSING signs he encountered, Michael Washington walked in the direction of the buildings. He respected other people's right to privacy as much as the next guy, but lost was lost. Although it wasn't exactly an emergency, these people would have to be sympathetic to a person being lost.

Surrounded by thick forest, his only indication that he was nearing the small farm were these posted threats which occurred with an increasing frequency. When eventually he met with a sign that read PASS AT YOUR OWN RISK, he began to wonder what kind of people these were. He was no stranger to the occasional news story of the survivalists, racial extremists, and psychotic killers who hermited the woods of the Northwest. The warnings were quite explicit; perhaps it was a better idea to just move on and avoid the place. Obey the signs. But Michael Washington was too practical, too logical to pass up a chance to establish his location. He wasn't after a ride. He didn't need help. All he needed was the slightest indication on the map of where the hell he was. He stood in front of this final warning for only as long as it took the light rain to start up again. That did it! He was going to find his way out of here if it was the last thing he ever did.