The Jigsaw Man (10 page)

rich. I was sure he was about to get mad and have me

tossed out on my ear. Instead, he rolled his chair closer

to us and asked Bill and I to move down so he wouldn't

have to shout anymore. I helped move Red Beard down

beside Wheels and Bill and I grabbed chairs in the first

row too.

"Much better," Dr. Marshall said with a smile, then

took a deep breath. "I was going to save this until after

lunch but what the heck, now's as good a time as any.

Mr. Fox has brought up a very good point. There comes

a time in any research project when simply repeating

the experiment becomes redundant. What's the point

of doing something again if you already know it can be

done? It's a waste of time and resources.

"Our research, while miles ahead of the public sec¬

tor, has basically slammed up against that proverbial

redundant wall, so I've decided it's time to take the next

step up the ladder. It's time we used the knowledge

we've acquired not only to keep a severed limb alive and

healthy but to go ahead and reattach it to a h u m a n host,

fully functional and strong as ever. This is where you

people come in. Yours will be the first limbs we ever try

this with, which is why I felt it was important to have

this talk today."

"Are you saying you're going to remove our different

parts like we'd agreed, set them up on those machines

to keep them healthy, then reattach them to us?" Bill

Smith wondered aloud. "I'm actually going to walk out

of here looking j u s t like I do now?"

There was a giimmer of hope in his voice and my

thoughts were racing too, but the look on Dr. Marshall's

face made it clear our hopes were in vain.

"No, Mr. Smith," the doctor said. "I'm afraid that's

not going to happen. I have
other
plans in place. I'm sorry,

but I've already promised your limbs to someone else."

" W h o ? " all four of us asked, speaking in quadstereo.

Dr. Marshall seemed to shrink even further into his

chair and with a heavy sigh, whispered, "If you remem¬

ber, I mentioned that I had a personal reason for thank¬

ing you. Well, that personal reason is my son. I'm

planning on giving your arms and legs to him."

C H A P T E R N I N E

"I'm going to attach your arms and legs onto the body

of my son," Dr. Marshall repeated, but even though I'd

heard him say it twice, I was still having trouble grasp¬

ing what he was telling us.

"I don't understand," I said, my confusion obviously

shared by my companions. "You can't be serious. Your

son, he needs all four of o u r . . . I mean ... he doesn't

have
any
of his own ..."

I couldn't even finish the sentence. Jesus! H o w could

I ask this man if his kid was n o t h i n g but a torso? Maybe

I had this situation all screwed up. His son might have

both his arms and legs intact, but something was wrong

and he j u s t couldn't use them. That sounded more like

it—for a minute there my imagination got away from

me. I apologized to Dr. Marshall for my callousness,

then decided to shut the hell up before I put my foot in

my m o u t h again.

"No need, Mr. Fox," he said. "Actually, your assess

ment of my son's situation was right on the money. At

least for the moment, he has no arms or legs. He's con¬

fined to one of my hospital beds upstairs."

The doctor was looking directly at me, seemingly

expecting a response. His tone of voice had been light

but the way he was looking at me was anything but

friendly. Then again, I could be reading him wrong. I

was trying to imagine what it must be like to He in a bed

day after day without being able to move, but I couldn't

comprehend it. The doctor was still staring at m e —

really staring—and I felt a chill envelop me as I strug¬

gled to come up with something to say. Unable to come

up with anything that might change the subject, but

feeling like I should say
something,
I asked, "How did

your son lose his Limbs? Was it an accident?"

"No, no accident," he said. "I cut them off him my¬

self, about three weeks ago."

For a moment, his eyes stayed locked on mine and I

can honestly say I'd never seen such cold, penetrating

eyes before. They were like dark marbles, almost rep¬

tilian in appearance, but then he laughed, and all traces

of maliciousness were instantly gone. Might not have

been any to begin with.

"That came out a little more sinister sounding than

I'd intended." The surgeon smiled. "I did have to remove

my son's arms and legs, but that was only in preparation

for his operation in the near future. Let me explain.

"My son's name is Andrew, Andrew N a t h a n Mar¬

shall, and I love him with all my heart. He's had a fairly

happy life but it's also been a difficult one. He's been

severely disabled since birth and every pain-filled day

he's endured has been my fault. It was me who caused

his disabilities and I've never forgiven myself for it. N o w

I'm hoping to finally make it up to him.

"I was a y o u n g man back in the early 1960s, a prom¬

ising doctor and surgeon who thought he knew it all.

W h a t I was, was a first-class fool. My wife, Julia, was

pregnant with our first child and was having a terrible

time with m o r n i n g sickness. M e , being the brilliant

doctor I thought I was, prescribed her the drug thalidomide, which in those days was being used during

pregnancies to stop nausea in the first trimester. There

were reports out that thalidomide was causing birth

defects but I didn't pay attention to them. I thought I

knew what was best for my wife and unborn child. I was

wrong.

"Andrew was born in the summer of 1963, and was a

perfect example of the classic thalidomide baby. His

head and torso were completely normal-sized, his brain

and spinal column fully developed and normal in every

way, but something in the drug had stunted the devel¬

opment of his arms and legs. They formed, but not the

way they should have. Basically he had small paddlelike

flippers where his arms should have been, and his legs,

although somewhat better formed, were still grotesquely

underdeveloped and have never been able to hold his

weight.

"I lost the use of my legs in a freak car accident, but I

at least knew the joy of walking for my first forty-five

years. Because of my stupidity, my son has never walked

a day in his life. He's never played a game of baseball,

never ridden a bike. He's never done any of the things a

normal child would take for granted, but I vowed I'd

never give up trying to help. That's why I chose this

particular line of study. From day one, my only objec¬

tive has been to help my son.

"Maybe now you can understand why I'm so grateful

to you four gentlemen. It's too late to give Andrew back

the t h i n g s he missed in childhood, but with your help,

it's not too late to give him the one thing he desires

most, to stand on his own two feet and go outside for a

walk."

A single tiny tear dribbled down the doctor's left cheek

and he licked it away when it touched the corner of his

mouth. To tell the truth, my eyes were getting a little

damp, too. It was j u s t such a beautiful story. This bril¬

liant man had been pushing the boundaries of science

for decades, not for the love of fame or money, but for

the love of his invalid child. That child was a fully grown

adult now, but Dr. Marshall had never faltered, never

given up h o p e , in his quest to help him, and at that mo¬

ment I admired the doctor more than any other man I

could think of.

I was more than ready to help out. Although nor¬

mally a cynical son of a bitch by nature, from what I'd

already seen, I truly believed Dr. Marshall would be

able to pull it off and deliver his promise to his poor

son. Although it made no real difference in my life—I

was going to be rich either way—somehow it made me

feel a hell of a lot better about donating my arm know¬

ing what I knew.

N o t surprisingly, the other guys had been affected

by the doctor's words, also. He'd been so open and hon¬

est with us, how could we not be? He didn't have to share

this personal stuff with us. We wanted the money, sure,

but I think we also really wanted to help.

We talked for a few more minutes, everyone quite

comfortable with each other's company by this time.

Dr. Marshall promised to introduce us to Andrew and

talked about what we'd see on the tour we were going to

take. Everyone was excited, including m e .

For a second, I considered asking him about some¬

thing in the video. It had bothered me when I watched it

and it was bothering me even more now. I wanted to

learn more about that severed head with the spine

thrashing around in the glass tank. I mean, the arms and

legs and hands and stuff I could understand, but not the

head. Like ourselves, people could have donated those

other body parts, but that man—whoever it had been—

had died for that particular experiment.
Died,
for God's

sake! Wasn't that taking things just a bit too far? No

matter how noble and pure Dr. Marshall's intentions

were, wasn't there a line that shouldn't be crossed?

Somehow this didn't seem like the time to get into it,

though, so I bit my tongue. I'd ask him later if I got the

chance; W h o was I to spoil the friendly mood?

Drake poked his head into the room long enough to

inform us that Cook had the food prepared if we were

ready for it. He disappeared without waiting for an

answer.

"Excellent!" Dr. Marshall said. "Is everyone up for a

spot of lunch?"

After the graphic video presentation and everything

else I'd seen and heard this m o r n i n g , lunch didn't sound

all that appealing to m e , but when you've been on the

street as long as I have, you learn never to pass up a free

meal.

"Sure thing," I said, and followed the rest of the gang

up the wheelchair ramp and out the door.

C H A P T E R T E N

Seeing as my normal definition of fine dining included

a W H O P P E R ® and fries from Burger King, when Dr.

Marshall had mentioned "a spot of lunch," Fd been ex

pecting a bowl of soup or maybe a peanut butter and j a m

sandwich. I couldn't believe my eyes when the waiter—

a thin Asian man dressed in the whitest shirt, pants,

and apron on the planet—kept bringing out tray after

tray of gourmet delights.

To start with, we dug into crackers and cheese, dev¬

iled eggs, pickles, and j u m b o shrimp cocktails. Then we

moved on to fresh garden salads with our choice of two

different kinds of thick, delicious soups. By this time I

was already reasonably full, but there was no way I was

going to miss out on the main course, which was honeyroasted ham with creamy scalloped potatoes and as¬

paragus tips in melted butter. There was a dessert tray

too, but I couldn't go anywhere near it without threat¬

ening to burst. If that was what they called lunch

around here, I could hardly wait to see what supper

would be like.

W h e n Dr. Marshall finally managed to drag us w i d e eyed slobs away from the feast, he delivered on his prom¬

ise of the personally guided tour of his incredible

medical facility. We learned that the entire building

had been designed as wheelchair accessible, and not j u s t

for Dr. Marshall's benefit. W h e e l s and Red Beard were

suitably impressed they wouldn't have to "sit out" cer¬

tain areas of the tour like they normally might in a build¬

ing this size.

The first floor we covered quickly, since we'd already

seen the majority of it. Besides the lavish four-story re¬

ception atrium, there were three conference and video

rooms, the dining hall, the kitchen, and a rather impres¬

sive medical library and computer research station.

The second floor was the real heart of the facility,

where Dr. Marshall's laboratories and operating rooms

were. Like the driver who'd delivered us here this morn¬

ing had said, everything was state of the art. N o t a

penny had been spared; lab after lab was filled with the

best surgical and research equipment money could buy.

Some of the equipment here wasn't even available to

scientists in the public sector. Dr. Marshall and his staff

had developed, patented, then produced it strictly for

their own benefit.

Being a layman in every sense of the word, I didn't

have a clue what 99 percent of the gizmos and gadgets

were for, but Dr. Marshall did his best to answer all of

our questions and clue us in as best he could. We got to

see all the experiments up close, which was kind of cool

once you got over the queasy feeling of being in a room

full of severed body parts. They were definitely gro¬