Hiding Among the Dead

by Chris Bauer

After the painful frisk and Philo’s weapon confiscation they were led into the dental clinic turned urgent care turned temporary lung transplant venue. It was there they found Hank on the office side of the reception area, riveted to the glass, observing the surgery in progress inside the makeshift operating room. After brief hugs and backslaps, Hank gawked at Philo and Patrick, both eyesores, then returned to his vigil observing Grace, Philo and Patrick alongside him. Grace was five hours into the planned six-to-twelve-hour transplant, still attached to a heart-lung machine.

  “Too late for me to say this, Philo,” Hank said, “but I’m worried this is too much of a Hail Mary for her.”

  Philo squeezed his shoulder. “No alternative, Hank. It was either this or watch her die. A no-brainer in my book.”

  “But this place, it’s no better than a third-world infirmary. Who are these people?”

  “Best guerilla surgery personnel mob money can buy, to my thinking. Part of the deal. They’ll get the job done.”

  Hank eyed Philo’s purpling face. “A deal made with the devil,” he said. “You’re a mess. And you won?”

  “He knocked him out, Hank, sir,” Patrick said, beaming, “after they climbed out of the river.”

  “Wait, what? The river?”

  “Yeah. After the grain elevator collapsed,” Patrick said.

  “What?” Hank squinted at them both.

  “Yeah. The explosion did it,” Patrick said. “Took out the corner silo, and the pier, almost killed us, sir…”

  “What the fuck, Philo? This all true? The building exploded?”

  “Pretty much. Something in the pit set it off. Half the grain elevator collapsed; the half we were in.”

  People scattering on land and dock from the collapse no doubt suffered cuts, bruises and broken bones, Philo said. The few who slid into the river nearly drowned, Philo and Patrick among them. They pulled themselves out, along with a few others. All except one.

  “I watched Hump drown,” Philo said, swallowing hard, “went down after him, couldn’t find him. Sweet old Hump…”

  “Dude. So sorry, Philo,” Hank said.

  “Yeah. That one, it’s, ah…” he felt his mouth and eyes moisten, gulped it all back, “it’s gonna leave a mark. Let’s concentrate on Grace. How’s she doing?”

  All eyes returned to the patient and the doctors and nurses hovering over her.

  “Leave it to Grace,” Hank said. “She was awake long enough to see Andelmo scrub in. She had a fit. They pulled him off the team, replaced him with another doctor, Barry something.”

  “Heinzman. He and Andelmo, both part of the same practice. Best corrupt docs money can buy. Makes you wonder if there’s anyone out there practicing medicine who isn’t dirty.”

  Behind them, a grunt from their deep-voiced babysitter, quiet until now. Philo had met him before; he was one of the goons who broke into his house with Wally. “You’re a piece of work, Trout. Mr. Lanakai didn’t have to do any of this. Show some respect.”

  Much as Philo wanted to cram the guy’s ball sack into his mouth for all his posing, the dude was right. And at four a.m. after an extremely difficult night, everyone’s nerves were shot.

  “My apologies. My bad. We’re grateful he’s keeping his promise. When he gets here, I’ll tell him myself. He on his way?”

  “He has business elsewhere.”

  “How about Mr. Smith?” Hank asked. “Where’s he?”

  “None of your fucking business. Not here.”

  And we’re back.

  All eyes returned to the operating room and Grace again. The doctors and nurses stayed focused, leaning in, light glinting off their microgoggles and scalpels, a flurry of hands and stainless steel surgical instruments snipping, stretching, dabbing, fusing, and wiring. The new lungs were in, but from what the observers could tell they weren’t yet functioning because she was still attached to the heart-lung machine.

  Philo scanned his surroundings, checking out the doors to the side of this room, which led to the recesses of the facility. “Her organ donor—is the body here, too?” Philo asked Hank.

  “I figured yeah, but now I don’t know.” Hank eyed their thug babysitter again then spoke softly to Philo. “These black-market organs, Philo—they’re doing donor surgeries somewhere else tonight, en masse. I heard one of the docs talking about it. But for any of them to be double-lung donors, that would be suicide. Or murder.”

  “It would at that,” Philo said. “One crisis at a time, Hank.”

  Patrick leaned in. “I know where, sir,” he whispered to Philo.

  “You know where what, Patrick?”

  Patrick over-dramatized his whisper: “I know where they’re doing those operations, sir.”

  “Okay, Patrick, but it’s not our problem right now. Let’s just stay focused on Grace pulling through here, okay?”

  “You betcha, sir, but they’re not gonna kill him, are they, sir?”

  “Kill who?”

  “Miñoso. He told me he’s selling his kidney. So his uncle Diego’s body can get shipped home. They won’t kill him, will they?”

  Philo thumbed Patrick out of the room, toward a rest room in the hall. Once inside he scolded him for staying quiet about Miñoso until now.

  “Tell me where he is, Patrick.”

  38

  The unmarked Blessid Trauma van sped north on I-95 at five a.m., on its way to a Bristol warehouse, the pre-dawn traffic sparse once it passed the northeast Philadelphia exits. Philo needed to check his guns, didn’t hesitate doing it, his hands leaving the steering wheel, his knee and thigh doing the steering now. He examined each gun at seventy miles an hour, the one the bouncer returned to him and the one he would strap to his ankle. The post-op thank-you he’d proposed to give Wally, should he be where Philo was headed, might now need to look and sound a bit different if it involved springing Miñoso.

  His headache was a motherfucker, multiple-concussion grade, and his ribs were bruised big time. Tonka had hurt him more than he realized, and now, with no adrenaline other than what came from his anxiety, the impact of those brutal punches took more of a toll. He popped more Advil, washing the pills down with gulps from a can of Mountain Dew.

  It would be an easy extraction when he found Miñoso, he told himself; easy-peasy. All that was needed was cash money to talk him out of the surgery, and now he had seventy-five grand of it. Getting inside the warehouse and getting access to him…that would be the issue.

  He left I-95 and followed his GPS, took a ride alongside the wide expanse of the Delaware River, this side Bristol, the other side Burlington, New Jersey. It creeped him out, so close to the river again, so soon after watching his friend Hump hug a snapped pier piling downstream, on his way to his death in the murk. He made a hard left away from the water, forcing the GPS lady to announce a revised route. A minute later he arrived at his destination two blocks inland, a repurposed warehouse with a sign the size of a small billboard occupying a chunk of the front lawn. Opening Summer: Keystone Distribution Services. Now Hiring. He coasted past an empty guard shack, circled around to the back of the warehouse, where a large parking lot faced a loading dock. The lot was busy with cars, SUVs, and a number of what looked like 1970s pizza delivery pickups. A fucking convention.

  The delivery trucks occupied all the spots up and down the loading dock except one. He grabbed it. A garage door opened, at the far end of the dock. Three people with picnic coolers hustled out and deposited them in the rear of three trucks. No, check that, they were seafood delivery pickup trucks, refrigerated.

  This had to be the place.

  Okay, how to get in?

  “I have you here with me, Kaipo,” Olivier said, “so we can kill two birds.”

  Wally’s overcoat was draped around her shoulders again, warming her. Under the coat she was in nurse’s scrubs, the only dry clothes available. Olivier sat across from her, not close, a good ten feet away, the two of them inside one of the warehouse’s former glass-enclosed break rooms, seat
ed in cheap chrome-plated office chairs left behind when the warehouse closed. A string of utilitarian work lights crisscrossed the ceiling. She dried her black hair with a towel, rubbing vigorously, fresh from a locker room shower with leftover hand-pump soap that had almost rid herself of the Delaware River stink.

  Killing the first of the birds, per Olivier, was medical attention for Wally, Kaipo and Tonka. Their driver had stormed up I-95 to the Bristol warehouse, to where multiple doctors and nurses were performing tonight’s marathon donor surgeries. Wally was injured from the building collapse, his shoulder dislocated, his scalp lacerated, and he had a concussion. A doctor gave him meds then popped his shoulder back into place and stitched him up. Tonka was on an I-V drip, brained and bloodied and on a gurney somewhere in the recesses of the warehouse. Kaipo had declined medical attention, needing only a shower and dry clothes.

  Bird number two, of Olivier’s doing: It was urgent that Kaipo meet with him. Company business.

  “Sorry,” she said, her hair starting to frizz, “but unless you plan on putting me to work after the surgeries are finished, I have no idea why we’re talking.” She eyed the stark, dusty break room surroundings. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit short on the equipment I’d need to get any work done here.”

  “Wally wanted you checked out by the doctors,” Olivier said. “And in case you haven’t noticed, Kaipo, you’ve made a significant impression on him. As far as putting you to work—tonight’s surgeries have gone very well—perfectly, as a matter of fact. There are a few left in the queue but they’re simple kidney procedures; we’re expecting no issues. Whatever else might happen, to whomever”—his smile turned pained, bordering on bizarre—“can wait until you’re ready to deal with it. It seems Wally has made his mind up about grooming you for a different, more personal role. It’s a role I wanted, Kaipo, and this is why I’m meeting with you now.”

  A role I wanted? Wally Lanakai had the hots, but those hots were for her, not Olivier. What was happening?

  “Where’s Wally?” she asked, apprehensive.

  “He’s in la-la land from the meds. I had his bodyguard drive him home.” Olivier crossed his long, thin legs, then picked some non-existent lint off the razor-sharp creases of his pants. “I told him you were given a lift home already, and that seemed to satisfy him.”

  She stood, officially spooked. She was shoved back down into the chair by two men she hadn’t heard enter the room.

  “Stay seated, Kaipo, please, and try to relax.” Olivier banished the men with a dismissive wave, then stood and paced, dipping his fingers into his snuffbox. After inhaling his second pinch he unbuttoned his long leather overcoat, was deliberate about it, then he swept it open like a well-dressed Western lawman might, revealing a holstered handgun on his hip. He slipped the gun out of its holster and sat again, crossing his legs while settling the gun on his lap, his eyes intense. In them, she sensed angst…despair…sadness.

  “I’ve accepted Wally’s choice, painful as it is, and will be, for me in particular, Kaipo,” Olivier said. “But I also need to explain something to you.”

  Philo knocked at the door on the loading dock, a steel entrance portal between two of the tall garages. When the door opened he got all gosh-golly chatty with the white face that appeared. “Hey. How’s it going. I’m here to pick up, ah, you know, one of the, um…”

  An act. What should he label Miñoso? A donor? Say the wrong thing, it would all go south in seconds.

  “…to pick up someone who’s, ah…”

  “A donor,” the youngish blond guy said, all smiling and gym-suited and broad-shouldered, no doubt a former high school jock turned goon. The door opened wider. “Sure thing, come on in.”

  Strong Philly accent, the come on coming out as ka-MAWN. Philo entered, the blond jock leaning back out the door to check behind him, confirming he was the only person out there. He snapped the door shut, the turn of the lock echoing.

  “Wait over there,” he said, pointing at the interior of the garage, “I’ll get someone.”

  Philo took three wary steps in the direction suggested, overheard Blondie whisper into a mouthpiece, knew immediately this was a problem, it had been too easy, wasn’t frisked, hadn’t had to give a name, or mention who he was after—

  Philo spun, delivered an upturned palm under Blondie’s nose, his head snapping back, blood gushing from both nostrils, the raised nightstick in Blondie’s hand pinwheeling to the floor, its bounce reverberating. Philo and his bruised ribs slipped behind him and put him in a sleeper hold, would snap his neck if he had to, certainly didn’t want to, maybe wouldn’t need to, then—

  “Let him go, douchebag,” a disembodied voice said, “and move away from him, now.”

  One thug down, bloody and unconscious, but a second one had his handgun raised, exiting the darkness from the depths of the garage. The gun’s laser sight found Philo’s forehead.

  “We have a problem, Kaipo,” Olivier said. “We, as in you and me both.”

  “Nothing that releasing me won’t fix,” she said, “before you do something stupid.”

  “Oh, hush. It’s too late for that. Three years too late. For you, and for me. You are disgusted by Wally’s new ‘business plan.’ You want out; your conscience can’t stomach poor, innocent people being maimed or murdered for wealthy people to live longer lives; you want to return to a normal life. So admirable, Kaipo, that you now have a conscience; cue a slow clap. Except your status with Ka Hui is about to dramatically change. You are being promoted from contractor to family member, whether you, or I, like it or not. It will come across as an offer of wine and roses and love and lofty pedestals, but it will really be an ‘or else’ proposition.

  “The only do-over Wally Lanakai ever allowed was three years ago, and it backfired. Another principal in the business—one of Ka Hui’s founders when we were on the Island—was, truth be told, my brother. Not family to Wally, but the closest thing to it: his teenage friend from the slums. The Feds and local law enforcement destroyed our business on the Islands, put most of the principals in prison. Wally served eight years, my brother Denholm ten. When Wally was released, he had a vision: resurrect the business in a big city on the mainland. He did, and here we are.”

  “Olivier,” Kaipo said, impatient, “let me help you with this. I already knew about Wally and his ‘vision.’ He brought me here, remember?”

  “Yes, of course you knew. Wally cleaned you up, probably saved your life. But you know nothing about my dead brother and his family. Even though you’ve, sort of, met their murderers.”

  Olivier lifted the gun from his lap, admired it, a silver-plated long-barreled revolver befitting his flamboyance. When he returned it to his lap, this time he kept his hand on the gun’s grip, and his finger on the trigger.

  “See, Denholm came to the mainland too, after his release from prison, but he abdicated his partnership in the business. He told Wally, ‘ ʻAʻohe mea hou aku.’ Short version, ‘No more.’ Wally agreed, but under one condition: Denholm had to release all his holdings and his people, plus had to agree to a non-compete, or else. Wally let him keep his cash, but otherwise he needed to start over, in this wonderful City of Brotherly Love. Ha! ‘Brotherly Love.’ My kind of place, heh-heh. Denholm had no intention of competing, but he did have one condition of his own: Wally must never recruit—never allow—Denholm’s son to join the life.

  “Your first mainland cleaning job, Kaipo? The punks who attacked my brother and his wife in a robbery, leaving them to die on the dirty, frozen streets of South Philadelphia. Denholm was no wallflower. He’d resisted and was gunned down. Him and his wife. Wally had their bodies sent back to the Islands for an honorable burial.”

  Kaipo recalled these punks, or at least what was left of them, when she did the cleanups. Four teenagers—two black, two Latino, all decapitated, not a head left among them after Wally’s people found them. And one without a pinky finger, now that she recalled.

  “Wally had th
eir heads delivered to their families on Christmas Eve,” Olivier said.

  He smiled, his laugh giddy. The laugh turned upside down; he swiped at a tearing eye.

  “To remember my brother, to relive this tragedy—it’s one of a number of things that have depressed me lately. His son, my nephew—I won’t name him—survived the attack, apparently wandered off after being severely beaten. We found him at a hospital, but he disappeared before we could retrieve him, gone to the streets, and was rediscovered only lately, when you outted him. Yes, he survived the attack physically, but his identity, the family surname, him knowing who he was, did not.”

  By any other name, Patrick Stakes.

  “Wally chooses to be an honorable man in this oftentimes dishonorable life, Kaipo. He will keep his promise to my brother. And he will not suffer anyone who defies him. Anyone. You seem hell-bent on helping my nephew understand who he is, but he can never know. Are you on board with this, Kaipo?”

  He lifted the revolver from his lap and laid it on his bony knee, his hold on the grip visibly tightening, but the end of the large barrel was now facing her.

  “Yes,” she said, the gun a strong argument. “He’ll never know, least not on my account.”

  “Excellent. That is a relief.”

  Olivier’s jaw tightened, fighting his emotions, his mouth and eyes moistening. “Wally is a good man, Kaipo. An incredibly benevolent, beautiful, lovely, talented man. But sadly, and to close out our discussion, his newest choice—you, as his intimate—is one I’m afraid I can’t accept.”

  His hand twitched, the gun leaving his knee, him leveling it at her.

  Kaipo pushed herself up from her chair, froze, her mind spinning. Ten feet from the door, ten feet to him, which should it be, fight or flight—

  “Olivier, no, don’t do this, I’ll disappear…”

  “You leaving won’t matter, Kaipo. It’s you who he wants, loves, not someone with a body filling up with tumors. I ask that you please be respectful when you clean this one up.”