Thriller Box Set One: The Subway-The Debt-Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  Shane raised his eyebrows and nodded.

  “I mean, there’s a reason A Beautiful Mind wasn’t set at Ohio Tech,” Hartman added.

  “Wasn’t that movie about a paranoid schizophrenic that almost drowned his own child in the bath tub?”

  This snapped Hartman’s attention away from his own reflection. The faux camaraderie faded from his eyes, replaced by loathing.

  Just as fast, the loathing passed.

  The sanctimony did not.

  “The reason I wandered back here was I need you to go ahead and finish things up on the Manelli and Breathable Air Foundation projects. After that nice long vacation, I’m a little behind right now.”

  Shane felt the blood rush to his face. Otherwise, he made no visible reaction to the statement. It wasn’t the first weekend he’d spent locked away in the two-six doing Hartman’s work for him.

  “Yeah, sure, shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Great. If you could have those to me by Monday morning, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Hartman.”

  Hartman drummed his fingers along the top of the computer again, pondering something. Whatever it was he let it go and turned on his heel to go.

  Just as fast he turned back around, still moving towards the door. “Oh, and I almost forgot. The Berkman account as well. Got Celtic tickets tonight, won’t be able to get to it.”

  Shane didn’t bother to respond. He was already back behind his stack of law books, trying his best to make sure Hartman didn’t see the look of pure disgust on his face.

  Chapter Six

  Just sixty minutes after departing, Dr. Pinkering and Sarconi walked into the room. Margie had repositioned herself at the head of the bed and together she and Tyler stared back as they entered.

  Sarconi stopped just inside the door, allowing Dr. Pinkering to take the lead. He kept his hands behind his back and made his best attempt to appear pleasant.

  Beside him, Dr. Pinkering swept forward a few feet and surveyed the situation. In front of him two people waited expectantly. The x-ray board on the wall had been turned off, the films put back in their envelope.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Tyler before he ever got the chance.

  “I’m sorry I snapped earlier,” Tyler said. “You just have to understand some things.”

  Dr. Pinkering held up a hand and smiled. He started to respond, but didn’t get out the first syllable before Tyler cut him off again.

  “First of all, I have never missed a single practice, let alone game, in twenty years,” Tyler said. “I’ve never had surgery. Never broken a bone. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had a cold.”

  Dr. Pinkering and Sarconi both stared back at him, neither daring to say a word.

  “Point being, I hate lying here. I hate being at somebody else’s mercy. I hate feeling like my body betrayed me.”

  After a moment of silence, Dr. Pinkering bowed his head. “Very understandable.”

  “Second,” Tyler said, “I know people say this sort of thing a lot, but I am not being dramatic when I say this is my future we’re talking about here. NFL contract. Signing bonus. Endorsement deals. A better life for the both of us.

  “If this pitch of yours in any way runs counter to that, I don’t want to hear it. I’m not concerned with the length of rehab time. I’m concerned with getting myself back to one hundred percent. That’s it.

  “Are we clear?”

  “Absolutely,” Dr. Pinkering said, turning to Sarconi for confirmation.

  “Very much so,” Sarconi added, the fat folds under his chin bouncing as he nodded in the affirmative.

  “Okay,” Tyler said. “What is this thing and why do you think I need it?”

  Dr. Pinkering glanced once more to Sarconi. “I’ll start on the back end and then we’ll work our way forward. The reason you need it is just what we pointed out earlier. The type of injury you sustained pretty much destroyed everything at once.

  “A knee can recover from a break or a tendon tear because there is enough ancillary stability to allow for a full recovery. When everything is shattered, there is no reference point, so to speak.

  “We can put everything back together, but the odds of it all meshing together in perfect alignment are almost non-existent.”

  Sarconi stepped forward from the wall, a black three ring binder in his hand. “As for the first part of your question, that’s where I come in.”

  He pulled a chair over to the side of the bed and positioned it just shy of Tyler’s elbow, facing them both. He propped the binder up on his knee and opened the front cover, a stack of glossy printouts arranged within.

  “We call it the KnightRunner, an homage to your Crimson Knights here at Ohio Tech.”

  On the cover page was the name KnightRunner, designed in a fancy font with bright red lettering. It was superimposed over silhouettes of football, basketball, and baseball players, all in the throes of competition.

  Sarconi turned to the next page.

  “In the past, almost all replacements have been made from a metal alloy. The joints are durable, but aren’t without their problems. Stiffness, grinding, susceptibility to extreme weather conditions.”

  Another page turned.

  “With the KnightRunner, we developed a product that is comprised of a synthetic with the same composite make-up of human cartilage.”

  “Cartilage?” Margie asked. “As in nose and ears?”

  Sarconi pointed at Margie and turned another page. “Sort of. At a most basic molecular level, yes it is the same as the cartilage found in the nose and ears. The difference though is that the KnightRunner condenses the material into density that is stronger even than the original bones.”

  Tyler turned his head to glance at his mother, but said nothing.

  Sarconi saw the gesture and pushed ahead to the next page.

  “Think of it in terms of PSI, or pounds per square inch. Cartilage found in your knee or nose has a PSI of about 50. Bone, such as the femur in your thigh has a psi of about 350.

  “The KnightRunner? Over 1,200.”

  Sarconi allowed himself the slightest hint of a smile. Behind him, Dr. Pinkering rocked back on his heels, watching the Bentley’s for any outward sign of acceptance.

  “If this were used, what does it mean for my playing ball?”

  The small smile on Sarconi’s face grew a shade larger.

  Dr. Pinkering raised his left hand and snapped his wrist back to stare at his watch. “Right now it is January 1st. Most times, a surgery like this would require at least twelve months of rehab, probably closer to eighteen. After that, if everything breaks your way, you’re looking at maybe returning to the form you were at last night.”

  “With the KnightRunner,” Sarconi said, “you’ll be ready to return the opening kickoff this fall.”

  Tyler raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

  “Dr. Pinkering, Mr. Sarconi,” Margie said, her voice rough after the previous day she’d had, “I don’t mean to be a fly in the ointment here, but who pays for a procedure like this? How much would it even cost?”

  Dr. Pinkering was quick to reply. “This was an injury sustained during an athletic contest, meaning Tyler’s scholarship will cover it.”

  “Yes,” Margie conceded, “but I mean for this new KnightRunner thing. I’m not sure experimental procedures are covered.”

  “The university has catastrophic injury coverage for just this sort of thing,” Dr. Pinkering said. “Everything will be taken care of.”

  “Besides,” Sarconi said, casting a glance to Dr. Pinkering, “we were kind of hoping to make this an advantageous situation for everybody here.”

  “Meaning?” Tyler asked.

  “Meaning we were hoping that starting this fall, when you’ve recovered and returned to football stardom, you could serve as a poster child of sorts for us.”

  “After that, it could become the first of those endorsements you mentioned,” Dr. Pinkering
added.

  The astonishment of a moment before evaporated from both Tyler and Margie. They stared back at Dr. Pinkering and Sarconi, letting their words sink in.

  “So it was a bait-and-switch,” Tyler muttered.

  “Who’s your poster child now?” Margie asked, her voice raised to cover for her son.

  “Excuse me?” Sarconi asked.

  “You said you want Tyler to be your poster child. Who is it now?”

  “Well, see, at the moment...” Dr. Pinkering began.

  “So what you meant was guinea pig,” Margie said.

  “No, what he meant was, at the moment we’re allowing the product to speak for itself,” Sarconi said.

  “But don’t let that fool you,” Dr. Pinkering said. “I can assure you there is quite an extensive list of patients that have achieved wonderful results with this product.”

  “Just none with the kind of name recognition of a Tyler Bentley,” Sarconi added.

  Both Margie and Dr. Pinkering began to speak, but Tyler quieted them by raising a hand. He waited a moment for the air to clear, drawing in several deep breaths.

  “Again, you have to understand that this is a lot to process for us. This is my career, our future, we’re talking about.”

  Dr. Pinkering and Sarconi both murmured their understanding.

  “So two things are going to happen here. First, you’re going to get one of these patients in here and let us pick his brain a little bit. If we like what we hear, we’ll finish this discussion later.”

  Sarconi dipped his head in acknowledgement.

  “And the second thing?” Dr. Pinkering asked.

  “If I’m not going into surgery just yet, bring me some more morphine.”

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning Tyler and Margie were both awoken by a heavy rapping on the door. The shades were pulled and the room still dark, making it impossible to know what time it was.

  Still, it felt very early to the both of them.

  Without waiting for acknowledgement, Sarconi pushed the door open and smiled. “Good morning, folks. How are you feeling this morning?”

  Margie did her best to blink herself awake, a yawn distorting her features. On the bed beside her, Tyler rubbed his hands over his face and stretched his arms out above him.

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Yes of course, of course,” Sarconi responded. “I’m sorry if I woke either of you, it’s just that I have someone here I’d like you to meet and I didn’t want it to wait.”

  Tyler squinted and turned his head to glare at Sarconi. “Already? You were just here what, eight or nine hours ago?”

  Sarconi waved a hand at the comment and said, “I make it a point to keep in touch with all of our patients. I gave Kenny a call last night and asked if he could come by. He was a little hesitant at first until I told him who was considering the replacement. After that, he couldn’t get over here fast enough.”

  “Kenny?” Margie asked.

  Sarconi pushed the door open a few more inches and motioned into the hallway. “Come on in.”

  Through the door a tall, slender, black man with long arms and a shaved head walked in and smiled. He was older than Tyler, though his shaved head meant he could be anywhere from late-twenties to late-thirties.

  “Tyler, Ms. Bentley,” Sarconi said, his voice almost a purr, “this is Kenny Walker. You might remember him from his days in the NBA.”

  Kenny snorted. “More like day. I wasn’t there but a minute before I blew out my knee and that was that.”

  Margie glanced from her son to Kenny. “But isn’t that why you’re here? To tell us about this new knee and how it got you back onto the court in no time at all?”

  “No, ma’am. I mean, yes I am here to tell you about the knee replacement and how effective it’s been for me, but no, it didn’t save my career.”

  Kenny smiled again and said, “You have to understand, this all happened to me fifteen years ago. Back then, medicine wasn’t what it is today. They put me together the best they could, but it was never strong enough to make it back into the league.”

  Without thinking, Margie reached out and touched her son’s shoulder.

  “So what happened?” Tyler asked.

  “I spent four years bouncing between surgery and try-outs. I must have worked out for every team in the NBA at one time or another. A few times they liked what they saw and would give me a couple of days in training camp. Few times they said they’d be in touch and I never heard from them. Couple of times the knee gave as I was working out for them.”

  “Never happened, huh?” Tyler asked.

  “In the last fifteen years since my injury I’ve had eleven knee operations, but not a single day in the NBA.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Tyler said.

  Kenny shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m not a hard luck story here. I used the time I was nursing my knee to finish up my degree. Things could have been a lot worse.”

  A moment of silence passed, each side uncertain of how to proceed.

  “So am I right to assume that at least one of those surgeries was for the KnightRunner?” Margie asked.

  “Yes,” Kenny said, nodding his head. “I met Marcel about a year ago at a conference here in Columbus. My knee was still giving me troubles and I was looking into every alternate treatment on the market. Acupuncture, Chinese massage, you name it and I’ve tried it.

  “Anyway, I bumped into Marcel at the conference and we got to talking. I told him I was looking for some new therapy techniques; he told me he was looking for a market to start pitching his new product.”

  “So quite the chance encounter?” Tyler asked.

  “No, not really,” Kenny said. “At first I balked big-time. I’m in my thirties, with a long road ahead of me. I had no desire to get a full replacement, but a few months went by and my knee continued to get worse. It even got to the point I was walking with a cane.

  “In the end, I called Marcel and told him I didn’t care if he had to cut me open himself, I was ready to try it.”

  Sarconi laughed behind him. “Those were his exact words.”

  Kenny chuckled and nodded. “I was the third person to ever receive a KnightRunner. That was seven months ago and, well...”

  In a fluid motion he crossed his ankles and turned in a sharp circle for them. He then did a series of knee raises and side to side lateral movements. Margie and Tyler watched as he jumped a few times into the air and drew his knees to his chest. To finish the impromptu routine, he stood on one leg and did a full squat.

  “As you can see, I have no problems whatsoever. I can do things now I couldn’t do before the injury.”

  Margie and Tyler both watched in rapt silence.

  Another knock came at the door and Dr. Pinkering slid inside. “Pardon my tardiness; I had a few rounds to make this morning. Giving them the full display, Kenny?”

  Kenny again bounced from side to side. “Just showing this young man what he has to look forward to.”

  Tyler glanced back to his mother. “When did you have the surgery?”

  “Seven months ago,” Kenny replied. “I can’t believe it took me that long to have it done. The KnightRunner is better than having my own knee in there.”

  Silence fell once more. Tyler and Margie sat on one side of the room weighing the new information. Dr. Pinkering and Sarconi stood across from them, both watching their every move.

  Between the two sides stood Kenny, who walked to the window and peered out through the blinds as the morning sun settled in over Columbus.

  “What do you think, Mama?” Tyler asked.

  Margie frowned. “I’m still not sold on this. Wouldn’t it be safer to just repair what’s there?”

  Dr. Pinkering stepped forward and said, “Ms. Bentley, that is correct. The natural body parts are always preferred whenever possible. But as I showed you last night, that isn’t the case here. The trauma was just too great.

  “We are presenting t
he KnightRunner to you because Tyler’s body doesn’t have the capability to recover on its own.”

  “Then why do I get the impression you gentlemen are trying to sell us something?” Margie asked.

  Dr. Pinkering made a face as if he’d been wounded. “Ms. Bentley, you have my word as a doctor, backed by the Hippocratic Oath, and as a man. This isn’t just the best course of action for Tyler, it’s the only course.”

  Margie fell silent and turned her attention back to her son. “Tyler, it’s your decision.”

  Tyler shifted his focus to Kenny and nodded. “Thanks for coming by. I appreciate it.”

  “My pleasure. It was good to meet the star running back of the Crimson Knights.”

  Tyler nodded in acceptance of the compliment and shifted his gaze to Dr. Pinkering. “Give us an hour to discuss this. And just in case, you better back off on the morphine right now.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Pinkering said.

  Behind him, Kenny and Sarconi both fled the room. A moment later, the doctor joined them in the hallway. He motioned for them to follow him, and only once they were a little ways down the hall did he lean in close.

  “So, what do we think?”

  “I think that boy wants back on the field so bad he’ll do damn near anything,” Sarconi said.

  “So I did alright?” Kenny asked, looking at each of them in turn.

  Sarconi responded with a heavy slap on the back. “Alright? That was damn near Oscar worthy.”

  Chapter Eight

  The anesthesia was just beginning to lift when the flash bulb went off. A small click followed by an unexpected orb of light that bathed the entire room in harsh illumination, freezing Margie in place, her eyes wide. Beside her, Tyler’s eyes cracked open into thin slits, the light penetrating his narcotic-induced stupor.

  “What the heck?” he mumbled, raising a hand to the side of his head, his voice thick and pained.

  Margie pounced before the cameraman ever had a chance to get off a second shot. She tossed herself in front of Tyler’s bed, using her prodigious girth to block her son from view.