Lady Justice and the Organ Traders

by Robert Thornhill

  “Don’t be shy, fellas. Come right in.”

  He tossed two plastic ties to me. “Truss ‘em up and then turn around.”

  My .38 was in an ankle holster and I knew that Kevin’s was in a shoulder holster under his coat. I thought briefly about going for one of them, but I wasn’t exactly Quick Draw McGraw and the goon’s .45 was aimed squarely on the back of my head.

  I did as I was told and minutes later the three of us had our hands tied behind our backs.

  “Okay, turn around and let’s see what we have here,” he ordered.

  He took a couple of photos from his coat pocket, looked at them and then at us.

  “Bingo!” he cried with delight. “Bugsy and McBride. Got both of you at the same time. The boss is gonna be a happy man.”

  “So who is this boss?” Kevin asked.

  “Manny Sorveno. You probably don’t know him, but I’ll bet you remember his old man, Sammy ‘Scarface’ Sorveno. He spent his last days rotting away in a prison cell because the two of you ratted him out. Manny never forgot. He’s been looking for you for fifty years.”

  He turned his attention to me. “So who’s this old geezer?”

  “Just an old buddy,” Kevin replied.

  “We’ll see about that,” he said, patting me down.

  Naturally, the first thing he found was my badge and then my off-duty weapon.

  “A cop! This just keeps getting better and better.”

  He frisked all of us, taking our guns and cell phones.

  “Sit down!” he ordered. “Manny’s gonna love this.”

  He punched a button on his cell phone. “Boss, Frankie here. We hit pay dirt! I’m sittin’ here lookin’ at Bugsy and McBride, plus there’s an old cop with them. Shall I bring them in?”

  He listened for a few moments.

  “Got it, Boss. I’ll keep ‘em on ice until you get here.”

  “The boss is on the way over. He didn’t see any sense in bloodying up his place. He can take care of business right here.”

  That bit of information didn’t bode well for the three of us.

  Kevin was calm but Bugsy was sweating like a hooker in church.

  “Look --- uhhhh --- is there any way we could talk you out of this. I’ve got a few bucks tucked away. I’m sure that between the three of us we could make it worth your while.”

  Frankie let out a guffaw. “You gotta be kidding me! There’s not enough dough on earth to make me cross Manny Sorveno. You poor saps are a perfect example of what happens when you get Manny pissed off.”

  “Speaking of that,” Kevin said, squirming, “I gotta take a leak. Whadda you say?”

  “Just hold it, Irish boy. An hour from now, it won’t matter anyway.”

  “That’s just it,” Kevin replied with a pleading look. “Even guys heading to the gas chamber get a last meal. If I’ve only got an hour to live, I’d like to do it without peeing my pants.”

  For some reason, that seemed to strike a chord with our captor.

  “Okay, but make it quick!”

  Kevin stood, turned and wiggled his bound hands.

  “You gonna unzip me and help me aim?”

  “Hell no! Get over here. You go do your business but if you try any funny stuff I’ll put a slug in the old cop’s head.”

  He sliced through Kevin’s plastic tie and held the gun to my head.

  Kevin padded to the bathroom, we heard him unzip and let out a long, ‘Ahhhhhh.’ There was a flush and then a ‘damn it.’ Then we heard the sound of porcelain scraping on porcelain.

  “What’s going on in there?” Frankie bellowed.

  “It’s the damn flapper ball. It’s always getting stuck. You should have seen my water bill last month.”

  “The water bill is the least of your worries, McBride. Now get your ass back in here.”

  “Gladly,” Kevin said.

  When he came around the corner, a .44 Magnum was aimed at the goomba’s head.

  “Drop it, Pal, or I’ll be cleaning your brains off my wall for a week.”

  Frankie’s gun was still pressed against my temple.

  “I’ll waste your friend!”

  “Go ahead. He’s nothing to me. You’ll only get off one shot before I get off mine. You and the cop will be dead, but Bugsy and I will be off and running. Sounds like a good deal to me. Make your play.”

  I held my breath and closed my eyes, expecting the worst.

  Frankie hesitated briefly then lowered his weapon.

  “Cut ‘em loose.” Kevin ordered.

  “Where’d you get the gun?” Bugsy asked.

  “Always keep one duct taped under the toilet lid --- just in case.”

  Bugsy and I were rubbing our wrists when we heard car doors slam and heavy footsteps ascending the stairs.

  “That’s Manny!” Frankie said with a smirk. “You guys are dead meat!”

  “Grab the guns and follow me,” Kevin ordered.

  I picked up all three guns and pointed one at Frankie. “Stay put or you’ll be the dead meat.”

  Kevin led us to the kitchen, shut the door and crammed a chair under the knob.

  “That should hold them until we get out of here.”

  “What do you mean ‘out of here,’” Bugsy wailed. “We’re on the third floor!”

  “Exactly!” Kevin replied, throwing open the kitchen window. “There’s a metal ladder bolted to the brick that goes to the roof. All we have to do is climb out.”

  “The roof!” Bugsy wailed. “What kind of a fire escape only goes to the roof? Why can’t we go down?”

  Kevin peeked out the window. “Because one of Manny’s goons is waiting for us down there. That’s why.”

  The next thing we heard was Manny banging against the kitchen door.

  “Bugsy! McBride! Why delay the inevitable. Open the door and let’s get this over with.”

  “Sorry, Manny. Not today,” Kevin replied as he climbed out the window.

  “Bugsy, you follow me, then Walt. Let’s move!”

  Kevin disappeared out the window. Bugsy looked out and moaned, “Oh my God! I’m gonna die!”

  I gave him a shove. “If you stay here, Manny’s going to make sure of that. At least this way you have a chance. Now go!”

  Reluctantly, he climbed out and I heard him griping and moaning all the way to the top.

  I climbed onto the ladder and was almost to the top when I heard Manny and his henchmen bust through the kitchen door.

  I looked down just in time to see Manny leaning out the window pointing a gun in my direction.

  I figured that I was about to get a slug up my kiester when I heard a shot fired from the roof.

  Kevin was leaning over the edge and his shot sent Manny ducking back into the kitchen.

  I scurried up the last few feet to the roof and threw myself over the edge.

  A game of cat and mouse ensued. Kevin would peek over the edge drawing a volley from Manny. Kevin would reciprocate, driving Manny back inside.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Kevin said. “Anybody got a cell phone?”

  I had collected all of the guns, but in my haste to get to the kitchen, I’d forgotten to pick up the cell phones.

  “By the way,” Kevin said, “I knew Frankie wouldn’t pull that trigger. Just wanted you to know.”

  “How in the world could you possibly have known that?” I replied, remembering Kevin saying, “Go ahead. He’s nothing to me.”

  “Las Vegas is a five hour drive from Phoenix. I made the trip so many times I could drive it blindfolded. Like the old song says, ‘I know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.’ I knew Frankie was bluffing.”

  Somehow it wasn’t much comfort realizing that Kevin had bet my gray matter calling Frankie’s bluff.

  Kevin looked around. “We gotta get off this roof before Manny figures out a way to get up here.”

  He spotted an old TV antenna bolted to a chimney. One insulated wire ran into the roof of our building and a second one ra
n to the roof of the two-story building next door about thirty feet away and ten feet below us.

  He gave the wire a tug. “This should work,” he said.

  I hadn’t seen one of those old antennas for years, but I remembered my dad crawling up on the roof after a big storm to readjust the thing so we could watch the Ed Sullivan show. I couldn’t imagine how that three inch tube of soft metal bolted to the chimney holding up what was left of the reception tubes was going to get us out of this mess.

  He reached up and broke off one of the smaller reception tubes and bent it into a ‘V.’

  “What in the world are you doing?” Bugsy cried. “Surely you’re not gonna ---.”

  “Yep, this is my ride out of here. Walt, you keep those goons inside the kitchen. I’ll just zip over to the roof of the building next door, climb down and find someone with a cell phone. The cavalry should be here in no time.”

  “But how do you know that old wire will hold you?” Bugsy protested. “What if you fall?”

  “Then I won’t have to worry about getting hooked up to that damn dialysis machine tomorrow. Either way, it’s all good.”

  I peeked over the edge, drawing a volley from Manny. I reached over and got off a few rounds while Kevin balanced on the lip of the roof.

  He hooked the ‘V’ over the wire and grabbed each handle. “See you on the other side,” he said. “GERINIMO!”

  I had ridden a zip line through the trees at a commercial place in Branson, but I had been trussed up so securely that I would have been just fine even if I had fainted. The only things between Kevin and the concrete forty feet below were the bolts holding the old antenna to the chimney and the strength in his seventy-five year old arms.

  He was halfway across when Bugsy shouted, “Walt! The antenna!”

  The bolts were holding, but the soft aluminum tubing was bending under Kevin’s considerable weight.

  We ran to the chimney and had both grabbed the antenna just as it snapped in two. We planted our feet, but the force dragged us across the roof like two wimpy kids in a tug-of-war. Our feet hit the lip of the roof and I pictured us being catapulted into the abyss below when suddenly the line went slack.

  I peeked over the edge and saw Kevin on the other roof smiling and waving. “Piece of cake!”

  Manny must have seen the whole thing too. I heard a couple of shots and saw roof gravel fly into the air a few feet from Kevin.

  He took off and disappeared over the far edge of the roof, hopefully on a fire escape.

  Maybe five minutes later, I heard sirens in the distance.

  Manny must have heard them too, because moments later we saw him and his henchmen exit the building and make a run for their cars. By the time the cops arrived, they were long gone.

  Once again, Kevin’s impersonation of a geriatric super hero had saved our bacon, but something told me that we hadn’t seen the last of Manny Sorveno.

  CHAPTER 14

  When Captain Short learned of our run-in with the mafia, he called in the Organized Crime Division. They hit all of Sorveno’s known hangouts, but the guy had gone underground.

  The captain offered to put Kevin and Bugsy in protective custody until Sorveno was put out of commission, but both declined.

  Bugsy moved in with Kevin, figuring there might be safety in numbers, but after seeing Bugsy in action, I figured it was just Kevin’s way of keeping an eye on his old friend.

  Kevin became a regular visitor at our apartment, and each time he stopped by, the bond between him and Maggie grew stronger.

  One evening, while Maggie was in the kitchen preparing supper, Kevin called me aside. Before speaking, he looked to make sure Maggie was out of earshot.

  “Walt, I need a favor.”

  “Sure, whatever.”

  “Well, I figure with this dialysis thing, I’m gonna get weaker and weaker and --- well --- I’m not quite ready to put the old pony out to pasture, if you know what I mean.”

  “Actually, I don’t. Can you be more specific?”

  “Okay, I’ll spell it out. I’m looking to do a little horizontal two-step, you know, the bedroom boogie, while I still have the strength. I haven’t been in town long enough to make the right connections and I don’t have enough time to do the old wine and dine thing. With you being on the streets, I was hoping that you could point me in the right direction.”

  I really liked Kevin, but he certainly had balls as big as cantaloupes. First he had asked Maggie for her kidney and now he was asking me to be his pimp. While Ox and I had rousted a number of streetwalkers and even a few high-priced hookers, I certainly wasn’t on a first name basis with any of them, but I knew who was --- my old friend, Willie.

  During his tenure on the streets of Kansas City, before he became my maintenance man, Willie was a con artist extraordinaire and had connections with people in every avenue of street crime, including prostitution. Although he gave up that life to work for me, he has still maintained those connections which actually has proven very valuable in a number of our police investigations.

  “Hang on,” I replied, dialing Willie’s number. “I can’t help you, but I know someone who can.”

  A few minutes later, Willie was in our apartment. Kevin was such a likable, down-to-earth guy, that everybody in the building had taken a liking to him, including Willie.

  After making sure that Maggie was still occupied in the kitchen, he explained his problem to Willie, who immediately whipped out his cell phone and began punching keys.

  Kevin looked over his shoulder and quickly scribbled down some names and numbers. Willie had just snapped his phone shut when Maggie came into the room.

  “Willie, I didn’t know you were here. Dinner’s ready. I can put on another plate.”

  “No thanks. I jus’ stopped by to --- uhhh --- tell Mr. Walt dat I fixed de leak in Bernice’s apartment. Jus’ some guy stuff.”

  He looked at Kevin and winked. “Well, I gotta go.”

  Normally, Kevin hung around after dinner but not this time. He yawned and stretched, thanked Maggie for another wonderful meal and headed for the door.

  Tired as he pretended to be, I was guessing that his evening would have a happy ending.

  Our next visit with Kevin two days later was a different story altogether.

  He was usually bubbly, upbeat and positive, but that evening, he seemed somber and morose.

  After dinner, we discovered why.

  “I’ve made a decision,” he said, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket. “I sat hooked to that damned machine five hours yesterday and I’m supposed to go back tomorrow and two days after that and two days after that for the rest of my life. I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. It’s just not who I am. So, bottom line --- I’m done with dialysis. Whatever happens, happens.”

  At first, Maggie just stared at him in disbelief, then I saw her bite her lip to keep from crying.

  “Kevin! You can’t! I lost you for fifty years, you came back into my life a month ago and now I’m going to lose you again? That’s just not fair!”

  “I know,” Kevin said, hanging his head. “I thought about that and I almost changed my mind, but let’s face it, I’m seventy-five years old. I’ve seen people half my age hooked up to those things and they’re wasting away. The longer I’m on that thing, the weaker I’ll get until finally, they’ll have to put me in some kind of care facility and they’ll be keeping me alive with tubes stuck in me twenty-four hours a day. That’s not how I want to go out.”

  As much as I hated to hear it, I totally understood what he was saying. I had been undercover in a nursing home to ferret out the perpetrators of a Medicare fraud scheme. While there, I had seen firsthand, men and women flat on their backs or tied in their wheelchairs, and I had seen the vacant stares and the drool stains on their gowns. I vowed then that I never wanted to be like that. **

  **********************************

  ** Lady Justice and the Vet

  http://amzn.to/17GyE3n

/>   My first thought was that Kevin, like so many others before him, would probably wind up eating his gun rather than suffer for months while his body wasted away, but I would never mention that to Maggie.

  Kevin’s situation reminded me of a case a few years earlier where a man we came to know as Thanatos was practicing euthanasia in Kansas City. I had seen the bodies of several men that had availed themselves of his services. They had passed peacefully in their sleep while listening to their favorite music and watching a video montage of the people they loved the most.

  I couldn’t help but believe that this was a far better alternative than suffering for months and wasting away or putting a bullet into your brain, but euthanasia was illegal in Missouri and we put the guy out of business. Sometimes, life just doesn’t make any sense.

  Kevin opened the paper. “I had the Professor help me with this.”

  I looked at the document. It was a Declaration and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care.

  It read:

  I have the primary right to make my own decisions concerning treatment that might unduly prolong the dying process. By this declaration I express to my physician, family and friends, my intent.

  If I should have a terminal condition or a permanently unconscious condition, it is my desire that my dying not be prolonged by the administration of death-prolonging procedures. If my condition is terminal and I am unable to participate in decisions regarding my medical treatment, or if I am in a permanently unconscious condition, I direct my attending physician to withhold or withdraw medical procedures that merely prolong the dying process and are not necessary to my comfort or to alleviate pain.

  Kevin had appointed me as his Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care.

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way, Maggie. My first inclination was to make you, my sister, my Power of Attorney, but let’s face it, you’re an old softie and I didn’t want to put you in the position of having to pull the plug. I figured Walt wouldn’t have any problem with it.”

  I didn’t know whether that was a compliment or an insult.

  He handed me the document and a pen. “Will you do this for me?”

  I looked at Maggie and tears were welling in her eyes, but she nodded.