Soul Standard

by Richard Thomas

  “Present company?”

  “Included.”

  “Easy. Lawyer banter cuts deep.”

  “Brass candleholder deep?”

  Victor purges any unintended hostilities with another one of his stretched grins. He reveals his teeth too easily, like he brushes with Vasoline. He capitalizes on these moments of defenseless bonding to ask about my experience as a donor. “I suppose I can make you the first interview. Why’d you give up your kidney to Reiss?”

  “The first?”

  He nods to my lap. “We’ve got quite a queue lined up. This is the true life of a lawyer. The courtroom is the stage. Paperwork and research is the rehearsal.” His phone rings. He glances at the screen, then slides it back into his pocket.

  “Get it,” I tell him. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s your stage right now, Max.”

  I lean back, prepare to relish in proving my history with Mallory. Why do I feel it so important when I haven’t thought of our childhood in years? Maybe it could be any woman, any connection to a girl from my past. Reanimating old feelings—platonic or deeper isn’t the point—it’s simply feelings themselves that fuel a person.

  The phone rings again. Victor measures the consequence of answering for a bit longer this time but stuffs the phone away still.

  “Home calling you? We got to do a grocery run now?”

  “Not home. Telemarketer, probably. Proceed,” he says, so I do.

  Victor’s got that lawyer’s attention span on point and running, turning to me every few words to affirm his absolute worship of detail. He asks specifics, how long exactly I’ve known Reiss, how exactly did Reiss approach me, what exactly the contracts I signed said, how exactly Reiss feigned his symptoms, and how exactly I fell for them. I answer each with, “I can’t exactly remember.” I’m not his best interrogation.

  I play it by design. The specifics, the exactlys, I don’t care to divulge. I’ll save his brain for the rest of the stack. All he needs to know is that I’m invested in this damn thing, even though I’ve yet to fully comprehend it. I round the story out at yesterday’s stabbing, a scene he lets me paint without so much as an exhale interruption. He’s a lawyer, above all, so I take extra time to adequately dehumanize Reiss; nobody thinks of pressing charges against an obvious victim. “I was his grunt work man for a while, but I always knew who signed my checks. He was eccentric in a lot of ways, and I was always there to praise his flamboyance. I felt I had to—” Fear for my life: check. “He made the most insane purchases. A fire pit for his office, a black leather couch that he bragged was made from kangaroo hide, paintings he’d purchase from museums just to lock away in a closet somewhere, a crystal bidet, and this glass-locking York organ cooler…”

  “Reiss has a cooler?” So much for his lack of interruptions.

  I nod. “Yeah. Lots of rich guys do. It’s the nature of the economy. But in typical Reiss fashion, his had to be the biggest and the best.”

  “How big?”

  “About two or three deep freezers worth. The joke was that he was using it for an eventual organ takeover…”

  “Joke?”

  “Shit.”

  Victor gives the rumbling car a bit more gas, but reserves speed for lack of a true direction. “We’ve got to get to that cooler.” The phone rings again. Victor has a harsh “What!” frothing from his mouth before the phone gets to his ear. His demeanor quickly changes, and through the following spits of half-conversation I know that it’s Mallory on the other end. Victor handles her hushed words with calm nods and flat questions: “You okay?” “Where?” “How soon?” It’s all information absorption at this point. He has me grab the wheel while he fishes his pockets for a pen. Before ending the call, he whispers one request. “The York cooler,” he says. “Find a way in.”

  He waits to talk until I prod him for answers.

  “She’s not hurt. Reiss’s men took her back to the Belvedere, which was stupid of them. She knows that place in and out and managed to get away before they tried to feed her to Reiss.”

  “So we wait?”

  “Nope.” He nods down to the donor folder. “Pick a name and let’s get started.”

  “Wait, was that Mallory the first two times?”

  “I didn’t recognize the number. Sue me.”

  I open the folder and fan through the profiles, looking for nothing more than vague direction, some reason to believe in something more than the random. I thumb past a few, then suddenly a familiar name appears. I confirm: right there, black and white, Ernie Johnson. “The Dawn Facility,” I tell Victor.

  I find Ernie in the cathedral room, head down in the front pew. Victor’s taken the west hallway in search of a bathroom, so I capitalize on my solitude to keep today’s visit, though unexpected, as natural and seemingly inconsequential as possible. I ease next to Ernie, tucking the donor folder under my arm, interrupting his prayer. He double-takes my intrusion. “Shit, Max, how close do you assume I am to dying? I’ve still got plenty of pills from yesterday.”

  “It’s a friendly visit today.”

  “They aren’t normally?” He offers me a mock frown.

  “Not business today. Can I rephrase it that way?”

  “Business and friendship rarely coexist successfully.”

  “You’re right with that, Ernie.” I grant him a few moments to round out the prayer. “So, how’s the kidney holding up?”

  He unclasps his hands, takes a few moments to unpack the non sequitur. His slow response seems to measure my strange interest. I offer him nothing but silence. “Good. I’m pissing like a champ. I haven’t held a steady stream since my early forties. You forget simple pleasures like that when you get old.”

  I quickly catalog the hallway residents pacing the corridors. None I recognize, at least not by name. “How’d you manage it? No offense, but you’re not exactly prime candidate material.”

  “Not sure. I didn’t ask questions, though. I figured there was a surplus or something.”

  I ask for as many details as he can remember. He starts the story at about two years ago, when he first moved to the Dawn Facility. He’d transferred here from a place down south after doctors suggested that he move nearer a hospital capable of better monitoring his health than the outside clinics. That move led him to Dawn, though I don’t know which hospital would have met the “capable” qualification; you’re safer in a ditch than tucked into a bed in any hospital the City has to offer. He arrived, and shortly after he was admitted for a kidney transplant.

  “That’s it?”

  “I can make up something if it suits your purposes better.”

  I shake away the offer, though considering my lack of leads false hope might be better than no hope. “It all seems to lack the bureaucracy you’d normally find in an organ transplant. It seems too quick.”

  “Organs aren’t just organs anymore. They’re transactable.”

  “All the more reason to question the lack of red tape.”

  “You’re talking like Genevieve, Max. You two would get along. She’s a conspiracy machine. To her, doctors switch her meds for monitoring devices. Her toilet water records vibrations in the air and her kidney transplant was just a way for the government to keep her body going until it found a way to translate her brain waves into flash memory drives. She’s a fucking nut. In and out of the sack, if you know what I mean.”

  “Wait, she’s had a kidney transplant too?”

  “Her and just about everyone else here. Not just kidneys, either, but lots of organs. Livers, gall bladders—even hearts, a few of us. She’s got the lungs of an Outskirts farmhand, too. William in room 402 has the heart of a twenty-three-year-old drunk driver. He’s the only one of us who can eat that fucking slop from the cafeteria without a pestled cordyceps chaser.”

  “No offense, but who the hell wants to keep all of you alive so bad?” I again survey the roaming residents. Still old. But I find myself forcing a perceived pep to their step. Pavlovian, perhaps, but the p
erception is enough to get me thinking.

  “I’m with you. It seems like a waste of organs, if you ask me.”

  I open the folder and ask him to take a look. “How many of these people live here?” Call it a hunch. A damn good hunch.

  Ernie moistens his finger and filters through a few. “Looks like just about all of these people have been here at one time. I recognize a lot of the names. Ask around and you’ll probably be able to account for all of them.”

  “What about Reiss’s goons? Have they been around much today?”

  “They’re around here every day, Max. They won’t stop until this building is part of his collection.”

  I catch Victor in the parking lot. He’s got his phone to his ear and his finger to my face, shushing me before I have a chance to speak. The tip of his finger is coated in dust, which I then notice has been pulled from the hood of the car in quick scribbles loosely shaped like letters. I can’t make out any of the words, but by the erratic nature of the script I’d guess they were drawn quickly. I listen for panic on the other end of the phone.

  Victor shoves the phone into his pocket and tells me to get in. I try cutting the tension by pointing out some dust on his sleeve, but Victor cuts me off. “She’s in the cooler as we speak. Freezing.” The engine awakens. We’re Belvedere bound.

  “Mal got in?”

  The throttle’s inertia anchors me to the seat. “And can’t get out. Reiss caught her. Locked her in.” My eyeballs sink into my head as Victor feeds gas to the engine.

  “You care about her suddenly?”

  “You already have someone to love, Max.”

  “Had.”

  “She’s still out there,” and Victor tosses a few transplant records to my lap, points to the profile on top. “So to speak.” There she is, in black and white, letters and numbers, a series of symbols meant to signify her. Carol Phlebalm. Table death. Lungs, kidneys, liver, heart harvested. “Depends on what your take on a person’s essence is, I suppose. Are the pieces the whole, and all that?”

  “What the fuck is this, Victor?”

  “I found the recipients, too. All are back there in that same Dawn house. What are the fucking odds?”

  Heart: Egar Kubrin

  Lungs: Alex Smith

  Liver: Gladdis Rose

  Victor runs a stoplight. Horns blare. “Good organs funneled through a retirement home, waiting to be plucked again for someone better. It’s not a bad business model, which explains Reiss’s involvement.”

  Pancreas: Sarah Colier

  “Take a look. You know any of the recipients?”

  I feign perusal. “Nope.” But I know, somewhere in there, is my own donation record. The scar on my gut is better proof than paper. “She always wanted to be a philanthropist,” I say, closing the folder.

  “Well, if we get out of this with our own organs intact, I’ll sign the papers to gift mine to the next needy widower in line.”

  “Get out of what?” And that’s when I notice that we’ve pulled into the basement parking garage of the Belvedere Building. The air still stinks of Arnold’s suicide.

  Carol’s voice harmonizes with my quick steps against the cold concrete, from car to elevator, tip-tap, and the echo fades into the echo in my head. She’s everywhere again. A man, exiting a maintenance truck against the far wall of the parking garage, he could have her heart. We ride the elevator, open to the lobby. The woman tapping her toes at the back of the reception queue, she could be inhaling with Carol’s lungs.

  Victor has me by the coat shoulder, leading me through the bodies that seem placed solely to keep us questioning our forward progress. Every dodge has me wondering if finding Reiss, rather than sinking back into the periphery out in the Red Light or even Ghost Town or happening upon another unlocked car, is really what we should be doing. “He’ll kill us,” I say to Victor. He’s not dissuaded. If anything, I’ve pushed him faster.

  We navigate too easily. Office tellers and security guards mark our presence with little more than a lifted brow. “This is too easy,” I tell him. “He must want us here. Nothing good comes from Reiss wanting something.”

  The executive elevator doors open. Victor lectures me to a soundtrack of background jazz so pitiful I imagine it playing a key motivator in Arnold’s earlier demise. “Fuck what Reiss wants. It’s what we want, too. Maybe we’re just lucky. If so, his curiosity alone should be enough to keep us alive until we find a way out.” Victor brushes car hood dust from his sleeve.

  “Should be? I’ve seen this guy burn unscratched lottery tickets.” The elevator lights climb the button panel. Like a countdown in reverse. “He says it’s spiritually cleansing to know that he can never know. Reiss’s got vices, but curiosity isn’t one of them.”

  “Then why’s Mallory in a freezer right now, still breathing?”

  “The way I see it, Reiss is simply patient more than he is curious. She’ll be nothing but organs within a few hours.”

  The elevator slows.

  “You crippled him, right? He can’t be too quick.”

  The door opens, and Victor’s smile is interrupted by a fire poker against the side of his face, its hook buried into Victor’s cheek like a caught bass. Reiss drags the thrashing body through the lobby entrance and into his office, where he ends Victor with a second swing to the head. Reiss attempts to twist the fire poker loose but must step to Victor’s neck for leverage. When he finally unweaves the weapon from Victor’s face, Reiss shakes away muscle and brain like mud from a boot.

  “Mr. Phlebalm,” Reiss says, wiping Victor’s expiratory blood from his face. “You’ve come back.” He returns the poker to its stand next to the fireplace.

  Victor: from soul to organs in the time it takes a fat finance boss to break a sweat.

  Reiss gestures for me to have a seat in front of his desk, but it takes his words—“I won’t offer again”—for me to sit.

  He eases into his own chair once I plant myself in the splattered chair in front of him. Victor’s heel vibrates against the floor behind me. Reiss waits for the nerves to tire before speaking. “I apologize for the dismal condition of the chair. Money paid for it, but Victor’s pancreas should be enough to have it reupholstered.”

  “I came back for the candleholder?”

  “Funny.” I’ve seen Reiss’s genuine smile only a few times. This isn’t one of them.

  “I hope the wound is healing well?”

  “Doctor says I might need a new kidney.” This smile comes authentic and proud.

  “It seems doctors have been recommending a lot of transplants lately. The old folks at the Dawn Facility are pissing like caffeinated racehorses.” I’m scared enough to piss myself, but I hold firm. I know Reiss’s limits more than anyone.

  “I didn’t just keep you around for the numbers, Max. You’re more than that. A numbers man wouldn’t have had the balls to fuck me over the way you did.”

  “Maybe I got the balls for a good price down at the retirement home. They aren’t just recipients, are they?”

  Reiss pauses. Oh, how I want to give this man a coy grin, one that hints of a newly knowing trust between the two of us, but all I see is white, a façade cracked. “I’m helping those people live, Max. Every one of those decrepit old bags down there is getting a few extra years because of what I’ve given them.”

  “Because of what you’ve taken from someone else.”

  “Those organs are helping people.”

  “Until you’ve got a friend in need, right? Then it’s back on the operating table to take the organ back. At a premium, I assume.”

  “No cooler can maintain an organ the way a human cooler can, it’s true.”

  “Where’s Mallory?”

  Reiss nods to the York cooler recessed into the back wall. “Organs as fresh as hers will demand even higher than premium.”

  I fight to keep composure. “Why the Favor trade, Mr. Reiss?”

  “I’m a businessman, Mr. Phlebalm. I go where the money is. But I d
on’t have to agree with the source. Bodies are becoming no more than piggy banks. Organs and back-alley blowjobs as liquid as couch cushion coins. Doesn’t that turn your gut just a little bit?”

  I shrug. “People are learning that survival is more important than money.”

  Reiss leans forward, lays the shattered photo of his wife’s face down on the desk. “There is no survival without money.”

  “How long has she been in there?”

  “A few hours. There are eight bottles of Juice above her dripping down her throat to keep her warm. I’m not a monster.”

  I reach over the photo, return it to standing and turn it so that the wife and Reiss are forced to acknowledge one another. “That shit eats the brain. She’ll be worthless after half that much.”

  “And her kidneys, like Swiss cheese. You wouldn’t believe the damage this stuff does. Vodka and rum are water and tea compared to this stuff. Juice addicts, Max. My target demographic.” He glances down to the photo, leaves it facing himself.

  It all becomes clear. Reiss uses his pull to legalize and distribute Juice. Meanwhile, he locks down controlling share of his own kidney industry, thereby acting as source and supplier of both the crutch and the cure. “Holy fuck, Reiss.” Between breaths I sneak glances to the cooler behind Reiss. She’s likely dead. “Where does all of this put your cherished paper money?”

  “Paper money isn’t even paper. Linen and cotton. The Soul Standard can be just as misrepresented. At least, that’s what I’m banking on, Max. The word ‘soul,’ it stands for so much more than faith. A soul can be kindness between strangers. A soul can represent a barter, faith for everlasting life, devotion for heaven. Or, a soul can be just as flimsy and weak as the currency it’s soon to replace.”

  “No matter the system, there will be people like Arthur Reiss to corrupt it.”

  “No. To make it work for the businessman, Max. Don’t make me out to be a monster. I was just fine with linen and cotton.”

  “Just open the fucking door,” I yell.

  Then comes the coy grin I wanted earlier, back when I had nothing to lose. Reiss pulls a bottle of Juice from under his desk and offers me a glass.

  I knock the glass from his hand. The spilled liquid’s vapors warp the air into a funhouse mirror. Reiss stands to keep the tension intact. He’s grabbed my collar, pulled me close enough to transfer residual Victor to my forehead. “That was your freebie, Max.” He pushes me back to the chair. “I should have known better than to trust trash from the Red Light.”