Prelude to a Scream

by Jim Nisbet

  “Berkeley.” As methane rises to the surface of a tar pit, so Damian is coming to his senses. “Is something the matter?”

  The tempo of the music has quickened. The point of view trades three times, three each for her face, unable to bring herself to answer his question, and three each for his face, unable to ask it again.

  “Oh Damian,” she finally manages, “They— they’ve stolen your kidney!”

  Her perfect hair drops out of the shot, allowing the camera to slowly close on Damian as Realization steals over his face, towards the commercial, slow as time-lapsed film of thawing tundra. The music crescendos in turgidity until his head dissolves into a bottle of fabric softener.

  The lack of one arm presents logistical difficulties, at least in the beginning. After a futile struggle to reach the call button, the cord of which someone had draped over his right shoulder in percipient thoughtfulness, Stanley discovered the TV remote control lying on the covers to his left, next to his remaining hand.

  But he couldn’t see to his right, and it was then that he remembered his missing eye.

  How quickly, he mused, one adapts to adversity.

  He couldn’t find the power switch on the remote. In the dark he unintentionally increased the volume, then hit the channel selector, and he found himself on a very loud public access channel, featuring a guy wearing a propeller beanie and playing a dulcimer while reciting poetry atop a surf-blasted rock.

  …I’d rather be a pagan, suckled by a policy outworn

  so that I, smitten by this pleasant condominium,

  might hear old Trinitron blow some other theme

  than the one currently depresses me.

  —O, Prozackia…

  As Stanley left-handed the remote toward the television, throwing like a girl, he suddenly remembered Green Eyes throwing something to him — what?

  Unexpectedly, the remote hit the screen’s glass just so, and fissured it, before clattering to the floor. The tube issued a prolonged, insidious hiss before it imploded with a sound like a stepped-on flash bulb, and the room plunged into darkness and silence.

  Stanley wiggled the fingers of his left hand. Not bad.

  To his right, phantom digits wiggled sympathetically.

  The door opened a few inches, showing a wedge of light.

  “Ahearn?”

  Stanley closed his eye and said nothing.

  The door closed. He opened his eye. There stood Sean Corrigan, and Dr. Sims.

  Sims switched on a light. He appeared the same: stethoscope, spectacles, clipboard; lines of blue and black ink on the breast pocket of his white smock.

  Corrigan didn’t look like he’d even changed his clothes lately, let alone his personality.

  The detective and the doctor stood at the foot of the bed, considering Stanley as if he were a special rock in a carefully groomed meditation garden.

  When his eye had adjusted to the light Stanley said, “Dare I ask?”

  Corrigan scratched a couple days’ growth of whiskers on the side of his face with a folded copy of the Examiner.

  Dr. Sims said, “Welcome back, and congratulations on surviving another assault on your infrastructure, Mr. Ahearn. Quite extraordinary. Miraculous, really.”

  “Did you find me in the park again? I saw Jasper — I mean, I heard his voice. He recognized me. I think. So I figured—.”

  Dr. Sims raised his eyebrows.

  Inspector Corrigan said, “The park? No, we didn’t find you in the park, Ahearn. We found you in the basement of a funeral home in Oakland, bleeding from several wounds,”

  This got Stanley’s hopes up. “They did it, then? They did it?”

  Corrigan and Sims exchanged a glance.

  Corrigan said, “Did what, Ahearn?”

  “Installed my new kidney? The kidney that—” He stopped.

  Corrigan and Sims waited.

  Stanley closed his eye. If being a criminal depended on keeping his mouth shut, he was going to have a short, lousy career.

  Corrigan cleared his throat mildly. “You were saying?”

  Stanley bit his lip.

  After a while Corrigan said quietly, “I told you not to mess around with this case anymore. First that kid MacIntosh got himself killed on account of you. Then it turns out they killed his computer-programming buddy, too. Harvested all his organs and sent him up the stack.”

  Stanley said nothing.

  “His name was Tommy Quinn. We found his teeth.”

  Stanley opened the eye.

  “You never met the guy.”

  Stanley closed the eye again and shook his head, once.

  “Well Ahearn, we could easily make you for accessory to murder in both cases. Fit you like your birthday suit. And then there’s burglary, possession of a loaded and unregistered handgun, assault with a deadly weapon, two or three counts of manslaughter… There’s even possession of cocaine and heroin with intent to sell.”

  This elicited a single, soundless laugh from Stanley.

  “Take your pick. Kick in special circumstances on account you got these guys killed while you were committing other crimes — it’s the gas chamber. Or lethal injection, if this goddamn state ever gets it together.”

  Stanley wasn’t listening. Behind his closed eye he was seeing a guiro atop a folded rebozo in the sunlit dust motes adrift above the closed lid of Giles’ mother’s grand piano.

  “Life plus twenty-five, at least,” added Corrigan.

  Stanley opened his eye and turned his head with its out-of-focus barrier to his monocular vision—his nose—until he could see the shallow depression in the bedclothes on his right side. The call button was lying there. The overhead light was bright and cruel and specific.

  “And while you fiddled around withholding evidence, they harvested yet another guy. Same M.O. — a boozy chump like yourself, a sheetrocking schlub who got himself chatted up by a brunette with green eyes. He went home with her, she slipped him a mickey, and he woke up minus a kidney.”

  “Ted Nichols is alive, then?” Stanley asked suddenly.

  Sims had fixed his eyes on something no one else could see. His right hand moved to retrieve a ballpoint pen from his breast pocket but stopped with one finger on it, then dropped purposeless to his side.

  Corrigan regarded Stanley closely. “Septicemia — blood poisoning to you — killed him two days ago. He died miserably, I might add.”

  Sims blinked back his thousand-yard stare and refocused on Stanley.

  Stanley groaned.

  Corrigan summoned an expression of extreme revulsion, but it was plain he was wracked by uncertainty and guilt. He looked like a man who’d just found a diamond ring on a human finger in the stomach of the trout he was cleaning for dinner. “The place was a crime scene, for God’s sakes.… We had no idea Nichols was rolled up in that carpet in the back of that truck.”

  I didn’t either, Stanley wanted to wail.

  But it wasn’t true.

  “I don’t recall mentioning his name,” Corrigan added quietly.

  Stanley didn’t either.

  Corrigan bored in. “You know the sheetrocker’s name.”

  “I do?”

  “You just said it.”

  “I must have heard it on the TV. I was watching just a few minutes ago…”

  Stanley instantly regretted saying this. But the remark was so callous that even Corrigan was taken aback.

  The detective heaved a sigh great enough to carry the force of a curse and said, “To hell with it. The guy is dead. But what if I told you that after Fong heard what happened to Nichols he sang like a cheap tea kettle?”

  Stanley rocked his head onto the useless shoulder. “So put the cuffs on me, Corrigan,” he spat loudly. “Or should I say, put the cuff on me?” He held up the left hand.

  Corrigan looked disgusted.

  Sims nodded vaguely. “We did what we could for his pain.”

  “But it was pretty painful anyway,” Corrigan snapped, his eyes centered on Stanl
ey’s good one. “As a bad way to go, it’s up there with getting amanita phalloides in your omelette.”

  “Poor guy,” said Sims. “We figure it was the dirt on the aster. Or maybe in the carpet. The dehydration didn’t help either.”

  “The basement of that funeral home looked like a slaughterhouse,” Corrigan said grimly. “We didn’t even think to open a door on that van until twelve hours after we got there.”

  “Iris,” said Stanley.

  “And you,” said Corrigan, “survived. Of all people.”

  “Iris didn’t make it?” blurted Stanley, suddenly panicked.

  Sims glanced at Corrigan.

  “Well?” Stanley shouted. “Did she?”

  Corrigan was trying to get a grip on his smile. It was nice to have gotten a genuine reaction out of Ahearn at last, and he wanted to savor it. Finally he said, “Iris made it. No thanks to you.”

  Stanley made a slit of his good eye. “She was there,” he said lamely, hastily. “It’s all a—.”

  “Oh,” Corrigan interrupted warmly. “It’s all a blur, is it? Are you sure it isn’t a jumble?”

  “I remember a lot of yelling. There were guns around, too. One of them went off. But I was out of it. They had me all doped up, see…”

  “They had you all doped up, see…”

  “Yeah,” said Stanley. “I thought I was a goner. And Iris… Tell me, Inspector Corrigan…”

  “Yes? Mister Ahearn.”

  “That woman with the green eyes. Her name was Sibyl. She may have been married to that insane surgeon. They seemed close.…”

  Corrigan produced his little palm-top computer and started it. “Dr. Djell.” He tilted the little screen toward the light. “Cashiered out of the medical fraternity eight years ago—.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he must have been,” said Stanley hurriedly. “But, tell me. Did his wife…?”

  “Sibyl Djell,” Corrigan read. “Born Sibyl Carmegian, in Modesto. Registered Nurse, attended medical school but never got to her residency, dropped out when she married her husband. Drove a Mercedes, her taste in clothes ran to the expensive, worked out regularly at—”

  “Yes,” interrupted Stanley impatiently, “that’s the woman. The last time I saw her she was in a… a tough spot. Did she—.”

  The door banged opened a few inches, pushed awkwardly from the outside.

  Sims pulled the door all the way open.

  Iris rolled her wheelchair into the room.

  She paused to look the scene over. Corrigan, Sims… and, at last, the violet eyes fell on Stanley.

  She pivoted expertly and glided to the side of his bed.

  “Darling,” she said.

  Stanley blinked.

  Everybody watched him.

  “Iris…,” he blustered. “You… I…”

  Her terrycloth robe was cornflower blue. Two blue plastic clips shaped like little birds with tiny loquacious orange beaks and heaven-lifted eyes held her hair away from her face, which was bloodless and pale. Still pretty, she looked older. Dark circles traced her eyes, which were reddened as if from weeping. Her feet were swaddled in blue mohair mules. A Get-Well Bear tilted in her lap, orangish-brown against the blue terrycloth. Except for its rigid arms and shirt-button eyes, it looked like something you’d need to buff car wax.

  Iris set the brake on the chair and folded her hands protectively over the bear.

  Corrigan said, “Not only did Iris make it, Ahearn; but because of her, you made it, too.”

  The obvious exhaustion and pain in Iris’ face resolved into the open-mouthed, fixed smile of the house-sized devil who swallows the train tracks at the beginning of the Tunnel of Love.

  “Really…?” Stanley breathed uncertainly.

  “Someone’s finally done you a turn like the one you did Hop Toy’s kid,” Corrigan went on, affecting a neutral tone. “Kind of like, you might say, life has provided a new hero to rescue the old one. To kind of even things out.”

  If Iris added nothing to this, her expression revealed less. But Stanley detected in her eye a gleam indicative of — what? Hate? Disgust? Triumph? Rage?

  Desire?

  “You have Iris to thank for your life, Ahearn.”

  “Well,” mumbled Stanley. “Well I…”

  If his hospital bed were flying through the dense atmosphere of an unfamiliar planet his bearings could have been no more awry. He managed to utter a thank-you. And he sent a phantom impulse to his gone right arm, telling it to extend its hand and to spread its fingers to cover one of Iris’ hands, as well as the brainless head of the Get-Well Bear, in order to deliver a tactile cue as he thanked her, to make a familiar, reassuring gesture. Nothing happened, of course. He twisted his chin over his right shoulder to get his nose out of the way, so his remaining eye could look again at the shallow depression in the sheets where the arm should have been. There would have to be a new order of tactile cues. But was he expected to learn them today? Right now? The audience watched him struggle. What did they think? That an arm gone missing was a ploy for sympathy?

  Affecting an uncertain dignity without taking his eye off the bedding he said, “For whatever you did back there, Iris, thanks. That was… a pretty hairy spot I got myself — us — into. I wasn’t expecting you… or any… help.…”

  It sounded more like a plea than a declaration.

  A long silence ensued.

  “I thought it was… all over for me,” he finally managed to croak. “I mean us. All over for us.”

  Corrigan cleared his throat. “Indeed it might have been curtains, Ahearn. If Iris hadn’t showed up those maniacs would have done you for certain. Thanks to Iris you’re lucky to have come out of it with only what injuries you—” He stopped. Corrigan looked from Dr. Sims to Iris and back to Stanley.

  An apologetic smile flickered over Corrigan’s mouth.

  Stanley didn’t understand it, but the smile was unconvincing.

  Stanley covered the void at his right shoulder with the palm of his left hand. For the first time, he felt the stump. It protruded about four inches from the joint.

  Right under the call button.

  Pocketing his computer Corrigan shook out the copy of the Examiner and showed the headline.

  SEAL ROCK HERO THWARTS RENAL BANDITS

  “Here,” he said. “Let me read it to you.”

  San Francisco Police Department Chief Investigator Sean Corrigan announced today that, in cooperation with members of the Oakland Police Department, the gang of organ pirates that has been terrorizing the singles bars of San Francisco for over a year has been “literally destroyed.”

  Five bodies were recovered late this morning from a makeshift operating theater located in the basement of the Chippendale O’Hare Columbarium and Mortuary building at 34 Avenida Del Fumador in Oakland. None of the identities of the victims has been released. All five died as the result of gunshot wounds. Three additional victims survived the shootout, all of them in critical condition.

  “The revised score is now six to two,” Corrigan interjected.

  Police believe an argument among the gang members as to division of spoils from their illicit pillaging of body parts degenerated into a shootout.

  Still trying to sort out victims from perpetrators in the case, an anonymous source from the Oakland coroner’s office described the scene as “something out of a splatter movie”. Investigators from both the Oakland and San Francisco District Attorney’s Offices declined to release further details of their ongoing investigation.

  Highly placed sources, however, who spoke on condition of anonymity, have informed the Examiner that the successful resolution of the case involves “a brave little lady” who is said to be employed as a nurse at S.F Children’s Hospital, as well as a man named Stanley Ahearn. Examiner files show Stanley Ahearn to be the same man who saved nine-year-old Tseng Toy when she was swept into the surf at Seal Rock, nearly four years ago. Two months ago, Mr. Ahearn became the ninth victim of the gang, losing a kidney to thei
r predations.

  Investigators withheld further details pending the continuing collection of evidence at the scene, notification of next of kin, and a coroner’s report.…

  Corrigan folded the paper and threw it onto the bed.

  “For your scrapbook, Ahearn,” he said, in a voice that would digest bones. “They got some of it wrong, of course. They always do. But, famous as you are, you’re probably used to that.”

  Stanley opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “Close your mouth,” said Corrigan, obviously enjoying Stanley’s discomfort. “And be satisfied you’ve still got one eye, one arm, one kidney, and both cheeks of your ass.”

  Stanley’s head involuntarily jerked his good eye toward Iris.

  She watched him like she was watching an ant farm.

  So, thought Stanley, her kidney didn’t make it into my back.

  Where is it, then?

  How long do I have to live?

  He sagged against the angled pillows as if the air had been let out of them, and looked straight ahead at the dead television, relegating Iris to the world occluded by the out-of-focus bulk of his nose.

  Corrigan shot his cuff and looked at his watch. “The short version. Iris’ mother has tickets to the ballet.” He sighed determinedly, running a finger around the inside of his flexible watchband. “Iris talked me into this. I resisted at first” — he shrugged — “then I said okay.” He clasped his hands in front of him. “Since most of the scum in this case are dead now, and since you have paid a heavy price in bringing the bulk of said scum to justice, via, I might add, their just desserts; and despite certain facts — that you withheld evidence and lied to investigators; that you caused two or three people to buy the farm a little sooner than they might have otherwise — and since I can’t prove you ever knew anything in advance about the Ted Nichols guy because, you’ll be glad to know, Fong told us nothing. He refused to drop a dime on you. So you got one friend, at least.” Corrigan squinted. “You owe him money or something?” He raised the palm of one hand. “Don’t bother to lie to that. I know it’s because you saved his cousin Tseng’s life. Anyhow,” he clasped his hands, “on account of all these extenuating circumstances, and because Iris here was so persuasive and then got her mother in on it…”