Dead Ringer

by Michael A. Black

  “His father the lawyer?”

  This time she looked surprised. “How did you know he’s a lawyer?”

  “Because my buddy George said a couple of CPD dicks questioned him and his father, the lawyer, told him to exercise his right to remain silent.” I shook my head and grinned. “Lawyers, you got to love ’em. I rank them just below snail slime.” I almost said whale shit, but thought better of it. This was one high-class chick and I didn’t want to risk offending her. Especially since I was about to ask her assistance. “Even if he is an old friend of your family.”

  She made a dismissive gesture. “He’s not that good of a friend.” Her eyes suddenly had a lingering sadness in them, then she smiled. “So what’s your connection to Nicky?”

  “Nicky? You sure he isn’t a sweetheart?”

  “He may be to somebody, but not to me. Why were the police questioning him?”

  I debated about how much to tell her. Stalling, I plucked a napkin out of the holder and began to roll it up, like a parchment. What the hell, I thought. If she’s going to help me, I might as well be honest. “The other night, when I was coming out of the gym, two guys tried to kill me.”

  “Oh, my God.” Her eyes widened as she said it. “And they think Nicky was involved?”

  “Maybe. The two of them sounded like foreigners. Russians, I think. Farnsworth supposedly sent some Russkies downstate to pick up a body for a funeral.”

  Her eyes narrowed and for a second I thought she was going to rip the napkin out of my hands.

  “Mr. Shade,” she began.

  “Ron, remember?”

  Frowning slightly, she continued, “Mr. Shade, perhaps you’d better tell me exactly what it is you’re working on. I think we may have more in common that you realize, as far as this case.”

  So I told her about the late Bob Bayless and watched her reactions. Her brown eyes stared at me, as if sizing me up from across a ring. “Bob Bayless?”

  “You know him?”

  She shook her head, looking confused. “No. But I heard his name. Today.”

  Now it was my turn for confusion. “You did? Where?”

  She told me about her own investigation into finding Howard Rybak. “I found an appointment card in his belongings, so I visited his dentist, to see if he knew anything about Rybak’s whereabouts.”

  “Don’t tell me. Dr. Keith Colon?”

  Alex nodded. “This is getting weird. While I was there the receptionist mentioned that the dentist was upset because someone was asking about Bob Bayless.” She shook her head. “I know that’s the name I heard. And you think this guy Bayless is still alive?”

  “Alive and well, and gambling periodically in Las Vegas.”

  She took a long sip of her coffee and the waitress magically appeared to warm up the cups for us. “So if he’s alive, whose body was it in the crashed car?”

  “That’s the twelve-million-dollar question.” I grinned. “But one thing’s for sure. If your buddy Nicky works at a funeral home, he’s got access to a lot of bodies.”

  The space between her eyebrows creased slightly. Her forehead was pretty much line free. The sign of an untroubled adolescence, they say.

  “But you also said the deceased had signs of smoke inhalation,” she said. “That means . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “That somebody had access to a body that wasn’t quite cold yet,” I said.

  “I hate to think Nicky would be involved in something like that. I mean, we grew up together.”

  “People change.”

  She glanced out the window, obviously considering something. When her eyes darted back to me, she looked serious. “You said the two guys sounded like Russians?”

  “Yeah.”

  The tip of her tongue swept over her lips. “Remember I told you about the first night under the viaduct when we got attacked by those guys? It was Nicky who showed to rescue us. He’s the one who set the whole thing up. And at first I thought he just did it to impress me. Now, I don’t know.”

  Maybe this Farnsworth guy had more nuances than I’d figured. I couldn’t argue with his aspirations, even though his methods needed work.

  “His friend’s Russian,” she said. “And he was carrying a gun, too. Nicky said he was some kind of security guard, or something.”

  Things were definitely starting to pull together. “You know this friend’s name?”

  She shook her head. “Viktor, I think. I can try to find out.”

  “That would help. I also need your help on something else.”

  Her eyebrows rose.

  “There’s a corporation dealing in medical supplies called Manus,” I said. “I’d like them thoroughly checked out.”

  “The reason?”

  “Bayless worked there, and they got a huge insurance payoff. I went to see them and something didn’t smell right.”

  She canted her head. “I thought you did that kind of work, Mr. Shade?”

  “I do, but mostly that consists of me finding somebody who specializes in finding out certain particulars. Somebody who has access to all sorts of private databases, who can do in one hour what would take me a month of Sundays.”

  “Somebody like a reporter?”

  “Yeah. My buddy, Big Rich Stafford of the Chicago Metro, usually helps me out in that regard.” I tried to gauge her reaction. “I’ve given him many an exclusive story from my findings, too. He’s out with a heart problem at the moment.”

  She smiled. “So I wasn’t your first choice, then?”

  She certainly would be, if she were available. But I couldn’t come right out and say that. She might take it the wrong way. “Like I said, there could be a hell of a story here.”

  The brown eyes rolled upward, sweeping over the ceiling for a moment. “Actually, I had something I wanted to ask your assistance with. Are you any good at locating people?”

  I grinned. “They used to call me Daniel Boone when I was in the army.”

  “The man I’m looking for is named Howard Rybak.” Her lips compressed slightly. “At one time, he was one of the homeless over on Grisham. But then he straightened himself out, got cleaned up, found a job . . .”

  “Sounds like an old Frank Capra movie. Now he’s gone back to the streets?”

  “I’m not sure. I wanted to use him in my documentary segment, but his landlord says he left unexpectedly.”

  One hand does wash the other, I thought. “Sounds like it’s right up my alley. Give me his full name and last known address and I’ll check it out.” I only hoped I could tap George for one more favor before my luck ran out.

  Alex St. James

  Back at the office, I did my best to avoid Bass. He was getting antsy for his homeless story, and I was getting antsy to get him off my case. My lunchtime discussion with the private eye, Ron Shade, led me to believe that there was a lot more story here than I’d originally assumed. He’d said as much, of course, but people always do. They’ll say whatever they think necessary to get themselves on television, or in this Shade fellow’s case, to get the information he needed.

  Private eyes apparently weren’t all sneak-in-the-office-after-hours-types that movies would lead audiences to believe. His job, to identify people who could provide information, in order to solve his cases, sounded an awful lot like mine. I’d always fancied myself a detective of sorts. But the fact that a couple of Russians tried to take him out was also a part of his job description. That part, he could keep.

  Bass thundered in. Well, as much as a man of his stature can thunder. “Another date?” he asked.

  “I was researching my story,” I said.

  “Uh-huh.” Bass dropped into one of my chairs. “Research.” He snorted. “Sounds more like a date to me. Lunch with that private dick who sold me the lemon car, and who you’ve hired to protect you. On the company’s dime, no less.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. I knew that unsettled him so I held out a little longer than necessary. When he squirmed, I broke the si
lence.

  “What do we know about Manus Corporation?”

  “Never heard of them.”

  I nodded in dismissal, then turned to my computer screen, knowing Bass well enough to know that he couldn’t suppress his curiosity. “Why?” he asked.

  “Well,” I said slowly, as I began an Internet search, “they might’ve benefited from the death of one of their key executives.”

  “So what?”

  I shrugged. “So, the guy isn’t really dead. And the body who took his place might very well have come from a local homeless shelter.” I’d been thinking about Iris, the crazy woman under the viaduct and her comments about the dog pound. I’d passed them off as the ravings of a lunatic, but there was a deep fear in her eyes that I couldn’t dismiss. “I think this Manus may be tied in with our story.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Checking now,” I said. Shade had given me some company basics, so I included enough keywords to keep my browser’s hits focused. “They’re a medical supply company,” I said, then, “eeyoo.”

  “What?”

  “Body parts. They market body parts.”

  “Is that legal?”

  I didn’t answer right away.

  Bass squirmed again, but this time with a look of distaste on his face. “You can order parts from the Internet?” He looked out the window as though to clear his mind of some unpleasant image. “I thought there were waiting lists for those. I thought that hospitals decided who got what.”

  “No ordering,” I said, as I clicked through the company Web site. “They’re a clearinghouse for body parts.”

  “Clearinghouse? Like that million-dollar-prize place?” Bass stared. “Like someone might show up at my house someday with a van and tell me I’ve won a liver?”

  “It’d be a winning day for all of us if they brought you a heart.”

  He didn’t comment, so I kept clicking. “No. They ‘obtain’ parts—it doesn’t say how—and manage the inventory for hospitals.” Manage inventory. Saying it aloud, even with the buffer of sterile corporate-speak, still made me feel icky. “Whenever a patient needs a transplant, the hospital contacts Manus. It’s . . .” I faltered, “. . . more efficient than the hospital trying to match patients up on their own. I guess.”

  “Inventory?”

  “Yeah,” I said, still uncertain about what I was reading. “I hate to ask this, but how does one go about determining the shelf life of a body part?”

  Bass stared out the window again, frowning. “I don’t like it.”

  “Nobody likes anything to do with death, Bass.” I read a small paragraph about the thorough testing and quality-control procedures each donated body part must pass before being released to medical professionals for transplantation. The Web site boasted all the expected articles on heart, lung, liver, cornea, and kidney transplants, but there were also parts I never expected to see. Bones. Femurs were available, as were a variety of tibia, fibula, and patella. The list went on. “Wow,” I said, reading some of it aloud. “They use these for research and medical schools, but they also use them for actual transplants. Can you imagine all the lives that are saved by these donations?”

  “You sure they’re all donations?”

  “What else would they be?” I asked. I kept clicking around and then mused aloud, “I’m surprised there isn’t a link to the registry of organ donors here. I’ve signed up with that organization. The Secretary of State runs it.”

  “You have? Are you nuts?”

  I stopped what I was doing. “Of course I’m a donor. I signed the back of my driver’s license, I had it witnessed and I’m on the organ donor registry. If the donation of my organs can help someone else—once I no longer need the organs, that is—then I’m all for it.” This topic was one I felt strongly about. I placed both hands on my desk, and I held eye contact with him. “I plan to use everything I’ve got till I’m old and gray and I plan to die peacefully in my sleep when I’m in my nineties. Or later. But things don’t always work out the way we plan, Bass. I could get hit by a truck tomorrow. And if I do, I don’t want to take parts with me that could possibly help someone else.”

  “If you get hit by a truck tomorrow, you better hope the paramedics don’t read the back of your license.”

  “Why not?”

  “You think they’ll work as hard on someone who’s an organ donor?” He shook his head. “I think you’re asking for trouble.”

  “And I think you’re wrong.” I returned to the screen.

  Bass made a noise and gestured toward my computer screen. “Sounds like a company of vultures waiting to swoop in the minute someone’s dead.”

  “They’re streamlining the process. In fact,” I added, returning to the list of browser hits, “they’re not the only company doing this. It’s a whole industry.”

  He made another noise of disgust. “How do we know they’re not swooping in early?”

  I flicked a glance his way as he turned to me. “They wouldn’t—” I started to say, but then stopped myself when I remembered Shade telling me about the dead guy with burned lungs. He’d been alive when placed in that car to burn. And homeless Iris with her dog-pound analogy. Bringing lonely, orphaned dogs to the pound to die.

  I shivered even though the room was warm.

  “It’s getting to you, too, isn’t it?” He smirked. “Admit it.”

  I didn’t answer him right away. “Can you check on this company for me? You have contacts informed on local businesses, don’t you?”

  Bass squinted at me. “Give me the name, location, whatever you’ve got. I’ll see what I can do.”

  When he left I reviewed my conversation with Ron Shade. He’d asked about my connection to Nicky Farnsworth. I hadn’t told him about my adoption quest, but I wasn’t quite sure why I hadn’t. After all, he was a private investigator. Maybe he could find my birth parents for me without Larry Farnsworth’s help. That’d be nice. The sooner I put distance between me and Nicky, the happier I’d be. I’d tried to give Nicky the benefit of the doubt since we were adults now, but Shade’s intimations dredged up an old memory.

  It’d been years since I thought about the incident that had separated the Szatjemskis and the Farnsworths. We were at our house for one of those family get-together nights that sent the kids to the basement while the parents played Pinochle or Rook.

  This time, Nicky brought along the ant farm he’d gotten for Christmas. Generally sullen and unpleasant, Nicky was not our favorite guest, but this time he was animated—eager to get to the basement to show us his gift.

  Downstairs, he held the double-glassed display case high, out of our reach. “This is mine,” he said. “I get to do whatever I want with it.”

  Face upturned to study the busy ants, Lucy waited patiently.

  When Nicky finally deigned to bring it to our level, he placed it on the table in front of himself and pointed. “See how they carry stuff?”

  Lucy nodded. I squirmed next to her wanting to get a better look. “They never stop moving,” I said.

  “Yeah, they do,” Nicky said. He pulled a book of matches from his pocket. These were the fancy boxed kind, with wooden sticks instead of the paper kind my dad picked up at restaurants for free.

  “What are you doing?” Lucy asked. “We aren’t allowed to have those.”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s because you don’t know how to handle them. I do. Just watch.”

  I wanted to run upstairs to tell my parents that Nicky had matches, but before I could get even one step from the table, he’d poured out some of the dirt and ants onto the table.

  “What are you—?”

  The question died on my lips as he struck the first match.

  I started to yell, “Mom!” but he stood, blew out the match and shoved a hand around my mouth.

  “Shut up,” he said. “I told you I’m not setting your damn house on fire.”

  He used a bad word. That shut me up with shock.

  “Watch.” H
e touched the burnt end of the match against one of the ants. It crackled, hissed and the ant stopped moving.

  “What are you doing?” Lucy yelled. “Don’t hurt the ants!”

  Nicky pulled away from her grasp. “It should have made a bigger noise. You slowed me down. The match wasn’t hot enough.” He struck another one.

  “Mom!” This time I hollered as loud as I could.

  The parents came running and within minutes the mess was sorted out. Nicky got a scolding—not much of one to my mind—and his dad took possession of the matches and the ant farm. They went back upstairs to their cards.

  “You are such sissies,” he said when we were alone again.

  Maybe if Nicky hadn’t been so angry. Maybe if I hadn’t called for the parents.

  Maybe if our dog, Buttons, hadn’t gotten up from her pillow just then, looking for someone to scratch her belly . . .

  I shuddered. It had happened over twenty years ago and the incident still made me cringe. With a look of fury on his face—something I’d never seen on anyone before—Nicky turned on the dog. He grabbed her collar and dragged her across the floor—she fought and twisted the whole way.

  “Stop that!” I shouted.

  Lucy cried and begged him to stop.

  “You want me to stop?”

  We both shouted, “Yes!”

  “Okay, fine.” With that he released Buttons, grabbing her front paw, the white one. He yanked hard, pulling her to the ground. She squealed and fought with her remaining paws. “Let’s see what your dog looks like with only three legs.” He used his free hand to hit her in the face.

  “Stop it!” I grabbed him with both arms, kicking and screaming, trying to knock him over and trying to make him let go. He held fast, and Buttons cried out again, in a high-pitched whimper that translated to great pain.

  I bit down hard on Nicky’s shoulder. My mouth came up full of flannel, but in my little girl rage protecting my dog, I hoped I’d drawn blood.

  He let go of Buttons, who backed up and bared her teeth.

  Nicky held his shoulder and cursed me out. I’d never heard such words.