Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1

by Tim Downs

  He stopped and turned. He was looking almost directly at her. He stepped forward, stopped, and stared more closely, as if by concentrating he might somehow draw extra light from the coal black sky. He stepped closer; closer; now he was only a few feet away, and the air seemed supercharged between them. Riley held her breath and stared up at him. Another step, and then he bent slowly forward, staring into the strange shadow before him.

  At that moment the moon slid out from behind a black cloud, and Nick found himself staring into Riley’s green and brown eyes, ablaze in the blue white moonlight. They both found themselves strangely short of breath. Riley rose to her knees; Nick dropped to his and took her in his arms. She blinked hard once, and he instinctively blinked back.

  “It’s been a long time,” Nick said. “What do I do now?”

  “I think you’re supposed to kiss me.”

  Nick hesitated. “I think I forgot how.”

  “They say it’s like riding a bicycle.”

  “I was never any good on a bicycle—I used to fall off a lot.”

  “Like you said—love is a risky business.”

  And then they both remembered.

  They were interrupted by the sound of Nick’s cell phone. He slid it out of his pocket and opened it. “What?” he said with obvious annoyance.

  “Nick, it’s Leo. Have you felt anything yet?”

  “I was starting to. What do you want?”

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “The worst. Hang on a minute.” He motioned to Riley; she edged up beside him, and he held the phone away so she could hear as well.

  “I finished the shredding,” Leo said. “The program just ended and printed out a copy of all the original documents. Most of them were ordinary financial records—a Visa charge summary, a mutual-fund statement of activity, health insurance explanation of benefits—that sort of thing. But there were a few items in the confetti shredding that I thought you should know about. One was a brochure from an outpatient surgery center in Penn Hills. You don’t suppose your boy had a knee repaired or a wart removed, do you?”

  “It’s possible. What are the other items?”

  “Three prescriptions from a Canadian online pharmacy. The drugs are called Neoral, Immuran, and Orasone. I have no idea what they are.”

  Nick looked at Riley.

  “Neoral is a cyclosporine,” she said. “Immuran is an azathioprine, and Orasone is a corticosteroid. They’re all immunosuppressants, and they’re commonly prescribed together—after transplants.”

  How can I help you, Mr. Polchak? The receptionist tells me you have some concerns.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “No, sir. My name is Allen Reston. I’m the COO—more like an office manager, really. You could say I run things here at Westmoreland Surgery Center.”

  Nick glanced around at the office. The room was precise in every detail, lit with the same antiseptic fluorescence as a procedure room. The desk was a curving slab of white maple with a contoured laminate base. The desktop was bare except for a matching black desk set and a flat panel monitor. The computer itself, like all other functional components of the room, was tastefully hidden from sight. The walls were dutifully adorned with three sterile landscapes, which provided about the same warmth and assurance as the teddy bears on a phlebotomist’s smock. Nick’s plum-colored chair, ergonomically designed, forced him to sit more erect than he liked; it made him feel as though someone were pushing him from behind.

  “I blew out an ACL on the tennis court,” Nick said. “Now my doctor says I need laparoscopic surgery.”

  “Did the same thing myself,” Reston said. “I guess it’s the weekend warrior thing; you think you’re still twenty-five, but your knees have other ideas.”

  Nick nodded. “I’m a little uncomfortable about having the procedure done here.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “Well, it’s not a hospital. I mean, if something goes wrong in a hospital, you’ve got state-of-the-art medical facilities.”

  At this, the man broke into a smile. “You’re a little behind the times, Mr. Polchak. How much do you know about freestanding surgery centers?”

  “Very little, I’m afraid.”

  “These places started popping up everywhere about a dozen years ago. Hospital ORs were increasingly overcrowded, and they realized they could lighten the load considerably if they began to conduct minimally invasive surgeries off site.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of—I get bussed to relieve someone else’s overcrowding problem. I get second-rate care.”

  “There’s nothing second-rate about Westmoreland Surgery Center,” Reston said. “A decade ago, ambulatory surgery centers only performed the simplest procedures: endoscopies, breast biopsies, lesion excisions—and that’s all that some centers still do. But more aggressive facilities—like this one—developed into fullfledged, freestanding surgery centers. At Westmoreland, we now do an entire range of surgical procedures: gynecological, urological, vascular, and orthopedic. We’re constantly increasing the number of procedures we can perform.”

  “But you can’t compete with a hospital for quality of care.”

  “Why not? Our surgeons are on the staff of several local hospitals; if you choose to go to a hospital, one of our surgeons may perform your procedure there.”

  “But surely hospitals have better facilities—the equipment and all.”

  “Westmoreland Surgery Center has two state-of-the-art surgical suites. They are identical to the ORs in any major hospital—except for the instrumentation, of course.”

  “The instrumentation?”

  “The cost of medical equipment is enormous—a single surgical laser can cost almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Hospitals have the funding to purchase their equipment outright; we avoid the capital outlay by using an equipment outsource company. Suppose you need a procedure that requires the use of that surgical laser; instead of buying one—and charging your insurance company for it—we can lease it for a single day. The outsource company can provide blood bypass equipment, instrument trays—anything we require, depending on the procedure we’re doing.”

  “Clever,” Nick said. “That would allow you to do almost any procedure a hospital can do.”

  “Almost.”

  “Just out of curiosity, what keeps you guys from going all the way? What keeps you from performing, say, brain surgery?”

  Reston leaned as far back as his ergonomic chair would allow and considered this. “In theory, we could—that is, we could at least set up to perform the procedure—but what we’re not set up for is long-term convalescent care. No intensive care unit, no month-long hospital stays. This is an ambulatory center, Mr. Polchak—strictly outpatient.”

  “So you knock out a wall and add a few beds. Surely brain surgery is more profitable than vasectomies.”

  “You’d think so—but the problem is liability. Surgery centers can only expand as far as liability insurance will allow them to. Think about it: We do a brain surgery, something goes wrong, and the attorneys all scream, ‘Inadequate care! It wouldn’t have happened in a hospital!’ One suit like that would be the end of us.”

  “The end of who? Who owns this place anyway?”

  “It’s privately owned; that’s all I’m allowed to tell you.”

  “By individual doctors?”

  “Sorry. But I can tell you that doctors commonly own these places. Let’s be honest, Mr. Polchak, there’s a second reason these facilities began to develop: doctors took a good look at the fee structure in hospitals and realized they were missing out on a lot of money. Check a hospital bill—there are professional fees, and there are hospital fees. The professional fees go to the doctor, but the hospital gets the rest. Doctors realized they would never get the lion’s share until they owned the facility itself—and outpatient surgical centers were born.”

  Nick glanced around the room. “I imagine these places are very profitable.”

  “Ther
e’s a very definite profit motive behind these places—and I don’t mind telling you, because it’s to your advantage. Those profits allow us to compete with any other kind of healthcare facility—hospitals included. At Westmoreland you get state-ofthe-art facilities, top-of-the-line surgical staff, privately employed nurses, and a lot more attention than you’re going to get in a hospital ward with a hundred beds. You have nothing to fear here, Mr. Polchak. We’re on the cutting edge.”

  Nick steered his car onto the Penn Lincoln Parkway and waited until he emerged from the Squirrel Hill Tunnel before punching the button on his cell phone.

  “Riley McKay, please.” He waited. “Riley—Nick. Can you talk? I just stopped off at Westmoreland Surgery Center and asked a few questions. What? Yes, I was tactful—aren’t I always tactful? The COO at Westmoreland told me that they can set up to perform almost any technical procedure there. The only thing that limits them is liability—but if there is no liability, then there are no limits, are there? I think we’ve got the last piece of our puzzle—and I think it’s time to call Santangelo. Are you OK with that? Then you make the call and tell them everything we’ve found—but keep Leo’s name out of it, will you? Right. I knew you would.

  “What’s your caseload like today? When do you get off? Then let’s meet tonight at Leo’s, and we’ll put a few notes together and collect all the physical evidence. Ask Santangelo what he wants us to do with it, and we can drop it off. Maybe the three of us can grab dinner together—you know, to celebrate. I’m afraid it’ll have to be Italian.

  “Hey, about last night. That talk you had with my mom seemed to do some good. What did she tell you? What? Well, pity is underrated. No, I’m not proud—I’ll take pity any day.

  “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve … ridden a bicycle. We sort of got interrupted. Too bad—it was just beginning to come back to me.”

  The yacht’s twin diesels had barely rumbled to a stop before Cruz Santangelo leapt to his feet.

  “They know everything,” he said. “They hacked into UPMC’s patient records and got a list of transplant patients. They picked the ones who dropped off the list and compared them against death records. They took the richest guy and searched his trash. They’ve identified a client, Julian—they found Vandenborre.”

  “Ingenious,” Zohar said. “Really quite impressive.”

  “Did you hear me? They know everything!”

  “What don’t they know?”

  “What difference does it make? They’ve found a client! All they have to do is—”

  “What don’t they know?” he repeated patiently.

  Santangelo sat down hard. “They don’t know about my involvement. They still believe there’s a federal investigation going on. That’s why they called me.”

  “As we expected,” Zohar nodded.

  “And they don’t know about Kaplan or Angel—but those are just details, Julian. They’ve made the connection between Lassiter and Truett and you. They know enough to put us away for life—what difference does it make what they don’t know?”

  “It makes a great deal of difference. Remember, Dr. Polchak and Dr. McKay are helping us to identify vulnerabilities in our system. They’re working for us, not against us—not yet anyway.”

  “Santangelo is right!” Truett shouted, charging from the cockpit. “These people can destroy us with a single phone call.”

  “Which they already made—to the FBI, just this afternoon.”

  “But all it takes is one word to somebody else. I say it’s time to shut them down—I’ve got too much at stake here.”

  “You have everything at stake here; we all do, Mr. Truett.”

  “Then we deal with this now.”

  “I agree!” Santangelo said.

  Zohar paused to allow their emotions to subside. Then he smiled and spoke even more softly than before. “I agree. I think it’s time, as you say, to shut them down—assuming, of course, that we know who they are. Mr. Santangelo, have you been able to identify the third member of their party?”

  “I have—and I know where he lives.”

  “You’ve reviewed his vita? You’ve considered his education and background? You’re convinced he was capable of providing the necessary computer expertise?”

  “He’s the one, all right. This guy has even developed software for the Bureau.”

  “And you’re satisfied there’s no one else? No fourth member?”

  “There will be if we don’t get moving. Who knows who else they might involve in this? The more time we spend here talking, the greater the risk.”

  “On that point I disagree; the more time we spend here talking, the smaller the risk. Remember, gentlemen, we’re talking about ‘shutting down’ three human lives. If Dr. Lassiter were here, he would remind us that a careless course of action now will ‘raise all kinds of flags’ with the authorities.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Truett said. “We’ve got to do it now!”

  “We do have time for this,” Zohar corrected, “but I agree that we should not delay. All I’m suggesting is that we proceed just as we’ve always done—according to plan, not out of passion. Mr. Santangelo, you know what to do?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Please keep me posted on your progress.”

  “What about the next procedure?” Truett said. “It’s coming up fast. Are we still on?”

  “Of course. I’ll inform the rest of the committee about the details. Remember, we have a client who’s depending on us—and I think Mr. Santangelo can guarantee that there will be no more prying eyes.”

  “You got it,” Santangelo said.

  Zohar smiled and looked at both of them. “Our last two meetings on this beautiful vessel have been so … depressing. May I suggest that our next gathering here be a kind of celebration? The end of one era and the beginning of another. What do you say, gentlemen? I’ll bring the champagne.”

  Atoast,” Leo said, raising his glass. “To the finest team of forensic exterminators ever assembled.”

  They touched their glasses together and drank. Leo’s kitchen table was crowded with paper: strip-shredded documents reassembled into tiny woven mats, thousands of bits of confetti sandwiched between plastic sheets, and one neat stack of computer-generated reproductions. Beside the table, a mound of black-and-white garbage bags still rested.

  “And now,” Leo said with a flourish, “I would like to invite both of you to join me in a triumphal feast.”

  “Great idea,” Nick said. “There’s a little Polish deli just around the corner.”

  Leo twisted from side to side, as if searching for a place to spit. “How have I offended you? How have I sinned, that you would assign me this penance?”

  “OK then, we’ll let Riley decide.”

  They turned to her. Riley folded her arms.

  “Has it ever occurred to you two that I’m Scottish?”

  Nick squinted at her. “You want to go to McDonald’s?”

  She turned up her nose to him. “Just for that, I vote for Italian.”

  Leo raised his hands to the sky. “I promise you an unforgettable evening. Cost is no object, thanks to the good Mr. Vandenborre.”

  “Mr. Vandenborre?”

  Leo picked up the top sheet of paper from the table. “Mr. Vandenborre has been kind enough to loan us his Visa card for the evening. I find this to be a poetic justice not even the FBI can attain.”

  Nick turned to Riley. “That reminds me: How was Santangelo when you told him?”

  “Stunned. He didn’t say anything at all for a minute—I thought we got disconnected at first. Then he kept asking me to repeat myself, asking for more and more details. Boys, I think we flat-out wowed the FBI.”

  “No complaints? No rebukes? No requests to give up your trivial pathology career and join the FBI?”

  Riley laughed. “I wish I could have been there when he reported this to his superiors. I hope we didn’t embarrass him too much.”

 
“All authorities need to be embarrassed from time to time,” Nick said. “It keeps them humble.”

  “I hate to change the subject,” Leo said, “but I need my kitchen table back. What do we do with all of this?”

  “I told Santangelo I’d call him again once we had time to organize it. Is this everything?”

  “I should include a copy of the entomological evaluation I did for you,” Nick said. “I need to polish the report and get the specimens mounted.”

  “This is everything I’ve got,” Leo said, “except for the keystroke logs from Lassiter’s computer. I saw no reason to include those, since the FBI has been monitoring them as well.”

  “We should throw those in too,” Nick said. “We want them to know we’re holding nothing back; better to give them too much than too little.”

  “It will only take a minute.” Leo sat down at the computer and began to call up the spyware reports and send them one by one to the laser printer. Suddenly, he stopped and studied the screen. “Nick,” he said. “Is this what I think it is?”

  Nick stepped up behind him and peered over his shoulder. “What have you got?”

  “An encrypted e-mail Lassiter sent less than an hour ago. Take a look.”

  The message read:

  NEXT PROCEDURE AS SCHEDULED

  DONOR: SARAH JEAN MCKAY

  3162 ROCKFORD AVE APT 17/ MT.

  LEBANON

  O POSITIVE

  “Riley,” Nick called back to the kitchen, “isn’t your sister named Sarah?”

  “What’s she done now?” Riley said, grinning as she stepped into the living room—but her smile instantly vanished when she saw the look on both of their faces. She charged to the computer and pushed Nick aside.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “Sarah!”

  “Was your sister part of PharmaGen’s population study?” Nick asked.

  “She’s a nurse—half the medical people in the city are a part of it!”

  Leo examined the screen again. “It says next procedure. She’s referred to as a donor, and even her blood type is listed. There can be no doubt what this is.”