The Angel Maker lbadm-2

by Ridley Pearson

  Even Sharon's done it." She passed him several photocopies.

  They were from back issues of medical journals. "Both blood and tissue type are extremely important in transplants. That's where a doctor begins in what can sometimes be a long process of matching a donor with a recipient. These articles will fill you in."

  He scanned the articles quickly. "Blood banks," he mumbled.

  Then he said outright, "They select their potential donors from blood banks?" She said, "It's certainly a strong possibility. One worth following up."

  "We'll divide and conquer," Boldt said. "Talk to Cindy Chapman. Press her for information. Did she sell her kidney? Did she sell her blood? I'll pay a visit to our local blood banks." He supported Miles as he stood.

  She caught his eyes. She held him there, waiting. "Say it," she said. He stared at her. "You can't just walk out of here after all of this and not say it."

  "Is it so important?" Boldt asked. "It's a young woman's life," she reminded. "You tell me."

  He nodded in resignation. "I'm in."

  Dr. Elden Tegg retained the only key to the Lakeview Animal Clinic's refrigerated walk-in because of the drugs it contained. He never would have chosen to install the walk-in himself; but this office had previously been a small Italian restaurant, and the walk-in served a useful purpose, both as the repository for the medications and as a holding closet for the surgical waste and dead animals that were byproducts of any busy surgical clinic.

  The man he met at the clinic's back door was short and stocky, dressed in a black-leather jacket, with black hair that peaked sharply in the center of his forehead. Donnie Maybeck was hired freelance to drive the clinic's "chuck wagon"-transporting the various bags of organic waste to a private incinerator. Because they would temporarily store this waste in the walk-in, he made only two trips a week.

  Tegg unlocked the heavy door to the walk-in and stepped back, allowing the man to do his job but keeping an eye on him because of the abundance of controlled substances. "Wanna gimme a hand with this?" Maybeck asked Tegg. He had horrible teeth, chipped and gray with decay.

  This question, posed as it was, signaled Tegg. He stepped inside the cooler and pulled the door behind him until it thumped shut, closing them in. "Make it quick," he said. You could see your breath in here. Tegg crossed his arms to fend off the cold.

  The man in the black-leather jacket spoke softly. "Some guy called me about a meeting. Said it can't wait."

  "What can't wait? What guy?" "Sounded like a Chink. Said a doc up in Vancouver recommended you. Asked me to set up a meet with you. Wanted it ASAP. Like tonight."

  "Vancouver?" Tegg knew this could only mean one thing. He felt hot all of a sudden. "The guy says either you agree to meet him or no. There's no bullshit with this guy., Tegg felt his knees go weak. The man next to him continued, "Said he was prepared to pay some major bucks."

  "And what did you say?" Tegg asked anxiously. "I didn't tell him squat. Okay? I'd like to know how the fuck he got my name. I'm checking with you, Doc. That's all. No need to sprout a fuckin' hemmi! I got this covered."

  Tegg attempted some measure of self-control. He slowed his thoughts down, separated them, and dealt with them one by one.

  His thoughts tended to leap ahead of him, making the present something he saw only upon reflection, so that much of his life felt more like instant replay than the real thing. He lived life as much from recalling that which had just occurred as he did from experiencing it, making him feel like two different people-one moving through life and the other attempting to come to grips with his actions.

  Could he allow an opportunity like this to pass him by? On the other hand, could he protect himself well enough from the possible dangers? "Listen," the other man said, "you're my needle man for Felix tonight. Don't forget you agreed to do that for me. So, what if I got this guy to meet us out there?"

  Tegg had forgotten about this commitment. It rattled him-it wasn't like him to forget anything, even something so distasteful.

  Maybeck added, "Listen, I could run point for you. Get this Chink out there ahead of you. Check him out. Keep you close by. If it's cool, I give you a shout on the car phone. if you don't hear from me by, say, nine o'clock, I get rid- of him and you hang until it's clear to come in and help me out with Felix. One thing about these fights, we got bitchin' security. If this guy's trouble, he's gonna wish he stayed home. Know what I mean?"

  Tegg suddenly realized that in surgery his thoughts did not get ahead of him-his hands kept up effortlessly. He wondered if this explained his love of surgery.

  He said to this other man, "What if he doesn't like the setup? I sure as hell wouldn't meet somebody at a dog fight! I've never even been to a dog fight."

  "Hey, it's not our problem. Okay?

  This is pay or play," he said misquoting things he knew nothing about. This man's vocal drivel always set Tegg on edge. "If he doesn't want to show, tough titties for him."

  Tegg contemplated all of this while the other man gathered the plastic bags of contaminated waste. "Set it up," Tegg ordered. He turned and punched the large throw-bar that released the walkin's outside latch. He walked slowly down the hall, pensive and concentrating. He sensed that everything had changed. The closer he drew to the examination room, the more put off he was by the thought of cats and dogs. Boring, meaningless work.

  Earlier in the day, he had simply wanted to do his job well-get through another day. Have some fun. Earn some good money, listen to some Wagner, all the while working a blade.

  Now all he wanted was to meet this unidentified man. He glanced at his watch impatiently: hours to go.

  He looked in on Pamela Chase, who was just bringing up another set of X-rays. Ever the diligent assistant. "We didn't get much on our first series," she explained. "You do good work." She glowed at this comment. Tegg knew exactly how to play her, how to feed her needs. She fed his in her own way-her unending compliments, her adoring glances. Other ways, too.

  He stepped up to the X-rays. Child's play, compared to the real work that lay ahead of him. He could feel her sweet breath warm against his cheek as she leaned in to share in this exploration. He moved over so that she could see better and allowed his hand to gently brush her bottom, as if accidentally. She didn't flinch, her eyes searching out the elusive fracture in the fuzzy black-and-gray images.

  Besides, he thought, self-amused, she knew this contact was no accident. She loved it. She loved everything about him.

  "Whose turn is it to heat up dinner?" Boldt asked his wife, feeling a little apprehensive about how to steer the conversation to the subject of his returning to work. How to negotiate his future with her. They had found a routine that worked. He was about to challenge all that, and he knew before he began that flexibility was not her long suit. She was changing clothes, out of her executive-banker look and into some blue jeans and a cotton sweater she had tossed onto the bed. It was past seven-he was starved.

  Liz answered, "I suppose it's mine, but I refuse. Let's go out."

  "What about Einstein?" Boldt asked, looking over at Miles, who was fighting to keep his eyes open, not wanting to miss anything. All so new to him. Each of his expressions meant the world to Boldt: an inquisitive glance, a furrowed brow. Simple pleasures. "Okay," she said. "You win. Take-out, and I'm buying. If I make the call, will you pick it up?" He asked, "Have you noticed how much we negotiate everything?"

  "Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai? You name it."

  "Fish and chips," he suggested. "Too fattening." "You said I could name it."

  "I lied." She patted her belly. "How about sushi?"

  "Where's your wallet?"

  "The front hall I think."

  "Make it a big order.

  I'm starved, and that stuff never stays with me."

  "And get some beer, would you?"

  While Boldt was gone, Liz had put Miles to sleep. When they finished eating, Boldt caught her hand and led her out to the living room where he sat her down. It was after nine. "
The IRS shut down The joke last night. Confiscated all the books." "The IRS? So that's what's bothering you."

  "They want to talk to us."

  Disbelief came over her eyes. "Us? Oh, God, I hope they don't know about the cash income."

  "I don't see what else it could be."

  "Oh, shit. I signed that return."

  "We both signed the return."

  "But cash? Cash under the table?

  How could they …? Goddamn that Bear Berenson. He must have tried to deduct it. Damn it all. You realize the penalty we'll face? Oh, my God. — "And The joke is closed down. I can look around for other work, but no one's going to pay me like Bear did."

  "Oh, God. You realize the penalty? I wonder if they can send you to jail for something like this."

  "Money's all they want. It's all anybody wants."

  "But that's just the point!

  What money? Every available cent we have is going to pay off the hospital."

  Boldt didn't want her thinking about this. He glanced back toward the room where Miles now slept and remembered the complications of his delivery as if it had been yesterday. Would he ever forget that night? Could any price tag be put on having them both alive? "We'll manage."

  "Manage? You don't do the books. I do. We won't manage, that's just the point. We need that income. Are they going to audit us? Is that what you mean? Oh, God, I don't believe this."

  He hated himself for manipulating her like this, for doing to her what in her own way Daphne had done to him, but on this subject Liz had Special Handling written all over her. "I heard an awful story today about a girl named Cindy Chapman."

  "They nail you for unreported income, you know. You know that, don't you?" "She's a sixteen-year-old runaway."

  As he had hoped, Liz momentarily forgot about the IRS. "What are you talking about?"

  "They stole her kidney," Boldt explained.

  "Who did?" she gasped. "Worse than that: She hemorrhaged. She almost died. Sixteen-years old," he repeated.

  "Lou?" There it was, that flicker of recognition he had been expecting, but dreading. "If I go active again, I'm eligible for a loan through the credit union."

  Her eyes grew sad and then found his. She didn't speak, just stared. Boldt said, "We'd have to juggle Miles. I realize that. Maybe day care," he said tentatively, expecting an eruption.

  Instead, she turned a ghastly pale. She rose, her back to him, and walked into their bedroom. She shut the door behind her, closing him out. He loved this woman. Her sense of humor. Her courage. The way she laughed when it was least expected. The way she reached into the shower to test the temperature. Little things, all of them important. The way she hummed to herself when she didn't know he could hear. Her sense of organization. The silly presents she would show up with on no particular occasion. Her pursuit of pleasure. The way she made love when she was really happy.

  He could hear the radio through the closed door. The news. The weather. More rain. They couldn't take any more rain. The flooding was as bad as it had ever been. Suicide rate was up: bungie jumping off Aurora Bridge, without the bungie cords.

  He looked around for something to do. Lately, Miles, this woman, and The Big joke had been his whole life. Now he found himself thinking about Cindy Chapman and Daphne Matthews.

  Maybe he'd try to talk her into this in the morning. Maybe he would admit to a promise already made. Maybe Cindy Chapman was an isolated case. Maybe there wasn't some guy out there carving up runaways after all. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  He went to the bedroom door and opened it cautiously. "Mind if I join you?"

  She was on the bed, her jeans unbuttoned. She shrugged. "More rain," she said, as if nothing had come before. "Yeah, I heard."

  She patted the comforter beside her. He knew that look.

  Forgiving. Cautiously optimistic. He loved her for it.

  Boldt stepped inside, kicking off his shoes, and shut the door.

  A hundred yards down the dark, narrow, overgrown lane, Elden Tegg encountered a truck blocking his way. A huge man with an untrimmed beard asked him his name 'checked his driver's license, consulted a list, and finally backed out of the way, allowing him to pass.

  He drove under a canopy formed by the limbs of trees. The road was all mud and leaves. He parked the Trooper amid a group of battered pickup trucks and hurried through the rain toward the large barn. A yellow light escaped the slats in the wood. He pulled open the door and stepped inside.

  He smelled cigarettes, hay, manure and musty, rotting wood. He smelled a metallic, salty odor as well, one that as a veterinarian he knew only too well: animal blood. He stepped into shadow and studied the scene before him.

  The fighting ring, a wooden box ten-feet square, had been hastily constructed out of gray barn wood. It occupied an area in the middle of the wide dirt aisle between the stalls. A hayloft, cloaked in darkness, loomed above them. The building's only light came from a single bare bulb suspended directly above the center of the ring. It cast harsh shadows on the rough faces of the nearly twenty men in attendance.

  This scene repulsed him. Pitting dogs to the death. He repaired life; he did not waste it.

  A head in the crowd turned and faced him. The same man from earlier in the day, Donnie Maybeck. His gold Rolex winked at Tegg as it caught the light. He approached Tegg with an exaggerated stride. He smiled, flashing his ragged gray-brown teeth at Tegg like an old whore lifting her skirt at a would-be John. "Are we set?" Tegg asked. "Everything's cool." He indicated the loft with a nod. "But before we get to that, we gotta do Felix."

  Spurred by an act of local government that amounted to canine genocide for all pit bulls, Tegg had rescued Felix and others from certain death in favor of lives devoted to science and research. These dogs-his creations, in a way-were now hidden out at Tegg's farm, where he maintained a surgical research laboratory. As much as Tegg hated the idea, the only way to fully test the success of the latest surgery was to fight this dog in the ring. Although Maybeck had assured him that there was always someone "competent" on hand to sew up any inflicted wounds-a so-called needle man-Tegg did not want anybody else doctoring the dog. Besides, he thought, this dog's insides would only confuse another vet, and raise suspicions about Tegg's practices. "I'm not here to fight him, only to provide medical attention if he needs it," Tegg reminded. "He's up next," Maybeck explained. "Up against Stormin' Norman. You understand. Norman ain't lost no fight in six go's. But I'm gonna need your help, Doc. You're the only one can handle him."

  "Where is he?" Tegg asked. Donnie Maybeck led him to a cream-colored airline travel cage perched high on a hay bale. The animal inside bared its razor-sharp teeth and growled ferociously at Donnie, who grinned back with his own ragged teeth, pressing his face close to the grid of bars on the door, teasing the dog with a growl. The pit bull charged the door so strongly that the cage nearly slid off the bale. "Don't taunt him," Tegg protested. At the sound of Tegg's voice, the dog's behavior reversed. It quieted and pushed its wet nose tightly into the bars of the cage toward Tegg. "See? This here is your dog, Doe. You're the one who saved him-and he knows it. You gotta help me do this."

  "I showed you how to work the collar.

  What kind of fool can't work a shock collar? You can push a button, can't you?" it was a rare display of spleen for Tegg, a terrible sign of weakness. He regretted it immediately. Maybeck did not take well to denigrating comments about his intelligence or lack thereof.

  Maybeck's eyes hardened. "I don't want to use no collar before the fight. it might weaken him, and I would hate to lose him."

  The idea that Felix might lose cut Tegg to the quick. Maybeck was right-this was no time to shock the dog.

  Tegg kept the shock collar's remote device in hand as he led Felix from the cage, leashed him, and led him toward the ring. To Tegg's delight, Felix behaved impeccably under escort. Maybeck followed, but at a distance.

  Once alongside the ring, Tegg cradled Felix in his arms and removed the shock collar. Felix's oppon
ent, Stormin' Norman, waited in the far corner. Around his throat he carried a dozen healed scars of a warrior.

  A three-hundred-pound man with a beard of barbed wire peered out from beneath a John Deere farmer's cap and declared solemnly, "To the death."

  The announcement sobered and silenced the spectators. The rain drummed on the roof. The air went electric with anticipation. Felix fixed his attention on his opponent. "I can't do this," Tegg told Maybeck. "Even in the name of research."

  He was spared any such decision. As the other dog was released, Felix broke loose and dove into the ring. The dogs exploded at one another. A roar went up from the crowd. Tegg withdrew to the shadows.

  He suddenly felt as if he was being watched. He looked around.

  No one. Again he scanned the barn's interior and again could identify no one interested in him. Then he looked up into the hayloft.

  There in the soft shadows stood a man dressed in a business suit, his full attention focused on Tegg, who recognized him immediately as Wong Kei, an infamous Seattle mob boss. His face was constantly in the news. Though this was a different face tonight: pale skin stretched tightly across sharp bones. Hard, spiritless eyes. A man desperately sad.

  An explosion of applause from the audience signaled the end of the fight, Maybeck tugged on Tegg's arm and pulled him toward the ring. Felix was circling the bloodied corpse of his failed opponent. "Not a scratch on him, Doe. You understand? He dropped Norman like he was a toy poodle. Norman! Not a scratch! You're a fucking genius, Doc. A real fucking genius."

  Expressionless, disgusted, Tegg collected the dog and returned him to the travel cage. Tegg glanced up into the loft. He told Maybeck, "I'll see him now."

  By the time they reached the hayloft via a set of rickety stairs, and Tegg had submitted himself to a frisksearch by one of Wong Kei's two stocky bodyguards, another contest had begun below.

  There were no introductions; a man of Wong Keis reputation needed none. In and out of the courts-always acquitted. They sat opposite each other on hay bales. Maybeck and the bodyguards remained standing.

  Wong Kei got to the point. "My wife is fifty-seven years old.