The Angel Maker lbadm-2

by Ridley Pearson

  The fear of abandonment penetrated so deeply that she felt paralyzed, unable to move or speak.

  But he touched her elbow and steered her into the cabin's basement room-his operating theater and shut the door. The ceiling of exposed floor joists hung low over their heads, woven with a network of old pipes and electrical wiring. He had created a false ceiling by stapling a thick clear plastic to the underside of the joists. He had done nearly the same thing to the stone walls-had placed a series of two-by-fours around the perimeter of the room and had fixed the transparent sheeting to them, creating plastic walls. This room was kept immaculately clean even the plastic was wiped down with disinfectant following every surgery. He was a cleanliness fanatic-you only had to look at his hands and nails to see that. And although in terms of equipment they got by with only the bare necessities-anesthesia, lights, autoclave, and various monitoring devices-it was all state of the art. There was even a backup generator in case the power failed. Tegg was overly cautious with every aspect of his surgery. obsessive. She considered him a great teacher. The overhead lights burst with enough candlepower to light a small stadium.

  Only his eyes were visible above the surgical mask as he studied her. He glanced quickly from her to his patient on the table. He seemed briefly confused. She couldn't remember ever having seen him with this particular expression-as if he had been caught in some wrong. Perhaps he knew how much such a discovery would hurt her. Perhaps he could sense even that.

  Her eyes welled with the tears of rejection. He didn't need her.

  He had deliberately excluded her. just like her parents! just like everyone! But then he raised and dropped the green cloth as if it meant nothing to him, as if discarding his patient, and stepped toward her with a renewed confidence, strong, even mesmerizing. "My pager must be broken," she said to him in a dispirited voice, looking for some excuse. She knew it wasn't broken, but she wanted to offer him a way out. Even now, she felt obliged to protect him.

  He replied, "No, your pager is not broken. I didn't call you." Only now did she notice that he held a scalpel in his gloved hand. Devilishly sharp. Dangerous. "I didn't want to … bother you." These were the words he spoke, but it was not the message carried in his voice. This contradiction confused her. "Bother me? You never bother me. I'm always available for you. For any reason. Anything at all."

  She strained again to see the patient on the table, but he stepped into her line of sight and placed the scalpel flatly against her cheek. He clearly didn't want her looking.

  She glanced into his familiar eyes and saw something new there.

  Her legs trembled. She felt herself flush a crimson red as sexual excitement rushed through her. Here? Now?

  He stepped closer to her and ran the scalpel down her neck to between her breasts. "Elden?" she asked, her heart racing furiously.

  One by one, he cut free the buttons. "Is this all right?" he asked.

  She nodded. "I guess so." Keeping his mask on, he kissed her then for the first time. He took her pouty lips between his masked teeth and bit down hard in a way that both thrilled and terrified her. She felt powerless next to him. "Is it all right?" he asked again. "Hmm?

  She hesitated. "You want this, don't you, Pamela? I know you do. Tell me you do."

  Her shirt fell open. He pulled it back and studied the long scar below her rib cage. He touched it and hummed softly. "Tell me," he repeated. She thought she might faint. He used the scalpel to cut her bra. it too fell open, exposing her. He didn't look. He held her eyes. He said, "This is what you want, isn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." He ran the flat of the blade over her breasts. A penetrating, exhilarating chill raced through her. The danger that blade represented … He then held out his empty hand and offered it to her. She kissed his gloved fingers then, one by one. She drew each of his fingers into her mouth, suckling them and curling her warm tongue around them, ignoring the odd odor of the latex. All the I while, Tegg continued to stare into her eyes. What did he see? What was he after? He withdrew his fingers from her mouth, glanced once quickly nervously? — over his shoulder at his patient, then quickly back at her and said, "You won't need these." He tugged her jeans away from her soft middle and drew the scalpel all the way down one pant leg, then the other. Her jeans came off like a pair of chaps. Her head swam, feeling his hand touch her there.

  All at once she could smell her own excitement, and it embarrassed her. It mixed with the musty and medicinal odors of the cellar. "You'll like it," he said, reading her thoughts. He pulled the severed blouse from her and left it on the floor. He led her-underwear, running shoes and peds-to the end of the operating table.

  He positioned her facing him with her back to the patient, standing between the unconscious woman's bare feet. She resisted the urge to cover her tried not to think of the way her flesh must belly, look in the glaring light. His eyes glowed behind the operating mask. She could hear his coarse, exciting breathing.

  She felt dizzy, almost drunk. This wasn't how she had imagined it. He was scarcely himself. is this how men were? She ached with longing and fear. He reached past her and moved the patient's feet out of Pamela's way, clearing a small space between them on the operating table.

  Suddenly, he scooped Pamela up and planted her sitting in this space on the end of the high operating table, centered between the patient's ankles. He took one of her hands and placed it on her raised knee, then the other, so she held herself open for him. He spun the scalpel before her eyes. Light glinted from its edges. He lowered it. He nicked the waistline of her underwear, and then threw the scalpel to the floor. He placed both hands on her underpants, and tore them open.

  He asked, "Are you sure?" She nodded, unable to speak. "We can stop," he offered. "No." He touched her with his gloved hands. She rocked her head back and stared open-eyed into the harsh, sterile light. Her left leg cramped; she wanted to let go of her knee, but she didn't dare do anything. This was all so new to her, not at all what she had imagined. Better in some ways. Worse in others. He felt removed and distant, and yet his touch was intense and knowledgeable. She wanted him to want her.

  He unfastened his belt. She grew light-headed. He took her legs and pulled them toward him, drew her to him, causing her to plant her arms and lean back, her head nearly touching the patient, her legs wrapped around him, her body half on, half off the metal table. The farther back she leaned, the easier it was to support herself, but the more contact she made with the woman behind and beneath her. Humming one of the operas that he played during their surgery, he penetrated her. A sharp pain. She cried out. She could tell by his reaction that he liked it, so she didn't try to stifle the sounds that shuddered through her with each of his thrusts. He went after her with a frenzy.

  Her body went numb as all of her senses focused, instead of on herself, on him. His eyes closed. He smiled! He liked this!

  Then nothing. He stopped. Was it over? He withdrew and shoved her away from him, back onto the table.

  She was filled with a vague longing for something soft-muted light, a pillow, a kind word. "Was it any good?" she asked. "You can't answer that yourself?"

  "It was wonderful!"

  "There, you see?" Then he said mechanically and without emotion, "Now put on a smockthere's work to be done. She won't stay under forever."

  Pamela went into the adjacent storage room, cleaned herself off and changed into a smock, remaining naked underneath. The sensation thrilled her. Everything about this night thrilled her. With her clothes as they were, she would have nothing but the smock to wear for her drive home. Wild! She giggled with the thought.

  When she returned, he seemed nervous, almost frantic, not at all himself. He kept checking his watch. She joined him at the table alongside the patient and the stainless steel tray of hemostats, scalpels, and needles.

  Only then did she notice: "She's not prepped!" She blurted this out without thinking. "She isn't shaved." Their eyes met then, and she saw panic in his, so foreign a sight th
at it was made all the more obvious, like a virtuoso missing a note, or an actor forgetting a line. He had neglected to prep her. Inconceivable! Elden Tegg? He never forgot a single detail of any operation, large or small. Had the sex been that good? She didn't know this man. He had treated her so differently this evening, done things she had always wanted but had never dared ask for, that it was almost as if she was with someone else. "You're right," he conceded, "she's not properly prepped."

  Elden Tegg admit a mistake? He never made a mistake! What was happening?

  He instructed her, "Get what you need and prep her." When she failed to respond, he commanded harshly, "Go on!"

  She didn't like that voice. It wounded her. A few minutes later, as she was soaping the patient's side and abdomen, she noticed that the surgical cloth covering the patient was damp in the center of her chest. It had been dry earlier, when Pamela had left the room. She shaved the woman, but her eyes wandered the room curiously and she spotted a surgical sponge stained with Betadyne resting on the edge of the sink. This too was new since she had been out of the room. She put the two together: The Betadyne had earlier been used to prep the epidermal for surgery, and then the patient's chest had been washed clean of it while she was out of the room.

  A heart? Impossible! He wouldn't do that. They had talked about that recently. A lung perhaps. "All set," she said to him. All set? Her hands were shaking, her knees weak. Her eyes fell upon that sponge across the room. She thought about the sex, what he had done to her: Out of desire? Or had it been to distract her? To keep her attention off this patient. She glanced over at him. She felt a distance between them. If this was a scheduled harvest, why hadn't she been notified? Who was the courier if not her?

  "All set," he said, his eyes dancing nervously, his hands trembling slightly-hands usually as steady as the steel he held. Yes, another man entirely.

  He leaned over the patient, his dark eyes trained on her.

  Slowly, carefully, he lowered the blade. "Her name is Sharon," he said to Pamela. "Thank you, Sharon."

  This was part of his ritual-every donor had a name, every donor was thanked for the contribution about to be made. He insisted on this. "Thank you, Sharon," Pamela echoed in an unsteady voice that betrayed her inner thoughts and caused Tegg to glance up at her briefly. But not for long. Only an instant. The sharp blade came in contact with the woman's skin. The first drop of her blood seeped from the incision. Pamela lifted a sponge. There was work to do.

  As Elden Tegg began the invasive surgery for the kidney harvest, thoughts swarmed inside his head like angry bees. The problem lay in the fact that Pamela would never approve of a heart procurement-the procedure for which this woman had been prepped prior to Pamela's intrusion. There was no predicting what she might do if she found out about it, hence the charade-the lovemaking, the distraction, the ruse that he had forgotten to prep him! — and now an unplanned kidney harvest. Worse, Maybeck was due shortly, hopefully to inform Tegg that Wong Kei's wife had been successfully admitted to the Vancouver hospital, and then to act as courier for both the harvested heart and the other organs once the various procedures were completed. A single kidney harvest wouldn't interfere with any of that-this donor wouldn't need any kidneys where she was going, that was all part of Tegg's plan-but Pamela's curiosity was sure to peak if she encountered Maybeck. Maybeck delivered donors, and he returned them to the streets, but this was too soon after surgery for a pickup; she would have to wonder what he was doing here this time of night. Pamela Chase was no idiot; she would figure this out in minutes. And then what?

  There was one possible excuse, he realized, and he congratulated himself for thinking of it. On rare occasions they performed a "private" harvest, selling an organ directly to a friend of Tegg's, a transplant surgeon in Vancouver-as opposed to shipping it off to the Third World market. Patients on the low end of transplant waiting lists became desperate, and this surgeon in Vancouver-along with Tegg was willing to do something about it. For a fee. This heart was a "private" arranged through the same man. Although Pamela had previously delivered the "privates," there had been talk recently that perhaps Maybeck should do it, and this provided Tegg his out.

  He paid particular attention to his work, for he continued to see this woman's body as a treasure trove, a chalice from which to draw life itself. Several lives. One begets many: it was almost poetic! He felt a small twitch in his neck but paid it no mind-just nerves.

  He worked more quickly than usual, and Pamela did a good job of keeping up, of anticipating his every need. He wanted this finished. He wanted the kidney packed, readied for travel, and Pamela on her way before Maybeck's arrival. if Maybeck said the wrong thing, he could screw this all up. Tegg glanced up and looked around the room to rest his eyes. The plastic walls and ceiling gave the room a strange metallic sheen, reflecting the bright light like dulled mirrors. Again, the muscles in his neck and shoulder twitched; again, he fought it off.

  "Doctor?" she asked. He had actually blanked out for a minute, caught up more in his thoughts than his actions. His eye rest had gone on a little too long. He returned to his work, talking as he did. "Clamping the renal artery. Renal vein." He prepared to sever both. "Scalpel." She slapped it into his gloved hand before he completed the first syllable. She snatched it back just as quickly, and he knew she had spotted a possible problem. It was a tangled mess in here. He wormed his fingers around the various veins and arteries, double-checking to make sure his clamps were properly placed. What had she seen that he might have missed? Together they had successfully performed over thirty such human kidney harvests, and yet they treated each as if it were their first. He carefully followed the clamped artery to its source, confirming it was the renal artery and not the superior mesenteric, which for a moment she had obviously feared it might be. Satisfied, he reestablished his clamp and found the scalpel in his hand once again. He glanced into her eyes. Even with a mask covering most of her face, he could tell she was smiling. She enjoyed this precision teamwork as much as he. Too bad she would miss the heart. "Tying off," he announced. He cut both vessels and tied them securely, testing first the vein-by carefully removing the hemostat-and then the artery. This artery carried over forty-five percent of the body's blood to the kidney. The pressure to the suturc was significant. They both studied the two closures, alert for any leakage. Pamela reached in and sponged thoroughly, Tegg's dexterous fingers at the ready. "Looks fine," he declared, and went about severing the lesser vessels. Pamela washed the area in a steady stream of saline and antibiotic as Tegg continued his work. Several minutes passed. "Forehead," he warned. She mopped some perspiration from his brow. This tiny room lacked adequate ventilation, sealed in plastic as it was, and the intense heat from the light overheated it quickly. "You know," she commented, "the heat is a lot more tolerable like this," referring to her nudity under the smock. "I just bet it is," he said, close to having the kidney free and clear. "It was nice."

  "What we just did will carry more significance, mean more, if it is not discussed."

  "Message received."

  "I didn't mean-"

  "Yes, you did." She added, "I'll live."

  He glanced at her again. He didn't like to see her angry at him like this; he had come to expect that look of reverence in her eyes. He had come to like it. "Here we are," he announced, as he slowly extracted the cherished organ from the retracted incision, cradling it in his cupped hands like a newborn infant. "Saline!" he commanded.

  She presented the chilled stainless container to him. The clamped, pink organ sank down into the cool water. She added some saline to completely cover it and returned the dish to the bucket of ice where it had been waiting. "Let's close," he said, pleased with their success. The organ in that dish represented a saved human life, and it was the product of the work of his hands. No such feeling of accomplishment could ever be properly explained, he thought, still looking at it. No one, not even Pamela, could fully understand the magnitude of his happiness at such moments.

>   They returned to their teamwork, four hands working as if controlled by a single brain. And maybe they were, he thought in a moment of conceit. Maybe this woman at his side was a far greater part of him than either of them understood. It had begun to feel that way of late. And why not? What was wrong with that?

  As they closed the various levels of muscle and tissue he instructed, "There's a UNOS container in the back room." This transplant container, one of many stolen by Maybeck from the trash bins of the University Hospital, had been intended for the heart. It was a good size for the heart, slightly smaller than the ones they normally used for the kidneys. "Make sure you triple-bag the organ-use Viospan, as always-check for leaks, don't forget and don't scrimp on the ice! We received a complaint the last time!"

  "I always check the ice!" she protested. "It was the cabin temperature. It wasn't us. There's nothing we can do about some old pilot who insists on flying in a sauna."

  "Just make sure."

  "I will. You know I will." She then inquired, "What flight am I on?"

  Tegg spoke quickly. "This is a private. Maybeck's delivering."

  He awaited her reaction. He didn't dare look at her, she might see something in his eyes. To cover himself he added sternly, "We talked about this. Hmm? I think it's better this way. You said so yourself: You don't like delivering the privates."

  She didn't say anything. just right. He didn't approve of the continuous stitch, subcutaneous closure he had performed. He removed it and began again, this time in silence. "Forehead," he warned. She caught the perspiration in time. This contact between them seemed to settle her down some. The remainder of their work went flawlessly.