The Organ Broker

by Stu Strumwasser

  ◆

  Before I met Mark I don’t think I could have seen Michelle the way that I do now. Sometimes when she’s sleeping I try to stay awake just to have the pleasure of being in bed next to her. It’s harder to do after sex but easier if I go to her place and she’s already sleeping. The digital alarm clock on the dresser in her apartment makes a fake manual clicking sound when it changes hours. The vibrations of the 6 train become barely perceptible in the tunnels far below her bed between two and five in the morning on weeknights when all the world is sleeping. She grinds her teeth sometimes, but not every night. She is so perfectly real that sometimes I find her impossible to believe in. I did it then. I watched her for a long time that night in Montauk. Time is limited. Does Mark ever do that with Philip, I wonder? He’s only twenty-two. I was twenty-two when I was with his mother. Does he love Philip the way I loved Carrie? When you’re twenty-two you think that love changes everything. You think it matters so much and that feeling can stay with you for a long time.

  There are consequences no matter how sorry one might be or how much time has passed by, like dirt thrown over the graves of our mistakes. Yet, every moment of every passing day we have choices, opportunities, one right after the other, to do what’s right—or not. Now … now … and there it goes again … Now. Now, again.

  “What is it about us?” I asked her in a whisper.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you with me?’

  “Ah, that,” she said, grinning a bit. “Well, I like you because you’re so deeply flawed.”

  “Hmm? You mean, despite the fact that I’m flawed?”

  “No. Because.” We stared into each other’s eyes in that motel room. She smiled at me.

  “It makes you happy to be with me?” I whispered.

  “It means more to me to be understood than distracted.”

  “How’d you do it Michelle?” I asked quietly. “When your mom died, and then your dad, and things were hard, how’d you travel around Europe and go to school and build such a great career and, and make people like you?”

  “You gotta make lemonade, Jack. It’s the only thing to do.”

  “How’d you do that without feeling bitter?”

  “I’m talking about you, Jack. You need to do that. It’s still not too late.”

  I didn’t say a word. I felt less alone than I had in as long as I could remember, but that made me sick with guilt.

  ◆

  And that night in Montauk, I also had the dream again. I was at a dinner table with fine china and white linen and lace napkins. The plates were pearl white, with thin, swirling spirals of dark red along the outer edge. I was at the head of the table, dining alone. On my plate was a large piece of meat garnished with a sprig of parsley, and roasted potatoes adorned with rosemary. There were etched crystal glasses in front of me, one filled with water and one with red wine. Beyond the glasses was a floral centerpiece, thick with red and white flowers. The table was very long and I could feel the presence of unseen others in the room, outside of my field of vision.

  In my left hand was an ornate fork; in my right, an elegant, all-metal steak knife. I clutched the utensils, pointed up at the ceiling, in fists that rested on the linen tablecloth. The pose was aggressive. The meat looked delicious—tender and rare but slightly blackened. It appeared to be a steak, but I didn’t recognize the cut. It wasn’t familiar to me. Slowly, my gaze drifted down the long, white table, past the red and white flowers. I felt a heightened sense of apprehension as the far end of the table finally came into view, twelve or fifteen feet away. There were men standing just beyond the table, and women too, all of them dressed in black. There were seven or eight of them there, and more lined up in tight rows behind them, one after another, fading back into the black shadows.

  The men were all dressed in black suit pants. The women wore black or gray dresses. They were all silent. I pressed my hands down more firmly on the table. I felt sweat start to rise on my forehead, and my breathing quickened. They were all silent. As my eyes scaled very slowly up their legs it was then revealed to me that they were all shirtless. The men had no shirts at all; the women’s dresses had been peeled down to the waist to display their naked bodies. The old ones, their bodies wrinkled and marked with age spots, were mostly white. The younger ones were mostly black or Latino. “Why the hell are they undressed?” I thought in a panic, my pulse quickening.

  I felt compelled to begin eating. I was breathing heavily, audibly, but began to cut into the meat with the knife and fork clutched in my sweaty hands. Juice oozed from where I cut. It was a beautiful meal. It looked delicious, I thought, but there was a tension in my temples and tears began to well up in my eyes. “What?” I finally shouted at the crowd standing there. They watched me, shirtless, still and silent, and I saw that the young ones were all missing organs. Every one of them had gaping surgical wounds in their torsos, revealing emptiness where their parts had been. There was no bleeding, just raw, red tissue, each wound ragged and unique and menacing. It was monstrous. The old ones had ragged scars, red and raised lines where they had been sewed up after nephrectomies. Their expressions were not pained, but rather, blank and resigned. I shook my head as I pushed the first bite of meat past my teeth and locked my lips around it helplessly.

  As I began to chew, I felt terrified. I made eye contact then with one of the women and saw that it was Marlene Brown. My heart raced as I looked at the other faces and made out Tom Walsh, his fat gut protruding over the edge of his pants, a gruesome scar on his lower left side. I saw Kimball, and he smiled very slightly. Standing right beside him, several inches shorter, was Michael the janitor. “It’s good, no?” he asked me, “What?” I said quietly around a mouthful of delicious, buttery steak. I saw the faces of Lesedi, and Max from Miami, and some whose faces were familiar but whose names I could no longer remember. No. “You deserve it,” Michael said to me, his Jersey accent distinct in the otherwise silent room. “That one’s mine!” he added, pointing at the meat on my plate. No. I felt myself vomiting, unsure if it was coming from the dream or the waking world. I was dizzy and woke up.

  ◆

  Michelle went to Europe after her father died because she was running to something. That’s what she’s told me. She thought that if she allowed herself to feel cheated, or victimized, that those feelings would crawl up her legs like quicksand. She was running to things of beauty, and to the old and lasting feelings of Rome or Geneva. To be surrounded by the trappings of stability and romance, and the patient pace of places that would continue to be there for everyone, forever. She met men but didn’t sleep with anyone for months. She drank wine everywhere she went. She sketched, and she has the sketch books, but no one else has ever seen them. She cried sometimes, on trains, at night, and sometimes in taxi cabs, crazed with the feeling of being lost, but also in front of polished statues, and at the Louvre and on the Ponte Vecchio and at sunset in Oia, Santorini, at times when she felt terribly happy. She has explained this all to me. Now I want to see those statues, and the Louvre, and walk across the Ponte Vecchio and sit on the cliff in front of the small church that stands at the edge of Oia, facing west at sunset over the sleeping volcanoes in the bay, which Michelle has described to me.

  ◆

  It was the middle of September before I broached the subject of moving Philip. Wallace was losing patience and while he remained controlled in our conversations, he was clearly displeased about the pace of our progress and the risk of losing the biggest transaction of our lives. “I don’t understand your methods here, New York,” he would say. Or, “Please tell me that I am reaching you on an international roaming carrier in South Africa.”

  He had even begun pitching me by adding, “The kid’s father is tweaking, Jack. He is looking for other ways. What if he finds someone else, maybe that lunatic from Dallas? What then? That asshole will have the guy on a plane to the Philippines within twenty-four hours for just a couple of hundred grand. Granted, the guy would d
ie waiting, but still, so would our fee… .”

  ◆

  “Mark, it’s Jack,” I said as I finally began the first of several conversations I had been putting off.

  “Hey. Where’ve you been?”

  “Traveling,” I lied casually. “Listen, I want to talk to you about Philip. Are you alone?”

  “Yeah. I’m at home.”

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “The same.” The same is good.

  “Mark, I may be able to help him. There are some things I can actually do to help, but I need you to coordinate this for it to work. I can’t explain all of the details, but like your mother said, I did that thing for Billy Kimball when I was younger and …”

  “Yeah?”

  “Some of what I do, it’s complicated, and there are clients that require great confidentiality … Anyway, you just need to understand that I can help if you’ll let me do that.”

  “Of course. But I’m not sure that I know exactly what you’re talking about, Jack,” Mark said calmly and quietly.

  “I know. Listen …” I was thinking about what he’d told me, about coming out to Carrie when he was only fifteen. Such a gutsy kid. “Mark, I need you to get Philip moved to Cornell’s sister hospital, Columbia Presbyterian,” I said. “To do that, you’re going to have to talk to his father. That’s the way this will go. Once he agrees that Philip needs to move, Harold Lauer can get it done in a day.”

  “But why?”

  ◆

  The day that I visited Philip in the hospital the second time and first saw Carrie after all of those years, that was really the first time it occurred to me. That was the first time I started to consider yet another option. And it was gray and humid that day but it didn’t rain. I just kept walking, turning south and west and south. I came out of the bathroom and Michelle was standing right there in front of me, noticing me, looking beautiful and grounded, but somehow serious. It pushed me off course.

  ◆

  “Mark,” I began carefully, “Cornell has a good cardiac practice but Columbia is where they do heart transplants.”

  “Jack, he can’t get a transplant. You know that.”

  “This is the tricky part, Mark. You’ll have to trust me. There’s no downside to trusting me so just do it and do what I am asking. Philip has to be moved to Columbia and I can—”

  “I trust you,” he interjected.

  “Really …” I said, sort of involuntarily. A moment passed without either of us speaking.

  “Because my mom does. She trusts you.”

  “Oh. Well, he has to move, so you have to talk to his father.”

  “Jack, they tried to get him on the list and they won’t take his name. That’s why he’s at Cornell. It didn’t matter so they just admitted him on the east side, because it’s closer to his parents’ house. I mean, his father is Harold Lauer. He offered to give Mt. Sinai a new wing and they didn’t take it. Even with the money his father was offering them. Because of the AIDS. But Philip’s father’s been saying there’s a chance that he might be able to get Philip help. Apparently, he’s been talking to some people who can maybe find him a donor overseas.”

  I thought, that’s us Lauer’s talking about, me and Wallace. Lauer should shut up, even to Mark and his family. Then I said, “That’s fine, I hope he finds a donor. But Philip needs to move anyway, and you need to trust me, and you need to deal with it tomorrow, Mark. And Mark… .”

  “What?”

  “Do not tell Harold Lauer, or anyone, that I discussed this with you. Tell him that Columbia is just better for cardiac care and trauma. Get upset. Tell him Cornell is great but Columbia is the best, and Philip needs the very best. Lauer will relate to that. Or come up with something else, but I am not fucking around when I tell you that he has got to be moved to Columbia.”

  “That sounds crazy.”

  “I know. But do it anyway.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

  THE BEACH

  A few days later Mark called to tell me that Harold Lauer was pissed about the lack of proper attention his son was getting from the orderlies and nurses at Cornell and Philip would be moved in the morning. The next day Wallace called to relate the same information.

  “They just moved the guy to Columbia, Jack.” He sounded restrained but angry.

  “Really?” This was late September, about six weeks ago.

  “Yes. Really. I need to know where we’re at, Jack. When the hell are you going over there to work things out? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for two days.”

  “I am going, Wallace. Soon. I’m going to take care of it.”

  “I don’t understand the delay, Jack. What the hell are you waiting for? Do you know how much fucking money we could leave on the table here? The client, the guy’s father, he is freaking out already about our lack of progress and now he just had the kid moved to Columbia because of you.”

  “These things aren’t simple,” I said slowly and forcefully.

  “All the more reason to expedite, Jack. The guy is in precarious shape. You said they can do it. You said they have it typed out in advance.”

  “They do.”

  “So do it!” he practically yelled.

  “It’s still not that simple, Wallace. There are a lot of moving parts to this and there are consequences. This has to be done right. Right is more important than fast,” I said, still speaking calmly.

  “Jack, maybe we should have a meeting.”

  “We don’t need a meeting.”

  “Do you know why they moved him? Can you think why they moved him?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s going to travel.”

  “It’s one of the leading heart transplant centers in the free fucking world, Jack. Surely you know that. Why would this guy’s zillionaire father have him moved to a transplant center, right across town? Because now he apparently thinks he can get a transplant! I have no idea who else this guy is talking to but this is exactly what would go down if the people from Seattle connected with him. Even that asshole from Dallas might send him to Columbia and try to hook something up there.”

  “No he wouldn’t, Wallace! Herman Coburn is a fucking travel agent who also happens to consult for the FBI. He’s not going to pull stunts to acquire hearts in Manhattan and end up in jail for conspiracy to commit murder.”

  “How the hell do you know?”

  “Wallace, calm down. I’m handling it. I’m talking to Wolff.”

  “So am I,” he said much more quietly.

  “What? So are you, what?”

  “Talking to Wolff. At least that guy answers his phone.”

  I paused, and caught myself before I reacted. “You don’t want to do that,” I said, with my own quiet-but-threatening tone.

  “Actually, I don’t. But one way or another, this deal is getting done.”

  “Well be careful about getting too cozy with Mel Wolff, pal. Sometimes transplant clinics that are on the take get busted and everyone close to them does too.”

  “Are you threatening to take down Rosyton, Jack?” he said, sounding genuinely amused.

  “No one’s going around me.”

  “You’re pretty close to Rosyton too, Jack.”

  “Who is?” I barked in reply. “A guy whose last name is Jack, and whose first name is ‘New York’? Just remember, only one of us has a global network of suppliers. So cut the shit and let me do my thing, Mr. Kendrickson.” There was a long pause and my cell phone felt heavy in my hand. Wallace was surely weighing his options and I simply waited.

  “So it’s like that now?” he said. “Now you call me Kendrickson? What other secret tidbits do you know about me, New York?”

  “It doesn’t have to be like anything. Just let me do my thing and handle it, handle it properly, and everyone is good and gets paid.” More silence.

  “That’s all I want,” he finally said, some of the antagonism drained from his voice. “But the clock has been ticking for too long.”

  “I
’m handling it.”

  ◆

  When Wallace told me he’d been talking to Wolff, we both understood it for what it was, but also for what it was not. He was pressuring me, but he wasn’t overtly threatening me—at least not yet. If Wallace really wanted to cut me out of the loop, Philip would have already been in recovery at Royston. Wallace was a pragmatist. He wouldn’t throw a productive ten-year working relationship down the toilet if he could avoid it. Wallace probably knew the names of one or two of my doctors in the Philippines, but he didn’t know them well enough to work safely without me. And Manila is not a good place to get caught breaking the law. He knew none of my contacts in Recife; he had certainly never spent any time in Moldova. What if China came back on line? It took me five years to build a network there without getting thrown into prison. Wallace knew that. He didn’t need me any longer for this specific transaction, but he did need me for the future beyond it—since he was unaware that there would be none.

  That was my leverage—and my disclosure about knowing his real name—but it wasn’t enough that I could just ignore him or continue putting him off. Eventually Wallace’s sense of caution would yield to his appetite. The minute he decided that keeping me involved was no longer worth the delay, some random resident of Alexandra with type O blood was going to turn up in the morgue at Royston, cause of death listed as post-nephrectomy complications, but the real cause would be New York Jack. They would rip out the guy’s heart, sew him back up, and then claim it was sepsis. And if it went smoothly, there would suddenly be more strange deaths around the Dark City. I never signed up for complicity in systematic murder.