Dead Ringer

by Allen Wyler

  Ditto’s gut tightened. “Go on.”

  “Thing is, the course organizer, Dr. Wong, says this Seattle doc says he knows the guy whose head it is.”

  Ditto sat back in the chair. Was that possible? Yeah, possible. Just not highly fucking probable. But Murphy’s Law said that it could happen in spite of their policy of shipping specimens to places as far away as possible from where they’d been procured.

  He’d heard a story once from a professor at a medical school. A kid’s mother died while the kid was in premed, and her wishes were to have her body donated to the medical school. Problem was, nobody gave the anatomy department a heads-up that the donor’s son was an incoming freshman. Murphy’s Law pretty much predicted what would happen. And sure enough, it did. First day of gross anatomy, the kid’s mom was on a dissecting table ready to be taken apart.

  Ditto asked, “What’s his name?”

  “Who? The doctor or the donor?”

  Idiot. “The doctor.”

  “Lucas McRae. Know him?”

  He thought about all the courses that had been held in the classrooms downstairs and came up with a blank. He’d remember the name Lucas because of the John Sandford character. Loved that dude. “No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Leo didn’t say anything.

  Ditto asked, “The specimen, what’s the identifier?”

  “Got it right here. Figured you might want to know.”

  “Hold on a sec.” Ditto set the phone on the desk and pulled up the Hong Kong order on the computer. There it was: an order for four heads. No specified sex or decade of age, which made it easier to fill. The problem was some guy named Wong had specifically requested fresh material, meaning the heads couldn’t be preserved with formaldehyde. A request occurring more frequently these days because some asshole claimed non-preserved material more closely resembled the texture of living tissue. Well, duh. Fresh was fresh; that’s why they called it fresh. It pissed Ditto off. Didn’t those prima donnas realize how much hassle that caused him?

  Orders for formalin-fixed material were pretty easily filled from inventory. But fresh material? Unless you were lucky, the specimens were never in stock the day the order came due. Mostly because inventory was difficult to maintain. Just like steaks from the butcher shop, the tissue begins to spoil and break down if stored too long. So if he didn’t have the items in inventory, he had to buy them from a competitor. Which he hated because those heartless bastards knew that he was up against the wall and charged him up the ass. And they loved to see him squirm.

  But this Hong Kong order … fuck. Each specimen number had an asterisk beside it. That was Ditto’s code to designate it had been “procured.” He swallowed and double-checked.

  Heart racing, he picked up the phone. “Still there?”

  “Something wrong?” Leo’s words had the watery, echoic quality of a low-grade satellite connection.

  Then a thought hit: what were the chances of this conversation being monitored? After all, with that detective being here … Or was he being overly paranoid?

  “Hold a second longer.” Ditto slicked back his hair and took two deep breaths, then stared at his favorite Tigers poster, the 1968 original he’d framed for its inspirational value. On the last day of the 1967 season the club had been eliminated. But the next year they returned with a vengeance, rebounding from a 3 to 1 deficit to beat the favored Cardinals in game seven of the World Series. That was the kind of strength he needed now.

  He heard Leo’s voice on the phone say, “Bobby?”

  “I said, hold on a second.” Wiping sweat from his eyes, he tried to think, tried to take a step back to look at things objectively. Point number one: the detective was looking for the hooker, not her john. Point number two: even if some surgeon recognized the face in Hong Kong, what he was going to do about it? Not a goddamn thing.

  The hooker no longer existed, having been completely harvested within hours of procurement. Ligaments used as replacement parts in knee surgery. Skin for bandaging burn patients. Bones cut up for jaw reconstructions or spine fusions. Hair sent to wig makers. They would’ve used her corneas, but her head was worth a lot more intact if you factored in its primo condition. Same with her john.

  He felt deep pride at his ethics for dealing with such tough choices. Choices that weren’t always easy. What benefited society more? One set of corneas for only one person or a head used for teaching twelve surgeons? In this case the answer was obvious, but there were other times when it wasn’t. He always erred on the side of the majority because that made the most sense. Choosing the course that benefited the most people was always the right thing to do. Doing the right thing was something else Dad had taught him.

  “Waste not, want not,” was one of the rules of life Dad drummed into him. In their family no bottles were ever thrown in the trash; they were recycled. No faucet dripped very long before being fixed. Lights were turned off when leaving a room. Some people called such frugality a depression-era ethic, as if once the Great Depression ended people were free to waste things. They weren’t. He fucking despised waste.

  Ditto clicked on that record. “The person in question was Andy Baer.” He remembered seeing the john’s real name from the contents of his wallet before turning it into ashes along with his clothes. “Never leave evidence” was another cardinal rule Ditto unwaveringly observed. “This the same guy your doc thinks it is?”

  “Don’t know, didn’t ask. You want me to find out?”

  “If the opportunity arises. If not, let it pass. No sense drawing attention to ourselves.”

  Call finished, Ditto sat drumming his thumbs on the desk, mulling over what had just happened. It was bad, these two things coming—bam, bam—right in a row. A sign.

  He believed in signs. Not like some of those over-the-top whackos who saw signs in everything. But now and then something appeared that you’d be a fool to ignore because it could end up being a sure path to destruction. That detective and the doctor both somehow connected with the two specimens was a very creepy sign.

  But what was the honest-to-God risk here? The two bodies had been completely harvested and the remains cremated. So there was nothing left to incriminate him. Except for the heads. And the moment Leo came back with the heads, they’d go into Old Smokey and the ashes disposed of. There was nothing to worry about. Well, except for that detective. She still gave him pause. Damn Suburban.

  5

  DITTO SWIVELED HIS CHAIR around to face the window. As he stared outside, he contemplated the potential pitfalls. The customary records for the two bodies? No problem there; there were none. The tissue would be disposed of. Leaving what? He and Leo Gerhard were the only ones who knew the truth. And Leo? A rock solid, stand-up guy he’d trust to never admit to anything.

  He remembered how they met in the army—both eighteen, new to Fort Lewis, Gerhard assigned to the bunk above his. They were sitting on Ditto’s bunk polishing their boots.

  Leo casts him a glance and asks, “Why’d you sign up?”

  Ditto laughs, spits on the boot toe, working it in with a circular motion. “Look at it this way: I’m from fucking Hamtramck, Michigan. Ever been there?”

  A broad smile flashes across Leo’s face. “Hell, man, I’m from Detroit.”

  Ditto stops working. “No shit? You ain’t black and don’t look like one of those fucking Polacks. Who the hell else lives in that godforsaken town?”

  “Germans,” he says proudly, flashing a Heil Hitler salute.

  “My man!”

  They high-fived.

  Gerhard asks, “How did you end up here in the mortician corps?”

  With a grunt Ditto sets the boot down, picks up the other one. “Wasn’t my choice. I signed up to be a Delta. But you know how that goes. They agree to anything, but then once you enlist, they fuck you over. So the fucking CO sees that my dad runs a mortuary. They figure I don’t have a problem being around stiffs, so here I am. Fucking can’t seem to get away from it. You?”

&
nbsp; Leo gets a faraway look in his eyes. “I dunno. Always sorta liked dead people. Sure as shit more interesting than live ones. Least most of ’em, anyway. Delta, huh? You really wanted to go through all that shit?”

  “Actually, what I wanted was to play pro hockey, be a Red Wing, another Gordie Howe. But, you know, those fuckers are crazy. Have no regard for their own bodies.”

  “And Delta ain’t crazy?”

  “Yeah, but they’re the best. So what’s your story?”

  Leo shrugs, then spits on the boot in his hand. “I was forced to join. Sorta.”

  “Sorta? The fuck does that mean?”

  Leo sets down the boot, leans forward, elbows on knees, staring at the floor. “I used to hang at a boys’ club a lot on account of my folks are always gone. Dad shucks steel. That is when he ain’t blotto and can get work. Mom works. So …” He shrugs. “Anyways, this fucking counselor, fucking fag, tried to get friendly. Know what I’m saying?”

  Bobby nods. “Fucking queers. Hate ’em.”

  “One day I had enough. I got this ice pick and stuck him in his belly to send a message. Wasn’t trying to kill him or nothing. Let him know he couldn’t punk me. Fucker damn near dies, ends up paralyzed. Me, I end up in juvie. Judge gives me the choice of doing hard time or signing up. What kinda choice is that? But now that I’m here, I kind of like it.”

  Ditto thinks about that a moment. “Paralyzed? You stuck him in the gut? How the hell does that work?”

  “Judge asked the same thing, and a quack told him I hit some blood vessel. Shit, I don’t know exactly, but that’s what they said.”

  Ditto says, “Hey, we got forty-eight hours coming up Saturday. What do you say we go get some pussy together? You know, double team some bitch?”

  Leo shoots him a look of gratitude. “Hell, yeah. There’s this place, been there a couple times.”

  THAT SATURDAY AFTERNOON GERHARD takes him to a shotgun cottage. Flat roof, clapboards flaking faded green paint, striped awning on the window. Gerhard knocks.

  A woman answers, barefoot, in a royal blue satin robe, hair slightly mussed.

  Gerhard leans on the jamb. “We looking for some pussy.”

  She spits on the concrete at his feet. “Get on your way. Thought I told you, don’t want your type round here no more.”

  Slack-jawed, Bobby watches Leo bust open the door, grab her by the neck, and squeeze, glowering in rage as her face flushes from red to purple, gagging the whole while. Finally she stops moving and Ditto realized she is dead. Never says a word. Not one fucking word. Just drops her in a pile on the throw rug.

  Then they’re out the back door, running down a dark alley, Ditto wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into.

  No one ever questioned them. But Ditto knew this would always give him leverage over Gerhard.

  THREE AND A HALF years later Ditto’s army stint is winding down, and he’s making plans for after discharge. He and Leo were playing chess in the enlisted men’s quarters. Ditto’s turn to move, when he asks Leo, “Hey, why not come to work for me?”

  Leo glances up from the board. “Work? This is the fucking army, man. This is work.”

  “I mean after we’re discharged.”

  With a derisive grunt, Leo shakes his head. “Ain’t leaving. I re-upped.”

  Ditto can see the Army life working for Leo. Structured, no decisions to make, put in your twenty years and walk away with a pension. Not great money, but enough to live on. If you wanted to live in a single wide out in Buttfuck, Nowhere. Made him a little sad because he’d grown close to Leo, discovered they shared a lot of the same ideas.

  Ditto says, “Well, I’ve had enough of this shit. Just remember, you got a job if you change your mind.”

  Leo sits back, pushes his metal frame glasses up his nose, crooked. “You serious? What kinda business?”

  “Only kind I know how to do. Funeral home.”

  “Who you gonna work for, your dad?”

  “Nah, fuck Hamtramck. Too many blacks and Polacks. I’m thinking Seattle. And I’m not working for nobody ever again. I’ll start my own.”

  Leo nods, looks back at the chess game.

  But Bobby is really getting into it now, excited over his new idea, wanting to run it by someone even if that person had an IQ on a par with a snail. “Thing is, everyone wants to save money, right?”

  Leo glances up again, as if irritated for being distracted from the game. “I guess.”

  “Yeah, they do. Everybody loves a discount. Think about all those coupons people clip out of the newspaper. Shit, even Rockefeller would probably want to save a buck if he could.”

  “So?”

  “I start a discount funeral home, run specials on budget cremations. Something everyone, even a field worker, can afford. Call it Ditto’s Budget Funeral Service. Advertise on AM radio, on those stations that play geezer music. Cater to your potential customers. It’ll work. I know it will.”

  Leo points to the chessboard. “Gonna fucking move or what?”

  TWO YEARS LATER DITTO, his business up and running, read an article in the Seattle Times about a morgue worker in Los Angeles busted for selling body parts on the black market.

  How stupid not to have seen it. A cremated body represented huge profits that were quite literally going up in smoke. So he did a little research into the cadaver business and discovered just how much could be made from a fully harvested, disassembled body. Not only that, but there were demands for body parts for surgical demonstrations and medical schools.

  He added two optional programs to his menu of traditional funeral service: the medical research program and the body recycling program. The research program pitch went like this: the mortuary would cremate your loved one free of charge if the body was first donated to science. Meaning it could be used for teaching purposes. Once the teaching was completed, all the parts would be collected and cremated and the ashes returned to the family.

  The recycling program had a different spin. Body parts would be donated to recipients. The brochures stressed the heartrending need for corneas, skin, and bone, playing up how much this helped the grateful recipients’ quality of life.

  The problem was that although the discount funeral part of the program caught on with people who couldn’t afford a traditional mortuary, to Ditto’s dismay, the option of donating bodies or body parts for medical research didn’t fly. People just couldn’t seem to get their heads around chopping up Mom or Dad for the advancement of science. Ditto took this as a prime example of people’s callous disrespect for fellow human beings.

  Then it dawned on him: why not take the parts anyway? So many people were opting for cremation there was plenty of opportunity. Fuck it. No one was looking. And here was the beautiful thing: he could steal what he wanted—a little skin here, a few ligaments there—and who would be the wiser? Especially since cremated remains always seemed to weigh more than people expected considering the size of the box. Who would know if Grandma’s ashes were intact? And from that day on, they never were.

  If you thought about it, each body had two legs, two arms, a head, and a torso. Each piece profitable. But if you sold off all the parts, where did you get ashes for the family? Easy. Once in a while, he took care of bodies of the homeless. His civic duty, as he saw it. Those ashes that nobody wanted, he could “bank” until he needed them. Plus, who the hell could tell if they got all their loved one’s ashes? Holding back a little here and there, he could build up quite the savings account. Then, when a primo body came in, all the parts could be sold off and the family given banked ashes. And when things got tough and the bank low, there were always dogs and cats to cremate.

  DITTO AND GERHARD STAYED in contact, and two tours of duty later Gerhard mustered out and came to work at the funeral home. One evening they were sitting in Ditto’s living room drinking beer and listening to Bob Seger complain about working men’s problems and bullshitting just like old times when Ditto asked, “You like this job?”

&nb
sp; Leo shrugged. “Guess so.”

  “You like the money?”

  Leo grinned. “Sure.” He salted away every cent. Only God knew what he was saving for. Ditto sure didn’t. No kids, no wife. But he knew Leo had grown up dirt-poor and probably had a fear of ever living like that again.

  Ditto said, “I’m paying you fifty grand a year, right?” Plus benefits.

  Gerhard walked to the kitchen with the empties. “Ready for another?”

  Seeing as he was on call that night, Ditto thought better of it. “Nah, but go ahead.” He heard the clatter of aluminum cans drop into the recycle bin.

  Gerhard returned, levering the tab open with a pffsshh. “Yeah, I guess fifty grand. Why?”

  “How’d you like to make more?”

  Leo grinned again. “Could always use a bit more. What’re we talking about?”

  “What if I kicked it up to seventy-five grand?”

  Leo’s face sobered. He just stood there like he wasn’t going to allow himself to get sucked into being the butt of a joke.

  Ditto said, “I’m serious.”

  Gerhard took a long pull of a Labatt’s. “Then hell, yeah. What you expect me to say?”

  “See, here’s the thing. You know how we’re always short on bodies? Well, I’ve been thinking about a way to deal with that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We don’t wait for them; we just take them. People no one will miss. You know, homeless, hookers, addicts. Who gives a shit about ’em? Follow?”

  Gerhard took a pull. “Kill them, huh.” Making a statement out of a question.

  Which convinced Ditto that Leo’s only issue was the money. “That’s right. That’s what I’m thinking.” Now it was out in the open, but if there was one person on this earth he could trust with a proposition like this, it was Leo.

  Gerhard nodded slowly, thinking it over. “But there’s a problem.”

  Uh-oh. “Yeah?”

  “Seventy-five’s a little on the low side for that kinda work.”