by Jack Heath
Thistle flicks open a pocketknife and pries the wound open with the blade. Brittle plastic cracks, revealing the slick lump of flesh inside.
‘What is that?’ she says again.
Hall screams.
I recognise the body part. It’s a human kidney.
•
People are yelling. I don’t listen. Point five percent of the money. That means they want a total of four million dollars.
Except that the kidnapper didn’t take the twenty grand Hall brought with her. He didn’t even show up—the dummy could have been sitting in that car for hours. So what did he mean by down payment?
I look over at the dumpster.
A man is walking away from it.
He’s wearing sunglasses, a baseball cap and a tattered overcoat. He’s talking on a cell phone.
And he’s carrying a dark green Walmart bag.
The dummy was a distraction. So he could grab the ransom when no one was looking.
I snatch Thistle’s radio out of her hand. ‘The kidnapper is here! Heading towards the south-east corner of the Walmart.’
It’s a long way from this side of the parking lot to the Walmart. I start running, but it’s hopeless. He’ll disappear around the corner before I can get there.
‘Describe him,’ one of the snipers says.
‘White male.’ The words squeeze out between ragged breaths. ‘At least six feet tall. Two hundred pounds. Baseball cap, sunglasses, brown coat. Can’t see his face.’
‘Too many people around. I don’t have a clear shot.’
‘I have one,’ another sniper says. ‘Do we have a kill order?’
‘No!’ Luzhin says. ‘Hold your fire. Blake, how do you know it’s him?’
The guy is nearly at the corner. He hasn’t turned to look at me, but he seems to be moving quicker. He’s still on the phone, so he must be working with accomplices.
‘He’s carrying the ransom bag,’ I puff.
‘It’s a normal Walmart bag! Give me something concrete!’
‘Do I take the shot?’ the sniper says.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Luzhin says. ‘Blake, can you see a weapon?’
I could lie. I’m sure this is the guy. But I need Luzhin’s trust. ‘No,’ I say, and keep running.
If I catch him, the feds will make him talk. He’ll tell them where the kid is in exchange for a reduced sentence, Cameron will be returned to his mom, and I’ll get to celebrate with one of the few people on this earth worse than me. Everybody wins.
But if I don’t catch him, then Hall has to find four million dollars before Cameron goes into septic shock. You can live with one kidney—but only under a doctor’s supervision. It also helps if the other one was removed by an actual surgeon.
An engine roars behind me. I turn to see Thistle’s sedan hurtling across the lot—she must have jumped in when I started running. As it zooms past, sirens wailing, I hear her voice on the radio.
‘I’m in pursuit,’ she says, as though we might not have noticed. I keep sprinting through the cloud of exhaust as the Crown Vic rockets towards the kidnapper, who changes direction and slips between two cars.
I half expect Thistle to ram the cars, but she slams on the brakes instead. The Crown Vic spins into a screeching halt and she tumbles out the door, somehow lands on her feet, and starts running. Faster than me. Faster than the kidnapper. He’s almost within her reach.
He whirls around and stabs her in the throat.
Thistle crumples like a controlled demolition, limbs instantly limp as though her spine has been snipped. She disappears behind a parked car. I get a quick glimpse of the kidnapper’s face—saggy, pallid, older than I would have thought—before he keeps running towards the east corner of the Walmart.
The rational move would be to keep chasing him. If Thistle’s dead, she’s dead. But my body seems to have made the decision without my brain, and I’m already almost at the fallen agent, my heart pounding in my ears.
‘Agent down!’ one of the snipers is saying. ‘Agent down!’
Running past the car, I almost trip over her. She’s dragged herself almost into a sitting position and has one hand pressed against her neck.
‘Get after him,’ she rasps.
I crouch down next to her.
‘I’m fine!’ she says, and shoves me with her other hand. ‘Go! Now!’
Thinking I imagined the knife, I look for blood and see none. The other agents are right behind me, so I do as she says and start running again. As I watch, the kidnapper disappears around the side of the Walmart.
‘I’ve lost him,’ one of the snipers says.
‘Ninjas, stay at your posts,’ Luzhin says. ‘All other units, head for the east side of the Walmart. Go!’
I round the corner. I’m on the east side of the Walmart.
The man with the bag is gone.
I scan the crowd of Walmart shoppers. A few baseball caps, but in the wrong colours. A couple of coats, but too short.
I can see the SAC and a couple other agents appearing from around the north-east corner. Luzhin is already here, looking utterly perplexed. ‘Can anyone see him?’ he yells. ‘Can anyone fucking see him?’
I turn to look at the Walmart. Maybe the guy went inside to hide. But as I start to move towards the sliding doors, something catches my eye. A grey-brown lump, stuffed between a dumpster and the wall.
It’s a coat, and a baseball cap. No sign of the bag—he probably hid it inside a different bag as soon as he was out of sight.
Cars are already leaving the lot. People are walking towards nearby fast-food chains. No way to seal off the area. We’ve lost him.
Luzhin looks at me, fists clenched. ‘You were closest. Did you see his face?’
I shake my head. ‘Wouldn’t have mattered. He was wearing a mask.’
Luzhin pulls out the coat and, sure enough, there’s a floppy lump of rubber inside it, too wrinkly to be real skin. He unfolds it and stares into the empty eyeholes. The mask leers at us all.
The SAC says, ‘Don’t worry, sir. We’ll get him.’
We will. I will. I have to. The smell of the kidney has lodged itself in my throat like a fishbone and the need is rising faster than usual.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry.’
CHAPTER 7
I always run but never walk, often murmur but never talk. I have a bed but never sleep, and have a mouth but never eat. What am I?
I almost don’t see Thistle outside the forensic pathologist’s office. She’s sitting on a plastic chair behind a fake fern, her head pressed between her palms like she’s trying to crush it. When I listen, I can hear her breathing shakily through her nose.
I usually don’t ask—I have my own problems—but I find myself saying, ‘You okay?’
Her head snaps up. ‘Yeah. Fine. Ready to go in?’ She tucks her hair behind her ears and glares, challenging me to comment on her composure.
‘Let’s wait for Luzhin,’ I say, and sit down beside her.
‘Sure.’ She leans back in her chair and stares at the opposite wall.
‘How’s your neck?’
She tilts her head from side to side. The kidnapper’s taser left twin puncture wounds, like a vampire bite. ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘I’ve had worse.’
This doesn’t sound like bravado. But she still looks distressed.
‘Really?’ I ask.
‘Sure. I’ve been stabbed, shot. You should see my scars. The governor gave me the FBI star for bravery, even though it wasn’t like I chose to take a bullet.’ She looks down. ‘But that kidney…I guess it was a shock.’
‘It gets easier,’ I tell her, after a pause. ‘Finding a body, or part of one, or whatever.’
She takes a deep breath. ‘You remember Beaumont?’ she says. ‘The guy who went undercover in Charlie Warner’s gang?’
‘And got turned into alligator food,’ I say. ‘Yeah. He and Luzhin were friends, so I met him a couple times. Nice guy.’ He wasn’t, but it feels wrong t
o say so. ‘Did you know him?’
‘Not until I found him. Half of him.’ She picks a speck of lint off her pants.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, not sure why she’s brought this up.
‘If Cameron Hall is dead, I can accept that and focus on the perp. If he’s alive, I can promise myself I’ll save him.’ She sighs. ‘What kills me is not knowing one way or the other.’
‘You been in yet?’ Luzhin asks.
I look over to see him approaching, a manila folder in his hand. ‘No.’
‘Well, let’s do it.’
He knocks on the door. Thistle gets out of her chair as the door opens.
The forensic pathologist is almost as tall as Luzhin—six foot one, maybe. And she looks like the sort who’d seem to be looking down on us even if she wasn’t gigantic. She holds her head so high that I can see straight up her nose. I feel like I’m in a Petri dish.
The morgue isn’t as gloomy as people probably assume. Brown floor tiles, lots of lights. The steel drawers are painted cream. It all looks a bit like the locker room of the pool I used to sneak into for a wash when I was homeless.
I don’t like doctors—not since meeting Dr Fallun at Fort Sam. Pathologists are different from shrinks, but knowing that isn’t enough to smother my unease.
‘Director,’ the pathologist says, ignoring me and Thistle.
‘Dr Norman,’ he says, and hands her the manila folder. ‘Here’s your bloodwork.’
‘Have you looked at it?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything to me—you’ll have to translate it. Have you had a look at the kidney?’
‘That I have,’ Norman says. She leads us over to a steel slab, flicking through the folder as she goes. The kidney sits in a Ziploc bag on what looks to me like a baking tray. Rosy ice crystals have appeared where the flesh touches the plastic. I button up my jacket and breathe onto my palms.
‘Can it be reattached?’ I ask.
She points at me and addresses Luzhin. ‘Who is this?’
Thistle says, ‘He’s helping us with our inquiries. Same as you.’
Her voice is about as warm as the kidney. The doctor looks intimidated for a second, but then the facade is back.
‘No,’ she says. ‘The kidney can’t be reattached. It’s so shredded that I wasn’t even sure it was human at first. Plus, it was left sitting in a hot car for hours, which turned it from a healthy organ into a lump of rotten meat.’
‘Was Cameron alive when it was taken?’ Thistle asks.
‘That’s complicated. Do any of you have medical training?’
We all shake our heads. I don’t have training, per se. I guess you could call me self-taught.
‘A kidney removal is called a nephrectomy,’ the doctor says. ‘The surgeon has to cut through the renal artery, the ureter—which connects the kidney to the bladder—and a whole lot of fat tissue. On this kidney, a lot of that tissue is still attached. In theory, the blood saturation of that tissue would tell me if the patient was alive when the operation was performed. In practice…’ She spreads her palms wide. ‘The hours in the car make it impossible to tell. The sun dried out most of the tissue.’
‘What about the timeframe?’ Thistle asks.
‘Same deal. I couldn’t say with any certainty when it was removed.’
Luzhin asks. ‘Was the kidney removed with skill?’
‘Great skill,’ the doctor says. ‘Your kidnapper has medical training, or is working with someone who does.’
‘So the boy could have survived the operation.’
‘Yes. Although—’ she turns to a particular page in the folder and holds it up, as though it should mean something to us ‘—there was no anaesthetic in the blood.’
‘Jesus,’ Thistle says.
Silence falls. We’re all imagining what it would be like to be fully conscious while someone cuts a kidney out of us.
‘I’ve heard of people undergoing surgery with hypnosis instead of anaesthetic,’ Thistle says. ‘Is that legit?’
‘It’s not really my field,’ Dr Norman replies. ‘From what I understand, it’s quite effective on some people, especially since your internal organs don’t feel much pain to begin with. But it depends on making the patient feel very relaxed, which would be difficult if you kidnapped them.’
So we’re probably not looking for a hypnotist. ‘You sure it belongs to Cameron?’ I ask.
‘We took a DNA sample from Annette Hall,’ Luzhin puts in. ‘The lab techs ran it against the blood from the kidney. The results should be in the folder.’
The pathologist turns to a different page. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘These two samples match.’
‘What about the mask?’ Thistle asks. ‘Get any prints off it?’
‘Just the cops who handled it. The kidnapper must have worn gloves.’
My training has left me ignorant in one area. ‘How long can a person survive with only one kidney?’
‘As long as anybody else, if they eat right, don’t drink, et cetera. But that’s assuming the surgeon didn’t give him an infection or damage any other organs while he was in there. There’s a good chance the kid’s bleeding into his abdomen through a nicked artery as we speak. He could be dead in hours. Could be dead already.’
Luzhin shakes his head. ‘Cameron’s his meal ticket. The kidnapper wouldn’t have taken the kidney if he wasn’t sure he could do it without killing the boy.’
‘Being sure doesn’t make him smart,’ the doctor says.
‘No,’ Luzhin says. ‘But he is.’
He turns to me. ‘That all you need?’
I nod.
‘Thistle?’
She says, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Thanks for your help, Doc.’
Norman picks up the tray and puts it back in the freezer. ‘Always a pleasure, Peter,’ she says. But she’s looking at me. Wondering, guessing, calculating.
I don’t look away. Whatever you’re thinking, lady, you’re way off.
She smiles faintly, as if she can hear my thoughts. Then she shuts the freezer, peels off her latex gloves, and sits down at her desk.
•
‘What about the security cameras outside the Walmart?’ Thistle asks.
We’re back in Luzhin’s office. This time he hasn’t put the family photos facedown. His wife smiles at me. Brunette, with a heart-shaped face and a nose ring. She’s holding a confused-looking baby in a pink onesie. Luzhin is in the picture too, forcing a smile, looking about ten years younger.
Real-life Luzhin shakes his head. ‘The feed cut out just as the kidnapper rounded the corner. He was using some kind of frequency jammer.’
‘Are those hard to get?’
‘A dozen stores in Houston sell them. I have a team asking around.’
‘You should check if any of Annette Hall’s contacts have medical training,’ I say.
‘Vasquez is working through the list.’ He drums his fingers on the desk. ‘What else you got?’
‘Nada,’ I say.
He frowns. ‘Really?’
‘Yep. Sorry. But it sounds like you got it under control.’
Luzhin is suspicious. He’s never known me to give up so quickly. But he can’t ask me what I’m up to, not in front of Thistle.
I try to look innocent. I’ve had a lot of practice.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Agent Thistle, escort Mr Blake back to his car.’
He thinks it’s over. So does she. So does the doctor. Everyone but me.
We leave.
Thistle and I walk in silence through the corridors to the elevator, then from the elevator to the lobby to the parking lot. It’s not until I roll my sleeves up again that she says, ‘Fleas, right?’
‘What?’
‘Your scars.’ She points. ‘Flea bites.’
When I was a kid, I used to think group homes were made to support fleas rather than children. At the one I was in, every mattress, every bedsheet and every pillow had a colony living in it. Fortunately the blankets were like
sandpaper, which made scratching easy.
Mrs Radfield—a spindly old woman with wide, wet eyes—told me that fleas were God’s way of telling me to wash more regularly. I believed her, and stood shivering in the communal showers four times a day, but always woke up with blood under my fingernails and a throbbing in the skin of my forearms, my calves, my scalp, my crotch.
Most of the carers, if they caught me scratching, would make me kneel and pray in front of the other children. As well as being the currency with which we bought food and sleep, prayer was also used to fine us for wrongdoing. Not Mrs Radfield, though. If she caught me scratching at the fleabites that covered my body, a stiff hand would swoop out of her summer dress and crack across my face, leaving my ears ringing and my nose beginning to run. To this day, I can’t scratch a mosquito bite without a guilty glance each way.
‘Hands off, or they won’t heal!’ she’d hiss. I’m thirty-four now, and my arms and legs are proof that she was right.
‘No,’ I tell Thistle. ‘Oil burns.’
She nods sympathetically, without believing me.
As we get to my car, she hands me a pen and paper. ‘I’ll need your number,’ she says. ‘In case a new lead comes up.’
It seems unlikely, but I scribble the number down anyway and hand it back to her.
‘How about a cell?’ she says.
‘Don’t have one,’ I say. ‘I heard they give you cancer.’
She looks down at the paper doubtfully.
‘I work from home,’ I say. ‘That number is enough.’
‘Okay,’ she says, and pockets it. ‘I’ll see you.’
She holds out her hand to shake. I take it. It’s soft, in the way all women’s hands somehow are. A tingle ascends my spine and I let go as if scalded.
She turns away without another word and I climb into the car and start the engine as though I have somewhere important to be. I do—but not until nightfall. For now, I’m headed home.
•
Leather handbag. Knee-high boots. A red plastic shopping basket hanging from her elbow, filled with cans and bottles. At a distance, the woman looks like an ordinary grocery shopper—if you ignore the dirt in her hair, the dusty highway she walks alongside, the hopeful thumb jutted out at traffic.