Project 137

by Seth Augenstein

  None other than Suzanne Kranklein pushed her way through the crowd, edging people aside with her elbows, rubbing her face as she tried her best approximation of humanity. Fujimi was at her heels.

  “Watch this—this ought to be good,” Wetherspoon said, nudging me.

  The two hospital bosses reached the throng and pushed their way to Mrs. Rothenberg. Suzanne reached out with both hands to offer solace.

  With a roar, the widow slapped the Kraken’s hands away. The grieving woman hissed through the snot covering her face, blinking through the rivulets of mascara. She snarled at the Kraken.

  “Get out of here!” she shrieked. “It’s you that did this to him! He’d still be here if it hadn’t been for you!”

  The widow’s hand connected hard with the Kraken’s cheek. The crack of flesh froze the room. The widow lunged, gripping the Kraken’s throat. But the arms all around quickly pulled her off and back toward the coffin. Fujimi grabbed his cohort by the sleeve and yanked her toward the door.

  “You animals,” the widow snarled, voices and hands soothing her, shielding her once again. “You keep your filthy hush money. You goddamned butchers.”

  Wetherspoon nudged my arm again.

  “It seems Suzanne Kranklein’s particular charms extend beyond the hospital,” the Old Man said. “Anyway, let’s get out of here. Let’s see where the dreadful duo goes.”

  We walked toward the exit, Wetherspoon and me with Mary and Betty behind. But Abbud emerged from a side doorway. A broad smile tilted his handsome face lopsided, like a deflated ball. For the inside of a funeral home, it was a scandalous expression.

  “Guess Rothenberg’s wife isn’t holding up so well,” he said, whisking past his two former colleagues, kissing Betty on the cheek, then taking Mary’s hand, as he inspected her up and down. “So how is my number one patient?”

  I thought I saw my wife turn a bit red, but I couldn’t be sure in the weird low light of the funeral parlor. She twirled one of her braids like a schoolgirl, though, and smiled wide.

  “I don’t know, I’ve been feeling okay, Adam,” she said. “Except I get these stomach pains sometimes, and the morning sickness is an all-day thing.”

  “Forget it, my child,” Abbud said, mimicking the Unified Three reverend’s booming holy-man voice. “This too shall pass.”

  She laughed, tapping his wrist, shaking her head. I hadn’t heard her laugh in days, maybe weeks. I stared at the two of them—Mary and this Adam person I’d only ever known as Dr. Abbud—and I have to admit a jolt of jealousy ran through me. It was an acidic sting I hadn’t felt in years. I watched as the neonatologist inquired after her health, asking questions, nodding, smiling, responding, and reassuring. I tried to hear what they were saying, but they spoke softly, and Wetherspoon was talking insistently in my other ear.

  “The baby doc has taken quite an interest in your wife’s well-being,” the Old Man murmured.

  “I’m sure Abbud—Adam, whatever—is just doing his due diligence,” I said.

  “Hmmm,” Wetherspoon grunted, his arms crossed. “Due diligence. I wonder.”

  Two men with stark white NBC suits emerged from a doorway on the other side of the coffin. They looked like cartoons amid the sober misery of the mortuary, but no one else seemed to notice. They walked around the coffin, checking for something. One went to the foot of the coffin and scrutinized the label, his rubber index finger tracing the letters. The other one closed and sealed the lid, using a power drill to tighten the screws. Something about the finality of that electric whinnying of the screws going in sent a shock up my spine.

  “Anyway,” I said, over the whirring of the tool. “Let’s go see where this Fujimi character and the Kraken are headed.”

  Yes—let’s go see where the monstrous Kraken and her nefarious partner are headed.” Wetherspoon said, grinning.

  As we neared the exit, rays of color sparkled through the glass door. Red and blue and white lights flickered and flashed in the dark. Outside, we saw a line of a half-dozen cop cars on the northern side of the funeral home. Their emergency lights blinked in different tempos. Wetherspoon and I stopped and stared at the strobing chaos. My head started to thrum; it felt like another migraine coming.

  “What the hell’s going on?” I said.

  Bright spotlight beams whisked up to us, brushed across our faces for a second, then swept across the parking lot and into a dark copse of trees.

  “They’re searching for someone,” the Old Man said. “I don’t see Fujimi or the Kraken anywhere.”

  We watched the beam of light, which whisked by the black thickets, along a line of cars at the far end of the lot, but then edged back toward the shadows. It stopped, hovered in one spot. I squinted, and I caught the dark shape of a man edging through the brush. The figure froze. The line of cops closed in. The man panicked and bolted out in the direction of the funeral home, tie flailing and hat falling as he sprinted for his life. But he wasn’t going fast, and his steps slowed after the first ten steps or so. The cops quickly rushed in and wrestled the man to the ground, putting in some quick kicks and jabs for good measure. The man went limp, and they hauled him up. A group of four of them carried him, one with each limb. Their path to the patrol cars was directly past the doorway. Wetherspoon and I watched in silence. Only when the group passed did I recognize the man’s face. I gasped.

  “O’Keefe,” I said.

  O’Keefe’s head turned, and our eyes locked for a second—mine wide with surprise, the newsman’s swollen with fear. O’Keefe flailed one last time to free himself. One arm came free from an officer’s hands, and something shiny flew off to my right, glinting in the light for a second, then vanishing in the gloom. No one else noticed. Other hands quickly grabbed the newsman’s free limb. The officers tightened their grip for the last few yards to the back of a cop car. O’Keefe’s eyes looked up, his face upside-down, pale.

  “Find Meruda,” he said to me. “That’s the only way. Find Meruda. Down below!”

  A cop whacked him in the stomach with a baton, and O’Keefe’s howled, his eyes rolled back in his head. He was carried off into the flashing lights. I shielded my eyes. I turned to look at Wetherspoon. His hand was at furrowed brow, his eyes narrowed.

  “That was the scribbler, wasn’t it, Joe?” he said.

  “Yeah, the guy who has your documents.”

  O’Keefe’s limp form was slammed against the patrol car, his hands cuffed behind his back, chest against the back window. Rough cop hands frisked him. He started to try and push himself up by the shoulders, but the cop conducting the search banged his skull against the metal roof, a sound that echoed off in the darkness. They opened the door and shoved the dazed reporter into the backseat.

  Footsteps approached from the dark part of the parking lot. A shadow emerged from the line of cars. The figure sharpened as it came into the light. It was Lanza. He smiled at me.

  “Figured I’d catch you here,” he said, hiking up his belt. “Damned shame about your doctor friend. My condolences.”

  “Stuart was a good guy. He didn’t deserve to go like that,” I said. “Hey, Zo—that was the reporter, right? What did he do?”

  “It was Jim O’Keefe, the reporter,” Lanza said. He unwrapped a piece of nicotine gum and stuffed it in his mouth. “For this one we’re on a need-to-know basis. We’re just backup. The Bureau is calling all the shots.”

  “Need-to-know basis?” Wetherspoon scoffed. “Just more fascist stooges following orders, eh?”

  Lanza shook his head. He looked at me, then at Wetherspoon. A poisonous little smile spread across his lips.

  “Joe,” he said. “Would you tell this Old Bastard to take it easy, so I don’t have to enforce those outstanding warrants in the database?”

  I held my hands up and stepped between them.

  “We don’t need any trouble,” I said. “Neal’s just been under a lot of strain lately. Isn’t that right, Neal?”

  “Maybe ‘fascist’ is too big a word
for this stooge to understand,” the Old Man said, sticking out his stubbled chin. “Maybe ‘pig’ is a little easier to comprehend.”

  Lanza took one step closer. I stood fast between the two of them, the shrunken centenarian and the towering cop.

  “I’ll bet you’ve been under a lot of strain,” Lanza said, his voice low, menacing. “Dodging a manhunt for weeks, and all that. And getting those homicide warrants changed to misdemeanors, somehow. It must have been exhausting. But I guess it pays to have friends in high places. Somebody could get away with murder.”

  Wetherspoon shook his head and walked away, face dark with rage, hands on his hips. Lanza tapped my arm with his gloved fist.

  “He’s the one you ought to be watching,” Lanza said. “He’s the one who’s been around forever, who knows everyone and all that. Think about it. He must know more than he’s telling you.”

  “Come on, Zo,” I said. “Cut the guy a break. He’s innocent until proven guilty, even under FOJA. We’re going to get out of here. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Lanza nodded, took a long glance at Wetherspoon, then slowly walked off. Once his footsteps had faded out of earshot, the Old Man stepped next to me.

  “Your friend is a buffoon,” he said. “Just another foot soldier goose-stepping into history.”

  Without another word, Wetherspoon walked off into the darkness. I heard a door open and shut, the roar of the old gasoline engine, and lights splintering the darkness at the far end of the lot. I watched in silence as the station wagon pulled out. At the line of cop cars, Wetherspoon honked three times, cursing, and one of the black and whites rolled aside to let him through.

  Quiet and stillness surrounded me. I peered back through the glass of the funeral home door. Mary was laughing at some joke Abbud was telling, her hand lightly gracing his wrist. I watched as Abbud placed his hand on her stomach and felt for the baby. They laughed again. I felt the sweat on my neck. So much for professionalism from the baby doc. I forced myself to look away, scanning the darkness. Empty silence, and I was all alone.

  Now was the time. I crouched over in the bushes and felt around for the shiny object O’Keefe had thrown in the bushes. My hand closed on something metallic and sharp—a jumble of keys. I picked them up, careful not to jangle them. The keys were all different sizes, but the largest was a car key.

  I found the reporter’s old gasoline-burning model Rasul parked in the darkest corner of the lot, where O’Keefe had been hiding. The door opened, and the smell of burnt tobacco was pungent on the inside. Food wrappers and empty plastic bottles covered the seats and floors. I turned on the overhead light, and there it was, practically glowing at me. The dossier of ancient papers. I picked it up and thumbed through it—it felt like everything was there. I breathed hard and nearly cried from joy.

  Collapsing on the seat atop the litter, I paused, lost in thought. Excitement coursed through me. Everything could go back to the way it was, now. I could get my job back, even if it meant pulling horrible shifts. I could work at the hospital again, and so could Wetherspoon. I wouldn’t have to worry about finances or struggle to afford to keep a child alive and healthy. Whatever was in the documents wasn’t insidious. It couldn’t be—that was crazy. This entire series of events was just a delusion of circumstance. I rubbed my eyes. What was the use in going against the flow, seeing things that weren’t there; if no one else saw anything either, then it didn’t exist.

  There was no conspiracy. No great buried truths. People died inexplicably—the human machine breaks down every day, like it did for Cruzen. Hearts fail, even young hearts. Terrorists got ahold of guns and bombs and killed innocent people for no good reason at all, as had always been the case. Drones dropped chemicals into rivers and crashed into schools. Shit happened in the land of the deliriously free, the home of the foolishly brave. But the statistics and probabilities were the only true conspirator. There was no grand design of evil, no overarching collusion of forces. I laughed and shook my head, shutting the car door. I turned.

  A shadow blocked my path. I recoiled. A man just slightly taller than me stood there, but I couldn’t see anything else about the figure, backlit as it was by the light from the funeral home. It was like a black hole in midst of the void.

  “Dr. Barnes,” the stranger said, syllables clipped. The man stepped close, eclipsing the light.

  It was my replacement. Fujimi.

  “Yes?” I said, swallowing hard.

  “So nice to finally meet you, Doctor,” the man said, his words precise. “I have followed your work for years. My name is Yoshiro Fujimi.”

  I said nothing, but I clung tighter to the dossier.

  “You must know it was not my decision to have you terminated from the hospital,” Fujimi said. “It was a Bureau of Wellness diktat. And you know you can return, if the conditions are met.”

  “Conditions?” I said.

  “I assumed Suzanne Kranklein informed you. A series of conditions to prove your good faith efforts toward the Bureau.”

  I waited, said nothing. I couldn’t tell this man anything. Fujimi continued.

  “First, you need to give me those papers you just recovered. Second, you need to cooperate fully with the hospital’s new initiatives,” he said. “Third, you’d need to abandon all these subversive activities you’ve been undertaking with Cornelius Wetherspoon.”

  “Subversive activities?”

  “The trespassing, the stealing, the commission of crimes,” Fujimi said, leaning so a stray ray of light glinted off his glasses. “Wetherspoon is a paranoid old man. Do not let some deranged coot like that destroy your promising career, Dr. Barnes. Whatever your curiosity may be, it will be satisfied in due time.”

  “If I abide by these rules, I get my job back. Everything goes back the way it was?”

  “Yes, except you’d be reporting directly to me—and no longer Suzanne Kranklein. The Bureau studies would be your primary responsibility.”

  “Which studies, exactly?”

  “They’re triple-blind studies administered by the highest Bureau officials,” Fujimi said. “They’ve been an ongoing undertaking since the turn of the millennium.”

  “Like the vitamins program. Why haven’t I heard of these studies before now?”

  Fujimi chuckled. It was a mirthless sound, like the rap of a scalpel on a surgical table.

  “They are classified, Dr. Barnes. These studies will never be written about in a medical journal or broadcast on the news,” he said. “They’re much too important for that. The researchers are all hand-picked. It should be considered quite an honor to be asked, I would add.”

  “Was Lamalade part of these studies?” I said.

  “Who is that?” said Fujimi.

  “Samuel Lamalade. The janitor who shot up the talent show and started the plague outbreak.”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about that,” Fujimi said, shaking his head coolly. “I can assure you, we wouldn’t hire just any madman to carry out our work. The Bureau is very serious about getting results. We have too much invested, and there’s too much at stake for our country.”

  “But you are saying you would do such things.”

  “I never said that, either.”

  “What about James Cruzen?” I said, changing tack. “Was he part of the studies in any way? He was a patient who died at the hospital a few weeks ago.”

  Fujimi shook his head. He looked off somewhere into the shadows and chuckled.

  “A person died at the hospital. Aren’t we all going to die at the hospital, if we aren’t so fortunate as to die at home, peacefully, in our sleep?”

  “How about Esmeralda? The girl with the tattoo on her neck.”

  Fujimi visibly flinched at the mere mention of the girl, and I knew I had hit upon something. But he recovered quickly—the shadow’s voice again smooth and level.

  “Dr. Barnes, we could talk about any number of people whom you know, and whom I don’t. But this is all beside the point.”

&n
bsp; I nodded. I lowered the dossier to my hip.

  “You know, I tried calling you months ago,” I said. “You were in Guatemala. Your secretary told me you’d still be there on sabbatical. Conducting population research. Or something.”

  Fujimi stiffened at the mention of Guatemala. He brushed at the lapels of his suit.

  “That was a research trip—it was nothing,” he said. “We compiled our results well before the clinical deadline. I was going to go back to New England, but once I saw the opening at Saint Almachius, I jumped at the chance. Nothing more to tell.”

  “You stopped years of groundbreaking research abroad for a job at a local New Jersey hospital,” I said, crossing my arms. “Isn’t this Bureau initiative just a continuation of whatever you were doing down in Central America? Wasn’t that a ‘triple-blind’ trial of some sort, too?”

  “You really have been listening to that crazy old man too much, I’m afraid,” Fujimi said. “Take a deep breath, Dr. Barnes. Just consider our offer. It would be best for everyone involved—you, your wife, the Bureau—if you would accept. Think of your unborn child.”

  I stared at the dark figure. I cleared my throat.

  “Are you threatening me, Dr. Fujimi?”

  “Only stating the obvious, Dr. Barnes.”

  Silence. I readjusted my hold on the dossier.

  “I’d like a night to think this all over,” I said.

  “That is acceptable. I know you have to consult your wife. I met her inside. Charming woman. She practically glows, even in a funeral home,” Fujimi said, extending a hand.

  I shook it—the flesh dry and cool. Then Fujimi turned and walked away, without another needless word.

  I stepped slowly in that same direction into the lights, my head spinning. Something about Fujimi was kinetic. The man gave off a crackling energy, like he was draining the atmosphere around him. As Fujimi strode down the driveway, I realized how much I had forgotten to ask.