Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop (66 page)

Zohar smiled. “You are currently on the waiting list for a kidney transplant; you’ve been on that list for almost three years now. Next week you will announce to your physician that you have lost hope, and that you wish to be removed from the waiting list and simply go home to die in peace. And you will go home, Mrs. Heybroek, but you will not die. I will provide you with your pair of kidneys. Your transplant surgery will take place in a state-of-the-art surgical center. You will then return home to convalesce in seclusion for the next twelve months, during which time you will experience a miraculous ‘recovery’ from your end-stage renal disease.”

“
You
will provide my kidneys? How? Where will they come from?”

“As an ethicist, I insist on a policy of strict confidentiality. I will not reveal the source of your organs, nor will the donor’s family ever know who has received them.”

“But you must be going outside the legal system.”

“The
legal
system? I’m going outside the
unethical
and
unjust
system, Mrs. Heybroek; a system that’s more than happy to let you die to protect the rights of someone with virtually no social value.”

“I can’t be a party to something like this.”

“Can’t you?” Zohar turned to the painting suspended over the fireplace. It was the focal point of the entire room. Two recessed halogen lights illuminated the painting, creating a fiery glare in the center of the glossy canvas. “James Ludlum Heybroek,” he said. “Quite a man. He foresaw the decline of Pittsburgh’s steel industry in the sixties, and he helped pioneer the transition from an industrial to a technological economy. He was a leading figure in Pittsburgh’s second Renaissance, wasn’t he? Three Rivers Stadium, the USX Tower, PPG Place, the Mellon Bank Tower … so many men were indebted to him—and he called in a few of those
debts, didn’t he? Debts that ruined other businesses, debts that even resulted in a couple of notable suicides.”

“How
dare
you—”

“Don’t misunderstand, Mrs. Heybroek. I have the greatest respect for your late husband. I’m simply pointing out that people of power and influence are accustomed to making hard decisions. I didn’t just show up on your doorstep tonight. I’ve spent a good deal of time researching you and your family’s history. You’re an impressive person, Mrs. Heybroek, no less so than your husband. You didn’t get where you are today through timidity and caution, now, did you?”

The woman narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin. “How much?” she asked.

“Three million dollars. By electronic transfer to a series of offshore accounts.”

“Three million—”

“A small price, considering. Look at it this way, Mrs. Heybroek: I’m not really charging you, I’m empowering you. Money is power, that’s what they always say, but right now your money has no power. You’re about to die with three million dollars in your pocket, and it will be of no value to you then. I’m giving you back the chance to get something for your money.”

“I could have you arrested for this.”

“You could—but you’d be signing your own death warrant, wouldn’t you? I’m not offering you an option, Mrs. Heybroek, I’m offering you your
only
option. Where else will you get your kidneys?”

“I … I need to know where the kidneys will come from.”

Zohar sat down beside her again, picked up her left hand, and cradled it gently. “Where did that lovely dress come from? Paris? New York? Where did your wheelchair come from? Mexico? China? Do you know? Do you really care? When you purchase a product, Mrs. Heybroek, you don’t concern yourself with the process of production and distribution. That’s what you pay other people for.”

She said nothing but stared straight ahead.

Zohar reached into his coat pocket, took out a business card, and placed it in her hand. He rose and stepped to the doorway, where he stopped and turned back.

“You are a woman of great power,” he said. “Please—exercise that power. I want you to live.”

Smoke poured from the toaster oven. Nathan Lassiter pawed the piece of blackened toast onto the counter, spit out an expletive, and shoved all four fingers into his mouth like his infant son used to do. He stood at the sink, scraping off the layer of crumbling carbon with a knife, when his cell phone rang. He dropped the toast into the sink and picked up the phone.

“Lassiter, what is it? Oh … it’s you.” He jabbed at the remains of the toast with the point of his knife until it folded like a little umbrella and disappeared into the garbage disposal.

“I’m fine, Margaret. No, I’m fine—I’m just a little busy, that’s all.” He felt the glass decanter in the coffee maker; it was cold. He pulled it out and stared at the thin layer of dark liquid in the bottom. He swirled it around twice, then sniffed it.

“Look, you didn’t call just to see how I’m doing. What’s on your mind? You got the check, didn’t you? I know I wrote it.” He pulled a cup from the stack of dirty dishes and examined the inside. He set it down and picked up another, then a third. He pinned the phone against his shoulder and wiped the rim of the cup with the tail of his shirt. He emptied the decanter into it, set it in the microwave, and punched a button. Nothing happened.

“I’m not starting something. I just asked about the check, that’s all. I’m not arguing. Who’s arguing?” He opened the fridge and scanned the barren shelves. There was a bulging, half-empty milk bottle with a thick yellow layer on top, and a series of opaque plastic containers all jammed to the back to the shelves. He slid one forward and began to pry off the lid, then thought better of it.

“What? No, I don’t know why we always fight. I guess that’s why people get divorced, isn’t it?” He opened the pantry door
and removed a promising-looking box from the shelf. He shook it and heard nothing; he dropped it on the floor and tried another. Behind one box he spotted a single granola bar wrapped in green and silver mylar. He took it.

“Look, can we get to the point? I’ve got a lot going on here. What is it you want? What?” Lassiter pulled the phone away from his ear and let out a laugh.

“You’ve got to be kidding. You got the bedroom suite, you got the oils and the Wedgwood—now you want the
plants
? Why don’t you take the carpet too?” He flipped through the
Pittsburgh PostGazette
on the island, pulled out the sports and financial sections, and headed for the family room and his favorite recliner—his
only
recliner.

“No, I don’t
need
the plants—I just don’t think you’ll want them anymore. Because they’re dead, that’s why. No, I watered them all right—
you
killed them. That exterminator you hired. That’s right, he tented the house and fumigated. The gas killed every living thing in the house, including your plants. What? Yes, you did—you bought a service contract. I saw the paperwork. Well, maybe that’s the problem, Margaret. You don’t remember where the money goes. Anyway, the plants are yours if you want them—help yourself. Uh-huh. Well, I’ve got to go. Talk to you later. Yeah. Bye.”

Lassiter dropped the cell phone on the carpet and leaned back in his recliner with a look of satisfaction. He set the paper on his lap and opened the sports page. As he scanned the headlines, his eyes drifted above the paper and focused on a mahogany plant stand near the doorway, supporting a leafy Boston fern.

It was in perfect condition.

The silver Porsche roared into a parking space in front of the Fox Chapel Yacht Club and killed its lights. Jack Kaplan turned to the beautiful young woman sitting silently beside him and smiled.

“You know, Angel, when I saw you leaning up against that red Beamer the other night, I almost stepped out and helped you myself. I don’t know who first spotted you, but you were the perfect choice for this job. I mean the face, the dress, the body—baby, you are the total package. Looks to die for, you might say.”

“I didn’t ask your opinion,” the woman said.

Kaplan reached across and stroked her long, auburn hair. “I love this,” he said.

She swung around and knocked his hand away. “Let me make something clear to you, Dr. Kaplan: This is a business relationship. I don’t like you, I don’t trust you, and I certainly don’t need your help. Have I made myself clear?”

Kaplan thrust an imaginary dagger into his heart and twisted it. “You’re killing me, Angel. But then, that’s your specialty, isn’t it?”

“One more thing: when we’re out of sight, don’t you ever touch me.”

Jack looked her over once more and shook his head. “Your loss,” he said. “Are you ready? It’s showtime.”

Kaplan stepped out of the car, fastened the top button of his sports coat, and moved around to the opposite side of the car. He opened the passenger door and extended his hand. Angel reached down at her feet and picked up a glossy black handbag and a bottle of champagne; she swung her slender legs from the car, then rose up to meet him, smiling and kissing him lightly on the cheek. They walked arm in arm down the sidewalk on the right side of the building, avoiding the glare of the streetlamps, heading directly
for the marina and the wooden docks that projected into the river like gray piano keys.

Behind them, a second car rolled to a stop beside the Porsche. Two men sat silently, watching Kaplan and the woman called Angel work their way down the pier toward the farthest slip.

Nathan Lassiter turned to the driver. “I want to ride with Angel next time,” he said. “I just got divorced, you know. What does this look like to people?”

Santangelo ignored him. “We’ll give them another minute,” he said evenly. “No sense crowding them.”

Moments later, the two men emerged from the car and followed the same secluded path to the wooden quays lined with gently rocking sailboats, catamarans, and sport cruisers of all shapes and sizes—but none of them compared in size or luxury with the corporate yacht in the final slip, the seventy-foot
PharmaGen.

There were hearty laughs and eager handshakes as the last two men stepped aboard, completing the party of six. The bow and stern lines were quickly cast off, the
PharmaGen
’s twin diesel inboards gave a guttural growl, and Tucker Truett backed the yacht slowly out of the slip and into the darkness of the Allegheny River.

As soon as the yacht passed out of range of the bright marina lights, the jovial pretense was dropped and the party fell silent. They traveled just over a mile upriver, to an isolated spot where Nine Mile Island and Sycamore Island lay side by side, dividing the river into three separate channels. They dropped anchor in the central channel, where the wooded islands blocked them from view from either bank.

Julian Zohar stepped into the center of the group and cleared his throat.

“Mr. Truett informs me we have refreshments tonight—please, help yourselves.” They took seats on the U-shaped leather sun bench—all except for Truett, who remained seated in the captain’s chair in the adjoining cockpit.

“I don’t like this,” Santangelo said. “All of us meeting together is a risk.”

“We’ve been over this,” Truett said.

“I still don’t like it. I’ve got a lot to lose here.”

“We’ve
all
got a lot to lose.”

“Mr. Santangelo,” Zohar said calmly, “I wouldn’t take the risk of bringing this group together if it were not an absolute necessity. I am not simply a contractor handing out tasks to individual vendors. We’re creating this venture
together,
and we need to learn from one another.”

“We never should have met in person,” Santangelo said.

“I considered other means of bringing this committee together, but all of them involved equal or greater risk. Mr. Truett entertains a different group of people on this yacht almost every evening—who would notice one more assembly? I decided that our safest course of action was to ‘hide in plain sight,’ so to speak.”

“I don’t like these people knowing who I am,” Santangelo said, gesturing to the group. “Knowing my name, knowing what I do for a living.”

“You are Mr. Cruz Santangelo,” Zohar replied, “special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I am Dr. Julian Zohar, executive director of the Center for Organ Procurement and Education. If something goes wrong, we all know where to find one another, don’t we? I think that creates a certain incentive for
loyalty,
don’t you? We’ve all cast our lots together, Mr. Santangelo. Why not just accept it?”