Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop (83 page)

“Remember summer mornings?” Sarah said. “If you slept with the windows open, you woke up with a ring of soot around your nose.”

Riley nodded.

“And the water in the sink always had a layer of coal dust on it. Remember that?”

Riley said nothing. Sarah frowned.

“And the mountain lions—they used to sweep down from the hillsides and carry off the small children for dinner.”

Riley nodded, then stopped abruptly. “What children?”

“Where
are
you? You haven’t been paying attention all day.”

“I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

Sarah shook her head. “You always were a worrier.”

“It’s part of being a big sister. It comes with the territory.”

“No, it’s part of being a
mom
—that came with the territory too, didn’t it? But you’re not my mom, Riley—you never were.”

Riley hooked her arm through Sarah’s. “Can’t a girl look out for her baby sister?”

“I’m not your baby sister anymore; I should be looking out for you now.”

“For me? Why?”

“Well, let’s see. Hmm. That’s a tough one. Wait—I know. How about the fact that you’re dying, and I’m not?”

Riley dropped her arm. “I’m not dying,” she said.

“C’mon, Riley, get real. Have you heard anything from UPMC Presby?”

“You know I haven’t. The odds are a million to one.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“What can I do? It’s called a
waiting
list, Sarah—there’s a reason for that.”

They walked in silence for the next few minutes.

“I like Nick,” Sarah said.

“Really? What do you like about him?”

“He’s intense. Especially those eyes of his—they’re spooky.”

“I like them. When he really looks at you …”

Sarah nodded. “I think Nick’s the best one you’ve brought home in a long time. Do you love him?”

Riley looked mildly annoyed.

“What’s the matter?” Sarah said. “Can’t a girl look out for her big sister?”

“It’s just that … it’s kind of hard to say.”

“Stop being a weasel. Do you love him or not?”

Riley glared at her, but her countenance slowly softened, and she finally nodded.

“Then say it. Say, ‘I love Nick.’”

“Cut it out, Sarah.”

“Go on—tell the truth and shame the devil.”

“I don’t have to say it.”

“You don’t mean it ’til you say it.”

“I thought you weren’t a baby anymore. You can be so
annoying.
”

“Chicken. Coward. Yellow belly.”

“OK!” Riley said, turning to face her. “I love him! There, are you satisfied? I love Nick Polchak!” She stopped abruptly, stunned by the force of her own admission.

Sarah paused. “Does he love you?”

Riley rolled her eyes. “How am I supposed to know?”

“He hasn’t told you yet?”

“Well, not in so many words.”

“Not in
words
? How did he tell you, in smoke signals?”

Riley turned away and started down the road again. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Well,
I
do,” Sarah said, following right on her heels. “So you think he loves you?”

“I think he has a hard time saying it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think love is his primary language.”

“That’s a crock. Men always say that.”

“He didn’t say that—that’s just what
I
think. Nick comes from a pretty rough background.”

“What is
this
place, Shangri-la?”

Riley stopped and looked at her. “Sarah, Nick has been hurt in the past.”

“Oh, Riley, not another three-legged dog.”

“No, it’s not like that. He just needs … we
both
need to take it slow, that’s all.”

Sarah put her hands on her hips. “You haven’t told him, have you? Nick doesn’t know you’re dying.”

“He knows I’m sick—nothing more.”

“He has a right to know, Riley.”

“It’s not that easy,” she grumbled.

“‘Nick, I’m dying—I thought you should know.’ Sounds easy enough to me.”

“Easy for you, maybe—you’re not the one who’s dying. When was I supposed to say this, Sarah? ‘Hello, Nick, I’m Riley. It’s so nice to meet you; by the way, I’m dying, so don’t get too close.’ Or maybe after the first date: ‘I had a nice time tonight, Nick. If you want to ask me out again, you’d better make it fast—I’m dying.’”

“Come on, Riley, you know what I mean.”

“I didn’t want his pity, OK? And to be honest, I didn’t want to run him off either. For the first time in years I met a perfectly wonderful guy, someone who’s just as weird and twisted as I am, and I wanted to know if we had a chance together—just as
people.
Is that so wrong?”

“Would you?” Sarah said. “Have a chance together, I mean?”

“I think we would,” Riley said, “if only.”

Sarah paused. “All the more reason to live.”

“Do you think I
want
to die?”

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

“What is it I’m supposed to do, Sarah? You tell me.”

“OK, I will. How about moving to another transplant region—rich people do it all the time. Somewhere where you can be higher on the list, somewhere where there’s more placement activity.”

“More activity than Presby? You must be kidding—it’s one of the top transplant centers in the country. Besides, Sarah, I can’t just pack up and move—I’ve got a career to think about.”

“Dead women don’t have careers. How about moving overseas, have you ever thought of that? Someplace where the procurement laws are more flexible—somewhere where your odds might improve.”

“You expect me to move
overseas
? Be serious.”

“I
am
being serious. You said it yourself, your odds are one in a million here. Well, that’s not good enough, Riley. You can’t just sit around and wait to die.”

Riley kicked stubbornly at the ground. “Well, it’s my life.”

“Sorry—it’s not that simple. I love you, Riley, and so does Nick. That means a piece of your life belongs to me, and a piece belongs to him. You can’t just take your ball and go home—you have a responsibility to both of us.”

“I’m
sick
of responsibility.”

“Well that’s just too bad. Welcome to Mencken, Riley, welcome
home.
It’s a world of responsibility—it always has been and it always will be. You have to
do
something to improve your chances. You’ve gone the conventional route—now you need to consider extreme measures.”

“This all seems so simple to you, doesn’t it?”

“You think it’s hard to be the one who’s dying? Try being the one who has to live—the one who has to stay behind. You’re all I have in the whole world, Riley. Did you ever think of that? If you die, my whole world dies with you.”

Riley looked into her sister’s eyes; she saw the love, the devotion, the same furious intensity that used to fill her own eyes before her blood began to grow tainted and her spirit began to leech away. Now the last of her energy was leaving her—even
her grief—and exhaustion weighed her down like a suit of armor. Her head throbbed, and her entire body felt like one dull ache. She threw her arms around her sister’s neck—less out of affection than to support her own failing legs—and she began to gently weep.

“Oh, Sarah, what am I going to do?”

“You’re going to live,” Sarah said, “even if it kills us both.”

They turned together toward the house, Sarah half-dragging, half-carrying her sister the last quarter mile. They struggled up the front steps together.

“When was your last dialysis?” Sarah said, pushing open the front door.

“Five days ago.”

“That’s too long. We need to—”

They stopped.

Standing in the center of the room, pointing a handgun directly at them, was Cruz Santangelo. He looked at Sarah.

“Hello, Angel,” he said.

Santangelo motioned them into the room.

“Ordinarily, I’d tell you to shut the door,” he said. “But out here in the sticks I don’t suppose it matters—does it, Angel?”

“Shut up, Cruz,” Sarah said.

Riley looked from her sister to Santangelo and back again. She stared at Sarah wild-eyed, but Sarah refused to meet her gaze. Slowly, understanding began to break over her in pummeling waves.

“You’re the one … the woman with the red hair. But then you must have … oh, Sarah, what have you done?” Riley sank down on the floor.

“Those were lousy directions,” Santangelo said. “I thought I
made a wrong turn somewhere. Do you know this place isn’t even on the map anymore?”

Sarah lifted her sister to her feet and helped her to a chair—then she turned to Santangelo and held out her hand for the gun.

Santangelo shook his head. “Sorry—you
are
sisters, after all.”

“You won’t need the gun,” Sarah said.

“I hope not—but then, that’s up to you, isn’t it?”

“We have a deal, remember?”

“Sure—the same deal we had in Tarentum.” Santangelo looked at his watch. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

Sarah helped Riley struggle to her feet again; they turned toward the back hallway.

“Whoa,” Santangelo said. “Where do you think you’re headed?”

“The kitchen,” Sarah said. “Do you mind? This is personal—we’d like a little privacy.”

Santangelo shrugged and took a seat on Riley’s chair. “Make it fast. There’s not much to do around here.”

In the kitchen, Sarah deposited Riley in a chair and stood at the counter across from her. Riley looked up at her sister in unbelieving horror.

“Tell me it’s all a mistake,” Riley said. “Tell me he’s confusing you with someone else.”

“You’re
confusing me with someone else—with a baby sister who doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve grown up a lot lately, Riley.”

“Oh, Sarah—in God’s name
why
?”

“To get you your kidneys, of course. Didn’t you hear what I said back there? It’s time to consider extreme measures.”

“Like killing someone else to save my own life? Did you think I’d ever agree to something like that?”

“You were never supposed to
know.
When we found a match for you, all we had to do was make sure he had a donor card—we could have let his kidneys come up for transplant through the regular system. With your compatibility problem, you would have been number one on the match list. You would have gotten your kidneys, Riley, and you never would have known. That was the deal I made; that’s why I agreed to work for them.”

“And who would this ‘donor’ have been, Sarah? A mother?
Someone’s husband? A woman my age with a sister just like you? Would you really trade my life for someone else’s?”

“You don’t understand. When they pick a donor, they consider more than medical factors. The man in the drive-by shooting—he was a wife-beater, did you know that? Do you know why he pulled over in that alley in Homewood? Not to change his tire, to change
mine.
I stood there by my car in a low-cut dress looking helpless—looking
available
—and he practically skidded to a stop. Do you think he would have stopped if I was old or ugly or overweight? Not a chance. That guy owed his wife a debt he could never repay, but there he was trying to hit on a younger woman. Are you asking me if I would trade that scumbag’s life for yours? I’d trade
ten
of him for you.”

“And what about your
clients
?” Riley said. “What do you know about them? Is Mr. Vandenborre some kind of angel? How does he treat
his
wife? Does he have an eye for younger women too—or is he even worse than that? You have no idea at all, do you?”

“I don’t know—and I don’t care. I know
you,
Riley. I love
you.
You’ve been my whole world since I was a little girl. What was I supposed to do, just stand by and watch you die?”

“So you find a match for me, and you help commit another murder; then I get my kidneys, and I marry Nick, and we all live happily ever after—is that the picture? Only we wouldn’t all be happy, would we, Sarah? Because you couldn’t live with yourself. You’d end up just like this town—burning underground, smoke seeping out through cracks, ready to collapse at any time. How many people have you helped murder?”

“No more than necessary.”

“Necessary
? Necessary for what—for me to live? For you to keep your happy family? Remember that verse from Sunday school: ‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’”

“First we save your life,” Sarah said. “I’ll worry about my soul later.”

“I worry about
my
soul all the time—it comes with dying.”

“You need to start thinking about the future.”

“Dying is the future—it’s everybody’s future. So now what, Sarah? Why are we here in the kitchen? What is Santangelo
expecting you to do? Are you supposed to try to change my mind about all of this? Are you supposed to
convince
me? Is that what these ten minutes are for?”

Sarah pulled out the chair across from Riley and slowly sat down. “It’s a little more complicated than that. I didn’t
ask
to work for these people, Riley—I never knew they existed. They asked
me.
Now, why do you suppose they did that? They liked the way I looked, sure. They also liked the fact that I’ve been a surgical nurse; but most of all, they knew I would have a motive. They knew about
you,
Riley. These people know everything—they’re incredibly thorough.”