Lifeblood

by Penny Rudolph

  Goldie’s eyes widened until the whites showed all the way around the dark irises. “Of course not…. Nah. Vampires do the neck, not the gut.”

  Rachel was nodding slowly and steadily, as if in time to something in her head. Finally, “No, it all fits,” she said quietly, more to herself than to Goldie. “I just have to prove it.”

  “Prove what?”

  “I think I know what Dan Morris was shipping by chopper four or five times a week.”

  999

  Rachel’s alarm clock got her up at 4:30. She wanted to be fully awake and alert when she got to the hospital. And she wanted to get there a little after 6:30. The night shift should be getting ready to go home, and the day shift wouldn’t have arrived yet.

  She sat on the sofa in the dark, in the oversize tee shirt she wore for a night gown, listening to the chug of the coffee pot. Clancy stood in her lap, put his paws on her shoulder, and purred in her ear as she thought about what she wanted to do, and how she would do it.

  “Is it worth the risk?” she asked the cat.

  He only watched the ceiling intently as if he could see something that wasn’t there.

  The choice, she decided, had already been made for her by whoever had planted that bottle of OxyContin in her jacket, then had her arrested; by whoever had tried to kill or at least disable her; by the person who shot Hank.

  She had been fairly sure the shooter in the Angeles was after her, not Hank. But it had been a fuzzy gray sureness. Now she was certain. A white-outlined-in-black certainty.

  Something seriously shady, and probably criminal, was going on at Jefferson Medical Center. And she had gotten way too close.

  Rachel drank her first cup of coffee as the light outside the window grew a little brighter. Hoping they provided the energy their wrappers claimed, she ate two trail bars. Then she put on sweats, changed tees and went out to jog for twenty minutes on city sidewalks that were blessedly empty at this hour. Only two cars and an SUV passed her.

  Jogging helped. So did the shower she took after. She dried her hair and toweled off.

  Is this how suicide bombers feel on the morning of their big day?

  Dressed in jeans, she took another half cup of coffee, but it tasted of the pot, so she poured it down the drain.

  She petted Clancy, who was certain he had done something to earn this attention, then told him goodbye and went down to open the garage. It was early, but she couldn’t take the chance of not getting back soon enough to do it later. With any luck, the local criminals would sleep late.

  Yellow rays of sun were just beginning to make their way between the high-rises. A few more cars roamed the street, but the air still smelled sweet.

  What would she do once she had proof?

  Go to the police? Yes. She would have to. They’d think it was trumped up because of her arrest for the OxyContin. She would insist someone accompany her back to the hospital and up to that ward. Maybe she should start by telling her attorney. Something should be done very soon. Maybe today.

  What would she do if she was caught in that ward?

  I’ll have to wing it.

  Would whoever caught her try to kill her?

  In a hospital there must be dozens of interesting ways to do that.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Rachel entered the hospital through the side door and took the stairs up four flights. A male nurse passed her going down. She smiled at him and nodded. He followed suit. If she got caught at this stage, the hospital would claim she was intent on stealing drugs.

  But she went on climbing.

  At the entry to the ward, the door made a metal-on-metal shriek when she pushed through it.

  If there’s a staff person nearby, I’m dead.

  But no sound of footsteps came from the adjacent hall.

  She inched her head around the corner of the wall. No one was in sight.

  One of the rooms must serve as a nurse’s station. Which? Hard to know. And there was no point spending any more time in the hall than necessary. Rachel swung around the corner and entered the first room on her left.

  Three beds. Three boys. Smallish. Early teens, probably. Two sleeping, one yawning.

  “Hello,” Rachel said.

  The yawner closed his mouth and gave her a puzzled stare. “Hola?”

  Trying to look friendly and non-threatening, Rachel asked, “Do you speak English?”

  He sat up, shook his head. Which meant he must have understood the question.

  “Por favor.” Please. “English. Inglés.” That rounded out about a quarter of Rachel’s Spanish vocabulary.

  The boy shook his head again.

  “He speaks inglés?” She pointed at one of the sleeping boys.

  “No.”

  Rachel looked over at the occupant of the third bed, who was beginning to stir.

  “No.”

  The frustration must have shown on her face.

  The boy who had just awakened got out of bed. Barefoot, hospital gown flapping about his narrow flanks, he took Rachel by the elbow. “Inglés. Sí.” He took her arm and walked her into the hall, down two rooms and toward a door on the right. Rachel was suddenly terrified that he might be leading her to a nursing station.

  But the room was like the other: three beds, three boys.

  Her escort led her to the bed next to the window, where he shook the shoulder of the boy asleep there. “Miguel,” he commanded. “La señorita, de necesidad, inglés.”

  The eyes of the boy in the bed slowly focused and he sat up. He looked a little older than the others. “Está bien.” He turned to Rachel. “Yes, Miss. I help you?”

  “Thank you,” Rachel breathed. “Yes, please. First, are there nurses or doctors near here?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  Miguel started to get out of bed. “I find for you?”

  “No!” Rachel said quickly. “I do not want to meet a nurse or a doctor.”

  “Ah.” He seemed to recognize furtiveness and relate to it. “Someone here all night, then she go and another come.”

  “Is she here now?”

  The boy looked at a clock on the wall near his bed and shook his head. “I think no.”

  “How long…. ” Rachel hesitated.

  “One hour, más o menos.”

  Rachel nodded, trying to be sure she understood. “When did that hour begin?”

  He stared at her frowning, and she decided the question had outstripped his English. She would have to assume it was roughly the hour that overlapped the two shifts.

  “I am looking for a boy who was brought—who came here,” she tried to keep the verbs simple, “about a month ago. He was unconscious.” With her hands and cheek, she mimed sleeping. “Small. Smaller than you or that other boy.” She touched the top of her head, then brought the flat of her hand down below her shoulder.

  “Sí. I understand,” Miguel said. “But is no boy like that.”

  The other two boys in the room were awake now and listening intently. He turned to them and spoke in rapid Spanish. When he finished, one boy shrugged. The other nodded slowly, then let out a short rush of Spanish syllables. “Inconcienti?”

  “Sí,” Miguel said.

  There was a long pause, then, “Soledad,” came the reply.

  “Ah, sí. Quizá. Es posible.” Miguel turned to Rachel. “No boy like you speak of is here.”

  Rachel, who had been sure the exchange was the news she sought, frowned. “No? I thought….”

  “Esta niña.” Miguel said. “Is a girl.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  “No,” Rachel said. “Thank you for trying, but no. This was a boy.”

  “How you know? You see?” Miguel stood up and tugged his hospital gown an inch or two above his knees.

  “Good heavens, no. Of course not.” Beginning to wonder herself what made her so sure, she frowned, thinking back. “I’m not sure.” Was it just the hair?

  “Boy or girl, why you want this per
son?”

  “I own a parking garage down the street. I found two kids locked in a van. I brought them to the emergency room here. They told me one was dead. When I came back the next day to see how the other was doing, they said there was no one like that here. But I know better. I brought him here.”

  “Aaah….” The sound was collective, from all three. It was hard to know how much they had understood. They began jabbering quickly in their own language.

  Rachel glanced at her watch and knew she had little time left, if any.

  “Come.” Miguel drew her to the door of the room and gently pushed her against the wall. “You stay.” He and his cohorts padded out into the hall.

  Rachel tried to quiet her nerves. The last time she’d been in this ward she was arrested when she left. What would happen this time?

  Miguel reappeared, put his hand to her forearm, and drew her through the doorway. “Is okay now.”

  Did he mean he understood, or that there was no staff around? Rachel desperately hoped it was at least the latter.

  He half pulled, half pushed her down the corridor. Three rooms down on the left she could see the heads of the other two boys poke out to peer down the hall. One motioned for them to hurry.

  There were three beds in the room, but only one in use.

  Miguel pointed to the child in it. “Soledad.”

  The child frowned, sat up, peered shyly at Rachel. “Who you? You want me? Porqué?”

  Rachel moved toward the bed. Yes. The face seemed faintly familiar. This might be one of the kids she had taken to the emergency room. The hair was a little longer but still boyish. “You are a girl?”

  The child’s nod was so tentative Rachel suspected that if she preferred a male, Soledad would do her best to be a boy.

  “How old are you?”

  “Once.” She pronounced it own-say.

  “Diez y uno,” Miguel said. “Ten and one.”

  “Eleven?”

  “Sí.” This from both Miguel and Soledad.

  “Why are you here?” Rachel asked her. “Here in the hospital?”

  The girl looked puzzled. “I wake. I here.”

  Thank God the child spoke some English. “You just woke up and you were here?”

  Soledad nodded.

  “How long have you been here?”

  The girl held up three fingers. “Tres semanas.”

  “Three week,” Miguel agreed. “Más o menos.” More or less.

  Three weeks, plus or minus. Time-wise, that fit.

  “Maria?” Soledad asked.

  “Who is Maria?”

  “Quién,” Miguel inserted.

  “Mi amiga.” Soledad said and added something in rapid Spanish to Miguel.

  Oh, no. The other kid. The one who died. Rachel dodged the question. “Do you remember being locked in a van? A truck?”

  Soledad’s brows drew together.

  “Van.” Rachel looked at Miguel, whose expression was blank.

  “Car? Automobile?”

  They all exclaimed, “Coche.”

  A faint dinging came from somewhere in the bowels of the hospital. Rachel’s eyes darted nervously to her watch. “I have to go. I’ll come back. Will you talk with me again?”

  The four in hospital gowns nodded solemnly, but she wasn’t sure how much they understood.

  999

  “Meet me for lunch,” Rachel said into the phone.

  “I don’t get up till then. I have breakfast at one,” came Goldie’s groggy voice.

  “Okay, one.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Eight o’clock. I waited as long as I could.”

  “Eight o’clock? I just got to bed. Why are you doing this to me?”

  “You aren’t going to believe what I found out this morning.”

  There was a long pause on Goldie’s end, then, “I don’t think I want to know.”

  “Please. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  “Okay, okay. Where?”

  “Philippe’s.”

  “Oh, well. Twist my arm.”

  “Come on. How long has it been since you had a good French dip.”

  “I ain’t never had a French dip, honey. That’s for you white girls.”

  “Goldie!”

  “That’s what you get when you don’t let me sleep. Okay!” she added quickly. “I’ll be there. Two o’clock, right?”

  “One,” Rachel said, then, “Wait. Can you pick me up?”

  “Something wrong with your car?”

  “No. It was due for a tune-up, oil change, all that stuff. Johnny Mack says he has time now, so I want to get it out of the way.”

  As soon as Rachel hung up, she dialed the main number at Jefferson hospital. “Can you page Dr. Johnson? Emma Johnson.”

  How much did Emma know about all this? Could something like that be going on right under her nose without her knowing it? Very unlikely. Possible? A small maybe, but still a maybe. Jefferson was big, old and sprawling. The people who knew every inch of it were probably few.

  “Dr. Emma Johnson. Paging Dr. Emma Johnson.” Rachel could hear the hollow tones of the PA system. She ran her mind over what she would say when the doctor came to the phone. She would invite her to lunch, and once seated across a table, she would ask some very direct questions.

  The receptionist came back on the line. “Sorry. Dr. Johnson isn’t here. I’ve been told she is out of the country.”

  “When will she be back?” Rachel asked, but the line had gone dead.

  999

  Marty stared at the second card that fell face up on the green felt tabletop in front of him. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, then opened them wide. Both cards were clubs. The nine and ten.

  His hair was shaggy, his eyes felt like two burned holes in his face. He had been up for how many hours? He looked at his watch. Thirty? The effect was worse than jet lag.

  He tried to do the math, figure the odds. This was important. Real important. Rachel had called. Things were going from bad to worse for her. Now some stupid hunter had shot Hank.

  Someone called from across the table, “Hey, Marty. Let’s go.”

  “Hang on, hang on.” Marty lifted the corner of the first hole card, then the other. The queen and jack of clubs.

  He moved a stack of chips into the pot.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  There was a distinct bounce to his step as he moved through the parking lot. The silver 4Runner gleamed under the lights. The lot was sparsely littered with cars. An old man with a cane was hobbling along on the sidewalk. Marty thought his gait looked a little like Charlie Chaplin’s.

  He took a deep breath. The air tasted so good he wished he could liquefy it and drink it, get drunk on it. It was just after three a.m., but he wasn’t tired.

  His wallet no longer fit in his back pants pocket. It barely fit in his jacket pocket. For that matter, he could hardly fold it. The wallet was probably ruined, the jacket pocket might be ruined, too. But he didn’t care. He could buy others. He could buy a thousand others.

  Marty always took his winnings in hundred-dollar bills. For luck. To prime the luck-pump for the next game.

  Wait till he told Rachel. He would call her as soon as he got home. Wake her up.

  He punched a button on his key ring, the 4Runner’s lights flashed, and he heard the click as the locks opened.

  He was reaching for the door handle when a wooden hook grabbed his shoulder and twisted him around. Marty looked into the face of someone who was definitely not Charlie Chaplin.

  A fist ground into his face and he slumped to the ground. Sharp pebbles bit into his cheek.

  Something slammed into the back of his head, and the world faded to black.

  999

  Goldie crossed her arms and looked over her eyeglasses at Rachel. They were standing in line at Philippe’s. “I guess it would be asking too much for you to tell me what the hell I’m doing here.”

  Rachel rubbed the toe of her sn
eaker on the sawdust-covered floor and glanced around. “Wait till we get a table.”

  Goldie reached the counter and ordered a beef sandwich and potato salad. “What do you want?” she asked Rachel.

  “Turkey, coleslaw, and lemonade.”

  They took their trays of paper-plated sandwiches and found a table at the back.

  “Okay, what’s up?”

  “They were girls in the van. Both of them. One is up in that ward.”

  “No shit?”

  Keeping her voice low, Rachel started a rapid blow-by-blow of her visit to the ward in the east wing of the hospital’s fourth floor.

  “You’re talking with your mouth full,” Goldie observed.

  “I don’t want my lunch to get cold. Since when do you stand on ceremony?”

  “I don’t. It’s just harder to understand what you’re saying.”

  Rachel put her sandwich down and sipped her lemonade. “What do you think they’re doing up there with those Mexican kids?”

  “Nothing good.”

  “I’ve got more than a sneaking suspicion. I’m just about certain.”

  Goldie took a bite of potato salad. “Like what?”

  “Think about what Inez said. Her boyfriend was ‘cut.’ They’re stealing body parts.”

  “Gak!” Goldie put her sandwich down. “Arms and legs? I swear. You must want my lunch telling me stuff like that.”

  “No, I mean organs. It’s pretty obvious that’s what Inez was saying.”

  “I thought she was talking about experimental operations. Some kind of research.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Think money. There’s not enough money in developing new surgical procedures. But there’s probably a lot of money in something like black-market human organs.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You think they’re killing those kids?”

  “No. At least not most of them.”

  “How else can they steal their gizzards?”

  “Well, I read or saw somewhere recently that if they take out half your liver, it grows back. And if they transplant the part they took into someone else, that part grows back whole, too.”

  Goldie made a face. “I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a little creepy.”

  “And these kids are poor, young Mexican kids.”

  Goldie’s face knotted into a frown. “You think they’re kidnapping them in Mexico and bringing them up here to steal their livers?”