The Dreaming Tree

by Matthew Mather

“Come on, it’s been an hour.” Roy liked these guys and was even intrigued by the subversive thrill, but enough was enough.

  Having given up on the bouncer, they hung at the edge of the crowd outside Heaven. Three anorexic models in bikinis would have been a shoo-in, but three guys? Even Sisyphus would have given up by now. One by one, Rat had named off the celebrities going inside, which only intensified Fedora’s mania.

  “You know how much a pound of pure George Clooney is worth?” he said. “Like fifty, maybe even a hundred grand, man. And Bieber! You saw him go in, right?”

  “We’re never getting in there,” Roy groaned.

  “This right here, tonight, is my retirement, brother.”

  Roy had already begun to walk away. “It’s been fun, but—”

  “Hey, isn’t that the doctor lady?” Fedora waved at someone. “From that show?”

  “Royce, is that you?”

  Roy turned. Short ginger hair and alabaster skin. Blood-red lips, thick layers of dark eyeliner covering brittle lines. Gold segmented fish earrings—her signature jewelry. What on earth was his mother’s famous psychologist friend doing in the Meatpacking District? He hadn’t seen her since Thanksgiving dinner at their place, out in Montauk. Images of the cliff Roy had crashed over rushed through his mind.

  “Primrose,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  The sixtysomething-year-old had on a one-piece form-hugging jumpsuit and heels, one hand on hips tilted jauntily to one side. She waited.

  “Sorry, this is my friend Fedora,” Roy said, “and Guy. Fellas, this is Primrose Chegwidden. You’ve maybe seen her on TV?”

  Fedora’s face beamed. They both mumbled hello.

  “Are you going to Heaven?” Primrose asked.

  “I don’t think so. We were just walking by.”

  “I’m going in. Why don’t you come with us?” Behind Primrose were a half-dozen elderly men and women who looked as if they shouldn’t be outside their assisted-living homes unsupervised, never mind trying to get into a bar. “Come on, let’s go.”

  She sashayed forward, the crowd magically parting before her. Roy held back, but Fedora grabbed him. “How do you know her?”

  “Are they with you?” the mountainous bouncer asked Primrose. He nodded at Roy and Fedora.

  “They are my special guests,” she replied.

  The bouncer’s slab-face remained impassive, but he opened the velvet rope and swept back the rest of the crowd. “Asshole,” Fedora whispered as they passed.

  * * *

  The pounding bass was so loud it rattled Roy’s teeth. Under the strobe lights on the main floor, a sweaty mass of dancers jittered in stop-action. Purple leather booths on platforms defined the edges of the dim bar. On the tables ice buckets overflowed with bottles of champagne and vodka.

  One of the bouncers had followed them in, clearing the crowd so Primrose’s elderly entourage could get through. A waitress slid past them holding a magnum of Dom Pérignon with a sparkler hissing flames from its top.

  A fluffy white halo hovered over her head.

  Fedora yelled in Primrose’s ear, “Do we have a table?”

  “We are the VIP, dear,” she replied. “The real party is downstairs.”

  She led them past the neon-and-glass main bar with its glowing and bubbling multideck fountain. Men in black ballistic vests and earpieces nodded at the bouncer accompanying them, then opened a set of nondescript double doors at the back of the bar. Down black nonskid metal stairs—one flight and then another.

  “Don’t be scared, we’re just going to Hell,” Primrose said, laughing now, scarcely able to contain her sudden giddiness.

  “I’ve heard of this place, man,” Fedora whispered.

  Two more men in ballistic vests opened doors at the landing. Roy followed Primrose, expecting another blasting assault on the senses, but instead they entered an eerily quiet, pristine white room.

  Hospital gurneys, arranged side by side in pairs, lined all four walls. By each pair were beeping machines, and an IV pole hung with a bag of dark liquid. Young men and women, dressed up for their night out, lay on every second bed, a needle inserted in one arm. They chatted happily with each other and waved at Primrose and her arriving crowd. Nurses in scrubs hovered over some of them.

  Roy had trouble computing what he saw.

  “I suppose we could call this purgatory,” Primrose said. “A pit stop between Heaven and Hell. If you can wait for me, we’ll go to the party in a minute.”

  She pointed at a large set of doors, inset and almost invisible. Roy heard the dull thump of dance music just beyond.

  Primrose took Roy’s hand and led him to one of the beds.

  “This is Sophie, my donor.”

  A young woman—girl, really, in her teens—with ethereal blue eyes, pink lipstick, long red hair, and a face sprinkled with freckles. She looked shyly up at Roy from her gurney, smoothed down her miniskirt, and said, “Hey.”

  “Is everything ready?” Primrose asked one of the nurses in green scrubs. She laid a hand on Roy’s forearm and squeezed.

  Roy felt queasy and pulled his arm away.

  “Already did the CBC and tox screens, Mrs. Chegwidden. All the lab work is done. She’s clean and matches perfectly.” The nurse busied herself on one of the machines.

  “Buddy, some water?” Fedora asked. “You look like you could use some.” He held out a full paper cup, and Roy downed it in a gulp and asked for another.

  Primrose sat on the gurney next to the girl’s and swung her legs up, crossing her ankles as she lay down. “Your mother was just here before us. Don’t look so surprised, Roy boy. I would ask if you’d like to try it, but then, you’re already flowing with the blood of a youngster, aren’t you? You’ve taken the whole body of one. You’re a bit famous in our circle.”

  One by one, the oldsters who had followed Primrose in took their beds beside the bright young things.

  “How do you think those Hollywood stars stay so young-looking?” Primrose said. “You think it’s by hitting the treadmill? Quite simple, really.”

  The nurse inserted a needle and catheter into Primrose’s left arm, then repeated the process on her right.

  “They pump her blood into me while they refill my donor with bagged blood and empty some of mine into the trash. All it’s good for, at my age. Like getting an oil change.”

  Primrose eased back on the bed and closed her eyes as the blood of the teenager snaked its way along the empty tube between them, passing en route through a tiny pump attached to the IV pole. The nurse made an adjustment. The dark liquid completed its circuit and flowed directly into the old television star’s arm.

  “Nothing like fresh young blood—gorging on a teenager and then partying. I sound terrible, don’t I?”

  Bile edged up in the back of Roy’s throat. The edges of the room warped in his vision.

  “And in return,” Primrose giggled, “we give them nights of pleasure and fun they could never experience any other way.”

  Fedora had his arm around Roy’s neck again. It seemed the man was made of garlic.

  “Crazy stuff, huh?” He pulled Roy backward and spun him around. Fedora’s face ballooned, his friend Rat’s face floating beside it. “Come on, we gotta find Clooney.”

  A waitress with red horns and cloven-hoofed heels opened the doors down. A thudding onslaught of trance-dance music greeted them, and Roy felt himself in a kaleidoscopic maelstrom spiraling out of control.

  Fedora yelled into his ear, “Welcome to Hell, my friend.”

  24

  “Most people are worth more dead than alive. Did you know that?” Del asked.

  She scrolled through an article on her phone.

  Coleman kept his eyes on the road. His turn to drive today.


  They had been called to a domestic disturbance at a house on the north side of Heckscher Park in the suburbs of Huntington, a nice area with nice middle-class families. But it was the end of the day, the time when husbands and wives got together to talk about things. The stress of the holidays was already in full swing. They got more domestic-disturbance calls during this time of year than any other.

  Today was the first day of December. A light dusting of snow the night before had burned off by early morning, but it was chilly. A few yellow leaves still clung to the skeletal trees. Coleman slowed to check the GPS, then took a left turn.

  “I’m serious,” Del said. “You can buy a pair of eyeballs on the black market for fifteen hundred dollars. Scalp with hair for six hundred. A fresh skull with all the teeth for twelve hundred.”

  “You’re trying to freak me out before this call?” Coleman replied. “And I know you’ll be worth nothing dead, which is what you’ll be if the chief finds out you’re still talking about this Lowell guy.”

  “You can get a live heart for transplant for a hundred nineteen thousand in some places in Eastern Europe. A kidney delivered inside the US for two hundred sixty-two grand, or to China for sixty-two.”

  “Can’t get none of that stuff at the bodega on my corner—at least, not last time I checked.” Coleman looked at her for a second and shook his head.

  “And look at this.” Del held up another web article on her phone. “Transplant patients often take on the characteristics and even habits of their donors. This is just people who have heart transplants and liver transplants. Imagine what would happen with a whole-body transplant!”

  “You gotta stop obsessing over this Royce guy,” Coleman said. “You were nuts to go and stalk his family at that art event.”

  “I wanted to go anyway. It was just a coincidence.”

  “Hey, I’m your partner, right? Have a little respect.”

  “Okay, you’re right. I was stalking them, but it’s not just Roy. I get the feeling he’s the victim.” Del scrolled through more articles. “It’s this Dr. Danesti. I mean, where’d he come from?”

  She’d looked into Danesti, pulled up web pages and articles. He was adopted, had moved to America for postgraduate work in neurology when he was twenty-three, about twenty years ago. Became a citizen ten years ago. All the articles were vague about where he came from.

  And then there was Eden Corporation, his company.

  It had recently been reorganized as a nonprofit but had a lot of problems with financing, despite its glitzy locations. There was an article from Susan Collins at the Tribune. Del thought about giving her a call.

  She said, “Eden Corporation is under investigation for ethics violations.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “There are stories linking them to the illegal organ trade.”

  “So you’re saying this Dr. Danesti, in the middle of Manhattan, is buying and selling body parts for rich people. Seriously?” He grinned. “Careful you don’t drop too far down that rabbit hole. Could be a long climb out.”

  She opened another web article on her phone. “The thing I don’t understand is all the connections to surrogacy clinics.”

  “It’s a big business, I guess.” Coleman slowed the car. He squinted and looked out the window. “This is the address—Fifty-one Madison, right?”

  Del put her phone away and checked the police display. “Some people are worth more dead than alive—being a cop, you see it all the time. But I wonder what someone like Roy is worth alive? And to whom? That’s the question that’s bugging me.”

  25

  “Is this still Purgatory? Or are we back upstairs in Heaven? Or back in Hell?”

  A white-uniformed woman with a gossamer blond bob hovered near the far white wall. “I’ll get the doctor,” she said to Roy before leaving.

  She closed the door behind her, and Roy heard the lock click.

  He was restrained, legs and arms, by thick padded leather straps. Bound to a gurney. Dressed in a blue hospital gown. A bag of clear liquid hung from an IV pole over his head. The walls were uniform white, but the space wasn’t as big as he remembered Purgatory, and he was the only one here. No music. What just happened?

  The door opened, and Dr. Danesti appeared, a parental grimace of concern creasing his cheeks and forehead. He had on beige khakis and a blue button-down shirt tucked in at the waist. It was the first time Roy had seen him in casual clothes. Also for the first time, he understood how people could think he and Danesti looked similar.

  The doctor asked, “How are you doing?”

  “Did you come to the party?” Roy was still disoriented.

  Danesti shut the door behind him, walked to the bed, and began undoing the straps. “You’re at Eden. The police picked you up last night and brought you here. We had to restrain you.”

  “The police? Why did they bring me here?”

  “Because we asked them to pick you up.”

  “You asked them?”

  “We had to. Your vital signs were … We monitor you.” Danesti tapped the side of his own temple.

  The implants. He meant the sensors they had embedded under Roy’s scalp and in his arms and legs. “And they track my location?”

  “Their main job is to return data on your brain function, but we can triangulate your position to within a few dozen meters if you’re near an open Wi-Fi connection. You need to be more careful, Roy. Your T-cell count was dangerously high.”

  “I’ve been taking my antirejection drugs.”

  “But your blood work last night—a whole cocktail of drugs. And alcohol. I told you to be careful with the drinking.”

  “I didn’t drink last night.” He had taken a handful of Oxy that he got from the kid in the park. Why hadn’t he just asked Danesti for a prescription? Because I don’t want him to know. But then, he didn’t really know what was in the stuff he got from that kid.

  Danesti said, “You must have had something on Saturday. I’m going to increase the dosage of your antirejection drugs. T cells don’t generally penetrate the blood-brain barrier, but this procedure is still new. The cognitive effects are unpredictable. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine … Wait, what day is it?”

  “Sunday.”

  Roy blinked. Sunday? He had gone out with Fedora on Thursday night. Another blackout?

  He didn’t remember anything from the past two days. Two whole days and nights, and then some.

  The last image in his mind was the young woman whose blood Primrose took. The girl with blue eyes and red hair. The girl from his dreams?

  What had he been doing for two days and nights? Did the doctor have a record of it?

  Roy said, “I saw your rejuvenation party. One of them was just a child. Sixteen, maybe younger.” The thought of that girl pumping her lifeblood into the old hag Primrose overcame any fears concerning his blackout. An alien-feeling rage surged up in him.

  “Mrs. Chegwidden did mention that you went to one of our outpatient facilities.” Danesti finished undoing the last of the straps and removed the catheter from Roy’s arm, taping an alcohol swab over the needle mark. “All our donors are eighteen at minimum, Roy. Maybe one of them looked—”

  “Sixteen.”

  “That’s not possible. I assure you.”

  “That’s what Primrose said.”

  The guy didn’t miss a beat. “Real progress in medicine does sometimes push the boundaries. Did you know that just a few miles from here, a Dr. Couney used to run a freak show on Coney Island, showing off tiny premature human babies in plastic bubbles? A young Cary Grant, a rising film star, worked as a barker, bringing in paying customers.”

  Roy rubbed his wrists. The chronic pins-and-needles sensation had numbed, and he felt the dull rasp of his fingernails on his skin. The knuckles on his left hand were still scraped
, but fresh new bruises mottled his arms.

  Danesti continued, “This Dr. Couney used the money to pay for the development of the first incubators—pioneered them in the early twentieth century. He saved tens of thousands of babies’ lives. Perhaps even millions, by now—all by using a freak show.”

  “Using whataboutisms doesn’t make something right.”

  “Sometimes, we need to push society. The media calls you Danestein’s monster. I know the pressure must be terrible, and I am sorry for that. Do you want to return here? Stay in Eden?”

  Roy was still disgusted, but now the fear … Should he tell Danesti he didn’t remember anything at all from the past two days? Find out where he’d been? Those sensors in his head—what else could they read? What else could they do to him remotely? What he definitely didn’t want was to get trapped here.

  “Get dressed,” Danesti said. “We have fresh clothes in the closet. I’m going to take you to our research facility.”

  * * *

  Danesti pointed to an image of flattish-looking worms on a huge display taking up the wall of the room.

  “These planarians can ‘see’ even after losing their heads. Sense light even without head or eyes. These decapitation-regeneration experiments copy sequences of events that occurred in evolution—a little like what you have experienced firsthand.”

  They had gone upstairs to Eden’s developmental offices. Danesti said he wanted to make him understand why he, Roy, was so important. He’d given him a few minutes to get dressed, in khakis and a blue shirt that matched the doctor’s. Almost like twins. Except for the blue handkerchief Roy had around his neck. He picked up the backpack and wallet that he’d had with him when they found him last night.

  “Evolution was never really about survival of the fittest, but more about the symbiosis and connection of two separate organisms into one. Did you know that?”

  Roy shook his head. He wasn’t that interested in the research—not right now, anyway.

  The doctor led Roy into a large room some fifty feet long with white counters to each side and high glass-fronted refrigeration units. Between them were rows of clear plastic tubs. He walked over to the nearest one.