Boston Cream

CHAPTER 18

A Red Sox scout comes to my hotel room to try me out. He says they’re thinking about me for second base. He’s a wiry old guy, a Johnny Pesky type. He likes my arm as I zip the ball across the room into his glove. Then he says we need more space to really see what I can do, and like that we’re in Fenway. The night lights are blinding in their towering banks. I’m in the dirt near second, firing balls to him at first. My arm is fine, really live, but I can’t catch the return throws. My right thumb and index finger are completely numb inside the glove and it won’t close on the ball. All the years I played such great defence, with such hunger and instinct for the ball, and now I drop every throw, the ball banging off the glove and into the ground. The old scout says, “Too bad, kid, you were looking good there for a minute, but you ain’t ready for the majors.” I ask for one more chance, one more throw, and he says, “Okay, but not from me. From him.” Standing at first, in shadows cast by the big light, is a glowering Boston reliever, their feared closer who throws ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastballs. He winds up and throws one at me with all his might and I freeze, my glove hanging uselessly at my side, as it burns through the air toward the bridge of my nose.

After breakfast the next morning, I told Jenn there was no point in both of us going to Somerville. “Sammy knows me already, and I think he trusts me. I can be there and back inside two hours. You stay here and see what you can find on organ rings in the U.S. Get Colin working on it too.”

“Is it all just because the man comes from Madras?”

“You read the article. Before the Indian government banned it, there was a culture there of selling kidneys to pay off debts. Why not do it here? According to Sammy, they were on the verge of losing the store.”

“For a thousand bucks?”

“That’s what they got in India. I’m sure it would be more here. A lot more.”

“I did look a few things up last night, after we talked,” Jenn said. “And there have been a couple of instances of people selling organs here, both investigated by the FBI.”

“Here in Boston?”

“No, the U.S. One was in New Jersey, which I hate to tell you involved a rabbi.”

“Doing what?”

“Bringing in people from Israel and Turkey who posed as relatives of patients.”

“And the second case?”

“Virginia. Also bringing in people posing as relatives, this time from Moldova.”

“Very distant relatives. And the hospitals turned a blind eye?”

“The money is huge, Jonah. A hospital bill is a minimum of two hundred and fifty thousand for a kidney transplant-which costs the least of any organ. And that’s not including any of the medications: that’s just the procurement of the organ and the actual surgery. The more complex organs like the heart or lungs are well over a million. So yeah, they seem to turn a blind eye. This one article I read said there were four documented cases of large donations or endowments made to hospitals by people who had transplants involving these foreign relatives.”

“All right. If a kidney is worth a quarter of a million dollars to a hospital,” I said, “think what it would be worth on the black market.”

“If one exists.”

“It exists. Otherwise, McCudden and Walsh would be alive and David would be here.”

“Then it has to be two, three times as much. Black markets never settle for less.”

“Okay,” I said. “We know Patel had a growth removed from his neck eight months ago at Sinai. If he consented, his blood would have been sent to the gene study. Suppose Carol-Ann has a list of people who need organs and he comes up as a match. Someone contacts him and asks if he wants to part with a kidney. Maybe he agrees, but something goes wrong, or he doesn’t agree and they kill him for it.”

“And you see David taking part?”

“No. Never. Not without a gun to his head.”

“But how else do we explain him suddenly acquiring ten thousand, half of which he gives to the Patel family?”

“I’m hoping Sammy knows something. Maybe he’ll remember someone coming around, or something his father said or did that will help.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come?” Jenn asked.

“I’ve been there once, I know the way.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“We beat the two goons Daggett sent after us. If he tries again, he’ll send someone better.”

“It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I’ll be there and back by ten. Then we surprise Carol-Ann.”

“Okay.”

“How long from here to her place?” I asked.

“We get on the Pike, about fifteen minutes.”

“What about the art institute, where is that in relation to her place?”

“Near the harbour, basically across from the airport. Also about fifteen minutes.”

“All right,” I said. “We’re rocking. You feel it? We’re lining them up and they’re all going to fall. By the end of the day, we’re going to know a lot more about what David was doing. We might even have something worth calling his parents about.”

Sammy Patel led me straight to the crowded storeroom at the back of Madras Grocery. It wasn’t as if we had to elbow any customers aside. His mother was at the front, alone, taking inventory with a small notebook and a pencil no longer than my pinky.

“Please tell me you’ve found something,” he said.

“Nothing concrete. But I have an idea I want to run by you.”

“Go.”

“You said your father had a cyst removed at Sinai Hospital.”

“Yes. Just before Labour Day.”

“Do you remember if he consented to participating in a gene study?”

“Absolutely. I had to translate part of it for him. His English is good but not that good.”

“Okay. Do you remember any unusual visitors or phone calls he might have received after that procedure? Anything that upset him or changed his behaviour?”

“In what way?”

How to explain it to this young man, so desperate to hear news about his father. If my scenario was correct, there was no way he was still alive.

“You said the store’s finances are in rough shape.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“Did he ever hint that there might be money coming in?”

Sammy thought about it a moment, then nodded. “About two months ago. Early in the new year, at any rate. His mood over Christmas had been miserable, rock bottom. Either snapping at my mother or brooding down here at night.”

“You live upstairs?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Anyway, sometime in January, he seemed to feel better. There was one day it was just the two of us in the store-Mum had a doctor’s appointment-and we were in between customers, as is usually the case, and he said better times were coming. That his business acumen was greater than we gave him credit for. Why do you ask?”

“Sammy, this is going to sound …”

“Sound what?”

“Weird. Maybe totally out of left field.”

“Please. If there’s anything at all, just say it. Anything is better than this limbo we’re in.”

“Do you think your father would have sold a kidney to pay off some of your debt?”

He looked at me with a mixture of astonishment and anger. “What kind of question is that? Is this some Indian stereotype of yours?”

“I told you that David Fine was a transplant surgeon. Our investigation is leading in that direction.”

“What direction exactly?”

“Doing surgery off the books. Getting organs to people who don’t like their odds on a waiting list. We think someone at Sinai Hospital might have been using the gene study records to find matches for these recipients. And I happened to read an article about people in Madras who would donate organs to pay off debts.”

“But that’s over there. This is America.”

“Suppose someone approached him. Told him he was a match for a recipient. Was your father desperate enough to do it, you think?”

“What kind of money are we talking about?”

“I’m not sure. Say ten or twenty thousand. Maybe more. Would that have made a difference to your situation?”

“Ten wouldn’t have done much. Twenty would have helped. More than that, I might sell one. But the whole notion sounds incredible. Impossible. Do you have any proof, anything you can take to the police?”

“We’re working on it. In fact, we’re going to see someone this morning who might confirm it. So what do you think? Would he have done it?”

“Is it a risky procedure? He’s not the bravest of souls.”

“Apparently not,” I said. “The donor is left with a few small incisions, a stitch or two each, and recovery time is minimal. Two days in a clinic and back to normal strength within a month or two.”

Sammy leaned against a wall and rubbed the back of his neck. “This store meant everything to him, and to my mum. I told you last time, it wasn’t the best investment. The location and all. He worked so hard to keep it going. And the harder he worked, it seems, the harder we all worked, the closer we got to the brink. Maybe he would have done it if someone offered. He was already giving his blood, sweat and tears. Why not a kidney too?”

I screwed up on the way to the Monsignor O’Brien Highway. Canadian drivers are used to kilometres; the GPS spoke in miles. It told me to turn right in 0.3 miles. It didn’t sound like much, so a minute later, when a right turn came up, I took it-too late to see the sign that said No Exit.

“Recalculating,” the GPS said.

Bitch.

I started up the road, looking for a place to turn around. There were no driveways. The whole block on the right side was the back of a manufacturing plant, lined with tall cyclone fencing topped with coils of razor wire. The other side was a wrecking yard where dozens of crushed and mangled cars sat atop each other, also fenced off. I started a three-point turn. I was backing away from the left-hand curb when I heard another engine and saw a black muscle car turn up the street. An old Monte Carlo, polished and pinstriped. The driver didn’t hesitate, as I had when I’d realized I was going into a dead end. He came full throttle toward me. I had nowhere to go but out the passenger side and into the street.

Two men got out of the car. The driver was around forty, lean and hard-looking, with dirty blond hair hanging down to his collar, all in black like a roadie or guitar player. But instead of an instrument he carried a sawed-off pool cue.

The passenger was bigger, way bigger, and carried a baseball bat.

Jesus Christ, my head. I was going to have to deck one of them fast and hope the other one didn’t get a clean shot at me. I was too far from Francis Street and its hospitals to let that happen. And so fucking rusty. But my mouth wasn’t. I said, “Which one of you is Sean?”

The smaller one cocked his head and grinned. “Who?”

“Sean Daggett.”

He smiled and tapped the pool cue against his empty palm as he moved up on my right. “My friend here prefers a baseball bat. It suits his build and he has a sweet swing, as you’ll see. But me, I carry this cue-you know why? ’Cause a pool cue’s the first thing I ever swung at another man with real intent. Sixteen years old and I cracked his fucking skull. Made him bleed out his ears. Left him about fifty per cent dumber than he was before. And over the years I’ve always found it’s not only good for cracking heads, it also works pretty good on wrists and knees, arms and ribs. Pretty much anything. Can even shove it up a man’s ass if I want to make him cry.”

I was trying to visualize a kick I could deliver hard enough to put him down before he could swing at me.

“So someone hired you to find the runaway doctor?”

“Yes.”

“You anywhere close to finding him?”

“Not very. But I know a lot about you, Sean, and so do the cops.”

“Like what?”

“The organ ring you’re running. The one David was involved in.”

“The cops know fuck all and you know less. You’re not talking your way out of this, boy. Unless you know where the doc is.”

“No.”

“Then this is going to hurt like hell.”

They were each about a yard away from me and moving in, brandishing their weapons, when an engine roared and a car burned up the street. It was another Dodge Caliber, gold instead of white, and Jenn was at the wheel. And she wasn’t stopping. We all backed off. She steered right at the bigger man, the one with the bat, and hit him hard enough to drive him windmilling into the air. He slammed into a parked car and crumpled onto his back, his left leg bent at a ninety-degree angle. I took two quick strides and snatched up his baseball bat. Jenn got out of the car with a tire iron in her hand and we moved in together toward Daggett two on one, the odds suddenly reversed.

“All gratitude aside,” I said to Jenn, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“I followed you.”

“Why?”

“In case something like this happened.”

“All right,” I said. “We will talk about it later.”

“Much later,” Daggett said. He was pointing an automatic pistol at me. “Jesus, you didn’t think I’d come to a fight with just a cue. My father raised me better than that.” He slipped the shortened cue into an inside pocket of his jacket and said, “Lay them down. Both of you. Now.”

I dropped the bat. Jenn let the tire iron fall. He moved quickly to Jenn and said, “Keys?”

“In the car.”

He turned to me, the gun at Jenn’s head, and said, “Go get the keys out of your car. Fast. You try anything, I’ll kill your girl.”

If the gun had been pointing at me, I could have taken it from him. Krav Maga teaches that well. But it was aimed at Jenn’s head, not mine, so there was nothing worth trying. I went and got the keys and flipped them to Daggett, who slipped them in his pocket.

“Now go get her keys,” he said. “Same way.”

When he had both sets of keys, he bunched his fist in the hair at Jenn’s nape and started backing the two of them up toward the Monte Carlo. Her face was stretched in pain as she stumbled to match his stride while going backwards.

When he got to the car, he said, “Here’s the deal. I need that Jew doctor. I need him to come in from wherever he is and fast. Six p.m. Monday latest. That gives you two days to find him and bring him to me.”

“I swear I don’t know where he is.”

“Then find him. Because your girlfriend is sitting on a gold mine, and I’m not talking about her pussy, sweet as it probably is. You say you know what I’m doing, then you know what Blondie here is worth. Two young healthy kidneys? These sweet blue corneas? Find him by Monday, boy, or the next time you look in her eyes, they’ll be in someone else’s face.”

He bunched her hair again. I could tell by her look he wasn’t hurting her badly, just keeping tight control, the gun pressed into her neck where any shot would kill her. He backed up to the trunk of his car and told her to use one hand to unlatch it and raise the door. She did as she was told. He made her get in and shut the trunk and leaned back against it, the gun in his hand pointing idly at the ground.

“You’re at the Sam Adams, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m calling there Monday morning. Sometime after nine, in case I sleep in.”

I wanted to hurl myself at him and tear out his throat with my teeth. I said, “Why Monday?”

“Just have my Jew for me. And don’t call no cops. Not in Brookline or the BPD. You’re on your own, boy. Prove you’re good enough.”

He took my keys out of his pocket and threw them twenty yards up the road where they landed in low brush along the fence. The second set landed about ten feet farther.

He said, “You want to make any speeches about not harming a hair on her head, chasing me to the ends of the earth if I do, etcetera, now would be the time.”

“Fuck you,” I said.

“You call that a speech?” he said with a laugh. Then he opened the rear door and tucked the gun in his belt and pulled his buddy to his feet, surprisingly strong for someone his size. The man was groaning, a long string of glassy snot hanging from his nose like a third-grader’s. As Daggett angled the big man into the back seat of the Monte Carlo, I took a step forward but he whipped the gun out and fired it in one motion, the round spitting up dirt a few feet to my left. He grinned as I froze in place. Then he finished loading the man in, closed the door and got in on the driver’s side. I just stood there as he backed up, then wheeled around past me, spitting gravel as he headed out toward the highway.

My partner, my best friend in the world, taken by a gangster counting useful body parts. No way of knowing where he was taking her.

It couldn’t be good, wherever it was.

I ran to where he had thrown my keys. When I saw them glittering in a clump of weeds, I knelt to pick them up. My head started to spin and I had to stay down on my knees, useless once again, until I felt strong enough to stand.