Chromosome 6

CHAPTER 16

MARCH 6, 1997

2:30 P.M.

NEW YORK CITY

WITH all the tests on Franconi pending, Jack had forced himself to go to his office and try to concentrate on some of his other outstanding cases. To his surprise, he’d made reasonable headway until the phone rang at two-thirty.

“Is this Dr. Stapleton?” a female voice with an Italian accent asked.

“It is indeed,” Jack said. “Is this Mrs. Franconi?”

“Imogene Franconi. I got a message to call you.”

“I appreciate it, Mrs. Franconi,” Jack said. “First let me extend my sympathies to you in regards to your son.”

“Thank you,” Imogene said. “Carlo was a good boy. He didn’t do any of those things they said in the newspapers. He worked for the American Fresh Fruit Company here in Queens. I don’t know where all that talk about organized crime came from. The newspapers just make stuff up.”

“It’s terrible what they’ll do to sell papers,” Jack said.

“The man that came this morning said that you got his body back,” Imogene said.

“We believe so,” Jack said. “That’s why we needed some blood from you to confirm it. Thank you for being cooperative.”

“I asked him why he didn’t want me to come down there and identify it like I did last time,” Imogene said. “But he told me he didn’t know.”

Jack tried to think of a graceful way of explaining the identity problem, but he couldn’t think of any. “Some parts of the body are still missing,” he said vaguely, hoping that Mrs. Franconi would be satisfied.

“Oh?” Imogene commented.

“Let me tell you why I called,” Jack said quickly. He was afraid that if Mrs. Franconi became offended, she might not be receptive to his question. “You told the investigator that your son’s health had improved after a trip. Do you remember saying that?”

“Of course,” Imogene said.

“I was told you don’t know where he went,” Jack said. “Is there any way you could find out?”

“I don’t think so,” Imogene said. “He told me it had nothing to do with his work and that it was very private.”

“Do you remember when it was?” Jack asked.

“Not exactly,” Imogene said. “Maybe five or six weeks ago.”

“Was it in this country?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Imogene said. “All he said was that it was very private.”

“If you find out where it was, would you give me a call back?” Jack asked.

“I suppose,” Imogene said.

“Thank you,” Jack said.

“Wait,” Imogene said. “I just remembered he did say something strange just before he left. He said that if he didn’t come back that he loved me very much.”

“Did that surprise you?” Jack asked.

“Well, yes,” Imogene said. “I thought that was a fine thing to say to your mother.”

Jack thanked Mrs. Franconi again and hung up the phone. Hardly had he had his hand off the receiver when it rang again. It was Ted Lynch.

“I think you’d better come up here,” Ted said.

“I’m on my way,” Jack said.

Jack found Ted sitting at his desk, literally scratching his head.

“If I didn’t know better I’d think you were trying to put one over on me,” Ted spat. “Sit down!”

Jack sat. Ted was holding a ream of computer-generated paper plus a number of sheets of developed film with hundreds of small dark bands. Ted reached over and dropped the mass into Jack’s lap.

“What the hell’s this?” Jack questioned. He picked up several of the celluloid sheets and held them up to the light.

Ted leaned over and with the eraser end of an old-fashioned wooden pencil pointed to the films. “These are the results of the DNA polymarker test.” He fingered the computer printout. “And this mass of data compares the nucleotide sequences of the DQ alpha regions of the MHC.”

“Come on, Ted!” Jack urged. “Talk English to me, would you please? You know I’m a babe in the woods when it comes to this stuff.”

“Fine,” Ted exclaimed as if vexed. “The polymarker test shows that Franconi’s DNA and the DNA of the liver tissue you found inside him could not be any more different.”

“Hey, that’s good news,” Jack said. “Then, it was a transplant.”

“I guess,” Ted said without conviction. “But the sequence with the DQ alpha is identical, right down to the last nucleotide.”

“What does that mean?” Jack asked.

Ted spread his hands like a supplicant and wrinkled his forehead. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Mathematically, it couldn’t happen. I mean the chances are so infinitesimally small, it’s beyond belief. We’re talking about an identical match of thousands upon thousands of base pairs even in areas of long repeats. Absolutely identical. That’s why we got the results that we did with the DQ alpha screen.”

“Well, the bottom line is that it was a transplant,” Jack said. “That’s the issue here.”

“If pressed, I’d have to agree it was a transplant,” Ted said. “But how they found a donor with the identical DQ alpha is beyond me. It’s the kind of coincidence that smacks of the supernatural.”

“What about the test with the mitochondrial DNA to confirm the floater is Franconi?” Jack asked.

“Jeez, you give a guy an inch and he wants a mile,” Ted complained. “We just got the blood, for crissake. You’ll have to wait on the results. After all, we turned the lab upside down to get what you got so quickly. Besides I’m more interested in this DQ alpha situation compared to the polymarker results. Something doesn’t jibe.”

“Well, don’t lose any sleep over it,” Jack said. He stood up and gave Ted back all the material Ted had dumped in his lap. “I appreciate what you’ve done. Thanks! It’s the information I needed. And when the mitochondrial results are back, give me a call.”

Jack was elated by Ted’s results, and he wasn’t worried about the mitochondrial study. With the correlation of the X rays, he was already confident the floater and Franconi were one and the same.

Jack got on the elevator. Now that he’d documented that it had been a transplant, he was counting on Bart Arnold to come up with the answers to solve the rest of the mystery. As he descended, Jack found himself wondering about Ted’s emotional reaction to the DQ alpha results. Jack was aware that Ted didn’t get excited about too many things. Consequently, it had to be significant. Unfortunately, Jack didn’t know enough about the test to have much of an opinion. He vowed that when he had the chance he’d read up on it.

Jack’s elation was short-lived; it faded the moment he walked into Bart’s office. The forensic investigator was on the phone, but he shook his head the moment he caught sight of Jack. Jack interpreted the gesture as bad news. He sat down to wait.

“No luck?” Jack asked as soon as Bart disconnected.

“I’m afraid not,” Bart said. “I really expected UNOS to come through, and when they said that they had not provided a liver for Carlo Franconi and that he’d not even been on their waiting list, I knew the chances of tracing where he’d gotten the liver fell precipitously. Just now I was on the phone with Columbia-Presbyterian, and it wasn’t done there. So I’ve heard from just about every center doing liver transplants, and no one takes credit for Carlo Franconi.”

“This is crazy,” Jack said. He told Bart that Ted’s findings confirmed that Franconi had had a transplant.

“I don’t know what to say,” Bart commented.

“If someone didn’t get their transplant in North America or Europe, where could it have taken place?” Jack asked.

Bart shrugged. “There are a few other possibilities. Australia, South Africa, even a couple of places in South America, but having talked to my contact at UNOS, I don’t think any of them are likely.”

“No kidding?” Jack said. He was not hearing what he wanted to hear.

“It’s a mystery,” Bart commented.

“Nothing about this case is easy,” Jack complained as he got to his feet.

“I’ll keep at it,” Bart offered.

“I’d appreciate it,” Jack said.

Jack wandered out of the forensic area, feeling mildly depressed. He had the uncomfortable sensation that he was missing some major fact, but he had no idea what it could be or how to go about finding out what it was.

In the ID room he got himself another cup of coffee, which was more like sludge than a beverage by that time of the day. With cup in hand, he climbed the stairs to the lab.

“I ran your samples,” John DeVries said. “They were negative for both cyclosporin A and FK506.”

Jack was astounded. All he could do was stare at the pale, gaunt face of the laboratory director. Jack didn’t know what was more surprising: the fact that John had already run the samples or that the results were negative.

“You must be joking,” Jack managed to say.

“Hardly,” John said. “It’s not my style.”

“But the patient had to be on immunosuppressants,” Jack said. “He’d had a recent liver transplant. Is it possible you got a false negative?”

“We run controls as standard procedure,” John said.

“I expected one or the other drug to be present,” Jack said.

“I’m sorry that we don’t gear our results to your expectations,” John said sourly. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

Jack watched the laboratory director walk over to an instrument and make some adjustments. Then Jack turned and made his way out of the lab. Now he was more depressed. Ted Lynch’s DNA results and John DeVries’s drug assays were contradictory. If there’d been a transplant, Franconi had to be on either cyclosporin A or FK506. That was standard medical procedure.

Getting off the elevator on the fifth floor, he walked down to histology while trying to come up with some rational explanation for the facts he’d been given. Nothing came to mind.

“Well, if it isn’t the good doctor yet again,” Maureen O’Conner said in her Irish brogue. “What is it? You only have one case? Is that why you are dogging us so?”

“I only have one that is driving me bananas,” Jack said. “What’s the story with the slides?”

“There’s a few that are ready,” Maureen said. “Do you want to take them or wait for the whole batch?”

“I’ll take what I can get,” Jack said.

Maureen’s nimble fingers picked out a sampling of the sections that were dry and placed them in a microscopic slide holder. She handed the tray to Jack.

“Are there liver sections among these?” Jack asked hopefully.

“I believe so,” Maureen said. “One or two. The rest you’ll have later.”

Jack nodded and walked out. A few doors down the hall, he entered his office. Chet looked up from his work and smiled.

“Hey, sport, how’s it going?” Chet said.

“Not so good,” Jack said. He sat down and turned on his microscope light.

“Problems with the Franconi case?” Chet asked.

Jack nodded. He began to hunt through the slides for liver sections. He only found one. “Everything about it is like squeezing water from a rock.”

“Listen, I’m glad you came back,” Chet said. “I’m expecting a call from a doctor in North Carolina. I just want to find out if a patient had heart trouble. I have to duck out to get passport photos taken for my upcoming trip to India. Would you take the call for me?”

“Sure,” Jack said. “What’s the patient’s name?”

“Clarence Potemkin,” Chet said. “The folder is right here on my desk.”

“Fine,” Jack said, while slipping the sole liver section onto his microscope’s stage. He ignored Chet as Chet got his coat from behind the door and left. Jack ran the microscopic objective down to the slide and was about to peer into the eyepieces, when he paused. Chet’s errand had started him thinking about international travel. If Franconi had gotten his transplant out of the country, which seemed increasingly probable, there might be a way to find out where he’d been.

Jack picked up his phone and called police headquarters. He asked for Lieutenant Detective Lou Soldano. He expected to have to leave a message and was pleasantly surprised to get the man himself.

“Hey, I’m glad you called,” Lou said. “Remember what I told you this morning about the tip it was the Lucia people who stole Franconi’s remains from the morgue? We just got confirmation from another source. I thought you might like to know.”

“Interesting,” Jack said. “Now I have a question for you.”

“Shoot,” Lou said.

Jack outlined the reasons for his belief that Carlo Franconi might have traveled abroad for his liver transplant. He added that according to the man’s mother, he’d taken a trip to a supposed spa four to six weeks previously.

“What I want to know is, is there a way to find out by talking to Customs if Franconi left the country recently, and if so, where did he go?”

“Either Customs or the Immigration and Naturalization,” Lou said. “Your best bet would be Immigration unless, of course, he brought back so much stuff he had to pay duty. Besides, I have a friend in Immigration. That way I can get the information much faster than going through the usual bureaucratic channels. Want me to check?”

“I’d love it,” Jack said. “This case is bugging the hell out of me.”

“My pleasure,” Lou said. “As I said this morning, I owe you.”

Jack hung up the phone with a tiny glimmer of hope that he’d thought of a new angle. Feeling a bit more optimistic, he leaned forward, looked into his microscope, and began to focus.

Laurie’s day had not gone anything like she’d anticipated. She’d planned on doing only one autopsy but ended up doing two. And then George Fontworth ran into trouble with his multiple gunshot wound case, and Laurie volunteered to help him. Even with no lunch, Laurie didn’t get out of the pit until three.

After changing into her street clothes, Laurie was on her way up to her office when she caught sight of Marvin in the mortuary office. He’d just come on duty and was busy putting the office in order after the tumult of a normal day. Laurie made a detour and stuck her head in the door.

“We found Franconi’s X rays,” she said. “And it turned out that floater that came in the other night was our missing man.”

“I saw it in the paper,” Marvin said. “Far out.”

“The X rays made the identification,” Laurie said. “So I’m extra glad you took them.”

“It’s my job,” Marvin said.

“I wanted to apologize again for suggesting you didn’t take them,” Laurie said.

“No problem,” Marvin said.

Laurie got about four steps away, when she turned around and returned to the mortuary office. This time she entered and closed the door behind her.

Marvin looked at her questioningly.

“Would you mind if I asked you a question just between you and me?” Laurie asked.

“I guess not,” Marvin said warily.

“Obviously, I’ve been interested in how Franconi’s body was stolen from here,” Laurie said. “That’s why I talked to you the afternoon before last. Remember?”

“Of course,” Marvin said.

“I also came in that night and talked with Mike Passano,” Laurie said.

“So I heard,” Marvin said.

“I bet you did,” Laurie said. “But believe me I wasn’t accusing Mike of anything.”

“I hear you,” Marvin said. “He can be sensitive now and then.”

“I can’t figure out how the body was stolen,” Laurie said. “Between Mike and security, there was always someone here.”

Marvin shrugged. “I don’t know, either,” he said. “Believe me.”

“I understand,” Laurie said. “I’m sure you would have said something to me if you had any suspicions. But that’s not what I wanted to ask. My feeling at this point is that there had to be some help from inside. Is there any employee here at the morgue that you think might have been involved in this somehow? That’s my question.”

Marvin thought for a minute and then shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“It had to have happened on Mike’s shift,” Laurie said. “The two drivers, Pete and Jeff, do you know them very well?”

“Nope,” Marvin said. “I mean, I’ve seen them around and even talked with them a few times, but since we’re on different shifts, we don’t have a lot of con tact.”

“But you don’t have any reason to suspect them?”

“Nope, no more than anybody else,” Marvin said.

“Thanks,” Laurie said. “I hope my question didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”

“No problem,” Marvin said.

Laurie thought for a minute, while she absently chewed on her lower lip. She knew she was missing something. “I have an idea,” she said suddenly. “Maybe you should describe to me the exact sequence you go through when a body leaves here.”

“You mean everything that happens?” Marvin said.

“Please,” Laurie said. “I mean, I have a general idea, but I don’t know the specifics.”

“Where do you want me to start?” Marvin asked.

“Right from the beginning,” Laurie said. “Right from the moment you get the call from the funeral home.”

“Okay,” Marvin said. “The call comes in, and they say they’re from so-and-so funeral home and they want to do a pickup. So they give me the name and the accession number.”

“That’s it?” Laurie asked. “Then you hang up.”

“No,” Marvin said. “I put them on hold while I enter the accession number into the computer. I gotta make sure the body has been released by you guys and also find out where it is.”

“So then you go back to the phone and say what?”

“I say it’s okay,” Marvin said. “I tell them I’ll have the body ready. I guess I usually ask when they think they’ll be here. I mean, no sense rushing around if they’re not going to be here for two hours or something.”

“Then what?” Laurie said.

“I get the body and check the accession number,” Marvin said. “Then I put it in the front of the walk-in cooler. We always put them in the same place. In fact, we line them up in the order we expect them to go out. It makes it easier for the drivers.”

“And then what happens?” Laurie asked.

“Then they come,” Marvin said with another shrug.

“And what happens when they arrive?” Laurie asked.

“They come in here and we fill out a receipt,” Marvin said. “It’s all got to be documented. I mean they have to sign to indicate they have accepted custody.”

“Okay,” Laurie said. “And then you go back and get the body?”

“Yeah, or one of them gets it,” Marvin said. “All of them have been in and out of here a million times.”

“Is there any final check?” Laurie asked.

“You bet,” Marvin said. “We always check the accession number one more time before they wheel the body out of here. We have to indicate that being done on the documents. It would be embarrassing if the drivers got back to the home and realized they had the wrong corpse.”

“Sounds like a good system,” Laurie said, and she meant it. With so many checks it would be hard to subvert such a procedure.

“It’s been working for decades without a screwup,” Marvin said. “Of course, the computer helps. Before that, all they had was the logbook.”

“Thanks, Marvin,” Laurie said.

“Hey, no problem, Doc,” Marvin said.

Laurie left the mortuary office. Before going up to her own she stopped off on the second floor to get a snack out of the vending machines in the lunch room. Reasonably fortified, she went up to the fifth floor. Seeing Jack’s office door ajar, she walked over and peeked in. Jack was at his microscope.

“Something interesting?” she asked.

Jack looked up and smiled. “Very,” he said. “Want to take a look?”

Laurie glanced into the eyepieces as Jack leaned to the side. “It looks like a tiny granuloma in a liver,” she said.

“That’s right,” Jack said. “It’s from one of those tiny pieces I was able to find of Franconi’s liver.”

“Hmmm,” Laurie commented, continuing to look into the microscope. “That’s weird they would have used an infected liver for a transplant. You’d think they would have screened the donor better. Are there a lot of these tiny granulomas?”

“Maureen has only given me one slide of the liver so far,” Jack said. “And that’s the only granuloma I found, so my guess would be that there aren’t a lot. But I did see one on the frozen section. Also on the frozen section were tiny collapsed cysts on the surface of the liver which would have been visible to the naked eye. The transplant team must have known and didn’t care.”

“At least there’s no general inflammation,” Laurie said. “So the transplant was being tolerated pretty well.”

“Extremely well,” Jack said. “Too well, but that’s another issue. What do you think that is under the pointer?”

Laurie played with the focus so that she could visually move up and down in the section. There were a few curious flecks of basophilic material. “I don’t know. I can’t even be sure it’s not artifact.”

“Don’t know, either,” Jack said. “Unless it’s what stimulated the granuloma.”

“That’s a thought,” Laurie said. She straightened up. “What did you mean by the liver being tolerated too well?”

“The lab reported that Franconi had not been taking any immunosuppressant drugs,” Jack said. “That seems highly improbable since there is no general inflammation.”

“Are we sure it was a transplant?” Laurie asked.

“Absolutely,” Jack said. He summarized what Ted Lynch had reported to him.

Laurie was as puzzled as Jack. “Except for identical twins I can’t imagine two people’s DQ alpha sequences being exactly the same,” she said.

“It sounds like you know more about it than I do,” Jack said. “Until a couple of days ago, I’d never even heard of DQ alpha.”

“Have you made any headway as to where Franconi could have had this transplant?” Laurie asked.

“I wish,” Jack said. He then told Laurie about Bart’s vain efforts. Jack explained that he himself had spent a good portion of the previous night calling centers all over Europe.

“Good Lord!” Laurie remarked.

“I’ve even enlisted Lou’s help,” Jack said. “I found out from Franconi’s mother that he’d gone off to what she thought was a spa and came home a new man. I’m thinking that’s when he might have gotten the transplant. Unfortunately, she has no idea where he went. Lou’s checking Immigration to see if he’d gone out of the country.”

“If anyone can find out, Lou can,” Laurie said.

“By the way,” Jack said assuming a teasingly superior air. “Lou ’fessed up that he was the source of the leak about Franconi to the newspapers.”

“I don’t believe it,” Laurie said.

“I got it from the horse’s mouth,” Jack said. “So I expect an abject apology.”

“You’ve got it,” Laurie said. “I’m amazed. Did he give any reason?”

“He said they wanted to release the information right away to see if it would smoke out any more tips from informers. He said it worked to an extent. They got a tip which was later confirmed that Franconi’s body had been taken under orders from the Lucia crime family.”

“Good grief!” Laurie said and shuddered. “This case is starting to remind me too much of the Cerino affair.”

“I know what you mean,” Jack said. “Instead of eyes, it’s livers.”

“You don’t suppose there’s a private hospital here in the United States that’s doing undercover liver transplants, do you?” Laurie asked.

“I can’t imagine,” Jack said. “No doubt there could be big money involved, but there is the issue of supply. I mean, there’s seven thousand plus people in this country waiting for livers as it is. Few of these people have the money to make it worthwhile.”

“I wish I were as confident as you,” Laurie said. “The profit motive has taken over American medicine by storm.”

“But the big money in medicine is in volume,” Jack said. “There are too few wealthy people who need livers. The investment in the physical plant and the requisite secrecy wouldn’t pay off, especially without a supply of organs. You’d have to postulate some modern version of Burk and Hare, and although such a scenario might work in a B movie, in reality it would be too risky and uncertain. No businessman in his right mind would go for it, no matter how venal.”

“Maybe you have a point,” Laurie said.

“I’m convinced there’s something else involved here,” Jack said. “There are just too many unexplained facts from the DQ alpha nonsense to the fact that Franconi wasn’t taking any immunosuppressant drugs. We’re missing something: something key, something unexpected.”

“What an effort!” Laurie exclaimed. “One thing is for sure, I’m glad I foisted this case onto you.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Jack quipped. “It’s certainly a frustrating case. On a happier note, last night at basketball, Warren told me that Natalie has been asking about you. What do you say that we all get together this weekend for dinner and maybe a movie, provided they don’t have any plans?”

“I’d enjoy that very much,” Laurie said. “I hope you told Warren that I was asking about them as well.”

“I did,” Jack admitted. “Not to change the subject, but how was your day? Did you make any headway in figuring out how Franconi managed to go on his overnight? I mean, Lou telling us that a crime family was responsible isn’t telling us a whole bunch. We need specifics.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Laurie admitted. “I was caught in the pit until just a little while ago. I’ve gotten nothing done that I’d planned.”

“Too bad,” Jack said with a smile. “With my lack of progress, I might have to rely on you providing the breakthrough.”

After promises to talk with each other by phone that evening, specifically about the weekend plans, Laurie headed to her own office. With good intentions she sat down at her desk and started to go through the lab reports and other correspondence that had come in that day involving her uncompleted cases. But she found it difficult to concentrate.

Jack’s generosity in crediting her with providing the breakthrough in the Franconi case only made her feel guilty for not coming up with a working hypothesis about how Franconi’s body was taken. Seeing the effort Jack was expending on the case made her want to redouble her efforts.

Pulling out a fresh sheet of paper, Laurie began to write down everything Marvin had related. Her intuition told her that Franconi’s mysterious abduction had to involve the two bodies that went out the same night. And now that Lou had said the Lucia crime family was implicated, she was more convinced than ever that the Spoletto Funeral Home was somehow involved.

Raymond replaced the phone and raised his eyes to Darlene who’d come into his study.

“Well?” Darlene asked. She had her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. She’d been working out on an exercise bike in the other room and was clothed in sexy workout gear.

Raymond leaned back in his desk chair and sighed. He even smiled. “Things seem to be working out,” he said. “That was the GenSys operational officer up in Cambridge, Mass. The plane will be available tomorrow evening so I’ll be on my way to Africa. Of course, we’ll stop to refuel, but I don’t know where yet.”

“Can I come?” Darlene asked hopefully.

“I’m afraid not, dear,” Raymond said. He reached out and took her by the hand. He knew he’d been difficult over the previous couple of days and felt badly. He guided her around the desk and urged her to sit on his lap. As soon as she did, he was sorry. She was, after all, a big woman.

“With the patient and the surgical team, there’ll be too many people on the plane on the return trip,” he managed, even though his face was becoming red.

Darlene sighed and pouted. “I never get to go anywhere.”

“Next time,” Raymond croaked. He patted her on her back and eased her up into a standing position. “It’s just a short trip. There and back. It’s not going to be fun.”

With a sudden burst of tears Darlene fled from the room. Raymond considered following her to console her, but a glance at his desk clock changed his mind. It was after three and therefore after nine in Cogo. If he wanted to talk to Siegfried, he felt he’d better try now.

Raymond called the manager’s home. The housekeeper put Siegfried on the line.

“Things still going okay?” Raymond asked expectantly.

“Perfectly,” Siegfried said. “My last update on the patient’s condition was fine. He couldn’t be doing any better.”

“That’s reassuring,” Raymond said.

“I suppose that means our harvest bonuses will be forthcoming,” Siegfried said.

“Of course,” Raymond said, although he knew there would be a delay. With the necessity of raising twenty thousand cash for Vinnie Dominick, bonuses would have to wait until the next initiation fee came in.

“What about the situation with Kevin Marshall?” Raymond asked.

“Everything is back to normal,” Siegfried said. “Except for one incident when they went back to the staging area around lunch time.”

“That hardly sounds normal,” Raymond complained.

“Calm down,” Siegfried said. “They only went back to look for Melanie Becket’s sunglasses. Nevertheless, they ended up getting fired at again by the soldiers I’d posted out there.” Siegfried laughed heartily.

Raymond waited until Siegfried had calmed down.

“What’s so funny?” Raymond asked.

“Those numbskull soldiers shot out Melanie’s rear window,” Siegfried said. “It made her very angry, but it had the desired effect. Now I’m really sure they won’t be going out there again.”

“I should hope not,” Raymond said.

“Besides, I had an opportunity to have a drink with the two women this afternoon,” Siegfried said. “I have a feeling our nerdy researcher has something risque going on.”

“What are you talking about?” Raymond asked.

“I don’t believe he’ll be having the time or the energy to worry about smoke from Isla Francesca,” Siegfried said. “I think he’s got himself involved in a ménage à trois.”

“Seriously?” Raymond asked. Such an idea seemed preposterous for the Kevin Marshall Raymond knew. In all of Raymond’s dealing with Kevin Marshall he’d never expressed the slightest interest in the opposite sex. The idea he’d have the inclination and stamina for one woman let alone two seemed ludicrous.

“That was the implication I got,” Siegfried said. “You should have heard the two women carrying on about their cute researcher. That’s what they called him. And they were on their way to Kevin’s for a dinner party. That’s the first dinner party he’s ever had as far as I know, and I live right across from him.”

“I suppose we should be thankful,” Raymond said.

“Envious is a better word,” Siegfried said, with another burst of laughter that grated on Raymond’s nerves.

“I’ve called to say that I’ll be leaving here tomorrow evening,” Raymond said. “I can’t say when I’ll arrive in Bata because I don’t know where we’ll refuel. I’ll have to call from the refueling stop or have the pilots radio ahead.”

“Anyone else coming with you?” Siegfried asked.

“Not that I know of,” Raymond said. “I doubt it because we’ll be almost full on the way back.”

“We’ll be waiting for you,” Siegfried said.

“See you soon,” Raymond said.

“Maybe you could bring our bonuses with you,” Siegfried suggested.

“I’ll see if it can be arranged,” Raymond said.

He hung up the phone and smiled. He shook his head in amazement concerning Kevin Marshall’s behavior. “You never know!” Raymond commented out loud as he got up and started from the room. He wanted to find Darlene and cheer her up. He thought that maybe as a consolation they should go out to dinner at her favorite restaurant.

Jack had scoured the single liver section Maureen had given him from one end to the other. He’d even used his oil-immersion lens to stare vainly at the basophilic specks in the heart of the tiny granuloma. He still had no idea whether they were a true finding, and if they were, what they were.

Having exhausted his histological and pathological knowledge with respect to the slide, he was about to take it over to the pathology department at New York University Hospital when his phone rang. It was Chet’s call from North Carolina, so Jack asked the appropriate question and wrote down the response. Hanging up the phone, Jack got his jacket from the file cabinet. With the jacket on, he picked up the microscopic slide only to have the phone ring again. This time it was Lou Soldano.

“Bingo!” Lou said cheerfully. “I got some good news for you.”

“I’m all ears,” Jack said. He slipped out of his bomber jacket and sat down.

“I put in a call to my friend in Immigration, and he just phoned me back,” Lou said. “When I asked him your question, he told me to hang on the line. I could even hear him entering the name into the computer. Two seconds later, he had the info. Carlo Franconi entered the country exactly thirty-seven days ago on January twenty-ninth at Teterboro in New Jersey.”

“I’ve never heard of Teterboro,” Jack said.

“It’s a private airport,” Lou said. “It’s for general aviation, but there’s lot’s of fancy corporate jets out there because of the field’s proximity to the city.”

“Was Carlo Franconi on a corporate jet?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Lou said. “All I got is the plane’s call letters or numbers or whatever they call it. You know, the numbers and letters on the airplane’s tail. Let’s see, I got it right here. It was N69SU.”

“Was there any indication where the plane had come from?” Jack asked as he wrote down the alphanumeric characters and the date.

“Oh yeah,” Lou said. “That’s gotta be filed. The plane came from Lyon, France.”

“Nah, it couldn’t have,” Jack said.

“That’s what’s in the computer,” Lou said. “Why don’t you think it’s correct?”

“Because I talked with the French organ allocation organization early this morning,” Jack said. “They had no record of an American with the name of Franconi, and they categorically denied they’d be transplanting an American since they have a long waiting list for French citizens.”

“The information that Immigration has must correlate with the flight plan filed with both the FAA and the European equivalent,” Lou said. “At least that’s how I understand it.”

“Do you think your friend in Immigration has a contact in France?” Jack asked.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Lou said. “Those upper-echelon guys have to cooperate with each other. I can ask him. Why would you like to know?”

“If Franconi was in France I’d like to find out the day he arrived,” Jack said. “And I’d like to know any other information the French might have on where he went in the country. They keep close tabs on most non-European foreigners through their hotels.”

“Okay, let me see what I can do,” Lou said. “Let me call him, and I’ll call you back.”

“One other thing,” Jack said. “How can we find out who owns N69SU?”

“That’s easy,” Lou said. “All you have to do is call the FAA Control Aviation Center in Oklahoma City. Anybody can do it, but I’ve got a friend there, too.”

“Jeez, you have friends in all the convenient places,” Jack remarked.

“It comes with the territory,” Lou said. “We do favors for each other all the time. If you have to wait for everything to go through channels, nothing gets done.”

“It’s certainly convenient for me to take advantage of your web of contacts,” Jack said.

“So you want me to call my friend at the FAA?” Lou asked.

“I’ll be much obliged,” Jack said.

“Hey, it’s my pleasure,” Lou said. “I have a feeling that the more I help you the more I’m helping myself. I’d like nothing better than to have this case solved. It might save my job.”

“I’m leaving my office to run over to the University Hospital,” Jack said. “What if I call you back in a half hour or so?”

“Perfect,” Lou said before disconnecting.

Jack shook his head. Like everything else with this case, the information he’d gotten from Lou was both surprising and confusing. France probably was the last country Jack suspected Franconi to have visited.

After donning his coat for the second time, Jack left his office. Given the proximity of the University Hospital, he didn’t bother with his bike. It only took ten minutes by foot.

Inside the busy medical center, Jack took the elevator up to the pathology department. He was hoping that Dr. Malovar would be available. Peter Malovar was a giant in the field, and even at the age of eighty-two he was one of the sharpest pathologists Jack had ever met. Jack made it a point to go to seminars Dr. Malovar offered once a month. So when Jack had a question about pathology, he didn’t go to Bingham because Bingham’s strong point was forensics, not general pathology. Instead, Jack went to Dr. Malovar.

“The professor’s in his lab as usual,” the harried pathology department secretary said. “You know where it is?”

Jack nodded and walked down to the aged, frosted-glass door which led to what was known as “Malovar’s lair.” Jack knocked. When there was no response, he tried the door. It was unlocked. Inside, he found Dr. Malovar bent over his beloved microscope. The elderly man looked a little like Einstein with wild gray hair and a full mustache. He also had kyphotic posture as if his body had been specifically designed to bend over and peer into a microscope. Of his five senses only his hearing had deteriorated over the years.

The professor greeted Jack cursorily while hungrily eyeing the slide in his hand. He loved people to bring him problematic cases, a fact that Jack had taken advantage of on many occasion.

Jack tried to give a little history of the case as he passed the slide to the professor, but Dr. Malovar lifted his hand to quiet him. Dr. Malovar was a true detective who didn’t want anyone else’s impressions to influence his own. The aged professor replaced the slide he’d been studying with Jack’s. Without a word, he scanned it for all of one minute.

Raising his head, Dr. Malovar put a drop of oil on the slide and switched to his oil-immersion lens for higher magnification. Once again, he examined the slide for only a matter of seconds.

Dr. Malovar looked up at Jack. “Interesting!” he said, which was a high compliment coming from him. Because of his hearing problem, he spoke loudly. “There’s a small granuloma of the liver as well as the cicatrix of another. Looking at the granuloma, I think I might be seeing some merozoites, but I can’t be sure.”

Jack nodded. He assumed that Dr. Malovar was referring to the tiny basophilic flecks Jack had seen in the core of the granuloma.

Dr. Malovar reached for his phone. He called a colleague and asked him to come over for a moment. Within minutes, a tall, thin, overly serious, African-American man in a long white coat appeared. Dr. Malovar introduced him as Dr. Colin Osgood, chief of parasitology.

“What’s your opinion, Colin?” Dr. Malovar asked as he gestured toward his microscope.

Dr. Osgood looked at the slide for a few seconds longer than Dr. Malovar had before responding. “Definitely parasitic,” he intoned with his eyes still glued to the eye pieces. “Those are merozoites, but I don’t recognize them. It’s either a new species or a parasite not seen in humans. I recommend that Dr. Lander Hammersmith view it and render his opinion.”

“Good idea,” Dr. Malovar said. He looked at Jack. “Would you mind leaving this overnight? I’ll have Dr. Hammersmith view it in the morning.”

“Who is Dr. Hammersmith?” Jack asked.

“He’s a veterinary pathologist,” Dr. Osgood said.

“Fine by me,” Jack said agreeably. Having the slide reviewed by a veterinary pathologist was something he’d not thought of.

After thanking both men, Jack went back out to the secretary and asked if he could use a phone. The secretary directed him to an empty desk and told him to push nine for an outside line. Jack called Lou at police headquarters.

“Hey, glad you called,” Lou said. “I think I’m getting some interesting stuff here. First of all, the plane is quite a plane. It’s a G4. Does that mean anything to you?”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said. From Lou’s tone it sounded as if it should have.

“It stands for Gulfstream 4,” Lou explained. “It’s what you would call the Rolls Royce of the corporate jet. It’s like twenty million bucks.”

“I’m impressed,” Jack said.

“You should be,” Lou said. “Okay, let’s see what else I learned. Ah, here it is: The plane is owned by Alpha Aviation out of Reno, Nevada. Ever hear of them?”

“Nope,” Jack said. “Have you?”

“Not me,” Lou said. “Must be a leasing organization. Let’s see, what else? Oh, yeah! This might be the most interesting. My friend from Immigration called his counterpart in France at his home, if you can believe it, and asked about Carlo Franconi’s recent French holiday. Apparently, this French bureaucrat can access the Immigration mainframe from his own PC, because guess what?”

“I’m on pins and needles,” Jack said.

“Franconi never visited France!” Lou said. “Not unless he had a fake passport and fake name. There’s no record of his entering or departing.”

“So what’s this about the plane incontrovertibly coming from Lyon, France?” Jack demanded.

“Hey, don’t get testy,” Lou said.

“I’m not,” Jack said. “I was only responding to your point that the flight plan and the Immigration information had to correlate.”

“They do!” Lou said. “Saying the plane came from Lyon, France, doesn’t mean anybody or everybody got out. It could have refueled for all I know.”

“Good point,” Jack said. “I didn’t think of that. How can we find out?”

“I suppose I can call my friend back at the FAA,” Lou said.

“Great,” Jack said. “I’m heading back to my office at the morgue. You want me to call you or you call me?”

“I’ll call you,” Lou said.

After Laurie had written down all that she could remember from her conversation with Marvin concerning how bodies were picked up by funeral homes, she’d put the paper aside and ignored it while she did some other busy work. A half hour later, she picked it back up.

With her mind clear, she tried to read it with fresh eyes. On the second read-through, something jumped out at her: namely, how many times the term “accession number” appeared. Of course, she wasn’t surprised. After all, the accession number was to a body what a Social Security number was to a living individual. It was a form of identification that allowed the morgue to keep track of the thousands of bodies and consequent paperwork that passed through its portals. Whenever a body arrived at the medical examiner’s office, the first thing that happened was that it was given an accession number. The second thing that happened was that a tag with the number was tied around the big toe.

Looking at the word “accession,” Laurie realized to her surprise that if asked she wouldn’t have been able to define it. It was a word she’d just accepted and used on a daily basis. Every laboratory slip and report, every X ray film, every investigator’s report, every document intramurally had the accession number. In many ways, it was more important than the victim’s name.

Taking her American Heritage dictionary from its shelf, Laurie looked up the word “accession.” As she began reading the definitions, none of them made any sense in the context of the word’s use at the morgue, until the next to last entry. There it was defined as “admittance.” In other words, the accession number was just another way of saying admittance number.

Laurie searched for the accession numbers and names of the bodies that had been picked up during the night shift of March fourth when Franconi’s body disappeared. She found the piece of scratch paper beneath a slide tray. On it was written: Dorothy Kline #101455 and Frank Gleason #100385.

Thanks to her musing about accession numbers, Laurie noticed something she’d not paid any attention to before. The fact that the accession numbers differed by over a thousand! That was strange because the numbers were given out sequentially. Knowing the approximate volume of bodies processed through the morgue, Laurie estimated that there must have been several weeks separation between the arrivals of these two individuals.

The time differential was strange since bodies rarely stayed at the morgue more than a couple of days, so Laurie keyed Frank Gleason’s accession number into her computer terminal. His was the body picked up by the Spoletto Funeral Home.

What popped up on the screen surprised her.

“Good grief!” Laurie exclaimed.

Lou was having a great time. Contrary to the general public’s romantic image of detective work, actual gumshoeing was an exhausting, thankless task. What Lou was doing now, namely sitting in the comfort of his office and making productive telephone calls, was both entertaining and fulfilling. It was also nice to say hello to old acquaintances.

“My word, Soldano!” Mark Servert commented. Mark was Lou’s contact at the FAA in Oklahoma City. “I don’t hear from you for a year and then twice in the same day. This must be some case.”

“It’s a corker,” Lou said. “And I have a follow-up question. We found out that the G4 plane I called you about earlier had flown from Lyon, France, to Teterboro, New Jersey, on January twenty-ninth. However, the guy we’re interested in didn’t pass through French Immigration. So, we’re wondering if it’s possible to find out where N69SU came from before it landed in Lyon.”

“Now that’s a tricky question,” Mark said. “I know the ICAO…”

“Wait a second,” Lou interrupted. “Keep the acronyms to a minimum. What’s the ICAO?”

“International Civil Aviation Organization,” Mark said. “I know they file all flight plans in and out of Europe.”

“Perfect,” Lou said. “Anybody there you can call?”

“There’s someone I can call,” Mark said. “But it wouldn’t do you much good. The ICAO shreds all their files after fifteen days. It’s not stored.”

“Wonderful,” Lou commented sarcastically.

“The same goes for the European Air Traffic Control Center in Brussels,” Mark said. “There’s just too much material, considering all the commercial flights.”

“So, there’s no way,” Lou remarked.

“I’m thinking,” Mark said.

“You want to call me back?” Lou said. “I’ll be here for another hour or so.”

“Yeah, let me do that,” Mark said.

Lou was about to hang up when he heard Mark yell his name.

“I just thought of something else,” Mark said. “There’s an organization called Central Flow Management with offices in both Paris and Brussels. They’re the ones who provide the slot times for takeoffs and landings. They handle all of Europe except for Austria and Slovenia. Who knows why those countries aren’t involved? So, if N69SU came from anyplace other than Austria or Slovenia, their flight plan should be on file.”

“Do you know anybody in that organization?” Lou asked.

“No, but I know somebody who does,” Mark said. “Let me see if I can find out for you.”

“Hey, I appreciate it,” Lou said.

“No problem,” Mark said.

Lou hung up the phone and then drummed his pencil on the surface of his scarred and battle-worn gray-metal desk. There were innumerable burn marks where he’d left smoldering cigarette butts. He was thinking about Alpha Aviation and wondering how to run down the organization.

First, he tried telephone information in Reno. There was no listing for Alpha Aviation. Lou wasn’t surprised. Next, he called the Reno police department. He explained who he was and asked to be connected to his equivalent, the head of Homicide. His name was Paul Hersey.

After a few minutes of friendly banter, Lou gave Paul a thumbnail sketch of the Franconi case. Then he asked about Alpha Aviation.

“Never heard of them,” Paul said.

“The FAA said it was out of Reno, Nevada,” Lou said.

“That’s because Nevada’s an easy state to incorporate in,” Paul explained. “And here in Reno we’ve got a slew of high-priced law firms who spend their time doing nothing else.”

“What’s your suggestion about getting the lowdown on the organization?” Lou asked.

“Call the Office of the Nevada Secretary of State in Carson City,” Paul said. “If Alpha Aviation is incorporated in Nevada, it will be on public record. Want us to call for you?”

“I’ll call,” Lou said. “At this point, I’m not even sure what I want to know.”

“We can at least give you the number,” Paul said. He went off the line for a moment, and Lou could hear him bark an order to an underling. A moment later, he was back and gave Lou the telephone number. Then he added: “They should be helpful, but if you have any trouble, call me back. And if you need any assistance in Carson City for whatever reason call Todd Arronson. He’s head of Homicide down there, and he’s a good guy.”

A few minutes later Lou was on the line with the Office of the Nevada Secretary of State. An operator connected him to a clerk, who couldn’t have been nicer or more cooperative. Her name was Brenda Whitehall.

Lou explained that he was interested to find out all he could about Alpha Aviation out of Reno, Nevada.

“Just a moment, please,” Brenda said. Lou could hear the woman typing the name onto a keyboard. “Okay, here it is,” she added. “Hang on and let me pull the folder.”

Lou lifted his feet up onto his desk and leaned back in his chair. He felt an almost irresistible urge to light up, but he fought it.

“I’m back,” Brenda said. Lou could hear the rustle of papers. “Now what is it that you want to know?”

“What do you have?” Lou asked.

“I have the Articles of Incorporation,” Brenda said. There was a short period of silence while she read, then she added: “It’s a limited partnership and the general partner is Alpha Management.”

“What does that mean in plain English?” Lou asked. “I’m not a lawyer or a businessman.”

“It simply means that Alpha Management is the corporation that runs the limited partnership,” Brenda said patiently.

“Does it have any people’s names?” Lou asked.

“Of course,” Brenda said. “The Articles of Incorporation have to have the names and addresses of the directors, the registered agent for service of process, and the officers of the corporation.”

“That sounds encouraging,” Lou said. “Could you give them to me?”

Lou could hear the sound of rustling papers.

“Hmmmm,” Brenda commented. “Actually, in this instance there’s only one name and address.”

“One person is wearing all those hats?”

“According to this document,” Brenda said.

“What’s the name and address?” Lou asked. He reached for a piece of paper.

“It’s Samuel Hartman of the firm, Wheeler, Hartman, Gottlieb, and Sawyer. Their address is Eight Rodeo Drive, Reno.”

“That sounds like a law firm,” Lou said.

“It is,” Brenda said. “I recognize the name.”

“That’s no help!” Lou said. He knew that the chances of getting any information out of a law firm were unlikely.

“A lot of Nevada corporations are set up like this,” Brenda explained. “But let’s see if there are any amendments.”

Lou was already thinking of calling Paul back to get the rundown on Samuel Hartman, when Brenda made a murmur of discovery.

“There are amendments,” she said. “At the first board meeting of Alpha Management, Mr. Hartman resigned as president and secretary. In his place Frederick Rouse was appointed.”

“Is there an address for Mr. Rouse?” Lou asked.

“There is,” Brenda said. “His title is Chief Financial Officer of the GenSys Corporation. The address is 150 Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

Lou got all the information written down and thanked Brenda. He was particularly appreciative because he couldn’t imagine getting the same service from his own Secretary of State’s Office in Albany.

Lou was about to call Jack to give him the information about the ownership of the plane, when the phone literally rang under his hand. It was Mark Servert calling back already.

“You are in luck,” Mark said. “The fellow I’m acquainted with who knows people in the Central Flow Management organization in Europe happened to be on the job when I called him. In fact, he’s in your neck of the woods. He’s out at Kennedy Airport, helping direct air traffic across the north Atlantic. He talks to these Central Flow Management people all the time, so he slipped in a query about N69SU on January twenty-ninth. Apparently, it popped right up on the screen. N69SU flew into Lyon from Bata, Equatorial Guinea.”

“Whoa!” Lou said. “Where’s that?”

“Beats me,” Mark said. “Without looking at a map, I’d guess West Africa.”

“Curious.” Lou said.

“It’s also curious that as soon as the plane touched down in Lyon, France, it radioed to obtain a slot time to depart for Teterboro, New Jersey,” Mark said. “Near as I can figure, it just sat on the runway until it got clearance.”

“Maybe it refueled,” Lou offered.

“Could be,” Mark said. “Even so, I would have expected them to have filed a through-flight plan with a stop in Lyon, rather than two separate flight plans. I mean, they could have gotten hung up in Lyon for hours. It was taking a chance.”

“Maybe they just changed their minds,” Lou said.

“It’s possible,” Mark agreed.

“Or maybe they didn’t want anyone knowing they were coming from Equatorial Guinea,” Lou suggested.

“Now, that’s an idea that wouldn’t have crossed my mind,” Mark admitted. “I suppose that’s why you’re an engaging detective, and I’m a boring FAA bureaucrat.”

Lou laughed. “Engaging I’m not. On the contrary, I’m afraid this job has made me cynical and suspicious.”

“It’s better than being boring,” Mark said.

Lou thanked his friend for his help, and after they exchanged the usual well-meaning promises to get together, they hung up.

For a few minutes, Lou sat and marveled at why a twenty-million-dollar airplane was carrying a midlevel crime boss from Queens, New York, from some African country Lou had never heard of. Such a third-world backwater certainly wasn’t a medical mecca where a person would go to have sophisticated surgery like a liver transplant.

After entering Frank Gleason’s accession number into the computer, Laurie sat pondering the apparent discrepancy for some time. She’d tried to imagine what the information meant in terms of the Franconi body disappearance. Slowly, an idea took root.

Suddenly pushing back from her desk, Laurie headed to the morgue level to look for Marvin. He wasn’t in the mortuary office. She found him by stepping into the walk-in cooler. He was busy moving the gurneys around to prepare for body pickups.

The moment Laurie entered the cooler, she flashed on the horrid experience she’d had during the Cerino affair inside the walk-in unit. The memory made her distinctly uncomfortable, and she decided against attempting to have a conversation with Marvin while inside. Instead, she asked him to meet her back in the mortuary office when he was finished.

Five minutes later, Marvin appeared. He plopped a sheaf of papers on the desk and then went to a sink in the corner to wash his hands.

“Everything in order?” Laurie asked, just to make conversation.

“I think so,” Marvin said. He came to the desk and sat down. He began arranging the documents in the order that the bodies were to be picked up.

“After talking with you earlier, I learned something quite surprising,” Laurie said, getting to the point of her visit.

“Like what?” Marvin said. He finished arranging the papers and sat back.

“I entered Frank Gleason’s accession number into the computer,” Laurie said. “And I found out that his body had come into the morgue over two weeks ago. There was no name associated with it. It was an unidentified corpse!”

“No shit!” Marvin exclaimed. Then realizing what he’d said, he added: “I mean, I’m surprised.”

“So was I,” Laurie said. “I tried to call Dr. Besserman, who’d done the original autopsy. I wanted to ask if the body had been recently identified as Frank Gleason, but he’s out of the office. Do you think it was surprising that Mike Passano didn’t know the body was still labeled in the computer as an unidentified corpse?”

“Not really,” Marvin said. “I’m not sure I would have, either. I mean, you enter the accession number just to find out if the body is released. You don’t really worry too much about the name.”

“That was the impression you gave me earlier,” Laurie said. “There was also something else you said that I’ve been mulling over. You said that sometimes you don’t get the body yourself but rather one of the funeral home people does.”

“Sometimes,” Marvin said. “But it only happens if two people come and if they’ve been here lots of times so they know the process. It’s just a way of speeding things up. One of them goes to the cooler to get the body while me and the other guy finish the documents.”

“How well do you know Mike Passano?” Laurie asked.

“As well as I know most of the other techs,” Marvin said.

“You and I have known each other for six years,” Laurie said. “I think of us as friends.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Marvin said warily.

“I’d like you to do something for me as a friend,” Laurie said. “But only if it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Like what?” Marvin said.

“I’d like you to call Mike Passano and tell him that I found out that one of the bodies that he sent out the night Franconi disappeared was an unidentified corpse.”

“That’s strange, man!” Marvin said. “Why would I be calling him rather than just waiting for him to come on duty?”

“You can act like you just heard it, which is the case,” Laurie said. “And you can say that you thought he should know right away since he was on duty that night.”

“I don’t know, man,” Marvin said unconvinced.

“The key thing is that coming from you, it won’t be confrontational,” Laurie said. “If I call, he’ll think I’m accusing him, and I’m interested to hear his reaction without his feeling defensive. But more important, I’d like you to ask him if there were two people from Spoletto Funeral Home that night, and if there were two, whether he can remember who actually went to get the body.”

“That’s like setting him up, man,” Marvin complained.

“I don’t see it that way,” Laurie said. “If anything, it gives him a chance to clear himself. You see, I think the Spoletto people took Franconi.”

“I don’t feel comfortable calling him,” Marvin said. “He’s going to know something is up. Why don’t you call him yourself, you know what I’m saying?”

“I already told you, I think he’ll be too defensive,” Laurie said. “Last time he was defensive when I asked him purely vague questions. But okay, if you feel uncomfortable, I don’t want you to do it. Instead, I want you to go on a little hunt with me.”

“Now what?” Marvin asked. His patience was wearing thin.

“Can you produce a list of all the refrigerator compartments that are occupied at the moment?” Laurie asked.

“Sure, that’s easy,” Marvin said.

“Please,” Laurie said, while gesturing towards Marvin’s computer terminal. “While you’re at it, make two copies.”

Marvin shrugged and sat down. Using a relatively rapid hunt-and-peck style, he directed the computer to produce the list Laurie wanted. He handed the two sheets to her the moment they came out of the printer.

“Excellent,” Laurie said, glancing at the sheets. “Come on!” As she left the mortuary office, she waved over her shoulder. Marvin followed at her heels.

They walked down the stained cement corridor to the giant island that dominated the morgue. On opposite sides were the banks of refrigerated compartments used to store the bodies before autopsy.

Laurie handed one of the lists to Marvin.

“I want to search every compartment that is not occupied,” Laurie said. “You take this side and I’ll take the other.”

Marvin rolled his eyes but took the list. He started opening the compartments, peering inside, then slamming the doors. Laurie went around to the other side of the island and did the same.

“Uh-oh!” Marvin intoned after five minutes.

Laurie paused. “What is it?”

“You’d better come over here,” Marvin said.

Laurie walked around the island. Marvin was standing at the far end of the island, scratching his head while staring at his list. In front of him was an open refrigerated compartment.

“This one is supposed to be empty,” Marvin said.

Laurie glanced within and felt her pulse race. Inside, was a naked male corpse with no tag on its big toe. The number of the compartment was ninety-four. It wasn’t too far away from number one eleven, where Franconi was supposed to have been.

Marvin slid out the tray. It rattled on its ball bearings in the stillness of the deserted morgue. The body was a middle-aged male with signs of extensive trauma to the legs and torso.

“Well, this explains it,” Laurie said. Her voice reflected an improbable mixture of triumph, anger, and fear. “It’s the unidentified corpse. He’d been a hit-and-run accident on the FDR Drive.”

Jack stepped off the elevator and could hear a phone ringing insistently. As he proceeded down the hall he became progressively aware it had to be his phone, especially since his office was the only one with an open door.

Jack picked up speed and then almost missed his door as he slid on the vinyl flooring. He snapped the phone off the hook just in time. It was Lou.

“Where the hell have you been?” Lou complained.

“I got stuck over at the University Hospital,” Jack said. After Jack had last talked with Lou, Dr. Malovar had appeared and had him look at some forensic slides for him. So soon on the heels of his consulting Malovar, Jack didn’t feel he could refuse.

“I’ve been calling every fifteen minutes,” Lou remarked.

“Sorry,” Jack said.

“I’ve got some surprising information that I’ve been dying to give you,” Lou said. “This is one weird case.”

“That’s not telling me anything I didn’t already know,” Jack said. “What did you learn?”

Movement out of the corner of Jack’s eye attracted his attention. Turning his head, he saw Laurie standing in the doorway. She did not look normal. Her eyes were blazing, her mouth was set in an angry grimace, and her skin was the color of ivory.

“Wait a sec!” Jack said, interrupting Lou. “Laurie, what the hell is the matter?”

“I have to talk with you,” Laurie sputtered.

“Sure,” Jack said. “But could it wait for two minutes?” He pointed at the phone to indicate that he was talking with someone.

“Now!” Laurie barked.

“Okay, okay,” Jack repeated. It was clear to him she was as tense as a piano wire about to snap.

“Listen, Lou,” Jack said into the phone. “Laurie just came in, and she’s upset. Let me call you right back.”

“Hold on!” Laurie snapped. “Is that Lou Soldano you’re talking with?”

“Yeah,” Jack said hesitantly. For an irrational instant, he thought that Laurie was overwrought because he was talking with Lou.

“Where is he?” Laurie demanded.

Jack shrugged. “I guess he’s in his office.”

“Ask him,” Laurie snapped.

Jack posed the question, and Lou answered in the affirmative. Jack nodded to Laurie. “He’s there,” he said.

“Tell him we’re coming down to see him,” Laurie said.

Jack hesitated. He was confused.

“Tell him!” Laurie repeated. “Tell him we’re leaving right away.”

“Did you hear that?” Jack asked Lou. Laurie then disappeared down the corridor toward her office.

“I did,” Lou said. “What’s going on?”

“Damned if I know,” Jack said. “She just barreled in. Unless I call you right back, we’ll be there.”

“Fine,” Lou said. “I’ll wait.”

Jack hung up the phone and rushed out into the hall. Laurie was already on her way back and was struggling into her coat. She eyed him as she brushed past on her way to the elevators. Jack hustled to catch up with her.

“What’s happened?” Jack asked hesitantly. He was afraid to upset her any more than she already was.

“I’m about ninety-nine percent sure how Franconi’s body was taken from here,” Laurie said angrily. “And two things are becoming clear. First, the Spoletto Funeral Home was involved and second, the abduction was surely abetted by someone who works here. And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure which of these two things bothers me more.”

“Jeez, look at that traffic,” Franco Ponti said to Angelo Facciolo. “I’m sure as hell glad we’re going into Manhattan instead of going out.”

Franco and Angelo were in Franco’s black Cadillac, heading west on the Queensborough Bridge. It was five-thirty, the height of rush hour. Both men were dressed as if they were going to a ritzy dinner.

“What order do you want to do this in?” Franco asked.

Angelo shrugged. “Maybe the girl first,” he said. His face twisted into a slight smile.

“You’re looking forward to this, aren’t you?” Franco commented.

Angelo raised his eyebrows as much as his facial scar tissue would allow. “Five years I’ve been dreaming about seeing this broad professionally,” he said. “I guess I never thought I would get my chance.”

“I know I don’t have to remind you that we follow orders,” Franco said. “To the letter.”

“Cerino was never so specific,” Angelo said. “He’d just tell us to do a job. He didn’t tell us how to do it.”

“That’s why Cerino is in jail and Vinnie is running the show,” Franco said.

“I’ll tell you what,” Angelo said. “Why don’t we do a drive by Jack Stapleton’s place. I’ve already been inside Laurie Montgomery’s apartment, so I know what we’re getting ourselves into. But I’m a little surprised by this other address. West One Hundred-sixth Street isn’t where I’d expect a doctor to be living.”

“I think a drive-by sounds smart,” Franco said.

When they reached Manhattan, Franco continued west on Fifty-ninth Street. He rounded the southern end of Central Park and headed north on Central Park West.

Angelo thought back to the fateful day on the pier of the American Fresh Fruit Company when Laurie caused the explosion. Angelo had had skin problems from chicken pox and acne, but it had been the burns he suffered because of Laurie Montgomery that had turned him into what he called a “freak.”

Franco posed a question, but Angelo hadn’t heard him because of his angry musings. He had to ask him to repeat it.

“I bet you’d like to stick it to that Laurie Montgomery,” Franco said. “If it had been me, I sure would.”

Angelo let out a sarcastic laugh. Unconsciously, he moved his left arm so that he could feel the reassuring mass of his Walther TPH auto pistol snuggled into its shoulder holster.

Franco turned left onto One Hundred-sixth Street. They passed a playground on the right that was in full use, particularly the basketball court. There were lots of people standing on the sidelines.

“It must be on the left,” Franco said.

Angelo consulted the piece of paper he was holding with Jack’s address. “It’s coming up,” he said. “It’s the building with the fancy top.”

Franco slowed and then stopped to double-park a few buildings short of Jack’s on the opposite side of the street. A car behind beeped. Franco lowered his window and motioned for the car to pass. There was cursing as the car did so. Franco shook his head. “You hear that guy? Nobody in this city has any manners.”

“Why would a doctor live there?” Angelo said. He was eyeing Jack’s building through the front windshield.

Franco shook his head. “Doesn’t make any sense to me. The building looks like a dump.”

“Amendola said he was a little strange,” Angelo said. “Apparently, he rides a bike from here all the way down to the morgue at First Avenue and Thirtieth Street every day.”

“No way!” Franco commented.

“That’s what Amendola said,” Angelo said.

Franco’s eyes scanned the area. “The whole neighborhood is a dump. Maybe he’s into drugs.”

Angelo opened the car door and got out.

“Where are you going?” Franco asked.

“I want to check to make sure he lives here,” Angelo said. “Amendola said his apartment is the fourth floor rear. I’ll be right back.”

Angelo rounded the car and waited for a break in the traffic. He crossed the street and climbed to the stoop in front of Jack’s building. Calmly, he pushed open the outer door and glanced at the mailboxes. Many were broken. None had locks that worked.

Quickly, Angelo sorted through the mail. As soon as he came across a catalogue addressed to Jack Stapleton, he put it all back. Next, he tried the inner door. It opened with ease.

Stepping into the front hall, Angelo took a breath. There was an unpleasant musty odor. He eyed the trash on the stairs, the peeling paint, and the broken light bulbs in the once-elegant chandelier. Up on the second floor, he could hear the sounds of a domestic fight with muffled screaming. Angelo smiled. Dealing with Jack Stapleton was going to be easy. The tenement looked like a crack house.

Returning to the front of the house, Angelo took a step away to determine which underground passageway belonged to Jack’s building. Each house had a sunken corridor reached by a half dozen steps. These corridors led to the backyards.

After deciding which was the appropriate one, Angelo gingerly walked its length. There were puddles and refuse which threatened his Bruno Magli shoes.

The backyard was a tumult of decaying and collapsed fencing, rotting mattresses, abandoned tires, and other trash. After carefully picking his way a few feet from the building, Angelo turned to look at the fire escape. On the fourth floor two windows had access. The windows were dark. The doctor wasn’t at home.

Angelo returned and climbed back into the car.

“Well?” Franco asked.

“He lives there all right,” Angelo said. “The building is worse on the inside if you can believe it. It’s not locked. I could hear a couple fighting on the second floor and someone else’s TV on full blast. The place is not pretty but for our purposes it’s perfect. It’ll be easy.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Franco said. “Should we still do the woman first?”

Angelo smiled as best he could. “Why deny myself?”

Franco put the car in gear. They headed south on Columbus Avenue to Broadway then cut across town to Second Avenue. Soon they were on Nineteenth Street. Angelo didn’t need the address. He pointed out Laurie’s building without difficulty. Franco found a convenient no-parking zone and parked.

“So, you think we should go up the back way?” Franco said, while eyeing the building.

“For several reasons,” Angelo said. “She’s on the fifth floor, but her windows face the back. To tell if she’s there, we have to go back there anyway. Also she’s got a nosy neighbor who lives in the front, and you can see her lights are on. This woman opened her door to gawk at me the two times I was up at Montgomery’s front door. Besides, Montgomery’s apartment has access to the back stairs, and the back stairs dump directly into the backyard. I know because we chased her out that way.”

“I’m convinced,” Franco said. “Let’s do it.”

Franco and Angelo got out of the car. Angelo opened up the backseat and lifted out his bag of lock-picking tools along with a Halligan bar, a tool firefighters use to get through doors in cases of emergency.

The two men headed for the passageway to the backyard.

“I heard she got away from you and Tony Ruggerio,” Franco said. “At least for a while. She must be quite a number.”

“Don’t remind me,” Angelo said. “Of course, working with Tony was like carrying around a bucket of sand.”

Emerging into the backyard, which was a dark warren of neglected gardens, Franco and Angelo carefully moved away from the building far enough to see up to the fifth floor. The windows were all dark.

“Looks like we have time to prepare a nice homecoming,” Franco said.

Angelo didn’t answer. Instead, he took his lock-picking tools over to the metal fire door that led to the back stairs. He slipped on a tight-fitting pair of leather gloves, while Franco readied the flashlight.

At first Angelo’s hands shook from sheer anticipatory excitement of coming face-to-face with Laurie Montgomery after five years of smoldering resentment. When the lock resisted Angelo’s efforts, he made a point to control himself and concentrate. The lock responded, and the door opened.

Five floors up, Angelo didn’t bother with the lock-picking tools. He knew that Laurie had several dead bolts. He used the Halligan bar. With a quiet splintering sound, it made short work of the door. Within twenty seconds, they were inside.

For a few minutes, the two men stood motionless in the darkness of Laurie’s pantry so that they could listen. They wanted to be certain there were no sounds suggestive that their forced entry had been noticed by any of the other tenants.

“Jesus Christ!” Franco forcibly whispered. “Something just touched my leg!”

“What is it?” Angelo demanded. He’d not expected such an outburst, and it caused his heart to flutter.

“Oh, it’s only a goddamn cat!” Franco said with relief. All at once, both men could hear the animal purring in the darkness.

“Aren’t we lucky,” Angelo said. “That will be a nice touch. Bring it along.”

Slowly, the men made their way from the pantry through the dark kitchen and into the living room. There they could see significantly better with the city night light coming through the windows.

“So far so good,” Angelo said.

“Now we just have to wait,” Franco said. “Maybe I’ll see if there’s any beer or wine in the refrigerator. Are you interested?”

“A beer would be nice,” Angelo said.

At police headquarters, Laurie and Jack had to get ID badges and go through a metal detector before they were allowed to go up to Lou’s floor. Lou was at the elevator to welcome them.

The first thing he did was take Laurie by the shoulders, look her in the eye, and ask what had happened.

“She’s okay,” Jack said, patting Lou reassuringly on the back. “She’s back to her old, rational, calm self.”

“Really?” Lou questioned, still giving Laurie a close inspection.

Laurie couldn’t help but smile under Lou’s intense scrutiny. “Jack’s right,” she said. “I’m fine. In fact, I’m embarrassed I made us rush down here.”

Lou breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I’m happy to see both of you. Come on back to my palace.” He led the way to his office.

“I can offer you coffee, but I strongly advise against it,” Lou said. “At this time of day the janitorial staff considers it strong enough to clean out sink drains.”

“We’re fine,” Laurie said. She took a chair.

Jack did likewise. He glanced around the spartan quarters with an unpleasant shiver. The last time he’d been there about a year ago, it had been after he’d narrowly escaped an attempt on his life.

“I think I figured out how Franconi’s body was taken from the morgue,” Laurie began. “You teased me about suspecting the Spoletto Funeral Home, but now I think you’re going to have to take that back. In fact, I think it’s time that you took over.”

Laurie then outlined what she thought had happened. She told Lou that she suspected that someone from the medical examiner’s office had given the Spoletto people the accession number of a relatively recent, unidentified body as well as the location of Franconi’s remains.

“Often when two drivers come to pick up a body for a funeral home, one of them goes in the walk-in cooler while the other handles the paperwork with the mortuary tech,” Laurie explained. “In these instances, the mortuary tech prepares the body for pickup by covering it with a sheet and positioning its gurney in a convenient location just inside the cooler door. In the Franconi situation, I believe the driver took the body whose accession number he had, removed its tag, stashed the body in one of the many unoccupied refrigerator compartments, replaced Franconi’s tag with that one, and then calmly appeared outside the mortuary office with Franconi’s remains. All the tech did at that point was check the accession number.”

“That’s quite a scenario,” Lou said. “Can I ask if you have any proof of this or is it all conjecture?”

“I found the body whose accession number Spoletto called in,” Laurie said. “It was in a compartment which was supposed to be vacant. The name Frank Gleason was bogus.”

“Ahhhh!” Lou said, becoming much more interested. He leaned forward on his desk. “I’m beginning to like this very much, especially considering the matrimonial association between the Spoletto and the Lucia people. This could be something important. It kind’a reminds me of getting Al Capone on tax evasion. I mean, it would be fantastic if we could get some of the Lucia people on body theft!”

“Of course, it also raises the specter of an organized crime connection to illicit liver transplantation,” Jack said. “This could be a frightening association.”

“Dangerous as well,” Lou said. “So I must insist on no more amateur sleuthing on your part. We take over from here. Do I have your word on that?”

“I’m happy to let you take over,” Laurie said. “But there is also the issue of a mole in the medical examiner’s office.”

“I think it’s best I deal with that, too,” Lou said. “With the involvement of organized crime, I’d expect some element of extortion or criminal coercion. But I’ll deal directly with Bingham. I shouldn’t have to warn you that these people are dangerous.”

“I learned that lesson all too well,” Laurie said.

“I’m too preoccupied with my end of the mystery to interfere,” Jack said. “What did you learn for me?”

“Plenty,” Lou said. He reached over to the corner of his desk and hefted a large book the size of a coffee-table art book. With a grunt, he handed it to Jack.

With a look of confusion, Jack cracked the book. “What the hell!” he commented. “What’s an atlas for?”

“Because you’re going to need it,” Lou said. “I can’t tell you how long it took me to scrounge one up here at police headquarters.”

“I don’t get it,” Jack said.

“My contact at the FAA was able to call someone who knew someone who works in a European organization that doles out landing and takeoff times all over Europe,” Lou explained. “They also get the flight plans and store them for over sixty days. Franconi’s G4 came to France from Equatorial Guinea.”

“Where?” Jack questioned as his eyebrows collided in an expression of total confusion. “I never even heard of Equatorial Guinea. Is it a country?”

“Check out page one hundred fifty-two!” Lou said.

“What’s this about a Franconi and a G4?” Laurie asked.

“A G4 is a private jet,” Lou explained. “I was able to find out for Jack that Franconi had been out of the country. We thought he’d been in France until I got this new information.”

Jack got to page 152 in the atlas. It was a map labeled “the Western Congo Basin,” covering a huge portion of western Africa.

“All right, give me a hint,” Jack said.

Lou pointed over Jack’s shoulder. “It’s this little tiny country between Cameroon and Gabon. The city that the plane flew out of is Bata, on the coast.” He pointed to the appropriate dot. The atlas depicted the country as mostly uninterrupted green.

Laurie got up from her chair and looked over Jack’s other shoulder. “I think I remember hearing about that country one time. I think that’s where the writer Frederick Forsyth went to write Dogs of War.”

Lou slapped the top of his head in utter amazement. “How do you remember stuff like that? I can’t remember where I had lunch last Tuesday.”

Laurie shrugged. “I read a lot of novels,” she said. “Writers interest me.”

“This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” Jack complained. “This is an undeveloped part of Africa. This country must be covered with nothing but jungle. In fact, this whole part of Africa is nothing but jungle. Franconi couldn’t have gotten a liver transplant there.”

“That was my reaction, too,” Lou said. “But the other information makes a little more sense. I tracked Alpha Aviation through its Nevada management corporation to its real owner. It’s GenSys Corp in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

“I’ve heard of GenSys,” Laurie said. “It’s a biotech firm that’s big in vaccines and lymphokines. I remember because a girlfriend of mine who’s a broker in Chicago recommended the stock. She’s forever giving me tips, thinking I’ve got tons of money to invest.”

“A biotech company!” Jack mused. “Hmmm. That’s a new twist. It must be significant, although I don’t quite know how. Nor do I know what a biotech firm would be doing in Equatorial Guinea.”

“What’s the meaning of this indirect corporate trail in Nevada?” Laurie asked. “Is GenSys trying to hide the fact that they own an aircraft?”

“I doubt it,” Lou said. “I was able to learn the connection too easily. If GenSys was trying to conceal ownership, the lawyers in Nevada would have continued to be the directors and officers of record for Alpha Aviation. Instead, at the first board meeting the chief financial officer of GenSys assumed the duties of president and secretary.”

“Then why Nevada for an airplane owned by a Massachusetts-based company?” Laurie asked.

“I’m no lawyer,” Lou admitted. “But I’m sure it has something to do with taxes and limitation of liability. Massachusetts is a terrible state to get sued in. I imagine GenSys leases its plane out for the percentage of the time it doesn’t use it, and insurance for a Nevada-based company would be a lot less.”

“How well do you know this broker friend of yours?” Jack asked Laurie.

“Really well,” Laurie said. “We went to Wesleyan University together.”

“How about giving her a call and asking her if she knows of any connection between GenSys and Equatorial Guinea,” Jack said. “If she recommended the stock, she’d probably thoroughly researched the company.”

“Without a doubt,” Laurie said. “Jean Corwin was one of the most compulsive students I knew. She made us premeds seem casual by comparison.”

“Is it all right if Laurie uses your phone?” Jack asked Lou.

“No problem,” Lou said.

“You want me to call this minute?” Laurie asked with surprise.

“Catch her while she’s still at work,” Jack said. “Chances are if she has any file, it would be there.”

“You’re probably right,” Laurie admitted. She sat down at Lou’s desk and called Chicago information.

While Laurie was on the phone, Jack quizzed Lou in detail about how he was able to find out what he had. He was particularly interested and impressed with the way Lou had come up with Equatorial Guinea. Together, they looked more closely at the map, noticing the country’s proximity to the equator. They even noticed that its major city, presumably its capital, wasn’t on the mainland but rather on an island called Bioko.

“I just can’t imagine what it’s like in a place like that,” Lou said.

“I can,” Jack said. “It’s hot, buggy, rainy, and wet.”

“Sounds delightful,” Lou quipped.

“Not the place someone would choose to vacation,” Jack said. “On the other hand, it’s off the beaten track.”

Laurie hung up the phone and twisted around in Lou’s desk chair to face the others. “Jean was as organized as I expected,” she said. “She was able to put her finger on her GenSys material in a flash. Of course, she had to ask me how much of the stock I’d bought and was crushed when I admitted I hadn’t bought any. Apparently, the stock tripled and then split.”

“Is that good?” Lou asked facetiously.

“So good I might have missed my opportunity to retire,” Laurie said. “She said this is the second successful biotech company started by its CEO, Taylor Cabot.”

“Did she have anything to say about Equatorial Guinea?” Jack asked.

“For sure,” Laurie said. “She said that one of the main reasons the company has been doing so well is that it established a huge primate farm. Initially, the farm was to do in-house research for GenSys. Then someone hit on the idea of creating an opportunity for other biotech companies and pharmaceutical firms to out-source their primate research to GenSys. Apparently, the demand for this service has trampled even the most optimistic forecasts.”

“And this primate farm is in Equatorial Guinea?” Jack asked.

“That’s right,” Laurie said.

“Did she suggest any reason why?” Jack asked.

“A memorandum she had from an analyst said that GenSys chose Equatorial Guinea because of the favorable reception they received from the government, which even passed laws to aid their operation. Apparently, GenSys has become the government’s major source of much-needed foreign currency.”

“Can you imagine the amount of graft that must be involved in that kind of scenario?” Jack asked Lou.

Lou merely whistled.

“The memorandum also pointed out that most of the primates they use are indigenous to Equatorial Guinea,” Laurie added. “It allows them to circumvent all the international restrictions in exportation and importation of endangered species like chimpanzees.”

“A primate farm,” Jack repeated while shaking his head. “This is raising even more bizarre possibilities. Could we be dealing with a xenograft?”

“Don’t start that doctor jargon on me,” Lou complained. “What in God’s name is a xenograft?”

“Impossible,” Laurie said. “Xenografts cause hyper-acute rejections. There was no evidence of inflammation in the liver section you showed me, neither humoral nor cell-mediated.”

“True,” Jack said. “And he wasn’t even on any immunosuppressant drugs.”

“Come on, you guys,” Lou pleaded. “Don’t make me beg. What the hell is a xenograft?”

“It’s when a transplant organ is taken from an animal of a different species,” Laurie said.

“You mean like that Baby Fae baboon heart fiasco ten or twelve years ago?” Lou asked.

“Exactly,” Laurie said.

“The new immunosuppressant drugs have brought xenografts back into the picture,” Jack explained. “And with considerable more success than with Baby Fae.”

“Especially with pig heart valves,” Laurie said.

“Of course, it poses a lot of ethical questions,” Jack said. “And it drives animal-rights people berserk.”

“Especially now that they are experimenting with inserting human genes into the pigs to ameliorate some of the rejection reaction,” Laurie added.

“Could Franconi have gotten a primate liver while he was in Africa?” Lou asked.

“I can’t imagine,” Jack said. “Laurie’s point is well taken. There was no evidence of any rejection. That’s unheard of even with a good human match short of identical twins.”

“But Franconi was apparently in Africa,” Lou said.

“True, and his mother said he came home a new man,” Jack said. He threw up his hands and stood up. “I don’t know what to make of it. It’s the damnest mystery. Especially with this organized crime aspect thrown in.”

Laurie stood up as well.

“Are you guys leaving?” Lou asked.

Jack nodded. “I’m confused and exhausted,” he said. “I didn’t sleep much last night. After we made the identification of Franconi’s remains, I was on the phone for hours. I called every European organ allocation organization whose phone number I could get.”

“How about we all head over to Little Italy for a quick dinner?” Lou suggested. “It’s right around the corner.”

“Not me,” Jack said. “I’ve got a bike ride ahead of me. At this point, a meal would do me in.”

“Nor I,” Laurie said. “I’m looking forward to getting home and taking a shower. It’s been two late nights for me in a row, and I’m frazzled.”

Lou admitted to having another half hour of work to do, so Laurie and Jack said goodbye and descended to the first floor. They returned their temporary-visitor badges and left police headquarters. In the shadow of City Hall, they caught a cab.

“Feel better?” Jack asked Laurie, as they headed north up the Bowery. A kaleidoscope of light played across their faces.

“Much,” Laurie admitted. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to dump it all in Lou’s capable lap. I’m sorry I got myself so worked up.”

“No need to apologize,” Jack said. “It’s unsettling, to say the least, there’s a potential spy in our midst and that organized crime has an interest in liver transplants.”

“And how are you bearing up?” Laurie asked. “You’re getting a lot of bizarre input on the Franconi case.”

“It’s bizarre, but it’s also intriguing,” Jack said. “Especially this association with a biotech giant like GenSys. The scary part about these corporations is that their research is all behind closed doors. Cold-war style secrecy is their modus operandi. No one knows what they are doing in their quest for return on investment. It’s a big difference from ten or twenty years ago when the NIH funded most biomedical research in a kind of open forum. In those days, there was oversight in the form of peer review, but not today.”

“Too bad there’s no one like Lou that you can turn the case over to,” Laurie said with a chuckle.

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Jack said.

“What’s your next step?” Laurie asked.

Jack sighed. “I’m running out of options. The only thing that’s scheduled is for a veterinary pathologist to review the liver section.”

“So, you already thought about a xenograft?” Laurie asked with surprise.

“No, I didn’t,” Jack admitted. “The suggestion to have a veterinary pathologist look at the slide wasn’t my idea. It came from a parasitologist over at the hospital who thought the granuloma was due to a parasite, but one he didn’t recognize.”

“Maybe you should mention the possibility of a xenograft to Ted Lynch,” Laurie suggested. “As a DNA expert he might have something in his bag of tricks that could say yes or no definitively.”

“Excellent idea!” Jack said with admiration. “How can you come up with such a great suggestion when you’re so beat? You amaze me! My mind has already shut down for the night.”

“Compliments are always welcome,” Laurie teased. “Especially in the dark, so you can’t see me blush.”

“I’m starting to think that the only option that might be open to me if I really want to solve this case is a quick trip to Equatorial Guinea.”

Laurie twisted around in the seat so she could look directly into Jack’s broad face. In the half light, it was impossible to see his eyes. “You’re not serious. I mean you’re joking, right?”

“Well, there’s no way I could phone GenSys or even go up to Cambridge and walk into their home office and say: ‘Hi folks, what’s going on in Equatorial Guinea?’ ”

“But we’re talking about Africa,” Laurie said. “That’s crazy. It’s halfway around the world. Besides, if you don’t think you’d learn anything going up to Cambridge, what makes you think you’d learn anything going to Africa?”

“Maybe because they wouldn’t expect it,” Jack said. “I don’t suppose they get many visitors.”

“Oh, this is insane,” Laurie said, flapping her hands into the air and rolling her eyes.

“Hey, calm down,” Jack said. “I didn’t say I was going. I just said it was something I was beginning to think about.”

“Well, stop thinking about it,” Laurie said. “I’ve got enough to worry about.”

Jack smiled at her. “You really are concerned. I’m touched.”

“Oh, sure!” Laurie remarked cynically. “You’re never touched by my pleas not to ride your mountain bike around the city.”

The taxi pulled up in front of Laurie’s apartment building and came to a halt. Laurie started to get some money out. Jack put a hand on her arm. “My treat.”

“All right, I’ll get it next time,” Laurie said. She started to climb out of the cab, then stopped. “If you were to promise to take a cab home, I think we could rustle up something to eat in my apartment.”

“Thanks, but not tonight,” Jack said. “I’ve got to get the bike home. I’d probably fall asleep on a full stomach.”

“Worse things could happen,” Laurie said.

“Let me take a rain check,” Jack said.

Laurie climbed out of the cab and then leaned back in. “Just promise me one thing: you won’t leave for Africa tonight.”

Jack took a playful swipe at her, but she easily evaded his hand.

“Good night, Jack,” Laurie said with a warm smile.

“Good night, Laurie,” Jack said. “I’ll call you later after I talk with Warren.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Laurie said. “With everything that’s happened, I’d forgotten. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

Laurie closed the taxi door and watched the cab until it disappeared around the corner on First Avenue. She turned toward her door, musing that Jack was a charming but complicated man.

As she rode up in her elevator, Laurie began to anticipate her shower and the warmth of her terry-cloth robe. She vowed she’d turn in early.

Laurie treated Debra Engler to an acid smile before keying her multiple locks. She slammed her door behind her to give Mrs. Engler an extra message. Moving her mail from one hand to the other, she removed her coat. In the darkness of the closet, she groped for a hanger.

It wasn’t until Laurie entered the living room that she flipped the wall switch that turned on a floor lamp. She got two steps toward the kitchen when she let out a muffled scream and dropped her mail on the floor. There were two men in the living room. One was in her art-deco chair, the other sitting on the couch. The one on the couch was petting Tom, who was asleep on his lap.

The other thing Laurie noticed was a large handgun with an attached silencer on the arm of the art-deco chair.

“Welcome home, Dr. Montgomery,” Franco said. “Thank you for the wine and beer.”

Laurie’s eyes went to the coffee table. There was an empty beer bottle and wineglass.

“Please come over and sit down,” Franco said. He pointed to a side chair they’d put in the middle of the room.

Laurie didn’t move. She was incapable of it. She thought vaguely about running into the kitchen for the phone but immediately dismissed the idea as ridiculous. She even thought about fleeing back to her front door, but with all the locks, she knew it would be a futile gesture.

“Please!” Franco repeated with a false politeness that only augmented Laurie’s terror.

Angelo moved the cat to the side and stood up. He took a step toward Laurie and, without warning, backhanded her viciously across the face. The blow propelled Laurie back against the wall, where her legs gave way. She slumped to her hands and knees. A few drops of bright red blood dropped from her split upper lip, splattering on the hardwood floor.

Angelo grabbed her by the upper arm and roughly hoisted her to her feet. Then he powered her over to the chair and pushed her into a sitting position. Laurie’s terror made her incapable of resisting.

“That’s better,” Franco said.

Angelo leaned over and stuck his face in Laurie’s. “Recognize me?”

Laurie forced herself to look up into the man’s horribly scarred face. He looked like a character in a horror movie. She swallowed; her throat had gone dry. Incapable of speech, all she could do was shake her head.

“No?” Franco questioned. “Doctor, I’m afraid you are going to hurt Angelo’s feelings and, under the circumstances, that’s a dangerous thing to do.”

“I’m sorry,” Laurie squeaked. But no sooner had the words come out, then Laurie associated the name with the fact that the man standing in front of her had been burned. It was Angelo Facciolo, Cerino’s main hit man, now obviously out of jail.

“I’ve been waiting five years,” Angelo snarled. Then he struck Laurie again, half knocking her off the chair. She ended up with her head down. There was more blood. This time it came from her nose and soaked into the carpet.

“Okay, Angelo!” Franco said. “Remember! We’ve got to talk with her.”

Angelo trembled for a moment over Laurie, as if struggling to restrain himself. Abruptly, he went back to the couch and sat down. He picked the cat back up and began roughly petting it. Tom didn’t mind and began to purr.

Laurie managed to right herself. With her hand, she felt both her lip and her nose. Her lip was already beginning to swell. She pinched her nose to halt the bleeding.

“Listen, Doctor Montgomery,” Franco said. “As you might imagine, it was very easy for us to come in here. I say this so you will comprehend how vulnerable you are. You see, we have a problem that you can help us with. We’re here to ask you nicely to leave the Franconi thing alone. Am I making myself clear?”

Laurie nodded. She was afraid not to.

“Good,” Franco said. “Now, we are very reasonable people. We’ll consider this a favor on your part, and we’re willing to do a favor in return. We happen to know who killed Mr. Franconi, and we’re willing to pass that information on to you. You see, Mr. Franconi wasn’t a nice man, so he was killed. End of story. Are you still with me?”

Laurie nodded again. She glanced at Angelo but quickly averted her eyes.

“The killer’s name is Vido Delbario,” Franco continued. “He’s not a nice person, either, although he did do the world a favor in getting rid of Franconi. I’ve even taken the trouble to write the name down.” Franco leaned forward and put a piece of paper on the coffee table. “So, a favor for a favor.”

Franco paused and looked expectantly at Laurie.

“You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?” Franco asked after a moment of silence.

Laurie nodded for the third time.

“I mean, we’re not asking much,” Franco said. “To be blunt, Franconi was a bad guy. He killed a bunch of people and deserved to die himself. Now, as far as you are concerned, I hope you will be sensible because in a city this size there’s no way to protect yourself, and Angelo here would like no better than have his way with you. Lucky for you, our boss is not heavy-handed. He’s a negotiator. Do you understand?”

Franco paused again. Laurie felt compelled to respond. With difficulty, she managed to say she understood.

“Wonderful!” Franco said. He slapped his knees and stood up. “When I heard how intelligent and resourceful you are, Doc, I was confident we could see eye to eye.”

Franco slipped his handgun into his shoulder holster and put on his Ferragamo coat. “Come on, Angelo,” he said. “I’m sure the doctor wants to shower and have her dinner. She looks kind’a tired to me.”

Angelo got up, took a step in Laurie’s direction, and then viciously wrenched the cat’s neck. There was a sickening snap, and Tom went limp without a sound. Angelo dumped the dead cat in Laurie’s lap, and followed Franco out the front door.

“Oh, no!” Laurie whimpered as she cradled her pet of six years. She knew its neck had been cruelly broken. She stood up on rubbery legs. Out in the hall, she heard the elevator arrive and then descend.

With sudden panic she rushed to the front door and relocked all the locks while still clutching Tom’s body. Then, realizing the intruders had to have come in the back door, she raced there only to find it wide open and splintered. She forced it closed as best she could.

Back in the kitchen she took the phone off the hook with trembling hands. Her first response was to call the police, but then she hesitated, hearing Franco’s voice in the back of her mind warning her how vulnerable she was. She also could see Angelo’s horrid face and the intensity of his eyes.

Recognizing she was in shock and fighting tears, Laurie replaced the receiver. She thought she’d call Jack, but she knew he wouldn’t be home yet. So, instead of calling anyone for the moment, she tenderly packed her pet in a Styrofoam box with several trays of ice cubes. Then she went into the bathroom to check out her own wounds.

Jack’s bike ride from the morgue home was not the ordeal he expected. In fact, once he got under way, he felt better than he had for most of the day. He even allowed himself to cut through Central Park. It had been the first time he’d been in the park after dark for a year. Although he was uneasy, it was also exhilarating to sprint along the dark, winding paths.

For most of the trip, he’d pondered about GenSys and Equatorial Guinea. He wondered what it was really like in that part of Africa. He’d joked earlier with Lou that it was buggy, hot, and wet, but he didn’t know for sure.

He also thought about Ted Lynch and wondered what Ted would be able to do the following day. Before Jack had left the morgue, he’d called him at home to outline the unlikely possibility of a xenograft. Ted said that he thought he’d be able to tell by checking an area on the DNA that specified ribosomal proteins. He’d explained that the area differed considerably from species to species and that the information to make a species identification was available on a CD-ROM.

Jack turned onto his street with the idea of going to the local bookstore to see if there was any material on Equatorial Guinea. But as he approached the playground with its daily late afternoon and evening game of basketball under way, he had another idea. It occurred to him that there might be expatriate Equatoguineans in New York. After all, the city harbored people from every country in the world.

Turning his bike into the playground, Jack dismounted and leaned it up against the chain-link fence. He didn’t bother to lock it, though most people would have thought the neighborhood a risky place to leave a thousand-dollar bike. In reality, the playground was the only place in New York Jack felt he didn’t have to lock up.

Jack walked over to the sidelines and nodded to Spit and Flash, who were part of the crowd waiting to play. The game in progress swept up and down the court as the ball changed hands or baskets were made. As usual, Warren was dominating the play. Before each of his shots he’d say “money,” which was aggravating to the opponents because ninety percent of the time, the ball would sail through the basket.

A quarter hour later the game was decided by one of Warren’s “money” shots, and the losers slunk off the court. Warren caught sight of Jack and strutted over.

“Hey, man, you going to run or what?” Warren asked.

“I’m thinking about it,” Jack said. “But I’ve got a couple of questions. First of all, how about you and Natalie getting together with Laurie and me this weekend?”

“Hell, yes,” Warren said. “Anything to shut my shortie up. She’s been ragging on me fierce about you and Laurie.”

“Secondly, do you know any brothers from a tiny African country called Equatorial Guinea?”

“Man, I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth,” Warren complained. “Let me think.”

“It’s on the west coast of Africa,” Jack said. “Between Cameroon and Gabon.”

“I know where it is,” Warren said indignantly. “It was supposedly discovered by the Portuguese and colonized by the Spanish. Actually, it was discovered a long time earlier by black people.”

“I’m impressed you know of it,” Jack said. “I’d never heard of the country.”

“I’m not surprised,” Warren said. “I’m sure you didn’t take any black history courses. But to answer your question, yes, I do know a couple of people from there, and one family in particular. Their name is Ndeme. They live two doors down from you, toward the park.”

Jack looked over at the building, then back at Warren. “Do you know them well enough to introduce me?” Jack asked. “I’ve developed a sudden interest in Equatorial Guinea.”

“Yeah, sure,” Warren said. “The father’s name is Esteban. He owns the Mercado market over on Columbus. That’s his son over there with the orange kicks.”

Jack followed Warren’s pointing finger until he spotted the orange sneakers. He recognized the boy as one of the basketball regulars. He was a quiet kid and an intense player.

“Why don’t you come down and run a few games?” Warren suggested. “Then I’ll take you over and introduce you to Esteban. He’s a friendly dude.”

“Fair enough,” Jack said. After being revived by the bicycle ride, he was looking for an excuse to play basketball. The events of the day had him in knots.

Jack went back and got his bike. Hurrying over to his building, he carried the bicycle up the stairs. He unlocked his door without even taking it off his shoulder. Once inside, he made a beeline for his bedroom and his basketball gear.

Within five minutes, Jack was already on his way out when his phone rang. For a moment, he debated answering it, but thinking it might be Ted calling back with a bit of arcane DNA trivia, Jack picked it up. It was Laurie, and she was beside herself.

Jack crammed enough bills through the Plexiglas partition in the taxi to more than cover the fare and jumped out. He was in front of Laurie’s apartment building, where he’d been less than an hour earlier. Dressed in his basketball gear he raced to the front door and was buzzed in. Laurie met him in the elevator foyer on her floor.

“My god!” Jack wailed. “Look at your lip.”

“That will heal,” Laurie said stoically. Then she caught Debra Engler’s eye peering through the crack in her door. Laurie lunged at the woman and shouted for her to mind her own business. The door snapped shut.

Jack put his arm around Laurie to calm her and led her into her apartment.

“All right,” Jack said, after getting Laurie seated on the couch. “Tell me what happened.”

“They killed Tom,” Laurie whimpered. After the initial shock, Laurie had cried for her pet, but her tears had dried until Jack’s question.

“Who?” Jack demanded.

Laurie waited until she had her emotions under control. “There were two of them, but I only knew one,” she said. “And he’s the one who struck me and killed Tom. His name is Angelo. He’s the person I’ve had nightmares about. I had a terrible run-in with him during the Cerino affair. I thought he was still in prison. I can’t imagine how or why he is out. He’s horrid to look at. His face is terribly scarred from burns, and I’m sure he blames me.”

“So this visit was for revenge?” Jack asked.

“No,” Laurie said. “This was a warning for me. In their words I’m to ‘leave the Franconi thing alone.’ ”

“I don’t believe this,” Jack said. “I’m the one investigating the case, not you.”

“You warned me. I’ve obviously irritated the wrong people by trying to find out how Franconi’s body was lifted from the morgue,” Laurie said. “For all I know it was my visit to the Spoletto Funeral Home that set them off.”

“I’m not going to take any credit for foreseeing this,” Jack said. “I thought you would get in trouble with Bingham, not mobsters.”

“Angelo’s warning was presented in the guise of a favor for a favor,” Laurie said. “His favor was to tell me who killed Franconi. In fact, he wrote the name down.” Laurie lifted the piece of paper from the coffee table and handed it to Jack.

“Vido Delbario,” Jack read. He looked back at Laurie’s battered face. Both her nose and lip were swollen, and she was developing a black eye. “This case has been bizarre from the start, now it’s getting out of hand. I think you’d better tell me everything that happened.”

Laurie related to Jack the details from the moment she’d walked in the door until she’d called him on the phone. She even told him why she’d hesitated calling 911.

Jack nodded. “I understand,” he said. “There’s little the local precinct could do at this point.”

“What am I going to do?” Laurie asked rhetorically. She didn’t expect an answer.

“Let me look at the back door,” Jack said.

Laurie led him through the kitchen and into the pantry.

“Whoa!” Jack said. Because of the multiple dead bolts the entire edge split when the door had been forced. “I’ll tell you one thing, you’re not staying here tonight.”

“I suppose I could go home to my parents,” Laurie said.

“You’re coming home with me,” Jack said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Laurie looked into the depths of Jack’s eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder if there were more to this sudden invitation than the issue of her safety.

“Get your things,” Jack said. “And pack for a few days. It will take that long to replace this door.”

“I hate to bring this up,” Laurie said. “But I have to do something with poor Tom.”

Jack scratched the back of his head. “Do you have access to a shovel?”

“I have a gardening trowel,” Laurie said. “What are you thinking?”

“We could bury him in the backyard,” Jack said.

Laurie smiled. “You are a softie, aren’t you?”

“I just know what it’s like to lose things you love,” Jack said. His voice caught. For a painful moment he recalled the phone call that had informed him of his wife and daughter’s death in a commuter plane crash.

While Laurie packed her things, Jack paced her bedroom. He forced his mind to concentrate on current concerns. “We’re going to have to tell Lou about this,” Jack said, “and give him Vido Delbario’s name.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Laurie said from the depths of her walk-in closet. “Do you think we should do it tonight?”

“I think we should,” Jack said. “Then he can decide when he wants to act on it. We’ll call from my house. Do you have his home number?”

“I do,” Laurie said.

“You know, this episode is disturbing for more reasons than just your safety,” Jack said. “It adds to my worry that organized crime is somehow involved in liver transplantation. Maybe there is some kind of black-market operation going on.”

Laurie came out of her closet with a hangup bag. “But how can it be transplantation when Franconi wasn’t on immunosuppressant drugs? And don’t forget the strange results Ted got with his DNA testing.”

Jack sighed. “You’re right,” he admitted. “It doesn’t fit together.”

“Maybe Lou can make sense of it all,” Laurie said.

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Jack said. “Meanwhile, this episode makes the idea of going to Africa a lot more appealing.”

Laurie stopped short on her way into the bathroom. “What on earth are you talking about?” she demanded.

“I haven’t had any personal experience with organized crime,” Jack said. “But I have with street gangs, and I believe there’s a similarity that I learned the hard way. If either of these groups gets it in their mind to get rid of you, the police can’t protect you unless they are committed to guarding you twenty-four hours a day. The problem is, they don’t have the manpower. Maybe it would be good for both of us to get out of town for a while. It could give Lou a chance to sort this out.”

“I’d go, too?” Laurie asked. Suddenly the idea of going to Africa had a very different connotation. She’d never been to Africa, and it could be interesting. In fact, it might even be fun.

“We’d consider it a forced vacation,” Jack said. “Of course, Equatorial Guinea might not be a prime destination, but it would be… different. And perhaps, in the process, we’ll be able to figure out exactly what GenSys is doing there and why Franconi made the trip.”

“Hmmm,” Laurie said. “I’m starting to warm to the idea.”

After Laurie had her things ready, she and Jack took Tom’s Styrofoam casket into the backyard. In the far corner of the garden where there was loose loam, they dug a deep hole. The chance discovery of a rusted spade made the job easy, and Tom was put to rest.

“My word!” Jack complained as he hauled Laurie’s suitcase out the front door. “What did you put in here?”

“You told me to pack for several days,” Laurie said defensively.

“But you didn’t have to bring your bowling ball,” Jack quipped.

“It’s the cosmetics,” Laurie said. “They are not travel size.”

They caught a cab on First Avenue. En route to Jack’s they stopped at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue. While Jack waited in the taxi, Laurie dashed inside to get a book on Equatorial Guinea. Unfortunately, there weren’t any, and she had to settle for a guidebook for all of Central Africa.

“The clerk laughed at me when I asked for a book on Equatorial Guinea,” Laurie said, when she got back in the cab.

“That’s one more hint it’s not a top vacation destination,” Jack said.

Laurie laughed. She reached over and gave Jack’s arm a squeeze. “I haven’t thanked you yet for coming over,” she said. “I really appreciated it, and I’m feeling much better.”

“I’m glad,” Jack said.

Once in Jack’s building, Jack had to struggle with Laurie’s suitcase up the cluttered stairs. After a series of exaggerated grunts and groans, Laurie asked him if he wanted her to carry it. Jack told her that her punishment for packing such a heavy bag was to listen to him complain.

Eventually, he got it outside his door. He fumbled for his key, got it into the cylinder and turned. He heard the dead bolt snap back.

“Hmmm,” he commented. “I don’t remember double-locking the door.” He turned the key again to release the latch bolt and pushed open the door. Because of the darkness, he preceded Laurie into the apartment to flip on the light. Laurie followed and collided with him because he’d stopped suddenly.

“Go ahead, turn it on,” a voice said.

Jack complied. The silhouettes he’d glimpsed a moment before were now men dressed in long, dark coats. They were seated on Jack’s sofa, facing into the room.

“Oh my god!” Laurie said. “It’s them!”

Franco and Angelo had made themselves at home, just as they had at Laurie’s. They’d even helped themselves to beers. The half-empty bottles were on the coffee table, along with a handgun and its attached silencer. A straight-backed chair had been brought into the center of the room to face the couch.

“I assume you are Dr. Jack Stapleton,” Franco said.

Jack nodded, as his mind began to go over ways of handling the situation. He knew the front door behind him was still ajar. He berated himself for not being more suspicious to have found it double-locked. The problem was he’d gone out so quickly, he couldn’t remember which locks he’d secured.

“Don’t do anything foolish,” Franco admonished as if reading Jack’s mind. “We won’t be staying long. And if we’d known that Dr. Montgomery was going to be here, we could have saved ourselves a trip to her place, not to mention the effort of going over the same message twice.”

“What is it you people are afraid we might learn that makes you want to come and threaten us?” Jack asked.

Franco smiled and looked at Angelo. “Can you believe this guy? He thinks we made all this effort to get in here to answer questions.”

“No respect,” Angelo said.

“Doc, how about getting another chair for the lady,” Franco said to Jack. “Then we can have our little talk, and we’ll be on our way.”

Jack didn’t move. He was thinking about the gun on the coffee table and wondering which of the men was still armed. As he tried to gauge their strength, he noticed that both were on the thin side. He figured they were most likely out of shape.

“Excuse me, Doc,” Franco said. “Are you with us or what?”

Before Jack could answer, there was commotion behind him and someone roughly bumped him to the side. Another person shouted: “Nobody move!”

Jack recovered from his momentary confusion to comprehend that three African-Americans had leaped into the room, each armed with machine pistols. The guns were trained unwaveringly on Franco and Angelo. These newcomers were all dressed in basketball gear, and Jack quickly recognized them. It was Flash, David, and Spit, all of whom were still sweating from activity on the playground.

Franco and Angelo were taken completely unawares. They simply sat there, eyes wide. Since they were accustomed to being on the other side of lethal weapons, they knew enough not to move.

For a moment there was frozen silence. Then Warren strutted in. “Man, Doc, keeping you alive has become a full-time job, you know what I’m saying? And I’m going to have to tell you, you’re dragging down the neighborhood, bringing in this kind of white trash.”

Warren took the machine pistol away from Spit and told Spit to frisk the visitors. Wordlessly, Spit relieved Angelo of his Walther auto pistol. After frisking Franco, he collected the gun from the coffee table.

Jack noisily let out a breath of air. “Warren, old sport, I don’t know how you manage to drop in on such a timely basis in my life, but it’s appreciated.”

“These scumbags were seen casing this place earlier tonight,” Warren explained. “It’s as if they think they’re invisible, despite their expensive threads and that big, black, shiny Cadillac. It’s kind of a joke.”

Jack rubbed his hands together in appreciation of the sudden change of power. He asked Angelo and Franco their names but got cold stares in return.

“That one is Angelo Facciolo,” Laurie said, while pointing toward her nemesis.

“Spit, get their wallets,” Warren ordered.

Spit complied and read out their names and addresses. “Uh-oh, what’s this?” he questioned when he opened the wallet containing the Ozone Park police badge. He held it up for Warren to see.

“They’re not police officers,” Warren said with a wave of dismissal. “Don’t worry.”

“Laurie,” Jack said. “I think it’s time to give Lou a call. I’m sure he’d like nothing better than to talk with these gentlemen. And tell him to bring the paddy wagon in case he’d like to invite them to stay the night at the city’s expense.”

Laurie disappeared into the kitchen.

Jack walked over to Angelo and towered above him.

“Stand up,” Jack said.

Angelo got to his feet and glowered insolently at Jack. To everyone’s surprise, especially Angelo, Jack sucker punched him as hard as he could in the face. There was a crunching sound as Angelo was knocked backward over the sofa to land in a heap on the floor.

Jack winced, cursed, and grabbed his hand. Then he shook it up and down. “Jeez,” he complained. “I’ve never hit anybody like that. It hurts!”

“Hold up,” Warren warned Jack. “I don’t like beatin’ on these dog turds. It’s not my style.”

“I’m all done,” Jack said, still shaking his injured hand. “You see, that dog turd on the other side of the couch beat up on Laurie earlier this evening after they broke into her apartment. I’m sure you noticed her face.”

Angelo pushed himself up to a sitting position. His nose angled to the right. Jack invited him to come back around the couch and sit down. Angelo moved slowly, while cupping his hand beneath his nose to catch the dripping blood.

“Now, before the police get here,” Jack said to the two men, “I’d like to ask you guys again about what you’re afraid Laurie and I might learn. What is going on with this Franconi nonsense?”

Angelo and Franco stared at Jack as if he weren’t there. Jack persisted and asked what they knew about Franconi’s liver, but the men remained stone silent.

Laurie returned from the kitchen. “I got Lou,” she reported. “He’s on his way, and I have to say he’s excited, especially about the Vido Delbario tip.”

An hour later, Jack found himself comfortably ensconced in Esteban Ndeme’s apartment along with Laurie and Warren.

“Sure, I’ll have another beer,” Jack said in response to Esteban’s offer. Jack was feeling a pleasant buzz from his first beer and progressively euphoric that the evening had worked out so auspiciously after such a bad start.

Lou had arrived at Jack’s with several patrolmen less than twenty minutes after Laurie’s call. He’d been ecstatic to take Angelo and Franco downtown to book them on breaking and entering, possession of unauthorized firearms, assault and battery, extortion, and impersonation of a police officer. His hope was to hold them long enough to get some real information out of them about New York City organized crime, particularly the Lucia organization.

Lou had been disturbed by the threats Laurie and Jack had received, so when Jack mentioned that he and Laurie were thinking of going out of town for a week or so, Lou was all for it. Lou was concerned enough that in the interim, he’d assigned a guard for Laurie and Jack. To make the job easier, Jack and Laurie agreed to stay together.

At Jack’s urging, Warren had taken him and Laurie to the Mercado Market and to meet Esteban Ndeme. As Warren had intimated, Esteban was an amiable and gracious man. He was close to Jack’s age of forty-two, but his body type was the opposite of Jack’s. Where Jack was stocky, Esteban was slender. Even his facial features seemed delicate. His skin was a deep, rich brown, many shades darker than Warren’s. But his most noticeable physical trait was his high-domed forehead. He’d lost his hair in the front so that his hairline ran from ear to ear over the top of his head.

As soon as he’d learned Jack was considering a trip to Equatorial Guinea, he’d invited Jack, Laurie, and Warren back to his apartment.

Teodora Ndeme had turned out to be as congenial as her husband. After the group had been in the apartment for only a short time, she’d insisted everyone stay for dinner.

With savory aromas drifting from the kitchen, Jack sat back contentedly with a second beer. “What brought you and Teodora to New York City?” he asked Esteban.

“We had to flee our country,” Esteban said. He went on to describe the reign of terror of the ruthless dictator Nguema that forced a third of the population, including all of Spanish descent, to leave. “Fifty thousand people were murdered,” Esteban said. “It was terrible. We were lucky to get out. I was a schoolteacher trained in Spain and therefore suspect.”

“Things have changed, I hope,” Jack said.

“Oh, yes,” Esteban said. “A coup in 1979 has changed a lot. But it is a poor country, although there is some talk of offshore oil, as was discovered off Gabon. Gabon is now the wealthiest country in the region.”

“Have you been back?” Jack asked.

“Several times,” Esteban said. “The last time, a few years ago,” Esteban said. “Teodora and I still have family there. Teodora’s brother even has a small hotel on the mainland in a town called Bata.”

“I’ve heard of Bata,” Jack said. “I understand it has an airport.”

“The only one on the mainland,” Esteban said. “It was built in the eighties for a Central African Congress. Of course, the country couldn’t afford it, but that is another story.”

“Have you heard of a company called GenSys?” Jack asked.

“Most definitely,” Esteban said. “It is the major source of foreign currency for the government, especially since cocoa and coffee prices have fallen.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jack said. “I’ve also heard GenSys has a primate farm. Do you know if that is in Bata?”

“No, it is in the south,” Esteban said. “They built it in the jungle near an old deserted Spanish town called Cogo. They have rebuilt much of the town for their people from America and Europe, and they have built a new town for local people who work for them. They employ many Equatoguinean people.”

“Do you know if GenSys built a hospital?” Jack asked.

“Yes, they did,” Esteban said. “They built a hospital and laboratory on the old town square facing the town hall.”

“How do you know so much about it?” Jack asked.

“Because my cousin used to work there,” Esteban said. “But he quit when the soldiers executed one of his friends for hunting. A lot of people like GenSys because they pay well, but others don’t like GenSys because they have too much power with the government.”

“Because of money,” Jack said.

“Yes, of course,” Esteban said. “They pay a lot of money to the ministers. They even pay part of the army.”

“That’s cozy,” Laurie commented.

“If we were to go to Bata, would we be able to visit Cogo?” Jack asked.

“I suppose,” Esteban said. “After the Spanish left twenty-five years ago, the road to Cogo was abandoned and became impassable, but GenSys has rebuilt it so the trucks can go back and forth. But you’d have to hire a car.”

“Is that possible?” Jack asked.

“If you have money, anything is possible in Equatorial Guinea,” Esteban said. “When are you planning to go? Because it’s best to go in the dry season.”

“When’s that?” Jack asked.

“February and March,” Esteban said.

“That’s convenient,” Jack said. “Because Laurie and I are thinking of going tomorrow night.”

“What?” Warren spoke for the first time since they’d arrived at Esteban’s apartment. He’d not been privy to Jack and Lou’s conversation. “I thought me and Natalie were going out on the town with you guys this weekend. I’ve already told Natalie.”

“Ohhhh!” Jack commented. “I forgot about that.”

“Hey, man, you gotta wait ’til after Saturday night, otherwise I’m in deep shit, you know what I’m saying. I told you how much she’s been ragging on me to see you guys.”

In his euphoric mood Jack had another suggestion. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you and Natalie come along with Laurie and me to Equatorial Guinea? It will be our treat.”

Laurie blinked. She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

“Man, what are you talking about?” Warren said. “You’re out’a your friggin’ mind. You’re talking about Africa.”

“Yeah, Africa,” Jack said. “If Laurie and I have to go, we might as well make it as fun as possible. In fact, Esteban, why don’t you and your wife come, too? We’ll make it a party.”

“Are you serious?” Esteban asked.

Laurie’s expression was equally as incredulous.

“Sure, I’m serious,” Jack said. “The best way to visit a country is to go with someone who used to live there. That’s no secret. But tell me, do we all need visas?”

“Yes, but the Equatorial Guinean Embassy is here in New York,” Esteban said. “Two pictures, twenty-five dollars, and a letter from a bank saying you’re not poor gets you a visa.”

“How do you get to Equatorial Guinea?” Jack asked.

“For Bata the easiest is through Paris,” Esteban said. “From Paris there is daily service to Douala, Cameroon. From Douala there’s daily service to Bata. You can go through Madrid, too, but that’s only twice a week to Malabo on Bioko.”

“Sounds like Paris wins out,” Jack said gaily.

“Teodora!” Esteban called out to his wife in the kitchen. “You’d better come in here.”

“You’re crazy, man,” Warren said to Jack. “I knew it the first day you walked out on that basketball court. But, you know something, I’m beginning to like it.”