Coma

36

Thursday, February 26, 8:10 P.M.

The tattered and flimsy nurse’s uniform was little protection against the razor-sharp cold. It was seventeen degrees with a twenty-five knot north wind, making the wind chill factor somewhere around twenty below zero. Susan ran along the deserted Haymarket vegetable stalls, trying to avoid the empty cardboard boxes that were being blown across her path. The debris made her progress slow, and it reminded her of the nightmare that had started the day.

At the corner she turned left and braved the full power of the wind. She was shivering now, and her upper and lower jaws clattered against each other as if they were beating out some urgent message in Morse code. On the City Hall mall it got worse. The particular design of the Government Center area, with its curved facades and expansive mall, functioned as a wind tunnel, pushing the north wind to greater effort. Susan had to bend herself into the wind to make progress up the wide steps. To her left the remarkable modern architecture of the City Hall loomed eerily in the darkness; its stark geometric protrusions formed dark, intervening shadows, giving the whole scene an ominous air.

Susan needed a telephone. When she got to Cambridge Street there were a few other humans, bent over, faceless in the wind and the cold. Susan stopped the first pedestrian; it was a woman. The stranger’s head came up, the eyes looked at Susan first with disbelief, then fright

“I need a dime and a telephone,” said Susan through her chattering teeth.

The woman pushed Susan’s arm away and hurried on without looking back and without saying a single word.

Susan looked down at her nurse’s uniform. It was torn, soiled, and bloodstained. Her hands were totally black. Her hair was irretrievably tangled and matted. She realized she looked like a psychotic, or at best a derelict.

Susan stopped a man and asked her question. The man backed up from Susan’s appearance. He reached into his pocket and extended some change toward Susan, his eyes also revealing a mixture of incredulousness and consternation. He dropped the coins into Susan’s hand as if he were afraid to touch her.

Susan took the change. It was more than the single dime she had asked for.

“I think there’s a phone in the diner down on the left,” said the man, looking at Susan. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll be all right if I get to a phone. Thank you very much.”

Susan’s cold fingers had trouble wrapping around the change. Her hands were so numb that she could not even feel the coins in her palms. She ran across Cambridge Street toward the diner.

The steamy, greasy warmth of the place was a welcome relief as Susan entered. A few faces looked up from their food, and noted her strange look. But in deference to the anonymity guaranteed by a large American city, the diners returned to their fare, to keep from becoming involved.

Susan was gripped by an irrational paranoia, and her eyes went from person to person, trying to detect an enemy. The warmth brought even greater shivering. She hurried to the pay phone near the restrooms.

Her hands had great difficulty manipulating the coins, and most of them dropped to the floor before she got a dime into the slot. No one got up to help her retrieve her money. The grease-smeared tattooed counterman watched her blankly, inured to the curiosities of Boston street life.

The operator answered at the Memorial.

“I’m Dr. Wheeler and I must speak with Dr. Stark immediately. It is an emergency. Do you have his home number?”

“I’m sorry, but we cannot give out the doctor’s number.”

“But this is an emergency.” Susan glanced around the diner, half-expecting someone to challenge her.

“I’m sorry, but we have our orders. If you want to leave your number, I’ll have the doctor call.”

Susan’s eyes roamed around for the number.

“523-8787.”

There was a click. Susan replaced the disconnected receiver. She had one dime left in her hand. She thought perhaps hot tea would help. She searched around for more change on the floor. She found a nickel. She looked in a wider area. She knew that she had had a quarter.

One of the patrons got up from the counter and sleepily walked around to use the phone. He was reaching for the receiver when Susan spotted him.

“Please. I’m expecting a call. Please don’t use the phone for just a few moments.” Susan stood up, beseeching the stubbly-faced man.

“Sorry, sister, got to use the phone.” The man picked up the receiver and reached up to drop in his dime.

For the first time in her life, Susan lost all semblance of control or rationality.

“No!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, causing every head in the diner to snap around in her direction. To emphasize her determination, Susan clasped her two hands together, the fingers interlocking, and brought them up swiftly, hitting the man’s forearms. The surprisingly fast blow knocked both the receiver and the dime from his grasp. With her hands still clasped, Susan brought them down so that the heels of her hands hit the man on the forehead and the bridge of his nose. It sent the surprised individual stumbling backward into the edge of a booth. Almost in slow motion, he sank to a sitting position, his feet outstretched. The suddenness and the fury of the attack had left him momentarily dumbfounded, and he didn’t move.

Susan quickly replaced the receiver on the phone, holding onto it, closing her eyes tightly, hoping it would ring. It did. It was Stark. Susan tried to contain herself in the surroundings, but the words bubbled out of her.

“Dr. Stark, this is Susan Wheeler. I have the answers… all of them. It’s unbelievable, really it is.”

“Calm down, Susan. What do you mean you have all the answers?” Stark’s voice was reassuring and calm.

“I have a motive; I have both the method and a motive.”

“Susan, you’re talking in riddles.”

“The coma patients. They’re not accidental complications. They’re planned. When I was doing the chart extractions, I found out that all the victims had been tissue-typed.”

Susan paused, remembering how Bellows had talked her out of attaching any significance to the tissue-typing,

“Go on, Susan,” said Dr. Stark.

“Well, I didn’t give it any significance. But I do now. Now that I’ve been to the Jefferson Institute.”

Saying the name made Susan look around the diner suspiciously. Now most of the eyes in the place were directed at her. But no one moved. Susan withdrew into the alcove by the restrooms, cupping her hand over the receiver.

“I know it will sound incredible, but the Jefferson Institute is a clearinghouse for black-market transplant organs. Somehow these people get orders for organs with a specific tissue type. Then whoever runs the show reaches around in the hospitals here in Boston till they find patients with the proper type. If it’s a surgical patient, they merely add a little carbon monoxide to his anesthesia. If it’s a medical patient he—or she—gets a shot of succinylcholine in his I.V. The victim’s upper brain is destroyed. He’s a living corpse, but his organs are alive and warm and happy until they can be taken out by the butchers at the Institute.”

“Susan, that’s an incredible story,” said Stark. He sounded stunned. “Do you think you can prove this?”

“That’s one of the problems. If there is a big fuss—say the police were brought to Jefferson Institute for a look-see—they probably have a contingency plan to cover up. The place masquerades as an intensive-care hospital. Besides, both, carbon monoxide and the succinylcholine are metabolized quickly in the victim’s bodies, leaving no trace whatsoever. The only way to break up the organization behind these crimes is for someone like yourself to convince the authorities to make a real surprise raid on the place.”

“That might be an idea, Susan,” said Stark. “But I’d have to hear the particulars that brought you to your fantastic conclusions. Are you in any danger now? I can come and pick you up.”

“No, I’m all right,” said Susan, glancing into the diner. “It would be easier if I met you somewhere. I can catch a cab.”

“Fine. Meet me at my office in the Memorial. I’ll leave immediately.”

“I’ll be there.” Susan was about to hang up.

“Susan, one more thing. If what you say is true, then secrecy is tremendously important. Don’t say anything to anybody until we’ve talked.”

“Agreed. See you in a few minutes.”

Replacing the receiver, Susan looked up a cab company. She used her last dime to order a cab. She gave the name Shirley Walton. They said it would take ten minutes.

Dr. Harold Stark lived in Weston, along with nine-tenths of Boston’s other doctors. He had a sprawling Tudor house which also boasted a Victorian library. After speaking with Susan, he replaced the receiver on the phone on top of his desk. Then he pulled open the right-hand drawer and extracted a second phone, a phone carefully maintained and checked electronically for any additional resistance or interference. It could not be tapped without Stark’s knowledge. He dialed quickly, watching the tiny oscilloscope in the drawer. It functioned normally.

In the control room of the Jefferson Institute a manicured man, slight of build, reached for the ringing red telephone.

“Wilton,” yelled Stark, only partially concealing his anger, “for a whiz kid with figures and an aptitude for business, you’re pretty impotent when it comes to catching young, unarmed girls in a building built like a castle. I cannot understand how you could allow this matter to get so far out of hand. I warned you about her days ago.”

“Don’t worry, Stark. We’ll find her. She got out on the ledge but obviously has to return to the building. All the doors are sealed, and I’ve got ten men here now. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry,” snarled Stark. “Well, let me tell you something. She just called me on the phone and outlined the entire core of our program. She’s already out, you ass.”

“Out! Impossible!”

“Impossible. What kind of statement is that? I said she just called me. What do you think, she’s using one of your phones? Christ, Wilton. Why didn’t you take care of her?”

“We tried. Apparently she’s eluded a very reliable hit man. The lame man who took care of Walters.”

“God, that was another thing. Why didn’t you just dispose of him rather than stage that suicide?”

“For your benefit You’re the one that was so uptight when the drugs that old codger was hoarding were found. I mean you were the one who was so worried that it might drag in the authorities for some sort of grand investigation. We not only had to get rid of Walters but we had to associate him with his goddamn drugs.”

“Well, this whole affair has made up my mind for me, I think it’s time we wind down this operation. Do you understand, Wilton?”

“So the great doctor wants out, does he? At the first ripple of trouble in almost three years, you want out. You got all the money to rebuild that whole hospital of yours. You got yourself appointed Chief of Surgery. And now you want to leave us dry. Well let me tell you something, Stark, something that you’re going to find hard to take. You are not giving orders anymore. You’re going to follow them. And the first order is to get rid of this girl.”

Stark found himself holding a dead connection. He slammed the phone down and replaced it in the drawer. He was trembling with rage. He had to hold himself back from smashing his own belongings. Instead he gripped the edge of the desk until his fingers turned milky white. Then his fury began to abate. Anger per se had never solved anything, Stark knew. He had to rely on his analytical powers. Wilton was right. Susan represented the first ripple of trouble in his progress in almost three years. The progress that had been made was beyond Stark’s wildest dreams. It had to go on. Medical science demanded it. Susan had to be eliminated. That was certain. But it had to be done in a way so as not to cause suspicion or alarm, especially from some narrow-minded people like Harris or Nelson, who lacked the vision Stark knew he had.

Stark got up from behind his massive desk and walked along the ranks of bookshelves. He was deep in thought and he let his hand carelessly caress the gilded edges of a first-edition Dickens. Suddenly it came to him in a moment of inspiration that brought a smile to his face.

“Beautiful… so appropriate,” he said out loud. He laughed, his anger already forgotten.