Gone Before Goodbye

Epilogue

Three days after Maggie gets back to Baltimore, she calls Vipers and asks to speak to Porkchop. She hasn’t seen him since that last day in the vineyard.

The woman who answers the payphone says he’s unreachable.

“Tell him it’s Maggie.”

“Porkchop is off the grid.”

“So you don’t know where he is?”

“No one does.”

“Suppose I really needed him.”

“He’s off the grid,” she says, “but we can put him back on it if there’s an emergency.” Then she adds in a kinder voice: “Give him time, Maggie.”

A week goes by. She calls Vipers again. The woman tells her the same thing. Another week passes. Same thing.

No sign of Porkchop.

Three weeks after that last day in France, Pinky answers the payphone when she calls.

“Porkchop is still incommunicado.”

“Tell him I know,” Maggie says. “Tell him I know, and I don’t care.”

There is a long pause on the other end of the line. Then Pinky says, “You think you know. But you don’t.”

Then he hangs up.

Two days later, Charles Lockwood calls her. “Oleg is in a coma. But that heart is still beating in his chest.”

BEAT... BEAT... BEAT...

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“Also The Vineyard — the whole operation — has been shut down.”

“Good.”

“No great loss,” Charles says. “Oleg never kept the best scientists and researchers in the end. The best scientists and researchers may complain about the rules and protocols, but they understand why they’re there. They want to work in the sunlight, not cut corners in the dark. That’s the part Oleg never understood.”

“I appreciate the call,” Maggie says. “Take care of yourself, Charles.”

“Let’s stay in touch,” he says.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she replies, but he’s already ended the call.

Maggie’s phone rings again. The caller ID tells her it’s the payphone at Vipers.

“Porkchop is back,” Pinky says.

“I’ll come up tomorrow.”

She disconnects the call and steps outside into the crisp night air. She takes a deep breath. This time of the year, the neighborhood always smells of freshly cut grass and backyard barbecues. The Burroughs family — Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter — sit on their front lawn. They all wave at Maggie. Maggie forces up a smile and waves back. Someone across the street is blasting a surprisingly touching Nick Cave ballad. His voice is raw and vulnerable as he repeatedly reminds a loved one that he’s waiting for them.

Maggie blinks, swallows, and lifts her phone into view. With a shaking finger, she clicks on the griefbot icon. The app comes to life.

Marc’s face appears. He smiles at her.

“Oh man, Mags, it’s good to see you.”

She stares at the screen. Nick Cave is singing to that same loved one to sleep now, sleep now, take as long as you need. Maggie closes her eyes and makes herself listen to the rest of the lyrics. When the song is over, she takes one last deep breath and heads back inside. When she enters the kitchen, Sharon looks up at her.

“We need to delete this,” Maggie says, pointing at the app. “For good.”

The train pulls into Penn Station.

Pinky waits for her out on 33rd Street. They drive in silence to Vipers for Bikers. It’s closed. Pinky unlocks the door and lets her in. And there, pacing in the room alone, is Porkchop. No Zen-like patience today. He doesn’t have his sunglasses on. He turns and looks at her with shattered eyes.

“You told Pinky you know,” he says.

Maggie nods.

“Tell me.”

“I saw your passport.”

Porkchop takes a deep breath. “When?”

“Right before Nadia showed up.”

They both stop.

Nadia.

“I had to let her go,” Porkchop says.

“I know.”

“Even if I’ll have to look over my shoulder.”

“It was the right call.”

“What else could I do?”

No need to answer that. Porkchop had pointed the gun at Nadia, his finger twitching on the trigger, his face twisted in anguish. But he didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he muttered, “It stays with you,” and told Nadia to go.

“What made you check my passport?” he asks.

“Your clothes were already in your room, and then Florence asked you if you’d been enjoying your stay — even though we just arrived. Why would she ask that? Then I looked at the flight schedules. There was nothing from JFK to Dubai stopping in London until later in the day. So I started thinking about it. After I called Trace to come home, he broke into Apollo Longevity. He wouldn’t do that just to get phenobarbital and clonazepam. He stole the THUMPR7 and the assisting equipment. Those would be his get-out-of-jail-free card. My guess is, he planned to put it in the Wells Fargo bank. But he never got the chance because, well, you killed him. That means you had the THUMPR7. How am I doing so far?”

“Pretty well.”

“So what was the deal you made, Porkchop?”

“I contacted Ivan Brovski via Barlow. I told him I had the artificial heart they’d been looking for. I would bring it to him. I would get you to France and help convince you to do the surgery. In return, they would pay us an extravagant amount of money and promise to leave us alone. That was the key — you and I would be out. I already knew who killed Marc. I already knew what happened to Trace—”

“But I didn’t.”

“You knew enough.”

“No, sorry, you don’t have the right to make that decision for me.”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Yeah, look how well that worked out for Marc.”

Porkchop winces. “I know. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

“No more secrets.”

“No more secrets,” Porkchop says.

There is something troubling in his tone.

“You have more?”

He gestures at her with his chin. “Why don’t you go first?”

Maggie says nothing.

“Do you want to tell me about your father’s gun, Maggie?”

Everything goes still, as if the very room were holding its breath.

Porkchop takes a step toward her. “You went down into your basement. That’s where your father hid his old thirty-eight. Sharon saw you. She was worried, so she called me.” He tilts his head. “What were you planning on doing with his gun?”

She says nothing.

“Trace was supposed to show up the next day. He killed Marc — and he was going to get away with it. You knew that. So tell me, Maggie, what did you plan on doing with your father’s thirty-eight?”

Tears run down her cheeks.

“When you kill a man,” Porkchop says, “it stays with you.”

“It stays with you...”

“And,” Maggie says, “you didn’t want that for me.”

“I didn’t want that for you.”

“And that’s why—”

“I wasn’t lying. We followed Trace. He planned on killing you.”

“And if he hadn’t been?”

“There’s no point in talking hypotheticals.”

“I love you,” she says.

Porkchop nods, his eyes now wet with tears too. “I love you too.”

She runs toward him then. She wraps her arms around him and pulls him close. She puts her head on his shoulder. Maggie’s eyes look to the left, to the center of the room, searching and finding that motorcycle, and for a moment, she is certain that Marc is right there, riding it, giving her that smile that always reached into her chest and gently twisted her heart.

It’s over.

“No more secrets,” she whispers again.

But she feels his body stiffen.

“Porkchop?”

He pulls away.

“What is it?”

“The deal I made with Ragoravich.”

“What about it?”

“I didn’t just bring him the medical equipment.”

She waits.

Porkchop looks at her, blinks, then turns to the side. He too is staring at the vintage bike he’d gifted Marc.

“He murdered my boy,” he says.

“I know.”

“He murdered my boy. And there he is, running his mouth, handing me all the same bullshit he told Nadia about how he’d wanted more organ transplants.”

The temperature in the room drops ten degrees. “What did you do, Porkchop?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“What?”

“I gave him his final wish.”

“What wish?”

He meets her gaze. “More organ transplants.”

His eyes grow cold now, distant.

And then Maggie sees it.

“Porkchop?”

“First, he donated his corneas. Restored someone’s vision.”

Maggie starts to shake her head.

“Then he donated a kidney. Probably saved a life. It’s what he believed in, right? It’s what he killed my boy for. Then he donated part of his lung — not too much or he’d die. I didn’t want that. Not yet anyway. Same with his liver. And then his pancreas. I don’t remember what else.” Porkchop swallows, but his voice stays steady. “And then in the end, when I realized Oleg Ragoravich would do anything to get hold of a beating heart...”

He doesn’t say more. He doesn’t have to.

They stand there. Together. Maggie has no idea for how long. Eventually someone unlocks the door. They come into the bar. Then someone else. Someone says hi. More people come in. Maggie and Porkchop break apart, greet people, accept hugs, but all Maggie can hear is the same sound she heard when she was leaving the operating room.

BEAT... BEAT... BEAT...