Body Parts (Rye & Claire 1) (7 page)

Claire scanned the wall above her. She didn’t see Amy, but she saw movement.

She shined her light on what looked like a ball of mud about the size of a basketball.

“Amy, I can see you!”

“I don’t want to be here any more, Aunt Claire.”

Claire gasped as a little hand reached out. “Amy, please don’t move. I’ll come get you”

The hand retracted. “OK.”

When wells were dug by hand,
ledges or handholds were built into the walls so the digger could climb
out. Amy was sitting on a little ledge extending out less then a foot
from the wall.

Chapter Nine

The two doctors
leaned over the stainless steel sink at the center of the scrub station, antibacterial soap up to their elbows.

Dr. Frank Mason, the younger
of the two, would be assisting Dr. Austin Young, the senior surgeon at
Medford General, in the removal of a damaged kidney from an accident
victim.

The gowning nurses hadn’t entered the scrub room and Dr. Mason was only on his second scrub.

“How do you do it, Frank?” Young said.

“I’m sorry, do what?” Mason said.

“The cars, the house…and all the trips. When I was your age I struggled for years just to pay off student loans.”

Mason rinsed and began scrubbing for the third and last time. “Good karma, I guess.”

“I’m serious! You know that I
make quarterly entrees on every surgical resident based on both
in-house performance and community standing. I’m obligated as senior
surgeon and assistant director of Medford General, and I have a board of
directors to account to. That meeting is coming up next month. Looking
at your income and the number of surgeries you perform each month I find
that you’re living beyond your means. You have a good community
profile, Frank, numerous events on behalf of the hospital, but nothing
to indicate an outside source of income. All the staff sees is that
you’re working half the hours and living twice as well as anyone else at
your level. You’re making waves, Doctor. The board will see this and
ask me how you do it. So I’m asking you.”

Mason turned from the sink,
arms dripping, and faced the senior surgeon. “What would you have me do,
sell my home because it makes people jealous?” He wasn’t yelling, but
his voice held the indignant tone of one being accused.

“No, Frank, just enlighten me. Where’s the money for these excesses coming from?”

At that moment, the head
surgical nurse entered the room. Dr. Mason spun around and barked at
her, “You’ve got five minutes to find another assist for Dr. Young,”
then slammed through the heavy double doors and stormed down the hall.

Chapter Ten

Simms’s hair was meticulously styled
,
held in place with mousse. His posture was more erect than usual. New
sheets, starched and creased, covered the donor. The operating table sat
diagonally so the elevated camera could view every detail of the
surgery. The anesthesiologist was prominently seated where the camera
couldn’t miss him.

Simms held his right hand out to the side. “CD tube, please.”

He inserted a tube that
carried carbon dioxide through a small incision into the body cavity
that would lift the abdominal wall away from the kidney. Satisfied with
the space, he made a ten-inch incision, cutting through the abdominal
wall.

Simms extended his right hand again. “Number 14 shear, please.”

Nurse Clouse slapped a tool
into his palm that looked like a gardener’s tool for trimming branches.
Making a show for the camera, he snipped off one rib, lifted it out and
placed it on a tray. The camera zoomed in on the organ cavity and the
five-inch long, reddish-brown occupant.

Simms looked at the camera. “As you can see, the kidney is healthy and fully exposed for easy access.”

Clouse crossed the room
giving a wide birth to the area covered by the camera. Knowing the
doctor was right-handed, she came up on his left side.

She leaned in. “Doctor, the light…you have a call on the red phone. Would you like me to finish the procedure?”

Simms buried his anger at
being interrupted. He turned to the camera in the ceiling and said,
“This is Surgical Nurse Clouse. She has over twenty-five years
experience as both nurse and surgeon, she will finish the procedure.” He
walked out of the room.

Simms snatched up the phone. “Yes?” he hissed.

“Peter, this is Frank Mason. You said you were going to call me.”

“Shut up and listen. This
call has just jeopardized a sale. I was in the middle of a kidney
procedure. This was not a recording. I had the recipient viewing the
entire procedure from Brazil. Now what the hell is so important that it
couldn’t wait until the next batch?”

“There’s a problem. I’ve got
to leave Medford General. The assistant director is getting suspicious.
Why didn’t you call, what happened to last week’s batch that I was
supposed to work on?”

Simms pressed the phone against his body and took a deep calming breath.

“STDs, drugs and turndowns,
but Rosie assures me that this next batch will be better. Look Frank,
give notice and come on up, I’ll put you in one of the productions again
and you can see the batch for yourself.”

“God, I just don’t know.”

Simms wondered, was Frank
getting cold feet? Did I expose too much of the operation too soon? “You
didn’t seem to mind that blonde in the last production,” he said.

“Yeah, and where is she now?”

“Thanks to a background we
somehow missed, she’s back at her old job, hooking in Seattle. We can’t
risk discovery Frank. I’m sorry I snapped, it’s just that Brazil’s new
territory and the televised link-up cost a fortune. Come on out and stay
at my place, think about it there. It’s important that you leave the
hospital now, before there’s a problem. What do you say?”

The phone was silent, “Frank, you there?”

“I’ll be in touch, Peter.”

Simms slammed down the
handset. There was no time for this; he didn’t need another doctor.
After all, Mason wasn’t his choice. He’d have to talk to his partner
about this.

Simms walked down the hall to
the changing room to get out of his scrubs, then headed for his office
located on the north side of the tiny clinic. He hesitated when he
opened the door and saw that someone was in his office.

In his chair, feet propped up
on his desk, sat a busty brunette. His eyes moved slowly up from her
long, stockinged legs to her barely covered, narrow hips.
When
the door opened, she dropped her legs to the floor and pivoted forward,
her large breasts nearly vaulting out of her blouse.

Eyebrows arched, blood red lips puckered, Rosie Rehnquist blew Simms a kiss.

“Well this is an unexpected visit. How are things at Lewd and Lascivious?” Simms asked.

“I thought I’d surprise you, see how my vice president in charge of operations is getting along.” Rosie chuckled at the pun.

Simms closed the door as he
entered. Rosie stood as he stepped around the desk to greet her. The two
embraced in a long kiss. When he pulled away, Rosie dropped down into
the plush chair, he returned to the front of the desk.

“How are things, my love?” Rosie asked.

“Well, I have good news and a
problem. First, the good. I’ve closed the sale on a kidney with Gomez
in Brazil. He just watched a procedure on live TV. A hundred grand will
move into our off shore account…” Simms looked at his watch, “… in forty
minutes. Once the money shows up in the account, I’ll send off the
kidney, which will be in his hands in twenty-four hours. Looks like live
TV will be a great sales tool, at least for overseas. I went out on a
limb to get the money for the satellite feed, though.” Simms broke eye
contact with Rosie and glanced around the room. “I took $100,000 for a
liver I don’t have. I just couldn’t wait the seven days for the next
batch of girls to come up to the mansion.”

Rosie sat quietly for a minute. “When is the delivery date?”

“Day after tomorrow, do you have somebody in mind?”

“Maybe so. I have an Italian
stallion who’s driving the women off. Actually, he’s the reason I’m
here. This next batch will be a slim one because of him.”

Simms knew that Rosie had few scruples.

“Is there any way you could get a hypodermic into him?” Simms asked.

“I could figure something out.”

Simms began rummaging around in the top left drawer of his desk, finally pulling out a brown oblong box.

“You’d have to do it tomorrow
morning at the latest. I’d have to have him by noon. If you get him up
here on time, Clouse will extract, I’ll transport to L & L and you
can take it to San Francisco day after tomorrow, midnight.

Simms slid the box across the desk.

“It’s an empty syringe; all you have to do is pump some air into an artery. The neck would be good.”

“Consider it done. Now, you said you’re having a problem?”

“It’s that Doctor Mason from
Medford General. The idiot’s getting cold feet. Right now we barely have
enough donors to keep me busy. How did you find him, anyway?”

Rosie licked her lips and
made a slight thrust with her hips. Simms didn’t give her a chance to
answer. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“Hubble can handle him and we’ll send Derrick along to help,” Rosie said.

“Tell Hubble that Mason’s a
reluctant donor,” she said as she got up to leave; she had to get back
to Medford, a four-hour trip from Denton on the coast. The mansion and
the clinic were an additional half-hour of winding roads above the
coastal town.

“One question,” Simms said, “how are you going to get this Italian stallion to let you stick him with a needle?”

Rosie gave him a scandalously delicious smile. “You might say I’ll just love him to death.” She turned and left the office.

Simms didn’t attempt to
imagine what she might mean by that. Or what Rosie had meant when she
said that he should tell Hubble that Mason was a reluctant donor. Hubble
had been Rosie’s attorney and strong arm ever since he’d known her. The
guy had always given him the creeps.

Simms pressed the speed dial button under the letter H.

“Hubble here,” said a deep, gravely voice.

“This is Simms. Where are you now?”

“On the road”

“Good. I’ve got a couple of
problems in Medford that need taking care of. I was down there earlier
to pick up a blonde scheduled for extraction and that damn director
wanted me to wait. I had to hurry back to the clinic so I left empty
handed. I want you to grab the blonde. Her name’s Crystal Cassidy. Bring
her up here, and keep her in the dark.”

Simms paused, waiting to see if Hubble had any questions, even though he didn’t really expect any.

“Rosie said that you could
help me with Doctor Frank Mason. He’s at Medford General. She said to
tell you that he was a reluctant donor. Oh and Hubble, I want that
blonde delivered untouched.”

“That will mean two trips.”

“The doctor is the priority. Now just do it.”

No response, no nothing, just dial tone.

It drove Simms crazy that Hubble was so unresponsive sometimes, but it really didn’t matter, he always got the job done.

Chapter Eleven

Frank mason was careful
to make his rounds avoiding contact with other doctors and staff as
much as possible. He was exhausted as he exited the last room, his last
patient, and headed for the surgeon’s lounge and his locker. He glanced
at the large wall clock and moaned.

“Two a.m. Jesus.”

He thought about Simms’s
offer to drive up and be in another one of his movies. One more late
night and he wouldn’t be able to drive home, let alone up the Oregon
coast.

Wearily, Mason pulled his
coat from his locker and put it on. He grabbed his keys, dropped them
into the right-hand pocket and shut the locker. He was too tired to
worry about bumping into any of the staff; besides, at two in the
morning, the hospital was operating with a skeleton crew.

He got in his metal flake
blue Fiat spider convertible at the far end of the parking lot, turned
the key and the little engine roared to life. He hung a U-turn so tight
that it made the tires squeal as he sped out of the lot onto the
Lawrence Expressway.

Taking the Hillsboro exit,
the Fiat began to climb the narrow, winding road that led into the hills
and eventually to Mason’s hilltop home.

He enjoyed this part of the
drive; most of the turns banked just right. He knew the road by heart,
where he could straighten out a curve and where the blind spots dictated
he stay in his lane.

It was while accelerating
through the first set of turns that he caught a glimpse of a reddish
light ahead. He cut his speed coming out of the last curve at the sight
of flares and a van half on the shoulder, half in the road.

Probably just spun out of control; regardless he’d better stop.

Cupping his hands around his mouth Mason gave a shout. “Hello in the van.”

As he walked toward it, he
saw it was an old ambulance. He continued walking to the front and
peeked in the window but the driver and passenger seats were empty,
although the keys were in the ignition. A quick look told him that the
vehicle wasn’t over the edge, the front tires were clearly on the dirt
shoulder and there didn’t appear to be any damage to the front grill or
bumper.

“Hello,” Mason shouted again.

He came around the rear of
the old ambulance, again no damage. When he reached for the door handle
the rear double doors suddenly flew open and two men reached out and
grabbed him by the arms and shoulders, half lifting, half dragging him
into the back.

He was so surprised that he
didn’t resist. Before he could speak, they slammed him onto a gurney and
while one of the men strapped him down another placed a cloth over his
mouth and nose, and Dr. Frank Mason’s world blurred to black.