Prelude to a Scream (43 page)

Stanley nodded dumbly.

“
So let's get on with it
, Djell says. And the Jaime guy says,
Not much anesthesiology going on here
. And Djell says,
Good. You can assist me. Shaky hands don't differentiate shit from chocolate to a cadaver donor. Not to mention warm ischemia.
And Jaime says
Who's first?
and Djell says,
We might as well continue with this one. He's all wired up
. And Jaime says
You want I should bring him out of it? Let him watch? After all, he
— and he points to the dead wife.

“
No
, Djell says then.
It won't bring Sibyl back. And besides, it'll slow us down
. Are you with me, Stanley?”

Stanley blinked.

“Good. I want you to know exactly how it went, Stanley. I am just thinking it was pretty extraordinary of this guy Djell to let bygones be bygones like that, in the name of efficiency, when he says to Jaime,
It's a lot of work. We're going to be at it for the rest of the day, at least. True enough
, Jaime agrees, and he starts pointing at you and counting his fingers. He points at the dead woman and counts some more. He doubles his figures for the white guy and the black guy and adds more for the guy upstairs, which I didn't understand at the time but finally he throws a few of his nasty fingers at me.
Wow
, Jaime says.
This is twelve kidneys
—
Ten
, corrects Djell, pointing at you.
Amyloidosis. Oh yes,
says Jaime.
But twelve lungs
. Yes, Djell confirms sadly.
And twelve corneas
, continues Jaime,
and six livers as well as spleens and pituitary glands and whatever else you think we can handle.
—
Oh my god!
he slaps his forehead
Tickers
—
there's six tickers! We're never going to have to work again!

“
If and when we get out of this pickle,
stipulates Djell,
we'll never be
able
to work again, either. Okay. Onward. Let's fortify with some blow…

“And the next thing you know these guys have sniffed up about fifteen grains of cocaine apiece, they've rolled you over, Stanley, and are about to initiate a cruciate abdominal incision. I believe you saw some photographs of one recently. Otherwise known as the Big Zipper.”

Iris paused. “Stanley? You following me? You look a little gray.”

Stanley felt a little gray.

“Anyway, there isn't that much more to tell. I had to do something or I was dead meat. You too, of course. And it was easy. The gun was right there. Before they knew what had happened I had the drop on them. You know, it was a funny thing, that arm of yours being still attached to the gun.” She smiled. “It was just like a stock. You know those old pistols they used to make, where you could attach a stock to them and kind of turn them into a short-barreled rifle?” She raised an eyebrow.

Stanley's mouth was filling with bitter saliva.

“No?” she asked, a little severely.

He abruptly nodded.

“I thought so.” She smiled again. “Well, I'm here to tell you, that add-on stock is a good idea. It makes for very straight shooting. Just one shot each, was all it took. Which was a good thing, because that was all the slugs left in the clip.”

For the first time she looked as if she were looking at something more interesting than a specimen of loserhood. “That .45 automatic…” she shook her head, “that's a lot of pistol.”

Stanley shivered.

“Anyway, darling, here we are, together at last. And I'm going to take real good care of you. After a while, who knows? Maybe you'll learn to take care of me.”

Stanley didn't say a word.

The door swung open and a cart entered, followed by a young-woman in a nurse's uniform.

“Hi, Shananne,” Iris chirped, not turning around.

“Oh, hi, Iris. I didn't know you were still in here. I can come back—”

Stay, stay, oh please stay
… Stanley thought loudly.

“Oh, no, no,” said Iris pleasantly. “Just visiting our local hero, here.”

Shananne showed the tired smile endemic to the night shift. “Guess you two got a lot to talk about.”

Iris actually blushed. “I guess so,” she said. A little silence passed among them like a handful of water until it was gone, and Iris said, “So. How's tricks?”

“Busy,” Shananne said. “These cutbacks got me hopping all over the place tonight. I got three floors to cover. Three floors! Time I get through the first round it's time to start back on the next one. Can't even weasel time for a coffee, with all this work.”

“That Floyd,” Iris smiled. “He likes his coffee.”

Now it was Shananne's turn to blush.

Her eyes watching Stanley, Iris said, “Want me to handle this one?”

Stanley went cold. It was as if a platen of dry ice had been applied to his heart. He whimpered internally.

“Oh,” said Shananne, “would you?”

“I'd be delighted,” said Iris over her shoulder. She looked back at Stanley. “Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be taking care of Stanley here for a good long time.”

It was plain to both Shananne and Stanley that Iris was enjoying herself. “Can you manage from your chair?”

“If you'll hand me Doctor's most recent commandments,” Iris said, “I'll be fine.”

Shananne retrieved the clipboard from the foot of the bed and handed it to Iris.

“Thank you,” Iris said, and set it on the bed without looking at it.

From her cart Shananne extracted a tray containing a covered beaker full of cotton swabs, a bottle of alcohol, capped and loaded syringes, and a paper cup with three or four variously sized and colored pills in it. She placed the tray on the bed next to the clipboard.

“Thank you so much, Shananne,” Iris cooed.

“Thank
you
, Iris,” Shananne replied, backing out of the door.

“Give my best to Floyd.”

“Before the hour strikes.”

“He's on five, is he?”

“Two pings up.”

The two women laughed gaily, conspiratorially.

The closer hissed the door shut.

Iris released the brake and rolled her chair as close to the head of the bed as it would go.

Like a rooster that needs to turn sideways to see the ax, Stanley jerked his head to watch her.

Resetting the brake, Iris selected a syringe from the tray and sat back in the wheelchair. She propped her elbows on the armrests and tapped the capped syringe thoughtfully into the palm of her opposite hand, like a teacher with a ruler.

“Look, Iris…,” Stanley began huskily.

“Relax, Stanley,” she interrupted brusquely. “You know the routine.” She leaned forward and plucked away the blanket covering his right shoulder.

For the first time Stanley saw the stump. Close to the shoulder, it was white and withered. Toward the stump it was discolored, a purplish black bruise eliding into a graying yellow, the terminus crusted with congealed blood and a rust-stained gauze dressing.

The stump jerked twice, as if to lift something.

Stanley wanted to look away, to put his nose back between his good eye and the stump, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Iris steadied the stump and expertly swabbed it at the shoulder. “First the antibiotic.” She injected the serum. Practically before he realized it was happening, she had discarded the empty syringe.

“Now your favorite,” she said, picking up a second hypodermic.

“Morphine.” She smoothly injected him again, right next to the first puncture, then swabbed the two sites as one.

“Nothing to it. Right, Stanley?” She dropped the second empty syringe next to the first. “In a moment or two you should be feeling decidedly groovier than you feel now.”

Cocking his head this way and that Stanley searched her face in vain for some clue, some iota of betrayal, accusation, guilt, or even forgiveness. “Iris,” he croaked.

“Not a word, my hero. Don't bother. There's nothing you can say. We're going to take care of each other, Stanley. You and I. Now,” she smiled, “you've got all the scars a scar-loving woman could want. Plenty to work with. It'll take me months just to memorize them. Might never — ever ever — get bored with them. What do you think of that?”

I
think that's the shittiest thing I ever heard
, Stanley thought.

“We're going to get a little bungalow out in the avenues,” she continued. “I know you're fond of the apartment I already rent. And I am too. But you know what? It doesn't have a fireplace, and I want a fireplace. You know why?”

Stanley jerked his head stupidly, meaninglessly,
uncomprehendingly.

“I'll tell you why. I want a fireplace with a mantle, so I have a place to mount that dead arm of yours with that empty gun taped to it. Kind of like the musket we won the war with, you know? What do you think of this idea? Isn't it neat?”

Shitty
, thought Stanley.
Shitty idea.

“I've already arranged it with Corrigan. He's going to speak to the Oakland coroner who, Sean happens to know, moonlights as a taxidermist. Corrigan set you up, you know,” she added parenthetically. “When he saw you weren't going to come across for him he let you run. You should have told him what you knew.” She patted the blanket over his knee and his whole body jumped. “As it was, you got a couple hours' jump on him.” He was terrified by her touch. “You didn't get a new kidney, Stanley, but with tender and loving dialysis you might last another year. We'll get you a rocking chair. You can spend your final days planted in front of a nice warm fire, right where you can contemplate your souvenir from the organs wars, mounted on the flagstones above the mantle.”

Stanley's skull had begun to vibrate atop his spine.

But she wasn't finished. “I'd like to say we could take your truck out on the freeway once in a while. You know, for a little…” she nearly blushed, “you know. Your favorite thing… ?”

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was no olive branch. It was a mauling from a Get-Well Bear.

“But, gosh, you can learn to settle for reciprocal scarlingus, …can't you?”

He narrowed his one eye at the little brown stuffed bear in her lap.
If I had two hands
, he thought, beaming hatred,
I'd tear that fucking thing's head off
.

“Stanley, she chided. “Are you listening to me?”

He leveled his eye at her.

“Because,” she said coyly, “there's more.”

“That's okay, Iris,” he whispered. “I've heard enough for one—.”

“No you haven't.” She made a tight smile with her mouth. “It's not that I begrudge you your favorite thing, Stanley. …Not exactly.”

No
, he thought.
I'm sure it isn't
.

“I mean, I just don't feel right… but it's not —”

“No rush,” Stanley said quietly. “We needn't rush… recovery…”

She nodded thoughtfully.

Then she abruptly pinched his leg, hard. “Feeling the morphine?”

Indeed, he had begun to feel… simple? Numb? Simply numb? Her pinch was vague and far away.

He nodded.

“Shananne is a good girl,” Iris said. “Always gives a hundred and ten per cent, especially to a hero. She had me flying like a kite a couple days ago.” She placed a hand on the edge of the coverlet. “Let's get that catheter out of the way.”

Stanley thought to clutch the coverlet to his chin. One hand, the left one, physically reacted to this thought. The other couldn't. His left hand did fine, clutching at the blankets, and the IV pole attached to its arm rattled. The morphine was good, but it didn't prevent him from despairing of the impulse that went from his brain to a hand that no longer existed. Five non-existent fingers gripped the sheets. Ineffectually.

Iris gathered the cloth where the phantom fingers failed, and tugged.

“Now Stanley,” she grimaced, condensing sheet and fingers into her fist. “Be a good boy.”

With superior strength she pulled the coverlet until the fingers of his real hand peeled away from it, one by one. “Be a good boy,” she whispered maternally.

She swept the coverlet aside.

He didn't understand what he saw. A tube was there just like the last time. A short rigid plastic tube stuck up and connected to another, flexible tube, which led away to a waste vessel hidden beneath the bed. There was a clamp on the flexible tube, but it wasn't closed.