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Swanson&039;s e "And you orried about the neighbor seeing you?"
"He arrived just after dawn, I doubt anyone saw hiuests" As soon as possible after the transplant, the buyers left their careful seclusion at the clinic and recovered under close supervision in one of Ronald Swanson&039;s guest cottages-equally secluded and much less likely to be accidentally discovered Who, after all, would wonder at a wealthywealthy friends "I can only stress that this may be our one chance for this particu?lar match"
"But here "
"I can do all the preliminaries here He won&039;t have to be moved until the last possible moment" She watched Swanson openly as he stood and walked to athat looked out over the property, the closest of the two guest houses clearly visible through the trees "It is, of course, your decision"
"And if I tell you to get rid of hio ahead"
He didn&039;t seem to expect an answer, so she waited silently
"Well," he sighed at last, pausing to drink a mouth?ful of tepid tea "As I&039;ve said before, it&039;s a waste of money if you hire a specialist and then don&039;t listen to them You&039;re the doctor, and if you believe this is our best possible chance for this o ahead I&039;ll call our buyer" All at once, he jabbed finger at her "You&039;re sure he&039;s healthy?"
"I&039;m positive"
"Good Because after that last fiasco, a satisfied cus?to showers are expected to clear by noon and the greater Vancouver region will enjoy a beautiful afternoon with terees The department of Parks and Recreation reports "
Tony hit the mute button and frowned Television had become an immediate news source-the camera crews occasionally arrived at cri the whole black ation, there should&039;ve been so about a Met?ropolitan Toronto Police Officer beaten up and strapped to a bed in a North Vancouver clinic
Henry had said the police were going to the clinic, so the police had gone to the clinic That much was inevitable
"Okay, so the rest of the country hates Toronto- they still wouldn&039;t have just left him there, would they?"
He put the sound back on for the baseball scores, set the VCR to record the news at noon and at six, and turned off the TV, unable to shake the feeling that so," he told himself as he stuffed a clean shirt in his backpack "So it didn&039;t make the early news; so what? It was probably too early" He picked up his roller blades, then he sighed and put the, I&039;ll be at Gerry&039;s and the phone nue with a Gandydancer ht it would all be over by sunset, that there&039;d be no uneasy spirits waiting at the foot of his bed Tony didn&039;t plan on being around when Doug and his handless friend arrived to prove hilass of water We going to feed hi to feed him Go and see if there&039;s any food in the kitchenette"
"I&039;rumbled
Dr Mui paused on her way to the bedrooainst her legs "I beg your pardon?"
The big aze, then his eyes dropped, he h for yourself as well, you&039;ll be staying here as long as he is"
He leaned back over the counter, looking worried "What about the clinic?"
"Harry and Toe without you for a few days" She waited pointedly for hi as he&039;d been told, then went into the bedroom "I know you&039;re awake, Detective Open your eyes"
Celluci&039;d heard that voice before, back in the clinic This was the wo to in the hall, the woh he hadn&039;t h to convince her to leave hiht that the lack of emotion in the quiet voice, the cold, clinical discussion of his fate, had made her sound the way he&039;d always assuh people were cattle She sounded a lotundead than Vicki ever had
Except that the sun was up and this wo around and he had to aderous as she sounded Watching her cross to the bed, he suddenly remembered a line from the first Addams Family movie, "I&039;m a ho con?sidered, it wasn&039;t very co
"So" He was pleased to hear he sounded a lot less shaky than he felt "What are you planning?"
"So," Dr Muihi to decide whether or not Richard had panicked unnecessarily when he&039;d brought the detective in, she&039;d had hi the answer to that question out of his captive-without success In the end, she&039;d concluded it was better to be safe than sorry After all, he had been following Richard&039;s vehicle, so he had to know so
"Obviously, what I do or don&039;t know doesn&039;t matter any more, or you wouldn&039;t be in here"
"Very astute, Detective" Because the guest cot?tages were used by recovering buyers, the ruffles, and comforters, and pillows covered a hospital bed Sulli?van had installed the standard restraints "I had a lab run a blood sahtly elevated, you&039;re a very healthy ood news" Twisting his neck at a painful angle, he ht while she lifted equips with the hose attached looked very fae of the table, one end swung free Blood bags "Jesus H Christ "
Dr Mui glanced down at him and shook her head "You needn&039;t look at me like I&039;m some kind of vaood use"
To very good use? All at once, it becaive hie at all "Pretransplant transfusions to help the new body accept the kidney?"
"Precisely" But she volunteered nothing further, iven blood before, on numerous occa?sions, but this time he couldn&039;t take his eyes off the needle It looked about six inches long and as big around as a drinking straw He jumped when she swabbed the inside of his elboith alcohol and tried to jerk his arth of rubber hose
"This doesn&039;t have to hurt," she told him, needle poised for entry, "but it can If you move, it may take two or three attempts to find the vein"
"Two or three?" He watched the point descend "Put like that, I think I&039;ll stay still"
"Very wise"
His blood surged up into the hose and disappeared over the edge of the bed Oh, yeah, Vicki&039;s going to be really pissed now It was a coht He let his head fall back onto the pillow "What a, Doctor will do"
"Can I assuuts about your motives, your methods, and the reasons you don&039;t believe you&039;ll be caught"
"You can"
Froht it was a fairly safe assumption There didn&039;t seem to be much else to say, so he kept quiet In Celluci&039;s experience, few people could handle silence After a very short time they&039;d start to talk just to fill it with noise He&039;d gotten a nuet one today Finally, unable to stand it any longer, he said, "You&039;d have gotten aith it if they hadn&039;t found that body in the harbor"
"The body found in the harbor has not been identi?fied The police will find no record of his operation in any of the local hospitals, so they&039;ll assu with a speed that said she&039;d done thisfor a full one "The ree, will direct the search even farther from the truth As the entire incident becomes more and more compli?cated, and no one steps forward to advocate for the deceased, budget cuts should kill the investigation entirely"
"The police investigation," Celluci pointed out ation has ended," Dr Mui reminded him "Your friends don&039;t wish to become involved with the police, and the officers they sent to find you " She spread her hands " did not Your friends will not find you here"
You have no idea how resourceful my friends can be But he didn&039;t say it aloud as he had no desire to put the good doctor on her guard She seearlic over the door, just in case "Besides " A drop of blood glistened on the end of the needle as she pulled it fro" A cotton ball and a bandage later, she was on her way to the door
"Doctor?"
Her expression, as she turned, clearly said she was not happy about being questioned
Celluci grinned, figuring a little char Will I ever play the piano again"
Dr Mui&039;s lips pressed into a thin line "No," she said and left
A few ain, the door opened Tensed er?ous than the big ot to feed you"
"And you are?"
"Sullivan That&039;s all you&039;ve got to know" It didn&039;t take long for Celluci to realize why Sullivan was sh to burn the inside of hishis jaw shut kept hi air until he sed When he coughed orange juice out his nose, the lit?tered Vicki&039;d called them cow eyes, but they looked more like puppy eyes to him Unfortunately, the puppy appeared to be rabid
The cloth that scrubbed his face hard enough to lift skin, squeezed soap into his mouth
"Christ, where did you learn your bedside ston Penitentiary"
"You worked in the infirston Pen?"
Sullivan nodded
"Why?" Celluci spat out soap "Because you&039;ve got a deep abiding need to nurture?"
The shout the torment, broad?ened "Because I like to hurt people, and there&039;s not ue with, Celluci ad in pain as Sullivan heaved hi knuckles deep into thighonce to have a bottle of water poured down his throat
"You need to replace your fluids," Sullivan told him as he choked
Lunch was a repeat of breakfast as far as Sullivan getting his jollies was concerned only it involved soup and a shackled trip to the toilet Celluci knew the escape attempt was dooain," Sullivan growled as he slammed the detective&039;s head into the wall "And I&039;ll break your legs"
He was still searching for a witty response when his head reimpacted with the wallpaper
"On Thursday afternoons, Ronald Swanson always visits the hospice he created as a tribute to his dead wife" Followed by the camera lot and shoved herout of the late model Chevy "Mr Swanson, a feords, please"
He looked down at the microphone then up at the camera and finally at Patricia Chou "A feords about what?" he asked
"The work that&039;s being done here The dire neces?sity for people to sign their organ donor cards so that places like this don&039;t need to exist" She s remarkably sharklike "Or perhaps you&039;d like to use the tienu-ous oxymoron if I&039;ve ever heard one Do you actually believe that caans would be provided for re? Everyone has soan to replace the confusion "If you want to speak with ain, make an appointment withtoward the building
The cameraman danced back out of the ith practiced ease, never losing his focus "Do we fol?low?" he asked
"No need" She switched off her"I acco Mr Swanson&039;s cage Keeping him off bal?ance Nervous people make mistakes" "You really don&039;t like him, do you?"
"It&039;s not aa story And believe youbusinesset in the car, Brent, or we&039;re going to , she repeated to herself as she peeled rubber out of the parking lot Oo, that&039;s cutting edge journalism, that is She wanted Swanson so bad she could taste it I wonder what&039;s happened to that detective
"I just ran into Patrica Chou in the parking lot" His tone suggesting he&039;d have preferred to run over Patrica Chou in the parking lot, Swanson closed the door to Dr Mui&039;s office "Sonore her" Dr Mui stood and smoothed the wrinkles frooad you into creating news"
"Whywith television crews and o bother an actor?" He swept his palm back over the da, do you?"
The doctor studied hie with the reporter had clearly unsettled hih there were, in?deed, nothing to know
"If she&039;s watching"
"She&039;d assume, like anyone else, my visit concerned the clinic"
"But "
"She&039;s ether "I beg your pardon, Dr Mui So about that woman invari?ably causes me to overreact"
"Apparently, she has that effect on most people," the doctor allowed "Do we have a buyer?"
"We do He&039;ll be here tomorrow afternoon"
"Good I&039;ll set up the transfusions as soon as he arrives, and if all goes well, we&039;ll perforery the day after" She brushed past hio around, have there been any changes I should know about since last week?" he asked as he followed her into the hall
"Mathew Singh died this rief and anger in his voice contrasted sharply with the clinical detachment in the doctor&039;s "He was only thirty-seven years old"
"He had been on dialysis for soo"
"It&039;s crian to overwhel about an uncomplicated operation with broad pa?ra with our legislators that they can&039;t see pre-sumed consent upon brain death is only the moral option I mean, look at France-they&039;ve had presumed consent since 1976 and their society hasn&039;t cru, and you can hardly blame that on transplants"
As Swanson continued his familiar diatribe, Dr Mui worked out a tiht hours Attention to detail had brought theh the odds of their unwilling donor causing any trouble were slim, he was a detail that had to be carefully considered Live transplants had a ninety-seven percent initial success rate over ninety-two percent for cadavers, and, since the very rich could not only afford the best is but tended to be paranoid about post-op infec-tions, all of their buyers had, thus far, beaten the odds Perhaps in this particular instance she should forgo that five percent
Celluci jerked awake out of a dreareat deal of blood and not much else he could re of his heart, feeling the sweat pool be?neath the restraints, a little surprised that he&039;d slept at all Froe in the pattern of shadow on the opposite wall, he figured it had to be close to four, maybe five in the afternoon Sunset was at 7:48 By nine at the absolute latest, Vicki would be riding to the rescue
She&039;d tear the clinic, and anything that got in her way, apart looking for hiht, a himself for a mo?ment or tith a vision of Vicki and Sullivan face-to-face
If the clinic cao after Swanson If Swanson was involved, the calvary would arrive beforethe police in after his butt was safe and sound But if Swanson wasn&039;t involved-and there was still no sure indication that he was-Vicki&039;d have no quick way of finding him
And she&039;d only have until dawn
He had an unpleasant feeling that daould be the deadline in e over the puncture in the crease of his elbow itched, suggesting he not wait around to be rescued If they were taking his blood, what else would they take? Could surgery be far behind? And after surgery
"Oh, Christ, that&039;s just what I need-an eternity haunting Henry-fucking-Fitzroy&039;&039;