"My morality isss my own affair," he retorted, unruffled. "On the new face, I will deliver. On the gun, no."
"What can I say to change your mind?"
"Nothing," he said flatly. "There is self-preservation to be considered, you see. You will be gone, but I will remain. And you might not get clear away, in which case there would surely be an exhaustive invessstigation." He was silent for a moment. "You will have to make up your mind that the new face I will consstruct for you will be worth your invessstment in me."
"All right." I shrugged it off. The gun would have helped, but the cash was next best. "What's the program now?"
"We will begin on your face next week. A few quessstions now, please. You are a good healer? Or perhaps a cut heals slowly?"
"It heals quickly."
He nodded. "I will take blood sssamples. You should know there is a choice in the type of skin graft possible. With the dermatome, a skin-slicing machine, we are able to cut extremely thin slices of skin from a wide area. The choice comes in the thickness of the skin removed. We can take the top two layers, known as the epithelium and the deeper corium, which would conssstitute what is known as a full-thickness graft. Or we can take a thinner slice including only half the corium, a partial-thickness graft."
"What's the difference, Doc?"
"All transssplants contract and change color after healing. The thicker the transssplant, the less change, which is important in connection with the face. Conversssely, though, the thicker the transssplant the more difficulty in getting it to take permanently. A partial-thickness graft is sometimes more efficient though less esssthetic."
I held out my stiffened hands to him, showing him the encrusted burn scars. "The hands are more important than the face, Doc. I've got to get good usage from them again. Couldn't you do these first? That way we'd know more about how I heal before you get into the tough part of things." I had a better reason than the one I was using. I wanted all the healing time possible on my hands to restore suppleness.
"Your point has merit," Dr. Afzul acknowledged. "Except that in the case of the hands the procedure is different. I will cut loose flaps of skin in your chest, known as pedicules, and insert your hands inside until the skin of your chest grows to the backs of your hands. Then a series of incisssions will detach your hand from your chest while new skin is growing underneath. One hand at a time in this process, of course."
"What about the face?"
"Two different techniques will be involved. For the forehead and the nose, I will probably peel flaps of skin down from your scalp, since you will have to wear a hairpiece anyway. For the rest, mobile transplants from arms, back, and thighs. Not everything we attempt will be successful." He pursed his lips. "One thing I will tell you now. Do not get burned again, at least not in the same areas. What I do this time, no one can do a second time."
I was only half listening. "How long will all this take?"
"With trial and error, ten months. Perhaps longer."
I'd hoped for something quicker, but he was the doctor. Literally. "Okay. Blow the starting whistle anytime."
He took the blood samples before I left the office.
That night I slipped out of bed after everyone in the ward was asleep and Kern and James were having coffee in the galley. I walked to the John and opened the closet door where they kept the brooms, mops, and disinfectants. There was a case of toilet tissue in one corner of the closet. I had looked it over good a week before. The case contained ninety-six rolls of tissue, packed eight across and twelve deep. Only about a third of the rolls were gone from the case.
I dug down into the case, removing'a roll from each layer until I reached the bottom. I took the bottom roll out entirely. From the pocket of my robe I removed twelve hundred-dollar bills, which I rolled loosely and stuffed into the cardboard core of the toilet tissue roll. I put it back in the bottom of the case, covered it up with the rolls I had lifted out and set aside, and went back to bed. The remaining thousand dollars was still in the pocket of my robe. When the next-to-last layer of toilet tissue was reached, I'd slip into the John again at night and transfer the hidden money elsewhere.
It was late the next afternoon when I was able to manage a confrontation with Spider Kern when no one else was present. I was sitting in my usual place, looking out over the hospital grounds, when Kern came into the alcove to close the Venetian blinds. I beckoned to him when he turned to leave.
He paused, staring at me as if unsure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. I beckoned again. He approached me warily. "What the hell d'ya want, Arnold?" he rasped.
I took the thousand dollars in bills from my pocket and handed it to him. "For… you," I said. His hard-looking mouth was already open to snap something at me when the feel of the crisp bills in his hand sank into his consciousness. His mean-looking little eyes bulged as he saw the denomination on the outside bill. He thumbed the wad rapidly, then jammed it into his pocket. "Where'd you get-" he started to bluster.
"More… later," I cut him off. "We'll… talk."
"Yeah," he agreed avidly. "Okay, okay. We'll talk." I could see that curiosity was consuming him.
"No… hurry," I said.
"Okay," he said again. He glanced around the alcove to reassure himself that no one had witnessed the transfer before he left me.
I was under no illusion about what I'd bought from Spider Kern. A little time, that was all. A little healing time during Dr. Afzul's remaking of my face. Leopards like Spider Kern didn't change their spots overnight. He'd still plan his revenge for what I'd done to his buddy, Blaze
Franklin, but first he'd wait to see if there were any more hundred-dollar bills around.
As I expected, during the night the thought came to Kern that he might not have to wait. While we were at breakfast, Spider staged one of his periodic ward shakedowns, searching for "contraband." I could tell that my bed and the area around it had received special attention, but it hadn't done Kern any good.
That brought him back to me. "What's on your mind?" He came directly to the point when he had maneuvered us into a private tete-a-tete. A saliva-saturated toothpick danced in one corner of his mouth with each word.
I almost smiled. A week previously Spider Kern wouldn't have admitted that I had a mind. "I… want… a… gun," I said.
He blinked. He hadn't expected anything that blunt. "Well, now, you know that's-" he began to bluster.
"For… five thousand dollars," I cut him off.
His lips pursed in a soundless whistle as he stared at me.
I didn't have five thousand, but then I wasn't going to get a gun from Spider Kern, either. Not while he knew anything about it, anyway. With visions of a possible five thousand filling his mind, though, my healing period should remain uninterrupted. Kern wouldn't get me a gun, but with his eye on the money he would pretend to get it.
"When do you want it?" he asked me.
I was pleased to see that the train of thought he'd been pursuing for himself was just what I'd programmed for him. I touched my face. "When… finished."
He nodded. "Time enough. Okay, for five thousand." He paused as though considering all aspects. "C.O.D."
"C… O… D.," I repeated.
That concluded our conversation.
It also concluded the first step in setting up Spider Kern's pratfall.
The next ten and a half months I'd just as soon forget. Not that there was anything excruciatingly painful about Dr. Sher Afzul's sophisticated techniques. It was nothing like having a.38 slug rip through an arm, for instance. Mostly it was the awkwardness and inconvenience of the flesh-to-flesh transfers. Plus the accompanying boring monotony. I spent a lot of time in bed because it was too much trouble to do anything else.