“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Why does that matter?”
“If he has, his immune system’s been sensitized; that means he’d be more likely to reject the transplant. But the Emory people are on top of that — they’re among the nation’s leaders in transplant compatibility. They’ve developed something called the Emory algorithm, which is used all over the country, to help predict rejection. And I think they’re about to start clinical trials on a new immunosuppressant drug — supposedly the biggest advance in fighting transplant rejection in thirty years.”
“Sounds like he’s in the right place.”
J.T. wasn’t through with his questions. “How old is he?”
“Forty. Ish.”
“That’s good. He’s fairly young, which helps in a couple of ways. For one thing, he’s likely to rebound more quickly; his blood vessels and nerves would regenerate faster than some geezer’s would. He’d potentially get a lot more benefit from a transplant than a geezer, too, and could contribute more to society. Helps that he’s a doc, too.”
“Doctors helping doctors? He’s already a member of the club?”
“Well, that doesn’t hurt,” he hedged, “though nobody would ever put it that crassly. What I really meant was, as a physician he’s highly educated and he already knows medicine. That means he understands the risks, he knows he’ll have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of his life, and he realizes that the immunosuppressants have side effects and complications of their own — they can cause diabetes, and they make him more vulnerable to diseases. In a way it’s like signing up for HIV or AIDS, for the sake of the transplant. The procedure’s very risky, and the risk never fully goes away.”
“That’s discouraging,” I said. “On the surface a hand transplant sounds like it would be a miracle for him.”
“It might well be,” he responded. “But there’s no free lunch. Some medical miracles cost a hell of a lot.” He paused, then added, “Speaking of that, can he even afford it? His health insurance would probably cover the cost of prostheses, but it isn’t going to cover a dime of an elective, experimental procedure like this.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that,” I confessed.
“Emory will sure think of it,” he said. “I imagine this is a million-dollar procedure. But maybe they’ve got some research funding that would help underwrite the costs. Money aside, what’s your friend’s support network like? You think the wife would help him through the ups and the downs?”
“Absolutely. She’s smart and strong. She’d be great — supportive, but I’m sure she could get tough with him if she needed to.”
“Anything about him that might raise a red flag to a psychiatrist?”
“What does a psychiatrist have to do with it?”
“It’s experimental surgery. Incredibly rare, very risky. They’re gonna want a shrink’s opinion. Can he handle the stress, follow the rules, do his physical therapy, take the meds religiously, handle the disappointment if the surgery fails? What’s your take on his overall mental health?”
I thought about the fleeting suspicion I’d had — the possibility that Eddie had deliberately infected his right hand during Clarissa Lowe’s autopsy, in order to qualify as a double amputee. I also took a quick look at myself in the mental-health mirror. “I’m sure he’s every bit as well adjusted as I am,” I said, and made a mental note to schedule another therapy session with Dr. Hoover.
While I was on the line with J.T., I got a voice mail from Helen Taylor, at East Tennessee Cremation. “I just talked to a friend of mine who’s a funeral director in Memphis now. She was working here ten years ago, and she remembered meeting the guy that was talking about buying Ivy Mortuary. She thought it was weird that he spent more time hanging out in the embalming room than going over the financials. He wasn’t with SCI or any of the other funeral-home chains — I remembered that wrong. He was talking about buying the place with his brother, some muckety-muck at a big pharmaceutical company with deep pockets.”
CHAPTER 36
I winced when I looked at my cell phone’s display and saw the number of the incoming caller. It was Raymond Sinclair, the last person on earth I wanted to talk with. Man up, I told myself, and answered the call.
“Bill Brockton.”
“Bill, it’s Ray Sinclair. Long time no talk.”
“I know — sorry, Ray. I’ve been pretty swamped.”
“Swamped with work or swamped with bodies?”
“Both,” I answered.
“Well, I can’t help you with the work,” he said, “but I can sure help you with the bodies. You’ve got supply, I’ve got demand — lots of demand. You follow what I’m saying?”
I did follow what he was saying. Rankin had dropped by the day before to tell me about a conversation they’d monitored with the wiretap they’d finally put on all of Sinclair’s phones. Sinclair was slated to provide six torsos for a thoracic-surgery training at a hospital in Dallas a week from now, and he was two torsos short. He’d been calling around to funeral homes and crematories that were also on his list of suppliers, Rankin had added, but had come up empty-handed so far. “He’s getting desperate,” Rankin had said. “Play hard to get. Make him squirm. Make him beg. Maybe that’ll make him a little careless.”
I’d chafed at the idea. “Why are we still doing this? Don’t you have enough to nail him yet?”
“One more nail,” Rankin had said. “We want to make sure the coffin’s good and tight. The Newark office is drafting the complaint right now. As soon as we get one more piece of evidence, we’ll arrest him, then take the case to a grand jury up there for indictment. Two, three days from now, we’ll put the cuffs on this guy. Promise.”
Play hard to get, I reminded myself. Make him beg. So I left Sinclair hanging on the phone for a moment. “You know, Ray, I’ve been thinking about this, and the more I think, the more potential downside I see. The risk-benefit ratio is higher than I’m comfortable with, if you catch my drift.”
Now it was his turn to leave me hanging. “Are you saying you’re backing out on me, Bill? Because if you are, that would be very distressing to me.”
“I’m just saying the risks are really high, so the benefits should be equally high. You’re right, Ray, I’m not a Pakistani peasant with a spare kidney and a pack of starving kids to feed. I’m a middle-aged professor who’s putting his job and reputation and pension on the line for you. If you’re asking me to commit fraud and steal bodies for you, I want more than ten thousand a body.”
“Cut to the chase,” he snapped. “What do you want?”
“Twenty thousand apiece,” I heard myself saying. I decided to try a shot in the dark, or at least in semidarkness: “Same thing you pay the Pakistani peasants for their kidneys.”
“I get a hell of a lot higher return for a fresh kidney than for a decaying body,” he shot back. “Twenty grand’s robbery for what you’re selling.”
“So is what you’re asking me to do, Ray.”
He breathed a heavy, angry breath into the phone. “This disappoints me, Bill. I thought we were on the same page. I thought we had mutual interests. I thought we were building a partnership.” I was glad he couldn’t see the grimace of distaste I made when he said that. “You’re putting me in a very difficult spot here, Bill. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I hear it,” I answered. “You’re putting me in a difficult spot, too.”