Blood Debt (16 page)

“Well . . .”

“If you leave a list, we could have Henry bring anything you need to your daughter's this evening.”

“No, no, there's no need to disturb Mr. Fitzroy. He's already been more than generous, and, well . . .” Her pupils dilated as she remembered the unexpected visit. “. . . he asked me not to come by while you're here.”

Celluci's heart started beating again when she let her hand drop and turned from the door.
My persuasions were, for the most part, monetary
, he heard Henry say. For the most part.

“I didn't need anything important. I wouldn't have even come by except that we were in the neighborhood and my daughter-in-law can be most persuasive.”

More than you have any idea.
If her daughter-in-law had been able to overwhelm one of Fitzroy's requests, even momentarily, formidable would not be too strong a word to use when describing her. There were other words, but Vicki'd pretty much forced him to stop using them. “We're very grateful that you're allowing us the use of your home.”

Her face grew still as she glanced around the living room. “Yes. I suppose it is my home now. Miss Evans left it to me, you know.”

“No, I didn't know.”

“Yes, but I expect I'll sell it.” She picked up a small brass sculpture, stared at it as though she'd never seen it before, and slowly put it down again. “This is all too grand for me. I like things a little cozier.”

Cozy was not a word Celluci would've used to describe the pink bedroom. In fact the only word that came to mind was overwhelming. He trailed silently behind her as she crossed back to the apartment door.

“I'm sorry to have bothered you, Detective. If you could ask Mr. Fitzroy to call me at my son's when you leave.”

“If we're an inconvenience, Mrs. Munro . . .”

“No, not at all.” She smiled at him reassuringly, then stopped, forehead creasing in sudden puzzlement. “I'd have thought you'd be using the master bedroom.”

“Actually, I'm using the master bedroom.”

“Oh, of course.” Her tone suggested this explained everything. “You're a friend of Mr. Fitzroy's!”

By the time Celluci realized what that meant, Mrs. Munro was gone—which was just as well because his reaction was succinct and profane.

Breakfast had been pretty good for hospital food. There hadn't been enough of it, but at least it hadn't come out of a dumpster. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, he smoked a cigarette and wished they'd bring him back his clothes. Or just his boots. He'd had to panhandle tourists for almost a week last summer to get them, and if he didn't get them back, the shit was going to hit the fan, big time. Sure he had enough money now to buy anything he wanted, but that wasn't the point. Those boots were his.

He ground the butt into a pitted metal ashtray and lit another. It was kind of weird they let him keep his cigs but since they weren't using his lungs he guessed it didn't matter.

When the door opened, he blew a cloud of smoke toward it, just to show he didn't care; that he wasn't freaked by what he'd agreed to do.

Her lips pressed into a thin line, Dr. Mui stopped short of entering the thin, gray fog and stared at him with distaste. “It's time for your shot.”

He couldn't help it, he giggled. It was too much like something out of a bad horror movie. “Eet's time for your shot,” he repeated in a thick, German accent. “And then you steal my brain and stick it in some robot, right?”

“No.” The single syllable left no room for a differing opinion.

“Fuck, man, chill. It was a joke.” Shaking his head, he went to pinch out the cigarette, but the doctor raised her hand.

“You may finish.”

“Thanks, I'm sure.” But he couldn't, not with her watching. He took two long drags and pinched the end, tucking the still warm butt back into the pack for later. “Okay.” His chin lifted and he gave her his best
I don't give a fuck about anything
glare. “Do it.”

“Lie down.”

He snorted but did as he was told, muttering, “Man, I hope you've got a better bedside manner with the paying customers.”

Her fingers were cool against his skin as she pushed up the sleeve of his pajama top, and he watched the ceiling as she swabbed his elbow with alcohol.

“Hey? You gonna take more blood?”

“No.”

Something in her voice dropped his gaze from the ceiling to her face, but her eyes were locked on the liquid rising in the syringe. When she was satisfied, she pulled it from the small brown bottle cradled in her left hand, put the bottle back in her lab coat pocket, and looked down at him.

The hair lifted off the back of his neck. All at once, he didn't want that shot.

“I've changed my mind.”

“You weren't given that choice.”

“Tough shit.” As he spoke, he shot out of the bed and as far away from her as he could get and still be in the room; his back was pressed hard against the outside wall, fists held waist-high.

Dr. Mui looked pointedly at the gym bag tucked up behind the pillow. “You took the money,” she reminded him. “Do I take it back?”

“No!” He stepped forward, stopped, and stared at the gym bag. Money enough to get out. He didn't know where to, but he was intimately familiar with where from and he never wanted to go back. After a moment, he said “No” again, more quietly. What the hell was he afraid of anyway? They weren't going to do anything to him. They needed him healthy. The floor was cold under his bare feet as he walked back to the bed. He shivered and slid under the covers.

“Is this it?” he asked, refusing to flinch as the needle pierced his skin.

“Yes.” With one efficient motion, she depressed the plunger. “This is it.”

She left the room while the sedative did its work.

“We don't want a repeat of what happened the last time,” she said to the orderly waiting in the hall, her tone intimating that what she did or did not want was all he should be concerned with. His expression suggested he agreed. “I don't care how he dies, but he is to be properly disposed of. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Good.” She stepped away from the door. “Go ahead.”

He moved forward like a dog let off his leash.

Suppressing the urge to remain in the apartment in case Mrs. Munro returned while he was gone, Celluci locked up and headed for the elevator. The sooner they solved this thing, the sooner they could go home and get on with their lives.

Their theory about those responsible for Henry's ghost had been off base. Unfortunately, now that they knew organized crime wasn't involved, that left only a couple million potential suspects. Maybe a few less if the gangs were growing as fast as the media reported.

Of course, it also left Ronald Swanson. Multimillionaire philanthropist, bereaved husband, and all around nice guy.

The elevator arrived almost instantly.

Vicki insisted they continue to assume organ-legging. Since the police hadn't yet identified the corpse, it seemed obvious he hadn't lost that kidney through conventional surgery. Since they knew he'd lost it locally, organ-legging was beginning to make more sense. And the motive for removing the organ? That was the only easy answer. Profit.

So maybe we should look for a Ferengi
, he snorted as he pushed the button for the parking garage.

The ghost's garage band T-shirt said he'd lived, and died, in the immediate area. Since he hadn't yet been identified, he was obviously someone who wouldn't be missed. Unfortunately, the immediate area offered a wide choice of potential donors. As Tony'd pointed out, a West Coast winter beat freezing to death in Toronto or Edmonton.

Since the transplant centers weren't involved, a private clinic had to be—those willing to buy organs would, no doubt, draw the line at having body parts hacked out in someone's basement. There were a page and a half of clinics listed in the Vancouver Yellow Pages, but sixteen of them could be immediately disregarded as he very much doubted there was a holistic way to remove a kidney. The Vancouver Vein Clinic had been intriguing but not as much as a quarter-page ad promising live blood cell analysis. An accompanying photo showed a smiling woman with long dark hair, obviously someone very happy with her blood. He couldn't decide whether he should mention it to Vicki or leave well enough alone.

A balding man in a golf shirt and white pants got on at the third floor. Celluci nodded, noted the Rolex and the expensive aftershave, then assumed elevator position—his gaze locked on nothing about halfway up the doors.

The list of buyers with the right combination of need, cash, and willingness to keep their mouths shut would necessarily be finite. It would, therefore, be inefficient to pick up a random drifter and hope for a match. They'd need some kind of medical information.

Stepping out into the parking garage, he walked toward the imposing bulk of the van, listening to the echoes as he tossed his keys from hand to hand.

There was a street clinic in East Vancouver that seemed to serve a less-than-upscale neighborhood and offered, according to their ad, HIV testing.

It was a place to start.

He closed the van door and adjusted the mirror, trying not to think of a load of wet laundry and how well the dark seats would hide stains.

Had he stopped to think about it, he would've taken a taxi. The clinic was on the corner of East Hastings and Main, tucked between the faux historical Gastown and the bustling stores of Chinatown in one of the oldest parts of the city. The streets were narrow, the traffic chaotic, and parking spaces at a premium.

Reaching Pender at Carrall Street, Celluci glowered at the One Way/No Entry that blocked his progress. Habit noted the license plate numbers of the two cars ahead of him which turned left after the light went from yellow to red, then he sat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for a break in the steady stream of pedestrians that would allow him to make his right. While he waited, he watched the people heading toward the Chinese Cultural Center and hoped that the trio of middle-aged women, draped with cameras and loudly calling everything, including the bilingual street signs, cute, were American tourists.

When the light changed, he moved out into the intersection only to be blocked by pedestrians crossing Pender. Halfway through the green, he took advantage of a group of teenagers agile enough to get out of the way and finally got around the corner. As traffic inched past a delivery truck, not exactly double-parked, he sucked in an appreciative lungful of warm air. Fresh fish, ginger, garlic, and car exhaust; familiar and comforting. Before her change, Vicki had lived on the edge of Toronto's Chinatown and this air, trapped between the buildings out of reach of all but the most persistent ocean breezes, evoked memories of a less complicated life.

By the time he reached Columbia Street, one short block away, he'd had enough nostalgia. When a parking spot miraculously appeared, he cranked the van into it, rolled up the windows, locked the doors, checked to see that the man lying against the base of the Shing Li'ung Trading Company was breathing, and still managed to beat the car that had been behind him to the corner.

The East Hastings Clinic wasn't quite a block away, but even such a short distance was enough to leave the prosperity of Chinatown behind.

The dimensions of the windows—now filled with wire-reinforced glass—suggested that the building had once held a storefront. Standing on the sidewalk, Celluci peered inside and swept his gaze over three elderly Asian men sitting on the ubiquitous orange vinyl chairs and the profiles of a scowling teenager arguing with a harried-looking woman behind a waist-high counter. While he watched, the woman pointed at an empty chair, gave the teenager an unmistakable command to sit, and disappeared into the back.

Still scowling, the boy stared after her for a moment then, shoving aside a cardboard rack of government pamphlets, snatched up a small package from behind the counter and raced for the door.

Celluci grabbed him before he cleared the threshold.

“Fuck off, man! Let me go!”

“I don't think so.” Maneuvering his struggling captive back into the clinic, he kept himself between the teenager and the door.

“This is assault, asshole! Let go of me before I call a cop!”

“Would you like to see my shield?” Celluci asked quietly, releasing his grip on the thin shirt.

The boy jerked away, whirled around to stand back against the counter, and looked up. Quite a way up. “Oh, fuck,” he sighed philosophically when he realized it hadn't been a rhetorical question.

“What is going on out here?”

Celluci opened his mouth to answer and left it open as he stared down at the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

“You're wastin' your time, man.” Grinning broadly, the boy turned and held out his hand. Balanced on the palm was a rectangular box of condoms. “I decided not to wait for the safe sex lecture, Doc. This guy nabbed me on the way out.”

The doctor lifted onyx eyes to Celluci's face. “And you are?” she asked.

“Urn, Celluci.” He shook his head and managed to regain control of his brain. “Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci, Metropolitan Toronto Police.”

The teenager glared at him in disbelief. “Toronto? Get fucking real, man.”

“Aren't you a little out of your jurisdiction, Detective?” Blue-black highlights danced across a silk curtain of ebony hair as she tilted her head.

His explanation of how he'd noticed the boy reach behind the counter left out the fact that the clinic had been his destination. When he finished, the doctor switched her gaze to the boy. “You steal from this clinic, and you steal from your friends.”

“Hey! You were gonna give them to me!”

“Not the whole box.” She opened it, removed six plastic squares, and handed them over. “Now sit. The rules say these come with a lecture and you're hearing it before you leave.”