Blood Trade: A Sean Coleman Thriller (5 page)

It didn’t help matters that he was also the brother-in-law of Winston’s Chief of
Police, Gary Lumbergh. Because of that, the standards were set higher for Sean than
for most residents.

While his uncle had managed to earn the respect of just about
everyone he had ever
met, few people respected Sean Coleman. Longtime clients went elsewhere for their
security needs.

When 9/11 hit and the economy tanked, the situation had only worsened.

Still, Sean managed to generate some work since Zed’s death, usually in spurts, but
he often had to travel farther than he liked for jobs. On lucky days, he’d pick up
stints in Lakeland—a thriving gambling town that sat about seven miles north of Winston;
that’s where he was now. Most jobs, however, were way outside of Winston. He knew
he couldn’t afford to hire extra help, so he filled all duties himself, a laboring
task even for a company as small as his. Diana, his sister, helped when she could.
She did the accounting work for free when she wasn’t playing the role of caregiver
for their mother.

Their mother was another area of Sean’s life where he had dropped the ball. At the
time of her stroke, he was deemed too incompetent by the rest of family to look after
her. Diana and Gary uprooted their lives in Chicago and moved to Winston to pick
up the slack. Sean was grateful for what his sister and her husband had done, though
he had never actually told them that. It was a bigger sacrifice for Gary than anyone.
He gave up a prestigious career as a big-city police lieutenant to become a small-town
police chief. Sean suspected that Diana secretly enjoyed living the slower-paced,
Winston lifestyle that she’d grown up in, but her days were about to get much busier
in the upcoming months. Thus, Sean was thankful for whatever bookkeeping help she
could lend him in the meantime.

When the sound of his name grabbed his attention, he stood and made his way through
the maze of occupied, interlocked seats and entered the long familiar hallway. At
the end of the bright corridor hung a long, vertical mirror, which he interpreted
each time as a cruel joke, a way of forcing people to take a thorough, pensive look
at themselves before it was their turn to take the needle.

He couldn’t help but notice that the man staring back at him
looked different than
he used to—healthier. He had lost some weight in recent months. His once protruding
gut had shrunk and the outline of his body no longer looked like he was wearing a
spare tire around his waist. His pants were now looser and he even had to wear a
belt. Had he realized sooner how much weight his habitual drinking added to the scale
over the years, he might have given up beer earlier.

At least, that’s what he tried to convince himself. He knew it probably wasn’t true.

He had recently given his dark hair a short buzz cut, which gave him a leaner appearance.
At the age of thirty-eight, he was almost satisfied—for the first time in a long
time—with how he looked, though he noted how bloodshot his tired hazel eyes were.

He rounded the next corner and entered a large room. In it were roughly thirty reclined
beds. Almost all were occupied by people. The beds lined broad walls in the shape
of a rectangle. Sean’s eyes met those of a young, blond man with a thin frame and
pointy shoulders. Clad in a white lab coat that looked a size too large, he used
a nodding motion to direct Sean over to an open bed in a back corner.

Sean took a seat on the vinyl-upholstered recliner, then sprawled out along it until
his wide back sank in comfortably. His boots dangled over the edge of the raised
footrest.

A half-dozen, twenty-inch television screens hovered just below the ceiling at moderate
angles, letting the room’s occupants enjoy a movie that Sean couldn’t identify. It
was something with Will Smith. The volume was muted, as it always was, and the people
watching it wore earphones to listen. Sean rarely chose to listen to whatever was
playing. He never liked the feeling of wires wrapped around his neck or face. Too
constrictive. Too unnatural.

He wasn’t much of a reader either, so he typically elected to people-watch. He’d
convinced himself that it was good trade practice, a way of honing his instincts
as a security guard. He often studied
people and worked on reading their mannerisms,
predicting how they might react under different situations.

He also found the practice mildly entertaining on a personal level. He enjoyed speculating
on people’s origins, backgrounds, and occupations.

As he began pumping his fist to build up a vein and let the blood in his arm flow
more freely, he chose his first target. It was a short, stubby man dressed all in
black, sitting directly across from him in another recliner.

Though some faces in the room looked familiar from past visits, this man’s did not.
He was mostly bald up top with a few long strands of brown but graying hair that
had been combed over his head in a futile attempt to conceal his scalp. He wore tinted
glasses with round frames and looked to be in his fifties. There was a paperback
book propped up in front of him. He held it with his free hand while blood was drawn
from his other arm.

Like everyone else in the room, the man’s blood was pumped through a long, clear
tube and into a centrifuge machine that sat on a cart beside him. The machine had
a spinning component inside that helped separate out the plasma from blood. The contraptions
always emitted a dull humming noise, and Sean could hear several of them murmuring
around the room.

A semi-clear, cylinder-shaped container hooked in front of the machine was nearly
filled to the top with the man’s juice. It was the color of light rust. The quantity
meant he was nearly finished.

Sean closely studied the man’s appearance. His eyes traced the contour of his reclined
body, taking note of his monolithic outfit choice. His short-sleeved dress shirt,
pleated pants, and shoes were all black. The only variation was in the color of his
socks, which were a dark burgundy. At first, it looked like the man was wearing dress
shoes, but upon closer scrutiny, Sean determined them to be conservative tennis shoes.
The man wore no wedding ring. The book he was reading was called
Turn the Tables
,
but Sean couldn’t make out
the picture or artwork featured below the cover’s title.
The man’s fingers covered all of it.

The gears in Sean’s head began to grind away.

Though the man was wearing tennis shoes, he purposely had chosen a pair that was
entirely black and would have appeared to be dress shoes to the casual observer.
This suggested that the man was going for a professional-looking appearance. He possibly
spent a lot of time on his feet and wanted to wear comfortable shoes.

His ensemble resembled that of a uniform, not an official government uniform by any
means, but rather that of a company dress code. Whatever the man’s line of work was,
he most likely dealt directly with the public.

His plasma was a bit darker than most people’s; usually it was the color of straw.
This was a possible indicator of dehydration. In conjunction with his tinted glasses,
he possibly worked outside. But it was wintertime, and in the winter, dehydration
would more likely come from overactivity or the consumption of alcohol.

The most interesting clue was the book he was reading:
Turn the Tables.

Sean cupped his chin in his palm and glared at the man so intensely that if he had
happened to look up and meet the larger man’s stare, he probably would have feared
for his life.

Puzzle pieces bounced off the walls inside Sean’s skull for a minute or two before
they all began to fall into place. A sly smile developed at his lips and he crossed
his arms in front of him with confidence.

“I’ve got your number, bub,” he muttered.

“Sean Coleman,” an emotionless female voice called out from a clipboard a few feet
away.

“Yeah.” He transferred his gaze over to a woman dressed in light-blue scrubs that
he had come to know only as Jessica, according to her name tag. She was one of the
regular blood drawers that stuck needles in people’s arms and fired up the machines
next to them to start the extraction process.

Jessica appeared to be in her mid-thirties and was thin, with a light complexion
and long red hair that had a natural wave to it. The
shade of her hair had always
intrigued Sean. It was deep in color, as if dyed, yet there was stark pureness to
it. It was unique. Though she never wore makeup, she was attractive. She had a firmly
contoured face with high cheekbones, and he imagined that she would probably have
a pretty smile, though he had never actually seen it.

There was always an aura of sadness surrounding Jessica, at least as long as he had
been coming to the plasma bank. Her shoulders drooped and her eyes never lit up.
She rarely engaged in small talk with her colleagues and was mostly all business
when it came to dealing with donors.

He wondered at times if she had lost someone on 9/11 or perhaps had a husband stationed
in the Middle East. There was no ring on her finger, though.

Despite her standoffishness, he sensed her to be a kind person inside. She had a
gentle, nurturing touch. She was attentive, and when her warm hands slid the metal
into Sean’s arm, he never felt the prick of needlepoint.

She wrote something across a clipboard before hooking it alongside his bed. She then
reached over him to snatch a Velcro blood-pressure cuff that dangled from a horizontal
bar mounted to the wall behind him. He watched her as she leaned in close, her long
red hair nearly brushing against his forehead. He subtly inhaled, seeking her scent,
searching for a hint of perfume. He found none.

Seconds later, the cuff was tight around his dense bicep as the machine inflated
it.

Like her, he wasn’t much for small talk, but he felt a nagging urge to share his
impromptu forensic analysis with someone. Maybe he’d even be able to impress her
and get her to notice him a bit more.

“You see that guy over there?” he asked with a confident head jerk.

“What?” she replied, as if his words awoke her from a daydream. Her focus narrowed
on him and she leaned in to meet his gaze.

Sean’s heart nearly skipped a beat once her pretty green eyes
found his. “The guy
lying on the bed across from me. Do you see him?”

She nearly recoiled in confusion. She stole a quick glance at the man in black before
her eyes swept back to Sean. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just . . . I’m curious if you know what he does for a living.
Is that information on his chart?”

Wrinkles formed on her forehead as she glared at him in bewilderment. “Are you serious?
Are you trying to make a joke or something?”

“No. I’m not making a joke. Are you not allowed to tell me what his job is, due to
confidentiality?”

Her jaw dropped open. She looked as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t
immediately find the words. A few seconds later, they finally came out. “Mr. Coleman,
of course I know what his job is. Are you trying to be—?”

“Wait!” he said in a little louder voice than he intended, causing her to flinch.
“Don’t tell me!”

Her eyes went to the ceiling. She clearly had little tolerance for whatever game
she felt Sean was playing.

Still, he was certain he was about to draw her in with a stellar display of deductive
reasoning. “He’s a card dealer at one of the casinos, isn’t he?”

Her face twisted into what he interpreted as a wince. She shook her head dismissively
before removing the deflated band from his arm. She recorded a number on her clipboard.

“Am I wrong?” he asked with a blank expression.

She ignored his question, her sharp movements suggesting that she had lost all patience
with him. Either that, or she believed he was teasing her.

With a cotton swab, she rubbed iodine in a circular motion along the crevice between
his forearm and bicep. It felt colder on his skin than it normally did, just like
her demeanor. She removed a thick
needle from a sealed bag, attached it to a long,
thin, plastic line and shoved the needle into his flesh without a warning.

His body tensed, and he grimaced. This time, the needle hurt.

“What’s your problem?” he asked as she quickly pressed a few buttons on the centrifuge
machine.

She didn’t answer him, instead writing another number or two down on a clipboard
before storming off.

As dark-red blood began to creep its way up through the line secured to his arm,
he watched her disappear into a small room in the corner. It had several large windows,
so he could see her sit down in front of the computer. She began entering data.

He didn’t understand her reaction at all. He struggled to dissect what he had said
that offended her.

A series of high-pitched beeps from across the hallway suddenly grabbed his attention.
The man in black was finished with his extraction. When another assistant approached
the man to begin unfastening the needle from his arm, the man laid his book down
on his lap.

It was then that Sean realized how completely wrong he had been in his estimation.
With the book no longer obscuring his view, a white clerical collar at the top of
the man in black’s shirt revealed itself. Sean’s stomach dropped.

“Ah, shit!” he snarled loudly enough that the man’s head lifted.

He scowled at Sean in disapproval.

“Sorry, Father.”

It suddenly made sense to Sean why Jessica acted as she did. She hadn’t taken into
account that Sean’s low position in his bed kept him from seeing the man’s collar.
To her, it was quite visible and quite obvious. She probably thought Sean was making
some tasteless joke at the expense of a man of God.

He had come across like a creep.