The Clinic

“Yeah,” said the old man, “we're all on the same side.” He tried to spit, produced only a belch.

“God forbid,” said Milo.

Soft conversation drifted from the kitchen. Then loud snaps. Cops opening and closing cabinets.

“Shaddup!” screeched the old man, to no effect.

“Your people are all gone,” said Milo. “Some people. Armand and Little Miss Anna- the former Storm Breeze. Closest she ever came to an R.N. was playing one in that movie of yours- Head Nurse. Junior teach her the fundamentals of renal care?”

No answer.

“Little blur between reality and fantasy, Mr. K.? Like Junior's Beverly Hills office, all those diplomas, business cards advertising fertility medicine, but no patients. Anything to make the kid feel important, huh?”

The old man spat.

Milo stretched and looked around. “That operating room. Those dialysis machines. A clinic for one man. At least Junior had his fling at medicine over in Santa Monica. Because the chance of him ever practicing again when all this comes out is zippo. Assuming the scumbag lets him live.”

Kruvinski didn't speak for a long time.

“Push me outside,” he finally said. “Under that tree.”

Waving a claw hand toward the olive-green drapes.

“What tree?” said Milo.

“Behind the curtains, moe-ron. Open 'em, get me out in the air.”

In the shade of the oak, he said, “Gimme a name.”

“Don't know your own donor's name?”

“I don't know any donor.”

“You could be forced to submit to a checkup.”

“On what grounds?”

“I'm sure the defense will find one.”

“Good luck.” Gnarled hands rested in his lap. The jaws worked faster.

“How many other kidneys has Junior harvested for you?”

“You're crazy.”

“Fine,” said Milo. “Play hard-to-get. Other victims start coming forward, Junior's going to be in the hot seat and the scumbag'll start looking like a hero. Maybe you don't care about Hope, just another hooker's kid. But little Casey- try explaining that to his grandma, your sister Sonia. San Francisco cops told me you bailed him out of those meth-manufacturing busts at Berkeley, smoothed his record, got Hope to sponsor him into grad school. Which wasn't that big of a stretch. He was a smart kid, top of his class, just like Hope. Just like Junior. But look where it got all of them.”

The old man looked up through the tree. A hairline of light had pierced the branches, creating a hot, white scar down the center of his degraded face.

“When it comes out that Casey died because of his association with Junior, how are you gonna explain that to your sister Sonia and Casey's mommy, her daughter Cheryl? They trusted their baby to you. How you gonna explain why he's cooling in the coroner's fridge instead of writing his thesis?”

The old man gazed out at the pool. The black bottom gave it a mirrored surface, no visibility of the depths. Ten years ago, black bottoms had been the thing. Then a few kids fell in and no one noticed them.

“Family ties,” said Milo. “But Don Corleone took care of his people.”

“My son is-” said the old man. “You'll never have such a son.”

“Amen.”

The cloudy eyes popped. “Fuck you! Coming in here, thinking you know, you don't fu-”

“That's the point,” said Milo. “I don't know.”

“Thinking you know,” repeated the old man. “Thinking you- moe-ron- lemme tell you”- a finger wagged-“she was good people, Hope. And her mama. Don't shoot your mou- don't disrespect people you don't know. Don't- you don't know so shaddup!”

“Was she family, too?”

“I made her family. Who the hell you think paid for her schooling? Who the hell got her mama outta hooking and into managing a club, regular hours, a paycheck, goddamn pension plan? Who? Some fucking social worker?”

The finger curled laboriously, managed to point at his caved-in chest. “I been working my whole life helping people! And one of the ones I helped most was that girlie's mother. When she got cancer I helped with that, too. When she died, I paid for the funeral.”

“Why?”

“Because she was good people.”

“Ah.”

“The girl, too. Little blondie, body like that, you think I couldn'ta got her into club work if I wanted to? But, no, I could see she was finer. Had a brain. So I told Lottie we keep her far from the clubs. We make sure she gets schooling. I figured she'd be a doctor, like Mike. Botha them did the science projects together, geniuses. She changes her mind, decides to be a shrink, okay, it's almost the same. I treated her like she was my daughter.”

“Smartest boy, smartest girl,” I said.

The wizened face snapped toward me. “You bet, pal. My Mike was the smartest thing you ever seen, you shoulda had such a kid, reading at three, saying stuff people couldn't believe. And you know where brains come from? Genes. They proved it. All the kids in my family are brains. Casey skipped two grades, got a brother studying at MIT, nuclear physics. I came to this country with nuttin', no one gave me shit. Greatest country in the world, you're smart and you work, you get what you want, not like the niggers on welfare.”

“Why'd you make Hope family?” said Milo. “ 'Cause you liked her mama?”

The old man glared at him. “Get your mind outta the gutter. If I wanted that kinda thing, I had plenty of others. You wanna know? I tell you. She helped Mike. Botha them helped Mike. Lottie and Hope. After that…” He crossed his index fingers. “Family.”

“Helped him with what?”

“He had a accident. Memorial Day picnic, I threw it every year for the employees- big barbecue on my land near the Kern River. Hot dogs, sausage, the best steaks from the plant.” Smiling. “Like I said, I ate the best.”

He licked his lips again and his head lolled as if he was dozing off. Then it snapped up. He flinched. I tried to picture him swaggering, bull-necked and muscular, into the slaughterhouse late at night. Swinging the bat at trussed hogs.

“We had races,” he said, nearly inaudible. “Potato-sack, three-legged. I hired a band. Flags all over the place, best fucking party in town. Mike was thirteen, went over to the river, where the water was strong. He was a great swimmer- on the school team. But he hit his head on something, a piece of wood or something, went down, got pushed out into the white water. No one heard him yelling except Lottie and Hope 'cause they were down there by themselves, talking. They both jumped in, pulled him out. It was hard, them being girls, they almost drowned, too. He swallowed a lotta water but they gave him the respiration, got the water outta him. By the time I got there, he was okay.”

Moisture in the glazed eyes.

“From that time on, she was a queen and she was a princess! Cutest little blond thing, coulda been a movie star but I said using the brain was better. I started this prize for science. They earned it, Mike was always straight As, never needed help on the homework, track and field, swimming, baseball, you name it- gotta fourteen hundred on his SAT test. So that's it, Mr. Cop. Nothing dirty. Smart kids being smart.”

“Until Mike got himself into trouble in Seattle.”