what/who exactly were you in love with anyway? Don’t answer unless you intend a voyage into the mysteries of the I versus the Not-I, DFR.
Well, I have news. The lady standing at the window turned to face me, and guess what? She was wearing a man’s shirt with all the buttons done up except the top three (the shirt was black, not white) and was this very minute tapping the glass-top table with her finely manicured left index finger, transmitting a nerve-wracking mixed message of impatience, disdain, vulnerability, and impenetrable cunning combined with a most convincing and charming invitation for sophisticated erotic adventure expressed in the faux innocence of her eyes and the pleasing scent of musk, which may have been her own or that of a butchered doe, it was hard to say. Now what?
The bathroom door opened, and-yes-an identical woman appeared wearing-yes again-a man’s shirt with all the buttons done up save the top three and apparently nothing else. No prizes for guessing this shirt was white.
I must have still been disoriented by the eyes, and by the association of 1,764-divided-by-two-equals-882 cadavers with these two beauties. My knees turned to jelly. I grabbed the back of a chair to steady myself, then decided to accept defeat and sit down, thus fatally lowering myself before the two of them, who were now transformed into Giant Female Powers towering above me. I felt a twitch in my left cheek, a frown disfiguring my brow, an erotic-neurotic sweat both cold and hot causing my body to shiver while my eyes flitted from Blackshirt to Whiteshirt. “Will you please tell me who is who?” I gurgled.
Whiteshirt walked slowly toward me on exquisite bare feet, her shapely thighs appearing and disappearing under the impeccably laundered shirt (I’m pretty sure it was of the Arrow brand) until she reached my chair, whereupon she bent over me in a way that ensured an unobstructed view of her breasts. She passed her fingers through my hair. “Stop pretending it matters. Do what we want, and we’ll be yours for the weekend.”
“What do you want?”
“You have to guess. One clue: we’ve booked three first-class seats to Nice for tomorrow morning.”
It was one hell of a moment for a quiz. Fortunately, as a Bangkok cop I had had a great deal to do with Chinese from the Swatow region, and on the flight over I had studied the airline’s most popular routes. The reason why Dubai-Nice is a favorite in the Muslim Middle East did not escape me. I had the answer in less than a second. “You want me to take you to Monte Carlo?”
Four black Chinese eyes opened wide with delight, and the two women burst out laughing. “Smart,” said Whiteshirt, “very, very smart.”
“Of course we could go on our own, but we’re old-fashioned.”
“It’s the way we were brought up.”
“We’re strictly Confucian.”
“And you are very, very cute when you’re horny.”
More laughter. The erotic moment dissolved. They both disappeared for a moment, then returned, one, whom I shall call Lilly, in the preppy uniform of late afternoon, and the other, Polly, in the Vogue business kit.
“Shall we go into the business area?” Polly said. “I wanted to show you some e-mails.”
The thirty-six-inch monitor sat on a teak credenza under a window. Polly clicked on her black wireless mouse, while Lilly sat at the coffee table and dropped large black grapes into her mouth. On the monitor the Yahoo e-mail window opened: Dear Dr. Black, I know that’s not your real name but that’s the one they told me to use. I’m desperate. My husband is all I have left in the world after our only child Sebastian died in a car crash last year. My husband Abe was also in the crash-he was driving the car-and they amputated his left arm from the elbow and both his kidneys and liver are damaged. They won’t put him anywhere high on the lists because they’re jerks and blame him for the accident because there was alcohol in his blood and since the accident he drinks a lot to bury his sorrow so they decided he wasn’t worth saving, even though they would never admit that in court. We have lots of money and we’ll pay anything, go anywhere to get our life back. Abe made his first fortune in pornography and the second in Internet gambling, so you can be sure we’re good for the dough. I know you maybe can’t do much about the arm right now, but that can wait. I can’t tell you what misery we’re in, otherwise I would never write to anyone like this. Please, please help us, I am on my knees to God every day, I love my husband like no modern woman would understand, he’s taken care of me all my life and if he goes I go too. Please, please, Dr. Black, just say the word, give us the account number, whatever, we’ll get on a plane yesterday, anywhere, anytime. Yours very truly, Rita Smith (okay, that’s not my name either but I’m scared of the FBI)
Polly was watching my face. I looked up. “What do you think?”
I tried to work out what the question was getting at. She had to prompt me: “How would you rate them as potential clients?”
I shrugged. “How would you?”
Her lips tightened; I seemed to have failed this part of the test. “Triple A.”
“How so?”
“Pampered, sentimental, self-pitying, semicriminal, rich, no qualms.” She tapped the e-mail. “Generally, women are safer to deal with-they put survival of the family before survival of the species and survival of the ego above everything-but we cover up so much better than men. Now, take a look at this.”
She was on the point of showing me another e-mail from another Yahoo account, then paused to lean back and appraise me. “You’re so brand-new, you don’t know about the cyclosporine revolution, do you?”
“Cyclosporine?”
“Yes. The reason why trade is booming and the likes of Vikorn have decided to give it a second look.” She was standing next to me where I sat at the computer. Her white hand of the perfect manicure flicked to take in the view, then came to rest on my shoulder for a moment. I was surprised. With a subtle, almost imperceptible jerk of her chin toward her twin, she lifted the hand from my shoulder. Without a word she clicked on the mouse. Dear Dr. Pink, I am in pain. I’ve been in pain all my life, I couldn’t have done anything to deserve it because I’ve been too sick since childhood to hurt anyone. I am innocent and now I’m forty-two years old and I can’t take it anymore. I don’t care what you have to do, I don’t care who has to die, it’s my turn to live a whole day without pain. Get me the fuck out of here. I have the money. Do you hear me? I HAVE THE MONEY. Yours very truly, Michael James Conran
She was looking at me, waiting for my reaction. “Well?”
“How would I rate it? I would say a perfect client. Rich, desperate, no qualms.”
A shrug. “Sure, but he doesn’t tell us what is wrong with him. We only do organ transplants. If he’s been in pain since childhood, it’s likely something incurable, in the bones, perhaps, or the immune system itself. More likely it’s psychological. Someone else’s body parts won’t help.” She tapped the e-mail. “You get lots like this, lots and lots. Whoever thinks life is wonderful doesn’t practice medicine. How about this one?” She clicked onto yet another Yahoo account: Dear Doctor White, Sorry I don’t speak Inglish so good. I am mother of Chad. My husband bring us to America but he dye. My little girl need diyalisi for kidneys. We don’t have insurance. I heard you help poor people, you very good woman. Doctor White, my little girl she need kidneys. We love you Doctore White. Abena Abeni
We remained silent for a moment. Finally she clicked back to the first e-mail and smiled her Vogue smile. “So, do you think you and Vikorn can find a liver for poor Abe?”
A liver for poor Abe? “I’d have to ask Vikorn,” I heard myself say.
She nodded. A grin, then she cocked her head. “But however rich Abe is, he won’t expect to pay more than a few thousand dollars for half a liver. You want to hang on to clients like that. After a few years the second liver starts to fail-that’s when you get into the serious money. Second transplants are a serious business and generally you need a whole liver, a perfectly healthy whole liver.”
“From a cadaver? Or someone brain-dead?”
“Then you’re talking about waiting lists, priority allocation, just-in-time contacts with traffic police or some other authority. That’s hard for us in the parallel trade to set up. Perhaps impossible.” I gasped. She noticed how I recoiled and scrolled back to the e-mail from Michael James Conran. “You read what the man says. He doesn’t care who has to die.” She stood up. “If you really want to be a player, this is what you have to realize. All human beings are cannibals when it comes to brute survival. That is really what the trade is all about, no matter how they care to dress it up for the folks at home. Think about it, Detective. But don’t take too long. I can get over three hundred thousand dollars for a good-quality whole liver from a recently deceased donor, whether brain-dead, volunteer-or otherwise.”
I walked out of the business suite into the silk rugs and damascene chaise longues of the sitting area. The door to the master bedroom had been left ajar; I saw a brilliant white pillowcase, a Turkish bedspread turned back,
