Maybeck answered, 'I just mean in terms of what we gotta do. We go zooming someone, this had better be big money.'
Reading the file in the limited light, Tegg spoke without looking up, 'Check the database for an AB- NEGATIVE. She'll have to be small: a hundred pounds tops. All you do is bring me the donor. You'll be rich after this. Fifty thousand for your part. That's what you want, isn't it?'
Through the cavity in the hayloft came the chorus of barking dogs. Among them, Tegg could hear Felix as clearly as if he alone were barking. Felix's superiority in the ring confirmed Tegg's brilliance. There would be more tests, of course; there always were. Life, it seemed, was one long test. Victory came not from a single win but from a series of accomplishments.
He stopped to take one last look at Donnie Maybeck, who still hadn't moved. Mention of that number had numbed him. just right.
As Tegg descended the stairs, he felt exhilarated. This was his chance to erase the slate, to prove something to himself, to give something back, He intended to make the most of it.
juggling his household chores and his role as Mr. Mom, Boldt visited two area blood banks Friday morning with his son Miles in tow. It was not until the second interview that he learned that the donation of whole blood was strictly voluntary. He had neglected to raise this question at the first location. Plasma centers paid, not blood banks.
Bloodlines Incorporated, Seattle's only plasma center, occupied the back half of the ground floor of a former First Avenue warehouse which had, years before, been converted into retail space, then a dry cleaner/laundromat. Boldt remembered them both. A uniform rental shop now occupied the half that fronted First Avenue. Mannequins dressed as nurses and security guards stood at inanimate mock attention in the display windows. The entrance to the plasma center was from the side street, up four cement steps, through a set of glass doors stenciled in blue with the name Bloodlines as well as a parent corporation, Lifeways Inc.-which in finer print turned out to be a subsidiary of The Atlanta Charter and Group Health Foundation. Boxes inside boxes, a reminder of Liz's banking world.
Reception held two orange-vinyl padded benches, each fronted by an oak-veneer coffee table stained with white rings and littered with thumb- worn, outdated copies of People Magazine. A pair of dusty-leafed silk ficus trees stood forlorn in opposing corners. The dirt bucket that held the closest one had been used as an ashtray. A large sign thanked you for not smoking. A Coke machine, its light burned out, hummed from across the expanse of institutional gray carpet. There were several doors leading from this room. The one most often used, Boldt saw- noticing the accumulated dirt around the doorknob-was to the left of reception, a high counter attended by a matronly woman wearing a nurse's uniform that had probably been rented from next door. Behind her were shelves filled with files, marked with colorful alphabetized index tabs. Her name tag read, Mildred Hatch. She looked tired, suspicious and unhappy. A couple of Gary Larson cartoons were taped up for everyone to see. 'You been with us before?' she asked. She was apparently used to a regular clientele. Boldt's face didn't jog her memory. 'I'd like to speak to someone in administration, if I may.' Miles nearly got his hand on one of the cartoons. Boldt arranged himself to prevent another attempt. 'Concerning?'
'One of your donors.'
'Not possible. That's strictly confidential information. Can't help you.- She pointed out a paragraph on a photocopied flyer, a stack of which waited to the right of a computer terminal.
Boldt explained, 'I'm not trying to find out who the person is.
I already know that. I just need a few questions answered.
Someone in administration, if You Please.'
'I don't Please.
Not easily,' she warned. She found a pen. 'Your name?' He told her. 'Your company?' Boldt said, 'Seattle Police Department.' It shocked her. She flushed. 'Why didn't you say so?' she asked angrily. 'I was hoping I wouldn't have to.' 'The baby threw me off,' she explained. 'You always lug her around?'
'Him,' Boldt corrected.
She looked closely at Miles for the first time. Briefly, she softened. He knew in an instant that she didn't have any kids; and by her ring finger, no husband either. 'Name of the donor?' she asked. 'That's strictly confidential,' Boldt said.
Her eyes flashed cold like green glass marbles. She had plucked her eyebrows thin and bleached the hair above her lip. A real beauty. She had missed with her eye shadow. 'Cynthia Chapman,' Boldt told her. 'The donor's name is Cynthia Chapman.' She consulted her terminal, striking the keyboard with blunt, stubby fingers. When she paused, there was something in her eyes that confirmed she had found the name. 'She's in there?' Boldt asked, his heart racing.
The woman didn't answer. She picked up the phone and spoke too softly for Boldt to hear. By the time she started her third call he said, 'Today, if possible.'
A street person entered, a bum in his mid-fifties, although a quick glance and the clothes might have fooled you. Not quite pressed but not all that wrinkled. Not exactly clean-shaven but not disgusting by any means. It was his worn-heeled, unpolished shoes that gave him away. That and the pungent scent of a cheap after-shave which attempted to cover a week without a shower. Boldt watched as this man located the clipboard and ran the attached pen through the multiple-choice boxes with the practiced efficiency of a regular. The man knew the routine. He signed it, handed it to Miss Mildred Hatch, and headed for the Coke machine. Blood sugar, Boldt thought. They drink the pops to keep from getting light-headed. He seemed a man more accustomed to Muscatel. He headed over to the orange seats and a back issue of People.
Boldt wondered how they guaranteed a clean blood supply. Then he took one of the flyers and read, while Miss Hatch continued her two jobs simultaneously, the phone pasted in the crook of her neck, the bum's application form being studied boxby-box, answer-by-answer. The blood was thoroughly tested for drugs, alcohol and AIDS, the flyer explained, a process that took four to seven days. Donors were personally interviewed each time they gave blood. By signing the form you were verifying your personal activities, sexual preferences and your working knowledge of the condition of your blood. Anyone caught lying would be permanently refused acceptance by any branch of Bloodlines. The plasma was paid for only after it had cleared the testing labs. They paid fifteen dollars a pint. You could donate every forty-eight hours but no more than three times a week. It seemed impossible. 'How can a person give blood three times a week?' he blurted out.
Without looking up from her terminal, Mildred Hatch answered automatically, 'We don't take your blood, only the plasma. The red blood cells are returned to you during the process. The plasma is removed by a centrifuge. Your body replaces the plasma within twenty-four hours.' She glanced at him then, as if to say, 'Don't you know anything? Boldt folded up the flyer and slipped it in behind Miles, who chose that moment to become vocal. Boldt found himself bouncing around the room in an effort to settle the boy down, the waiting donor's attention fixed on him in a puzzled expression. Embarrassed, Boldt found the Men's Room and prepared Miles a bottle. Little murmurs of satisfaction, little slurps of joy.
Mildred Hatch signaled the man, who went through the more-often used door A, the source of the medicinal odors that permeated this place. Five minutes later, following two more extended phone calls, Miss Hatch gave Boldt the nod, permitting him to enter the inner sanctum which, as it turned out, was through door B-just to the left of the Coke machine. He helped steady his son's bottle and found his way down a narrow corridor flanked by several workers tending computer work stations. Was the database of their donors available to any one of them? Was one of these persons directly or indirectly involved in the harvests? With this the only plasma bank in the city and a policeman's knowledge that something connected the four runaways, Boldt experienced the electricity of anticipation. He didn't believe much in 'sixth-sense' phenomena, but there was no denying the quick beating of his heart and the internal sense that there was evidence to be uncovered here.
He put questions to a Ms. Dundee, a two-seater black woman with no neck and huge breasts. Her hands were swollen like some corpses Boldt had seen, and she wheezed when she spoke. She guarded all her explanations, and smiled in the same contrived manner as a used-car salesman. Her face was so bloated he could barely see any eyes and so round and wide that she seemed more a caricature of herself. Miles didn't like her either. On first sight of her he started crying and became a pest. He pushed his bottle aside demanding Boldt's repeated attention. An ever cautious Ms. Dundee requested Boldt's police identification.
Boldt went through the ruse of pretending to search for it, realizing at that moment that events had led him to the inevitable. Would she call downtown and ask after him? Whether she did or not, Boldt now had no choice but
