By the time the car reached the lobby, she had already worked out the sequence of events that would be taking place tonight. She had read the records of other Bayside transplants; she knew what was going to happen. Sometime around midnight, they would wheel Nina into the OR, where Archer's team would prep and drape her. There they would wait for the call. And at that precise moment, a different surgical team in a different OR would already be gathered around another patient. They would reach for scalpels and begin to slice skin and muscle. Bone saws would grind. Ribs would be lifted, exposing the treasure within. A living, beating heart.
The harvest would be swift and clean.
Tonight, she thought, it will happen just the way it has before. The elevator door opened. She stepped out, head bowed, eyes focused on the floor. She walked out the front doors and into a driving wind.
Two blocks away, cold and shaking, she ducked into a phone booth. Using her precious cache of nickels and dimes, she called Katzka's number.
He wasn't at his desk. The policeman who answered the extension offered to take a message.
"This is Abby DiMatteo," she said. "I have to talk to him now! Doesn't he have a pager or something?"
"Let me transfer you to the operator."
She heard two transfer clicks, then the operator came on. "I'll have Dispatch radio his car now," she said.
A moment later, the operator came back on. "I'm sorry, we're still waiting for Detective Katzka to respond. Can he reach you at your current number?"
"Yes. I mean, I don't know. I'll try calling him later." Abby hung up. She was out of coins, out of phone calls.
She turned and looked out the phone booth, and saw scraps of newspapers tumbling by. She didn't want to step out into that wind again, but she didn't know what else to do.
There was one more person she could call.
Half the phone book had been torn away. With a sense of futility, she flipped through the white pages anyway. She was startled to actually find the listing: I. Tarasoft.
Her hands were shaking as she dialled collect. Please talk to me. Please take my call.
It was four rings before she heard his gentle "Hello?" She could hear chinaware clattering, the sounds of a dinner table being set, the sweet strains of classical music. Then: "Yes, I'll accept the charges."
She was so relieved, her words spilled out in a rush. "I didn't know who else to call! I can't reach Vivian. And no one else will listen to me. You have to go to the police. Make them listen!"
"Now slow down, Abby. Tell me what's happening."
She took a deep breath. Felt her heart thudding with the need to share her burden. "Nina Voss is getting a second transplant tonight," she said. "Dr. Tarasoft, I think I know how it works. They don't fly the hearts in from somewhere else. The harvests are done right here. In Boston."
"Where? Which hospital?"
Her gaze suddenly focused on a car moving slowly up the street. She held her breath until the car continued around the corner and vanished.
"Abby?"
"Yes. I'm still here."
"Now, Abby, I understand from Mr Parr that you've been under a great strain lately. Isn't it possible this is-'
"Listen. Please listen to me.t' She closed her eyes, forcing herself to stay calm. To sound rational. He must not have any doubts at all about her sanity. "Vivian called me today from Burlington. She found out there weren't any harvests done there. The organs didn't come from Vermont."
"Then where are the harvests done?"
"I'm not entirely sure. But I'm guessing they're done in a building in Roxbury. Amity Medical Supplies. The police have to get there before midnight. Before the harvest can be done."
"I don't know if I can convince them."
"You have to!There's a Detective Katzka, in Homicide. If we can reach him, I think he'll listen to us. Dr. Tarasoft, this isn't just an organ matchmaking service. They're generating donors. They're killing people."
In the background, Abby heard a woman call out: "Ivan, aren't you going to eat your dinner? It's getting cold."
"I'll have to skip it, dear," said Tarasoft. "There's been an emergency…" His voice came back on the line, soft and urgent. "I don't think I need to tell you that this whole thing scares me, Abby." "It scares the hell out of me, too."
"Then let's just drive straight to the police. Drop it in theft laps. It's too dangerous for us to handle."
"Agreed. One hundred percent."
"We'll do it together. The bigger the chorus, the more convincing our message."
She hesitated. "I'm afraid that having me along may hurt the cause."
"I don't know all the details, Abby. You do."
"OK," she said, after a pause. "OK. We'll go together. Could you come and get me? I'm freezing. And I'm scared."
"Where are you?"
She glanced out the phone booth window. Two blocks away, the lights of the hospital towers seemed to pulsate in the blowing darkness. "I'm in a phone booth. I don't know which street it's on.
I'm a few blocks west of Bayside."
"I'll find you."
"Dr. Tarasoff?"
"Yes?"
"Please," she whispered. "Hurry."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As Vivian Chao's plane touched down at Logan International, she felt her anxiety tighten another notch. It wasn't the flight that had rattled her. Vivian was a fearless flyer, able to sleep soundly through even the worst turbulence. No, what was worrying her now, as the plane pulled up at the gate and as she gathered her carry-on from the overhead bin, was that last phone conversation with Abby. The abrupt disconnection. The fact that Abby had never called back.
Vivian had tried calling Abby at home, but there'd been no answer. Thinking about it during the flight, she'd realized that she didn't know where Abby had been calling from. Their connection had been severed too quickly for her to find out.
Lugging her carry-on, she walked off the plane and into the terminal. She was startled to find a huge crowd waiting at the gate. There was a forest of bright balloons and mobs of teenagers holding up signs which read: Welcome home, Dave.t and Atta Boy.t and Local Herof Whoever Dave was, he had an adoring public. She heard cheers, and glancing back, she saw a grinning young man stride out of the elevated walkway right behind her. The crowd surged forward, practically swallowing up Vivian in their eagerness to greet Dave, the local hero. Vivian had to navigate through a crush of squealing kids.
Kids, hell. They all towered over her by at least a head.
It took good old quarterback drive to shove her way through. By the time she emerged from the mob, she was pushing ahead with so much momentum, she practically bowled over a man standing on the periphery. She muttered a quick apology and kept walking. It took her a few paces to realize he hadn't said a word in exchange.
Her first stop was the restroom. All this anxiety was putting the squeeze on her bladder. She ducked inside to use the toilet and came back out.
That's when she saw the man again — the one she'd bumped into only moments ago. He was standing by the gift shop across from the women's restroom. He appeared to be reading a newspaper.
She knew it was him, because the collar of his raincoat was turned under. When she'd collided with him earlier, that tucked-in flap was what her eyes had focused on.
She continued walking, towards baggage claim.
It was during that long hike past an endless succession of airline gates that her brain finally clicked on. Why was the man waiting at her gate unless he was there to meet someone? And if he had met a passenger, why was he now by himself?.
She stopped at a newsstand shop, randomly picked up a magazine, and took it to the cashier. As the woman rang up the purchase, Vivian shifted just enough to cast a furtive glance around her.