Flipping Out (32 page)

'Somebody just
killed Marilyn Biggs,' Tony blurted out, pacing the room. 'It's a copycat of
all the other murders.'

'Oh dear,'
Jameson said. 'I was afraid that might happen.'

'What are you
talking about? Afraid what might happen?'

Jameson
interlaced his fingers, set his elbows on the desk and leant toward Tony. 'I
was concerned that even after you got what you wanted you wouldn't be able to
stop.'

Tony's body jerked
to a halt, and his head snapped toward Jameson. 'You think I killed Terry
Biggs's wife? Do you think I'm crazy?'

'No, Tony,'
Jameson said. 'I have a patient who likes to shit in a bag and drop it off the
side of a freeway overpass. He's crazy. You've murdered five, sorry - now six -
people in cold blood. You, my friend, are a raving homicidal maniac.'

Tony flopped
down onto a chair directly across from Jameson. The doctor continued. 'I had no
idea how deeply this compulsion dictated your behaviour.'

Tony's jaw was
clenched. He looked like he was about to explode, but instead the words came
out in a slow, deliberate whisper that was far more menacing. 'This is not a
fucking compulsion. This was a plan. Carefully thought out and brilliantly
executed. It was perfect.'

'But apparently,
it's not over for you,' Jameson said. 'Killing women has become the ultimate
expression of your virility. You can't stop.'

'What kind of
psychobabble are you trying to mind- fuck me with, Jameson? Virility? This had
nothing to do with my dick. This was about saving my ass. Mine and yours. I
killed those women to keep us out of prison. But do you think I'm so crazy that
I would do something that would reopen a closed case? I didn't kill Marilyn
Biggs, because that would fuck up everything.'

'I'm sure you've
convinced yourself of that,' Jameson said. 'But you killed Marilyn for the same
reason you killed Nora, Julia, Jo, and your wife. Because strong, smart women
like them kept your mother chained to a mop until the morning she died.'

'Don't even
start with that mother bullshit, Freud Jameson,' Tony said. 'This wasn't about
my mother. We had a dead fucking Mexican with two holes where his kidneys
should be, and my bitch of a wife who wanted every nickel I had or she'd turn us
in. Us. Me and you. I didn't kill Marisol because she was smart and strong. She
was a selfish, greedy, blackmailing whore. She would have bled me dry and
dragged you down with me. I killed her to save my ass and yours.'

'My ass?'
Jameson said. 'I had nothing to do with the death of that Mexican boy. You made
the call, Tony.'

'And I'd do it
again.'

'There will be
no
again?
Jameson said.
'I am officially out of the kidney business. It's over.'

'It
was
over,' Tony said.
'Martin took the rap for the four murders, but now, with Marilyn Biggs dead,
the case will be reopened.'

'Yes. And this
time you won't get away with it. Especially when they find a lock of Mrs
Biggs's hair in your possession.'

'My possession?'

'Oh, it won't be
easy to find on your property,' Jameson said, 'but I'm sure the police dogs
will sniff it out. Along with the gun that shot her.'

'You son of a
bitch,' Tony said, pressing his hand to his forehead. 'You stupid, arrogant son
of a bitch. You shot Biggs's wife.' He stood slowly. 'Oh, Christ, you've fucked
up everything.'

'No, Tony, you
fucked up everything,' Jameson said, pointing a finger at Tony's chest. 'I had
a golden opportunity, a chance to save people's lives, and enrich my own in the
process. Win-win. And when I needed a partner, who did I invite to be part of
it all? You. I could have asked someone else, but I've always looked after you,
always done my best to help you to live a better life. But then you got greedy.
You figured if one of Esteban Benitez's kidneys is good, then two must be twice
as good. For everyone but Benitez.'

'He had heart
disease,' Tony said. 'The surgeon said he had months to live. And we had two
recipients that day. At a half a million a pop.'

'Two recipients,
one donor. Whose fault was that?'

'Shit happens,
Ford. We've been through this. We had two young women stretched out on gurneys,
waiting for us to snatch them from death's door. And we had one guy with two
healthy kidneys who was not going to need them very long anyway. It was the
smart thing to do.'

'No it wasn't,'
Jameson said. 'The smart thing would have been to call me. You never should
have made that decision on your own.'

Tony sat back in
his chair and smiled. 'Actually, Ford, I didn't make the decision on my own.'

'What's that
supposed to mean?'

'What were the
odds of that one donor matching both those recipients?'

'A perfect
match? Astronomical,' Jameson said. 'But the same blood type, and a partial
tissue match? I don't know - a hundred to one? Two hundred?'

'Right,' Tony
said. 'So I let God decide. If Benitez matched the second girl, then that's why
God brought them together. So don't blame me for making the decision, blame
God.'

Jameson tapped
two fingers on his chin, and stared at Tony, looking every bit the pensive
psychiatrist. Finally, he spoke. 'You're right, Tony. God made the call. But
God didn't get caught by his scheming wife. You did. And if Marisol could
figure it out, it's only a matter of time before the cops get there too. And
then how long do you think it will take before it comes back to me? So
effectively, Tony, you've forced me into early retirement,
and I'll be
needing a generous severance package.'

Jameson stood up
from his chair. 'So be a good boy, sit down at the computer, and transfer eighty
percent of your assets to my account.'

'Eighty percent?
You're crazier than the shit-bag bomber.'

'I thought it
was rather generous of me,' Jameson said. 'That still leaves you with plenty of
money to get out of the country, before the cops find the lock of Marilyn
Biggs's hair and the gun that killed her. You can start a new life. You're
young, good-looking...newly single.'

'And you're
dead,' Tony said, pulling the gun from under his jacket. 'As you well know, Dr
Jameson, I'm not a very trusting guy, but I actually believed you were the one
person who wouldn't fuck me over. I guess I was wrong.'

He aimed the gun
at the doctor's head.

'If you kill me,
they'll know you did it,' Jameson said.

Tony laughed.
'You're damn right they'll know, because as soon as I pull the trigger I'll
call 911. I just caught the ringleader of a multimillion-dollar human organ
chop shop. And now that I know
you
killed Marilyn Biggs, I'll find some way of proving it. Do you know how many
traffic surveillance cameras there are between here and Sherman Oaks? I'll nail
you for her murder, and I'll find that lock of hair long before the dogs do.'

'You don't have
the balls to shoot me,' Jameson said.

'You never did
have any insight into who I really am,' Tony said. He squeezed the trigger. The
click was deafening.

He squeezed
again. And again. And again.

Click. Click.
Click.

Jameson smiled.
'No insight, perhaps, but I did have the foresight to make sure Detective Lomax
removed the firing pin from that gun. I'm sorry, Tony, but God helps those who
help themselves, and to do that, I had to make a deal with the devil.'

'Devils,
actually,' I said, as Terry and I walked through the door of Jameson's office.
'There's two of us.'

'Fucking Lomax
and Biggs,' Tony said.

'It's like
poker,' Terry said. 'You got dealt the cards, you played your hand, you went
all in, and you lost.' He removed the useless gun from Tony's hand.

'Actually, we've
got the whole deal on videotape,' I said. 'So it's more like
Celebrity Poker.

The plot to nail
Tony had been hatched earlier that morning.

After Diana and
I had made love, I woke Terry and convinced him that it was time to get
Kilcullen in the loop. We called him, then we called Deputy DA DeRoy at home.
By six o'clock the four of us were in the office, and Terry and I came clean
about investigating a fellow police officer behind the department's back.

Kilcullen
bristled, but he kept his anger to himself. By the time we gave him the whole
story, he no longer cared about crucifying us. He wanted Tony.

We strategised
about next steps, it all depends on whether or not Jameson calls,' Anna said.

He never did.
Instead, at six forty-five, he showed up in person. Accompanied, of course, by
his lawyer, Robert Leitman.

'My client can
help you put Tony Dominguez behind bars for the rest of his life,' Leitman
said.

Anna nodded. 'In
exchange for what?' she said.

'Total
immunity.'

'He walks,' she
said. 'No time, no fine, not
even
community service mopping the floors at the local clinic.'

'Yes.'

'No,' she said.
'Let me phrase it another way for you, Counsellor. Never. Not in a million
years will your client go scot-free. We have a witness to Marisol Dominguez's
murder. I'll take my chances on her, and then I'll put your client in jail for
twenty to thirty for his complicity in the death of Esteban Benitez.'

Leitman leant
over and whispered something to Jameson. It was legal theatrics. They had
worked out their game plan before they walked in the room.

Leitman looked
back at Anna. 'If we're willing to deal, how low are you willing to go?'

'Ten years. He
could be out in eight.'

'We decline.'

'Your client was
involved in illegal organ transplants and the death of an unsuspecting donor,'
she said.

'He's an
upstanding citizen, serves on several hospital boards, and donates his services
to charities,' Leitman said. 'He'll do better than ten if he goes to trial. Two
years, and you have deal.'

They haggled. They
finally settled on five years in a medium security prison.

'All right,
doctor,' Anna said. 'Start out by telling us how you got into the organ
business, and Detective Dominguez's role in it.'

'About three
years ago, I was in session with one of my patients,' Jameson said. 'He was
despondent over the fact that his twenty-year-old daughter needed a kidney. She
was on the waiting list, but despite all his wealth, there was little he could
do but keep waiting. He refused to accept the fact that he couldn't just go out
and buy one. I explained that even if he found a donor, no American doctor or
medical facility would do a transplant. Too many people are looking over their
shoulder. He said, 'There are plenty of other countries in the world.' And then
he said the magic words. 'Money is no object.' The next day I broached the
subject with Tony. He jumped at it. He drove down to Mexico, and a week later
we had a doctor and a donor. The surgery was done in Mexico City. The operation
was a success, we were handsomely paid, and I thought that was that.'

'But?' Anna
said.

'The young woman
who received the kidney had been in love with another patient at the dialysis
centre. He asked her to marry him, and as an engagement present, Daddy ordered
another kidney.'

'Volume,' Terry
said. 'The key to success in retail.'

'I was
surprised,' Jameson countered, it never dawned on me that I might be asked a
second time. What I didn't plan on was the word of mouth that would spread
through the dialysis community. Oh, it was discreet, in a way. It was only
leaked to those who could afford it, and at the prices we were asking, that was
a select few. But the orders kept coming in, until finally we relocated our
Mexican surgeon to Los Angeles. Then Tony came up with the idea of trucking in
the potential donors in groups, blood and tissue-typing them, and calling them
as soon as we had a match. We paid each donor twenty-five thousand dollars.
Tony came up with the amount. He was confident that with that much money, they
would go back to Mexico and we'd never see them again.'