The Bum's Rush (11 page)

"You do truly have a fevered imagination, Leo." She
wagged a finger at me. "Sixties flashbacks, I suspect. That's probably
why you've come to no good." When I didn't object, she continued.
"Besides, if any such thing had actually happened, it could only have
been because he made fun of my height."

"Ah " I started.

"Hypothetically speaking, of course," she added.

"You still feel bad; that's how come you tolerate him. That's also how come you recommended him for the job."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Tommy's a first-class pathologist. You must be "

"That and the fact that he's warm for your form."

She punched me hard in the arm. "Really, Leo, you're supposed to have outgrown your genital stage by now."

"He's had a boner for you since grammar school."

She started to object. I blustered her off. "And that's not even the scary part."

"Pray tell."

"The scary thing is, I think he liked you kicking his ass."

"You are such a pervert."

"Thank you," I said.

She reannexed my arm. "Speaking of that "

"Do tell."

"Mom and Rhetta left on their cruise yesterday," she said.

"How long?"

"Two weeks bobbing about among the icebergs."

"Really," I said. "Two weeks? Aren't they usually at one another's throats on about the fourth day?" ?

"They're getting better. I think old age is mellowing them."

"That's a frightening thought," I said.

"Oh no. For a frightening thought, consider the fact that fj lately they've been talking about moving in together."

I mulled this over as we walked. "Where does that leave you?" I asked casually.

"I think that would leave us about at that discussion we've always been promising to have."

"I suppose a full-fledged sprint back to my car would be considered poor form about now."

"Extremely," she confirmed. "Not only that, but I've always been faster than you."

I kept my chin high and my step steady. "I should probably start acting more agreeable, then."

"Probably," she agreed.

We strolled on, turning down the little fractured
femur of Alder Street that ran along the south side of Harborview. Dug
in like a bad toenail, 850 Alder was nearly buried by a latticed
superstructure of steel scaffolding, wooden catwalks, and concrete
forms. I'd asked everyone, but nobody knew what it was they were
building. We went down the stairs. The reception desk was empty. A
little red clock. Smiley face. Be back at 1:00. It was 1:20.

Rebecca removed her coat and looked up at the assignment board.

"Tommy's working in three. Second door on the left."

"I don't suppose "

"I've got a meeting and then a logjam of lab work. Call me later. Or" she started down the hall, smiling
back over her shoulder "you can neglect me for another couple of days
and then just make another reservation at Palomino. Ta-ta."

I watched until she turned right into her office
and then took a deep breath. I was a man with a plan. I was ready. I'd
been training for a moment such as this, and now the moment was at
hand. During my recent sabbatical, I had filled some of the time when I
wasn't surfing the Net with movies. Three or four a week. Sometimes
more. I'd seen everything. The Academy Awards committee should be so
wise as to seek my counsel. Somewhere along the way, after the
zillionth frame of Hollywood gore, I'd developed the ability to see the
carnage as merely interestingly constructed plastic creations. I no
longer averted my eyes at the sight of mock internal organs. Instead, I
now tried to figure out how they had gone about constructing this thing
that looked so convincingly like a recently severed arm, its veins and
arteries still quivering, fingers easing open for the last time. I had
willfully suspended my willful suspension of disbelief. That's what I
was going to do today. It's just a plastic model. Just a plastic model.
Just. . .

Three was what I presumed to be a typical autopsy
room. On the right, a series of large stainless steel drawers provided
temporary shelter for the stiffs. Except for massive overhead lights
and the big drain in the middle of the floor, the rest of the room
could have passed for a high school science lab.

I pulled open the door. Tommy Maksukawa's head
popped up from behind the green-covered atrocity that lay heaped on the
table in front of him.

"Hey, Tommy," I said.

"Good to see you, Leo." His eyes crinkled above the surgical mask. "Come on in. Take a look at this."

As I started across the room, I began my internal
dialogue. It's just a plastic model. Just a plastic model. Must have
taken them weeks to get the feet that purple color. Interesting. I
wonder how they--"

"Rebecca says you did the postmortem on that Lukkas Terry kid."

"That was my unfortunate honor," he confirmed.

I stopped on the near side of the table, with the
stiff between us. Huge. A floater. Looked like somebody put an air hose
up his ass. All puffed up and ready to burst like a bad souffle. Oh,
Jesus, it's got no face. No. No. Deep breath. They just haven't put the
face on yet. That's it. Amazing how they just left the holes so the
artist could work out the face itself later. A lot of different people
probably work on a big model like this. Specialization is the key.

"Just your run-of-the-mill drug overdose?" I asked.

"Had enough pure smack in his system to kill a rhino. Come over on this side. Take a look at this."

I kept smiling as I walked around. It's amazing
what they can do with these new plastics. Look how lifelike those
sawed-off rib ends are where he's cut that big window in the thing's
chest cavity. Got him a little door now, like an old-time speakeasy.
Just needs a knob. Joe sent me.

"Pure smack. You mean, like, untouched, nobody had stepped on it at all?"

"Pure as the driven snow. Best stuff I've analyzed in years. China White. Stopped his clock in two seconds flat."

"Where the hell does a body get uncut drugs these days?" I wondered out loud.

He winked and leered. "When you're a big-time rock star, I imagine you can pretty much get whatever you want."

Tommy pulled open the trapdoor in the model's chest
to reveal a morass of internal organs, all blown up like a mottled
rainbow of balloons, all fighting for space within the torso.

"Did you ever see a spleen that big?" he asked, poking a quivering purple balloon with his gloved index finger.

"Not since breakfast," I offered cheerfully. "Was there other evidence of him being an IV drug user?"

Amazing realism. They've even included aroma. I wonder if the individual organs are all scratch-and-sniff?

"That's the sad part," Tommy said, dropping the
trapdoor with a wet plop. "Cops found a set of works there in the
house. He had three or four fresh puncture marks. He was either a
moderate user or he'd just started. Either way, he was no way ready for
anything that strong."

"How much energy did the SPD put into it?"

I could see the consternation in his eyes. I should have been puking down the drain by now. I had him going.

"What was there for them to do? He's found locked
in his own house, in his own bathroom, needle still in his arm. This
wasn't like Beaver Cleaver suddenly went wrong or anything either. This
kid had a psychiatric history you wouldn't believe. Foster homes. Been
remanded to the state twice. I mean, I'm sure, you know, him being
famous and all, I'm sure SPD dotted their f s and such, but this was
strictly a no-brainer."

"Nothing at all?" I pressed.

He ruminated. "An elderly neighbor thought she heard loud voices coming from the place on the night he died."

"Did they investigate?"

I could sense that he was smiling behind the mask. "You know what she wanted the crime lab techs to do?''

"What?"

"She wanted them to check and see if her locks had been picked. You know why?"

"I'll bite. Why?"

"Because she was sure that people had been breaking
into the place and moving her stuff. Her keys and glasses. Not stealing
them or anything. Just moving around so she couldn't find them. She
figured it was the Lebanese couple at the end of the hall."

I took another tack. "And, from your end, you gave him the whole nine yards?"

"Hey, man, it's a big case. I've got every second
on film and enough tissue samples in the freezer for a barbecue. The
steel plate from his arm. You name it, I got it. My Peking ducks are in
a row."

"I didn't mean to imply " I started.

"You ever seen a pancreas?"

I took a deep breath. "No," I said. "But I've been meaning to."

He began rooting around, up to his elbow in the torso. I took another tack. "Who found him?"

"Anonymous phone tip. A woman, as I understand it.
Probably one of his groupies. Didn't want to get involved. That sort of
thing. Probably a user herself. They want nothing to do with the heat,
but I don't have to tell you that."

"No question about any of it at all?" I pressed.

"Nada. Cut and dried.... Ahhhh," he said, snaking
his arm out of the model. In his hand was an oblong object the size of
a sweet potato. He waved it under my nose. "The pancreas," he announced.

That's what it is a sweet potato or a yam covered
in guava jelly. Amazing what they'll think of and they are
scratch-and-sniff. Wow. Wonder how in God's name they did that.

Nonplussed, I ambled back around to the far side of the model.

"Well, Tommy, my man, thanks for the info and the anatomy lesson," I said.

His eyes narrowed. His cheek twitched madly beneath the mask.

"You know how come everything blows up like this, Leo?" he asked as he again pulled back the trapdoor.

"How come?"

"Because it's a closed system. Once the gas buildup
begins, it has no external outlet. Once rigor closes the anus, the gas
just moves from organ to organ, blowing them up like a bunch of circus
balloons linked in series."

Balloons. I knew it! That's precisely what they
are. They must have painted them all those ghastly earth tones. Surely
they don't come in those hues.

"Until--" He let it hang.

"Until what?"

"Until they find some outlet."

With the swipe of a scalpel, he sliced away the
corner of the uppermost purple balloon. A great wet whoosh burst from
the corpse. The air was suddenly filled with the smell of primordial
swamp gas, of putrefying organic matter, of human compost and dark,
rank water. The corpse began slowly to deflate and flatten on the
table. It's just--just-- Arrrrgh. I began to backpedal.

I reeled back, slapping at the air around me as if
it were alive with bees. I could feel the spores boring into my skin.
The ginger chicken I'd had for lunch was packing its bags for the trip
north. Clamping both hands over my mouth, I stumbled to the door, out
of the room, and out into the reception area.

Tyann Cummings, the college girl who personed the reception desk, opened her mouth as if to greet me
and then closed it again. A pair of white-frocked interns pulled their
heads apart and looked my way. I kept jogging, right out the door and
up the steps. Arrrrrgh.

The cold air washed over me like a welcome shower.
I scrubbed myself in it. Brushing my clothes, tousling my hair. I must
have looked autistic. So what? Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I pressed my
forehead to the cool corrugated metal of the construction shed, closed
my eyes, and stood still. After a while, a massive orange frontloader,
its scoop dripping pea gravel, came roaring by in a cloud of cleansing
dust. The driver eyed me hard. I managed a small wave. He rolled on by.
I stood and listened to the sounds of fading hydraulics.

Reluctantly I pushed myself off the shed and headed
out toward Ninth Avenue. I was walking on rented legs. My knees were
asleep. I crossed Ninth and started up Alder on the shady side, keeping
the concrete retaining wall hard by my left shoulder just in case these
foreign legs should turn out to be defective. Halfway up, satisfied
that I was up to the task, I slipped between cars and started across
the street.

Had it been one of those new Japanese models so
popular with PTA members, one of those silent-gliding, rearengined,
thirty-thousand-dollar minivans, I would surely have been road pizza.
As it was, I heard it long before I was otherwise aware of its presence.

The throaty roar of an American engine turned my
head to the left. A windowless, primer-gray Chevy van, its windshield
tinted impossibly dark, was roaring up the street in my direction.
Leaving the pedal to the metal, the driver speed-shifted into second
gear. "Kids," I thought, and hustled to get out of the way.

I was two-thirds of the way across the street when
the van began to veer from the right-hand lane, angling toward me. Very
funny.

Just a few years ago I might have stood my ground
and given the asshole the one-finger salute. No more. Nowadays the
cretin probably had a rocket launcher or something, so I began to move
along the line of cars, looking for a break where I could slip up onto
the sidewalk and end this silly game. The van was so close now that I
could hear the squealing of a worn fan belt. The sound of water moving
through the system. Any second now, I expected the stupid son of a
bitch to turn away and have a good laugh at my expense.

When the driver held his line and jammed it into
third gear, my central nervous system suddenly knew that he was past
the point of no return. The crazy bastard was going to hit me. I took
three long strides, pushed off on my left foot, and dove up onto the
hood of the nearest car. My ears filled with the sound of a roaring
engine. My chest felt the initial impact and then the tearing of metal
as the van ripped along the side of the car.

I slid across the slick hood and disappeared
headfirst over the far edge, somersaulting, coming down hard on my left
shoulder, half on, half off the grass strip separating the sidewalk
from the street. Using the door handle for leverage, I pulled myself up
in time to see the van disappear over the rise on Alder. The Acura's
alarm system had been triggered. The car's horn bleated insistently. I
stood, shaking.