The Organ Broker by Stu Strumwasser

Author:Stu Strumwasser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2014-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN:

STARFISH

Wallace got to the diner right on time. So did I. We walked straight toward each other from opposite directions on Forty-sixth Street. He’s always right on time.

“How you been?” he asked jovially as we approached each other. He wore sneakers, as always, a light and stylish leather jacket, and had a backpack draped over one shoulder. He looked like an aged college student, maybe fifty, heading off to class.

“Hey, Wallace.”

Once inside we ordered coffee and neither of us looked at the menu. I noticed that his hair looked gray.

“Been a while,” I said.

“Couple of years.”

“Getting a little gray, pal.”

He smiled and nodded, touched the side of his head with his free hand. “Well… .”

The waitress came and we ordered. Wallace got a tomato and spinach omelet, egg white only. He had not ordered an omelet with me ever before. He had once ordered egg salad. I got the turkey club. “So?” I asked, smiling.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s for a woman. Very wealthy husband. Family office wealthy. I’ve networked into some of those channels the last few years. Very concerned about privacy.”

“Tough blood type?”

He shook his head energetically in quick, short motions. “AB positive. A snap,” he replied. “Universal receptor.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Husband doesn’t like the traditional route,” he said. I didn’t follow. I cocked my head a bit, and probably looked a bit like a Labrador. “Gotta be a living donor,” he added nonchalantly, taking a big bite of eggs and ketchup.

“Shit.”

“New York Jack!” he said, more loudly, motioning at me with one hand extended outward, palm up, as if he was introducing me on a nightclub stage.

The place was packed, buzzing with loud conversation, the sound of silverware and glasses clinking, chairs pushed along the tiled floor. There were tourists everywhere, odd variations of out-of-place Americans. It was comforting. The normal lunchtime chaos was easy to blend into. I wondered if we had come to know each other too well.

“You’re talking about a big project,” I said quietly.

“It’s a half million. That’s two-fifty each. I’m not negotiating. That’s the real deal and we split it.”

I didn’t say anything. The money worried me. It was too much. For a liver I normally got around $200K total, meaning about a hundred and fifty to me. If I co-brokered it, with Wallace for instance, it might mean only seventy-five grand. A half a million was big, and that meant a commensurate risk, despite the fact that Wallace would surely argue otherwise.

“You can’t do that deal here in the States,” I said.

“And thus,” he said, looking up from his lunch and smiling, “I called you.”

◆

Wallace knew greedy doctors in the US and circulated in wealthy circles. Fifteen or twenty years ago, when this all really got started, he was a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic, one of the leading transplant centers in the US. I learned that tidbit years ago through a doctor I stumbled upon who knew him. I’ve never told Wallace. Hell, his last name is Kendrickson and he lives in South Norwalk, but I never had a reason to tell him I knew that either.

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