Soul Tracker, page 7
“Bro,” he called.
“’Sup man?”
He arrived and they gave a handshake as complex as any secret society’s.
“The man here wants to talk to your cousin, Hector.”
The kid stooped lower to look at Griffin, then shook his head. “Don’t think so, Bro.”
“Why?”
“Hector ain’t switch hittin’ no more. ’Specially not with old white raisins.” He flashed Griffin a grin that showed a dying front tooth.
“We ain’t talkin’ party, Bro. He got some other action comin’ down.”
“Yeah?” The kid sized up Griffin again, then shook his head. “Don’t think so, man.”
As if understanding an unspoken language, Griffin’s associate magically produced a twenty-dollar bill.
The kid grinned and snatched it. “I’ll see what I can do.” He turned and sauntered back to the group.
The associate turned to Griffin and explained, “Handling fee.”
Griffin nodded. “He’s not turning tricks anymore. This is a good sign.”
The man nodded. “You’ll still want tests. Make sure he’s clean.”
“We’ll do that during cross match.”
“Everything else works?”
Griffin motioned to the computer screen. “His tissue types are very close. In all three groups.”
“Cool.”
They turned as Luis approached with Hector.
“Happening, Bro?”
Hector shrugged.
“The man here wants to talk to you.”
Hector glanced up the street, then waited.
Taking his cue, Griffin extended his hand. “My name is Griffin, Dr. Richard Griffin.”
Hector simply stared at the hand.
With a smile Griffin pulled it back. “Do you remember the blood test they ran on you over at the drop-in center a couple months back?”
“I ain’t sick.”
“No, no you’re not. In fact, what we’ve discovered is that you may have some very remarkable blood running through those veins of yours. So remarkable that we’d like to run a few more tests, to see if our data is indeed correct.”
Hector’s eyes held his, carefully evaluating.
“Of course there’d be some remuneration, payment for your time.”
“How much?”
“How does one hundred dollars sound?”
The associate’s wince indicated that Griffin had offered too much. Before he could respond, Luis stepped in.
“One-fifty.”
“One hundred and fifty dollars?” Griffin asked in surprise. “No, I don’t—”
“Take it or leave it. He’s a busy man.”
Griffin hesitated, glancing to his associate for clues. There were none. “Well, all right, then. One hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Plus a safety deposit.”
“A what?” Griffin asked.
Luis explained, “You pay me safety deposit money and I’ll make sure he gets there safely.”
Now Griffin understood. Extortion. Protection money. But would he really harm his own cousin? It didn’t matter. “All right.” Griffin produced a twenty and handed it over to Luis, who waited patiently for him to produce a second. Griffin complied.
The kid flashed his dead-tooth grin. “Where and when?”
“Tomorrow, one o’clock, at 2540 Las Posas.”
“The Freak Shop?” Luis exclaimed.
“The what?”
“Where you run them experiments.”
“Actually, we share those facilities with several other medical groups and—”
“Right.” Luis nodded at the obvious lie. “But no experiments on this one. We don’t run no experiments on my man with the remarkable blood.”
“No, no, of course not.”
Another grin. “At least not for no hundred fifty bucks.”
“That is correct. No experiments.”
Luis spoke something in Spanish to Hector. The kid nod ded, turned, and slunk back toward the curb. Before joining him, Luis leaned farther onto the window. “I got some fancy blood too, you know. Special discount rate.”
“Don’t think so, Bro,” the associate said, reaching for the electric window.
“Also got friends who specialize in raisins, if you’re interested.” The window rolled up, forcing Luis to pull back. “Okay, maybe some other time then.”
He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,
Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow
Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool,—
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul.
Gita sat in her hotel room, staring at yet another poem by Emily Dickinson. She didn’t understand it all, but was struck at how David’s daughter, this other Emily, had valued it so much that she had written it down. And not just this poem—dozens of similar ones filled her journal. Some by Dickinson, some by other poets. Each seemed rich with meaning. In fact, more than once, Gita found herself skimming over the daughter’s written thoughts to focus upon the poems that so intrigued the girl. That so intrigued Gita.
As she read the journal, she had noticed a gradual shift in the daughter’s tone—particularly in the last portion, during her final weeks at the hospital. Here, she’d met a Christian kid, some heartthrob by the name of Cory. And here, her hunger for spiritual things seemed to awaken. The poem that she’d entered on the following page by a J. Quarles and H. F. Lyte of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a perfect example:
Long did I toil and knew no earthly rest,
Far did I rove and found no certain home;
At last I sought them in his sheltering breast,
Who opes his arms and bids the weary come:
With him I found a home, a rest divine,
And I since then am his, and he is mine.
The good I have is from his store supplied,
The ill is only what he deems the best:
He for all my friend I’m rich with naught beside,
And poor without him, though of all possessed;
Changes may come, I take or I resign,
Content while I am his, while he is mine.
Whate’er may change, in him no change is seen,
A glorious Sun that wanes not nor declines,
Above the storms and clouds he walks serene,
And on his people’s inward darkness shines;
All may depart, I fret not, nor repine,
While I my Saviour’s am, while he is mine.
While here, alas! I know but half his love,
But half discern him and but half adore;
But when I meet him in the realms above
I hope to love him better, praise him more,
And feel, and tell, amid the choir divine,
How fully I am his and he is mine.
Interspersed among the poems were pages of conversations with Cory—particularly the ones they had during their secret rendezvous in the laundry room where they talked and she asked questions until dawn. Questions about God. About Cory’s faith. And, nestled between one of those conversations, Gita found a poem the girl had written on her own. It was no masterpiece, but again it showed the depth of something happening inside:
I see Love’s scarred hands
outstretched from Calvary.
“Come, come, come.”
“But my filth and failures—
can’t you see
my shame, shame, shame?”
“I see not your dirt,
I count not your losses.
Come, come, come.”
“But I am worthless,
with nothing to bring but
Shame, shame, shame.”
“You’ve not even that,
For I’ve taken it all, even
your blame, blame, blame.”
Yes, she was going through deep changes, making the transition into a life of faith—which made her suicide in the hospital all the more tragic. But there was something else. A small bit of info that Gita had run across earlier and still couldn’t shake. She looked up from the diary and stared out the hotel window into the evening. Something wasn’t right. Something about the hospital tests. She was no psychiatrist and she was clueless about the medications the girl mentioned, but she did find it strange that the staff had run a series of tissue-type tests on her. Those were the words she had used. Not blood type, which might be understandable should an emergency arise, but the battery of tests they’d run was to determine her tissue type. Why would a mental health hospital need tissue type?
She glanced at her cell phone charging on the nightstand. There was one possibility. She knew the Orbolitz Group sometimes asked for such information from hospitals who benefited from their grant programs—and from individuals who agreed to participate in their medical studies. They’d even asked for permission from her brother, Nubee. The idea was to encourage as many as possible to consider becoming organ donors—typical of the Orbolitz Group’s humanitarian focus.
She reached for the phone. It was almost two in the morning Salt Lake City time, one on the Coast. But she knew her boss, Richard Griffin, was as much a workaholic as she. He’d still be up working on something. She’d give him a quick call to see if either the hospital or the girl was in their system.
Normally Griffin paid for much higher-class call girls. He could certainly afford them. And normally they’d drive themselves to his Santa Monica penthouse. But this evening he’d been down on the Boulevard and saw such an abundance of youth that he thought a little diversion might be good for the soul. So, after dropping off his associate, he picked up a couple street brats for a little drive-time party before heading home. They’d just entered the limo when his cell phone rang. He read the name on the LED, motioned for the girls to be patient, and answered, “Good evening, Gita.”
“Dr. Griffin, did I wake you?”
“You know better than that.” He glanced at his reflection in the window, adjusting his hair. “Just got your report on Morrie Metcalf. Nice work. Sounds like some major slicing and dicing.”
“I hope I did not completely destroy him.”
“Nonsense. He got what he deserved.” Griffin pulled one of the girls, a redheaded Goth, to his side. “He was a fake and you exposed him.”
“Yes, I suppose.”
Griffin chuckled. One thing he enjoyed about Gita Patekar was her straight-arrow approach. You always knew where you stood with her…which meant you could always manipulate her. Except, of course, when it came to compromising her morality. Pity. He’d certainly put in enough effort…and he wasn’t about to stop. She was too tantalizing of a morsel. Other than that imperfection, she was the model employee—as faithful and dependable as any household dog.
“What’s up?” he asked, turning his face from the smell of the redhead’s greasy hair.
“I was wondering. Do we have any philanthropic programs running at Valley Care Health Facility? It’s in Agoura Hills, California?”
“Where?”
“Agoura Hills?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I met a man this evening. A Mr. David Kauffman.”
“Go on.”
“He has a teenage daughter, or had, by the name of Emily Kauffman. She was institutionalized at Valley Care Health until her successful attempt at suicide nine weeks ago. As you can imagine, he is quite traumatized by it.”
The redhead nuzzled into Griffin until he shrugged her off. Gita definitely had his attention. He chose his words carefully, trying to sound casual. “What does that have to do with us, Gita?”
“I was simply curious if we had any programs running there. Or perhaps we are sponsoring some of its patients.”
“Doesn’t ring any bells.” There was a pause at the other end. He quickly added, “I’d have to check the files to be certain, though.”
“Would that be a problem?”
“For you, of course not.”
“It appears they ran a tissue type on her, which seems rather odd in an institution such as that.”
Griffin closed his eyes, striving to keep his voice even. “Yes, it does. I can’t get to a computer right now. But first chance I get, I’ll be happy to look into it. What’s her name again?”
“Kauffman. Emily Kauffman. I am sure it is nothing. But he is a very nice man, and as you can imagine, he is tormented by many questions.”
Griffin forced a laugh as he opened the laptop before him and quickly searched the screen for a folder. “Nice, is he?”
“He is very sensitive, yes.”
The redhead tried again and he pushed her away. She pretended to pout, sliding to her friend who was putting down her second or third mini-bottle of rum from the bar. “Well, you be careful of those nice men, Gita. You know where that can lead.”
“Dr. Griffin, please.” He could hear the embarrassment in her voice. “I am simply trying to be helpful.”
“Right.” He found the folder labeled Surveillance and clicked it open. “Well, you be careful, just the same.”
“Thank you for your concern, Doctor.”
He smiled. Was that sarcasm he heard? Was she finally getting acclimated to American culture?
“You know I’m always looking out for you, Gita.” He pulled her name from the file and brought it up on the screen.
“I am certain you are.”
Yes, that was definitely sarcasm. He forced another chuckle. “I’ll have an answer for you within twenty-four hours.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” He tabbed over to her phone numbers and saw three entries—cell, home, and work. Beside each was a box with the word monitor. He rapidly checked all three. Now Security would record and review all of her calls.
“No, that is all, Dr. Griffin. Thank you.”
“Are you certain?” He continued to tease, though there was no smile on his face. “Because if there’s any other service I can provide, you know I’m always here.”
“Thank you, Doctor, that was all I needed. Good night.”
“Good night, Gita.” He hung up, then paused a moment to think. If the father, David Kauffman, was asking questions, if he had somehow connected his daughter’s death to the Orbolitz Group, then he’d have to be diverted. And the sooner the better. Griffin hit the menu tab on his cell phone, then clicked to phone book. He scrolled until he found the number. There was no name beside it. Griffin had never known the name. He had never wanted to. Just the extension: 3316. That’s the number that would evaluate the problem. That’s the number that would suggest how best to contain and, if necessary, remove it.
Four
You really think that’s true?” David adjusted the phone and rose to his feet. “That she became a person of faith?”
“Please look at the entry dated…” He heard the drone of Gita’s car as she leafed through her copy of the journal. “…October 13.”
He reached down to his desk and flipped toward the back of Emily’s diary. It was just before noon. Dr. Patekar had already flown halfway across the country, arrived at the airport, and was driving home. David, on the other hand, had managed to record his answering machine message (six times), wash every windowpane of the French doors to his office (inside and out), and connect all fifty-four paper clips he’d found in his desk drawer. It was one of his more profitable days. Of course no writing came. Not anymore. He hadn’t been able to write since the accident. Actually long before that.
Originally he’d thought his paralysis came from the success of his last book and the fears of trying to match that success with his next. But as the months dragged into years, he suspected he’d run up against a much greater problem—the problem of catching truth on paper. He saw the beauty of life all around him. He saw it in breathtaking vistas, he saw it in tiny details. But, no matter how hard he tried, he could not find the words to capture that life. Everything he wrote felt clichéd…artificial…clunky. His phrases glanced off truth like a butter knife trying to sculpt marble. And, though Emily’s death was his latest excuse, he knew his ineptness had been lurking underneath long before that.
He found the page Gita had mentioned and asked, “Is it the Edwin Hatch poem she copied?”
“Yes. Please take a moment to read it.”
“You’re sure you’ve got the time?”
“In this traffic,” she sighed, “I may have all day.”
David smiled. He liked this woman—her intriguing accent, her gentle directness. More than that, there was a quality about her, a type of centeredness, that he found very engaging. He sat on the edge of his desk and read from the journal:
Breathe on me, breath of God
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what thou dost love,
And do what thou wouldst do.
He stopped. “I’ve read this before, a couple times.”
“Yes. But in the context of her conversations with Cory?”
“The boyfriend.”
“Yes.”
“Well, no, not—”
“Please, read it again, David. I think you may see something.”
“All right.” He returned to the poem and continued, forcing himself to slow down and read it with fresh eyes.
Breathe on me, breath of God,
Until my heart is pure:
Until with thee I have one will
To do and to endure.
Breathe on me, breath of God,
Till I am wholly thine,
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with thy fire divine.
