Dead Ringer Read Online Free PDF Page A

say anything.
    Ditto asked, “The specimen, what’s the identifier?”
    “Got it right here. Figured you might want to know.”
    “Hold on a sec.” Ditto set the phone on the desk and pulled up the Hong Kong order on the computer. There it was: an order for four heads. No specified sex or decade of age, which made it easier to fill. The problem was some guy named Wong had specifically requested fresh material, meaning the heads couldn’t be preserved with formaldehyde. A request occurring more frequently these days because some asshole claimed non-preserved material more closely resembled the texture of living tissue. Well, duh. Fresh was fresh; that’s why they called it fresh. It pissed Ditto off. Didn’t those prima donnas realize how much hassle that caused him?
    Orders for formalin-fixed material were pretty easily filled from inventory. But fresh material? Unless you were lucky, the specimens were never in stock the day the order came due. Mostly because inventory was difficult to maintain. Just like steaks from the butcher shop, the tissue begins to spoil and break down if stored too long. So if he didn’t have the items in inventory, he had to buy them from a competitor. Which he hated because those heartless bastards knew that he was upagainst the wall and charged him up the ass. And they loved to see him squirm.
    But this Hong Kong order … fuck . Each specimen number had an asterisk beside it. That was Ditto’s code to designate it had been “procured.” He swallowed and double-checked.
    Heart racing, he picked up the phone. “Still there?”
    “Something wrong?” Leo’s words had the watery, echoic quality of a low-grade satellite connection.
    Then a thought hit: what were the chances of this conversation being monitored? After all, with that detective being here … Or was he being overly paranoid?
    “Hold a second longer.” Ditto slicked back his hair and took two deep breaths, then stared at his favorite Tigers poster, the 1968 original he’d framed for its inspirational value. On the last day of the 1967 season the club had been eliminated. But the next year they returned with a vengeance, rebounding from a 3 to 1 deficit to beat the favored Cardinals in game seven of the World Series. That was the kind of strength he needed now.
    He heard Leo’s voice on the phone say, “Bobby?”
    “I said, hold on a second.” Wiping sweat from his eyes, he tried to think, tried to take a step back to look at things objectively. Point number one: the detective was looking for the hooker, not her john. Point number two: even if some surgeon recognized the face in Hong Kong, what he was going to do about it? Not a goddamn thing.
    The hooker no longer existed, having been completely harvested within hours of procurement. Ligaments used as replacement parts in knee surgery. Skin for bandaging burn patients. Bones cut up for jaw reconstructions or spinefusions. Hair sent to wig makers. They would’ve used her corneas, but her head was worth a lot more intact if you factored in its primo condition. Same with her john.
    He felt deep pride at his ethics for dealing with such tough choices. Choices that weren’t always easy. What benefited society more? One set of corneas for only one person or a head used for teaching twelve surgeons? In this case the answer was obvious, but there were other times when it wasn’t. He always erred on the side of the majority because that made the most sense. Choosing the course that benefited the most people was always the right thing to do. Doing the right thing was something else Dad had taught him.
    “Waste not, want not,” was one of the rules of life Dad drummed into him. In their family no bottles were ever thrown in the trash; they were recycled. No faucet dripped very long before being fixed. Lights were turned off when leaving a room. Some people called such frugality a depression-era ethic, as if once the Great Depression ended people were free to waste things.