The Dismantling Read Online Free PDF

flying you across the country and putting you up on our dime?”
    â€œNot that. I mean how do I know you’ll pay me the rest after the operation?”
    â€œI suppose you can’t know. But think of it this way: we don’t want anybody angry with us. The way we arrange things, everybody wins. The hospital. The recipient. You, the donor. Everybody’s happy.”
    â€œI’ve never been to New York.”
    â€œYou’d have $5,000 and two weeks to see how you like it.”
    â€œYeah,” Maria said. “So what’s the number of that lab?”
    Simon gave it to her.
    â€œThey’re ready for me?” He could sense her eagerness and at the same time her attempt to suppress it, as though she could take or leave what he was offering. “When can I call?”
    â€œToday, if you want.”
    â€œToday is all right,” she said. “Today is good.”

T HE next evening Simon waited in the fluorescent bowels of Penn Station, under the LIRR departures board. He was on his way to Leonard Pellegrini’s house, where they would begin preparations for the Cabrera psychosocial interview. Simon had suggested meeting in his office, but Lenny said he didn’t like taking a train into the city—he wasn’t driving these days—unless he had absolutely no choice. Looking around Penn Station, Simon couldn’t blame him. The place—low ceilings, crappy food, horror-show lighting—would depress anyone. At 6:15 p.m. the station was crowded beyond even what he’d expected. Each time a track number appeared on the board, a portion of the waiting mass of commuters detached itself and stampeded toward the track entrance, a riot of elbows and briefcases and shopping bags. When his train’s number came up, he waited until the rush had cleared and was rewarded with a standing-room spot next to the lavatory, its stale, uric smell wafting through the train compartment each time somebody wrestled open the sliding door.
    After an hour, he stepped out of the train and into the failing dusk. Headlights sliced though the parking lot’s busy shadows. His taxi driver nodded at the address and sped over the Sunrise Highway and past a high school, the football field’s goalposts glowing white against the sky. At Lenny’s house all of the lights were out. Simon opened the screen and knocked on the door. He waited, then knocked again. The door was locked. He dialed Lenny’s number on his cell phone, and he heard the ringing in his ear and its echo inside the house. He stepped back onto the porch and looked up at the second-floor windows. The curtains were pulled tight; if Lenny was in there, he didn’t want anybody to know it. Simon sat down on the porch steps. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen.
Screw this guy
, Simon thought.
Why should I help him when he can’t even be bothered to help himself?
As he was dialing a taxi to take him back to the train station, a black Lexus swung around the corner and pulled to a stop in front of the house. The driver’s-side window rolled down; Crewes’s head popped out.
    â€œI drove as fast as I could,” he said. “Lenny just remembered about you. Shit, man, you gotta tell me about this stuff. You can’t expect him to remember.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    â€œGet in. I’ll take you.”
    They quickly left Lenny’s town behind, heading north on the Cross Island Expressway. Crewes drove fast, weaving in and out of traffic, Al Green pleading on the stereo. Fifteen minutes later they exited the highway for a new town. Here, large houses were set back from the road; hedges shielded the properties from each other. Crewes drove up a gravel driveway and parked behind six or seven other cars. The house was large, not as big as Crewes’s, but older, more solidly built. A brick chimney rose out of a shingled roof; lights blazed in every window.
    Simon looked at Crewes. “Where are