Carl Hiaasen - Skin Tight

Now, disaster. Heather-fair, nubile, perfectly apportioned Heather-had been snatched from her sickbed.

“We need a boat,” Rudy Graveline croaked. “For tonight.”

Chemo said, “Yeah, a big one. If I’m going back to that damn house I want to stay dry. See if you can find us a Scarab thirty-eight.”

“A reyou nuts?”

“ Just like they had on Miami Vice.”

“You are nuts. Who’s going to drive it?” Rudy stared pointedly at the unwieldy garden tool attached to Chemo’s left arm. “You?”

“Yeah, me. Just get on the phone, see what you can do. We’ve gotta move before the cops show up.”

Rudy looked stricken by the mention of police.

“Well, Jesus,” Chemo said, “you got a dead man in your fridge. This is a problem.”

Maggie was rinsing the mop in the kitchen sink. She said, “I’ve got an idea about that. You might not like it, but it’s worth a try.”

Rudy shrugged wearily. “Let’s hear it.”

“I used to work for a surgeon who knew this guy… this guy who would buy certain things.”

“Surely you’re not suggesting-”

“It’s up to you,” Maggie said. “I mean, Dr. Graveline, you’ve got yourself a situation here.”

“Yeah,” said Chemo. “Your ice cream is melting.”

The man’s name was Kimbler, and his office was in Miami’s hospital district; a storefront operation on 12th Street, a purse-snatcher’s jog from Jackson Hospital or the Medical Examiner’s Office. The magnetic sign on the door of the office said: “International Bio-Medical Exports, Inc.” The storefront window was tinted dark blue and was obscured by galvanized burglar mesh.

Kimbler was waiting for them when they arrived-Rudy, Chemo, Maggie, and Christina. Chemo had the Colt.38 in his pants pocket, pointed at Christina the whole time. He had wanted to leave her in the trunk of the Pontiac, but there was not enough room.

Kimbler was a rangy thin-haired man with tortoise-shell glasses and a buzzard’s-beak nose. The office was lighted like a stockroom, with cheap egg-carton overheads. Rows of gray steel shelves covered both walls. The shelves were lined with old-fashioned Mason jars, and preserved in the Mason jars were assorted human body parts: ears, eyeballs, feet, hands, fingers, toes, small organs, large organs.

Chemo looked around and, under his breath, said, “What the fuck.”

Kimbler gazed with equal wonderment at Chemo, who was truly a sight-his freshly sanded face glistening with Neosporin ointment, his extenuated left arm cloaked with its calfskin golf-bag cover, his radish-patch scalp, his handsome Jim Fowler safari jacket. Kimbler examined Chemo as if he were a prized future specimen.

“This is some hobby you got,” Chemo said, picking up a jar of gall bladders. “This is better than baseball cards.”

Kimbler said, “I’ve got the proper permits, I assure you.”

Maggie explained that Kimbler sold human tissue to foreign medical schools. She said it was perfectly legal.

“The items come from legitimate sources,” Kimbler added. “Hospitals. Pathology labs.”

Items. Christina was nauseated at the concept. Or maybe it was just the sweet dead smell of the place.

Kim bler said, “It may sound ghoulish, but I provide a much-needed service. These items, discarded organs and such, they would otherwise go to waste. Be thrown away. Flushed. Incinerated. Overseas medical schools are in great need of clinical teaching aids-the students are extremely grateful. You should see some of the letters.”

“No thanks,” Chemo said. “What’s a schlong go for these days?”

“Pardon me?”

Maggie cut in: “Mr. Kimbler, we appreciate you seeing us on short notice. We have an unusual problem.”

Kimbler peered theatrically over the tops of his glasses. A slight smile came to his lips. “I assumed as much.”

Maggie went on, “What we have is an entire… item.”

“I see.”

“It’s a pauper-type situation. Very sad-no family, no funds for a decent burial. We’re not even sure who he is.”

Christina could scarcely contain herself. She had gotten a quick glimpse of a body as they angled it into trunk of the Bonneville. A young man; that much she could tell.

Kimbler said to Maggie: “What can you tell me of the circumstances? The manner of death, for instance.”

She said, “An indigent case, like I told you. Emergency surgery for appendicitis.” She pointed at Rudy. “Ask him, he’s the doctor.”

Rudy Graveline was stupefied. He scrambled to catch up with Maggie’s yarn. “I was doing… he had a chronic heart condition. Bad arrhythmia. He should’ve said something before the operation, but he didn’t.”

Kimbler pursed his lips. “You’re a surgeon?”

“Yes.” Rudy wasn’t dressed like a surgeon. He was wearing Topsiders, tan cotton pants, and a Bean crewneck pullover. He was dressed for a boat ride. “Here, wait.” He took out his wallet and showed Kimbler an I.D. card from the Dade County Medical Society. Kimbler seemed satisfied.

“I realize this is out of the ordinary,” Maggie said.

“Yes, well, let’s have a look.”

Chemo pinched Christina by the elbow and said, “We’ll wait here.” He handed Maggie the keys to the Bonneville. She and Rudy led the man named Kimbler to the car, which was parked in a city lot two blocks away.

When Maggie opened the trunk, Rudy turned away. Kimbler adjusted his glasses and craned over the corpse as if he were studying the brush strokes on a fine painting. “Hmmmmm,” he said. “Hmmmrnmm.”

Rudy edged closer to block the view of the trunk, in case any pedestrians got curious. His concern was groundless, for no one gave the trio a second look; half the people in Miami did their business out of car trunks.

Kimbler seemed impressed by what he saw. “I don’t get many whole cadavers,” he remarked. “Certainly notof this quality.”

“We tried to locate a next of kin,” Rudy said, “but for some reason the patient had given us a phony name.”

Kimbler chuckled. “Probably had a very good reason. Probably a criminal of some type.”

“Every place we called was a dead end,” Rudy said, lamely embellishing the lie.

Maggie stepped in to help. “We were going to turn him over to the county, but it seemed like such a waste.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kimbler. “The shortage of good cadavers… by good, I mean white and well-nourished. Most of the schools I deal with-for instance, one place in the Dominican, they had only two cadavers for a class of sixty medical students. Tell me how those kids are ever going to learn gross anatomy.”

Rudy started to say something but thought better of it. The whole deal was illegal as hell, no doubt about it. But what choice did he have? For the first time in his anal-retentive, hyper-compulsive professional life he had lost control of events. He had surrendered himself to the squalid street instincts of Chemo and Maggie Gonzalez.

Kimbler was saying, “Two measly cadavers, both dysenteries. Weighed about ninety pounds each. For sixty students! And this is not so unusual in some of these poor countries. There’s a med school on Guadeloupe, the best they could do was monkey skeletons. To help out I shipped down two hearts and maybe a half-dozen lungs, but it’s not the same as having whole human bodies.”

Shrewd haggler that she was, Maggie had heard enough. Slowly she closed, but did not lock, the rusty trunk of the Bonneville; Reynaldo Flemm had begun to thaw.

“So,” she said, “you’re obviously interested.”

“Yes,” said Kimbler. “How does eight hundred sound?”

“Make it nine,” said Maggie.

Kimbler frowned irritably. “Eight-fifty is pushing it.”