Michael Palmer - Natural Causes

"Issued on what basis?" Matt asked.

"On the basis of a call regarding this man, made to our drug hot line. I obtained the warrant just in case. I hadn't intended to use it until I had had some time to check up on him. But I used to work for the DEA, and I know opium when I see it. And I think that is precisely what is in that jar back there."

Kwong's English, though limited, clearly included "opium." His agitation immediately began to crescendo again.

"Opium no! No mine!" he shouted between staccato bursts of Cantonese.

Sarah could see not only confusion in his face, but sheer terror.

"Dammit, Mooney," Matt exclaimed. "Can't you see the old guy is in no shape for something like this?"

"Young lady, would you ask your grandfather to get that jar for me?" the sheriff persisted.

Matt snatched the jar from the shelf and banged it down on the counter. "You want the bottle so damn bad? Here, take it. What kind of policeman are you, doing this to an old man in front of his grandchild?"

"One who doesn't like dope pushers no matter what age they are."

At that moment, Kwong, who had been screaming and waving his sticklike arms about, stopped abruptly. His breathing became suddenly labored and grunting, and his color immediately darkened.

"Grandpa!" the girl cried.

Sarah and Eli grasped what was happening almost simultaneously. Acute pulmonary edema-heart failure-almost certainly from a coronary. Quickly they lowered Kwong onto the floor. He was battling for air now, wheezing audibly, breathing at a rate at least twice normal, and fighting any attempt to lay him on his back.

"Get an ambulance," Blankenship ordered to no one in particular. "Sarah, can you communicate with him?"

"Some."

"Come on down here beside him then, and do your best to calm him down. We've got to buy some time until the rescue squad gets here with some oxygen and morphine."

Sarah toweled off the old man's forehead and face, both of which were drenched with sweat. She whispered in his ear and rubbed his back. Oxygen and morphine, she was thinking. Oxygen and morphine…

"Dr. Blankenship," she said suddenly. "The opium."

The professor understood immediately. Acute heart failure-even if caused by a coronary-often responded dramatically to narcotic sedation. Morphine was one of the treatments of choice for the condition. And morphine was a chemical derivative of opium.

"Are we sure of what's in that jar?" he asked.

Sarah mopped Kwong's brow again. His color now was truly ghastly. It was quite possible his pulmonary edema would result in full cardiac arrest before the rescue squad arrived.

"Debbie, come quickly, please," she said. "Please don't be frightened. We need your help… Ask your grandfather if that really is opium in that jar. Tell him it's very, very important."

The girl stayed where she was.

"Debbie, please," Sarah begged. "It may save his life. We need to know. Please ask him."

"I don't have to," the teen said suddenly. "It is opium. It's his opium. Everyone in the family knows-he smokes it with his friends. But he hardly does it anymore. And he always keeps it locked up downstairs. I don't know how it got onto that shelf."

"Thank you, Debbie," Sarah said. "You did the right thing telling us. Don't worry."

Eli Blankenship was already working some of the crystals beneath the old man's tongue. Sarah returned her attention to Kwong, reassuring him, and drying him off. After a minute, Blankenship dosed him again.

"You practiced in the jungle," he said. "For an old hospital man like me, medicating this way is a bit scary."

But already Kwong's respirations had begun to slow and his color to improve. He was still laboring for every bit of air, but the mortal fear in his eyes was clearly abating.

"His pulse rate is coming down, and it's stronger," Sarah said excitedly.

For the first time during the crisis, she looked over at Matt.

"Nice going," he mouthed.

By the time the rescue squad arrived, Eli had administered a third pinch of opium, and Kwong was no longer in extremis. In minutes, with the two legal sides watching in silent fascination, the paramedic and EMTs had their new charge strapped onto a stretcher with Oxygen in place, an IV running, and medications given. As treating physician, Eli Blankenship had ordered the meds. Now, although the situation seemed under control, he insisted on riding with Kwong. They loaded the old man into the ambulance, and Blankenship, with surprising grace, hopped up behind the stretcher. Then with a final nod from him and a thumb's-up to Sarah, they were gone.

Jeremy Mallon mumbled something to Matt about being in touch and led his two stunned associates from the shop. Debbie ran upstairs to leave a note instructing her mother to meet them at White Memorial.

Sarah, suddenly only marginally less pale than Kwong had been, sank onto the cane-back chair. Matt brought her a glass of water.

"You did an amazing job there," he said.

"I'm grateful Dr. Blankenship was here. He's the best."

"You're the one who thought of using the opium, remember? Is the old guy going to be okay?"

"I don't know. He-he's so frail. It's as if he's turned old just since the last time I saw him."

"Not like he was then?"

"Not at all. Matt, I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

"Well, that depends. Do you believe Kwong was giving you the wrong stuff all this time?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to believe."

"Well I, for one, smell a rat. What was that opium doing on the shelf like that?"

"Tian-Wen may be getting senile. He could have put it in the front window if that's the case."

"I don't buy it. At least not yet. An anonymous call to the drug hot line? Give me a break."

"What about the noni herbs? If Peter's right, and I think he is, how do you explain that?"

"I don't know. Maybe the old guy has messed up there. Maybe that part's legit. The opium part seems too neat, though. Too packaged."

"But you have no idea how to prove that Tian-Wen was set up-if in fact he was?"

"Not a clue."

"So I'm in trouble either way."

"Well, I will allow as how we've got some hard work ahead of us," he said grimly. "But hard work never scared me. We'll be all right."

At that moment, Kwong's black, long-haired cat stretched to its feet, padded over to where Matt stood, and settled down on his shoes.

The ball started right, rumbling down the alley not an inch from the gutter, much closer than Leo Durbansky would have liked. Ten men-the five on his perennial doormat Precinct Four team and five from Dorchester, the perennial Police and Fire League champions-held their collective breath as the English on the ball began to draw it back toward the one-three pocket. It was taking forever to reach the pins.

"Go, baby," Leo heard Mack Peebles whisper. "Go, baby. Go, baby."

The whole thing was straight out of Wide World of Sports, Leo kept thinking. The last ball of the last match of the season. The championship on the line, the Never-Won-Anythings versus the Always-Win-Everythings. And up steps Leo Durbansky, with his one-fifty average, to roll the three-game series of his life. Two forty-five, two sixty-eight, and now, maybe-just maybe, a-

Leo's maroon Brunswick slammed into the pocket with authority, exploding through nine of the pins like a howitzer shell. But the ten-pin remained standing, ticking from side to side like a metronome. Several teammates groaned. One reached over and patted Leo on the shoulder. Then suddenly, from out of nowhere, one pin clattered back onto the alley and began spinning across it in excruciating slow motion.

The teams froze. The renegade pin, as if pulled by an invisible string, clicked against the tenner. The moment was right. The stars were right. The ten, slightly on one edge at impact, tilted past its center of gravity, teased for an interminable second, and then toppled over.