Ridley Pearson - The Angel Maker

Ridiculous nonsense. What would Peggy say if she found out her substantial contributions to the arts came not from his work at the clinic but from the harvested kidneys of degenerate runaways? "Wonderful to see you again, Elden. How's the practice?" Thomas-T.J.-Harper owned the second-largest retail department store in the Northwest. He had white hair, white teeth, and wore a tailored suit from London. "Keeps me in stitches," Tegg answered, waiting for the rag merchant to see the humor. The man responded with a slight grin, though it seemed forced. Everything was forced at occasions like these. Tegg wasn't sure what to say next. He drank some champagne. "You did a fine job on Ginger's leg," Harper said.

Ginger was the Harper's terrier mutt. Tegg felt his face flush.

These kinds of comments made him feel like cheap labor, a gardener, or a house cleaner. A little person. Tegg felt he was groveling, and he hated himself for it. He forced kind words from his mouth, for Peggy's sake. "I understand your golf game is in top form. Congratulations on Scottsdale."

The man glowed. "We ought to go out sometime."

"I'd love to," Tegg replied. He wasn't much for golf, although they belonged to the club-more for appearances and for Peggy's sake than his own. Tegg excused himself and headed straight for Tina Endicott, whose eyes betrayed a restlessness that Tegg interpreted as sexual urgency. Byron Endicott had incited a great deal of envy in the hearts of the males in his social set by marrying this twenty-eight-yearold stunner, forty-odd years his junior. It was anybody's guess as to how long it would hold together, how much loose play Byron was willing to tolerate. Endicott had asked for a telephone twenty minutes earlier and had yet to reemerge from the study. Tina had legs that didn't stop and lush auburn hair.

As he was revving himself up for his conversation with Tina, his wife again caught his eye and offered a glance at the diminishing caviar that told him his guests had gone through twenty-five hundred dollars worth of fish eggs in half the allotted time. Message received: The soup course would be advanced and served any minute. He and Peggy could work a party the same way he and Pamela could handle a harvest.

It just wasn't as much fun. Tegg nodded toward the study indicating he would fetch Byron Endicott. Peggy acknowledged and tottered off toward the kitchen.

As Tegg crossed the foyer, a waitress answered the front door.

Facing him, her features twisted in anxiety and her swollen limbs trembling with trepidation, stood the piggish Pamela Chase. What was she doing here? More problems? Tegg felt a tic coming on and reacted quickly as his shoulder and head attempted to meet, by hurrying to greet Pamela. The young waitress flinched with his tic and glanced quickly away, as if she hadn't seen it. He saw a fear in Pamela's squinty little eyes that he didn't care for one bit, "Pamela? Problems?" he questioned. "It's important," she said, maintaining her cool surprisingly well, glancing sideways at the uniformed caterer. "An emergency at the office." The electricity in her eyes told him this required immediate action.

He motioned her toward the study, well aware he would have to evict Byron Endicott. If he didn't handle this carefully, rumors of a scandal would be started before the fish course.

As he ushered Pamela into his study, his mind sorting through possible explanations for her arrival-had Maybeck opened his little package? — he tried to see this young woman through the eyes of Byron Endicott. He knew damn well the kinds of things that would be said about them if he failed to handle this correctly. But he didn't care. Let them talk. By tomorrow, a new life.

Control, he reminded himself, feeling another tic coming on but refusing it, as if slamming a door in its face. Unknowingly, he slammed the door to his study. It made a tremendous crash. Pamela jumped. old man Endicott mumbled into the receiver and hung up. He rose to his feet and came around the desk with a suspicious, irreverent expression. "And who is this lovely creature?" he asked Pamela.

Tegg experienced a flash of embarrassment. He said, "This is my surgical assistant, Pamela Chase. Byron Endicott," he said, indicating the old man. "I'm afraid something has come up at the clinic, Byron. We'll need the study for a moment if you don't mind."

"Enchanted," Endicott said, taking her hand. "Not Douglas Chase's little girl?" "Yes " Pamela said, looking to Tegg nervously. "An such a lovely young woman!" he lied. "Last time I saw you … But just look at you!" he said, leering artificially.

She blushed. Endicott grinned at Tegg. "I'll leave you two," he said, his implication obvious. "But you must introduce her around, Elden, or I'll raise a stink. I promise." To Pamela he said, "We are all very close friends of your parents. You really must say hello before you leave."

Endicott smirked, gave Tegg a teasing, nasty look, and let himself out of the room. "I'm sorry for coming," she said. "Not to worry," Tegg replied. "You look awful. What is it?" He closed the door tightly, a dozen thoughts crowding his brain. "The police came to my apartment asking about my trips to Vancouver."

At first he couldn't be sure he had heard her right, but from her grave expression, from the constriction in his own chest, he knew that indeed he had. He felt the betraying savagery of two. tics overcome him-like two sharp bolts of electricity. He fell into a chair. His blood banged so loudly in his ears he couldn't hear what she said next. First Maybeck, now Pamela. Too close. Much too close. There was no time to waste. He began plotting immediately. "They know about everything," she said. "They offered me a deal if I gave them you."

Had Maybeck talked? His attorney, Howard Chamberland, had assured him everything was fine-Maybeck had been released on a misdemeanor charge. His palms went clammy. Control! he reminded himself again, answering her perplexed and ghostly gaze with a squaring of his shoulders and a lifting of his chin. The police moved about as fast as languishing sea lions, certainly no match for his latest plans. No reason to panic. Evaluate the situation. Analyze. Indecision was anyone's biggest enemy. He had contingencies.

He looked into her dark, squinting eyes and thought about telling her of his plan to escape. But that would include the harvesting of the heart, and she didn't approve of that-she might even betray him if she knew about the heart. No, better to calm her and be rid of her. Tomorrow morning would come soon enough. "Sit down," he told her. "Good. Can I get you something to drink? A pop? I want you to relax, calm down. You're with me now, you're all right."

"She's pretty. More than pretty. Dark hair. Taller than me. Beautiful eyes."

"A woman?" he asked stupidly. The idea that a woman had questioned her seemed so much less threatening to him than had it been a man. Why, he wasn't sure.

He knew how she hated pretty women. She felt betrayed by her weight problem, failing to see it as a disease, but instead as a weakness of character, an attitude that had been drummed into her by her inept parents. "I have to interrupt here," he said, doing so. "Forgive me, please, but the details are quite unimportant to me. They didn't arrest you, did they? And there's a reason for that: They haven't got anything of any value on us. Suspicions is all. We've talked about this before, but what's important to remember with the police is that if you don't talk to them, there's nothing they can learn from you. It's hard, I know," he said, reaching over and touching her knee. "Terribly difficult. But true."

"She mentioned the harvests. She said three of the donors had died from hemorrhaging."

He couldn't catch his breath. Failure? Footsteps in the foyer, drawing closer. They wanted him at the table, no doubt. it suddenly felt as if the room were smaller, the walls closing in. Yes. He could feel the walls moving closer. Control!