Colin Harrison - Afterburn

Tommy opened his hands. "You told us not to go inside in front of the cameras."

"There were cameras on the outside of the building, too," added Morris. "We were careful, Tony."

Tony nodded. "Keep going, Charles."

He put the phone down on the table, trying not only to figure out a way to make some money appear but also to appraise Ellie's vulnerability. He remembered that she was having trees delivered that morning, which was good. Workmen around.

The phone rang. Tony picked it up. "Yeah, he's here," said Tony, "but you're going to listen now." He nodded at Morris. "Help her see it my way."

Morris pulled an electric saw out of the large box.

"Oh, for God's sake," said Charlie. "You don't have to do this."

The men pulled off his shoe. "I'm going to clamp it," said Morris. "Just to be sure."

"Hey, hey!" yelled Charlie as his sock was pulled off. "You don't need to do-"

"He's already missing some toes," noted Morris. "Someone has been here first." He dropped Charlie's foot and examined his hand. "What was this-let me see… It moved slightly off perpendicular to the plane of the palm… very high speed…"

"It was an M-16 round."

"You took a machine gun bullet through your hand?" Morris rubbed his nose in thought. "Something's different here."

"What do you mean?" asked Tony, keeping the phone held out.

"I don't know." Morris looked at Charlie. "Lift your arms."

He complied, stiffly. Just do what they say, he told himself. Don't give them a reason to get angry.

"Stand up."

He stood.

"What the fuck is this?" Tony asked. "Aerobics?"

"Bend over," ordered Morris. "Just drop your hands down."

He went as far as he could.

"What's wrong with your back?" asked Morris.

"Nothing."

"Can't you go farther?"

"No."

"You're fucking wasting my time!" yelled Tony. "Call back in five minutes," he said into the phone.

Morris lifted up Charlie's shirt. "I knew it. Major spinal damage."

"What are you doing?" cried Tony.

"Just give me a few minutes, Tony." They pushed Charlie flat onto the table and Morris brought over a work lamp. "Your lumbar aponeurosis is all torn up… You definitely damaged-what? The fourth and fifth lumbar? Maybe the sacrum as well." He pinched one of the vertebrae. "That might be a tiny chip on the articular process here, or some very hard scar tissue…" His fingers probed the ridges of Charlie's lower spine, hurting him. "This was my specialty. I-it's a fusion!" he exclaimed. "Right?"

"Yes." Charlie watched Tony unwrap a stick of gum.

"This is my first fusion patient." Morris rummaged in his toolbox again. He pulled out one small item after another, discarding each. "Somewhere I have…" he muttered. "Cabinetmakers use them."

"Tony!" yelled Charlie from his stomach. "You want me to try to get you your money or you want me to have a medical exam?"

Morris returned to the table. "Did they use screws or plates?"

"What?" Charlie cried.

"Screws, plates? Also rods. Sometimes even little titanium cages, too." Morris pushed Charlie's spine with his thumbs. "They did that for one of the football players, I think."

"Who the fuck cares?" asked Tony.

"What year?" inquired Morris. "When did they do it?"

"Twenty-five years ago!" shouted Charlie at the floor. "Tony, let me have that phone, I'll work on it, all right?"

"That's a shame," said Morris, ignoring his outburst. "There's a technique now called the autogenous iliac crest bone graft. They take the bone cells out of the hip and-"

"What the hell you talking about?" Charlie spat at him.

Morris considered Charlie coldly. "Just hit him once," he told Tommy.

Tommy came over and punched Charlie in the side of the head.

"Oh, God," he moaned, blinking, eyesight black for a moment, rubbing his temple.

"Conventional spinal fusion used to involve a thoracotomy," Morris continued. "That's what you had, I bet. This spinal scar is almost a foot long. They took out a rib and used the bone to fuse the vertebrae." He took off his green jacket and laid it carefully on one of the chairs. "These days they have the spinal endoscopy, which results in smaller incisions, and pull the bone out of the hip. They stick it between the vertebrae to stabilize them and maintain disk spacing. They're starting to test this new stuff, recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-stuff stimulates bone growth." He turned to Tony. "Boss, I want to open him up and see how they did this."

"Will he be able to use a phone?" said Tony.

"Sure, sure. I have an epidural needle here." Morris returned to his toolbox. "I've been keeping this around." He pulled out a needle wrapped in plastic and a long tube that attached to a drip bottle. "Okay," he told Charlie, "this is what you give a woman in labor. Or someone getting a spinal tap. Once I get the needle in, you won't feel anything."

"Where are you putting that?" he demanded.

"It goes directly into the spinal nerve. I saw a guy do this once in medical school. The patient must lie absolutely still."

"Hey, Tony, this is not the way to get money out of me!" yelled Charlie. "This is crazy, Tony, this doesn't-" He tried to struggle but the two big men held him down, one with a hand on his neck.

"Go ahead," called Tony.

"Don't move a hair," Morris instructed Charlie. "Not a… In the hospital you have to sign a special release for this procedure because of the risk of paralysis… Hold that up, Tommy… okay …"

Charlie felt a sharp puncture in his back, then nothing.

"That's it." Morris pulled over one of the work lamps and taped the drip bottle to it. "Works almost right away. Don't move or roll around, Charles, you might dislodge the needle. If it breaks off, I don't have another one. This kind of anesthetic wears off immediately."

"Oh, Jesus."

But his back felt-felt like nothing, better even than with the Chinese tea. "I can't feel anything," he said.

"Your spinal nerve is drugged," said Morris. "You shouldn't feel anything much, assuming the dosage is correct."

"What are you looking for, anyway?" asked Tony.

"I want to see how they did this. Was it a cage or plates, where they put them."

"For God's sake," cried Charlie, sweating now. "Stop! Let me get the money."

"You'll be able to do that while I work," Morris said. "If you work fast, we'll take you to the hospital with the drip still in."

The phone trilled again. He lay on his stomach panting, feeling like a dog forced to the ground. They handed him the phone.

"Charlie?"

It was Christina. "Yeah," he breathed. "Is there any way you can help me?"

"If I could."

"I've got cash in a brokerage account here, but they don't disburse it. They'll do all kinds of other things. I can't buy stocks and bonds. What the fuck am I going to do here, Christina?"

"Can you buy something with it and give it to Tony?"

Morris lifted a small scalpel from the box and tore off the sterile wrapper.

"Like what?" he said anxiously, watching Morris.

"Gold, diamonds, I don't know."

He squeezed his eyes, head pounding. Morris was pressing something into his back. "Gold is well under three hundred an ounce these days."

"So five million is at least… sixteen thousand ounces, which is exactly a thousand pounds. That's not so heavy," she noted. "You could put that in ten suitcases."

"Gold?" Charlie hollered at Tony. "Gold?"

"Gold is a commodity," he answered. "I want cash."

"I can't get cash!"

Tony shrugged. "That's your problem."

"He won't take gold," Charlie said to Christina.

"Why don't you buy some cigarettes?" she suggested.

He wanted to see what Morris was doing to him. "I don't understand."

"They come into the docks in Newark in containers. Middlemen sell them. It's a spot market," she said. "You buy them before they even hit the shore, and you get a bill of lading and present it at the dock, and they bring it out and stick the container on the truck. It's a very liquid situation. Five million is probably a huge quantity of cartons. But you can sell that easily. It's cigarettes."