Fredric Stern - The Endorphin Conspiracy

Geoff felt something fine and cold against his face. He grabbed an autopsy knife that had fallen off the table and plunged it through one side of the assailant’s neck and out the other, just as the man freed his own knife from the cadaver’s chest. Blood pumped fiercely from the neck wound at first, then slowed to a trickle.

Geoff rolled the man’s body over on its back and removed the knife from his hand. He checked for any signs of life. The man had stopped breathing, and there was no pulse. Geoff took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. He studied the man’s lifeless eyes, eyes just moments ago full of cold-blooded hatred.

Geoff knew who it was, who it had to be. Slowly, Geoff removed the mask.

Walter Krenholz.

Sweat poured down Geoff’s chin onto the lifeless body beneath him. Geoff dropped the mask, stood, ran toward Suzanne. Her pulse was fainter, her eyes now closed, but she still breathed. Geoff lifted her slowly off the floor.

“You’re safe now, Suzanne. I’m taking you to the E.R.”

He was halfway to the exit when he froze in his tracks. His Colt was somewhere in the bloody mess on the floor.

Geoff cursed himself for his carelessness. Military issue guns were easily traced. He bent down, looked underneath the autopsy tables, scanned the floor. Tables turned on their sides, partially dissected corpses, their parts strewn on the floor, trays of instruments scattered about.

Geoff peered farther across the room toward the table Suzanne’s body had been resting on. Geoff had slipped there, hit the ground hard, Suzanne’s body falling on top of him. That’s where the gun had to be.

A chill crept up his spine. He had no choice but to retrieve the gun and he didn’t have much time—Suzanne was hemorrhaging to death. A security guard, morgue tech, someone who heard the commotion, would be here any moment. He had to get the gun and get the hell out. Now .

Geoff stood, took a deep breath, looked at Walter’s dead body, then back towards the door. All clear so far. Still cradling Suzanne’s almost lifeless body, he slid between the overturned tables, made his way to the table he had found her on. Geoff paused, looked around the area one last time. Nothing. The gun had to be somewhere in the vicinity.

Commotion outside the main door, loud voices calling, legs moving quickly toward the morgue. Geoff glanced at the door. Someone, probably security, was heading toward him. Shit. He had to get his gun back!

Geoff’s gaze darted all around the chaotic mess on the floor. Nothing. He walked towards Walter’s body, rolled it over with his foot. No gun.

The sounds were now louder, whoever was approaching just outside the door. Geoff had to give up the search.

Where the hell was that gun?

He looked beneath the nearest autopsy table, looked around the room one last time, peered between the table supports. A shimmer of light drew his attention. Jutting out from beneath an overturned stainless steel basin was the blue steel grip of his Colt—near the front of the room, by the entrance.

The automatic doors parted with a whoosh, four guards entered the room, guns drawn. Goddamnit ! Suzanne’s life, or the gun. Geoff slid softly to the back corner of the room and bolted out the fire exit to the emergency room.

Trauma doc Brian Phelps was sitting at the ER nursing station finishing a chart note when Geoff burst through the doors of the emergency room bloodied and frantic, carrying his precious cargo still clinging to life.

“I’ve got a knife wound to the abdomen here, massive blood loss, severe internal injuries! Call the OR and have them get the trauma surgery team mobilized!” said Geoff.

Phelps jumped up from the station, ran towards them, motioned to the gurney in the entranceway. “Geoff? What the hell—?”

“—It’s complicated, Brian. Just get her volume up fast until you can stop the bleeding, Goddamnit!”

A flurry of activity, nurses and technicians, now surrounded Suzanne placing monitors, IV’s, hanging bags of blood. Geoff grasped Suzanne’s hand, leaned in close to her, whispered in her ear. “Hang in there Suzanne, you’re going to pull through. I’ll take you to see that show when you get back up on your feet.” Oblivious to the hive of activity around him, he kissed her forehead gently. “I have to go now, but I will be back for you.”

Geoff turned and slipped out of the emergency room, into the darkness.

Geoff sat impatiently in the same booth of the smokey coffeehouse on Houston Street, waiting for Stefan to arrive. It was nine forty-five and he had left a message for Stefan to meet him at nine. Maybe he never picked up the message. Geoff tapped his foot, scanned the crowd for anything irregular. He had to be on his guard. They tried to kill Suzanne. Walter Krenholz had been eliminated. They—whoever they were in a broader sense—wouldn’t take kindly to that.

“Get you another one?” asked the waitress.

“Sure,” Geoff said. He lifted his shot glass, drained the last few drops of Stoli.

The waitress smiled, cracked her gum. “Looks like you could use it. Rough night with the girlfriend or somethin’?”

“Something like that.”

Geoff didn’t realize he looked so bad. He had run home from the autopsy lab, showered, changed, bagged his clothes and sent them down the incinerator shoot.

The only thing that had worried him besides Suzanne was the gun. It wasn’t a good situation, but neither was getting caught with blood stained hands alongside a murder victim, even if it was self defense. Geoff had taken a cab downtown, looking out the back window the whole way to be sure he wasn’t being followed. He’d tried to look like a regular guy out for a drink, but the worry behind his eyes must have given him away.

The second Stoli arrived and Geoff downed it quickly. He checked his watch again: 10:05 p.m. He left a twenty dollar bill on the table, left the bar and walked east to Third Avenue towards Stefan’s apartment, looking over his shoulder all the while.

The vodka had taken the edge off his anxiety, the nightmarish image of Suzanne nearly bleeding to death burned into his visual memory, but Geoff remained keenly aware of his surroundings. His only weapons now were his mind and his hands. Brian Phelps had sent Geoff a text message a short while ago Suzanne made it to the OR and the trauma team had stopped the hemorrhaging. Her spleen was ruptured and her liver badly lacerated, but it looked as though she’d make it.

Geoff turned up Third Avenue, crossed to the east side of the street. Red lights flashed two blocks north. Cautiously, he approached the corner of Third Avenue and Beekman, then stopped dead in his tracks. Police cars and an aid unit, a crowd of onlookers, massed outside Stefan’s building. Yellow police tape cordoned off the area. An orange body bag on a stretcher was being wheeled to the ambulance parked at the curb.

Frantically, Geoff searched the crowd for Stefan. He moved through the throngs, checking silhouettes of faces in the red strobe lights of the emergency vehicles. Voices crackled over the police band. Television crews arrived. Vans set up their equipment. The faces of the crowd would be blasted into daylight with bright halogen lights any minute. Geoff had to find Stefan and get them out of there, quickly.

If he couldn’t find Stefan, maybe he’d recognize a friend, a neighbor, someone who knew where Stefan was, someone who could tell Geoff he was okay.

Geoff felt a hand on his shoulder, heard a man’s voice, spun around.

“Hey bro, sorry I’m late!” said Stefan.

Geoff grabbed Stefan on each shoulder, looked him squarely in the eyes. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you!”