O Negative Read online

  Cole stepped into the building and closed the door behind him. The larger man disappeared into another room and came back with a clipboard and pen, Cole starting with, “Jerry Gardner.” The man scribbled the information. “Age forty-six. O positive. He’s clean, but the drug test was inconclusive.”

  “Error two forty-seven on the app?”

  “As always.”

  “For how much money this place makes, they don’t spend shit on essentials.”

  “Preaching to the choir.”

  The guy finished writing and said, “Can’t pay you yet. Boss wants to see you.”

  “Just cut me my check. I have somewhere to be.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You kidding me?”

  “Boss’s orders.”

  Cole rubbed his chin and approached a small door leading to a hallway. A set of double doors opened to his right, and a guy carrying a full blood bag walked through. Beyond the doors was a massive, brightly-lit room. Someone’s scream carried through there—maybe for help or maybe just crying out in pain. The doors shut too quickly for him to know. They swung back and forth, almost in unison, until coming to a stop. He shook his head and walked through the door in front of him.

  The hallway seemed sanitized compared to the other room, with white walls and tile floors. Five rooms to the side had plexiglass windows offering views inside. Most were empty, except one. He picked up the pace, but the guy inside jumped up from his chair as soon as Cole passed the window, catching up. “Cole.”

  “Evans,” Cole said, slowing.

  “I almost missed you.”

  “Shame.”

  Evans removed his latex gloves and stuffed them inside his lab coat. He was a younger kid, barely scratching his early thirties. He rubbed his smooth hands on his white lab coat and said, “Intake radioed me a second ago, said something about the drug testing program not working on your phone.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you still have the sample?”

  “I trashed it.”

  “That—well, aren’t you supposed to save those?”

  Cole stopped, faced him.

  Evans stepped back, said: “It’s just that if I have to wait for the intake guys to get me a sample, I won’t be able to test it until tomorrow and that means a whole day where we can’t take his blood and that makes Leon really angry and—”

  “Breathe, Doctor.”

  “Please stop calling me that.”

  Cole shrugged. “The guy’s probably still in intake. And even if he isn’t, go to the Mill and get it yourself.”

  Evans chuckled and then saw that Cole wasn’t, so he stopped. “I don’t go to the Mill.”

  “If you’re so concerned about not being fast enough for Leon.”

  “I—uh, I just don’t go to the Mill.”

  “How long have you been working here?”

  “I don’t go to the Mill, okay? I just don’t.”

  “You’ll have to.”

  Evans didn’t meet his eye. “It doesn’t bother you in there?”

  “It bothers me plenty. But the guys who go to the Mill? Wastes of space. The guy I just pulled in, he borrowed fifty grand from Leon so that he could have an affair with his secretary, didn’t want his wife seeing any changes in their finances, so he put up his blood for collateral. His own blood. He knew what would happen—he knew that they would drain him if he didn’t pay, but he decided that some younger tail was worth the risk of having himself strung up and drained every couple days to pay down his debt.”

  “So it doesn’t bother you?”

  “Anybody who says they can go into the Mill and not feel some discomfort is either lying or a sociopath. But at the end of the day, those people agreed to the loan and hospitals get to save people’s lives worth saving. Sounds like a win-win to me.”

  He started moving away when Evans touched his arm. He stopped. “Listen, I really need that sample.” Cole shook his head and began walking away when Evans said, “Hey, Cole.”

  He turned again. “Doctor, you’re a good guy. I was happy to help you get this job after your—incident—at med school, your mom being a family friend and all, but I’m this close from popping you in the mouth. Right now I really just want to collect my pay and get where I need to be. And you’re stopping me from doing that.” He vanished around a corner before Evans could say anymore. “And don’t call me later about it this time,” he yelled.

  He mounted a flight of metal stairs and swiped his security card. The executive offices opened to him. The jarring temperature change was like suddenly walking next to a heating coil in a toaster. He shed his hat and brushed his matted salt and pepper hair. Wiped his forehead. The short hallway led to a rectangular room with doors on each wall. A handful of guys, half of them geriatric, sat around a card table. Some looked up, smoke rolling off their cigarettes, and went back to their game, not giving him another second’s notice.

  A big, younger guy at the other end of the room stood up and approached him. “Word from the radio says you brought another one in. Congratulations are in order.”

  “Ira.”

  Ira’s name didn’t fit him. His parents probably had bigger aspirations for him than where he ended up. He was about five inches taller than Cole and about a hundred pounds heavier too, all muscle, always wearing a tight white shirt no matter the occasion. A black tribal tattoo crept out of his collar and climbed his neck. His voice was a register lower than Cole had ever heard on anyone, probably from him juicing since before puberty.

  “I just want to collect my fee, is all.”

  “S’at all? Gotta wait. Leon’s chewing Patrick out.”

  “For what?”

  Ira chuckled, but rubbed the smirk off his face, leaning in, whispering, “One of our bleeders in the Mill was mouthing off to Patrick’s friend. You know Jimmy?”

  “I don’t keep track of the Mill workers.”

  “He’s a friend of Patrick’s. Leon hired him on after Patrick’s glowing recommendation. Nobody knows what the hell happened, but an hour ago we all hear this pop. Most of the workers ran, skittish and all. But one of them came around the corner and there’s Jimmy, gun in his hand. He actually shot one of the bleeders.”

  “Which one?”

  “That A negative guy you picked up two weeks ago.”

  “Shit,” Cole said and shook his head. “Why?”

  “Nobody knows. I mean, the bleeder was still restrained. But Jimmy just shot him.”

  “Dead?”

  “You need to ask that?”

  “What about Jimmy?”

  “There’re some questions you don’t want answers to. That’s one of those questions.” He pointed to a chair. “Take a load off.”

  Cole did, sinking into one of the plush chairs and leaning forward, tapping his foot lightly against the floor. His eyes focused on the wall in front of him, but he still saw the looks he was getting in the fuzziness of his periphery. Every once in a while, one of the guys at the card table looked up and blew smoke into the air. His gaze would land on Cole, often for a few seconds. The guys would chuckle. Cole didn’t acknowledge it. Early on he had learned to keep his mouth shut and not make eye contact.

  Minutes passed. He considered taking off his coat or checking his watch, but didn’t.

  Sometime later, Leon’s door opened. Patrick, wearing a leather jacket with a green shirt underneath, took a step outside. And he looked none-too-happy to be in Leon’s office. His gaze settled on Cole, eyes burning.

  Leon said from his office, “Cole, I didn’t know you were here. Come on in.”

  He wiped his hands on his pants and rose. Patrick’s eyes were locked on Cole, half his body blocking the door when Cole approached. Cole stopped shy of the younger man, face straight ahead, while Patrick’s head turned toward him. “Excuse me,” Cole final
ly said.

  Patrick laughed. Leon yelled, “Cut the tough guy bullshit, Patrick.”

  With a smile, Patrick put his hands up at the elbow and took a few steps away. Cole walked inside the office as if nothing had happened and shut the door behind him. Leon’s office was minimal—a desk, two chairs, and a few shelves and filing cabinets. Half the space still seemed to be covered in shadow despite the lamps. Leon rose from his chair and extended his hand, saying, “Congratulations.”

  Cole took it. “It was routine.”

  “Routine. Kidnapping and homicide. Routine.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody.”

  Leon tilted his head, chewing his stogie. “I thought there was gonna be a girl with him.”

  “There was.”

  “And you didn’t kill her?”

  He said nothing.

  “Goddamn it, Cole.”

  “I’ve done this before.”

  “I know you got your methods,” Leon said. “You get shit done, I’ll give you that. I just wish you were a little more hands on.”

  “You mean a little more like Patrick.”

  “He’s a bit overzealous—”

  “I take care of that sort of thing when I need to.”

  Leon put his hands up in surrender. “Cole, you’re not hearing me protest for not killing the poor girl. It’s just, loose ends bother me, all right? I just think you could use a harder edge sometimes, is all.”

  Cole didn’t say anything. Leon motioned to the chair across his desk. “Have a seat.”

  “I’d rather collect my fee and go, if you don’t mind. I have someone to see.”

  “Take a seat, Cole.”

  He did.

  Leon leaned back in his own chair and said, “I’ll cut to the chase since you’re in such a hurry to get out of here. I need you to do another pickup tonight.”

  For a few seconds, he didn’t say anything. “Leon, I already picked up a guy for you.”

  “I need you on this one. Just pick the collateral up. He knows somebody’s coming. Nobody’s gonna run.”

  “Why don’t you send Marshall? He’s good.”

  Leon shook his head.

  “Then send Patrick.”

  “Patrick’s on my shit list right now. One of his pals—”

  “Ira told me.”

  “Then you know why he’s on my shitlist. And yesterday, he let a guy get away. Is it the end of the world? No. But you know as well as I do that every hour I don’t have my collateral, I’m losing out big time. So fuck him. He’s on probation, and I certainly ain’t gonna reward him with prize money for picking this collateral up.”

  “Prize money?”

  “This one’s easy like fuckin’ Sunday morning. Won’t even be work.”

  Cole scratched his cheek. “How complex are we talking?”

  “What’d I just say?”

  “He won’t run.”

  “Nobody’s gonna run.”

  “What’s the debtor’s name?”

  “Guy named Greg Ashland. Founded some tech company, sold it, was trying to start something new.”

  “How much did you lend this guy?”

  “Upwards of nine and a half million.”

  “Shit.”

  “He tried to make a bold business move. It didn’t work out for him.”

  “And his collateral?”

  “O negative.”

  Cole leaned back. “Shit. How much’re you getting for O negative these days?”

  “Plenty. Listen to this: the CEO of Mercy Hospitals comes to my office last week—not this office—the one downtown. He shows up every once in a while and asks me how the blood banks are doing, what he can do to help provide resources or partner up for a program to encourage blood donation. And he tells me the blood shortage—getting worse. Six months ago, they’re operating at something like eighty percent of what they need. Today? Seventy-four. Like I don’t know that already. So I tell him, I know we’re in a drought. My blood banks are selling every bit we can to your hospitals.” He laughed. “I’m thinking to myself, these CEOs think we need to increase donation. If these bastards knew how much I was laundering into my blood banks through the Mill, they’d be asking how can we get a loan drive instead of a donation drive. Anyways, all the hospitals’re practically shoveling money into my pockets for common shit like O positive, they need it so bad. I get a steady supply of O negative to sell them, rare and valuable as it is? Shit, let’s just say Greg Ashland’s collateral’ll be a nice long-term investment for me.”

  “And I just have to pick this guy up?”

  Leon blinked a few times, puffing on his stogie, and grabbed a piece of paper. “Yeah. That’s it.”

  As Leon scribbled something, Cole said, “And does this guy have guards? Any resistance I should anticipate?”

  “He doesn’t have enough money for guards. Don’t worry about it.”

  “When people tell me not to worry, that tends to make me nervous.”

  “This is coming from me, Cole. It’s coming from me,” he said, and handed over the slip of paper. “You go to that address. They’ll open the gate for you.”

  “I have someone waiting on me, Leon.”

  “Trust me, I’ll make it worth your while, all right? I won’t take no for an answer.”

  Cole grabbed the sheet with two fingers, looking down at the address and name. It was a zip code he didn’t visit very often, about forty minutes away—thirty-five if there wasn’t traffic. The formal name for the neighborhood was Richmond Heights, but everyone took to calling it Rich Town. Swanky place. Lots of money. He folded the paper and nodded. “I can’t say no?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then I expect good pay for this.”

  “Scratch my back, I scratch yours.”

  He slipped the paper into his pocket. “Deal.”

  |January 19th

  8:15 p.m.

  Cole rolled slowly through the wide streets, stopping at every intersection for three solid seconds, staying three miles-per-hour under the speed limit. The cops within the city limits wouldn’t give a crap if someone blew every stop sign and was going thirty over the limit. They had bigger troubles. In Rich Town, the worst calls they got were kittens stuck in trees and little Johnny getting a boo-boo on his knee, so they had nothing better to do than be hard-ass traffic patrollers.

  There were two main routes into Rich Town. Cole chose the scarcely traveled one through an abandoned commercial sector most people called the flats. The roads there were cracked and pocked. In Rich Town, the roads were smoothed out and white with salt, lined with flowerbeds, not one unplowed. Black metallic fences surrounded every home, shimmering when his headlights splashed over them.

  He rounded the corner onto a particularly fantastic street. Every house was picturesque, stone castles behind rolling lawns untouched by snow prints. He slowed before one and looked at the numbers welded into the top of the front gate. Cross-referenced it with his slip of paper. A winner.

  He pulled into the foot of the driveway and stopped shy of the front gate. There was no guard. He shut down the engine and pulled out his phone. His face reflected at him in the screen until he woke the device, squeezing it, grinding his teeth together. He finally dialed. It took her six rings to pick up, and when she did, there was nothing on her end except some TV show playing in the background.

  “You there, Erin?”

  “I’ve been calling you the last two hours.”

  “I’m really sorry. I just—”

  She cut him off. “I already know what’s going to come out of your mouth. Let me guess you—”

  “Got hung up at work.”

  “—got hung up at work,” she said at the same time and let out a deep breath.

  “I really wanted to be there.”

  “Why didn’t yo
u call earlier?”

  “I told you, I got hung up at work,” he said. “Listen, I was thinking, maybe I could come around tomorrow night instead.”

  “The judge said every other weekend and every Wednesday from five until eight.”

  “I know.”

  “You know, so you call me with this,” she softened her voice, “this bullshit sob story about how you got caught up at work.”

  “I know.”

  “He gets so excited to see you then you don’t show up. It breaks his heart.”

  “I screwed up, okay? That what you want to hear? I’m a bad father, okay? I just want to see him tomorrow, that’s all.”

  “We have plans,” she said.

  “Friday then.”

  “It’s my weekend, Cole. No.”

  A small voice surfaced in the background. “Mommy, I heard a noise.”

  Cole heard the TV snap off. He waited a couple seconds before saying, “Can I at least talk to him?”

  She didn’t say anything. The microphone rustled, Erin explaining that it was his father, before the kid said, “Daddy.”

  “Mason, how are you, bud?”

  “Good.”

  “Listen, I’m not going to make it tonight, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll definitely make it up to you next week. We’ll spend all evening together.”

  “You said we would ride go karts.”

  “Still can. And we’ll get cheeseburgers too.”

  “With lots of ketchup.”

  “Just like you like them.”

  “And pickles?”

  “And pickles too.”

  “Daddy.” Cole waited. “Will you move back in next week too?”

  Something pulled within him, like an anchor had been attached to his intestines. He placed his phone against his forehead, tried drilling it into his skull. There wasn’t any way to explain to a four-year-old why dad couldn’t live with mom anymore. Why he never would again. “No, bud.”

  “Mom wants the phone back.”

  “I love you, all right?”

  “I love you, too.”