Free Boston Cream by Howard Shrier Page B

your leg here. Mostly. But the average wait for a donor in this state is five years. Now ask me how long the average patient lasts on dialysis.”
    “Okay.”
    “Four years. Ba dum-bum. And I’ve been on two years plus already, so my meter’s running. However you do the math, it’s depressing. Now if you have money, then you have options.”
    “Like what?”
    He leaned in close, like we were co-conspirators, and muttered, “China. They execute a lot of prisoners there, and every single organ is harvested. I even heard they execute people in that sect, what are they called—”
    “Falun Gong.”
    “Yeah. But it’s a few hundred grand I don’t have. I don’t suppose you’re rich. If you won’t give me a kidney, maybe you’ll lend me three hundred Gs? You make that kind of money?”
    “Every five years,” I said.
    There were fifteen diplomas on the wall of Dr. E. Charles Stayner’s office, none of them from matchbooks. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Harvard again. According to his online biography, he was head of transplant medicine, a distinguished professor at Harvard Medical School and chair of Sinai’s bioethics committee. His CV ran fifty-four pages, or fifty-three and a half longer than mine.
    Stayner himself was about five-ten, with a lean runner’s body. He looked to be in his early fifties, which meant he probably had time to earn another degree or two if he applied himself. His eyes were grey-blue, not unlike the sky outside his windows, and he wore stylish rimless glasses.
    He came around from behind his desk to shake hands. The desktop was neat and dust-free. There was a framed photo of him with a teenaged boy who looked a lot like him with a mop of blond curls, and a nice-looking woman withdark hair down to her shoulders.
    “Chuck Stayner,” he said. His grip was strong, of course. And quick. One grasp and on to business. “I’m running behind,” he said, leaning back against the desk, “so please tell me how I can help you.”
    “I’ll try to keep it short. How long have you known David?”
    “Since he began his fellowship, which was a year ago July. Call it a year and a half.”
    “Would you say you know him well?”
    “I know his work well. I know the part of himself that he applies to the work. The professional self, as it were. And I have to say, this disappearing act of his is unlike anything else he’s ever done. I’m not trying to seem self-absorbed here, but his absence has created significant problems for me.”
    “How so?”
    “He assists in most of my transplants, supervises much of the research, takes on any task he can find that no one else is doing. You don’t just replace a talent like David, any more than you replace a star athlete who gets hurt. It’s left me scrambling at times.”
    That did seem self-absorbed, despite his efforts.
    “Did he seem different in any way prior to his disappearance? Worried, preoccupied?”
    “Not to me. David is very even-keeled as a rule. Which is part of his talent. He has the mind, the hands and the temperament to be a world-class surgeon. He needs rounding out in a few areas, like immunology, but that will come in time. I didn’t do my post-doc work in immunology until I was thirty-four.”
    The slouch. “He never confided anything in you?”
    “No. And I told all this to the police, by the way. Should I assume they have no leads?”
    “None. Was he ever depressed?”
    “Are you asking me whether I think he could have taken his own life? No. In addition to everything else, I believe his religiousbeliefs proscribe that rather severely.” He glanced at a slim silver watch around his wrist, reminding me my audience was limited.
    “Who is he closest to?”
    “In the department? Me, I suppose.”
    “No other close friends?”
    “We work very long hours here, Mr. Geller. Very long. To be frank, I don’t know what my residents or fellows do outside these walls. I couldn’t tell you which of them is married or has kids. If