Judith sat anxiously on the bed, looking at her watch occasionally, but otherwise staring at the nearly empty bottle of whisky on the side table. Presently, there was a brief tap at the door and she stood up and opened it. Standing on the other side was a thin, pale man with dark black hair that was plastered to his forehead with gel. He had on a black jacket and was carrying a small medical bag in his left hand and an esky in the other. He nodded curtly and entered without waiting to be asked.
'Roman, it's... it's good to see you,' said Judith.
Roman placed his bag down on the bed and stuck his head in the bathroom door.
'There's a bin of ice out there, could you drag it in please, before somebody sees it,' he said as he observed the inert form of Joe Finch on the bathroom floor.
Judith did as she was told, although the small garbage bin was too heavy for her to lift and she had to drag it across the floor with both hands, leaving a trail of moisture on the carpet. Roman glanced at the bottle of whisky and raised an eyebrow.
'He drank that much of it? There was enough horse tranquilliser in there to...'
'To tranquillise a horse?' suggested Judith.
'Exactly. Why did you let him drink so much? We don't want him dying on us, that's more trouble than it's worth.'
'I didn't let him. He was depressed. Before I knew what was happening he'd already drunk most of it.'
'Well, we'll soon see.'
Judith rubbed her hands together and bit her lip.
'Actually, I think he might be pretty messed up. He was muttering something about being God just before he passed out.'
'God, you say?'
Roman looked down at Joe, with his naked legs covered in urine as he lay on the floor completely exposed.
'Well if he's God I hope you used a condom. You don't want him to give you a burning bush or something.'
Not even Roman laughed at his own joke, and Judith certainly didn't feel the need to either. He walked into the bathroom and reached down, placing his hands on Joe's lower back and moving them back and forth.
'He's quite old, unfortunately, but I think I'll take the left kidney today,' said Roman, as if selecting a sandwich in a delicatessen.
'Okay. But what about...' Judith began, but Roman cut her off with a sigh.
'Of course, it always comes down to the bottom line. You'll have to assist me of course, but first...'
Roman came back into the bedroom and clicked open the medical bag. He reached inside, rooting around near the bottom until he pulled out a large velvet covered box. He handed it to Judith, who took it uncertainly.
'What's this?'
'There's no cash yet. That's worth more than your usual rate anyway.'
Judith opened the box and frowned at the contents. It was a necklace. It was quite a beautiful one, and it was fairly weighty, with silver links in the shape of serpents biting their own tails. She took it out and tried to scratch one of the links, but she couldn't.
'Believe me, it's real silver. Solid, not plate.'
Judith dropped the box onto the bed and crossed her arms in front of her.
'Well that's great, Roman. What the hell am I supposed to do with a necklace? I need cash, not jewellery.'
Roman took the box again and lifted out the necklace, holding it up to the dim bulb so that Judith could see it better.
'Look at this. There are thirty separate solid silver links here. Do you understand? Solid silver. It's worth over six thousand dollars. You're only supposed to be getting four.'
'Yeah, but where did you get it?'
'An associate,' replied Roman, somewhat sheepishly.
A wolf in sheepish clothing, thought Judith.
'So it's stolen of course. What am I supposed to do with a stolen necklace, Roman? Carry it into the pawn shop and wait to be arrested?'
'It's an investment. Keep it for a few years and then sell it once nobody's looking for it anymore.'
Roman began looking through his medical bag as if this settled the matter. He pulled out some swabs and a scalpel, as well as a few surgical clamps that were slightly rusty with age. When he looked up, Judith was still looking at him angrily and holding the necklace.
'Fine. You keep the necklace and you get an extra two grand on the next one, okay? Jesus Christ, Judith, this one's got to be over fifty anyway. You're getting a great deal here. Now help me out with this, would you? Grab that esky.'
Judith sighed, but she put the necklace back in the velvet box and tucked it into her handbag, before following Roman into the bathroom with the esky, which was also filled with ice. Roman was laying Joe flat on his stomach on the floor, with his arms by his sides and his head resting on a small pillow he had made from a towel.
'What the hell happened to this guy? Look at his hand!' Roman said, holding up Joe's hand so that Judith could see it.
She looked at the fresh pink wound, so large and moist that she couldn't believe she didn't notice it before. Roman tilted Joe's head up as well.
'And his face. He's covered in all these tiny cuts. I can't believe you would take a guy like this as a client. He's bleeding everywhere. It's very unhygienic.'
Judith was still looking at Joe's injured hand with its accusing mouth, and like Joe before her, she sensed that it wanted to tell her something. Roman was unconcerned by such metaphysical nonsense and he took his scalpel and casually made an incision down Joe's back. It was far from straight, although he was careful to only cut through the dermis. Blood immediately began to flow from the wound in vast quantities, leaking down the sides of the body and onto the tiled floor.
'Swab! Swab!' said Roman impatiently as Judith stared transfixed at the wound.
She fumbled around the pile of equipment that Roman had brought and found a thick medical swab. She began to dab it at the wound, soaking up most of the blood, but it was still flowing. Roman picked up his retractors and pulled back the skin, clamping it to create a fairly large exposed area. Although Judith had seen the sight many times, it always made her skin crawl. She looked away as Roman made his next incision through the fat layer, which was thick and yellow and the texture of cottage cheese. She swabbed at the wound whenever he withdrew his scalpel, but she tried not to look at it.
'Replace that swab. It's done.'
'Okay.'
She threw it behind her where it landed on the carpet outside the door of the bathroom with a wet sound and then grabbed a new one, trying to staunch the ever-increasing blood flow.
'You know, I was thinking,' said Roman as he retracted the outer layers to expose Joe's organs, 'that we could get something to eat after this. My treat of course. You could... you could wear that necklace if you like.'
Judith looked at the small, pale man in front of her, who had paused in his work and was looking at her with a slightly hopeful expression, like a puppy at the dinner table waiting to be fed. She felt like hitting him with a rolled up newspaper.
'Roman, I think it's best that we keep our relationship professional. No complications.'
Roman's face betrayed his hurt, but not for long. Soon enough he was at work with his clamps, starting to detach the kidney, which was a dark brown colour, from the cavity wall.
'No problems. Of course, your profession is, well you know, sex, so technically we could still have sex and it would be a professional relationship...'
'No, Roman. Okay, just no.'
Roman didn't look up again, but he hacked at Joe's kidney with a newfound vehemence. This man on the floor had done what he was not allowed to, and it infuriated him. Unfortunately his infuriation did not make him a better surgeon and suddenly there was a spray of blood, which flew from the wound and sprayed the bathroom with red.
'Oh shit, Roman, what the hell did you do?'
Roman was reaching into the wound with his hands now, trying to find the source of the flow, but the blood was still coming out at a rapid rate.
'I don't know!' he cried. 'I must have nicked something!'
He grabbed one
of the clamps from the ground and dug it inside, clamping over the offending area. The blood flow lessened and then stopped, but the bathroom was a mess. The walls were speckled with blood and the carpet outside the bathroom door was soaked through.
'How much blood can a man lose?'
'Well there's about five litres of blood in an average man.'
'Well I count three on the floor already. Get that thing out of him and let's close him up,' Judith said, pulling the esky over and wiping some of Joe's blood from her forehead before it ran into her eyes.
Roman, whose hands were trembling now, simply reached in and tore the organ out in his fist, plopping it into the ice-filled esky. Judith closed it and sealed the lid as Roman began to sew up Joe's back, starting with the nicked artery. He worked quickly and clumsily, returning each layer and sewing it shut with all the care of a mother putting patches on some hand-me-downs. When he had finally finished, there was a long jagged scar, almost ten inches long, down Joe's lower back. The whole thing had taken him less than fifteen minutes.
'There's still a lot of blood seeping through there,' Judith pointed out, but Roman just scowled and snatched the swab from her to wipe it away.
He stood up and went back into the room, sitting down on the bed for a second and placing his hand on the bedside table, where it left a large bloody handprint. He was breathing heavily and he didn't move for a few minutes. The whole night had been a disaster, and worst of all, he probably wouldn't be able to sell such a botched kidney anyway. Even if it had been a perfect job, it wasn't in very good condition.
'Come on, I want to get out of here,' said Judith, trying to drag the bin of ice into the bathroom.
Roman got to his feet and helped her, and between the two of them they managed to pour the contents into the bathtub. Then, with a great deal of grunting and moaning, they lifted Joe in after it. It was hard to hold onto him because his arms and legs were slippery with blood, and he was still dripping onto the floor as they lifted him over. The ice underneath him began to stain immediately. Roman looked around the bathroom, noting the absolute mess he had made, and he picked up the towel and quickly tried to clean it up. He wiped up most of the blood, or at least directed it towards the drain. He washed out the towel twice, but the walls were still flecked with blood and there was nothing at all they could do about the carpet. There was a thick stain there, almost the size of a man, and it squelched when they stood on it.
'It'll have to do,' Roman said, observing their handiwork.
Judith looked doubtful.
'Do you think he'll live?' she asked.
'I don't know. What do I look like, a doctor?'
'Fine, leave him the note. I'm going downstairs,' she said, and she strolled out of the room without looking back, glad to be away from the scene of the crime.
Roman pulled a slip of paper from out of his pocket and placed it on the sink next to Joe. Joe's whole body was white, and starting to turn a horrible purple colour at the extremities.
'You had her didn't you, you prick? You had her and I'll bet you didn't even care. Just another whore to you, right?' muttered Roman, spitting on him as he left the bathroom.
He collected up his things and then, seeing Joe's clothes in a heap at the end of the bed, decided to take them with him too, bundling them into the now-empty ice bin.
'If I were you, I wouldn't wake up,' he called back to his comatose victim.
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