Blood Debt

the escape attempt was doomed before he tried it, but he had to try.
    "Do that again," Sullivan growled as he slammed the detective's head into the wall. "And I'll break your legs."
    He was still searching for a witty response when his head reimpacted with the wallpaper.

    "On Thursday afternoons, Ronald Swanson always visits the hospice he created as a tribute to his dead wife." Followed by the cameraman, Patrica Chou took several quick steps across the parking lot and shoved her microphone in the face of the man climbing out of the late model Chevy. "Mr. Swanson, a few words, please."
    He looked down at the microphone then up at the camera and finally at Patricia Chou. "A few words about what?" he asked.
    "The work that's being done here. The dire necessity for people to sign their organ donor cards so that places like this don't need to exist." She smiled, looking remarkably sharklike. "Or perhaps you'd like to use the time explaining rewarded gifting—a disingenuous oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Do you actually believe that camouflaging the payment changes the underlying reality that organs would be provided for remuneration?"
    "I have nothing to say to you."
    "Nothing? Everyone has something to say, Mr. Swanson."
    Irritation began to replace the confusion. "If you want to speak with me again, make an appointment with my secretary." He pushed past her, shoulders hunched, striding toward the building.
    The cameraman danced back out of the way with practiced ease, never losing his focus. "Do we follow?" he asked.
    "No need." She switched off her mike and indicated he should stop taping. "I accomplished what I came here to do."
    "Which is?"
    "Rattling Mr. Swanson's cage. Keeping him off balance. Nervous people make mistakes." "You really don't like him, do you?"
    "It's not a matter of like or dislike, it's all about getting a story. And believe you me, there's a story under all that upstanding businessman philanthropic crap."
    "Maybe he's Batman."
    "Just get in the car, Brent, or we're going to miss the library budget hearing." The library budget hearing, she repeated to herself as she peeled rubber out of the parking lot. Oo, that's cutting edge journalism, that is. She wanted Swanson so bad she could taste it. I wonder what's happened to that detective…

    "I just ran into Patrica Chou in the parking lot." His tone suggesting he'd have preferred to run over Patrica Chou in the parking lot, Swanson closed the door to Dr. Mui's office. "Something has to be done about that young woman."
    "Ignore her." Dr. Mui stood and smoothed the wrinkles from her spotless white lab coat. "She's only trying to goad you into creating news."
    "Why me? This city's crawling with television crews and movie productions. Why doesn't she go bother an actor?" He swept his palm back over the damp dome of his head. "You don't think she knows anything, do you?"
    The doctor studied him dispassionately. The exchange with the reporter had clearly unsettled him. "Knows what?" she asked as though there were, indeed, nothing to know.
    "If she's watching my house and she saw you this morning…"
    "She'd assume, like anyone else, my visit concerned the clinic."
    "But…"
    "She's making you paranoid."
    Swanson visibly pulled himself together. "I beg your pardon, Dr.
    Mui. Something about that woman invariably causes me to overreact."
    "Apparently, she has that effect on most people," the doctor allowed. "Do we have a buyer?"
    "We do. He'll be here tomorrow afternoon."
    "Good. I'll set up the transfusions as soon as he arrives, and if all goes well, we'll perform the surgery the day after." She brushed past him and opened the door. "Shall we?"
    "Before we go around, have there been any changes I should know about since last week?" he asked as he followed her into the hall.
    "Mathew Singh died this morning."
    "Mathew Singh," Swanson repeated. The mix of grief and anger in his voice contrasted sharply with the clinical detachment in the doctor's. "He was only thirty-seven years old."
    "He had been on dialysis for some time. He went to status four two days ago."
    "It's criminal. Absolutely criminal." As it always did, anger began to overwhelm the grief. "We're talking about an uncomplicated operation with broad parameters for a match, and still people die. What is wrong with our legislators that they can't see presumed consent upon brain death is only the moral option. I mean, look at France—they've had presumed consent since 1976 and their society