Chapter One

Chapter One
2-13-06

Everett Gibson sat on a bench on top of Tanker Hill. Six miles from downtown he could see the lights become shrouded in fog and began to think about what happened a few hours ago.
He fumbled for his cigarettes and out it in his mouth. He lit the end and took a drag. It tasted like burn cotton. He lit the wrong end.
“Fuck” he said, only the damp grass heard him.
He pulled out another one; he made sure he had it the right way and lit up.
As the fog rolled into the scenery to city looked even more distant than before. He wished he could be anybody else in the city tonight.
He didn’t know why he went to visit her. Maybe it was because of her birthday. Maybe it was an obligation he felt as a son. Maybe it was because she was his only living relative.
“Maybe I’m just a pussy,” he whispered.
She had a gift. Mainly for making him feel like shit. Today was no exception. He did everything he could think of. He took her to lunch. He bought her a rose. He asked her questions about his father.
When he got to the home, surrounded by potential customers, a few people turned away. Others whispered to friends, and some just stared at him confused. He’d probably being seeing them soonest.
“Hey mom, how are they treating you?”
“Not like you care.”
“I do. You’re my mom.”
“They served us meatloaf today.”
“That’s good. I always liked that when you made it for me.”
“That’s bad, I always hated doing it. The food is awful. I can cook for myself.”
“This is best mom, you’ll be okay.”
“I went to Karen Stone’s funereal earlier this week.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, remembering the lady who used to bring him and his mother cookies on Easter and Christmas.
“The only bad thing is the job your people did on her. She looked like she was made of hamburger. Sheila Johnson’s son is a lawyer; Betty Goldstein has a son in residence and a daughter who’s a nurse.”
And on.
“I tell my friends you’re in land development.”
And on.
“If I wasn’t here at least I could hide from the shame.”
And on and on and on.
“Take me to lunch; I’ll die if I don’t get out of here soon.”
His thoughts scattered like vandals from a siren. He heard glass shattering from the area his car was in. He got up and ran as fast as he could.
When he got to his car, a shadow split in three and streaked in opposite directions.
“You stupid mother fuckers,” he said and he kicked a rock as hard as he could while he ran. He heard it clunk against his car, “if I ever find you I’m going to fuck you up in ways you can’t even imagine.”
He got to his car. A rock was lying on the hood. Where the stone had hit was now the center of an elaborate spider web in his windshield.
“Why did I switch to liability?” he mumbled to himself. He got in his car and drove home.

At that same moment, on the thirteenth floor of a building Gibson had been looking at just minutes before, Harvey Kopelson was still pacing back and forth in his office.
BioServices Limited was doing well, and that was a problem. People needed transplants, people needed his transplants and MedSupply Inc. had just dropped out of the market just three hours earlier.
“Damn it, Bob.”
He thought about Bob Donovan. That bastard. Kopelson ground his teeth for a minute and then picked up a paperweight, tossing it from hand to hand, making a vain attempt to get his mind off the situation. He out the beetle encased in glass back down.
He took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. He sighed. A full forth of his product supply had been cut off.
He picked up the paper and flipped through it. He came to the obituaries and was put in a worse mood.
He shook his head at the paper. “All that potential profit wasted,” he muttered. Sitting in the ground, he thought, rotting. Thousands, no, millions of dollars were being turned into worm shit as he sat there trying to think of some way to boost his supplies and get his inventory up.
He thought about the day he signed the contract with Bob. The numbers looked so good. His stock rose three points in the fiscal year, things were going well. For awhile they had been at equilibrium. Almost everyone who needed a femur or a ligament could get one.
Then the market got saturated. More and more companies opened up. Stocks went down. Bob shut his doors and Kopelson was left with his dick in his hand.
He went to the bathroom and took a small measure of pride in watching the blue stuff in the toilet turn green before he flushed five minutes of some hapless dupe’s work into nothingness.
He went back to his office and picked up the order sheets. Little Johnny in California lost his tibia in a car accident. Joel’s house in El Paso caught on fire and his legs need new skin. Jimmy needs a heart valve for the time bomb in his chest. Sixty-thousand dollars lost from these three alone.
These three people plus another dozen more had needs he could fill; to bad he didn’t have the products to fill the orders with. Bob couldn’t keep his shit together so everyone loses. He thought.
He lit a cigarette. Fuck the ban, he thought, I pay for this goddamn place anyway.

Tom Menke had been at work for twenty straight hours. Things at the home had been ridiculous. He had to plan three separate funerals. Help select three separate caskets, show three different families books about floral arrangements, comfort three sobbing widows. Gibson had it easy. All he had to do was pump the corpses full of formaldehyde, slap some make-up on and call it a day.
He didn’t have any appointments the next day, so he was going to have Gibson mind the shop. He earned a day off.
He crept into his room where his wife was sleeping, careful not to step on any of Evan’s toys. He took off his suit and carefully folded it and hung it in his closet. He slid into the bed.
“Jenny?” he whispered.
She turned her head in his direction but her eyes were still closed.
“I’m takin’ tomorrow off babe. Let’s take Evan to the museum when he gets out of school.”
She smiled and nodded.
“Okay, go back to sleep,” he said before turning off the alarm. He put his arms around her and felt her bulging tummy right before he fell asleep.

The next day he took Evan to school. When he got back he checked the mail box and a chill went through him when he saw what was in it. The white, gold and blue of Visa greeted him with a sneer. He tried to keep his composure as he walked up the driveway, but found his footsteps were falling faster than usual. When he got inside he went directly to his study.
“Tom? Where are you?”
He began to panic. He moved to his desk as quietly as he could and opened the bottom left drawer. He fumbled with his keys.
“I swear to god I can never find the right key when I need it,” he muttered as he looked at the hunks of metal mocking him from their ring.
He heard footsteps coming down the stairs. He new his time was running out.
He snickered when he found the right one, opened the box and put the bill in it. Then he locked it, took a deep breath, smiled and opened the door.
“Good morning sweetheart. How are you today?”
“I’m fine. What were you doing in there?”
“Just some work stuff.”
“You work to hard, I’m going to make you breakfast.”
He smiled.