What happens when a surgeon turns his eye from the operating room to crime fiction? In "Stone Hearts", Craig R. Smith, MD, cardiac surgeon and former Chair of the Department of Surgery, builds a medical caper rooted in transplant, intrigue, and the peculiar moral weather that hovers above and beyond the hospital.
Follow along each Friday as we release the novel one chapter at a time. You can also see more on Dr. Smith's Substack, Long Incision.
In Chapter Eight, pertinent history of the Bessette family was woven into description of a visit home from Cornell by Elias Bessette, early in the second semester of his freshman year. Elias was unable to cover his expenses at Cornell and asked Jean Bessette to help by reviving their successful joint venture in sales of recreational drugs.
Spring, 1974
Two weeks after his hometown evening with Jean, Elias was studying in his Cornell dorm room when a classmate interrupted him—he had a call on the pay phone in the hallway. It was Jean: “I got us that new source. You need to get down here as soon as you can. These guys are very serious businessmen. I don’t want to look like some solo amateur, so you’re coming with me. And let’s think who’d be a good third partner, sort of a bodyguard or bouncer type. Just for the buy.”
A third partner, Elias mused…an interesting human-resources challenge. The right person had to be trustworthy, with just the right amount of moral flexibility, and capable of projecting physical presence on the threat spectrum. For most Ivy League freshmen, that’s a short list. By a coincidence of timing, Reggie Taylor was fresh in mind.
To most people in Elias’s hometown, the Taylor home was a mansion, a three-story gabled stone building that loomed over lawns, gardens, and a sinuous driveway in a swanky neighborhood that real estate agents called the Estate Area. Beginning in sixth grade his socially prominent parents had indentured Reggie to a series of three boarding schools. At each involuntary transition he fell to a lower-ranked institution with a larger reputation for reform. When home for summers from the prep school de l’année Reggie was part of Elias’s peer group.
Reggie was over six feet tall, lean and muscular, with a neatly sculpted jaw, and cigar-brown eyes that could be puzzling in their resting state but were easy to read once ignited. No one failed to notice the sharply bordered, thumb-sized colony of pure white hair just behind his left temple that invaded an otherwise orderly forest of wavy dark brown. Reggie’s considerable athletic abilities were hobbled by limited self-discipline, a quality that also contributed to his academic challenges. When his third prep school declined to invite him back for senior year he washed up on the shores of Severance High and became one of Elias’s classmates.
The socialization challenges faced by a student dropped into a large high school are both decreased and increased by being known. Reggie retained some of the exoticism of newness while still benefiting from an existing circle of friends, but familiarity included awareness of his deflating academic history, his short fuse, and his penchant for sadistic bullying. His circle of friends was reduced to classmates like Elias who knew Reggie wouldn’t take them on.
Reggie and Elias weren’t the closest friends, but some mixture of mutual respect and affection had allowed Reggie to let his guard down now and then, giving Elias a sense of what life was like in the Taylor family. Reggie’s parents, who were in their late fifties, seemed to enjoy reminding him that his conception was entirely accidental, and more like a case of the clap than an unexpected blessing. “Good morning, Mistake of Mine!” his mother would say, or “Happy Birthday, Diaphragm Dodger!” Even if she thought she was only jesting affectionately she might have noticed that the Dodger wasn’t laughing. Elias wondered if that contributed to Reggie’s way of explaining to new acquaintances that his poliosis—that little mistake in hair follicle pigmentation—was completely benign and insignificant; he often seemed unconvinced by his own explanation.
Reggie had been born eleven and thirteen years after his sisters, who were officially acknowledged as planned, and therefore unconditionally loved. His dear older sisters were convenient reminders of how poorly Reggie compared in meeting the expectations of the Taylor social class. For his parents it was quite inconvenient to have Reggie relegated to the local public school in 1972 for his senior year. Generations of Taylors had relied on boarding schools to enculturate their children, freeing the parents to focus on their well-being. Ever resourceful, these Taylors hired live-in caretakers, bought Reggie a new Austin-Healey convertible to drive to and from Severance, and flew back to the Mediterranean. At least that was how Reggie had framed the story for Elias late one night, after too much beer.
Reggie was fresh in mind because of an incident that occurred during the same long weekend that Elias was home asking for Jean’s help with his money problems. On a night of scudding clouds and slant rain, Elias and Reggie had joined a small crowd gathered in Tom Levine’s well-appointed basement. Former classmates and assorted friends were socializing—drinking beer, smoking joints, and shooting pool. After an hour or so Elias’s social early-warning system sensed Reggie’s mood shifting from light to dark, for no discernible reason.
Familiarity with Reggie’s backstory had implanted sympathy but hadn’t taught Elias how to anticipate when a shift in mood would lead to one of Reggie’s outbreaks of seemingly pointless cruelty—could Elias do something preventive? Scanning the room, he noticed Jason chatting companionably with two girls. He knew Jason was a guest who might have made other plans had he known Reggie would show up, but it was too late for prophylaxis. Jason was a Labrador: friendly to everyone, a contentedly average achiever, impossible to dislike, reflexively deferential. The two girls, attractive and popular, were clearly enjoying his company. As Elias feared, that was blood in the water for Reggie, who started quietly circling the life raft. Turning suddenly to face Jason, Reggie lit his own fuse with contrived nonsense: “What did you say?”
Jason winced, and answered truthfully, “I didn’t say anything!” The two girls could see what was coming. For a moment one frowned at Reggie with tightly pursed lips, preparing to huff and help Jason stand his ground, but her companion gently tugged her arm and they fled the scene.
Reggie bore down. “Really, pussy-boy? You think I’m deaf?” All action and conversation stopped. He advanced on Jason, who began backpedaling around the space. Reggie’s dominance endorphins were surging. Was Jason standing in for all the good little boys who hadn’t been kicked out of boarding schools? It was impossible to know and didn’t matter. In his retreat Jason broadcast an abject prayer for mercy, but after dodging the pool table and the cooler full of beer he ran out of room and was pinned to the furnace, Reggie’s nose a few inches from his.
Jason’s behavior provoked a sympathy reflex among the spectators, but his unwillingness to defend himself had the ironic consequence of delaying intervention; even Elias did nothing more active than to hover nearby. Was the herd surrendering a wounded calf to the lioness, or was the herd trying to teach Jason an important lesson? You’ll be amazed what happens when you stand up for yourself! But the time allotted for that lesson quickly expired. Taking a full swing from the shoulder, Reggie slapped Jason on the cheek with an open palm, snapping his face into the furnace. Sheet-metal recoil sounded a dull bass note.
In two strides Elias was in between them. The body language of the room registered silent applause for Elias, and Reggie could sense it. He switched strategies, dropping back, dancing on his toes, doing a Muhammad Ali float-like-a-butterfly imitation—hands up with open palms, implying that all he’d been doing was inviting Jason into a friendly slap-fight, where’s the harm in that? Just what boys do, right?
With Elias already in between them, a more guileful young man in Jason’s position would have pretended to be in on the game—dance a little, get his hands up, then graciously back away. But Jason was broken, holding back tears, cowering against the warm furnace. Reggie juked right on Elias then lunged left towards Jason, arm cocked, feigning another blow. Jason spasmed into a crouch, covering his face with his hands, granting Reggie an unconditional surrender. Reggie pivoted and sauntered away, smirking…look on my works and despair!
The big brother, big sister, someday-parent in many of the spectators still sympathized with Jason. But that instinct was partially offset by unarticulated disappointment—a feeling not unknown to sympathetic and protective siblings and parents. And as a practical matter, any future soldiers in the audience knew which of the contestants they’d want in their foxholes. No matter the psychodynamics, the episode was over. Reggie walked around alone in a slow strut, wearing a thin smile, not talking to anyone. He cooly unscrewed the cap on a fresh quart of beer. Jason hovered anxiously in the well-lighted center of the crowd, then eventually sidled back into a game of eight-ball. More beer was drunk, joints passed. Reggie seemed like a less tightly coiled spring. Jason’s florid cheek was deemed invisible as everyone colluded in pretending nothing had happened. Elias ruminated—there was a kind of loneliness in having been the only one to intervene. But nothing as lonely as Reggie victorious.
Elias weighed the pros and cons and concluded with some reluctance that Reggie was as good a third partner as he was likely to find. And Elias knew where to find him. A conscientious guidance counselor at Severance had managed to get Reggie accepted to Glassboro State College. Elias reached Reggie by dialing his number at Glassboro and pitched the plan. Reggie had limited interest in using or dealing, but playing muscle for the buy sounded irresistibly cool and macho. He assured Elias that his demanding Marketing and Media curriculum, combined with Glassboro’s geographic proximity, would make it easy for him to drive up to the city on short notice.
Twelve days later Elias arrived at Jean’s apartment in Westchester on a Friday afternoon for a visit that the brothers kept off the parental books. Jean excitedly shared what he’d found. “Kilo bricks straight from Mexico, uncut. Plus other stuff. Acid and mescaline. Black beauties, red devils, yellowjackets, Quaaludes, all clean and pharmaceutical.”
“Who are these guys?” Elias asked.
“They’re Italian, from the city…yes, that kind of Italian.”
“Jesus, Jean, how can it be safe to get in bed with the mob?”
“Because it would be bad for business if they burn their customers or knock them off. And this is a chance for us to really step up. Buying ounces for thirty bucks and hustling to sell them for thirty-two is a sales-and-marketing grind.” Jean switched to a sarcastic falsetto: “’Hey, man, you should pay a little premium for our shit because it’s super awesome.’ No more of that! We pay wholesale for seriously high-quality stuff in bulk. Clean it, cut it, bag it ourselves.”
Elias hadn’t reached Jean’s level of excitement yet. Trying to appear less wary, he said “Sounds profitable!”
“Ya think? Christ, we can undercut the hippies and the frat boys and still triple or quadruple our investment. And the acid, the markup is crazy! The mafia guys don’t understand the stuff, they buy it dirt cheap from chemists who think they’re promoting a religion.”
The plunge into a higher level of retail was no longer a benign thought-experiment. After a phone call Jean announced that the buy was set for the following night at a bar just off I-95 in Teaneck, New Jersey. At the end of the call Elias overheard Jean saying he’d be accompanied by two of his trusted business associates. Elias alerted Reggie. Before he could finish telling Reggie to meet the brothers in Teaneck, Jean interrupted him. He and his business associates should arrive together, in one vehicle, like a team. They agreed Reggie would drive up to his parent’s empty house, where the brothers could pick him up on the way to the bridge.
While falling asleep on Jean’s couch, Elias distracted himself with mental calculations of profitability, starting with an educated guess about how much cash Jean was laying out. Three or four hundred percent profit would be about…say we split 60-40…. Yeah, it was a lot of money. But how should he compare that amount of cash to the kinds of illiquid assets Elias was pushing into the pot? He decided to wipe all that out of his mind. He and his brother were already locked arm-in-arm and in too deep. And I need the money.
Previous chapters:
Chapter 8: The Brothers Bessette
Related:
- A Conversation with Dr. Craig Smith on His Novel “Stone Hearts,” the Art of Writing, and the Surgeon’s Imagination
- Lessons Learned: Surgeon Craig Smith Reflects on Career in the OR
- Nobility in Small Things: A Look Back at The Leadership of Craig Smith, MD