Stone Hearts — Chapter Sixteen: Cartier

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 Fifteen: Press Gang, Reggie was given dry clothes by his hosts, Peter and Grace, and invited below into Dulcinea’s galley for breakfast. Grace led an aggressive discussion probing Reggie’s story for weaknesses. Not convinced by Reggie’s assurances that he only wanted a new life, Peter and Grace decided to keep Reggie captive on Dulcinea for the next week or so while they sailed northeast to get some work done. With Reggie covertly restrained they went ashore together for a provisioning expedition.

Spring, 1974

Grace drove a few blocks north then pulled into an empty space and turned off the engine. “Remind me where you want to go?” Reggie replied that Glassboro was about two hours south of the bridge down I-95, and his parent’s house was about 25 minutes north in Westchester. “Jesus,” Grace said, annoyed. “We’d be driving all day!” She gripped and ungripped the steering wheel impatiently, shaking her head. “Let’s start with home—tell me exactly what you expect to find there.”

“Mainly my passport and some cash.”

“How much cash?”

“Around a grand. And I have some heavy raingear, from fishing. Since we’re going out to sea tomorrow.”

“We have plenty of raingear,” said Grace.

“None his size,” Peter pointed out.

“The first time you use that passport, your new life is over,” Grace said. She pinched the key in the ignition, started turning it to the right, but let it go.

“True,” Peter interjected, “but we can use the passport to help create a new one, if that becomes relevant someday. So I’d go for the passport. Plus it’s not far away. And cash never hurts.”

“Ok.” Grace said, assertively jamming in the clutch as she started the engine. “Your house first. On the drive up we can talk about the other place.” She threw the shift into first gear, eased away from the curb, and they were soon on the Henry Hudson Parkway North. “Now tell us what you’re expecting to find in your dorm.”

“At least a thousand in cash, some clothes, razor, toothbrush, shit like that. My duffel bag.” Reggie could see that Grace wasn’t sold on the plan. “I know Glassboro is a long way down and back. See if this works.” He did his best to sound earnest and trustworthy. “My car is parked at my parent’s house. Right where I left it when my partners picked me up two nights ago.”

Grace interrupted, “These guys, who weren’t really friends, just hustlers, drove to your house to pick you up? What do your real friends do for you?”

“I’m glad you find me so amusing. Can you just listen for a second? How about you drop me at my house, I pick up my stuff, then drive to Glassboro while you all shop and do whatever else you need to do. I put my car back right where I left it, you can come pick me up. Or, if that’s too much to ask, I can take the train and walk from Marble Hill. If you’re worried, one of you can stay with me.”

To his surprise, Reggie’s proposal kept Peter and Grace thinking halfway through Riverdale. Passing the Broadway exit they began a discussion, soto voce. Why whisper, Reggie thought, when they had to know he could hear almost everything. He was not surprised to hear that Grace thought he was a hazardous nuisance. He was still puzzled by Peter’s support, which seemed to involve some kind of future utility. The whispering ended when Grace tossed in the toll at the beginning of the Saw Mill River Parkway.

Farther north in Westchester County Reggie jumped in with directions. After multiple turns onto progressively leafier and more secluded roads they drove between large stone pillars into the Taylor driveway. The tires crunched over immaculately raked pea gravel in a gentle curve to the front door, a few hundred feet from the road. As he had predicted, they hadn’t passed any cars since the first few turns and there wasn’t a neighbor in sight. Reggie’s Austin-Healey, in need of a bath, sat in the parking area.

Grace turned off the engine. “Now I see why you jumped in the river, rather than come home to this.”

Peter handed Grace’s heavily-loaded purse back to her while doors opened. In a bid for their confidence Reggie made a point of being last to step out, after waiting for Peter to position himself outside with the leash in hand. Reggie walked up the front steps, tilted back a large urn filled with flowers, and pulled out a key. They were quickly inside with lights switched on in the entrance hall. Reggie noticed once again the contrast between his ambivalence to the objectively impressive surroundings and the awed reaction of most first-time visitors—even Grace, though she recovered quickly: “C’mon, boys, let’s get what we came for and get out.”

Reggie led the parade up the front stairs and back to his room, at the end of a long hallway. The room was clean and orderly, the bed made, the desktop clear. Reggie produced a key from the center drawer of the desk that he used to unlock the bottom drawer. He pulled out a wad of cash. Feeling around for his passport his hand came up instead with a gold watch. Peter and Grace peered over his shoulder. “Nice Cartier,” said Grace.

“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” replied Reggie, studying the watch in the palm of his hand, his momentum stalled. “Gift from my Grandfather when I got accepted to St. Paul’s. That’s where he went. And graduated. I figured he’d take it back when I got kicked out.”

“Nobody takes a gift back!” scoffed Peter.

“My parents would have,” Reggie replied, restricting his attention to Peter. “When they saw me wearing it afterwards, they’d shake their heads, as if I didn’t notice. I took it off and stuck it in this drawer. Then my Grandfather saw I wasn’t wearing it and asked if I’d lost it.” Reggie was wearing his nothing-touches-me smile—faint, wry, and well-practiced, easily confused with a sneer. “I snuck him up here and showed it to him. He says to me ‘it’s yours, you should do whatever you want with it.’ Said he was still proud of me, and I was going to be okay someday. That was…seven years ago…shows what he knew.”

“I don’t know, man, life’s a long race;” said Peter, “ain’t over yet!”

Grace broke in, “For Chrissake, mopey boys, take the watch or leave the watch. Ricky-tick, chop-chop!”

Reggie turned to look at her with an expression Elias would have recognized as match approaching fuse. He retracted the left sleeve of his barn coat enough to push the chain noose out of the way, strapped the watch to his wrist, and thrust the watch face inches from Grace’s nose, his fist clenched. Peter yanked the leash tight. Reggie heard the high metallic rasp of chains through rings before he felt the shockingly sharp pain in his wrists. Reggie jerked his fist another inch towards Grace, pulling the chains even tighter, and slowly raised his middle finger.

“He died later that year,” Reggie said, ice cold and resolute. “My Grandfather.”

Grace stared back into Reggie’s blazing blue eyes without flinching. “This is why Peter should have helped you drown!” She slipped one hand inside her purse.

“Now, Grace, we talked about this, we’re going to play this out,” Peter said firmly. “Listen to me, Reg, we still don’t have your passport, or your raingear.”

Reggie held his position against the pain while he retracted his middle finger, then drew his fist very slowly away from her face, doing his best to hide any signs of relief as the chains went slack. He turned back to his desk drawer, thrashed around inside, then raised his hand holding his passport. With Peter alertly on the leash Reggie walked to his closet, where his rain parka and pants were hanging among blazers, suits, and ties, over neat rows of shoes. He snatched the rain gear off its hangar.

“You’re quite the neat ‘n tidy guy!” observed Grace, without taking her hand out of her purse, but doing her best to regard the scene neutrally from the middle of the room.

“That’s all Angie and Beulah,” Reggie replied more calmly, regaining control. “I haven’t slept here since Christmas.”

“Have they cleaned your room since you dropped your car here?” Peter asked. “I’m wondering if they’ll notice you’ve been back.”

“Real unlikely,” Reggie said. “When everyone’s away they only come every two weeks or so. They wouldn’t have any reason to touch my room more than once after I went back to school in January.”

When they reached the entrance hall, Grace stopped, and turned to Peter. “I guess if you don’t mind wasting the time, you could ride down to school with him. Cash is cash.” She looked at her watch. “You should be back here about…seven-thirty. I’ll pick you up.”

When they reached the parking area Grace stopped again. “I’m thinking we should switch cars,” she said, studying Reggie’s haphazardly parked Austin-Healey. “People might know that little penis is his. May I have the key, Reggie?”

“Can you find your way back to the house?” Reggie asked civilly.

“Don’t worry about me,” Grace replied, and tapped her temple with her index finger. She reached into her purse, pulled out the revolver, and handed it to Peter.

“I don’t need that,” he said.

“I know you’re tough, Peter,” Grace replied, “but you just saw what he’s like. You’re the one who decided to be a hero. You need a way to wrap it up if this gets messy.” Peter accepted the gun without further argument and dropped it into this jacket pocket.

Grace pulled away smartly in the Austin-Healey without launching a single pea of gravel. An hour later, Grace was buying provisions in Riverdale and the Land Cruiser was headed south on I-95. Peter drove, sitting on the leash. Reggie fell sound asleep. Peter woke him for directions when they got off the turnpike. They parked in a lot on Campus Drive next to Reggie’s dorm and were up the stairs and inside his room in minutes, unseen. Reggie pulled his Introduction to Economics textbook off a shelf. It fell open to the middle, and he removed a stack of bills from between the pages. He pulled his duffel out of the closet and threw in clothes and toilet articles. Peter checked the hallway. Empty. They were back in the Land Cruiser and cruising north on I-95 ahead of schedule.

Reggie dozed again once the stimulation of the clandestine visit wore off. He woke going through toll booths on the eastern spur of I-95 near the Lincoln Tunnel. They were passing the scruffy, undeveloped Meadowlands when Peter said “I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotta take a piss. And we could use some gas.” He took the exit into the Vince Lombardi service area, nestled in the triangle where the eastern and western spurs of I-95 merged. The Lombardi was weeks-old, shiny-new, with tattered opening-day bunting still hanging here and there. “I’m going to trust you,” Peter said, after parking. He handed Reggie the end of the leash. “Walk in with me, stay close.”

Reggie thought about making a break for it. This might be his best chance. But Grace had his passport and half his cash. Thanks to his own proposals, they knew where to find him, if he dared resume his old life. And the new life was feeling not so bad in comparison to the old one…if he could reach a truce with Grace. He surrendered to the rare pleasure of spotless new urinals and emptied his bladder next to Peter. Back at the Land Cruiser he tossed the leash across the driver’s seat before Peter got in. An attendant wearing a bright new uniform filled their tank at the pumps, then they pulled back onto I-95, merging into the increasing congestion approaching the George Washington Bridge.

From the bridge Reggie looked down on the dark water of the Hudson, under low, gray clouds spitting rain, reminding him that he’d gazed at the milky way through a perfectly clear sky from the bench in Dulcinea’s cockpit the night before. Reggie broke the silence. “It was a deal going bad, down in Little Italy, with some seriously dangerous guys. One of my friends—former friends—left me and his younger brother for dead.”

“What are you talking about?” Peter asked.

“About what really happened the other night, before we met. The guy who ditched us eventually made good, and we got out of there.”

Peter had to let that sink in for a moment. “So why the river, then?” he asked.

Reggie had trapped himself, again. Even the truth was impossible to explain. You dumb shit…that’s the old life. “It was complicated.”

Peter sensed the tension and deferred. “You’ll have plenty of time to explain later. We’ll go out with the tide tomorrow morning. Our work is not very exciting but you can enjoy the scenery. Do you get seasick?”

“Not too bad. I’ve been out on a few sport-fishing boats, off Montauk and the like.”

“It can be real rough off Montauk. We’ll be north of there, staying close to the coast. We can harbor out of any really bad stuff. And the forecast is not concerning. You’ll probably be ok.”

“I don’t suppose you can tell me what you’ll be doing. This work you do.”

“The simplest description is science. Observational science. All the math and physics behind it is very boring.”

That killed the conversation until they were off the highways in Westchester, and close to Reggie’s house. Peter said “I know Grace seems very uncompromising. She’s very committed to our…work. But she’s also fair. Earn her trust, and you can be under her umbrella too.”

The Land Cruiser crunched softly down the driveway in a gentle rain. At the sound of the car Grace stood up, hands on hips, sheltered by the imposing front entrance of the Taylor house. The Austin-Healey was neatly parked in the proper place. She jumped into the back seat of the Land Cruiser and handed Reggie his car key.

The sky over New Jersey wasn’t fully dark when they stepped onto the damp deck of the Dulcinea. Reggie was carrying his full duffel bag and holding the handle end of his leash. Peter moved aft to secure the dinghy while Grace and Reggie went below.