MeatLocker

Chapter Five-1

Chapter Five

“Let me just unpack my skirts and jackets,” Jenny said. “I don’t want them to wrinkle. Then you can quickly show me around. I mustn’t take up your whole day.”

“Do what you gotta do,” Emily said. “Then we’ll walk over to the main building and start in the basement. It’s where all the fun stuff is, including the morgue.”

Once Jenny had her jackets on hangers, they headed back out and were surprised to find little Stacy still on the balcony, sitting on the carpet, back against the railing. She was staring up at the eaves with ankles crossed.

“Stacy, honey. Where are your shoes?” Emily asked.

Stacy looked from Emily down at her ten little tanned toes. Wiggled them. Her face was wide with amazement, then her focus narrowed and she frowned accusingly at her feet. Like they had just betrayed her.

“Never mind,” Emily reached down to cup the girl’s face. “You concentrate on the sparrows.”

Stacy smiled with relief and they stepped over the girl’s outstretched legs. “She have a learning disability?” Jenny asked.

“Trauma. Or so the story goes. She’s lived here for years, since she was little, so I’m not sure of all the facts but I guess there was a car accident out on the main highway, not far from here. It was a bad night, rain and fog, and this truck had broken down. Stacy’s parents came around a bend and ran straight into the tailgate. Her mother’s head went through the windshield and her father had his skull punctured by the stub of the rear view mirror. Stacy had been playing in the back seat. When the EMT’s arrived, they found Stacy in the front trying to push her mother’s jaw back into what was left of the woman’s face.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Jenny’s lungs seemed to have been pricked by an ice pick. “And when was this?”

“Maybe fourteen years ago; Stacy was just a kid. Her father was dead and the mother very close to it, so the rescue team brought them here. We’re not equipped for that kind of extreme trauma but the guys on the scene knew, at that point, all that was going to be required was a death certificate for each of them. So that’s how Stacy came to live with us.”

“She lives here?”

“Oh yes. The staff at the time, adopted her; she was such a lovely child. There were no living relatives and we had some attorneys on the board of directors and they wrangled through the legal issues with the State.”

“And now?”

“Well, she’s still here. But she went through a living hell that night. Fourteen years ago, her mind stopped, frozen, but her body keeps pace with the passing years. You can see the result and the price she has paid. But she receives special schooling, a place to live, and a job.”

“She has a job?”

“Oh, yes. And a regular paycheck. She’s our Candy-Stripe girl. Matty even made her a uniform.”

“A three-incher, I assume.”

“Oh lord yes. If Dr. McAllister found out someone had been messing with Stacy, the guy would wake up from anesthesia and find that his hands had been surgically removed. I’m not kidding. Dr. McAllister loves that child.

Yeah. A gold mine, was her term for it!

Jenny had never seen a morgue before, except on television. And the one at Rosedale was small and anticlimactic. Just four refrigerator compartments and a stainless steel table; all devoid of occupants, thankfully, but deathly still, all the same.

“Not much happens in here; no autopsies or anything.” Emily said. “But it does get some use. Since I started at Rosedale, a few of our patients needed to be chilled. The last one, a nice old guy; Beady was his name and he was some kind of financial investor. I remember he used to sit in front of his computer all day, watching and clicking. He had to be good at it; he could afford Rosedale. They were after him to leave some of his money to the hospital; offered to name a wing after him. I guess he signed, eventually. And then he died; quickly and quietly, thank god. Never saw a plaque with is name on it though. I guess, after he was gone, it didn’t seem important somehow, after the check cleared.” Emily didn’t try to disguise her scorn.

“Let’s get outta here,” Jenny said. “I just got the creeps.”

Emily led the way across the hall. “Okay. Here, you’ll love this. This is our physiotherapy department.” Emily swung back the double door. Jenny looked through to a brightly lit workout room with machines and racks of weights along the wall. “Hey guys. This is Jenny. Today’s her first day.”

“Hi Jenny. Welcome aboard. I’m Annie.” A shortish woman stood from behind a desk where she had been shuffling file folders. She extended her hand. Annie’s expression was open and her smile sincere. She was dressed in a Ralph Loren warm-up suit. “And the one under the barbell,” she pointed, “that’s Lisa.” Lisa was about Jenny’s own age and lay on her back along a low bench. Her dark hair was knotted up in a ponytail and she was dressed in thigh-ripping spandex shorts and a sports bra.

“Eight... nine... ten...” she puffed, extending the weights from her chest, up until her arms locked. On “ten” she dropped the bar onto its rack, wiped her face with a towel and sat up. Her stomach looked like a railroad track. “Hi,” she managed between gulps of air.

“God, how much is that?” Emily gaped. And then, turning to Jenny, whispered, “She’s a three-inch girl. She’s okay!”

“One thirty-four,” Lisa said proudly. “That’s fifteen more pounds than my body weight.”

“Wow!,” Emily exclaimed. “I’m impressed.”

Back in the hall, Emily spoke freely. “Lisa’s a good friend. I think you’ll like her but she’s a bit stressed out. They want to shorten her skirt.”

“Shorten her skirt...”

“Yeah. That’s what we call it. They want her to relax her standards; become an eight-inch girl but she’s resisting. In the end it will probably cost her the job.”

Jenny thought of the girl’s thighs. With muscle like that, she thought... it’s no wonder. What guy wouldn’t want that wrapped around his d**k.

Directly above Jenny’s head, Dr. Helen McAllister ground the stiletto of her high-heel into the carpet and tried to look nonplussed. She sat at the boardroom table with eight directors of the hospital; two were absent.

“Why is it that you stamp anything with a blue capital ‘H’ and immediately the price quadruples?” The board member with the thinning hair combed forward, drummed his fingers on the financial statement that Dr. McAllister had prepared and handed around. She was aware she was grinding a perfectly good, six-hundred dollar heel into the cheap carpeting. She took a breath and re-crossed her legs.

“We’re still making good money,” Dr. Janson chimed in from the head of the table. “Helen’s doing us a bang-up job, here.”

“We’ve got some cost cutting measures already in place,” Dr. Helen McAllister said in her own defense. “We’re out-sourcing more of our services. I’ve sold the MRI to a clinic that is expanding and they now handle that procedure for us. And I closed the psych ward and terminated that over-priced psychologist who was running it.”

“But now you want to open it again.”

“There are ten rooms in that wing. I want to renovate and add them to our present inventory.”

“And what’s the damage estimate?”

“Five million dollars,” said Dr. McAllister, and paused to let her words sink in.

Dr. McAllister had been Administrator for the past four years. And before that, the resident orthopedist. A total of twelve years at Rosedale and she had been thirty-one when she started. It was during her third year at Rosedale that she discovered some of the nurses were supplementing their weekly paychecks by offering the male patients extra services.

She had found out the provocative way: She had walked in on a patient with a nurse splayed across his hips. The young healthcare provider’s skirt was around her waist.

The girl had been apologetic, more concerned about her parents finding out than keeping her job. Jenny had let the whole episode slide; she was more intrigued than incensed. Though she had never come across a situation like it, it had to happen, she reasoned. Men, weak and vulnerable. Women, young and vital, and in a position of control. Add the intoxicating aroma of money... and, big surprise! Another six months passed before it happened again. This time, to her.

No big deal, she tried to convince herself. She liked the guy and he seemed to respond in kind. They had spent a lot of time chatting and they had a mutual interest in money: She needed it, and he seemed to have the knack of making it. He helped her interrupt the financial pages, what to look for in an investment and, more importantly, how to use it to make more money, without the IRS becoming interested.

The investments had been small in the beginning; minor victories, but victories all the same. And Dr. McAllister had found she liked the gamble as much as the win.

Then there was the night she stopped by his room on her way home. She had worked late. In the hushed darkness, he confessed to knowing that some of the nurses were more friendly than the others. She said she was also aware. They touched, and suddenly fell together. His hands went under her skirt, stroking the crotch of her underpants, then he reached for her breasts.

Ten minutes later, when she slid from his bed, he slipped a piece of paper into her pocket. She felt terribly guilty, apologized and dully walked out his door. She was a married woman, even though it was for convince sake.

In the hall outside his room, she was so angry with herself, she smashed the wall with a balled fist. She tore the piece of paper from her pocket, scrunched it up and tossed it into the far corner. And then, thinking it might have her name on it, stooped to retrieve it. It did have her name on it: it was a check for fifteen-hundred dollars! She reconsidered her situation. Her husband need never know.

Two weeks later, after swallowing her pride, she had increased her stake to five-thousand, five-hundred, and finally paid off the loan on her Mazda. It had been hanging over her head like an ax and when she left the bank, she took a lungful of air that seemed to be her first in months.

She had figured it was over. But she found she liked the gamble as much as the win.

If she could make three or four thousand a week. Tax free. Who needed investments? She started working off the mortgage on their modest three bedroom.

Then her boss let it slip he wanted out and was interviewing for his replacement.

Dr. McAllister hit the ground running. During the next four weeks, she made a point of bumping into each of the Directors, privately. She introduced herself, asked questions; listened to answers. She made notes. Their dreams for the hospital became her ambition: the goals they set, the shortcomings of present management, the direction in which they wanted the business to go. She schmoozed by day and spent her evenings working up her resume. And then she started on a marketing strategy that would achieve the personal aspirations of each of the directors.

She got an initial interview six weeks later and the opportunity to lay out her plans for the future of the hospital. Things had gone well, but then she learned there was a holdout. And a major setback. It was the CEO, the most influential member on the acquisition team. Without his blessing, things would be tough and he already had a favorite: a graduate from the Harvard Business School who had cut his teeth as a regional sales manager for a major pharmaceutical company. Even Dr. McAllister had to admit the guy had her beat. So she played her trump.

“Have dinner with me.”

“Dr. McAllister. I don’t think, under the circumstances, that...”

“Oh come on. We’ve worked together for eight years; been friends. I was at your daughter’s christening. And you won’t have dinner with me?”

“Well, I know, but...”

“I’ve got a few new ideas I’d like to run past you. Give me a chance, here. You can at least hear me out.”

He started to crumble. “Okay... okay. But you know I’m already sold on the guy from Harvard.”

“Just listen to my ideas. Even if I don’t get the job, they may be valid. Who’s to say?”

He caved.

“I’ve got an Association meeting in the City the day after tomorrow,” Dr. McAllister said. “We can drive down together. I’ll reserve a table. We’ll have dinner. No pressure. Just promise to listen.”

“Okay... okay,” he repeated, sounding harangued.

Mission accomplished!

They drove to the City in his Lincoln Town Car; her Mazda didn’t seem up for the occasion. She had reserved a table at the King Edward Hotel, a fine old establishment that boasted a world renown chef and a quiet terrace overlooking the ocean. She had also arranged for an endless procession of martinis for him and Perrier water for herself. Dr. McAllister kept the conversation light. They didn’t talk business, mostly they gossiped about fellow employees and the directors. He studied the front of her blouse.

They split a platter of surf n’ turf and a seventy-five dollar bottle of wine. Vanilla ice cream followed, with candied orange wedges dipped in bittersweet chocolate. Brandy and coffee.

“I have a room upstairs,” she said. “The meeting’s tomorrow. I hope you don’t mind driving home by yourself?”

He pondered the question carefully, through rheumy eyes.

“I have a bottle of Krug on ice. Come up and have a nightcap.”

He swayed a moment, then capitulated. He crashed like a rotted tree in the forest. While he tottered off to call his wife, Dr. McAllister took care of the bill.

Later, after she had coaxed him between the bed-sheets, she went to work. Diligent as always. But when she slid her face down along his belly, her mouth open, he had jumped like a frog with a firecracker up his ass. It made her wonder if he’d ever had a blow job before. Once she had corralled his p***s, got it tucked into her throat, she practically had to hold him down against the mattress so she could perform. It wasn’t a great effort, on her part, but it certainly got his attention. He settled a bit, once she had deep-throated him a couple of times.

When she got him hard enough, she threw a leg over and straddled him. Then down she went. It wasn’t the most satisfying f**k ever, but it turned out to be the most profitable.

She had gone to bed that night, a resident doctor, and got up the next morning, the Directer of Medical Services. For all intents and purposes, she now ran the hospital. And she had a trusted ally in Dr. Janson. He was married and so was she. A convenient boardroom truce. No one wanted a messy divorce. The evening had cost her nine-hundred and eighty dollars... her first paycheck: two thousand, nine-hundred and sixty, after tax. Not a bad return on investment.