“I’ve never seen him,” Angelo said. “But Vinnie Amendola mentioned him when he called this morning. He said Stapleton was all fired up about Franconi because Franconi is his case.”

“You see, I’ve gotten a few calls myself,” Vinnie said. “Not only did I get a call from Vinnie Amendola who’s still sweating it because we leaned on him to help us get Franconi out of the morgue. I also got another call from my wife’s brother who runs the funeral home that took the body out. Seems that Dr. Laurie Montgomery paid a visit and was asking about a body that doesn’t exist.”

“I’m sorry that this has all gone so badly,” Raymond said.

“You and me both,” Vinnie said. “To tell you the truth, I can’t understand how they got the body back. We went to some effort knowing the ground was too hard to bury it out in Westchester. So we took it way the hell out off Coney Island and dumped it into the ocean.”

“Obviously, something went wrong,” Raymond said. “With all due respect, what can be done at this point?”

“As far as the body is concerned, we can’t do anything. Vinnie Amendola told Angelo that the autopsy was already done. So that’s that.”

Raymond moaned and cradled his head. His headache had intensified.

“Just a second, Doc,” Vinnie said. “I want to reassure you about something. Since I knew the reason why an autopsy might cause problems for your program, I had Angelo and Carlo destroy Franconi’s liver.”

Raymond raised his head. A ray of hope had appeared on the horizon. “How did you do that?” he asked.

“With a shotgun,” Vinnie said. “They blasted the hell out of the liver. They totally destroyed this whole portion of the abdomen.” Vinnie made a circling motion with his hand over his right upper quadrant. “Right, Angelo?”

Angelo nodded. “The entire magazine of a pump action Remington. The guy’s gut looked like hamburger.”

“So I don’t think you have as much to worry about as you think,” Vinnie said to Raymond.

“If Franconi’s liver was totally destroyed, why is Jack Stapleton asking whether Franconi had a transplant?” Raymond asked.

“Is he?” Vinnie asked.

“He asked Dr. Levitz directly,” Raymond said.

Vinnie shrugged. “He must have gotten a clue some other way. At any rate, the problem now seems to be focused on these two characters: Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery.”

Raymond raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“As I already told you, Doc,” Vinnie continued. “If it weren’t for Vinnie Junior and his bum kidneys, I wouldn’t have gotten involved in all this. The fact that I’ve since gotten my wife’s brother into this situation compounds my problem. Now that I got him involved I can’t leave him dangling, you see what I’m saying? So, here’s what I’m thinking. I’ll have Angelo and Franco pay a visit to these two doctors and take care of things. Would you mind that, Angelo?”

Raymond looked hopefully at Angelo, and for the first time since Raymond had seen Angelo, Angelo smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile because all the scar tissue precluded most facial movement, but it was a smile nonetheless.