See for Yourself

"You'll have to bring us someone's face," Dr. McGill said, "from someone who will die anyway."

Vaughn waited for the medical mafia doc to go on. He stood with his knees locked to suppress a full-body shudder. He also tried not to look at the two huge bodyguards flanking Dr. McGill. The night wind in the vacant construction site seemed to skirt them. They stood fixed like statues, armored up to combat heaven and weaponized up to their helmets.

The suited, bald doctor looked like a bulbous little scepter between them, a possession of theirs. Of course, the ownership worked the other way around.

"Since you arranged to pay in service rather than cash," Dr. McGill continued, "we've set up a few hours of work for you. We've minimized any risk of police involvement. The face you'll harvest for us will come from the megacasino down the road. You'll end your contract by sawing off the tissue and delivering it to us. One face pays for the procedure that saved your wife."

Vaughn glanced at the stars to thank them. It probably looked to the mafia like he stood there calculating costs. He almost smirked at the concept. No one calculates anything around Dr. McGill, not after choosing service.

"Luckily for you," Dr. McGill said, "a whopping four gamblers will die of stroke tonight. Normally that casino reports only one or two strokers per day. We've also got a client with serious burns to his face. He'll accept any one of those four faces for transplant, so you get to choose among them.

"Obviously, you'll want to seclude yourself with one of the strokers right when he dies. Then, you do the ABC: acquire the face, bring it to me, and cancel your debt."

An autumn wind blew across Dr. McGill's vast and derelict construction property. Vaughn shivered, though his blood burned with adrenaline. The fear felt like a wind of its own, a breeze of fire all over him. The stars up there only jabbed him.

The bodyguards stared at him. They probably wanted to mash something with bone in it. Any complaint or refusal aimed at Dr. McGill seemed like a good enough reason. Vaughn didn't give them one.

"You see, Vaughn," Dr. McGill said, "our quiet little clinic has a few gizmos you won't find in the government ring. They just don't want us, or anyone, to have such toys. We've got an ultrasound brain scanner that detects how much plaque has clogged up the vasculature. The transducer fits right inside a lapel pin. We have a man sweep the megacasinos and stand behind each slot player. Easy scan. Easy. The gamblers fixate on their slot screens, so they don't even notice our guy standing right behind them pretending to watch their 'progress.'

"We do some hidden camera work and profiling too. Basically, we run the ultrasound data through our computers and calculate when a stroke will happen. The system can predict stroke time to within one minute and eight seconds of certainty. You can count on each man falling over within the narrow time bands we give you."

Dr.McGill took a sleeker-than-normal handheld from the pocket of his little sports coat. He handed it to Vaughn, who pocketed the device without a look or a blink.

The wind tousled Vaughn's hair like a playground bully. He'd have to fix it in his car mirror. It would have to look perfect to lure any gamblers from their slot machines. He'd trade his whole scalp for one tenth of McGill's wealth. He'd take the whole bald noggin to escape this contract.

"Just check our app there for the strokers' locations and fall-overtimes," Dr. McGill said. "Four strokes in one megacasino sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But trust me, it happens a few times per year. I guess the pleasure demons who like bacon also like gambling. They like BLTs and VLTs. Think of it as a thousand comedies of errors clustered under a thousand bright lights."