The Lakes Affair

So there I was, in Connecticut, gunning around the curves on the road, the cold wind throwing my busted passenger-side mirror against the side of the car with a repeated irregular smack. It was dark, but I could see ahead of me the hill I’d have to drive up to reach the mammoth Lakes estate at the top; It must have been a hundred feet high, at least. The road was well-lit and recently repaved. When I got there, a man in a small red vest took my car and put it somewhere out of sight. The wooden doors of the Lakes residence stood open before me like the lips of a yawning giant. Like any mouth, this one was full of amoebas and parasites; these ones happened to be wearing thousand-dollar cocktail dresses. I anxiously tried to brush some of the poor off my shoulders, but it didn’t help. In a place like this, you’re either money or you’re nothing. The weight of the camera against my chest was reassuring. A fancy-looking SLR is the ultimate press pass.
It was hard to adjust to the light inside; every surface in the place was reflective. I replayed the message in my head, over and over, trying to figure it out. I’d never heard her sound so scared, but it was a quiet desperation, like the British have. I’d made a point to stay out of Connecticut, but I threw on my best dress and drove out there. A woman’s pleading voice on my answering machine will drive me to do almost anything. It’s my main weakness. She couldn’t talk about it on the phone, she said. I’m the only one she could trust, she said. But I didn’t like the sound of it, not at all. Allison Manderay wants me at the Lakes’ soiree? What for? I don’t know what Old Man Lakes did to get this house, but I’ve never seen one without a whole barrel of blood mixed into the foundation. It’s a structural thing. She wants me to rub elbows with these leeches? I’d rather have teeth drilled.
Two years had passed since the last time I’d seen Allison eye-to-eye. I was fresh out of journalism school, she was picking through the produce at a Super Fresh in Baltimore. We were close, more than close really, back in the Maine Photographic Workshop days, but we’d drifted apart in the years since. I noticed a gold ring on her left hand as she squeezed a grapefruit. The rock was big enough to choke a guinea pig.
“Oh, this thing,” she said, and smiled. It was good to see her happy. The ring was, as I’d suspected, of the engagement kind, with the wedding planned for the next spring. We got to chatting about the elegant bachelor himself, one G. Bradford Lakes, a man in a collared shirt on his way to becoming a man in a suit. A Yalie, as a matter of fact. I sneered a bit, involuntarily, but she wasn’t offended. She had known me in my revolutionary heyday, before the war, and she knew how I felt about blood with even the slightest hint of blue in it. Still, I was happy for her. Love will do that to people. The wedding invitation never got to me, but it seems the whole thing went off hitchless; I can’t imagine any other way she wound up with guest-list privileges at his palatial estate. I scanned the room restlessly.
Finally I caught sight of her at the end of the hall. She was stunning, moreso than I remembered. Her dress was red and black, with swooped shoulders, elegant as a Mondrian. She’d traded up pretty well. Some blue-haired blueblood said something to her and she laughed. She almost looked like she belonged there, a far cry from the restless suburban girl I used to know. I snapped a picture from across the room, for posterity. This caught the attention of another blue-haired blueblood and darling I just had to take her picture next, and so on and so forth around the room. The rich love having their pictures taken. Cheeses were said and smiles were flashed, and it wasn’t long before Allison noticed my arrival.
“Thank Christ you’re here,” she whispered in my ear, “The bullshit in here is thick enough to clog a sewer.” I smiled. There’s the girl I knew. “Come on. There’s something here you need to see.” Off we went. There was a door behind the stairwell that led to another stairwell. A couple furtive glances to make sure we were unseen, and we descended. I was reminded of the musty basements where we snatched away moments back in Maine. We went down and down, one stairway after another, and soon I smelled a distinct chemical odor. At first I thought of the old darkroom, another site of carefree passionate embraces, but no, the smell was far more sinister, less sweat and developer and more blood and bile. I became uneasy.
“Allison, where are we going?” I asked.
“Shh, you’ll see,” she replied, but it was so dark down there that I barely could. At last we came to a large metal door, lit only by a tiny red LED light above a keypad. “This is it,” she said, and entered the code. There was a hiss, and the door cracked open. The fluorescent lights inside were nearly blinding, and when my eyes adjusted I saw a long hallway with white walls. There was a hospital quality to it, and the same sense of it not being quite clean enough for comfort. My trepidant heart trembled as I followed her in.
“I’ve been exploring the basements since we moved in, and I found this place by accident last week. There’s almost as much below ground in this place as above it, if not more,” she said.
“Like an iceberg,” I helpfully chimed in.
“Yes, like an iceberg. Almost as cold, too.”
“How’d you figure out the code?” I asked.
“Oh, everything in this house has the same code. Brad’s father is a little forgetful,” she said.
“I see.” We continued walking. Finally we came to a sliding door, with portholes on each side. I tried to look through, but it was dark inside. She opened the door and turned on the lights.
“This is what you need to see,” she said. Inside the room was jar after jar of what appeared to be human organs, some I recognized and a few I didn’t. I’m no doctor, but I saw livers, kidneys, a lung or two, and I think some spleens, and that was just the first row.
“What…what is this?” I asked incredulously. “You could build a whole man with this stuff!”
“It’s an organ bank of some kind, I think. I think my father-in-law uses them to replace his own organs when they go bad…with enough money, you know, you can live forever. He told me that once. With enough money…”
“You can get away with anything,” I finished for her as I readied my camera.
“This isn’t right, right?” she said, “This shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right. You need to take pictures; you need to tell someone about this. I can’t trust anyone around here. I mean, who knows who’s in on it?”
“You were right to call me,” I said, “This could be huge.” My God, I thought, is that really a human heart? This party sure got weird in a hurry. I snapped all the pictures I needed, and turned to leave. That’s when I saw it: a tiny red light. On a tiny metal security camera. “We need to leave. Now.” I said. We made trails out of the basement. We made it back into the house proper with no trouble. The party was still going, empty tuxedos swilling champagne like there was a shortage. A heavy voice called Allison’s name, and we turned to face it. It was Old Man Lakes himself. He looked pretty healthy to me. A wiry, muscular hand attached to a bony wrist protruded out of each elegant sleeve of his tuxedo, which was crisp and sleek and very expensive-looking. His hair was tinfoil-gray, but full and vibrant and he stood with the confidence that only comes with boatloads of money. I hated him instantly.
“And you must be Allison’s photographer friend,” he said. My stomach sank: we’d been made. His eyes were such pale blue that they looked nearly white. If ever there was a man who pillaged and gutted his way up to the top, there he was. “I trust you haven’t found our gathering too…stressful?” he asked. I wanted to tell him that my eyes were about to fall out because I’d seen the fucking Mutter museum in his basement, but I kept my composure, for Allison’s sake.
“No, it’s lovely,” I replied, “In fact, I was just leaving.”
“Oh, no, no, that won’t do; that won’t do at all.” His cadaverous lips twisted up into a sinister grin. “I think you should stay.” I noticed some big suits circling round. It didn’t look good. Clearly, it was now or never.
“Come on!” I yelled and grabbed Allison by the hand. I bolted past the goons and made a beeline for the front door. A red-vested driver monkey was handing a BMW off to some diamond-studded country club couple. I barreled through them with every ounce of my wiry frame and dove into the car. Allison strapped herself in as I gunned the throttle. The engine roared as we hurtled down the lane.
“Jesus Christ! What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped.
“Sorry, A, I’m not ready to be a kidney in a jar. In case you didn’t know, human organs don’t grow on trees.”
“But…but… my house! My husband! My life!” she said. The woman was becoming hysterical.
“Hey, I just saved both our lives. Cut me some slack. This is all Bradley’s problem now.”
“Bradford.”
“Whatever,” I said, and we drove off into the night.