Detective Ron Pillard walked through a set of double doors. He followed the signs, turned left and entered the men's public restroom.
Stopping at the entrance, he eyed two rows of stalls. Several doors were closed in the row to the left, but he finally noticed the two stall doors at the end were open.
He took the last one, slid the lock in place, unbuckled his belt, lowered his pants and sat down.
Pillard, at five-foot-ten, had nondescript brown hair and brown eyes. The only distinct part of his face was his nose.
It was a wide nose, like that of a boxer, which at one time must have been either dislocated or broken.
Much to his chagrin, his body was unusually proportioned, with long legs, but an upper body very short in comparison. When he sat down he gave the impression of being much shorter than he actually was.
The detective waited for a few minutes, then heard the stall door next to him close and lock. He could hear the shuffling of papers and then a large crisp roll of bank notes, nicely tied together, slid into his stall right next to where his right foot rested.
He picked the money up and quickly counted the bills. Placing the packet in his inside jacket pocket, he stood, pulled up his pants, buckled his belt, flushed the toilet and walked out.
He had been a good cop for many years, until he finally got fed up with the corrupt system.
Divorced, with an eighteen-year-old daughter who was about to start college, he found himself with no money left. What money he had saved over the years had been spent on his lengthy and bitter divorce.
The judge granted in favor of his wife to the tune of eighteen-hundred dollars a month in alimony and another seventeen-hundred a month for child support.
His salary had been garnished and he barely had a thousand dollars left to live on, which was not nearly enough to pay for an apartment.
To earn extra income, he tried part-time body guard jobs for celebrities, but that hadn't worked out. He was currently living with his sister, but their relationship was at a breaking point.
It had all started innocently enough when he was approached by the wife a wealthy businessman. After several calls to his cell phone, he agreed to meet with her in the parking lot of a local shopping mall.
He parked his beat-up Volkswagen at the far corner of the lot and waited.
Soon, a shiny new red Corvette pulled up next to him. Out stepped a slender, beautiful brunette. He couldn't take his eyes off her large breasts. She opened his car door and sat in the passenger seat.
"Hello, detective."
He simply stared.
"As I was saying on the phone, my husband really is innocent. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's all."
"What exactly do you want from me?"
"Oh my God. You are direct, aren't you?"
"Well, that comes with the job."
"It's really quite simple. The other guy is a known criminal and he's the one that should be back in prison."
"Okay…"
"All I want is for you to take this envelope and switch it with the one that the police have," she said with a most intimate, soft voice as she inched closer to Ron and put her left hand on his thigh.
Pillard couldn't help himself. He hadn't been with a woman since his divorce and he felt himself growing. Before he could say anything, the brunette's hands were all over him.
As quickly as she started, she stopped, tidied her hair and sat up straight.
Handing him a brown envelope she said, "I'll bring twenty-grand tonight to your place if that's okay with you."
"No, no. That's impossible. I'm staying with my sister."
"Okay. Then why don't you meet me in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel at seven?"
"The one on Wilshire?"
"Uh huh. And you can have me as a bonus."
Before he could respond, she got out of his car, back into her own, and drove out of the parking lot.
Once the money started coming in, it was hard to stop. He rationalized, he argued with himself, but the money and the bonuses were addictive.
Detective Pillard packed a small suitcase and stopped by his bank. He deposited his latest payment into a special account and had the clerk make out a cashier's check to the college his daughter would be attending.
He gassed up his Volkswagen and headed up the coast to meet his daughter and make the payment for her tuition.
An hour into his journey, he found his attention wandering; so many things coming into his mind. He dozed off and jerked awake at the sound of a blasting car horn. He slapped his face to wake up, but he dozed off again.
This time, instead of being in his car, he heard the sounds and smelled the smells of a hospital. Unknown to him, he had been hit by a tractor-trailer which had totaled his car and left him barely alive.
He heard the respirator stop. He heard the flat line, beeeeeeeeeep, of the electrocardiogram. He heard the doctor come in and pronounce him dead.
He felt the sheet being placed over his face and his body being lifted onto the gurney. He heard the squeak of the cooler door open and close, leaving him in the shivering cold.
"BUT I'M NOT DEAD!"
After what seemed an eternity, he heard the cooler door open. He felt the gurney being moved out and under a large bright light. He felt the presence and heard the voices of a group of people.
A flamboyant pathologist and his students were gathered around Ron Pillard's body. The doctor closed the detective's eyes and turned to his students. He started to explain what he was going to do during the autopsy and carried on enthusiastically with his lecture.
As he talked, his assistant laid out all the various shiny instruments, including scalpels, saws and several types of cutting tools.
"The autopsy begins with a complete external examination. We will record the weight and height of the body and any identifying marks. The internal examination begins with the creation of a Y-shaped incision from both shoulders joining over the sternum and continuing down to the pubic bone. The skin and underlying tissues are then separated to expose the rib cage and abdominal cavity."
The pathologist held up a pair of rib cutters.
"Next we will be cutting through the ribs prior to lifting off the chest plate. Some pathologists actually use pruning shears from a hardware store, which are much less expensive, but I prefer to use these."
Ron Pillard could hear every gruesome word. In his mind he kept shouting.
"NOOOOO! I'M NOT DEAD!"
But no one heard him.
The doctor picked up two more instruments.
"This is a vibrating saw used to score the calvarium and this is the chisel used to gently finish the separation of the top of the calvarium from the lower skull, thus exposing the brain and its coverings."
"Oh God! I've got to do something!"
Pillard struggled to open his eyes.
In his mind he knew that desperation must be reflected in his face. He diverted his thoughts to concentrate on his eyes and, through great effort, he succeeded in opening his lids ever so slightly, then almost half way.
He shouted in his inaudible voice, "Please! Look at me! My eyes are opening! You idiots are going to cut me up and I'm not dead!"
But no one heard him.
"These otherwise unremarkable scissors are used for opening hollow organs, such as the gallbladder and trimming off tissues. They also can be used for blunt dissection by means of an opening motion rather than the more familiar closing motion used in cutting."
"Oh God! Oh God! I swear! I will never do another dirty deal! Please listen to me!"
But no one heard him.
Before the doctor picked up the next tool, his assistant interrupted.
"Excuse me, doctor. I thought you closed his eyes."
"Why, yes. I did."
"Look."
All eyes in the room turned to look down at Ron Pillard.
"Curious. How could that be?"
The doctor reached for his stethoscope and bent down over the body. Before he had a chance to listen for a heartbeat, he saw teardrops appear at the corner of each eye.
The learned doctor and his students were speechless. Thoughts of what was about to happen raced through their minds.
As the very relieved Pillard was quickly whisked back to the Intensive Care Unit, he began plotting how to spend the money from his next deal.