Chapter 3
The thirty-thousand-real question: How do you steal a fresh cadaver from a public hospital?
Hugo dressed the dining room table with a moth-eaten tablecloth and spread out sheets of paper, pens, pencils, Post-its, scissors, glue sticks, and rulers.
We rarely ever used that heavy, unwieldy table.
We preferred to eat on the living room sofa in front of the TV, but after all that arguing, a change of scenery seemed like a good idea.
“We’re going to need to put our heads together if we want to get a body out of there without anybody noticing,” said Hugo.
We were like children playing with our new school supplies as we sat on four of our ten black leather upholstered chairs, looking at each other, focused, silent. Waiting for some brilliant idea to strike. The blueprint for a perfect theft.
Reluctantly, Miguel explained the procedures for collecting a family member’s body from the hospital morgue.
The hospital issues three copies of the death certificate.
The family presents one of the copies at the vital records office, which issues the death certificate and a permit to remove the body.
The family hires a funeral director.
The funeral home presents the permit to remove the body.
A hospital employee signs the entry-exit log.
I jotted down the five steps. My eyes stayed fixed on the tabletop as I read and reread the list, searching for some loophole that could put us in reach of a dead body. Absorbed in thought, I almost jumped out of my chair when the doorbell rang. We weren’t expecting anyone.
“It’s the police!” Miguel shot up from the table. He shook uncontrollably.
Hugo hurried to gather up the materials, as if they were incriminating evidence. Instinctively, I jumped in to help him, not stopping to consider how pathetic it was for two grown men to be desperately shoving a few blunt pairs of scissors, some glue sticks, and scrap paper down their pants.
Piglet shuffled over to the peephole.
“It’s just food. I ordered delivery to help us relax.” He grinned. “All that planning made me hungry!”
“For fuck’s sake!”
Hugo tossed everything he’d stuffed under his shirt back onto the table. Piglet went to get some money.
“Why didn’t you say something, asshole?” I shouted.
The delivery guy rang again. I opened the door and greeted a short, tired-looking man in black overalls, who said he’d tried using the intercom but it didn’t seem to be working.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. The intercom had been acting up for months.
The delivery guy handed me a bag. Since I had some cash in my pocket, I just paid him and left the food on the table.
“Careful not to mess up the paperwork,” said Hugo, trying to organize things.
Miguel was still staring at the front door like he thought the delivery guy was an undercover cop who’d be back for us any second. Piglet handed me some bills when he came back from his room.
“I ordered the hundred-piece combo. Fifty are mine, you guys split the rest.”
I passed around the chopsticks, soy sauce, wasabi, ginger, and sesame seeds and started opening the sushi containers.
Raw tuna. Raw salmon. Raw shrimp. Raw people.
How to steal a corpse from a public hospital?
I searched my bedroom bookshelf for my copy of Planning Under Pressure, by John Friend and Allen Hickling, an unconventional decision-making method—perfect for this situation. On a sheet of paper, I listed the primary questions we’d need to address to come up with the most effective plan:
What will be the means of transport for the stolen goods (TRANSP)?
What will be the exit-entry port (ENT)?
What equipment will we need (EQUIP)?
How will we get past the hospital staff (HOSP)?
Will we need to use violence (VIOL)?
Which corpse will we choose for the dinner (CUT)?
How will we get the information that there’s a body available (INFO)?
“That last question’s taken care of,” said Hugo. “Miguel’s on call tomorrow night.”
My friend shook his head, making an involuntary grimace. “I’m not going to get my hands dirty or ruin my career over something this insane. Get your info another way.”
Before another fight broke out, I diverted the group to the least controversial question.
“Means of transport is pretty obvious. We’ll use Bukowski.”
“A burgundy Focus? Why not just drive around with a sign that says ‘Body Snatcher’?” said Hugo, disappearing into the kitchen and returning with an open bottle of sake.
“What if we rent a car?”
“I can paint Bukowski black,” suggested Piglet. “And figure out a way to tamper with the plates!”
Hugo poured us all sake in yellow plastic cups and raised his glass.
“We’ll take Bukowski, then … To a successful dinner.”
Miguel refused to toast. He threatened to walk away from the whole thing if we didn’t nix the possibility of violence.
“Dude, don’t be so neurotic,” said Hugo. “Nobody’s talking about breaking into the fucking hospital with machine guns.”
“So what does ‘use violence’ mean?”
“It means that we might need to knock out one or two people to get a body out of there,” I explained.
“Knock out? Since when are you guys martial arts experts?”
“Who’s at the morgue?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Dead people,” joked Piglet.
“There’s usually a security guard,” said Miguel begrudgingly.
“Just the one?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he armed?”
“No. Normally there’s a pathologist around, too.”
Now Miguel was even more horrified at his involvement.
“So we have to take down two guys, then,” Hugo said, just to get a rise.
Several disagreements, glasses of sake, and discarded proposals later, with few certainties to speak of, we had a more concrete idea of our options. Piglet was getting fed up and kept interrupting the conversation as he scarfed down his sushi.
“What’s the big fucking deal?” he said. “Just find a cadaver. There’re so many John Does out there, so many unclaimed corpses with no family.
Do you really need this whole fancy operation?
For fuck’s sake, we’re breaking into a public hospital in Brazil, it’s not a SWAT mission.
They’ll be grateful we’re taking a body off their hands and freeing up a bed. ”
“You’re being ridiculous,” said Miguel, dropping his chopsticks on the table.
“Just to be clear: What does CUT mean on this list?” Hugo asked.
“Cut means choosing which body we’re going to take,” I explained. “We need fresh meat. We can’t take just anybody. Like someone who died of a contagious disease, for example. Leukemia’s another no-go.”
“My God, do you even hear yourselves? Don’t you realize how morbid this all is?”
I shrugged my agreement with Miguel. It was morbid, but necessary. Hugo started gathering up the containers, chopsticks, sake bottle, and cups.
“Their cause of death is on their charts. Miguel can get that for us.”
“I already said I’m not going to have anything to do with that part. You’ll have to fend for yourselves.”
“Does the hospital have electronic charts?” asked Piglet.
Miguel nodded apathetically.
“Then let me handle it. I can hack into the hospital records system.”
We stared at each other. There was nothing else to say.
This silence was one of dread, and a desire to put off what now felt inevitable.
Piglet went to his room and came back with his laptop, then began messaging mindlessly back and forth on Instagram.
The sound of chat notifications popping up irritated me.
I asked him to stop. In a moment of inspiration, Piglet also took out his iPhone and changed the name of our group chat from “Orgy in Rio” to “Team Seagull Meat.”
Miguel’s phone was blowing up and he rushed to check his messages.
He seemed to be having a very important conversation with that annoying girl Rachel.
I tried to continue nailing down the specifics, but it was hopeless at this point.
Everyone was distracted. I wanted to stick those blunt scissors in Miguel’s jugular, seal Hugo’s lips shut with the glue stick, and smash Piglet’s MacBook.
Instead I got up to grab a beer from the fridge and gulped down my Klonopin with two sips of Heineken.
When I got back to the living room, Hugo was standing, gesturing emphatically.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, you guys have got to be kidding.
Just look at the chicken we eat. It’s full of toxins and insecticides, clogged with antibiotics, GMOs.
All beef is just a rotting corpse. Are you guys really worried about dead people who happened to be sick?
! The important thing is that the meat’s fresh.
Get me that and we’re golden. I’ve got this. ”
Miguel went back to his damn phone. I tried to stay focused, rethink our steps. There were so many variables, all of them complex. So many chances for it to all go horribly wrong.
After a few hours, we settled on our final plan: The following morning, during Miguel’s shift, I’d enter the hospital dressed as a doctor while Hugo waited for me with Bukowski outside.
Back at home, Piglet would gain access to the electronic medical records, find a recently deceased patient, and send me their hospital room via text.
I’d then steal the body and roll it out in a wheelchair, pretending it was a sick patient.
As the saying goes: The best place to hide a tree is in a forest.
All Miguel could say was “This is going to be a shit show. It’s gonna be a total shit show.” I gave Hugo the to-do list and made a copy for Piglet. Piglet read it out loud, as if he were speaking over the intercom at a supermarket:
“To steal a cadaver from a public hospital, all you need is: a white lab coat, a forged body-removal permit, a fake license plate, a gallon of black automotive paint, a wheelchair, a Bluetooth speaker, and a butcher knife.”
“What’s the Bluetooth speaker for?” asked Miguel.
“I’m going to play a recording of a 1950s shoot-out in the ICU,” I replied. “That should cause chaos while I get the body.”
“And what’s the knife for?”
“Butchering steaks.”