I Will Fear No Evil Read Free Page B

clients. Johann, anything you say to me is privileged but I am bound to point out that the Canons forbid me to advise a client in how to break the law, or to permit a client to discuss such intention. As for Eunice, anything you say to her or in her presence is not privileged.”
    “Oh, come off it, you old shyster; you’ve advised me in how to break the law twice a week for years. As for Eunice, nobody can get anything out of her short of all-out brainwash.”
    “I didn’t say I always followed the Canons; I merely told you what they called for. I won’t deny that my professional ethics have a little stretch in them—but I won’t be party to anything smelling of bodysnatching, kidnapping, or congress with slavery. Any self-respecting prostitute—meaning me—has limits.”
    “Spare me the sermon, Jake; what I want is both moral and ethical. I need your help to see that all of it is legal—utterly legal, can’t cut corners on this!—and practical.”
    “I hope so.”
    “I know so. I said I wanted to buy a body—legally. That rules out bodysnatching, kidnapping, and slavery. I want to make a legal purchase.”
    “You can’t.”
    “Why not? Take this body,” Smith said, pointing to his chest, “it’s not worth much even as manure; nevertheless I can will it to a medical school. You know I can, you okayed it.”
    “Oh. Let’s get our terms straight. In the United States there can be no chattel ownership of a human being. Thirteenth Amendment. Therefore your body is not your property because you can’t sell it. But a cadaver is property—usually of the estate of the deceased . . . although a cadaver is not often treated the way other chattels are treated. But it is indeed property. If you want to buy a cadaver, it can be arranged—but who were you calling a ghoul earlier?”
    “What is a cadaver, Jake?”
    “Eh? A dead body, usually of a human. So says Webster. The legal definition is more complicated but comes to the same thing.”
    “It’s that ‘more complicated’ aspect I’m getting at. Okay, once it is dead, it is property and maybe we can buy it. But what is ‘death,’ Jake, and when does it take place? Never mind Webster; what is the law ?”
    “Oh. Law is what the Supreme Court says it is. Fortunately this point was nailed down in the seventies—‘Estate of Henry M. Parsons v. Rhode Island.’ For years, many centuries, a man was dead when his heart quit beating. Then for about a century he was dead when a licensed M.D. examined him for heart condition action and respiration and certified that he was dead—and sometimes that turned out grisly, as doctors do make mistakes. And then along came the first heart transplant and oh, mother, what a legal snarl that stirred up!
    “But the Parsons case settled it; a man is dead when all brain activity has stopped, permanently.”
    “And what does that mean?” Smith persisted.
    “The Court declined to define it. But in application—look, Johann, I’m a corporation lawyer, not a specialist in medical jurisprudence nor in forensic medicine—and I would have to research before I—”
    “Okay, so you’re not God. You can revise your remarks later. What do you know now ?”
    “When the exact moment of death is important, as it sometimes is in estate cases, as it often is in accident, manslaughter, and murder cases, as it always is in an organ, transplant case, some doctor determines that the brain has quit and isn’t going to start up again. They use various tests and talk about ‘irreversible coma’ and ‘complete absence of brain wave activity’ and ‘cortical damage beyond possibility of repair’ but it all comes down to some M.D. laying his reputation and license on the line to certify that this brain is dead and won’t come alive again. Heart and lungs are now irrelevant; they are classed with hands and feet and gonads and other parts that a man can do without or have replaced. It’s the brain that counts. Plus a doctor’s