Next

CHapter 012



Josh Winklerclosed the door to his office and started toward the cafeteria when his phone rang. It was his mother. She was being pleasant, always a danger sign. "Josh, dear, I want you to tell me, what have you done to your brother?"



"What do you mean, done to him? I haven't done anything. I haven't seen him in two weeks, since I picked him up from jail."



"Adam had his arraignment today," she said. "And Charles was there, representing him."



"Uh-huh..." Waiting for the other shoe to drop. "And?"



"Adam came to court on time, in a clean shirt and tie, clean suit, hair cut, even his shoes polished. He pleaded guilty, asked to be put in a drug program, said he had not used in two weeks, said he had gotten a job - "



"What?"



"Yes, he's got a job, apparently as a limo driver for his old company. Been working there steadily for the last two weeks. Charles says he's gained weight - "



"I don't believe this," Josh said.



"I know," she said. "Charles didn't either, but he swears it's all true. Adam's like a new man. He's acquired a newfound maturity. It's like he suddenly grew up. It's a miracle, don't you think? Joshua? Are you there?"



"I'm here," he said, after a pause.



"Isn't it a miracle?"



"Yes, Mom. A miracle."



"I called Adam. He has a cell phone now, and he answered right away. And he says you did something to help him. What did you do?"



"Nothing, Mom. We just had a talk."



"He said you gave him some genetic thing. An inhaler."



Oh Jesus, he thought.There are rules against this kind of thing .Serious rules . Human experimentation without formal application, meetings of the approvals board, following the federal guidelines. Josh would be fired in an instant. "No, Mom, I think he must be misremembering. He was pretty whacked out at the time."



"He said there was a spray."



"No, Mom."



"He inhaled some mouse spray."



"No, Mom."



"He said he did."



"No, Mom."



"Well, don't be so defensive," she said. "I thought you would be pleased. I mean, you're always looking for new drugs, Joshua. Big commercial applications. I mean, what if this spray gets people off drugs? What if it breaks their addiction?"



Joshua was shaking his head. "Mom, really, nothing happened."



"Okay, fine, you don't want to tell me the truth, I get it. Was it something experimental? Is that what your spray is?"



"Mom - "



"Because the thing is, Josh, I told Lois Graham about it because her Eric dropped out of USC. He's on crack or smack or - "



"Mom - "



"And she wants to try this spray on him."



Oh Jesus. "Mom, you can't talk about this."



"And Helen Stern, her daughter is on sleeping pills; she crashed her car; they're talking about putting her baby in foster care. And Helen wants - "



"Mom, please! You can't talk about itanymore !"



"Are you crazy? Ihave to talk about it," she said. "You gave me my son back. It's a miracle. Don't you realize, Joshua? You have performed a miracle. The whole world is going to talk about what you have done - whether you like it or not."



He was beginning to sweat, to feel dizzy, but suddenly his vision became clear and calm.The whole world is going to talk about it.



Of course, that was true. If you could get people off drugs? It would be the most valuable pharmaceutical in the last decade. Everybody would want it. And what if it did more? Could it cure obsessive-compulsive disorders? Could it cure attention-deficit disorders? The maturity gene had behavioral effects. They already knew that. Adam sniffing that aerosol was a gift from God.



And his next thought was: What's the state of the patent application onACMPD 3N7?



He decided to skip lunch and head back to the office.



"Mom?"



"Yes, Josh."



"I need your help."



"Of course, dear. Anything."



"I need you to do something for me and not to talk about it to anyone, ever."



"Well, that's difficult - "



"Yes or no, Mom."



"Well, all right, dear."



"You said that Lois Graham's son is on smack, and dropped out of college?"



"Yes."



"Where is he now?"



"Apparently," she said, "he's downtown in some godawful flophouse off campus - "



"Do you know where?"



"No, but Lois went to see him. She told me it was squalid. It's on East Thirty-eighth, some old frame house with faded blue shutters. Eight or nine addicts are there sleeping on the floor, but I can call Lois and ask her - "



"No," he said quickly. "Don't do anything, Mom."



"But you said you needed my help - "



"That's for later, Mom. For now, everything is fine. I'll call you in a day or so."



He scribbled on a pad:



Eric Graham



E 38th Street



Frame hse blue shutters



He reached for his car keys.



Rachel Allen,who worked in the dispensary, said, "You still haven't signed back in one oxygen canister from two weeks ago, Josh. Or the virus vial that was with it." The company measured remaining virus in returned vials, as a way of keeping a rough track of dosages to the rats.



"Yes," he said, "I know, uh, I keep forgetting."



"Where is it?"



"It's in my car."



"In your car? Josh, that's a contagious retrovirus."



"Yeah, for mice."



"Even so. It must remain in a negative-pressure laboratory environment at all times." Rachel was a stickler for the rules. Nobody really paid attention to her.



"I know, Rach," he said, "but I had a family emergency. I had to get my brother" - he dropped his voice - "out of jail."



"Really."



"Yes."



"For what?"



He hesitated. "Armed robbery."



"Really."



"Liquor store. Mom is crushed. Anyway, I'll bring the canister back to you. Meanwhile, can I have one more?"



"We only sign out one at a time."



"I need one more now. Please? I'm under a lot of pressure."



Light rainwas falling. The streets were slick with oil and shimmered in rainbow patterns. Beneath low, angry clouds, he drove down East Thirty-eighth Street. It was an old section of town, bypassed by modern rebuilding farther north. Here houses built in the 1920s and 1930s were still standing. Josh drove past several wood-frame houses, in various states of disrepair. One had a blue door. None had blue shutters.



He ended up in the warehouse district, the street lined with loading docks. He turned around and headed back. He drove as slowly as he could, and finally he saw the house. It was not actually on Thirty-eighth but on the corner of Thirty-eighth and Alameda, tucked back behind high weeds and ratty bushes. An old mattress streaked with rust lay on the sidewalk in front of the house. There was a truck tire on the front lawn. A battered VW bus was pulled up to the curb.



Josh parked across the street. He watched the house. And waited.



CHapter 013



The coffinrose into sunlight. It looked the same as it had when buried a week earlier, except for the clumps of dirt that dropped from the underside.



"This is all so undignified," Emily Weller said. She stood stiffly at the graveside, accompanied by her son, Tom, and her daughter Rachel. Of course, Lisa was not there. She was thecause of all this, but she could not be bothered to see what she had done to her poor father.



The coffin swung slowly in the air as the graveside workers guided it to the far side of the pit under the direction of the hospital pathologist, a nervous little man named Marty Roberts. He should be nervous, Emily thought, if he was the one who had given the blood to Lisa without anybody's permission.



"What happens now?" Emily said, turning to her son. Tom was twenty-six, dressed in a sharp suit and tie. He had a master's degree in microbiology and worked for a big biotech company in Los Angeles. Tom had turned out good, as had her daughter Rachel. Rachel was a senior at USC, studying business administration. "Will they take Jack's blood here?"



"Oh, they'll take more than blood," Tom said.



Emily said, "What do you mean?"



"You see," Tom said, "for a genetic test like this, where there is a dispute, they ordinarily take tissues from several organ systems."



"I didn't realize," Emily said, frowning. She felt her heart pounding, thumping in her chest. She hated that feeling. Soon there was a squeezing feeling in her throat. It was painful. She bit her lip.



"You all right, Mom?"



"I should have taken my anxiety pills."



Rachel said, "Will this take long?"



"No," Tom said, "it should be only a few minutes. The pathologist will open the casket, to confirm the identity of the body. Then he'll take it back to the hospital to remove the tissues for genetic analysis. He'll return the body for reburial tomorrow or the next day."



"Tomorrow or the next day?" Emily said. She sniffled, wiped her eyes. "You mean we have to come back here? We have to bury Jack again? This is all so...so..."



"I know, Mom." He patted her arm. "I'm sorry. But there is no other way. You see, they have to check for something called a chimera - "



"Oh, don't tell me," she said, waving her hand. "I won't know what you're talking about."



"Okay, Mom." He put his arm around her shoulder.



In ancient mythology,chimeras were monsters composed of different animal parts. The original Chimera had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and a serpent's tail. Some chimeras were part human, like the Egyptian Sphinx, with the body of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the head of a woman.



But true human chimeras - meaning people with two sets of DNA - had been discovered only recently. A woman needing a kidney transplant had tested her own children as possible donors, only to discover that they did not share her DNA. She was told the children weren't hers, and was asked to prove she had actually given birth to them. A lawsuit ensued. After considerable study, doctors realized that her body contained two different strands of DNA. In her ovaries, they found eggs with two kinds of DNA. The skin cells of her abdomen had her children's DNA. The skin of her shoulders did not. She was a mosaic. In every organ of her body.



It turned out that the woman had originally been one of a pair of fraternal twins, but early in development, her sister's embryo had fused with hers. So she was now literally herself and her own twin.



More than fifty chimeras had since been reported. Scientists now suspected that chimerism was not as rare as they had once thought. Certainly, whenever there was a difficult question of paternity, chimerism had to be considered. It was possible that Lisa's father might be a chimera. But to determine that, they would need tissues from every organ of his body, and preferably from several different places on each organ.



That was why Dr. Roberts was required to take so many tissue samples, and why it would have to be done at the hospital, not at the grave site.



Dr. Roberts raisedthe lid and turned to the family on the opposite side of the grave. "Would one of you make the identification, please?"



"I will," Tom said. He walked around the grave and looked into the coffin. His father appeared surprisingly unchanged, except the skin was much grayer, a dark gray now, and the limbs seemed to have shrunk, to have lost mass, especially the legs inside the trousers.



In a formal voice, the pathologist said, "Is this your father, John J. Weller?"



"Yes. He is, yes."



"All right. Thank you."



Tom said, "Dr. Roberts, I know you have your procedures, but...if there is any way you can take the tissues here...so my mother doesn't have to go through another day and another burial..."



"I'm sorry," Marty Roberts said. "My actions are governed by state law. We're required to take the body to the hospital for examination."



"If you could...just this once...bend..."



"I'm sorry. I wish I could."



Tom nodded and walked back to his mother and sister.



His mother said, "What was all that about?"



"Just asking a question."



Tom looked back and saw that Dr. Roberts was now bent over, his body half inside the casket. Abruptly the pathologist rose up. He walked over to speak in Tom's ear, so no one else could hear. "Mr. Weller, perhaps we should spare your family's feelings. If we can keep this between us..."



"Of course. Then you'll...?"



"Yes, we'll do everything here. It should take only a few moments. Let me get my kit." He hurried off to a nearby SUV.



Emily bit her lip. "What's he doing?"



"I asked him to do all the tests here, Mom."



"And he said yes? Thank you, dear," she said, and kissed her son. "Will he do all the tests that he would do at the hospital?"



"No, but it should be enough to answer your questions."



Twenty minutes later, the tissue samples had been taken and placed in a series of glass tubes. The tubes were placed in slots in a metal refrigeration case. The casket was returned to the grave, disappearing into shadow.



"Come on," Emily Weller said to her children, "let's get out of here. I need a damn drink."



As they drove away, she said to Tom, "I'm sorry you had to do that. Was Jack's poor body very decayed, dear?"



"No," Tom said. "Not much, no."



"Oh, that's good," Emily said. "That's very good."



CHapter 014



Marty Robertswas sweating by the time he got back to Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Because of what he had done at the cemetery, he could lose his license, no problem. One of those gravediggers could pick up the phone and call the county. The county could wonder why Marty had broken protocol, especially with a lawsuit pending. When you take tissues in the field, you risk contamination. Everybody knew that. So the county might start wondering why Marty Roberts would risk that. And before long, they might be wondering...



Shit. Shit, shit,shit!



He pulled into the emergency parking, next to the ambulances, and hurried down the basement hallway to Pathology. It was lunchtime; almost nobody was there. The rows of stainless steel tables stood empty.



Raza was washing up.



"You dumb fuck," Marty said, "are youtrying to get us both in jail?"



Raza turned slowly. "What is the problem?" he said quietly.



"The problem," Marty said, "is that I told you, take the bones only on thecremations. Not the burials. Thecremations. Is that so fucking hard to understand?"



"Yeah, well. That's what I do," Raza said.



"No, that'snot what you do. Because I just came from an exhumation, and you know what I saw when I dug the guy up? Very fucking skinny legs, Raza. Very skinny arms. In aburial. "



"No," Raza said, "that's not what I do."



"Well,somebody took the bones."



Raza headed to the office. "What's the name of this guy?"



"Weller."



"What, that guy again? He's the guy we lost the tissues for, right?"



"Right. So the family exhumed him. Because he wasburied. "



Raza leaned over the desk, keyed in the patient name. He stared at the screen. "Oh yeah. You're right. It was a burial. But I didn't do that one."



Marty said, "You didn't do that one? Who the fuck did?"



Raza shrugged. "My brother came in, that's all. I had an appointment that night."



"Your brother? What brother? Nobody else is supposed to be - "



"Don't sweat it, Marty," Raza said. "My brother comes in from time to time. He knows what to do. He works at Hilldale Mortuary."



Marty wiped sweat from his forehead. "Jesus. How long has this been going on?"



"Maybe a year."



"A year!"



"Only at night, Marty. Late night only. He wears my lab coat, looks like me...We look the same."



"Wait a minute," Marty said. "Who gave that girl the blood sample? That girl Lisa Weller."



"Okay," Raza said. "So sometimes he makes mistakes."



"And sometimes he works afternoons?"



"Only Sundays, Marty. If I have appointments, is all."



Marty gripped the edge of the desk to steady himself. He leaned over and breathed deeply. "Some fucking guy who doesn't even work for the hospital gave unauthorized blood to a woman because she asked for it? Is that what you're telling me?"



"Not some fucking guy. My brother."



"Jesus."



"He said she was cute."



"That explains everything."



"Come on, Marty," Raza said, in a soothing tone. "I'm sorry about the Weller guy, I really am, but anybody could have made the switch. Fucking cemetery could have dug him up and taken the long bones. Gravediggers working as independent contractors could have done it. You know it happens all over. They got those guys in Phoenix. And the ones in Minnesota. And now Brooklyn."



"And they're all in jail now, Raza."



"Okay," Raza said. "That's true. The thing is, I told my brother to do it."



"You did..."



"Yeah. That particular night, the Weller body came in, we had a stat call for bone, and the Weller guy typed right. So do we fill the order or what? Because you know those bone guys can take their business elsewhere. To them, now meansnow. Supply or die."



Marty sighed. "Yeah, when they call stat, you should fill it."



"Okay, then."



Marty slid into the chair and began typing at the keyboard himself. "However," he said, "if you extracted those long bones eight days ago, I don't see any payment transfer to me."



"Don't worry. It's coming."



"The check is in the mail?"



"Hey, I forgot. You'll get your taste."



"Make sure of it," Marty said. He turned to go. "And keep your fucking brother out of the hospital from now on. You understand me?"



"Sure, Marty. Sure."



Marty Roberts wentoutside to move his car from the emergency space. He backed out and drove to the Doctors Only section of the parking garage. Then he sat in his car for a long time. Thinking about Raza.



You'll get your taste.



It seemed that Raza was starting to believe that this was his program, and that Marty Roberts worked for him. Raza was handing out the payments. Raza was deciding who should come in to help. Raza was not behaving like an employee; he was starting to behave like he was in charge, and that was dangerous for all sorts of reasons.



Marty had to do something about it.



And he had to do it soon.



Or losing his medical license would be the least of his problems.



CHapter 015



At sunset,the titanium cube that housed BioGen Research shimmered with a blinding red glare, and bathed the adjacent parking lot in a dark orange color. As president Rick Diehl stepped out of the building, he paused to put on his sunglasses, then walked toward his brand-new silver Porsche Carrera SC. He loved this car, which he had bought the week before in celebration of his impending divorce -



"Fuck!"



He couldn't believe his eyes.



"Fuck! Fuck!Fuck! "



His parking spot was empty. The car was gone.



That bitch!



He didn't know how she had done it, but he was sure she had taken his car. Probably got her boyfriend to arrange it. After all, the new boyfriendwas a car dealer. Moving up from a tennis pro. Bitch!



He stomped back inside. Bradley Gordon, his chief of security, stood in the lobby's waiting area, leaning over the counter, talking to Lisa, the receptionist. Lisa was cute. That was why Rick had hired her.



"Goddamn it, Brad," Rick Diehl said. "We need to review security tapes of the parking lot."



Brad turned. "Why? What is it?"



"Somebody stole my Porsche."



"No shit," Brad said. "When did that happen?"



And Rick thought,Wrong guy for this job. It wasn't the first time he had thought it.



"Let's check the security tapes, Brad."



"Yeah, sure, of course," Brad said. He winked at Lisa, and then headed back through the keycard-swipe door, into a secure area. Rick followed, fuming.



At one of the two desks in the little glass-walled security office, a kid was minutely examining the palm of his left hand. He ignored the bank of monitors before him.



"Jason," Brad said, in a warning tone, "Mr. Diehl is here."



"Oh shit." The kid snapped upright in the chair. "Sorry. Got a rash. I didn't know if - "



"Mr. Diehl wants to review the security cameras. Which cameras are they exactly, Mr. Diehl?"



Oh Jesus.Rick said, "The parking lot cameras."



"The parking lot, right. Jason, let's start forty-eight hours back, and - "



"I drove the car to work this morning," Diehl said.



"Right, what time was that?"



"I got here at seven."



"Right. Jason, let's go back to seven this morning."



The kid shifted in his chair. "Uh, Mr. Gordon, the parking lot cameras are out."



"Oh, that's right." Brad turned to Rick. "The parking lot cameras are out."



"Why?"



"Not sure. We think there's a cable problem."



"How long have they been out?"



"Well - "



"Two months," the kid said.



"Two months!"



Brad said, "We had to order parts."



"What parts?"



"From Germany."



"What parts?"



"I'd have to look it up."



The kid said, "We can still use the roof cameras."



"Well, then show me the roof cameras," Diehl said.



"Right. Jason, bring up the roof cameras."



It took them fifteen minutes to rewind the digital storage and begin to run it forward. Rick watched his Porsche pull in. He watched himself get out and enter the building. What happened next surprised him. Within two minutes, another car pulled up, two men jumped out, broke into his car quickly, and drove it away.



"They were waiting for you," Brad said. "Or following you."



"Looks like it," Rick said. "Call the police, report it, and tell Lisa I want her to drive me home."



Brad blinked at that.



The problem,Rick reflected, as Lisa drove him home, was that Brad Gordon was an idiot, but Rick couldn't fire him. Brad Gordon, surf bum, ski bum, travel bum, recovering alky and college dropout, was the nephew of Jack Watson, a principal investor in BioGen. Jack Watson had always looked after Brad, had always seen that he had a job. And Brad invariably got into trouble. It was even rumored that Brad had been fucking the wife of the vice president of GeneSystems up in Palo Alto - for which he was duly fired - but not without a big stink from his uncle, who saw no reason why Brad should be let go. "It's the vice president's own fault," Watson famously said.



But now: No security cameras in the parking lot. For two months. It made Rick wonder what else was wrong with security at BioGen.



He glanced over at Lisa, who drove serenely. Rick had hired her to be the receptionist soon after he discovered his wife's affair. Lisa had a beautiful profile; she could have been a model. Whoever had refined her nose and chin was a genius. And she had a lovely body, with a narrow waist and perfectly enhanced breasts. She was twenty, on her summer break from Crestview State, and she radiated healthy, all-American sexiness. Everyone in the company had the hots for her.



So it was surprising that whenever they made love, Lisa just lay there. After a few minutes she seemed to notice his frustration and would begin to move mechanically, and make little panting sounds, as if she had been told that was what people did in bed. Sometimes, when Rick was worried and preoccupied, she would talk to him, "Oh baby, yes, baby, do it, baby," as if that was supposed to move things along. But it was only too obvious that she was unmoved.



Rick had done a little research and discovered a syndrome called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. Anhedonics exhibited a flat affect, which certainly described Lisa in bed. Interestingly, anhedonia appeared to have a genetic component. It seemed to involve the limbic system of the brain. So there might be a gene for the condition. Rick intended to do a full panel on Lisa one of these days. Just to check.



Meanwhile, the nights he spent with her might have made him insecure, if it were not for Greta, the Austrian postdoc in the microbiology lab. Greta was chunky and had glasses and short, mannish hair, but she fucked like a mink, leaving them both gasping for breath and covered in sweat. Greta was a screamer and a writher and a howler. He felt great afterward.



The car pulled up at his new condo. Rick checked for his keys in his pocket. Lisa said matter-of-factly, "You want me to come up?"



She had beautiful blue eyes, with long lashes. Beautiful lush lips.



He thought, what the hell. "Sure," he said. "Come on up."



He calledhis lawyer, Barry Sindler, to report that his wife had stolen his car.



"You think so?" Sindler said. He sounded doubtful.



"Yeah, I do. She hired some guys. I have it on security tape."



"You have her on tape?"



"No, the guys. But she's behind it."



"I'm not so sure," Sindler said. "Usually women trash a husband's car, not steal it."



"I'm telling you - "



"Okay, I'll check into it. But right now, there are a few things I want to go over with you. About the litigation."



Across the room, Lisa was stepping out of her clothes. She folded each item of clothing and placed it on the back of the chair. She was wearing a pink bra and pink briefs that skimmed her pubic bone. No lace, just stretchy fabric that molded smoothly to her smooth body. She reached behind her back to release the bra.



"I'll have to call you back," Rick said.



BLONDES BECOMING EXTINCT



Endangered Species To "Die Out in 200 Years"



According to the BBC, "a study by experts in Germany suggests people with blonde hair are an endangered species and will become extinct by 2202." Researchers predicted that the last truly natural blonde would be born in Finland, a country that boasts the highest proportion of blondes. But the scientists say too few people now carry the gene for blondes to last much longer. The researchers hinted that so-called bottle blondes "may be to blame for the demise of their natural rivals."



Not every scientist agrees with the prediction of impending extinction. But a study by the World Health Organization does indicate that natural blondes are likely to become extinct within the next two centuries.



More recently, the probability of extinction was reviewed byThe Times of London, in light of new data about the evolution of theMC1R gene for blondeness.