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Chapter 71-76

CHapter 071
Stan Milgramwas lost in endless darkness. The road ahead was a strip of light, but on each side he could see no signs of life at all, nothing except pitch-black desert landscape stretching away into the distance. To the north he could just detect the ridge of the mountains, a faint line of black against black. But nothing else - no lights, no towns, no houses, nothing.
It had been that way for an hour.
Where the hell was he?
From the backseat, the bird gave a piercing shriek. Stan jumped; the sound made his eardrums ache. If you ever plan to motor west, he thought, don't take a damn bird on the highway, that's the best. He'd put cloth over the cage hours ago, but the cloth didn't shut the bird up anymore. From St. Louis down through Missouri, and on to Gallup, New Mexico. All the way the bird would not shut up. Stan checked into a Gallup motel, and at around midnight the bird began to scream, earsplitting shrieks.
There was nothing to do but check out - with all the other motel guests yelling at him - and start driving again. The bird was silent, once they were driving. But he pulled off the road for a few hours during the day to sleep, and later, when he stopped at Flagstaff, Arizona, the bird began to scream again. It started before he even checked into the motel.
He kept driving. Winona, Kingman, Barstow, heading for San Bernardino - San Berdoo, his aunt called it - and all he could think was this trip would be over soon. Please, God. Let it be over before he killed the bird.
But Stan was exhausted, and after driving more than two thousand miles, he had become strangely disoriented. Either he had missed the San Berdoo turnoff or...or he wasn't sure.
He was lost.
And the bird still shrieked. "Your heart sweats, your body shakes, another kiss is what it takes..."
He pulled the car over. He opened the door to the backseat. He took the cloth off. "Gerard," he said. "Why are you doing this?"
"You can't sleep, you can't eat - "
"Gerard, stop it. Why?"
"I'm afraid."
"Why?"
"It's too far from home." The bird blinked, looked at the darkness outside. "What fresh hell is this?"
"This is the desert."
"It's freezing."
"The desert is cold at night."
"Why are we here?"
"I'm taking you to your new home." Stan stared at the bird. "If I leave your cloth off, will you be quiet?"
"Yes."
"No talking at all?"
"Yes."
"You promise?"
"Yes."
"Okay. I need it quiet so I can find out where we are."
"I don't know why, I love you like I do, after all the changes - "
"Try and help me, Gerard. Please." Stan went around and got in the driver's seat. He pulled out onto the road and started driving. The bird was quiet. The miles rolled by. Then he saw a sign for a town called Earp, three miles ahead.
"Mellow greetings, ukie dukie," Gerard said.
Stan sighed.
He drove forward into the night.
"You remind me of a man," Gerard said.
"You promised," Stan said.
"No, you are supposed to say, 'What man?'"
"Gerard, shut up."
"You remind me of a man," Gerard said.
"What man?"
"The man with the power."
"What power?"
"The power of hoodoo."
"Hoodoo?" Stan said.
"You do."
"Do what?"
"Remind me of a man."
"What man?" Stan said. And then he caught himself. "Gerard,shut up or I will put you outsideright now. "
"Ooh, aren't you the twisted bunny."
Stan glanced at his watch.
One more hour, he thought. One more hour, and that bird was out.
CHapter 072
Ellis sat downacross from his brother Aaron, in Aaron's office at the law firm. The office window looked south over the city, down toward the Empire State Building. It was a hazy day, but the view was still spectacular, powerful.
"Okay," Ellis said, "I talked to that guy in California, Josh Winkler."
"Uh-huh."
"He says he never gave anything to Mom."
"Uh-huh."
"Says what he sent was water."
"Well, that's what you would expect him to say."
"Aaron," Ellis said, "they gave her water. Winkler said that he was not going to transport anything across state lines. His mother wanted it done, so he sent water, to test the placebo effect."
"And you believe him," Aaron said, shaking his head.
"I think he has documentation."
"Of course he does," Aaron said.
"Sign-outs, lab reports, other documentation maintained by his company."
"Falsified," Aaron said.
"That documentation is required by the FDA. Falsifying it is a federal offense."
"So is giving gene therapy to friends." Aaron pulled out a sheaf of papers. "Do you know the history of gene therapy? It's a horror story, Ellie. Starting back in the late 1980s, the biotech guys went off half-cocked and killed people right and left. At least six hundred people we know about have been killed. And plenty more we don't know about. You know why we don't know?"
"No, why?"
"Because they claimed - get this - that the deaths couldn't be reported, because they were proprietary information. Killing their patients was a trade secret."
"Did they really say that?"
"Could I make this shit up? And then they bill Medicare for the cost of the experiment that killed the patient. They kill, we pay. And if the universities get caught, they claim they don't have to give informed consent to subjects because they are nonprofit institutions. Duke, Penn, University of Minnesota - big places have been caught. Academics think they're above the law. Six hundred deaths!"
Ellis said, "I don't see what this has to do - "
"You know how gene therapy kills people? All sorts of ways. They don't know what's going to happen. They insert genes into people, and it turns on cancer genes, and the people die of cancer. Or they have huge allergic reactions and die. These goofballs don't know what the hell they are doing. They're reckless and they don't follow the rules. And we," he said, "are going to smack their asses down."
Ellis squirmed in his chair. "But what if Winkler is telling the truth? What if we are wrong?"
"We didn't break the rules," Aaron said. "They did. Now Mom's got Alzheimer's, and they're in deep, deep shit."
CHapter 073
When Brad Gordonstarted the bar fight at the Lucky Lucy Saloon on Pearl Street in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he hadn't intended to end up in the hospital. The two guys in the tight-fitting plaid shirts with the pointy pearl-button pockets looked like pussies to him, and he figured he could take them easily. There was no way to know they were brothers, not lovers, and they didn't take kindly to his remarks about them.
And there was no way to know that the smaller one taught karate at Wyoming State and had won some kind of championship at a Bruce Lee tournament for martial arts in Hong Kong.
Kickboxing with metal-tipped cowboy boots. Brad lasted all of thirty seconds. And a lot of his teeth were loose. He had been lying in this fucking infirmary for three hours, while they tried to push the teeth back in place. There was one periodontist they kept calling, but he wasn't answering, possibly because (as the intern explained) he was off hunting for the weekend - he liked elk. Tasty eating.
Elk! Brad's fucking mouth was killing him.
So they left him there with icepacks on his face and his jaw shot full of Novocain, and somehow he fell asleep, and the next morning, the swelling had gone down enough that he could talk on the phone, so he called his attorney, Willy Johnson, in Los Angeles, holding the business card between his bruised thumb and forefinger.
The receptionist was cheerful: "Johnson, Baker, and Halloran."
"Willy Johnson, please."
"Hold on, please." The phone clicked, but he wasn't put on hold, and then he heard the woman say, "Faber, Ellis, and Condon."
Brad looked again at the card in his hand. The address was an office building in Encino. He knew what that place was. It was a building where solo attorneys could rent a tiny office and share a receptionist who was trained to answer the phone as if she was working at a big law firm, so clients would not suspect their attorneys were on their own. That building housed only the most unsuccessful sort of attorney. The ones who handled small-time drug dealers. Or who had done jail time themselves.
"Excuse me..." he said, into the phone.
"Sorry sir, I am trying to find Mr. Johnson for you." She cupped her hand over the phone. "Anybody seen Willy Johnson?"
And he heard a muffled voice yell back, "Willy Johnson is a dick!"
Sitting there at the entrance to the emergency room, weak and in pain, his jaw aching like hell, Brad did not feel good about what he was hearing. "Did you find Mr. Johnson?"
"One moment sir, we're looking..."
He hung up.
He felt like crying.
He went outto get breakfast, but it hurt too much to eat, and people in the coffee shop looked at him oddly. He saw his reflection in the glass and realized his whole jaw was blue and puffy. Still it was better than last night. He wasn't worried about anything except this attorney Johnson. All his initial suspicions about the man were confirmed. Why had they met at a restaurant, instead of his law firm? Because Johnson didn't belong to a law firm.
There was nothing to do but call his uncle Jack.
"John B. Watson Investment Group."
"Mr. Watson, please."
They put him through to the secretary, who put him through to his uncle.
"Hey, Uncle Jack."
"Where the fuck are you?" Watson said. He sounded distinctly unfriendly.
"I'm in Wyoming."
"Staying out of trouble, I hope."
"Actually, my attorney sent me here," he said, "and that's why I am calling you. I'm a little worried, I mean this guy - "
"Look," Watson said, "you're up on a molestation charge, and you've got a molestation expert to handle your case. You don't have to like him. Personally I hear he's a prick."
"Well - "
"But he wins cases. Do what he says. Why are you talking funny?"
"Nothing..."
"I'm busy, Brad. And you were told never to call."
Click.
Brad was feeling worsethan ever. Back at his motel room, the guy at the desk said someone from the police had come looking for him. Something about a hate crime. Brad decided it was time to leave beautiful Jackson Hole.
He went to his room to pack, watching some true-crime show where the police caught a dangerous fugitive by pretending to put him on television. They staged a fake TV interview setup, and as soon as the guy relaxed, they slapped cuffs on him. And now the guy was on death row.
Police were getting tricky. Brad hastily finished packing, paid his bill, and hurried out to his car.
CHapter 074
The self-proclaimedenvironmental artist Mark Sanger, recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica, looked up from his computer in astonishment as four men broke down the door and burst into his Berkeley apartment. The men were dressed head to foot in blue rubber hazmat suits, with big rubber helmets and big faceplates, rubber gloves, and boots, and they carried evil-looking rifles and big pistols.
He had hardly reacted to the shock when they were on him, grabbing him with their rubber hands and wrestling him away from the keyboard.
"Pigs! Fascists!" Sanger yelled, but suddenly it seemed like everybody was shouting and screaming in the room. "This is an outrage! Fascist pigs!" he shouted as they cuffed him, but he could see their faces behind the masks, and they were afraid. "Jesus, what do you think I'm doing here?" he said, and one of them answered, "We know what you're doing, Mr. Sanger," and spun him away.
"Hey! Hey!" They pulled him - roughly - down the steps from his apartment to the street. Sanger could only hope media would be waiting, cameras ready to film this outrage in broad daylight.
The press, however, was cordoned off across the street. They could hear Sanger as he shouted, and they were filming him, but their distance prevented the up-close, in-your-face confrontation he hoped for. In fact, Sanger suddenly realized how this scene must look through their lenses - policemen dressed in frightening hazmat suits escorting a thirtyish bearded man in jeans and a Che Guevara T-shirt, who struggled in their arms, cursing and shouting.
Sanger knew he must look like a madman. Like one of the Teds: Ted Bundy, Ted Kaczynski, one of those guys. The cops would say that he had microbiology equipment in his apartment, that he had tools for genetic engineering, and he was making a plague, making a virus, making a disease - something horrible. A madman.
"Put me down," he said, forcing himself to be calm. "I can walk. Let me walk."
"All right, sir," one of them said. They let him stand on his feet, and walk.
Sanger walked with as much dignity as he could muster, straightening his shoulders, shaking his long hair, as they led him to a waiting car. Of course it was an unmarked car. He should have expected that. Fucking FBI or CIA or whatever. Secret government organizations, the shadow government. Black helicopters. Unaccountable, the crypto Nazis among us.
Fuming, he wasn't prepared to see Mrs. Malouf, the black lady who lived on the second floor of his building, standing outside with her two young kids. As he passed her, she leaned forward and started yelling at him. "You bastard! You risk my family! You risk my children's lives! You Frankenstein! Frankenstein!"
Sanger was intensely aware of how that moment would play on the evening news. A black mother shouts at him, calls him Frankenstein. And the kids at her side were crying, frightened by everything that was happening around them.
Then the cops shoved Sanger into the unmarked car, with one rubber-gloved hand on his head, easing him into the backseat. And as the door slammed shut, he thought,I am fucking screwed .
Sitting in his jail cell,watching the television in the hallway, trying to hear the commentary over the arguments of the other guys in the cell, trying to ignore the faint smell of vomit and the deep sense of despair that settled over him as he watched.
First there was footage of Sanger himself, hair long, dressed like a bum, walking between two guys in hazmat suits. He looked even worse than he had feared. The corporate flunky reading the news was mouthing all the buzzwords: Sanger wasunemployed . He was anuneducated drifter. He was afanatic and aloner who hadgenetic engineering materials in hiscramped, filthy apartment, and he was considereddangerous because he fit the classicbioterrorist profile.
Next, a bearded San Francisco lawyer from some environmental defense group said Sanger should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Sanger had caused irreparable harm to an endangered species, and had jeopardized the very existence of the species by his depredations.
Sanger frowned: what the hell was he talking about?
Next the TV showed a picture of a leatherback turtle and a map of Costa Rica. Now it seemed that authorities had been alerted to Sanger's activities because he had visited Tortuguero, on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica, sometime before. And because he had madeserious threats to the environment regarding leatherback turtles.
Sanger couldn't follow this. He had never made any threats. He had wanted to help, that was all. And the fact was, once he got back to his apartment, he had been unable to carry out his plans. He bought stacks of genetics textbooks, but the whole thing was much too complicated. He opened the shortest of the texts and scanned some of the captions to graphics: "A plasmid harboring a normal LoxP has little chance of remaining integrated in a genome at a similar LoxP site since the Cre recombinase will eliminate the integrated DNA fragment..." "Lentiviral vectors injected into one-cell embryos or incubated with embryos from which zona pellucida was withdrawn were particularly..." "A more efficient way to replace a gene relies on the use of mutant ES cells devoid of the HPRT gene (hypoxanthine phosphoribosyl transferase). These cells cannot survive in the HAT medium, which contains hypoxanthine, aminopterine, and thymidine. The HPRT gene is introduced at the targeted site by a double homologous recombination..."
Sanger had stopped reading.
And now the TV screen showed turtles on the beach at night, glowing a weird purple color...and they thought that he had done that? The very idea was ridiculous. But a fascist state demanded blood for any transgression, real or imagined. Sanger could foresee himself thrown in jail for a crime he hadn't committed - a crime that he didn't even knowhow to commit.
New Transgenic Pets on Horizon
Giant Cockroaches, Permanent Pups
Artists, Industry Hard at Work
Yale-trained artist Lisa Hensley has joined forces with the genetic firm of Borger and Snodd Ltd. to create giant cockroaches to be sold as pets. The GM cockroaches will be three feet long and stand approximately one foot off the ground. "They will be the size of large dachshunds," says Hensley, "although of course they won't bark."
Hensley regards the pets as works of art, intended to raise human awareness of the insect community. "The overwhelming majority of living matter on our planet consists of insects," she said. "Yet we maintain an irrational prejudice against them. We should embrace our insect brethren. Kiss them. Love them."
She observed that "the real danger of global warming is that we may render so many insects extinct." Hensley acknowledged that she was inspired by the work of artist Catherine Chalmers (B.S. Engineering, Stanford University), whose project American Cockroach first elevated cockroaches to a major theme of contemporary art.
Meanwhile, in suburban New Jersey, the firm of Kumnick Genomics is hard at work creating an animal they believe dog owners really want: permanent puppies. "Kumnick's Perma-Puppies will never grow up," according to spokesperson Lyn Kumnick. "When you buy a PermaPuppy, it stays a puppy forever." The firm is working to eliminate unwanted puppy behavior, such as chewing shoes, which gets on dog owners' nerves. "Once the teeth are in, this behavior stops," Kumnick said. "Unfortunately, at this point our genetic interventions have prevented the growth of teeth altogether, but we'll solve that." She said that rumors they were going to market a toothless animal called a GummyDog were untrue.
Kumnick observes that since adulthood in human beings is being replaced by permanent adolescence, people naturally wish to be accompanied through life by similarly youthful dogs. "Like Peter Pan, we never want to grow up," she says. "Genetics makes it possible!"
CHapter 075
Still lost,now driving through very hilly terrain, Stan Milgram squinted at the road sign emerging from the darkness ahead.PALOMAR MOUNTAIN 37MILES. Where the hell was that? He had never realized California was so big. He had passed through a couple of towns a ways back, but at three in the morning everything was closed, including gas stations. And then he was once more in dark, empty countryside.
He should have brought a map.
Stan was exhausted, irritable, and he needed to pull over and sleep. But the damn bird would start shrieking as soon as he stopped the car.
Gerard had been silent for the last hour, but now, inexplicably, he began to make telephone dial tones. As if he were calling someone.
"Stop it, Gerard," Stan said.
And the bird stopped. At least for a moment. Stan was able to drive in silence. But of course it didn't last.
"I'm hungry," Gerard said.
"You and me both."
"You bring any chips?"
"The chips are gone." They had eaten the last of them, back in the town of Earp. An hour ago? Two hours ago?
"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen," Gerard said, humming.
"Don't do it," Stan warned.
"Nobody knows, 'cept Jesus..."
"Gerard..."
Silence.
It was like traveling with a child, Stan thought. The bird had all of the stubbornness and unexpectedness of a child. It was exhausting.
They passed train tracks, off to the right.
Gerard made chugging sounds, and a mournful whistle. "I ain't seen the sunshine, since I don't know when-nnn..."
Stan decided not to say anything. He gripped the wheel and drove through the night. Behind him, he could see a faint lightening of the sky. That meant he was driving west. And that was where he wanted to go. More or less.
And then in the tense silence, Gerard began again.
"Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, damen und herren, from what was once an inarticulate mass of lifeless tissues, may I now present a cultured, sophisticated, man about town! Hit it!"
"You're pushing," Stan said. "And I'm giving you a warning."
"It's my life - don't you forget!" the bird sang, screaming at the top of its lungs. It seemed as if the whole car vibrated. Stan thought the windows might shatter.
He winced, gripped the wheel harder.
And then the screaming stopped.
"We're so glad to see so many of you lovely people here tonight," Gerard said, sounding like an announcer.
Stan shook his head. "Dear God."
"Let's be happy, happy happy, say the word now.
"Happy happy happy, try it somehow..."
"Stop," Stan said.
Gerard went right on:
"Happy, happy, happy, happy, oh baby yes, happy, happy - "
"That's it!" Stan yelled, pulling over to the side of the road. He got out of the car, slammed the driver's door hard.
"You don't scare me, buster," Gerard said.
Stan swore and opened the back door.
Gerard was singing again: "I've got some news for you, and you'll soon find out it's true, and you'll have to eat your lunch all by yourself - "
"No problem," Stan said, "because you areout of here, pal!" He grabbed the bird roughly - Gerard pecked at him viciously, but he didn't care - and put Gerard down on the side of the road, in the dust.
"It looks as though you're letting go, and if it's real I don't want to - "
"It's real," Stan snarled.
Gerard flapped his wings. "You can't do this to me," he said.
"Oh no? Watch me." Stan walked back to the front of the car, opened the door.
"I want my perch," Gerard said. "It's the least you can - "
"Fuck your damn perch!"
"Don't go away mad, it can't be so bad, don't go away..."
"Bye, bye, Gerard." Stan slammed the door and shoved his foot down on the pedal, driving off fast, making sure he raised a big cloud of dust. He looked back, but couldn't see the bird. He did, however, see all the bird shit in the backseat. Jeez, it would take days to clean all that up.
But now it was quiet.
Blessedly quiet.
Finally.
The adventures of Gerard were over.
Now that there wassilence in the car, his accumulated fatigue hit him. Stan began to doze off. He turned on the radio, rolled down the window, stuck his head out in the cold breeze. Nothing was helping. He realized he was going to fall asleep, and he had to pull off the road.
That bird had kept him awake. He felt a little bad, putting him out in the road that way. It was as good as killing him. A bird like that wouldn't last long in the desert. Some rattler or coyote would make quick work of him. Had probably already done it. No reason to go back.
Stan pulled over to the side of the road, into a grove of pines. He turned the engine off and inhaled the scent of the trees. He fell instantly asleep.
Gerard walkedback and forth on the dusty ground for a while in the darkness. He wanted to get off the ground, and several times he tried jumping onto the scrubby sage bushes that surrounded him. But the sage didn't support his weight, and he came crashing down again each time. Finally he half-hopped, half-flew into the air, coming down again on a juniper bush about three feet off the ground. Standing on that makeshift perch, he might have gone to sleep, except the temperature was extremely cold for a tropical bird. And he was kept awake by the yelping of a pack of animals in the desert.
The yelps were coming closer.
Gerard ruffled his feathers, a sign of unease. He looked in the direction of the sound. He saw several dark shapes moving through the desert brush. He caught the glint of green eyes.
He ruffled his feathers again.
And watched the pack come toward him.
CHapter 076
The Robinson R44helicopter descended in a cloud of dust, and Vasco Borden came out, crouched beneath the blades. He got into the waiting black Hummer. "Talk to me," he said to Dolly, who was driving. She'd come down earlier, while Vasco went on that wild goose chase to Pebble Beach.
Dolly said, "She checked into the Best Western at seven-thirty tonight, went to Walston's, where a security guy ID'd the car. She brushed him off with a story about an ex-husband, and he went for it."
"When was that?"
"Little before eight. From there she went back to the motel, gave the kid at the desk a story about someone being in her room. While he was checking, she took his shotgun from under the counter and made off with it."
"Did she?" Borden said. "The little lady has some balls."
"Apparently she had tried to buy a gun in a drugstore, but ran into the ten-day wait."
"And now?"
"We were tracking her cell phone, but she turned it off. Before that happened we got her heading east, toward Ortega Highway."
"Into the desert," Vasco said, nodding. "She'll sleep in her car, and then continue on tomorrow morning."
"We can download sat shots at eight a.m. That's the fastest processing time."
"She'll be gone before eight in the morning," Vasco said. He leaned back in the Hummer. "She'll go at dawn. So let's see." He paused, thinking. "All afternoon she's been driving, and it's basically south. The minute all this began, our lady went south."
"You thinking Mexico?" Dolly said.
Vasco shook his head. "She doesn't want to leave a record, and crossing the border will leave a record."
"Maybe she'll head east, try to cross at Brown Field or Calexico," Dolly said.
"Maybe." Vasco rubbed his beard thoughtfully. Too late, he felt the mascara coming off on his fingers. Damn, he had to remember that. "She's scared. I think she's heading for a place she thinks will give her help. Maybe meet her father down here. Or meet up with somebody she knows. An old boyfriend? School friend? Sorority sister? Former teacher? Former law partner? Something like that."
"We've been checking all the net databases for the last two hours," Dolly said. "And so far we've got nothing."
"How about her old phone records?"
"No calls to San Diego area code."
"How far back?"
"A year. That's all that's available without a special order."
"So whoever this is, she hasn't called 'em in a year." Vasco sighed. "We'll just have to wait for her." He turned to Dolly. "Let's go to that Best Western. I want to find out what kind of gun the little lady got. And we can get a couple of hours' rest, before dawn. I'm sure we'll get her by tomorrow. I got a feeling." He tapped his chest. "And I'm never wrong."
"Hon, you just got mascara on your nice shirt."
"Ah hell." He sighed.
"It'll come out," Dolly said. "I'll get it out for you."