Syndrome

they were both undergraduates. She was taking a degree in architecture at Columbia and he had just switched from premed to the Columbia School of Journalism.

Wasn't there a Cole Porter lyric about an affair being too hot not to cool down? They undoubtedly were in love, but they both were too strong-willed to cede an inch of personal turf. It was a combustible situation.

When they decided to go their own way, it was done under the agreement that they would make a clean break and never see each other again.Be adult and hold your head high and look to the future.No recriminations and no second thoughts. In respecting that agreement, he had gone out of his way not to keep track of her. He particularly didn't want to know if she'd gotten married had a family, any of it.

Thinking back now, he remembered that she had had some kind of heart condition. She refused to talk about it, and now he couldn't remember exactly what it was. But that could possibly explain her entry into the clinical trials, though it didn't clarify why she was only being added now, at the last minute.

If it was actually her.

And if so, how would he feel talking to her? He hoped time had mellowed her, though he somehow doubted it. Not Ally.

What an irony. If it was the same Alexa Hampton, she could end up being his entree into the secretive world of Winston Bartlett's Gerex Corporation. The trouble was, he wasn't sure he actually wanted to see her again. Even after all the years, the wounds still felt fresh.

He closed out the NIH file and opened People Search, which he often used to look up phone numbers. He started with New York State as a criterion. The names Alexa and Nina undoubtedly belonged to women, so they might be listed merely by their initials. But start with Alexa and be optimistic.

He got lucky. Three names and phone numbers popped up.

One was in Manhattan, and Ally was a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, but he wasn't sure he was psychologically prepared to speak to her. That number he decided to save for last, though it was by far the most plausible.

The next Alexa Hampton lived in Syracuse, with area code 315. He was still shook up as he dialed the number.

'Yeah, who's this?'

Sure didn't sound like Ally. But he was playing this straight. As a reporter he always started a conversation by identifying himself, so naturally he answered, 'Stone Aimes, New YorkSentinel.'

'The fuck you want?' came the voice. It was female but it definitely was not ladylike. 'I don't need any newspapers.'

Whoa, thatdefinitelydidn't sound like Ally. She was direct but she didn't talk like a sailor.

'Sorry, ma'am. I have a few questions about your participation in some clinical trials. Sorry to bother you, but I have a deadline. Shouldn't take a minute.'

'You a fucking reporter?'

'I'm doing a story on the Gerex Corporation. Are you-?'

'Thewhatcorporation? The fuck you talking about?'

'Seems like I'm calling the wrong number. I'm very sorry and I apologize.'

'Listen, if you're some kind of weirdo, I'm going to call the cops and have this call traced.'

'I said I apologize.' He hung up and thought about another beer. This was beginning to feel like the moment.

But he resisted the urge and called the next number. Come on. Be the right one and don't be Ally.

This one had a 516 area code. That meant Long Island.

'Hello,' came a rusty old voice that had to be in its seventies. It sounded over-smoked and just hanging on. Again definitely not the Ally he knew.

'Hello, ma'am,' he said 'I'm sorry to bother you, but-'

'Are you trying to sell me something, young man,' the woman asked. 'It's not going to do you much good. I live on a Social Security check, and it's all I can do to make ends meet as is. You sound nice, but-'

'No, ma'am, I'm a newspaper reporter. I'm doing a story on … I just wanted to follow up on your admission to the clinical trials for the Gerex Corporation.' He felt a surge of hope. It wasn't Ally, but she did sound like a woman who might well be a candidate for medical treatment. 'Do you know what day you plan to start?'

'What on earth are you talking about?' she asked. 'Young man, it's ill manners to start asking a body silly questions, no matter how nice you might be otherwise. I've never heard of this, whatever you called it, corporation.' Click.

She sure didn't sound like a patient. Or maybe she was too far gone to even know if she was a patient or not. In any case, this was not a promising lead.

Okay, he thought,go with the one you should have in the first place.

Blast. He wanted this to be the one, but he just didn't want it to be Ally. Or maybe he did.

He took a deep breath and punched in the last number, which had a Manhattan area code, 212. The phone at the other end rang five times and then an answering machine came on. At this hour, she would most likely be at work.

'Hello, this is Alexa Hampton. I'm sorry I can't come to the phone now, but if you'll leave your name and number, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. If you're calling about design work, the number of CitiSpace is 212 -555-8597.'

He felt his heart flip, then sink. It was Ally. It was a voice he had heard for years in his reveries-or were they the nightmares of roads not taken?

She still might not be the new patient in the clinical trials, but at least he knew he could reach her.

The sound of her voice. After all this time he didn't realize it would still affect him the way it did.

So, he thought, clearing his head,she's running a design business now. He wondered how that had happened. The last time he saw her, she was a single-minded student of architecture. Intensely focused.

No message. Don't leave a message. It probably would freak her out.Actually, it might freak them both out.

Assuming she was the new patient, how the hell did Ally get involved with Winston Bartlett? It probably would have something to do with that heart condition she didn't like to talk about.

He clicked off the phone and settled it onto the desk. Then he glanced again at the computer screen and decided to go back to the NIH files. The other woman, Nina, he would look up later. Ally's Brit mum must be getting on by now, but still it was hard to imagine anything being wrong with her; as he remembered Nina, the woman was well nigh indestructible.

When he got back to the NIH Web site and went to the 'sunshine' page, it was again blank. The two new names, Nina Hampton and Alexa Hampton, were not there anymore. They must have been entered immediately into the clinical trials. But why now? If Van de Vliet kept to the original schedule, the trials would be over in a matter of days.

Maybe, he thought, this was a momentary screw-up. I just happened to be at the right place at the right fleeting moment, when somebody, somewhere, was entering those names. Maybe some NIH bureaucrat hit the wrong key on a keyboard someplace in Maryland.

But it was the break he'd been waiting for.

He turned off the IBM and headed for the fridge and another Brooklyn Lager. Ally, Ally, Ally. Can it be you? This is so weird.

Worse than that, it was painful. There was that immortal line fromCasablanca: 'Of all the gin joints in all… she walks into mine.'

Why you, dear God?

Coming back, he sat down, took a long hit on the icy bottle, and reached for the phone.