'The proof is out there, Roger,' he said. 'Any board of bar overseers with half a brain will be able to add one and one together and come up with you.' He began snapping the ball with more force. 'How much of a cut of the jury awards does Mallon kick back to you? Fifteen percent?'
'Daniels, you're crazy.'
'Twenty? Twenty-five? Mallon knew about the dentist, Rog-my one other malpractice case. I mentioned it to a couple of the people at the hospital, but they hate Mallon with a passion. There's no way they would have told him. It was you, Rog. Mallon needed another patsy to win a big jury settlement against, and you fed him me.'
Matt turned his back on the claims adjuster. He was totally improvising now, but it really didn't matter.
'You have no damn proof of that. Not a bit of-'
Matt whirled and, without so much as a flicker of hesitation, gunned the ball at Phelps's head. There was no time at all for the man to react. The pitch tore past him, perhaps two inches from his ear, and shattered the protective glass on a huge print of the Boston skyline at night. The ball was already bouncing back toward Matt by the time Phelps threw himself onto the carpet.
'Jesus!' he screamed. 'You really are crazy!'
'But fortunately, I am also very accurate.'
Matt scooped up the rolling hardball with his bare hand and whipped it sidearm at the chair Phelps had just vacated. The cherrywood back of the chair exploded like balsa.
'Now tell me, Roger. What does Mallon pay you?'
Phelps tried to get to his feet, but Matt easily pushed him back onto the floor. He picked up the ball once again and backed across the office. The claims adjuster was cowering against the desk.
'I'm very accurate with this, Rog,' he said. 'Only one point nine walks per nine innings pitched. But I promise you, I'm going to keep at it until I miss-or I run out of furniture. You've tried to make me just another one of the patsies. But unfortunately for you, it didn't work this time. Now I want in. I want to be part of this little scam you and Mallon are running.'
'Go to hell!' Phelps shouted again.
'Okay. I think I'm going to do this one off a full windup. We relief pitchers never get to use full windups very much. I need the practice. And I don't need that paperweight right there by your head.'
'You're crazy!'
'Here we go… It's a tie game, fans. Bottom of the ninth. The bases are loaded, there are two outs. Here's Daniels's windup…'
'Wait. Don't!'
'Stay right there, Rog,' Matt said, freezing his arms with the glove and ball at shoulder height. 'Just talk.'
'Okay, okay. You're right. Mallon and I have an agreement. He lets me know when he gets a good case, and I assign a… um…'
'Go ahead. Say it, Rog. A loser.'
'An inexperienced attorney to oppose him.'
'And then you refuse to settle and insist on going for a jury award. Oh, you are beautiful, Rog. Just beautiful. Has Mallon ever lost one of those cases?'
'Never.'
'Until now. How much do you get?'
'That's none of your business. Now let me up.'
'The tension's so thick, baseball fans, you can cut it with a knife,' Matt said, adopting his announcer's voice again. 'A walk means a run… A hit batsman means a run… The runners are leading off… Daniels is going into the windup-'
'A third of Mallon's forty percent,' Phelps said quickly.
Matt lowered his glove. 'That can add up.'
Phelps scrambled to his feet, carefully brushing slivers of wood and glass from his suit.
'Listen,' he said, still hyperventilating, 'you want in, you'll have in. Just give me a few days to work out the details.'
Matt slipped his hand from his glove. 'Do I have your word on that?'
'Yeah, yeah. You have my word. You are really crazy, do you know that?'
'I want to hear from you within the week, Rog.'
'Just be cool about this.'
'I will. I will.'
Phelps backed toward the door.
'I mean it,' he said. 'Just be cool.'
'Roger, why don't you think about starting me off with a little portion of this settlement? You're offering two hundred K. Chances are Mallon will represent the other two families and get the same settlement. How about I get half of your third of Mallon's forty percent? That would be… let's see… forty thousand. Not bad math for a dumb jock, eh?'
'Okay, okay. After all three cases are settled. Just let me the hell out of here.'
'Go ahead,' Matt said simply.
'Just like that?'
'Just like that. I trust that if you say we've got a deal, we've got a deal.' Matt waited until Phelps had opened the office door, then added, 'Of course, I will have to charge you an additional two dollars and ninety-eight cents for your souvenir copy of the tape.'
Smiling broadly, he opened his suit coat. The miniature tape recorder was strapped to his belt-right next to a rabbit's foot and a small, blue ribbon.
Dr. Dimitri Athanoulos, the president of BIO-Vir, welcomed Rosa Suarez and Ken Mulholland cordially. His office was on the fourth floor, river side of a somewhat dated building, typical of the glass and brick high-tech showpieces of the early 1980s. He was in his late fifties, Rosa estimated, handsome and urbane. His thick, wavy hair was the color of his lab coat.
'So, you are both with the Centers for Disease Control?'
'Yes,' Rosa said. 'I'm a field epidemiologist. Ken is a microbiologist.'
'A virologist, if I'm not mistaken.'
'Some would say so.'
'From Duke.'
'That was twelve years ago,' Mulholland said, quite obviously impressed.
'If I recall correctly, you did some wonderful work on tobacco virus phage infection.'
'Cater to my ego and I am yours,' Mulholland said.
'Well, I am a DNA biochemist, primarily,' Athanoulos said. 'But I have always had an interest in viruses… and in bacteriophage. In the three years since I left academia to become director here, my interest in both has become more intense and, how should I say, more proprietary.'
Rosa, seeing how quickly the two men connected, sensed that the BIO-Vir chief, urbane or not, tended to take men more seriously than women. Ken's decision to stay overnight was turning out to be yet another break in the investigation. She sat patiently through five more minutes of scientific small talk and do-you-knows? then shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. Athanoulos immediately picked up on the cue.
'So now,' he said, 'what can BIO-Vir do for our friends in Atlanta?'
'I've been in Boston for most of four months now,' Rosa said, 'investigating three unusual obstetrics cases at the Medical Center of Boston.'
'The young resident who gave toxic herbs of some sort to her patients, yes?'
Rosa sighed.
'La potencia de las prensa,' she said. 'The power of the press. Dr. Athanoulos, despite what you and a million or so others have read, it does not appear that those herbs are playing a major role in this drama. Although I should add that the possibility remains. Ken, do you want to review your studies thus far?'
'Dimitri,' Mulholland said, 'Rosa here is far too modest to admit it, but she has done a damn thorough job of evaluating these cases. For many years she's been the best field person at the CDC.'
