be ones that cause certain forms of cancers. Anyhow, here's this smoldering CRV113 infection, not getting any worse, not getting any better. Then some specific stress comes along to upset the delicate balance…'
'Like labor.'
'… And bam! The virus gets the upper hand.'
'And begins doing more and more of whatever thing its DNA tells it to do. In our cases, inappropriate activation of the clotting pathway.'
'Exactly. Then the stress is removed and the body summons up more interferon and more antibodies until balance is restored.'
'But are there ever any knockouts? I mean of the virus.'
'Maybe some,' Mulholland said. 'Maybe lots. But the herpes simplex model-the one we know the most about- suggests that there are lots of draws. Anyone who has ever had cold sores or sun blisters pop out over and over again can attest to that. The whole field of chronic viral infections is still too new to know precisely how it all works.'
'Ken, this is beginning to come together.'
'Perhaps. There's still a load of questions.'
'Only now we know who probably has the answers.'
'013-32-0885.'
'013-32-0885,' Rosa echoed.
'Matt Daniels to see Mr. Mallon,' Matt said.
He glanced past the receptionist, through the glass-enclosed library, and out at Boston Harbor. Several years before, he had actually sent in a resume to the firm of Wasserman and Mallon. He had been granted an interview with a junior partner, who produced a ball for Matt to autograph and asked, perhaps, one or two questions unrelated to sports during their twenty-minute session. The man, whose name Matt could not remember, had not even bothered to suggest that his application would get serious consideration.
It had not been necessary for Matt to explain to Jeremy Mallon his reason for wanting a meeting. Roger Phelps had laid the necessary groundwork. Given the choice of sites, Matt had opted for Mallon's office, perhaps in some sort of grand, ironic gesture to that sanctimonious junior partner. There was also, of course, the more practical matter of his not yet having cleaned up the glass and shattered furniture from his own office.
'Mr. Mallon will see you now,' the receptionist announced in a pronounced British accent.
'Will he now,' Matt muttered to himself, wondering if the accent had been a requirement in the original job description.
The Jeremy Mallon who met Matt at his office door was clearly the worse for wear. His face was drawn and pale, his slightly bloodshot eyes enveloped in gray hollows. The odor of mouthwash hung heavily about him, and Matt suspected he had spent a goodly portion of the previous night in his cups.
'You wired for sound this time?' Mallon asked after closing the door.
'Why should I bother with that? I have the tape I need.'
'You threatened Phelps to get that tape. You threw a baseball at his head.'
'Jeremy, at six or seven feet, if I was throwing at his head, Roger would have been awarded first base and a bed in intensive care.'
'How do I know the wire actually worked? How do I know there's anything at all on that tape?'
Matt grinned ruefully.
'Always the lawyer,' he said. 'Well, first of all, Jeremy, it makes no difference if I have that tape or not. Once a bar overseers investigator is pointed in the right direction, he won't have to be any rocket scientist to figure out what's been going on. And second, I didn't come over here to blackmail you. I came over to get the case against my client discharged once and for all.'
'Done,' Mallon interjected quickly.
'Are you speaking for the Graysons?'
'You may assume that.'
'I also want to know exactly what changed to prompt you to instruct Phelps to settle in the first place.'
'I might be able to tell you that. First, though, I'd like it if we could come to some sort of an understanding.'
'Like what?'
'Like we have a position open in this firm. You want it, it's yours. Junior partner for two years, then full. Guaranteed one fifty a year to start.'
'Thousand?'
'Of course.' He withdrew a document from his desk. 'I've had the contract drawn up. The guarantee is spelled out in it. I've already signed it. Just sign it at the bottom, and your name's on the door.'
Matt glanced at the two pages. They were titled simply: AGREEMENT. They might just as well have been titled: SET FOR LIFE. He thought about Harry and what income like this, at this stage of the game, would mean to them both.
'You don't have much of a poker face,' Mallon said.
Matt folded the agreement and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket.
'I'll have to study this,' he said. 'Now, I want to know why you offered to quit the Baldwin case.'
'Because you were starting to win. That's why.'
'That's bullshit.' Matt stood to leave.
'Wait. Wait. Will you just cool your jets?'
Matt stayed where he was. He did not sit back down.
'Okay, okay,' Mallon said. 'I grant you the case is still a tossup. But you were coming on strong. Too strong. And I realized that I made a mistake in preparing the case.'
'Namely?'
'Will you sit back down, for chrissakes? Thank you. Namely, I should never have gotten involved with that egomaniac Ettinger. It was an accident that I called the bastard to begin with. He was on TV so much, I figured he was a giant in the field of holistic healing.'
'He is.'
'No, Matt. What he is, is a liar. And a vindictive liar at that. It wasn't until after we went to that Chinese guy's shop that Ettinger admitted he and your client had been lovers for three years. He says he didn't think it was that important. Not important? I mean, give me a break. My take is that he wanted desperately to get even with her, so he insisted on being part of the team. Who cares that his past relationship to the defendant makes him about as useful to me as a pair of cement running shoes? Then he conveniently neglects to tell me that his fucking diet powder was invented by some guy who just happened to be working at the Medical Center of Boston.'
'You mean Pramod Singh?'
'Yes, I mean Pramod Singh. Oh, this Ettinger is beautiful, Matt. Just beautiful.'
'What do you know about the powder?'
'I don't understand what you're driving at. I don't know anything about the powder.'
Again Matt stood to leave.
'Okay, okay,' Mallon said, waving Daniels back to his seat. 'Where in the hell did Phelps find you anyhow? In some South Chicago junkyard?'
'He underestimated me.'
'I'll say. Well, the only thing I know about Ettinger's powder-and that's the truth-is that something very screwy is going on with the money all those chubby people are sending in.'
'Go on.'
'After you brought up the diet powder thing at Ettinger's deposition, I asked him to tell me everything about it. He didn't, of course, but I really didn't expect him to. Goddamn egomaniac. So I started to do some checking. I put a couple of my sharpest people on it. According to the charts on Ettinger's office wall and the quantity of product rolling out of his shipping operation each day, that powder is taking off like a space shuttle. Ten thousand orders a week now, and rising. Four million bucks a month.'
'So?'
'So we can't find the money.'
