Second Horseman Out of Eden

'Maybe somebody's trying to steal a march on you, Patton; maybe some other corporation is just as interested in biospheres as you are, is farther along, and you don't even know about it.'

'Then perhaps you should investigate that possibility, Dr. Frederickson,' Patton replied evenly. 'Frankly, I doubt it's possible.'

'So do I, for a number of reasons,' I said, watching his face carefully. 'One of those reasons is a man by the name of Dr. Craig Valley. You know him?'

'You needn't try to trap me, Dr. Frederickson,' Patton said irritably as he put a hand to his left cheek; it was the first time I had seen him take notice of his tic. 'Of course I know him-and I assume he's the man who's been serving as your source of information. As you must know, Dr. Valley once worked for us as a consultant. We stopped using him at about the same time he was discharged by the New York Botanical Garden, and for the same reasons. He was showing signs of serious mental instability and proving increasingly unreliable.'

'Rain forest soil was definitely imported into this country, and Craig Valley was definitely involved in smuggling it in.'

'If you say so,' Patton replied tersely. 'I wouldn't know. If he did do such a thing, he certainly didn't do it on our behalf.'

'Maybe some of your people here are doing things behind your back.'

Patton snorted. 'Impossible, Dr. Frederickson. I most certainly do not have a 'laid- back' management style, I assure you. Nothing here happens without my knowledge.'

I waited a few seconds before saying quietly: 'Then why don't you tell me where the soil is stored, Patton? I don't care if you've got a ton of heroin hidden under it, along with William Kenecky and a hundred other fugitives, crazy or otherwise; all I want to do is find the kid.'

He waited a few seconds before answering me, and when he spoke his voice was even softer than mine. 'I can't help you, Dr. Frederickson.'

'What about William Kenecky, Patton?' I asked, leaning back in the leather chair as I continued to study his face.

'What about him?'

'Would you describe him as a religious zealot?'

'I suppose so,' Patton said, taking his hand away from his twitching cheek long enough to glance at his watch. 'What's your point?'

'What about Craig Valley? Was he a religious zealot?'

'I really don't know much about Dr. Valley's personal life.'

'Well, let me assure you that he was a religious zealot-a really loony one, right out of the same fruitcake mold as William Kenecky. One of the traits shared by people like that is that they think they can do just about anything they want, including buggering little girls, because they enjoy special favor with God; that's their excuse for everything. I've seen it again and again. Now, I hear you talking, and you sound very sincere, but I can't help but wonder if you're a good liar because you're one of that gang. What about it, Patton? Are you a religious zealot who thinks God wants you to protect a child molester?'

'That's a most offensive question, Frederickson!' the executive director of Nuvironment snapped as he rose from his chair, drew himself up to his full five feet five inches, and tugged at the bottom of his tie. 'Now, I think I've given you more than a generous amount of my time, and I'd thank you to-!'

'A little more than an hour ago Craig Valley, your man at the Botanical Garden, killed himself, Patton. He did it by punching holes in his carotid arteries using double-edged razor blades which he held in his bare hands. He made a phone call before he died; as a matter of fact, he didn't even bother to hang up before he offed himself. The last person he talked to works here at Nuvironment. Isn't that a son-of-a-bitch?'

That sat Peter Patton back down. He looked like a man who had been punched in the stomach; his blue eyes were wide with shock as he stared at me in disbelief; his mouth hung open, and his breathing was rapid and shallow. Oddly enough, his tic had stopped. I casually crossed my legs and stared back at him, raising my eyebrows slightly.

He finally managed to say, 'Dr. Valley is. . dead?'

I lowered my eyebrows to a squint, just to let him know I remained more than a bit skeptical about anything and everything he had to say, regardless of the histrionics that went with the words. 'You didn't know?'

He tugged at his tie again, then loosened it and undid the top button of his shirt, took a deep breath. 'How would I know?'

'The police didn't call you?'

Patton shook his head, and it occurred to me that he could be telling the truth about that, at least. Lieutenant Malachy Seamus McCloskey was evidently still talking to his superiors, and maybe a few other people, making sure that his about-to-retire ass was well armored before he started mucking about and asking questions in a company, and a favored one at that, owned by Henry Blaisdel.

'Was it you he called, Patton?' I continued. 'Were you the person he was talking to when he slit his throat?'

'How could you know?' Patton asked the wall behind me. His face had gone very pale. He abruptly shifted his gaze to my face. 'I mean, how could you know who he called if he committed suicide while he was making the call?'

'The wonders of modern technology, Patton,' I said evenly. 'He called here.'

Peter Patton wiped a thin film of perspiration from his forehead with a linen handkerchief. He carefully refolded the handkerchief and put it back in his jacket pocket, put his hands back on the glass desk top, palms down, and sighed heavily. 'As a matter of fact, I was the one he called,' he said softly, licking his lips. 'My lord, you say he killed himself afterward?'

'Not afterward, Patton; during.'

Something moved in the depths of Patton's eyes, and he narrowed them slightly. 'If you were there while he was making the call, why couldn't you have stopped him from killing himself?'

Not being quite ready to go on the defensive with the skilled liar sitting across from me, I ignored his question. 'What the fuck did you say to him that caused him to slit his throat?'

'This is terrible,' Patton said hoarsely, apparently deciding that turnabout was fair play as he proceeded to ignore my question. 'If this gets into the newspapers. . Mr. Blaisdel detests any kind of publicity about himself or his companies, even when it's good publicity.'

'Your concern for Craig Valley is touching, Patton. But don't worry about me leaking anything to the media. I really don't give a damn why Valley called you, or what you talked about. Like I keep saying, the only thing I care about is finding the child I mentioned. To do that, I need to know where you're storing that dirt.'

His tic had started up again, this time with a vengeance, and Patton pressed the tips of the index and middle fingers of his left hand tightly against it. 'Please believe me, Dr. Frederickson. I can't help you. I don't know anything about the soil you're searching for. As far as the call from Dr. Valley is concerned, I can't even tell you what we talked about, because we didn't really talk about anything. He was incoherent; babbling, really. The few things I could make sense of sounded very abusive, to tell you the truth, and I took it that he was blaming me-or Nuvironment-for all of his personal difficulties. I think he blamed us for getting him fired from the Botanical Garden, but it wasn't true. I swear to you that I simply put him on hold almost immediately after he started to become abusive.'

'On hold? Why didn't you hang up on him?'

Patton again shrugged, and smiled almost shyly. 'I suppose I should have. But, after all, he was obviously very distressed. I guess maybe I was hoping he would calm down and that I'd be able to talk some sense to him. When I came back on the line, he wasn't there; I assumed he'd hung up. Now, to find out that he killed himself. . it's just very shocking, and I'm afraid that now I'm going to feel at least partly responsible for his death. Who knows? Maybe I could have saved him.'

'I want to talk to your boss, Patton.'

The other man blinked, frowned, shook his head slightly. 'What?'

'You said you can't help me-or won't.'

The frown deepened until it was pretty close to a scowl. 'You're a very persistent man, Dr. Frederickson.'

'That's only one of my many faults. One of my few virtues is that I can be very closemouthed, when it suits