Disappointed, they retreated to the locked file drawers in the offices of the various research scientists and again awakened Samir. Hundreds of available files yielded only two interesting documents. One pertained to Jason Wade, the other to Jeremiah Fuller. Fuller had evidently been treated for dementia, likely the result of late-onset Alzheimer’s. Wade had apparently been treated for a rare brain disease whose course was not well known. Apparently both men had been desperate enough to subject themselves to experimental treatment.
The portions of the files containing treatment details were missing, but the last paragraph of the last page of a technical write-up in the Jason Wade file read:
Production of retro viral vector by multiplying circular vector plasmid using e-coli restriction digestion. Production of coding sequence for receptor amplified from cDNA source by PCR. Coding sequence for blocker by PCR. Promoter amplification from genome DNA by PCR. We introduced 5ml vector times 19 through venous transfusion: one aloquat per each promoter. Estimated 98 % success to infected cells, estimate infection rate 92 %. Transdermal application of suppressor/activator cell agent feasible. Test to see if JH receptor is in frame.
Samir ordered one of his men to photograph the technical language. He would send it to a lab that might tell him something. He also ordered his lieutenant to find out everything possible about Jason Wade and Jeremiah Fuller, including information on family and friends. They went back to the primate lab, observed the packs on the backs of the two macaques, and continued looking. In a storage room they found packs and plastic bottles labeled JH with dates. One was denominated Potency Exp. 05/05. Another bore the label Transdermal JHRA.
“What does it mean?” Fawd asked the science expert on the team.
“Whatever it is, they apply it through the skin. I assume from the lab note that SA means suppressor agent.”
“Take all there is. Take the two liters,” Fawd said. “They will know someone broke in, but why should we care?”
Anna’s Manhattan apartment was on the twenty-eighth floor of her West Side building. She had been trying to read a book that had been recommended during cocktail talk at a party. The friend who made the suggestion was a psychiatrist, a man who had been happily married for thirty years. Although she couldn’t help bristling at what she thought might be an implication, however subtle, that she couldn’t stick with one man, she was now reading with more interest than she cared to admit. Normally she read a book in a few days, but with this one she read slowly, picking her way through the ideas and the feelings. It was titled Where Did She Go? Where Did He Go? and purported to study a phenomenon called emotional unavailability. Having resumed her reading of the book upon her arrival from Canada, she had come to realize that she was reading about Sam. She had started to wonder if she might also be reading about herself.
Like a lot of highly motivated and self-directed people, Anna had the mother of all double standards for those with a title like therapist, counselor, psychiatrist, or psychologist. Shrinks of all flavors were fine… for the other guy: There was not a shred of shame in consulting them. Anna had found no difficulty in consulting head doctors for the sake of her brother, but since beginning this book she had gone to someone strictly for herself twice in a week.
The phone rang-her publicist. Apparently when the press had called her to ask whether Anna had spent the night with a rugged, American sailor aboard his yacht in British Columbia, the publicist had responded with “no comment.” Ordinarily that would be okay, but in this instance it would be taken as an admission. Anna knew Sam would be angry if his name or even his general description ever came up.
“Just call them back, say that you checked with me, and explain that there was no night on a yacht at all. I was with my brother. I did some survival training with an expert. We stopped at the resort for a few minutes, this expert and I, and I signed autographs for some bird-watchers. End of story. Nothing has changed between Lane and me.”
She went to the kitchen. When things were tense she liked to eat, and when she was determined not to eat, she would go to the kitchen and graze with her eyes. Bananas, apples, oranges, tangerines, mangoes, a pineapple, pears, whole-wheat crackers, crusty dark whole-wheat bread. There was the aged balsamic that by itself was good, but when used with olive oil induced massive consumption of bread. New York-style kosher dill pickles. Lazio’s gourmet tuna. And then the refrigerator things: special Cajun relish for the tuna; nonfat yogurt that had protein but was full of sugar; the unsweetened yogurt that was a little too tart but okay if mixed with fruit; barbecued tofu sticks from the local deli; lox. And best of all, the jar of natural peanut butter with the oil floating on top.
Anna’s most successful and painless diets had been those that she made up herself, and the least successful were those she read about in books. She favored seafood and vegetables and whole wheat and soy products. If it could scream when it died, she preferred not to eat it, and she knew she should never eat in the evening. Of course this was difficult to explain to a man who wanted to buy you dinner at Babbo.
As if summoned by the thought, Lane called. “Hi. How goes it?”
“Oh, fine. I’m hungry and so I’m going to work out. And I miss you.”
“I’m missing you too. All the time lately.”
From there the conversation spiraled down through a long string of exchanged and rehashed excuses for not seeing each other and Anna’s attempt to explain Sam, pretty much without success.
“Look,” Anna finally said, “I’d like to tell you more about this investigator guy, but really I shouldn’t. The way he works, if I talk I’m breaking my word. Oh, hell. I can tell you. It’s a guy who sometimes calls himself Sam. I know when a person is well connected and Sam is that.”
“Well hung or well connected?”
“Don’t be crude and especially don’t be jealous. I don’t know his full name because he doesn’t give it out to clients, but he seems very solid. I’m having him checked out.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It is.”
“Listen, you take care of Jason. When you’re done you call me. We’ll meet. Maybe we can start over.”
But she could hear a difference in his voice. There was resignation and sadness, and she knew he didn’t really believe what he was saying. What they really needed was a dinner or two to break up properly. It would require a weird dance of words, each party trying desperately not to feel rejected and trying not to make the other feel rejected. A perfect parity parting. That was what Lane was thinking and she knew it. Probably because that was what she was thinking.
Still, she wouldn’t close the door. Maybe they could work something out. Then a new thought zinged through her mind. Maybe he had been seeing someone else. These things could be very subtle at first. He had three women in his current movie. Two were single, and it really didn’t matter that the third was married. People got ideas, married or single, and LA people were among the worst.
Lane would not cheat, but he might think, and if he was thinking …
She tried to shake her bad thoughts. She had absolutely no reason to doubt Lane. More reason to doubt herself. It was so easy to start thinking. It was like food. An iron will was required. Maybe she was thinking about Sam. She hadn’t liked the sound of her own voice when she told Lane not to be jealous of Sam.
On the desk was a script. She loved it. If she took it, there was no doubt it would take her further from Lane. Somebody once told her that everybody who makes it to the top is hard in the core. They make sacrifices in their personal life-killer instinct, some called it God, she hoped it wasn’t true.
She called her agent “Let’s make the deal on August Moon.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Okay, honey. You got it.”
Gathering her things, she called to Genevieve, her young assistant, and said she was leaving. Anna normally employed people in their twenties as assistants, people interested in the arts, acting, design, and the like. These tended to be somewhat informal arrangements and she often had four or five in her employ at once, although she usually tried to find things for them to do that would keep them out from under her nose. Sometimes that was difficult. Genevieve would probably never be an actress, but she was the best assistant Anna had ever found.
Anna was having dinner with her ex at his place. She wondered if she should have mentioned it to Lane.
