The Magic Bullet

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Warren!” Demi cried and then softened her lips to a smile.

  “I just hate doctors,” he said. “And disappointments.”

  “Your poor mother,” Taylor countered.

  Warren’s mouth dropped. But Lois and Ralph couldn’t hold back laughter.

  “This kid’s going to either write comedy or perform it,” Ralph added to soften their amusement at Warren’s expense.

  Warren’s red face darkened, and he threw down his fork.

  “I need a cigarette,” he said, rising. He would have to go outside to light up.

  No one, not even Demi, tried to talk him out of it. As everyone continued to eat, he strolled out.

  “I don’t think Warren appreciates your sense of humor, Taylor,” his uncle Ralph said.

  “He hasn’t quite learned how to think before he speaks yet,” Demi said, giving Taylor her big-eyed look of reprimand.

  “Sorry,” Taylor told her. She was very upset now and he didn’t want to be the cause of unhappiness at this celebration.

  “Don’t tell me. Tell Warren,” she ordered. “Do it,” she ordered firmly.

  “Now?”

  “It’s always better to apologize as soon as possible when you do something unpleasant, Taylor,” she advised.

  He nodded and stood up. Then he smiled.

  “That explains it,” he said.

  “Explains what?” his aunt Lois asked.

  “Why the doctor told his mother he was sorry seconds after he delivered Warren,” he replied.

  There was a moment of hesitation, but as he started away from the table, the three adults burst into laughter behind him. He smiled to himself and walked out of the restaurant to find Warren.

  He was standing off to the right, smoking and looking out at the Palm Springs Tram light clearly visible at the top of the mountains. The tram carried tourists to nearly 11,000 feet where which they could see incredible views or take hikes.

  “Sorry if I insulted you,” Taylor said.

  Warren turned and looked at him.

  “Your mother send you out here?”

  “It wasn’t Federal Express,” Taylor replied.

  “You got a big trap on you, kid. I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to put up with it.”

  “When you find out, let me know,” Taylor told him.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, Taylor. You’ll be the first,” Warren said, stepping toward him. He glared down at him. “You’re a spoiled little bastard, and sooner or later, you’re going to get your head handed to you. Maybe it won’t be me and maybe it will. We’ll see how smart you are then.”

  A number of smart replies streamed through Taylor’s mind, but he checked each one at the tip of his tongue and turned away instead. He sensed the danger. Warren was capable of great violence.

  As he approached the table, his mother, aunt, and uncle looked up with expectation.

  “So?” Demi asked when he sat.

  “It went over real well. We’re going to be pals. He promised to share his monthly allotment of arsenic with me,” Taylor quipped and began to eat again as if his appetite had returned in spades.

  Demi and Lois looked at each other. Lois smiled, and Demi shook her head. They all looked up when Warren returned. He was quiet but ordered another drink. Ralph tried to start a conversation about the new shopping center being proposed in Palm Springs. As the accountant involved with the developer, he thought he might get Warren work. Warren was skeptical about its being approved.

  “Everything’s going down valley,” he said. “Forget Palm Springs.”

  Taylor smiled to himself. He had just thought, Why don’t you? He clamped down on it quickly but couldn’t wipe off his smile fast enough. Warren glared at him, and Ralph tried getting him back to the discussion by giving him some inside information.

  “It’s going to happen,” he concluded. “Good things,” he added, nodding at everyone. “Good things coming all around.”

  That was enough to bring back the good mood. Warren relaxed with his drink and even began looking at Demi with some sexual promises in his eyes. She blushed but felt better and even hopeful.

  We’ll be a family yet, she thought. We’ve got to be.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” Allan asked. He pulled on his earlobe like Humphrey Bogart and spoke through his bluetooth phone in the car as he sped along the 10 Freeway east to Palm Springs. “You said the boy’s mother said he doesn’t want to come in and therefore she won’t come in?”

  “That’s what I said, Allan. It’s not like we can issue a summons,” Joe replied.

  Allan was quiet for a moment.

  “You’re sure about all your facts? The timetable here, all of it?”

  “C’mon, Allan. I wouldn’t have taken the time to call you. I know how busy you are, too.”

  “I’m just asking. It’s normal to ask these questions under the circumstances you’re describing.”

  “Yes, it’s normal once, twice, but not eight times. I’m sure.”

  “Then we’ve got to get him to come in, Joe. I need that sample.”

  “ We need the sample,” Joe corrected.

  “That’s what I mean. We need the sample.”

  “I still don’t understand what you’re expecting to find here, Allan.”

  “I’ll go into detail when I see you. You have their address?”

  “What are you going to do, make him an offer he can’t refuse? He’s a fifteen-year-old kid.”

  “Tell me more about him, his family,” Allan said.

  “I just found out about them myself, only because I have the village gossip as a receptionist in my office,” Joe said. “The boy’s mother works in a beauty salon. His father died of a heart attack a little over two years ago. She’s now living with a man who works construction.”

  “Heart attack, huh?”

  “On the job.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He was a computer programmer but worked at Palo Alto for a considerable time before they moved here.”

  “Palo Alto? You don’t mean he had anything to do with the nuclear energy facility there, do you?”

  “I think so. I think that’s what she said.”

  “You know they had an incident there nearly sixteen, seventeen years ago?”

  “No, I didn’t know. Maybe I did but forgot,” Joe quickly corrected. He didn’t want to appear to be totally oblivious to news events, even though he was.

  “We’ve had more than a half dozen cases of a variety of cancer illnesses involving employees who worked there and were exposed to radiation at the time. This is even more interesting now.”

  “What are you reaching for here, Allan?” Joe asked. He could almost hear his friend’s thoughts. He did hear some new excitement in his voice.

  “I’m about an hour away, Joe. See what details about him your receptionist can get for us.”

  “Allan, look, the mother was pretty clear about the boy’s refusal and…”

  “I’ll be there in an hour. Try to get the details. It’s important, Joe. I’ll explain more when I get there. There is something going on at a research center in North Carolina involving mice. I’ll get into it when we get together. It has a lot of people excited,” he said and shut off his phone.

  Could this be? He felt like a young boy about to go to his first party. He couldn’t contain the excitement raging in his body and didn’t realize until it was too late that he had accelerated to 110 miles an hour.

  The highway patrolman hitting traffic on the 10 Freeway with his radar gun was actually so enraged that he stalled his motorcycle in his rush to go after him. He cursed and got started. First, the patrolman hated having to go this speed himself. He wasn’t comfortable about it even though he had been a motorcycle patrolman for nearly ten years. Second, usually when a driver saw him coming with his flashing lights, he slowed his vehicle and began to pull to the side, but this driver was either a criminal or simply obli
vious. Whatever the case, this was damn serious. He got on his radio and called for backup. He was closing on 100 miles an hour, and the driver still hadn’t indicated he was going to slow down.

  “This guy’s going to jail,” he swore and accelerated.

  It wasn’t until the motorcycle patrolman pulled alongside his vehicle that Allan realized he was being pursued. The policeman was gesturing emphatically for him to pull over, so he raised his hand to indicate he understood and slowed down.

  It never occurred to him during the last five minutes that there was anyone else in the world.

  Almost as soon as he pulled over to a stop, he saw a highway patrol car in his rearview mirror, speeding in his direction. The motorcycle cop appeared to be waiting as well. The cop dismounted and unbuckled his pistol.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Allan asked, peering.

  The patrol car pulled up in front, and two officers got out quickly, their guns drawn, their doors open to shield them.

  “Step out of your vehicle,” he heard, “and put your hands on your head.”

  “Holy Christmas,” Allan muttered and did as he was told. Then he was told to face the car.

  The motorcycle cop reached him first and pulled his hands down to cuff him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’re going on—to jail,” the cop replied. “That’s what’s going on.”

  “For speeding?”

  “You were going 110 miles an hour and did not respond To my pursuit.”

  The other two officers holstered their weapons and walked slowly to him.

  “I’m sorry,” Allan said. “I was in very deep thought.”

  “Deep enough to bury yourself,” the unsympathetic motorcycle cop said. “Your registration in your car?”

  “Yes, sir. Glove compartment.”

  “License in your wallet?”

  “Inside jacket pocket,” Allan said. He started to turn, and the motorcycle cop stopped him roughly. One of the patrolmen from the police car reached into his pocket and produced his wallet. He opened it to look at his identification.

  “You have a doctor here, Gerry,” he said. He continued to explore the cards. “Out of U.S.C. Oncology.”

  The news seemed to calm the motorcycle cop somewhat.

  “Why were you going so fast?” he demanded.

  “Can I turn?”

  “Turn around.”

  Allan faced the nearly square-jawed policeman. He wore very dark sunglasses and had a solid-looking body, too. Allan could see himself in the sunglass lenses. For a flashing moment, Allan thought of a comic book character and nearly smiled. At this moment he realized that would be disastrous.

  “I’m on my way to the hospital in Palm Springs. I am in cancer research, and there’s an extraordinary case there that could have something to do with my work.”

  How do I go much further, he thought, without getting far too technical and sounding condescending?

  “It’s gotten me excited,” he added.

  The three policemen looked at each other.

  “I was in deep thought about that and frankly didn’t even realize how fast I was traveling.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not as smart as an oncologist, but I can figure out what might happen if I blew a tire at that speed.”

  “Absolutely. I’ve been accused of being an absent-minded professor. I stand guilty to the charge.”

  The motorcycle cop smirked.

  “Turn around,” he said, and Allan did so quickly. He heard and felt him unlocking the handcuffs.

  “That’s a first for me,” Allan told him as he rubbed his reddened wrists.

  “Yeah, well, we’re not taking you to jail, Doc, but I’m going to give you a pretty serious speeding ticket, so I hope you have a good lawyer.”

  Allan didn’t respond.

  “Hey, Gerry,” the patrolman who had his wallet said. “Can I speak to you a minute?”

  The motorcycle cop didn’t reply. He just walked a few feet away with the other patrolman, and they conferred. Allan took a deep breath and now risked smiling at the third patrolman, who just stared at him.

  The two returned, the one patrolman handing him back his wallet and then his registration.

  “You’re about twenty minutes out if you go the speed limit, Doc,” the patrolman who had taken his wallet said.

  He looked at the motorcycle cop, who said nothing. Allan nodded and got into his car. The patrolmen from the highway patrol car began walking back to theirs. Alan started his engine, and the motorcycle cop knocked on his window. He lowered it quickly.

  “Cory’s mother is in chemotherapy. Breast cancer. I’m doing this for her,” he said. “Watch yourself,” he warned and headed for his motorcycle.

  Allan let out a deep, hot breath, put his car into drive, and pulled away slowly. He glanced at the patrolman at the wheel of the patrol car and then looked forward.

  Everyone is praying for the same magic bullet, he thought. He had contradictory feelings. He was proud of what he was doing and how much respect it garnered, but he was also ashamed that he had escaped a speeding ticket only because a man’s mother was dying from cancer.

  “I hate it!” he screamed. “I hate it!”

  He pounded the wheel. Anyone driving by would think he was clearly losing his mind.

  He stopped himself, took a deep breath and drove on.

  Two bowlers throwing perfect strikes simultaneously on side-by-side alleyways created an explosion of sound that echoed through the building and interrupted Frankie Vico’s conversation at his bar. He was leaning over and lecturing his new bartender about moving quicker to get more booze in the glasses and more dollars in the register. “Your eyes got to be on the glasses, not the drinkers,” he emphasized. He tapped the bar with his cigarette lighter in the shape of a pen. Although he had stopped smoking, he liked carrying it. “Maybe nowhere else in any business is time as much money as it is in a bar, Stuart. Every glass on the bar is like a parking meter. The moment it looks empty, boom!” he cried. “You put in more. If they stop you, they stop you. Most will appreciate it and so will my cash register. Capiche?”

  “Got it,” Stuart Blockman said. He just wanted this to end, and it seemed like it wouldn’t in his lifetime. Frankie had such hot, bad breath that when he spoke, it was like a blowtorch coming over the bar at him. Plus, the only reason he liked bartending was the contact he had with people, not glasses. Sure, time was money here, but it was the connection the bartender made with his customers that kept the customers coming and spending money. How come Frankie didn’t see that?

  “There’s big overhead here, Stuart. I got this bowling alley and the restaurant under one roof, yes, but the taxes, the employees, the utilities…they’re killers if we don’t fill the glasses constantly. I make more here at this bar in an hour than I do on those alleyways in a day.”

  “But the bowling brings them here,” Stuart made the mistake of saying. That only got Frankie off on another tangent: the inflationary costs associated with a bowling alley in today’s economy, which then took him onto politics.

  Stuart looked toward Frankie’s new girlfriend, Marilyn Chan, hoping she would soon call him back to the table where Frankie’s goon, Tony Marino, sat reading a comic book. She saw his look of desperation, shrugged her shoulders and smiled. She’s torturing me, Stuart thought. But he dared not utter a syllable of complaint. He knew this whole enterprise was basically a laundering operation for Frankie’s cocaine business. Who didn’t know it, except apparently the law enforcement agencies? Maybe they did but were paid off. Who was he to say? Hear no evil. Speak no evil. And live.

  The ringing of the telephone was like a lifeline thrown his way by Verizon. He nodded his head in its direction, and Frankie stopped talking.

  “Get the fucking phone,” he ordered, acting like Stuart should have just walked away when it rang, when Stuart knew in his heart that if he had done that, Frankie would have been pissed and you don’t piss off Frankie Vi
co.

  “Strike Zone, Stuart speaking,” Stuart said into the phone. He looked at Frankie to see if that greeting was all right and listened. “Yes, he’s right here. It’s for you, Frankie,” he said. “Doctor Reuben’s office.”

  “Give me the damn phone,” Frankie said. He looked back at the table and saw Marilyn was doing her fingernails at the table. He hated that and had told her again just that morning, too.

  Stuart brought the phone to the bar and stepped back as if he were afraid it might explode in his face.

  “Vico,” Frankie said. He listened. “Oh, yeah, I’ll hold.”

  He put his hand over the receiver.

  “Don’t stand there looking at me. Get those glasses clean, Stuart.”

  “Right.”

  Frankie returned to the receiver.

  “Hey, Doc. What?”

  As he listened, he felt the blood draining from his face.

  “You sure?” Even his neck grew white now. “Yeah, sure. I’ll go right over to see him. You’re absolutely sure? I mean, everything was checked and double-checked, right? Yeah. Okay. Thanks,” he said and slammed the receiver down so hard on the cradle it nearly cracked. “I gotta take a ride,” he shouted at Tony. The goon folded the comic book quickly and stood up.

  “Where are you going now, Frankie?” Marilyn asked, annoyed.

  “Another doctor’s office. My bopsy wasn’t good.”

  She stopped filing her nails for a moment. “What’s a bopsy?” she asked.

  Frankie started out.

  “Jesus, Marilyn, I’ve told you a hundred times. Don’t do your nails in the restaurant. Shit,” he said. He continued cursing anything and everything as he followed Tony out to the car.

  When he got in, Tony just sat there waiting. Frankie looked at him.

  “Where we going, boss?”

  “Where we going? Maybe hell,” Frankie said.

  Anyone else but me might feel damn foolish doing this, Allan thought, as he drove up to Demi Petersen’s house. He had just spent more than two hours reviewing Joe’s patient’s miraculous recovery, and he could come up with no logical medical explanation except the one he had tracked recently to research with mice. A strain of cancer-resistant mice had been discovered, and when their white blood cells had been transfused To mice with tumors, the tumors immediately were gone. To date, as far as he knew, there was no human experiment with similar results.