Stinger

by Nancy Kress

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Cavanaugh said. It was an unprofessional remark, but he was liking the old woman immensely. A tough cookie.

  She threw back her head and laughed. “Sure is. Talk don’t get nobody’s ass killed.”

  “One more question, ma’am. Have you ever been aware of any scientific activity at Christian Crusade? Seen any science-looking equipment go in and out, or heard any talk about mosquitoes or genes or diseases?”

  Her smile vanished. “You investigatin’ that? Lord, son, Christian Crusade ain’t made this plague. They way too stupid. Most of ’em never finished their schoolin’, and all of them think science is ’most as evil as popery.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “No, I ain’t, but I wish I could be. My grandniece was one of ’em that died of this new plague. Twenty-six years old.” Her old eyes turned inward, to private pain. Suddenly she said fiercely, “You catch ’em, son, you hear? You catch ’em good!”

  “We’re trying, ma’am.”

  She nodded vigorously. “They gotta be stopped. But you know what, son? People like Christian Crusade ain’t the ones making this plague. They too stupid. So why you wasting FBI time out here asking about ’em?”

  “Because my boss told me to.”

  She nodded again. “I see. FBI covering its ass?”

  “That’s about it. The FBI’s covering its ass.” It was a relief to say it out loud and have someone understand, even if it was someone with no authority except that of years of survival. He liked this old bird.

  “Ain’t it always the way.” She sighed, and again the sunken eyes turned inward. “Be a whole lot of time saved in this world if people warn’t made to waste it covering their ass.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Cavanaugh said. It was the first time he’d felt cheerful all week.

  Aryan Nation had the motivation and the wealth to have created Plasmodium reading, but their bent wasn’t scientific and their money went for paramilitary equipment.

  White Maryland were a nasty bunch. They’d throw rocks through the window of a six-year-old displaying a menorah on his windowsill, through the window of a black candidate for the state legislature, through the window of a white public health nurse who visited black homes. They stuffed hate pamphlets in mailboxes, scrawled graffiti on public buildings, harassed a pair of high school kids who were dating interracially. Key members had arrest sheets as varied as their spewings were monotonous. Harassment, assault, theft, fraud, DWI, disturbing the peace, striking a law officer, carrying an illegal weapon, narcotics violation, parole violation, even rape. But nowhere could Cavanaugh find any trace of genetic engineering or any capacity to do so.

  Not that he’d expected to. These weren’t the kinds of groups he’d meant when he’d told Dunbar the lone terrorist theory was ridiculous. And Dunbar knew these weren’t the kinds of groups Cavanaugh meant. Dunbar was just “being thorough,” both because he was a book man and because of the press. The groups Cavanaugh had meant were, presumably, being investigated through Washington: Russian hard-liners, Iranian warmongers, German neo-Nazis, South African white supremacists resenting the end of apartheid, South Americans with a grudge against the United States. Plus the homegrown insect research and genetic-engineering companies. The good stuff, which Cavanaugh only got to hear about, enviously, at meetings in Baltimore.

  “Talked to another reporter today.” Seton swaggered into their tiny shared Leonardtown office. “That gal from the Sun. The one who broke the story.”

  “Libby Turner,” Cavanaugh said automatically. “I thought all press communication was supposed to go through the media representatives in Baltimore or Washington.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t say anything they’d disapprove of. Gotta keep the old schnozz in front of the public, though. I retire next year, and good publicity can’t hurt a second career.”

  “And what second career might that be?” Cavanaugh didn’t really care, but he was tracking his hate groups’ bulletin boards on the Internet, and the postings were even more depressing and monotonous than Seton.

  “Haven’t decided yet.” Seton unwrapped another Snickers and dropped the wrapper into the four inches between their desks. He was such a slob. Every night Cavanaugh picked up empty Doritos bags, Coke cans, used tissues.

  “Could you please put that in the garbage can?”

  “Oh, sure,” Seton said, but he didn’t. “You finding anything worth following up on the Net?”

  Cavanaugh stopped scrolling and looked at Seton. “Why, you interested in helping?”

  “Can’t. Got too much to do with my informants about Pax River. Althoooooo …” He drew the syllable out and looked expectantly at Cavanaugh.

  “Although what, Seton?”

  “Although you’d be surprised how cases intertwine. And what you can learn from informants who don’t know what they’re giving away.”

  Cavanaugh sat very still. “You got something on malaria reading, Seton? Give it to me.”

  “Not a chance. This is my lead. And I’m the boss, remember? Oh, by the way, how come Judy hasn’t been calling here with her usual messages about picking up milk on the way home or meeting her someplace for a cozy drink? Your little domestic paradise gone bust?”

  “Fuck you, Seton,” which was something Cavanaugh usually never said, but Seton could provoke him to it. Pointedly he swiveled his seat back to face his computer. Seton only laughed and went back to filling out 302s, the forms that recorded information that might eventually be used in court. Seton filed more goddamn 302s than anyone Cavanaugh had ever seen. Dunbar had commended Seton more than once on the completeness of his records.

  No leads. No talk with Judy. No progress. And when Cavanaugh dragged himself back to Marcy’s apartment, after yet another futile day, Marcy was there.

  Had it been two weeks since she’d left for Dallas? Yes. It seemed like two years.

  “Hello, Robert,” Marcy said. “There was some kid here looking for you.”

  “What kid?” She sat curled in a corner of her black sofa, watching some ballet program and sipping a Scotch. She wore jeans and a scoop-necked blue leotard, and her blond hair was pinned casually on top of her head, with strands falling down the sides and over one eye. She looked sensational.

  “Some little cracker. Blinked a lot. He wrote his name and number on the phone pad, but said he couldn’t come back ’cause it was ‘too fur a piece to hike.’”

  Earl Lester. And he had hiked in? From …? Just the thought of it tired Robert. Although maybe the kid meant he’d hitchhiked.

  “Have a drink, Robert,” Marcy said. “You look like you need it.”

  He poured himself a double vodka and tonic. Marcy watched two ballet dancers wave their arms and mince across a stage, her eyes intent on the screen. Robert suddenly liked that she wasn’t waiting on him. Judy would have jumped up, all solicitous service, which always made him feel he had to be ardent and communicative in return. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t feel ardent. He wanted to be left alone, to brood undisturbed.

  Marcy watched the rest of the ballet program, while Robert had another double vodka. When the show was over, she rose and stretched. “I’m hungry. Want something to eat before you go?”

  “You’re going to cook?” In all the years of their marriage, Marcy had cooked about six times, never with memorable results. She preferred catering, restaurants, takeout, or yogurt. She could eat or not eat with impunity, and it never seemed to affect either her energy or her figure.

  She laughed. “Well, no. I was going to send out for a pizza.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Cavanaugh said. “Pepperoni and olives.”

  He finished his drink while she ordered a large pizza with pepperoni, olives, onions, green and red peppers. Robert hated peppers, but she’d probably forgotten that. He was pleased that she hadn’t asked, hadn’t been all anxious to know his dislikes so she could make a show of avoiding them. Marcy looked out for herself. Cav
anaugh suddenly found that restful.

  He sipped a third drink while Marcy found an emery board and filed her nails, humming to herself. Abigail, who’d been asleep on the hearth rug, woke up, trotted over to Cavanaugh, and licked his hand. Lazily—or maybe it was starting to be drunkenly—he scratched her ears, and her tail thumped on the floor in a comfortable rhythm.

  When the pizza came, Cavanaugh let Marcy pay for it. He fetched plates, napkins, and cutlery from the kitchen. It felt good to be doing something for himself again. They ate from the coffee table. Cavanaugh sipped his vodka between bites, and Marcy—unlike Judy—didn’t mention his liver.

  “Damn, I smeared it,” Marcy said. A slice of sauce-wet pepperoni had fallen on the front of her blue leotard. She picked off the pepperoni and scrubbed at the stain, which only made it worse. Under the stretchy material, her beautiful breasts bounced gently. She leaned forward for another napkin, and the front of her leotard gaped slightly.

  Robert felt dizzy. Lust hit him like … like what? Desire interfered with finding a metaphor. Wordlessly, he watched Marcy rub water on the tight cloth over her breasts. Watched the stain grow lighter and wider. Watched the thin material grow transparent.

  “There, I think that’s … Robert?”

  He staggered when he stood up, but he didn’t let it stop him. Navigating the treacherous straits around the coffee table, he inched toward her.

  Her blue eyes darkened slightly with amusement. It was his last clear sight before his eyes closed and his arms went around her.

  She tasted of pepperoni, of promise, of yesterdays. Her lips smiled under his; he didn’t care. His right hand cupped her breast.

  “Upstairs,” she whispered, and took his hand. He lurched after her, watching her hips and ass move under the tight jeans, the ache in his groin so powerful he thought he would burst before they even reached the bedroom.

  Fortunately, he didn’t. Marcy pushed him gently onto the bed. She undid his belt and zipper, and eased him out of pants and briefs. He watched her undress: parts of her toned, full-breasted body coming into view one by one: legs, as she pulled down her jeans. Waist and shoulders, as she slid the leotard over her head. Breasts, as she unhooked her bra. Robert closed his eyes, dizzy. When he opened them again, she was climbing onto him, loose strands of her blonde hair falling across her face, her breathing already quickening.

  “Marcy … Marcy …”

  He didn’t last very long. She didn’t seem to mind, continuing to move above him until her head jerked back and she made the same little cry she always had. How had he forgotten that little cry? Or the soft ritual stroke of her palm against his cheek immediately afterward?

  How had he forgotten any of it?

  “I never stopped wanting you,” he murmured, but Marcy probably hadn’t heard him, since his words slurred so much … or maybe she had … or maybe he hadn’t actually said it aloud … or maybe … By the time she nestled naked by his side, he was already asleep.

  When he woke in the morning, there was a note from Marcy on the nightstand beside the clock. The clock said 6:25. This was good; plenty of time for him to get to work and for Marcy to work out at her gym, which is where he presumed she’d gone. The note said only Yum.

  Cavanaugh’s heart swelled with affection. She was being sweet; there was no way his brief and drunken performance could have been yum for her. But the next one would be. Tonight he would make it up to her. After all, unless she’d changed drastically in three years, he knew everything she liked best. Tonight.

  That was when he remembered Judy. Immediately his hangover kicked in. Cavanaugh staggered to the bathroom and found ibuprofen in Marcy’s medicine cabinet. He swallowed four pills and shook his head from side to side. This was a mistake. But at least it showed he wasn’t poisoned enough to vomit.

  The best thing to do with a hangover, he’d decided years ago, was to ignore it. Just carry on with one’s usual routine, from both defiance and self-punishment. He showered, shaved, put on coffee. Then he unlocked the front door, hoping Marcy had left the newspaper for him. She had. It was the Sun, not the Post, since Marcy had never trusted the Post’s liberal bent.

  FBI PUTS POSSIBLE PLAGUE SUSPECT

  UNDER HEAVY SURVEILLANCE

  BY LIBBY TURNER

  The Baltimore Sun learned today that the FBI has singled out a suspect in the creation of malaria reading. Although the FBI press office will neither confirm nor deny that Dr. Michael Sean Donahue is a suspect, Sun reporters observed for themselves the unusually heavy surveillance of the forty-eight-year-old microbiologist. The surveillance apparently began only two days ago, but since then at least four agents have been assigned to continuously follow Donohue, including a stakeout at his College Park apartment.

  Donohue holds an M.D. from Yale Medical School, plus a Ph.D. in genetic research from the same institution. Until six months ago, he was employed by Genemod, Inc., a small and struggling Virginia start-up company in the booming field of genetically engineered pharmaceuticals. Dr. Chris Allenwood, the CEO of Genemod, declined to answer questions about the reasons for Donohue’s dismissal.

  The FBI surveillance of Donohue comes at a time when a large percentage of Bureau resources are being poured into the malaria reading investigation. This strongly suggests that Donohue may be a suspect in that extremely prominent case. A few weeks ago FBI director Peter Broylin issued a memo to all 25,000 Bureau employees emphasizing that …

  Son-of-a-bitch. Broylin needed a suspect, so he’d found one. And the Turner woman had put tails on the tails to find out who the Bureau was watching.

  Cavanaugh read the first two paragraphs again. “Forty-eight-year-old microbiologist … M.D., from Yale Medical School, plus a Ph.D. … employed by Genemod, Inc., a small and struggling Virginia start-up company …” Fired from his job. They were using the profile put together at Quantico. Plus whatever else they thought they had.

  It was possible someone at the Bureau had even leaked the surveillance information to Libby Turner to make sure the public knew the Bureau was on the road to success. This was not an unknown tactic. On the other hand, the skimpy information on Donohue suggested that the Sun had come across the story just the way it said it had, and had wanted to release it with skimpy details rather than wait to be scooped by the Post or even the Times.

  Cavanaugh turned off the water for coffee and headed for the Baltimore Field Office. On the way he called in, but it was hardly necessary. He knew Dunbar would call a meeting of the investigative team. What he didn’t know was how much the Bureau knew that the press didn’t.

  Yet.

  Interim

  When the old woman wheeled her chair into the living room on Sunday morning, Cindy was already watching cartoons. Cindy’s braids stuck out at all angles; it had been at least a week since the child’s mother took her down to LaWanda’s to get them done. When the old woman had been a girl, folks did their own children’s braids. But that was a long, long time ago.

  She rubbed her hands together before pushing again at the high, round wheels. It got harder every day, like everything else. Her granddaughter kept wanting to get her a motorized chair, but the old woman wasn’t having that. Motors were for machines, not to be people’s legs. The Good Lord don’t intend me to walk no more,” she told her granddaughter, who just pursed her lips and shook her head.

  “Cindy,” she said softly. “Chile.”

  Her great-granddaughter looked around and smiled, only one tooth left in the front. Even so, someday the girl was going to be too pretty for her own good.

  “Hi, Gramama.”

  “Hi, yourself, chile. Come wheel me outside.”

  Cindy glanced reluctantly back at the TV, where some white doll-toys in boots and capes were shooting guns at something. But she was a well-brought-up little girl.

  “Sure, Gramama. But it’s still dark out.”

  “It’s light enough. I want to smell the Good Lord’s mornin’ grass.”

  The little girl gr
abbed the handlebars of the wheelchair and pushed it effortlessly out the kitchen door and down the ramp into the backyard.

  “Park it over there, behind them trees. That’s good. Now you go back on inside.”

  “I wanta stay and smell the Good Lord’s mornin’ grass too.”

  “No, you don’t. Your favorite TV show is on. Git.” She watched Cindy bound back inside, on the way turning a somersault, just because she could.

  The old woman’s stomach rumbled. She couldn’t eat much anymore, not without terrible pain in her belly and gut. And whatever she ate took days to pass through her, until she felt like she might burst from the gas. Her arms and neck and hands ached from the arthritis, and lately it seemed like she was losing what little taste she had left in her toothless mouth. But the worst was the diapers. Her granddaughter called them something else, but they were diapers all right. Nowadays, before she ever knew it, her water gushed out right on the bed or the chair or, once, before the diapers, on her granddaughter’s brand-new sofa.

  She sniffed the air. Smell mostly gone, too. But not sight, not completely, not yet. She could make out the toys scattered over the grass and the birds still singing their hearts out in the trees, it was so early. She could see the morning glories still closed up tight and the pearly gray in the eastern sky just starting to turn pink.

  She couldn’t quite see the mosquitoes. But they were there.

  They swarmed in the evening and the early morning. It had been that way when she was a little girl, and it was that way now that she was old and past her time. The Good Lord, she often told the doctor, had overlooked her in His gatherin’ in. But the Lord helps those who help themselves.

  Shrugging her shawl off her shoulders, the old woman waited, thinking of what a different doctor had told her years and years ago when she got hit by that car and had to have a blood transfusion in the hospital. Didn’t think she’d ever need that information again. Funny what came in handy, wait you long enough.

  She felt the first sting and peered down at the mosquito. It was almost standing on its head on the inside of the arm she’d exposed by painfully inching up the sleeves of her nightdress. The mosquito had white patches on its dark wings. After a moment, another one landed on her exposed thigh.