All the Rage

by F. Paul Wilson

  One of Dragovic's men then? For what purpose? Dragovic knew that Luc tested the potency of each new batch of Loki but had never shown the slightest interest in the how or the where.

  Perhaps just a common criminal, looking for something to steal. Lucky for him Prather's roustabouts didn't catch up to him.

  Forget him. Who cares who he is as long as he's gone and keeps his mouth shut. I just want out.

  The readouts indicated that tonight's strain of Loki was somewhat weaker than previous batches. He'd have to tell Dragovic to cut the new shipments less than the previous ones to maintain potency.

  I don't care. I just want out.

  As Luc watched the roustabouts rousing the test subjects, he realized that although he had every reason to be sunk chin deep in a black depression, he felt strangely jubilant.

  Somewhere during the course of watching these low-life creatures pummel each other, he had come to an unconscious decision that now bubbled on the surface: I am getting out. No matter what, I am getting out.

  And that means I will never have to test another batch of Loki. Even if Nadia succeeds in stabilizing the molecule, I am walking away.

  Of course, he would much prefer to leave behind a stabilized molecule. That would allow him to sell his shares and retire in plain sight. The alternative—should Nadia come up empty—would force him to go into hiding.

  But one way or another, stabilized Loki or not, by this time next month Luc Monnet would be in France.

  He found himself whistling contentedly—when was the last time he had whistled?—as he waited impatiently for the last test subject to be paid and shoved out the door.

  Luc wanted to get home. He had wine to pack.

  3

  "This can't be true," Nadia said, her mouth going dry.

  "Take it or leave it," Jack said with a shrug.

  Nadia stared at him in dismay. Jack had dropped into the diabetes clinic unannounced this morning and said he had a progress report. Nadia had brought him back to her office where they could have privacy. He'd sat down and begun telling her this surreal tale about Dr. Monnet sneaking off to some warehouse in Brooklyn where he oversaw a group of men who bashed walls and each other…

  How could she accept such a bizarre tale from a near-stranger? It was too much. Insane.

  Jack looked tired. She wondered if he might be into drugs, hallucinogens maybe. That would explain his story.

  "I don't mean to doubt your word, but—"

  "I think he was testing Berzerk," Jack said.

  "What's that?"

  "Street name for a new designer drug I've been hearing about."

  "An illegal drug?" Nadia felt a surge of anger. She wanted to ask him if he'd been sampling some himself, but bit it back in time. "Oh, now you've gone too far!"

  "I saw it in action the other night," Jack said. "During the preppy riot. The way Monnet's 'participants' acted last night reminded me of those homicidal preps I saw."

  "But not Dr. Monnet!"

  Jack shrugged again. "You wanted a connection between your doc and the Serb. There you go."

  Feeling queasy, Nadia leaned back in her chair and squeezed her eyes shut. Milos Dragovic, reputedly dealing in anything illegal that turned a buck… Dr. Monnet, partner in a drug firm… a relationship between the two of them, hostile or not, what else could it be but drugs?

  "All right," she said, opening her eyes. "If he is involved with this Berzerk stuff—and I'm not for an instant conceding that he is—it's because he has no choice."

  "Whatever you say."

  "You think he's a willing participant, don't you."

  "I have no agenda here. I'm just telling you what I saw."

  "And I saw Dragovic roughing up Dr. Monnet!"

  "Could have been a disagreement over how to split the profits."

  Nadia clenched her teeth to hold back a scream. "He is not in this willingly. Dragovic is holding something over him."

  Jack leaned forward. "OK. I'll work on that end. But maybe you ought to be nosing into things at your end. If your guy is manufacturing something illegal like Berzerk, he's probably using company equipment to do it."

  "All the production is done in… Brooklyn."

  Jack was nodding. "Yeah. Right down the street from the punch 'em-up warehouse."

  Nadia sighed. "It looks bad, doesn't it."

  "It do. It do indeed."

  "We have to help him." An idea began to take root. "What does this Berzerk do?"

  "Not sure, but from what I've seen, it makes you act crazy violent."

  "Really. Why on earth would someone want to take something like that?"

  "A logical question. But logic doesn't enter much into the druggie world. If it feels good, do it—and screw the side effects."

  "Can you get me some?"

  Jack's eyes narrowed. "Why? You want to try it?"

  "Not a chance. But I have a machine at work that can analyze anything. If I can identify this Berzerk, I can run a match for it in the company's database and see if there's any record of it."

  "And if there is?"

  She sighed. "Then we'll have one piece of the puzzle."

  Jack pushed himself up. "I'll get on it. Call you when I find some."

  A black mood settled over Nadia as she watched Jack go. Despite the warmth of her office she felt cold; she thrust her hands under her arms to warm them. Jack was supposed to help Dr. Monnet, yet he seemed to be gathering evidence against him. She had a bad feeling that this was not leading to a good place.

  4

  Doug couldn't help but laugh as he poured himself another shot of Old Pulteney fifteen year old. As a rule, eight o'clock in the morning was a tad early for scotch, but what did "early" mean if you'd been up all night?

  He'd done it. It had taken him until dawn, but finally he'd tracked the GEM Basic R and D money to its final resting place.

  "Ho-ho-ho!" he said, toasting himself. "You are a clever one!"

  But what good is a triumph if you can't share it?

  He called Nadj at the clinic. First thing every morning, rain or shine, weekday or weekend, that was where she could be found. But the nurse told him she'd already left. He tried her home but her mother said she was at the lab and expected to be there all day.

  At the lab? On a Saturday? And then he remembered the million-dollar bonus offer. Yeah, he'd be working Saturdays and Sundays for something like that.

  He called her extension at GEM but she didn't pick up, so he left her an enigmatic voice mail.

  "Hi, honey, it's me. I did it. I found the answer to the question. I'll tell you the whole story at lunch. Meet me twelve-thirty at the Gramercy Tavern and we'll celebrate. Until then, think about hocking everything you own, begging, borrowing, and stealing every dime you can lay your hands on, and putting it all into GEM stock. Love ya. Bye."

  He grinned as he hung up. That ought to pique her interest.

  He yawned. Now for some shut-eye. God, he needed sleep.

  Doug finished his scotch, turned off the computer, turned off his cell phone, disabled the ringer on the house phone, and headed for the bed.

  No interruptions, just sleep, sleep, sleep.

  5

  "A dealer?" Abe said. "Plenty of dealers you know already. Why should you want to know another?"

  He finished slathering margarine onto one of the kaiser rolls Jack had brought and took a huge bite.

  "Not just any dealer," Jack said. "I need a guy who really knows his stuff. Somebody heavy into designer shit, who knows his chemistry and knows who's making what."

  Jack had told Abe about his visit with Robert Butler and about the scene at the warehouse last night.

  "A chemist, you say." Abe thought as he chewed.

  "The best man I can think of is Tom Terrific."

  Jack had heard the name but never met him. "I thought he was mostly crystal meth."

  "That's his mainstay, but he dabbles in other things as well."

  "Think he'd know about Berzerk?
"

  "If it's out there and people are buying it, Tom has probably figured how to make it."

  "Sounds like my man. Where can I find him?"

  "Always a good question with Tom. He tends to keep on the move." Abe pulled a little notebook from his shirt pocket and flipped through it. "Here it is."

  "You keep his number?"

  "He's a customer."

  Jack could see why a speed merchant would want to keep some firepower handy.

  "What did he buy?"

  Abe did his baleful stare over the tops of his glasses. "A pizza, what else."

  "Come on, Abe. I just like to know what people are carrying out there."

  "You want I should tell people what you buy?"

  "Well, no, but—"

  "Then such things you shouldn't ask. I am a priest and the basement is my confessional."

  Jack made a face but said no more. It had been worth a try.

  Abe dialed a number, spoke for half a minute, then hung up.

  "He'll see you, but it'll cost."

  "I've got to pay just to talk to him?"

  "He says he's a busy man. A hundred for fifteen minutes. A consultation, he calls it. Two o'clock this afternoon. And he wants me along because you he doesn't know."

  "A hundred for you too?"

  "I'm free," Abe said, taking another bite of the kaiser and sprinkling poppy seeds all over the counter.

  As Jack mentally ran over the rest of the day, he watched Parabellum hop around pecking up the black specks and idly wondered if birds got high on poppy seeds. If Tom Terrific was at two, he'd have time to get out to Sal's and arrange another shipment of party favors for tomorrow night's soiree at Dragovic's.

  He wondered how the Serb's place had looked at first light this morning. Couldn't have been pretty.

  6

  It's still a shambles, Milos thought as he stood at his bedroom window and surveyed the grounds below. But not as much as it was an hour ago, and much more of a shambles than it will be an hour from now.

  The workmen were making good progress. It hadn't been easy to find them. Milos had spent a lot of time on the phone last night threatening, cajoling, and calling in a slew of favors to get these men out here on a holiday weekend, not to mention offering triple time and a 30 percent on-time completion bonus.

  But the place had to be fixed up in time for tomorrow night's party. He could not allow the beautiful people of the Hamptons to see his place in anything less than perfect shape.

  And he could not allow a word of last night's madness to reach the press. He had sworn his staff and last night's guests to secrecy. Most of them would comply, the former out of fear, the latter because none of them had acquitted himself particularly well during the tumult.

  As for today's workers, they would see the tires and the damage but he doubted they could reconstruct what had happened. They'd probably say that the Slippery Serb must throw some awfully strange parties.

  Of their own accord, Milos's hands knotted in fists. Who?

  The question had plagued him all night. That he'd been attacked by a group calling itself the East Hampton Environmental Protection Committee had seemed absurd at first; yet when he considered that the assault had been aimed at his pride rather than his person, it became more believable. Whoever had planned it had not only guts, but a cruel and crafty mind. And that would be more in line with a clique of outraged locals than one of his hard-assed competitors. They would have dropped napalm.

  "May I come in?"

  Milos turned at Mihailo's voice. He sounded excited.

  "What is it, Mihailo?"

  The communications man stepped through the doorway and glanced about through his thick glasses. Probably hoping to catch Cino undressed, Milos thought. But after watching her in that thong bikini she'd worn around the pool yesterday—and Milos had no doubt every male in the household had ogled her at one point or another—what was left to see?

  "Remember that license plate we saw on the surveillance tape last night? I had a contact in the DMV trace it."

  "And?"

  "It's registered to a Gia DiLauro who lives on Sutton Square in the city."

  "You mean Sutton Place."

  "That was what I thought," he said, running a hand through his thinning hair. "So I checked. Sutton Square is a little cul-de-sac off Sutton Place at the very end of East Fifty-eighth Street. Eight town houses at most. Very exclusive."

  "But didn't you tell me the call was made from a pay phone in the East Eighties?"

  Mihailo shrugged. "That's where the trace went."

  Milos remembered the drab Buick on the tape last night. "A very ordinary car for someone at such a fancy address."

  "I know. Could be a live-in maid."

  "Could be."

  Milos pondered this. If the owner had been from Jackson Heights or Levittown, he'd have dropped it. But if this Gia DiLauro was rich enough or connected to someone rich enough to live in an exclusive spot on the East Side—only thirty blocks from where that arrogant shit called last night—she easily could be connected to someone with a place out here. So she or someone close to her could be involved with the so-called protection committee.

  "Tell Vuk and Ivo I want to see them."

  They'd seen the couple on the beach. He'd send them into the city to check on this Gia DiLauro. If she was the same woman, they'd find out the name of the man.

  And if he or she was in any way involved…

  Milos ground a fist into his palm until it hurt.

  The phrase scorched earth lingered in his mind.

  7

  "… Until then, think about hocking everything you own, begging, borrowing, and stealing every dime you can lay your hands on, and putting it all into GEM stock. Love ya. Bye."

  The words echoed in Nadia's head as she walked down a sunny Park Avenue South—a different Park Avenue from the Waldorf neighborhood farther uptown. The sidewalks here were lined with office buildings and businesses instead of luxury residences.

  She'd listened to the message twice on her voice mail before deleting it. Doug had sounded so strange. He'd probably been up all night, and that would explain it, but still… she wasn't sure she liked this manic side of him.

  And worse, this was distracting her from her work. Not that she was getting anywhere. She'd spent yesterday and all this morning reviewing Dr. Monnet's failed approaches, and it seemed to her that he'd exhausted every possible route. Then she'd reviewed her predecessor's notes and seen that Macintosh had come up with new approaches, but none of those had worked either. Where to go from here? It was frustrating the hell out of her.

  Nadia walked along tree-lined Twentieth Street until she came to the Gramercy Tavern. She wound her way through the crowded front room with its bar, wooden floors, and bare tables, and spotted Doug waving to her from the rear dining area. Carpeting and tablecloths back here.

  She smelted scotch on his breath as he kissed her and pulled out her chair. His eyes were bright with triumph.

  "How did you ever get a table?" she said as she sat.

  The Gramercy was one of the city's hotter restaurants.

  "Holiday weekend," Doug said. "All the regulars are out of town, I guess. Can I order you a chardonnay?"

  Nadia shook her head. "Just an iced tea." She was heading back to the lab after this.

  "Aw, come on," he said, grinning. "We're celebrating."

  "Celebrating what, Doug?" she said, feeling an edge creep into her voice. "You call and leave this strange message, then when I try to call back I can't get through on any of your phones—"

  "I pulled an all-nighter and was trying to get some sleep."

  "I figured that, but meanwhile I'm left in the dark."

  Doug reached across and took her hand. "Sorry. I've had tunnel vision for the last couple of days. A hack isn't something you can snack at-—you know, do a little bit now, take a break, come back and do a little bit latter. It's like a supercomplex juggling act where you keep trying to get more and
more balls into the air. Once you've got them moving and you've found the rhythm, you've got to stay with them. If you stop, even for a short nap, you lose the cadence and they all come crashing down. Then you've got to go back and start again with ball one."

  The waiter arrived with their menus and a bread basket. Doug ordered Nadia's iced tea.

  "But why go to all that trouble?" she said when they were alone again. "You're risking—"

  "Because I've been lied to," he said, his mouth taking a grim turn. "They were keeping things from me and I was determined to find out what."

  "And are you satisfied now?" Nadia said, squeezing his hand and praying he'd say yes.

  He shook his head. "Not completely."

  "Oh, Doug," Nadia said, feeling her heart sink, "you're not going to keep this up, are you?"

  He grinned. "Nope. It's too wearing. I still don't know why the company's paying me commissions on sales I'm not making, but at least they're not cheating me, so I can let that go. And I did learn one answer I was looking for—the one that concerns you—so I feel I can back off with my pride intact."

  A twinge of alarm ran down Nadia's neck. "Me? What concerns me?"

  "Your subsidiary. I found where all the research and development money is going."

  Nadia couldn't help but ask. "Where?"

  "Stock." Another grin. He looked like a little boy who'd found pirate treasure. "They're using every spare penny to buy back company stock." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "And let's not mention the company by name, OK? Just in case."

  Nadia glanced around. In case what? He didn't think he was being followed, did he?

  "No, I'm not paranoid," he said, as if reading her mind, "but you never know." He straightened. "Anyway, I matched the timing of the stock purchases to a graph of the stock price, and it seems that every time the price takes a little dip, they buy up a bunch of it."