by Harry Stein
“No, I did not hear. I am old.” Grasping the arms of his chair, he slowly lifted himself to his feet. “Sometimes I write things, even I do not know why.”
Sabrina understood she was being dismissed. “I’m sorry to keep asking you this, Herr Kistner, but it is important. You have no idea what became of this man Nakano?”
“No, I am very sorry, miss.” Taking up his cane, he started leading the way toward the door.
As they walked, Sabrina withdrew a business card. “Please,” she said, handing it to him, “just one favor. If you do recall anything else, you will let me know?”
He held the card close to his face and squinted; then turned to her in surprise. “The Instituto Regina Elena in Rome?”
She nodded. “Our study had problems. You see, I am no longer welcome at the ACF. Neither is Dr. Logan.”
Logan’s spirits picked up somewhat once they got started. Obliged to spend at least a couple of hours each day in the P-3 facility, strictly isolated from the rest of the lab because it housed live HIV, he had to go about his work with the utmost precision and vigilance; any slip was potentially disastrous. It was not for nothing that, by statute, no sharp objects were permitted in this area, nor could any equipment be removed from it without exhaustive cleaning. Depression was an indulgence he could simply not afford.
Still, demanding as it was, the work would never be challenging. In other labs around the country, the P-3 facilities were thought of as the place to be, epicenters of cutting-edge AIDS research. At HIV-EX, what passed for pioneering work—Severson’s own—had already been completed. The tasks that fell to Dan Logan were less those of a talented biochemist than a competent technician. In essence, his function was simply to prepare solutions of Severson’s material and various anti-HIV drugs; then monitor their progress against a mix of normal cells and live HIV to establish whether HIV-EX technology was an advance over existing delivery systems. He was under no illusion that he would find significant data to support the thesis.
It was only after normal working hours that he was able to spread his creative wings. For at last, he was free to get back to work on Compound J.
Yet the primitive conditions held him back. Before, everywhere he’d worked, lab animals had been available virtually for the asking, with tumors preinduced by support staff. Here, animals had to be ordered from a breeding lab in Massachusetts, untreated. Because they had to be paid for out of pocket, Logan decided on immunosuppressed rats, which at fifteen bucks per (ninety dollars, plus shipping for a minimum order of six), were roughly one third the cost of rabbits. The human tumor cell line necessary to induce cancer had to be obtained through a suburban Washington outfit called the American Tissue Type Collection.
“Christ,” exclaimed Logan, filling out the order form, “from the sound of it, you’d think they sold ladies’ dainty underthings. I won’t even know how to grow the tumors in the damn rats when everything gets here. I’ve never done that kind of shit work.”
“I have,” said Perez dryly.
“Well, there you are,” said Logan, trying to make the best of it, “you’ve got to help me out.”
From the outset, Perez had resisted the notion that he serve as Logan’s assistant. Although he was untutored in high-level chemistry, he was blessed with considerable common sense, so he quickly grasped the obvious: Even if, theoretically, such a miracle drug could be concocted, the chances that it could happen here, in this miserable excuse for a lab, with him, Perez, as the entire support staff, were close to nonexistent.
“The truth is,” he challenged, “you don’t even know what you’re looking for, do you? It’s totally hit and miss.”
“No, the basic structure for the compound is there.”
“There are how many changes you could make in that molecule, ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Even under the best of circumstances, in the best of labs, that could take years. You’re talking needles and haystacks. Hell, hayfields.”
“Except we’ve got a head start—Compound J-lite.”
“Dan, that’s a death drug. It rots livers!”
“I’m not convinced of that.” He paused meaningfully. “Atlas was in with those animals, Ruben, I’d bet my life on it.”
“So what if he was? You’re saying he murdered your bunnies? That’s what you think?”
Absolutely, FUCKING right! Bet the farm on it, buddy! “Well,” he said, a stab at moderation, “it’s what I hope to find out.”
This is why Perez had begun to fear for his friend’s equilibrium. Hadn’t Compound J inflicted enough damage already? The guy’s career was a shambles, his personal life all but nonexistent. Logan was self-destructive, anyone could see it. What better proof could there be than his lunatic insistence on pursuing this thing?
“Look, Dan, why don’t you drop it,” he asked, “at least for now? Just lay low for a while, relax, do your work.”
“I can’t, Ruben. You know why.”
“Right, yeah. Because the stuff works.”
“Yes, because it works! It’s active, we proved that.” He looked at Perez beseechingly. “C’mon, Ruben, I need you, I can’t do this alone.”
Perez didn’t want to be unkind—he just wanted to force upon the guy some semblance of reality. If Logan was determined to play Don Quixote, he wasn’t simply going to slide into the role of Sancho Panza.
“Look,” said Logan, “I know what you’re saying. Really. Don’t you think I know where I stand?”
“I don’t. Tell me.”
Logan exhaled deeply. He thought about this all the time—sadly, bitterly—but he’d never once said it aloud. “I have no standing in the scientific community. None. Even if we make progress with the drug, right now I’m not even in a position to get it tested. It’s possible I never will be.” He looked levelly at his friend. “You know how that bastard Shein always refers to the ACF?”
“How?”
“As the big leagues. Which leaves me, I guess, playing on a sandlot somewhere—washed up by thirty. Satisfied?”
“No,” said Perez softly, his heart going out to his friend, “I’m not satisfied. I feel bad for you, man.”
“Good.” He managed a smile. “I’m not proud, I’ll take the sympathy vote. Think of it as therapy for me, Ruben. Creative play. It’ll keep me off the streets.”
He never formally agreed. But when the rats arrived a few days later, in cardboard boxes with vents and screens, it was Perez who immediately took charge. “What the hell’s wrong with you, they can’t live in these. Go out to a pet shop and get me some decent cages.”
Logan grinned. “Will do.”
“And some Purina Rat Chow.”
Logan paused. “Rat Chow?”
“It costs a little more, but it’s worth it.” He hoisted a rat from its box; hairless and immunosuppressed, it was even less appealing-looking than its sewer-dwelling cousins. “These bastards are condemned, think of it as a couple of weeks’ worth of last meals.”
The breast-tumor cell line came the next day, packed in dry ice, and went immediately into a culture flask. A week later, Logan harvested the cells, mixed them in a saline solution, then watched his friend shoot half a milliliter into a tail vein of each of the six rats.
Within a week, the first tumors were visible; small bumps on the skin surface. Within five days, these would blossom into rock-solid protuberances the color of Bazooka bubble gum.
“Bastard,” observed Perez, sarcastically, studying the doomed animals, “you’ll do anything for science, won’t you?”
“The question is how many times I’m going to have to prove it.” Logan clapped his friend on the back. “C’mon, let’s us mix up a new batch of Compound J-lite.”
The procedure was identical to the one Logan had followed earlier—only this time, without the time pressure, they proceeded at a somewhat more leisurely pace.
They spread it out over five days, remaining in the lab every night that week till ten-thirty or eleven; sometimes, after breakin
g for dinner, returning for two or three hours more. Soon, despite himself, Perez began to find himself engaged by the process. What for Logan was routine, became for Perez a crash course in advanced biological chemistry.
Then, again, he came to it with the one trait that can never be taught: an ability to focus on the right questions.
“What was it about Mrs. Kober?” he asked the last night as they waited for the newly formulated compound to cool down. “Why did she live and none of the others? Why’d the stuff work on her in the first place?”
Logan had been wondering the same thing for nearly five months now. “I don’t know. I’ve gone over and over the charts. I’ve even kept in touch with her to make sure she’s still okay.” He shrugged. “Not even an earache.”
“It has to be something, right? These things don’t happen for no reason at all.”
“No. Only, sometimes the reason’s so complicated we pretend they do. Those are the ones we write off as ‘idiosyncratic.’ ”
“Not me. Not you either.”
He laughed. “You sound like Sabrina. Again.”
“Ah, the highest of all compliments.”
“You think I talk about her too much?” Logan looked concerned. “Do I make an idiot of myself?”
“Nah.” He waved it away. “I’m glad you think I come close to filling her shoes.” He shot his friend a smile. “At least in the lab.”
“Yeah? You don’t know what we’ve done in the lab.” He paused. “Anyway, I hope you don’t get attached to animals like she does.” He indicated the rat cages in the corner. “Almost time to start dosing our friends.”
They hadn’t made love now in nearly three months. She didn’t feel like it—and, obviously, under the circumstances, John didn’t press. “Hey,” she said, laying her book on the bedside table and taking his hand, “it’s a much better excuse than claiming to have a little headache, isn’t it?”
“You never claimed that,” he replied, smiling, once again grateful it hadn’t touched her sense of humor.
“See, I should have. Then you wouldn’t be asking me so many questions now.”
“Does it hurt a lot?” he asked softly.
“There you go again.”
He stroked her face. “Tell me how it feels.”
This stiff-upper-lip stuff was starting to wear her down. “I guess it feels just about the way I look.”
That needed no elaboration. Although her fears about losing her hair had passed—the two cycles of standard chemo had left it only slightly thinner—she’d never imagined anyone could appear so perpetually fatigued. No matter how much sleep she got, it was never enough to dispel the rings beneath her eyes; they’d become as much a part of her revised face as her nose and lips. Nor, it seemed, was sunlight able anymore to lend her pale, tired features so much as a suggestion of their former color.
“So it doesn’t hurt so much now? There’s no actual pain?”
“Only when I look in the mirror.” She reached to him and took his hand. “Oh, John … I try so hard not to complain. Please let me know if I ever start reminding you of Camille.”
He smiled. “I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”
“But you know what? Lots of times I want to complain, I feel melodramatic.” She paused and made the face she always did when annoyed with herself; only, now it seemed less amused than anguished. “See, listen to me now! Oh, God, let’s talk about something else.”
But, of course, more and more these days, attempts at normal conversation—even when the subject at hand was some fascinating detail of his day—tended to lead back to the same place. A story about the latest secret dispatch from the Middle East peace negotiations would end up being about the alleged medicinal properties of hummus; an anecdote about a recalcitrant congressional leader turned into one about a relative of the legislator who’d been treated at the ACF.
Still, she had no need for concern on this score: the crisis had the opposite of a chilling effect on their bond. Though, even with his wife, John had never been particularly comfortable with emotional exchange, generally giving no more of himself than a situation demanded, now, suddenly, he found himself making excuses to linger at her side; more in the present than perhaps he’d ever been.
“You want me to turn out the light?” he asked. “Probably you should get some sleep.”
“Yes, please.”
He reached over and flicked off the bedside lamp.
“John?” she said tentatively.
“What, my love?”
“You don’t have to spend the night in here.”
“I know that.” He paused. “Are you worried about the calls waking you up?”
He’d never liked to defer; he had a standing order that he was to be awakened with any news deemed by aides to be even marginally important.
“No.” She laughed softly. “I just wanted to make sure you really wanted to. You know how I hate pity.”
“Don’t worry, you don’t inspire it.”
“I worry about embarrassing you. I worry about letting you down.”
He rolled over on his side to face her. “Please, Elizabeth, I’m the one who should be embarrassed, putting you through all this pretense. I hate it. Sometimes I just want to say ‘Screw it!’ ”
“No. I’m managing all right. Just keep me away from long flights of stairs. I’m running out of excuses for why I get winded.”
“You mean more to me than anything, you know that.”
She laughed, but the laugh quickly turned into a cough. “No, I don’t! And in the position you’re in, I shouldn’t!”
He kissed her lightly on the cheek and took her in his arms. “You can’t help yourself, can you?—always with a wiseass remark.”
“Not wiseass, true. I don’t try to fool myself, John, and I don’t resent you for it.”
“What is it, anyway, about the stairs? What does your doctor say?”
“Stillman?” He couldn’t see her face, but the distaste was clear in the way she spoke the name. “Something about the tumor preventing fluid from draining from the lungs, so it fills up the air sacs. Actually, it’s pretty interesting, if it were happening to someone else. I wish I didn’t have to always drag things like that out of him.”
“Elizabeth, he’s the absolute best. Everyone says so.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. He is the number-one specialist at the leading cancer institute in the world.”
“Okay. But it’s been an education—and not just about air sacs in the lungs.”
“Meaning?”
“When it comes right down to it, they have no idea how to beat something like this. It’s just trial and error. That’s the big secret they keep from the rest of us.”
They lay in silence for a long while, just holding hands. Suddenly he was aware that she was crying.
“Elizabeth?”
“Never mind. It’s just me being stupid again.”
He took her in his arms again, her face damp against his. “You’re thinking about the children?”
She nodded. “It’s so trite. I so much want to be there when they get married. I want to see my grandchildren.” Burying her face against his shoulder, she began to sob in earnest.
“Shhhh,” he comforted, stroking her hair. “It’s going to be all right.”
They both knew it was a lie, of course. But this time, safe in his arms, terrified, she let it pass.
Perez arrived at the lab before Logan, so it was he who discovered the mess: cabinets ransacked, drawers overturned, broken glass from smashed beakers and test tubes everywhere.
As soon as Logan entered ten minutes later, he went ashen. “Oh, Jesus!”
“Yeah, I know.” Perez surveyed the wreckage. “Don’t worry, they didn’t touch the HIV. They missed the P-3 facility entirely.”
“What about the rats?”
“No problem. Better than ever.”
In fact, already, three days after their first daily dose, th
e animals were showing marked improvement. The tumors had begun to soften and shrink. Just like the first time.
Logan hurried back to the storeroom to see for himself. It was true, the animals were thriving, the cages appeared not to have been touched.
Returning to the lab, he sat down heavily in a chair. “I can’t believe this. I fucking can’t believe it!”
Perez, sweeping up, paused to face him. “Hey, it was junkies, man. It happens—especially in a neighborhood like this.”
“I know.” He knew he had to play this cool; already Perez regarded him as a raving paranoid.
“It’s the world, no way to stop it. We even had a couple of break-ins like this up in Claremont, with all our security.” He resumed sweeping. “All this stuff can be replaced. Just be grateful there wasn’t any real damage.”
Logan couldn’t help himself. “We’ll see.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” But, of course, Perez already knew. “Aw, shit, man, drop it, will you? It was junkies.”
“Why isn’t anything missing?”
“We were lucky.”
“Junkies wouldn’t take anything?”
“I’m not even gonna have this conversation with you, Logan. There’s something sick about it—you turn even good news bad.”
“You’re probably right,” Logan allowed. “I hope so.”
“You’re a paranoid!”
“We’ll see.”
“You know why I was most afraid of this?” demanded Perez, three mornings later, holding one of the six dead rats in his hands.
Logan stared at it. “Because I’d say I was right.”
“Because you’d take this single fucking piece of data—dead rats—and fucking misinterpret it! There ain’t no sabotage, Logan. Face it, the drug killed the animals, just like it did before. It doesn’t work!”
“Then why’s Stillman so interested in it? Why was he willing to forgive everything if we’d work on it for him?”
“Oh, man, can’t you see what a stretch that is? He’s a cancer researcher, he’s gonna be interested in any active drug.”
