“Melvina said she’s still publishing on the web.”
“Sure, her and every college kid in the nation. How many people consider MySpace the go-to place for investigative journalism?”
Daci bugged her eyes and went slack-jawed. Zane apologized. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up like last time.”
“Last time” referred to her and Terri’s apparently failed plan. By Sunday evening, frustration had extinguished Daci’s shiny new vigilance. Terri had called the big local media outlets, but not even the major alternative press wanted her story. None of them claimed not to believe her, but they all expressed concern over the liability of running a story like that without hard evidence, and sources willing to be revealed and quoted.
L.A. Bi-Weekly let her run an ad, stating she was planning a class action against Survivanoia and inviting anyone who had lost friends or relatives to Flower Flu to contact her. So far, though, it seemed as though the only people she’d gotten calls from were the lonely and/or schizophrenic deviants who read LABW for the sex ads in the back. Neither of the two mainstream papers would accept the ad, again citing liability.
Daci sighed. She leaned her head back against the velvet back of her sleigh bed. “Once again I am out of ideas.”
“That’s not completely true. You just don’t like your options.”
“Sydney has a point, okay? Torching a lab has potential consequences beyond those intended.”
“Off hours.”
“A lot of places run twenty-four seven. And even if they don’t, there can always be the stray researcher whose burning question has him performing solo vigils. Also who knows what else they could be doing in there that could be unleashed on a hapless public.”
Now Zane sighed. He draped an arm around her hips, ran his hand over her taught stomach. “Desperate times.”
“What is it with you and Terri and these bumper sticker quotes? Destroying a research lab is at cross purposes with my intentions. Besides, I’ve got other conundrums to attend to. Who developed the virus? And the missing NOx credits?”
“Laurel is working on that stuff for you, girl, remember?”
“Is she getting anywhere?”
Zane’s hand stilled. He tapped his fingers against her belly.
“You are sure fighting an awful lot of battles.”
“Is that a no?”
He pulled himself up, bent an elbow and leaned his head against it. “I’m positive she is, and I trust she’ll be in touch when she has something conclusive. I’m not using her for my current project, so your assignment is all she’s working on.”
“Speaking of your current project, just when are you going to get back to your movie movie? You said you had all the actors in place.”
“I do. Now I need the money in place.”
Daci borrowed a phrase from her father. “Weeds getting higher than the garden?”
Zane flashed his broad grin. “You mean did I forget that I want to make a real movie?”
“Life can get on top of us all. I’ve been hearing from you for over a year now about this art film, but all you’ve done is churn out more porn.”
Zane dismissed this with his deep laugh. “Porn makes me money, and I plan to use that money to make art.” He tapped his forehead with a finger. “The diamond is still there. For me, fewer battles, more wins.”
“So you’re saying I’m spreading myself too thin?”
“I don’t know how you work, I only know what works for me. And what I observe. From here you seem to be digging trenches with your spinning wheels but not actually getting anywhere.”
Daci glared at him.
He gave her another big grin. “I could be wrong!”
“I just had this conversation with Terri four days ago.”
Zane blinked his big grey eyes at her.
She paused then relented. “It’s just that I feel I can make some progress on the other issues. Especially the NOx credits. I just know it’s got something to do with Geo.”
“I crossed that guy’s path today.”
“Geo? My Geo?”
“Yeah. He was shooting at B.C.’s beach house.”
“Where you’re filming?”
“Yeah. Apparently he thought he was filming.”
“Did you kick his ass?”
“Nah, just used big words. Scared him good!”
Daci laughed, and Zane kissed her.
“He owes me something, though,” he said. “A connection. I suspect he’s going to try and blow me off.”
“Come visit him at work! That’ll shock him good. Make it look like coincidence. You can take me to lunch!”
“Oh I could, could I?”
“Speaking of coincidence, you’ll never guess who I met in the elevator at GrandMama’s.”
Zane yawned his sleepy yawn, different than his morning yawn, finished with a satisfied hum. “Then just tell me, Love.”
“Jared Ferryman.”
“The Ferryman?”
“Yup. He’s still just as cute.”
“Isn’t he a little young for the nursing home?”
“You are so funny that I forgot to laugh.”
“Oh, I’ll make you laugh.” He came at her, fingers wriggling.
“No tickling!” Daci shrieked, lunging from him.
“All’s fair in love!” Zane snatched her around the waist again, fingers wiggling against her belly and sides. Daci fell in to a giggling heap against his chest.
Zane kissed her again and she returned it in kind, pleased that he’d spoken of love, and happy that his affections were borne of his appreciation for her, as a person, as a flawed individual struggling with immediate problems. These things drew Zane to her. Not her heritage. To Zane, she was a simply woman to be loved, not a mantelpiece trinket to grant clout to his muddied bloodline.
Daci kissed her lover more deeply. Shoved everything else out of her dizzy head. For the first time in a long time, she dropped all her problems and enjoyed her moment.
CHAPTER 20
Of all the interviews Daci had conducted in her six weeks—six weeks that seemed like months on a good day and decades on the bad—and all the scientists she’d met, this little man was her absolute favorite. The fact of his umbrella—full sized, traditional black with a curved wood handle—this device alone in the stinging heat of Los Angeles told her much: That he believed in himself and his own superstitions for one thing. That he was not uncomfortable standing out as an obvious foreigner for another and, Daci suspected, his insightful recognition that a large inappropriate tool could be used as an effective weapon by a small obvious foreigner if necessity dictated, with little legal consequence.
His madman’s haircut and unique mangling of the English language fascinated Daci and endeared him to her further. But he was unable, really, to express himself in English and somehow fell into German even though that wasn’t his mother tongue either. Daci spoke German so it worked.
Encludsmo Stuckhowsen had phoned Wednesday saying he would like please a speaking session with the Baroness Von Worthington. The remaining employees in HR had been instructed to turn all resumes from scientists over the Baroness, so they forwarded his call thusly. She understood that he invented things and had invented something perhaps her company would be interested in purchasing from him. She scheduled him for her earliest available appointment.
He knocked on her office door just after twelve noon on Friday, as Daci poured herself a glass of wine to compliment her lunch of roast pork with grilled asparagus.
“I am sorry to be early,” he said, hesitating in the doorway. He stood nearly a foot shorter than Daci. His cuffs didn’t quite graze his ankles, revealing sparkling white socks. “The schedule of bus is…ah…confused?”
Daci reassured him
, offered him some food or a glass of wine, both of which he politely declined. She poured him half a glass of wine anyway. He took it from her amid protests, which tasting halted.
“Is Romanian, yes?”
He’d folded an ankle on top of a knee, displaying even more sock, and now leaned a tweed-jacket patched elbow against the horizontal knee—the quintessential professor.
Daci confirmed the wine’s origin, showed him the bottle.
“This serve they where I eat. Romanian restaurant. Difficult to find. The wine, I mean.”
Daci had never heard of a Romanian restaurant in L.A. and asked him about it. The little scientist was not quite sure of the address but gave her good enough directions that she felt confident she’d be able to locate it. He raved about the food, claiming it to be authentic, made by the wife who cooked as if she were cooking for family. “I am supposing they have some family member traveling and fetching wines and vodkas.
“Also there is California company making Old World wines. DVG, they are called. From where they access vines I know not but scheint authentisch.”
“Seems authentic,” he’d said in German and she responded in this language as well.
“Ich bin mit dieser Weinkellerei vertraut. (I am familiar with this winery.) The owner believes these grapes to be the best in the world, and made a point to preserve them before the regions were devastated by war.” Because DVG was of course her father’s winery—Dragomir Von Goethe.
She poured The Doctor another half glass of the rubyliquid. “I’m very fond of Romanian wines,” she told him in German, “but the Georgians are too sweet for me.”
The Doctor told her that Stalin’s favorite wine had been Georgian, and they laughed together at the irony. They spoke of tannins and the influences of the regional soils. How great it was that someone had had the foresight to conserve this important piece of history.
--But climate change threatens all the California wineries now, Daci related. --They are seeking to genetically modify the grapes to prevent the necessity of uprooting the vineyards.
--Modification could be done, for sure. But to ensure maintaining authentic flavor, it’s better probably to graft. Also better to alleviate public fears and preserve mystique.
“Not as fast, though.”
“Richten” The Doctor agreed. “Sie viel langsameres, ja aus. (True. Much slower, yes.) But with the rise of your Flower Flu, people have become quite wary of anything that changes genetic structure of plant material.”
Once he got on this topic he rode it: --Perhaps you can tell me (möglicherweise können Sie erklären mir), Plants have 40-60% of the same genetic material as humans, which of course enabled the spread of Flower Flu. But it also narrows down the areas of research for treatment. How is it there is no treatment or vaccination yet found, when it seems fairly simple a thing to identify?
His insight struck Daci like an oncoming train. She needed this scientist. Whatever he was selling, she would buy it.
“Tell me about your invention,” she suggested.
In addition to his umbrella, Dr. Stuckhowsen had a briefcase, from which he now retrieved a ream of notes, drawings, and theoretical calculations for something he termed a Pretentio-meter. This little device apparently gauged changes in microatmospheric conditions to assess heart rate, body temperature, electromagnetic activity, etc. Pretentiousness, as a measure of deceit, could then be used to estimate future levels and likelihood of deceit in a person or group of people.
Daci stopped him halfway through and he blinked at her, started to pack up, blank faced. “Nein, nein, nein,” she assured him. --I have a colleague who should hear this for himself!
A tentative smile graced The Doctor’s face.
Daci called Scally, Sydney Ratkovitch Scalinescu, her one-time stepson. He’d somehow made his way to the VP of New Product Development. Daci knew Syd Senior well enough to know he wouldn’t help his son; if the man was there he deserved to be. About that, she felt confident.
Daci could hire The Doctor blindly, but with Scally’s buy-in she would have the camouflage of legitimacy. Scally would give him something banal and corporate to work on while she secretly steered him toward developing, or re-developing, a cure for Flower Flu. Syd senior had no control over anything discovered while she sat at Survivanoia’s helm, that was part of her contracted agreement.
Scally loped in, loose-limbed and open-faced, and any animosity she’d contrived toward him faded. Syd junior seemed to have inherited only the positive aspects of his father. Humble, hardworking, eager to learn and to please.
She got him seated, explained about The Doctor without mentioning the Flower Flu business, and had Dr. Stuckhowsen start at the beginning. Daci translated his German into English for Scally, who frowned in thought and nodded in understanding.
“I’d be more confident with a prototype, is all.”
“Can’t you assess from the plans whether it’s workable?”
“Uh, I’m not that good yet.”
Daci appreciated both Scally’s honesty and the confidence expressed in his qualifier. “We can have Akira build a prototype in time for the next sales meeting.”
Scally shrugged, noncommittal and hard to read. For Daci it constituted one of those rare moments when she wished she didn’t intimidate someone.
She requested that Dr. Stuckhowsen leave them enough data to build one of these analyzers, with an agreement—in writing—that both the data and the completed prototype were his property should Survivanoia choose not to purchase it from him. She then sent him on his way, with a promise to respond in a few week’s time.
* * *
“It can’t be that easy.” This from Terri, five days later.
Daci pressed her phone against her ear with her shoulder, lowered the volume on Charlie Parker, and shoved the Hummer into a higher gear as she entered the 5 Freeway from work. “Are you and Zane in the same club? Are you now going to tell me that Encludsmo Stuckhowsen is under investigation for tax evasion?”
“From what you’ve told me the government probably owes him money. But don’t you think it’s a little too convenient? Did GrandMama’s roster of scientists include this guy?”
“No,” Daci admitted.
“So where’d he come from?”
“Under the one-ten and one-oh-five interchange.”
“Get serious!” Terri snapped. “How do you know he’s not a spy? Working for Sydney? How do you know he’s not the very same guy who invented Flower Flu in the first place?”
“If he did develop the virus, or discover it or whatever, then I’d say he’s probably the person who can treat it the fastest, don’t you think?” Daci cursed, nearly dropping the phone as she dodged in front of a black SUV. “My internal radar says he’s innocent,” she assured Terri. “And I’ve checked said radar several times.”
She had, because Daci had felt a shiver like someone walked over her grave, and all the suspicions Terri now vocalized had erupted in Daci’s head during her interview with the little scientist. Daci had repeatedly reviewed every vocal intonation, hand gesture, and facial twitch. Nothing suggested that he had any agenda, ulterior motives, or secret spy plan.
“I also checked UCLA,” she said, “and he did in fact graduate from there.”
“Then why hasn’t he been working?”
“He doesn’t speak English.”
“Please. This is L.A. And the university alone will hire any scientist they can get their hands on. He could speak Martian, they’d find him a grad student to translate. Something’s fishy.”
Daci suppressed a sigh, annoyed at the constant argument her life had become. Earlier in the phone call, she’d argued with Terri about the NOx credits that had shown up yesterday. Chloe brought them into Daci’s office with little in the way of explanation, just that some guy she went on a da
te with had them in his wallet. The girl had handed them over, wallet and all.
Instead of being happy or even intrigued at the mysteriousness of the situation, Terri started on a tirade about Daci’s “distraction from her main purpose!” Daci never even got the chance to inform her that the name in the wallet was her new client, Eddie Bloodworth. Also Geo’s brother. Half-brother. Step? Something.
And think of the Devil there he was, his red Jeep gleaming in her rearview.
“So now we’re back to our original problem,” Terri was rallying yet again. “Even if you have this man develop some new, different treatment which blah err and blah….” Daci couldn’t take it anymore.
“Ter, I gotta go right now, there’s something going on the Freeway.” She hung up without saying goodbye and chucked her phone into her purse. Somewhere after that motion and before she managed to find her sunglasses, Geo smashed into the back of her Hummer and racked up an estimated seven additional cars after him.
* * *
Later on she would look back and recall how things didn’t slow down for her the way she’d always been told they would. One minute she was tearing down the highway with a little red car on her tail, a split second later they were piled in a rumpled heap by the side of the road.
She couldn’t recall how they got there, not the details. Only that she’d brake-checked him before she had her sunglasses…or was it after? And this time he didn’t respond, didn’t slow, plowed his tiny, insubstantial toy car into the yellow brickwall of her modified Hummer. The ensuing pile-up was being blamed not on them but on a pair of rubber-neckers who slowed down to look for blood. This at least lessened her guilt.
In the Emergency Room, she wished they’d crashed sooner; Valencia, where they worked, was a monied suburb with decent hospital care. Here in the Valley, the EMTs were your only hope. They hauled Geo off the freeway to some hellhole of a hospital where they left him on a gurney outside what appeared to be the laundry room because he was “not all dat in-yured, main.”
At his request, Daci unstrapped Geo from the gurney. The EMTs had assessed him, seemed unimpressed, hadn’t put a cervical collar on him, how bad could it be? He sat up, making a noise.
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