Dust to Dust

by James M. Thompson

  Kevin, tired of studying in the dining room, headed back to the lab. He turned the corner in the corridor just in time to see Captain Sohenshine leaning over and locking the door to their lab.

  He quickly stepped back around the corner and waited for a few moments. When he peeked around the corner, Sohenshine was headed the other way.

  What the hell was he doing in our office? Kevin asked himself.

  He hurried down the hall and went into the lab. After looking around for a moment, he put his hand on Kat’s laptop and noticed it was still warm.

  That son of a bitch is spying on us, he thought, vowing to tell Kat about it first thing in the morning.

  CHAPTER 14

  It took Dr. Tom Alexander two weeks to clear his surgery and on-call schedule to the point that he could fly Ashby’s jet back to Houston and arrange a dinner meeting with his nephew Kevin Palmer.

  Tom picked Kevin up at his apartment near the University of Houston in his Mercedes 500SL. He kept the vehicle at the private airport where Ashby’s jet was hangared to use on his frequent visits to Houston. Since the evening was balmy, he had the top down.

  Kevin slipped into the passenger seat and gave a low whistle of approval at the fancy ride. “Wow, Uncle Tom, this is some sweet automobile.”

  Tom glanced at him as he pulled out of the parking lot. “You like it, huh?”

  Kevin laughed. “Who in their right mind wouldn’t?”

  Tom nodded. “Well, after dinner, I might just have a way for you to get one just like it.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind, that’s a tale for dessert.”

  Kevin stared at his uncle for a moment, then asked, “Where are we going for dinner?”

  “The Reef. The chef is an old acquaintance of mine, and they happen to have the best seafood in the state, outside of Corpus Christi, of course.”

  When Tom tossed the keys to the Mercedes to the valet, he said, “Try to park it where it won’t get dinged and I’ll double your tip.”

  “Yes, sir!” the valet exclaimed as he got behind the wheel with a wide grin.

  When they approached the hostess, she inquired, “Do you have a reservation, sir?”

  Tom shook his head and handed her a one-hundred-dollar bill. “No, but could you let Chef Bryan Caswell know that an old friend is here and would like to tell him hello?”

  The hostess made the bill disappear, grabbed two menus, and said, “Certainly, sir. Shall I give him a name?”

  “Just tell him Dr. Tom is in town for the evening and is starving.”

  She smiled and led them to a corner booth near a wide window with a spectacular view of downtown.

  After they were seated, a waiter appeared and asked if they would like something to drink.

  “I believe we’ll start with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame,” Tom said.

  “Very good, sir!” the waiter said.

  Kevin, who was perusing the wine menu, raised his eyebrows. “Jesus, Uncle Tom, that’s two hundred dollars a bottle.”

  Tom smiled. “Yeah, it works out to about fifty bucks a glass.”

  Kevin shook his head. “I knew doctors made a lot of money, but this is ridiculous.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Kevin. A patient of mine is treating us to this meal.”

  “Oh?”

  “Like I said, that’s a story for dessert.”

  Just then, a man dressed in chef’s whites appeared at the table and spread his arms wide, grinning.

  Tom stood, and the two men embraced, then spent five or six minutes catching up on what the two of them had been doing since they’d last seen each other.

  Finally, Tom gestured to Kevin. “Chef Bryan, this is my favorite nephew, Kevin Paxton.”

  “Very happy to meet you, Kevin,” Chef Caswell said. “I want you to know, your uncle saved my life a few years ago, when I was down in Corpus shopping for some fresh fish for my restaurant.”

  “Now, Bryan,” Tom said, a depreciating smile on his face, “I did nothing of the sort. It was just a minor arrhythmia . . . easily corrected.”

  Caswell placed both hands over his heart. “Bullshit, my friend. It was a miracle you performed, and you know it.”

  He stepped back and added, “And since the hostess told me you were ‘starving,’ I will leave you to your dinner and perhaps we can get together afterward for an espresso and some more gabbing.”

  As he left, the two men read the menu and then ordered. Tom ordered seafood and andouille sausage gumbo as an appetizer while Kevin chose the jumbo crab cake. For their entrées, Tom had grilled swordfish with crispy fries and Sir-acha remoulade, and Kevin picked the spice-crusted snapper and fried mac and cheese.

  Before the waiter left to turn in their orders, he poured them both generous goblets of champagne.

  As Kevin sipped, he frowned momentarily.

  Catching the expression, Tom asked, “You look worried about something.”

  “I am trying to remember the Bible classes Mom made me take as a youngster,” Kevin replied.

  “Bible classes?”

  Now Kevin grinned. “Yeah, I’m sure in there somewhere was a parable about a ‘fatted calf’ and what he was being fattened up for.”

  Tom laughed and raised his glass in a toast. “Nothing bad, I assure you, Kevin.” He took a sip and then added, with a mischievous grin, “In fact, it is just the opposite.” He held up his hand before Kevin could reply. “Remember, for dessert only.”

  When their food finally came, Kevin couldn’t help but moan with delight at the delicious fare. He pointed his fork at Tom and said, “This is absolutely the best meal I have ever had . . . bar none.”

  Later, over bananas Foster for Tom and cherries jubilee for Kevin, Tom finally got to the purpose of his invitation to dinner.

  “A couple of weeks ago,” he said, around a mouthful of bananas, “I was in town visiting a patient and took your mother out to lunch.”

  Kevin nodded, still chewing.

  “At lunch, in talking about you and your work and school and other activities, she happened to mention that you had told her that your doctor employer had been making major breakthroughs in the science of life prolongation, as well as increasing mental acuity—and even that you all had had some success with reversing various effects of aging.”

  Kevin frowned and put his fork down forcibly. “Damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have told her anything about our research.” He shook his head. “I signed a nondisclosure document, and I will be in severe legal trouble if Kat . . . I mean, Dr. Williams finds out that I told anyone about our work.”

  Tom held up his hands. “Don’t worry about that, Kevin. No one needs to know you mentioned your research project to anyone.”

  Kevin wiped cherry juice off his chin and replied, “Then just why did you bring it up, Uncle Tom? I am not a fool, and I know this wonderful dinner and champagne is leading up to something.”

  Tom pursed his lips. “Okay, you are right. I do have a proposal to put to you, and I hope you’ll let me finish my speech before you comment . . . okay?”

  Kevin just nodded, a suspicious look still on his face.

  Tom signaled the waiter and asked him for two espressos, then he got right down to it.

  “I have this patient, right here in Houston, who happens to be one of the ten richest men in the country, and probably no worse than twentieth in the entire world.”

  He paused while the waiter placed two cups of thick dark coffee in front of them, along with a tray of cinnamon, cream, chocolate shavings, and lemon rind.

  After their coffees were prepared to their satisfaction, Tom took a small sip and continued. “A few years ago, this man, who is in his late seventies, had a rather severe stroke. I was nearby and treated him, and in his opinion, I saved his life. He was left paralyzed on the left side and is essentially bedridden.”

  Kevin nodded, beginning to see where this was headed.

  “Now, in gratitude, this gentleman pays me almost a
million dollars a year and provides me with his own personal jet so I can fly back and forth from Corpus Christi to here to continue to care for him.”

  Kevin smiled wryly. “No wonder you can order fifty-dollars-a-glass champagne.”

  “Among other things. Now, when your mother told me about your progress, I mentioned the same to this man.”

  “Damn it, Uncle Tom, you had no right to do that!”

  Tom nodded. “You’re right, Kevin. I had no right to do that, but I owe this man a great deal and I thought that if there was any hope that your project might help him to live a life worth living, then I had an obligation to see what he thought about it.”

  “And what did this mystery patient say?”

  Tom leaned back and took another sip of his espresso, looking at Kevin over the rim of the cup. “He essentially said that if you could provide him with this formula, he would see to it that you never had to want for anything for the rest of your life, and that he would make both of us incredibly rich.”

  “What?” Kevin asked with a sneer. “He’s going to make us millionaires?”

  Tom wagged his head. “No, Kevin, more like billionaires.”

  Kevin sank back in his seat. “Holy shit!”

  Tom laughed. “Holy shit, indeed, my boy.”

  “But listen, Uncle Tom,” Kevin began, and he explained that the serum so far had only worked on rats, and the successful experiments had only been going on for a few weeks.

  “I know it is early times yet, Kevin, and that much more experimentation will have to be done, including at least one human trial before I can recommend this treatment to my patient, but I wanted to know if you are on board with working with me to push the research trials as quickly as you can. Especially the human trial aspect of it.”

  Kevin spread his arms. “But I’m just a lab assistant. I have no power to get Dr. Williams to speed up her research . . . plus, she’s now working with this other doctor, a real asshole, and he would never take any suggestions from me.”

  Tom leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, talking low to make sure no one could overhear him. “Money, especially huge amounts of money, has a way of turning assholes into pussycats, Kevin. What if you went to your Dr. Williams and told her you had a relative who was fabulously wealthy and just looking for a place to invest untold millions of dollars—if the project was worthwhile.”

  As Kevin started to protest, Tom held up his hand. “No, you don’t have to tell her we know about the project yet. Entice her and Dr. Asshole with the possibility of their project being generously funded by someone who would never look over their shoulders and would give them complete freedom to continue as they wished, as long as they moved rapidly. If I know anything about medical researchers, they are always champing at the bit over inadequate funding and overzealous interference with their work.”

  Kevin stroked his chin. “I could tell them that this fabulously wealthy individual is elderly and has a poor quality of life, and that when you told me about him, I immediately thought that he might be interested in funding their research, but that I knew not to say anything until I asked if they were interested . . .”

  “Exactly right!” Tom exclaimed.

  Kevin finished off his espresso, licked his lips, and said, “Give me a few days to ease into the subject, and I’ll let you know if they are interested.”

  Tom put his hand on Kevin’s arm. “Make sure to let them know that we are not interested in controlling or owning the formula, just so long as my patient is the second human to get to use it, assuming, of course, that the first human subject survives and is benefited by the formula.”

  * * *

  The same night that Kevin and Tom were out at dinner, Sheila opened the door to her apartment to find Williams and Ramsey sitting at her dining room table. The two were wearing party hats and had a magnum of champagne set out on the table with three glasses.

  As she stood in the door and took in the scene, Sheila thought she’d never seen anyone who looked as quite out of place there as did Dr. Kaitlyn Williams . . . She had a party hat on and a glass of champagne in front of her, but her expression was more one of embarrassment than of frivolity.

  Well, Sheila thought, if anyone could make someone more uncomfortable than her husband, Burton, she had yet to meet him.

  Sheila shook her head and smiled, then set her briefcase down and sat at the table. “To what do I owe the pleasure of two such . . . er, happy and carefree people plying me with champagne?”

  Kat sighed and nudged Ramsey’s shoulder. “You tell her, Burton,“ she said with a hiccup, and Sheila knew that the two had started without her. “After all, she’s your wife.”

  Ramsey grinned a silly grin. “We’ve done it, babe. We’ve hit the mother lode. Over the past two weeks, we have tested dozens of rats with our combined formulas, and after a couple of false starts, we finally have the correct proportions of each formula so that our rats are getting not only younger and smarter, but healthier and more disease-resistant, as well!”

  While he talked, Ramsey popped the cork on the champagne, spewing bubbles all over them, and refilled all three glasses. Ramsey dissolved in laughter, and Kat and Sheila grinned. He handed Sheila her glass, and then, after clinking their glasses in a toast, they all began to drink the sparkling liquid.

  Finally, Sheila held up her hand, a tiny golden mustache of champagne on her upper lip. “Okay, guys. Tell me all about it. I want all the details of this magical brew you two have cooked up.”

  With much bantering and interrupting by Ramsey, he and Kat told her of their work. How they had tried different quantities and mixtures of the two serums until they had arrived at the optimal dosage of each component. And then they described how the serum seemed to regress the rats back in age to early adulthood, and how after that, they began to age again at a normal rate, but to be much more intelligent and healthy. They even seemed to have an increased resistance to diseases and illnesses, Kat informed her seriously, forgetting that Ramsey had already mentioned it.

  “So,” asked Sheila, “that’s it, then? You’ve done it . . . you’ve perfected the serum. Now what?”

  The pair looked at each other, momentarily sobered. “Well, uh . . . I don’t know,” said Kat, looking into her champagne as if the answer were in the glass. It was obvious to Sheila that Kat and Burton had had some disagreements on the next course they should take.

  Ramsey scratched his head. “Christ, I guess first we’ll have to test it on higher mammals, like dogs or monkeys. See if it works on them like it does on the rats, and if it does, I suppose the next step would be to try it on humans.”

  When he said this, Kat again lowered her gaze, showing her disapproval without saying a word.

  Sheila held up her hand. “Wait just a minute, guys. To do human experiments, you’ll have to get the FDA involved.”

  Ramsey sat up, his face blossoming scarlet. “No way! There is no way I’m going to involve those pricks. To do that, we’d have to give up the serums to the center, and then they’d cut us out of it.”

  Sheila glanced at Kat. “Do you agree with Burton, Kat?”

  “Yes,” said Kat, “I agree that to notify BioTech of our discovery would be the wrong thing to do, but not for the reasons Burton has.”

  As Ramsey glared at Williams, Sheila cocked her head to the side, “Oh, and what are your reasons for stealing the work that BioTech paid you to do for them?”

  Kat blushed and looked again at her glass of champagne as she answered. “Burton is afraid BioTech will take our discovery and only pay us a pittance for all of our work, while they make millions off of the formula. I don’t care about the money, but I’m afraid all of our work would be for nothing, because BioTech would take years and years and thousands of trials before anyone would be able to benefit from our serums, and then they’d probably sell it to the government and only certain important people would be allowed access to the formula.”

  Ramsey thought for a moment, t
rying to figure out some way to spin this so he wouldn’t sound like such an asshole to Sheila. “Kat is right, Sheila. If BioTech gets its hands on something this revolutionary, there is no way they’ll be able to keep the government out of it, and we all know what happens when the Feds get involved in medical innovations.”

  He glanced from Sheila to Kat. “We’ll just have to figure out some other way, some way that no one but us will know whether it works or not.”

  Sheila stood up, holding her hands out in front of her. “Wait a minute. I don’t think I want to hear this.” She turned and started to leave the room. “Don’t talk to me about stealing someone else’s work and doing unauthorized experiments on human beings. I can’t go along with that.”

  After she left, Ramsey put his finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he whispered drunkenly. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

  Kat stood and walked unsteadily toward the door, a worried look on her face. “Yes. The only trick now is to find some way to get the higher mammals on which to run our tests without BioTech finding out about it.”

  Ramsey opened the door, leaning on the doorjamb. “Yeah, and we’re gonna have to do it without the help of our assistants, too, ’cause loose lips sink ships.”

  Kat nodded as she walked down the sidewalk, but she knew she’d never leave Kevin out of her plans. He’d been too good of a helper to her, and she trusted him implicitly, though she knew she’d have to reemphasize to him the importance of secrecy about their upcoming experiments.

  * * *

  When Kaitlyn got home, she stood in the doorway for a moment after she turned on the light and waited for Angus to come running to greet her as he always did when she’d been away.

  After a moment, frowning when he didn’t appear, she gave a short whistle and walked through the living room toward the bedroom, where she kept his bed.

  She took a deep breath when she turned on the light and saw him lying in bed, his big brown eyes fixed on her, his mouth open and panting while his tail wagged back and forth.

  She rushed over to kneel by his bed, took his head in her hands, and rubbed her face against his. “What’s the matter, big fellow?” she crooned. “Your arthritis keeping you in bed tonight?”