She checked her watch. Eight-thirty. Time for her to dress. Quickly she went into the bathroom and showered again, then got into a light linen suit. The telephone rang just as she completed her makeup.
It was Nicolai. “Awake?” he asked.
“And dressed,” she answered.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”
“Shall I wait in the room or would you want to meet in the lobby?”
“The room,” he said. “We’re having dinner at a restaurant. We have some time. Li Chuan will meet us there at ten o’clock.”
“Fine,” she said, putting down the telephone.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Makeup was the true miracle. The lines of weariness disappeared. But that was the surface, inside she was still down. Annoyed with herself despite what she saw in the mirror, she picked up her purse.
She opened the inside zippered pocket and took out a silver pillbox and the vial of cocaine. She popped a white and green capsule upper, swallowing it easily without water, then two good snorts of cocaine in each nostril from the small golden spoon that Judd had given her with her initials on the handle.
She felt the rush almost immediately. The combination brought her back to life. She took a deep breath. Now she began to feel more like herself, stronger, and more capable of coping with whatever was going to happen. She returned the vial and pillbox to her purse and turned to the mirror. The face looked even better. The eyes she saw were bright again.
***
Nicolai waited until the bellboy opened the bottle of champagne, filled the two glasses and left, closing the door behind him. He handed a glass to Sofia and held up his own to her. “I apologize,” he said.
She looked at him. “There’s no need to.”
“I was stupid,” he said, “and insensitive. I should have understood how much you’ve undergone, too.”
“That’s unimportant,” she said. “Each of us has our own job to do. That’s what’s important.”
He touched his glass to hers. “For you, Sofia. There’s never been a woman like you for me.”
She sipped at her glass, looking at him over the rim. “Don’t look at me like that, don’t talk to me like that,” she said.
“Damn!” he said. He took a deep breath. “I know I shouldn’t be, but I am. Jealous. Jealous of all the time you’ve been with him and not with me.”
“Nicky,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t feel like that. We were all doing our jobs.”
“Is that really all it was for you?” he asked. “You felt nothing for him?”
“I didn’t say that,” she said. “But you know me better than anyone. At that time I thought I always had to have sex, with or without feeling. Sometimes I thought my body needed it more than food or air. Those years at the Institute where I was so confined, I used my vibrator sometimes three and four times a day. And then when I used it, I always thought of you.”
He sipped at his champagne and laughed. “Remember when we first met? I thought you were a nymphomaniac. You never seemed to stop.”
She didn’t laugh. “When I was young, I too used to think that. It was something I couldn’t face until the doctors explained to me that my sexual nerves are extraordinarily sensitive. True nymphos never have satisfaction and very rarely reach orgasm. So, Nicky, you see I simply don’t qualify. Just talking to you about it, I feel my clitoris twitching and I begin to juice.”
“I want to touch you,” he murmured.
“Don’t, Nicky,” she said. “I’m different. I’m not the girl you knew then. I’ve grown up.”
“No,” he said emphatically. “I still love you. Even more now than then. And you love me, I know that. That man played numbers with your head with his money, his power, his drugs and his life style. Did he ever say once, just once, that he loved you?”
She didn’t answer.
“Did he ever ask you to marry him?”
She shook her head silently.
“He’s using you,” he said. “Just as he uses everyone else for his own gain, his search for eternal power.” He nodded earnestly, looking at her. “He will throw you away as he does a toy that no longer amuses him. Or if you are no longer useful to him.”
“He’s not like that,” she said defensively. “He is considerate and truthful. Even though his truthfulness sometimes seems cruel in its honesty.”
“You think you’re defending him, but in truth you are defending yourself to convince yourself,” Nicolai said. “I’m sure you wouldn’t feel that way if you hadn’t allowed yourself to become pregnant.”
“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “But what was it? An experiment, that’s all. I’m not the first scientist to use my own body as a subject. The old lady was concerned that the treatments might make him sterile.”
“So you chose yourself to fuck him to check it out?”
“It was nothing like that. She took sperm from him and placed it into the ovaries of a dozen different women.”
“And they all became pregnant?”
“Not all. Ten of them,” she said.
“You were one of the lucky ones,” he said bitterly.
She was silent.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“Next week will be the tenth week. Each pregnant subject will be aborted.”
“You agreed to that?”
“Yes,” she said.
He stared at her. “Why you? You were one of the doctors. I’m sure they would have had no problem finding another woman. Why did you choose to involve yourself?”
“Because I was curious about my own body, Nicky,” she said. “I have never been pregnant even though I’ve never used any form of contraception. There is something dynamic about him. I wondered—”
“Now, you admit the truth,” he broke in angrily. “You really wanted his baby!”
“Yes,” she said flatly, then looked up at him. “What difference does it make anyway? Next week it will be gone.”
“You’re just as stupid as every other woman,” he said sarcastically. “We have been together for many years, why didn’t you have a child with me?”
She met his eyes and answered him simply. “You never asked me.”
***
The attaché case was open before him. He was turning the pages of her report when she returned to the room. “The old lady is clever,” he said. “Eight years and we still don’t know if we’ve discovered the method she uses in her cloning cellular impregnation.”
“We know the cellular impregnation method. It’s the cloning formula itself, which she always works on alone in her laboratory, that we have not been able to fathom.”
“You ever been with her there?” he asked as idly as he could manage.
“No. And I know of no one who ever has,” she said. “I’m beginning to think she never had a cloning process. She was hoping that Crane with all his facilities and computers would discover it for her.”
He put the papers down and changed the subject abruptly. “Did she tell you that you were going to return to Russia?”
Surprise came into her voice. “No. Why?”
“Because you are supposed to attend Brezhnev.”
“She’s never said a word about it.”
He remained silent for a long moment. “Maybe she thought it better to wait until after your abortion.”
“That’s possible,” she said. “What’s the problem with the Chairman?”
“I only know rumors,” he said. “Cancer, some say; an aneurysm, others say; or cerebral hemorrhages—so far there are only rumors. But I do know he moves with difficulty and sometimes he’s very slurry with his words. She’s had four consultations with him during the last year. Then the word came down that you would be assigned to him.”
“But what about the work I’m doing here?”
“It’s a matter of priorities,” he said. “To us, Brezhnev is more important than Crane.”
Sofia nodded thoughtfully. “She’s being
very clever, Nicky. I know of at least four of her assistants she could assign to Brezhnev, but by sending me she reduces the chance that I might discover her method.”
“What makes you think you might have a chance?”
“Everything pertinent to Crane himself and his business affairs is fed into Computer Central in California. While I do not expect that her formula has been fed into the computer, everything she needs in the way of supplies and equipment which has been ordered and purchased is automatically recorded by the computer. If we can retrieve that information we might be a good deal closer to uncovering her method.” She shook her head ruefully. “But in order to get that information, we’d have to get the access code to the computer. And the only people that I know who have that are Crane himself, his personal aide, Merlin, and the director of Computer Central.”
Nicolai looked at her. “Perhaps there’s someone else who can get to it,” he offered slowly.
She looked questioningly at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Li Chuan,” he said. “That’s why we’re meeting him here, Sofia. The man says that he has the access code and can make it available to us.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Even if he did have it, I can’t believe he’d be so altruistic as to turn it over to us.”
“Altruism has nothing to do with it,” Nicolai laughed. “Twenty million dollars is more like it.”
19
The soft chime of the private telephone next to his head echoed above the sound of the television program he had been watching. He picked up the receiver. “Crane.”
“Are you awake?” Merlin asked.
“Yes,” Judd said. “I’ve been watching TV.”
“I’d like to come over and see you,” Merlin said.
“Would eight in the morning be okay?”
“Now would be better.”
Judd thought only for a moment. He didn’t have to ask Merlin if it was important. The request was evidence enough of that. “How long before you’ll get here?” he asked.
“I’m in the office in Boca Raton,” Merlin said. “About thirty or forty minutes. There should be no traffic at this hour.”
“Get Fast Eddie to drive you and have him bring a change of clothing for me.”
“Will do,” Merlin said and rang off.
Judd punched the button next to the bed for the nurse and turned off the television set. A moment later, Bridget came into the room.
“Mr. Crane?” she asked.
“Pull these needles out of my arms and help me out of this bed to the shower,” he said.
“I can’t do that without Dr. Zabiski’s order,” she answered.
“Then call her,” he ordered.
She looked at him hesitantly.
“Now,” he said peremptorily.
The door closed behind her. A few moments later the telephone rang.
“The nurse relayed your request, Mr. Crane,” the little woman began. “Is it genuinely important?”
“Yes,” he replied crisply.
“Very well,” she said. “But I’ll want to be with you when they withdraw the equipment and to make very certain that you are perfectly well. I’ll dress and be in your room in ten minutes. Meanwhile, the nurse will prepare you.”
A moment later Bridget came into the room. She was holding a tray with a hypodermic needle covered by a towel. “Lie on your side,” she said. “You get this one in your butt.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m just the nurse,” she parried. “I’m not supposed to discuss what it is, just that the doctor’s ordered it.”
He turned on his side as she pulled the sheet from him. He felt the cool wetness of the alcohol swab, then the slight prick of the needle.
“Lie still,” she said. “This is a long one.”
“Shit,” he said.
She laughed.
“Sadist,” he said. He paused for a second. “I think I’m getting a hard-on. How about sucking it a little?”
She laughed again, withdrawing the needle, then placing a button-shaped Band-Aid on his buttock. “No way,” she said. “It’s your fault. You were the one in a hurry. I think the shot is to take care of it for you.”
He rolled back against the pillows and looked up at her. “Bridget,” he smiled. “There’s always something taking away the joy of life.”
“Rest quiet for a moment,” she said. “I’ll bring you freshly squeezed orange juice.”
“I’d rather have a cherry Coke.”
“You’ll have orange juice,” she said, closing the door behind her.
***
He sat on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling over the side. Dr. Zabiski finished checking his blood pressure. “Good. One-twenty over eighty-five.”
She gestured to a lab nurse who tied a coil around his arm. Quickly, expertly, the nurse drew four test tubes of blood and left them in a portable spirometry machine.
She held a plastic tube to him. “Take a deep breath, then blow out.” He did as she asked. “Now, another, this time even deeper.” She waited for him to fill his lungs. “Blow out as strong as you can, please,” she ordered.
From the corner of his eye, he could see her studying the television screen at the foot of the bed. He pushed until his lungs were wholly deflated. He fell back, gasping for air.
“Good,” the little doctor said. “Just one more test, if you will, please.” Another assistant rolled what looked like an electrocardiogram machine to the bed. “Lie back,” she ordered. “This will be very quick. It’s electronic.”
The man attached the usual small cups to his legs and chest. He punched the usual buttons and studied the usual tape as it emerged from the machine. Judd raised his eyes to find the doctor reading the same tape on a television screen. After the tape was complete and the assistant had removed the cups and was gone, Dr. Zabiski turned to a handset in her palm. She touched the keys; two banks of television screens on the wall sprang to life at her command.
Symbols flashed across the screens, verticals and horizontals, dancing in unison and parting gracefully in patterns of green and yellow, an ensemble in an abstract ballet. Judd looked at her. “What’s all that?”
“Blood analysis,” she said. “The whole business, every drop in you, how it’s doing everywhere in the body.” She paused only for a moment, then nodded. “You’re doing well.”
“Can I grab a fast shower?”
“No,” she replied flatly. “I want you to take things slowly. Bridget will give you a sponge bath, then we’ll help you up. I’ll want you in a wheelchair for a while before you begin to move around. Remember, you’ve been in bed almost three weeks and you must get used again to simple things like gravity and standing up. I don’t want you falling down unnecessarily.”
“You’re the doctor.”
“So I have to tell you, I’d like to be present at your side during your meeting. I wouldn’t like not being there if you had to handle some kind of stress and found yourself—your body—in trouble.”
“What could happen?”
“Who knows? We’re in terra incognita, a totally unknown land, Mr. Crane. Don’t ever forget that.”
He looked at her silently for a time. He knew she must have known what was holding back his assent.
“Believe me,” she added earnestly. “I have no interest whatsoever in any of your private affairs.”
“I know that, Doctor,” he said. “But if, as you said, all the tests check out, what could happen that I’d need you right then and there?”
“Possibly nothing,” she said. “But I am your doctor and I have a responsibility to you. Maybe I’m being overcautious, but I would rather be that way and end up on the side of error.”
He thought for another moment. “Okay,” he said. “But I’m beginning to feel like a baby who needs watching every minute.”
“Judd, how do you think I feel?” she said softly. “In a strange kind of way, you are my baby. Right now, there isn
’t another mother in the world who could have created a child like you.”
***
“You’re looking good,” Merlin said.
“Feel good,” Judd replied. He rolled the wheelchair closer to the conference table in the sitting room next to his hospital bedroom.
Fat Eddie smiled. “That Irish nurse you have is prime.”
Judd chuckled. “The story of my life. The stuff is always around when I can’t get to it.”
Merlin looked at Dr. Zabiski sitting in the corner of the room away from the conference table. Judd pointed a finger in her direction. “It’s okay. We can talk.”
Merlin opened his attaché case and took out a computer printout. He placed it across the table before Judd. “I haven’t all the information yet, but I’m convinced our access code has been breached.”
Judd looked at him with surprise. “What makes you think that?”
“Little things,” Merlin replied. “The printouts keep coming out always perfect. Never a mistake. Usually quite a few errors show up.”
“Hunch?” Judd asked.
“Mainly.”
“I’ll buy it,” Judd said. “Change the code.”
“I’m glad you agree,” Merlin said. “I’ve already asked Computer Central to do it, but I need your initials to put it into effect and make it official.”
“You’ve got it,” Judd said.
Merlin handed him a sheet of paper and a pen. Judd initialed it. There were two carbons. He held one copy for himself, the other copy Merlin put into his attaché, the original was placed in an envelope to be placed in the Computer Central director’s safe.
“What else?”
Merlin gestured to the printout in front of Judd. “That’s the first printout from the South and Western Savings and Loan Association taken of our accounts since the court approval.”
“Yes?”
“Look at page two. Deposits on hand in noninterest-bearing accounts, which includes checking held in individual names. Two hundred million dollars. Look down to supplement two, page two, names and amounts for each account. Eleven names, each held in various amounts, spread among the one hundred and fifteen branches. I’ve had Security check out the names. Four Cubans, five Colombians, two Peruvians, all reputed to be gentlemen very important in the narcotics trade.”
Descent from Xanadu Page 11
