"Whoa there! You don't happen to be into UFOs, do you? You're not going to start telling me one of those nut-job theories about aliens playing with our DNA."
"Of course not. But I can make a circumstantial case that somewhere along our evolutionary line something happened to it. I mean, this stuff's that different. So the big question is—where did this DNA come from? It's not found in chimps or any of the apes. It's not found in daffodils or butterflies, or sharks—humans share DNA with all of those, believe it or not—or even bacteria or viruses—and we have tons of viral DNA in our junk. How did it skip every other species since the dawn of time and land in ours and ours alone? If I were an intelligent design dolt I might say it's proof of God's guiding hand in evolution, but it was more likely the devil's. It's completely other. That's why I named it oDNA—other-DNA."
There it was, right out in the open: other.
Had the Otherness stirred something of itself into the human gene pool way back when—back in the First Age, when the Compendium was supposedly written? Or was this unrelated?
No… too much of a coincidence. And there'd be no more coincidences for him.
But to what purpose? A cosmic time bomb, set to explode… when?
Damn, he wished he still had that book. It might be able to tell him something.
"Why did you pick 'other' rather than 'alien' or something like that?"
"Because when you say 'alien,' people think of flying saucers and little gray men with big black eyes. We've got apes in our genome because we have a common ancestor. The Cro-Magnons live on in our genes, and there's recent evidence that Neanderthals do too. I suspect something happened in our ho-minid past to split off a subspecies from the main line. It developed this 'other' genome, and then was reabsorbed back into the main line, either by crossbreeding or some sort of introgression. I'm guessing about the how, but I'm sure of the what: We've all got a little oDNA in us."
A tingle ran over Jack's skin.
"All?"
Levy nodded. "To widely varying degrees, but yes. All. Summing up: At some time in the past another human race with altered DNA merged with ours. The DNA of the other race—the 'loser' race—joined the junk pile of the present human genome. You've heard of 'gone but not forgotten'? This oDNA is forgotten but not gone—and not necessarily junk."
The Otherness… part of the human gene pool… the implications staggered him.
He wondered if he should tell Levy what he suspected. But that would mean going into all the background he had gleaned over the past year about the ageless, ceaseless cosmic shadow war between two unimaginably huge and unknowable forces—one indifferent, and one, the Otherness, decidedly inimical—waging around them with Earth as one of the many marbles in play.
Yeah, that would go over well. Levy would stamp NUT across Jack's forehead.
So instead he said, "Why hasn't anyone heard of this? It's tailor-made for the tabloids."
"Other people have stumbled upon it, as I did, but the news has been suppressed. All I did was send out a few e-mails on some preliminary findings and suddenly a member of a government agency which I may not name was knocking on my door. And no, they weren't dressed in black suits and fedoras."
"That's good." Jack had dealt with the real men in black and knew they didn't work for any government. "What did they want?"
"My silence. I could A: come work for them; B: keep my mouth shut and direct my research to another area; or C: stay on my present path and find my reputation trashed to the point where the only place I'd ever get published was Fortean Times, if there."
"You chose A."
Levy nodded. "Just like a lot of others. It was a win-win offer. I got automatic funding to do the kind of groundbreaking work most researchers only dream of. No filling out reams of application forms or going around begging—just research."
Scary and fascinating, but a connection was missing.
"What's all this got to do with Bolton?"
"Jeremy Bolton is loaded with oDNA—the highest score on record."
"Where'd he get it all?"
Levy shrugged. "Who can say? He was born in Louisiana to Elizabeth Bolton. The father is listed as Jonah Stevens but there was no marriage and Elizabeth raised Jeremy alone."
"Could Jonah Stevens be the source of his mystery money?"
Levy shook his head. "He's dead. We traced him because we wanted to see if he was the source of his son's oDNA, but he died in a weird elevator accident."
"Weird how?"
"The police suspected foul play, but nothing was ever proven. Unfortunately for us, his body was cremated, so we never got to check his remains for oDNA."
"What about the mother?"
"Dead too. Cancer. We managed to get an order of exhumation to check her DNA. Elizabeth Bolton carried a significant amount of the o variant, but nowhere near her son's."
"So this Jonah Stevens, whoever he was, must have been a gold mine of the stuff."
Levy nodded. "He was most likely a human monster, because he was also a carrier of the trigger gene."
"What the hell is that?"
"As I said, the oDNA is a cluster of pseudogenes amid the other junk, but unlike most pseudogenes, these are fairly complete. Just dormant. And they remain dormant unless a certain mutation is present on one of the X chromosomes. In times of stress, this gene can awaken the oDNA and transform it from noncoding to coding."
"I don't understand what you mean by coding."
"Genes carry codes—templates, if you will—that the cell uses for making specific proteins. When the oDNA is stimulated from pseudogene status to an active gene, its codes start producing unique proteins that alter neurotransmit-ter levels in the brain, triggering violent impulses. We haven't worked out the exact mechanism yet, but we're pretty sure that's what happens."
"So you're saying these oDN A types can't help it if they're violent."
"I didn't say oDNA triggered violent behavior, I said violent impulses. There's a world of difference. One is the act itself, the other is a tendency toward the act. Other genetic and environmental factors that affect an individual's impulse control come into play here.
"The upshot is that all of us have some of oDNA in us, but the amount varies, so some are more 'other' than the rest. But the amount of oDNA has no effect on an individual unless he or she has the mutation that acts as a trigger.
"But take a large amount of oDNA, add the trigger mutation, mix with poor impulse control—or anything like alcohol or drugs which lower the impulse threshold—and you have a potentially lethal combination."
"Like Jeremy Bolton."
Levy nodded. "Jeremy Bolton is a perfect example."
"And that's why you need him for this clinical trial."
"Exactly. We don't know how to remove his oDNA—although someday we might be able to do just that—so we've targeted the mutated trigger gene. If we can suppress that, the oDNA will remain dormant, and Jeremy Bolton will be just like you and me."
"Speak for yourself, doc." Jack rubbed his eyes. "Your agency can't keep this oDNA a secret forever."
"It knows that. And when the news does hit, it will have devastating effects. Look at the problems caused by differences in pigmentation. Imagine what's going to happen when it's leaked that there are people among us with large amounts of alien DNA—and believe me, the o in oDNA will be quickly replaced by alien in the popular press. Not to mention what it will do to the criminal justice system. Chaos. Everyone behind bars or in court will be claiming their genes made them do it and will want to be declared not guillv hy reason of defective DNA."
Jack hadn't thought of that. Jeez.
He said, "And since we no longer believe in personal responsibility in this country, the lawyers will have a field day."
Levy shook his head. "We're talking genetics here, not—"
"It always comes down to personal responsibility," Jack said. "Like you said, the oDNA triggers violent impulses. But there's one more step before the violence: You
still have to decide whether or not to act on the impulse. And even if you're drunk or coked up at the time, you're responsible for deciding to drink or snort. So even though you have an impulse to drop a cinder block off an overpass, you don't cross the line until you release it."
Levy gave him a funny look. "Cinder block…?"
"Forget it." Jack had a flash of a gray mass crashing through a windshield, smashing into… "Just an example that came to mind."
"All that aside, the government wants to be ready to offer a remedy. That's why the urgency to find a way to suppress the trigger. But there's a more practical use. We'll be able to formulate this into injections that will last three months. A condition of parole for oDNA positives will be the therapy. Imagine the reduction in recidivism."
Jack stared at Levy. Something in his voice didn't ring true…
"Is that the real reason?"
"Of course. What other reason could there be?"
Yeah. Definitely lying. But Jack figured it would be a waste of time to ask. Besides, he had a much more pressing question.
"Why are you telling me all this?"
Levy blinked. "Why… because we agreed to trade information: I'd tell you about oDNA and you'd tell me where you heard of it."
Jack didn't buy that. Levy had told him way too much. Could be he'd got carried away with his story, but that didn't wash. He hadn't prodded Jack once for his source on oDNA.
And then he knew.
"You want Bolton back in Creighton, don't you. And you want me to put him there."
Levy looked flustered. "I want nothing of the sort. I told you, this clinical trial is of momentous importance. Nothing must jeopardize it."
"Yeah, but you think it should be tried first on someone less volatile. You've got a wife and a daughter. Bolton knows you, knows where you live, and you know he's a Tate-LaBianca waiting to happen. Admit it: Bolton on the outside scares the crap out of you."
"1 admit to nothing of the sort. As I told you—"
Jack waved him off. "Save it. You're looking for a patsy. You're hoping I'll do something to tip off the cops that Bolton's out—like maybe getting myself offed by him—and that'll solve your problem and leave your hands clean. Or at least looking clean."
Levy stared out through the windshield and said nothing.
"Okay," Jack said. "Let's do it."
Levy turned to him, looking puzzled. "Do what?"
"Out Jerry Bethlehem as Jeremy Bolton. But we do it so that neither of us is downwind when the shit hits the fan."
"How?"
Jack thought about that. Dawn was too gaga to be useful, and he couldn't use Christy to drop the dime because the agency overseeing all this would assume the source of the info was the guy she'd hired. Jack didn't want to be on their hit list.
He needed someone with no connection to him or Levy. The only other person Bolton would know on the outside was Hank Thompson.
Now there's a thought.
High-profile guy… low-profile guy… put them together…
And hadn't Thompson said the Dormentalists and Scientologists were after him because so many of their members were becoming Kickers? What if they had him under surveillance? And what if Thompson and Bolton were meeting on the outside? Maybe the rivals would want to know who he was meeting with. And when they investigated Bethlehem they'd find… Jeremy Bolton.
"Get me all you know about Hank Thompson."
Levy shook his head. "That's privileged—"
"You want this fixed or not?"
Levy hesitated, then shrugged. "I'll dig out whatever I've got."
"Do it tonight. I'll be doing a little digging myself."
"Where?"
"I'll let you know if I find anything."
Levy hesitated, then said, "There's something you should know about Jeremy Bolton."
"I'm sure there's plenty I should know about Jeremy Bolton. What've you got?"
"Don't underestimate him. He comes on as a laid-back, shit-kicking good ol' boy, but he tests high on all the intelligence scales, and he's done a lot of reading in the past twenty years. His major shortcoming is his impulsiveness. If you can keep him off balance, he'll act before he thinks. But give him time to think…"
"So I'm dealing with a smart but explosive sociopath." Levy nodded. "With a lot of native cunning. Watch out." Jack had every intention of doing just that. He'd handle Bolton from a distance.
"Thanks for the heads up. Now, how about driving me back to my car?" Conditions permitting, Jack would be paying a visit to the Jerry Bethlehem crib tonight.
7
As he hit route 9, Jack fingered the bribe money in his pocket. He'd use it to discount the fee he was charging Christy. Checking his messages he found a frantic call from her telling him that her Dawnie had moved out and that Jack had to find something on Bethlehem now-now-now! Call her please-please-please!
So he called and ground his teeth as she told her tearful tale of doing everything he'd advised her not to, then compounding it by trying to buy off Bolton—and failing.
That took Jack by surprise. A guy like Bolton who'd been locked up all of his adult life had never seen anything like that kind of money.
Or had he? He did live awfully well…
The upshot of all this was that Dawn hadn't come home last night. But worse, when Christy had gone food shopping today she'd returned to find a lot of Dawn's things missing. She'd sneaked in and moved out.
Each sob was a blade of guilt. He could end Christy's pain with a single phone call, but that could mean the start of endless trouble for himself. He didn't see Bolton as a threat to Dawn—at least not yet.
He calmed Christy by telling her his plan to get close to Bethlehem and get to know him. Maybe he'd let something slip.
"I really screwed up, didn't I," she said.
Jack wanted to chew her out for not taking his advice but couldn't see how that would help matters. He wasn't about to disagree with her, however.
"Yeah, you did. You made accusations you couldn't back up."
Her voice rose in pitch. "My daughter's shacked up with a murderer!"
"You cant say that. He has an alibi." A shaky one, but an alibi nonetheless.
"1 can't stand this! I don't know how much—!"
"Easy, easy," he said, using a soothing tone.
Too much of that kind of talk might trigger some oDNA-type behavior in Bolton.
A mutant trigger gene… oDNA… Jack shook his head. He couldn't believe he was thinking like this.
He said, "As I said, we don't know that he did it. Private eyes make enemies. I'm working on a number of angles, but they're going to take a little time."
"I don't have time."
"You may have more time than you think. He didn't take the money, and that wasn't chump change. To me that says Dawn means more to him than just a young girl he can…" He hunted for the right word.
Christy saved him the trouble. "Go ahead, you can say it: screw"
Yeah. That and maybe… the Key to the future…
"The point is, if he means to harm her, he'd have grabbed the money, done his harm, and taken off. But he chose not to."
She sniffed. "I have to tell you, Jack, that baffles me. 1 know it sounds awful for a mother to say, but what does this guy see in Dawnie? Don't get me wrong, she has a sweet nature—although it's not too evident at the moment—and she's a smart, smart kid, but that's just it: She's a kid, and a naive one at that. What does he see in her?"
Good question. Especially in light of the fact that Bolton had insisted on being relocated in Rego Park. Had he chosen the town out of the air, or did he have a specific reason? Like being next to Forest Hills?
Could Dawn have been that reason?
… the Key to the future…
But Bolton had been behind bars before Dawn was born. As far as Jack knew, she'd never been a media figure like the Long Island Lolita of yore, so how would he have even heard of her?
So if not Dawn, then what was it? Wha
t was so special about Rego Park?
He said, "I don't know what's going on in his head, so I can't answer that. But I think his refusing the money is a good sign that we're not in a dangerous situation here."
"Not yet."
"My point is, you've got to back off now. Sit tight, do your day trades, and let me do what I do."
"You've got something planned?"
"I do."
"What?"
"If 1 works out, you'll know. If not, it won't matter. Do you know Bethlehem's address?"
"I should. I've driven by it often enough."
She gave him directions to his townhouse and to the diner where Dawn worked.
Jack hung up just in time to turn into the Ardsley service area. He found a parking spot and watched the entry ramp. He hadn't seen anyone following him, and the only car that pulled in after him was a Dodge minivan. It parked near the food court and a horde of tweeny girls in soccer uniforms piled out.
Satisfied, Jack backed up to where Bolton had parked two nights ago. He grabbed an electric screwdriver and one of his real-fake license plates from under the front seat. He slipped around to the back and opened the trunk. While pretending to be searching for something, he substituted it for the fake-fake tag he'd put on this afternoon—one of half a dozen he'd bought from Sal Vituolo's junkyard on Staten Island. Then he reparked the car nose in, opened the hood, and switched the front plate.
No use in giving anything away to any curious types in Rathburg.
He got back behind the wheel and headed for Queens.
8
Jack had driven by Bolton's townhouse. Lots of lights on but was anyone home? He needed to be sure before he broke in. He'd checked the Tower Diner—brick walls, canopied windows, pillars at the entrance, and a clock tower, for Christ sake. What kind of a diner looked like that? More like a bank.
He'd looked through one of the windows and seen Dawn, but no sign of Bolton.
The next and last stop was Work. If he didn't find Bolton there, he'd have to assume he was home and put off the break-in for another night.
The place was crowded, with someone singing off-key over distorted guitars blasting from the sound system, but what did he expect on a Saturday night?
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