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CH014

Marty Roberts was sweating by the time he got back to Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Because of what he had done at the cemetery, he could lose his license, no problem. One of those gravediggers could pick up the phone and call the county. The county could wonder why Marty had broken protocol, especially with a lawsuit pending. When you take tissues in the field, you risk contamination. Everybody knew that. So the county might start wondering why Marty Roberts would risk that. And before long, they might be wondering…

Shit. Shit, shit, shit!

He pulled into the emergency parking, next to the ambulances, and hurried down the basement hallway to Pathology. It was lunchtime; almost nobody was there. The rows of stainless steel tables stood empty.

Raza was washing up.

“You dumb fuck,” Marty said, “are you trying to get us both in jail?”

Raza turned slowly. “What is the problem?” he said quietly.

“The problem,” Marty said, “is that I told you, take the bones only on the cremations. Not the burials. The cremations. Is that so fucking hard to understand?”

“Yeah, well. That’s what I do,” Raza said.

“No, that’s not what you do. Because I just came from an exhumation, and you know what I saw when I dug the guy up? Very fucking skinny legs, Raza. Very skinny arms. In a burial.”

“No,” Raza said, “that’s not what I do.”

“Well, somebody took the bones.”

Raza headed to the office. “What’s the name of this guy?”

“Weller.”

“What, that guy again? He’s the guy we lost the tissues for, right?”

“Right. So the family exhumed him. Because he was buried.”

Raza leaned over the desk, keyed in the patient name. He stared at the screen. “Oh yeah. You’re right. It was a burial. But I didn’t do that one.”

Marty said, “You didn’t do that one? Who the fuck did?”

Raza shrugged. “My brother came in, that’s all. I had an appointment that night.”

“Your brother? What brother? Nobody else is supposed to be—”

“Don’t sweat it, Marty,” Raza said. “My brother comes in from time to time. He knows what to do. He works at Hilldale Mortuary.”

Marty wiped sweat from his forehead. “Jesus. How long has this been going on?”

“Maybe a year.”

“A year!”

“Only at night, Marty. Late night only. He wears my lab coat, looks like me…We look the same.”

“Wait a minute,” Marty said. “Who gave that girl the blood sample? That girl Lisa Weller.”

“Okay,” Raza said. “So sometimes he makes mistakes.”

“And sometimes he works afternoons?”

“Only Sundays, Marty. If I have appointments, is all.”

Marty gripped the edge of the desk to steady himself. He leaned over and breathed deeply. “Some fucking guy who doesn’t even work for the hospital gave unauthorized blood to a woman because she asked for it? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Not some fucking guy. My brother.”

“Jesus.”

“He said she was cute.”

“That explains everything.”

“Come on, Marty,” Raza said, in a soothing tone. “I’m sorry about the Weller guy, I really am, but anybody could have made the switch. Fucking cemetery could have dug him up and taken the long bones. Gravediggers working as independent contractors could have done it. You know it happens all over. They got those guys in Phoenix. And the ones in Minnesota. And now Brooklyn.”

“And they’re all in jail now, Raza.”

“Okay,” Raza said. “That’s true. The thing is, I told my brother to do it.”

“You did…”

“Yeah. That particular night, the Weller body came in, we had a stat call for bone, and the Weller guy typed right. So do we fill the order or what? Because you know those bone guys can take their business elsewhere. To them, now means now. Supply or die.”

Marty sighed. “Yeah, when they call stat, you should fill it.”

“Okay, then.”

Marty slid into the chair and began typing at the keyboard himself. “However,” he said, “if you extracted those long bones eight days ago, I don’t see any payment transfer to me.”

“Don’t worry. It’s coming.”

“The check is in the mail?”

“Hey, I forgot. You’ll get your taste.”

“Make sure of it,” Marty said. He turned to go. “And keep your fucking brother out of the hospital from now on. You understand me?”

“Sure, Marty. Sure.”

Marty Roberts went outside to move his car from the emergency space. He backed out and drove to the Doctors Only section of the parking garage. Then he sat in his car for a long time. Thinking about Raza.

You’ll get your taste.

It seemed that Raza was starting to believe that this was his program, and that Marty Roberts worked for him. Raza was handing out the payments. Raza was deciding who should come in to help. Raza was not behaving like an employee; he was starting to behave like he was in charge, and that was dangerous for all sorts of reasons.

Marty had to do something about it.

And he had to do it soon.

Or losing his medical license would be the least of his problems.

CH015

At sunset, the titanium cube that housed BioGen Research shimmered with a blinding red glare, and bathed the adjacent parking lot in a dark orange color. As president Rick Diehl stepped out of the building, he paused to put on his sunglasses, then walked toward his brand-new silver Porsche Carrera SC. He loved this car, which he had bought the week before in celebration of his impending divorce—

“Fuck!”

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

His parking spot was empty. The car was gone.

That bitch!

He didn’t know how she had done it, but he was sure she had taken his car. Probably got her boyfriend to arrange it. After all, the new boyfriend was a car dealer. Moving up from a tennis pro. Bitch!

He stomped back inside. Bradley Gordon, his chief of security, stood in the lobby’s waiting area, leaning over the counter, talking to Lisa, the receptionist. Lisa was cute. That was why Rick had hired her.

“Goddamn it, Brad,” Rick Diehl said. “We need to review security tapes of the parking lot.”

Brad turned. “Why? What is it?”

“Somebody stole my Porsche.”

“No shit,” Brad said. “When did that happen?”

And Rick thought, Wrong guy for this job. It wasn’t the first time he had thought it.

“Let’s check the security tapes, Brad.”

“Yeah, sure, of course,” Brad said. He winked at Lisa, and then headed back through the keycard-swipe door, into a secure area. Rick followed, fuming.

At one of the two desks in the little glass-walled security office, a kid was minutely examining the palm of his left hand. He ignored the bank of monitors before him.

“Jason,” Brad said, in a warning tone, “Mr. Diehl is here.”

“Oh shit.” The kid snapped upright in the chair. “Sorry. Got a rash. I didn’t know if—”

“Mr. Diehl wants to review the security cameras. Which cameras are they exactly, Mr. Diehl?”

Oh Jesus. Rick said, “The parking lot cameras.”

“The parking lot, right. Jason, let’s start forty-eight hours back, and—”

“I drove the car to work this morning,” Diehl said.

“Right, what time was that?”

“I got here at seven.”

“Right. Jason, let’s go back to seven this morning.”

The kid shifted in his chair. “Uh, Mr. Gordon, the parking lot cameras are out.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Brad turned to Rick. “The parking lot cameras are out.”

“Why?”

“Not sure. We think there’s a cable problem.”

“How long have they been out?”

“Well—”

“Two months,” the kid said.

“Two months!”

Brad said, “We had to order parts.”

“What parts?”

“From Germany.”

“What parts?”

“I’d have to look it up.”

The kid said, “We can still use the roof cameras.”

“Well, then show me the roof cameras,” Diehl said.

“Right. Jason, bring up the roof cameras.”

It took them fifteen minutes to rewind the digital storage and begin to run it forward. Rick watched his Porsche pull in. He watched himself get out and enter the building. What happened next surprised him. Within two minutes, another car pulled up, two men jumped out, broke into his car quickly, and drove it away.

“They were waiting for you,” Brad said. “Or following you.”

“Looks like it,” Rick said. “Call the police, report it, and tell Lisa I want her to drive me home.”

Brad blinked at that.

The problem, Rick reflected, as Lisa drove him home, was that Brad Gordon was an idiot, but Rick couldn’t fire him. Brad Gordon, surf bum, ski bum, travel bum, recovering alky and college dropout, was the nephew of Jack Watson, a principal investor in BioGen. Jack Watson had always looked after Brad, had always seen that he had a job. And Brad invariably got into trouble. It was even rumored that Brad had been fucking the wife of the vice president of GeneSystems up in Palo Alto—for which he was duly fired—but not without a big stink from his uncle, who saw no reason why Brad should be let go. “It’s the vice president’s own fault,” Watson famously said.

But now: No security cameras in the parking lot. For two months. It made Rick wonder what else was wrong with security at BioGen.

He glanced over at Lisa, who drove serenely. Rick had hired her to be the receptionist soon after he discovered his wife’s affair. Lisa had a beautiful profile; she could have been a model. Whoever had refined her nose and chin was a genius. And she had a lovely body, with a narrow waist and perfectly enhanced breasts. She was twenty, on her summer break from Crestview State, and she radiated healthy, all-American sexiness. Everyone in the company had the hots for her.

So it was surprising that whenever they made love, Lisa just lay there. After a few minutes she seemed to notice his frustration and would begin to move mechanically, and make little panting sounds, as if she had been told that was what people did in bed. Sometimes, when Rick was worried and preoccupied, she would talk to him, “Oh baby, yes, baby, do it, baby,” as if that was supposed to move things along. But it was only too obvious that she was unmoved.

Rick had done a little research and discovered a syndrome called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. Anhedonics exhibited a flat affect, which certainly described Lisa in bed. Interestingly, anhedonia appeared to have a genetic component. It seemed to involve the limbic system of the brain. So there might be a gene for the condition. Rick intended to do a full panel on Lisa one of these days. Just to check.

Meanwhile, the nights he spent with her might have made him insecure, if it were not for Greta, the Austrian postdoc in the microbiology lab. Greta was chunky and had glasses and short, mannish hair, but she fucked like a mink, leaving them both gasping for breath and covered in sweat. Greta was a screamer and a writher and a howler. He felt great afterward.

The car pulled up at his new condo. Rick checked for his keys in his pocket. Lisa said matter-of-factly, “You want me to come up?”

She had beautiful blue eyes, with long lashes. Beautiful lush lips.

He thought, what the hell. “Sure,” he said. “Come on up.”

He called his lawyer, Barry Sindler, to report that his wife had stolen his car.

“You think so?” Sindler said. He sounded doubtful.

“Yeah, I do. She hired some guys. I have it on security tape.”

“You have her on tape?”

“No, the guys. But she’s behind it.”

“I’m not so sure,” Sindler said. “Usually women trash a husband’s car, not steal it.”

“I’m telling you—”

“Okay, I’ll check into it. But right now, there are a few things I want to go over with you. About the litigation.”

Across the room, Lisa was stepping out of her clothes. She folded each item of clothing and placed it on the back of the chair. She was wearing a pink bra and pink briefs that skimmed her pubic bone. No lace, just stretchy fabric that molded smoothly to her smooth body. She reached behind her back to release the bra.

“I’ll have to call you back,” Rick said.

BLONDES BECOMING EXTINCT

Endangered Species To “Die Out in 200 Years”

According to the BBC, “a study by experts in Germany suggests people with blonde hair are an endangered species and will become extinct by 2202.” Researchers predicted that the last truly natural blonde would be born in Finland, a country that boasts the highest proportion of blondes. But the scientists say too few people now carry the gene for blondes to last much longer. The researchers hinted that so-called bottle blondes “may be to blame for the demise of their natural rivals.”

Not every scientist agrees with the prediction of impending extinction. But a study by the World Health Organization does indicate that natural blondes are likely to become extinct within the next two centuries.

More recently, the probability of extinction was reviewed by The Times of London, in light of new data about the evolution of the MC1R gene for blondeness.

CH016

The jungle was completely silent. Not a buzzing cicada, not a hornbill cry, nor a distant chattering monkey. Utterly silent—and no wonder, Hagar thought. He shook his head as he looked at the ten camera crews from around the world now clustered in little groups on the jungle floor, protecting their lenses from the dripping moisture as they peered upward into the trees overhead. He had told them to be silent, and indeed nobody was actually talking. The French crew smoked cigarettes. Although the German crew maintained silence, the cameraman kept snapping his fingers imperiously as he gestured to his assistant to do this and that. The Japanese crew from NHK was quiet, but beside them, the CNN crew out of Singapore whispered and murmured and changed lenses, clanking metal boxes. The British Sky TV crew from Hong Kong had come inappropriately dressed. They now had their running shoes off and were plucking leeches from between their toes, swearing as they did so.

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