Dog Bites Man (14 page)

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Seated around a coffee table in the library, Sue made Genc recount his tale of discovery to the two journalists, after telling them, with
out further explanation, that Genc was prepared to talk on the record. Boyd in particular cross-examined him intensely.

"The dog was pissing and the mayor stepped on his hind leg. Right?"

"Yes sir."

"And the dog bit him?"

"Yes sir."

"Which leg?"

"The right."

"And then?"

"He said to 'off ' the dog."

Boyd smiled contentedly.

Scoop was more distracted, wondering if he had somehow missed the story—had there been enough clues for him to have pieced it together, to have figured out who the men in black were? He thought not, but he wanted to reflect on the matter very critically since his competency as an investigative reporter, and therefore his very reason for being, as well as his self-esteem, were at stake.

The two men left without any commitment as to how they would handle the story, but Sue had enough confidence in Justin's instinct for the melodramatic to feel sure that he would do justice to Genc's tale.

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"What do you think?" Boyd asked, looking over at his reporter in the backseat of the Bentley.

"He sure seems certain."

"Certain enough for me. Will you start writing this morning?"

"Sure," Scoop said but then, after a moment's silence, added, "I'd
feel more comfortable if I had a second source for the story. Didn't Woodward and Bernstein say they always had two sources for everything?"

"Yes, but those were anonymous squealers. Here you've got a live one who talked on the record."

"I guess so," Scoop said, not entirely convinced. Then he asked Boyd how this story would square with the latter's obsequious support for the mayor in his bid for election.

Boyd was only half paying attention. Drumming on the plush armrest next to him, he was savoring the consequences of the Wambli epic for
The Surveyor.
It would be the story of the year, a clear beat on the laggard daily press. Might it just be the jump-start needed to convince Ethan Meyner to go daily? The possibilities were delicious.

"What?" Boyd asked, still preoccupied.

"You've been very pro-Hoagland. Can you just, um, reverse field now?"

"My boy, the first law of journalism is that you have to follow the story. Take it where it leads you, and then print it. Let the devil take the hindmost."

"But
The Surveyor
was his biggest backer," Scoop persisted.

"That was before I knew the man was a dog murderer," Boyd told him.

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While he waited outside the mayor's office, Gullighy fiddled with a computer and read the morning e-mail (he had the privilege of access to Eldon's account). The thunder had begun already:

My father's life was saved by insulin injections. Insulin was devel
oped in experiments on dogs, right? Why would you want to kill my
father?

I've been told that apes are essential to the search for an AIDS vac
cine, since the disease probably started with them anyway. Is is re
ally better to have thousands of AIDS victims die rather than use 0a
few apes in experiments? Get real, Mayor.

Thank God there is someone in public life with a sense of balance.
Close the laboratories! If experiments are so important, do them on
doctors!

And so it went. Seventy-three missives, all polarized and vehement.

Then Gullighy got a message on his pager. Fasco was calling, from home. He dialed him back.

"Mr. Gullighy, remember the conversation we had about that dog? The one we terminated?"

"Of course."

"Well, I've been thinking about it all night, and I think I better talk to you."

"Shoot," Gullighy said, before realizing that was perhaps not the most apt choice of word.

"That dog belonged to Mrs. Brandberg, okay? And she was at that lawn thing yesterday, okay?"

"Yes and yes."

"Well, did you see the guy she was with?"

"Didn't really notice."

"It's the one who was walking the dog that night."

A painful quiver circumnavigated Gullighy's middle.

"Did he recognize the mayor? Did he recognize you?"

"I'm pretty sure he did. We ran into him head-on out there on the lawn."

"Jesus. Well, thanks for the good news, Gene. I'm outside the mayor's office now and I'll tell him. But not a word of this to anyone else, understand? And that goes for Braddock, too."

"No problem."

"My best to your family, Gene. I'll be in touch."

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Eldon was all business when he arrived. "Listen, Jack, you've got to help me draft a statement. I've got to put this damn-fool animal thing to rest. It's the worst misquotation since I was elected. Totally irresponsible. Absolutely wrong. I want a statement saying I have no sympathy for the ALA or whatever the hell that outfit's called and that I fully support responsible medical experiments on animals. As far as I'm concerned the docs can use their damn embryos any way they please. Period. Full stop."

"Until ten minutes ago I would have agreed with you."

"What happened then? Your stomach get upset from drinking coffee from that slop machine outside?"

"No sir. Not that simple." He reported what Fasco had told him.

"Holy shit."

"Well put, Mr. Mayor. I'm afraid the holy shit is about to hit the blessed fan. But remember what I said right from the beginning—you might have to resort to a first-class stonewall if the cover-up comes apart."

As Eldon recalled their earlier conversations, Gullighy had said that
we
might have to stonewall, but he let the thought pass.

"You're not in stonewall mode yet, but you'd better be prepared for it. Prepared to deny, deny, deny. Which shouldn't be hard since
you were so drunk your memory wasn't functioning at the time of the Incident anyway."

Eldon looked hurt and defeated.

"But stonewalling may not be so difficult. Remember, we thought he was an illegal, and when he wouldn't even give his name to
The Surveyor
that sort of confirmed it. He may disappear. And even if he doesn't, it'll be your word, and Fasco's and Braddock's, against his."

"Well, first things first. Let's get started on my animal rights statement," the mayor said.

"Hold on a minute, Eldon. You remember the purpose of the festival was to establish your great love for animals, just in case. Just in case. A harsh statement right now would not be the best idea."

"But I've got to say something," Eldon protested.

"Okay. Say that you were misquoted, that you didn't endorse the ALA's antiresearch stand. But don't say outright that they're wrong—or crazy. Just say that you're not a scientist, the issue's very complex, blah, blah, blah."

"You're the master here, Jack. If you say so."

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The mayor's statement, following Gullighy's approach, was given out before noon to the press and put on the mayor's Web site. Meanwhile, he called Rabbi Friedman and Cardinal Lazaro to smooth their ruffled clerical feathers.

Rabbi Friedman was highly critical of the ALA's presence at the festival. "These are ignorant people who probably don't appreciate how grossly offensive their rhetoric is," he told the mayor. "They're free to express their hateful views, but that doesn't mean you have to give them a platform."

Eldon explained that they had tricked their way into the party and the rabbi accepted his explanation.

Cardinal Lazaro downplayed the Liberationists' presence and also accepted Eldon's version of what had happened. But then he commented on the mayor's position in the embryology controversy.

"If I may be very frank, Mr. Mayor, your support for their position on animal embryos is very misguided."

"I didn't—don't—have a position, Your Eminence. That was totally fabricated by New York One and
The Post-News."

"I accept what you say. But what you must do is unequivocally condemn their position. It is wrong and without moral justification."

Eldon paraphrased his statement, which had already gone out.

"Not strong enough, Mr. Mayor. Don't you understand the implications of condemning research with animal embryos?"

"Perhaps I don't."

"Embryological research, the doctors tell me, is important—breakthroughs in treating leukemia, et cetera. And if they can't use animal embryos, they will use human ones."

"You obviously have given some thought to this matter, Your Eminence."

"I certainly have. You must know my position. A human embryo is a living being. To kill it is murder, pure and simple."

"You mean it's like abortion?"

"Precisely."

"Oh."

Eldon graciously thanked the cardinal for sharing his thinking and ended the conversation as quickly as possible.

Abortion? Oh my, the mayor thought to himself as he put down the phone; so far in his public career he had managed to avoid that
black pit of an issue. Should he revise his statement? Too late. Put out a new one, then? No, matters were quite confused enough already.

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Dr. Englund, whom the mayor had known slightly over the years, was frosty. He, too, did not blame the mayor for the presence of the ALAers but, like the cardinal, asked Eldon to make a strong statement criticizing their position. The mayor responded with what was becoming a litany, his lack of enough scientific knowledge to get on either side of the controversy.

"That may be, sir, but you are an important public figure. Equivocation on your part can only lend credence to a very wrongheaded view of what our research is all about. You must speak out."

Eldon dimly recalled that the professor had been quoted on New York One as saying that he, as a layman, should simply shut up. But he did not raise the point.

"What's the alternative to animal research?" Eldon asked.

"Human embryos, of course," Dr. Englund replied, as if addressing a not terribly bright student. "There's no reason you should know it, but that's a red-hot issue down in Washington. Congressmen go crazy over using human embryos in research. That's why we try to avoid it.

"I've got a tank full of fish here at the lab—zebra fish, medaka fish from Japan. I've even got eggs in incubators, on their way to becoming chicks. What am I supposed to do? Kill the fish? Eat the eggs for breakfast? Your cockamamy statement would suggest that I should. You've got to hit those Liberationists and hit them hard."

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While City Hall was ablaze, Amber Sweetwater sat fuming in her makeshift bedroom back at the mansion, bent on revenge. Edna, without a great deal of tact and with a certain amount of zest, had fired her after breakfast and told her to move out before the day was over.

No legitimate reason had been assigned for her dismissal, just what she regarded as petty, middle-class gripes one might expect from a professor's wife—her bare feet, the nude sunbathing, the fraternizing with her ALA friends. She had pointed out that it would be expensive to replace her—no one else would work for her substandard wages—but the city's first lady was not moved.

Amber idly flipped through her diary; Edna had been quite right that the idea of an upstairs-downstairs exposé had not escaped her. She was made even angrier when she realized that her employers, as far as she knew, had led a pretty dull existence, and she had observed very little behavior of the sort that sold confessional books. (A city councilman's groping of a minor screen star might have qualified, but the fingered actress's career was already in decline and she was likely to be dimly remembered history by the time a book appeared.) And no one, probably, would really care that she disliked Edna.

Maybe she should get some more expert advice. A writer more clever than she ought to be able to shape her raw material into a book, or at least a magazine article. What about that hotshot reporter she'd met at Squiggles? Had a funny name. Scrooge. Scope. No, Scoop. And who did he work for?
The Inspector, The Examiner,
something like that. She would have to track it down and give him a call, but first she had to let her friend Gretchen know that she was moving in, at least temporarily.

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Later that morning Dr. Englund placed a call to Governor Foote, to caution her about the tack her health commissioner had been recently taking regarding greater accountability for the expenditure of medical research funds provided by the state. The previous winter there had been a minor scandal at a medical school upstate, where skiing equipment had been purchased out of moneys ear-marked for an obesity study. The hapless director of the project had defended the purchase on the grounds that
(a)
the equipment was for cross-country and not downhill skiing,
(b)
his team was interested in finding out if cross-country skiing, one of the few non-fat-inducing activities available in the rural areas, could help in weight reduction and
(c)
his overworked and underpaid staff could use the equipment, thus improving their morale, when their corpulent subjects were not.