“I’ll bet you know what Wayne Gallen looks like.” I realized
that’s where Matt had been while everyone else was gathered around MC—he’d been checking the stats on Gallen.
He nodded, and smiled. Together we said, “It’s what I do.”
“Short, thin. A lot like the way MC described her boyfriend to you, which must be why she thought it was Powers hanging around. But Gallen has some facial hair—a long handlebar mustache if you can believe it, and a short beard. All red.” Matt massaged his own hairless chin.
Traffic on Route 1 stayed light, and there was not much action at the lodge. We talked, uninterrupted, speculating alternately about Wayne Gallen and about the cost of a new roof on the Fernwood Avenue house, about MC’s emergency call and about yet another fund-raiser Rose and Frank wanted us to attend. In the air between us was health talk, as if we had an unspoken agreement to take it up later, when we were face-to-face in a well-lit room.
Matt pulled out the large, heavy-duty department thermos and poured us cups of coffee. I took a sip, and promised myself a Tomasso’s Coffee Annex high-quality double cappuccino at the next possible opportunity.
Then a light dawned. I had a captive audience.
“About buckyballs,” I said.
“Oh, no.” Matt pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead, but I’d long ago stopped being sensitive to that kind of rebuke.
“Let’s start with nanotechnology. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. That’s about a billionth the size of your leg.” I reached over and ran my hand along his thigh, to his knee, down his calf. “Well, at least the leg of a tall man.”
He laughed. “Do that again. Maybe you’ll pique my interest after all.”
There was a time when a line like that would have sent a flush across my face, but that was a different, more naïve Gloria. I could tell that my cheeks had not turned red, just slightly pink. I pushed on.
“The width of a period at the end of a sentence—that’s already
about a million nanometers, and buckyballs are only about one nanometer in diameter. Impressed?”
A slight nod from my captive student. “The technical name is buckminsterfullerenes, after Buck—”
“Buckminster Fuller. I get that part.”
“Buckyballs are just one molecule among many that make up the science of the very small.”
“Nanotechnology.”
I nodded. “The original buckyball discoverers were chemists from Houston, as a matter of fact. Most people—most scientists, I mean—give them credit for kicking off the nanotechnology revolution.”
“So?”
Matt yawned, a fake one I thought, so I went on. “It started with buckyballs about fifteen years ago, then buckytubes or nanotubes, a sort of cousin to buckyballs a few years later, and now, well, it could lead to nanoscale computers eventually.”
“I’m falling asleep. You’d better step it up. Or make that measurement along my leg again.”
Too late. A progression of loud noises took over. Tires whipping up gravel, indistinct cheers, and whoops of laughter. A group of young people had arrived in tandem cars, their raucous partying already well under way. The flickering lamps and garish red door of the lodge added to the Halloween atmosphere. A couple of weeks early, but there was no mistaking a large, brown, lumbering bear, no fewer than three witches and two fairies, and a couple in prom attire.
“Whatever happened to curfews on a school night?” I asked.
Back to slouching and coffee. By the time the second RPD shift arrived, I’d slipped in some of the major applications of nanotechnology, explaining how the word was used to describe many types of research where the characteristic dimensions were less than about one thousand nanometers—data storage and gasoline production among the most common. Plus the big market for new,
smarter drug delivery systems. Like the kind that might be used for treating prostate cancer.
Michelle Chan, out of uniform, came up to Matt’s window and gave us a friendly smile. She waved at me. “Hi, Gloria. We need to get you a badge. You’re putting in more hours than my partner. Any action?”
Matt shook his head. “Unless you count the rowdy kids in cheap costumes.”
“That’s funny. Gallen was released about an hour ago.”
We’d been there longer than I thought.
“What about Jaspers and Connors? They pick him up from outside the station?”
Officer Chan shook her head. “Nope. Well, you’re off the hook anyway; I’ll check it out.”
My stomach tensed. Where was Wayne Gallen? How had he evaded police who were supposedly on his tail?
At least MC was safe at home with her parents. Wasn’t she?
I dug my cell phone out of my purse and pushed the numbers for the Galigani residence. Matt raised his eyebrows, tapped his watch, mouthed “two-thirty,” and, in the end, threw up his hands. I ignored his elaborate gestures.
Rose picked up on the first ring. I pictured my friend, wrapped in dark green chenille, in her unable-to-sleep spot—her closed-in front porch, in full view of her special roses. “She’s fine,” Rose whispered. “Tucked in upstairs. The world’s fine, Gloria. We should be sleeping. Or shopping.”
A laugh, a few more whispered words, like the kind we used to share in the back of the long-gone Revere Theater when we were kids.
Is that Paul with his arm around Carol? Are you going to wear heels or flats to Boston on Saturday?
I hung up. Rose was right—we should all be sleeping. There was nothing wrong with Wayne Gallen wandering the streets of Revere. The real concerns were the inconclusive cells wandering around Matt’s body.
I leaned over to him. I wanted to know if he was in pain, if he
was afraid. I wanted to be strong for him, to assure him that I’d take care of him, no matter what.
“Are you all right, Matt?” was all I could manage.
Most of his face was in shadow, but I caught a pinched expression, then a loving one as he turned to me. “I know you’re here for me, Gloria. That means everything to me.”
As usual, Matt was ahead of me in expressing his feelings, and mine.
He ran his hand down my cheek. “Let’s just see what happens with the biopsy.”
I smiled. I could be patient—this was like a research project needing more data.
I focused on MC tucked safely in her childhood bed.
M
C’s heart raced. Her breath came in quick bursts as she pumped the pedals of her nephew William’s bike. She sped through the quiet streets of Revere at two-thirty in the morning, not sure whether she was headed toward or away from something. A goal or an escape? It could be either. Yes, she wanted to check her emails to see if there was anything that would clarify what Wayne was talking about, but she also needed to prove to herself that she wasn’t trapped in her old bedroom.
What am I doing wrong? Coming back to Revere was supposed to bring me peace.
MC rode past the bank where she’d deposited her first babysitting check, the dry cleaners that had removed a telling beer stain from her satiny pink prom dress. Past an all-night gas station, past pungent Dumpsters that lined the deserted parking lot of the old corner market where she’d bought endless quantities of junk food. Except for the beach, with its missing boardwalk, the city hadn’t changed much since she’d drawn daily hopscotch outlines on the sidewalk.
MC had taken advantage of a middle-of-the-night phone call that kept her mother busy for a few minutes. Probably Aunt G, since the call came in on the family’s private line. She’d slipped down the back stairs and out of the house.
MC needed to see her emails, and her parents, the last of the Luddites, had no home computer. Anyway, there was no need to upset her family. They were only trying to protect her.
But MC needed action. No more reminiscing in her old bedroom, with its overabundance of nostalgia. Enough staring at the walls that still held her Duran Duran posters. Her mother had turned Robert’s room into a sewing area and John’s into a den for her father, but had left MC’s nest nearly intact.
“My boys have their own bedrooms, in our same zip code,” Rose had said. “My daughter needs a place to come home to.”
Often enough over the years MC had heard how she still looked like a teenager—small-boned, thin face with a boyish haircut. And flat-chested, MC thought with a grimace. She was sure that was the impression she gave tonight, in her latex pants and her nephew William’s shocking blue helmet. MC refrained from curb-jumping; still she knew that if a sleepless Revere resident happened to look out his window, he might think she was a late-night runaway kid tearing through the streets.
She zipped around the corner of Revere Street and Broadway, sailing past Oxford Park and Pomona Street, where her best girlfriends had lived. Annie, Claire, Valery, Joanie. She remembered how they would all give up potato chips and candy for Lent, then eat double helpings of rubbery packaged cupcakes.
MC needed to be in her own apartment, to maintain a semblance of independence, even though her landlords were also her parents. And she couldn’t wait another minute to check her email messages for the misdelivered memo, or whatever, that Wayne allegedly crossed the country to warn her about.
She took a deep breath, relaxing her tight hold on the handlebars. At least it wasn’t Jake who’d followed her from Texas. MC touched her cheek. It wasn’t as though Jake had bruised her or anything. Except her ego. And it was only once or twice that he’d slapped her. Lightly. Still it killed her to lie to Aunt G. She should have told her the truth, but it was too embarrassing. A smart girl from a loving family, salutatorian of her class, a graduate degree in chemical engineering, a great career, and she’d let some jerk knock her around.
Maaaaa
would never have stood for that, nor Aunt G.
She remembered wonderful summers in California when she
was little. Aunt G had always treated her like a grown-up, introduced her to scientists and engineers and programmers. Dr. Karen this, and Dr. Annmarie that. A little too obvious—they might as well have worn signs saying
FEMALE SCIENTIST ROLE MODELS
, but MC had loved it. Especially an all-nighter one time with Dr. Marcia, who’d let her help change spectrometer plates every half hour through the night, and write the data on gray graph paper with blue lines.
MC slammed her fist against the handlebar.
Damn
. All those strong women in her life, plus the gentlest of fathers and brothers, and she’d let them all down. For a loser. Maybe living near her family again would give her a new start, get her out of the depression she couldn’t shake. She was ninety percent of the way to being over Jake, ninety percent toward chalking it up as a temporary lapse in judgment.
She pushed ahead on William’s bike, deliberately overworking her calf muscles until they ached.
Wayne Gallen had said the email was incriminating. To whom? She hadn’t looked at her computer since her return. Once she got serious with her computer, she reasoned, she’d have to look for a job, and she wasn’t ready for that.
Life Plans
was too big a category to handle, but now she was curious about what could have driven Wayne across the country. He’d refused to give her details.
MC slowed down to make the turn onto Tuttle Street. Her plan was to ride the entire length of the one-way street to check for strange cars before doubling back and turning into the mortuary driveway. As if she’d know an enemy car from a friendly one. Or a stranger from a Tuttle Street resident. She hadn’t lived in the neighborhood long enough to tell the difference.
As she cruised by a new sedan in the shadow of a tree, she had the impression that there was a person, maybe two, slumped in the front seat. She tensed, then let out a long breath. Her loud
whoosh
cut through the still fall air. Probably a couple of teenagers making out. She knew what that was like.
But the sedan seemed out of place—the nicest car by far, among
the old hatchbacks and pickups parked in the driveways. To play it safe, MC rode through the backyards on her return up the street. If someone were checking everyone who came by, he’d think she was a guy who disappeared into a house at the end of the street. She half rode, half walked the bike around the lawns and vegetable gardens, ending up at the storm door at the rear of the mortuary.
MC’s hands were clammy, her breath quick, as she dug out her key. She felt as though her body were on alert, sniffing out danger. Like when she heard Jake come through the front door after a few beers with his pals. This time she was in control, she reminded herself. Jake was half a continent away. So why was every hair on her sweaty neck bristling?
She’d stuck a small flashlight in her waistband and used it now to make her way around the mortuary parlors, mercifully empty of laid-out corpses, to the stairway to the upper floors. Quieter than the elevator, just in case …
MC entered her third-floor apartment, keeping the flashlight beam low. She looked out the window, saw the sedan still parked under the tree. No sign of life in the vehicle, however. She must have been mistaken the first time.
Still, she drew her curtains and turned her computer monitor away from the windows. She’d soon find out what Wayne Gallen was talking about, if anything. She had a suspicion that he’d made up the story about the buckyball memo—that really he was simply hot for her, and with Jake out of the picture, saw an opportunity to make his move. Still, it was a long way to come on the off chance … actually, not a chance.
Wayne could be sweet, but he was way too slow for her. He talked slow, walked slow, thought slow. Drove her crazy by constantly caressing that 1890s mustache, rolling the thin curve of red hair between his fingers. Also, to tell the truth, Wayne was kind of creepy. He did little things for her—brought her a bag of corn chips from the vending machine, wiped off her windshield on a rainy day, helped her out at the copy machine if she was overloaded. You couldn’t fault a guy for behaving like that, but something about the way he looked
at her made her uncomfortable. She’d found herself not wanting to be in the lab when it was just the two of them working late.
MC took a long, cold drink from a bottle of water she’d taken from her neglected, smelly fridge, and maneuvered around a nest of wires to hook up her system. She welcomed the familiar popping sounds as her computer booted up.
CONNECT. CONTACTING HOST. SENDING LOGIN INFORMATION.
MC got up and cracked a window to get rid of the odor let loose when she opened her refrigerator. As soon as she straightened out this memo business, she’d clean up her act and go grocery shopping like a normal woman. Watch
Friends
reruns on TV. Have real friends over for dinner.
RECEIVING MESSAGE 1 OF 25. 2. 3 …
She read quickly.
YOU’VE WON A MERCEDES!
Delete.
SEE HEATHER UNZIP!
Delete.
MEET SINGLES LIKE YOU!
Hmm. Maybe I should give this a try
. Delete.
Once she’d cleared the spam, MC scanned the list of To/From, mostly messages from human resources. As if she hadn’t filled out enough forms before terminating her employment at the oil company and the university. A few posts from students in her night class, mostly ones who had
Incompletes
to work out. She focused on several items from Alex Simpson, the university buckyball project leader, opened each one, read through routine memos on purchases, deadline changes, maintenance schedules, and visiting dignitaries (read
venture capitalists with deep pockets
).
The communications on grant money were also innocuous. MC already knew the team was forging partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. CRADAs, they were called. Cooperative Research and Development Agreements.
Subject: CRADA milestones
Subject: Tracking sheet for first quarter
Subject: New account numbers
MC sighed. Boring. A reminder of what was waiting for her when she attached herself to another job.
Subject: CRADA personnel
Subject: Interviews with new hires
Subject: Capital equipment budget
Then, finally an intriguing subject line. She opened the message.
Subject: Millions of $ in the offing!
This one sounded like a spam tag line, but the sender was Alex Simpson, so MC opened it.
We’ve got them hooked. The idea of smart medicines is too good for them to resist. We’ll plug the cancer vaccines first. I’m thinking $100 million in funding to start …
MC thought of Alex Simpson, a slick chameleon with as many faces as the number of venture capitalists on his list. He’d don an Italian silk suit for a New York CEO, a cowboy hat and a swagger for a wealthy Oklahoma rancher. He had every restaurant in town on hold until he discovered the favorite cuisine of a moneyed visitor.
A Texas accent came and went, as swiftly as the airplanes that carried his potential benefactors. Alex was a master imitator, especially when it suited his purposes.
MC reread the message, hated the offensive tone, as if there weren’t human patients at the end of this drug research project. She remembered the promises made in the journal ads. “Smart medicine” meant drugs that go straight to a tumor or diseased organ. KNOCK OUT THE BAD CELLS WHERE THEY LIVE, said the headlines, WHILE LEAVING HEALTHY CELLS ALONE. She’d had enough lab experience to understand the possibilities were there, but she was enough of a realist to know how long it would be before the miracle prescriptions would be in local drugstores. Still, there was nothing new or incriminating in Simpson’s message. Just the usual hype.
Another subject line, dated the week she left Houston, caught her eye.
MC read carefully.
There’s good news and bad news. Our contact sees no problem delivering the package, but one unfortunate outcome-the bute that’s not bute-might bring trouble.
“Unfortunate outcome.” “Trouble.” Could be trigger words for something confidential. Or not. “Package” meant illegal drugs in a lot of the movies she’d seen. And there was that movie with Gene Hackman where Tommy Lee Jones was the package.
MC tapped her fingers on the keyboard, lightly, not pressing them down. Making that almost musical sound she liked. “Bute that’s not bute.” She thought about butane, butyl. Nothing she’d ever worked with. It could even be a misspelling, for all she knew.
If it hadn’t been for Wayne Gallen’s so-called warning, this note
wouldn’t be the least bit suspicious. She wished Wayne were around. This time she’d force him to give her details.
MC sighed deeply.
What a life
. Four in the morning and she was sitting on a hand-me-down rocker above a mortuary. Moreover, she now had to ride her nephew’s bike across town to get back to her parents’ house before they knew she was missing. She’d just waltz down to breakfast in a couple of hours, as if she’d been tucked in all night with the old panda that Robert won for her at Skeeball before the wrecking balls destroyed the amusements on the boulevard.