Elixir. Part 15

By the end of the meeting, Vince was taking orders for Elixir treatments at $2 million per year.

Around midnight the conference room cleared out, leaving Vince, Quentin, and Antoine to themselves.

Vince removed the video ca.s.sette from the projector. "By the way, your Betsy Watkins had an unfortunate accident this morning."

"What a pity," Quentin smiled.

"And the other problem is being taken care of as we speak."

Quentin felt a rush of relief. All was going so well. In a matter of weeks, they would be in full swing, all obstacles removed. Elixir would be sub-contracted to pharmaceutical firms outside New England, distribution would be handled by Vince and Antoine's people, and international bank accounts would be opened for proceeds. In a handful of years, Elixir would be their billion-dollar molecule.

"Are you familiar with the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde?" Antoine asked.

"No," Quentin said.

"How about the short mystery story 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar' by your own Edgar Allan Poe?"

"Not really."

"Too bad. It's a wonderful tale about a man put into a state of hypnosis at the moment of death, prolonging his life for months. The fun is when he's snapped out of his trance. In less than a minute he rots away into a liquid ma.s.s of putrescence."

Quentin looked at him blankly for an explanation.

From his valise Antoine pulled out another video and slipped it into the projector. "Watch, my friend."

Blue sky filled the screen. Slowly the camera pulled back to reveal an ocean horizon, boats floating in the misty distance. The camera canted to reveal Lisa posing at the bow of the Reef Madness. She was just as Quentin remembered her-stunningly beautiful with a gleaming smile and long tight body. Dressed in a baseball cap and a white one-piece suit that fit her like damp tissue paper, she could have been a supermodel posing for a calendar spread. The small rose tattoo on her right shoulder glowed like a medallion in the sunlight. She was laughing and poking a still camera at whoever was taping her.

The scene suddenly s.h.i.+fted to the same barred featureless room of the first video. It looked empty until the camera panned to a darkly clad figure in a wheelchair. Somebody off-camera said something, and the figure raised its head.

"Jesus Christ!" gasped Quentin.

It was Lisa. She was withered and stooped. Her hair was a wispy white film across her scalp, the skin of her face like weathered parchment. Her mouth was open to labored breathing, her lips chapped and split, most teeth missing. One eye was a gaping milky ball, the other eye a jellied slit.

Quentin's hope against hope was that it was trick photography or some fancy theatrical makeup job. But it was real. And it was Lisa-he could make out the rose tattoo. They had conditioned her on Elixir from the same batch that Quentin had stolen some weeks ago from the lab for the elderly patients. Somehow Antoine had injected her either against her will or with the promise of immortality, then withdrew treatments so she would rot.

Enjoying Quentin's reaction, Antoine paused the video on a closeup of her miserable face. "Some things don't age well, especially a cheating heart."

15.

JANUARY 29.

I think she was murdered," Chris said.

"Murdered!"

Chris and Wendy were driving to the Burlington Mall to finish shopping for their trip. Adam was asleep in his car seat.

"But who would murder her? And why?"

"I'm not exactly sure, but the line of questioning suggested foul play. I guess they're waiting for the medical examiner's report and following some leads."

Chris had been at a seminar on cell biology at the Heritage Hotel outside of Providence when Cambridge detectives showed up. They questioned him for nearly an hour, wondering why he had left the house at five that morning for an hour's drive to a conference that began at nine. He said he wanted to beat the traffic and have a leisurely breakfast to review the literature.

"What leads?"

"I don't know, but they asked if Betsy had any known enemies. All I could think of was Quentin."

"Quentin? That's ridiculous."

"Maybe not. Once he let slip that some people would pay dearly for Elixir as it is. I think he was sending up a trial balloon to see how I'd react."

"What did you say?"

"That I was opposed to the idea-that it wasn't meant to be the drug of choice for the elite. That's when he retreated, claiming he wasn't serious. But I wasn't convinced. I think he was testing me. He does things like that."

"Why would he take such a chance? He'll be CEO next month."

"Because he's gotten the company into debt up the yin-yang. And because Quentin Cross dreams of building empires, no matter what they're made of."

"That's absurd."

"Maybe, but I think I'm next."

Wendy turned to him. "Chris, you're scaring me."

"And they're scaring me. I think they want me out of the way like Betsy. She was a loose cannon. She threatened to expose Elixir on moral grounds. If she suspected they were considering blackmarketing it, she'd sound the alarm. And that's why they want me out of the way."

"He was just talking through his hat."

"Quentin doesn't talk through his hat. Then out of the blue comes this Caribbean offer-two weeks in a fancy seaside condo with a car and a boat all for free. And all the buddy-buddy stuff about what a terrific time we're going to have down there, and how great the diving is right off the beach."

"How about he was just being generous?"

"How about he's just too anxious to get us down there? He called this morning from New York to say we shouldn't feel bad about missing Betsy's funeral because the company will hold a memorial next month."

"I still fail to see the problem."

"Wendy, it's too good to be true. Quentin is a sly opportunist driven by self-interest, not magnanimity."

"Frankly, hon, I think you're being very ungrateful. He said his friend Barcello offered it to him, but with Ross's retirement and the holidays he couldn't get away. So he pa.s.sed it on to us."

"Nice coincidence, except I checked. First, there is no diving off the Las Palmas beach-the nearest reef is thirty miles.

"Second, I called a realtor down there about the condo, and there is no Barcello Mendez proprietor, and n.o.body who's ever heard of him or Quentin Cross. Then I called the number he gave and got an answering service for something called Fair Caribe Exchange, Ltd. which it turns out is headquartered in Apricot Cay-the same island our apricots were from."

"So?"

"About a year ago, Apricot Cay was bombed by U.S. Navy planes because the place was a big-time cocaine center. The point is Quentin was negotiating with traffickers of illegal substances-people who resolve problems by eliminating them."

"How do you know all this?"

"Ross Darby." Chris pulled the car into the parking lot of the mall. "Wendy, I think this trip is a setup. I think the people he's involved with killed Betsy and are planning to do the same to me down there. Maybe both of us."

"If they really wanted to get rid of you, why send you all the way to Puerto Rico?"

"To distance my own death from Betsy's-and Darby Pharms. To make it look like another terrible tragedy for hapless tourists."

"Then why don't you go to the police?"

"Because I have no hard evidence, just a lot of bad feelings. Besides, I'd have to explain Elixir."

She looked at him in dismay. "You seem more interested in protecting Elixir than yourself. Or us."

"I'm interested in protecting us and it."

"By doing what?"

"That's what I want to talk about," he said, "but it'll mean making some changes."

A little before one the next morning Chris entered the rear of Darby Pharmaceuticals. He hadn't used it since New Guinea, but his pistol was stuffed into his belt.

He neutralized the alarm system, then slipped into the main lab. Against the far wall was a locked file cabinet with all the notes ever a.s.sembled on Elixir, arranged according to years-from the earliest days of the flower synthesis up to yesterday's notes on the animals. The complete scientific records: chemistry, pharmacology, biology, toxicology-full details of the various procedures, printouts, a.n.a.lyses of purity, spectral data, animal medical histories. Down the hall in another room was a bank of red fireproof cabinets containing duplicate files.

It took him over an hour to remove every last note from both cabinets and load them into two steamer trunks in the van he had rented under a false name. When he was through, there was nothing left from which the company could ever again reproduce the Elixir molecule.

He then went to the lab and removed every one of over two hundred ampules of Elixir from storage and a backup two-liter bottle. He even removed the silastic implants and subcutaneous tubes from each of the animals. What clenched his heart was the knowledge that within a few days they would all die, some horribly. It pained him, but before he left he gave each a lethal injection of phen.o.barbitol.

He then drove to Logan Airport where he parked in the central lot. He took a cab to Belmont, the town next to Carleton, and walked home in the dark to avoid leaving record of his return.

It was nearly five A.M. when he entered the house. The place was dark and quiet. His car was parked in back. Wendy woke when he entered. So far, so good, he said. But she looked traumatized. She couldn't believe what they were doing, but he had convinced her that it was their only option.

At ten minutes to six, right on schedule, the limo Quentin had hired pulled up the driveway. The driver loaded their luggage in the back. They had brought with them several heavy suitcases. Wendy got in with the baby. She was in shock. Chris sat beside her with one hand on hers, the other on the pistol in case the driver tried anything funny. He didn't.

At six-forty, the limo pulled up to the Eastern gate. The place was swarming with buses and cars. Several tour groups were departing within an hour of each other. Theirs was scheduled for eight o'clock. Chris tipped the driver, then found a redcap to take the luggage inside. Through the windows Chris watched the limo pull away, making note of the plate number in case it circled back. It didn't. The man was just a hire.

While Wendy went to a coffee shop with Adam, Chris brought the two heaviest cases to the men's room where in a stall he wiped each clean of fingerprints, then checked them in lockers. Each contained unopened sets of dishes for weight.

The ticketing area was a swarm of people. The check-in line was long, and he fell in at the rear, his heart pounding. He didn't think anyone would keep tabs on them here. Still, he kept his sungla.s.ses on and his baseball cap low.

As he moved closer to the counter, he spotted a couple with a little girl among the standby pa.s.sengers. He then slipped out of line and went to the bank of pay phones on the far wall. He punched a bunch of numbers then grimaced noticeably as if hearing bad news.

When he returned, he called the standby couple aside. Under their parkas, they were dressed for warm weather, including the little girl who had already slipped into shorts.

"Look, I've got a bit of a problem," Chris explained to them. "My wife and son and I were scheduled for this flight, but I just learned that we've had a medical emergency at home. My father's in the hospital," he said, hating using Sam as their excuse.

"I'm sorry to hear that," the man said.

"The point is we can't go to Puerto Rico and have to get out of here fast. So, instead of turning in our tickets, I figured you folks can have them at standby prices. There are three of us and three of you, and I don't know where your names are on the list, but there're maybe twenty others going standby."

Chris would have gladly given them the tickets at no cost, but that would have raised suspicion.

"That's very nice of you," the woman said.

Beside her the little girl pulled at her dad. "Does it mean we can go?" she asked hopefully.

Her father looked leery, though the wife was as anxious as their daughter to be on the plane for a Caribbean vacation.

Chris pulled closer to the man. "Since you don't need pa.s.sports in Puerto Rico, you can fly under our names and not have to worry about getting seats. Once you're there, you're yourselves again. The charade's over."

The man didn't take long to decide. He pulled out a checkbook. "How much?"

The tickets had sold for $1,050. "Make it for seven hundred."

"Geez, that's quite a bargain."

"That's also a long line, and we've got to get out of here," Chris said.

Chris handed the man the tickets with the names C., W., and A. Bacon.

When the man was certain they were legitimate, he wrote out the check which said Thomas and Karen Foley, from Brockton, Ma.s.s. Chris thanked him.

Glowing with grat.i.tude at what a deal he had, Foley pumped Chris's hand. "Thank you, and I hope all works out okay for you and your family."

"Me too." Chris said. G.o.d, me too!

They rode in pained silence for a long while.

Chris tried conversation, but Wendy didn't respond. She just glared out the window, occasionally shaking her head in disbelief. He could almost read her mind. On the road were people doing normal, ordinary things-going to work, shopping, driving the kids around. Families off to visit friends or relatives. Not running for their lives. And she was thinking that in three weeks they were supposed to have a publication party for If I Should Die at Kate's Mystery Book Shop in Cambridge. At the cusp of the most wonderful time of Wendy's life-motherhood and the first step of a writing career-they were heading for the frozen backwoods of the Adirondacks. It was grossly unfair. And Chris's heart twisted with guilt. His only hope was that once settled into the cabin they would work out a plan of action-maybe consult lawyers-and she would come around.

In the rearview mirror he peered at Adam in his car seat and innocent blue snowsuit. And behind him two steamer trunks full of eternal youth and death.

What have I gotten you into, little man?

Wendy had no idea what they were transporting. He had told her only that he had removed some personal stuff from the lab, not robbed the place clean.

It wasn't until they stopped outside of Albany for lunch when she asked about the two trunks hidden in the rear. It was then Chris told her the truth.

Wendy exploded. "First we fake an airline trip, now it's grand larceny. We're fugitives from the law, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. Why did you bring this stuff?"

"So it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands."