Knockout Mouse Read online

  When the waiter came around, I ordered the Chinese chicken salad. Gregory didn’t look at the menu. “I’ll have the grilled ahi sandwich,” he said. “The tuna should be crisp, very crisp, on the outside, like bacon. Soft on the inside, like jelly, but not raw. And keep the capers off it, okay?”

  His attention came back to me. “So you know the L curve. Big drop and now we’re bumping along the bottom. I give myself credit, though. Never promised eyeballs. Never made a B-to-C play.” He meant business-to-consumer. “I always got the quick flip, then slid over before any of my ventures turned up on fuckedcompany.com. I wasn’t going to be no dead man driving.”

  “Dead man driving?”

  “You know the guys. Instead of doing something smart with their severance, they buy a Jag. So they can look good driving to their nonexistent job interviews.”

  “Keep looking like a big man, and maybe the world will treat you like one.”

  “So anyway, this guy, my partner Ron, he clued me in on biotech as the next exponential industry. Guess who are some of the major individual investors? Bill, Paul, and Larry.”

  He listed them on a first-name basis, as if the trio was as familiar as Moe, Curly, and Larry. Gates, Allen, and Ellison. “Curing disease must be hot,” I said.

  “End users can ignore a banner ad. They can’t ignore cancer.”

  “How did you get up to speed on molecular genetics?”

  “Well, Ron’s got the bio side. I’ve got the information architecture. That’s our play, bioinformatics. We got cooking last year. Once the human genome was sequenced, boom! It’s a race to monetize the genome, just like the Internet.”

  “Explain bioinformatics to me.”

  “There are mega databases of genetic information out there. Somewhere in that galactic cloud is precisely the data a lab or pharma needs to define their disease target and test their drug candidate. We penetrate the cloud for them.”

  “With some kind of specialized search engine?”

  “It’s way more gnarly than that, Bill. We’ve got some proprietary code in the works. Let’s say you’re looking at a particular stretch of DNA. You’ve got an idea that it’s involved in, I don’t know, cancer of the cuticle. Now, this gene is maybe four thousand base pairs long. Base pairs are the rungs on the twisted ladder of DNA. They’re like a very long address. Now, people out there have researched what goes on at this address. They might be able to give you codons, receptors, promoters, protein sequence assembly—the kind of stuff you can use to design your drug. But that data is dispersed. All you’ve got is the address. It’s like having a house number, but you don’t know the street, you don’t even know the city. That’s where we come in. We use our tools to put you in touch with what everyone else can tell you about this address.”

  The food came. Gregory lifted the top of his sandwich, inspected the ahi like an Olympic judge, then tore into it. I said, “And this is what your company wants to do for LifeScience.”

  He showed me a chewing version of that smug smile of his. “Oh yeah, your buddies at LifeScience. What’s so fascinating about them anyway?”

  “It’s a personal thing, Gregory. A friend of mine worked there.”

  He took a gulp of soda and eventually got around to swallowing. “We’re playing for an alliance with LifeScience. They’ve got a new molecule that’s supposed to be monstrously effective against cancer. It’ll be in trials soon. It’s already bringing in big bucks for new programs. Their pipeline’s going to be stuffed. Meaning new targets, new drug candidates. We’ll help them find both. Later, if we grow like I think we can, we’ll test the candidates in silico. Find out what the compound does in various tissues, cell processes, metabolic pathways. All of these human functions are being modelled. The computer is the lab.”

  “LifeScience is on the verge of going big time.”

  “Yup. They’ve been up and down. The new cash machine is a monoclonal antibody. Their science guy, McKinnon, was big into them back when. Didn’t pan out. They were gasping for air, got some new management, a new target, and now they’ve got this hot candidate, MC124. McKinnon dropped the bomb at a med conference. Cheesed the crap out of his bosses. By the way, you heard none of this from me.”

  “Don’t worry. Who do you deal with there—McKinnon? Dugan?”

  “I’ve heard of Dugan. He’s COO. I met McKinnon. He’s got an underling named Doug Englehart who’s set to get his own program there soon. Plus, LifeScience has acquired a new agri division. What exactly do you want to know?”

  “Hear about any problems with MC124? Troublesome lab results? A researcher named Sheila Harros?”

  Gregory shook his head. His eyes narrowed. “You got some money riding on this?”

  “None whatsoever. But you did see Sheila, that first time you and I met in the parking lot. Why do you think she looked so startled?”

  Gregory tongued some food from his back teeth. “Not because of me, pal. Probably your camera scared her.”

  “How does this monoclonal antibody, MC124, work?”

  He waved a hand. “I don’t keep up with the trivia. All I know is that monoclonal candidates can be produced faster and cheaper than your average drug. Large pharma is hot for LifeScience. The money pump is running. Meanwhile, I’ve got Bigfuckers breathing down my neck this minute. We gotta have the LifeScience deal. That’s why Kumar is pissing me off so bad. If he steals my technology and this gig—”

  “It’s hell being stuck at Littlefucker level, isn’t it?”

  A look of suspended disbelief crossed Gregory’s face. He might have gotten up and left right there. I wouldn’t have minded. Instead he decided to break out laughing. “You’ve got some sense of humor, Bill.”

  I smiled. “Pretty much my only good point, isn’t it?”

  “Buddy, you got to come through. Here I’ve been spitting data all through lunch. What have you got for me?”

  I crunched on some crispy noodles. “Is there a woman named Karen working at your company?” It had occurred to me that that would explain Sheila in the parking lot—she was meeting Karen. Karen might work at either BioVerge or Kumar.

  “Maybe. It’s a common name. Now come on. Give me something. Anything’

  He pushed his plate away, locked his hands behind his head, and heaved his feet up onto the chair next to me. I stared at the soles of his expensive boots and weighed my options. “You’re right to be worried about Kumar. The software’s deep in beta.

  Our film’s wrapping next month. That means they’ll be making an announcement.”

  Gregory sucked air between his teeth. “I know all that. It’s the fine grain I need. Screen shots. Documentation.”

  “I told you I missed the shoot yesterday. I’ll be back on it again tomorrow,” I lied. “I’ll try to copy some footage.”

  “Why aren’t you there today?”

  “It’s just second unit stuff.” As if Rita had a second unit.

  “I want to see the goods tomorrow night. No later.”

  The waiter dropped off the tab. I snatched it. “This one’s on me, Gregory.”

  He made a smirk of agreement, then stood to leave. “Ciao. I’ll see you tomorrow, when you’ll have you-know-what in your hand.”

  “You’ll get it, all right.”

  I was glad to pick up the tab. What he’d told me was worth the price of lunch. But no more.

  As I waited for my change, a pattern kept dancing in my head. The big diagonals on the soles of his boots. Bits of mud stuffed in the crannies. I’d seen the pattern before. Now I remembered where: in the moist soil of my backyard.

  » » » » »

  I stayed at Perry’s a little longer. I wanted to make sure Gregory was clear of the area. Then I headed for the business park shared by Kumar and BioVerge. I didn’t use their parking lot. Instead, I put the Scout in another manicured lot on the far side of a four-lane divided boulevard.

  The reception desk at Kumar Biotechnics paged Rita for me. Five minutes later I was upstairs
with her. She was shooting in a third-floor conference room. The chief technology officer was getting ready to go on camera. Monitors, flasks, pipettes, and circuit boards were set up behind him. My replacement DP and the gaffer were fussing with the lights. Rita came with me into the corridor, through which the crew’s gear was scattered.

  “What’s all that stuff doing in a conference room?”

  Rita chuckled. “They actually use some of it for presentations. But we brought in some extra for background. We need something more than computer screens.”

  “Silicon Valley action picture. Guys working a mouse with their tongues sticking out.”

  “We did get some cool probe lens shots yesterday. These chips are incredible—one day they’ll carry your entire personal genome.”

  “Sorry I missed it. Is the new DP doing all right? He looks like a tweaker.”

  “Yeah, I love it. He’s cute, too.”

  She was still trying to make me jealous. I gave the proper frown, then said, “I left a couple of things I need in the camera cases. I’m going to poke around for a minute.”

  “No problem. Just don’t step in front of any cameras.”

  The DP called Rita into the conference room. I made sure he was watching as I blew her a little good-bye kiss. Then I picked through the maze of padded bags until I found the one in which she’d put my things: the tape of Sheila, along with the computer disks from Sheila’s apartment. I deposited them into a wrinkled plastic grocery bag I’d brought.

  Inside the conference room, Rita gave directions to lock down the set. I took the opportunity to pick through some of the other bags. I’d unzipped a million of these things, and could do so with hardly a sound. I looked until I found two DAT cassettes with yesterday’s date scrawled on them. They went into my grocery bag. No HD videotapes, though—Mr. Perfect must have hidden them away good.

  Rita’s fanny pack was by the door. I found her cell phone in it and scurried down the corridor. I called information, covered the mouthpiece, and mumbled that I wanted the number for BioVerge. The operator didn’t hear me. As I mumbled it louder, Arun Kumar came around the corner. I froze. He smiled at me and put out his hand. I got the number and clicked off the phone.

  “Are you back on the job?” Kumar asked. He had a fleshy chin and round, inquisitive eyes. His thick black hair fell across his forehead in a double wave.

  “I’m afraid not. Just came by to see how it was going.” His gaze fell to the crumpled plastic bag in my left hand. “And pick up a few items of mine,” I added, mentally kicking myself up and down the hallway. If Rita noticed the missing DAT cassettes, and she and Kumar put two and two together…

  “We’re very pleased with Rita. Very pleased.”

  “It’s good to know she can get along without me.” I smiled and resisted the urge to hide the plastic bag behind my back. “I’ve been meaning to ask—do you have a woman named Karen working here?”

  “I believe we have a Karen in accounting.”

  “Hmm, probably not her. Maybe she works across the way.” If he’d heard my phone request, I might as well cover myself. Kumar showed no reaction at the mention of his competitor, so I pushed a little more. “What do you hear about BioVerge?”

  His laugh was gentle. “I don’t lose any sleep over them.”

  “Does Gregory Alton have any idea what he’s doing?”

  Kumar shook his head. His tone was almost regretful. “Very little. It makes my job easier in one way, but in another it reflects poorly on the sector as a whole.”

  “Thanks a lot. Good to see you.”

  “Drop by anytime.”

  I hoped he’d still feel that way in a few days. Flipping open the phone again, I called BioVerge and asked for Karen. The receptionist gave me a choice of two. “The bioscientist,” I said.

  That would be Karen Harper, the receptionist said, and connected me.

  I started right in. “Karen, this is Bill Damen. I’m a—”

  Click. That was as far as I got. But it confirmed I’d found the right Karen. I redialed and asked for her. The receptionist told me she wasn’t in. What did Karen Harper have against me?

  I returned Rita’s phone. She was still shooting in the conference room, so I left without saying good-bye. I was outside waiting to cross the boulevard when I heard footsteps pounding in my direction. They belonged to Gregory Alton. His sunglasses were pushed up on top of his brushed-up blond hair.

  “Bill!” he said, breathless. “Aren’t you coming to see us?”

  “Not until tomorrow, Gregory.” How did he know I was here?

  He eyed the crumpled plastic bag. “Second unit, huh? It looks like you’ve got some goodies right now.”

  “I told you. Friday. And when I do come, I want to see Karen Harper.”

  As a grin spread over his face, I realized how he’d caught me. I’d used Rita’s phone to call Karen. Caller ID showed Rita’s number. Karen told him I’d made the call, and he knew Rita was at Kumar.

  “Karen might have accidentally heard the wrong things about you,” he said. “I’ll have to set her straight. After you’ve made your delivery.”

  I hated to do it, but I needed Karen. I reached into the bag, drew out the two marked DAT cassettes, and held them up for him to see. He made a grab. I dropped the tapes into the bag and brought my right elbow up hard into his solar plexus. He staggered backward with a grunt, his shades flying off. I took a stance. He thought about it for a minute, then stooped to pick up his glasses.

  “Easy, buddy,” he said. “I just wanted to look.”

  “I have to copy them first. Don’t push me, Gregory. They’ll be ready tomorrow. At noon. I want to see Karen at the same time.”

  He jabbed a forefinger at me. “You’re not getting near Karen until those tapes are in my hands.” He shoved the glasses onto his face, spun, and walked away.

  I noticed his feet again. “Hey Gregory,” I called. “Where’d you get those boots?”

  He turned. “They’re German. Hard to find. Got them on the Net.”

  Clearly he was proud of them.

  17

  I hurried back to Jenny’s apartment, not knowing whether I was on my way to a peace parley or war council. At four o’clock, George and Abe Harros were scheduled to arrive. I prayed they were late.

  George Harros had called Jenny’s last night to arrange the meeting. Jenny wasn’t thrilled about it, but I wanted to find out what they knew. I’d taken her to dinner later and we’d reached a truce of our own.

  It was four on the dot when I parked the Scout. I bounded up Jenny’s stairs, and after a quick knock, let myself in.

  I did not like what I saw. The two Harros men occupied one of the living room sofas. Fay, in a short skirt, legs crossed, sat on the other. There was some activity in the kitchen. Jenny was at the dining room table, twirling a strand of hair into a knot. Her eyes filled with reproach when she saw me.

  “They just get here?” I asked softly.

  “They’ve been here for half an hour” She didn’t bother to lower her voice. “Look at what they’re doing to my kitchen.”

  Although their backs were turned to me, the shapes of the two men in the kitchen shot a little dagger of panic through my gut. They were the ones who’d been after us in the copy shop. Harros must have hired them, not Dugan.

  One of the men was up to his elbows in the refrigerator, filling up a trash bag of evidence. The other was scraping something out of the microwave. The latter looked over his shoulder and gave me a little smirk.

  I said, “What are you guys, private investigators? You find the smoking gun yet—or did you bring it with you?”

  The smirk needed only a couple of millimeters to turn into a scowl. His complexion was light and sand-freckled, his eyebrows nearly invisible, but the scowl had unexpected menace. He stabbed his chisel-like instrument into the side of the microwave.

  “Whoops,” he said.

  “Don’t worry. Mr. Harros will pay for it.”

 
; I was torn between staying in the kitchen—to make sure they didn’t do more damage, plant evidence, or install some kind of listening device—and dealing with Harros in the living room. I went for Harros. The kitchen guys had probably already done their deeds, and I couldn’t leave Jenny alone any longer.

  I motioned for her to come with me into the living room. She answered by making a face, but moved to the steps between the two rooms. My cordial greeting to Mr. Harros brought a cool nod. He wore a tie and vest. His steel-streaked hair was slicked back. His prominent features jutted into the room. Abe sported some nice Italian shoes.

  “I need the names of the two men in the kitchen,” I said.

  “No, you don’t,” Abe answered.

  “I need their names or they are leaving now.”

  George Harros gave a disgusted sigh, took a card from his wallet, and thrust it at me. William Pratt Agency, the card said.

  “Looks like you’ve got two Bills in your life,” I remarked. “The good one and the bad one.”

  Fay giggled, but the observation did not have the relaxing effect I’d aimed for on the others. “His name’s William,” Abe said coldly.

  I gazed at him long enough to make him look away. Then I grabbed a side chair, plunked it at a right angle by Mr. Harros, and launched into my version of events. I started with the dinner party and ran through our visit to the hospital, adding that we went to Sheila’s apartment with Fay only to get contact information for Abe.

  “I don’t see what we’ve done to deserve hostility,” I concluded. “We’ve been here to help from the beginning.”

  Harros cleared his throat. His voice had an even keel now. “That’s all very well. But perhaps your efforts derive from a sense of guilt.”

  “A point,” I allowed, “but off the mark. We do feel terrible about what happened to Sheila. We feel grief and regret. But not guilt. Jenny was impeccably careful about what she served.”

  “I’m a doctor,” Abe said. “I’ve got the autopsy report. The swollen tissues, angio-edema, hyperinflated lungs, they all add up to the fact that Sheila ate something in this apartment that killed her.”