Knockout Mouse Read online

  Wes lifted a brow. “Friends,” he corrected.

  When I came back into the living room, I asked if he wanted a beer.

  “Sure, if you’ve got one.”

  I went up two steps into a small dining room with a table and matching chairs Jenny had inherited from her grandmother. Flowers, candles, and a bowl of very realistic pears sat on a sideboard, along with several bottles of wine. Above the sideboard was a semi-abstract scene of a house and picket fence Jenny had painted.

  Across from the painting was the door to the kitchen. I stuck my head through and said, “Ready for duty.”

  Jenny leaned slowly into me over the counter, a smudge of olive oil rimming her upper lip. She opened her mouth and gave me a long tongue-filled kiss. Dinner parties made her that way.

  “We’ve got everything under control,” she said, straightening and nodding to Fay, her friend and cohost.

  “You sure you got all that oil off, Bill?” Fay remarked, turning to greet me. I smiled and opened the refrigerator, in search of an ice-cold can. Fay Ming was a graphic designer. A cascade of silky, jet black hair fell halfway down her back. She and Jenny were a knockout pair when they went to client meetings for Jenny’s Web design business.

  Hunt as I might, there were no ice-cold cans to be found in the fridge. Apparently I’d finished them off. Oh well, I thought on my way back to the sideboard in the dining room, Wes would have to stick to wine. And Jenny would be pleased to see me pouring a glass for myself. It was supposed to be that kind of party.

  Jenny came out of the kitchen with a plate of cheese and crackers and slid into a dining room chair. I never got tired of watching her do that, especially when she was wearing Capri pants. She was lithe but strong, with delicate cheekbones, a little exclamation point of a nose, and a mouth perpetually puckering in amusement. She brightened any room, a talent I’d learned not to take for granted. I could see the effect on Wes, who peered in from the living room.

  Cutting a sliver of Cambozola, Jenny asked about my meeting. I joined her at the table and said Kumar was fine. His company had had a very good year and wanted to show it off in twenty minutes of cinematic glory. The weird part of the day was at the end, with the Scout and Gregory Alton.

  “Alton wants you to shoot a film for him? That’s great!” Jenny said, a lilt in her voice. “See? All you have to do is put yourself out there. The work will come.”

  “It wasn’t Rita and me, Jen. It was the fact we were working for Kumar.”

  “Maybe he’s looking for a spy,” Wes said, now hovering near the steps. “Or it might be even simpler. If Gregory and Kumar are competitors, Gregory probably wants you just because Kumar got you.”

  “Enough to pay double?” I said.

  “That’s the mentality,” Wes said. “It’s all about getting the other guy’s toys. If you happen to spill a little data about Kumar on the way, so much the better.” Wes was CTO of a startup that had defied the tech crash. He was flourishing.

  “It scares me how well you understand these people, Wes.”

  “It still sounds like a good opportunity,” Jenny said.

  “Maybe I didn’t make it clear how irritating Gregory was. Rita would never work with him.”

  Jenny’s eyes gleamed. “That’s perfect. Jump on it yourself, Bill. Make the leap to producer-director.”

  “I wouldn’t cut Rita out like that.”

  Jenny gave me a smile that could charm a crocodile. “That’s what I like about you, Bill. You’re such a gentleman. Why don’t you check with Rita, though. If she doesn’t want the job, you can take it.”

  I returned her smile, but shook my head. “Gregory’s a Bigfucker on training wheels.”

  Jenny’s expression flattened into a mock pout. “Poor Bill. You’re just mad you didn’t get to go for your walk today. But we all have to work with people we don’t like,” she said sweetly. “Especially to get our first break.”

  I tried to think of a polite way to say, Never in a million years. Jenny was trying to help; I just wasn’t sure whom. Her Web design business was taking off when we met seven months before, and the crash had dimmed none of her aggressiveness and enthusiasm. I saw, in those first few weeks, that my knowledge of the tech world turned her on, and I proceeded to make the mistake of talking about it like an old pro. I wasn’t really, few were, but three years of being sucked into the Internet vortex and then spit out did leave me feeling old, even if I was only in my mid-thirties. As Jenny and I got to know each other, I tried to back off of my old pro status and explain how the dot-con had lured me away from the thing I’d actually meant do with my life: make films. I didn’t yet know what was next for me, I was only resolved that it have little to do with the tech industry. She pretended to accept my resolution, all the while slipping me hints on how and why I should break it.

  The shine faded from her eyes when I didn’t answer. As I opened my mouth, the doorbell rang. Jenny put the lilt back in her voice. “Can you get that? I need to set the table.”

  I did a double take when I opened the front door. A small woman with long, dark ringletted hair looked up at me uncertainly. She didn’t recognize me, but I’d seen her not long ago from behind a viewfinder. She was the one I’d caught on tape by accident in the parking lot. The one who had been so quick to hide from the lens.

  “Is this Jenny Ingersoll’s house?” she asked in a small, liquid voice.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m Bill Damen, her doorman.”

  A slender row of fingers took my hand. “Sheila Harros.” She handed me a paper bag. “These are tomatoes. For the appetizer.”

  “Thanks. I think we met about an hour ago.”

  She stopped in the middle of unwrapping a fine-woven scarf, threaded with glittering red and gold, from around her neck. “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “In the BioVerge parking lot. Gregory Alton was there. I was behind a video camera.”

  Her eye twitched at Gregory’s name, but she shook her head coolly. “You must have seen someone else.”

  It would have been easy to settle the matter. The camera was sitting right here. I knew I’d see the same scarf, the same dark curls framing a light olive face, the same almond brown eyes under long lashes. But my role here was not to make Jenny’s guests feel uncomfortable.

  She shrugged out of a linen jacket and came with me into the living room. As I opened the bedroom door, a meow came from inside. Jenny’s cat Maggie poked her head through the crack.

  “Oh!” Sheila said. “Please don’t put my coat in there. I’m terribly allergic to cats.”

  “Sorry. I guess that’s why closets were invented. Have a seat. I’ll tell Jenny you’re here.”

  Instead of sitting down, Sheila scanned Jenny’s bookshelf. She clasped her hands behind her back, as if to resist some temptation. I turned for another look before I left the living room. In trim black pants and a subtle lapis blouse, she had an elegance to her. But she undermined it in small ways—her averted eyes, her nervous fingers. Maybe she was just tense around strangers.

  Wes was in the kitchen with Jenny and Fay. I announced Sheila’s arrival. Jenny sidled over and whispered conspiratori-ally, “Go talk to her, Wes.”

  Wes looked to me for a first impression. I hesitated. We’d known each other since college, but I’d gotten out of the business of setting him up with dates, at least not with women I wanted to remain friends with. Jenny had been glad to take over the job. He was quite the commodity: six foot one, dark hair sweeping across his forehead, sharp handsome features. He’d already cashed in his first set of options and had plenty still accumulating. Jenny was full of ideas for his social life.

  I gave him a thumbs up, then tilted my thumb a bit. There was something unsettled about Sheila. Actually, she was probably more my type than Wes’s.

  “Who else is coming?” he asked.

  I elbowed him. “Don’t be greedy.”

  “Marion,” Jenny said. “But you can’t go out with both of them. They work toget
her.”

  I poured Sheila a glass of wine. Wes grabbed it. “Allow me.”

  Wes always surprised me when he went into operator mode. In college, he’d been a stringy-haired physics major who’d had a hard time making eye contact with anyone, including me. And although his confidence had grown with success, he still would end a conversation abruptly if he started to feel nervous. He was a geek at heart, but some chemical kicked in around women.

  I drifted into the dining room for a look. Sheila was telling Wes she got her doctorate in molecular biology. Wes gulped his wine.

  The doorbell rang again. This time Fay got it. More people poured in. I put my facial muscles where they belonged, shook hands, and let names slip through my ears. Most of the guests were friends of Jenny and Fay, clients and potential clients. They were generally younger than me and sported the hip-nerd look: the correct era of retro haircut, the correct length sideburns, the occasional piercing. The more slickly dressed ones were probably lawyers or MBAs. A couple in shorts and sandals were likely engineers.

  As I finished putting coats in the closet, Wes caught my eye. He held out his glass for a refill. I took it to the dining room, where Jenny was holding court. She was in her element here, keeping everyone entertained, dispensing drinks, and adding last minute touches to the table, all without skipping a beat. As I poured wine, she introduced me to a guy wearing a shirt in that blue that had swept the business world. He had a tie and an important busy look to match.

  “I didn’t catch what you do,” he said.

  What did I do? The number one question around here. The real questions behind it were, one, what can you do for me? And two, did you have the wherewithal to survive the deflation of the bubble?

  “Film,” I said.

  “You must travel to LA a lot.”

  “I don’t do features so much. Documentaries, and, if I’m forced to, industrials.”

  He nodded. His attention wandered to a tray of cheese. I didn’t try to retrieve it. Jenny’s friends did not inspire me to share confidences. Young and bright and good looking, they were all running in the same race. What brought them together was a sense of being career accelerators for one another. My friends had their quirks, but I knew I could count on them. Rita in particular—anywhere, anytime. Wes, usually, unless he was busy chasing some new capital or new romance.

  I took Wes his wine. Sheila’s back was to me. As I handed Wes the glass, she turned. Her elbow knocked the glass into my chest.

  “Oh no,” she apologized. “All over your white shirt. I’ll get you some soda water.”

  Wes waved her off. “Bill’s got a closet full of them. He wears the same thing whenever he goes out. White shirt and jeans.”

  I looked at the spot above my left breast. “Bad enough I have to drink the stuff,” I murmured. “Now I’ve got to wear it.”

  “I’m jealous. You can’t get away with wardrobe tricks like that when you’re female,” Sheila said.

  “Nice meeting you,” Wes said abruptly to her. He headed for a tall woman with large dangling earrings across the room.

  I caught a was it something I said? glance from Sheila. I could only shrug and dab a napkin on the stain. “He’s bad at good-byes,” I told her. I didn’t add that although I always told Wes he ought to go for a scientist, he insisted on being drawn to women who were fast-track lawyers, agents, marketing directors. He must have thought they had something he didn’t.

  Sheila was anything but fast. In spite of how nicely the black ringlets of hair framed her head, and the elegance of the single bracelet on her wrist, a sadness shadowed her face. She made a valiant effort to keep it tucked away, but it seeped from the corners of her eyes and the sides of her mouth. I wondered where it came from. Maybe she just worked too hard. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how she ducked away from the camera in the parking lot, then refused to admit it. I was getting more and more curious about why.

  3

  Jenny called us to dinner. Sheila and I wound up together down at the end of the table. Across from us and over a seat, Wes was absorbed with the tall woman with the earrings. Marion, I heard someone call her, and remembered she was the other date Jenny had in mind for Wes. She had a strong jaw, pale skin, and long, flat blonde hair. Her height, mild European accent, and stylish glasses made her an imposing figure. She was regaling Wes with a story about mold colonies.

  The talk at the rest of the table was of real estate, bandwidth, and the venture capital market. Sheila remained quiet. She ate methodically, using a fork and knife to neatly divide the appetizer of mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes. I noticed she was sniffling and her eyes were rimmed red. She kept rubbing them.

  “Is the cat bothering you?” I asked.

  “Cats. Trees. Grass. I’m pretty much allergic to life.”

  “This area is bad for pollen.”

  “It’s getting worse. Cities and companies don’t plant female trees anymore if the species is dioecious. Just the males. The females drop seeds, fruit, husks—litter people don’t want to clean up. So we get the male trees, spewing pollen.”

  “It’s always the males causing problems.”

  She flicked me a mischievous glance. “So I’ve heard.”

  “But let’s face it, women are messy. Dropping eggs all over the place.”

  “It’s tragic.” She shook her head, deadpan. “Chemically driven to make the globe more crowded than it already is. Losing their minds when their biological clocks go off.”

  I laughed. “To be fair, it happens to men, too. Only with them I think it’s more about ego than eggs.”

  “Or genes, the new superego. They demand to be propagated.”

  “So why is it that they make boys want one thing and girls another?”

  “You mean the old, ‘men want sports and women want shoes’? Nature is more clever than you think. We’d get bored with each other if we were too much alike.”

  Sheila returned everything I said with a little extra on it. I liked it. “So what I’ve heard is true. You’re a molecular biologist.”

  “That’s what my badge says. I work at a biotech company.”

  I pictured her in a lab, neatly dividing peptides the way she did her food. “Well, if you invented these tomatoes in the lab, you’re doing good work.”

  She gave a doleful smile. “They’re from a garden.”

  “What kind of genes are you splicing, then?”

  “Gene transfer is old news. The new big thing in the field is proteomics.”

  “The study of proteins,” I said. Kumar had mentioned it.

  “They’re the real building blocks of the body. DNA may spell out the recipes, but proteins do all the work. They’re the big targets for control of disease. We might have thirty or sixty thousand genes in our genome, but hundreds of thousands of proteins are in the proteome. We have a long way to go to map them.”

  “I heard a bit about it this afternoon,” I said, hoping to sneak back to the subject of the parking lot. “I’ve been shooting a project for a company called Kumar Biotechnics.”

  Sheila’s expression betrayed nothing. I went at the question another way and asked who she worked for.

  “LifeScience Molecules. I’m a junior scientist.” She launched into a long explanation of target cells, hybridomas, and monoclonal antibodies. She was smart, articulate, and clearly passionate about her work. After a while I stopped listening and simply enjoyed watching her as she talked and made diagrams in the air. She was a beautiful woman.

  It took me a minute to realize she’d stopped talking. I smiled at her to cover the fact that I’d been admiring her more than attending to what she said. The silence hung between us, a shared moment. One way or another, I wanted to see more of her, even if only as a friend.

  Everyone had finished eating by now. Sheila nudged her leftover salmon, mashed potatoes, and salad with a fork, then started to tell me about how an experimental salmon without the urge to spawn was being created. Its chromosomes were engineered so
that it had no desire to swim upstream. Salmon lost a lot of weight on those trips and would stay nice and fat if they didn’t make them. Others were being fattened more directly by splicing a growth hormone into them.

  “You do this, too?” I asked.

  “No, no,” she said quickly. “That’s not my work.”

  From down the table, I caught a look from Jenny, which was followed by a smile with an extra little sparkle in it. I knew how to decode these smiles by now. On the surface it said she was thinking of me. The second layer said I shouldn’t be monopolizing Sheila. And the third layer was telling me to cut out the flirting. But in my mind this wasn’t so much about flirtation as about having an intelligent conversation for its own sake, a rarity tonight amidst all the infrared Palm Pilot mating.

  Marion heard the talk of salmon. She looked at me and said, “Did you hear about the company in Syracuse that wants to produce a nonallergenic cat? They’re planning to knock out Fel d 1, the gene linked to dander and saliva.”

  “Do you think animals will start to come with tags, like Beanie Babies?” Wes asked.

  We were catching the attention of some of the other people at the table. “I’m more worried about the ones that don’t come with tags,” Fay said.

  “That’s small potatoes—” began Mr. Blue Shirt.

  “Which are also being engineered,” Marion put in.

  “The real question,” he went on, “is what happens when we start using the technology on ourselves.”

  “I’m not so sure—” Sheila began.

  “If it can be done, it will be done,” Blue Shirt declared. “Someone, somewhere, is mapping out their future child right now.”

  Fay gave him a dig. “If I know you, Chad, you’ll just clone yourself. No improvements needed.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” Sheila said. “Most attempts at nuclear transfer end in horror stories. It takes a kind of scientific voodoo to coax the embryonic cells to divide. Look at Dolly the sheep: she’s obese, her telomeres are short, and there are signs she’s aging too fast, possibly because her mother’s DNA was old. The real action in biotech is treatment of disease.”