Next: A Novel (16 page)

“You went and did it to Lois’s boy. You did it yourself.”

“That’s true.” But he had only done it because he thought nobody would ever catch him.

“And now that boy has quit drugs and is working.At a bank, Josh. Abank. ”

“As what?”

“I don’t know, a teller or something.”

“That’s great, Mom.”

“It’s more than great,” his mother said. “This spray of yours could be a real moneymaker, Josh.

It’s the drug everybody wants. You could finally make something of yourself.”

“Nice, Mom.”

“You know what I mean. The spray could be great.” She paused. “But you need to know how it affects older people, don’t you.”

He sighed. It was true. “Yes…”

“That’s why the Levines might work out for you.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll try to get a canister.”

“For both parents?”

“Yes, Mom. For both.”

He flipped the phone shut. He was contemplating what, exactly, he should do about this—and deciding to do something else entirely—when he heard the sound of sirens. A moment later two black-and-white police cars pulled up in front of the building. Four cops piled out of the cars, entered the building, and walked right up to Brad, who still leaned on the counter talking to Lisa.

“Are you Bradley A. Gordon?”

A moment later, one spun him around, pulled his arms back, and handcuffed him.

Holy shit, Josh thought.

Brad was bellowing.“What the hell is this? What the hell is this!”

“Mr. Gordon, you are under arrest for aggravated assault and rape of a minor.”

“What?”

“You have the right to remain silent—”

“What?” He was shouting. “What minor? Goddamn it, I don’t know any fucking minor.”

The cop stared at him.

“Okay, wait—wrong word! I don’t know any minor!”

“I think you do, sir.”

“You guys are making one big-ass mistake!” Brad said, as they started to lead him away.

“Just come with us, sir.”

“I’m going to sue your freaking asses off!”

“This way, sir,” they said.

And he went through the doors to the sunlight outside.

When Bradhad gone, Josh looked over at the other people standing at the railing. Half the office was looking down, talking, whispering. And at the far end of the balcony, he saw Rick Diehl, the head of the company.

Just standing there, with his hands in his pockets. Watching the whole thing play out.

If Diehl was upset, he certainly didn’t show it.

CH024

Brad Gordon frowned unhappily at the toilet in his jail cell. A strip of damp toilet paper clung to the side of the metal bowl. There was a puddle of brownish liquid in front of the seat. It had flecks of stuff floating in it. Brad wanted to pee, but he wasn’t going to step in that liquid, whatever the hell it was. He didn’t even like to think about it.

A key turned in the lock behind him. He stood. The door swung open.

“Gordon? Let’s go.”

“What is it?”

“Attorney’s here.”

The cop pushed Brad down a hallway and into a small room. There was an older man in a pinstripe suit and a younger kid in a Dodgers jacket, sitting at a table with a laptop. The kid had thick horn-rim glasses, which made him look like an owl, or Harry Potter or something. They both stood up, shook his hand. He didn’t catch their names. But he knew they were from his uncle’s law firm.

“What’s going on here?” he said.

The older lawyer opened a folder. “Her name is Kelly Chin,” he said. “You met her at a soccer game, you came on to her—”

“I came on to her ?”

“And then you took her to the Westview Plaza Hotel, room four-thirteen…”

“You don’t have this story right…”

“And once in the room you had oral, genital, and anal sex with her. And she’s sixteen.”

“Christ,” he said. “It never happened.”

The older attorney just stared at him. “You’re in very deep shit, my friend.”

“I’m telling you it never happened. ”

“I see. The two of you were photographed on hotel security cameras in the lobby and again in the elevator. Hallway cameras on the fourth floor recorded you with Miss Chin as you entered room four-thirteen. You were there one hour and seven minutes. Then she left by herself.”

“Yeah, sure, but—”

“She was crying in the elevator.”

“What?”

“She drove to the Westview Community Hospital and reported she had been assaulted and raped.

She was examined at that time, and photographs were taken. She had vaginal tears and contusions, and anal tears. Semen was obtained from her rectum. It is being analyzed now, but she says it’s yours. Is it?”

“Oh shit,” Brad said softly.

“It’s best to come clean,” the attorney said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“That little bitch.”

“Let’s begin with the soccer game where you met her. Witnesses say that you have been seen at girls’ soccer games before. What are you doing at those games, Mr. Gordon?”

“Oh Jesus,” he said.

Brad told the story, but the older man interrupted a lot. It took nearly half an hour to explain exactly what had happened. And to get to the hotel room.

“You say this girl was turned on to you,” the attorney said.

“Yeah, she sure was.”

“There was no kissing or signs of affection in the elevator, going up.”

“No, she had that reserved exterior. You know, the Asian thing.”

“I see. The Asian thing. Unfortunately, on the cameras it doesn’t appear that she was an entirely willing participant.”

“I think she got cold feet,” he said.

“When was that?”

“Well, we were in the bedroom making out, and she was kind of hot, but also a little weird, you know, backing off. Like she’d want to do it, and then not want to. But mostly she was going for it. I mean, she put the rubber on me. I was ready, and she lies back with her legs open and suddenly she goes, ‘No, I don’t want to do it.’ I’m beside her with my pecker sticking up, and I started to get peeved. So she says she’s really sorry and she goes down on me, and I come in the rubber. She was as good as a pro, but you know young chicks today. Anyway, she takes it off me, carries it into the bathroom, and I hear her flushing the toilet. She comes back with a hot washcloth, wipes me down, says she’s sorry, but she thinks she needs to go home now.

“I’m like, hey, whatever. Because by now I figure something’s wrong with this chick. She’s kinky or something, maybe she’s a tease, I seen that before—or mentally disturbed, in which case I want her the hell out of my room. So I say, ‘Sure, go, sorry it wasn’t comfortable for you.’

And she tells me maybe I should wait a while before I leave. I say, ‘Sure, okay.’ She leaves. I wait. Then I left, too. And I swear,” he said, “that’s all there was to it.”

“She never told you her age?”

“No.”

“You never asked?”

“No. She said she was out of high school.”

“She’s not. She’s a sophomore.”

“Oh fuck.”

A silence. The attorney thumbed through the pages of the folder in front of him. “So your story is, this girl seduced you at the soccer game, you took her to a hotel room, she collected your sperm in a condom, left you, gave herself self-inflicted genital injuries, put your sperm up her rectum, drove to the hospital, and reported a rape. Is that it?”

“It had to be that way,” Brad said.

“That’s a difficult story, Mr. Gordon.”

“But it had to be that way.”

“Do you have any proof at all that your story is true?”

Brad fell silent. Thinking.

“No,” he said finally. “I don’t have anything.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” the attorney said.

After Brad was taken back to his cell, the attorney turned to the young man in the Dodgers jacket and horn-rim glasses. “You have anything to contribute here?”

“Yes.” He flipped his screen around so the senior man could see a series of jagged black lines.

“Audio stress meters remained in the normal range. Hesitation patterns that indicate prefrontal interference with cognition were absent at all times. The guy isn’t lying. Or at least, he’s convinced it happened his way.”

“Interesting,” the attorney said. “But it doesn’t matter. There’s not a chance in hell we’ll ever get this guy off.”

CH025

Henry Kendall parked in the Long Beach Memorial parking lot, and walked into the side door of the hospital, carrying a tissue container. He went down to the basement to the pathology lab and asked to see Marty Roberts. They had been high school friends in Marin County. Marty came out at once.

“Oh my God,” he said, “I heard your name and I thought you were dead!”

“Not yet,” Henry said, shaking his hand. “You look good.”

“I look fat. You look good. How’s Lynn?”

“Good. Kids are good. How’s Janice?”

“She took off with a cardiac surgeon a couple of years ago.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“I’m over it,” Marty Roberts said. “Life is good. Been hectic around here, but things are good now.” He smiled. “Anyway, aren’t you a ways from La Jolla? Isn’t that where you are now?”

“Right, right. Radial Genomics.”

Marty nodded. “So. Uh…what’s up?”

“I want you to look at something,” Henry Kendall said. “Some blood.”

“Okay, no problem. Can I ask whose it is?”

“You can ask,” Henry said. “But I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure.” He handed Marty the tissue container. It was a small styrofoam case, lined with insulation. In the center was a tube of blood. Marty slid the tube out.

“Packing label says, ‘From the Laboratory of Robert A. Bellarmino.’ Hey, the big time, Henry.”

He peeled it back, looked closely at the older label beneath. “And what’s this? A number? Looks like F-102. I can’t quite make it out.”

“I think that’s right.”

Marty stared at his old friend. “Okay, level with me. What is this?”

“I want you to tell me,” Henry said.

“Well, let me tell you straight off,” Marty said, “I won’t do anything illegal. We just don’t do things like that here.”

“It’s not illegal…”

“Uh-huh. You just don’t want to analyze it at your lab.”

“That’s right.”

“So you drive two hours up here to see me.”

“Marty,” he said, “just do it. Please.”

Marty Roberts peered through the microscope, then adjusted the video screen so they could both look. “Okay,” he said. “Red cell morphology, hemoglobin, protein fractions, all completely normal. It’s just blood. Whose is it?”

“Is it human blood?”

“Hell yes,” Marty said. “What, you think it’s animal blood?”

“I’m just asking.”

“Well, if it’s certain kinds of ape blood, we can’t distinguish it,” Marty said. “Chimps and people, we can’t tell the difference. Blood’s identical. I remember cops arrested a guy worked in the San Diego zoo, covered in blood. They thought he was a murderer. Turned out to be menstrual blood from a female chimpanzee. I had that one when I was a resident.”

“You can’t tell? What about sialic acid?”

“Sialic acid’s a marker for chimp blood…So you think this is chimp blood?”

“I don’t know, Marty.”

“We can’t do sialic acid at our lab. No call for it. I think Radial Genomics in San Diego can do it, though.”

“Very funny.”

“You want to tell me what this is, Henry?”

“No,” he said. “But I want you to do a DNA test on it. And on me.”

Marty Roberts sat back. “You’re making me nervous,” he said. “You getting into anything kinky?”

“No, no, nothing like that. It was a research project. From a few years ago.”

“So you think this might be chimp blood. Or your blood?”

“Yeah.”

“Or both?”

“Will you do the DNA test for me?”

“Sure. I’ll take a buccal swab, and get back to you in a few weeks.”

“Thanks. Can we keep this between us?”

“Jesus,” Marty Roberts said, “you’re scaring me again. Sure. We can keep it between us.” He smiled. “I’ll call you when it’s done.”

CH026

We’re talking submarines,” the patent attorney said to Josh Winkler. “Significant submarines.”

“Go on,” Josh said, smiling. They were in a McDonald’s outside town. Everyone else in the place was under seventeen. No chance that word of their meeting would get back to the company.

The attorney said, “You had me search for patents or patent applications related to your so-called maturity gene. I found five, going back to 1990.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Two are submarines. That’s what we call vague patents that are applied for with the intention of letting them lie dormant until somebody else makes a discovery that activates them. The classic being COX- 2—”

“Got it,” Josh said. “Old news.”

TheCOX-2 inhibitor patent fight was famous. In 2000 the University of Rochester was granted a patent for a gene calledCOX-2 , which produced an enzyme that caused pain. The university promptly sued the pharmaceutical giant Searle, which marketed a successful arthritis drug, Celebrex, that blocked theCOX-2 enzyme. Rochester said Celebrex had infringed on its gene patent, even though their patent only claimed general uses of the gene to fight pain. The university had not claimed a patent on any specific drug.

And that was what the judge pointed out, four years later, when Rochester lost. The court ruled that Rochester’s patent was “little more than a research plan,” and ruled that its claim against Searle was invalid.

But such rulings did not alter the long-standing behavior of the patent office. They continued to grant gene patents that included lists of vague claims. A patent might claim all uses of a gene to control heart disease or pain, or to fight infection. Even though the courts ruled that these claims were meaningless, the patent office granted them anyway. Indeed, the grants accelerated. Your tax dollars at work.

“Get to the point,” Josh said.

The attorney consulted a notepad. “Your best candidate is a patent application from 1998 for aminocarboxymuconate methaldehyde dehydrogenase, or ACMMD . The patent claims effects on neurotransmitter potentials in the cingulate gyrus.”

“That’s the mode of action,” Josh said, “for our maturity gene.”

“Exactly. So if you owned ACMMD , you would effectively control the maturity gene because you would control its expression. Nice, huh?”