The Last Goodbye (36 page)

“I just figured it wears off.”

“It's metabolized by the cytochrome P-450 enzyme system.”

“Aspirin's a toxin?”

“What happens if you take a bottle of it?”

“It messes you up.”

Robinson shrugged. “Toxin.”

“Okay, I get that.”

“Good. So a toxin enters the body, and the P-450 system analyzes its chemical structure. Then it turns on a few genes—two or three out of thirty thousand or so—and tells the body to manufacture the correct enzymes necessary to metabolize the intruding compound. Pretty impressive, considering you don't even know it's doing it. You're sitting on your butt eating Cheetos.”

“Okay, but what does this have to do with Ralston killing your patients?”

Robinson gave me a haunted look. “Remember thalidomide?”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “All those babies born with deformed limbs.”

Robinson nodded. “That's the P-450 system running into something new and giving up. See, the system has been honed for millennia to handle what happens in nature. But we're inventing things and putting them into bodies, things that have never existed before. All that fine-tuning doesn't add up to shit when you're talking about synthetics.”

“Okay.”

“Lawyers gave the manufacturer a hard time over what happened on that, but the truth is, there wasn't any way to see it coming. They tested, sure. And for ninety-nine percent of the people, it was fine. Only one problem. If you happened to be pregnant, your baby didn't have arms.” He paused, giving me a dark look. “Look, Jack, what do you think a clinical trial is, anyway? We
give
it to people. That's the test.”

Robinson's stark admission hung in the air. “I thought things were more predictable.”

“Yeah, well, that's important because if people didn't think that, we'd never get anybody to let us try things on them.”

“But what does Ralston have to do with this?”

“It's not just thalidomide, Jack.
Every
drug has a tiny universe of people who can't metabolize it. Maybe it's only one percent, maybe less. The more powerful a drug is, the higher the number. Lipitran packs a hell of a wallop. So it's inevitable that some small percentage of people are going to lack whatever enzymes are necessary to metabolize it. If they take it, bad things are going to happen.”

“What's your point?”

Robinson turned away from me, confronting something he didn't want to face. He stared across the park, his body still. “What if you could find those people in advance?” he asked quietly. “What if you knew enough about genetics that you could actually figure out who a drug was going to kill before they even took it and make sure they got on a clinical trial?”

“Is something like that possible?”

Robinson turned back to me. The blood had drained from his face. “Ralston could do it. He would need two things, and I'm just realizing he had them both.”

“Which are?”

“First, he would need Lipitran. Thanks to Townsend's hack of Grayton, Ralston had all the information he needed to manufacture a small batch.”

“And second?”

“He would need the DNA of hundreds of addicts. Maybe even a thousand.”

“The needle-exchange program.”

“Yeah. The big, I'm a hero to my people needle-exchange program.” Robinson retched back a wave of nausea. “He wasn't helping those people. He was using them as cannon fodder.”

“Tell me how it worked.”

“Like everything, it's simple once you figure it out. Ralston makes a batch of Lipitran and gives a dosage to one of the addicts. It would only take one, and the guy wouldn't even have to know he was getting it. The victim's P-450 system starts grinding out the enzymes a normal person produces to metabolize the drug. Then the addict comes back a few days later for a clean needle. He gives Stephens the old one. Ralston washes it out with physiological saline, and swimming around in the blood components left in the syringe is the precise human enzymatic response to Lipitran. The rest is just screening.”

“He uses the turned-in needles.”

Robinson nodded. “Every one of them contains the DNA of the addict who used it. And inside that DNA is everything Ralston needs to know. He spins it out, looks at the proteomics, and sooner or later, he finds a small universe of people who don't have the enzymes they need.”

“It would take a long time, wouldn't it?”

“Yeah. How long has the clean-needle program been going on?”

“Couple of years, I think.”

Robinson laughed grimly. “Just as long as our program for Lipitran.” He closed his eyes. “Once he isolates these poor bastards, he knows that the second they take Lipitran, they are going to die like dogs.”

“He told me he didn't kill those patients. He said they died from Lipitran.”

“He was right,” Robinson said, shaking his head. “He didn't touch the compound, and he didn't touch them. We could have given those patients armed guards and it wouldn't have made any difference.”

“But how could he get them on the test?”

Robinson shrugged. “They're drug addicts, and he controls their clean needles. Ralston could even promise them pharmaceutical heroin after the test, which would be like gold to a junkie.”

I stood by Robinson in the silence of the park, thinking about how sometimes being gifted and talented doesn't have a damn thing to do with virtue. “But we have him now, right?” I said. “I mean, what you just said. He's busted. He's going down.”

Robinson spat into the grass. “He walks.”

I stared at him, badly wanting off the roller coaster of ups and downs. “What?”

“He walks, Jack. It's just theory. I can't prove a word of it.”

“Because?”

“Because no one survived. All I would need is one. By surviving, that patient would, by definition, have the enzymes the dead patients lacked. Then you could compare the survivor to the others, and demonstrate that the test had to have been manipulated. But with all of them dead, it's impossible.”

“Lacayo!” I retorted. “‘Mostly dead,' you said. He's still alive.”

Robinson gave a dry, brittle laugh. “Died two days ago,” he said. “Blew up, like the others.”

“God, that's unbelievable. How did you find out?”

Robinson looked down. “Went down there,” he whispered. “Went to see old Lacayo. His mother saw me hanging around. She hit me.”

So that's why I haven't been able to find you. You've been here, nursing another wound over a final dead patient.
A hot, brittle breeze whipped across the park. Robinson looked across the empty expanse of grass, his face a map of defeat.

“He's better than I am,” he said. “He's better.”

“You could give Lipitran to someone else,” I said cautiously. “Make a new survivor.”

Robinson looked at me. “You want to know the definition of genius? Ralston's protected by law, now. Once the FDA withdraws their sanction, I can't give Lipitran to anyone else without committing a felony. Medical malpractice. Reckless endangerment, probably even attempted murder.” He grimaced. “And whose life do you want me to risk, anyway? It's theory, Jack. Do you want to stand up in a court of law and say you gave Lipitran to another person after eight people died horribly from it?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Even if the patient lived, I'd still go to jail for the rest of my life.” Robinson looked up at the sky. “Don't you get it? It's the perfect crime. It's unprecedented. He killed eight people by using their own bodies against them. He became a hero while he did it. And to top it all, he ended up with the entire federal government protecting him from anybody ever finding out.”

We stood beside each other in silence, partly in awe over Ralston's genius, and partly in revulsion over the ends to which it was put. After a while Robinson asked, “Where did that ridiculous idea about poison needles come from, anyway?”

“I'm sorry about that. I thought we had them.”

“Yeah, well, we didn't.”

“The whole thing started when I found out Ralston didn't know Doug was taking Lipitran.”

There was a moment's pause, and Robinson slowly swiveled his head around toward me. “Say that again, please.”

“Ralston. He didn't know Doug was on your test. I told him when I saw him.”

“What did he do?”

“He fell apart. Seriously rattled.”

“Rattled?”

“Yeah.”

Robinson lunged at me, grabbing me by the collar. “Listen to me now, Jack. You have to get me Doug Townsend's body, and there's not one second to lose.”

“His body? That's a hell of a request.”

“If Ralston didn't know Townsend was on the test, it means Doug wasn't screened. Doug must have put himself on the test without Ralston knowing it.”

“Which means?”

“Which means he's a
survivor.”

“He's dead, Doctor.”

“From
fentanyl
, Jack. Not from Lipitran. Do you understand what I'm saying? Everything we need to nail Ralston is inside Doug Townsend's body this moment.”

“Hang on a second. If Doug was on the test, don't you already have a sample of his blood?”

“Of course I do.
Before
he took the Lipitran. Then he vanished off the program.”

“Murdered because he would have been cured.”

“Exactly. Now tell me you know where his body is.”

“He's on ice, at the police pathology lab.”

“Okay. But listen to me, Jack If I can figure this out, Ralston can, too. In fact, he must have, the second you told him Doug had taken Lipitran.”

“So why didn't he kill me when he had the chance?”

“What?”

I suddenly realized in my haste I hadn't said anything about Ralston's thugs. “Ralston arranged a little detour for me after I left Horizn. I got tied up and thrown in a closet.”

Robinson stared. “How'd you get out?”

“Force of will. At any rate, if they were trying to kill me, they were pretty bad at it.”

“They won't make that mistake again.”

“So what about you?” I asked. “You need to get out of sight.”

“I'll go to Grayton until you call me. It's built like a fortress.”

“Okay. I'll get back to you in a couple of hours.”

“Stay healthy, Jack. The mind that figured out how to kill those patients is capable of anything.”

Robinson's urgent demand to get Doug's body would require more than a phone call to Billy Little; a request that big had to be face-to-face. I looked at my watch; it was ten before five. Billy never left before six, so I knew I could find him. When I walked into his office, he looked at me in surprise. “So there you are. What'd you do, fall off the earth?”

“Sorry, Billy. Blu told me you called.”

I slid a piece of paper across his desk. He stared down at it. “Grayton Technical Laboratories? What's this?”

“It's the company Doug was hacking. I told you about them.”

Billy nodded. “Yeah, that's right.”

“They want Doug's body. Not they, exactly. The lead scientist, Thomas Robinson.”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “That a fact?”

“Robinson was conducting a clinical trial, and Doug was on it. He thinks he can learn something about the test from Doug's body.”

“What kind of clinical trial?”

“Hepatitis C.”

Billy watched me a moment, then said, “You know what I'm wondering right now?”

“How it is you didn't know Doug had hepatitis? None of us did.”

“No. I'm wondering why all of a sudden Doug Townsend has the most popular corpse in town.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean they're late. Grayton Labs. Thomas Robinson. Whoever.”

“Late?”

“Late, as in we don't have the body anymore. It was released yesterday.” Billy stood and walked over to a gray filing cabinet. He opened it, pulled a paper out of a folder, and handed it over to me. “Lucy Buckner, Phoenix, Arizona.”

I stared at the paper. “Doug's cousin? She won't even return my calls.”

“Yeah, well, she returned Ron Evans's calls.”

“Who's Ron Evans?”

“The guy who showed up with her notarized power of attorney to take possession of Doug Townsend's body.” He looked at me sympathetically. “I couldn't send it to the DA, Jack. There was nothing to
send.
The victimology report closed a couple of days ago, confirming the suicide. This guy Evans shows up to claim the body, and there wasn't a legitimate reason to say no.” I stared at Billy for a second, too stunned to respond.
Seamless. No body, no proof. That was why they didn't kill me. They just needed me to be somewhere else for a while. Just long enough to take care of Doug's body, and close the deal.
“We go back, Jack,” Billy said. “So why don't you tell me what's really going on here? This guy Townsend. What was his real story?”

I was tired, more tired than I could ever remember. “It's okay, Billy. There's nothing you or anybody else can do, now.”

“Don't be a hero, Jack. If you're getting into something over your head, I can help.”

I closed my eyes. “It doesn't matter. It's over.”

There was only one piece left to put into the puzzle, and later that night I did so listlessly, only to complete the circle. I found Doug's cousin's number and called her. A female voice with a southern accent came across the line. “Who's this?”

I forced myself to speak. “This is Jack Hammond. I was Doug's lawyer. I left you a couple of messages after Doug's death.”

She sounded irritated. “I already told Mr. Evans, they can do whatever they like with his body. Help science, or whatever.”

“What man was that?”