The Magic Bullet

by Andrew Neiderman

  Confused for a moment, Tony hesitated and then brought up his pistol toward Allan, who fired first. Tony’s chest seemed to open like a bloodred rose, and he fell back. No one moved. He moaned, and then, he expired, his fingers releasing the pistol. There was a long moment of total silence as the echo of the gun died away.

  Jodi started to cry softly. Lois embraced her.

  “Where’s Frankie Vico?” Ralph asked, looking down at Tony.

  “In the examination room,” Allan said. “He went into cardiac arrest. There wasn’t much I could do.”

  Ralph smiled.

  “You were telling the truth,” he said to Demi, who could barely nod. Taylor came to her side, and she put her arm around his shoulders.

  Allan looked from Scooter to Tony.

  “There goes my Hippocratic oath not to do deliberate harm to anyone.”

  His weak attempt to lighten the moment fell flat. Lois sat on the small lobby sofa and, still holding Jodi, started to cry. Ralph moved quickly to them. Demi, still shaking herself, tried to smile.

  “My God, we’re all unharmed.”

  “Yes, but what do we do now?” Ralph asked.

  “I don’t know about anyone else,” Taylor said, “but I’m ready for breakfast.”

  That did bring smiles to everyone but Allan. Demi stepped toward him.

  “Allan, what do we do now?” she asked.

  “Here’s the situation,” he said. “We call the police and there will be an investigation, of course. It will come out that they were after Taylor’s blood, and it could all begin again.”

  “What choice do we have?” Ralph asked. “There are three dead men here. We were kidnapped, and we all barely escaped with our lives. I never believed that man,” he said nodding at Scooter, whose opened eyes and mouth gave the eerie impression that he was reacting to all that had just happened. “I never believed they would simply let us all go, especially after the cold way he killed Warren.”

  “I understand.” Allan hesitated, looked at Demi, and then said, “I suggest we all just get into our cars and drive away. The only other person who knows about the potential in Taylor’s white blood cells is Doctor Weber.”

  “What about the man who sent this guy?” Ralph asked nodding at Scooter. “What about Warren? His body could still be in my home. And even if it isn’t, how do we explain his disappearance?”

  “Ralph’s right,” Demi said. She smiled at Allan. “I know you’re suggesting this so Taylor is protected, but too much has happened. Even if we could just drive off, and even if we didn’t have to worry about what happened to Warren, I’d be worrying all the time about Taylor.” She looked at Taylor. “I wouldn’t let him go anywhere himself. He’d soon hate me.”

  “I wouldn’t hate you,” Taylor quickly said. “I’d just run away from home. See the world. Maybe join the navy.”

  “There is no running away from this,” Demi said softly. “I realize that now. You know I’m right, Allan.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. He thought he might be saying that for years.

  “I have an idea,” Taylor interjected.

  “What? Find a way to go Tomars?” Allan asked.

  “No, not exactly. But…what if I’m a fake?”

  “What? A fake?”

  “What if Jodi’s standard treatment at the hospital is what saved her? You said the other patient still doesn’t know what you did for him. Because you were testing my blood, Mr. Vico, who found out, did what he did. He was just a desperate guy, and Warren…” He looked at his mother. “Warren was nothing more than a money-grubbing guy who got himself in too deeply. They killed him because he made promises that couldn’t be fulfilled. In fact, this whole thing happened because you couldn’t save Mr. Vico with my blood and Mr. Scooter was upset with him. The rest happened just like it happened.”

  No one spoke. Allan stared at Taylor and then he smiled.

  “Who is this masked man?”

  “A cloud of dust and a hearty’Hi Ho, Silver,’ ” Taylor said.

  “Okay. We’ll try it. Except for Joe Weber and myself and you people, no one else knows Taylor’s no fake.”

  “I’m for it,” Ralph said. Lois nodded.

  “Demi?” Allan asked.

  “Okay, but I’ll still worry.”

  “You’re supposed to, Mom,” Taylor said. “It comes with motherhood.”

  “Don’t get a swelled head, Taylor. You’re still my little boy.”

  Allan laughed, and then he flipped open his cell phone and called 911.

  As it turned out, it was a good thing that Warren’s body was still at the Walker’s house. It helped support the idea that Warren had promised too much to the wrong people and that his attempt To make money off such a possibility led to his death. Allan’s testimony was that as a research scientist, he was interested in any possibilities, but the results of further testing and examination revealed it was a dead end. He had gotten to Joe first, and they agreed that would be their story. Joe Weber would have agreed to almost anything after he had heard what Allan and the others had endured.

  During the interrogation, Allan was good at performing his great disappointment. He even referred to the experiments with the cancer-resistant mice and got into a detailed discussion of the innate immune system, delineating the properties of leukocytes, monocytes, and the NK cell. The investigating detective, Frankie Randall, a stout 50-year-old dreaming of retirement, nearly fell asleep during Allan’s lecture.

  “So you see,” he concluded, “why I needed to be here, but I never imagined anything like this.”

  “Yeah, none of us do,” Randall said. “You ever use a thirty-eight before, Doc?”

  “Thirty-eight?”

  “The pistol you used to shoot Tony Marino?”

  “Oh. Yes. I mean, no, never.”

  “I guess you were just lucky.”

  “Well, I knew how to pull a trigger, and he was close enough,” Allan said.

  “I’ve seen many an amateur miss at that range. All right. Thanks,” Randall said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Allan thanked him and left the examination room. Demi was waiting for him in the police station lobby. Taylor had gone home with Ralph, Lois, and Jodi. Everyone was both physically and emotionally exhausted.

  “You’re not starting back to Los Angeles now, are you?” Demi asked him.

  “I was thinking of that, yes.”

  “Spend another day and night,” she suggested. “You don’t realize how tired you are, Allan. It will all hit you like a sledgehammer soon.”

  “Now who’s playing doctor?” he replied, smiling.

  “I can play doctor,” she teased.

  He went home with her. Taylor was staying with Lois and Ralph so they had the house to themselves. The first thing he did was take a shower. He wasn’t in the shower stall a minute before the door opened and she, naked, stepped in beside him.

  “Mind?” she asked.

  “I’d be out of my mind if I did,” he said, and they kissed.

  They made what he thought was wonderful love right afterward. Both of them having been so close to death, they needed to reinforce their sense of life, but the attraction to each other that they had begun to feel suddenly blossomed, or, as Allan would say later, exploded.

  “It felt like fireworks Tome,” she said.

  The lovemaking stirred up both of their appetites, and she prepared a delicious pasta and clam sauce. They opened wine and talked incessantly, neither willing to let a moment of silence exist between them.

  Afterward, they went upstairs to sleep, but both lay awake for a long time, still reliving some of the terror.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll pack up everything that was Warren’s and get it out of the house,” she said.

  “You want me to hang around to help?”

  “I’d like you to hang around, but not for that. Believe me, it’s not going to take me long.”

  He laughed, and they kissed and embraced. They started to fall asl
eep in each other’s arms and parted. Neither woke up before Taylor came home. Allan was the first to sense him standing in the doorway.

  “What’s wrong?” Demi asked, seeing him sit up quickly. He nodded at the doorway.

  “Oh. Hi, Taylor.”

  “Hi, Mom,” Taylor replied. “Does this mean we get free medical care from now on?”

  “You think I’m that cheap?” Demi responded. She even surprised herself.

  Taylor’s eyebrows went up. When he smiled, she thought she was surely looking at Buddy. Maybe I am. Maybe he’s showing me his approval.

  “Don’t mind me,” he said. “My morals were corrupted years ago.”

  They both laughed and fell back to their pillows.

  Later, Allan stopped to see Joe before he headed back to Los Angeles. They talked for a while about what they should do next.

  “It’s not so easy anymore, Joe. Things have become a little complicated for me,” Allan said.

  Joe smiled.

  “Does this mean the great Allan Parker is not a medical robot after all?”

  “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but it’s true,” he confessed. “You’ll probably see a lot more of me in the near future.”

  They left it at that, and Allan returned to his work in Los Angeles. He spent almost every weekend for the next five months in Palm Springs, and twice Demi came to be with him in LA. One night, as they were returning to her home after dinner, she just continued to sit in the car when they had pulled into the driveway and he had turned off the engine.

  “Something wrong?” Allan asked.

  “No, not wrong,” she said. “But there is something.”

  He sat back.

  “I’m all ears,” he said.

  “I don’t know if it’s fair to say it or not, but I’m never fully relaxed with you, Allan.”

  Oh?”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said quickly. She turned to him. “I keep waiting for you to ask.”

  “You To marry me?”

  “No,” she said laughing, “although, that wouldn’t be a bad question. No,” she added, returning to her serious expression, “I keep expecting you to ask for Taylor’s blood.”

  “I have been afraid to do that,” he admitted. “Not because I fear that you’ll say no, but that you’d think that was the main reason I’m seeing you. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that. I know what I was like, what I am like, to a certain extent.”

  “Why do I feel guilty hearing that?” she asked.

  “Probably for the same reason I feel guilty for not asking you. I’ve suddenly put my personal interests and pleasures before my life’s work. I feel terribly selfish, but when I am confronted with the choice of going on with the research and possibly losing you, I chose not to lose you.”

  “So then are you going to ask me?”

  “For Taylor’s blood?”

  “No, silly, your first thought.”

  “Oh. Oh yeah.”

  “When exactly are you or do you expect you will get around to doing that?”

  “You know, I can see where Taylor gets his wiseass,” Allan said.

  She laughed.

  “Demi Petersen, will you marry me?”

  “Are you asking just to get free haircuts? That’s what Taylor’s going to want to know.”

  “Yes. I expect that, among two or three million other things,” Allan said.

  She leaned toward him, and they kissed.

  As it turned out, he never asked her to have Taylor donate his blood samples for the research. It happened a different way. He had come into Palm Springs early on a Friday a month after their engagement, and Demi had asked him to pick up Taylor at school. She was still nervous about it all, despite the way the story had faded.

  “Hey,” Allan said when Taylor came sauntering out of the school, his head down as usual. “How do you know where you’re walking?”

  “ESP,” Taylor said. He looked out at his classmates getting into cars and onto buses. “When we move to LA., she’s going to have to loosen the chains,” he muttered.

  “Don’t worry, she will,” Allan said pulling away.

  “I’ve come up with a wedding gift for you guys,” Taylor said.

  “Oh?”

  “A pint of my blood,” Taylor said.

  Allan slowed down.

  “Did you tell your mother that?”

  “Nope. It’s a surprise.”

  “Are you sure? She’s going to be…”

  “Nervous and frightened at first, but I’m sure you’ll work out a way that keeps it surreptitious. I love that word.”

  Allan laughed. “What made you decide to do it, Taylor?”

  “Bobby Pearson’s mother has breast cancer. He’s in my class. He looks like he was visited by a vampire. It’s what happened to your mother, too, right?”

  “Yes,” Allan said.

  “Well, Doc, it’s time we put a bullet in that monster’s heart,” Taylor said.

  Allan didn’t reply. He fought back the tears that were demanding to fall.

  “But don’t be fooled, Doc,” Taylor continued. “I still firmly believe you love my mother.”

  “I do, Taylor.”

  “But only because you’re getting free haircuts,” he said.

  Allan laughed. He laughed longer and harder than he could remember, and that laughter disguised his tears.

  Yes, he thought, we’ll put a bullet in that monster’s heart. One day soon, we will.

  They drove on, one carrying the magic in his young body, and the other dreaming of becoming a magician.

  Copyright

  A LEISURE BOOK®

  December 2008

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

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  Copyright © 2008 by Andrew Neiderman

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