The Dolomite Solution

by Trevor Scott

  “Trust me. You’d rather have the police involved than Jake Adams. The police have rules. Adams doesn’t.”

  Bergen looked around and then back to his new employee, whom he wasn’t sure he needed, but knew he couldn’t fire. “We still don’t know who hired him. Or why.”

  “He was asking questions about our scientist,” he lied. “That means something. I’ll take care of everything, Otto. That’s why you hired me.”

  “I don’t want to know what you do from now on. If someone asks...I can honestly say I know nothing.” Bergen felt the sweat bubbling up on his forehead. He took another soothing draw on his cigarette and let the smoke hang out in his lungs for a while before exhaling.

  “I knew you’d see things my way.” Quinn squeezed Bergen’s shoulder until pain furled his brows. Then he stood and walked off, laughing softly to himself.

  6

  Jake had gone to his apartment for only a few minutes. He had gotten on his computer, found Murdock’s financial accounts, his recent airlines reservations for a round trip from Frankfurt to Innsbruck and back, reservations for a car rental, which he picked up a few days ago at the Innsbruck airport, and then his hotel reservations. He had even found out where he had eaten the past few days, and that he had gone skiing the day he was killed. Damn. Nothing was sacred.

  With his newfound information and renewed enthusiasm, Jake was starting to get his second wind. The strong black coffee while he was on the computer didn’t hurt either. While he was at his apartment, he had first gone to his bedroom. He didn’t really expect to find the blonde woman there, but hoped she had at least left him a note with her name and number. No such luck. The only thing she left behind was her fragrance, which he still couldn’t identify, crumpled sheets, and memories that were unfortunately becoming less and less clear.

  He sat outside the Innsbruck Tirol Hotel, one of those newer concrete monstrosities that the locals had fought to keep out of their city, yet had been built anyway with about as much architectural foresight as a Soviet communist track house. It was one of those compromises for the 1976 Winter Olympics. The city needed the hotel spaces, and they needed them fast. Luckily the city hadn’t made the same mistake very often.

  Jake got out and shuffled across the street between traffic. He went straight for the row of elevators as if he were staying there, got in, and punched the six.

  On the way up he wondered if he had beat Martini and his crew to Allen Murdock’s room. He got his answer as soon as he got off onto the sixth floor. All was calm. Only a maid with a cart full of towels and other supplies was making her way down the corridor. She knocked on a door and then entered with her pass key card.

  Walking straight to room 610 whistling along the way, Jake stopped for a moment outside the door. He padded himself down as if searching for something, and then swore at himself for being so stupid.

  The maid watched him search his pockets for his credit-card type key, mumbling in German under his breath. Finally she smiled and came over to him, stuck her key in the door, and swung it open for him.

  He thanked her profusely, saying how stupid he had been. He smiled at her and closed the door behind him.

  Inside, Jake quickly made his way around the room. There was a strange odor in the place, like an overwhelming cloud of flatulence mixed with an attempt at covering the smell with perfume. He checked the drawers. Murdock had actually unpacked from his suitcase and laid his shirts and pants out in the dresser provided. How anal. His socks and underwear were folded neatly in another drawer.

  He picked up the pace, searching for anything that might give him a clue why he was dead, and yet not even remotely certain what that could be. The bathroom was equally sanitary. It’s funny how you think you know someone through casual acquaintance, and that image is completely shot to hell as soon as you run through the person’s toiletries. Even the towel Murdock had used following his shower sometime the day before had been hung up neatly on a rack.

  Returning to the main room, Jake saw the bed had been made. The maid hadn’t gotten to his room, so that made sense. Murdock had probably been killed sometime early last night, hours before he had actually found him in the alley.

  There was nothing there, Jake was sure of that. He left the room, smiled at the maid and thanked her again, and then made his way to the elevator.

  On his way down he had another idea. When he reached the lobby he went directly to the front desk.

  A pretty young woman dressed in a dark blue suit coat greeted him with a smile. “May I help you, sir?” she asked in German.

  “Yes.” Jake pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “I’m staying in room 610, and I have a problem.”

  She looked concerned. “How may I help?”

  “I’m not very good with numbers,” Jake explained. “And I’ve lost my personal phone book. I need to make a few calls, but that’s impossible now. I was hoping you could pull up my phone record, since I’ve made a number of calls while staying here, so I can write down the numbers I need.”

  The woman hesitated briefly before punching his room number into the computer. “What’s your name?”

  “Allen Murdock.” Jake gazed around the lobby. This was a hell of a gamble.

  In a long minute, she said, “Here we are.” She hit the enter key and a printer started whipping out the information. Seconds later she ripped it off and handed it to him.

  He didn’t even look at the paper, folding it and sliding it into his inside jacket pocket. “Thank you so much. You’re a lifesaver.” He threw her his best smile before turning to leave. She was going to have a strange look on her face when the polizei came, saying Murdock was dead.

  Jake was almost to the door when he took a double take of a woman about to enter the bar. She saw him and immediately smiled. It was the woman who only hours ago had shared his bed. She had changed into a one-piece jumpsuit, belted around her thin waist and unbuttoned down the front one too many times. She looked a hell of a lot more fresh than he guessed he did. What was she doing there? He changed course and walked up to her.

  “Sorry I couldn’t make it back before you left?” Jake said, trying to avert his eyes from her breasts and failing pitifully.

  “No problem.” She ran her eyes up and down him. “Last night was fun. We’ll have to do it again.”

  That would be nice, but he didn’t even have her name, nor any inclination to ask for it now.

  She shifted her eyes toward the bar. “I have to get going. I’ve got your number. I’ll give you a call.”

  She walked into the bar, and Jake watched every precious move she made. A part of him felt like he had just been blown off like a man would have done to a woman following a one-night stand. Another part believed she would actually call. He walked out to his car and drove off.

  ●

  The blonde woman waited inside the bar for a moment until she was sure Jake was gone, and then strutted back out to the lobby and directly to the elevator. She went to the seventh floor and got off, glanced up and down the corridor, and headed to room 710. She knocked her knuckles on the door three times and waited.

  In a few seconds the door swung open and Marcus Quinn stood bare-chested, in a pair of tight black briefs.

  “You’re late,” he said, closing the door behind her.

  She strutted across the room and sat on the bed, crossing her long legs. “I needed my beauty rest,” she said. She retrieved a joint from her purse and lit it, taking a deep hit off it and holding until her chest was about to explode. Finally she let it out in a long release. “You want some?”

  Quinn moved closer, taking a seat on a chair backwards. “You know I don’t touch that shit.”

  She laughed out loud. “That’s right. You have to keep that body of yours pure.” She raised her brows and whistled another hit off the joint.

  In a minute she had finished smoking and put out the last bit in an ashtray. She walked up to Quinn, undid her front a few more buttons, released her frontlo
ad bra, and exposed her breasts. She cradled her hand under them and brought the nipples hard between her fingers. Picking up his hand from the back of the chair, she placed it on her breast and rubbed it around like she was doing herself with the other one.

  He pulled his hand back. “Not yet,” he said, diverting his eyes from her. He got up and went to his coat hanging on a wall rack.

  She lay back on the bed on her elbows, her breasts pointing up into the air. “Most men would be hard as a rock by now. What’s the matter, Marcus?”

  He returned and took a seat, holding a small envelope in one hand. “First of all, tell me about Jake Adams.” He gave her a disturbing smirk.

  “What about him?”

  “Was he any good?”

  She was starting to get a little uncomfortable. She shrugged. “He was all right. We were both a bit wasted.”

  “Just all right?” he yelled. “The great Jake Adams was just all right?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “You already know that, my dear. Now tell me the truth about Adams.”

  Sitting up, her nipples becoming flaccid, she released a large breath. “He was great in bed. Is that what you wanted?”

  “If it’s the truth.”

  She nodded that it was.

  “Was he bigger than your husband?”

  “Jesus Christ, what do you want photographs?” When he just sat there with that stupid grin of his, she added, “Okay, he was hung like a fucking horse. I don’t understand you. You tell me to go with him, and then you question me like I’ve been unfaithful to you, which is a huge joke as we both know. Do you know he was just downstairs in the lobby?”

  He rose from his chair swiftly. “What? What was he doing down there?”

  “I haven’t a clue. He said hi, we talked briefly about getting together again sometime, and then I said I had to go and I went into the bar like I was meeting someone there.”

  He ran what she said through his mind. Finally, he said, “He knows Allen was staying here.” Damn that efficient bastard. Now he’d have to really put the pressure on him. But for now he had her to fuck with. He pulled a stack of photos from the envelope and handed them to her.

  She flipped through them, stopping a few times for a closer look. Then she threw them back towards him. “That son of a bitch. When were these taken?”

  “There was a date stamp on them from yesterday,” he said, his eyes piercing right through her. “I got them from his room. I told you he was fucking around on you.”

  She had a brooding expression on her face making her slightly less attractive. “Then I’m glad he’s dead. We were right, weren’t we?”

  He smiled now. “Of course we were. You never turn back from what you know is right.”

  7

  Dr. James Winthrop was sitting in his study in his Cambridge home a few blocks from Harvard University, sipping his first cup of coffee and glancing languidly at a rough galley of the article. He had done the same thing periodically for the past few weeks, and the edges of the paper showed wear from his strong fingers crumpling them in anger.

  He was an average man in every respect but intellect. His head was larger and squarer than most, his eyes set far apart, accented by dark brows that furled up at the ends. For those who knew him well, which was not a large number, his continuous, knowing smirk was more of a distraction than a hindrance.

  Winthrop had gotten a call thirty minutes ago from his old friend Perry Greenfield, who said he had something important to discuss with him. Winthrop had known Perry since they were both five years old, where they had played in a sandbox in his back yard in Somerville. They had continued their friendship through high school, and as undergraduate students at Harvard University, where they had taken similar classes, and were members of the same fraternity. After they graduated in 1970, they had followed different tracks, but never lost contact, meeting at least once a week to discuss how each was doing and how they would change the world.

  James Winthrop had stayed on at Harvard Medical School, finished at the top of his class, and was now considered the finest cardio-vascular surgeon in Boston.

  After Harvard, Perry Greenfield had gone to MIT, where he earned his doctorate in biochemistry. He had worked for over fifteen years as a researcher in a Brookline biotechnology company where he studied the effects of amino acids on cardiovascular degeneration. For the past five years Greenfield had taken over as editor of the prestigious Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine, the foremost authority on issues of the heart in the United States, perhaps even the world. Dr. Winthrop had been a featured writer in many of Greenfield’s issues.

  There was a light knock on the front door. Dr. Winthrop rose reluctantly, shoved the journal article into his top desk drawer, and answered the door, finding a wet and somewhat dejected-looking friend waiting for him to invite him inside.

  “What brings you by so early, Per?” the doctor asked, closing the door behind his friend and taking his wet coat and gently draping it over a wooden hanger in the foyer.

  It was six a.m. The two of them often met at a small cafe for breakfast, but not usually until seven or eight, depending on their schedules.

  Perry Greenfield was a tall, thin man who looked much older than his fifty years. It wasn’t so much the silver hair receding back from his forehead, but more the bloodshot eyes and the wrinkles in the corners of those eyes and at the sides of his mouth that had failed to preserve his youth. His bushy brows gave him the appearance of a dead Russian leader.

  Greenfield didn’t answer as he walked into the study and took a seat in a leather chair. The rain had been relentless all night, and was still coming down with stubborn ferocity. Greenfield combed his fingers through his scant hair to scatter some of the dampness out. He glanced around the room, which was a shrine to all of Dr. Winthrop’s accomplishments. Copies of degrees in fine wooden frames. Swimming trophies and medals from high school and college.

  The doctor went directly to one side of his desk. “Would you like some coffee, Perry? I just made it.” Dr. Winthrop stood holding an extra cup and the glass pot, with steam rising into the cooler air.

  “Sure.” Greenfield was clutching a package in his damp hands. The manila envelope had drops of rain on it, and he set the package on his lap as he accepted the cup from the doctor.

  “Now. What can I do for you so early in the morning,” Dr. Winthrop said, taking a seat behind his large oak desk and sipping on his coffee.

  Greenfield shifted in his seat, took a sip of coffee, and then cradled his cup, drawing warmth from it. “Remember the article I told you about a few weeks ago. The one co-authored and submitted by Austrian and Italian researchers?”

  Dr. Winthrop feigned uncertainty. Then he said, “Of course. The DNA study on heart disease. It was called The Dolomite Solution, I believe.”

  “Exactly. I sent you a copy.”

  There was silence as they stared at each other. A mariner’s clock on an oak credenza ticked away the seconds.

  The doctor impatiently said, “And?”

  “If it’s true...you’re not worried?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “All those bypass surgeries you do,” Greenfield said, his bushy brows coming down and nearly covering his eyes. “They’ve paid for this house. The Cape Cod home. Your sailboat. Not to mention your Mercedes.”

  Not to mention the investments and the silent partnership. “Yeah, yeah. What’s your point, Per?”

  “If this study is correct...” he fought for the words. “You could be out of work.”

  The doctor leaned back, laughing slightly. His leather chair squeaked as he swiveled around. He slowly sipped his coffee. “What did I tell you when you showed me the article the first time?”

  Greenfield thought and shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “Come on.” The doctor smirked. “I said not to worry about it. I have some friends looking into it. Seeing if they can verify the results.” This wasn’t entirely true.
He had thought about it, though.

  “But—”

  Dr. Winthrop raised his hand. “It’s okay, Per. We’ll see what happens.”

  Greenfield set his coffee cup on the edge of the desk and fumbled with the envelope, extracting a copy of the journal he edited. “This is hot off the press,” he said. “We had to print the article. The two of them have been nominated for the Nobel. You understand, right?”

  The doctor yanked the magazine from his friend’s hand and glanced at the cover, which read, “Will The Dolomite Solution Cure The Heart?” Winthrop paged through, glanced at the article, which he already had a copy of, and then dropped the journal to his desk.

  “I thought you agreed to wait a month,” Winthrop said. His smile had faded. The doctor had been considered for the Nobel a year ago for the surgical technique he developed. Hundreds of surgeons had followed his lead performing bypass through a small incision with the heart only slowed by drugs instead of stopping it completely. Yet the Nobel committee had awarded the prize to a British researcher for using leach slime on bacterial infections.

  “The Nobel committee comes out with its selections shortly. It’s a major coup to print their article first. We had to push production forward. We distribute the journal worldwide in a week. It’s beyond my control. The publisher caught wind of it somehow and insisted we move our schedule up. I’m sorry, Jim.”

  The doctor rose from his chair, and Greenfield took this as a sign that their chat was over, meeting his friend at the door.

  “Don’t worry, Per.” He grasped his friend’s shoulder and squeezed down. “I have a feeling this solution is nothing more than an elaborate hoax like cold fusion a few years back. I mean who will believe in mysterious minerals affecting the genetic code that way, recombinant DNA gene therapy, implanted on a virus? Even if it’s true, which I don’t believe for a second, it would take ten or twenty years before the FDA would approve it in this country. By then we’ll both be hanging out at the nineteenth hole sipping martinis and reminiscing about our college days.”