Living Proof

by Kira Peikoff

  “Fuck the DEFP,” Trent said, his heart pounding with increasing rage. “What you do with your body is your own goddamn business.”

  “I wish.”

  Trent wondered how many mothers-to-be were crying all over the city, fined for similar so-called crimes, as countless more anxiously waited out their pregnancies. He remembered the woman whose MetroCard he had recovered in Washington Square Park, who had tried to conceal her fear of him. He thought of Arianna and the millions of sick people like her with no cure in sight, cut off from research that could help make it possible.

  “Damn them,” he declared. “I’ll take care of the fine. Don’t you worry about it.”

  A sob died in her throat as she stared up at him. “What? How?”

  “I know people,” he said. “There are ways.” It was so simple, he thought. Of course, it was criminal, too, but that wasn’t stopping the DEP and the DEFP. Trent could just go into their joint database, find this woman’s case history, and mark the fine as paid. No one in their sprawling bureaucracy would know the difference.

  She looked at him in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s no problem. Really.”

  She jumped up and hugged him, and when she stepped back, her smile was full of relief and joy. Trent yearned to see the same expression on Arianna’s face, worrying that he never would.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, Dopp sat in his office with a scowl. Almost a week had passed since the crackdown, and the department was no better off for it. Many agents were working overtime to process the daily influx of clinic reports, while other agents were neglecting their regular duties to conduct random inspections. In turn, the general atmosphere in the office was one of chaos mixed with silent resentment, and Dopp knew it was all directed at him. Up in Albany, he was not gaining fans, either. He had just hung up the phone with Senator Windra, who personally called to report the capitol’s response to the crackdown.

  “Well, it has gotten people talking about the DEP again.… But not in the way you want, I’m afraid.”

  Dopp balked. “I thought there was no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “The liberals are scoffing at you, Gideon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Windra paused. “They’re saying you’ll bankrupt the department before they even get the chance.”

  “That’s outrageous!”

  “Is it, though? What good is this crackdown doing? I know you can’t afford to keep this up for long. And I would hate to think you’re destroying yourself for publicity. Tell me you have some strategic reason in mind.”

  “I most definitely do. We have a very serious case under investigation, and the crackdown was designed to speed things up.”

  “Well, has it?”

  Dopp cleared his throat. “It’s helping every day.”

  “I hope so, for your sake. Let me be completely clear. No one here is going to negotiate for you if we think you’re squandering the money you already have. We need to see some results that prove exactly why this crackdown was necessary. If we don’t, well, you can start writing pink slips.” Windra’s voice hardened. “I like you, Gideon, but ultimately, I have to be practical. The DEFP could use every extra dollar possible. Are we clear?”

  “Yes,” Dopp murmured.

  The line clicked off, and Dopp closed his eyes. Windra never said good-bye when he was upset, and it left Dopp feeling rattled, as if he had suddenly been tossed out of a moving car.

  He walked to Trent’s office with a purposeful stride so that no one would stop and question him. With his head held high, he could avoid indignant gazes. He ducked into the office and pulled the door shut behind him.

  “Hi, boss,” Trent said. “What can I do for you?”

  Dopp leaned against the door and crossed his arms. After last night’s dinner, he had come away feeling more sympathetic to Trent, though no less frustrated in general. Joanie had also thought well of him; it was clear that he came from a good Christian family like their own. Dopp sincerely wanted to like him, as he always had—and it was easier to do so when he recalled Banks’s suggestion: Give Trent the benefit of the doubt.

  “Albany just called,” Dopp said. “It’s not looking good.”

  Trent frowned. “I’m doing everything I can.”

  “It’s still not enough.” Dopp recounted his search of all the known labs in the East Village, which had yielded nothing. “You’re supposed to find out what she’s doing in that neighborhood.”

  “I know. But she hasn’t gone anywhere except home and the clinic since she got her wheelchair.”

  “And I assume she said nothing significant?”

  “No, nothing.” Trent looked apologetic.

  Dopp shook his head. “It just doesn’t add up. She has an excellent motive, access to embryos, and a black heart.”

  “I’ll keep following her and seeing her as much as possible.” Trent reached into his briefcase and pulled out a thin file. “Here’s the report of her comings and goings over the weekend and the transcripts of our conversations.”

  “So she hasn’t said anything about Banks showing up every day?”

  “No. She’s really focused on her MS. The doctor told her he can’t do much for her at this point, so she said she isn’t even going to see him regularly anymore.”

  Dopp paced three steps forward in the cramped room. “She’s young to be so sick. God must be delivering some kind of retribution, but why?”

  Trent shook his head, baffled.

  “Banks is supposed to be intimidating her,” Dopp went on. “But it’s not working. So obviously what we have to do now is increase his presence.”

  “Isn’t he already going every day?”

  “Now he’ll start to stay there much longer than what she’s expecting. No wonder she’s not scared enough to talk. But think about Banks going there for hours, maybe even all day, just watching her. Shadowing her.” Dopp’s pulse hammered in his temples. “It’s perfectly legal for us to shadow a doctor as long as we’re not interfering with her patients’ privacy.”

  “She stopped seeing patients anyway.”

  “Right, and there’s no time limit on our visits. That ought to startle her enough to mention it, don’t you think?”

  “It seems like that would be pretty hard for her to ignore,” Trent said slowly.

  “Exactly. And then you can coax her to keep talking about her clinic, about why she might be worried about us being there. Everybody wants to confide in someone. You were a reporter, Trent. A darn good one. You should be a professional at getting people to talk to you.”

  “I am.”

  “Prove it,” Dopp said, and walked out.

  * * *

  It was two days later, Wednesday at 5:15 P.M. Dopp believed Trent was loitering in Washington Square in order to follow Arianna’s every movement once she left her clinic. But actually, Trent was sipping tea at a café nearby, writing up a phony report of her alleged activities to hand in the next morning. As he typed, his cell phone in his sweater pocket began to vibrate. Arianna. She spoke his name like a plea for mercy.

  “What happened?” he asked immediately.

  “I need a huge favor. Megan got held up at work, so I need you to bring the case to Sam ASAP. I don’t know who else I trust enough to—”

  “It’s fine,” he interrupted, relieved. “Is it at the clinic?”

  “Yes. My colleague Emily is still there to let you in.”

  “No problem. I’ll be right there.”

  “Thank you so much,” she said. “If I didn’t get this batch to Sam soon, it would be too late to use them.”

  “Don’t worry, love. He’ll get them.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry it’s so last minute. Megan had actually called me earlier today, but I couldn’t call you until now, just after I left work, because that goddamn inspector has started staying all day. Just watching me!”

  He coughed. “Why in the world would he do that?”


  “I don’t know! Yesterday he came for four hours. Today, for six. I could barely get out of his sight. It’s bizarre. When Megan called, I knew I had to pick up, but then I could only reply with a word, and of course she couldn’t understand why I was being so short with her.”

  “That sounds excruciating. I’m sorry you have to go through that.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Trent’s boiling tea scorched his tongue. “Did the inspector explain?”

  “He called it Phase Two of the crackdown—this new shadowing of doctors. But I don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish.”

  “It sounds crazy,” he muttered. “But he left for today, right?”

  “Yep, he left when I did. That’s why I couldn’t take the case with me.” A troubled sigh came over the line. “Do you think they’re trying to kill me from stress?”

  “No way,” he said. Then you would be useless to them.

  * * *

  The black case felt oddly light in Trent’s hand, even though he knew it was filled with eight glass flasks. He carried it protectively under his right arm, leaning headfirst into the cold wind as he walked from the clinic to the church, recalling an afternoon when he was a little boy.

  For his seventh birthday, his parents had given him a new fifty-dollar bill. It was the most money he had ever held, and it made him feel astonishingly rich. He had belly-flopped onto his bed and smelled its distinct sweetness. Even now, he remembered the tiny date in the right-hand corner: It had been a series 1996. Little did he know then that he would one day be holding cargo countless times more precious than even the Hope Diamond, which could never repair a spinal cord, or save a life.

  In spite of his awe, guilt clouded his mind. He not only knew about the inspector’s stifling presence, but he had also approved of it. And now Arianna was worried that the added stress might kill her: What if it did? Would he be partly responsible, since he had done nothing to stop it? But what could he have done? If he showed any loyalty to her, it would destroy them both. There was nothing he could do, except continue to hand in phony reports and inaccurate transcripts, shrug apologetically at Dopp’s growing frustration, and privately glorify Sam.

  The power Sam held over Arianna’s life—and thus Trent’s own—was remarkable; if Trent were still religious, he would be inclined to pray to such a being. But it was both liberating and disappointing to know that praying was futile. Safely delivering the case was the most he could do. He looked over his shoulder every several blocks, worried that someone from the DEP could be trailing him, just as he had trailed her. But each time he glanced behind him, he saw mostly empty sidewalks and a few people who were not the least interested in him. To refocus his paranoia, he thought of Sam, flushing at the prospect of their meeting.

  By the time he reached the dark alley and hopscotched over its filth, he felt privileged to be knocking on Sam’s steel door, to hand a genius his tools.

  “Well?” came a faraway voice.

  “Uh—SADFACE,” Trent called. It was the only password he knew.

  “Who is that?” barked the voice, coming closer. “We don’t use SADFACE anymore.”

  “Sam, I mean, Dr. Lisio, it’s Trent. I have the case for you.”

  There was no response, and Trent wondered if he should repeat himself. But after a few seconds, he heard the three dead bolts unlocking inside. The door pulled back an inch, and Sam peered through the slit suspiciously, reminding Trent of their first—and only—meeting.

  But this time they were alone.

  “Hi,” Trent said, holding out the case. He was torn between wanting to step inside, away from the alley’s stench, or to step back, away from Sam’s surly gaze.

  “Where’s Megan?” Sam demanded. Through the narrow opening, his pink cheek rubbed against the door’s edge.

  “She got stuck at work. Arianna called me at the last minute.”

  “Sure,” Sam snapped. “She calls to tell you but not me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Trent replied, wondering why he was apologizing.

  “Never mind.” Sam opened the door just enough for Trent to enter. “You better come in and wait while I exchange the clones.”

  “Thanks.” Trent walked in and handed him the case, surveying the lab for a place to sit. Besides the stools that lined the counter in the back of the room, there was only a nylon cot on the floor. He decided to stand. While Sam emptied the flasks into the incubator and replaced them with clones from the freezer, Trent tried to come up with pleasant small talk. But his lips would not form the words, sensing that Sam would not play that game, at least not with him. Could he still be angry that Arianna had brought a stranger to their sacred grounds? But that wasn’t Trent’s fault, and he had obviously not reported them, so what was the problem?

  Perhaps Sam had been antisocial for so long that his interpersonal skills had atrophied like a useless muscle. Trent wondered if he was lonely. The old man did not exactly seem to yearn for company. Did he have anyone to confide in, or wish he did?

  As Sam transferred new flasks into the case, his gnarled hands moving with precision and grace, Trent was overcome by a strange feeling of kinship. Here they were, two men, as isolated from the world as from each other, united in the fight for one urgent goal, each doing his part the only way he knew how.

  “I’m glad I could help you,” Trent blurted.

  A sound like a grunt escaped Sam as he leaned into the freezer for another flask. Trent looked around the lab, trying to think of something else to say. Judging from the look of the place, Sam was certainly eccentric. Next to the cot on the floor, an open duffel bag was bursting with purple sweatpants and frayed T-shirts. Strewn on the floor were notepads, crumpled balls of paper, and old, heavy-looking textbooks. One book near Trent’s feet read in block letters: Genomics, Proteomics, and Systems Biology, 2006.

  “Do you sleep here?” Trent asked, even though he realized the answer was obvious. Sam did not turn around.

  “Yep.”

  “Oh. Well, can I bring you anything else?”

  “The less anyone comes here, the better.” Sam turned to face him while he snapped the black case shut. “I bet you didn’t even look twice before you walked into the alley.”

  “You’re right,” Trent said. “I was too busy thinking about how honored I was to be helping you.”

  Sam stared at him stonily. Trent stared back, determined to thaw his hostility, well aware that he risked worsening it. Outside, he heard fierce wind whipping up the air and barreling through the alley. From miles away, it seemed as if the clinic were howling for him to return. Inside his sweatshirt pocket, he rubbed the key Emily had given him to go back and stock the freezer’s vulnerable shelves.

  He reached out for the black case. Sam handed it to him.

  “Thank you,” Trent said. “I won’t bother you any more.”

  * * *

  Inspector Banks stood before Dopp on Friday morning like a prisoner before a judge: humble and ashamed.

  “You’re supposed to be intimidating her,” Dopp said through gritted teeth. “She has hardly mentioned you to Trent all week!”

  Banks grimaced. “What did she say, at least?”

  Dopp grabbed the thin transcript off his desk, which Trent had handed him only minutes before. “Here,” he said, bringing the transcript close to his face. “Yesterday, Trent asked her, ‘How are things at the clinic these days?’

  “And she said, ‘Okay. Frustrating that I’m not seeing patients. I’ve been seeing more of that inspector lately, though.’

  “‘Really, how come?’

  “‘It’s part of their new policy to monitor doctors now.’

  “‘That must bother you, doesn’t it?’

  “‘Yeah, it’s annoying. But not that big a deal. By the way, I wanted to tell you about this book.…’”

  Dopp sighed in disgust and slammed the page onto his desk. “Why doesn’t she seem to care that you’re there, watching her, all day?”

&n
bsp; “She doesn’t seem to care,” Banks said. “But she did change the subject right afterwards, like she didn’t want to dwell on it.”

  Dopp seized the transcript again. Rereading it, Arianna’s words seemed both flippant and circumspect, as if a secret lurked between the lines.

  “That is strange,” he agreed. “She didn’t appear to react at all. It’s unnatural. She must be holding back for some reason. Lying.”

  “She just needs to be broken down,” Banks said. “I’m telling you, Gideon, she has the Devil’s force in her. If you had to be with her, you’d know.”

  “Trust me, I know. Now, today’s your last chance this week, so go and stay by her side all day.”

  * * *

  To witness time passing, those in the outside world looked up at the sun and the moon; Sam looked down at his petri dishes. Eight of them lined a shelf in the incubator, all injected with the slightest variances of molecular growth factors. Since Wednesday night, when he had extracted stem cells from the embryos Trent brought him, and then altered the cells with injections, he had not slept for more than an hour and a half. Every two hours, he carried the dishes, one by one, to his inverted microscope to check on the progress of their growth. Every two hours, he jotted down notes, checked them against previous attempts, and returned them to the incubator. Each dish was carefully labeled, one through eight, with a corresponding chart of which molecules he had injected in each. After an injection, it took about thirty-six hours for the cells to differentiate into their final form. To Sam, it was always a period of time both hateful and exhilarating, thirty-six hours of pacing and nervousness brought on by renewed hope. And despite hundreds of attempts, it was always followed by a thirty-seventh hour of gut-wrenching disappointment.

  His stomach was rumbling when the two-hour alarm on his cell phone went off again, near his head on the cot. For this batch of experiments, it would be the last time he needed to get up, open the incubator, and carry the dishes to his microscope. It was during these final two hours that the cell development had often faltered, spewing mistakenly differentiated cells like a malfunctioning vending machine. But recently the cells had been tantalizingly close to the goal, developing as astrocytes or microglia instead of oligodendrocytes, like Cokes instead of Diet Cokes.