Deadly Genes td-117

by Warren Murphy

  To Remo, there was no more accurate a phrase to describe the look on Curt Tulle's face as that of an animal caught in headlights. It was sheer, blind, frozen terror.

  "Keep the windows rolled up and your hands in the car," Remo suggested over his shoulder to Judith.

  As Remo spoke, Curt Tulle finally found his voice. "Who are you?" he demanded angrily. "Who let you in here?"

  The ermine stole was already stuffed inside the drawer. He seemed to remember the raccoon hat abruptly, snatching it from atop his head. The drawer opened again, and the hat was flung inside. Curt slammed the drawer loudly shut a second time. A few shimmies of his shoulders loosed the mink coat. He kicked it into the well under his desk.

  "I guess the only thing about fur that's murder is the price," Remo commented.

  "Filthy hypocrite," Judith snarled, her voice a low growl.

  When she moved toward Curt, Remo had to intercept her.

  Her passion gave her extra strength. Remo had to exert surprising force to pull her away. He scooted her back behind him.

  "Let's put the good-cop-psycho-cop act on hold, shall we?" he suggested to White. To Curt, he said, "We're investigating the disappearance of the BBQs from BostonBio."

  "BCWs," Judith hissed angrily.

  "BMWs," Remo corrected.

  "Hey, I know you." The HETA director squinted. He was looking at Judith White. His deer's eyes grew even wider. "You're the crazy scientist who's trying to play Mother Nature."

  This time Remo didn't move quickly enough to stop Judith. She darted around him, leaping and sliding across Curt Tulle's desk in a single fluid move. Along the way, she scooped up a letter opener that had been lying next to a banker's lamp. The greenshaded lamp went flying as Judith kicked around, dropping in beside the startled HETA director. With one hand, she grabbed a clump of thin hair, pulling back his head. The other hand aimed the business end of the letter opener into Curt's Adam's apple. "Where are my animals?" she screamed.

  Curt choked fearfully. "I don't know!" he cried.

  "You're lying!" she snarled.

  "No! No, I'm telling the truth!" His desperate eyes sought out Remo.

  "Say something!" he pleaded.

  "I'm not cleaning up the body," Remo cautioned Dr. White. Stepping back, he settled comfortably into a chair, pleased for a change to farm out the heavy lifting.

  Curt was sweating. Judith's voice was close to his ear, hot and menacing.

  "I know there are HETA-funded terrorists who live for this crap. You paid them to break into my lab, didn't you?" She jerked his head back harder. "Didn't you!"

  "Possibly!" Curt admitted. Perspiration had broken out across his upper lip.

  "Possibly?" Remo asked from across the room.

  Curt tried to shrug. "We do disperse funds from this office," he admitted. "I can't always say for sure where the money goes to ultimately. Legal reasons."

  "I'll legal you a blowhole," she barked, pressing the blunt knife into his flesh.

  "Please!" Curt begged.

  Remo interjected. "Who do you think took the animals?"

  "No one knows for sure," Curt replied nervously. "But I was talking to a HETA sympathizer in Salem a few hours ago. A guy named Billy Pierce. He hinted around that he might know something. I told him I didn't want to know. Please. You've got to believe me. I don't know anything."

  "Truer words have never been spoken," Judith growled.

  She wrenched Curt's hair one last time before flinging the terrified HETA director face first onto his desk.

  The letter opener had inadvertently punctured a small spot on Curt's neck. A drop of deep red blood clung to the end of the blunt knife. Judith seemed surprised at the sight of the blood. She held it before her eyes, as if shocked that she could have performed an act of such violence. She snorted once deeply-angry at herself-and then flung the knife away.

  "Coward's blood. I can smell it a mile away," she announced contemptuously. She twirled away from the desk. "Are you ready to go, Hank Kimble?" she asked Remo.

  Remo got slowly to his feet. "I'm guessing you don't get many Christmas cards," he ventured. Without another word to the shaking HETA director, the two of them left the office.

  In the hall, they nearly tripped over Sadie Mayer. Rather than call the police, the old woman had opted for eavesdropping outside Curt Tulle's door. She dogged them to the lobby.

  "Scumbag son of a bitch!" Sadie yelled. "Filthy bastard scum-sucking bum."

  "You're sweet," Remo commented at the front door. "Do you French your father with that mouth?"

  "Son of a bitch bum!" Sadie screeched. She stabbed an angry finger at Judith. "He who sleeps with dogs winds up with fleas!" This was apparently a caution to Remo.

  "That reminds me. Honey, we're low on flea powder," Remo said to Judith.

  "Shut up, idiot," the scientist snarled impatiently, shoving her way through the front doors.

  "Goddamn son of a bitch bum!" Sadie shrieked at him.

  "When did Boston start dumping testosterone in the drinking water?" Remo asked.

  In response, Sadie tried to kick him. Avoiding her bone-and-bunion-filled Reeboks, he slowly trailed Judith White outside.

  REMO AND JUDITH WEREN'T GONE more than one minute when a set of keys jangled outside the steel alley door near Curt Tulle's office. The fire door opened silently. A pair of dark-clad figures clicked the door shut behind them.

  Stepping carefully, the two shapes moved swiftly up to the HETA director's office.

  Curt had knotted his ermine stole around his neck once more and was stroking the soft fur in a gentle, soothing manner. Sitting behind his desk, he looked up with a start when the new pair of visitors slipped into his office.

  The man and woman were both somewhere near forty. They wore jackets over their black leotards. Their ski masks were stuffed into their coat pockets. Dressed too warmly for the early-autumn day, both of them were sweating profusely.

  The HETA man nearly jumped out of his skin when he first saw the couple. When he realized that he recognized them, his face relaxed somewhat.

  "My God, you scared the hide off of me." He tugged off the ermine stole, stashing it away once more.

  "What's the matter with you?" the man asked.

  "Didn't you see them?" Curt said, agitated.

  "We came in the back." This from the woman.

  Curt took a deep breath. "Judith White was here."

  "The Beast of BostonBio?" the woman asked, aghast.

  Curt Tulle nodded. "She had some buck with her. They're looking for those whatever-they-ares. The BBQs."

  The woman smiled smugly. "They'll never find them."

  Curt looked up sharply. "You know where they are?"

  "Of course we do," she retorted. "Who do you think liberated them?"

  "You're going to love what we have planned for them," her companion declared excitedly.

  The BETA director could think only of the crazed look in Judith White's eyes. When the man opened his mouth to speak once more, Curt Tulle fixed it so he didn't hear a word of what he said.

  As the couple detailed their diabolical plan, Curt clapped his hands firmly over his ears. Rubbing his nervous bare ankles against the comforting fur of the mink coat beneath his desk, Curt drowned them out by screaming the words to "Puff the Magic Dragon" at the top of his voice.

  Chapter 6

  When he was fifteen years old, young Billy Pierce's mother assured her son that he'd grow out of his terrible case of acne.

  "Don't worry, Billy," Mrs. Pierce had said, with the quiet confidence only a parent could muster. "It shows up for maybe a few years and then it's gone forever. And I don't know what you're worried about anyway. You're still the handsomest boy at Salem High School."

  As far as looks were concerned, Billy deluded himself into thinking that maybe his mother was right. Perhaps underneath the layers of oozing pustules and bloody scabs was another Rock Hudson waiting to break out. Billy never did find out.

  Hands
ome was in the eye of the beholder, and any girl who beheld Billy from freshman all the way to senior year saw only "Zit-Face" Pierce. The acne, as well as the nickname, followed him to Salem State College.

  Even when Billy graduated from college with a degree in English, the name dogged him. Perhaps it was his acne, perhaps it was his attitude, but what-ever the reason, he couldn't find a good job in town. He settled for employment in a small local fast-food establishment. Leftover pizza and as many French fries as he could filch didn't help his cratered complexion.

  When he finally couldn't stand it any longer, Billy went to see a doctor. He subjected himself to ten full minutes of poking and prodding by the middle-aged physician. Finally, the doctor sat down in a chair before the twenty-three-year-old acne sufferer. He stayed a safe distance from his patient, seemingly afraid some of the worst of Billy's sad affliction might erupt with Vesuvian violence.

  "Billy," the old doctor asked seriously, "when was the last time you took a bath?" He tried not to inhale too deeply.

  "Baths are for the Man," Billy retorted.

  The doctor shook his head somberly. "No, Billy. Baths are for people who want to be clean. You are without a doubt the filthiest thing on two legs I have ever seen."

  How could Billy explain it to the old, un-hip fossil? It was the early 1970s, and fashionable dirt was in. This lack of personal hygiene among the avant-garde was so chic it predated grunge by twenty years. In 1972 everyone who was anyone had long, scraggly hair and looked like they'd just crawled out a sooty tailpipe.

  Billy decided at that moment that the doctor was a quack. He also resigned himself to a life of lingering acne.

  Almost thirty years later, nothing much had changed for Billy Pierce.

  He still had the same job. He still lived at home with his mother. And his face still looked as if it had seen the business end of an acid-filled squirt gun. But now his long hair was greasier and thinner, his forehead stopped somewhere near the back of his head and his belly hung hugely over his belt, completely obscuring his large peace-symbol buckle.

  And the single major change for Billy Pierce over the years was his allegiance. Since, sadly, there was no longer a war in Vietnam to protest, he had to find something else to occupy the self-righteous part of his moral and political soul. Necessity had forced Billy to throw his support behind the liberation of animals from their human overlords.

  But it wasn't like the old days.

  When he was protesting the war in Southeast Asia, he felt like part of a larger community. There were songs and sit-ins and marches on Washington. As an animal-rights activist, he toiled mostly in isolation and anonymity.

  That was what he was doing today.

  He had gotten the special blueprints from the Salem city hall. They were a little old, but very detailed.

  A cracked coffee mug his mother used for gardening held down one curling corner of the large roll of paper. Dirt had dried in the bottom of the mug. Water-damaged paperbacks that had been stored in the basement four years ago when the cellar flooded held down two other corners. Billy was using his hand and elbow, alternately, to keep the last corner from rolling up.

  As he looked over the plans, the bare fluorescent bulbs above him cast weird shadows across the table. Billy was trying to figure out what he would need.

  Wire clippers. Probably. Maybe bolt cutters. Would he be able to pick the locks? He doubted it. But if he couldn't pick them, he knew the bolt cutters probably would do him no good on the locks. Billy had never had much upper-body strength. Maybe they weren't locked at all. After all, the interspecies prisoners couldn't very well escape by reaching out through the bars. Maybe they were just hooked closed.

  Of course! The keys would be on the premises! It would help to know where they were. Billy vowed to do a little more reconnaissance before D day.

  As his fat, grimy finger traced a path through the rooms on the blueprints, Billy heard a noise upstairs. It was the sound of someone stepping lightly across the kitchen floor.

  Billy was startled by the noise. His mother was supposed to be at bingo until ten.

  "Ma?" he yelled in the direction of the creaky wooden stairs. "Ma, is that you?"

  No reply. At least not a vocal one. The gentle, padding footfalls became more focused. They moved in a direct path for the upstairs hallway where the cellar door was located.

  Billy instantly panicked. Someone had obviously learned of his plan.

  His hand sprang away from the blueprints, which immediately curled up, rolling with such force that they pushed away his mother's soiled mug. It fell to the floor, breaking into a dozen large pieces.

  Billy didn't care. He had already turned away from the table and was waddling frantically toward the musty-smelling bulkhead at the rear of the basement.

  The upstairs cellar door opened. Precise footfalls struck the staircase behind him.

  Across the basement, Billy stumbled on the first concrete step. Toppling forward, he skinned his hands on the third. He pushed his ample girth back upright.

  It was cold inside the bulkhead, with a thick earthen odor.

  Billy grabbed desperately at the latch, twisting it wildly. With a single, violent push, he attempted to shove the flat door up into the yard. He found that he wasn't strong enough to budge the door more than an inch. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed in through the narrow crack for a tantalizing moment before the door clanged back loudly over his head, like the lid of a coffin.

  He tried again. Too late.

  A strong hand grabbed him by the shoulder. He felt his massive frame lift off the steps. Billy's feet rose from the short concrete stairwell, and he soared backward into the cellar, landing atop the very table where he had been sketching out his great mission. The old table shattered to kindling beneath his great bulk.

  Billy rolled over onto the pile of debris, eyes blinking back shock and pain. For the first time, he beheld the face of his attacker. Attackers.

  "Are you trying to kill him?" Judith White demanded. She stood, her face a mask of accusation, near Remo Williams at the dark opening to the bulkhead.

  "I wouldn't have had to grab him if he hadn't heard you stomping around like a drunken bison upstairs," Remo countered.

  "Stomping?" Judith retorted. "I'm as silent as a cat."

  "How silent do you think a 115-pound cat would be?" he asked, irritated.

  "A lot quieter than you," she replied angrily.

  "Listen before you answer, lady. Have you heard me scuff my foot once since you met me?" Remo demanded. "Have you even heard one single footfall?"

  Judith paused. Her temper seemed to dissipate somewhat.

  "No," she conceded. The admission appeared to puzzle more than anger her.

  "And while we're at it, you're not exactly a poster child for subtlety after that performance back in Boston," Remo pointed out. "So back off."

  Leaving the cowed geneticist, Remo marched over to Billy Pierce.

  The aging hippie was picking himself out of the rubble of his mother's shattered sewing table. As he dragged himself to his feet, he shook loose the remnants of one of the wooden legs, which had somehow gotten stuffed up the right leg of his bellbottoms.

  The same hand that had thrown him halfway across the room now lifted him the rest of the way to his feet. Remo deposited Billy on the concrete floor.

  "Okay, Wavy Gravy," Remo said, "what do you know about the stolen animals?"

  "I didn't do anything yet!" Billy begged. The words tumbled out. "All I did was get the plans from the city hall. That's legal. You can't do anything to me if I haven't done anything yet. Besides, I wasn't going to steal them. I was going to free them. And I wasn't even going to do that 'cause you can't prove I was."

  As he spoke, he indicated the curled-up blueprints on the floor. Remo raised an eyebrow. Silently, he gathered up the plans, drawing them open.

  He glanced at Billy. "These are to the Salem dog pound," Remo said, reading the border caption. Judith bounded forward, sna
tching the blueprints from Remo.

  "You put my BCWs in a dog pound?" she barked.

  "B-whats?" Billy asked, confused. "I don't know what you mean. I was planning to liberate the Salem dog pound. That's what all this is about." His eyes narrowed. "You're not with the city?"

  "No," Remo snapped, shaking his head.

  Judith had had enough. She shoved Billy roughly in his flabby chest. "Where are the laboratory specimens you stole from BostonBio last night?" she ordered.

  At the mentioning of the genetic firm's name, Billy Fierce's eyes grew wide amid his acne-flecked face. He tried to bolt again, but Remo held him fast. His legs kicked for a moment in air like a frozen cartoon character's. When he realized that he was making no progress, he reluctantly surrendered.

  "Where are they?" Remo asked, his face hard. Billy was panting from his exertions. Remo had to lean back to avoid the foul vapor that oozed from his mouth.

  "You won't turn me in if I tell you?" Billy asked hopefully.

  "I'll turn you into hamburger if you don't," Remo warned.

  Billy spoke quickly. "I don't really know about the BBQ liberation per se," he said.

  "Liberation?" Dr. White scoffed.

  He seemed surprised. "Don't you agree that all animals have a right to freedom?" Billy asked.

  "The BCWs don't have a clue what freedom is," the geneticist snapped. "They were conceived in a test tube and born in a lab. They are things. Not animals."

  "Where?" Remo stressed, steering Billy back to the matter at hand.

  "I'm not really sure," he said. "I'm supposed to meet some people from the Animal Underground Railroad near the Concord rotary tonight. There's some farmland on Route 117 near there. They're going to smuggle the BBQs to freedom."

  "Freedom!" Judith screamed, exasperated. "They're glorified lab rats! They have no natural instincts except for what I've bred into them. They've got no sense of how to survive in the wild. If you morons let them go off and fend for themselves, they'll starve to death in a week!"

  Billy Pierce puffed out his wounded chest. "Says you," he said bravely. He instantly regretted his daring.

  Judith's eyes squeezed to angry slits. Without any warning, she sprang into action.