Syndrome

by Thomas Hoover

"You're crazy, you know that?" She'd remembered where she was and began putting the cigarette back into the pack. Then she smoothed her short black hair. "He leadeth you into the shit, handsome. That's where He 'leadeth' you. You're adorable, but you're also a sane person's nightmare."

  "Thanks," he said giving a thumbs-up as he walked past her desk. "I appreciate your unstinting praise."

  He headed on down the hall, the plush gray carpet soft against his feet. Could this be the break? he wondered feeling his hopes cautiously rising. Had the Big Man himself shown up? Could it be that there was something funny going on with that patient who got dropped?

  But what? He still didn't have a clue.

  As he walked into the room, he felt as though time just stopped. He had fantasized about this moment more and more as the years went by. Now here it was. What next? He thought he had been emotionally prepared, but now he realized he wasn't. Were they going to acknowledge the past, or were they just going to act as though nothing existed between them?

  That first chance meeting, when Stone was eleven, had been when his mother threatened to sue Bartlett for formal child support. The threat of publicity caused the matter to be immediately settled, as she'd hoped it would be. Stone had been sitting in the law firm's reception area when Bartlett walked through. Each knew who the other was, but Bartlett just stopped and glared at him for a moment before moving on. Stone had sized up the man who had abandoned his mother and only barely managed to suppress an urge to leap up and lash out at him, if only to say,Look at me. I'm here.

  He had not been in the same room with his father since, but this time around he was definitely noticed.

  Winston Bartlett looked just as he did in news photos. He was in his late sixties, with thinning blond hair that was cut too long and shaggy in the back. Stone's first thought was that the tightfisted old rou6 should spring for a better barber.

  But it was Bartlett's eyes that really caught him. They were strong and filled with anger, but they also contained a hint of desperation. They were very different eyes from the haughty dismissal he remembered from a lifetime ago.

  Good, Stone thought.I've finally made you squirm, Daddy dearest. Nothing else I've done has ever gotten the slightest notice from you.

  For a moment they stood sizing up each other.

  "Stone," Jane said, "this is-"

  "I know," he said.

  Even though they had been practically married, he had never told her that he was the unacknowledged son of Winston Bartlett. He had never told anyone. To him, his father had died before he was born and that was the story he stuck to.

  He naturally had a lot of complex feelings about that. He had seen his mother struggling to give them a decent life, hoofing in the chorus line of Broadway shows long after she should have, and a lot of his anger remained. Now, though, Stone Aimes wanted nothing from the old man. Except the truth.

  "Miss Tully," Bartlett barked, glowering at her, "I think you’d better leave us alone."

  "Of course," Jane said with a wry look, and in a tactful instant she had slipped past them and out, gently closing the office door behind her.

  "I don't believe it," Bartlett said turning back after he watched her leave. "You're trying to blackmail me, you little prick. Which tells me you're not half as smart as I thought you were."

  Wait a minute! Did that mean Winston Bartlett has been following my career?Stone felt a thrill in spite of himself.

  "I never knew you thought about me, one way or the other."

  He was experiencing a curious sensation. Although he was in the same room with his father for only the second time in his life, it felt natural. They were having one of those age-old arguments. The younger generation had just challenged the older generation, and because of that sparks were set to fly.

  This was the kind of thing that was supposed to happen between fathers and sons all the time. In fact, it felt good. It felt normal. More than that, he was finally being acknowledged.

  My God, he thought, I share DNA with this man and yet we have so little in common.

  Then he had a more scary thought: Maybe we have a lot in common.

  "I think it's time you told me what thehellyou're up to," Bartlett declared, ignoring the jibe. "How did you-"

  "I'm trying to do us both a favor, but you're not cooperating. If the Gerex clinical trials are going half as well as I think they are, then it seems to me you've got everything to gain by publicity. I'm trying to write the first book that tells the Gerex story. So why thehellwon't your legal flunkies let me interview Karl Van de Vliet?"

  "That's actually none of your business." Bartlett's eyes abruptly turned cloudy. "I want you to stay the hell away from-"

  "Right now I'm the best friend you've got in this world. Believe me." Stone couldn't believe he was saying this. For how many years had he loathed and despised this man? But now, for the first time, he actually needed something from him. "I want to tell the real story of what Van de Vliet has accomplished. What Gerex has accomplished. It'll be the latest word on stem cell technology. But your office keeps giving me the runaround."

  "We have a damned good reason to keep our work proprietary just now," Bartlett declared. "This is like the Manhattan Project." His eyes bored in. "The results of the clinical trials are going to cause a press feeding frenzy, and I want to be in a position to control that when the time comes."

  This is incredible, Stone told himself.We're talking as though we have no history. You have a granddaughter by me whom you've never even seen. Don't you at least care about her?

  "I've got a pretty good idea of what Gerex is doing and I think it's going to be a milestone in medical history." Stone looked at him, trying to figure him out after all these years. For all his bluster, Winston Bartlett seemed like a man with a lot of vulnerabilities and insecurities. He hadn't expected it. "It so happens I'm a damned good medical reporter and all I'm asking is to be the Boswell to Van de Vliet's Johnson. I want to be the one to chronicle this historic moment. There's no one who can do it better, believe me. Ill even agree to embargo everything until I get a green light from Gerex. But I want to start now and get it right"

  "You can't ethically know any details of the work," Bartlett declared. "So the question I'm waiting to hear answered is, how did you find out-?"

  "I can't reveal my source."Because, he told himself,I still don't have one.All I have is guesswork. "But I know that Karl Van de Vliet is running the first successful clinical trials using stem cell procedures. And I'm going to report on it whether you want me to or not. So are you going to help make sure my facts are accurate?"

  "I'm going to help make sure there's no reporting at all till I say so," Bartlett went on. "Anything you print will be- by definition-irresponsible speculation and you can expect enough legal action to-"

  "The original schedule was that they'll be finished in less than a month. I'm not going to publish anything before that I just want to have the manuscript I've been working on ready when the Gerex story finally can be told. It'll be the final chapter, the payoff. I'm going to describe your clinical trials, and it would be better for all concerned if it could be the 'authorized' version. If you force me to publish without your cooperation, it's not going to do either one of us as much good."

  Again he wondered why Bartlett was so upset. What was it about that one terminated patient that made him freak when he found out somebody knew? So freaked he charged up here personally, all the way from his fancy corporate building in TriBeCa, to breathe fire and brimstone and yell threats?

  "Do I have to get a court injunction to put a stop to this corporate espionage?" Bartlett demanded.

  "Everything I know is in the public domain somewhere."Actually, Stone thought,that's a serious out-and-out lie.Nobody knows that a patient got mysteriously terminated from the trials. "I just want to work together with you."

  Even as he was saying it, Stone Aimes realized that it was not in the cards, now or ever. He watched Winston Bartlett's eyes narrow.


  "What kind of contract do you have with this paper?"

  "Quite frankly, the terms of the contracts for employees of this paper are confidential."

  "I knew I should have kept those fucking lawyers here. It takes a shark to deal with a shark." Then he seemed to catch himself. "So if you're planning on writing anything about this, you'd be well advised to get yourself an attorney, because you're sure as hell going to need one."

  "Thanks, Dad." It just came out. Maybe he'd been wanting to say it all his life.

  Bartlett's look was shock for a moment, and then it turned pensive.

  "You don't think I take an interest in you, but I do."

  "Yeah, you've really been around through thick and thin." He felt the old anger of abandonment welling up.

  "I took care of your mother. Whatever she did was beyond my control." The eyes were switching to chagrin. "Do you have the slightest idea what I could do for you? I've. . I'm not getting any younger and I've been thinking about. . with your medical background you could easily have a place. . I mean, if you've got a head for business, then someday. . So why do you fucking want to do this now? "

  Stone listened, trying to internalize what he was hearing. Not only did Winston Bartlett know about him, he was finally thinking about acknowledging him. Sort of.

  Or was this just a bribe to hush him up?

  Either way, it was too little, too late.

  "You've never given me anything and I've sure as hell never asked. I'd just like for you to get out of my way so I can do my job."

  Bartlett stalked toward the door. Then he turned back.

  "You'd better think long and hard about what you're getting into. You can ask some of the two-bit reporters I've dealt with in the past. They're fucking road kill."

  With that pronouncement, he slammed the door and was gone.

  Stone stared after him, feeling his heart pump. It wasn't the threat; it was the mixed emotions. For a moment, in spite of his better judgment, he'd felt like he had a father, but then Bartlett became the enemy again.

  Then the door cracked open and Jane appeared, dismay in her eyes.

  "What wasthatabout?"

  "What waswhatabout?"

  "I've gotta tell you, that man doesn't know how to keep his voice down. What was that about helping your mother? Karen. You never talked about her much, but I sure don't remember you ever saying anything about her and Winston Bartlett."

  "That's because I didn't. Jane, there are parts of my past life that I try not to think about any more than I have to."

  "After the fact, it's nice to know that there were parts of your life that you didn't see fit to share with me." She sniffed.

  "Maybe someday."

  "It's a little late for that," she declared, hurt lingering in her voice. "Look, Stone, I don't know what you know that's got Bartlett so upset, but he's not the best guy in the world to piss off. He stormed in here, fit to be tied, personally demanding to know how the hell did you have proprietary information about the Gerex Corporation's clinical trials. He already seemed to know who you were. Now I realize there's more to the story, somewhere back there in time."

  "And what did you tell him?"

  "I was completely blindsided for which I thank you. I told him I didn't know anything about your sources, but I wouldn't reveal them even if I did. He's our landlord but that doesn't give him subpoena power. He doesn't have the right to barge in here and try to intimidate theSentinel's staff. We're current on the rent."

  Stone felt a tinge of nostalgia. Sometimes her gold-plated bitchiness was the very thing he admired most about her.

  "Well, thanks for sticking up for me. Maybe I've got him upset enough that he'll come around eventually and decide it's better to have meinsidethe tent, where I can be monitored."

  She snorted at the improbability of that.

  "No, Stone, as usual you're an idiot idealist and dreamer. I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen. Bartlett is most likely on his cell phone right now, as we speak, threatening the Family, trying to get you fired. He's saying you're stealing proprietary information somehow and he's going to sue the Sentinel for our last dime if we print a syllable of anything you write about him. That's his next move, Stone. I expect my phone to ring in approximately fourteen and a half minutes. Their attorneys are going to tell me to tell Jay to get you under control. That's what's going to happen. The Family does not want Winston Bartlett pissed off. Especially by the likes of you, somebody who's always writing muckraking articles that make them real nervous. Does anything I've said have the ring of logic to you? Or are you living in some never-never land where the facts don't fucking penetrate?"

  Hey, he thought,that's pretty good. Jane is in DEFCON 1 mode today.

  "Depends on what you look at, the doughnut or the hole. That is, the stick approach or the carrot. I'm betting he's going to split the difference and try a little of both. He's going to cool off and then offer me a few crumbs as an inducement to go away."

  "God, you're so naive." She laughed in derision. "Winston Bartlett is not accustomed to having to ask anybody for anything. So the fact he came up here this morning to try to get you to back off on whatever it is you're doing must mean you've really got him psyched." She stared at him. "What is it, Stone? Tell me. What do you have on him?"

  "Right now I'm more interested in what hethinksI might have. And the truth is, I don't really know. But it must be something pretty big."

  "Stone, why is it so hard to hate you? You can make a person's life miserable and that stupid person willstillroot for you. God, I don't know what it was about you." She paused a moment as though thinking. "Maybe you're just too honest. Or just too sincere. Maybe that's what it was."

  "Don't try to butter me up. I know my weaknesses. But dammit, Jane, I'm this close to the story of the century. And the paranoid zillionaire who was in here just now yelling at me is trying to freeze me out"

  "Well, please don't involve me in this anymore, Stone. You've just provided me with a week's worth of unnecessary shit. From now on, any communicating you want to do with Gerex's attorneys is going to have to be done by someone else. Trust me when I tell youI do not need this in my life."

  "Sweetie, wait till you see what I'm on the track of. What the Gerex Corporation is doing at a small clinic out in New Jersey is going to change everything we know about medicine. And it's going to blow wide open the second they finally let the press in on what's happening at the clinical trials they're now winding up for the NIH. When they finally hold that big press briefing, I want to have a manuscript already in copyediting. I want to befirst."

  "Then why is he so worked up over your question?" she mused. "About somebody being dropped from the clinical trials?" She paused "Incidentally, I can do without being called 'sweetie' by a man I'm no longer screwing."

  "Sorry about that." He winced. It did just sort of slip out in this orgy of intimacy. "But what I think Bartlett desperately doesn't want me to find out is thereasonthat patient was dropped. And he's afraid I'm getting close. Unfortunately, I'm not, and I just took my best shot at prying the information out of him and-you're probably right-blew it." He was turning to leave. "But I'm, by God going to find out somehow. Just see if you can keep me from getting fired for a little while longer. If I'm still working for theSentinelthree months from now, you may get honorable mention in my Pulitzer acceptance."

  It was bluff talk. But he believed it with every fiber of his body.You've gotta believe, right?

  Come on, Ally, get lucky.Find out who that mystery patient was. The way things look now, you 're the only shot I've got left.

  Chapter 15

  Tuesday, April 7

  8:13p.m.

  What a day! When Ally finally settled onto her couch, after giving Knickers a long walk, she was exhausted. She leaned back and kicked off her shoes. There had been a few moments of tightness in her chest-maybe it was psychological, anxiety-induced-but that was gone now. She thought about calling New Jersey to ask how Nina was doin
g, but she doubted they would tell her anything.

  She'd spent the latter part of the afternoon getting yet another heart exam. After driving to northern New Jersey and back, she'd had a formal (and exhausting) stress test for her heart at the New York University Faculty Practice. God, she was sick of examining rooms and those blue paper shifts you put on backwards, as though it was okay for doctors and nurses to see your bare ass. Then she put on shorts and sneakers and an Israeli physician stuck wired suction cups all over her chest and put her on a treadmill for seventeen minutes, boosting her pulse to over 150, which was as high as he dared to go. Then he called Van de Vliet, faxed him the charts, and they reviewed the squiggly lines for another ten minutes. Finally she had a high-speed CT scan, whose results were then sent directly to Karl Van de Vliet's lab computer.

  The bottom line was, the damaged valve in her aortic ventricle was deteriorating even more rapidly than her regular physician, Dr. Ekelman, had thought, but her heart was still strong enough for the procedure.

  She wondered if she had gone this far because she was letting hope outweigh a sober evaluation of the risks. Was this the sign of complete desperation? Whatever she decided, tomorrow was the day, D day, decision day.

  She thought again about her mom, who had been bubbling with hope when she looked in on her. Nina hadn't even been formally checked in, but already she seemed transformed. It was enough for her just to entertain the possibility that her mind could be renewed. That in itself was sufficient to convince Ally to sign the consent agreement for Van de Vliet to go forward with her procedure. He even offered to provide a car service to take Maria home to the Bronx after Nina was settled and resting.

  In her own case, the special injections for her heart, she was far less sure what she thought. The part that bothered her most was having to give herself entirely over to a person she scarcely knew. It was the kind of ultimate surrender that she abhorred.

  While Knickers rummaged behind the couch for the remnants of her rawhide chew toy, Ally momentarily considered calling Grant. She couldn't think of a reason why except that he was the only coherent immediate family she had left and this felt like a moment for pulling together. God, she missed Steve. Sometimes she felt so alone.