He moved around the projecting turret at the left of the house and found a paved area surrounded by a low hedge. There was a garden table there with a bentwood chair beside it. The breeze lifted the corner of a magazine on the table. A jug of water had ice cubes floating in it. Someone had moved fast.
On this side of the house was a french window. It appeared to be closed, but as he approached, he noticed it move slightly with the wind. He eased it open and stepped inside.
The room was wood-paneled and thickly carpeted, but had an institutional look to it, the armchairs, shabby from much use, facing each other in two arc shapes across a low table supplied with glass ashtrays. A potted palm beyond them was a geriatric case itself.
Dryden jerked at the sound of the doorbell, remembered Melody, and crossed the room into a corridor redolent of lavender polish. He could hear the voice of the nurse speaking on the phone in an adjacent room. No mystery who she was calling: “Yes … Yes … I sent her upstairs, to her room … Certainly, I will … Yes, in fact, they are still ringing … Very well …”
He glided past, turned a corner, saw the front door ahead and opened it before Melody touched the doorbell again. He held his hand up in a silencing gesture. Her face twitched in surprise. He tugged her inside, closed the door and hustled her to the staircase across the hall. They were upstairs before they heard the phone receiver being replaced.
Melody started trying doors. The first two bedrooms were unoccupied, the beds stripped. Before there was time for a third, steps sounded on the stairs. Dryden nudged Melody into the second room, gently closing the door behind them. There was nothing they could do but stand together in the only place unseen from the door, the angle formed by one end of the wardrobe and the wall.
“Dryden Merchandising certainly looks after its staff,” Melody murmured, wriggling pleasurably against him.
They heard a door opened, and voices nearby. Scraps of the conversation carried to them. The nurse was passing on orders. “… stay in your room at least until we’re sure … I know, my dear, but he insisted … can’t take risks … I have to check the doors and windows.”
Her steps receded. Melody gave a small sigh as Dryden eased away from her and moved to the door.
In the passage he pointed to the door opposite, turning with eyebrows raised inquiringly to Melody. She nodded. He turned the handle and pushed it open.
“Jack!” Goldine ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck before she saw Melody was there. She was wearing a white bathrobe and slippers. Her face was drawn, definitely thinner than it had been when he had last seen her in Eugene. “Melody!” she said in surprise. “I didn’t expect —”
“Skip it,” said Melody. “It’s good to see you have the strength.”
“I’m a whole lot better,” said Goldine, disentangling herself. “The treatment is just marvelous. You knew I was ill, Jack? Doc has been giving me injections. I should be back in training by the weekend.” She motioned to them to sit on the bed. “Say, how did you get in? Nurse Piper said there were people about, but I never thought —”
“No matter,” said Dryden. “This illness — has it been diagnosed?”
She nodded. “It’s not an illness. It’s a diet problem. You know how people are allergic to things? There was something in my food —”
“Sugar, perhaps?”
“Maybe. They’re giving me Sweet’n Low with my coffee. Doc says I shall have to be careful what I eat in the future. He wants to get me right before I have my medical for the Games. I was a little anxious at missing the team briefing, but Doc has explained everything to them and I’ll catch up next week.”
Dryden exchanged a glance with Melody. “You haven’t seen the papers?” he asked Goldine.
“All they have here is very old Reader’s Digests,” she answered. “Is there something I should see? Nurse Piper hasn’t mentioned a thing. The Olympic Committee does understand I was ill, don’t they? There isn’t any complication about that?”
“Nothing that can’t be retrieved,” said Dryden. “You still expect to run in Moscow?”
A look of annoyance crossed her face. “Why shouldn’t I? I earned the right, didn’t I? You think I’m a quitter?”
“Easy,” murmured Dryden. “I was only suggesting, if your health —”
“My health’s okay,” Goldine cut in vehemently. “I had a diet problem. Have you got that straight in your head? I’m going to Moscow and I’m going for gold. God help anyone who tries to stop me now.” She kept her voice level; the intensity of her eyes was emphasis enough. She held the look until it was clear that the assertion stood unchallenged, then relaxed it and inquired, “How’s the merchandising shaping? Have you made a start yet?”
“It’s well under way.”
“Tell me about it.”
She seemed genuinely interested, so he outlined the results of his negotiations to date, explaining how an image was emerging already. Once or twice she stopped him to ask if a contract was firm. Far from being overawed by commercial commitments, she listened to Dryden in mounting excitement. She was entirely taken up with the publicity possibilities, building her own picture of what Goldengirl would be. She took little interest in the financial terms. “It amounts to over two million pledged already,” Dryden told her with excusable pride. “That’s only the West Coast. New York should be good for at least as much again.”
“New York?” she responded dreamily. “Are the Helena Rubenstein people based there? I’d like to have something going in the beauty business.”
“You will,” promised Dryden. “It’s high on my priorities here. I have plenty of contacts in New York.”
As he was speaking, the door opened. “In that case, what are you doing in Cleveland?” asked Dr. Serafin.
Chapter 19
Dryden had been waiting for this.
When Dr. Fassendean in New York had mentioned diabetes, it had registered nothing. It had made no sense. An alien suggestion. Only when Fassendean had described the types of stress associated with its onset had Dryden begun to see a possible pattern of cause and effect. His call to Professor Walsh had hardened possibility into suspicion. For three hours he had contained his anger as, detail by detail, the certainty had grown that Serafin had cynically destroyed his daughter’s health.
Now the man stood in the doorway in the posture of an outraged parent.
The essential thing was to take control, keep it rational, prize out the truth.
Serafin addressed him again: “I think you and I should have a talk.”
“I agree.”
“In private,” said Serafin.
Here was the first issue. An important one. As soon as Dryden had heard the phone call going through to Serafin, he had realized this would come up. Serafin would come to the sanitarium and find them with Goldine. He would not want to talk in her presence.
Dryden shook his head. “This affects Goldine. She has a right to hear it.”
Serafin tersely said, “She knows nothing.”
“Exactly,” said Dryden. “You’re about to rectify that, Dr. Serafin.”
Goldine frowned in bewilderment, looking from one to the other.
“I have to consider her health,” said Serafin. “This is no time to subject her to shocks. As her physician —”
“Save it,” warned Dryden. “It carries no conviction. She’s nineteen years old and she is entitled to know what’s wrong. And why.”
The force of that last word showed in Serafin’s face. Creases rutted the pallid cheeks as if he had taken a punch. It stung him into a fresh offensive. “I don’t propose discussing anything in front of Miss Fryer. She has left my employment.”
“I know. She joined mine,” said Dryden. “Melody stays. I want corroboration. Would you shut the door and come in — unless you want Nurse Piper in as well.”
Serafin listened to this with his hands working convulsively at his jacket buttons. His knuckles were white.
“You wonder how much
I know?” said Dryden. “Is that your problem? You think perhaps I’m bluffing? No, Doctor, I’ve dredged deep. Shall we start by talking about the growth hormone? What do you call it — HGH or somatotrophin?”
Serafin’s face twitched. “For God’s sake, man, not in front of Goldine!”
It was Goldine who answered him. “Doc, if this has to do with me, I intend to hear it.” She went to him and gripped his arm, more in duress than endearment. “Don’t you think you owe me that?”
She was strong. Serafin took an involuntary step forward. The door closed behind him. He rested his hands defensively on the back of the only chair in the small room. Goldine stepped away and sat on the edge of the bed, facing him. Dryden stayed leaning against the wall opposite. Melody had propped herself on the windowsill overlooking the garden.
Dryden was in control. “Okay. Let’s take you back. Vienna, 1963. The focal point of your career. Your research showed that a group of German women grew significantly taller than their mothers at maturity. It created interest among scientists, brought you recognition. Some had reservations about your theories, but nobody could dispute the results. And if one generation was taller than its predecessor, why shouldn’t future generations grow indefinitely taller? Your critics said the human skeleton was structurally incapable of further increase. Do I have it right?”
Serafin’s mouth was set in a tight line. He gave a shrug that could have meant anything.
Dryden took it as an affirmation. “For years after that you immersed yourself in the controversy, writing letters to the scientific press, lecturing up and down the country, producing papers on every aspect of the subject your research had touched on. But the problem was that you had no new evidence to support you. You had milked the Vienna project dry.”
Serafin didn’t like that. His mouth shaped to protest.
Dryden gave him no chance. “Toward the end of 1964, you traced Goldine to the Tamarisk Lodge children’s home. You had been trying to locate her mother, but she was dead. As it turned out, the child was a more exciting discovery, a member of the generation after the one you had studied. You visited the home, examined the little girl. Goldine won’t remember this —”
“But I do!” Goldine said emphatically. “The matron held me while he handled my arms and legs. I cried.”
Serafin admitted this with a nod, averting his eyes from Goldine’s.
“When you saw the child you realized that here was a possibility of extending your Vienna research,” Dryden went on. “If you were right, Goldine was destined to be taller than her mother and her grandmother. What an opportunity for you! There she was, an orphaned child. You could adopt her, take her into your home and monitor her growth, measuring her week by week, recording everything until she reached maturity. You would have a unique record of her development from the age of three. You would publish the results as a case history supporting your Vienna thesis. Correct?”
“Completely,” said Goldine without turning to look at Dryden. “I was a guinea pig.”
“That’s untrue!” Serafin angrily protested. “After the adoption we genuinely tried to make your life as normal as any child’s.”
“Then, why didn’t you send me to school like other kids?” Goldine simply asked.
The question hung in the air unanswered.
Dryden pressed on. “The tests you gave Goldine increasingly revealed that she was unusually strong for her age — ‘physically precocious,’ I think you said yourself. And that was how the Olympic idea took root. What a boost it would give your research paper if Goldine won a gold medal! It wouldn’t be the proof of your theories, because you don’t convince scientists with isolated cases, but it would bring much-needed publicity to your ideas. By this time, editors were rejecting the papers you wrote. You had nothing new to say, so they weren’t interested. I can see it must have depressed you profoundly.”
“Who told you these things?” demanded Serafin.
“Does it matter?” said Dryden. “What obsessed you wasn’t whether you were right: you were convinced you were. You had a compulsion to prove you were right, put the theory beyond dispute. But how? You had gone as far as you could in your thesis, and that was gathering dust. To answer your critics required something out of science fiction: a subject of average stature from the twenty-first century.”
Goldine swung around to face Dryden. There was surprise in her expression. And fear. She was afraid of what he would say next. She looked pathetically vulnerable in the white bathrobe, fingering her neck, eyes opened very wide, brow fretted with anxiety.
He was moved.
He would have liked to take her aside, tell her gently, but she wouldn’t have believed him. This had to be said in Serafin’s presence.
He glanced briefly back, trying to give her courage. Then he returned to Serafin. “In the early sixties, there was an important development. You heard about HGH and the experiments to promote human growth. Using hormones extracted in autopsies, doctors treated children suffering from pituitary deficiencies, with spectacular results. The treatment was taken up at a number of centers. A unit was opened at your own Institute in Bakersfield. You suddenly saw that this could have an application to your research. With HGH, you could create what you had thought was a science-fiction fantasy. You were measuring Goldine’s growth from week to week. You knew how tall she was likely to be as an adult. But with HGH it was possible to augment that. You could increase her height to the level you believed it would take three generations of evolution to attain. And you could prove beyond dispute that her frame could adjust to that level of increase.”
Goldine stared white-faced at Serafin. “Those were the injections you gave me? All those were hormone injections?”
Melody said in a low voice, “Christ, I don’t believe this!”
Serafin pushed aside the chair and went toward Goldine, putting out a hand to touch her shoulder. “My dear, put this way it sounds indefensible, but, believe me, I didn’t go into this lightly. I learned everything I could about the treatment in the growth unit. I made the most intensive study of HGH and its effects.”
“That’s how I got to be as tall as I am?” said Goldine, horror written on her features. “You planned for me to be six foot two?”
Serafin nodded. “I planned for you to be tall, yes, as tall as women will be a century from now.”
A phrase came back to Dryden. Something Goldine had said on La Jolla Beach when she had told him about the cosmetic surgery she had undergone. All I had was my six foot two. Even that was denied her now.
“To prove your theory, huh? Like someone had to have the first smallpox vaccination, the first heart transplant? What do I get — a one-line credit in a medical encyclopedia?” Goldine continued speaking in a rush, coming to terms with what she had learned. “So you made me exercise, gave me physiotherapy as a kid to make me a perfect physical specimen — some kind of superwoman?”
“But you are!” said Serafin passionately. “You are Goldengirl. I’ll tell you what you get. Glory, fame, more money than you can spend!”
“Who gets all that?” she demanded. “The kid you took out of Tamarisk Lodge? Is that who I am? Docs the glory go to Dean Hofmann, or a bunch of hormones taken from corpses?”
“You were born a natural athlete,” said Serafin as if he had not heard. “Your grandmother won a gold medal. Your father was on the U.S. Olympic team. The ability is inherited. The injections weren’t given to make you a champion runner — they wouldn’t do that. They made you taller, bigger, that’s all. Through your running you are proving that your frame has adapted to the extra growth. It has no weakness. You are six foot two and a mesomorph and you can power your body faster than any woman alive. That’s the triumph of my life’s work, Goldine.”
Dryden was no scientist, but he could see huge gaps in Serafin’s rationale. The man had become so obsessed with his theory that he had abandoned scientific method for a kind of biological alchemy. It was so crackbrained that to take up po
ints would lead nowhere. He had to leave all that, try at least to get to the truth of what it had produced.
“It’s a hollow triumph, Dr. Serafin, because you daren’t publish now. Isn’t it time you told Goldine why you put her in this place?”
She turned quickly, looking at Dryden with frightened eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It’s for him to tell you,” answered Dryden.
Serafin was shaking his head, but it was a gesture of submission, not defiance. “My dear, I would like to spare you this, but he leaves me no choice. If you are to hear it, then it is best I tell you myself. When I started giving you the hormone all those years ago, I was aware that there was a certain risk attached, a chance of damaging your health. I didn’t know how high a risk it was. Later, I learned that it was probable, if I persisted with the injections, that they would permanently damage the gland known as the pancreas. That, I must tell you, has happened. The reason why you have been unwell since the U.S. Trials is that you have diabetes. The stress of competing in the Trials brought it on, but the injections were really responsible.”
“No, Doc,” said Goldine in a voice steady, but thick with emotion. “The injections weren’t responsible. You were. I have this thing wrong with me and you knew it would happen. Now would you tell me if it’s permanent?”
Serafin put a conciliatory hand toward Goldine, then let it fall limply as he met the contempt in her eyes. He turned his face away and nodded. “I gambled that it wouldn’t happen so soon. I wanted you to get your gold medals first. Then, when it was diagnosed, I would tell you why I did this. You would be compensated by your success in the Olympics. You would have the fame, the material benefits, as a consolation, knowing I had provided you with the training, the conditioning, the backing that transformed you into Goldengirl.”
“While the injections were transforming me into an incurable,” said Goldine bitterly. “What did you stand to get out of it?”
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