Weed

by Peter Ponzo

  Chapter 33

  We left the bedroom and gathered in the living room. Charles was pacing back and forth. Josey fell asleep almost instantly on the couch. I listened patiently, lying back in an overstuffed chair.

  "Miss Fleetsmith, I must insist that you abandon this scheme to attract Mr. von Oerschott. If our conjecture is correct, he has killed at least two people. He is now an animal, with animal instincts. There is no reason to believe that he will respect the life of Miss Josephine any more than he respected the lives of his other victims. A gorilla, dangerous, unpredictable—"

  "Charles, can't you imagine the scene? Josey, a little sexy growl, fluttering her hairy eyelids. Hans, beating his chest. She coos, he roars, she's coy, he struts, she—"

  "And where will all this take place? And where, pray tell, will we be located. And when he begins to tear her limb from limb, what mechanism do we employ to restrain him?"

  "We'll get the cowboy involved. He'll go for it, I'm sure."

  I leaned across the sidetable and grabbed the phone, punching the number. I began to hum.

  "Hello, could I speak to William Boone? Thank you."

  I waited. Charles slid into a chair. The tall Texan came on. He sounded sleepy.

  "Hullo."

  "Hi cowboy, guess who? Did I wake you?"

  "Howdy. It was nice … I enjoyed—"

  "Yeah ... nice ... me too ... but listen. I have something important to say. Last night we had a visit from our hairy friend, Hans."

  "Are y'all okay? Are y'all hurt?" He sounded concerned. A sweet man.

  "No, no, we're all okay. He just came peeping into my bedroom window."

  "Are y'all sure—"

  "Sure I'm sure. Who else could it be? A great black hulk, scraping at my—

  "Is he there, now. Is he gone?"

  "Yes ... yes, he's gone. But stop talking and listen. We have a plan that's bound to tickle your fancy."

  Boone was quiet for the entire explanation. I could hear him breathing heavily, but he never interrupted.

  "Now," I concluded, "here's where you come in. I'll set up the meeting between the apes, you provide the protection. I don't want Hans killed. I know I can reverse this process, for Josey and for Hans. How 'bout if you drop by for breakfast, say about seven. We'll talk more."

  "Ah'll bring the eats."

  "Okay ... okay, if you want to, that's perfect, bye."

  I dropped the phone, pleased with myself. This was going to work.

  "Charles, we've got work to do. Boone is coming over at seven and we have to have a foolproof plan devised by then."

  "But, Miss Fleetsmith, it's not quite one o'clock in the morning. Surely a little rest—"

  "Screw the rest. Let's get to work." I stopped and stared at Charles. "You're right, it is one o'clock in the morning. My call woke up our cowboy friend, yet he didn't answer the phone. Somebody else answered. It was a woman's voice." Why did I feel terrible. A woman's voice? At one in the morning?

  Charles sighed. "What shall I make for breakfast?" he asked.

  "And he was breathing heavily," I said. "It's one in the morning, a woman answers the phone, Boony boy is breathing heavily—"

  "Breakfast, Miss Fleetsmith? What shall I make?"

  "Nothing. Our cowboy has volunteered to bring the eats."

  Charles rolled his eyes. "Good Lord, give us this day our daily bread .."

  "Shit! A woman answered the phone … at one in the morning! "

  Why was I angry?

  Charles and I retired to the kitchen to devise a plan, leaving Josey to sleep undisturbed in the living room. Although Charles began with less than full ebullience, he went along with this early morning discussion, making several pots of coffee, preparing small snacks of brie, pumpernickel and gherkins, and eventually becoming quite enthusiastic. Eventually, Josey woke up, joined us for a coffee then retired to her room. That gal had a knack for sleeping, anytime, anyplace.

  By the time Boone arrived, Charles and I had quite a respectable plan.

  Boone was carrying a parcel wrapped in aluminum foil and towel. He laid it carefully on the kitchen table where Charles had set plates and cutlery, and dramatically peeled off the layers. Charles and I looked on. The interior of Boone's package was steaming.

  "What the hell is that?" I asked, staring at the breakfast that our Texan had brought.

  "Chicken fried steak, ma'am. Good fixins."

  "Sir, did you prepare this meal?" Charles asked, fascinated.

  "Do you expect us to eat all that? It's too early." I looked at my watch. It was an unconscious reflex whenever time was involved. "Fried chicken, at seven in the morning?"

  "Not chicken, ma'am. Steak."

  I poked the flat, fried and battered pieces with a fork. "Looks like Kentucky fried chicken with gravy," I said.

  "Texas fried steak with gravy, ma'am." Boone plopped into a chair, pulled a piece onto a plate. He ate it in two bites, directly from his fork, wiping his chin, grinning.

  Charles sat beside him, gingerly jabbed a piece, hauled it to his plate and delicately excised a portion. "Quite excellent, Mr. Boone. Really quite excellent."

  "Fried steak, at seven in the morning," I groaned. "Heart attack on a plate."

  After eating, we retired to the living room and I was about to elaborate on our plan to attract Hans von Oerschott when Boone said, "Roy McIvar."

  "What's that, cowboy?" I asked.

  "One of them thar fellas which got the affliction," he said.

  "Affliction?"

  "The Dermafix affliction."

  "One of the bodies from that motel?"

  "Nope. Them's Betty Hansen and Gary Felman. Makin' out in the Flanagan motel. Ms. Hansen was a secretary fer a law outfit. Felman's a contractor. Did some work fer the law outfit. Bin seein' Ms. Hansen fer some time, always at the Flanagan. Felman's wife knew it all along, didn't complain. She didn't like the guy nohow. Let him do his thing jest like she was doin' her thing with the next door neighbour. Hansen and Felman. No connection with Oerschott 'cept they stayed at the same room at the motel."

  "I appreciate the soap, but who the hell is Roy McIvar?" I asked.

  "Computer whiz, lived alone. Body found in an alley, fuzzy like, with thet Dermafix."

  "And why are you telling us this?"

  "We bin wonderin' how he fits in. Turns out he done some computer stuff fer von Oerschott, so's Oerschott could—"

  "JMP," I said. I couldn't help smiling. I knew that Hans didn't have the computer smarts to get into their files.

  "Ma'am?"

  "Jason Medical Products," I said. "Hans was stealing product information from JMP, biomedical espionage. JMP is a competitor. But Hans was computer illiterate. His micro was always turned on, sitting on his desk, but he'd pull out a slide rule to add two and two. Now we know where the expertise came from. McIvar."

  "Mr. Boone," Charles said, "since Mr. McIvar is now quite dead, how did you deduce that he provided the computing proficiency?"

  "Had a computer shop. His apartment was top o' the shop. Ah figured as a computer nut he'd be braggin 'bout his 'xpertise, to his customers mebbe, so Ah jest asked 'em. McIvar bragged how he could crack any system."

  "Mr. Boone," Charles asked, "were you aware of the invasion of the confidential files of Jason Medical Products?"

  "Y'all kin be sure o' thet."

  "And were you aware of who—" Charles began

  "Hold on!" I said. I wasn't going to let Charlie spill the beans about Josey and her evening activities vis a vis JMP. "This is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with us?"

  "Ah figured you'd be interested to know 'bout them people who had the affliction, how they fit in, how they's related 'n' all."

  "I really don't give a shit—"

  "But them others, they don't hardly fit," Boone said.

  "Others? What others?" I said.

  "This here fella in Little Rock, Arkansas. State
police found 'im, dead 'n' fuzzy. Got hisself the affliction."

  "Jesus Christ!" I was stunned. "Arkansas? Christ!" It was spreading.

  "We've notified all the State Police, the FBI," Boone said, "about them local cases so's we kin—"

  "Boone, we've got to do something!" I said. "This could easily get out of hand. But I don't understand. It's not contagious. None of my lab animals acquired the ... the affliction unless I actually administered the ointment. It's not airborne, close contact doesn't spread the disease. The fungus has to actually enter the bloodstream." Shit! The miracle drug was becoming an abomination. "Look, Boone, you and your cowboys had better round up everyone involved. Keep them under quarantine until ... until—"

  "Georgia," Boone said.

  "Georgia who?"

  "That's a state, ma'am."

  "Of course it's a state. What about—?"

  "Another corpse, ma'am, in Atlanta, Georgia. Dead 'n' fuzzy."

  "Lordy, lordy."

  I looked around. Josey was leaning heavily against the doorway.

  I had determined to fly to Atlanta, to see the fuzzy corpse. Boone said it was pointless; we could get all the information we needed through official channels. And Charles seemed upset at the prospect of being left alone with Josey. Eventually I decided against it. What the hell. The point was, the Dermafix affliction was out in the world and seeing yet another corpse wouldn't provide any new information. The description of the corpse sounded identical to the local cases: dead 'n' fuzzy as Boone had put it.

  After Boone left I spent the day at the lab. It was frustrating: microscopic examinations of the fuzz, DNA scans, a final confirmation that the hair I had found in my basement was really ape hair, tests involving various reagents and their effect on the Dermafix skin, reading all the latest reports on genetic engineering. By the end of a long day I was no farther ahead. The process must surely be reversible. Christ! The Human Genome Project. They had identified every bloody gene! Surely I was sufficiently competent to identify the genetic cause of this one affliction.

  It was late when I got home and Charles and Josey were asleep. I laid my research folder on the kitchen table, pulled a jug of orange juice from the fridge and took a great swallow, shuffled to the living room and collapsed on the couch, turning out the lights. Somehow I could think more clearly in the dark.

  Although Boone had stayed for over an hour that morning, I never got around to describing our plan to have Josey trap Hans. Somehow, in time, it didn't seem as viable as I first thought. We just talked about the spread of the affliction to Arkansas and Georgia. It was a stupid term: the affliction. Perhaps I could call it the fungus, or the virus ... but it wasn't a virus. Viruses were wee beasties, bundles of DNA, that injected their DNA into living cells so that during cell division the viral DNA would be reproduced. A clever strategy on the part of the virus: switch blueprints, get the cell to use my design.

  Our affliction—I didn't know what else to call it—was caused by a fungus which entered the bloodstream, accumulated somehow in the cells and reanimated ancient genetic material which had lain dormant for millennia. I tried to imagine the fungal material clinging to the cell, penetrating the cell wall, migrating through the cytoplasm to the nucleus.

  I sat up. Through the cytoplasm. The cytoplasm held the mitochondrial DNA. Was that a clue? Did the fungus effect only the genes in the cytoplasm? There was this theory that the cytoplasm is there, in an evolutionary sense, to protect the nucleus from invasion by foreign genetic matter. That's why the male sperm has no cytoplasm. If it did, then during conception the cytoplasmic conflict between sperm cytoplasm and ovum cytoplasm would be disastrous. The female's egg would make short work of the sperm. Pacman, gobbling up the male cytoplasm—

  Shit. Keep to the subject. Think.

  Okay, suppose the fungus attacked the mitochondrial DNA, rendering it ineffective against genetic invasion. For the cell, its first line of defense would be gone. The nucleus would be open to attack by ... by ...

  I missed conversations with Pops, technical ones. I was never really interested in his work until I was a graduate student, then I couldn't get enough of it. Every lab experiment I worked on for my thesis involved an outshoot of his research. I made a few important finds, at least I thought so. Each night we'd spend an hour or two discussing the work. I missed that. He was quite a man, Pops. A brilliant student, a renowned researcher, an entertaining speaker, a loving father. I suppose he was also a loving husband.

  I didn't really know my mother. She died when I was quite young but I understand that she was beautiful—at least from the few photos I'd seen—and she was supportive of Lloyd's work, never complaining of his frequent trips to the jungles of South America. I doubt I received much genetic inheritance from her, at least not in the beauty department. Not that I'm ugly. In fact I have a reasonable, if muscular, body. I used to jog a lot. I must remember to get back to that; I need the excercise. Pops had a good body. He looked like a runner, tall, with muscles that seem to run in long strips along his arms and legs. A tight ass. No, I didn't inherit his tight-ass genes. He was one beautiful man and I loved him very much. Why do people wait until it's too late … too late to say I love you.

  Think. Mitochondrial DNA: that's what I inherited from my mother. Didn't everyone? Must think about the Dermafix problem. Cytoplasm. I was tired. Wish Pops were here. He'd know what to do. We'd talk and devise a research plan. Pops. I needed him, now. Charles was very supportive and listened patiently, providing me with intelligent responses, but it wasn't the same. I wondered how Pops would have approached this problem, then I remembered that professor Unger had some notes that Pops had written. I must remember to collect them. Maybe there would be something there. Why hadn't I asked for them when we had visited Unger? Stupid, that's why.

  I went over the scenario again, saying it slowly, in short bursts, analyzing each word, the way Pops would have done.

  The fungus enters the bloodstream; penetrates the body cells; collects in the cytoplasm; attacks the mitochondrial DNA. Attacks? What does that mean? I began to whistle softly. The fungus collects in the cytoplasm; lays seige to the cytoplasmic genes. Seige? Shit! It encompasses the mitochondrial DNA, surrounds, attaches itself—that was better. To be effective, the genetic material must be free to migrate within the cytoplasm; the fungus prevents that. The defensive systems that the mitochondrial DNA provides become ineffective. The cell is open to invasion by ... by what?

  "Shit!" I couldn't think straight, it was getting late and I was tired. I grabbed a pad and pencil. If I didn't write it down I knew I'd forget. I scribbled Fungus renders mitochondrial DNA ineffective. Nucleus attacked by ?. I'd leave it there. Later, I'd think of something clever to replace the question mark. I got up and headed for the kitchen to slip this note into my research folder.

  The folder, it wasn't there. I was certain I had dropped it on the kitchen table. I tacked the note to the fridge with a magnetic tag and returned to the living room. It was dark so I turned on the lights. I must have left the folder in the living room. Nothing. The folder seems to have definitely disappeared. Had I forgotten it at the lab? No, I distinctly remember bringing it home. Had Charles come downstairs and put it away? Although I complained of this cleaning fetish of his—he often tidied up after me—it was usually socks or shoes. He would never, ever touch my research folder. I switched off the lights again and collapsed once more on the couch, in the dark, to think.

  That's when I heard the scratching.

  PART TWELVE