The Third Twin (26 page)

34

J
ANE
E
DELSBOROUGH WAS A WIDOW IN HER EARLY FIFTIES
. A statuesque but untidy woman, she normally dressed in loose ethnic clothes and sandals. She had a commanding intellect, but no one would have guessed it to look at her. Berrington found such people baffling. If you were clever, he thought, why disguise yourself as an idiot by dressing badly? Yet universities were full of such people—in fact, he was exceptional in taking care over his appearance.

Today he was looking especially natty in a navy linen jacket and matching vest with lightweight houndstooth-check pants.

He inspected his image in the mirror behind the door before leaving his office on his way to see Jane.

He headed for the Student Union. Faculty rarely ate there—Berrington had never entered the place—but Jane had gone there for a late lunch, according to the chatty secretary in physics.

The lobby of the union was full of kids in shorts standing in line to get money out of the bank teller machines. He stepped into the cafeteria and looked around. She was in a far corner, reading a journal and eating French fries with her fingers.

The place was a food court, such as Berrington had seen in airports and shopping malls, with a Pizza Hut, an ice-cream counter, and a Burger King, as well as a regular cafeteria. Berrington picked up a tray and went into the cafeteria section. Inside a glass-fronted case were a few tired sandwiches and some doleful cakes. He shuddered; in normal circumstances he would drive to the next state rather than eat here.

This was going to be difficult. Jane was not his kind of woman. That made it even more likely that she would lean the wrong way at the discipline hearing. He had to make a friend of her in a short time. It would call for all his powers of charm.

He bought a piece of cheesecake and a cup of coffee and carried them to Jane’s table. He felt jittery, but he forced himself to look and sound relaxed. “Jane,” he said. “This is a pleasant surprise. May I join you?”

“Sure,” she said amiably, putting her journal aside. She took off her glasses, revealing deep brown eyes with wrinkles of amusement at the corners, but she looked a mess: her long gray hair was tied in some kind of colorless rag and she wore a shapeless gray green blouse with sweat marks at the armpits. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here,” she said.

“I’ve never been here. But at our age it’s important not to get set in our ways—don’t you agree?”

“I’m younger than you,” she said mildly. “Although I guess no one would think so.”

“Sure they would.” He took a bite of his cheesecake. The base was as tough as cardboard and the filling tasted like lemon-flavored shaving cream. He swallowed with an effort. “What do you think of Jack Budgen’s proposed biophysics library?’

“Is that why you came to see me?”

“I didn’t come here to see you, I came to try the food, and I wish I hadn’t. It’s awful. How can you eat here?”

She dug a spoon into some kind of dessert. “I don’t notice what I eat, Berry, I think about my particle accelerator. Tell me about the new library.”

Berrington had been like her, obsessed by work, once upon a time. He had never allowed himself to look like a hobo on account of it, but nevertheless as a young scientist he had lived for the thrill of discovery. However, his life had taken a different direction. His books were popularizations of other people’s work; he had not written an original paper in fifteen or twenty years. For a moment he wondered whether he might have been happier if he had made a different choice. Slovenly Jane, eating cheap food while she ruminated over problems in nuclear physics, had an air of calm and contentment that Berrington had never known.

And he was not managing to charm her. She was too wise. Perhaps he should flatter her intellectually. “I just think you should have a bigger input. You’re the senior physicist on campus, one of the most distinguished scientists JFU has—you ought to be involved in this library.”

“Is it even going to happen?”

“I think Genetico is going to finance it.”

“Well, that’s a piece of good news. But what’s your interest?”

“Thirty years ago I made my name when I started asking which human characteristics are inherited and which are learned. Because of my work, and the work of others like me, we now know that a human being’s genetic inheritance is more important than his upbringing and environment in determining a whole range of psychological traits.”

“Nature, not nurture.”

“Exactly. I proved that a human being
is
his DNA. The young generation is interested in how this process works. What is the mechanism by which a combination of chemicals gives me blue eyes and another combination gives you eyes which are a deep, dark shade of brown, almost chocolate colored, I guess.”

“Berry!” she said with a wry smile. “If I were a thirty-year-old secretary with perky breasts I might imagine you were flirting with me.”

That was better, he thought. She had softened at last. “Perky?” he said, grinning. He deliberately looked at her bust, then back up at her face. “I believe you’re as perky as you feel.”

She laughed, but he could tell she was pleased. At last he was getting somewhere with her. Then she said: “I have to go.”

Damn. He could not keep control of this interaction. He had to get her attention in a hurry. He stood up to leave with her. “There will probably be a committee to oversee the creation of the new library,” he said as they walked out of the cafeteria. “I’d like your opinion on who should be on it.”

“Gosh, I’ll need to think about that. Right now I have to give a lecture on antimatter.”

Goddamn it, I’m losing her, Berrington thought.

Then she said: “Can we talk again?”

Berrington grasped at a straw. “How about over dinner?”

She looked startled. “All right,” she said after a moment.

“Tonight?”

A bemused look came over her face. “Why not?”

That would give him another chance, at least. Relieved, he said: “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“Okay.” She gave him her address and he made a note in a pocket pad.

“What kind of food do you like?” he said. “Oh, don’t answer that, I remember, you think about your particle accelerator.” They emerged into the hot sun. He squeezed her arm lightly. “See you tonight.”

“Berry,” she said, “you’re not
after
something, are you?”

He winked at her. “What have you got?”

She laughed and walked away.

35

T
EST-TUBE BABIES
. I
N VITRO FERTILIZATION
. T
HAT WAS THE
link. Jeannie saw it all.

Charlotte Pinker and Lorraine Logan had both been treated for subfertility at the Aventine Clinic. The clinic had pioneered in vitro fertilization: the process by which sperm from the father and an egg from the mother are brought together in the laboratory, and the resulting embryo is then implanted in the woman’s womb.

Identical twins occur when an embryo splits in half, in the womb, and becomes two individuals. That might have happened in the test tube. Then the twins from the test tube could have been implanted in two different women. That was how identical twins could be born to two unrelated mothers. Bingo.

The waitress brought Jeannie’s salad, but she was too excited to eat it.

Test-tube babies were no more than a theory in the early seventies, she was sure. But Genetico had obviously been years ahead in its research.

Both Lorraine and Charlotte said they had been given hormone therapy. It seemed the clinic had lied to them about their treatment

That was bad enough, but as Jeannie thought through the implications she realized something worse. The embryo that split might have been the biological child of Lorraine and Charles, or of Charlotte and the Major—but not both. One of them had been implanted with another couple’s child.

Jeannie’s heart filled with horror and loathing as she realized they could
both
have been given the babies of total strangers.

She wondered why Genetico had deceived its patients in this appalling way. The technique was untried: perhaps they needed human guinea pigs. Maybe they had applied for permission and had been refused. Or they could have had some other reason for secrecy.

Whatever their motive for lying to the women, Jeannie now understood why her investigation scared Genetico so badly. Impregnating a woman with an alien embryo, without her knowledge, was about as unethical as could be imagined. It was no wonder they were desperate to cover it up. If Lorraine Logan ever found out what had been done to her, there would be hell to pay.

She took a sip of coffee. The drive to Philadelphia had not been wasted after all. She did not yet have all the answers, but she had solved the central puzzle. It was deeply satisfying.

Looking up, she was astonished to see Steve walk in.

She blinked and stared. He was wearing khakis and a blue button-down, and as he came in he closed the door behind him with his heel.

She smiled broadly and stood up to greet him. “Steve!” she said delightedly. Remembering her resolution, she threw her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. He smelled different today, less tobacco and more spice. He hugged her to him and kissed her back. She heard the voice of an older woman saying, “My God, I remember when I felt like that,” and several people laughed.

She released him. “Sit here. Do you want something to eat? Share my salad. What are you doing here? I can’t believe it. You must have followed me. No, no, you knew the name of the clinic and you decided to meet me.”

“I just felt like talking to you.” He smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his index finger. Something about the action bothered her—
Who else have I seen do that?
—but she pushed it to the back of her mind.

“You go in for big surprises.”

Suddenly he seemed edgy. “I do?”

“You like to show up unexpectedly, don’t you?”

“I guess so.”

She smiled at him. “You’re a little strange today. What’s on your mind?”

“Listen, you got me all hot and bothered,” he said. “Can we get out of here?”

“Sure.” She put a five-dollar bill on the table and stood up.

“Where’s your car?” she said as they stepped outside.

“Let’s take yours.”

They got into the red Mercedes. She fastened her seat belt, but he did not. As soon as she pulled away he edged close to her on the bench seat, lifted her hair, and started kissing her neck. She liked it, but she felt embarrassed, and she said: “I think we may be a little too old to do this in a car.”

“Okay,” he said. He stopped and turned to face forward, but he left his arm draped around her shoulders. She was heading east on Chestnut. As they came to the bridge he said: “Take the expressway—there’s something I want to show you.” Following the signs, she turned right onto Schuylkill Avenue and pulled up at a stoplight.

The hand over her shoulder dropped lower and he started fondling her breast. She felt her nipple stiffen in response to his touch, but all the same she felt uncomfortable. It was strangely like being felt up on a subway train. She said: “Steve, I like you, but you’re going a little too fast for me.”

He made no reply, but his fingers found her nipple and pinched it hard.

“Ow!” she said. “That hurt! For Pete’s sake, what’s got into you?” She shoved him away with her right hand. The light turned green and she drove down the on-ramp for the Schuylkill Expressway.

“I don’t know where I am with you,” he complained. “First you kiss me like a nymphomaniac, then you freeze.”

And I imagined this boy was mature!
“Listen, a girl kisses you because she wants to kiss you. It’s not a license for you to do anything the hell you want to her. And you should
never
hurt.” She eased onto the southbound two-lane of the expressway.

“Some girls like to be hurt,” he said, putting a hand on her knee.

She moved his hand. “What do you want to show me, anyway?” she said, trying to distract him.

“This,” he said, taking her right hand. A moment later she felt his naked penis, stiff and hot.

“Jesus Christ!” She snatched her hand away. Boy, had she misjudged this one! “Put it away, Steve, and stop acting like a goddamned adolescent!”

The next thing she knew, something struck her a mighty blow on the side of the face.

She screamed and jerked sideways. An air horn blared as her car swung across the next lane of the expressway in front of a Mack truck. The bones of her face burned with agony and she tasted blood. Fighting to ignore the pain, she regained control of the car.

She realized with astonishment that he had punched her.

No one had ever done that.

“You son of a bitch!” she screamed.

“Now give me a hand job,” he said. “Otherwise I’ll beat the shit out of you.”

“Fuck you!” she yelled.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him draw back his fist for another blow.

Without thinking, she stepped on the brake.

He was thrown forward and his punch missed her. His head banged the windshield. Tires screeched in protest as a white stretch limousine swerved to avoid the Mercedes.

As he recovered his balance, she released the brake. The car coasted forward. If she stopped in the fast lane of the expressway for a few seconds, she thought, he would be so terrified he would plead with her to drive on. She stepped on the brake once more, throwing him forward again.

This time he recovered more quickly. The car came to a halt. Cars and trucks swerved around it, horns blaring. Jeannie was terrified; at any moment another vehicle could slam into the back of the Mercedes. But her plan did not work: he seemed to have no fear. He put his hand up her skirt, grasped the waist of her panty hose, and pulled. There was a tearing sound as her tights ripped open.

She tried to push him away, but he was all over her. Surely he would not try to rape her right there on the expressway? In despair she opened her door, but she could not get out because she had her seat belt fastened. She tried to undo it, but she could not get at the buckle because of Steve.

To her left, traffic was joining the expressway from another ramp, coming directly into the fast lane at sixty miles an hour and flashing by. Was there not a single driver who would stop and help a woman who was being attacked?

As she struggled to push him away, her foot came off the brake and the car crept forward. Maybe she could keep him off balance, she thought. She had control of the car; it was her only advantage. In desperation she put her foot on the accelerator pedal and floored it.

The car took off with a lurch. Brakes squealed as a Greyhound bus narrowly missed her fender. Steve was thrown back in his seat and distracted briefly, but a few seconds later his hands were all over her again, pulling her breasts out of her brassiere and thrusting inside her panties as she tried to drive. She was frantic. He did not seem to care if he killed both of them. What the hell could she do to stop him?

She swung the car hard across to the left, throwing him up against the passenger door. She almost hit a garbage truck, and for a cliff-hanging instant she looked into the petrified face of the driver, an elderly man with a gray mustache; then she swung the wheel the other way and the Mercedes lurched out of danger.

Steve grabbed her again. She braked hard, then floored the accelerator, but he laughed as he was thrown around, just as if he were on a joyride at a carnival; and then he came back at her.

She hit him with her right elbow and her fist, but she could not put any power into the blows while she was at the wheel, and she succeeded only in distracting him for a few more seconds.

How long could this go on? Were there no cop cars in this town?

Over his shoulder she saw that she was passing an off-ramp. There was an ancient sky blue Cadillac on her near side a few yards behind her. At the last moment she swung the steering wheel. Her tires screeched, the Mercedes went up on two wheels, and Steve fell against her helplessly. The blue Cadillac swerved to avoid her, there was a fanfare of outraged car horns, then she heard the thud of cars crashing and the xylophone sound of breaking glass. Her near-side wheels came down again and hit the tarmac with a bone-shuddering thump. She was on the ramp. The car fishtailed, threatening to hit the concrete parapet on either side, but she got it straight.

She accelerated down a long off-ramp. As soon as the car was stable, Steve thrust his hand between her legs and attempted to get his fingers inside her panties. She wriggled, trying to stop him. She glanced at his face. He was smiling, his eyes wide, panting and sweating with sexual excitement. He was having fun. This was
crazy.

There were no cars ahead or behind her. The ramp ended in a stoplight which was green. To her left was a cemetery. She saw a sign pointing right that read “Civic Center Blvd.” and she swung that way, hoping to see a busy town hall with crowds of people on the sidewalk. To her dismay the street was a bleak desert of unused halls and concrete plazas. Ahead of her, a light turned red. If she stopped, she was done for.

Steve got his hand inside her panties and said: “Stop the car!” Like her, he had realized that if he raped her here there was a good chance no one would interfere.

He was hurting her now, pinching and thrusting with his fingers, but worse than the pain was the fear of what was to come. She accelerated wildly toward the red light.

An ambulance came from the left, swinging in front of her. She braked hard and swerved to miss it, thinking crazily, If I crash now, at least help is at hand.

Suddenly Steve withdrew his hands from her body. She had a moment of blessed relief. Then he grabbed the transmission lever and pushed it into neutral. The car suddenly lost momentum. She yanked it back into drive and floored the pedal, passing the ambulance.

How long can this go on? Jeannie thought. She had to get to a neighborhood where there were some people before the car stopped or crashed. But Philadelphia had turned into a moonscape.

He grabbed the steering wheel and tried to pull the car over onto the sidewalk. Jeannie jerked it back quickly. The rear wheels skidded and the ambulance honked indignantly.

He tried again. This time he was cleverer. He knocked the transmission into neutral with his left hand and grabbed the wheel with his right. The car slowed down and mounted the curb.

Jeannie took both hands off the wheel, put them on Steve’s chest, and shoved him away with all her might. Her strength surprised him and he was flung backward. She put the car in drive and stamped on the accelerator pedal. The car rocketed forward yet again, but Jeannie knew that she could not fight him off much longer. Any second now he would succeed in stopping the car, and she would be trapped in here with him. He recovered his balance as she turned into a left-hand bend. He got both hands on the steering wheel, and she thought, This is the end, I can’t do any more. Then the car rounded the bend and the cityscape changed abruptly.

There was a busy street, a hospital with people standing outside, a line of taxicabs, and a sidewalk stall selling Chinese food. “Yes!” Jeannie shouted triumphantly. She stamped on the brake. Steve jerked the wheel and she pulled it back. Fish-tailing, the car screeched to a halt in the middle of the road. A dozen cabdrivers at the food stand turned to look.

Steve opened his door, got out, and ran.

“Thank God,” Jeannie breathed.

A moment later he had disappeared.

Jeannie sat there, panting. He was gone. The nightmare was over.

One of the drivers came over and put his head inside the passenger door. Hastily Jeannie rearranged her clothing. “Are you okay, lady?” he said.

“I guess so,” she replied breathlessly.

“What the heck was that all about?”

She shook her head. “I sure wish I knew,” she said.