Frameshift (25 page)

“Yes.”

“But why don’t you also tell these good people that you’re also a policyholder? Why don’t you tell them that you applied for insurance on the day
after
Senator Johnston’s bill became law? Why don’t you tell them about the thousands of dollars in claims you’ve already submitted to this company, for everything from drugs to help contain your chorea, to the cost of that cane you’re holding? You are a burden, sir — a burden on every person in this room. Providing coverage for you represents state-imposed charity on our part.”

“But I’m—”

“And there
is
a place for charity, I certainly agree. Doubtless it would surprise you, Dr. Tardivel, to know that I personally, from my own pocket, donated ten thousand dollars last year to an AIDS hospice here in San Francisco. But our largesse must know reasonable bounds. Medical services cost money. Your vaunted Canadian socialized health-care system may well collapse as costs spiral ever upward.”

“That’s not—”

“Now please, sir, you’ve had your say. Please sit down.”

“But you’re trying to—”

A deep-voiced man shouted from the rear: “Sit down, Frenchie!”

“Go back home if you don’t like it here,” yelled a woman.

“
Une minute!
” said Pierre.

“Cancel your policy!” shouted another man. “Stop sucking us dry!”

“You people don’t understand,” said Pierre. “It’s—”

One fellow began to boo. He was soon joined by several more. Someone tossed a wadded-up copy of the agenda at Pierre. Bullen motioned with two crooked fingers at his security men, who started to move forward.

Pierre exhaled noisily and made his slow, painful way back to his seat.

Molly patted him on the arm as he sat down.

“You got a lot of nerve, buddy,” said a fellow with a comb-over in the row behind them, leaning forward.

Molly, who had been detecting some thoughts from this man and his wife throughout the evening, wheeled around and snapped, “And you’re having an affair with your secretary Rebecca.”

The man’s mouth dropped open and he began to splutter. His wife immediately laid into him.

Molly turned back to Pierre. “Let’s go, honey. There’s no point in staying any longer.”

Pierre nodded and began the slow process of getting to his feet again.

Bullen pressed on with the meeting. “My apologies for that unfortunate display. Now, ladies and gentlemen, as we do every year, we’ll close with a few words from the company’s founder, Mr. Abraham Danielson.”

Pierre was halfway out into the aisle now. Onstage, a completely bald octogenarian rose from the long mahogany table and began his own slow journey across the stage to the podium. Molly was gathering up her purse.

She looked up, and—

Oh my God!

That face — those cruel, dark eyes…

He’d been wearing a watch cap when she’d last seen him, his ears pressed flat against his head, his baldness concealed, but that was him, no doubt about it—

“Pierre, wait!” Her husband turned to look at her. Molly’s jaw was hanging open.

“I founded this company forty-eight years ago,” said Abraham Danielson, his reedy voice tinged by an Eastern European accent. “At that time—”

“It’s him,” said Molly in a low voice to Pierre, who was now lowering himself back into his seat. “It’s him — it’s the man I saw torturing the dying cat!”

“Are you sure?” whispered Pierre.

Molly nodded vigorously. “It’s him!”

Pierre squinted to see the guy better: thick necked, bald. Sure, all old geezers looked somewhat alike, but this guy bore more than a passing resemblance to Burian Klimus, although Klimus didn’t have flapping ears like that. In fact, who he really looked like was—

Jesus, he was the spitting image of John Demjanjuk.

“Holy God,” said Pierre. He sagged back in his chair, as if someone had knocked the wind out of him. “Holy God,” he said again. “Molly — it’s Ivan Marchenko!”

“But — but when I saw him that morning in San Francisco, he swore at me in Russian, not Ukrainian.”

“Lots of people speak Russian in the Ukraine,” said Pierre. He shook his head back and forth. It all made sense. What better job for an out-of-work Nazi than being an actuary? He’d spent the war years dividing people into good and bad classes — Aryan, Jew; master, slave — and now he’d found a way to continue doing that. And the murders, conducted by neo-Nazis led by a man they called Grozny. How many people needed to be eliminated to ensure Condor’s obscene profits? Whatever the figure, it was chump change compared to the number Marchenko had killed half a century before.

If only he had a camera — if only he could show Avi Meyer what this fucking goddamned son-of-a-bitch asshole looked like—

They got up to leave again, Pierre moving as fast as he possibly could.

They made it to the elevator lobby. Molly pressed the call button. As they waited, a large black man in a tweed jacket came out after them. “Wait!” he called. He had a big leather bag hanging from his shoulder.

Molly looked up at the row of illuminated digits above each of the four doors. The closest elevator was still eight floors away.

“Wait!” said the man again, jogging up to close the distance. “Dr. Tardivel, I want to have a word with you.”

Molly moved close to her husband. “He said everything he had to say back there.”

The black man shook his head. He was in his early forties, with a dusting of snow throughout his close-cropped hair. “I don’t think so. I think he’s got a hell of a lot more to say.” He looked directly at Pierre.

“Don’t you?”

Pierre’s legs were trying to walk out from underneath him. “Well…”

“What business is it of yours?” said Molly, cutting Pierre off. The elevator had arrived and the doors slid open.

The black man reached into his jacket. For a horrible moment, Pierre thought he was going for a gun. But all he pulled out was a slim, much-worn leather business-card case. He handed a card to Molly. “I’m Barnaby Lincoln,” he said. “I’m a business writer for the
San Francisco Chronicle
.”

“What do — ?” began Pierre.

“I’m covering the shareholders’ meeting. But there’s a better story in what you were saying.”

“They can’t see the future — can’t see where it’s all going,” said Pierre.

“Exactly,” said Lincoln. “I’ve been covering insurance stories for years; all these guys are out of control. There needs to be federal legislation preventing the use of genetic profiles in determining insurance eligibility everywhere.”

Pierre was intrigued. Ivan Marchenko had been free for fifty years now; a few minutes more wouldn’t matter. “
D’accord
,” said Pierre.

“Can we go somewhere for coffee?”

“All right,” said Pierre. “But before we do, I need you to do me a favor. I need a photo of Abraham Danielson.”

Lincoln frowned. “The old man doesn’t like having his picture taken. We don’t even have a file photo of him at the
Chronicle
.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Pierre. “Do you have a telephoto lens here?

Surely you could snap off a shot from the back of the room. I need a good, clean head-and-shoulders picture of him.”

“What for?”

Pierre was quiet for a moment. “I can’t tell you now, but if you take the photo, and get me some prints of it right away, I promise you’ll be the person I call first when” — he knew the appropriate metaphor in French, but had to rack his brain for a moment to come up with the English equivalent — “when the story breaks.”

Lincoln shrugged. “Wait here,” he said. He went back into the auditorium. As the door opened, Pierre recognized Craig Bullen’s voice coming over the speakers. So much the better: Abraham Danielson had clearly sat back down and would hardly be on guard against his picture being taken now. Lincoln returned a few minutes later. “Got it,” he said.

“Good,” said Pierre. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Avi Meyer,” said a familiar Chicago-accented voice.

“Avi, it’s Pierre Tardivel at LBNL.” He hit the transmit button on his fax machine.

“Hey, Pierre. What’s new with Klimus?”

“Nothing, but—”

“We don’t have anything new, either. I’ve got an agent in Kiev, working on digging up records of his time in a displaced-persons camp, but—”

“No, no, no,” said Pierre. “Klimus isn’t Ivan Marchenko.”

“What?”

“I was wrong. He’s not Marchenko.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“Damn it, Pierre, we’ve spent months following this up on your insistence—”

“I’ve seen Marchenko. Face-to-face.”

“In Berkeley?”

“No, in San Francisco. And Molly saw him on a street wearing a trench coat.”

“What is this? The new version of Elvis sightings?” Avi breathed out loudly. His tone conveyed that he was regretting ever getting involved with an amateur sleuth. “Damn it, Pierre, who are you going to finger next?

Ross Perot? He’s got jug ears, after all. Or Patrick Stewart?
There’s
a suspicious-looking bald guy. Or the pope? Fucking guy’s got an Eastern European accent, and—”

“I’m serious, Avi. I’ve seen him. He’s using the name Abraham Danielson now. He was the founder of a company called Condor Health Insurance.”

Keyclicks in the background. “We’ve got no open file on a guy with that name, and — Condor? Aren’t those the people who have that abortion policy you don’t like? Goddamn it, Pierre, I told you not to fuck with Justice. I could have you jailed for this. First you sic us on your boss ‘cause he’s pissed you off somehow; now you try to get us to hound the guy whose company offends your delicate sensibilities—”

“No, I tell you I’ve got him this time.”

“Sure you have.”

“Really, damn it. This guy is a monster—”

“Because he encourages abortions.”

“Because he’s Ivan Grozny. Because he runs the Millennial Reich. And because he’s ordered the executions of thousands of people here in California.”

“Can you prove that? Can you prove one word of that? Because if you can’t—”

“Check your fax machine, Avi.”

“What? Oh… Just a sec.” Pierre could hear Avi setting down the handset and moving about the office. A moment later the phone was picked back up. “Where’d you get this picture?”

“A reporter for the
San Francisco Chronicle
took it.”

“That’s — what was the name you said? — Abraham Danielson?”

“That’s him.”

“Shit, he
does
look like Marchenko.”

“Tell me about it,” said Pierre with satisfaction.

“I’ll have my assistant dig up his immigration papers; that could take a couple of weeks. But if this doesn’t pan out, Pierre—”

“I know, I know. Anne Murray time.”

Amanda still hadn’t said anything aloud, although, according to Molly, she could mentally articulate several hundred words — many more than she’d yet to learn in American Sign Language.

Saturday afternoon meant it was time for Klimus’s weekly visit. The old man arrived at 3:00 p.m. He brought no gift for Amanda — he never did — but, as usual, he did have a small notebook in his breast pocket. He sat back on the couch, making notes about Amanda’s behavior and her ability to communicate with her hands. Throughout it all, Molly had to keep Amanda far out of her zone: Amanda understood that unless she was close to her mother, her mother couldn’t hear her thoughts, but she didn’t yet understand that this ability was a secret, and so Molly simply kept her distance, hoping that nothing in Amanda’s behavior would give it away to Klimus.

After two hours of this, Klimus got up to leave, but Molly sat down next to him on the couch. “Please stay,” she said.

Klimus looked surprised. He’d grown accustomed to Molly and Pierre’s hostility.

“What for?” he asked.

“Just to talk,” said Molly, inching even closer to him.

“About what?”

“Oh, this and that. Stuff. We don’t really know each other that well, and, well, if you are going to be part of the family, I figured we should—”

“I’m a very busy man,” said Klimus.

But Pierre sat down as well, in a chair facing the couch. “We’ve got more coffee on. It won’t be a minute.”

Klimus exhaled and spread his arms. “Very well.”

Amanda toddled over to her mother and started to climb into her lap, but Molly blocked Amanda’s way. “Go over to your father,” she said.

Amanda looked at the distance, obviously thinking the lap at hand was just as good, but then seemed to shrug slightly, and made her way across to Pierre, who lifted her up into his lap.

“Tell us a bit about yourself,” said Molly.

“For instance?”

“Oh, I don’t know. What TV shows do you like?”

“The only one I watch is
60 Minutes
. Everything else is garbage.”

Pierre’s eyebrows went up.
60 Minutes
had been where the story about Ivan Marchenko first broke; no wonder Klimus had known the name.

“So,” said Klimus awkwardly. “How are your friends the Lagerkvists?”

“They’re fine,” said Molly. “Ingrid’s talking about going into private practice.”

“Ah,” said Klimus. “Would she stay in Berkeley?”

“If the Lagerkvists have any plans to move,” said Molly, “they’re keeping it a secret.” She paused for a beat. “Secrets are always interesting, aren’t they?” She looked right at the old man. “I mean, we’ve all got secrets. I do, Pierre does, even little Amanda does, I’m sure. What about you, Burian?

What’s your secret?”

What’s she on about
? thought Klimus.

“You know — something down deep, something hidden…”

She’s crazy if she thinks I’m going to talk about my private life.

“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Molly.”

“Oh, nothing really. I’m just rambling. Just wondering what makes a man like you tick. You know I’m a psychologist. You’ve got to forgive me for being intrigued by the mind of a genius.”

That’s more like it
, though Klimus.
A little respect
.

“I mean,” said Molly, “normal people have all kinds of secrets — sexual things…”

Christ, I can’t remember the last time I had sex…

“Financial secrets — maybe a little cheating on the old income tax…”

No more than anyone else…

“Or secrets related to their jobs…”

Best damned job in the world, university professor. Travel, respect,
d
ecent money, power…

“Secrets related to your research…”

Not lately…

“To your earlier research…”

The prize should have been mine, anyway…

“To — to your Nobel Prize, maybe?”

Secrets Tottenham took to the grave…

Molly looked him directly in the eyes. “Who is Tottenham?”

Klimus’s parchment skin showed a little color. “Tottenham—”

“Yes, who is he?”

She.

“Or she?”

Christ, what is
 — “I don’t know anyone named—”

Amanda was playing with Pierre’s fingers. He spoke up.

“Tottenham — not Myra Tottenham?”

Molly looked at her husband. “You know that name?”

Pierre frowned, thinking. Where had he heard it before? “A biochemist at Stanford during the sixties. I read an old paper of hers recently on missense mutations.”

Molly’s eyes narrowed. She’d gone over Klimus’s bio in
Who’s Who
in preparation for today. “Weren’t you at Stanford in the sixties?” she said.

“Whatever happened to Myra Tottenham?”

“Oh,
that
Tottenham,” said Klimus. He shrugged. “She died in 1969, I think. Leukemia.”
The frigid bitch
.

Molly frowned. “Myra Tottenham. Pretty name. Did you work together?”

Tried to
. “No.”

“It’s sad when somebody dies like that.”

Not for me
. “People die all the time, Molly.” He rose to his feet. “Now, really, I must be going.”

“But the coffee—” said Pierre.

“No. No, I’m leaving now.” He made his way to the front door.

“Good-bye.”

Molly followed him to the door. Once he was gone she came back into the living room and clapped her hands together. Still in her father’s lap, Amanda turned to look at her, surprised by the sound. “Well?” said Pierre.

“I know I’ll never get you off hockey,” she said, “but fishing is my favorite sport.”

“How far is Stanford?” asked Pierre.

Molly shrugged. “Not far. Forty miles.”

Pierre kissed his daughter on the cheek and spoke to her in a soothing voice: “Soon you won’t have to see that mean old man anymore.”

Pierre couldn’t do the work himself; it required much too steady a hand. But LBNL did have a comprehensive machine shop: there was a wide variety of work done at Lawrence Berkeley, and custom-designed tools and parts had to be built all the time. Pierre had Shari sketch a design for him from his verbal description, and then he took the shuttle bus down to UCB, where he visited Stanley Hall, home of the university’s virus lab. He’d guessed right: that lab had the narrowest-gauge syringes he’d ever seen. He got several of them and headed back up to the machine shop.

The shop master, a mechanical engineer named Jesus DiMarco, looked over Pierre’s rough sketch and suggested three or four refinements, then went to write up the work order. LBNL was a government lab, and everything generated paperwork — although not nearly as much as a bureaucracy-crazy Canadian facility would have. “What do you call this gizmo?” asked DiMarco.

Pierre frowned, thinking. Then: “A joy-buzzer.”

DiMarco chuckled. “Pretty cute,” he said.

“Just call me
koo
,” said Pierre.

“What?”

“You know—” He whistled the James Bond theme.

DiMarco laughed. “You mean Q.” He looked up at the wall clock. “Come back anytime after three. It’ll be ready.”

“Newsroom,” said the male voice.

“Barnaby Lincoln,” said Pierre into the phone. “He’s a business reporter.”

“He’s out right now, and — oh, wait. Here he comes.” The voice shouted into the phone; Pierre hated people who didn’t cover the mouthpiece when shouting. “Barney! Call for you!” The phone was dropped on a hard surface.

A few moments later it was picked up.

“Lincoln,” said the voice.

“Barnaby, it’s Pierre Tardivel at LBNL.”

“Pierre! Good to hear from you. Have you given some thought to what we talked about?”

“I’m intrigued, yes. But that’s not why I’m calling. First, though, thanks for the pictures of Danielson. They were terrific.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” said Lincoln, deadpan.

“I need you to do one more thing for me, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you going to be interviewing Abraham Danielson soon?”

“Geez, I haven’t interviewed the old man for — hell, must be six years now.”

“Would he see you if you called?”

“I guess, sure.”

“Can you arrange that? Can you get in to see him? Even for five minutes?”

“Sure, but why?”

“Set it up. But come by my lab on the way. I’ll explain everything when you get here.”

Lincoln thought this over for a moment. “This better be a good story,” he said at last.

“Can you say ‘Pulitzer’?” said Pierre.

The receptionist escorted Barnaby Lincoln into Abraham Danielson’s office.

“Barney,” said Abraham, rising from his leather chair.

Lincoln surged forward, hand extended. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

Abraham looked at Lincoln’s outstretched hand. Lincoln left it extended. The old man finally took it. They shook firmly.

Pierre had been working in the den at home — it was awkward getting into LBNL these days, since Molly had to drive him. He decided to head up to the living room to replenish his Diet Pepsi. Coffee was too dangerous a way to get his morning caffeine; he overturned his drink at least once a week now, and didn’t want to scald himself. And regular Pepsi contained all that sugar — it would ruin his keyboard or computer if he spilled it in there. But aspartame wasn’t conductive; it might make a mess, but it wouldn’t wreck electronics if spilled on them… Of course Pierre made a fair bit of noise going up the stairs, but the dishwasher was going, producing enough racket to drown out the sound. As he entered the living room, he saw Molly sitting with Amanda on the couch. Molly was saying something to Amanda that Pierre couldn’t quite make out, and Amanda seemed to be concentrating very, very hard.

He watched them for a moment — and was pleased that, to some degree, at least, his jealousy of his wife’s closeness to their daughter had passed.

Yes, he still ached at not being able to communicate with her the way he’d like to, but he was coming to realize how important that special relationship between Molly and Amanda was. Amanda seemed totally comfortable with Molly’s ability to reach into her mind and hear her thoughts; it was almost a relief to the girl that she could communicate without effort with another human being. And Molly’s bond with her daughter went beyond even the normal closeness of mother and child; she could touch Amanda’s very mind.

Pierre still thought mostly in French, and he knew, given that he virtually always spoke English, that he was doing this on some subconscious level as a defense against having his thoughts read. But Amanda had accepted her mother’s ability from the beginning, and she erected no barriers between herself and Molly; they had a closeness that was transcendental — and Pierre was, at last, glad of it. His wife was no longer tortured by her gift; rather, she was now grateful for it. And Pierre knew that after he was gone, Molly and Amanda would need that special closeness to support each other, to go on and face whatever the future might bring them together, almost as one.

“Try again,” Molly, her back to Pierre, said to Amanda. “You can do it.”

Pierre stepped fully into the room. “What are you two conspiring about?” he said lightly.

Molly looked up, startled. “Nothing,” she said too quickly. “Nothing.”