Interface (29 page)

"You saw patients there. Which means they have actually done
operations on human beings," Mel said.

"I guess that's the conclusion we are led to," Mary Catherine
said.

"Well put. Well put," Mel said.

"You think we are being led to a false conclusion?" Mary
Catherine said incredulously.

"No way to know, is there?"

"There's a couple of small things," she said, a little uncertain.

"Tell us everything," Mel said. "We'll decide what's small and
what isn't."

"I went to the bathroom at one point and washed my hands. And
when I turned on the faucet, it sort of coughed."

"Coughed?"

"Yeah. Sputtered for a few seconds. As if there was air trapped in the pipes. It used to happen here, whenever Dad worked on the
plumbing."

At first, Mel shook his head, not getting it. Then his eyes
widened with astonishment. Then they narrowed in fascination.
"You were the first person ever to use the faucet in the ladies'
room," Mel said.

"Goddamn it! I think you are wrong," Cozzano said to Mel.

"Since parts of the building were still under construction, it's
possible that they had to alter some of the pipes after that sink had
been in use for a while," Mary Catherine said, "and that this caused
air bubbles to be introduced."

"Please continue," Mel said. He was acting like a lawyer in a
courtroom now, interviewing a neutral witness.

"I wandered around the grounds a little bit. It's a nice place for
a stroll. And on the bluff, overlooking the sea, a few hundred yards
away from the building, behind a little rise, I found the remains of
a fire. Someone had piled up a bunch of straw there and burned it."

"Straw?" Mel said.

Cozzano nodded. "It keeps the patio slippery."

"When we used to pour concrete on the farm, we would cover
it up with damp straw. You have to keep concrete damp for several
days, preferably a week or two, while it cures," Mary Catherine
said. "So it's not surprising that they would have a bunch of straw
lying around a place where they were building a big reinforced-
concrete building. There are a lot of ranches nearby and it's a
natural thing for them to use. When I walked back from the site of
the fire to the building, I saw a lot of pieces of loose straw caught
in the undergrowth, and many of them were stained white with
concrete. Some of the straw was still damp."

"So when they were finished, they got rid of the straw by
dragging it to this place and burning it," Mel said.

"Yeah. They burned it the night before," Mary Catherine said.

"How do you know that?" Cozzano said.

Mary Catherine held up the little finger on her right hand. The
tip was cherry red. "I made the mistake of sticking my finger down
into the bed of ashes."

Mel said, "They got rid of the straw right before you got there."

"It was lying around somewhere after they finished the
building," Mary Catherine said. "They knew that I was coming
and they wanted the place to look tidy, so they burned it."

"What about the goddamn patients? What about other potential
contributors? Don't they want the place to look tidy for those
people too?" Mel said. "What's so special about you?"

"It was just a coincidence," Cozzano said.

"I think they finished the building the day before you got there,"
Mel said.

Everyone except Mel burst out in nervous laughter.

"Bullshit," Cozzano said.

"Mel you showed me a photograph of the place two and a half,
three weeks ago," Mary Catherine said. She said it kiddingly. She
knew what Mel was up to here. It was just like him to state things in the most exaggerated, overstated way possible, just to shake people up.

"There was something funny about that photograph. It was too clean-looking. I think it was fake," Mel said.

Cozzano shook his head and twirled one finger around his ear. There was no point arguing with Mel when he had shifted into full
combat mode.

"They have ways of faking that stuff now," Mel insisted.

"And the patients I saw?"

"Actors."

"What are you getting at, Mel?" Mary Catherine said. She said
it with one eye on Dad; she was trying to anticipate the kinds of
things he would say if he could. "I can't think of any logical
explanation for what you are saying."

"I can. Here's how it goes: Coover runs into that guy from
Pacific Netware. Kevin Tice. They run into each other golfing or
something. And Coover tells Tice about this guy Radhakrishnan
and his work with baboons. Coover is a tired old guy with a soft
spot, he just thinks of it as a way to help stroke victims. But Tice is
a big idea man, he reads too much science fiction, he's not satisfied
with just being a billionaire, he wants to have a supercomputer in
his head as well. Because if what you are saying is true, then this
process of putting chips into people's heads will one day be huge.
It's the kind of technology that Tice has to get a jump on right now
so he can become the world's first trillionaire a couple of decades
down the road.

"So Tice starts pumping money into it for his own purposes.
They continue working with baboons, maybe even round up some untouchables in Calcutta or somewhere and do it to them so they
can learn how to do it on humans. And then, all of a sudden,
Governor Cozzano has a stroke. And Tice and Coover see a big opportunity. By fixing the brain of someone who is powerful and
famous they can jumpstart this new industry of theirs. So they go
out and build this thing in California. I'll bet it 'was already under
construction and they just hurried up the process a little bit. Just got
it done yesterday in time to impress Dr. Mary Catherine Cozzano here. But she was a little too observant."

"Bullshit," Cozzano said.

"If what you say is true," Mary Catherine said, "then the worst
conclusion we can come to is that they really want Dad as a client,
and they've pushed their schedule up in order to make a good
impression on him."

Mel thought that one over for a while. Cozzano, obviously
amused, watched Mel's face. "I don't like the idea of them using
Willy as a guinea pig," Mel said.

"Phooey," Cozzano said. "Better a dead pioneer than a live feeb."

"You want to pursue this?" Mary Catherine said.

"Yes, goddamn it," Cozzano said.

Mel just closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief.

"There is a step we can take now, without committing
ourselves," Mary Catherine said. "I don't know whether I like this. But I have to give you all the information. As you said, Mel, we're
all adults."

"What is it?" Mel said warily.

"Dad has to go up to Champaign, to Burke Hospital, tomorrow
for a routine checkup. While he's in there, we could arrange for a
biopsy."

"Of what?"

"Brain cells."

"Why?"

"We could send them to Genomics. They could hang on to
them there. That way, if Dad made the decision to go ahead with
an implant, they could culture the cells and prepare the biochip at
any time."

"Do it," Cozzano said.

"Oh shit," Mel said.

"Do the biopsy?" Mary Catherine said. "Tomorrow?"

Cozzano just looked her in the eye and nodded. His eyes looked a little brighter. He smiled at Mary Catherine with the good side of
his mouth, and a thin trickle of drool steamed down out of the
other side.

"I'm tired of this," Cozzano said, wiping off the drool with his
good hand. "This is bad."

"Yes, it's bad," Mel said, "but-

"I want to be the Milhous," Cozzano said.

"And one day you will be," Mel said, "but-"

"Shut up, goddamnit!" Cozzano bellowed. Suddenly he riped
the blanket off his lap with his good hand. Then he pitched forward
in his wheelchair so violently that he seemed to be falling out.

Everyone jumped up and converged on him. But he wasn't
falling. He was trying to stand up. The momentum of his upper
body carried him halfway to his feet and he used the powerful
thrust of his good arm to push him up on one leg. Then he almost
tottered over, but Mary Catherine had already danced around the
coffee table and now she drove her shoulder up under her father's armpit, taking most of his weight.

Though no one but Mary Catherine would ever know it, this
had taken a lot of guts on her part, because her impulse had been
to shrink away. Suddenly back on his feet, Dad was massive, dark, and towering. Mary Catherine's love for her father had always been
mingled with a judicious amount of fear, or maybe respect was a
nicer word for it. He had never struck her or even threatened to,
but he never needed to. The tornadic force of his personality made people cringe and scurry, especially when he was mad, and right now he was really pissed. He threw his entire weight on her body
for a moment, nearly buckling her knees, and finally got his weight
centered over his good leg again.

And then he started to hop. He was going somewhere. He had
fixed a dark, unblinking gaze on the far wall of the den, and seeing
this, Mary Catherine tried to help him along. They moved together
one hop at a time across the shag carpet and into the den. Mel
shuffled along behind them.

Cozzano was headed for a framed picture hung on the wall. It
was a picture of Cozzano shaking George Bush's hand on the south
lawn a few year ago. Barbara Bush stood off to the side, hands clasped together, beaming supportively. Behind them rose the
columns of the White House.

Cozzano went straight across the floor and fell, crushing Mary
Catherine into the wall with his bad shoulder and pinning her
there. He reached across his body with his good hand and slammed
the end of his index finger into the framed picture so hard that it
whacked back into the wall and a couple of cracks appeared in the
glass.

He wasn't pointing to himself or to the Bushes. He was pointing
to the White House.

"This is mine," he said. "This is my barn." He slammed his index
finger into the White House a couple of more times for emphasis.
"I should have done it before."

"You have to get better first," Mary Catherine said in a strangled voice.

"Well, I guess I better print up a shitload of bumper stickers," Mel said morosely. "Femelhebbers for Cozzano."

Mary Catherine didn't say anything. She was feeling the hairs
stand up on the back of her neck.

Her dad was running for president. Her dad was running for
president.
President of the United States. It was enough to make her
forget about the stroke, to obliterate the fact that there was no way
he could be elected in his condition.

She wanted to talk to her mother. She wished Mom was here.
This would be a good time to have a mother.

But Mom wasn't here. She forced herself to open her eyes and
stare at him.

He was looking right back at her with the frightening, soul-
penetrating glare that made people want to leave the room.

Then it went away and was replaced by an idiotic grin. Mary
Catherine had seen this grin a million times while examining
neurology patients, and she had seen it on Dad's face a few times since the stroke, usually when it seemed like he was giving up. It
was the drooling, clownlike, sheepish grin of a near vegetable. It
was a lot more frightening than his intense glare.

"You are the quarterback now, peanut," he said. His eyes rolled
back into his head and he went completely limp, as if his bones had
turned to water. Mary Catherine let him down to the floor as
gently as she could; Mel stepped in to support his head.

"He's just had another stroke," Mary Catherine said. "Forget
about the phone, Tuscola doesn't have 911. Let's get him into that fast little car of yours. And then you need to drive it like a bat out
of hell."