Miracle Cure (15 page)

"Suppose he doesn't want to be a role model."

"Tough. He's news, Sara, big news. So the story is a bit sensational so what? You're a reporter and this is a damn good story."

"All right, all right. I get the picture. I'm on my way over there now."

"Sara?"

She looked up, startled.

"I'm sorry, Eric."

"Don't apologize. I know you've got a lot on your mind right now, but remember this all Michael's problems are in the past.

You two are going to have a baby together, and Michael has never been happier in his life."

Sara tried to smile, but it never reached more than the corners of her mouth. She sensed that Michael's past woes were not finished with him yet, that they were still potent enough to reach into the present and hurt him... "Mind if I join you two?" "Hello, Max," Sara said.

"Max, you know Eric Blake, don't you?" "I believe we've met," Bernstein said.

"How are you, doctor?"

"Very well, thank you," Eric replied as the beeper on his belt went off.

"If you two will excuse me, I have to go." "Emergency?" Max asked.

"No. Just time for rounds."

Max scratched his face hard, like he had fleas.

"Can I ask you a quick question before you go?"

Eric stopped.

"Of course."

"When was the last time you saw Dr. Grey alive?"

Eric thought a moment, "The day he left for Cancun."

"Did he look the same to you?"

"The same? I don't understand."

"I mean, was his hair still dark and did he still have a beard?"

"Yes," Eric said without hesitation.

"Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Thanks, Eric."

"Anytime, Lieutenant. I'll see you later, Sara."

"Bye, Eric."

Eric Blake neatly piled the garbage on his tray before leaving.

When he brought his tray to the window, he was the only one who took the time to sort his silverware.

Sara turned to Max.

"I called you three times today."

"Sorry. Its been a busy day."

"Are you getting much flak about the castration story in the news?"

Max's whole body seemed to shrug.

"Nothing I can't handle with a grenade launcher and tear gas."

"I can imagine. Okay, so what have you learned?"

He leaned forward, his right elbow on the table, his left arm thrown behind the back of the chair.

"First of all, Bruce Grey had blond hair and no beard when he allegedly jumped out the window. He also was wearing cosmetic contact lenses to change the color of his eyes. I checked with several of his friends, even the limousine driver who dropped him off at the airport. Bruce definitely had dark hair and the beard when he left New York."

Sara nodded.

"As you would say, "Interesting."

" "To say the least. But there's more." He quickly told her about the rest of his conversation with Hector Rodriquez at the Days Inn. Sara sat stunned, quietly listening.

"Then Grey didn't commit suicide," she said when Max finished.

"He was murdered, Sara. I'm sure of it."

"And someone wanted to make it look like a suicide," she said.

"Seems so," Max replied.

"Hmmm. Bruce's murder has to be connected to the stabbings, agreed?"

"Agreed."

"So why did the killer want to make Bruce's death look like a suicide while doing nothing to hide the fact that the other three were murdered?"

"I don't know," Max said. He stood up, circled the table for 10 apparent reason, and sat back down.

"Max."

"What?"

"You're playing with your hair again."

Bernstein looked up at his right hand. Strands of hair were apped around his middle finger as though it were a curler.

untangled his finger and put his hands on the table.

"Saves 3n a perm," he explained with a smile.

"So what else did you learn?"

He leaned forward.

"This morning I went through the personal possessions found in Grey's hotel room. Everything was there wallet, ID, cash, credit cards, briefcase, change of clothe seven passport."

"So?"

"There was no stamp for Mexico on the passport."

"No mystery there. You don't need to use your passport to go into Mexico. Just proof of citizenship."

"Then why did he bring it with him?"

She shrugged.

"What else did you find in the passport?"

"It's what I didn't find," he said.

"You know those pages where the customs officials stamp the country you're visiting?"

"Yes."

"One of those pages had been neatly clipped out of Grey's passport. You would never notice unless you looked at it closely."

Sara looked up at the ceiling.

"So the killer doesn't want anyone to see what was on that page. Maybe Bruce never went to Mexico. Maybe he went someplace else and the killer doesn't want us to know where."

"My thinking exactly. So I called the Oasis Hotel down in Cancun."

"Did he check in?"

"Yes."

She waited for him to continue but he just sat there, smiling.

"Max, stop playing games with me. What happened?"

"I called your old contact at customs and immigration."

"Don Scharf?"

"Right. I know I should have asked you first, but time was of the essence. Anyway, he remembered me from that case we did a few years back where that rapist fled to Puerto Rico."

"What did you find out?"

"Well, it took a while but we finally traced down where Bruce went."

"And?"

"And Bruce did go down to Cancun first. But he flew out of Mexico the very next day."

"So where did he go?" Max smiled.

"Bangkok."

"There's no question about it, Eric," Winston CXConnor, chief lab technician at the Sidney Pavilion, said with his Alabama twang.

O'Connor had been working for the clinic since its inception and, in fact, had not lived in the South since entering Columbia University eighteen years ago. Still, the years had not subdued Winston's deep Southern accent.

"Take another look at the Western blot. The band pattern is unmistakable."

Eric swallowed and reached out his hand. The wall clock, one of those noisy kinds that schools use, read 5:10 a.m. When was the last time he had left the clinic? Eric did a little quick math.

Forty hours ago. He needed sleep something terrible, but all of a sudden he felt wide awake.

He glanced down at the photograph and remained silent for a moment.

Eric knew what the readings meant, but he kept staring at them anyway, as though he could make the bands on the photograph slide lower or higher by just concentrating on them.

"Let me take a look at the ELISA test."

Winston sighed.

"We've already looked at it twice."

"I want to look at it again. You sure you used the right sample?"

Winston looked at him strangely.

"Are you kidding?"

"I want to make sure."

"You were standing here when I did it." Winston said.

"I don't make mistakes on these kinds of things. Neither do you."

Eric lowered his head.

"I know. I'm sorry."

Winston crossed the room and opened a door that looked like it belonged on a refrigerator. His hand reached in and extracted a plate.

"Here. And here's the digital read-out of the optical density."

"Get me the T cell study too."

"Again?"

Eric nodded.

"Here," Winston said a moment later.

"What the hell you looking for, Eric?"

Eric did not respond. He examined all the tests and studies at least a dozen more times. Somewhere in the background he could hear Winston sigh and curse under his breath every time Eric asked to look at the same thing again.

"For crying out loud," Winston half-snapped, "how many times are you going to view this stuff? There's no mistake here.

Shoot, we've never made a mistake on this test ever."

"It can't be," Eric muttered.

"It just can't be."

"We've had hundreds of positive HIV tests come through here," Winston continued.

"Why all the double-checking on this one? I've run the ELISA and the Western on this guy twice now.

There's no question about the results."

Eric moved to a chair as though stunned by a blow to the head. He slowly picked up the phone and dialed.

"Who you calling?" Winston asked.

His voice came from far away.

"Harvey."

"I'll put this stuff away then."

"No," Eric said.

"Harvey will want to look at it too."

"But both of us have already " "He won't believe us," Eric said.

"He'll have to see this one for himself."

Harvey buttoned his shirt and smiled toward the rumpled bed. If Jennifer could see him now..."I still can't believe you're here," he said.

Cassandra leaned back on the bed and stretched. A thin, white sheet was all that covered her body.

"Why not? This is Day Number Four already, Harv."

"Happy?"

"Blissful," she replied. And it was true. From their first kiss she had felt intoxicated. It was strange, but even now she could feel her heart swell in her chest just thinking about him.

"No complaints?" he asked.

"Just one," she said.

"I don't care much for your hours." "I warned you."

"Yeah, but two hours a night?"

"Sorry." "Not your fault, I guess," she said.

"Anyway, it makes me appreciate my nine to seven at the agency more."

Harvey searched the clothes-cluttered floor, found a pair of pants crumpled in a corner, and put them on.

"When are you making your presentation to the airline?"

"Tomorrow. Northeastern Air. I have a meeting with their handsome marketing director. Jealous?"

"Should I be?"

She looked at him.

"No."

"Good," Harvey said with a goofy grin.

"Because I really like you."

She laughed.

"God, you're corny."

He shrugged.

"Just out of practice," he said.

"So what ad slogan did you come up with?" She thought a moment.

"Fly the friendly skies of Northeastern?"

"It's been used."

"How about

"We're Northeastern Airlines, doing what we do best'?"

"Sorry."

"I'm Candy, fly me'?"

"Might work if you show some cleavage." "No problem," Cassandra said.

"I majored in cleavage in college."

"I bet." He found a red tie crumpled into his loafer.

"I probably won't be back here until the day after tomorrow."

"I have to go home anyway. I'm running out of clothes."

"And leave my palatial penthouse?"

Cassandra glanced around Harvey's sloppy, one bedroom dump on 158th Street. She looked at him skeptically.

"Okay," he admitted, "Versailles it's not."

"A human dwelling it's not."

"Granted, it might need a little work."

"It might need a bulldozer."

"You are spoiled rotten." Cassandra smiled.

"Bet your ass." She sat up and put the pillow behind her head.

"Harv, is it true? Do you really have a cure for AIDS?" "Not a cure exactly," he said, tying his tie and then loosening it.

"More like a treatment."

"I had a good friend die of AIDS," she said slowly.

"He was my ad partner at Dunbar Strauss. God, he was so creative, so alive. I remember visiting him at the hospital until he was in so much pain he wouldn't let anyone see him."

Harvey nodded.

"It's an ugly disease, Cassandra."

"How does your treatment work?"

He stopped.

"You really want to know?"

"Yes."

Harvey sat on the edge of the bed and held her hands.

"AIDS," he began, "or Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome, does not, in and of itself, kill people. You see, the AIDS virus, known as HIV, attacks the immune system. It causes the immune system to break down to the point where the patient is readily susceptible to illness and infection. Eventually these illnesses or infections become fatal. With me so far?"

"I think so," she said.

"You're saying that the AIDS virus tears down the wall that protects you from disease."

"Exactly. How the HIV destroys the immune system is a bit complicated so I'll try to be as nontechnical as possible."

"I'm listening."

"Okay. The HIV attaches itself onto what are called T cells.

It then crawls inside the cells and destroys them. Still with me?"

Cassandra nodded.

"The part of the cell where the HIV first attaches itself is called the T receptor. In other words, the HIV searches around and is attracted to T receptors. Then it latches onto the receptors and moves in for the kill."

"Got it," Cassandra said.

"What we do at the clinic is inject our patients with a powerful, addictive drug we've created called SRI S and R stand for Sidney Riker, my brother. The negative side effects with SRI are many and unfortunately the patient needs to take larger and larger doses over a long period of time." "What does SRI do?" she asked.

Harvey squeezed her hand.

"Again, it's complicated, so let me try to cut through all the medical jargon. In the human body SRI greatly resembles T receptors, so the AIDS virus is drawn to the phony T receptors." "So," Cassandra said, "the HIV attaches itself onto the SRI T receptors rather than the real T receptors."

"Something like that, yes. It's almost like SRI is wearing a mask and disguising itself as a T receptor. The HIV is drawn to it, latches itself onto it "

"And then the SRI kills the HIV."

Harvey shook his head.

"I wish. One day it might happen that fast, but we're still years away from anything like that."

"So what happens?"

"Well, after the HIV latches itself onto the SRl's T receptors, they struggle. It's almost like a tug of war inside the immune system. At first, the HIV is really pissed off by all this. The SRI is actually activating the virus, stirring it up. We give additional and escalating dosages of SRI until the drug begins to wear down the virus.

For a while the effects of AIDS are put into a holding pattern.

Eventually, after a long, hard struggle, the HIV dies."

"SRI wins the tug of war."

He nodded.

"We believe so, yes. Several long-term patients have actually changed from HIV positive to HIV negative."

"Amazing."

"The problems are obvious. Aside from the dangers and addictive factors in SRI, we can save only the immune system.

If a person is in the latter stages of AIDS if a patient is already seriously ill with some AIDS-induced infection our cure will do little if any good. SRI can stop only HIV. It doesn't cure Kaposi's sarcoma, for example, or any of the other diseases AIDS may eventually give you.

As a result, we have to catch the virus early, before infections and disease settle in. And of course, more research is needed. We've only scratched the surface." Cassandra said, "You're sure to get the funds you need once Sara does her report."

"I hope so."

"What do you mean, hope so? Once everyone sees the evidence they'll support the clinic even my father."

Harvey slipped on his shoes and stood.

"That'll be the day."

"You'll see. He'll back you." "Maybe," Harvey said, more to keep the peace than anything else.

"But he's not the one I'm afraid of."

"Then who?"

"Dangerous whackos who are making a name for themselves off the deaths of young people. People like that Reverend Sanders "

"You think he's out to sabotage the clinic?"

"It wouldn't surprise me."

Cassandra rolled over, exposing the long smooth curve of her hip.

"He was in my father's study the other day."

Harvey spun back toward Cassandra.

"Reverend Sanders?"

"Yup." "But your father told me he didn't know Sanders personally."

"I heard him in my father's study the morning after the party.

They were arguing."

"Arguing about what?"

"I'm not sure."

"Cassandra, it's important."

She tried to collect her thoughts.

"I remember my father telling Sanders that he should never come to the house."

"What did Sanders say?" "He just told my dad to relax. I remember that Sanders sounded so cool. His tone was such a contrast to my father's angry one. Then Sanders said something like 'there's still work to be done." Harvey's body went rigid.

"Jesus."

"That's all I heard. I left after that."

"Are you sure " The phone rang. For a moment neither of them moved, their eyes locked onto one another's. Then Harvey lowered his gaze and moved toward the phone.

"Hello."

Eric's voice came in a rush.

"Get down to the lab, Harv. Hurry."

"What's the matter?"

"It's Michael, Harvey. Oh God, it's Michael." Michael the button and held it down. Slowly and with a whir, the bed began to move, curling his frame into a sitting position. He coughed twice into his fist and then smiled at Sara.

"Go ahead," she said.

"Take a sip."

Michael brought the plastic cup to his lips and drank.

"How's the orange juice?" Sara asked.

"Tastes like paint thinner," he replied.

"What time is it?"

"Seven a.m. Did you sleep well?" "Not really," he said.

"I don't like sleeping in separate beds." "Neither do I," Sara said, "but my bed is only a yard away."

"Makes it worse. Sort of like being able to see the Holy Grail and not grasp it."

"How poetic."

"To put it somewhat less poetically, I want your bod."

"And I yours," Sara said.

"Every time you stand up I see your cute little ass hanging out the back of your hospital gown. It drives me crazy."

"I know. I'm such a tease." He pushed the orange juice away and glanced up.

"So tell me, how's the story on Harv's clinic going?"

"We start shooting the interviews later today. It'll be hectic as all hell so I may not be able to stop in as much."

"Good. I'll be able to get a little peace and quiet."

"Not so fast, handsome. I'll still be able to come by around lunch and dinner. And I'll still be sleeping in that bed come this evening."

He grabbed her and they kissed.

"Can't get rid of you, huh?"

"Never."

They kissed again.

Behind them, the door opened. Sara turned and watched Harvey and Eric enter. Their grim expressions seemed to magnify into looks of tremendous pain when they saw Michael and Sara embracing. Sara took a second look at their faces, at the way they held their heads, at the way their hands stayed still in their pockets. And she knew. She knew without question or hesitation.

It was over. Everything was over. She held Michael closely, feeling his muscles stiffen. She wanted very much to scream.

Harvey stepped forward and closed the door.

"We need to talk."