Near Death (8 page)

The black girl was plump and unattractive: perversely, that had helped. He heard himself invite her into the car and observed the drive across the river to his garage. He watched himself strangle her, enduring her blows until she stopped fighting. Then he dispassionately viewed the medical procedures—the piercing of the skull, penetration of the ventricles, the satisfying rush of clear cerebrospinal fluid filling the barrel of the syringe.

When it was done he waited for the trembling to start but it didn’t. He remained cool. There was a body to dump, tubes to process at the lab. Only when he was back in bed next to Jessie did his body start to shake uncontrollably. Jessie awakened and probably thought he was having one of his nightmares because she held him, cooing and soothing until she regained sleep while he fought it, staying awake until the morning for fear of replaying the killing in his dreams.

It got easier.

The next two murders took on the quality of smoothly replicated experiments and he was able to quickly blot them from his mind and pay less attention to the newspaper stories that followed. Each new set of samples moved the ball farther down the field. He was learning more and more about his mystery peak, refining his methodologies, working out how to fractionate the samples. He felt like a hunter closing in on his prey, slowly, painstakingly flushing it from the thick undergrowth until he had it in his sights, a finger curled around the cold hard trigger.

He had learned so much from Thomas and the first two women. He had high hopes that the samples from the third prostitute, the pumpkin girl, would allow him to fractionate his mystery peak into a pure aliquot—and from
there, a structure; then from structure to synthesis, synthesis to biology, and, finally, from biology to real answers.
Yes
, he told himself again and again,
the end does justify the means
.

The pumpkin girl was the youngest and that was exciting. Thomas was in his late thirties. The first two prostitutes were in their late twenties and their mystery peaks were even more abundant. He’d seen the same things in animals and had tucked the observation away. Younger animals had bigger peaks. The pumpkin girl was the youngest yet, twenty-two.

Cyrus O’Malley, this inconsequential man, had interrupted his reverie and pulled him back into the world of fear and hazard. O’Malley had clearly connected the dots between Thomas and the others, but that was inevitable. He had nothing concrete, he was fishing; otherwise, he would have played his cards already. Alex had been as careful as he could: gloves to prevent DNA transfer, leather car seats and plastic floor mats to avoid fibers. The drill bit and needles obsessively autoclaved. The syringes, melted into plastic globs. He was sure he was safe, at least for the time being, especially if the pumpkin girl was the last.

He prayed she was the last.

And what of the exquisite irony, that his pursuer’s daughter was his patient? This was a triangle, he thought; no, a circle! Like the Uroboros! O’Malley had the power of the FBI over him, he had the power of a doctor over Tara, and she had the power of a sick child over her father.
A serpent swallowing its tail: it was meant to be
, he thought. All this was meant to happen.

His Agilent LC-MS system was a state-of-the-art instrument purchased under his last NIH grant. It could separate unknown compounds in complex mixtures and then identify them through mass spectrometry analysis. Throughout the afternoon he followed the instrument’s progress via its graphical interface and drew closer to the bench when he saw that fraction 6 was being processed. He stopped humming and stood silent before the monitor, watching the countdown to readout as if he were watching a rocket launch. Thirty seconds. Fifteen. Ten … he held his breath. Three seconds.

854.73.

The fraction was pure. No other peaks.

And it was lavishly abundant.

He had a large, pure sample of his beautiful unknown.

He could see the pumpkin girl’s face in his mind.

The younger the better
.

He exhaled and felt gloriously light-headed.

The killings could stop.

Ten

Alex pushed the living room furniture around and tossed pillows and cushions onto the floor until there was an imperfect circle. These Saturday evenings meant everything to him but tonight he had trouble keeping his mind off the screw-topped plastic tube chilling in the fridge beside a carton of eggs.

His place was tastefully furnished, nothing very expensive but each piece chosen with care. It wasn’t a large house, about the size of his childhood home in Liverpool: living room, dining room, kitchen and master bedroom on the ground floor, two guest rooms up top. A small back yard had enough green space for an herb and vegetable garden and a barbecue.

There were a few admirable pieces scattered about the house, some objets d’art, wooden and brass statuary of Hindu gods, African masks, Chinese ceramics and, over the mantel in pride of place, a fine nineteenth-century copy of a drawing by Theodorus Pelecanos, from his fifteenth-century book of alchemy, of the pink and gold Uroboros. And books, of course: shelves and shelves of books on art,
religion, the occult, mythology, philosophy, anthropology and the natural sciences. He aspired to nothing more materially. He was well-satisfied. Financially, he’d already achieved more than his father had during a life of heavy toil, and that was enough.

Jessie was in the kitchen making hummus. This, she held, was her main contribution to the salons. She had made it abundantly clear to Alex that she felt intellectually outgunned by the high-octane minds who gravitated to Alex’s orbit, so typically she remained silent through the proceedings, keeping the snacks coming, making sure the beer and white wine were well-chilled, and tending to accidents on their more avant-garde nights.

Alex sneaked up behind her, watching her for a few moments as she worked the food processor. He felt a powerful wave of love wash over him. Her red-orange hair, the color of leaping flames, fell over her black sweater. She was a foundling, a good ten years younger than he, plucked from a bookstore in Harvard Square where, three years earlier, he had been browsing on a Sunday. When he took his paperbacks to the register, he had looked across the counter into her milky oval face with jade eyes and cherry lips and those cascades and ringlets of Pre-Raphaelite fiery hair and had been utterly captivated.

She was a townie, a dropout, drifting on a quiet sea of menial jobs, enduring a succession of unreliable roommates. She’d never before had anyone like Alex in her life—a powerful spinning bowling ball, knocking a light pin into the air. She tumbled happily and landed squarely inside his sphere of influence. He was everything to her: father, brother, teacher, friend and lover. She idolized him and made few demands, grateful for every day with him; and he cherished and protected her like a delicate hothouse flower.

Now he surprised her by cupping her small breasts and using his nose to part her hair to find a patch of skin on the back of her neck to kiss.

She laughed. “What’s that for?”

“Love.”

“I like that. How many are coming?”

“I never really know. The weather’s fine. Probably fifteen or so.”

“I still miss Thomas.”

“Me too.” He let go of her.

“You worked all day,” she scolded. “Lie down for an hour. I’ll bring you some wine.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I can’t live without you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Davis Fox arrived first, pecking both Jessie’s cheeks, European style. Alex could tell straight off that he wished to talk. He took him into his bedroom and shut the door.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked.

“Just a bit pissed off.”

“Why?”

“That FBI agent called me again.”

“When?”

“This afternoon. He asked when we were having our next salon.”

Alex blanched but tried to be nonchalant. “Really? What did you tell him?”

“I told him to ask
you
and then he asked
me
for your mobile number. When I said I was uncomfortable giving it out, he said he could get it anyway and asked why I was being unhelpful so I wound up giving it to him. I hope that was okay.”

Alex reached for his cell phone on the bedside table. It was off and when he powered it back up, there was a message waiting from an unknown caller.

“Much ado about nothing,” Alex murmured. “Let’s hope they catch the murderer rather than wasting their bloody time on us.”

He sent Davis to the kitchen for a glass of wine and sat on the bed to listen to the voice message. The nerve! O’Malley wanted to attend one of the salons, talk to the group about Thomas.

Alex felt a pitting nausea. O’Malley wasn’t going away. He could hear the persistence in his voice. He angrily imagined calling him back, telling him to leave him the hell alone … for the sake of his daughter. The threat would make O’Malley disappear. A fantasy.

Everything would have to move faster now. He was on the threshold. He would not and could not be denied. Every hour and every day standing between him and the answer was precious, every minute wasted, a tragedy. He wished he could have canceled the salon to get on with things, but that was out of the question.

The others arrived in ones and twos.

Frank Sacco, his young pimply technician, came and sat by himself. He never interacted much, a fish out of water, and Alex had long regretted ever having invited him. It wasn’t a good idea to mix lab business with his other
interests—especially now—but what was done was done; he couldn’t disinvite Frank, not without raising a red flag.

Larry Gelb, a cherubic philosophy professor from Brandeis, arrived with his much younger Korean girlfriend, a former student of his, and tossed his Che-style beret onto one of the cushions. Arthur Spangler, a curly-haired biochemist from Tufts Medical School with nineteenth-century mutton-chop sideburns, headed straight for the hummus and began making the rounds, curious if anyone had any spliffs. The room filled with old friends and academic colleagues from the elite colleges and universities in Boston, warmed by one another’s company and Alex’s patented bear hugs, which he meted out in a distracted way.

Spangler sidled up to Alex and asked through a mouthful of chips and dip, “Any recreational pharmaceuticals tonight, Weller?”

“Unless someone surprises us, afraid not, Art. Going to have to make do with fermentation products. Jessie’s got plenty of that in the kitchen.”

“Pity. Who’s going to be speaking?”

“Larry’s got an interesting paper on something or another.”

“Seems disorganized, Weller. Need to put our dues to better purpose.”

“What dues are those?” Alex asked.

“Point taken.” Spangler trundled off, continuing his quest for marijuana.

Erica Parris, a grad student at the Harvard Divinity School, unwrapped her scarf and made a beeline for Alex, literally tugging a young man by the sleeve. She was ruddy-cheeked from the long walk along the Charles and exuded her usual earthy sexuality. Alex once told Gelb that Erica reminded him of an archetypal fertility talisman. Brimming with enthusiasm, she chimed, “Alex, I brought a newbie! Meet Sam Rodriguez.”

Her charge was a lean, muscular Puerto Rican youth with protodreadlocks, the harbinger of some future grander tonsorial concoction. His features were stunningly chiseled and handsome, although he appeared dazed by unfamiliar surroundings.

“Hello, Sam, welcome to my house. I’m Alex Weller.” Alex wasn’t in any mood to meet new talent but Sam made sharp confident eye contact, which made an instant positive impression.

“I’m Sam. My friends call me S-Rod.”

Alex clapped him on the shoulder. “If we become friends, I hope you’ll allow me to call you Sam. You seem like a Sam to me, not an S-Rod.”

“Okay, man. We’ll see.”

“Have you known Sam long, Erica?”

“About forty-five minutes. We met on the steps of Widener Library when I was heading here.”

“Well then, help yourself to wine or beer in the other room and we’ll have a toast to new relationships,” he said politely. “I assume Erica has told you about our salon.”

“Sort of. Sounds wild.”

“What attracted you?”

He pointed to the woman’s thigh-high boots. “Her legs, man. I gotta be honest with you, that’s the main reason.”

She playfully swatted him.

“I like your honesty, Sam.” Alex snorted. “You’re at Harvard?”

Sam nodded. “A junior.”

“What are you studying?”

“Computational sciences.”

“Well, let’s see if you connect to the kinds of subjects that interest us, Sam. If so, maybe we’ll see you back. If not, at least we shared a moment of commonality on the subject of Erica’s legs.”

When all the cushions were filled and the circle formed, Alex took his place next to Jessie on a flat red pillow. For atmospherics, there was low light, a Govinda
album—raga-style, electronic, hypnotic, playing softly in the background—and a smoky haze from burning sticks of sandalwood incense.

“Welcome one, welcome all,” Alex began. He wasn’t feeling his usual expansive self but the show had to go on. “We have a new friend with us, Sam Rodriguez from Harvard, who has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. Say hello, Sam.”

A salty wave. “Hey,” and others waved back.

“For Sam’s benefit, welcome to the Uroboros Society, named for the mythical serpent—”

“Who eats his own tail, right?” Sam interrupted. “An ancient symbol of infinity.”

“I swear I didn’t prep him!” Erica squealed.

“Yes, you’re right, Sam. Full marks. The Uroboros is a symbol of the infinite and the immortal, the serpent who destroys itself then brings itself back to life. And what this rather dog-eared group of individuals who congregate here like to contemplate is the idea that life is only a short segment of a longer, more interesting and far more complex journey. We like to talk about concepts of heaven and hell and other manifestations of the afterlife. We aren’t denominational; some of us don’t even have a religious bone in our bodies. We often return to the
subject of near death experiences, or NDEs, as a laboratory for the study of postlife consciousness. A few of us have been blessed or cursed with our own NDEs and we perpetually bore the others with the details. Again, for Sam’s sake, raise your hands if you’re in
this
club.”