Omega Dog (18 page)

‘No.’ Venn put a big hand over one of hers. It felt strong but smooth, supple. The hand of a worker, but not a laborer. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

I won’t let it happen
, he thought.

‘This all raises the question,’ he said, ‘of who exactly is trying to cover up the evidence.’

Beth nodded slowly, the realization dawning on her.

‘Which firm manufactures Zylurin?’ Venn asked.

‘Walton & Critchkoff Pharmaceuticals,’ said Beth. Venn nodded. He’d heard of them, though he couldn’t name any of their products off the top of his head.

As if reading his thoughts, Beth said: ‘They make all kinds of household stuff like diaper creams, baby food, vitamins, as well as their pharma products. They’re a middle-range company, without any really big products. But Zylurin looks set to make a name for them. It’s going to be their Viagra, their Prozac.’

‘So any ten-year-old evidence that one of the ingredients of their new wonder drug might be carcinogenic, would be highly embarrassing to them.’

‘More than that,’ said Beth. ‘The clinical trials of Zylurin would have to be immediately halted. The FDA would demand exhaustive investigations. Even if the product turned out to be safe, it would cost Walton & Critchkoff millions, if not billions, of dollars in lost revenue.’

Venn sat back in his chair. ‘I guess this means Professor Lomax is dead,’ he said. ‘He clearly knows about the suspected cancer link from the papers this Papakostas guy sent him. Maybe he was going to blow the whistle, and they silenced him.

And with him goes my get-out-of-jail card
, Venn thought.

Beth said, ‘So what do we do now? Go to the press? The police?’

‘This is still all speculation,’ said Venn. ‘We can’t prove anything. And we’re not safe even with the police. You just saw that, back in Brooklyn.’

‘Then – what?’

Venn pushed back his chair, stood up.

‘We pay this Papakostas a visit.’

Beth remained seated, as if the enormity of all that was happening was preventing her from rising.

‘We don’t know where he lives.’

‘Yes, we do.’ Venn took out Lomax’s Filofax. ‘His address is in here. He’s up in Maine.’

––––––––

T
hey found a car rental company a few blocks from the Port Authority Terminal.

‘We’re actually renting a car?’ said Beth. ‘I thought stealing them was your thing.’

Venn gave her a look.

The office was quiet at that time in the morning. A beaming, overweight man rocked forward in his chair when they came in.

Venn chose a black Chevrolet Impala, and made sure it had a working satellite navigation system in it. He paid cash for a week’s rental. The man at the desk raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He took a photocopy of Venn’s license. Beth thought that Venn would rather not have handed across any ID, but he had little choice.

They pulled out into the thickening traffic. Venn looked across at Beth.

‘Get some sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s a six-hour drive.’

‘I don’t know if I can,’ said Beth. But she closed her eyes anyway.

Professor Lomax’s Filofax had listed Papakostas’s initials – DSP – along with the cell phone number they’d seen at the top of the letter, and an address which turned out to be near Augusta, Maine. From the look of it on Google Maps, the location was pretty remote. A cabin, maybe, out in the woods.

They’d also searched for Papakostas but had found nothing about him at all. Beth had certainly never heard of him.

‘What do you think we’ll gain from paying him a visit?’ she’d asked Venn. He’d shrugged.

‘Maybe not much. But it’s possible he knows something about what’s happened to Professor Lomax. Or, more likely, he’ll be able to provide more evidence for the C-77 cancer link. If anybody’s going to be able to provide a solid case that there’s a coverup taking place, it’s him.’

No, with her eyes closed against the low-hanging early morning sun, Beth let her thoughts drift back ten years.

She’d been so young then, full of excitement and enthusiasm for life. The opportunity to take part in medical research had been too good to pass up, especially as she was premed herself and was already interested in neuroscience.

The trial had been fun, and the people taking part had developed an easy camaraderie when they’d attended the lab at Yale for the day, to be given the drug and subsequently monitored for its effects on their blood pressure, pulse and numerous other parameters. In some ways Beth was sorry when the study was cut short so abruptly after just four weeks. Though the nausea and puking had been pretty unpleasant.

Still, at the end of it she felt as if she’d made some contribution to scientific advancement, however small. And she’d forged a friendship with Professor Leonard Lomax which bore fruit later, when he invited her to collaborate in further research with him.

And now he was missing, probably dead. Beth herself was on the run, with more than one killer trying to gun her down.

And she might have cancer.

Forcing her thoughts away from
that
particular avenue, Beth turned her head and cracked her eyes a fraction to look at Venn. He was staring straight ahead as he drove, his expression grim.

Not a bad-looking man. In fact, quite handsome, in a rough-hewn way.

But a frightening man.

‘Venn,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’

‘You said you used to be a cop.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why aren’t you one any more?’

He glanced at her. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Because I’m trying to take my mind off other things.’

He nodded, as if he understood her point. ‘Long story.’

‘Long journey.’

‘I got canned,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I beat up a drug dealer in Chicago. Put him in ICU. He’ll never walk right again. The mistake I made was, I did it out on the street. Someone captured it all on camera, sold the footage to the local TV station. The department kind of had to let me go after that.’

‘Why did you beat this man up?’

‘He was pushing narcotics to schoolkids. Not just teenagers. Ten-year-olds. Ghetto kids whose lives were pretty crappy already.’

‘Wasn’t there enough evidence to convict him?’

Venn looked across at her again. ‘Oh, there was evidence all right. My guys and I did a pretty good job. But he was low down in the food chain. The prosecutor was after the big fish. This guy cut a deal with the DA, ratted out the guys above him, and got off with a slap on the wrist. He didn’t deserve that. Nor did the families whose lives he ruined.’

‘Do you regret what you did?’ asked Beth.

‘Yeah,’ said Venn. ‘If I could turn the clock back, I’d kill him instead.’

They drove in silence for a while, approaching Yonkers. It was a beautiful sunsoaked spring morning, the kind that normally made Beth feel glad to be alive. Carefree.

Venn said, ‘So you got anyone to support you after all this is over? Family?’

‘My mom and dad are back home in Minnesota,’ said Beth. ‘I have a sister in Canada. Nobody here in the city.’

‘No boyfriend?’

‘Not much time, as a medical resident.’ But Beth knew that was an excuse. She’d seen so many doctors become so caught up in their work that they lost sight of life outside the job.

‘I’m surprised,’ said Venn.

‘That I don’t have much time, as a resident?’

‘No. That... you’re single.’

Beth stared at the side of his face.

He was actually blushing. This big, fierce guy.

Despite herself, Beth couldn’t completely suppress a smile. If Venn noticed, he didn’t let on.

––––––––

O
nce again, Rosetti called the Anderson woman’s number, and once again she didn’t answer. Didn’t even have a voicemail facility.

Fine. That was the last time Rosetti would use that bitch’s so-called services.

She had to admit, though, it was a loss. Anderson was one of only a handful of connections Rosetti had within the NYPD, and they were extremely useful for the intelligence they could provide and the access they afforded Rosetti and her crew.

Still. Anderson wasn’t answering her calls, and hadn’t called herself to say that the job was done and the Colby woman was dead. That meant she was incompetent.

And Rosetti didn’t suffer fools.

She caught a couple of hours’ sleep in her wheelchair around dawn, then called her lieutenants, Vincenzo the smart one and Infante the dumbass, into her office at around eight AM. This time she let them sit down. It was going to be a long meeting.

Vincenzo reported back. Teams were scouring the city, checking hospitals, even morgues, for signs of Colby. Scouts were monitoring the exits from the city as best as they could, though it was only really some of the tunnels that could be watched. Employees at the airports – JFK, La Guardia, Newark – who were secretly on Rosetti’s payroll were monitoring departures. Every conceivable person Rosetti and her crew could think of had been sent a digital or paper picture of Dr Colby, and had been told to look out for her.

So far, nothing.

It’s too big a city, even for us
, Rosetti thought glumly.
We need a lead. And soon.

‘And no word from that asshole Royle, either?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Vincenzo.

Infante’s phone began to ring.

He sat staring at Rosetti.

She stared back at him.

Vincenzo stared at him.

The phone rang three times. Four.

Five.

Rosetti exploded:
‘God dammit to hell, Infante! Answer your goddamn phone!’

Infante cringed. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t know if I was allowed – sorry.’

He fumbled the phone out of his pocket. Listened.

A smile crept slowly across his features. He took a pen from his pocket and, trapping the phone between his ear and his shoulder, scribbled something down on the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

He folded the phone away.

‘Lucky break, boss,’ he said.

Rosetti waited impatiently.

Infante went on: ‘Guy I know runs a car rental shop near Port Authority. He’s just looked at the picture we sent out, and he says he remembers the girl. She came in around an hour ago with some guy. They hired a black Chevy Impala.’

He read out the registration number from his cuff.

‘Guy she was with handed over his license. His name’s Joseph Venn.’

‘Okay,’ said Rosetti. ‘Let’s get on it.’

––––––––

T
hey were three hours into their trip when Venn almost got them killed.

New York City was far behind them and the sun was heading toward the zenith, the sky still a cornflower blue. Beth was dozing lightly, but kept jerking awake every time her ears picked up a sudden noise like a car horn.

They were headed along the interstate, somewhere in northern Massachusetts by Beth’s reckoning, when Beth felt the Impala veer over to one side.

Instantly alert, she saw the truck in the lane alongside swerve, the driver’s mouth open wide, his hand rammed down on the horn.

Tires squealed and brakes howled. Beside her, Venn muttered, ‘Jesus,’ and swung the wheel so that the car straightened out.

He dropped to a cruising speed. Both of them were breathing heavily.

‘You fell asleep,’ Beth said.

‘No I didn’t.’

‘You did.’

‘Did not.’

Just listen to us
, she thought.
We’re like a bickering old married couple.

She said, ‘Let me drive.’

‘No.’

‘What’s the matter? Don’t think a woman can handle a big sedan like this?’

‘It’s not that,’ Venn grunted. ‘You’re more exhausted than I am. You’d nod off for sure.’

‘Then maybe we should stop.’

Venn shook his head.

‘Why not?’ said Beth. ‘Nobody knows where we’re headed. We can afford a little breathing room. And besides, we’re going to need our wits about us in the coming days. You know as well as I do how prolonged sleeplessness impairs concentration.’

After a few moments he said, ‘All right. A couple of hours at most.’

He took the next offramp and followed a winding road that passed through wheatfields. After about a mile, the unlit neon sign and buildings of a motel loomed into view.

Venn pulled into the forecourt. There were three other cars there but otherwise it was deserted.

He said, ‘Wait in the car.’

‘Why?’

‘Because there may be police reports out for us. It’s better if we don’t appear as a pair, wherever possible.’

He went into the office, reappearing ten minutes later. He handed her a key.

‘Room seven, just along there,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you five minutes, then I’ll follow.’

The room was no worse and no better than any motel room Beth had ever come across. The carpet was worn but clean-looking, the aircon was working, and somebody had even put a vase of fresh flowers in the window.

Someone knocked on the door. ‘It’s me,’ said Venn.

She let him in. He glanced around too.

‘Hold on a moment,’ Beth said. ‘
One
room?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘No way.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘It’s safer if we stay close. That’s the only reason.’

‘But there’s only one bed.’

‘I’ll crash out on the floor.’ He sighed. ‘Look, it’s not as if you’ve got pajamas to get changed into or anything. Just lie on the bed and I’ll be there on the rug.’

Beth sat on the bed. The mattress was a little lumpy but not too hard. She felt fatigue suddenly pounce on her.

‘Oh,’ said Venn. ‘I got some stuff from the shop there by the office.’

He handed over a paper sack. In it was a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of mineral water, some Handi-Wipes and a stick of deodorant.

‘Do I smell bad?’ Beth asked, amused.

Again, there was that slight flush in his cheeks. ‘No, not at all. I just thought you might... well, it might make you feel more comfortable, that’s all.’

She smiled, touched. ‘Thank you, Venn. That’s very considerate of you.’

Later, she couldn’t even remember her head touching the pillow before she was asleep.