Dr. Yamamoto hadn’t directly said anything about Pia being late, and he didn’t need to; Pia had gotten the message. She suited up quickly and went in the lab to join Lesley and Will, who had been in there all morning. They were standing in a side room with Rothman, who was holding a thick paperback book in one hand and pressing impatiently at the display of a newly installed machine that looked like a large inkjet printer.
“Dr. Yamamoto, it appears we have bought a lemon,” Rothman said.
Will gestured down to the power strip in the wall, and Yamamoto bent down and flicked on the surge protector. The machine wheezed and babbled into life.
“Anyone know what this piece of machinery is?” Rothman said, not missing a beat and bending forward to stare into the innards of the device. As she moved closer, Pia could see how intricate the engineering on the device was, with tracking bars and a large array like the inkjet of a printer. Pia opened her mouth, but Lesley beat her to it. “An organ printer?” She had seen the cover of the book Rothman was holding.
“Yes, for three-D bioprinting. We have an older machine, but this one is new. Someone from the manufacturer is coming tomorrow to show us how to use it.”
“Perhaps we should wait till then to turn it on, Doctor,” Yamamoto said.
“No harm in warming it up. Mr. McKinley, what do you know about three-D bioprinting?”
“I think it works like a regular printer, spraying living cells onto a sheet of . . . a sheet of something. It goes back and forth building up the layers into a three-dimensional structure. The cells can often organize themselves to function collectively. So far it has applications making skin and cartilage.”
“Indeed. You can print a spinal disk. Which I may need to try by tomorrow,” said Rothman, straightening up and rubbing the small of his back.
“We’re all going to get up to speed on this machine together. As this engineering matures it might be quicker than growing organs. At this stage I’m thinking of using it to fix defects in the organs that we’re growing. But who knows? The value of this technology is that an organ would be fashioned as the mirror image of the patient’s by using data from MRI studies. As is often the case with organogenesis, the hardest part is not in replicating the function of the organ, or gland, but in connecting it to the rest of the body-veins, arteries, ducts, and so on have to be oriented appropriately to make the surgery feasible.”
Rothman had found a switch and he toggled it on and off. He then reopened the instruction book and immediately became engrossed.
Yamamoto ushered the students away. Will looked back at Rothman.
“I hope that thing’s still working when the guy comes tomorrow.”
The students spent the rest of the day monitoring the organ baths. They’d found that some did experience small changes in temperature or pH spontaneously, and the three talked with Yamamoto about designing an alarm system even for those minor fluctuations. It seemed to them that even such small changes might impact the results. It was real science, demanding and exciting for each student. Will and Lesley worked closely, keeping a respectful distance from Pia, who was in her own world.
After Dr. Yamamoto dismissed the students for the day, he asked Pia to stay behind for a moment. “Dr. Rothman would like to speak with you later, after we’re done in the level-three lab. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Pia had said. What else was she going to say?
18.
ONE CENTRAL PARK WEST NEW YORK CITY MARCH 3, 2011, 8:30 P.M.
Jerry Trotter and Max Higgins left Edmund Mathews and Russell Lefevre with a souvenir of their lunch together at Terrasini. It was a healthy check, and as Edmund paid up, he hoped that Jerry and Max were going to do something to justify it. He was reasonably confident, as he knew them to be guys who did not sit on a problem. They were known to do whatever it took.
And Jerry and Max did not disappoint. Within an hour of leaving the restaurant, Trotter and Higgins had two of their best investigative guys working on the two separate cases, one on the Columbia regenerative organ situation, the other on the hoped-for dirty little secrets of Gloria Croft in hopes of having something to control her with. Jerry knew that everyone, especially Wall Street people, had their secrets. The PIs were also given Edmund’s and Russell’s full names so they could Google them for background information.
Jerry couldn’t use his very best guy, who was in fact a woman named Jillian Jones, because she was already involved in looking at a company that Higgins thought might be tanking its results to pave the way for a takeover. But as PIs, Tim Brubaker and Harry Hooper were separated from Jones only by a sliver. They’d do a thorough job, and they were very quick.
This was the first time Jerry ever had three PIs on his payroll at once. Strictly speaking, Jones, Brubaker, and Hooper weren’t on the Trotter Holdings payroll at all; each was employed off the books in a strictly cash-only arrangement. There was no paperwork-no pay stubs or invoices or receipts, the latter because Trotter trusted the three not to pad expenses. The PIs undertook enough on-the-books domestic surveillance cases to report to the IRS to show sufficient income to justify their lifestyles. They were usually able to piggyback a cash job for someone like Jerry Trotter on one that was recorded by the business accountant.
Jerry Trotter loved this semi-legal, clandestine work because it was so far removed from anything he’d done as a plastic surgeon or a money manager. He loved everything about it and even saying “Brubaker” and “Hooper” gave him a little thrill; to his mind, they were perfect PI names. For him it was like being in his own movie. Brubaker and Hooper were ex-cops and had seen everything; Jillian Jones had seen everything too but no one knew what work she had done prior to this and no one dared ask. In contrast to most PIs, she always acted anxious and quick to take offense. She also had a black belt in karate and was always armed.
As usual, Higgins took care of all the practical arrangements. He bought three use-and-lose cell phones and used one to place a prearranged marketing cold call to Hooper and Brubaker’s offices. The call purported to be from a firm interested in talking to the business manager about the company’s metered postage. This identified the source of the call. The first digit of the call-back number times one hundred was the rate being offered; the last four specified a time for a meet at the usual location. Brubaker and Hooper had a habit of checking their messages regularly and both picked up Higgins’s call within a half-hour. The promise of a $300-an-hour rate drew them to the four o’clock meeting place in a back booth at Flanagan’s bar on Second Avenue. It took Higgins five minutes to give them their marching orders, a cell phone for each to call in on, and a $1,200 down payment on their work.
Another aspect of the game that Trotter relished was asking his guys how they’d found whatever information they dug up. At first neither Brubaker nor Hooper wanted to talk about their MOs, but they’d come to indulge Trotter’s whims. He did sign the checks, after all.
When the phone rang at eight-thirty, Trotter was fixing his second Glenlivet in his apartment near the summit of the Trump International on the corner of Central Park West and Columbus Circle. Trotter lived so high up he didn’t bother with drapes in the living room-he didn’t want anything to interfere with his view of Central Park. Tonight, banks of low clouds and rain were all he could see. He was pleased to see it was Brubaker. The number on his LED was the cell phone Higgins had given him.
“It’s B,” Brubaker said. It was the code name Trotter insisted on his using.
“So soon?” Trotter could barely conceal the childish excitement in his voice.
“Yes, I got to speak directly with the laboratory’s secretary by posing as a journalist. Couldn’t shut her up. Thought she was doing her boss a favor talking him up. Thinks he’s shy and needs the pub. She even said as much.”