“So she was informative.”
“Very. Don’t understand half the stuff she was saying, but she was knowledgeable. I’m transcribing the tape myself word for word. I don’t want any transcription service looking at this stuff.”
“Of course, very prudent. So give me the headlines.”
“Okay, the two names you mentioned to me are the guys for sure….”
“Rothman and Yamamoto,” Trotter said, talking over Brubaker.
“Shit, what’s the point of the code words and all the cloak-and-dagger you insist on if you don’t follow it yourself? Yes, those are the guys. The first one is the big cheese.”
“Sorry,” Trotter said, inwardly cursing himself.
“Okay, so she tells me all this stuff that they’re doing, and I’m supposed to be a science reporter and able to follow it. So I asked her at the end for the Cliff Notes version that I can use for the readers.”
“What paper does she think this is going in?”
“No paper. I told her I was doing the research to see if there was a story and if there was, I’d sell it and call her again.”
“What if she calls you?”
“She doesn’t have my number. I told her this was very hush-hush on my end, and I asked her not to tell anyone we’d spoken because this is such a big story that other reporters are going to be on it soon, and I want to get a jump on it. I’m actually thinking of writing it up for real-I wasn’t lying to her, this is going to be way big.”
Jerry’s joy at playing Dick Tracy evaporated.
“What do you mean, ‘big’?”
“Well, according to her, these guys are close commercially to growing organs outside the body, organs that will be perfect matches for the person who needs them. The trials have worked with animal subjects, and they want to move on to using human stem cells.”
“When?”
“She did get a little cagey there. Not because she wouldn’t tell me-I think she didn’t know and didn’t want to let on that she didn’t know. But it’s months that they will be moving to human cells, maybe even weeks and certainly not years.”
“Weeks or months? The difference is important.”
“Well, I guess I need to make a few more calls. But it’s happening. And soon. He’s working on something else too. Something about growing salmonella strains that cause typhoid fever on the space shuttle. Can you imagine? To think where our tax dollars go. It makes me sick.”
“Tell me about it,” Jerry said. “Okay, thanks, B. Keep me posted.”
“Got it, boss.”
After hearing from Brubaker, Trotter was impatient to know what kind of progress, if any, Hooper was making. Although it was technically against protocol, Trotter called Hooper’s new cell.
“Yes,” Hooper said after one ring. He was between calls on the Gloria Croft assignment and thought it might be one of the contacts he had made calling him back.
“Hi, it’s the boss.”
“Hi, boss.”
“What’s happening? Any dirt?”
“I’m only three hours in. Not even.”
“What’s the setup?”
“I’m a headhunter looking for someone for a major bank CEO job. The board wants a woman for appearances’ sake. I’m asking around about people on my supposed list.”
“Our friend doesn’t need a job, she makes seven figures-plus a year,” said Trotter with disappointment. He purposely avoided using Croft’s name.
“I know that. They know that. But people like showing off how much they know. I think someone might tell me just how much she doesn’t need a job in a bank. Or need the scrutiny of running a public company, more like it.”
“So you want someone to brag about what they know.”
“Sure, everyone does it. Most everyone. And the finance world is like a small, competitive club which feeds on gossip.”
Okay, that was more like it. Jerry was struck again by how much Hooper and Brubaker sounded alike. They sounded like Brooklyn cops, which is what they both had once been.
“So you shake anything out of the tree yet?”
“Just spoke to a guy who knew her at Morgan, back in the day. I said someone mentioned him as a possible reference, and he laughed. Real asshole, thinks I’m a moron having gone to Brooklyn College nights. I don’t like these Ivy League types. But he has something, I’m sure. Trying to fuck with me a little. Hope he doesn’t push it ’cause he’s messing with the wrong guy. I can get his nice car towed tonight, and it ain’t goin’ to the pound.”
“Yes, I’m sure you can. That’s what keeps me honest in our relationship.”
Hooper laughed, then added, “One other thing. He mentioned that I might ask one of the bankers Higgins mentioned when we talked this afternoon. He said if I wanted dirt on our friend to ask him, because he thought he had been literally and figuratively fucking her back in their Morgan days.”
Trotter frowned. “Which one?”
“The thick guy with the short hair,” Hooper said.
“Now, that is interesting,” Trotter said. “Don’t call and ask him directly. Make it part of your investigation. It could be interesting.”
“Got it,” Hooper said.
As Trotter hung up the phone, he smiled. “Edmund, you rogue.”
19.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER NEW YORK CITY MARCH 3, 2011, 9:02 P.M.
Pia waited more than two and a half hours for Rothman and Yamamoto to finish their work in the BSL-3 lab. She spent the time productively reading papers on tissue engineering and organ printing on the Internet, which is what she would have been doing anyway if she’d gone back to the dorm. As the time had passed and her empty stomach growled, she became progressively concerned it had something to do with her being late two days in a row. Eventually, Rothman and Yamamoto appeared. Yamamoto immediately left. Rothman wordlessly waved for her to join him in his office, where he got straight to the point.
“I want to talk to you about the future. Your future. I need to know that you are committed to this work.”
“I am, truly,” Pia said. She was panicked. “I know I was late this morning-”
“You were late two mornings in a row, at least according to Miss Langman.”
“I’m sorry . . .” Pia stammered. Her fears were coming to pass.
“It doesn’t help to be sorry,” Rothman shot back. “I’m concerned about what it implies.”
“I will make sure it never happens again,” Pia offered.
Rothman waved her off. “Let me speak while I’m inclined to do so. As you know, I’m not accustomed to talking too much about this kind of nonsense. I don’t have the time. Last year I confided in you some information about myself because I had been progressively confident that you were turning out to be the person I thought you could be. Remember, as I told you, I played a role in getting you admitted when others on that damn admissions committee where I was forced to serve were reluctant because of your foster care experience. Since I had the same experience, I thought you might have promise of being a researcher.”
“I’ve come to the same conclusion,” Pia blurted.
“Don’t interrupt!” Rothman snapped. “Last year when I told you those secrets about me that are only known by my wife, bless her soul for putting up with me, concerning my foster care history and my Asperger’s, I wasn’t completely open. I said my sons were not as healthy as I would like. To be more specific, not only are they too on the Asperger’s spectrum, but even worse, they have type 1 diabetes. Having passed on the Asperger’s was reason enough for guilt and depression. The diabetes has put it over the top. The main reason I’ve turned to stem cell work is to see that my boys are cured in my lifetime. It’s a quest that pulled me out of a serious bout of depression. Depression has been my bete noire.”
“I’m so sorry to hear about your boys,” Pia offered.
“I’m not telling you this to elicit any sympathy. I’m telling you this so that you understand me better. I have never ever agreed to mentor anyone, and it is not just because my Asperger’s puts me at a social disadvantage. I feel I don’t have the time for other people’s nonsense, and this includes Ph.D. students as well as medical students. You were a first. I thought your foster care experience would make you thrive in the lonely pursuit of science and that you should have been given a chance.”