"You're the best they've got."
"Maybe that's the problem." Chris wiped the tears from her face and kissed her. Then he took his insulin shot, got dressed, and left.
Darby Pharms was located in a small complex of buildings fashioned in a red brick Tudor motif. The original building was once a private residence that had since been expanded over the years as the company grew to sixty employees, creating a series of buildings handsomely landscaped to look like a small English village.
At 8:20 Chris pulled into his slot. In the Executive area sat two cars: Ross Darby's big black Mercedes sedan and Quentin's gray 450 SL Coupe. The colors of power and wannabe power.
Chris went inside. The interior was eerily quiet, as if holding its breath. He could sense the tension from the foyer. He cut through the maze of offices. Quentin was at the door of Ross's office suite holding a coffee mug. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and looked as if he'd been up all night.
"Have a seat," Darby said as Chris entered. He was also casually dressed-a blue shirt and black V-neck sweater. His face looked ashen and haggard. From their grim appearances, Chris was certain that this was his dismissal.
Quentin began. "Chris, we called you in because, quite frankly, we have something of a problem with your work here. You have been with us for fifteen years, and in those fifteen years we counted on you-"
Chris cut him off. "Quentin, if you're firing me, please just say it and save us a lot of trouble."
Quentin's face filled with blood. "I don't like your attitude."
"And I don't like you calling me at seven o'clock on Saturday morning without explanation."
"It's about your mice," Quentin said.
"We've been through this already."
"I want Ross to hear."
Ross got up. It took him a moment to straighten up. He walked to the coffee machine, stretched a kink out of his lower lumbar, then poured himself another cup. In spite of chronic back problems, he looked good for a man over seventy. He was tall and still quite trim, and his face usually radiated with a rich, healthy luster-the product of regular games of tennis. It was easy to imagine the dashing young quarterback from Eureka. Today Ross Darby looked his age. They had probably been up for hours mulling over the terms of dismissal.
"Chris, I want to apologize for all the mystery, but I preferred to talk with you in person. Quentin told me what you said, but I'd like to hear it firsthand if you don't mind."
Chris liked Darby because he was classy at managing people. He always treated you with respect and patience, and never had to raise his voice. He made you feel that when you talked there was nothing else in the universe he wanted more to do than to listen. Unlike Quentin, he was never petty; if something bothered him, he never let on unless it was important. "As I explained, I tried to save us time by testing toxicity."
"We moved beyond animal testing over a year ago."
"I didn't want to see the animals die."
"So, for two years you played mouse doctor at our expense," Quentin said.
It was just like him to jawbone Chris about costs to impress Ross before announcing he was canned. When little men cast long shadows, you knew the sun was setting. "Yeah," Chris said.
"That's horseshit."
"Quentin, get on with it," Darby said.
Quentin removed a packet of papers and handed it to Chris. "Look familiar?"
"An inventory of some sort?" Chris said.
"That's right, and you know of what?"
Darby cut in again. "Quentin, this isn't Perry Mason."
"It's an inventory of requisitions from your lab," Quentin continued. "And maybe you can explain a few items."
"Like what?"
"Like how over a five-year period from 1980 you placed orders for 582 exotic mutant mice at $170 each-five times the next most expensive mouse, I should add-for a grand total of $98,940. I called Jackson Labs and they told me that mus musculatus sextonis stock number JR 004134 is an albino mutant Amazonian agouti-whatever the hell that is-with a lifespan of eleven months. What we'd like to know is what the hell you were doing with $100,000 worth of short-lived mutant mice."
"I was doing life-cycle studies."
"Really? For nearly one fiftieth the price you could have gotten mice with twice the life span. What the hell was the rush?"
"You're the one who insisted we couldn't depend on raw stock and needed to find a synthesis."
"Uh-huh. Then what about these chemical orders? You purchased organics that have nothing to do with apricots or any other interests of this lab. Like on September 23 five years ago, eighteen liters of acetonitrile."
"It's a solvent for extracting the toxogen out of the apricot pits."
"Is that right? Well, my chemistry's a little rusty, so I checked. And everybody and his brother said that the solvent of choice is ethanol, not acetonitrile-which, as you well know, is used in organic procedures." He adjusted his glasses, feeling very clever. "Then in December '84, seventy-five grams of L-N5 iminoethyl ornithine, and three months later a total of twenty liters of hexamethylphosphamide. And before you try and fudge up another answer, I checked and, lo and behold, nobody has a fucking clue why you'd need such fancy organics. In fact, HMPA is a goddamn carcinogenic which, by the way, cost us two thousand dollars." He slapped down the inventory. "In fact, you've been ordering some rather strange materials ever since we sent you to Papua New Guinea back in 1980. You want to tell us just what the hell you've been doing in this lab for the last seven years while nobody was looking?"
They both stared at him for an explanation.
After a long moment, Chris said, "Nothing that matters." He got up to leave.
But Quentin continued. "Then what about that conference on neurology and gerontology at Yale last November? Two days you were supposedly taking as sick days?"
"You've been spying on me. I don't believe it."
"Believe it," Quentin said. "And believe it that misuse of company property and the misappropriation of funds is a criminal offense tantamount to stealing."
Chris moved to the door.
"Well, maybe this will tell me." Quentin was holding a black, bound ledger containing Chris's notes on the tabukari elixir and its effect on his animals all the way back to 1980. He had broken into locked files in Chris's office.
"And before you declare it's personal property, let me remind you of your contract which reads: 'All research material including equipment, animals, procedures, patents, inventions, discoveries, and notes are private property of Darby Pharmaceuticals.' Do I make myself clear?"
A photocopy of Chris's notes sat in front of Ross, who stared at Chris silently and without expression.
"And by the way," Quentin continued, his face all aglow, "that mouse that died horribly a few weeks ago? Well, I checked the files and found he was purchased over six years ago-I repeat, six years ago. Now, I don't know much about mice, but that struck me as unlikely, so I called Jackson and they confirmed that the original order of twenty such mice was placed in 1980. When I told them it was the same mouse, they said that was outright impossible because its life span was eleven months. There had to be some mistake because no mouse under the sun-no matter what breed or hybrid-lives six friggin' years."
They stared at him for an answer. "So what do you want?"
"What we want is for you to sit down and tell us all about your tabukari elixir."
7
"Am I being fired or not?"
They had read everything in his log. The entire medical history of his mice was in those notes, including Methuselah's-six years of secret employment at Darby. If they wanted to, he could be out the door and facing charges of grand larceny.
"Fired?" Ross Darby stood up and came around his desk. "If you've developed something that's multiplied the lifespan of mice, I want to know what it could do for humans. And I want you to find out. In fact, I'd like you to work on it full time."