He had still not focused on the loss of his only son. He was sort of hoping he'd get some kind of emotional reaction, maybe even cry, so his faltering opinion of himself wouldn't take another direct hit. So far, he felt nothing. Of course, he told himself, he barely knew his son. Mike had been a love child with a beautiful but vapid model named Tova Conte. She didn't want the baby because it's hard to screw Italian royalty with a kid sucking on the other tit. For almost six years, Buddy had legally avoided being Mike's father. Then Tova hired Gloria Allred. That evil cunt had chased him with papers until they made him give blood. His DNA had sealed his parental obligation. Mike had become his legally designated offspring, which meant Buddy now had to pay for boarding school and summer camp, while Tova traveled through Europe bone-dancing with her fop princes. His ex had eventually died in a speedboat accident off the coast of Cannes. It didn't even make USA Today.
After Mike had spent two abysmal years at Pepperdine, Buddy finally agreed to let him move into the pool house. It lasted for six months. They barely saw each other, because Buddy had been in production on Silver and Lead, which was ten million over budget after only three weeks of shooting. He was practically sleeping on the set. During that summer, Mike had crashed the Porsche on Mulholland, trashed all his front teeth in the accident, and been busted three times for possession. Soon there was a small tent city of vice cops with long lenses living in the hills behind the Malibu house because of Mike's drug parties. That surveillance had inevitably overlapped to Buddy, who was now also under police observation. Buddy explained to his son that he had to be more discreet, but Mike just told him to eat shit, a flavor Buddy had never acquired a taste for despite twenty years in Hollywood.
Buddy entered the county building and found the morgue on the third floor. He'd approved half a dozen morgue sets in his thirty or so movies. He always thought morgues should be low-lit dungeons with no sunlight. The theatrically dead needed low lighting and dank windowless privacy. This morgue was sunny and bright.
He stopped a woman doctor and told her he wanted to talk to somebody about a deceased: Michael Brazil.
"Are you here to view his body and make an identification?" she asked.
"Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm doing. An identification." He was now well off the cocaine train and seesawing into a miserable paranoid snap. His mood swings were getting bigger and wider; he knew he had to head for another detox before he began hitting psychological curbs instead of concrete ones.
Buddy waited in the brightly lit human chop shop while the woman went to summon the right person to help him. After a minute, a fifty-year-old heavy-set man came out of a door at the end of the hall. "I'm Dr. Rackovitch," the white-coated, gray-haired man said.
"I'd like to make an identification," Buddy said. "Michael Juan Brazil." He'd always hated the "Juan," sitting like an uneducated brazero in the middle of an otherwise acceptable name. Tova had put it there to honor her liberal leanings and Hispanic mother.
"I'm afraid that's not going to be possible," the doctor said. "We've been contacted by a doctor of biology at USC and warned of extenuating circumstances. The County Medical Examiner is coming over this evening to personally conduct the autopsy. The body is in bio-containment."
"What're you talking about, asswipe? What extenuating circumstances?" Buddy snapped.
"You won't get anywhere talking to me like that."
"You know who I am?" Buddy said, glowering at this bone-cutter, who was obviously such a schmendrick they'd only let him practice on dead people.
"I'm afraid who you are really isn't the point."
"I'm Buddy Brazilhe said, spitting it out. "Buddy Brazil? Movies? I wanna see my son's body. This is going to happen, so let's not shed blood over it." Buddy didn't really want to see Mike's body, but he hated anybody telling him he couldn't.
"It's not going to happen, Mr. Brazil. Leave, and in a day or so, we'll release the body to the next of kin. If that's you, fine."
Buddy moved to the payphone in the lobby, which was only a few feet behind him. "Okay, who gets me past you? Huh? Who's your scout leader?"
"Nobody gets you past me," Dr. Rackovitch said.
"That's not the way the world works, buster. Could the Governor of the State of California press your grapes?"
"We have reason to believe your son may have died of a highly contagious unknown fatal disease. You can call the Governor, the U. S. President, or the Crown Prince of Liechtenstein, but that body stays in quarantine until we find out what killed him."
"Is that supposed to be a joke? The fucking Crown Prince of Liechtenstein?" Buddy shrieked, thinking he remembered reading that Tova had actually gone out with the asshole. Why had this doctor mentioned that? Was it some kindai plot? Was this some crazy plan aimed at driving him nuts? Could the world be that small? Or was he just paranoid from all the drugs?
Chapter 18
They were on the no Freeway heading toward Pasadena. Wendell Kinney had been quiet ever since they transitioned off I-5. Stacy worried he was driving his green station wagon too fast. He was deep in thought, but his rumpled hair and personality still gave off their characteristic warmth. Finally, he pointed to a green off-ramp sign.
"There it is," he said, flipping on his blinker and pulling into the right lane. He shot up the off-ramp and came to a full stop before turning right onto Orange Grove Avenue, which she knew was the same manicured street that was seen by millions every New Year's Day as floats from the Rose Parade made their turns in front of banks of cameras at that exact corner.
"I've been running it over in my mind," Wendell finally said. "Everything you say, all the symptoms you witnessed, are almost exactly like Kuru, except magnified."
He was going slowly now, heading past cross streets looking for La Loma Road. Stacy had the Thomas Street Guide open on her lap as Wendell continued, "If Dexter DeMille was designing a Prion bio-weapon, he would have needed to shorten the incubation period to make it effective. We need to get a blood sample-more than one if we can-so we can isolate the components. We should get one from you too. You were at Vanishing Lake, so you were exposed."
She nodded. "If this bio-weapon is attacking proteins with DNA markers, that could explain why some people are getting it and others aren't. According to Max's e-mail, two prisoners were transferred to Vanishing Lake just before the fire. They perished in the blaze and nobody knows or will admit knowing why they were sent there. I've been checking into their backgrounds. One of the soldiers was named Troy Lee Williams. I did an Internet news article search when I got home last night and found some four-year-old stories about his trial. He raped and murdered a girl in Rosemont, California. I'm trying to get in touch with his family to investigate his genetic background. The other soldier was an African-American. There's got to be some reason Dr. DeMille chose them, if he did… Max's e-mail to me said they were about to do human testing."
Wendell furrowed his brow, but said nothing as he continued for several more blocks. "La Loma," he finally said, pointing at a street sign and turning right.
They headed down a steep hill. The houses were beautiful and getting larger and more imposing with every quarter mile they traveled. When they got to the bottom of the hill they saw the arroyo which carried water down from the Angeles Crest Mountains. They turned left, then right, and passed over an old concrete bridge that spanned the aqueduct. Once on the other side, they found themselves driving past beautiful old Pasadena mansions with imposing brick or concrete driveways and acres of rolling lawns, guarded by ornate wrought-iron fencing complete with gatehouses. They pulled up in front of the address that Stacy had in her hand and looked at a huge Spanish-style house sitting behind an eight-foot spiked iron fence.