Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy (28 page)

“Newcomers have been made sick from the faulty . . . Klees’zhoparaprophine,” George explained, receiving an unconscious nod of approval from Richler.

“Some of them have died,” Matt added. “I don’t know that they could manage wives and babies in addition to the masquerade . . . but I bet they had people who cared about them.”

Corigliano turned ashen. “I swear on my mother’s eyes, I had no idea! When you said ‘bad’ Stabilite before . . . I thought you meant counterfeit.”

“We meant bad, Max,” Matt said.

“Who was it you didn’t want to call in front of us?” Richler asked. “Another one of your distributors?”

Corigliano shook his head morosely. “No, I coulda finessed that. I have to—
had
—to call the Serovese Corporation.” With a humorless smile, he added, “That’s Serovese with an
S
not a
C
and an
E
not an
I
. Don’t ask me why, but that’s their little motto.”

“Not particularly revealing, is it?” observed George.

“What was so urgent you couldn’t make the call later?” Matt asked.

“I was supposed to confirm that the old outlets for . . . bad Stabilite . . . are out . . . that the new ones are in place.”

“Why the sudden changes of venue?”

“Not sudden. Been in the works for a while. I asked ’em—said they wanted to keep the product floating, difficult to track.”

Matt started breathing a little easier, and he saw George’s posture relax a bit too. They were sharing the same thought. That maybe—
maybe
—the investigation hadn’t been compromised after all; that maybe the Serovese Corporation’s strategy was a coincidence of timing.

“Who is your contact at this Serovese Corporation?” George prodded.

“I dunno. Different male voices give me my assignments. They call me at home. Designated times. Machine takes my messages when I report in.”

Matt frowned. “Again with the ‘I don’t know names’ routine. I’m sensing a depressing pattern here, George.”

George nodded. “Apparently the corporate philosophy starts at the top and works downward.” He turned to Max. “How were you first approached?”

“A thousand dollars anonymously appeared in the front seat of my car one day. In an envelope. With a note. If I was interested in more, I should be near a certain phone at a certain time . . .”

“And, of course, you were.”

“I meant to blow them off, but . . . once the money was in my hands, it was as good as spent . . .”

“Do you still have the note? Or the original envelope?”

“Didn’t want to chance it being discovered by my wife or kids so, uhh, no. I got rid of ’em.”

“. . . Naturally . . .”

“So you don’t know names,” Matt reiterated, “and you receive your instructions by phone. How do you get your supply of the drug?”

“There’s a—I guess you’d call it a processing plant in Inglewood. I show up at the door, I give a password, they make with a countersign, it’s all very ‘I Spy.’ Then someone I never see gives me the supplies. And I hand off the take from the previous sales.”

“Holding back your prearranged fee, of course.”

Corigliano nodded.

“Tell me something,” Matt said. “ ’Twixt thee and me. Ever skim off a little extra?”

“Thought about it, to tell you the truth. Then decided it wasn’t worth that kind of trouble. Not with these guys. You gotta remember, breaking into my car was their idea of a
friendly overture.”

“Honor among thieves,” observed George, getting an old saying right for a change.

“Uh huh,” agreed Matt ironically, and turned his attention back to the pathetic detail man. “Now, the location of this ‘processing plant’ . . . Where in Inglewood we talking?”

“Around the intersection of Centinela and West Florence.”

“That near the Inglewood Park Cemetery?”

“Yeah.”

“Apt,” said George.

“Why,” asked Richler, “did they pick you to deliver for them?”

“I was already in so deep. I’d—” He had clearly hoped to avoid this. “I was the one gave ’em the formula in the first place . . . They, uhh . . . said they wanted to get a head start on their profits and on serving the public with a reliable generic brand. They
did
say reliable.”

“Reliable,” Richler repeated. Then he asked slowly, “Do you know why Klees’zhoparaprophine has such a stiff customer price tag?”

Corigliano didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

“Because what we charge is only slightly more than it costs to make,” Richler continued, answering his own question. “There
is
no generic price tag. If there were one, it’d be what we’re charging. The drug is so morally ambiguous that my policy has been not to take any more of a profit than absolutely necessary to pay the bills and recoup the cost of supplies. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Max? This Serovese Corporation is using substitute ingredients. They’re not even copying, they’re
approximating.
That’s the only way they can sell cheaper. You can’t
do
that with this drug.”

“What did you mean,” George queried Max, “when you said the Serovese Corporation wanted to get a head start on their profits?”

“The Feds govern the life of a patent on any new medicine.” Corigliano sighed. “Patent can’t be held for more than seven years. After that, you have to make your research public.”

“Although we might hold ours for twelve,” Richler added. “If you can prove that a drug caters to a limited clientele and can only see a below-average financial return, you get an extended patent under what’s called the Orphan Drug Act.”

“Seven to twelve years of this garbage on the marketplace,” Matt marveled.

“Does this mean the Serovese Corporation is itself a legitimate manufacturer of generic drugs?” George wondered.

“Oh, please,” said Richler.

“Sounds like some kind of holding company to me,” Matt mused. “With that name, Serovese . . . maybe even a Mafia holding company. Am I warm, Max?”

Corigliano shrugged miserably.

“Let’s find out,” said George. “Mr. Corigliano, is it too late to call in your report without alerting them that something’s amiss?”

Max checked his watch. “Tough to know with an answering machine. And I’ve never been late before. But then again, the delay’s only ten, fifteen minutes.”

“Call them, then. Don’t give them any indication that you’ve been exposed. My partner and I will listen on an extension.”

“Only if it means I can cut some kind of a deal,” Max Corigliano insisted. It was his last card, and he intended to play it.

Matt shook his head and spoke under his breath, but audibly enough. “It’s always money. And they always try to bargain.”

Richler spoke in the soft, terrifying tones of a powerful man who is powerfully angry.

“Here’s
the deal, Max. You cooperate and I won’t press charges; you’re in enough trouble with state and federal law as it is. I’ll even do what I can, within reason, to see that your family keeps body and soul together, until they can function without you.” A beat. “You
don’t
cooperate, and what I put you through will make the Wrath of God seem like a paid vacation. Are we clear?”

Max placed the call with almost comic alacrity. As he’d described, there was nothing on the other end of the line but an answering machine, and at that, one whose outgoing message was so noncommittal it didn’t even identify itself. The call provided Matt and George with no new information, but at least it might have bought them some time. And they had the phone number.

When he hung up, Corigliano asked Sikes, “What now?”

And Sikes, trying not to enjoy his revenge too much, said, “I think we better read you your rights. Or whatever it is we do for a living.”

They led Max Corigliano, handcuffed, to their cruiser. Routinely putting a hand to the detail man’s head, George guided him into the backseat and closed the door.

Quietly, so as not to be heard by their prisoner through the windows, Matt said, “Nice bluff in there. ‘We have you on videotape.’ Very nice.”

“Not a lie, Matthew. We just don’t know how useful the tape will be. On the other hand, ‘The fingerprints on last month’s package’ . . .”

“Yeah, that was a lie.”

“Hardly necessary. Gelding the filly, if you ask me.”

“Gilding the lily. Couldn’t let you have all the fun.”

After a moment, George said, “It’s been an educational day, hasn’t it?”

Matt felt fine little droplets of water on his skin. He looked up. Drizzle landed in his eyes, and he squinted against the darkening sky. It had started to rain.

“It’s not over,” he said.

F
RIENDS DON
’
T STAY
angry with friends for very long. And the fact was, Emily would have to have done much worse than she had in order to lose the friendship of Jill Molaskey.

True enough, when Emily approached Jill between classes, the reception she got was a little frosty—to be expected, and Emily had geared herself up for it—but Jill didn’t take much convincing to believe that Emily was genuinely contrite. And when Emily told Jill what she had in mind, Jill even volunteered to be a co-conspirator.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Emily said.

“You didn’t,” Jill responded. “I offered. Besides, you’re gonna need all the help you can get.”

“. . . I got everybody that mad, huh?”

“Let me put it this way . . . I like you . . . and
I
wrote the note.”

“Good point.”

And with that, Jill and Emily set about approaching the other members of the gym club and also the club’s supervising teacher, Ms. McIntyre, who was immediately amenable to Emily’s idea. (But then, she rather suspected that if her faculty meeting had not caused her to be late the other day, the situation would not have deteriorated so badly in the first place.)

However, the clubmates remained somewhat cynical, which made Jill’s participation, as Jill had surmised, essential to overcoming their initial resistance as they were being corralled for a special session of the gym club. Same time: after final period; same place: the reconverted cafeteria.

The girls sat in a semicircle group, Emily among them and yet not quite. She sat at the end of the arc next to Jill, who served as a tacit buffer between her and the others.

Ms. McIntyre took her place in front of them, apologized for her previous day’s lateness, and made the announcement:

“We’re gathered here today because Emily has something to say to you all, and I think it might be worth hearing. Emily?”

Emily rose as Ms. McIntyre relinquished center stage. Her hearts were pounding with apprehension, and she felt the pressure of peer scrutiny on her back. When she turned to face them, their return gazes covered the limited range from neutral to surly. She took a deep breath and started to speak.

“It’s no big secret,” she began, “that the Emily Seven was a bust yesterday.”

There were a few indistinct mumbles of agreement, somewhere among them a clear-sounding, “You got
that
right . . .”

“So,” Emily continued, “I’m here today to present Emily Eight.”

The watching faces clouded over slightly—all but Jill, who winked encouragement at Emily.

“As in ‘Emily ate her words,’ ‘Emily ate her attitude,’ ‘Emily ate her pride’ ”—the clouds passed; smiles and even some appreciative laughter began to emerge—“and asked her friends to give her one more shot at this.”

“What do you say, girls?” Ms. McIntyre asked.

Joannie Delahanty, the redheaded girl who had tripped over the Emily Seven the day before, raised her hand. “What do
you
think, Ms. McIntyre?”

“I wasn’t here,” the willowy blond teacher replied. “I don’t mind offering my opinion, of course, but I think it’s your call.” She allowed that to sink in before adding, “I will say this much, though. You’ve just received a pretty mature proposal. What do you think would be a mature response?”

All faces turned toward Joannie. Being the most seriously offended, she had suddenly become holder of the swing vote.

Joannie thought about it. Then shrugged and said, “Oh, hell, why not?” And immediately slapped a hand to her mouth, belatedly realizing she had used a swearword in front of the teacher. But the immediate laughter from the clubmates and the release of tension made it all forgivable. “Just don’t make a habit of it,” Ms. McIntyre said, joining in the laughter, and all attention went to Emily again as it subsided.

“Thanks, Joannie,” said Emily. And, addressing the assemblage at large, “Now, I didn’t really get a chance to rework it. I thought maybe if I started with the basic moves, you could help me modify it, all of you—so that it becomes something we
all
can do.”

“Do you mind if she goes through it once more, girls?” Ms. McIntyre asked. “I’d like to see it myself.”

Again, general consent . . . and Emily did her thing.

She crossed to the right wall, leaned against one of the huge doors behind which a lunch table was stored and then she took a single hop, bounded up several feet, landed

Thump,

deep bending at the knees, arms up, uncoiling like a spring, arms at the side now, pirouetting full in midair, landing,

Thump,

kick starting a forward tumble,

de,

landing on her hands,

thump,

bending at the elbows, uncoiling again, pushing herself into the air, somersaulting backward until she was again erect and landing,

Ka-flump!

with a flourish, arms outflung, breathing hard.

She stole a look at Ms. McIntyre, whose mouth was open in quiet astonishment.

“Well, my goodness, Emily,” was all she could say—at first.

“See, Ms. McIntyre?” said Mei-Mei Harada. “I appreciate Emily’s apology, but how are we going to make
that
into something we can do?”

Emily watched Ms. McIntyre’s face nervously. It was clear from her expression that the Emily Seven was of a
much
more advanced order than perhaps even
she
could do.

And then the gym teacher’s face changed. It was a small moment, of no dramatic import—her mouth closed, she huffed air briefly out of her nose and half-lidded her eyes—but Emily would remember it for the rest of her life. Because she knew in that moment that Ms. McIntyre had quickly analyzed a thorny situation and discovered how to turn a liability into an advantage. And Emily marveled that such things were possible.