Mirrors (19 page)

In the silence,
my stomach rumbled in protest of missing lunch and dinner. Heeding the call, I went to the kitchen and served myself a heaping plate of lasagna, but I consumed it in perfunctory fashion for my thoughts dwelled on how to break into Bhanjee’s home.

From my satchel, I retrieved the address Bhanjee’s lab partner had given me. Tucking it into my pocket, I peeked into the bedroom and saw that Eve had fallen asleep, the sheet over her belly rising and falling with each breath. Down the hall, her father had retired also, allowing me to leave unnoticed.

Fearing the security detail now had an eye on both of our vehicles, I slipped out the dining room window into the alley and snuck into Bethesda’s commercial center. A car rental agency maintained a small fleet there that I reached just as its staff prepared to shutter for the night.

After renting a car, I made my way through Bethesda to I-270 north. I followed the freeway out of town, passing the exit Flagstaff, Bird, and I had taken the day before to meet with Charles E. Oxford at
BioVironics
. Beyond the exit, the freeway climbed a hill atop which a moonlit Sugarloaf Mountain came into view in the distance. After making a long, steady descent, I left the freeway for a quiet road that cut between housing developments so new bulldozers and backhoes still lingered in the shadows.

Three traffic lights later, I turned into an area I recognized from an outing Eve and I had taken two weeks earlier when we spent a Saturday morning picking blueberries at a farm. The region was a curious blend of rural and urban, its pastures surrounded by expanding suburbs. I passed a park rimmed by cornfields before coming to my destination,
Wayland Drive
, a freshly paved road that led to a condominium complex.

I stopped the car in a space reserved for visitors and inspected the buildings before me. They formed a “U” about the parking lot, each four floors and rimmed with spacious balconies. A single entrance served as a portal for each complex, and I entered the one where Bhanjee lived. Inside, I came to a lobby with rows of mailboxes, one of which, to my relief, had a card reading
G. Bhanjee
over the number
325
.

I climbed the stairs to the third floor and stopped before door
325
. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was 11:25 p.m. I tapped the door softly and stepped back. No one answered. Placing my ear to the door, I listened for sounds inside; none ensued. Knocking harder, I waited again. A neighbor’s door opened.

“Bit late, isn’t it?” a woman’s voice said. I approached her door but could see only part of her face through the crack. A security chain obscured her nose altogether.

“I’m looking for Giva Bhanjee,” I said.

“At this hour?”

“It’s critical.” Even though I knew Bhanjee wouldn’t be there, I felt compelled to find out what it was that had been left in her home that was so “horrible” she fled the country.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“An acquaintance; I met her last night.”

She eyed me warily, narrowing the gap when I inched closer.

“Please, I need your help,” I insisted.

“With
what
?”

“I need to find Giva. I was told she didn’t show up for work today.”

“Who told you that?”

“A colleague of hers at work.”

The gap widened, allowing me to view a lock of brown hair and a set of hazel eyes.

“I
knew
I should have checked on her this morning,” the woman said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because, we almost always leave for work at the same time, yet I didn’t see her today.”

“Do you know her well?”

“We’ve walked together almost every weekend for the past two years.”

“Did you call her after not seeing her this morning?”

“Yes, but she didn’t answer.”

“Have you noticed anything unusual around here the past few days—visitors, deliveries, suspicious cars?”

She ran her eyes over me.

“Other than me. I promise, I’m trying to help her.”

The door closed. A moment later, I heard the sound of a clinking chain reverse. The door opened. A middle-aged woman in a nightgown appeared, one hand on the door as if ready to shut it at any time.

“It’s odd,” she said, “but I heard sounds coming from under Giva’s door around 11 p.m. last night after I returned from walking the dog. It’s not like Giva to be up at that hour. She goes to bed early.”

“She asked to see me last night at midnight,” I replied. “That was probably her leaving for our meeting.”

“You keep late hours, don’t you?”

“This was at her request.”

She seemed disarmed now, stepping into the hallway, a petite woman.

“Can you do me a favor?” I asked.

“What?”

“Let me into Giva’s condo. Do you have a key?”

Another once-over, more intense than before. “It wouldn’t be right,” she said.

“Please, trust me, it’s crucial. Giva told me her boyfriend’s ill, and I want to help him.”

“Minal Chandrapur?” she gasped.

“You know him?”

“Of course! What’s wrong with him?”

“He may be dying.”

“God, no!” she cried, loud enough to look both ways for neighbors.

“Please, open her door for me.”

She peered at me before stepping into her home without closing the door. After disappearing for a moment, she returned. “
You
open it,” she said, handing me a key.

I took it and unlocked the door. “Giva?” I called from the entryway.

Hearing nothing, I stepped into a studio apartment—kitchen right, bathroom left, living room-bedroom ahead.

“She and Chandrapur were planning to get a bigger place after marrying.”

I turned abruptly, unaware the petite woman had accompanied me. “I didn’t think you were coming,” I said.

“I changed my mind.”

I switched on a light. “How do things look to you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Something’s wrong.”

“What?”

Cowering, she went to the kitchen and pointed to the dish rack. “No cereal bowl, which means she skipped breakfast this morning. She dries her bowl there every day.” She looked across the room and then pointed. “And what’s that?”

I followed her around a small table with two chairs that constituted the dining room. An un-smoked cigarette lay on the floor beside the table.

“Giva doesn’t smoke!” She grasped my arm.

“Then, whose—”

“I don’t know!” she cried, her eyes zeroing in on the bed. “And
that’s
strange! The way the bed’s made; Giva doesn’t do it that way.”

“Stay put,” I told her.

I went to the bed and examined it. The bedspread had been pulled neatly over the pillows although there appeared to be a small object pushing the bedspread up over one of the pillows.

“Giva folds the bedspread back,” my shadow said, peering over my shoulder.

Beside the bed, leaning against the wall, was a decorative cane that I used to lift the bedspread. Peeling it back, I saw a small mirror fall and slip along the pillow onto the mattress.

“What the hell?” I asked. I shuddered as I recalled the words of the sticky in Kosta’s copy of
Theogony
:
Follow the mirrors
.

I saw a reflection in the mirror of something move under the bedspread. Lifting it further, several handsome, bluish-green spiders came into view. They had large bodies, over an inch wide, although my view of them was fleeting given their rapid retreat.

“Did you see that?” I asked with disbelief.

“See what?” my partner replied.

“Those spiders!”

“Oh, God, I’m outta here!” She ran out the door.

I dropped the cane and stepped back, aghast by the discovery of the spiders and mirror.

Trembling, I went to the kitchen, emptied a large glass jar holding rice in it, and returned to the bed where I flicked on a bedside lamp for better viewing. Using the cane again, I lifted the bedspread and pulled it back until the first spider emerged. I lowered the jar over it and pressed the rim to the bed to snare the creature without harming it. Slipping a sheet of paper under the rim, I quickly turned the jar upright and screwed on the lid. With the spider captive, I held the jar up and peered at its contents. Save for tarantulas, it was the largest spider I’d seen, larger than the wolf spiders we had in Wisconsin. Two features struck me: the crab-like motion—as I held the jar up, the spider scurried sideways and then backwards, much as crabs do on sand when confronted—and the blend of blue-green hues.

I lowered the jar to get another view, recalling the anatomy of invertebrates. I recognized the spider’s two sections—cephalothorax and abdomen, the two connected by a thin waist, or pedicel. Given its size, even the smallest parts were discernible, including the finger-like spinnerets that secreted silk. But it was the mouthparts that drew my attention, for the jaws and fangs were enormous, sword-like extensions.

Lifting the jar to see the spider’s underside, a bright flicker along the bedside table diverted my eyes. Angling the jar back and forth, I soon realized the flicker came from lamplight reflecting off a series of plates along the underside of the spider’s thorax.

Just then, Bhanjee’s neighbor reappeared, her eyes wild.

“I called the police!” she announced.

“
Why
?”

“Because this is a crime scene—spiders in Giva’s bed!”

I bolted for the door.

“No!” she cried. “You need to stay!”

“Can’t!”

“Tell me your name!” she called.

From the stairwell, I shouted, “Oscar Fields!”

I raced down the stairs and sped away in my car, driving the first half mile without lights to preserve my anonymity. When I reached the thoroughfare leading to the freeway, I saw the flashing lights of a wailing police car rushing the opposite way.

“
Damn
!” I whispered, fearing Bhanjee’s neighbor had recorded my license plate.

It was close
to 2 a.m. by the time I returned the rental car and made my way home after visiting Bhanjee’s condo, and I tiptoed through the house to confirm that both Eve and her father were asleep. Relieved to have time to myself, I stored the jar with the spider in a secure spot and poured myself some rum.

The alcohol numbed my nerves as my thoughts returned to the Frank Grainger—Anton Manovic nexus. I poured more rum and, navigating the haze of drink, recollected my initial encounter with Grainger …

Before entering his room at the hospital in Las Vegas two and a half years earlier, I had reviewed his chart and learned he was in his thirties and was pursuing a PhD in biochemistry at the University of Nevada in Reno.

“You must be the hematologist,” he said as I approached his bed. “The surgeons said you’d be coming.”

I eyed his swollen thigh that lay above the sheets.

“Yes, I wanted to hear about the bleeding that killed your colleague in Madagascar.”

“Nothing
you
can do about it,” he said.

“Nonetheless, I’d like to hear why you think a substance in the bark may have caused the bleeding.”

“Not
may have
… definitely did.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Why else would a perfectly healthy man in his twenties bleed to death within an hour after being lacerated—bleeding not just from his wound, but from every orifice in his body?”

“Did he have a history of easy bleeding?”

“No.”

“Was he taking any medications that might induce bleeding?”

“None.”

“What about alcohol? Was he a drinker?”

“Not a chance; he was a devout Mormon.”

“Strange,” I said, shaking my head.

“No, it’s simple: a toxin in the bark caused the bleeding.”

“What toxin would that be?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. That’s why I brought some bark back with me.” He reached for a container that held the bark packed inside two plastic bags. It was a foot long and had sharp ridges, miniature blades almost. “You can see how this would cut someone.” He fingered a ridge gingerly.

“Could I show that to my colleagues?” I asked.

He coveted the bark as a mother would a newborn. “I don’t know; I don’t want to lose it.”

“I’ll return it, I promise.”

“You gotta understand, I went through hell to bring this back—limping through forests, hiding it in luggage, smuggling it through customs.”

“I appreciate that, but we might be able to provide you with some ideas of toxins to look for.”

“
I’ve
got ideas!” he shot back. “I work with poisons from venomous creatures for my doctorate.”

“That’s not a creature; it’s bark.”

He grimaced, exposing his teeth like a growling dog. “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch, just like all doctors.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to question your abilities. I’m sure you’re more than capable of analyzing the bark.”

“Damn right I am.”

I pointed to his thigh. “That’s a nasty wound there, one the surgeons think may have turned into ‘compartment syndrome’, a condition—”

“I know what compartment syndrome is!” he lashed out. “It results from trauma and entails a buildup of pressure within a wound to the point that blood flow stops. Tissues begin to die from lack of oxygen. If the swelling advances, it can compromise blood flow to the rest of the limb.” He snarled. “Why do you think I came to the hospital?”

“You’re well-versed, I see.”

“No, it’s just that you doctors think you’re the only ones who know these things, so you talk
down
to people. You’re cut-throat sons of bitches molded to act that way. I learned that in college when I was a pre-med.”

“You were thinking of becoming a physician?”

“They chose not to take me.”

“So you pursued a PhD.”

He nodded.

“I used to dissect snakes I found as road kill,” I said.

“Like I said, you doctors know
everything
.”

“Not I.”

He searched me as if to see whether I was being sincere. “Well, Madagascar is a haven for snakes.”

“I’m sure.”

I glanced at my watch.

“Am I boring you?” he asked.

“Not at all, but I have other patients to see.” I pointed to the bark. “Are you sure you wouldn’t allow me to show that to my colleagues?”

He wrinkled his brow. “I have your word you’ll return it?”

“You do.”

“For what that’s worth,” he replied.

He set the bark in the container, sealed it, and handed it to me. “You’ll find yourself in big trouble if I don’t get that back.”

With nerves pickled
by rum, I slipped into the bedroom, donned pajamas, and snuggled up to Eve whose heavy breathing told me she was fast asleep. I kissed her forehead and turned to my side, but something was awry: a foreign presence pervaded the room, one conveyed through gyrating air currents, radiating body heat, and a sense that spaces normally free were filled. I shut my eyes and listened intently, hearing the sound of a door open.

Bolting upright, I turned on the lamp to find the dark hole of a silencer pointed at me from across the room. The masked man who held the weapon straddled the doorway of our walk-in closet, waving the gun for me to stand. As I did, he issued another command, this one to extinguish the lamp. I reached for the switch, but before turning it, stole a glance at Eve who remained asleep.

I stepped around the bed and felt a cold cylinder press against my neck. It shifted when we reached the hallway, jabbing me in the back as I marched toward the living room. When my left side suddenly felt the barrel, I knew to turn right, stopping only when I reached a window in the dining room.

“Open it!” a voice whispered.

I scolded myself for leaving the window unlocked after meeting Bhanjee the night before.

“Jump and wait for me. I’ll kill you if you try anything stupid.”

I maneuvered my way out with my captor close behind.

We walked the alley in tandem to the street where we stopped. Circling me with the gun, he looked about before waving me on. After traversing a block, I felt a tap on my back. Turning, I found a man of medium build dressed in leather trousers, coat, and boots. With his mask off, he revealed himself to be the visiting scientist I met in Ecuador.

“How should I address you?” I asked. “As Frank Grainger or Anton Manovic?”

“Good, you made the connection.” He spoke without an accent, a sea change from the Slavic pronunciation he voiced in Ecuador.

“Your tattoo betrayed you,” I said.

“Get in,” he ordered, pointing to a white van.

I sat across from him with the gun pointed at me.

“Are you a voyeur or a burglar, hiding in the closet as you did?”

He waved the gun at me. “You haven’t changed, I see—just as arrogant as in Las Vegas.”

“Did you break into Giva Bhanjee’s condo, too?”

“Who are you, Sherlock Holmes?”

“Answer this, then: Who altered your appearance?”

He glanced into the mirror. “Ah, the miracles of plastic surgery; I even had my vocal chords adjusted.”

“A violation of the body.”

He pulled the trigger, shattering the window beside me.

“What are you
doing
?” I cried.

“The next one won’t miss.”

He shifted the gun to his left hand and held up his right. “What hand is this?”

“Right,” I replied, my heart heaving.

Turning the mirror toward me, he held the hand up again, asking, “Which hand does it appear to be in the mirror?”

“Left,” I replied.

“Yes, mirror images.” He started the van. “Remember that.”

As he prepared to drive, I glanced at his leg. Between hem and boot, I saw a titanium rod.

“A prosthesis,” I observed.

“Yes, because of a below-the-knee amputation due to compartment syndrome.”

“You may not have needed that if you’d stayed at my hospital; instead, you left against medical advice.”

“Because of the demeaning way you doctors treated me there.”

“Where did you go?”

“Elsewhere where they were more polite.”

We drove through desolate streets.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

“Why did you poison the shrimp?”

He pointed to the mirror which was still directed toward me. “Can you see yourself?”

I squinted. “Yes.”

“Mirrors have much to teach you.”

“You’re obsessed with them. You planted one in Kosta’s boat and in Bhanjee’s bed. Are there others I missed?”

He said nothing.

We entered Washington, D.C. which, at that hour, had traffic lights flashing yellow.

“Who gave you permission to work with XK59 at
BioVironics
?” I asked.

“No one.”

“Where did you get the protein?”

He sneered.

“We found XK59 in Zot but he didn’t bleed,” I informed him.

“Because spider venom doesn’t work that way.”

“Forget spiders!”

“You know
nothing
!” he shouted.

After driving in silence, we approached an intersection that required him to place both hands on the wheel. As we rounded a corner, I released my belt and lunged for the weapon.

He hit the brakes which sent me flying forward.

“You want to die?” he shouted as I collected myself from the floor.

“Isn’t that what you have in store for me?” I replied. “After all, you killed my partner in Ecuador and my best friend, Danny Rogers!”

He accelerated and once again slammed the brakes before I could refasten my belt, sending me lashing against the dash. As I slumped to the floor, I felt something strike the side of my head.

Darkness befell me.

The cement floor
on which I lay was inhospitable to a throbbing head and sore neck. In my stupor, I found myself under a portico, its immaculate plaster ceiling holding a dazzling chandelier. The morning’s first rays shone between columns of the porch, while above me, a brass knob gleamed from a tall oak door.

When I sat up, I winced from a pain in my upper arm just below the shoulder. Raising my pajama sleeve, I noticed a red dot that resembled an injection mark. I shuddered at the prospect that a needle had pierced my skin. Chandrapur’s decent toward death came to mind and I wondered whether I might die, too, at the hands of the protein I had discovered.

Looking about, I saw a stairway descend from the porch to a cobblestone street where a red sports car was parked. I cleared my eyes for a second look, confirming it to be the same flaming F430 Spider Ferrari I saw the day before at Kosta’s home in Annapolis. Beyond the car, a pair of trolley tracks lay in disrepair. A passing car swayed from side to side as its tires slipped from tracks to stones and back again. At the end of the block, a bus traversed a busy intersection. The entire area had a familiar look to it, and when I peered at the street signs, I saw ones indicating 35th and P Streets, N.W. in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown district.

With the sun on the rise, I heard the front door open. A tall, sleek woman with icy blue eyes and fair skin stood in the entry. “Dr. Krispix!” she exclaimed.

I nodded.

Sigrid Bjornstad narrowed her eyes. “Why are you in your—”

She pulled her bathrobe tighter.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“At Congressman Nick Kosta’s home.”

“Why are
you
here?” I asked, coming to my senses.

“I’m his guest.”

As if on cue, the Congressman appeared, gaunt and weak. He grasped the door for support. “By God,” he said, “you’re the doctor Glenn Bird brought to Capitol Hill.”

“Yes, Jason Krispix,” Bjornstad noted.

Kosta held his gaze on me. With sunlight streaming through the doorway, he shielded his eyes, yet in the shadow under his brows, he exhibited a subtle yet undeniable side-to-side oscillation of the eyeballs.

“You’ve bled from your head!” Kosta said with concern. “Should I call an ambulance?”

I ran my fingers over my temple where Grainger had struck me. I felt clots but there appeared to be no active bleeding. After considering the pros and cons of going to an emergency room, I said, “Let me be for a bit.”