The Magic Bullet (12 page)

Sabrina shook her head. “This is truly a disgraceful thing about you Americans”—then, worried that she might be offending him, “I don’t mean this in a bad way.”

He couldn’t keep from laughing. “I can see that.”

“Anyway, my English is not so perfect also.”

“Just drop it, Sabrina, you’re in too deep.’

“Anyway,” she added, her green eyes luminous, “this is why I went into medicine—the fun of the hunt.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it.”

“And you?”

He thought a moment. “The same. But I guess I’d also have to tell you about my father.”

“He is a doctor also?”

He shook his head. “He owns a stationery store.”

“He wanted for you to be a doctor? This was his dream for you?”

“Actually, what he mainly wants is for me to make a lot of money. I speak with my family every few weeks. He never fails to remind me that I’m not.”

She laughed. “This story has no connection.”

“He was someone who could’ve done just about anything. He was smart enough. Only, his father died when he was in high school and he had to help out the family. So he got a job, and never really got back on track.” He shrugged. “That’s it, nothing dramatic. A lot of people have the same story.”

“I am sure he is proud of you.”

Logan managed a pained smile. “Actually, no. He resents me.” He paused, feeling terribly awkward; he’d probably told this woman too much already. All this wimpy self-revelatory stuff would only scare her off. “Do you play any sports yourself?”

She noted the change of subject and respected it. “In Italy, in the high school, I ran. The four hundred and the eight hundred meters. But now I do not even walk fast.”

“Well”—he hesitated—“maybe one day we could go out and throw a ball around.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He glanced at his watch and reluctantly he rose to his feet. “Will you be all right here? I’m afraid I have an early flight to New York tomorrow.”

“Why New York?”

“That’s where I did my internship and residency. At Claremont Hospital.”

“Ah, and you maybe have a friend there?”

Incredibly—or was it just his hopeful imagination?—Logan thought he detected a note of jealousy. “Well, yeah. That’s one of the reasons I’m going up … he’s getting divorced.”

“Ah,” she said, her tone betraying nothing. “You are a good friend.”

He smiled. “Nah. Just a guy looking for an excuse to get away from the ACF for a day. But this lets me rack up a few good-guy points.”

“Well”—she rose to her feet and extended a hand—“I am pleased to know you at last. You seem to me like not such a bad guy after all.”

Her smile was so disarming, Logan entirely missed the faintness of the praise. “Thank you, Sabrina. That’s nice of you to say.”

C
atching the 8:00
A.M
. shuttle out of National Airport, Logan made it into midtown Manhattan before 10:00. Not scheduled to meet Perez till half past twelve—his only appointment—he viewed the day before him as an almost sinful indulgence, and he was determined to take full advantage. He had the cab drop him off at the Metropolitan Museum, and spent the next hour in his favorite sections—Egyptian art and medieval armaments; then headed over to another old haunt, the small, quirky Museum of the City of New York, with its current exhibit on New York sports history. Hurrying down to Fifty-ninth Street, he still had a little time to wander through F.A.O. Schwarz, examining new toys and gadgets that struck his fancy.

Ruben Perez was on time, waiting across the street, in front of the Plaza. As Logan approached he held up a deli bag.

“I figured we’d eat in the park.”

“Some things never change.” Logan grinned as they shook hands. “Why do I keep imagining you have class?”

“Hey, not all of us make doctors’ dough.”

“
I
don’t make doctors’ dough. I’m at the ACF, remember?”

“That’s why I didn’t suggest a restaurant. Didn’t want to embarrass you.”

Having established nothing had changed between them, they began almost instantly comparing notes on their respective institutions.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” said Logan, as they walked toward Central Park, “but a lot of people’d say the
ACF’s as bad a work environment as Claremont. Maybe even worse.”

“I had the impression you liked the place.”

“I do, personally. But I’m a scientist, I’m giving you objective data.”

His friend shook his head vigorously. “Oh, c’mon, man. You
forget
what Claremont was like. Assholetown, U.S.A.”

“I’m telling you, some of these guys at the ACF are just unbelievable bullies. Cross ‘em, even by accident, and you can kiss your career good-bye.”

“So how you handling it?” Perez took a seat on an empty bench.

The simple question seemed to hit a raw nerve. “There’s no
handling
it. You just work hard and try like hell to stay out of harm’s way.”

“Right.”

“Problem is, you get known as a kiss-ass for the trouble. What the hell am I supposed to do, do crappy work?
That
makes me a hero?”

His friend was taken aback by Logan’s intensity. “Hey, man, I’m not accusing you of sucking up to anyone. Sounds like they’re working you
too
hard down there.” He patted the bench. “Sit down.”

Logan did so. “Sorry. I only wish the work came without all the other crap.”

“Dream on, pal. Just don’t get me worried about your mental state. I got my hands full worrying about my own.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“How’d we even get started on
your
problems? I mean, it’s so typical.”

Logan couldn’t help but smile. “Fine. Your turn.” He extended his hand. “Give me my sandwich and talk to me.”

But as Perez launched into his story, the tenor of the encounter quickly changed. In fact, his impending divorce was far messier than Logan had realized. It seemed his estranged wife was drinking heavily. Increasingly bitter, she’d been denying him access to their young daughter. He’d
begun to feel he had no alternative but to consider a custody fight.

Having zero firsthand experience with such a nightmarish scenario, knowing nothing about the emotional needs of children beyond what he’d picked up in a month-long mental-health course he’d had to take as a medical student, Logan understood he was in no position to offer advice. He mainly listened. But this seemed to be fine with Perez.

“It’s so damn hard,” he softly concluded. “Just because I want out, everyone thinks I’m the bad guy.” He stopped and brushed a sleeve over suddenly damp eyes.

Awkwardly, Logan threw an arm over his friend’s shoulder. “You know I’ll do everything I can.” He’d almost forgotten—perhaps only now fully grasped—the depth of his feelings for this man.

“I mean, no one knows what really goes on inside a family. How people treat each other. I’m trying to save my kid, man. I’m working three extra shifts a week just to finance this.”

Looking to ease the tension, Logan went for a laugh. “Eighteen more hours a week at Claremont? Now,
that’s
depressing.”

He was immediately sorry. But, typically, Perez offered him a smile. “I know, man. You ain’t kidding.”

Half an hour later, as Perez hurried off in the general direction of Claremont Hospital, Logan found himself at a loss. What to do now? He tended to see life as a series of firm commitments and he’d set aside this as a leisurely day of R and R. Still, the idea of spending the afternoon alone suddenly seemed immensely less appealing.

He considered heading home immediately. As always, there was work to be done. Patients who’d be delighted to see him. Slides to study in the Screening Clinic. Data to be input into the computer system—including Tilley’s, which, in his preoccupation with their significance the night before, he’d neglected to enter.

Doggedly, Logan headed off to the movies, where he
spent the rest of the afternoon. Afterward, feeling better, he decided to stay for dinner at his favorite Thai restaurant. Needing something to read, he made it over to the bookstore at Sloan-Kettering just before closing and picked up the latest edition of Vincent DeVita’s authoritative
Principles and Practice of Oncology
.

He found the book so absorbing that it was only after ordering coffee that he thought to call in and check his messages.

The first several were routine: a hospital secretary with word of a protocol patient who’d checked back in; an old college friend planning to be in Washington over Christmas. But the third caught him entirely by surprise.

“Hello, Dr. Logan. Or perhaps I now know you well enough to say Danny? Anyway, never mind. This is Sabrina Como calling and I am eager to talk with you as soon as possible. I think I have found something important. So if you will please call me as soon as you can. (703) 555-4103. Ciaò.”

Logan checked his watch—it was eight-sixteen. Hurriedly dialing Sabrina’s number, he got her machine and left a message: he was hoping to make the nine o’clock shuttle. He’d try her again when he reached home.

It wasn’t until he was in the cab, speeding toward the airport, that he realized he’d left his book on the table.

S
abrina was waiting for him at the gate.

Even if he’d expected her, it might’ve taken him an instant to recognize her. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail; instead of one of the stylish suits to which he’d grown accustomed, she wore jeans and a sweatshirt.

He stood there, stunned, suddenly aware that his heart was racing.

“I hope there is no one else to meet you,” she said simply.

“No. I was going to take a cab.”

“I have brought my car.” She hesitated, seemingly embarrassed by her own brazenness. “Perhaps I should not have come. But I have some news.”

“What kind of news?”

“Today was my day of not working.…”

“Your day off?”

They started walking.

She nodded. “And so I went to the library. I want to show you what I have found.”

“The library’s closed, Sabrina.”

“The references are on the computer at my home. If it is not too late …?”

As they headed toward the parking garage, she began telling the story of her discovery: how, poring over documents in the archives all morning long and well into the afternoon—reports and articles and internal memos, in French, Italian, German, and Dutch—she’d come upon an editorial in a vintage German chemicals periodical called
Angewandte Chemie
on what appeared to be a fairly close relative of Compound J.

“What’s the name of this compound?” he asked.

“They do not give the name. But they talk about the structure. And they talk of polynaphthalene sulfonic acids, as in Compound J.”

“And …?”

“And what it says in this paper is
tremendous
interesting.”

Sabrina switched on the light. Glancing around the small apartment, Logan couldn’t help but note how clearly it mirrored Sabrina’s personality—no-nonsense yet quietly tasteful; such a vivid contrast with his own place, still barely furnished after all these months.

She walked over to her computer and switched it on. “This paper was published in 1924.”

“Nineteen twenty-four?” He could scarcely believe it; she was bringing him back to the Dark Ages. Back then almost no one had even the vaguest understanding of the nature of cancer. But he kept his skepticism in check. “What exactly does it say?”

Sabrina inserted the disc and soon the screen was filled with text.

“You told me you speak some German, no?”

In fact, he didn’t know it quite as well as he’d led her to believe. Logan pulled up a chair and, leaning close, set about trying decipher it. It took formidable powers of concentration not to be distracted by Sabrina sitting a few feet away on the floor, eyes incredibly alive with anticipation.

What instantly struck him about the brief article was its tone. Written in the aftermath of the German defeat in World War I and the devastating inflation that followed, its aim was apparently not scientific at all, but political. Its point was that Germany’s scientists, for all their lack of financial resources, remained vastly superior to their detested counterparts in England and France. The mention of
the compound—“the work of a researcher from the former laboratory of the great Paul Ehrlich”—was very much secondary; its alleged cancer-fighting properties were merely cited, without substantiation, as another example of German brilliance. “May this work continue to prosper,” it loftily concluded. “May these compounds always be a credit to German science!”

Logan turned from the screen. “I don’t know, Sabrina. There are claims made here, but there’s not even a shred of evidence.”

“Don’t you see, Dan, they talk of cancer! This is important.”

He shook his head slowly. “It’s so little to go on.”

“It is a clue. I was looking for clues.”

“I know. But”—he hesitated—“I’ve got to tell you, it’s hard to imagine those people would even have recognized an anticancer agent.”

Unexpectedly, she flashed sharp irritation. “You are very arrogant, Logan, for an American living in the 1990s.”

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “I’d like to believe, but I just don’t. Anyway, Compound J has already been eliminated as an anticancer agent by cell line tests.”

Such tests, in which drugs are tried against malignant cell growths in petri dishes, are a shorthand method of determining which compounds merit further trials. There exist cell lines for many cancers: this compound had failed against them all.

“A cell line is not human,” she said heatedly. “A human being, a human environment, how cancer cells interact with healthy cells, these things cannot be seen in a test tube.”

She was right and he knew it. “Still …”

“It is a pity you do not know French,” she added sharply.

“Why is that?”

But she was already calling up another document on
the screen. This one was longer, three or four pages. “This is from the Pasteur Institute in Paris. You maybe have respect for them?”

He peered at the screen. Though he spoke scarcely a word of French, what he was after was the date. There it was: 1937. “What does it say?”