The Third Twin (5 page)

As she drove to the hospital her mood changed. Since the fire broke out she had been focused on what she had to do: now she began to feel enraged. Lisa was a happy, garrulous woman, but the shock and horror of what had happened had turned her into a zombie, frightened to get into a police car on her own.

Driving along a shopping street, Jeannie started to look for the guy in the red cap, imagining that if she saw him she would swing the car up on the sidewalk and run him down. But in fact she would not recognize him. He must have taken off the bandanna and probably the hat too. What else had he been wearing? It shocked her to realize she could hardly remember. Some kind of T-shirt, she thought, with blue jeans or maybe shorts. Anyway, he might have changed his clothes by now, as she had.

In fact, it could be any tall white man on the street: that pizza delivery boy in the red coat; the bald guy walking to church with his wife, hymnbooks under their arms; the handsome bearded man carrying a guitar case; even the cop talking to a bum outside the liquor store. There was nothing Jeannie could do with her rage, and she gripped the steering wheel tighter until her knuckles turned white.

Santa Teresa was a big suburban hospital near the northern city limits. Jeannie left her car in the parking lot and found the emergency room. Lisa was already in bed, wearing a hospital gown and staring into space. A TV set with the sound off was showing the Emmy Awards ceremony: hundreds of Hollywood celebrities in evening dress drinking champagne and congratulating one another. McHenty sat beside the bed with his notebook on his knee.

Jeannie put down the duffel. “Here are your clothes. What’s happening?”

Lisa remained expressionless and silent. She was still in shock, Jeannie figured. She was suppressing her feelings, fighting to stay in control. But at some point she had to show her rage. There would be an explosion sooner or later.

McHenty said: “I have to take down the basic details of the case, miss—would you excuse us for a few more minutes?”

“Oh, sure,” Jeannie said apologetically. Then she caught a look from Lisa and hesitated. A few minutes ago she had been cursing herself for leaving Lisa alone with a man. Now she was about to do it again. “On the other hand,” she said, “maybe Lisa would prefer me to stay.” Her instinct was confirmed when Lisa gave a barely perceptible nod. Jeannie sat on the bed and took Lisa’s hand.

McHenty looked irritated but he did not argue. “I was asking Miss Hoxton about how she tried to resist the assault,” he said. “Did you scream, Lisa?”

“Once, when he threw me on the floor,” she said in a low voice. “Then he pulled the knife.”

McHenty’s voice was matter-of-fact, and he looked down at his notebook as he spoke. “Did you try to fight him off?”

She shook her head. “I was afraid he would cut me.”

“So you really didn’t put up any resistance after that first scream?”

She shook her head and began to cry. Jeannie squeezed her hand. She wanted to say to McHenty, “What the hell was she supposed to do?” But she kept silent. Already today she had been rude to a boy who looked like Brad Pitt, made a bitchy remark about Lisa’s boobs, and snapped at the lobby guard in the gym. She knew she was not good at dealing with authority figures, and she was determined not to make an enemy of this policeman, who was only trying to do his job.

McHenty went on: “Just before he penetrated you, did he force your legs apart?”

Jeannie winced. Surely they should have female cops to ask these questions?

Lisa said: “He touched my thigh with the point of the knife.”

“Did he cut you?”

“No.”

“So you opened your legs voluntarily.”

Jeannie said: “If a suspect pulls a weapon on a cop, you generally shoot him down, don’t you? Do you call that
voluntary?”

McHenty gave her an angry look. “Please leave this to me, miss.” He turned back to Lisa. “Do you have any injuries at all?”

“I’m bleeding, yes.”

“Is that as a result of the forced intercourse?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you injured, exactly?”

Jeannie could not stand it any longer. “Why don’t we let the doctor establish that?”

He looked at her as if she were stupid. “I have to make the preliminary report.”

“Then let it say she has internal injuries as a result of the rape.”

“I’m conducting this interview.”

“And I’m telling you to back off, mister,” Jeannie said, controlling the urge to scream at him. “My friend is in distress and I don’t think she needs to describe her internal injuries to you when she’s going to be examined by a doctor any second now.”

McHenty looked furious, but he moved on. “I noticed you had on red lace underwear. Do you think that had any effect on what happened?”

Lisa looked away, her eyes full of tears.

Jeannie said: “If I reported my red Mercedes stolen, would you ask me whether I had provoked the theft by driving such an attractive car?”

McHenty ignored her. “Do you think you might have met the perpetrator before, Lisa?”

“No.”

“But the smoke must have made it difficult for you to see clearly. And he wore a scarf of some kind over his face.”

“At first I was practically blind. But there wasn’t much smoke in the room where … he did it. I saw him.” She nodded to herself. “I saw him.”

“So you would recognize him if you saw him again.”

Lisa shuddered. “Oh, yes.”

“But you’ve never seen him before, like in a bar or anything.”

“No.”

“Do you go to bars, Lisa?”

“Sure.”

“Singles bars, that kind of thing?”

Jeannie boiled over. “What the
hell
kind of question is that?”

“The kind defense lawyers ask,” McHenty said.

“Lisa isn’t on trial—she’s not the perpetrator, she’s the victim!”

“Were you a virgin, Lisa?”

Jeannie stood up. “Okay, that’s enough. I do not believe this is supposed to happen. You’re not supposed to ask these invasive questions.”

McHenty raised his voice. “I’m trying to establish her credibility.”

“One hour after she was violated? Forget it!”

“I’m doing my job—”

“I don’t believe you know your job. I don’t think you know shit, McHenty.”

Before he could reply, a doctor walked in without knocking. He was young and looked harassed and tired. “Is this the rape?” he said.

“This is Ms. Lisa Hoxton,” Jeannie said icily. “Yes, she was raped.”

“I’ll need a vaginal swab,”

He was charmless, but at least he provided an excuse to get rid of McHenty. Jeannie looked at the cop. He stayed put, as if he thought he were going to supervise the taking of the swab. She said: “Before you do that, Doctor, perhaps Patrolman McHenty will excuse us?”

The doctor paused, looking at McHenty. The cop shrugged and went out.

The doctor pulled the sheet off Lisa with an abrupt gesture. “Lift your gown and spread your legs,” he said.

Lisa began to cry.

Jeannie could hardly believe it. What was it with these men? “Excuse me, sir,” she said to the doctor.

He glared at her impatiently. “Have you got a problem?”

“Could you please try to be a little more polite?”

He reddened. “This hospital is full of people with traumatic injuries and life-threatening illnesses,” he said. “Right now in the emergency room there are three children who have been in a car wreck, and they’re all going to die. And you’re complaining that I’m not being
polite
to a girl who got into bed with the wrong man?”

Jeannie was flabbergasted. “Got into bed with the wrong man?” she repeated.

Lisa sat upright. “I want to go home,” she said.

“That sounds like a hell of a good idea,” Jeannie said. She unzipped her duffel and began to put the clothes out on the bed.

The doctor was dumbstruck for a moment. Then he said angrily: “Do as you please.” He went out.

Jeannie and Lisa looked at one another. “I can’t believe that happened,” Jeannie said.

“Thank God they’ve gone,” Lisa said, and she got out of bed.

Jeannie helped her take off the hospital gown. Lisa pulled on the fresh clothes quickly and stepped into the shoes. “I’ll drive you home,” Jeannie said.

“Would you sleep over at my apartment?” Lisa said. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Sure. I’ll be glad to.”

McHenty was waiting outside. He seemed less confident. Perhaps he knew he had handled the interview badly. “I still have a few more questions,” he said.

Jeannie spoke quietly and calmly. “We’re leaving,” she said. “Lisa is too upset to answer questions right now.”

He was almost scared. “She has to,” he said. “She’s made a complaint.”

Lisa said: “I wasn’t raped. It was all a mistake. I just want to go home now.”

“You realize it’s an offense to make a false allegation?”

Jeannie said angrily: “This woman is not a criminal—she’s the victim of a crime. If your boss asks why she’s withdrawing the complaint, say it’s because she was brutally harassed by Patrolman McHenty of the Baltimore Police Department. Now I’m taking her home. Excuse us, please.” She put her arm around Lisa’s shoulders and steered her past the cop toward the exit.

As they left she heard him mutter: “What did I do?”

3

B
ERRINGTON
J
ONES LOOKED AT HIS TWO OLDEST FRIENDS
. “I can’t believe the three of us,” he said. “We’re all close to sixty years old. None of us has ever made more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year. Now we’re being offered sixty million
each
—and we’re sitting here talking about turning the offer down!”

Preston Barck said: “We were never in it for the money.”

Senator Proust said: “I still don’t understand it. If I own one-third of a company that’s worth a hundred and eighty million dollars, how come I’m driving around in a three-year-old Crown Victoria?”

The three men had a small private biotechnology company, Genetico Inc. Preston ran the day-to-day business; Jim was in politics, and Berrington was an academic. But the takeover was Berrington’s baby. On a plane to San Francisco he had met the CEO of Landsmann, a German pharmaceuticals conglomerate, and had got the man interested in making a bid. Now he had to persuade his partners to accept the offer. It was proving harder than he had expected.

They were in the den of a house in Roland Park, an affluent suburb of Baltimore. The house was owned by Jones Falls University and loaned to visiting professors. Berrington, who had professorships at Berkeley in California and at Harvard as well as Jones Falls, used the house for the six weeks of the year he was in Baltimore. There was little of his in the room: a laptop computer, a photograph of his ex-wife and their son, and a pile of new copies of his latest book,
To Inherit the Future: How Genetic Engineering Will Transform America.
A TV set with the sound turned down was showing the Emmy ceremonies.

Preston was a thin, earnest man. Although he was one of the most outstanding scientists of his generation, he looked like an accountant. “The clinics have always made money,” Preston said. Genetico owned three fertility clinics that specialized in in vitro conception—test-tube babies—a procedure made possible by Preston’s pioneering research in the seventies. “Fertility is the biggest growth area in American medicine. Genetico will be Landsmann’s way into this big new market. They want us to open five new clinics a year for the next ten years.”

Jim Proust was a bald, suntanned man with a big nose and heavy glasses. His powerful, ugly face was a gift to the political cartoonists. He and Berrington had been friends and colleagues for twenty-five years. “How come we never saw any money?” Jim asked.

“We always spent it on research.” Genetico had its own labs and also gave research contracts to the biology and psychology departments of universities. Berrington handled the company’s links with the academic world.

Berrington said in an exasperated tone: “I don’t know why you two can’t see that this is our big chance.”

Jim pointed at the TV. “Turn up the sound, Berry—you’re on.”

The Emmys had given way to
Larry King Live,
and Berrington was the guest He hated Larry King—the man was a red-dyed liberal, in his opinion—but the show was an opportunity to talk to millions of Americans.

He studied his image, and he liked what he saw. He was in reality a short man, but television made everyone the same height. His navy suit looked good, the sky blue shirt matched his eyes, and the tie was a burgundy red that did not flare on the screen. Being supercritical, he thought his silver hair was too neat, almost bouffant: he was in danger of looking like a television evangelist.

King, wearing his trademark suspenders, was in an aggressive mood, his gravelly voice challenging. “Professor, you’ve stirred up controversy again with your latest book, but some people feel this isn’t science, it’s politics. What do you say to that?”

Berrington was gratified to hear his own voice sounding mellow and reasonable in reply. “I’m trying to say that political decisions should be based on sound science, Larry. Nature, left to itself, favors good genes and kills off bad ones. Our welfare policy works against natural selection. That’s how we’re breeding a generation of second-rate Americans.”

Jim took a sip of scotch and said: “Good phrase—a generation of second-rate Americans. Quotable.”

On TV, Larry King said: “If you have your way, what happens to the children of the poor? They starve, right?”

Berrington’s face on the screen took on a solemn look. “My father died in 1942, when the aircraft carrier
Wasp
was sunk by a Japanese submarine at Guadalcanal. I was six years old. My mother struggled to raise me and send me to school. Larry, I am a child of the poor.”

It was close enough to the truth. His father, a brilliant engineer, had left his mother a small income, enough so that she was not forced to work or remarry. She had sent Berrington to expensive private schools and then to Harvard—but it
had
been a struggle.

Preston said: “You look good, Berry—except maybe for the country-western hairstyle.” Barck, the youngest of the trio at fifty-five, had short black hair that lay flat on his skull like a cap.

Berrington gave an irritated grunt. He had had the same thought himself, but it annoyed him to hear it from someone else. He poured himself a little scotch. They were drinking Springbank, a single malt.

On the screen, Larry King said: “Philosophically speaking, how do your views differ from those of, say, the Nazis?”

Berrington touched the remote control and turned the set off. “I’ve been doing this stuff for ten years,” he said. “Three books and a million crappy talk shows later, what difference has it made? None.”

Preston said: “It has made a difference. You’ve made genetics and race an issue. You’re just impatient.”

“Impatient?” Berrington said irritably. “You bet I’m impatient! I’ll be sixty in two weeks. We’re all getting old. We don’t have much time left!”

Jim said: “He’s right, Preston. Don’t you remember how it was when we were young men? We looked around and saw America going to hell: civil rights for Negroes, Mexicans flooding in, the best schools being swamped by the children of Jewish Communists, our kids smoking pot and dodging the draft. And boy, were we right! Look what’s happened since then! In our worst nightmares we never imagined that illegal drugs would become one of America’s biggest industries and that a third of all babies would be born to mothers on Medicaid. And we’re the only people with the guts to face up to the problems—us and a few like-minded individuals. The rest close their eyes and hope for the best.”

They did not change, Berrington thought. Preston was ever cautious and fearful, Jim bombastically sure of himself. He had known them so long that he looked fondly on their faults, most of the time, anyway. And he was accustomed to his role as the moderator who steered them on a middle course.

Now he said: “Where are we with the Germans, Preston? Bring us up-to-date.”

“We’re very close to a conclusion,” Preston said. “They want to announce the takeover at a press conference one week from tomorrow.”

“A week from tomorrow?” Berrington said with excitement in his voice. “That’s great!”

Preston shook his head. “I have to tell you, I still have doubts.”

Berrington made an exasperated noise.

Preston went on: “We’ve been going through a process called disclosure. We have to open our books to Landsmann’s accountants, and tell them about anything that might affect future profits, such as debtors who are going bust, or pending lawsuits.”

“We don’t have any of those, I take it?” Jim said.

Preston gave him an ominous look. “We all know this company has secrets.”

There was a moment of silence in the room. Then Jim said: “Hell, that’s a long way in the past.”

“So what? The evidence of what we did is out there walking around.”

“But there’s no way Landsmann can find out about it—especially in a week.”

Preston shrugged as if to say “Who knows?”

“We have to take that risk,” Berrington said firmly. “The injection of capital we’ll get from Landsmann will enable us to accelerate our research program. In a couple of years’ time we will be able to offer affluent white Americans who come to our clinics a genetically engineered perfect baby.”

“But how much difference will it make?” Preston said. “The poor will continue to breed faster than the rich.”

“You’re forgetting Jim’s political platform,” Berrington said.

Jim said: “A flat income tax rate of ten percent, and compulsory contraceptive injections for women on welfare.”

“Think of it, Preston,” Berrington said. “Perfect babies for the middle classes, and sterilization for the poor. We could start to put America’s racial balance right again. It’s what we always aimed for, ever since the early days.”

“We were very idealistic then,” Preston said.

“We were right!” Berrington said.

“Yes, we were right. But as I get older, more and more I start to think the world will probably muddle along somehow even if I don’t achieve everything I planned when I was twenty-five.”

This kind of talk could sabotage great endeavors. “But we can achieve what we planned,” Berrington said. “Everything we’ve been working toward for the last thirty years is within our grasp now. The risks we took in the early days, all these years of research, the money we’ve spent—it’s all coming to fruition at last. Don’t get an attack of nerves at this point, Preston!”

“I don’t have bad nerves, I’m pointing out real, practical problems,” Preston said peevishly. “Jim can propose his political platform, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

‘That’s where Landsmann comes in,” Jim said. “The cash we’ll get for our shares in the company will give us a shot at the biggest prize of all.”

“What do you mean?” Preston looked puzzled, but Berrington knew what was coming, and he smiled.

“The White House,” Jim said. “I’m going to run for president.”