Thomas Hoover - Syndrome

He drew on his scotch again, then continued.

"When I came back, I started doing research on aging. That's when Karl Van de Vliet's name popped up on the Internet. Some paper he'd given in Vienna years ago. It was about the physiology of aging. But then Tanya came along and I sort of forgot about him. Then when I went to work for Winston Bartlett, there he was. The very same guy. It was weird, but it was as though God had delivered him."

"Is this shaggy-dog story going to end up being about why he looks so young?"

"I'm getting there." He smiled. "I kept wondering too, and then finally I saw an opening in his schedule and took him to dinner here in the city, down at Chanterelle. A social thing. Eventually, after a couple of bottles of serious wine, it came out that once upon a time he had done an unconventional experiment. On himself. It was sort of an accident, something about melanoma research."

"So he-"

"You asked me why he looks so young. Well, some procedure he did apparently stopped his skin from aging. But then he changed the subject and wouldn't talk about it anymore. So do I think he's a miracle worker? I'd say he's walking proof of something. That you can cheat nature."

"And?"

"There is no 'and.' That's all I know." He came back and settled onto the couch. His scotch glass was empty and he yearned for another, but that small voice inside was urging discretion. This was the moment that could be make or break. "But to get back to you, Ally, you really should meet him. I can't talk specifics about the actual clinical trials, but let me just say they've been very positive. There's every reason to think he can help you. And Mom too."

He studied her, trying to read her mind. He wondered if she could detect the anxiety he felt lurking just beneath the surface. Was she seeing through him, the way Nina, for all her mental debility, had seemed to?

"Grant, has this doctor Van de Vliet gotten into some kind of medical experiment that's turned into a Faustian bargain? Is his skin rejuvenation a signal that this research has gone over into The Twilight Zone' ! When a sixty-something man looks forty-something, there's got to be an unnatural act going on. What does it mean?"

"Maybe it means he's found the thing Ponce de Leon was looking for. The Fountain of Youth or whatever."

"Then he'll probably have to pay for it some other way," she said getting up. "Mother Nature doesn't give out freebies. Look, I've got to give Knickers her midnight walk. That's your exit cue. I'll call him tomorrow. I'll go that far."

"Don't blow this chance, Ally," he said setting down his empty scotch glass and getting up. He felt hope and it bucked him up. "It could be the biggest mistake of your life. And Mom's."

He was at the door before he turned back. It was time for the insurance. The hedging of bets. Bartlett had authorized it.

"By the way, I almost forgot. Jesus, I'm going senile myself. W.B. told me to tell you he'd like you to come over to his place on Gramercy Park tomorrow morning around ten, if you can work it into your schedule."

"What for?"

"That job on his place that I told you about this morning, I guess. I do know he's planning to renovate the ground floor. But just between us, he's also got a massive renovation job in the wings, so maybe that's what's really on and this is like an audition. Who knows? He bought an old mansion on upper Park and he's planning to heavily redo it and turn it into a museum for his incredible collection of Japanese military stuff, swords and armor and shit. He's going to do over the entire interior. It's part architecture and part design, so I gave him your name. Who knows? But I was over at his place this afternoon and he asked about you. He said he wanted to see you as soon as possible. He even gave me one of his personal cards to give to you. Here. It has the Gramercy Park address and his private cell phone."

"Just like that?" She looked skeptical but took the card.

"Winston Bartlett is not a man who dawdles. If he decides he wants to do something, he just moves on it. All he asked was that you bring a portfolio, to show him some of your work."

Come on and do it, he thought as he headed out the door. Go and see the Man. Just fucking do it. If he can't close this frigging deal, nobody can.

Sunday, April 5

11:43p.m.

Winston Bartlett put the newly glazed creme brulee, still warm from his preparation in the kitchen below stairs, on the bed tray in front of Kristen, next to her untouched champagne flute. She used to love it and he was trying everything he knew to jog her memory. He'd cooked her favorite supper, eggs Florentine, with barely wilted spinach topped by prosciutto, had taken her to bed and now there was champagne and her favorite dessert.

But she still seemed distracted and distant. Yes, it was a good idea to get her away from the institute, but that was merely relocating the problem, not fixing it. If it could be fixed. In the meantime, she had to be kept here, out of the public eye.

"Thank you," she said and gingerly took a small bite. She had been almost lucid earlier this evening and was leaning against the antique headboard wearing a soft blue nightgown. Her long blond hair was tousled and down over her breasts. Her memory might now be a sometime thing, but her libido was still going strong.

"Do you remember how much you used to like that?" he asked, trying to make eye contact.

She nodded her head dumbly. Did she actually remember? Increasingly, he had no idea.

He had brought her here to stay in this five-story nineteenth- century mansion on Park Avenue. He'd purchased it a year and a half earlier for 23 million and he was intending to have it renovated and converted into a museum. That renovation, however, had been put on hold awaiting a decision by the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Museum. He wanted the building to be a Park Avenue adjunct to the Met, and he also wanted his definitive assemblage of Japanese implements of war to be known as the Bartlett Collection.

The tax write-off would be monumental, but that was not nearly so important as the prestige.

It was clear now that this project would not have any momentum until he first got himself appointed to the board of the Met. Unfortunately, money alone wasn't adequate. Major-league politics was involved.

He was working on it, with a lot of Upper East Side lunches and targeted charity events. He was also taking his time and getting designs and estimates for the renovation. The way things were at the moment, he didn't have the cash to actually start construction anyway.

For the moment, the place was furnished but unoccupied except for a security guard, a part of Bartlett's personal staff. Now, with Kristen here, discretion was his uppermost concern.

He had sent the security guy home this evening, so he and Kristen could have privacy. In the morning two nurses would come on duty, one to look after her and another to cook.

Over the past year he'd brought her here most weekends. It was like having their own Shangri-la. Best of all, unlike his official residence on Gramercy Park, he didn't have a wife upstairs, like some mad (in every sense of the word) aunt in the attic.

He had hoped that bringing Kristen back here might do

something for her memory. He still hoped, but he wasn't sure. In bed tonight she had been as lithe and enthusiastic as ever. Possibly even more so. Did she know who he was? He couldn't really tell. But he still loved being with her. The soft skin and the voluptuous curves of her breasts and thighs: it made him feel young again.

Since she had been out at the Dorian Institute and away from him, he had begun to feel older and older.

Winston Bartlett was sixty-seven and-increasingly-felt it. To begin with, his prostate was enlarging itself, in spite of all the special, expensive medicines he used. Surgery was increasingly looking like a possibility. And his memory was nowhere near what it once was. He wolfed down ginkgo and ginseng capsules by the handful but was finding it harder and harder to remember people's names, particularly the new wave of donation-hungry politicians who fawned over him.