Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

"Since part of the issue here is your assault on Dr. Renfro's clinical judgment, I feel the need to remind you that there was no such clot. The CT scan on which you staked your medical school career was normal, Ms. Reyes. Absolutely normal."

For nearly ten seconds after the final passage of Beethoven's violin sonata in F had drifted through Queen Elizabeth Hall, there was absolute silence. Then, as one, the audience erupted, leaping to its feet, drowning out the quivering echo of the last note with shouts and applause.

"Bravo!"

"Huzzah!"

"Wunderbar!"

The seventeen-year-old beauty, cradling her two-hundred and ninety year old Stradivarius as if it were a newborn babe, beamed as she gazed out across the throng. She looked too small for the stage, but everyone who knew music, and that was most of those in the hall, knew she was a titan. Her accompanist took his bows and then left the stage so that she might bask in her return to performing — the moment many had felt might never come.

Standing in the tenth row center, an Indian man, resplendent in his tuxedo, continued applauding as he turned to his taller companion.

"Well?"

"I am very proud of her, and very proud of us," the other man, square jawed and elegant, said. "The scar down her chest has barely healed, and yet there she is."

"Beautiful. Just beautiful. I don't think I've ever heard the 'Spring sonata' played with more feeling or technical brilliance."

As was the Guardians policy, the men never spoke one another's names in public, and even on their frequent conference calls used only Greek pseudonyms, which each of their members was required to commit to memory.

The tumultuous applause continued, and the young virtuoso, destined now to enthrall the world for decades to come, took one curtain call after another.

"Those roses she is carrying are from us," the Indian said.

"Nice touch."

"I agree, thank you. You know, it is amazing what the minor addition of a new heart and lungs can accomplish in the right body."

Nailed. Ben Callahan set the stack of five-by-seven glossies on his desk, then popped two Zantac antacid pills into the back of his throat and washed them down with his third cup of coffee of the morning. Another shitty beginning of another shitty day. Maybe it was time to give his friendly neighborhood career counselor a try. Outside, a chilly, vertical rain was snapping against the grime on his office window. Yesterday it had reached 101 with a humidity of, like, a thousand. Today, fifty-five and pouring. Summer in Chicago. You just couldn't beat it.

Ben spread the photos across the desk in two rows. God, but sometimes he detested earning a living this way. He would have detested it even if the living he was earning amounted to anything substantial, which it most certainly did not. Well, at least Katherine de Souci would be happy. She had demanded that Ben "nail the bastard," and now Robert de Souci had, in fact, been nailed, although not quite in the way Katherine had expected.

So what if Robert was active on the board of a dozen or more charitable foundations? So what if he was, from all Ben had been able to ascertain, a terrific father and enlightened corporate CEO? Katherine, whom Ben had come to think of as something of an amalgam of Lizzie Borden and his ex-wife, had her suspicions of infidelity, and now, thanks to crackerjack private detective — make that private eye — Benjamin Michael Callahan, she had her proof. And soon, she would have her gazillions in settlement, as well as her husband's surpassingly handsome head on a platter.

There were just two problems.

Robert's secret lover was a he, not the she Katherine had expected, and the significant other in question was a man Ben knew well. Caleb Johnson, a pillar of the black community, was arguably the finest, fairest, most intelligent criminal judge in the region. It was possible the judge could survive this looming scandal, but not without a significant reduction in his influence on the bench and around the country. And this was a man who had earned and deserved all the influence he possessed.

Ben flipped the edge of a small stack of unopened bills with his thumb. Katherine de Souci's check would make every one of them disappear like David Copperfield, with enough cash left over to actually buy something. He slid the photos back into their manila envelope and prepared to call Katherine. Who in the hell cared what the fallout might be? He had been given a job, he had taken it, he had spent the advance and most of the per diems, he had done the work. Case closed.

Admittedly, this career had been something of a miscalculation on his part, but when he chose it, he was legitimately excited about becoming a detective in the mold of his fictional heroes — knights-errant like Mike Hammer, Travis McGee, and Jim Rockford. He knew he'd have to start slow at first, taking whatever cases came in. Unfortunately, those cases — chasing bail jumpers, philandering spouses, and deadbeats of one kind or another — remained his primary source of income, and with few exceptions, had never amounted to anything approaching noble. Not a single, mysterious, alluring dame-in-distress in the bunch.

Now he was about to take a pile of money from someone he didn't like in exchange for ruining the lives of two men he respected.

De Souci and Johnson should have been more discreet, he tried to reason. There were all those under funded charities and all those African-American kids looking for role models who were counting on them. They should have thought things through a little more. There were ways the guys could have stayed undetectable, or at least more undetectable, but for whatever reason, maybe just the blindness of love, they had chosen not to take them.

Now there were photos.

Ben picked up the phone, dialed Katherine's number, and as usual went through her private secretary to speak with her.

"You have something for me?" the socialite asked without even deigning to say hello.

Her voice grated over the phone. Ben flashed on her perfectly made-up face — so proud, so tight, so haughty. In a life already boringly full of possessions, privilege, and victories, he had uncovered the evidence that would make her day. Katherine de Souci, come on down! You're a winner and you're next on The Price Is Right!

For several moments there was only silence.

"Well?" she persisted.

"Urn…actually, I don't have anything, Mrs. de Souci. Nothing. I think your husband's clean."

"But — "

"And the truth is, I don't think I can take any more of your money. If you want to keep pushing this matter, I would recommend you find someone else.

" But — "

"Goodbye, Mrs. de Souci."

Please be more careful, Judge. Robert's wife is vengeful, he wrote on a blank piece of paper. Then he signed it a Friend, slid it in with the photos, addressed the envelope to the judge with no return address, marked it PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL, and set it aside until he left for whatever would pass today for lunch. Just in case, he decided, he would send it by registered mail. Outside, the rain continued pelting the city. Within minutes, any glow Ben felt at so gloriously disappointing Katherine de Souci had given way to his usual, baseline state of numbness and ennui. It was hard to believe a life once marked by enthusiasm and a spirit of adventure had come to this. It was even harder to believe that he really didn't care.

The phone had rung five or six times before he noticed and picked it up.

"Lo?"

"Mr. Ben Callahan'" a woman's voice said.

"Yes."

"The detective?"

"Yes. Who is this?"

"This is Professor Alice Gustafson's office calling."