Michael Palmer - Side Effects

Contaminated. "It's you. I know it is." Her mind spoke the words to the gleaming five stories. "Something inside you, inside your precious Monkeys, has gone haywire. Something inside you is killing people, and you don't even know it."

The ringing of the telephone startled her. "Kate Bennett, " she answered excitedly. "Kate Bennett's husband, " Jared said flatly. "Oh, hi. You surprised me. I was expecting a call from Ian Toole in the toxicology lab and… never mind that. Where are you?

Is everything all right?"

"At home, where you're supposed to be, and no."

Kate glanced at the clock on her desk and groaned. "Oh, damn. Jared, I forgot about the Carlisles. I'm sorry."

"Apology not accepted, " he said with no hint of humor. Kate sank in her chair, resigned to the outburst she knew was about to ensue, and knowing that it was justified. "I'm sorry anyhow, " she said softly. "You're always sorry, aren't you? " Jared said. "You're so wrapped up in Kate's job and Kate's world and Kate's problems that you seem to forget that there are any other jobs or worlds or problems around. My father and several big-money people are going to be at that party tonight. What kind of an impression is it going to make when I show up without my wife?"

"Jared, you don't understand. Something is going on here. People are dying."

"People like Bobby Geary?"

Kate glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to seven. "Look, " she said, "I'm waiting for a call that could help solve this mystery. I can call you back or I can get home as soon as possible, change, and make it over to the Carlisles by eight-thirty or nine."

"Don't bother."

"Jared, what do you want me to do?"

Jared's sigh was audible over the phone. "I want you to do whatever it is YOU feel you have to do, " he said. "I'll go to the Carlisles and make do. We can talk later tonight or tomorrow. Okay?"

"All right, " she said, taken somewhat aback by his reasonableness.

"How's Ellen?"

"Pardon? " It was one minute to seven. "Ellen. You remember, our friend Ellen. How is she?"

"She's in the hospital, Jared. Listen, I really am sorry, and I really am in the middle, or at least on the fringes of something strange.

Ellen's life may be at stake in what I'm doing."

"Sounds pretty melodramatic to me, " Jared said, "but then again, I'm just a poor ol' country lawyer. We'll talk later."

"Thank you, Jared. I love you."

"See you later, Kate."

Ian Toole's call came at precisely seven-fifteen. "These are some little pills you sent me here, Dr. Bennett, " he said. "My assistant, Millicent, and I have been running them most of the afternoon, and we still don't have a final word for you."

"But you said Ellen's pills were contaminated."

"Ellen Sandler's? Hardly. I think your secretary mixed up my message.

Probably went to the same school as ours."

"What do you mean?"

"Ellen Sandler's vitamins are a pretty run-of-the-mill, low-potency preparation. B complex, a little C, a little iron, a splash of zinc.

It's yours that are weird."

"Mine? " Kate's throat grew dry and tight. "Uh-huh. You're not only taking the same vitamins as Ellen Sandler, but you're also taking a fairly sizable jolt every day of some kind of anthranilic acid."

"Anthranilic acid?"

"Millicent and I are trying to work out the side chains, but that's the basic molecule."

Kate felt sick. "Mr. Toole, what is it?"

"I'm a chemist, not a doctor, but as far as I've been able to determine, you're taking a painkiller of some sort. Nonnarcotic. Some kind of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. The basic molecule is listed in our manuals, but I don't think we're going to find the exact side chains.

Whatever it is, it's not a commercially available drug in this country.

If it were, we'd have it in the book. I'll check out the European manuals as soon as we know the full structure."

"Let me know? " Kate had written out the word "anthranilic" and begun a calligraphic version.

"Of course. Probably won't be until next week, though. I had to promise Millicent a bottle of wine to get her to put off her date with her boyfriend even this long."

"Mr. Toole, is it dangerous?"

"What?"

"Anthranilic acid."

"Like I said, I'm not a doctor. It's not poisonous, if that's what you mean, but it's not vitamins either. Any drug can do you dirt if you're unusually sensitive or allergic to it."

"Thanks, " Kate said numbly. "And thanks to Millicent, too."

"No problem, " Ian Toole said. It was a hot, sultry day at Fenway Park when Kate, seated in a box next to Jared, began to bleed to death.

Silently, painlessly, thick drops of crimson fell from her nose, landing like tiny artillery bursts on the surface of the beer she was holding, turning the gold to pink.

She squeezed her nose with a napkin, but almost instantly tasted the sticky sweetness flowing down the back of her throat. Jared, unaware of what was happening, sipped at his beer, his attention riveted on the field. Help me. Please, Jared, help me, I'm dying. The words were in her mind, but somehow inaccessible to her voice. Help me, please. Suddenly she felt a warm moistness inside her jeans, and knew that she was bleeding there as well. Help me.

In the box to her right, Winfield Samuels looked her way, smiled emptily as if she weren't even there, and then turned back to the field and genteelly applauded a good play by the shortstop.

The players and the grass, the spectators and the huge green left field wall-all had a reddish cast. Kate rubbed a hand across one eye and realized she was also bleeding from there.

Giddy with fear, she stood and turned to run. Sitting in the row behind her chatting amiably and smiling as blandly as Jared's father had, were Norton Reese and a man with the overalls and gray hair of Carl Horner but the grotesque face of a monkey.

"I see you're bleeding to death, " Reese said pleasantly. "I'm so sorry.

Carl, aren't you sorry?"

Jared, please help me. Help me. Help me.

The words faded like an echo into eternity. Kate became aware of a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Dr. Bennett, are you all right?"

Kate lifted her head and blearily met the eyes of night watchman Walter Macfarlane. She was at a table, alone in the hospital library, surrounded by dozens of books and journals dealing with bleeding disorders, ovarian disease, and pharmacology. 342 "Oh, yes, Walter, " she said, "I'm fine, thank you. Really."

Her blouse was uncomfortably damp, and the taste in her mouth most unpleasant.

"Just checking, " the man said. "It's getting pretty late. Or should I say early." He tapped a finger on the face of his large gold pocket watch and held it around for her to see.

Twenty after two.

Kate smiled weakly and began gathering her notes together.

"I'll see you to your car if you want, Doctor."

"Thanks, Walter, I'll meet you by the main entrance in five minutes."

She watched as the man shuffled from the library. Then she discarded the notion of calling Jared, knowing that she would just be adding insult to injury by waking him up, and finished packing her briefcase. As she neared the doorway, she glanced out the window.

Across the street, the winter night reflected obscenely in its dark glass, stood the Omnicenter.

The night was heavy and raw. Crunching through slush that had begun to gel and shielding her face from blowgun darts of sleet, Kate crossed Commercial Street and plowed along Hanover into the North End. Traffic and the weather had made her twenty minutes late, but Bill Zimmermann was not the irritable, impatient type, and she anticipated a quick absolution. Demarsco's, the restaurant they had agreed upon, was a small, family-owned operation where parking was as difficult to find as an unexceptional item on the menu.