Michael Palmer - Extreme Measures

Fifteen minutes later they stood outside the darkened Greyhound terminal.

"You sure you don't want to just stay with me for a while?"

Garcia asked. "We can do my Cinci-Phoenix run together, and then maybe get you to a doctor find out why you can't remember nothin'."

"I'll be okay," Scott said.

"well, here. This is a number you can call in Utah. It's my mother.

She always knows where to find me. If you ever need anything, anything at all, just call."

"Thanks."

"I owe you, Bob. I owe you big-time."

"No, you don't."

Behind them, the lights of the terminal flicked on. Moments later the doors were opened. Eddie Garcia wondered if there was something else-anything else-he could do. Finally, he simply shrugged, held the man's hand for a time, and then walked away.

When he reached his rig, he turned back. Bob was still standing there, rail-thin and rumpled, and badly needing both a shave and a bath, Looking at the shape he was in, Garcia simply could not fathom what he had seen him do.

"You sure you know what's what in there, Bob?" he called out.

"Boston bus. I know."

"Well, I hope you find yourself, my friend, and that woman's horse, too.

I really do."

The man, in obvious pain, managed something of a smile.

"I hope so, too, Eddie," he said, with no animation whatever. "I hope so too."

Garcia hauled himself up behind the wheel.

When he glanced back, his passenger was gone.

The pathology unit at White Memorial was a fluorescently lit, windowless place located in the basement and much of the subbasement of the main building. It had been newly decorated with a mix of Marimekko cloth wall hangings and artificial Plants which Eric found not the least appealing. Although it was not yet eight in the morning, the day shifts in chemistry, hematology blood bank, cytology, and histology were in the swing. Wearing scrubs and his clinic coat, Eric passed by each section on his way to the cubicle that housed the hospital's toxicological unit.

It amazed him that even after five years, there were still so many mite Memorial employees whose work he depended on day after day, case after case, yet whom he didn't know.

Although he was operating on precious little sleep, he felt charged and invigorated-excited not only for the discoveries he hoped the day ahead would hold, but by the magic of the night just past.

He and Laura had, at last, become lovers in every physical sense.

They made love on her bed and in the shower, on the easy chair by her television, even on the carpet. They loved each other in the frantic, gtoping way of teenagers, and in.the prolonged, imaginative, gently touching way of old friends.

And finally, toward dawn, they slept, wrapped in each other's arms, both sensing their lives beginning to join.

The White Memorial toxicologist, a man named Ivor Blunt, could not have been more aptly named. A crusty veteran of nearly thirty years at his craft, Blunt had earned a reputation as much for his eccentricities as for his brilliance. His primary area of research involved the chemical dissection and adaptation of snake venom, and rumor had it that he kept more than one hundred different species of poisonous reptiles in a single huge solarium in his house.

Blunt was still smarting at having "not been invited to get involved" in the Loretta Leone case, as he phrased it to Eric. The toxicologist had been reluctant even to see him about the case. Eric persisted, though, and was finally granted a fifteen-minute appointment.

It was his plan to break from his E.R. shift long enough to see Blunt and later Haven Darden, and then to leave for the county Library as early as possible.

Meanwhile, Laura would file a complaint against Donald Devine and the Gates of Heaven, and also report on the threatening phone call she had received.

Whether she told the police about the shooting in East Boston would depend on how much credence they seemed to be giving her story.

Blunt's office was set at the far end of the corridor from the autopsy suite. The door, with IVOR T. L. BLUNT, PHD. painted in black on opaque glass, was ajar Just a crack. As Eric was about to knock, he heard the toxicologist's raspy voice from within.

"Come on, you pig-headed rascal," Blunt was exclaiming. "It's under the chair. Under the chair!"

Uncertain, Eric held back from knocking for a few seconds, and then gently tapped on the wooden margin of the door. The door creaked open an inch.

"No!" Blunt shouted.

Eric could hear him race for the door at the moment a brown mouse darted out, over Eric's shoes, and down the corridor.

"Damn," Blunt said.

There was a scuffling behind the door. Finally, it was opened.

Blunt, looking every bit the mad professor with a frayed tweed sportcoat, disheveled gray hair, and. Coke-bottle glasses, stood in the doorway with five or six feet of python draped over his shoulders.

"That was breakfast for Dr. Livingston here," he said, without the faintest trace of humor.

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean-" From somewhere down the hall came a shriek, then another.

"I know, I know," Blunt growled. "Save your apologies for those women out there. As if I didn't have enough problems around here."

He lowered the snake into a large wire-mesh cage and motioned Eric to a seat. The office had the cluttered, active disarray of an academician's retreat. A 'huge periodic table of the elements covered one wall, and excellent African safari photos another. The rest of the space was crammed with books and journals.

Above Blunt's desk was a sign that read: IF IT LOOKS LIKE A DUCK, AND WALKS LIKE A DUCK, AND QUACKS LIKE A DUCK, COOK IT.

"Thank you for seeing me," Eric said.

"I'm a professor. I'm supposed to see you, so I'm seeing you."

"I wanted to ask your opinion about a problem."

"That Leone woman?"

"Yes, sir."

Eric laid out his sets of E.K.Gs and, as quickly as he could, reviewed the theories he had developed and the research he had done the night before. ivor Blunt listened quietly, although he continually tapped his fingertips together as if to say, "Get to the end, please, because I already know the question and the answer."

"Here," Eric concluded, "are the three toxins I came up with as possible agents in these cases. I wanted to know what you thought of any theories, and also whether you could detect these substances in Loretta Leone's blood."

Blunt studied the list for a bit.

"Amanita, aconite, tetrodotoxin," he murmured.

"Nice stuff, nice stuff. Well, sir, the answers to your questions are: no, no, no, and yes, yes, yes."

"Pardon?"

"No, I don't believe any of these three drugs can cause the kind of picture you describe, and yes, I could detect any of them if they were there and I knew what I was looking for."

"But what about those accounts of simulated death in tetrodotoxin poisoning?"

"Scientific Swiss cheese."

"What?"

"Far too anecdotal. No blood sample testing, no levels, that sort of thing. These are big-league toxins, Doctor, I'll grant you that.

And nanogram for nanogram, tetrodotoxin may be the nastiest and most fascinating of them all. But I don't see it slowing metabolism enough to fool a competent doctor with modern diagnostic tools."

Two competent doctors with modern tools were fooled, Eric wanted to say.

But the toxicologist seemed impatient and anxious to get on with his day.

"I understand," Eric said. "One last question: If I were to obtain some of the Leone woman's blood, would you test it for me?"

"Completely off the record, I might. As I told you before, the medical examiner has not chosen to involve me in this case. The word I received was that he suspected incompetence on the part of a certain physician, but had absolutely no SUSpicion of foul play. I think he's dropped the matter altogether."