Gary Braver - Elixir

Quentin was peppered with questions.

Somebody asked about the fate of the patients, and Antoine said that they were being well cared for, and secure-an answer that satisfied the Consortium. An answer far from the truth.

By the end of the meeting, Vince was taking orders for Elixir treatments at $2 million per year.

Around midnight the conference room cleared out, leaving Vince, Quentin, and Antoine to themselves.

Vince removed the video cassette from the projector. "By the way, your Betsy Watkins had an unfortunate accident this morning."

"What a pity," Quentin smiled.

"And the other problem is being taken care of as we speak."

Quentin felt a rush of relief. All was going so well. In a matter of weeks, they would be in full swing, all obstacles removed. Elixir would be sub-contracted to pharmaceutical firms outside New England, distribution would be handled by Vince and Antoine's people, and international bank accounts would be opened for proceeds. In a handful of years, Elixir would be their billion-dollar molecule.

"Are you familiar with the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde?" Antoine asked.

"No," Quentin said.

"How about the short mystery story 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar' by your own Edgar Allan Poe?"

"Not really."

"Too bad. It's a wonderful tale about a man put into a state of hypnosis at the moment of death, prolonging his life for months. The fun is when he's snapped out of his trance. In less than a minute he rots away into a liquid mass of putrescence."

Quentin looked at him blankly for an explanation.

From his valise Antoine pulled out another video and slipped it into the projector. "Watch, my friend."

Blue sky filled the screen. Slowly the camera pulled back to reveal an ocean horizon, boats floating in the misty distance. The camera canted to reveal Lisa posing at the bow of the Reef Madness. She was just as Quentin remembered her-stunningly beautiful with a gleaming smile and long tight body. Dressed in a baseball cap and a white one-piece suit that fit her like damp tissue paper, she could have been a supermodel posing for a calendar spread. The small rose tattoo on her right shoulder glowed like a medallion in the sunlight. She was laughing and poking a still camera at whoever was taping her.

The scene suddenly shifted to the same barred featureless room of the first video. It looked empty until the camera panned to a darkly clad figure in a wheelchair. Somebody off-camera said something, and the figure raised its head.

"Jesus Christ!" gasped Quentin.

It was Lisa. She was withered and stooped. Her hair was a wispy white film across her scalp, the skin of her face like weathered parchment. Her mouth was open to labored breathing, her lips chapped and split, most teeth missing. One eye was a gaping milky ball, the other eye a jellied slit.

Quentin's hope against hope was that it was trick photography or some fancy theatrical makeup job. But it was real. And it was Lisa-he could make out the rose tattoo. They had conditioned her on Elixir from the same batch that Quentin had stolen some weeks ago from the lab for the elderly patients. Somehow Antoine had injected her either against her will or with the promise of immortality, then withdrew treatments so she would rot.

Enjoying Quentin's reaction, Antoine paused the video on a closeup of her miserable face. "Some things don't age well, especially a cheating heart."

I think she was murdered," Chris said.

"Murdered!"

Chris and Wendy were driving to the Burlington Mall to finish shopping for their trip. Adam was asleep in his car seat.

"But who would murder her? And why?"

"I'm not exactly sure, but the line of questioning suggested foul play. I guess they're waiting for the medical examiner's report and following some leads."

Chris had been at a seminar on cell biology at the Heritage Hotel outside of Providence when Cambridge detectives showed up. They questioned him for nearly an hour, wondering why he had left the house at five that morning for an hour's drive to a conference that began at nine. He said he wanted to beat the traffic and have a leisurely breakfast to review the literature.

"What leads?"

"I don't know, but they asked if Betsy had any known enemies. All I could think of was Quentin."

"Quentin? That's ridiculous."

"Maybe not. Once he let slip that some people would pay dearly for Elixir as it is. I think he was sending up a trial balloon to see how I'd react."

"What did you say?"

"That I was opposed to the idea-that it wasn't meant to be the drug of choice for the elite. That's when he retreated, claiming he wasn't serious. But I wasn't convinced. I think he was testing me. He does things like that."

"Why would he take such a chance? He'll be CEO next month."

"Because he's gotten the company into debt up the yin-yang. And because Quentin Cross dreams of building empires, no matter what they're made of."

"That's absurd."

"Maybe, but I think I'm next."

Wendy turned to him. "Chris, you're scaring me."

"And they're scaring me. I think they want me out of the way like Betsy. She was a loose cannon. She threatened to expose Elixir on moral grounds. If she suspected they were considering blackmarketing it, she'd sound the alarm. And that's why they want me out of the way."

"He was just talking through his hat."

"Quentin doesn't talk through his hat. Then out of the blue comes this Caribbean offer-two weeks in a fancy seaside condo with a car and a boat all for free. And all the buddy-buddy stuff about what a terrific time we're going to have down there, and how great the diving is right off the beach."

"How about he was just being generous?"

"How about he's just too anxious to get us down there? He called this morning from New York to say we shouldn't feel bad about missing Betsy's funeral because the company will hold a memorial next month."

"I still fail to see the problem."

"Wendy, it's too good to be true. Quentin is a sly opportunist driven by self-interest, not magnanimity."

"Frankly, hon, I think you're being very ungrateful. He said his friend Barcello offered it to him, but with Ross's retirement and the holidays he couldn't get away. So he passed it on to us."

"Nice coincidence, except I checked. First, there is no diving off the Las Palmas beach-the nearest reef is thirty miles.

"Second, I called a realtor down there about the condo, and there is no Barcello Mendez proprietor, and nobody who's ever heard of him or Quentin Cross. Then I called the number he gave and got an answering service for something called Fair Caribe Exchange, Ltd. which it turns out is headquartered in Apricot Cay-the same island our apricots were from."

"So?"

"About a year ago, Apricot Cay was bombed by U.S. Navy planes because the place was a big-time cocaine center. The point is Quentin was negotiating with traffickers of illegal substances-people who resolve problems by eliminating them."

"How do you know all this?"

"Ross Darby." Chris pulled the car into the parking lot of the mall. "Wendy, I think this trip is a setup. I think the people he's involved with killed Betsy and are planning to do the same to me down there. Maybe both of us."

"If they really wanted to get rid of you, why send you all the way to Puerto Rico?"

"To distance my own death from Betsy's-and Darby Pharms. To make it look like another terrible tragedy for hapless tourists."

"Then why don't you go to the police?"

"Because I have no hard evidence, just a lot of bad feelings. Besides, I'd have to explain Elixir."

She looked at him in dismay. "You seem more interested in protecting Elixir than yourself. Or us."