Jonathan Kellerman - Survival Of The Fittest

It was Wednesday night and the three of us were back at my house, seated around the kitchen table. Robin was across the room, on a stool at the counter, reading Art and Auction with more intensity than usual.

“Frank Galton,” said Milo. “So the asshole fancies himself the boss eugenicist. Helga goes with him to pay for the ticket, meaning it's Meta business or Loomis business- maybe it is a killing trip and they plan ' em in New York and do ' em here. This speeds things up. If Alex is gonna visit the bookstore it's got to be tomorrow.”

“I agree,” said Daniel.

“And the next day we get on Sanger and stay with him. Who picks up his trail at the airport?”

“That's up to you,” said Daniel. “As far as we know, he didn't book a limousine, leaving three possibilities: a rental car, a cab, or a friend's meeting him. If I pose as a cab driver and it's a friend or a rental car, I lose him.”

“So you're saying a two-man thing. One at the gate, one at the curb.”

“It would help.”

“Using your people?”

“If that's not a problem for you.”

“Whatever I want, huh?” said Milo. “Too much more of this and I'll start to think I've got free will- tell you what, I'll give you Petra Connor for the airport, she's itching to get involved. Divide it any way you want. My priority is going to be keeping my eye on Alex from the time he starts out on this Spasm/Zena thing. Maybe it'll end tomorrow, but maybe it won't. We're talking a no-wire deal, right? Too much potential for screwup with a wire.”

“I agree.”

“Is there a tracer on the Karmann Ghia?”

“There will be,” said Daniel.

“Soon as possible.”

Robin looked up briefly and returned to her magazine.

Daniel put his good hand against one cheek. He looked uncomfortable and Milo picked up on it.

“What?”

“Some information came my way regarding Melvin Myers. A cotenant at his group home said Myers hated the trade school, was going to write an article about it when he graduated.”

“Came your way,” said Milo. “A pigeon dropped a note through the window?”

“Human pigeon,” said Daniel. “I'm sorry-”

“A large black pigeon?”

“From now on, he's back in the coop, Milo. Once again, I'm sor-”

“What kind of article was Myers planning to write?”

“From the sound of it, an exposÉ. It may mean nothing, but I thought you should know.”

“When exactly did you find this out?”

“Last night.”

“Ah… I was planning to visit the home. Myers's school, too, but now with you watching Sanger and me watching Alex and trying to track down Wilson Tenney, we're spread a little thin.”

“If you think it's worth following up,” said Daniel, “I can visit the school before Sanger arrives.” He lifted the arm with the bad hand. “I'll tell them a sad story, injury, depression, disability. Claim I want to make a new start.”

Milo looked at the ravaged limb. “Putting you out there asking questions is more of an active role than we discussed.”

“I know,” said Daniel.

“We're talking a brief drop-in, you ask for vocational training, check the place out, that's all?”

Daniel nodded. “Myers was learning computers. I'll ask for computer training. I've already been through it. At a rehab center in Israel.”

I thought of his one-hand lightning peck.

“I'll be subtle,” he said. His mouth was taut as he slipped the crippled hand under the table and out of view.

“Okay,” said Milo. “Make it a really sad story. Tug at their heartstrings. But watch your back. I don't need any goddamn international incident.”

Thursday.

I'd slept fitfully but was awake at six, ahead of Robin for a change. Lying flat on my back, I watched her doze and thought about being Andrew Desmond.

At six-thirty she awoke and looked at me.

Her eyes were puffy. I kissed them. She lay there.

“Today,” she said.

“Just a bookstore visit,” I said. “Shouldn't take long.”

“Hopefully not. When's he getting here?”

“Nine.”

She touched my hair, rolled away from me.

We both got out of bed. She put on a robe, tugged the sash tight, and stood there for a moment.

I stood behind her and held her shoulders. “I'll be fine.”

“I know you will.” She turned sharply, kissed me hard on the cheek, almost an assault. Then she went into the bathroom and locked the door.

Yesterday, we'd made love twice. The second time, she said, “I feel like an adulterer.”

Daniel arrived at nine and sat me down in the kitchen. Covering me with a black barber's sheet, he snipped my hair with scissors, then used electric clippers to reduce it to a Marine-recruit buzz.

“You're a barber, too?”

“The Army,” he said. “You learn all kinds of things. Not that I'm ready to open a salon.”

He gave me a hand mirror.

Silver glints peppered my scalp; gray hair unearthed.

Bumps on my cranium that I'd never known about.

I looked ten years older, ten pounds thinner.

The haircut and the beard gave me the appearance of an Islamic radical.

I put on the tinted glasses. Scowled.

“Smile,” said a voice from the door.

Robin stood there.

I grinned at her.

“Okay, it's still you,” she said. But she didn't smile back.

Daniel set up a professional Polaroid camera on a tripod, took three dozen shots, left, and returned an hour later with Andrew Desmond's California driver's license. To my eyes, indistinguishable from the real thing.

I added it to the rest of the fake ID now occupying my wallet. “Hopefully I won't get stopped by a cop.”

“If you do, it's okay,” he said. “We've managed to enter the serial number into the system. Your graduate school's the Pacific Insight Institute. Have you heard of it?”

“No.”

“It closed down years ago. Master's degrees and Ph.Ds in education and psychology. Headquarters was a one-room office in Westwood Village. Fifty-three graduates. To our knowledge, none passed the state licensing exams.”

“So they went to work as psychic friends and made twice the money,” I said.

“Could be. Access to the spirits often pays off. So do diploma mills, apparently. Tuition was nineteen thousand dollars per year.”

“Couldn't buy licensure. Is that why it closed down?”

He shrugged. “Enrollment dropped each year. The former dean sells insurance in Oregon. His degree was self-granted. For the first year, Pacific was actually able to obtain partial federal loans, but that ended when the government clamped down on diploma mills.”

“You've done quite a bit of research.”

“More than we intended,” he said. “Because while finding a place for you, I learned that the Loomis Institute was involved in funding similar schools. Two in Florida and one in the Virgin Islands. Another possible profit-making scheme while claiming tax-free status, though all we know so far is Loomis awarded grants to these places.”

“Where'd you find this out?”

“A book written in response to The Brain Drain. One good thing that did come my way through the Internet. A collection of essays. The one that caught my eye was by a professor at Cole University in Mississippi whose field of study was diploma mills. He found out the school in the Virgin Islands had links to Loomis and may have really been a way to fund eugenics research.”

“A book,” I said. “Twisted Science?”

“That's the one. You've read it?”

“I checked it out but never got around to reading it, figured why waste time on something I agree with. What's this professor's name?”