Robin Cook - Vector

“Well, she didn’t seem at all concerned,” Chet said. “In fact, she was in a rare, spunky mood if you ask me.”

“Really?” Jack asked.

“I’d even have to say ebullient.”

“She was the same way this morning.”

“She was so ‘up’ I mentioned the possible plan for Thursday evening,” Chet said.

“You mean about the four of us going to the Monet exhibit?”

Chet nodded. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“What was her response?”

“She said she was very appreciative of our thinking of her, but she said she already had plans.”

“She actually used the word ‘appreciative’?”

“A direct quote,” Chet said. “I questioned it, too. It seemed so uncharacteristically formal.”

“Who else was looking for me?” Jack asked. He wanted to get away from talking about Laurie. It was making him even more curious — and anxious.

“Calvin stopped in,” Chet said. “I think he’d been to histology and just stopped in because he was on the floor.”

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to remind you that Jefferson’s case has to be signed out by Thursday.”

Jack made a gesture of dismissal with his hand. “That’s going to be up to the lab, not me.”

“Well, I’m on my way,” Chet said. He stood up, stretched, and then retrieved his coat from behind the door.

“Let me ask you a question,” Jack said. “You’ve lived in New York longer than I. What’s the story with yellow cabs vis-à-vis radio calls?”

“Yellow cabs thrive on people hailing them,” Chet explained. “They generally don’t do radio calls. Among the drivers the expression is, you cruise or you lose. They don’t want to sit around and wait or drive someplace empty. They have to hustle or they lose money.”

“Why do a lot of them have radios?” Jack asked.

“They can do radio calls if they want,” Chet said. “But it doesn’t pay. Generally the radios just keep them informed of where there’s the greatest need, like uptown or downtown or out at the airport. And what areas to stay out of because of traffic congestion, that sort of thing.”

Jack nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“Why do you ask?” Chet questioned.

“A cab driver came by the Corinthian Rug Company to pick up Jason Papparis while I was there,” Jack said with a wry smile.

Chet laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve heard of a dead man calling for a cab. It makes you wonder from where he placed the call.”

“Or where he wanted the cab to take him.”

Chet laughed again in an equally hollow manner.

“The driver gave me the number of the dispatcher,” Jack said. “I called them to see if Jason was a frequent customer. I thought that if he was, then maybe the cab company might be a source of information about the last time the man went to his Queens warehouse.”

“What did they say?”

“They were not helpful,” Jack said. “They wouldn’t even tell me when Jason Papparis had called to set up the pickup. They just said they don’t give out any information on their drivers or their clients.”

“That’s being nice and helpful,” Chet said. “It could be subpoenaed, suppose.”

“I can’t imagine it would be worth it,” Jack said.

“It’s still curious,” Chet said. “If someone calls for a cab in New York City, it’s generally not a yellow cab that responds.”

“I’ll tell you something even more curious,” Jack said. “The taxi driver was Russian and he’d grown up in Sverdlovsk.”

“Sverdlovsk!” Chet exclaimed. “That’s the Soviet town that had the anthrax bioweapons accident you pointed out to me in Harrison’s textbook of medicine!”

“Can you believe it?” Jack asked. “I mean that’s a coincidence.”

“Only in New York,” Chet said. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, because anything and everything happens here.”

“This guy even knew about anthrax,” Jack said.

“No kidding?”

“Well, he didn’t know much,” Jack added. “He just knew it was a disease mainly of cattle. He mentioned cows and sheep.”

“I’d venture to guess that’s more than the average New Yorker knows,” Chet said.

After a bit more small talk about activities over the immediately preceding weekend, Chet said his goodbyes and left. Jack turned to his desk. Without enthusiasm he eyed his ever-burgeoning pile of uncompleted cases lying next to a stack of waiting histology slides. He thought briefly about getting out his microscope until he glanced at his watch. It was after seven. Knowing he had to pedal home, shower and dress, and then pedal back across town all before eight-thirty, Jack decided he didn’t have time for more work.

The traffic on First Avenue had abated somewhat from a half hour earlier, and Jack ran with it beyond the United Nations building. Taking Forty-ninth Street, he crossed to Madison Avenue and then again turned north. He rarely used the same route home until he got to the Grand Army Plaza at the southeastern corner of Central Park. It was there that he took his nightly turn around the Pulitzer fountain to admire the gilded nude statue of Abundance atop it. Then he entered the park and his favorite part of the trip. Over the years he’d figured out the best and most scenic route and used it most nights.

With an eye peeled for other cyclists, joggers, and in-line skaters, Jack cranked up his pace. Although the trees still had most of their leaves, a lot had already fallen, and they swirled in his wake and filled him with the unmistakable scent of fall.

Although Jack immensely enjoyed his rapid transit through the park, it also made him feel edgy. Finding himself paradoxically isolated in the lonely expanse within the confines of the otherwise teeming city never failed to remind him of the night he’d almost been shot and killed here by a hired gang member. There was no doubt danger lurked in the park’s silent shadows.

Jack burst out of the tranquil darkness onto the bustling avenue, Central Park West. It was like returning to civilization. Slowing his speed considerably, he wound his way north among the darting, honking clutch of yellow cabs. At 106th Street he turned west.

Knowing he didn’t have a lot of time to spare, Jack had fully intended on heading directly to his tenement. Instead, he couldn’t resist the siren song of the basketball court. Even though he was unable to play that evening, he couldn’t pass by without at least stopping to check out the action.

The court was part of a larger, mostly cement park featuring swings, monkey bars, and sandboxes for the younger children, as well as benches for the doting mothers. Jack loved to play B-ball. He’d played at Amherst, which had never had a very competitive team. Years later, when he’d first moved to New York City, he’d ventured one day onto the court merely to shoot baskets by himself as a diversion, but by chance the locals had had only nine players. So they’d lowered their standards and asked Jack to play. He’d been immediately hooked by the lively and often rough urban games. Now, weather permitting, it was almost a nightly ritual.

For almost a year, Jack had been the only Caucasian player among the horde of local and considerably younger African-American players. But over the next few years two other white players had ventured into the fray, as well as a number of African-Americans closer to Jack’s age of forty-four.

As a regular and a fanatic, Jack financed new backboards, new outdoor balls, and mercury vapor lighting. He accomplished this combination philanthropic and self-serving gesture through negotiations with the local community leadership. The final deal stipulated that Jack had to pay to refurbish the other park amenities as well. Jack had not minded in the slightest and considered it a small price to pay to be welcomed into the neighborhood.