The Queen of Guilty Pleasuresby Lou Antonelli |
Table of Contents Part 1 appears in this issue. |
| conclusion |
Marcel led them to a small shed behind the building where old bound volumes of newspapers lined the shelves. He pulled a box from behind some of the large books.
“Damn, you put the stuff out here?” said Hitchens, “with no air conditioning?”
“This sophisticated kind of package is totally insulated,” said Tersarius, as he carried the old software box into the building.
“I wouldn’t open it if I were you,” said Marcel. “It’s in there pretty tight.”
Tersarius cracked the box just enough to see the zero-energy container inside.
“How did you notice the box?” asked Marcel.
“Well, even though I don’t use the software much, I know Pagemaker is an Adobe product now. And this box says Aldus, so I knew it was pretty old. I mean, why would a newspaper be using desktop publishing software ten years old? And then I realized the name.”
“I tried to be too clever, huh?”
“I don’t get it,” said Hitchens, “What about the name?”
“This tissue sample is from a woman named Bettie Page. She was a top pinup in the 1950s and the Playboy Playmate for Christmas 1955. She became a Christian in 1959 and has been pretty much living a private life in anonymity since then.”
“I get it. The software is named Pagemaker.” Hitchens rolled his eyes. “Page-maker. Sheeyit.”
Tersarius pointed a thumb towards the door. “Time to visit Cloverleaf Farms.”
* * *
Despite it being the middle of a Texas summer, the grounds of Cloverleaf Farms were bright green. It was gated and a voice squawked from a box after they pulled up.
“I’d like to see Mr. Jervinis.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I don’t need one. I’m Agent Tersarius of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
There was a pause. “May I see your badge?”
Tersarius held it up in front of the lens. The gate swung open.
They drove up to a large and long building, where a chunky man with sandy hair came out. “Gentlemen, I’m Mark Ginn, the manager here at Cloverleaf. How may I help you?”
“We’d like to see Mr. Jervinis.” Tersarius looked around the expansive estate.
“Mr. Jervinis isn’t here right now. Is here something I can help you gentlemen with?” He obviously recognized Marcel but didn’t give Hitchens a second glance.
“I want to see your embryology lab.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. It’s secure and sterile and I don’t have the authority. Mr. Jervinis is the general manager, I’m just the manager of the boarding facility. Besides, do you have a warrant?”
“I believe there’s a crime in progress. Your lab is being used for illegal cloning.”
“Agent Tersarius, cloning livestock is hardly illegal.”
“Cloning humans is.”
Tersarius could tell from his reaction this was the first he’d heard of this.
“Are you going to cooperate, or do I need call the Dallas office for backup, and do a thorough search?”
Ginn let them in and the four men slowly made their way through the lab. Ginn seemed unfamiliar with the facilities, but Tersarius recognized the standard lab setup — refrigeration equipment, sterile hoods, incubators and such.
He looked around and rubbed his chin. “The right stuff isn’t quite here.” He looked at Ginn, who just shrugged.
He noticed a locked door off to the side. “What’s in there?”
“From my having visited in here before, I think that’s a personal office for Mr. Jervinis.”
Tersarius twisted the knob and shook the door. “Do you have a key?”
Tersarius let go of the knob, but it continued to twist. The door opened and a dark-haired man with a neat beard looked out. “What’s going on here?”
“Mr. Jervinis, I’m sorry.” Ginn spoke up. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“That OK, Mark. Tim, what’s going on?”
“This is an FBI agent Tersarius. He’s investigating a suspected case of human cloning.”
“There’s been no law violated, Agent Tersarius.” Jervinis was the image of reasonability. “I’ve only been involved in some personal embryological research, related, of course, to our reproductive services division here at the ranch.”
“Well, then, you don’t mind if I take a look inside.”
“Not at all.”
Tersarius went inside the small room, which also had a sterile hood and incubator, along with a small refrigerator and a microscope, all on one large table. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a tray with vials.
He looked over the containers. He gestured towards the other men. “Gentlemen, step forward here. I want to show you how to clone a human being.”
“First, you examine the human cells under this high power microscope, to insure there’s no contamination. If you’re unsure, you can always use a small centrifuge to isolate them.”
He looked at Jervinis, who was beginning to look worried. “I assume you have one someplace?”
Jervinis nodded very slowly.
“Then you put them in this specialized culture media,” he said holding up a vial, “where the cells grow and divide. You need to grow a good supply of clean cells.”
“This stuff here,” he said, “holding up another tube, “is called minimal media. It’s formulated so that the cells stop dividing and become quiescent.”
He pulled out a sealed petri dish. “You then take an unfertilized human egg, not terribly difficult to obtain, and under the sterile hood, you use a microscopically thin pipette to puncture the cell wall and then suck out the egg’s nucleus.”
He opened the door to the hood and slid in the dish. “Then you take one of the cells and slide it into the egg’s cell membrane.”
He looked at the trio. “A normal human cell is much smaller than an egg, so you can implant it in the egg’s cell wall quite easily. Isn’t that true?”
Jervinis nodded again.
“Then you either use chemicals or electroshock to jolt the cells so they fuse. The nucleus of the clone cell merges with the egg and takes the place of the nucleus you earlier removed. The egg will develop with the genetic material of the clone cell rather than what it started with. Then it’s just a simple matter of artificial insemination with some willing host.”
He turned to Jervinis. “I assume from the caps on some of these vials you use the electroshock method?”
Jervinis reached into a drawer and pulled out a small box with some wires and clamps.
“Very simple, but it would do the job,” said Tersarius. “I commend your expertise. You’ve managed to put a neat cloning operation on a desktop. You obviously know your stuff.”
“You obviously do, too. Have you ever done this yourself?”
Tersarius gave a little laugh. “No, but remember I’m the one asking questions here. And the next one is, who you have been working for?”
Before Jervinis opened his mouth, Marcel turned to run but Hitchens quickly grabbed him and then shoved him back in the door.
“That’s OK, Mr. Editor, it isn’t hard to see you’re the linchpin of this project,” said Tersarius. “You thought implicating over the Frames would throw me off you, and that when I ran into the lieutenant, he’d do his job.”
“I thought he would do at least what he was damn well paid to do.”
“Well, it was obvious you’re at the center of this. I can see Jervinis recognized you but not the lieutenant. The Frames knew the lieutenant but not you. You and the lieutenant are at the center of this conspiracy — and you’re obviously working for the client. Why would you get the tissue sample instead of Jervinis here? You can’t do a thing with it.”
He turned to Jervinis. “By the way, do you have an idea of the name of the clone subject?”
The doctor looked at him warily.
“Oh, I’m sorry, now that I’m sure, I need your testimony and expertise for this case,” said Tersarius. “We’ll give you immunity. It’s obvious Marcel here is our connection to the client.”
“Actually, Agent Tersarius, I don’t know and I never asked. I thought it was better that way.”
“Which means our editor friend here was the only person who knew her name. Page-maker, huh?” He snorted. “Desktop publishing software. Desktop cloning. All sorts of in-jokes.”
Marcel glared at him. “I want an attorney.”
Tersarius cocked an eyebrow at Hitchens. “You want to do the honors?”
The lieutenant smiled. “My pleasure.”
“Oh, you son of a bitch! I’ll be damned if you’re going arrest me!”
Hitchens already had the handcuffs on behind his back. “Just tell the man what he wants to know.”
“I can’t.”
“Yeah, I know.” Tersarius said. “Let’s go.”
He turned to Jervinis. “I’d like to debrief you. I think I’ll learn more if you and I cooperate. I think we can chalk this up to research for future cases.”
Jervinis smiled and nodded. “Mark, please turn off all the lights and lock up behind us.”
* * *
It was past 10 p.m. before Tersarius was done debriefing Jervinis in Dallas. Marcel was fuming in a cell and Hitchens was back doing whatever a crooked cop does in a small town.
He drove back to Juniper Valley. The Town Square was dark and quiet as he let himself in the Journal office. He walked around the editor’s desk and slowly looked over the shelves. There were many science fiction books. He glanced over some of the titles:
Web of the City
The Man with Nine Lives
The Sound of the City
“Seems to be a pattern here,” he thought.
He noticed a memo pad on the desk. The top sheet was blank, but he could see an impression of what had been written on the sheet above. He could just make out what looked like
HE
m
an
“He-man?”
He tore the sheet from the pad and stuck it in his shirt pocket. He began going through drawers.
He found a slick trade paperback. The Real Bettie Page: The Truth About the Queen of the Pin-ups.
“He did a little research here.”
He flipped through the pages and noticed the book opened at the foreword: “The Queen of Guilty Pleasures.” Then he saw who guest-authored the foreword.
“Payoff.”
He threw the book back in the drawer.
* * *
“I’m surprised to see you back in Southern California,” said Detective Sloan. “I did think I’d get a call. But I assumed after you took off for Texas, I’d never see you again.”
“If you think about it, neither of us should be surprised the trail led back here,” said Agent Tersarius. “You know how uncommon random assaults are.”
“You said in your message you think the person who set up this possible cloning deal lives here.”
“Yes, that probably explains how he knew Bettie Page still lived in the LA area,” said Tersarius. “Plus he fits what I would call the profile in this case. Someone old and wealthy who could afford to do this, someone who would remember Bettie Page as a pinup in the ‘50s. In this case, my suspect was 21 when she was a Playboy centerfold in 1955.”
“I don’t pretend to completely understand how it’s done,” said the detective, “especially if — if you cloned someone today, wouldn’t it take years for the clone to grow up? Don’t they age like a normal human?”
“That’s the interesting twist on the case,” said Tersarius. “I have an indication this may have been done before.” He pulled out the sheet from the memo pad. “When I ran this through the bureau’s lab in Dallas, they made out the whole message. It actually says “HE make another.”
“Is HE your suspect then? I assume those are initials.”
“Yes, and that’s where I’m going next.”
“Do you need my help?”
“No actually, he lives elsewhere, so it doesn’t fall under your jurisdiction. I just wanted to make a courtesy call. I’ll let you know if it pans out.”
The detective stood up and shook Tersarius’ hand. “Well, this was probably ground breaking.”
Tersarius gave a wan smile. “It might be earth shaking, if the suspect is who I think it is. On the other hand, we probably will cut a deal. We may need this man’s help more than we need him prosecuted.”
“You would have thought the first real attempt at cloning would have been for spare organs,” said the detective as he escorted the agent to the door.
“Well, the two things that drive mankind are a desire for sex and a fear of death,” the agent said dryly. “Human nature being what it is, I’m not surprised someone would have wanted to clone a concubine.”
He turned as he walked away. “Anyway, this is the first case I’ve seen involving a sex toy.”
* * *
Agent Tersarius parked in front of a ranch house with a California stone exterior.
A diminutive well-dressed man with intelligent eyes behind rather large glasses answered the door. “Good afternoon. Agent Tersarius, isn’t it?”
“We need to talk, sir.”
The old man gestured expansively for the agent to enter. “I got word from Texas to be expecting you.”
Tersarius knitted his legs as he sat down on a large leather couch. “I guess Tim Marcel called you as soon as he posted bail.”
A pretty dark-haired teenage girl came into the living room. “Hello. Daddy, you didn’t tell me we had a guest?”
Tersarius smiled at the girl. “I just arrived.”
“Bettie, dearest, could you get us some coffee, please?”
“Sure.” She smiled at the agent. “I’ll be right back.”
The author turned to Tersarius. “As you can see, there’s nothing romantic going on here, agent.”
“Was that the original plan?”
The old man sighed. “You’re very perspicacious, sir.”
He sat back in his chair. “Yes, I planned to use her as a paramour — but as she quickly matured, my heart wasn’t in it.”
“Quickly, eh? How old is she?”
The author looked at his with resignation. “Seven. She’s seven years old.”
“She looks like a 16-year old.”
“And her rate of aging is accelerating. She’ll probably die of old age by the time she’s 30.”
“Things didn’t work out the way you planned, then. Couldn’t bear to become attached to her?”
“You make it sound so crass.”
Irritation crept into Tersarius’ voice. “Crass? Damn, man, you were going to start making a series of then? So you’d have a fresh one when the previous one got too old?”
The author’s blue eyes flashed as he leaned forward violently. “No, dammit. I just wanted to see whether this first case was an aberration. I wanted new work done.”
Tersarius nodded in the direction of the kitchen. “So she wasn’t a product of the Texas lab?”
“No, I had a fellow in Nevada do that work. Marcel was a fan who happened to broach the subject of cloning in a letter. I used him to set up the second attempt.”
He sighed. “I just learned two days ago it wouldn’t have worked. I was going to tell Marcel to destroy the tissue sample. Then you showed up.”
“What did you learn?”
The author leaned back in his armchair and rubbed his hands in a very obvious way. “Now, are we going to talk about leniency?”
“If you happen to have something substantial to offer, yes.”
The old man smiled. “My man in Nevada isolated a genome that seems to determine the rate of aging once maturity is achieved. Apparently, it must have some kind of environmental trigger — which explains why, in an artificial situation such as this, the aging proceeds geometrically after infancy.”
“How has he been able to confirm this?”
“This genome in Bettie duplicates that which has already been found in victims of Progeria — except it’s not the same gene. Since we know what the gene looks like initially, a little splicing and we’ll have a cure for fetuses diagnosed as possessing the Progeria defect.”
“A cure for Progeria.” Tersarius lowered his voice as Bettie returned with a tray and a carafe of coffee.
“Thank you dear. I know you have school work to do. Please leave us two old fellows, we’re talking business.”
“Of course, daddy.” Her blue eyes sparkled. “Please say good-bye before you leave, Mr....”
“Tersarius.”
Her bangs swayed as she giggled. “I’m sorry, did you say Terry Serious?”
“Close enough.” They both laughed.
The author nodded after she left. “She’s my responsibility in every way. Now I have to watch her grow old so quickly. The least I can do is make some good come out of this — a rich, old man’s foolish fantasy.”
“She was cloned before the law went in to effect,” said Tersarius. “And you were stopped before the next attempt. The most I would have is a conspiracy charge.”
He sipped his coffee. “I think we can deal. The NIH will appreciate the information you turn over to them.”
* * *
“You could have flown in tomorrow morning.”
Tersarius was pulling off his tie. “After spending all that time in Texas and California, I wanted to get back home.”
He kissed his wife.
“Where’s the little one?”
“Asleep in her bed, like a little angel.”
They both looked at their daughter through a partially cracked doorway.
He smiled and turned away as he quietly closed the door.
She held his hand. “Wasn’t this job about illegal cloning?”
“Yes, but they didn’t succeed.”
“Well, did you learn anything?”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Yes. Bringing life into the world is a big responsibility — also a big risk.”
She had hardly ever heard him say anything so touching. She hugged him, and he hugged her back even tighter.
Copyright © 2005 by Lou Antonelli
