Distraction

He cleared his throat and tried to slow down. “Anyway, to get back to the point of my personal history, they had this blue-helmet Danish commando type who had led the raid in Colombia, and he ended up as the expert technical adviser on my dad’s movie. This Danish commando and my dad got to be drinking buddies on the set, so when my dad came up with this adoption notion, the Danish guy naturally thought, ‘Well, why not one of the kids from my own operation?’ and he pulled some strings in Copenhagen. And that’s how I ended up in Hollywood.”

“Are you really telling me the truth?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Could I drive you back to the lab and take a tissue sample?”

“Look, the tissue’s just tissue. To hell with my tissue. The truth is a much bigger thing than my tissue. The truth is that people have a prejudice against persons like me. I can take their point, too, frankly. I can run a political campaign and I can get away with that, but I don’t think I’d ever actually vote for me. Because I’m not sure that I can really trust me. I’m really different. There are big chunks in my DNA that probably aren’t even of human origin.”

He spread his hands. “Let me tell you how different I am. I don’t sleep. I run a permanent mild fever. I grew up really fast — and not just because I spent my childhood in the L.A. fast lane. I’m twenty-eight now, but most people assume I’m in my mid-thirties. I’m sterile — I’ll never have kids of my own — and I’ve had three bouts of liver cancer. Luckily, that kind of cancer treats pretty easily nowadays, but I’m still on angiogenesis inhibitors, plus growth-factor blockers, and I have to take antitumor maintenance pills three times a month. The other eight kids from that raid — five of them died young of major organ cancers, and the other three… well, they’re Danes. They are three identical Danish women with — let me just put it this way — with extremely troubled personal lives.”

“Are you sure you’re not making this up? It’s such a compelling story. Do you really have an elevated body-core temperature? Have you ever had a PET-scan done?”

He looked at her meditatively. “You know, you’re really taking this very well. I mean, most people who hear this story have to go through a certain shock period…”

“I’m not a medical doctor, and genetic expression isn’t really my field. But I’m not shocked by that story. I’m astonished by it, of course, and I’d really like to confirm some details in my lab, but…” She considered it, then found the word. “Mostly, I’m very intrigued.”

“Really?”

“That was truly a profound abdication of scientific ethics. It vio-lated the Declaration of Helsinki, plus at least eight standards of con-duct with human subjects. You’re obviously a very brave and capable man, to have overcome that childhood tragedy, and achieved the suc-cess that you have.”

Oscar said nothing. Suddenly, his eyes were stinging. He’d seen a wide variety of reactions to his personal background confession. Mostly, reactions from women — because he rarely had to confess it at all, except to women. A business relationship could be begun and concluded without outing himself; a sexual relationship, never. He’d seen a full gamut of reactions. Shock, horror, amusement, sympathy; even a shrug and shake of the head. Indifference. Almost always, the truth gnawed at them over the long term.

But he’d never seen a reaction like Greta Pe

Oscar and his secretary Lana Ramachandran were walking through the garden behind the sloping white walls of the Genetic Fragmenta-tion Clinic. The garden bordered one of the staff housing sections, so there were children around. The constant piercing screams of young children meant that this was a good place to talk privately.

“Stop sending the flowers to her dorm residence,” Oscar told her. “She never goes there. Basically, she never sleeps.”

“Where should I have them delivered, then?”

“Into her laboratory. That’s more or less where she lives. And let’s turn up the heat on those bouquets — move off the pansies and zi

Lana was shocked. “Not tuberoses already!”

“Well, you know what I mean. Also, we’re going to start feeding her soon. She doesn’t eat properly — I can tell that. And later, we’ll style her and dress her. But we’ll have to work our way up to that.”

“How are we even supposed to reach her? Dr. Pe

He shrugged. “Dip the flowers into liquid nitrogen. Get ’em sealed in plastic. Whatever.”

His secretary groaned. “Oscar, what is it with you? Have you lost your mind? You can’t really be making a play for that woman. I know your type really well by now, and she’s definitely not your type. In fact, I’ve asked around some — and Dr. Pe

“Okay, maybe I have a sudden aberrant sweet tooth.”

Lana was genuinely pained. She wanted the best for him. She was quite humorless, but she was very efficient. “You shouldn’t act like this. It’s just not smart. She’s on the board of directors, she’s someone who’s officially in charge around here. And you’re a staffer for her Senate oversight committee. That’s a definite conflict of inter-est. ”

“I don’t care.”

Lana was in despair. “You’re always doing this. Why? I can’t believe you got away with shacking up with that journalist. She was covering the campaign! Somebody could have maqe a huge ethics stink about that. And before that, there was that Crazy architecture girl… and before that, there was that worthless Boston city man-agement girl… You can’t keep getting away with this, cutting things close this way. It’s like some kind of compulsion.”

“Look, Lana, you knew my romantic life was a problem as soon as you met me. I do have ethics. I draw the line at having an affair with anyone in my own krewe. All right? That would be bad, that would be workplace harassment, it’s like incest. But here I am, and what’s past is past. Greta Pe

“I give up! I’ll never figure out men. You don’t even know what you want, do you? You wouldn’t know what to do with happiness if it was standing right in front of you, begging you to notice.”

Lana had gone too far now. Oscar assembled and aimed a scowl at her. “Look, Lana, when you find me some happiness that you know will really suit me — me, in particular — then write me a memo about it. All right? In the meantime, can you get off the dime with the flowers effort?”

“All right, I’ll try,” she said. “I’ll do my best.” Lana was angry with him now, so she stalked off into the gardens. He couldn’t help that. Lana would come around. Lana always did. Dealing with him took her mind off her own troubles. Oscar strolled on, whistling a bit, examining the fretted dome of the sky, an evil winter skein of gray scudding harmlessly above the sweet federal bubble of warm and fra-grant air. He tossed his hat in his hand, catching it by its sharp and perfect brim. Life was definitely looking up for him. He skirted a blooming mass of rare azaleas in order to miss a drowsing antelope.

He’d chosen these Collaboratory gardens as his confidential of-fices lately. He’d given up using the Bambakias tour bus, since the bus seemed to attract so many determined bugging efforts. They would have to return the bus to Boston soon, anyway. That seemed just as well — high time, really. There was no use in remaining dependent on loaned equipment. Scratch the old bus, inhabit the brand-new hotel. Just keep the krewe together, keep up the core competencies. Keep the herd moving. It was progress, it was doable.