The Magic Bullet (35 page)

As she followed him toward the cobalt-60 device, she looked at Dr. Stillman standing off to the side in seeming detatchment. Once again, more strongly than ever, she found herself wishing he were a different kind of man.

W
hen Sabrina answered her door that evening, Logan was standing there with an armful of sunflowers. “Just so you won’t forget who’s the sunshine in your life,” he announced. “To Marjorie Rhome I sent roses.”

She laughed. “So did I.” From behind her back she withdrew two giant packs of Chunkys. “So you will remember who is the sweetness in yours.”

He tossed the flowers onto her living-room floor and took her in his arms. “As usual, I got the better deal.”

She kicked the door closed behind her as they kissed.

“I tell you, Sabrina,” he said, pulling back, “I’ve been flying all day. I can hardly stop myself from telling people!”

“I know.”

He laughed. “Or, rather, throwing it in their faces.”

“When are you seeing Reston?” she was reminded.

“Nine, at his place.” He glanced at his watch. “Bet you’d like to be a little Italian fly on that wall.”

“That way I could see him through a fly’s little prism eyes. Maybe he would look better.”

Something suddenly hit him. “Oh, I got something to show you.” From his breast pocket he withdrew a folded letter. “Talk about fate.”

“What is it?”

“It was in my box this afternoon.”

He handed to her. After a moment, she recognized the envelope, identical to the one bearing the first communication from the elderly German chemist two months earlier. This letter was longer than the first, almost a full page of labored old-fashioned script.

Sabrina carefully replaced the letter in the envelope. “You see,” she said softly, “it does not all begin with us. This man, he had the same ideas.”

“I wish he could have seen what we saw today.”

She looked at him quizzically. “How do we know that he did not?”

Entering Reston’s front door an hour later, the first time he’d visited the place in months, Logan’s feelings were extremely mixed. Obviously, as a member of the team, John Reston had a right to the extraordinary news; in fact, he should have been told of it hours earlier. On the other hand, it had been Reston who distanced himself from the project. The thought of Reston now sharing in the glory, if, in fact, there was to be any, was almost too much to swallow.

Even tonight, Reston’s first impulse was to trash the protocol.

“So, Danny boy, what’s so important that it couldn’t wait till tomorrow?” he asked, while they were still in the entry way. “As if I didn’t know.…”

“Can we sit down, John? This is pretty important.”

“That bad, huh?” said Reston, leading the way within. “Christ, I’m starting to think of you as Mr. Bad News.”

He took a seat in the cluttered living room. “What is it, another goddamn toxicity?”

“Actually no. It’s about Marjorie Rhome.”

“What about her?”

Logan held up the X rays. “We had pictures taken today. She’s clean.”

Reston sat up. “What are you talking about?”

“Take a look.”

Reston didn’t move. “
Clean?
As in
nothing there?
”

“Not that we can see.”

A smile began to bloom on Reston’s face. “Really? You’re not bullshittin’ me?” He got to his feet. “Lemme see those.”

He studied them only momentarily. “Amy!” he shouted. “Amy, get in here!”

“What?” she called from another part of the apartment.

“Baby, hurry!”

A moment later she came rushing in, wearing a terrycloth robe, a towel around her hair. “What!” Then, spotting Logan, “Oh, Dan, I didn’t know you were—”

But already Reston had her in his arms, dancing her around the room. “We’ve had a hit, Amy! The drug actually works!”

“What?”

“We did it, Amy! Compound J’s for real!”

She stopped and turned to Logan, what she was hearing apparently striking her as flatly impossible; clearly, she’d heard nothing but negative talk about the drug for months. “Is that really true? After all the problems you’ve had?”

He shrugged and smiled. “It looks good so far. Of course, it’s pretty early to—”

“Get dressed,” said Reston, “you and I are gonna go out and celebrate. And I mean big time!” He turned to Logan. “You coming along, too, Dan?”

He smiled. “No thanks, I’ve never been any good as a third wheel. Anyway, I’ve got to be somewhere.”

Reston walked over and extended his hand. “Look, buddy, I want to thank you. I guess all the rough times were worth it, right?”

“Hey, we all did our part.”

“Right.” Reston laughed. “And don’t you forget it.”

The next morning, Logan was both pleased and surprised to discover that Seth Shein had not already gotten his hands on the information.

“Well,” said Logan, grinning, “this looks like a first. I
get to tell you something important you don’t already know.”

Shein was actually irritated. “And what might that be? Don’t tell me you’ve found yet another way of poisoning patients.”

By now Logan had come to regard Marjorie Rhome’s X rays as a kind of totem. Their effect on others was magical. “Take a look at these,” he said now, sliding them across the desk.

Shein did so—but his face remained disappointingly impassive. “This is your second creatinine patient?” he asked finally.

Logan nodded. “Actually, that was my concern when she came in yesterday morning.”

“And what was her creatinine level? Or were you so swept away by this triumph that you forgot to check?”

“One point nine. Not good, but still eligible to stay on the program.”

“Good.” He paused thoughtfully. “This is an excellent development, Logan, you obviously know that.”

“Yessir.”
What was going on here?
Logan wondered.
Why the hell was he so sober about it?

“My concern,” continued Shein, as if reading his mind, “is that something like this could get you carried away. We don’t know if this result is going to stick, do we?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Nor have you come close to licking your toxicity problem.”

“No.”

“What I’m saying is that one response is nice, but it does not a successful protocol make.”

“Of course not, I know that.”
Something was going on here. Could it be that Shein resented this success?

Shein suddenly grinned and threw out his hands. “That said, I am bowled over! Congratulations, Logan, I’ll tell you the truth, I was startin’ to think you were gonna make me look bad.”

Logan laughed. “I kind of got the idea that’s what you were thinking. Never. Not a chance.”

“This is gonna kill that bastard Stillman.
Kill
him.” He actually cackled. “Have you thought about how to break the news?”

He shrugged. “No, not really.”

“Let me handle that.” He rubbed his hands together. “Start it out as a rumor—you know, some interesting results on the Compound J trial, that sorta thing. Then leak it out in dribs and drabs over two or three days. Make ’em
suffer
.”

“Shouldn’t we maybe wait a little while? Keep a close eye on Mrs. Rhome—and see if we find activity in any other patients?”

Shein nodded sagely, the cat who’d swallowed an entire nestful of canaries.—“I have a pretty good idea you’re going to be seeing other results.”

“Really!” Logan sat up in his seat. “Why?”

“You haven’t paid much attention to your bunnies lately, have you, Logan? Too busy playing the big man over at the Outpatient Clinic.”

“The rabbits? Not since yesterday morning when I gave ’em their second dose.”

“Better take a look, then, don’t you think?”

A moment later, Shein was leading him down the hall toward the bank of elevators.

Stepping into the animal holding facility, Logan spotted the change even from across the room. At least half the animals looked healthier, their fur less ragged, their movements brisker and more assured. But it was only when he was beside the cages that he recognized the extent of the transformation: on almost every animal, the tumors were markedly smaller.

“My God!” exclaimed Logan. “Look at that.”

“Look almost good enough to eat, don’t they? If you go for that kind of thing.”

“But it’s so soon. It’s only been four days.…”

Shein nodded. “Wanna know what I think? I think you
and your little girlfriend’s playing around with this molecule achieved something quite interesting: you didn’t alter the effects of Compound J but you accelerated the process.”

“In other words—”

“My hunch is that you’re going to see more responses with Compound J. It’s just taking longer than you thought.”

“Why? What makes you so sure?”

“This stuff you made, what do you call it?”

“Compound J-lite.”

He smiled. “Oh, you’re such a clever bastard, aren’t you, Logan? What seems to be happening is that this new stuff of yours isn’t cleared by the body as rapidly as Compound J—which means, since there’s more of it working at any given moment, that its effects are enhanced.”

“So you think we can expect a
major
response rate?”

Shein gave him that familiar look of contempt. “How the hell do I know? We’re dealing with human beings, not rodents.” He paused. “But it’s a pretty damn good bet you’re gonna get a response in more than just one.”

For a long moment, Logan stared at the rabbits. “That’s good enough,” he said finally. “I’m up for that.”

I
t was little more than a week before they had their second response. Reston was the one who first noted it. Back on board with a vengeance, he’d been making a point of seeing virtually every protocol patient in for her regular exam, hoping against hope to come up with a “hit” of his own.

There was considerable irony in the fact that the patient in question turned out to be Hannah Dietz—who, following her toxicity problem, Reston himself had tried so hard to have removed from the protocol. In fact, uncertain as to how much the patient knew about that conflict or his role in it, Reston had come close to letting one of his colleagues deal with her now.

But he was immediately reassured by the warmth of her greeting. “Dr. Reston, it has been far too long.”

He smiled back. “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Dietz, I’ve been keeping up with your every move. I see you’ve licked that bleeding gums problem.”

“Yes, yes. No more of that, thank goodness.” She nodded. “My Phil is such a good fellow. You know what he tells me all the time now? ‘We beat one, we’ll beat the other.’ ”

“That’s important,” he said. “Any doctor who tells you a patient’s attitude doesn’t matter hasn’t been keeping his eyes open.”

“I’m sure.” She smiled. “It’s just too bad the other is cancer.”

Dietz’s case was distinct from the others on the protocol in that hers was a palpable tumor: a discrete rocklike mass of five by four centimeters, it was more easily monitored by
touch than via X ray or CAT scan. So immediately, when Reston began manipulating the tumor, he was struck by the change. Not only had there been a significant reduction in size, but what remained was now rubbery, blending seamlessly into the surrounding tissue.

Reston made little effort to hide his excitement.

“Mrs. Dietz,” he announced, “I think I’ve got some unbelievable news for you! This tumor of yours seems almost
gone
.”

Having grown accustomed to doctors speaking in measured tones, Mrs. Dietz took a moment to react. “Really?” was all she could find to say.

He nodded vigorously. “I swear to God, I can hardly feel the bastard. Pardon my French.”

She grinned. “At the moment, I do not mind your French one bit, young man.”

“Would you like to call in your friend? What’s his name?”

“Phil. Oh, yes, I would like that very much.”

“Just for a minute, just to give him the news.”

“She’s better?” asked Phil a moment later, incredulous. “Is this what it means?”

Reston hesitated. “Let’s just say that we’re a lot better off than we were yesterday.”

In fact, now that he was past his initial euphoria, he was painfully aware that he should never have led them to so definitive a conclusion; a tactile diagnosis can be inexact—and sometimes dangerously misleading. Until he had solid confirming data, it would remain the medical equivalent of hearsay.

“Listen, Phil, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave us now. We’re going to have to run a couple of tests.”

“Will it take very long?”