The Eighth Day (17 page)

Not that he was unattractive. Women liked him, and he was undeniably young, clean, and symmetrical. Also, he was a pretty good listener and knew how to dance. So he did just fine. But, until very recently it had not been his experience that beautiful women latched onto him like limpets. Maybe that happened to Brad Pitt and George Clooney but not to Danny Cray. Except . . . lately. Which suggested one of two things: Either he’d suddenly come into his own as the world’s most eligible bachelor—or Belzer wanted him really bad.

“So where’s our friend?” he asked.

Veroushka gave him a puzzled look.

“Belzer,” he hinted.

She looked blank.

“Zebek’s lawyer?” he reminded.

She shook her head. “I think our host has many lawyers. But I don’t think they come to his parties.”

He was about to ask her what she meant when one of the guards—a bodybuilder by the look of him—touched him on the shoulder. “
Scusi
—Signore Zebek, he asks to see you now.”

With a hapless shrug in the direction of his escort (or perk or whatever she was), Danny followed the security guard up a marble staircase, then down a long hallway to a large and gloomy library, where Belzer waited for him in a leather wing chair behind an ornately carved desk. A study for
The Flaying of Marsyas
hung from the wall at his back, illuminated by a single beam of light. Danny guessed that the drawing was an original—one of the last Titian ever made. Belzer gestured to a chair, and Danny settled in.

“Is it just us then?”

Belzer nodded.

Danny looked disappointed. “I’ve never met a billionaire before. I was hoping to meet Mr. Zebek.”

The lawyer’s lips curled in an ironic grin. “You are. You have.”

It took a moment for this to register. Self-consciously—because he didn’t quite get it—Danny glanced over his shoulder. Saw the muscular security guard standing by the door. No one else. Just Belzer, himself, and the guard. And then it hit him. “You’re kidding,” he said, and laughed aloud.

Belzer’s eyebrows lifted, and he pursed his lips. “The investigator, at last!” he remarked.

Danny let the sarcasm slide but couldn’t hide his puzzlement. “I don’t get it. I mean, what’s the point? Why would you do that?”

Belzer—Zebek—shrugged. “I like to stay in the background—especially when I’m in someone’s face.” Reaching into the top drawer of the desk, he removed a thick envelope and tossed it to Danny. “Per diem, bonus, and expenses. You’d better count it.”

Danny shook his head, thrilled by the weight of the envelope. “That’s okay. I’m sure—”

“Count it.”

Embarrassed, Danny opened the envelope and removed a wad of hundred-dollar bills. One by one, he went through the stack until he’d counted to 164.

“Is that about right?” Zebek asked.

Danny nodded. “Yeah, it’s—”

“Now give it back.”

Danny gave him a blank look. “What?”

Zebek held out his hand and waggled his fingers. Reflexively Danny gave him the money. “I hate getting fucked,” Zebek confessed.

The words hung there, so unexpected that Danny thought that he’d misheard. Or hoped that he had. But no. Zebek put the cash back in the drawer and closed it.

“What are you doing?” Danny asked.

Zebek ignored the question. Leaned forward and asked one of his own. “You’re a lot like Bruco, you know that?”

“ ‘Bruco’?”

“The Tomato Worm. He’s my nemesis at the moment.”

Danny blinked. It was beginning to look as if he wasn’t going to be paid, and the unhappiness he felt was a lot like vertigo. “What are we talking about?”

“The Palio,” Zebek replied. “There are favorites, you know, just like the Kentucky Derby. This time, the smart money is on two horses—the Peacock and the Worm.
Pavone o Bruco.
” His right hand rotated with uncertainty. “
Bruco o Pavone.
I made Bruco an offer, but . . . who knows? The rider’s local. Most of the jockeys come from the Maremma, so they’re very professional. Easy to deal with. This kid . . . I think he wants to be a hero with the girls.” He shook his head. “Not smart.”

Danny frowned. The billionaire was beginning to piss him off. “Is this supposed to be a parable?”

Zebek chuckled. “Yes. But it doesn’t matter. It’s more fun this way. The other riders will take care of Bruco. That’s what they’re paid for.”

Danny nodded, his mind racing.
He thinks he’s been screwed—and he has. But he doesn’t have any way of knowing it. Not for a fact. So this—this
business
—it’s just a test. A bluff. Hang in there.

“So, I guess you’re not coming to work for me,” Zebek continued, moving from one subject to the next (or maybe not).

For Danny, it was as if a lightbulb had gone off.
So that’s what this is all about,
he thought.
He’s used to getting whatever he wants, so anyone who says no is suddenly the enemy.
“Listen,” Danny began. “The offer was tremendous, but—”

Zebek shut him up with a snort of derision. The billionaire removed his shades, his eyes held Danny’s, and the silence deepened.

A question occurred to Danny. “How did you know I decided not to take the job?”

Zebek punched a button on a console at the edge of his desk. Immediately Inzaghi’s voice filled the room.

Come back to Rome. We have to
talk.

Danny’s heart lurched as he heard his own voice reply,
“Talk”? About what?

Listen,
the priest said.
I’ve been up all night with the files, and—

What files?

Terio’s files, what do you think? The ones on the computer. And it’s terrible! You can’t imagine what he’s up to, this Zebek!

As the conversation went on, Danny sank lower and lower into his chair, thinking,
Not good, not good. . . .
Finally, the recording came to an end. Zebek snapped off the machine.

“How did you do that?” Danny asked. “I thought cell phones were encrypted over here. The GSM standard, or whatever they call it.”

Zebek smirked. “You’re right. They are. But if you clone the smart card, you’ve got a second phone that acts like an extension.” He paused to let the idea sink in. “Now let me ask
you
a question,” he went on. “What did you
do
exactly? Did you copy the files for him? Did you put them back on the computer?”

Danny looked away.

Zebek looked mournful. “And now this crazy priest—he calls you ‘Daniel’?”

The American shrugged.

Zebek shook his head in disbelief, milking the moment. “Didn’t you even bother to use the ID that I gave you?”

Danny took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “Yeah,” he said, “I used it.” He paused, and changed the subject. “Do you bug everyone who works for you?”

Zebek acted as if it was a cheap shot. He grimaced and said, “Just the new boys.” Then he paused, and his eyes narrowed. “You know,
Daniel,
before you fuck with someone, you really ought to think about who you’re pissing off.” He cocked his head and added, “Do you even know what I
do
?”

The American shook his head, trying to get past the vitriol in the billionaire’s voice. He was feeling a little panicky and had to remind himself that what was happening was just a dressing-down. It wasn’t the first time he’d been reamed out. All he needed to do was keep cool—and make sure he got paid.

“I asked if you know what I do,” Zebek repeated.

“Venture capital,” Danny replied.

Zebek pursed his lips. “Well, I’m a little more focused than that. Mostly, we’re invested in start-ups working on protein folding and MEMS—cutting-edge stuff. You’d be amazed at the applications. Like this.” His finger tapped a black metal box that was connected by a cable to the console on his desk.

Despite himself, Danny was curious. “What’s it for?”

“It’s a prototype . . . for building personality engines.”

Danny frowned. After a bit, he said, “What?”

“Well, let’s see . . . you know what a doppelganger is, don’t you?”

“Yeah. It’s someone’s double. You see your own, you’re supposed to die.”

Zebek smiled. “That’s what they say, but . . . it’s just a superstition. The doppelgangers I’m talking about—the doppelgangers we
make
—are virtual. At least, they are for now.” The conversational tone of his voice was irritating, a patronizing lecture from a patient adult to a slow child. It made Danny’s temper fizz, especially because he still wasn’t sure what the billionaire was talking about.

“It’s like this,” Zebek went on, his voice even more confiding. “If you give us a minute of audio and video—home movies will do—we can use them to make a template.”

“To do what?” Danny asked.

“The template looks a lot like a credit card,” Zebek said, ignoring the question. “But it’s encoded with an algorithm that’s derived from a person’s movements and expressions. The result is what we call ‘a personality engine.’ If I plug one of the cards into a box like this, we can use it to animate any image or voice that I’m able to broadcast or project. All I need is a picture. Or a tape.” Zebek paused, obviously pleased with himself. “We’ve got patents pending in the States. We’re doing Beta tests now. It’s a year or so off, but you can imagine the impact it’s going to have on the film industry. We’ll be able to make new pictures with dead actors, using their old roles to create the templates. And that’s just showbiz. Once we get into politics, it becomes even more interesting.”

“It’s still just movies,” Danny told him.

“Is it? I wonder. What if we apply the principle to biology?” Zebek paused to let the idea sink in and then continued. “Cloning, for instance. We can replicate the biological identity of an individual—but not the personality. For now, that’s left to chance. So even if we make a genetic duplicate, it’s still only a copy—and it
behaves
differently. As soon as it moves, we know it’s not the real thing. But if we can bring together a person’s genetic inheritance with the personality engines that we’re creating in the labs, we can build doppelgangers that are perfect in every way.”

Danny didn’t believe a word of it. And even more to the point, he didn’t really care. What he wanted was: to get paid. “Good luck,” he said.

Zebek drew back at the sarcasm. “You’re skeptical.”

Danny shrugged.

“I’ll show you what I mean,” the billionaire promised. Removing a plastic card from the top drawer of his desk, he slotted it into the black box and flipped a toggle switch on its side. A green LED light clicked on. “I made this from a tape,” he said. “It’s just the voice, but . . . you’ll see what I mean.” Connecting his cell phone to the console, Zebek gave Danny a set of earphones and told him to put them on. Then he motioned the security guard to stand behind his guest.
“Gaetano, se dice niente, l’uccide.”
Turning back to Danny, he explained that “if you open your mouth, my friend here is going to break your neck.” Seeing the American’s surprise, he added, “I’m not kidding. He’s done it before, and he doesn’t mind at all.”

With a grin, Zebek punched a number into the cell phone and sat back.

Donning the headphones, Danny heard a telephone ringing over and over again. Finally, a voice answered.

“Prego?”

Hearing Inzaghi’s voice, Danny began to get up, then sank back in his seat when he felt the weight of a hand on the back of his neck. It was a big hand, but there was almost no weight to it.

Zebek began to speak, talking into the microphone. “It’s Danny, Father—”

Danny gasped. The voice was his own—accent, pitch, and timbre, it was him to a tee. And it scared him. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck.

Through the earphones he heard Inzaghi heave a sigh of relief. “I was worried about you! Where are you?”

“Siena,” Zebek replied.

“Get out of there! I mean it, Danny—you have no idea what this is all about. And for God’s sake don’t meet with these people. It’s dangerous.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Zebek insisted. “I’m coming to Rome tonight—we can talk then. These cell phones—I don’t trust them.”

As he listened to the conversation, it was all Danny could do to stay in his chair. Zebek’s voice was so indisputably his own that it seemed almost as if his soul had been stolen.

“I’m sure you’re right about the phone,” the priest was saying. “I didn’t think. When will you get here?”

“Nine or ten,” Zebek continued in Danny’s voice. “Can we meet at your place? I haven’t got a reservation yet.”

“Of course—but it’s not so easy getting here,” Inzaghi replied. “Do you have a pen?”

Danny couldn’t take it any longer. He had to warn Inzaghi. But the bodyguard must have sensed his urgency, because his hand tightened on Danny’s shoulder. Leaning over, he lifted the spongy pad of one of the earphones and whispered, “No.”

Danny fell back in the chair as Zebek repeated Inzaghi’s directions to his rooms in the Vatican-owned Casa Clera. Then they were done. Good-byes were exchanged and the connection broken. Zebek turned his muddy eyes to Danny and smiled.

“Now what?” Danny asked, feeling as far from home as he had ever felt.

The billionaire shook his head in a way that suggested regret as much as uncertainty. Then he stabbed the floor with his silver-topped cane and pushed himself to his feet. “What am I going to do with you, Danny? You’re a real disposal problem, you know that?”

The American frowned. Within a day, he’d gone from golden boy to hazardous waste.
How soon they forget. . . .

Zebek made a show of thinking about the problem, pacing back and forth in front of the bookshelves. “On the one hand, I suppose we could break your neck, say you took a fall—”

Danny couldn’t believe it. “Isn’t that kind of strict—I mean, just for making a backup disk?”

Zebek chuckled.

“I’m not kidding,” Danny said. “You said it yourself: I don’t know what’s going on. And you talk about
killing
me? I just want to get paid. What’s going on?”

Zebek dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “There really isn’t time to go into it. So I’ll put it this way: You fucked up—The End.”