The Eighth Day (37 page)

It was close to noon when he got a second cup of coffee for the road and headed south toward Cupertino.

A few miles down the road, he started to get an idea about an installation for the Neon.
Talking Heads
, he’d call it. He’d construct some big Easter Island–like heads out of papier-mâché, but they’d be . . . media figures. Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, Oprah. Present-day icons. Most of the heads on Easter Island were built on platforms called
anu
, in which the islanders had placed ritual objects. In the installation maybe he’d build open platforms—wooden frameworks—and put the heads on top. Inside the frameworks, he’d put . . . television sets. Television sets that would be turned on . . . to news programs or talk shows or MSNBC.

The idea had a kind of fuzzy logic to it that he liked. He wasn’t sure what it
meant
, but that was okay. He turned on the radio and let it all slosh around in his head as he drove on toward Cupertino.

Patel’s house—which now belonged to Glenn Unger—was an immaculately restored bungalow that, given the neighborhood, was probably worth at least a million.

The beautiful door, flanked by diamond-mullioned sidelights, had been stripped back to its natural oak—which set off the black wreath at its center. Danny had never seen a mourning wreath before, and it creeped him out. The thing was actually made of
feathers
, black and curling feathers, so shiny as to be almost iridescent. With a grimace, he reached for the brass knocker encircled by the wreath.

The instant his hand touched metal, the door flew open, as if it were being yanked away from his fingertips—which, in fact, it was. The effect was startling, almost like an electric shock, and it made him jump.

“Yes?”

The man in the doorway was forty-something and in great shape, as was made clear by the fact that he wore only a pair of running shorts. That was it in terms of clothing, except for a pair of reading glasses and flip-flops. “Can I help you?”

“Doorstepping” people was not something that Danny liked to do. No one did, really. But it was something every investigator had to do from time to time—because some people refused to answer their phones. Or if they answered their phones, they might not then be willing to take the next step of inviting the investigator to meet with them. The first time Danny had been told to doorstep a reluctant “source,” he’d complained.
What am I supposed to say? I don’t even know the guy!

So? Pretend you’re trick-or-treating,
his boss told him.
Give him a copy of the
Watchtower
! I don’t care. Just do it.
And so he had. As it happened, he was pretty good at it.

“Mr. Unger?”

The man narrowed his eyes. “Yesss?”

“My name’s Danny Cray, and . . . I was hoping we could talk about your friend. Mr. Patel.”

An exasperated sigh. “Ohh, for God’s sake,” Unger whined. “What are you? Some kind of . . . alternative newspaper reporter?”

“No—”

“Because I’m not interested in publicity.”

“I understand that, but—”

“Good. Then you’ll understand why I’m closing the door. Bye!” The last word was sung and, somehow, came out as two syllables rather than one.
Bye-eee
.

Danny had never actually “stuck his foot in the door”—not literally. But this time, he did. “I’ve come a really long way,” he said.

Unger glanced at the intrusive foot, then looked up. “Do you mind?”

“Like . . . thousands of miles.”

“Aren’t you embarrassed to do that?”

Danny shrugged but left his foot where it was. “I think I can tell you why Mr. Patel was killed.”

Unger frowned and cocked his head and gave Danny the once-over. “Is that supposed to be news? Everyone knows why Jason was killed.”

It was Danny’s turn to be surprised. “They
do
?”

“Of course.”

Danny blinked.

“He was murdered by some gay-bashing, homophobic nut. Or nuts. It still happens. Now, if you have information—”

“I don’t think so.”

Unger gave him a skeptical look. “Pardon me?”

“I don’t think it had anything to do with sexual preference.”

The man in front of him hesitated, the indecision easy to read on his face. “If this is bullshit . . .”

“It isn’t,” Danny told him.

With a sigh, Unger stepped back and held the door open wide. “All right,” he said, “you might as well come in.”

The interior of the bungalow was like an antique shop devoted exclusively to Craftsman style. Everything was of the period, every picture frame, every
objet
. Danny almost expected to see price tags attached to the furniture. Unger ushered him straight through the rooms, through the “vestibule” to the “parlor” to a period kitchen and, finally, to a little patio in the rear.

This was as perfect as the house itself, with a small fountain burbling in the corner. Set out on a wrought-iron table was a pitcher of iced tea and a plate of micron-thin ginger cookies. Unger gestured to a chair, and the two men sat down opposite each other. Using a swizzle stick in the form of a giraffe with a very long neck, Unger stirred the pitcher and looked up. “Iced tea?”

Danny nodded. “Thanks.” The hardest part—getting through the door—was over. It was now up to Danny to convince Unger, in his grief, to confide in a stranger. The only way Danny knew to accomplish that was to establish his own bona fides with a confession. So he cleared his throat. “I think I may have been responsible—indirectly—for Mr. Patel’s death.”

A sharp intake of breath across the table, and a look of alarm.

“I was hired by a man named Zerevan Zebek,” Danny explained, “to find out who another man—a professor named Terio—was talking to.” He took a sip of tea. “Zebek said he was being smeared in the press,” Danny went on, “and that Terio was behind it—Terio and some other people.”

Unger folded his arms and sat back, a look of wary impatience on his face.

“He wanted me to find out who Terio was talking to,” Danny said. “And I did. I got a copy of his telephone records—”

“You can do that?”

Danny nodded. “There are information brokers who sell that sort of thing.”

Unger’s voice became droll. “And that didn’t strike you as an invasion of Jason’s privacy?”

Danny made a hapless gesture. “Yeah, I suppose it did, but—working as an investigator, it’s . . . well, one of the things you do.”

Unger was not impressed. “Well,” he said, “it’s one of the things
you
do.”

Danny took the point. “Right,” he admitted.

“Go on.”

“Anyway, I found out Terio was talking to your friend—and two other men. A scientist in Oslo. And a journalist in Istanbul.”

Unger’s skepticism manifested itself in a snort. “Jason’s never been to either of those places.”

“That’s not the point,” Danny said.

“Then what
is
?”

“They’re all dead,” Danny told him.

“Who are?”

“Terio. The scientist in Oslo. The Turkish journalist. Patel.”

Unger took a sip of tea. After a bit, he leaned forward and said, “Bull-dooky.”

The expression caught Danny by surprise, but he kept a straight face and shrugged. “It’s not.”

“You’re suggesting Zebek had Jason killed—”

“That’s right.”

“But Zebek
owns
VSS.”

“That’s right,” Danny agreed. “He does.”

“And you’re suggesting he had Jason killed after
stealing
him from Protein Dynamics? After
luring
him with bonuses and options?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it doesn’t make sense,” Unger insisted. “Jason wasn’t just a worker bee over there. He was like a guru. VSS will never replace him. His loss is a disaster. Everyone says so. He was brilliant!”

“I’m sure he was,” Danny replied. “But something happened.”

“You mean this, this
nonsense
about smearing the company?”

“No, that was just a pretext—”

“Then what?” Unger asked.

Danny sighed. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”

They went over it again, with Danny taking it from the top. As he talked, he watched the skeptical expression on Glenn Unger’s handsome face evaporate. A bewildered look set in and, finally, a distressed one.

“I could go on,” Danny said. “But that’s . . . the major stuff.”

“Have you told the police about this?” Unger asked.

Danny shook his head. “I don’t think the local police could get their heads around it. We’re talking about, what, five murders in four countries? Plus the ‘collateral damage’ in Turkey. And the only thing I can prove, really, is that the people who were killed knew the same guy—Terio.”

Unger nodded, his forehead tunneling into a frown. “Jay
was
worried about something—something at work. And he
did
know this Terio person. They talked on the phone, once or twice. There may have been e-mails, and I think they may have met at a conference somewhere.” He looked up, trying to remember, then shook his head. “But . . .” He laid his hand over his face, covering his features. For a long moment he stayed as he was, and then he drew his hand up and over his forehead, until it perched atop the crown of his head. He sat like that for what seemed like a long time, pressing his fingers into his skull. Then he let his arm drop and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know.”

The guy had tears in his eyes. “You okay?” Danny asked.

Unger nodded. “What you’re saying about Zebek—if it’s true.” A pause. “It doesn’t bring Jason back—nothing can. But it restores him to me, in a way. Because the police . . . everyone assumes we’re promiscuous . . . that we’re constantly cruising, out of control. But the truth is: I work so fucking hard—I’m an architect. And as for Jason, well, don’t get me started on Jason! I had to
drag
him home from work. But the police . . . they seem to think it’s normal for someone like Jason to be killed that way. To them, it’s some kind of ‘gay thing’ and that’s all.” He paused, drew in a long breath, then exhaled. “So . . . I guess I owe you.”

“No, you don’t—”

“Just tell me what I can do.”

Danny thought about it. “You could show me his computer.”

Unger tilted his head from side to side, as if to say,
Yes and no.
Then he got to his feet and gestured for Danny to follow. Together they walked into an alcove off the dining room, where a flat-screen Silicon Graphics monitor sat on a vintage oak desk. Unger seated himself in a matching swivel chair, reached under the desk, and turned on the computer.

“Is that it?” Danny asked. It looked like a Dell, and he was expecting something snazzier—though what he couldn’t say.

“This one’s mine,” Unger told him. “Jay had a laptop that he used and another one at the office. And a Palm.”

“Which are where?”

“The police have them,” Unger said, sitting back in his chair.

The Microsoft Desktop swam into view with a fanfare from the speakers. The wallpaper was a picture of Unger and another man, hanging over the railing of a cruise ship. The second man was short, dark, and handsome. “Is that Jay?” Danny asked.

Unger nodded.

“What about his e-mail?” Danny asked. “Can you get it?”

“I don’t think so,” Unger replied. “I’m a Yahoo person, and Jay got his mail at work. They’ve got firewalls and everything.”

“Do you know his password?”

Unger made a scoffing sound. “It wasn’t a word. It was a jumble of letters and numbers and God knows what else! I think there were a dozen of them and, anyway, the security people made them change it every month, so . . . no.”

Danny thought for a moment. “What about VSS?” he asked. “Do you think you could get me in?”

“ ‘In’?”

“Yeah. So I can talk to someone on the inside. Find out what’s going on. Find out what they’re doing—”

Unger turned his palms to the ceiling and shook his head. “It’s impossible,” he said. “I mean, I can drive you there, but you won’t get past Reception. It’s a fortress.”

“Huh.”

“But
I
can tell you what they’re
doing
,” Unger said. “They’re curing cancer.”

It was Danny’s turn to be skeptical. “Are they?”
Funny,
he thought,
Zebek didn’t seem to be the kind of guy . . .

“Yes, as a matter of fact, they
are
. They’re going after breast cancer first—then other kinds of tumors.” He made an expansive gesture. “It’s going to be huge.”

“Breast cancer,” Danny repeated.

“That’s why Jason left Protein Dynamics. It was a chance to
do
something. It wasn’t just . . . widgets! And it wasn’t just theory. Jay’s mother died of breast cancer, so that was part of it. And, of course, there was going to be
a lot
of money. Eventually. But that wasn’t it. They were doing important science. I can even tell you how it works—sort of. They were building these tumor bombs, some kind of nanoshell that would enter breast cancer cells, and only breast cancer cells—and destroy them. And of course, down the road, the technology will be adapted to other cancers.”

Danny frowned. The more he learned, the less he knew. “Earlier, you said Jason was worried about something. Something at work.”

Unger nodded. “Gray goo.”

Danny blinked. “What?”

“For a long time, Jay thought the whole gray goo business was some kind of Luddite fantasy—that’s what he called it. But lately . . . he was worried about it.”

Danny raised his hands and patted the air before him. “What are you talking about?”

Unger looked surprised. “The gray goo problem.”

“Which is what?”

“You don’t know?”

Danny shook his head.

Unger sighed. Thought for a moment. Said: “Well, it’s . . . the end of the world.
At least
.”

TWENTY-ONE

Danny didn’t say anything for a long while. Finally, he said, “Mr. Unger—”

Some quick
tsks
and: “It’s
Glenn
—please. My
father
is Mr. Unger.”

“Right. Glenn. So . . . What are we talking about here? I mean: the end of the world, that’s . . . a pretty big deal, isn’t it?”

Unger laughed. “Well . . .”

“I mean, what’s up with that?” Danny asked. “Did I step through the looking glass—”

Unger shook the question off. “How much do you know about nanotechnology?”

Danny thought for a moment, sighed.

“I know what it
is
.”

“But you don’t know about gray goo?”

Danny shook his head.

Unger opened his mouth, as if he were about to explain, then shut it. Tight. Finally, he said, “I think you ought to talk to Harry. I’m an architect, not a scientist.”

“Yeah, but—”

Unger jumped up, interrupted. “It’ll be fine. Particularly if I buy him dinner.” He cocked his head, considered the idea, approved it. “But he might get a little squirrely if I call him and it’s like a
plan
.”

“Who are we talking about?” Danny asked.

“Harry Manziger. He’s a protein engineer at VSS. Very spur-of-the-moment. I think the best thing would be to just drop by . . .”

Unger asked Danny to move the Prism, then opened the garage door to reveal a cobalt-blue vintage T-Bird, the model with the little round window. He backed it out, then changed his mind and returned it to the garage. “If we do go to dinner, Harry won’t fit. Maybe we’d better take
your
car.”

A light rain was beginning to fall. The streets were slick, the traffic heavy. Danny made the turns, following Unger’s directions, thinking,
I don’t know where I’m going—not in
any
sense.

Before long, they pulled up in front of a bungalow that shared the same lines as Unger’s. But that was where the resemblance ended. Instead of the carefully landscaped front yard, Manziger’s house was buried behind overgrown foundation plantings. The yard in front of the plantings was bare and weedy, the overstuffed garage open to reveal a small warehouse of boxes, toys, tools, bikes, rakes, skis, cans of paints, and old computers, monitors, and TVs. A fat teenager in black clothing opened the front door, his dead-white skin lit up with acne.

“Is Harry home?”

“Dad?! You got company!”

“Who is it?” a voice yelled back.

“Publishers Clearing House!” the kid replied.

“
Jordan!”

The kid held the door open for them as they walked inside. An elderly poodle, one eye milky from a cataract, began a frenzy of yipping.

From the basement, a voice shouted, “I’ll be right up!”

The kid turned to the poodle. “Turing!” he growled. “Will you shut the fuck up?” The dog looked hurt as the kid grabbed a ring of keys from a hook beside the door. “Tell Dad I took the car, wouldja?”

Unger rolled his eyes.

To say that the place was a mess was an understatement. The two of them stood on a bloodred shag carpet embedded with pet hair and bits of dessicated food. A coffee table piled with newspapers and magazines stood in front of a shabby green sofa. Abandoned objects and discarded clothing lay everywhere. Empty soda cans. Someone’s sweatshirt. A couple of Pete’s Wicked Ale bottles rested on the coffee table beside a pair of plastic TV dinner trays. Except for crimson smears of cranberry sauce, the trays looked as if they’d been licked clean.

“Harry’s probably going to be a little nervous at first,” Unger warned. “Anxious type.”

Footsteps thudded up from the basement and Harry Manziger emerged through the doorway to the kitchen. He carried a pink laundry basket jammed with unfolded clothing. And he was big. Six feet and change, carrying maybe three hundred pounds. He wore a pair of chinos with a rolled waistband slung beneath his belly and a shirt so tight, it defined his rolls of fat. In his left ear was a diamond earring.

“Glenn,” he said, his chubby face immediately assuming a worried look. “What’s up?” He glanced at Danny, then looked away. As he turned his head, Danny saw that he had a jack-o’-lantern tattoo on the side of his neck.

“This is Dan Cray,” Unger said. “I was hoping you could explain a few things to him. Mind if we sit down for a sec?” Without waiting for a reply, he strolled into the living room, tossed aside some clothing, and planted himself on the arm of a wing chair that seemed to be molting. Danny followed, although only a major excavation would have provided a surface he could actually sit on. Manziger crabbed his way toward them.

“Explain what?”

“Oh . . . like the gray goo problem and whatever it was that Jay was worried about at VSS.”

The fat man clutched the laundry basket to his chest as if it could protect him. “And why would I want to do that?”

“Because you were Jay’s friend. And because Dan thinks his murder had something to do with VSS.”

Manziger’s blue eyes shot around the room as if he were looking for a way to escape. “The police have a different theory,” he said.

Unger’s exasperation exploded in a little puff of air. “The ‘police’—
please
!”

Danny saw that Manziger actually wore a pocket protector. It was doing its job, too, the white plastic revealing a blue haze that, upon a closer look, revealed itself as a network of threadlike lines of ink. The big man shifted from foot to foot, eyes on the floor. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Harry? Just do it for Jason. It’s not about anything proprietary. Just tell Dan about the goo—and maybe we can stop there.”

“I guess I could,” the big man started, then wagged his head. “I don’t know.”

“Well, while you’re trying to decide,
I’m
going into shock. I mean it! I’m hypoglycemic!”

“I could make you an English muffin,” Harry suggested.

“Why don’t we just go out? We can talk over dinner—my treat.”

The idea of free food seemed to put Manziger over the top. He put the laundry basket on the coffee table and excused himself to “freshen up.” A minute later, he returned with his hair combed, reeking of Old Spice. “Okay,” he said, as they headed out the door toward the Prism, “but I’m not going to talk about the project itself. Not in any detail. That’s
verboten
.”

They ended up at a place called the Blue Potato, Unger apologizing in advance in the event that it should be a bust. “It’s new, so I don’t know if it’s any good, but so many of the places around here . . .” He shrugged, and added, “Memories . . .”

A pale waif, who seemed as new to the earth as she was to restaurant work, gave them menus and took their orders for drinks. The three of them sat in silence, studying the menu. Most dishes, Danny saw, had a potato component.

Finally, the waif returned, walking the short distance from the bar with the fierce concentration of a toddler. Pinot Grigio for Unger, a Bombay Sapphire martini for Manziger, and a Sierra Nevada for Danny. Then they ordered, with the waif taking pains to draw each of the words on her little pad, a task that was made more difficult by the fact that she gripped her Bic in a sort of monkey fist.

When she’d gone, Unger turned to Manziger. “You were saying?”

“Right right right,” Manziger replied, fishing the olive from his drink and popping it into his mouth. “Well, it’s all about exponential curves. And restrictive environments.” His voice trailed away. There didn’t seem to be any follow-up.

“That’s it?” Danny said.

Manziger squirmed in his seat and heaved a sigh. “Look, for practically his entire career—
forget
the last month—Jason dismissed the gray goo issue as the worst kind of hysteria. And I’m still in that camp. The only real problem at VSS is cash flow. No one’s getting paid, and nothing’s getting done. Though I guess that’s about to change. We got a memo from the top—”

“From Zebek?” Danny asked.

“We got a memo
from the top
,” Manziger repeated. “There’s a major cash infusion on the way, so we’re full steam ahead in September. But as for the rest of it . . .” He shook his head.

“You weren’t worried?” Unger asked. “Not at all?”

“Nah,” Manziger said. He held up his thumb and forefinger, pinched an eighth of an inch of air. “About that much. I thought Jay was having . . . some kinda midlife crisis. Turning into a pussy in his old age.” Manziger chuckled.

“Please,” Unger said. “My female friends find that metaphor offensive.”

Manziger rolled his eyes and took a long sip of his martini. “I didn’t know you
had
any ‘female friends.’ ”

A shocked
tsk
from Unger.

Manziger smirked. “All right! I apologize.”

Unger looked away.

“You were saying?” Danny asked. “About the goo?” He was losing his patience.

Manziger nodded, took a second sip of his martini. “Different people have different opinions. Personally, I’m not worried about it. And I think I know what I’m talking about. Nanotech promises an end to hunger, disease, illness—maybe even to death. It promises an end to scarcity and a disruption of every hierarchy in the world—but only if we let the tech play out. And right now there are people who use the gray goo issue as an excuse to place restrictions on something that needs to evolve without a lot of hindrances.”

“What do you mean when you say nanotech is going to disrupt all the hierarchies?” Danny asked.

Manziger shrugged. “Stands to reason,” he said. “If you can make just about anything out of raw materials that are basically free . . . some people aren’t going to be happy. I mean, if you can
make
oil, diamonds, gold . . . what happens to Exxon, De Beers, and Homestake? You think they’re going to be grateful?”

“I see what you mean,” Danny said.

“Talk about a redistribution of wealth!” Manziger enthused. “Nanotech is it! That’s why it’s so important to let the thing develop on its own—like the Web. Yes, the Web is chaotic, but if it hadn’t developed in the unrestricted, organic way that it did, it wouldn’t exist at all. Or if it did exist it would be useless to most of us, restricted in ways we can’t imagine.”

“I’m down with that,” Danny told him, “but I don’t see what it’s got to do with this goo thing.”

“I think Harry’s just laying the groundwork,” Unger observed.

“That’s right. I am! I’m layin’ the groundwork.” He was obviously warming to his subject, but before he caught fire, the waif tiptoed to their table, laden with plates of calamari and a “potato haystack” for Danny. She set the plates down in slow motion, so slowly, in fact, that it was like watching a performance artist.

Unger dipped a ring of calamari into marinara sauce, chewed, swallowed, and pronounced it “surprisingly good.”

Manziger said, “Yeah?” and dove into his plate.

Danny pulled his hand through his hair, sighed, and waited as Manziger attacked his squid. Finally, the engineer tapped his mouth with his napkin. “You understand how nanotechnology works,” he declared.

Danny shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“Good,” Manziger announced. “Essentially, it’s all about assemblers. . . .” It was interesting how all of Manziger’s social clumsiness evaporated as he talked about his field. He was one of those men who would have made a good teacher. “Protein-engineered robots building molecules to spec. You name it, they can make it. You could build houses out of diamonds if you wanted to.

“But every job is different. Every task requires an AI program and specialized assemblers. Lots of them! You need billions of the little guys to do anything!” He paused to devour a few more rings of calamari.

“I read about that,” Danny told him.

“Bear with me. Now, building the first assembler is a bitch. At VSS, we’ve been working, maybe six years, on an assembler designed to build nanodevices targeting breast cancer. And there’s no way that anyone will ever be able to manufacture enough assemblers to do anything! It would take forever, and it would cost a fortune! So what you have to do is make them self-replicating.”

“In other words,” Unger interjected, “you make the first one, and you program it to make copies of itself.”

“Exactly. And that’s what gets people worried. Although, when you think of it . . . why should it?” He pointed a thumb at himself. “
I’m
self-replicating—and so are you—at least, we are in tandem with someone else.” He pointed to the cloud of shredded tuber on Danny’s plate. “Your spuds are self-replicating. So what’s the big deal?”

Danny shook his head and forked a tangle of potato into his mouth.

“The big deal,” Manziger continued, “is that
we’re
making these guys, not Mother Nature, so no one trusts that they’ll stop making copies of themselves—even though there’s a jillion ways to program that in.”

“Like what?” Danny asked.

Manziger ran the tines of his fork through the smear of marinara sauce on his plate and licked it off. “You could make it so they only reproduce at certain temperatures—minus ninety Celsius, say—or in atmospheres you just don’t find in nature. There’s lots of ways.”

Danny nodded. “And the gray goo . . . ?”

“Almost there.” He paused and nodded at Danny’s potato. “You gonna finish that?”

Danny shook his head.

“You don’t mind?” Manziger asked.

“No. Go right ahead.”

Manziger nodded briskly, switching plates with Danny. “Anyway, after a huge investment of man-hours at some place like VSS, you finally get your first assembler up and running. It probably took about ten years to make the goddamn thing, but now that it’s rolling, it only takes the assembler maybe ten minutes to copy itself. So now you have two. Ten years for the first one, ten minutes for the second. And so it goes. . . .” With a smile, he leaned toward Danny, moist eyes bearing down. “How far did you get in math?”

“Long division,” Danny replied.

“Seriously!?”

Danny shook his head. “Just kidding . . . what’s the point?”

Manziger looked relieved. “You know what an exponential curve is?”

“Not exactly,” Danny told him.

“Yeah, you do—you just don’t know what it’s called.” He dipped his finger in his martini and drew a sort of hockey stick on the table.