The Death Gods (A Shell Scott Mystery) (39 page)

First barrel: The simple
and natural-sounding concept that various disorders and imbalances,
or “diseases,” and “disease germs,” arise from within each of us
individually, when our internal environment fosters their growth,
but not when it doesn’t. This in accordance with the same natural
laws that shape our own birth and miraculous growth thereafter into
whatever we become—which basically made “I” or each individual,
responsible for what happened, good or bad...as opposed to the
authorized-and-approved dogma that hundreds of different invasive
diseases, each with its own army of virulent germs carrying pieces
of the disease around, indiscriminately attack everybody in their
way—which meant the individual was essentially helpless and “they”
were in control of his life and health. Or rather, “they” would be
in control if it weren’t for that other army, of highly-trained
licensed medical doctors and health department healers, who, thank
God, knew how to kill invisible dinosaurs.

And, second barrel: The
many-times reported phenomena of pleomorphism, or the
often-observed fact that microorganisms including “disease germs”
routinely change form, mutate, become something other than what
they were hours or even minutes before, altering not only size and
form but function depending upon the nature of the medium in which
they found themselves. Or, what they were depended upon where they
were. Which meant that “deadly disease germs” could become harmless
bugs or vice versa, depending upon changes in their environment:
Us.

It all took me about a
non-stop minute and a half, after which Dane was completely silent
for another half-minute or so. Then she said—somewhat to my
surprise—“That’s interesting. And you really contrasted the two
theories brilliantly, Shell.”

“
I did?” Well, umm, mostly
I was quoting a guy named Hernandez.”

“
Some of your concepts, or
comparisons, were quite new to me, even though... Well, in my
research, I’ve several times come across the idea that cells and
cellular organisms might be formed from sub-cell life-bits or
particles, mostly in the controversial work of Wilhelm Reich—and of
course I’m familiar with the theory of pleomorphism, as opposed to
currently accepted monomorphism. But everyone said... I mean, all
the experts I consulted assured me that in relationship to
infectious diseases, the pleomorphic theory was completely
baseless, fraudulent research, preposterous. And they’re the
foremost authorities in the world, the very best.”

I didn’t respond to that,
but after half a minute or so, Dane went on, as though she’d been
continuing the conversation inside her pretty head. “You know,
Shell, it’s funny—I mean, funny I never thought of it this way
before—but we’re pheomorphic.”

“
How’s that
again?”

“
We’re all pleomorphic,
you, me, everybody. Even those experts who told me pleomorphism is
unscientific quackery. Right after conception, each of us is just a
pinpoint of identical cells. Identical, one no different from the
rest, each with identical DNA and form and function, each the same.
But long before birth, billions of those cells have changed,
differentiated, become fetal heart cells, or brain or bone or blood
cells. They’ve changed their size and form and function. And that
is pleomorphism, isn’t it?”

“
Uh, yeah, I guess.” I
thought about it. “Hell, of course it is, must be.” Maybe I can
throw that at Hank and impress him.

Once again, briefly, I
wondered why I should feel a need to impress Hank about anything,
but Dane was going on. She was going on with something completely
unintelligible about “metaphasia... differentiation and
dedifferentiation and redifferentiation,” and “oncologists, too,
have to consider the pleomorphism of normal cells becoming cancer
cells, even if they don’t call it that....”

I said, “It’s a good thing
I like brainy girls. When they’re gorgeous. Thank
goodness—”

“
Shell, I am not a girl. I
am a woman.”

“
Yeah, boy—” I stopped.
Uh-oh, I thought. Dane had sounded a mite severe there. It’s
probably the influence of all these gals—uh-oh—women riding around
on motorcycles, picking their teeth with Bowie knives. Why is it a
woman can say, “Jimmy went out bowling with the boys,” but a guy
can’t say, “Jenny’s out riding her Yamaha 23XY60 with the other
girls?” Yeah, that’s a tough one.

Well, at least I’d learned
something else. I’d learned never to do that again. But I hadn’t
proved it to Dane yet. So I said, “Yes, woman. Sorry about that.
What I meant was, you are, fortunately, a lovely, intelligent,
female person who is kind, generous, forgiving...”

We rolled along in silence
after that, until I turned off the freeway, heading east on the
long straight road that ended at Omega. It was a few minutes after
noon then, and I soon noticed an increasing number of cars coming
out our way. Most of Omega’s employees worked only half a day on
Saturday, and the first of them would now be heading home. The
thought, for no identifiable reason at first, caused a small cool
spot of uneasiness to start wandering around near the back of my
neck.

And right then Dane spoke
again, clenching a small fist and nodding vigorously. “Shell, I’m
glad you told me, well, what you called your little bug speech.
I’ve been thinking about some things you said that bothered me. A
few of those ideas, medical contradictions, were suggested to you
by that doctor you mentioned, weren’t they?”

“
All of them, really. And
he ‘suggests’ about the way a hammer...uh, a hammer suggests to a
nail that it go a bit deeper.”

I sort of stopped and
stuttered in the middle of that sentence, because, when I said
‘hammer’ the picture of Jock-Jock confined in his chair, heavy
mallet smacking the back of his skull, was suddenly and shockingly
vivid before my eyes. It was almost real and came out of nowhere,
without warning, was just suddenly there. I hadn’t thought of the
little chimp, or that depressing flip-book Hank had given me—still
in the Cad’s glove compartment, I realized—for a lot of hours. And
I almost wished I wouldn’t ever again remember humorously handsome
Jock-Jock. Almost.

Dane was saying, “What was
his name?”

“
The Doc? Hernandez. Henry
Hernandez, he’s an M.D., but definitely not part of the
establishment. Actually, he’s a homeopathic physician, into
prevention, nutrition, natural stuff.”

“
He sounds like an
interesting man.”

“
He’s that, for sure. I
don’t even think he’s crazy. Not entirely.”

“
Anyway, I’ve just decided
I’m going to see if Dr. Wintersong has any good answers to those
things that bothered me. Make it part of my interview.”

“
I doubt that’ll put him
into a joyous mood. Especially if you mention Hern—”

“
It doesn’t matter. I
decided this morning—maybe because we were discussing it last
night—that I’m going to ask William, uh, Dr. Wintersong about Dr.
Sherwood’s suicide, when both of them were working so closely
together at Grantland Memorial. There are some questions that
haven’t really been answered, and if I’m the hotshot researcher I
think I am, maybe I can dig out answers—”

“
Dane,” I interrupted,
“what you talk to the guy about is your business, but I wish you
wouldn’t get into the Sherwood thing. Or, for that matter, even
mention the name Hernandez. Wintersong might start foaming at the
mouth.”

“
Shell, the Wintersong
story is the longest, most meatiest, most important chapter in my
book. And the suicide of his mentor, Dr. Sherwood was a pivotal
turning point in Dr. Wintersong’s life. After that he didn’t
perform surgery, or even practice medicine, for nearly a year. And
it was during that year he met Hobart Belking, got the initial
funding for Omega, and was on his way in research—to the next
Nobel, I predict. No, Shell, my book wouldn’t be complete, wouldn’t
be a thorough, honest job, if I left anything significant
out.”

A stream of cars was going
past us by then, heading toward L.A. or other nearby cities, moving
in the opposite direction and so close there was a repeated whiff,
whiff sound as they sped by my Cad on the narrow road.

Watching them flash along
the edge of sight, I realized Omega would very soon be empty, or
nearly so. And that might have been the thing bothering me, giving
rise to the nebulous unease resting, light and clammy, at the back
of my neck. Or, one of the things. Something else was eating at me,
but I couldn’t pin it down.

I mentioned to Dane that
everybody was fleeing Omega so speedily you’d think all the bugs
had gotten loose and were chasing them, then added, “I hope you’re
not alone in that joint with just Wintersong and a few guards.
There’s something I don’t like—”

“
Oh, Shell, you goose. You
don’t think William’s going to chase me around a desk with his
tongue hanging out, do you?”

“
No, not with his tongue
hanging—strike that. How about, ‘Wa’al, ma’am, he will if he’s half
the man I think he ain’t... Strike that, too. It’s just that I’m
uneasy about something, Dane. Part of it’s the damned lab itself.
Caged animals, slimy cultures, people gliding around in white
smocks with blood on them...Wintersong, mainly, I suppose.” I shook
my head. “I’ve been dealing with people, usually people on the
scummy side, for quite a while now, and there are times when you
can tell...I’m not sure what it is about Wintersong, but there’s
something wrong with the guy, something really wrong.”

“
Don’t be silly. I know you
don’t like him much, Shell, but William’s really a nice man.
Certainly he’s been extremely nice, and proper—and really quite
charming—with me.”

“
William is nice, huh?
Charming? Nice, huh? Huh!”

“
Why, you almost sound
jealous. And that’s silly.”

“
Me? Jealous? Of a doctor?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. Or maybe I should have. Doesn’t
matter; I did it. “Dane, open the glove compartment, and take out
the little book you’ll find there, will you?”

She did. I told her how to
hold it, how to flip it, and she did that, too.

I didn’t have to say
anything more. She looked at me, shock growing visibly on her face.
“Oh, my God,” she said. Then, more softly, “My... God. What—what is
it?”

“
One of Dr. Wintersong’s
nice animal-testing exercises,” I said. “At least, Wintersong
supervised it. Looks like more of what Hank calls the
worse-than-useless—but he’s a professional negative thinker. No,
those scientists were either trying to perfect a vaccine to prevent
hammers, or else that was one more noble effort to help people
become healthier, better human beings.”

“
How could something as
terrible as that help anybody?”

I smiled at her, then
turned my eyes back to the road; about three miles more and we’d be
able to see Omega.

“
I do not know the answer
to that question, Dane, dear. But I do not need to know. Nor does
anyone else. Because all medical experiments are to help people,
help them become healthier and wiser—what other reason could there
be? And isn’t that what the experimenters themselves tell us? Would
they lie? No, never in a billion years. So, we the people should
try to understand how terribly important it is that they get to
help us, even if they have to kill every animal on earth before
they get to us. Clearly, then, thinking persons must agree that all
medical experiments are good including those millions of
humanitarian protocols in which animals are bludgeoned, boiled,
blinded, burned alive, radiated, skinned, sliced open,
electrocuted, have their skulls sawed open or their testicles
crushed or—”

“
Stop it! Just stop it.”
She paused. Then, “May I keep this?” She was holding the little
flip-book up in one hand.

“
No, you may not,” I said.
“Absolutely not. Put it back in the glove compartment. I mean
it—okay. Now, leave it there. And don’t even think about showing it
to Wintersong, or mentioning it for that matter. Hell, he probably
likes zonking animals—”

“
Let’s change the subject,
Shell. Permanently.”

“
Okay by me.” Hey, I’ve got
a hot, or at least different, subject to explore. Ah, about last
night, Dane, dear.”

And that’s when I’d done
it. Mentioned her sudden disappearance, and my impression that
she’d turned into a door, a closed door. Followed by Dane’s
somewhat ungenerous comment that it was “about the dumbest thing
I’ve ever heard.”

Which didn’t exactly put a
smile on my lips or give my tongue wings. So we rolled along that
narrow two-lane road for another mile or two, but now in sticky
silence.

* * * * * * *

Then, suddenly the Omega
Medical Research Center was spread out below us. We’d reached the
crest of that rise, were starting down the slight
incline.

Something about the sight
of those low, windowless, white buildings seemed to sober and
subdue both of us even more. Neither Dane nor I spoke until we were
a hundred yards or so from the gatehouse, close enough that I could
see individual wires in the chain-link fence, those darker strands
of barbed wire atop it.

Seeing that gatehouse,
next to it the heavy gate swung closed to bar entry, reminded me of
a question I probably should already have asked Dane, but one that
hadn’t even occurred to me until now.