The Portero Method

  “Perhaps. Our investigation into that little company keeps coming up empty. It seems to exist in a vacuum. We’ve avoided direct inquiries, keeping everything back door because we don’t want to let them know anyone’s interested. But if nothing pans out soon we may have to arrange a little accident.”

  “Accident?”

  He went on without elaborating. “In the meantime we want to keep you and Patrick alive and well. Connecting SimGen to the vans was a brilliant stroke. Your idea?”

  “No. Patrick’s.”

  “Clever fellow. The Beacon Ridge sims could do a lot worse.”

  “I’m beginning to see that.” After last night, despite his tough talk, she’d half expected him to wake up this morning and run off with his tail tucked between his legs. But he was in court now, arguing motions. “What I don’t see is how you managed to be down in that ravine with us.”

  “Iwasn’t there.”

  “I don’t mean you personally—the organization.”

  “We had a tail on Portero.”

  That startled her. “For how long?”

  “Long enough to see him rent a couple of vans. After that, we kept an eye on the vans. When some mercenary types became attached to the vans, I suspected strong-arm tactics were in the works. Some of our people followed one van to that ravine and you-know-who intervened.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “So am I. I’d never forgive myself if…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, the gloves are off, I’m afraid. The organization is going to mount its own surveillance on you and Patrick. The Beacon Ridge barrack as well.”

  Romy’s stomach turned. “Oh, no. You don’t think—”

  “Anything is possible. And we must be prepared for it.”

  13

  THE BRONX

  NOVEMBER 6

  Meerm not hungry. Get good food in Meerm room, special food, come on own plate. Meerm not have get self from pot like down in sim big room. Meerm room food better. Yum-yum. Meerm wish she feel better so she like food more.

  Meerm lonely sometime in own room. But Meerm not downstair where Needle Lady and Needle Man stick sharp thing in sim, take blood. Take-take-take. And hair face man do very bad hurt thing to Meerm and other sim. But not here Meerm room. No sharp stick here. No one hurt Meerm in own room.

  Meerm room top floor. Meerm like look window at sky. Dark now. See light on street down below. Sometime Meerm wish—

  “Helloooo, Meerm!”

  Meerm turn, see Needle Man come through door. Needle Lady come behind. They ver happy. Needle Man hold big bottle, drink yellow bubble water in glass.

  “Your latest test results are in,” Needle Lady say, “and we love you, Meerm!”

  “Why love Meerm?”

  Needle Man laugh, say, “Because you’re going to make us rich!”

  “Yes!” Needle Lady yell. “We’re going toown SimGen!”

  “Now, now, Eleanor,” Needle Man say. “Let’s not be greedy. We’ll settle for half!”

  They laugh-laugh-laugh.

  “Who’d ever think,” Needle Man say, “that two humble globulin farmers would be able to put a company like SimGen up against the wall?”

  “We haven’t put it there yet,” Needle Lady say. “I still have to get up the nerve to make the call.”

  “And when we do, we’ve got to be careful. We’ll be playing with the big boys, and they’re not going to like what we have to tell them.”

  They stop laugh, stop smile. Drink more.

  Ooh! Tummy hurt. Meerm want feel better. Why hurt?

  14

  WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

  NOVEMBER 13

  “I’ve got to tell you,” Patrick said to Romy as they sat in the sim barrack. Anj was going through her now standard routine of draping herself across Patrick’s lap whenever he visited. He’d found it cute before; a warm-fuzzy moment. Now…“After what I saw in that brothel, I’m not as comfortable with this as I used to be.”

  “That’s understandable,” she said. “You never viewed them in a sexual context before.”

  “I still don’t…can’t.” The memory of the brothel still gave his gut a squeamish twist. “But knowing that other people do…”

  She was out from the city again, checking on her investment, as she liked to put it. Night had fallen but she’d hung around. For the past week Patrick had entertained a faint hope that their ordeal in the ravine might forge a bond that would lead to a closer, more intimate relationship. That hope was fading. She seemed warmer toward him, but for the most part Romy remained all business.

  “How’s your car?”

  “Totaled. Just like my house.” And my love life, he mentally added. Why don’t I just join a monastery and make it official? “Haven’t seen any insurance money on either, but I’m making do.”

  “You still haven’t been scared off then?” she said.

  “I’m not looking to be a martyr, but no.”

  She smiled. “I never took you for the martyr type.”

  “You mean there’s a martyr type? Who the hell would want to be a martyr?”

  “More than you’d think. In the right setting it can be a form of celebrity.”

  “I guess so. Who was it who said that some people climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance?”

  “Camus, I believe.”

  Patrick was startled—happily. “You’ve read Camus?”

  She shrugged.

  Here was a side of Romy he’d never imagined. He wanted to delve deeper but she steered him right back to business.

  “Do you see any legal speed bumps ahead?” she asked.

  “Not in the immediate future,” he began, then noticed Tome hovering at his shoulder.

  “’Scuse, Mist Sulliman, but Anj must eat.” He tugged the sleeve of the young sim’s T-shirt. “Come, Anj. Dinner come.” As he led her toward the tables, Tome turned and said, “You eat too?”

  Patrick glanced around. Most of the sims had gone through the line and were chowing down. He eyed the rich dark stew being ladled from the big pot and wasn’t even tempted.

  “No, thanks, Tome. I’m, uh, cutting back.”

  Romy lowered her voice. “Maybe we should give it a try. Just a taste…to be good guests.”

  “It’s made from dining-room leftovers,” he whispered from a corner of his mouth.

  “I believe I’ll pass too,” Romy called out, then turned to Patrick. “By the way, are you still living in that motel?”

  “Still.”

  “Aren’t you cramped?”

  “Yes and no. I thought I’d go nuts in a place like that—you know, without all my things. But I’ve found I don’t miss them as much as I thought I would. No house, no furniture, no office, no status car…I should be in a deep depression but oddly enough I’m not. I’ve got this strange, light feeling…unencumbered, I guess you could say. I feel as if I’ve been cut free from weights I didn’t even know were there. That sound weird to you?”

  “No,” she said softly, and he thought he detected some warmth in her smile. “Not weird at all.” She seemed to catch herself and looked away in the direction of the sims. “By the way, if we’re not eating here, where do you suggest?”

  “How do you feel about Cajun food?”

  “Love it. I’ll eat anything blackened—catfish, redfish, potholders, you name it.”

  “Great. I know this little place in Mount Kisco…”

  They talked about their favorite foods—one of Romy’s was sushi which, despite heroic efforts, Patrick had never developed a taste for. He was beginning to believe that the evening was shaping up to be ripe with promise when a loud groan and a clatter interrupted them.

  Patrick turned and saw that one of the caddie sims had knocked his plate off the table and was doubled over, clutching his abdomen. As he watched, a second sim slipped off the bench and slumped to her knees, moaning.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Patrick said.

  But Romy was already on her fee
t. “Oh, God!” she cried. “Something’s wrong with the food!” She rushed forward, shouting. “Don’t eat the food! It’s bad! Bad! ”

  Too late. Patrick watched helplessly as one sim after another doubled over and crumpled to the floor, writhing in pain.

  “What is it?” he said. “Ptomaine?”

  She shook her head, her face ashen. “Spoiled food doesn’t act this quickly. They’ve been poisoned, damn it! Somebody’s poisoned their food!”

  Patrick pulled out his PCA and punched in 911. “I’ll call an ambulance—lots of ambulances!”

  “To take them where?”

  “To the emer—” He stopped. “Shit!”

  “Right. No hospital’s going to take them. They’re not human.”

  “Then how about a veterinary hospital?”

  “Is there one around? And even if there is, how do we get them there? I don’t know of an ambulance service in the world that’ll transport animals.” She pulled out her own PCA. “But I know someone…”

  “This organization of yours?”

  She glanced at him, then turned away. He thought he heard her say “Zero.”

  Patrick had to do something. With frustration mounting to the detonation point he looked around and saw Tome still standing.

  “Tome! You didn’t eat?”

  The older sim shook his head. “Not chance.”

  “Get up to the clubhouse! Fast! Tell them you’ve all been poisoned!”

  As Tome ran off, Patrick hurried to the dorm area and began pulling blankets and pillows from the bunks. He couldn’t do anything about whatever toxin had been used to poison them, but at least he could try to make the sims more comfortable.

  “Good idea,” Romy said, close by. He looked up and saw her beside him with an armful of blankets. “Help is on the way.”

  “Who? How much?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They hurried back to the eating area where it looked like a bomb had exploded: benches on their sides, tipped tables, spilled trays, and moaning, pain-wracked casualties strewn about the floor. Patrick recognized Nabb, his caddie when he’d played golf here—the last time he’d ever play golf here—that fateful September day he became involved with these sims. He lay doubled over on his side, arms folded across his abdomen.

  “Here you go, buddy,” he said, slipping a pillow under his head.

  “Hurt, Mist Sulliman,” Nabb groaned. “Hurt ver bad.”

  He draped a blanket over him. “I know, Nabb. We’re getting help.”

  He spotted Deek, another caddie he knew, and tried to make him comfortable.

  “Why hurt, Mist Sulliman?” Deek said, looking up at him with watery brown eyes. “Why?”

  “Because someone…” A blast of fury forced him to stop and look away. Who? Who would or could do something like this? He found it incomprehensible.

  “Sweet Jesus!” someone gasped.

  Patrick looked up and saw Holmes Carter and a slim, dapper man he didn’t recognize standing behind Tome in the barrack doorway. The stranger moved into the room, leaving the pudgy Carter alone, looking like a possum frozen in the glare of oncoming headlights.

  “Tome wasn’t kidding!” the stranger said to no one in particular. “What happened here?”

  “They started getting sick after eating the stew,” Patrick said. “Who are you?”

  “Dr. Stokes. I’m an anesthesiologist. And I already know who you are.” He didn’t offer to shake hands; instead he knelt beside one of the sick sims, a female. “This one doesn’t look so hot.”

  Tell me something I don’t already know, Patrick wanted to say, but bit his tongue.

  “None of them do. Can you help?”

  “I’m not a vet.”

  Romy’s eyes implored him. “Help them! Please! You treat humans. How much closer to human can you get?”

  Dr. Stokes nodded. “Point taken. Let’s see what I can do.”

  As the doctor began pressing on the sim’s abdomen, asking her questions, Patrick glanced around and spotted a small, huddled form under one of the tables. With a cold band tightening around his chest, he rushed over—Anj. She lay curled into a tight, shuddering ball.

  “Anj?” Patrick crouched beside her and touched her shoulder; her T-shirt was soaked. “Anj, speak to me.”

  A whimper was her only reply. Patrick gathered her into his arms—Christ, she was wringing wet—and carried her over to Dr. Stokes. Her face was so pale.

  “This one’s just a baby,” he told Stokes. “And she’s real bad.”

  Patrick gently lay Anj on the floor between them. Romy was there immediately with a pillow and blanket.

  “Diaphoretic,” Stokes said, more to himself than Patrick. He held her wrist a moment. “Pulse is thready.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “She’s going into shock.” He turned back to the first sim he’d been examining. “This one too. They’re going to need IVs and pressors. What in God’s name did they eat?”

  Before Patrick could answer, he heard the sound of a heavy-duty engine, slamming doors, and Carter saying, “You can’t drive that up here!”

  He looked up and saw two grim-faced men, one in a golf shirt, the other in a sport coat, file through the door with some kind of cart rolling between them. They pushed past Carter as if he were a piece of misplaced furniture. Two more strangers, a man and a woman, both in flannel shirts and jeans, followed them.

  “You can’t just walk in here!” Carter said. “This is a private club!”

  Ignoring him, they pulled stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs from the cart and fanned out into the room. The woman came over to where Patrick, Romy, and Stokes stood. She looked to be about fifty, her long brown hair streaked with gray and tied back. She nodded to Romy, then without a word she knelt beside Anj and the other sim and began taking blood pressures.

  “They’re shocky,” Stokes offered.

  The woman looked up. Her face was expressionless, all business, but her eyes looked infinitely sad. “You a doc?”

  “Yes, I’m an—”

  “We’ve got saline in the cart. If you want to help, you can start drips on these two.”

  Stokes nodded and headed for the cart. The stranger moved on.

  Patrick turned to Romy. “Who are these people?”

  “Doctors.”

  “From SimGen?”

  She shook her head and bit her upper lip. Romy’s usually steely composure had slipped. She looked rattled, something Patrick never would have thought possible. Maybe it was the helplessness. Patrick felt it too—a need to do something but not knowing what.

  “Your people then,” he said. “Your organization. How’d they get here so fast?”

  “They’ve been on standby.”

  “You mean you expected this?”

  “Expected someone might try to hurt them.” Her eyes were black cauldrons. “Excuse me. I need a little air.”

  He watched her breeze past Holmes Carter, still standing by the door, sputtering like an over-choked engine. Tome squatted against a far wall, his face buried in his arms. And all around Patrick, the strange, silent doctors, gliding from one sick sim to another.

  Feeling useless, he decided he could use a breath of night air himself, but first he had something to say…

  He stopped before Carter. “This your doing, Holmesy?”

  Carter’s round face reddened, his third chin wobbled. “You son of a bitch! If I was going to poison anyone it would be you, not these dumb animals. They’re just pawns in your game.”

  The genuine outrage in Carter’s eyes made Patrick regret his words. He backed off a bit. “Well…somebody poisoned them.”

  “If you’re looking to place blame, Sullivan, find a mirror. This never would have happened if you hadn’t started poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  Stung, Patrick turned away. The truth of Carter’s words hurt and clung to him as he stepped out into the night.

  Some sort of oversized commuter
van was parked on the grass outside. The doctors had driven it straight across the club’s rear lawn to the barrack door; Patrick could trace the deep furrows under the pitiless glow of the moon peering down from the crystal sky. Up on the rise he spotted a number of Beacon Ridge members standing outside the clubhouse, gawking at the scene. And Romy…where was Romy?

  He walked around the barrack and spotted her down the slope by the border privet hedge. But she wasn’t alone. A tall dark figure stood beside her. After a moment, Romy turned and began walking back up the slope; the tall man faded into the shadows of the hedge.

  “Who was that?” he asked as she approached.

  “No one.”

  “But—”

  Her face had settled into grim lines. “You didn’t see a thing. Now let’s go back inside and make ourselves useful.”

  Patrick was about to comment on what seemed to be a lot of hush-hush, undercover nonsense but bit it back. It wasn’t nonsense at all. Not when poison was part of someone’s game plan.

  Romy stopped dead in the doorway and he ran into her back, knocking her forward. He saw immediately why she’d stopped.

  Chaos in the barrack. The formerly silent, seemingly imperturbable doctors were in frenzied motion, pumping ventilation bags and thumping sim chests.

  “I’ve got another one crashing here!” one called out. He was on his knees next to an unconscious sim. He looked up and saw Romy and Patrick. “You two want to help?”

  Patrick tried to speak but could only nod.

  “Name it,” Romy said.

  “Each of you get an Ambu bag from that cart and bring them over here.”

  Romy was already moving. “What’s an Am—?”

  “Looks like a small football with a face mask attached,” the doctor said.

  Romy opened a deep drawer, removed two of the devices, handed one to Patrick. On their way back, to his right, he noticed Holmes Carter kneeling, using one of the bags to pump air into a sim’s lungs.

  Carter…?

  To their left, the woman doc waved and called out. “Romy! Over here! Quick!”

  Romy peeled off and Patrick kept on course toward the first doc. He stuttered to a stop when he saw the patient.

  Anj.