“People can’t be owned.”
“And you ain’t people, Jerry. You’re a damn bird.” Barton stepped close to the perch. “Now, let me tell you how it’s going to be. I’m going to give you to my wife, and I want you to behave, I want you to be amusing, I want you to compliment and flatter her and make her feel good. Is that clear?”
“Everyone else does,” Gerard said. He was mimicking the voice of the pilot, who heard it from the cockpit and snapped his head around to look back. “Jesus, I get sick of the old fart sometimes,” Gerard continued.
Barton Williams frowned.
Next he heard a precise imitation of the sound of jet engines in flight, and superimposed on that, a girl’s voice, one of the flight attendants: “Jenny, are you going to blow him or am I?”
“Your turn.”
Sigh. “Oh-kay…”
“Don’t forget to take him his drink.”
Click of a door opening and closing.
Barton Williams began to turn red. The bird continued:
“Oh, Barton! Oh, give it to me! Oh, you’re so big! Oh Barton! Yes, baby. Yes, big boy! Ooh I love it! So big, so big, aaaaaah!”
Barton Williams stared at the bird. “I believe,” he said, “that you will not be a welcome addition to my household.”
“You’re the reason our kids are ugly, little darlin’,” Gerard said.
“That’s enough from you,” Barton said, turning away.
“Oh Barton! Oh, give it to me! Oh, you’re so big! Oh—”
Barton Williams threw the cover over the bird’s cage.
“Jenny, honey,you’ve got family in Dayton, don’t you?”
“Yes, Mr. Williams.”
“You think anybody in your family would enjoy a talking bird?”
“Uh, well, actually—yes, Mr. Williams, I’m sure they would love it.”
“Good, good. I would appreciate it if you delivered him down there today.”
“Of course, Mr. Williams.”
“And if by some chance,” he said, “your family is not appreciative of feathered companions, just have them tie very heavy weights to his legs and drop him in the river. Because I never want to see this bird again.”
“Yes, Mr. Williams.”
“I heard that,” said the bird.
“Good,” Barton Williams said.
After the old man’slimousine had gone, Jenny stood on the tarmac holding the covered cage. “What am I going to do with this thing?” she said. “My daddy hates birds. He shoots ’em.”
“Take him to a pet store,” the pilot said. “Or give him to somebody who’ll ship him to Utah, or Mexico, or someplace like that.”
Refreshing Pawswas an upscale store in Shaker Heights. There were mostly puppies in the store. The young guy behind the counter was cute, maybe a little younger than Jenny was. He had a good body. She walked in carrying Gerard in his covered cage. “You got any parrots?”
“No. We just have dogs.” He smiled at her. “What’ve you got there? I’m Stan.” His name tag saidSTAN MILGRAM .
“Hi, Stan. I’m Jenny. And this is Gerard. He’s an African grey.”
“Let’s have a look at him,” Stan said. “You want to sell him, or what?”
“Or give him away.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“Owner doesn’t like him.”
Jenny whipped off the cover. Gerard blinked, flapped his feathers. “I’ve been kidnapped,” he said.
“Hey,” Stan said, “he talks pretty good.”
“Oh, he’s a good talker,” Jenny said.
“Oh, he’s a good talker,” Gerard said, mimicking her voice. Then: “Stop patronizing me.”
Stan frowned. “What’s he mean?”
“I am surrounded by fools,” Gerard said.
“He just talks a lot,” Jenny said, shrugging.
“Is there anything wrong with him?”
“No, nothing.”
Gerard turned to Stan. “I told you,” he said, emphatically. “I’ve been kidnapped. She is involved. She is one of the kidnappers.”
“Is he stolen?” Stan asked.
“Not stolen,” Gerard said.“Kidnapped.”
“What kind of accent is that?” Stan asked. He was smiling at Jenny. She turned sideways, to show him her breasts in profile.
“French.”
“He sounds British.”
“He came from France, is all I know.”
“Ooh la la,” Gerard said. “Will you please listen to me?”
“He thinks he’s a person,” Jenny said.
“Iam a person, you little twit,” Gerard said. “And if you want to hump this guy, go on and do it. Just don’t make me wait around while you wiggle your assets in front of him.”
Jenny turned red. The kid looked away, then smiled back at her.
“He’s got a mouth on him,” Jenny said, still blushing.
“Does he ever swear?”
“I never heard him do that, no.”
“’Cause I know someone who might like him,” Stan said, “as long as he doesn’t swear.”
“What do you mean, someone?”
“My aunt, out in California. She’s in Mission Viejo. That’s Orange County. She’s widowed, lives alone. She likes animals, and she’s lonely.”
“Oh, okay. That could be okay.”
“You aregiving me away ?” Gerard said, in a horrified tone. “This isslavery ! I am not something yougive away. ”
“I have to drive out there,” Stan Milgram said, “in a couple of days. I could take him with me. I know she’d like him. But, uh, what’re you doing later tonight?”
“I could be free,” Jenny said.
CH059
The warehousewas located near the airport in Medan. It had a skylight, so the lighting in the room was good, and the young orang in the cage appeared healthy enough, bright-eyed and alert. He seemed to have recovered completely from the darts.
But Gorevitch paced back and forth, intensely frustrated, glancing at his watch. On the table nearby, his video camera lay on its side, the case cracked, muddy water draining out of it. Gorevitch would have taken it apart to dry it, but he lacked the tools. He lacked…he lacked…
Off to one side, Zanger, the network representative, said, “What are you going to do now?”
“We’re waiting for another bloody camera,” Gorevitch said. He turned to the DHL rep, a young Malay man in a bright yellow uniform. “How much longer now?”
“They said within the hour, sir.”
Gorevitch snorted. “They said that two hours ago.”
“Yes, sir. But the plane has left Bekasi and is on its way to us.”
Bekasi was on the north coast of Java. Eight hundred miles away. “And the camera is on the plane?”
“I believe so, yes.”
Gorevitch paced, avoiding Zanger’s accusatory stare. It was all a comedy of errors. In the jungle, Gorevitch had worked to resuscitate the ape for almost an hour before the animal showed signs of life. Then he had struggled to bind the animal and tranquilize it again—not too much this time—and then monitor the animal with care, to prevent the creature from going into adrenaline shock while Gorevitch brought him north to Medan, the nearest big town with an airport.
The orang survived the journey without incident, ending up in the warehouse, where he cursed like a Dutch sailor. Gorevitch notified Zanger, who immediately flew in from New York.
But by the time Zanger arrived, the ape had developed laryngitis, and no longer spoke, except for a raspy whisper.
“What the hell good is that?” Zanger said. “You can’t hear him.”
“It won’t matter,” Gorevitch said. “We’ll tape him and then dub in his voice later. You know, lip-synch him.”
“You’ll dub in his voice?”
“Nobody will know.”
“Are you out of your mind?Everybody will know. Every lab in the world will go over this video with sophisticated equipment. They’ll spot a dub in five m
inutes.”
“All right,” Gorevitch said, “then we’ll wait until he gets better.”
Zanger didn’t like that, either. “He sounds quite ill. Did he catch a cold somewhere?”
“Possible,” Gorevitch said. In fact, he was almost certain the ape had caught his own cold, during the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It was a mild cold for Gorevitch, but appeared to be serious for the orang, who was now bent over in spasms of coughing.
“He needs a vet.”
“Can’t,” Gorevitch said. “He’s a protected animal, and we stole him, remember?”
“Youstole him,” Zanger said. “And if you’re not careful, you’ll kill him as well.”
“He’s young. He’ll recover.”
And, indeed, the following day, the ape was talking again, but coughing spasmodically and spitting up ugly, yellow-green gobs. Gorevitch decided he’d better film the animal now, so he went to get his equipment from the car, stumbled, and dropped the camera in a muddy ditch. Cracked the case open. All this not ten feet from the warehouse door.
And of course in the entire city of Medan, they did not seem to be able to lay their hands on a decent video camera. So they had had to fly one in from Java. They were waiting for the camera now, while the ape swore and hacked and coughed and spat at them from inside his cage.
Zanger stood just out of range, shaking his head. “Christ, what a cock-up.”
And once again Gorevitch turned to the Malay kid and said, “How much longer?” The kid just shook his head and shrugged.
And inside the cage, the orang coughed and swore.
CH060
Georgia Bellarminoopened the door to her daughter’s bedroom and began a swift examination. The room was a mess, of course. Crumbs in the creases of the rumpled bedcovers, scratched CDs on the floor, knocked-over Coke cans beneath the bed, along with a dirty hairbrush, a curling iron, and an empty tube of self-tanner. Georgia pulled open the drawers of the bedside table, revealing a clutter of chewing-gum wrappers, balled-up underwear, breath mints, mascara, photos from last year’s prom, matches, a calculator, dirty socks, old issues ofTeen Vogue andPeople. And a pack of cigarettes, which didn’t make her happy.
Then to the dresser drawers, riffling through them quickly, feeling all the way to the back; then the closet, which took her quite a while. A jumble of shoes and sneakers at the bottom. The cabinet under the bathroom sink, and even the dirty clothes hamper.
She found nothing to explain the bruises.
Of course, she thought, there was hardly any purpose to putting a hamper in the room, since Jennifer just dropped her clothes all over the bathroom floor. Georgia Bellarmino bent over and picked them up, not really thinking about it. That was when she noticed the streaks on the tile floor of the bathroom. Rubber streaks. Faint. In parallel.
She knew what had caused those streaks: a stepladder.
Looking up at the ceiling she saw a panel that provided an entrance to the attic. There were smudged fingerprints on that panel.
Georgia went to get a stepladder.
She pushed the panel aside, and needles and syringes tumbled out, clattering onto the floor.
Dear God,she thought. She reached up into the attic space, feeling around. Her hand touched a stack of cardboard tubes, like toothpaste. She brought them out; they all bore medical labels:LUPRON, GONAL-F, FOLLESTIM.
Fertility drugs.
What was her daughter doing?
She decided not to call her husband; he would get too upset. Instead, she took out her cell phone and dialed the school.
CH061
In theChicago offices of Dr. Martin Bennett, the intercom was buzzing, but Dr. Bennett paid no attention.
The biopsy report was worse than he had expected, much worse. He ran his fingers along the edge of the paper, wondering how he would tell his patient.
Martin Bennett was fifty-five; he had been a practicing internist for nearly a third of a century, and had delivered bad news to many patients in his day. But it never got easier. Especially if they were young, with young children. He glanced at the pictures of his sons on his desk. They were both in college now. Tad was a senior at Stanford; Bill was at Columbia. And Bill was premed.
A knock on the door and his nurse, Beverly, stuck her head in. “I’m sorry, Dr. Bennett, but you weren’t answering the intercom. And I thought it was important.”
“I know. I was just…trying to think how to put it.” He stood up behind the desk. “I’ll see Andrea now.”
Beverly shook her head. “Andrea hasn’t arrived,” she said. “I’m talking about the other woman.”
“What other woman?”
Beverly slipped into the office and closed the door behind her. She lowered her voice. “Your daughter,” she said.
“What are you talking about? I don’t have a daughter.”
“Well, there’s a young woman in the waiting room who says she’s your daughter.”
“That’s impossible,” Bennett said. “Who is she?”
Beverly glanced at a note card. “Her name is Murphy. She lives in Seattle. Her mother works at the university. She’s about twenty-eight and she has a toddler with her, maybe a year and a half. Little girl.”
“Murphy? Seattle?” Bennett was thinking back. “Twenty-eight, you say? No, no. Impossible.” He had had his share of affairs in college, and even in medical school. But he’d married Emily almost thirty years ago, and since then the only times he had been unfaithful had been at medical conferences. True, that was at least twice a year, in Cancún, in Switzerland, somewhere exotic. But he’d only started that about ten, fifteen years ago. He just didn’t think it was possible he’d have a child that old.
Beverly said, “I guess you never know for sure…Will you see her?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell her,” Beverly said. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “But we don’t want her making a scene in front of the patients. She seems like she might be a little, uh, unstable. And if she’s not your daughter, maybe you should set her straight in private.”
Bennett nodded slowly. He dropped back into his chair. “Okay,” he said. “Show her in.”
“Big surprise, huh?”The woman standing in the doorway, bouncing a child in her arms, was an unattractive blonde of medium height, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, grunge clothes. Her baby’s face was dirty, dripping snot. “Sorry I didn’t dress for the occasion, but you know how it is.”
Bennett stood behind his desk. “Please come in, Miss, uh…”
“Murphy. Elizabeth Murphy.” She nodded to the baby. “This is Bess.”
“I’m Dr. Bennett.” He waved her to the seat on the other side of the desk. He looked at her closely as she sat down. He saw no resemblance at all, not the slightest. He, himself, was dark-haired, fair-skinned, slightly overweight. She was olive-complexioned, rail-thin, brittle, tense.
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “You’re thinking I don’t look anything like you. But with my natural hair color, and more weight, you can see the family thing.”
“I’m sorry,” Bennett said, sitting down, “but to be frank, I don’t see it.”
“That’s okay,” she said, shrugging. “I figure it must be a shock to you. My showing up at your office like this.”
“It’s certainly a surprise.”
“I wanted to call ahead and warn you, but then I decided I should just come. In case you refused to see me.”
“I see. Miss Murphy, what makes you believe you are my daughter?”
“Oh, I’m yours, all right. There’s no question about it.” She was speaking with an uncanny confidence.
Bennett said, “Your mother says she knows me?”
“No.”
“Ever met me?”
“God, no.”
He gave a sigh of relief. “Then I’m afraid I don’t understand—”
“I’ll come right to the point. You did your residency in Dallas. At Southern Memorial.”
He frowned. “Yes…”
r /> “All the residents had their blood typed, in case they were needed as emergency blood donors.”