“But no one thinks it’s unsafe for me to have a hammer in the basement. Now, do you want me to carry through with the analogy, or are we clear?”
“I follow,” Clyde said. “But why are you doing it here? Don’t you have a lab at the university?”
“Yes. But this isn’t university work that I’m doing here. This is private. You know how Professor Larsen has all those spin-off companies out at the technology park?”
“I’ve heard he has several companies going there.”
“Well, this is my spin-off, and it’s got a better profit margin than anything that son of a gun will ever do. No overhead—except for this door and these four-by-fours from Hardware Hank.”
“You make money from this?”
“Yep. Not a fortune by any means, but enough to buy me some nice vacations.”
“How?”
“You mean, where exactly is the market for botulin toxin?”
“Right.”
“It’s used in medical treatments. The toxin works by paralyzing muscles. So, for example, if you have a wandering eye because some of the eye muscles are out of whack, the doctor injects a tiny amount of this toxin into the muscles that are too strong, paralyzing them.”
Clyde mulled this one over. “If this is enough to kill three million people, then isn’t that overkill for a few people with wandering eyes?”
“Very good,” Dr. Folkes said. “It’s massive overkill. Most of this stuff goes to the military.”
“For weapons?”
Dr. Folkes looked disappointed in Clyde. “Nah! This wouldn’t be enough for weapons production. They’d build a gold-plated assembly line somewhere for that. My stuff is used in preparing the antidote.”
“How’s that work?”
“They inject botulin toxin into horses. Small amounts at first. As the horse builds up an immunity, they inject progressively higher doses, until the amount of toxin running through that horse’s bloodstream is a thousand times what would kill a human. They draw blood from the horse and isolate the immune protein, then shoot it into soldiers.”
“Does it work?”
“Who knows? No one’s ever used botulin toxin on an actual battlefield. Saddam’s working on it, though.”
The phone upstairs was ringing again.
“And that,” Folkes said, “is why I never get any peace these days. Military.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes as he uttered the word, as if words could never express the depth and complexity of his relationship with the military. “They must have my phone number posted above every urinal in the Pentagon. So it’s nice of you to ask, Mr. Banks. But I’m afraid you can’t help me with the kind of hassles I’ve been getting.”
Dr. Folkes turned away and began stomping up the stairs. “Kill the lights when you’re done. Just don’t touch anything if you want to make it out of this basement alive.”
Clyde came up a few minutes after and found Dr. Folkes polishing off the last of his dinner. “Saw you had some brewer’s yeast down there on your workbench,” he said.
“Bacteria food,” Dr. Folkes said. “C. botulinum needs that and a few other goodies.”
“Such as?”
“Why? Going to grow some of your own?”
“Just curious.”
“Sugar and chicken soup.”
Clyde pondered the matter of chicken soup at some length. “Would beef or pork work?”
Dr. Folkes grimaced. “Don’t take me literally. It’s not really chicken soup. It’s a solution of various proteins. Remember, the stuff grows wild in all kinds of soup that’s been canned wrong. And I won’t tell you anything more, because you already know enough to grow these little bugs in your own basement and compete with me and my little spin-off.”
“Dr. Folkes, I realize that that was a facetious comment. But is it really that easy to grow this stuff?”
“You saw my setup down there. That look like million-dollar technology to you?”
“Well, Dr. Folkes, it sure has been interesting getting to know you a bit and talk about your work.”
“Well, I hope you go out and catch some drunk drivers.”
“I’ll be sure and do that, sir, and I appreciate your vote. I’ll see myself out.”
Chapter Thirty-Six