He had the uneasy impression that the Hunts couldn’t have cared less.
Earlier this week, Richard and Delores had pleaded tearfully with him to stick his neck out and smuggle out the dose of GX-42. “Name your price. Anything,” Richard had told him. “Get me the stuff that will beat this thing.”
Delores had been almost too emotional to speak, but her brimming eyes had implored him. She’d managed to croak, “You’re our only hope, Nate.”
So much for her worship. Tonight they’d looked at him with cool disdain and distrust, as though it had been he who had double-crossed them, not Brynn.
Brynn. Trusted colleague and conspirator, she had yielded to the final choice of the recipient with disappointment, but also with an unbending devotion to this chancy move they were making as a team. It was now obvious to Nate that she had wanted the inevitable fame of a medical pioneer.
Jonas Salk. Christiaan Barnard. Nathan Lambert.
He had envisioned GX-42 ultimately being named for him. Never in his fantasies had it been Brynn who achieved such heights.
Arriving at his high-rise residence building in Buckhead, he had relinquished his Jaguar to the parking garage valet and taken the soundless elevator up to the twenty-second floor. The view of the skyline from his living room was dazzling, but tonight it had been obscured by rain, and, in any case, Nate hadn’t been in the mood to admire it.
He’d poured himself a neat whiskey. Usually, he limited himself to two drinks in an evening, and he’d had those in the Hunts’ sitting room. He’d had the third in the hope that it would either induce sleep or, even better, relieve some pressure so that his mind could free-float.
In that semi-stuporous state sought by mad artists and drunken writers, perhaps he would be creatively inspired. His subconscious might devise a genius plan that would restore him to the Hunts’ good graces and salvage this debacle before time ran out.
He’d finished the whiskey, gone through his routine bedtime preparation, turned off the lights, and had gotten into bed. But sleep had eluded him for more than an hour, and the alcohol hadn’t evoked any brilliant ideas.
He’d finally slipped into a light doze when the building intercom buzzed. Initially he’d wondered if the buzzer had been part of a dream. When it went off again, he questioned why the building concierge would be calling him at this hour. If there had been a medical emergency with one of his patients, he would have been contacted on his cell phone. He decided to ignore the summons.
But it was persistent. He threw off his cashmere blanket and walked across the silk-and-wool-blend carpet to the box on the wall. He pressed the blinking lighted button and put annoyance behind his voice. “Yes?”
“I hate to disturb you, Dr. Lambert, but there’s a man at the main entrance, demanding to see you. He says that he’s been sent by a Mr. Hunt, that the matter is urgent, and that you’ll know what it’s regarding. Should I let him in?”
“Did he give you his name?”
“Goliad.”
Nate’s heart thumped. They’d found Brynn! And the GX-42. And Goliad had been dispatched to swiftly escort him back to the mansion.
“Send him up.”
He slid his bare feet into his house shoes and pulled on his robe. He was hastily belting it when his doorbell chimed. He moved quickly through the apartment and eagerly pulled open the front door.
Then he recoiled. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, doc.”
Timmy planted his hand in the center of Nate’s chest and pushed him backward as he sauntered into the apartment.
12:39 a.m.
In Timmy’s world, reprisal wasn’t merely expected, it was compulsory.
When someone was affronted, whether intentionally or not, the offender had better beware. The concept of forgiveness was unheard of. An insult was never forgotten. Grievances were long-lived and, if a person died before getting satisfaction for one, the grudge was passed down to his successors, heirs of hatred.
After tonight, Timmy bore Goliad just such a grudge.
The greaser hadn’t lifted a hand to stop Mallett from almost unmanning him, and then later had stood silently by while Richard Hunt read him the riot act like he was a nobody. As he was driving Timmy home, Goliad had used a hard-ass, boss tone to tell him that if he wanted to continue working for the Hunts, he had better grow up, lose the chip on his shoulder, and get his shit together.
That was precisely what Timmy had done. Although, when Goliad issued that order, this wasn’t what he’d had in mind.
When Dr. Lambert answered the door and saw Timmy, he looked like he might pee his pajama bottoms. Over the PJs he was wearing a robe made of some slick and shiny material.
Timmy fingered the lapel. “In this movie I saw a coupla years ago, a guy was wearing a robe just like this. Big black dude. Drug kingpin. He blew somebody’s head off with a forty-five, point blank.” He put the tip of his index finger against the bridge of the doctor’s nose, jabbed it, and said, “Pow! He probably had to throw the robe away. Brains are hard to wash out.”
The doctor blinked rapidly and nervously licked his lips. “Where’s Goliad?”
“Last I heard, he was gonna crash on the Hunts’ sofa.” He strolled over to the bar, picked up the twenty-five-year-old special reserve scotch, uncapped it, sniffed it, then drank directly from the bottle.
“H…how’d you know where I live?”
“Goliad pointed the building out to me. I’m in training, you know. I need to know these things.”
“Did you come alone?”
“Just me.” Timmy spread his arms wide, the movement sloshing whiskey out of the bottle. “Oops.” He looked at the splashes on the floor. “Reminds me. Down in the main lobby? How do they get the floor to glow like that?”
The doctor cleared his throat. “It’s, uh, constructed of a translucent material and illuminated from underneath.”
“Illuminated. Huh. Well, it’s cool-looking.”
“I don’t think Goliad would appreciate your using his name to bluff your way into a private residence.”
“No, he probably wouldn’t.” He cocked his head to one side and closed one eye. “I just figured it out.”
“What?”
“What your head reminds me of. I’ve been trying to think of it, and it just now came to me. A suppository.” He chortled. “I guess that’s how you can keep it so far up your own ass.”
Lambert pulled the belt on his robe tighter. “Why didn’t Goliad come with you?”
“Because I didn’t invite him.” Casually and with confidence, he turned his back on the doctor. The douche wasn’t going to do anything, but even if he stupidly attempted it, Timmy could see their reflections in the walls of glass that enwrapped the living room.
“This is some place. On a clear night, you must have a real nice view. Being up this high, I mean.” He leaned forward slightly and looked at the street below. “Long way down. Long, long way.”
“What do you want, Timmy? Has there been an update on Dr. O’Neal’s whereabouts?”
“Not that I’ve heard. She’s got great tits, doesn’t she?”
“I haven’t noticed.”
Timmy barked a laugh at that and turned away from the window. “Why am I not surprised?”
That remark goaded the doctor into taking a G.I. Joe stance, which, with the shiny robe and all, was downright comical. “I’m compelled to report your coming here to the Hunts, by way of Goliad. I understand he’s your supervisor.”
“Know what he called me?”
“Sorry?”
“Goliad. I overheard him talking to one of the guys who chauffeurs the Hunts around. Goliad called me a cockroach.”
“That was certainly unkind of him.”
“Unkind?” Timmy laughed. “Highest compliment he could’ve paid me. Know why? Because cockroaches have survived for kazillions of years because they’re adaptable.”