Chapter 5Sunday, April 53:19p.m.The afternoon was waning when Ally finally headed back downtown. Days like today she couldn't help coining away buoyed, feeling her mom was going to be cogent forever.In fact, Ally was more worried about herself just now. Abouttwo o'clockshe'd started feeling that sensation in her chest again, but she hadn't wanted her mother, or Maria, to know she was using vasodilator medication. She casually said her farewells and got down to the car and was sitting behind the wheel before she popped a nitro tab. She immediately felt okay again, and as she drove down Broadway, heading for her office, she reviewed all that had happened.After their brunch of smoked fish and onion chutney and soda bread and a pot of double‑strength Earl Grey, she'd tried to sell her mother on a trip to theBahamas, with Maria joining them. Soon, maybe at the beginning of summer. She wanted Nina to spend some time thinking about it, but she didn't want to wait too long. Was this just going to be a distraction at the end of Nina's life? God, she didn't want to think so. She wanted to think of it as a rebonding.Nina had always liked to revisit theDevonshirecountryside of her childhood in midsummer—when Arthur could take time off—always for just a week, but it was as intensively planned as a major military campaign. Her favorite thing was to trek among the hedgerows and stone fences, making charcoal sketches on opened‑out brown bags. In the evenings they would dineen familleat a country inn. They went with local favorites, like kidney pie. Then they would stroll the country lanes in the moonlight as a family. No TV, and she and Grant hated everything about the trips. Booooring.But that was long ago and far away, when she and Grant were still kids. Now her mom would surely want something restful. And some guaranteed sunshine wouldn't hurt either. Already she had an idea: why not rent a house with a private pool, say onParadiseIslandwhere Nina could spend a couple of hours each afternoon in the casino? She'd always loved casinos, and never missed a chance to hit the blackjack tables if she was anywhere near one. Her loss limit was a hundred dollars, but she actually beat the house more often than not. The teatime scotch hadn't impaired her card‑counting skills.Nina appeared to like the idea, so Ally had started making up a schedule in her head. The beginning of summer would be off‑season in theCaribbeanand there should be some real bargains to be had. She made a mental note to ask Glenda, her assertive, gum‑chewing travel agent at Empress, to start trolling for a package.What was Ally really thinking, hoping? She was fantasizing she could heal Nina all by herself. She so desperately wanted to, she had a premonition she could will it to happen. When she saw her mom on good days, she always found herself believing she could somehow make all her days good. She was sure of it, against all odds.What she wasn't sure about was what her mother really thought about Grant's proposal to enroll her in this clinic inNew Jersey. Was this doctor's "miracle" stem cell cure based on a real medical advance, or was he some kind of charlatan?The first thing to do was to find out more about this supposed medical magician, Karl Van de Vliet. The envelope Grant gave her was still lying there on her breakfast bar, unopened. She told herself she'd read it the minute she got home tonight, when the day's work was over and she could concentrate....The Sunday office. The interior‑design job she had on her mind was behind schedule and she was feeling a lot of pressure. It was for a Norwegian couple in their mid‑thirties. He was a software programmer working inNew York's restructured Silicon Alley, and she was teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Together they pulled down over 250 thou a year and they'd decided to stop throwing away money on obsceneNew Yorkrents.They bought an entire floor, actually three small apartments, of what was formerly a tenement in the West Fifties, an area once known as Hell's Kitchen but now much gentrified and renamedClinton. They had dreams of an open‑space loft of the kind made famous inSoHowhen artists took over abandoned factory buildings and gutted the space, taking out all the walls.Because they had combined three apartments, they had to file their plans with the NYC Department of Buildings and modify the building's Certificate of Occupancy to reflect the change in the number of dwelling units.So far so good, but then a woman who was the local member of the District Council got wind of the project and sent someone from her office to look over the place. The next day, the Department of Buildings' approval of their plans was abruptly withdrawn.It turned out that there was an obscure law on the books concerning Clinton, one that even the Department of Buildings was only vaguely aware of. It said that in order to preserve the "family character" of the neighborhood, no renovation could alter the number of rooms in a residential building. Not the number of apartments, mind you, just the number of rooms.That was when they showed up at CitiSpace in despair. They wanted Ally to help them by doing some kind of design that would satisfy the law and also give them the open, airy feeling they had set their hopes on. On the face of it, their two goals seemed mutually contradictory and impossible.He was short and shy and she was plump and sassy and Ally liked them both a lot. Sometimes in this business she sensed she was helping people realize their dreams and that was a very rewarding feeling. Real estate was an emotional thing. Your home was a part of you. She always tried to get to know people before she did any designs for them. Sometimes design was more psychology than anything else.But this time she had to solve a problem before she could wax creative. If their plan for open space could be stopped by some obscure local provision that even the Department of Buildings was fuzzy about, then maybe there was some other obscure law in the Housing Code that could be used to fight back. The full code had recently been put on the NYC Web site, so she wanted to go over every page and see what she could come up with. And she wanted to do it in the office, undisturbed with all the architectural plans close to hand.The office was deserted when she cruised in and clicked on the lights. She got on the expansive NYC Web site and started poring over the Housing Code, though she was still obsessing about Nina. What if this doctor inNew Jerseyactually could do something for her?Finish here, she told herself, and then go home and read the guy's CV.A pot of decaf coffee later, she came across a little‑known fact, which she now vaguely remembered from her days as a practicing architect. If you installed a fifteen‑inch drop across a ceiling, that was technically a wall in the eyes of the NYC Department of Buildings. The space on each side became a separate "room."As they say in the movies, bingo.In fact, why not do a honeycomb ceiling that would actually simulate the industrial look they were seeking, anyway? The ceiling was over eleven feet high; there was plenty of vertical space. Nobody would know it was just a sneaky way to get around a funny local aberration in the Building Code.I'm brilliant, she thought. Yes! Dad would be proud.She made some sketches, and by that time it was after six. Time to go home.Knickers was waiting by the door, and she gave Ally a dirty look and some very disapproving barks. By way of penance, Ally took her on an extra long walk, all the way up toFourteenth Streetand back. Then she picked up some tuna salad and steamed veggies from a new deli onWest Tenth Street.As she settled down to eat at the breakfast bar, she felt like a single mom, always eating and doing everything on the run—and all she had to worry about was a friendly dog. How did real working moms do it?It was just past nine when she poured a glass of Chardonnay and picked up Grant's envelope and took it into the living room, pausing to put some Chopin ballades on the CD player.The envelope contained a bound folder that was Dr. Karl Van de Vliet's curriculum vitae, his resume. It was in fact a minibiography that devoted a page to each of his career turns. His life story was presented from a god's‑eye view, as though it were a novel.Karl Van de Vliet had done his undergraduate studies at the prestigiousUniversityofMaastrichtafter which he'd migrated to theUnited Statesand taken a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from theUniversityofChicago, top of the class. Following that he went to Yale as a postdoctoral fellow, again studying genetics.From the beginning he focused his research on the mechanisms that govern human cell reproduction. Along the way he'd become interested in something known as the Hayflick limit—which concerned the number of times a cell could divide before it became senescent and ceased to replicate. This natural life span controlled the aging process of every organism, and it seemed to be nature's device for nipping undesirable (i.e. mutant) cells in the bud by never letting any cell, unhealthy or healthy, just keep on replicating indefinitely.However, there were "immortal cells" buried within us all, so‑called stem cells that could replicate forever, unchanged. They were present at the very beginning of life and all our differing body tissue was created from them. Some still lingered on in our body, as though to be available for spare parts. If one could figure out how to transfer the characteristics of those cells to other cells, then the possibility existed that we could regenerate damaged or aging tissue in our vital organs. The trick was to figure out the mechanism whereby stem cells managed to cheat time.His research, which was accompanied by a flurry of scientific papers, was celebrated and encouraging. After three years he was lured away from Yale to become a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, which offered to double his laboratory budget. He was there for six years, during which time he met Camille Buseine, a neurosurgeon finishing her residency.She had a doctorate from a medical institute nearParisand she was doing research that was similar to his, so the biography said. They married and became a team, and when he was asked by Harvard Medical to found a department for molecular genetics, she was immediately offered a tenured position there too. Harvard considered it a double coup.His research was zeroing in on the telomerase protein, an enzyme many scientists believed was responsible for suppressing the aging process in stem cells. Could it be used to regenerate tissue?He was well along on the task of exploring that tantalizing possibility when tragedy struck. Camille, who had worked around the clock during her residency at Johns Hopkins, began feeling weak at Harvard and was diagnosed with acquired aortic stenosis. After a 2 1/2‑year struggle, she died during a severe cardiac episode.My God, Ally thought, that's what I have.After Camille died, he left Harvard and its time‑consuming academic obligations and went to work full‑time at a research institute affiliated withStanfordUniversity. He even formed a paper company to structure the work, the Gerex Corporation. But then there came a second strike against him. He was doing research using embryonic stem cells obtained from the discarded embryos at fertility clinics. After two years of harassment by right‑wing political groups, Stanford decided his research was too controversial and terminated his funding.Three months later, Karl Van de Vliet merged his company with Bartlett Medical Devices and moved his research staff east toNew Jersey, to the Dorian Institute. That was five years past, and now his research using stem cells was in third‑stage NIH clinical trials.The official history ended there, though with a strong hint that the final chapter was yet to be written. Then at the back there was a bibliography of publications that extended for eight pages, and included a summary of the most important papers. His work on stem cells and the telomerase enzyme appeared to be at the forefront of the field.Oddly, however, some of his writings also were philosophical, an argument with himself whether his work could be misused to alter the natural limitations life imposes. One of those papers, from a conference presentation inCopenhagen, had a summary, and in it he pondered whether the use of stem cells to rejuvenate the body might someday give medical science godlike powers.The Greeks, he declared, had a myth about the punishment reserved for those who sought to defeat our natural life span. When the goddess of the dawn,Aurora, fell in love with the beautiful youth Tithonus and granted him immortality, it turned out to be a curse, since he still reached the decrepitude of age but had to suffer on forever because he could not have the release of death.But, Van de Vliet pondered, if we could find a way to arrest the aging process in our body's tissue, might we escape the process of aging? If so, was this a good thing? Or might this be a step too far that would bring on unintended, and as yet unknown, consequences?Well, Ally thought,I wouldn't mind having Mom's mind restored. Or my own heart, for that matter.All in all, Karl Van de Vliet was clearly a genius. He also was a very complex man. But might he be a very gifted huckster as well?The inside back cover had a group photo, showing him surrounded by members of his research staff, all in white lab coats. There were two men and two women and each was identified, along with a list of his or her academic credentials. They were standing on the porch of what appeared to be a nineteenth‑century mansion, which had large Doric columns in Greek Revival style. The lettering in the marble above their heads readthe dorian institute.She put down the folder and went into the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine, finishing off the botde. Her mind was chinning, but not because of the words on the page. It was that photograph at the back. It was dated less than two years ago.His Ph.D. at theUniversityofChicagowas granted in 1962. But even if he was a genius and got his first doctorate in his early twenties, he’d still have to be—what? At least sixty years old by now. Probably halfway to seventy.But in the photo, he looks no more than forty, well, forty‑five at most. What the heck is going on?She went back into the living room and picked up the brochure and stared at it. He had sandy hair that lay like a mane above his elongated brow. He was tall and gaunt, with high cheeks and deep, penetrating eyes. But no matter how you gauged him, the guy hadn't aged a day since his forty‑fifth birthday, tops.So what’s going on that isn't in the package?She checked the digital clock on the side table—the hour was pushing ten—and decided to give Grant a call.Three chirps, and then, "Yo.Hamptonhere."My God, she thought, he even does it at home. That synthetic bravado was left over from his trader days:You're the luckiest person alive, just to have reached me. How can I further make your day?his tone implied."Grant, it's me. I think it's time for that vital chat."It took him a split second to recover, and then, "Hey, I was beginning to wonder what happened to you. If you were going to stand me up or what. Not call, like you said you would.""Long day. I was up at Mom's this morning. You knew she was going to tell me, right? About your little surprise visit and proposal?""I had a hunch the topic might arise." His voice seemed to shrug nonchalantly. "I thought you should hear it from her instead of from me. So what do you think?""What do I think? I think I'm wondering what you're up to.""I'm not 'up to' anything, Ally, except exactly what I told her. Trouble is, I don't know whether she got it. I wanted to see how she was doing. You know, I'm thinking maybe Dr. Vee can do something for her. But I had to see her first. She seemed pretty distant, but that woman there—what was her name? Marie, Maria, whatever?—said she has lucid moments. So who knows? He might possibly help her. I think I can arrange to get her into his clinic.Bartlettgives me a few perks. It's the least I can do for her, so..." His voice trailed off expectantly."Grant, I need to talk to you about this man. I read the stuff you gave me and I still don't know the first thing about him." She paused, about to speak words she never thought she would. "If you want to come over, I'll stand you a drink.""You serious?""For my sins.""I'll grab a cab. See you in fifteen."It's begun, she thought. I'm about to let Grant screw up my life one more time.No. This round, don't give him the chance. Stay ahead of him.Sunday, April 510:39p.m."I didn't know if I should have brought a bodyguard" he was saying as he strode in the door, a Master of the Universe with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder. He looked stylish, but then he always did. He casually tossed the jacket onto the gray couch, then gazed around. Thankfully, he didn't try theNew Yorkcheek kiss. "I guess this is not supposed to seem like old times, but somehow it does. Seeing you again. Hey, we're still blood kin, right?""Don't push it, Grant." She'd killed the Chopin and put on a Bach sonata. Clear, precise thinking was required not sentimentality. Knickers had rushed to give Grant a hello nuzzle, happier to see him than Ally was. "Whatever this is, it is definitely not old times."He sauntered into her kitchen, looking around—trying to act cool, but clearly ill at ease. "You've done a nice job on this place, sis." He was looking over the rustic counter she'd installed. "You get a deal on the space? A bank repo or something?""The people who had it wanted to sell fast and I made them an offer." Not that it was any of his damned business. Why didn't she treat the question with the scorn it deserved?She had an old fifth of Dewar's in the cabinet. She poured him some, over ice, then gave herself a shot of tequilaanejo, neat, to sip. She loved the pure agave flavor. The more she thought about the situation, the more she was sure she needed it.He picked up his scotch, then walked into the living room and helped himself to the couch. "Ally, I know why you're ticked. And I don't blame you. I feel crummy about Dad, I really do. I guess I share some of the blame."He was trying to sound contrite but the reading did not quite rise to the minimal threshold of credibility."You 'share'... with whom, you self‑centered prick? Nobody else was involved. He mortgaged CitiSpace to the hilt and settled those fraud suits to keep you from losing your license. Or worse. You destroyed his business and his life all by yourself."He looked as contrite as she'd ever seen him."Look, I thought the business plan I had would work out. I really did. I was managing discretionary accounts, but the bond market hit a downdraft when I was long. A few of my clients didn't have the balls to ride it out. What do you want me to say? That I feel like a complete cretin over what happened? That a day doesn't go by that I don't hate myself for it?" His eyes went dead and he seemed to shrivel, his body becoming visibly smaller. "Well, I do. More than you'll ever know.""You didn't seem all that contrite at the time.""I was operating in a high state of denial back then. But now I want to take a shot at growing up. I want to start trying to make up for all that, if you'll just cut me a little slack and give me a chance.""Grant, you're working for Bartlett Enterprises, doing whatever it is you do. Fine. That's your job. But now you want me to become a guinea pig when this Dutch doctor needs one in a crunch. Or maybe Mom too, for all I know. Maybe he needs her as well. Two guinea pigs. So don't try to make this about me and her. Let's keep it honest. It's really about you, just like always.""Ally, a lot of things have gone on since Dad... passed away. I've changed, in more ways than you could ever imagine." He was all sincerity now, his demeanor rapidly evolving to fit the current vibes of the scene. "I'm not like I used to be. I really mean that. I've learned ... learned that I can't always just be thinking about myself.""So ... what changed you?" The truth was, he did seem different. In some way she couldn't quite understand. But he was always talking about turning over a new leaf, especially whenever he'd just gotten himself in trouble. That part hadn't changed at all."Ally, Dr. Van der Vliet... I don't know how much I should tell you, but he's a miracle worker." He paused and looked down at his scotch. One thing about him was definitely different, she thought. There was a lot less bravado and swagger. "The thing is, what he's doing is so powerful. I'm not sure which worries me most—that it's not true, that it's just some placebo effect, or that it is true. When I think about the implications . . ." His voice trailed off again."Go on." She could tell he was dead serious."It's not something I'm sure I should talk about." He reached over and touched her hand. "But it's working, I swear. He's doing things that shouldn't even be possible."Uh‑huh, she thought, pulling her hand away."Grant, please tell me exactly what you think he could do for Mom." She wasn't sure she should be having this conversation. "You want her to go out to the Dorian Institute, right? Where he does his 'research.' And I take it that's where you want me to go too.""It's in northernJersey, about an hour's drive from the city, maybe not even if traffic's light. But I'd only want Mom to go if you say it's okay. I'm not trying to do anything behind your back."She breathed a long sigh, trying to clear her brain. Every other word he uttered was probably part of some hustle. But what was it?"Why don't we start at the beginning, Grant? I read his CV, and believe me I've got a lot of questions. For starters, how did he convince Winston Bartlett to bankroll him?" She took another sip of her tequila, then set it down. "You're his flunky now, so you should be able to answer that question.""You read the materials I left?""Just finished them.""Then you know he lost his federal funding at Stanford a few years back, when he was at a critical stage of his research using stem cells. That's when he came to the Man and persuaded him to put up the money to help him take everything private. The only wayBartlettwould play ball was if he could buy the Gerex Corporation and get three‑quarter interest in all the patents. Van de Vliet kept the other quarter, but now they're both hoping to sell off forty‑nine percent to a big pharmaceutical company. Not American. I can't tell you any more than that.""Congratulations," she said. "Sounds like your job is secure.""Yeah, right."That twitch of nonchalance he had when something really mattered—even as a child he would attempt (and fail) trying not to gloat over some personal success. It was moments like this when she realized she'd missed seeing him and talking to him. When you cut a family member off from you, you also cut yourself off from them. After all, he was her closest blood kin, even though he was an unreconstructed shit. At some level she wished she could get past the bitterness she felt toward him. Could it be he really had changed?He didn't like the way the scene was going. What the hell was her problem? He looked at his scotch longingly, then got up and went to the kitchen and got another ice cube for it.Go easy.How was he going to get through to her? If word of the Beta screw‑up got out, the buyout was toast and Grant Hampton along with it. But if Ally could be brought in . . ."Grant," she was saying, "I want to start off by asking you if you've ever taken a really good look at that guy Karl Van de Vliet. Does he look anything like his picture? The one that came with that CV of his.""Sure, that's him.""And I assume you've actually read his resume?""Of course." Here it comes, he thought. The thing everybody asks."If those dates are right, then he has to be—what?—at least sixty years old. But in the picture he doesn't look a day over forty‑five. So what's going on?""Ally, you're finally getting it." He rattled the ice in his Dewar's, then finally took a deep sip. Maybe, he thought, it would help with the courage. "He's a truly amazing human being.""That's not an answer, Grant. It's a generality." She exhaled in obvious exasperation. "But I want an honest answer about one thing, dammit. Do you actually think he could help Mom's Alzheimer's? Maybe even reverse it? Tell me the truth. Just once.""Ally, I can't guarantee anything. But it's worth a shot."Now, he thought hopefully, she was sounding like she was starting to come around. Thank God. As for whether Dr. Vee could cure the old bird who knew? But he'd overheard the nurses talking about how he and his research staff had had some phenomenal luck with Alzheimer's. . . ."By the way, what happened when you talked to Mom?" he went on. "Did she seem like she understood anything I told her?""Grant, she probably understood a lot more than you wanted her to. The bad part is, she let you give her some hope. Now, what's going to happen if she goes out there and ends up being disappointed?"It's a real possibility, he told himself. But it's probably the only way I'll ever get you out there, and that's what really matters."Ally, we'll never know unless ... You should go too.""Look, maybe I'll talk to Van de Vliet. But it's purely information‑gathering." She was staring at him. "So why not tell me? The whole story. Are you doing this for Mom and me, or are we just being used like lab animals?""I'm not sure you're going to believe anything I say." He sipped again at his scotch, then walked over to the skylightand looked up. Finally he turned back. "After Dad . . . and everything, I had trouble sleeping. I know you didn't think it got to me, but it was like some bad force had taken over my mind, haunting me. I became obsessed with death. I took off two months and went toColorado, camping. Out there, under the stars, I did a lot of thinking. Dad had died suddenly, but maybe that was a blessing in disguise. The rest of us, we all die a little every day. Why does time do the things to us it does? Why do we have to grow old and repulsive?"He drew on his scotch again, then continued."When I came back, I started doing research on aging. That's when Karl Van de Vliet's name popped up on the Internet. Some paper he'd given inViennayears ago. It was about the physiology of aging. But then Tanya came along and I sort of forgot about him. Then when I went to work for Winston Bartlett, there he was. The very same guy. It was weird, but it was as though God had delivered him.""Is this shaggy‑dog story going to end up being about why he looks so young?""I'm getting there." He smiled. "I kept wondering too, and then finally I saw an opening in his schedule and took him to dinner here in the city, down at Chanterelle. A social thing. Eventually, after a couple of bottles of serious wine, it came out that once upon a time he had done an unconventional experiment. On himself. It was sort of an accident, something about melanoma research.""So he—""You asked me why he looks so young. Well, some procedure he did apparently stopped his skin from aging. But then he changed the subject and wouldn't talk about it anymore. So do I think he's a miracle worker? I'd say he's walking proof of something. That you can cheat nature.""And?""There is no 'and.' That's all I know." He came back and settled onto the couch. His scotch glass was empty and he yearned for another, but that small voice inside was urging discretion. This was the moment that could be make or break."But to get back to you, Ally, you really should meet him. I can't talk specifics about the actual clinical trials, but let me just say they've been very positive. There's every reason to think he can help you. And Mom too."He studied her, trying to read her mind. He wondered if she could detect the anxiety he felt lurking just beneath the surface. Was she seeing through him, the way Nina, for all her mental debility, had seemed to?"Grant, has this doctor Van de Vliet gotten into some kind of medical experiment that's turned into a Faustian bargain? Is his skin rejuvenation a signal that this research has gone over into The Twilight Zone'! When a sixty‑something man looks forty‑something, there's got to be an unnatural act going on. What does it mean?""Maybe it means he's found the thing Ponce de Leon was looking for. The Fountain of Youth or whatever.""Then he'll probably have to pay for it some other way," she said getting up. "Mother Nature doesn't give out freebies. Look, I've got to give Knickers hermidnightwalk. That's your exit cue. I'll call him tomorrow. I'll go that far.""Don't blow this chance, Ally," he said setting down his empty scotch glass and getting up. He felt hope and it bucked him up. "It could be the biggest mistake of your life. And Mom's."He was at the door before he turned back. It was time for the insurance. The hedging of bets.Bartletthad authorized it."By the way, I almost forgot. Jesus, I'm going senile myself. W.B. told me to tell you he'd like you to come over to his place onGramercyParktomorrow morning around ten, if you can work it into your schedule.""What for?""That job on his place that I told you about this morning, I guess. I do know he's planning to renovate the ground floor. But just between us, he's also got a massive renovation job in the wings, so maybe that's what's really on and this is like an audition. Who knows? He bought an old mansion on upper Park and he's planning to heavily redo it and turn it into a museum for his incredible collection of Japanese military stuff, swords and armor and shit. He's going to do over the entire interior. It's part architecture and part design, so I gave him your name. Who knows? But I was over at his place this afternoon and he asked about you. He said he wanted to see you as soon as possible. He even gave me one of his personal cards to give to you. Here. It has theGramercyParkaddress and his private cell phone.""Just like that?" She looked skeptical but took the card."Winston Bartlett is not a man who dawdles. If he decides he wants to do something, he just moves on it. All he asked was that you bring a portfolio, to show him some of your work."Come on and do it,he thought as he headed out the door.Go and see theMan.Just fucking do it. If he can't close this frigging deal, nobody can.Chapter 6Sunday, April 511:43p.m.Winston Bartlett put the newly glazed creme brulee, still warm from his preparation in the kitchen below stairs, on the bed tray in front of Kristen, next to her untouched champagne flute. She used to love it and he was trying everything he knew to jog her memory. He'd cooked her favorite supper, eggs Florentine, with barely wilted spinach topped by prosciutto, had taken her to bed and now there was champagne and her favorite dessert.But she still seemed distracted and distant. Yes, it was a good idea to get her away from the institute, but that was merely relocating the problem, not fixing it. If it could be fixed. In the meantime, she had to be kept here, out of the public eye."Thank you," she said and gingerly took a small bite. She had been almost lucid earlier this evening and was leaning against the antique headboard wearing a soft blue nightgown. Her long blond hair was tousled and down over her breasts. Her memory might now be a sometime thing, but her libido was still going strong."Do you remember how much you used to like that?" he asked, trying to make eye contact.She nodded her head dumbly. Did she actually remember? Increasingly, he had no idea.He had brought her here to stay in this five‑story nineteenth‑ century mansion onPark Avenue. He'd purchased it a year and a half earlier for 23 million and he was intending to have it renovated and converted into a museum. That renovation, however, had been put on hold awaiting a decision by the Board of Directors of theMetropolitanMuseum. He wanted the building to be aPark Avenueadjunct to the Met, and he also wanted his definitive assemblage of Japanese implements of war to be known as the Bartlett Collection.The tax write‑off would be monumental, but that was not nearly so important as the prestige.It was clear now that this project would not have any momentum until he first got himself appointed to the board of the Met. Unfortunately, money alone wasn't adequate. Major‑league politics was involved.He was working on it, with a lot ofUpper East Sidelunches and targeted charity events. He was also taking his time and getting designs and estimates for the renovation. The way things were at the moment, he didn't have the cash to actually start construction anyway.For the moment, the place was furnished but unoccupied except for a security guard, a part ofBartlett's personal staff. Now, with Kristen here, discretion was his uppermost concern.He had sent the security guy home this evening, so he and Kristen could have privacy. In the morning two nurses would come on duty, one to look after her and another to cook.Over the past year he'd brought her here most weekends. It was like having their own Shangri‑la. Best of all, unlike his official residence onGramercyPark, he didn't have a wife upstairs, like some mad (in every sense of the word) aunt in the attic.He had hoped that bringing Kristen back here might dosomething for her memory. He still hoped, but he wasn't sure. In bed tonight she had been as lithe and enthusiastic as ever. Possibly even more so. Did she know who he was? He couldn't really tell. But he still loved being with her. The soft skin and the voluptuous curves of her breasts and thighs: it made him feel young again.Since she had been out at the Dorian Institute and away from him, he had begun to feel older and older.Winston Bartlett was sixty‑seven and—increasingly—felt it. To begin with, his prostate was enlarging itself, in spite of all the special, expensive medicines he used Surgery was increasingly looking like a possibility. And his memory was nowhere near what it once was. He wolfed down ginkgo and ginseng capsules by the handful but was finding it harder and harder to remember people's names, particularly the new wave of donation‑hungry politicians who fawned over him.And then there was the matter of teeth. He'd just gone through major periodontal surgery, a sign of aging gums. How long before his ivories would be replaced by ceramic choppers? Oh, and the heart. His cardiologist was talking more and more about stents to alleviate the two constricted arteries in the left ventricle. They were already down to 40 percent. Face it, his whole damned body was falling apart.Probably worst of all, the Johnson was far from what it used to be; not long back, it was a daily triple threat. Soon he might be resorting to Viagra as more than a discretionary recreational drug, something he was still joking about less than a year ago.The dirty secret about living this long is, after you've seen everything you ever wanted to see, done everything you ever wanted to do, bought everything you ever wanted to buy, you gradually lose the only thing really worth having.Youth.To try to hang on to it, he had been through clinics as far‑ flung asPhoenixandLucerne. He had undergone regimens of antioxidants and injections of human growth hormone. He'd tried testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone, better know as DHEA. Maybe it had made a difference, maybe not. Sometimes he thought he had more libido and energy, but other times he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just that he'd begun working out even harder, playing handball an extra half hour every other day. He did know his body was continuing to deteriorate.Shit, the Beta had to be made to work"I don't want to stay here alone," Kristen said, putting down her spoon. "I want to go back to work.""Honey, I can't be here all the time, and you're really not well enough to go to work. There'll be someone here with you. It's just till you get better." He studied her, the face that was so young, and felt the full weight of the tragedy sinking in. "Do you remember what it was you used to do?""I don't remember right now. I mean exactly. I used to talk to people. I was in this room with lots of bright lights."She didn't actually remember, he thought. Her former producer at E!, along with everybody else (including her harridan of a mother, Katherine), had been told she was at a private health spa inNew Mexico. It had to be kept that way.No one must know she was here. All the phones had been removed before the ambulance brought her. Starting at six in the morning, there would be a nurse and a nurse/cook downstairs on a twenty‑four‑hour basis. Under no conditions could she be allowed to leave, not the way her mind was now."Kristy, it wasn't supposed to turn out like this. I'm so sorry. But Karl is doing all he can. We're ... He has a new idea that he's about to explore. He's going to..." His voice trailed off as he stared at her unblinking eyes. "You don't remember what happened, do you?"But how she looked. My God. The youth. How could a true miracle have such a tragic downside?That was when the cell phone on the stand beside him chirped. It was the only phone in the place, and tomorrow it would be gone. No way could she be allowed to have a phone.The caller ID advised that it was Grant Hampton."Kristy, I've got a feeling this could take a while." He was reaching for his silk robe. "I'll be downstairs on the first floor if you need anything, okay?"She just stared at him mutely. He shook his head sadly. There wasn't much time left to mend her. How in God's name had it come to this?As he moved down the spiraling grand staircase, he clicked on the phone."Yeah.""I was just at her place, W.B. I actually got in, which is more than has happened in over four years. I think she's on board but I'm still not entirely sure. So, just to be safe, I told her you wanted to see her tomorrow.""Are you saying you couldn't make this happen? With your own fucking sister?""It's ... We're not exactly on the greatest of terms, Ally and me." There was an awkward tone in his voice. "It's hard to explain. Like I told you, I confirmed her blood type on Saturday. It's AB, like I thought. And I played the mother angle. At the very least, I think she's willing to drive the old bird out to the institute and meet Karl. That's a start, at least.""And what about her medical . . . Karl wanted to see—""I'm working on it. I remembered something about her. I've got a guy. He's going to check on it tonight.""Good"Bartlettgrowled. "There's no time to screw around on this.""I've set it up for you to meet her tomorrow, the way you wanted. I think she'll show. I told—""The one who really should talk to her is Karl."Bartlettsighed. "He knows how to handle patients.""Then he could call her tomorrow. After she's talked to you. If we all pull together on this, W.B., I'm sure we can get her out there by day after tomorrow, Tuesday."Winston Bartlett looked at his watch. It had just turnedMonday, one less day to find something that would stop the Syndrome in its tracks."We'd better."He was clicking off the phone when he heard a wail of despair from the bedroom upstairs and the sound of a champagne flute being thrown against a wall.Kristen was losing it rapidly now. Was she still conscious enough to know what was happening to her?
Chapter 5
Sunday, April 5
3:19p.m.
The afternoon was waning when Ally finally headed back downtown. Days like today she couldn't help coining away buoyed, feeling her mom was going to be cogent forever.
In fact, Ally was more worried about herself just now. Abouttwo o'clockshe'd started feeling that sensation in her chest again, but she hadn't wanted her mother, or Maria, to know she was using vasodilator medication. She casually said her farewells and got down to the car and was sitting behind the wheel before she popped a nitro tab. She immediately felt okay again, and as she drove down Broadway, heading for her office, she reviewed all that had happened.
After their brunch of smoked fish and onion chutney and soda bread and a pot of double‑strength Earl Grey, she'd tried to sell her mother on a trip to theBahamas, with Maria joining them. Soon, maybe at the beginning of summer. She wanted Nina to spend some time thinking about it, but she didn't want to wait too long. Was this just going to be a distraction at the end of Nina's life? God, she didn't want to think so. She wanted to think of it as a rebonding.
Nina had always liked to revisit theDevonshirecountryside of her childhood in midsummer—when Arthur could take time off—always for just a week, but it was as intensively planned as a major military campaign. Her favorite thing was to trek among the hedgerows and stone fences, making charcoal sketches on opened‑out brown bags. In the evenings they would dineen familleat a country inn. They went with local favorites, like kidney pie. Then they would stroll the country lanes in the moonlight as a family. No TV, and she and Grant hated everything about the trips. Booooring.
But that was long ago and far away, when she and Grant were still kids. Now her mom would surely want something restful. And some guaranteed sunshine wouldn't hurt either. Already she had an idea: why not rent a house with a private pool, say onParadiseIslandwhere Nina could spend a couple of hours each afternoon in the casino? She'd always loved casinos, and never missed a chance to hit the blackjack tables if she was anywhere near one. Her loss limit was a hundred dollars, but she actually beat the house more often than not. The teatime scotch hadn't impaired her card‑counting skills.
Nina appeared to like the idea, so Ally had started making up a schedule in her head. The beginning of summer would be off‑season in theCaribbeanand there should be some real bargains to be had. She made a mental note to ask Glenda, her assertive, gum‑chewing travel agent at Empress, to start trolling for a package.
What was Ally really thinking, hoping? She was fantasizing she could heal Nina all by herself. She so desperately wanted to, she had a premonition she could will it to happen. When she saw her mom on good days, she always found herself believing she could somehow make all her days good. She was sure of it, against all odds.
What she wasn't sure about was what her mother really thought about Grant's proposal to enroll her in this clinic inNew Jersey. Was this doctor's "miracle" stem cell cure based on a real medical advance, or was he some kind of charlatan?
The first thing to do was to find out more about this supposed medical magician, Karl Van de Vliet. The envelope Grant gave her was still lying there on her breakfast bar, unopened. She told herself she'd read it the minute she got home tonight, when the day's work was over and she could concentrate....
The Sunday office. The interior‑design job she had on her mind was behind schedule and she was feeling a lot of pressure. It was for a Norwegian couple in their mid‑thirties. He was a software programmer working inNew York's restructured Silicon Alley, and she was teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Together they pulled down over 250 thou a year and they'd decided to stop throwing away money on obsceneNew Yorkrents.
They bought an entire floor, actually three small apartments, of what was formerly a tenement in the West Fifties, an area once known as Hell's Kitchen but now much gentrified and renamedClinton. They had dreams of an open‑space loft of the kind made famous inSoHowhen artists took over abandoned factory buildings and gutted the space, taking out all the walls.
Because they had combined three apartments, they had to file their plans with the NYC Department of Buildings and modify the building's Certificate of Occupancy to reflect the change in the number of dwelling units.
So far so good, but then a woman who was the local member of the District Council got wind of the project and sent someone from her office to look over the place. The next day, the Department of Buildings' approval of their plans was abruptly withdrawn.
It turned out that there was an obscure law on the books concerning Clinton, one that even the Department of Buildings was only vaguely aware of. It said that in order to preserve the "family character" of the neighborhood, no renovation could alter the number of rooms in a residential building. Not the number of apartments, mind you, just the number of rooms.
That was when they showed up at CitiSpace in despair. They wanted Ally to help them by doing some kind of design that would satisfy the law and also give them the open, airy feeling they had set their hopes on. On the face of it, their two goals seemed mutually contradictory and impossible.
He was short and shy and she was plump and sassy and Ally liked them both a lot. Sometimes in this business she sensed she was helping people realize their dreams and that was a very rewarding feeling. Real estate was an emotional thing. Your home was a part of you. She always tried to get to know people before she did any designs for them. Sometimes design was more psychology than anything else.
But this time she had to solve a problem before she could wax creative. If their plan for open space could be stopped by some obscure local provision that even the Department of Buildings was fuzzy about, then maybe there was some other obscure law in the Housing Code that could be used to fight back. The full code had recently been put on the NYC Web site, so she wanted to go over every page and see what she could come up with. And she wanted to do it in the office, undisturbed with all the architectural plans close to hand.
The office was deserted when she cruised in and clicked on the lights. She got on the expansive NYC Web site and started poring over the Housing Code, though she was still obsessing about Nina. What if this doctor inNew Jerseyactually could do something for her?
Finish here, she told herself, and then go home and read the guy's CV.
A pot of decaf coffee later, she came across a little‑known fact, which she now vaguely remembered from her days as a practicing architect. If you installed a fifteen‑inch drop across a ceiling, that was technically a wall in the eyes of the NYC Department of Buildings. The space on each side became a separate "room."
As they say in the movies, bingo.
In fact, why not do a honeycomb ceiling that would actually simulate the industrial look they were seeking, anyway? The ceiling was over eleven feet high; there was plenty of vertical space. Nobody would know it was just a sneaky way to get around a funny local aberration in the Building Code.
I'm brilliant, she thought. Yes! Dad would be proud.
She made some sketches, and by that time it was after six. Time to go home.
Knickers was waiting by the door, and she gave Ally a dirty look and some very disapproving barks. By way of penance, Ally took her on an extra long walk, all the way up toFourteenth Streetand back. Then she picked up some tuna salad and steamed veggies from a new deli onWest Tenth Street.
As she settled down to eat at the breakfast bar, she felt like a single mom, always eating and doing everything on the run—and all she had to worry about was a friendly dog. How did real working moms do it?
It was just past nine when she poured a glass of Chardonnay and picked up Grant's envelope and took it into the living room, pausing to put some Chopin ballades on the CD player.
The envelope contained a bound folder that was Dr. Karl Van de Vliet's curriculum vitae, his resume. It was in fact a minibiography that devoted a page to each of his career turns. His life story was presented from a god's‑eye view, as though it were a novel.
Karl Van de Vliet had done his undergraduate studies at the prestigiousUniversityofMaastrichtafter which he'd migrated to theUnited Statesand taken a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from theUniversityofChicago, top of the class. Following that he went to Yale as a postdoctoral fellow, again studying genetics.
From the beginning he focused his research on the mechanisms that govern human cell reproduction. Along the way he'd become interested in something known as the Hayflick limit—which concerned the number of times a cell could divide before it became senescent and ceased to replicate. This natural life span controlled the aging process of every organism, and it seemed to be nature's device for nipping undesirable (i.e. mutant) cells in the bud by never letting any cell, unhealthy or healthy, just keep on replicating indefinitely.
However, there were "immortal cells" buried within us all, so‑called stem cells that could replicate forever, unchanged. They were present at the very beginning of life and all our differing body tissue was created from them. Some still lingered on in our body, as though to be available for spare parts. If one could figure out how to transfer the characteristics of those cells to other cells, then the possibility existed that we could regenerate damaged or aging tissue in our vital organs. The trick was to figure out the mechanism whereby stem cells managed to cheat time.
His research, which was accompanied by a flurry of scientific papers, was celebrated and encouraging. After three years he was lured away from Yale to become a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, which offered to double his laboratory budget. He was there for six years, during which time he met Camille Buseine, a neurosurgeon finishing her residency.
She had a doctorate from a medical institute nearParisand she was doing research that was similar to his, so the biography said. They married and became a team, and when he was asked by Harvard Medical to found a department for molecular genetics, she was immediately offered a tenured position there too. Harvard considered it a double coup.
His research was zeroing in on the telomerase protein, an enzyme many scientists believed was responsible for suppressing the aging process in stem cells. Could it be used to regenerate tissue?
He was well along on the task of exploring that tantalizing possibility when tragedy struck. Camille, who had worked around the clock during her residency at Johns Hopkins, began feeling weak at Harvard and was diagnosed with acquired aortic stenosis. After a 2 1/2‑year struggle, she died during a severe cardiac episode.
My God, Ally thought, that's what I have.
After Camille died, he left Harvard and its time‑consuming academic obligations and went to work full‑time at a research institute affiliated withStanfordUniversity. He even formed a paper company to structure the work, the Gerex Corporation. But then there came a second strike against him. He was doing research using embryonic stem cells obtained from the discarded embryos at fertility clinics. After two years of harassment by right‑wing political groups, Stanford decided his research was too controversial and terminated his funding.
Three months later, Karl Van de Vliet merged his company with Bartlett Medical Devices and moved his research staff east toNew Jersey, to the Dorian Institute. That was five years past, and now his research using stem cells was in third‑stage NIH clinical trials.
The official history ended there, though with a strong hint that the final chapter was yet to be written. Then at the back there was a bibliography of publications that extended for eight pages, and included a summary of the most important papers. His work on stem cells and the telomerase enzyme appeared to be at the forefront of the field.
Oddly, however, some of his writings also were philosophical, an argument with himself whether his work could be misused to alter the natural limitations life imposes. One of those papers, from a conference presentation inCopenhagen, had a summary, and in it he pondered whether the use of stem cells to rejuvenate the body might someday give medical science godlike powers.
The Greeks, he declared, had a myth about the punishment reserved for those who sought to defeat our natural life span. When the goddess of the dawn,Aurora, fell in love with the beautiful youth Tithonus and granted him immortality, it turned out to be a curse, since he still reached the decrepitude of age but had to suffer on forever because he could not have the release of death.
But, Van de Vliet pondered, if we could find a way to arrest the aging process in our body's tissue, might we escape the process of aging? If so, was this a good thing? Or might this be a step too far that would bring on unintended, and as yet unknown, consequences?
Well, Ally thought,I wouldn't mind having Mom's mind restored. Or my own heart, for that matter.
All in all, Karl Van de Vliet was clearly a genius. He also was a very complex man. But might he be a very gifted huckster as well?
The inside back cover had a group photo, showing him surrounded by members of his research staff, all in white lab coats. There were two men and two women and each was identified, along with a list of his or her academic credentials. They were standing on the porch of what appeared to be a nineteenth‑century mansion, which had large Doric columns in Greek Revival style. The lettering in the marble above their heads readthe dorian institute.
She put down the folder and went into the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine, finishing off the botde. Her mind was chinning, but not because of the words on the page. It was that photograph at the back. It was dated less than two years ago.
His Ph.D. at theUniversityofChicagowas granted in 1962. But even if he was a genius and got his first doctorate in his early twenties, he’d still have to be—what? At least sixty years old by now. Probably halfway to seventy.
But in the photo, he looks no more than forty, well, forty‑five at most. What the heck is going on?
She went back into the living room and picked up the brochure and stared at it. He had sandy hair that lay like a mane above his elongated brow. He was tall and gaunt, with high cheeks and deep, penetrating eyes. But no matter how you gauged him, the guy hadn't aged a day since his forty‑fifth birthday, tops.
So what’s going on that isn't in the package?
She checked the digital clock on the side table—the hour was pushing ten—and decided to give Grant a call.
Three chirps, and then, "Yo.Hamptonhere."
My God, she thought, he even does it at home. That synthetic bravado was left over from his trader days:You're the luckiest person alive, just to have reached me. How can I further make your day?his tone implied.
"Grant, it's me. I think it's time for that vital chat."
It took him a split second to recover, and then, "Hey, I was beginning to wonder what happened to you. If you were going to stand me up or what. Not call, like you said you would."
"Long day. I was up at Mom's this morning. You knew she was going to tell me, right? About your little surprise visit and proposal?"
"I had a hunch the topic might arise." His voice seemed to shrug nonchalantly. "I thought you should hear it from her instead of from me. So what do you think?"
"What do I think? I think I'm wondering what you're up to."
"I'm not 'up to' anything, Ally, except exactly what I told her. Trouble is, I don't know whether she got it. I wanted to see how she was doing. You know, I'm thinking maybe Dr. Vee can do something for her. But I had to see her first. She seemed pretty distant, but that woman there—what was her name? Marie, Maria, whatever?—said she has lucid moments. So who knows? He might possibly help her. I think I can arrange to get her into his clinic.Bartlettgives me a few perks. It's the least I can do for her, so..." His voice trailed off expectantly.
"Grant, I need to talk to you about this man. I read the stuff you gave me and I still don't know the first thing about him." She paused, about to speak words she never thought she would. "If you want to come over, I'll stand you a drink."
"You serious?"
"For my sins."
"I'll grab a cab. See you in fifteen."
It's begun, she thought. I'm about to let Grant screw up my life one more time.
No. This round, don't give him the chance. Stay ahead of him.
Sunday, April 5
10:39p.m.
"I didn't know if I should have brought a bodyguard" he was saying as he strode in the door, a Master of the Universe with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder. He looked stylish, but then he always did. He casually tossed the jacket onto the gray couch, then gazed around. Thankfully, he didn't try theNew Yorkcheek kiss. "I guess this is not supposed to seem like old times, but somehow it does. Seeing you again. Hey, we're still blood kin, right?"
"Don't push it, Grant." She'd killed the Chopin and put on a Bach sonata. Clear, precise thinking was required not sentimentality. Knickers had rushed to give Grant a hello nuzzle, happier to see him than Ally was. "Whatever this is, it is definitely not old times."
He sauntered into her kitchen, looking around—trying to act cool, but clearly ill at ease. "You've done a nice job on this place, sis." He was looking over the rustic counter she'd installed. "You get a deal on the space? A bank repo or something?"
"The people who had it wanted to sell fast and I made them an offer." Not that it was any of his damned business. Why didn't she treat the question with the scorn it deserved?
She had an old fifth of Dewar's in the cabinet. She poured him some, over ice, then gave herself a shot of tequilaanejo, neat, to sip. She loved the pure agave flavor. The more she thought about the situation, the more she was sure she needed it.
He picked up his scotch, then walked into the living room and helped himself to the couch. "Ally, I know why you're ticked. And I don't blame you. I feel crummy about Dad, I really do. I guess I share some of the blame."
He was trying to sound contrite but the reading did not quite rise to the minimal threshold of credibility.
"You 'share'... with whom, you self‑centered prick? Nobody else was involved. He mortgaged CitiSpace to the hilt and settled those fraud suits to keep you from losing your license. Or worse. You destroyed his business and his life all by yourself."
He looked as contrite as she'd ever seen him.
"Look, I thought the business plan I had would work out. I really did. I was managing discretionary accounts, but the bond market hit a downdraft when I was long. A few of my clients didn't have the balls to ride it out. What do you want me to say? That I feel like a complete cretin over what happened? That a day doesn't go by that I don't hate myself for it?" His eyes went dead and he seemed to shrivel, his body becoming visibly smaller. "Well, I do. More than you'll ever know."
"You didn't seem all that contrite at the time."
"I was operating in a high state of denial back then. But now I want to take a shot at growing up. I want to start trying to make up for all that, if you'll just cut me a little slack and give me a chance."
"Grant, you're working for Bartlett Enterprises, doing whatever it is you do. Fine. That's your job. But now you want me to become a guinea pig when this Dutch doctor needs one in a crunch. Or maybe Mom too, for all I know. Maybe he needs her as well. Two guinea pigs. So don't try to make this about me and her. Let's keep it honest. It's really about you, just like always."
"Ally, a lot of things have gone on since Dad... passed away. I've changed, in more ways than you could ever imagine." He was all sincerity now, his demeanor rapidly evolving to fit the current vibes of the scene. "I'm not like I used to be. I really mean that. I've learned ... learned that I can't always just be thinking about myself."
"So ... what changed you?" The truth was, he did seem different. In some way she couldn't quite understand. But he was always talking about turning over a new leaf, especially whenever he'd just gotten himself in trouble. That part hadn't changed at all.
"Ally, Dr. Van der Vliet... I don't know how much I should tell you, but he's a miracle worker." He paused and looked down at his scotch. One thing about him was definitely different, she thought. There was a lot less bravado and swagger. "The thing is, what he's doing is so powerful. I'm not sure which worries me most—that it's not true, that it's just some placebo effect, or that it is true. When I think about the implications . . ." His voice trailed off again.
"Go on." She could tell he was dead serious.
"It's not something I'm sure I should talk about." He reached over and touched her hand. "But it's working, I swear. He's doing things that shouldn't even be possible."
Uh‑huh, she thought, pulling her hand away.
"Grant, please tell me exactly what you think he could do for Mom." She wasn't sure she should be having this conversation. "You want her to go out to the Dorian Institute, right? Where he does his 'research.' And I take it that's where you want me to go too."
"It's in northernJersey, about an hour's drive from the city, maybe not even if traffic's light. But I'd only want Mom to go if you say it's okay. I'm not trying to do anything behind your back."
She breathed a long sigh, trying to clear her brain. Every other word he uttered was probably part of some hustle. But what was it?
"Why don't we start at the beginning, Grant? I read his CV, and believe me I've got a lot of questions. For starters, how did he convince Winston Bartlett to bankroll him?" She took another sip of her tequila, then set it down. "You're his flunky now, so you should be able to answer that question."
"You read the materials I left?"
"Just finished them."
"Then you know he lost his federal funding at Stanford a few years back, when he was at a critical stage of his research using stem cells. That's when he came to the Man and persuaded him to put up the money to help him take everything private. The only wayBartlettwould play ball was if he could buy the Gerex Corporation and get three‑quarter interest in all the patents. Van de Vliet kept the other quarter, but now they're both hoping to sell off forty‑nine percent to a big pharmaceutical company. Not American. I can't tell you any more than that."
"Congratulations," she said. "Sounds like your job is secure."
"Yeah, right."
That twitch of nonchalance he had when something really mattered—even as a child he would attempt (and fail) trying not to gloat over some personal success. It was moments like this when she realized she'd missed seeing him and talking to him. When you cut a family member off from you, you also cut yourself off from them. After all, he was her closest blood kin, even though he was an unreconstructed shit. At some level she wished she could get past the bitterness she felt toward him. Could it be he really had changed?
He didn't like the way the scene was going. What the hell was her problem? He looked at his scotch longingly, then got up and went to the kitchen and got another ice cube for it.
Go easy.
How was he going to get through to her? If word of the Beta screw‑up got out, the buyout was toast and Grant Hampton along with it. But if Ally could be brought in . . .
"Grant," she was saying, "I want to start off by asking you if you've ever taken a really good look at that guy Karl Van de Vliet. Does he look anything like his picture? The one that came with that CV of his."
"Sure, that's him."
"And I assume you've actually read his resume?"
"Of course." Here it comes, he thought. The thing everybody asks.
"If those dates are right, then he has to be—what?—at least sixty years old. But in the picture he doesn't look a day over forty‑five. So what's going on?"
"Ally, you're finally getting it." He rattled the ice in his Dewar's, then finally took a deep sip. Maybe, he thought, it would help with the courage. "He's a truly amazing human being."
"That's not an answer, Grant. It's a generality." She exhaled in obvious exasperation. "But I want an honest answer about one thing, dammit. Do you actually think he could help Mom's Alzheimer's? Maybe even reverse it? Tell me the truth. Just once."
"Ally, I can't guarantee anything. But it's worth a shot."
Now, he thought hopefully, she was sounding like she was starting to come around. Thank God. As for whether Dr. Vee could cure the old bird who knew? But he'd overheard the nurses talking about how he and his research staff had had some phenomenal luck with Alzheimer's. . . .
"By the way, what happened when you talked to Mom?" he went on. "Did she seem like she understood anything I told her?"
"Grant, she probably understood a lot more than you wanted her to. The bad part is, she let you give her some hope. Now, what's going to happen if she goes out there and ends up being disappointed?"
It's a real possibility, he told himself. But it's probably the only way I'll ever get you out there, and that's what really matters.
"Ally, we'll never know unless ... You should go too."
"Look, maybe I'll talk to Van de Vliet. But it's purely information‑gathering." She was staring at him. "So why not tell me? The whole story. Are you doing this for Mom and me, or are we just being used like lab animals?"
"I'm not sure you're going to believe anything I say." He sipped again at his scotch, then walked over to the skylight
and looked up. Finally he turned back. "After Dad . . . and everything, I had trouble sleeping. I know you didn't think it got to me, but it was like some bad force had taken over my mind, haunting me. I became obsessed with death. I took off two months and went toColorado, camping. Out there, under the stars, I did a lot of thinking. Dad had died suddenly, but maybe that was a blessing in disguise. The rest of us, we all die a little every day. Why does time do the things to us it does? Why do we have to grow old and repulsive?"
He drew on his scotch again, then continued.
"When I came back, I started doing research on aging. That's when Karl Van de Vliet's name popped up on the Internet. Some paper he'd given inViennayears ago. It was about the physiology of aging. But then Tanya came along and I sort of forgot about him. Then when I went to work for Winston Bartlett, there he was. The very same guy. It was weird, but it was as though God had delivered him."
"Is this shaggy‑dog story going to end up being about why he looks so young?"
"I'm getting there." He smiled. "I kept wondering too, and then finally I saw an opening in his schedule and took him to dinner here in the city, down at Chanterelle. A social thing. Eventually, after a couple of bottles of serious wine, it came out that once upon a time he had done an unconventional experiment. On himself. It was sort of an accident, something about melanoma research."
"So he—"
"You asked me why he looks so young. Well, some procedure he did apparently stopped his skin from aging. But then he changed the subject and wouldn't talk about it anymore. So do I think he's a miracle worker? I'd say he's walking proof of something. That you can cheat nature."
"And?"
"There is no 'and.' That's all I know." He came back and settled onto the couch. His scotch glass was empty and he yearned for another, but that small voice inside was urging discretion. This was the moment that could be make or break.
"But to get back to you, Ally, you really should meet him. I can't talk specifics about the actual clinical trials, but let me just say they've been very positive. There's every reason to think he can help you. And Mom too."
He studied her, trying to read her mind. He wondered if she could detect the anxiety he felt lurking just beneath the surface. Was she seeing through him, the way Nina, for all her mental debility, had seemed to?
"Grant, has this doctor Van de Vliet gotten into some kind of medical experiment that's turned into a Faustian bargain? Is his skin rejuvenation a signal that this research has gone over into The Twilight Zone'! When a sixty‑something man looks forty‑something, there's got to be an unnatural act going on. What does it mean?"
"Maybe it means he's found the thing Ponce de Leon was looking for. The Fountain of Youth or whatever."
"Then he'll probably have to pay for it some other way," she said getting up. "Mother Nature doesn't give out freebies. Look, I've got to give Knickers hermidnightwalk. That's your exit cue. I'll call him tomorrow. I'll go that far."
"Don't blow this chance, Ally," he said setting down his empty scotch glass and getting up. He felt hope and it bucked him up. "It could be the biggest mistake of your life. And Mom's."
He was at the door before he turned back. It was time for the insurance. The hedging of bets.Bartletthad authorized it.
"By the way, I almost forgot. Jesus, I'm going senile myself. W.B. told me to tell you he'd like you to come over to his place onGramercyParktomorrow morning around ten, if you can work it into your schedule."
"What for?"
"That job on his place that I told you about this morning, I guess. I do know he's planning to renovate the ground floor. But just between us, he's also got a massive renovation job in the wings, so maybe that's what's really on and this is like an audition. Who knows? He bought an old mansion on upper Park and he's planning to heavily redo it and turn it into a museum for his incredible collection of Japanese military stuff, swords and armor and shit. He's going to do over the entire interior. It's part architecture and part design, so I gave him your name. Who knows? But I was over at his place this afternoon and he asked about you. He said he wanted to see you as soon as possible. He even gave me one of his personal cards to give to you. Here. It has theGramercyParkaddress and his private cell phone."
"Just like that?" She looked skeptical but took the card.
"Winston Bartlett is not a man who dawdles. If he decides he wants to do something, he just moves on it. All he asked was that you bring a portfolio, to show him some of your work."
Come on and do it,he thought as he headed out the door.Go and see theMan.Just fucking do it. If he can't close this frigging deal, nobody can.
Chapter 6
Sunday, April 5
11:43p.m.
Winston Bartlett put the newly glazed creme brulee, still warm from his preparation in the kitchen below stairs, on the bed tray in front of Kristen, next to her untouched champagne flute. She used to love it and he was trying everything he knew to jog her memory. He'd cooked her favorite supper, eggs Florentine, with barely wilted spinach topped by prosciutto, had taken her to bed and now there was champagne and her favorite dessert.
But she still seemed distracted and distant. Yes, it was a good idea to get her away from the institute, but that was merely relocating the problem, not fixing it. If it could be fixed. In the meantime, she had to be kept here, out of the public eye.
"Thank you," she said and gingerly took a small bite. She had been almost lucid earlier this evening and was leaning against the antique headboard wearing a soft blue nightgown. Her long blond hair was tousled and down over her breasts. Her memory might now be a sometime thing, but her libido was still going strong.
"Do you remember how much you used to like that?" he asked, trying to make eye contact.
She nodded her head dumbly. Did she actually remember? Increasingly, he had no idea.
He had brought her here to stay in this five‑story nineteenth‑ century mansion onPark Avenue. He'd purchased it a year and a half earlier for 23 million and he was intending to have it renovated and converted into a museum. That renovation, however, had been put on hold awaiting a decision by the Board of Directors of theMetropolitanMuseum. He wanted the building to be aPark Avenueadjunct to the Met, and he also wanted his definitive assemblage of Japanese implements of war to be known as the Bartlett Collection.
The tax write‑off would be monumental, but that was not nearly so important as the prestige.
It was clear now that this project would not have any momentum until he first got himself appointed to the board of the Met. Unfortunately, money alone wasn't adequate. Major‑league politics was involved.
He was working on it, with a lot ofUpper East Sidelunches and targeted charity events. He was also taking his time and getting designs and estimates for the renovation. The way things were at the moment, he didn't have the cash to actually start construction anyway.
For the moment, the place was furnished but unoccupied except for a security guard, a part ofBartlett's personal staff. Now, with Kristen here, discretion was his uppermost concern.
He had sent the security guy home this evening, so he and Kristen could have privacy. In the morning two nurses would come on duty, one to look after her and another to cook.
Over the past year he'd brought her here most weekends. It was like having their own Shangri‑la. Best of all, unlike his official residence onGramercyPark, he didn't have a wife upstairs, like some mad (in every sense of the word) aunt in the attic.
He had hoped that bringing Kristen back here might do
something for her memory. He still hoped, but he wasn't sure. In bed tonight she had been as lithe and enthusiastic as ever. Possibly even more so. Did she know who he was? He couldn't really tell. But he still loved being with her. The soft skin and the voluptuous curves of her breasts and thighs: it made him feel young again.
Since she had been out at the Dorian Institute and away from him, he had begun to feel older and older.
Winston Bartlett was sixty‑seven and—increasingly—felt it. To begin with, his prostate was enlarging itself, in spite of all the special, expensive medicines he used Surgery was increasingly looking like a possibility. And his memory was nowhere near what it once was. He wolfed down ginkgo and ginseng capsules by the handful but was finding it harder and harder to remember people's names, particularly the new wave of donation‑hungry politicians who fawned over him.
And then there was the matter of teeth. He'd just gone through major periodontal surgery, a sign of aging gums. How long before his ivories would be replaced by ceramic choppers? Oh, and the heart. His cardiologist was talking more and more about stents to alleviate the two constricted arteries in the left ventricle. They were already down to 40 percent. Face it, his whole damned body was falling apart.
Probably worst of all, the Johnson was far from what it used to be; not long back, it was a daily triple threat. Soon he might be resorting to Viagra as more than a discretionary recreational drug, something he was still joking about less than a year ago.
The dirty secret about living this long is, after you've seen everything you ever wanted to see, done everything you ever wanted to do, bought everything you ever wanted to buy, you gradually lose the only thing really worth having.
Youth.
To try to hang on to it, he had been through clinics as far‑ flung asPhoenixandLucerne. He had undergone regimens of antioxidants and injections of human growth hormone. He'd tried testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone, better know as DHEA. Maybe it had made a difference, maybe not. Sometimes he thought he had more libido and energy, but other times he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just that he'd begun working out even harder, playing handball an extra half hour every other day. He did know his body was continuing to deteriorate.
Shit, the Beta had to be made to work
"I don't want to stay here alone," Kristen said, putting down her spoon. "I want to go back to work."
"Honey, I can't be here all the time, and you're really not well enough to go to work. There'll be someone here with you. It's just till you get better." He studied her, the face that was so young, and felt the full weight of the tragedy sinking in. "Do you remember what it was you used to do?"
"I don't remember right now. I mean exactly. I used to talk to people. I was in this room with lots of bright lights."
She didn't actually remember, he thought. Her former producer at E!, along with everybody else (including her harridan of a mother, Katherine), had been told she was at a private health spa inNew Mexico. It had to be kept that way.
No one must know she was here. All the phones had been removed before the ambulance brought her. Starting at six in the morning, there would be a nurse and a nurse/cook downstairs on a twenty‑four‑hour basis. Under no conditions could she be allowed to leave, not the way her mind was now.
"Kristy, it wasn't supposed to turn out like this. I'm so sorry. But Karl is doing all he can. We're ... He has a new idea that he's about to explore. He's going to..." His voice trailed off as he stared at her unblinking eyes. "You don't remember what happened, do you?"
But how she looked. My God. The youth. How could a true miracle have such a tragic downside?
That was when the cell phone on the stand beside him chirped. It was the only phone in the place, and tomorrow it would be gone. No way could she be allowed to have a phone.
The caller ID advised that it was Grant Hampton.
"Kristy, I've got a feeling this could take a while." He was reaching for his silk robe. "I'll be downstairs on the first floor if you need anything, okay?"
She just stared at him mutely. He shook his head sadly. There wasn't much time left to mend her. How in God's name had it come to this?
As he moved down the spiraling grand staircase, he clicked on the phone.
"Yeah."
"I was just at her place, W.B. I actually got in, which is more than has happened in over four years. I think she's on board but I'm still not entirely sure. So, just to be safe, I told her you wanted to see her tomorrow."
"Are you saying you couldn't make this happen? With your own fucking sister?"
"It's ... We're not exactly on the greatest of terms, Ally and me." There was an awkward tone in his voice. "It's hard to explain. Like I told you, I confirmed her blood type on Saturday. It's AB, like I thought. And I played the mother angle. At the very least, I think she's willing to drive the old bird out to the institute and meet Karl. That's a start, at least."
"And what about her medical . . . Karl wanted to see—"
"I'm working on it. I remembered something about her. I've got a guy. He's going to check on it tonight."
"Good"Bartlettgrowled. "There's no time to screw around on this."
"I've set it up for you to meet her tomorrow, the way you wanted. I think she'll show. I told—"
"The one who really should talk to her is Karl."Bartlettsighed. "He knows how to handle patients."
"Then he could call her tomorrow. After she's talked to you. If we all pull together on this, W.B., I'm sure we can get her out there by day after tomorrow, Tuesday."
Winston Bartlett looked at his watch. It had just turned
Monday, one less day to find something that would stop the Syndrome in its tracks.
"We'd better."
He was clicking off the phone when he heard a wail of despair from the bedroom upstairs and the sound of a champagne flute being thrown against a wall.
Kristen was losing it rapidly now. Was she still conscious enough to know what was happening to her?