The Brain Eaters

Chapter 6

While Dr. Kitzmiller talked to Eddie Gault that afternoon, Dena Falkner sat impatiently in the Biotron parking lot drumming her fingers on the Datsun’s steering wheel. Waiting was not a thing she did well. She had never in her life gone to a movie where there was a line waiting to get in. If her reservation in a restaurant was not instantly honored, she would walk out. Some allowances, however, had to be made for the man you worked for, so that afternoon Dena was waiting.

At least waiting out there in her car was preferable to the kitschy reception room outside Dr. Kitzmiller’s “friendly” office. The office itself was a joke to Biotron people. They all knew Dr. K was about as comfortable in it as he would be wearing a cowboy hat. The reception room, presided over by sturdy Mrs. Quail, was a horrid jumble of chrome, vinyl, and glass, with paintings of crying clowns. So that visitors could pass the time while waiting, there were back issues of the biochemical industry’s trade magazines.

Without thinking, Dena reached into the glove box for the pack of Carltons she kept there. As she took the pack out, she caught her own eye in the rearview mirror. Feeling absurdly guilty, she put the cigarettes back.

She looked around for something to occupy her attention, and her eye fell on the folded newspaper lying on the seat beside her. It was Saturday’s edition of the Milwaukee Herald. She picked it up and read again the story about Hank Stransky, the construction worker who had gone berserk in a Milwaukee tavern and slashed several people with a broken bottle before dropping dead of unknown causes. There was a photo of Stransky, apparently from his employment ID, and, on the inside pages, several graphic shots of the devastated tavern and the wounded patrons.

Why the story intrigued her, Dena could not say. The Herald was not even her regular newspaper. Much too sensational for her taste and much too insensitive to the human condition. She had the Journal delivered to the bungalow in Wheeler where she lived but on impulse had picked up the Herald Saturday night after driving to Appleton to see a movie. She looked once more at the square, good-natured face of Hank Stransky, then tossed the paper aside as Eddie Gault came through the gate.

She had been mildly surprised to hear that Dr. Kitzmiller’s appointment was with Eddie. What business could the head of product research and development have with the foreman of the disposal crew? Kitzmiller was not the type of manager who associated with the hired hands.

Dena knew Eddie Gault only slightly. He seemed to her to be a quiet, rather awkward man who did his job efficiently and with a minimum of fuss.

She got out of the Datsun and stood beside it for a moment to watch a strikingly beautiful girl run from the van to meet Eddie. An oddly mismatched couple, Dena thought. Balding, serious Eddie with this hippie-dressed young beauty.

None of your business, she told herself sternly. She recognized the twinge she felt as envy, and it annoyed her. Everybody, it seemed, had somebody. Everybody but Dena Falkner. But that was by choice, she reminded herself. She planned to be at the top of her field by the time she was thirty-five. Possibly in a university post somewhere. That left her six more years, but there would be little time for serious romantic involvements.

Three years earlier, working for a chemical company in Chicago, she had forgotten her no-involvements rule with painful results. You would think a bright young woman with a Ph. D. from Northwestern would know better than to fall for a married man. But Phil had been so charming, so warm….

The hell with that line of thinking. Dena watched Eddie Gault get into the van with his girl friend. Good for him. Good for her. May you both be very happy.

She spun away and marched through the guard gate, across the lawn, and into the main building of the Biotron complex. She turned into the east wing, and walked down the hall to the end where Dr. K’s office was. Mrs. Quail was arranging the pens and papers on the reception desk into neat geometric patterns.

“Is Dr. Kitzmiller free now?” she said.

Mrs. Quail looked uncomfortable. “I’m not sure. Let me buzz him.”

As she reached for the button, Dr. Kitzmiller came out of the office. When he saw Dena, he stopped, looking as though he’d like to go back in, but he sighed and closed the door behind him. He did some unconvincing business of looking at his watch.

“I’m terribly sorry, Dr. Falkner,” he said, “but I’m afraid we will have to reschedule our appointment. I have to supervise an experiment in the laboratory, and already I am ten minutes late.”

“I won’t take much of your time, doctor. How about if I walk back to biochem with you?”

“Very well, if you wish.” He locked the office door, nodded brusquely to Mrs. Quail, and headed for the rear exit of the building. Dena hurried after him.

The biochemistry building, where Dena had her own office, was at the rear of the complex, near the barn where the experimental animals were kept. Beyond the fence was the rolling green pastureland owned by Biotron. In addition to staff offices, the building housed several laboratories and Dr. Kitzmiller’s spartan living quarters. He liked to live close to his work, he said. It was generally felt that to Dr. K life and work were one and the same.

Dena matched her stride to Kitzmiller’s as they crossed the campuslike grounds. The carefully tended shrubs and flowers gave the place an air of ordered serenity. For her part, Dena would have liked a bit more informality in the surroundings.

“What is on your mind, Dr. Falkner?” he asked, keeping his eyes straight ahead as they walked. “I hope it is not a problem. I have problems enough. A solution, perhaps? That would be a novelty.”

“I was wondering if you’d had any word from Stuart Anderson,” Dena said.

“There is no reason for us to be in contact,” said Kitzmiller.

“I thought you might have heard something.”

“I have heard nothing.”

“This project he’s working on in Brazil — ” Dena began.

Kitzmiller cut her off. “I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can tell you about that.”

“I called Stu’s sister in California last week,” Dena persisted. “She hasn’t heard from him, either.”

“This is really not my concern, doctor. If you consider the matter important, I suggest you go through personnel.”

“I have. Personnel told me his files were closed.”

“I see.” Kitzmiller stopped suddenly, startling her. “May I give you a bit of advice?”

Dena faced him, disconcerted by question. “Advice?”

“Leave this matter alone. Pursuing it will not lead you anywhere you want to go. Please believe that. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to make my appointment.”

Dena was left standing on the walk outside biochem wondering what Dr. Kitzmiller was trying to tell her. After a minute or so she turned and walked thoughtfully back to the parking lot.

It was early, not yet six o’clock, but Dena had worked straight through lunch and was hungry. The thought of returning to the rented bungalow and cooking something there on the gas range was not appealing. She did not feel like being alone just now. A sandwich at the Wheeler Café would be plenty. Dena had never been a big eater, which was just as well, since cooking was not one of her talents. And at the café she could be in the company of other people without having to be with them.

The Wheeler Café on Highway 75 was the premier eatery in town since Dutch’s Pizza Parlor burned down in 1979. It had six red vinyl booths and an L-shaped counter with twenty stools. On the wall above the cash register was a framed photograph of the 1968 World Champion Green Bay Packers. Owner Walt Brabender was also the cook. During busy times there were two waitresses, while Eunice Brabender ran the cash register. Most of the time Noreen Stanley worked the whole place alone.

Dena took a stool and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich from Noreen. She laid the folded copy of the Herald on the counter beside her, wondering why she had brought it in.

Noreen the waitress, famous for having the reddest hair in Waupaca County, leaned across the counter to look at the paper. She turned it top to bottom.

“Hey, I know this guy.”

“What guy?”

“This one here with his picture in the paper.” She pointed to the photograph of Hank Stransky. “What’d he do?”

“Broke up a tavern in Milwaukee. Where do you know him from?”

“Right here. ‘Henry A. Stransky,’” she said, reading from the photo caption. “Yeah, Hank, that was him. Came in every day with the crew was fixing the highway couple weeks ago. Seemed like a nice guy. Kidded around a little the way guys do, but no passes or anything. Family man all the way.” She read into the news story. “Jeez, I can’t hardly believe he’d do something like this. I guess you never know about people.”

Noreen moved off to take care of another customer. Dena turned the newspaper back around and looked again at the picture of Hank Stransky. Could she have seen him with the highway crew one of the times she drove past? She remembered the big men, their bare arms lightly oiled with sweat, wearing orange hard hats with names stenciled on them. Maybe such a fleeting memory was what made the story stick in her mind.

She took a bite of her sandwich, sipped her coffee, and tried to think of other things.

Noreen came back and leaned companionably on the counter. She said, “Terrible thing about Andrea Olson, isn’t it.”

“What’s that, Noreen?” A little local gossip might be just what she needed.

“You know the Olsons, man and wife own the farm up past the Saltzman place?”

“No.”

“Both of ‘em getting on in years now. Used to come into Wheeler a lot. He still does. She’s crippled up and can’t hardly leave the house.”

“Too bad.”

“Anyway, their granddaughter, Andrea — nice, quiet girl, everybody said, just married some fella out West — went completely crazy. On her wedding day, no less. She stabbed her brand-new husband to death, slashed a few other people, then got killed herself trying to jump through a plate-glass window. She was just back here, Andrea, not two weeks ago. I didn’t see her myself, but — ”

“You say she was here?”

“That’s right,” Noreen said. “She came to visit the old folks before she got married. The old man drove her back to Milwaukee not two weeks ago.”

Dena took a moment to sort out her thoughts before speaking. “That would be about the time the construction crew was working on the highway.”

Noreen inserted a careful forefinger through her coiffure and scratched her scalp. “Yeah, I guess it was, come to think about it.”

Another customer came in, and Noreen moved off to take his order. Dena sat for a moment thinking about the bride who had stabbed her young husband to death out West. Then she returned to the newspaper and read again the article about Hank Stransky. The reporter had a by-line at the top of the story. Dena took out a pen and underlined the name. Corey Macklin. Then she finished her sandwich and left the café.

The bizarre death of Andrea Olson Keith was also noted in the tenth-floor suite of a San Francisco hotel. The story was being discussed by an attractive Oriental woman on a local television channel. Anton Kuryakin sat in a chair pulled close to the set and listened carefully. He was a broad-faced man with thick peasant features. His brow was creased in concentration.

So intent was Kuryakin on the screen that he did not hear Viktor Raslov enter the room. Raslov was a small, intense man with steel-rimmed spectacles that kept slipping down the narrow bridge of his nose. He stood for a minute watching the other man before he spoke.

“Enjoying the American toy, are you, comrade?” The tone was meant to be sportive, but behind the lenses of his spectacles Raslov’s eyes were cold.

Kuryakin did not turn around. He said, “Have you heard this news report, Viktor? A girl murdered her bridegroom with a knife, then rushed about the restaurant stabbing people at random. She died as she flung herself through a window.”

“This is a violent country.”

“Yes, I know, but I feel this incident should have special meaning for us.”

Raslov became interested. “How is that?”

“In the newspaper account it was mentioned that the young woman had but recently returned from a visit to her grandparents in the state of Wisconsin.”

Now Raslov was leaning forward. “Did the grandparents by chance live near the Biotron factory?”

Kuryakin turned to face the older man. “Only a few miles away.”

“Aha. Then our suspicions were correct.”

“Of course. I had no doubt what they were doing there.”

Raslov’s eyes flicked about the room. He tapped his ear with one finger and pointed to the walls. “Perhaps we should discuss it another time.”

Kuryakin missed the cautionary signal. “This is the second such report.”

“Second?” Raslov forgot momentarily his warning about listening devices.

“The first was a small item in the newspaper. A worker went berserk in a public tavern in Milwaukee. He wounded a number of bystanders before dying himself.”

“And the connection?”

“This man was working on the highway near the Biotron factory.”

Raslov regarded Kuryakin thoughtfully. “Then it is quite possible — ” Abruptly, he remembered his surroundings and cut off the sentence. He lay a finger across his lips.

This time Kuryakin nodded his understanding. He ran thick fingers through his wiry gray-black hair. “Should we not take some action before …?” He left the sentence unfinished.

“I have an appointment this afternoon with our embassy. I will discuss the matter with our people there.” Raslov started for the door.

On the television screen a young black man began talking about baseball. Kuryakin snapped off the set. “I will get my coat.”

With his hand on the doorknob, Raslov turned. “There is no need for you to be at the meeting. Stay and enjoy the American television. Perhaps your Chinese woman will return.”

Kuryakin started to protest, but Raslov had turned away and opened the door into the hall. He spoke briefly to the two men who stood outside — thick-shouldered, short-haired men wearing suits that did not fit. They straightened their posture when Raslov spoke, glanced into the room at Kuryakin, and nodded. The door closed, and Kuryakin was left alone.