the Third Twin

19

AFTER LUNCH BERRINGTON WENT TO A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD bar and ordered a martini.

Jim Proust’s casual suggestion of murder had shaken him. Berrington knew he had made a fool of himself by grabbing Jim’s lapel and yelling. But he did not regret the fuss. At least he could be sure Jim knew exactly how he felt.

It was nothing new for them to fight. He remembered their first great crisis, in the early seventies, when the Watergate scandal broke. It had been a terrible time: conservatism was discredited, the law-and-order politicians turned out to be crooked, and any clandestine activity, no matter how well intentioned, was suddenly viewed as an unconstitutional conspiracy. Preston Barck had been terrified and wanted to give up the whole mission. Jim Proust had called him a coward, argued angrily that there was no danger, and proposed to carry it on as a joint CIA-army project, perhaps with tighter security. No doubt he would have been ready to assassinate any investigative journalist who pried into what they were doing. It had been Berrington who suggested setting up a private company and distancing themselves from the government. Now once again it was up to him to find a way out of their difficulties.

The place was gloomy and cool. A TV set over the bar showed a soap opera, but the sound was turned down. The cold gin calmed Berrington. His anger at Jim gradually evaporated, and he focused his mind on Jeannie Ferrami.

Fear had caused him to make a rash promise. He had recklessly told Jim and Preston that he would deal with Jeannie. Now he had to fulfill that imprudent undertaking. He had to stop her asking questions about Steve Logan and Dennis Pinker.

It was maddeningly difficult. Although he had hired her and arranged her grant, he could not simply give her orders; as he had told Jim, the university was not the army. She was employed by JFU, and Genetico had already handed over a year’s funding. In the long term, of course, he could easily pull the plug on her; but that was not good enough. She had to be stopped immediately, today or tomorrow, before she learned enough to ruin them all.

Calm down, he thought, calm down.

Her weak point was her use of medical databases without the permission of the patients. It was the kind of thing the newspapers could make into a scandal, regardless of whether anyone’s privacy was genuinely invaded. And universities were terrified of scandal; it played havoc with their fundraising.

It was tragic to wreck such a promising scientific project. It went against everything Berrington stood for. He had encouraged Jeannie, and now he had to undermine her. She would be heartbroken, and with reason. He told himself that she had bad genes and would have got into trouble sooner or later; but all the same he wished he did not have to be the cause of her downfall.

He tried not to think about her body. Women had always been his weakness. No other vice tempted him: he drank in moderation, never gambled, and could not understand why people took drugs. He had loved his wife, Vivvie, but even then he had not been able to resist the temptation of other women, and Vivvie had eventually left him because of his fooling around. Now when he thought of Jeannie he imagined her running her fingers through his hair and saying, “You’ve been so good to me, I owe you so much, how can I ever thank you?”

Such thoughts made him feel ashamed. He was supposed to be her patron and mentor, not her seducer.

As well as desire he felt burning resentment. She was just a girl, for God’s sake; how could she be such a threat? How could a kid with a ring in her nose possibly jeopardize him and Preston and Jim when they were on the brink of achieving their lifetime ambitions? It was unthinkable they should be thwarted now; the idea made him dizzy with panic. When he was not imagining himself making love to Jeannie, he had fantasies of strangling her.

All the same he was reluctant to start a public outcry against her. It was hard to control the press. There was a chance they would begin by investigating Jeannie and finish up investigating him. This would be a dangerous strategy. But he could think of no other, short of Jim’s wild talk of murder.

He drained his glass. The bartender offered him another martini, but he declined. He looked around the bar and spotted a pay phone next to the men’s room. He swiped his American Express card through the card reader and called Jim’s office. One of Jim’s brash young men answered: “Senator Proust’s office.”

“This is Berrington Jones—”

“I’m afraid the senator is in a meeting right now.”

He really should train his acolytes to be a little more charming, Berrington thought. “Then let’s see if we can avoid interrupting him,” he said. “Does he have any media appointments this afternoon?”

“I’m not sure. May I ask why you need to know, sir?”

“No, young man, you may not,” Berrington said with exasperation. Self-important assistants were the curse of Capitol Hill. “You may answer my question, or you may put Jim Proust on the phone, or you may lose your goddamn job, now which is it to be?”

“Please hold.”

There was a long pause. Berrington reflected that wishing Jim would teach his aides to be charming was like hoping a chimpanzee would teach its young table manners. The boss’s style spread to the staff: an ill-mannered person always had rude employees.

A new voice came on the phone. “Professor Jones, in fifteen minutes the senator is due to attend a press conference to launch Congressman Dinkey’s book New Hope for America.”

That was just perfect. “Where?”

“The Watergate hotel.”

“Tell Jim I’ll be there, and make sure my name is on the guest list, please.” Berrington hung up without waiting for a reply.

He left the bar and got a cab to the hotel. This would need to be handled delicately. Manipulating the media was hazardous: a good reporter might look past the obvious story and start asking why it was being planted. But each time he thought of the risks, he reminded himself of the rewards and steeled his nerve.

He found the room where the press conference was to be held. His name was not on the list—self-important assistants were never efficient—but the book’s publicist recognized his face and welcomed him as an additional attraction for the cameras. He was glad he had worn the striped Turnbull & Asser shirt that looked so distinguished in photographs.

He took a glass of Perrier and looked around the room. There was a small lectern in front of a blowup of the book’s cover, and a pile of press releases on a side table. The TV crews were setting up their lights. Berrington saw one or two reporters he knew, but none he really trusted.

However, more were arriving all the time. He moved around the room, making small talk, keeping an eye on the door. Most of the journalists knew him: he was a minor celebrity. He had not read the book, but Dinkey subscribed to a traditionalist right-wing agenda that was a mild version of what Berrington shared with Jim and Preston, so Berrington was happy to tell reporters that he endorsed the book’s message.

At a few minutes past three, Jim arrived with Dinkey. Close behind them was Hank Stone, a senior New York Times man. Bald, red-nosed, bulging over the waistband of his pants, shirt collar undone, tie pulled down, tan shoes scuffed, he had to be the worst-looking man in the White House press corps.

Berrington wondered if Hank would do.

Hank had no known political beliefs. Berrington had met him when he did an article about Genetico, fifteen or twenty years ago. Since getting the Washington job, he had written about Berrington’s ideas once or twice and Jim Proust’s several times. He treated them sensationally, rather than intellectually, as newspapers inevitably did, but he never moralized in the pious way liberal journalists would.

Hank would treat a tip-off on its merits: if he thought it was a good story he would write it. But could he be trusted not to dig deeper? Berrington was not sure.

He greeted Jim and shook hands with Dinkey. They talked for a few minutes while Berrington looked out hopefully for a better prospect. But none came and the press conference started.

Berrington sat through the speeches, containing his impatience. There was just not enough time. Given a few days he could find someone better than Hank, but he did not have a few days, he had a few hours. And an apparently fortuitous meeting like this was so much less suspicious than making an appointment and taking the journalist to lunch.

When the speeches were over there was still no one better than Hank in view.

As the journalists dispersed Berrington buttonholed him. “Hank, I’m glad I ran into you. I may have a story for you.”

“Good!”

“It’s about misuse of medical information on databases.” He made a face. “Not really my kind of thing, Berry, but go on.”

Berrington groaned inwardly: Hank did not seem to be in a receptive mood. He plowed on, working his charm. “I believe it is your kind of thing, because you’ll see potential in it that an ordinary reporter might overlook.”

“Well, try me.”

“First of all, we’re not having this conversation.”

“That’s a little more promising.”

“Second, you may wonder why I’m giving you the story, but you’re never going to ask.”

“Better and better,” Hank said, but he did not make a promise.

Berrington decided not to push him on it. “At Jones Falls University, in the psychology department, there’s a young researcher called Dr. Jean Ferrami. In her search for suitable subjects to study, she scans large medical databases without the permission of the people whose records are on the files.”

Hank pulled at his red nose. “Is this a story about computers, or about scientific ethics?”

“I don’t know, you’re the journalist.”

He looked unenthusiastic. “It isn’t much of a scoop.”

Don’t start playing hard to get, you bastard. Berrington touched Hank’s arm in a friendly gesture. “Do me a favor, make some inquiries,” he said persuasively. “Call the university president, his name is Maurice Obeli. Call Dr. Ferrami. Tell them it’s a big story, and see what they say. I believe you’ll get some interesting reactions.”

“I don’t know.”

“I promise you, Hank, it will be worth your time.” Say yes, you son of a bitch, say yes!

Hank hesitated, then said: “Okay, I’ll give it a whirl.”

Berrington tried to conceal his satisfaction behind an expression of gravity, but he could not help a little smile of triumph.

Hank saw it, and a suspicious frown crossed his face. “You’re not trying to use me, are you, Berry? Like to frighten someone, maybe?”

Berrington smiled and put an arm around the reporter’s shoulders. “Hank,” he said, “trust me.”