"Goddamn it, Ed! None of them work."
"They gotta work. I know this is the right apartment. I was here just a few days ago."
Salvatore was flipping through the key ring like a nun fingering a rosary. "You sure, Ed?"
"Hell yes, you stupid wop! You think I forgot about that goddamned dog already? Look at my fuckin' hand, will ya!" Little Ed shot his gauze-wrapped three-fingered fist right in Salvatore's face. The bandages were stained with an amalgam of blood contributed by himself, the former Manny Gordon, and an anonymous Hereford carcass. "Last time I had to twist the fuckin' door knob off with a pipe wrench. See that? The door is still all boogered up."
"Uh, yeah, Ed. But, ahh...."
"But ahh what? Spit it out." Little Ed sucked his cigarette down to the filter, spit it out and ground it into the carpet. "What the hell is your problem? Get that door open."
Hey, Ed, shut the fuck up. Look at this knob. It's brand new. You never twisted this bastard off. None of these keys even fit into the hole, you dickhead."
"Oh. Never mind." The big man paused to ignite another smoke. "Kick it then."
"You kick it. Wait a second. What about that Doberman? Think he's in there waitin' for us?"
"Yeah, right, you little faggot. I hope he is in there. I'll squeeze his flea-bitten mangy neck 'till his eyes pop out."
Little Ed repositioned his smoke from spittle-flecked lips to a more secure position clamped between yellow incisors. He backed up half a step and accelerated 275 pounds of bulk toward the embossed metal of the apartment door. His concrete-block shoulder impacted dead-center, buckling the door inward, popping the bolt free from its flimsy mortise.
Salvatore glanced quickly down the empty entry hall before following Little Ed across the threshold. "Is he in there?"
"What the hell are you talkin' about? He's dead, you idiot."
Salvatore stood half-in and half-out of the doorway. "The dog, Ed, the dog!"
"Jesus, Sal, get the hell in here and close the door."
Once both men had gained entry to Manny's apartment the roles of lead and follow were instantly reversed. Little Ed's forte was more of the physical nature. "So, Sal, what the hell are we lookin' for, anyway?"
"You look in here for a phone book, or an address book, somethin' like that. I'm gonna check in the bedroom."
Salvatore disappeared down a narrow hall leading to the single bedroom. Little Ed seemed to be frozen in a state between confusion and indecision. He stood in the center of the room for several minutes, eyes generally unfocused while he fished through his own pocket in futile pursuit of yet another smoke.
"Find anything yet?" Salvatore's muffled voice asked, jagging the big man back into the present.
"Nope. Sal, there ain't no phone book in here. No phone, either."
"Check the kitchen."
"Okay, Sal."
On Manny's night stand, Salvatore found the telephone and the address book that he was looking for. As an added bonus, he also found a computer. It occupied most of a simulated oak veneer student desk that was facing the room's single small window. He punched the power button and waited the few seconds required to boot up. Rubbing his hands in anticipation of the mother lode, elation mutated to disgust and anger as characters on the monitor slowly brightened.
The message was clear.
PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD....
There was nothing of much interest in the refrigerator. A plastic jug, half-full of orange juice, and a few cans of beer took up space in the door. On the chrome-plated top rack were some wilted vegetables and a wrinkled, somewhat triangular, lump of aluminum foil. Sure enough, it was pizza. Not bad either," Ed said to himself. He focused his attention on the congealed wedges of mozzarella and anchovies. It was not his favorite, but at least there was plenty of sauce."
Before the last bite of pizza disappeared, Ed embarked upon a manic rummaging through the kitchen cupboards,
"Okay, let me go over it one more time," Shelly said, obviously exasperated, "and for Christ's sake, pay attention. You've got the power turned off and you've pulled out the plug, right?"
"Yeah, Boss. The plug is outta the wall, and the case is open. There's a whole lot of wires and little computer lookin' stuff inside."
Little Ed guffawed and spewed-out a shower of corn chip fragments. "Little computer stuff! Sal, you're a riot! What do you expect to find in a computer, Swiss cheese?"
"Fuck you, Ed, I oughtta--"
"Shut up! Both of you, shut up!" Shelly was literally screaming into her end of the phone. Little Ed could hear her clearly from several feet away. "There should be some boxes in there, too, Sal. Two or three should be connected to openings in the front panel, and there should be one big one at the back, or off to one side."
"Yeah, I think I see what you're talking about. The ones in the front aren't boxes, but they're sort of square. One is real little, like a pack of cigarettes, and the other one is bigger, about the size of a cassette player. Which one do you want? Whatcha call it, the heart drive?"
"Hard drive, Sal, the hard drive." The tone of her voice was sounding much better. She actually sounded happy for a change. "Okay, Sal, you're doing great. The little one should poke through the front of the computer, and it probably has a small slot with a button right next to it. The bigger one is probably just blank on the front, but it might have a small green or red light bulb in one corner. Is that what you see, Sal?"
"Yup. You've got it, Boss. Gee, I'm impressed! How did you ever learn so much about computers? I always wanted to get one of these, but--"
"Not now, Sal. We'll talk about computers later. Now all I want you to do is disconnect all of the wires from the big one with the little light and no slot. The one that is the size of a cassette player. Unscrew it from the computer case and bring it along with any wires that you can disconnect without breaking or cutting any wires." Shelly was sounding absolutely euphoric at the prospect of getting her hands on Manny's files. "And don't forget to bring all of the floppies. You know, those flat plastic squares with labels on one side. Bring all of them that you can find.
Manny's pocket knife came in quite handy as Salvatore Gianotti unscrewed and pried-out the disk drive.
"I don't get it, Boss," Salvatore complained. He was simultaneously completely confused and thoroughly fascinated. He watched, wide-eyed as Shelly connected a multi-colored ribbon cable between the purloined disk drive and the disk controller in her PC. "How do you expect to get at his files without the password? Or, do you know the password?"
Even as he spoke, Shelly energized her computer and the disk drive spun-up. Seconds later, Manny Gordon's supposedly secure files began to scroll across the monitor.
"Simple, Sal." the Prune explained. "Suppose that instead of using a computer, Manny had kept his files in a locked file cabinet. Without the key, how could you read them?"
"No sweat, I'd just pry the door off, or open the back. File cabinets are usually put together with screws, you know."
"So, that is exactly what we just did. The password was just a key to get the computer running. There is nothing special about the disk drive. We just needed the password to unlock the door. Unscrewing the computer cabinet and taking the drive is exactly the same as taking a bunch of file folders from a disassembled cabinet. Like taking candy from a baby. The poor sap should have encrypted his files." Shelly was grinning from ear to ear, quite pleased with herself. "Passwords don't do squat."
The most surprising discovery was what was not on the disks. Each and every one of the floppies were completely blank. None of them were even formatted. Several had blank or scribbled labels on them. It appeared that unsuccessful attempts had been made at copying or transferring files. Manny had obviously not been a computer geek. Aside from the obligatory system files, DOS, and Windows, there was not much else on the hard drive. No commercial software, that is. A few short lists of text in the form of phone numbers and addresses. Most of which were of passing interest. There were not a lot of people that Manny had called friends. Only a few more that could be classified as enemies. Shelly's personal data base, with the help of many contacts above, within, and below the law enforcement community, was quite complete. There were two international numbers on the phone list that sparked her attention. Both of them had only partial listings, only first names. One was preceded by the title 'Doctor'. She didn't recognize the country codes.
Along with the names, addresses and phone numbers, there were considerable numbers of graphics files. At least that was what they appeared to be at first glance. Being aware of Gustafson's lack of basic morality, over-active libido, and under-active social calendar, Shelly had assumed that the graphics were just that; graphics. Graphics in the genre of smut, filth, vulgarity, obscenity, pornography, etc. ad-nauseam. She was on the verge of deleting them from the drive when she decided to take a look, just in case. They were graphics files, but not at all what she had originally suspected. In fact they were graphics in format only. In content it was all text. Text that had been either scanned-in, or images that had been FAXed. A quick look at the hard drive directory indicated that Manny's computer had a FAX driver loaded in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. She couldn't be sure, but there didn't seem to be any indication that this particular computer had been doing anything but receiving FAXes. She doubted very much that he had possessed the mental dexterity to operate a scanner, let alone generate and transmit any electronic mail. Shelly opened a graphics viewer and made a quick examination of the first file. Before she had finished the first page of text on FAX number one, she made backup copies of each and every data file on the hard drive. There were twelve FAX files. They ranged in length from one short paragraph to twenty-six pages in length. The time of transmission as indicated on the graphics image was way out of sync from the file creation date. The time semed to have been set correctly on Manny's computer. The unauthorized access attempt by Salvatore had been automatically recorded. The originating FAX machine was either on the opposite side of the earth, or its clock was out of whack. A closer look at the scanned image clearly answered the question of time and place. The header on each page of every transmission was the same. Each of the FAXes had been sent from the same phone number. It was one of the international numbers in Gustafson's phone list.
The files appeared to have been clippings from magazines and pages Xeroxed from bound books. There were shots taken from an encyclopedia, or maybe a medical dictionary. Reading them brought Shelly's thoughts back into the meat locker where Gustafson had been babbling gibberish about brain surgery, cod-liver oil, and the county morgue. He had been so very insistent, stayed that way to the very end.
ADRENALINE, is another name for epinephrine, the hormone produced in the adrenal gland that is vital in enabling an individual to meet sudden dangers and emergencies. In states of alarm, adrenaline pours into the bloodstream, from which it affects other parts of the body. Carbohydrate reserves are mobilized, muscle strength is increased, pupils are dilated, and peripheral blood vessels contract causing increased blood pressure. The same physiological state of arousal produced by an injection of epinephrine could be interpreted as anger or as pleasure depending on the social situation.
NORADRENALINE, or norepinephrine, is a hormone secreted by the medulla of the adrenal gland, where it is synthesized from the amino acid tyrosine. A precursor of adrenaline, it serves as a neurotransmitter at smooth muscle junctions innervated by sympathetic nerve fibers. Noradrenaline raises blood pressure by causing general peripheral vasoconstriction. Like adrenaline, it has a stimulatory effect on lipolysis, thus raising the level of free fatty acids in the bloodstream.
OPIATE RECEPTORS are located in parts of the thalamus and the limbic system (which controls pain and euphoria) and to a lesser extent, the brain stem and PITUITARY.
The PITUITARY gland is an endocrine gland situated at the base of the brain and is connected to the hypothalamus. This gland produces and secretes six protein hormones, one of which is the adrenocorticotropic hormone which stimulates the adrenal cortex and controls or influences the production of adrenaline. Excess secretion of the pituitary can abnormally alter the function of the adrenals.
One of the documents appeared to be a copy of a typed manuscript. It was obviously written by someone using English as a second language. It definitely had a scholarly ring to it. Perhaps it was a doctoral thesis, a submittal to a medical or scientific journal, or the like. To her mind, untrained in scientific, medical, or technical matters, the lot of it seemed like so much mumbo-jumbo. On the whole it appeared to be a discussion of a process by which a catalyst or trigger could be produced to stimulate both the adrenal glands and the endocrine system to not only supercharge the emotions, but the body as well. Imagine, super strength, and super-sensory amplification, and super-awareness simultaneously combined with super euphoria or super anger, take your pick. In a word, hyper-speed!
The only fathomable reason that Gustafson would have had to posess these files was if his story about the origins of Hyper-Speed had some truth to it. It was unclear at this point if Gustafson had had any viable grasp on the process involved if the concoction truly was comprised of a pineal/pituitary extract. As for herself, Shelly only knew that this was too much for her to digest on her own. She needed reliable, yet very discreet, technical advice.
"Well, I suppose that it may be possible. The function of the pituitary and pineal bodies have never been fully understood. Nor is the medical community united in their collective opinion of how they interact with the endocrine and adrenal systems." Wilton Oxford, the county coroner continued, "Now, you realize that I'm not an M.D., I'm not a pathologist, and I'm certainly not an endocrinologist. I'm the County Coroner, an elected public servant, whose duties are mostly administrative and political in nature. I have, however, picked-up a little bit of technical savvy along the way. Now, as I see it, our friend Beemer and his former associate, Gustafson, have somehow stumbled upon what appears to be the result of a military research project. The bibliography on several of these documents includes a reference to a study undertaken by our government in the 1950's. Seems as though there was interest in producing a super-human infantryman by way of hormonal tinkering. The theory was fairly acceptable. However, there just didn't seem to be any way of effectively isolating, producing or storing the end product."
"The end product being...what?" Shelly asked.
"Just as you had surmised, my dear. An oral dose of a substance that does not act directly as a stimulant in the traditional sense, but is merely a trigger, or a catalyst, that jolts the body's adrenal and endocrine systems into super-fast and super-prolific production. As I was saying, the required technology for isolating a catalyst to combine the pineal and pituitary secretions in the proper manner, was not available at the time. As a result, interest in the theory seemed to have gone by the wayside. From all appearances, someone has remembered what was going on in the cold war years, and seems to have hit upon the answer. Judging from the telephone number on these transmissions, they are coming in from Calcutta, India. 91 is the India code, and 33 is the code for Calcutta. Notice also that the time is offset by thirteen and one half hours. The half-hour is a dead give-away. There is a very good chance that these calls really did originate in that part of the world.
"Wow!" Salvatore exclaimed, completely amazed. "Okay, how did you ever figure out what those code numbers mean? It must have really taken some digging, huh?"
Oxford held an innate distaste for the little man with his pencil moustache and plastered-down black hair. "Well, Sal, my greasy little friend, I used a document referred to by the literate masses as a telephone directory. I understand that you occasionally employ them in some of your negotiation sessions." Oxford was referring to the practice of holding a thick telephone book against the ribs of a victim, while an associate clubbed it with a Louisville Slugger. The phone book spread the force of the blow over a wide area, preventing surface bruising and the breaking of ribs. The full force of the blow was transferred to internal organs. Hapless victims of this treatment usually passed blood in their urine for days.
"Hey, fuck you, fat man!" Salvatore spit at Oxford's feet to punctuate his displeasure. "Ptooey!"
"Sal! Behave yourself," Shelly scolded. A hint of a smile flashed across her lips, along with a discrete wink that was meant only for Salvatore. Privately, she thought that the sight of a big juicy-one hanging from Oxford's ugly face would have been more appropriate than merely spotting his shoes.
"Permit me to continue," Oxford said, burnishing his black wing-tips with a sparkling-white handkerchief. He neatly folded the frilly, monogrammed linen swatch and exchanged it with a fresh one from a desk drawer. "If one is to assume that our Mr. Beemer has been extracting and preparing the product in our very own morgue, using the very rudimentary equipment at his disposal, then his work must be limited to reduction of the `donated' organs to their basic constituents in a filtering or settling process, perhaps with the aid of a centrifuge. The addition of a catalyst to the resulting glandular essence could be made at a latter time in order to activate the desired properties."
Oxford paused. Tilting back in his swivel chair, he removed the gold-rimmed pince-nez from their perch. His shiny brow wrinkled downward and pinched his beady, mole-like eyes closed beneath folds of pasty skin. He plucked a watch from a pocket in his pin-stripped vest, the fabric stretched taut and straining over a corpulent tub of guts. "Madam, if there are not further questions, I have a luncheon engagement."
"Well, as a matter of fact, yes, there are more questions. What do you mean, `a catalyst'? The final product is a catalyst, right? So what is this catalyst for a catalyst business?" Shelly was scribbling what little that she managed to decipher on her ever-present yellow pad.
"To put it simply, what Beemer is doing is only basic mechanical rendering of the excised glands. Once the material is filtered and purified in approximate but non-critical proportions, the addition of an enzyme is required."
Oxford tried to replace his watch, but the fabric of the vest was stretched so tightly that he was forced to struggle up and out of his chair to relax the tension. He continued the explanation on his feet, slowly circumnavigating his office. "Without an agent to metamorphize and stabilize the ingredients together, all that you have is two separate and relatively inert elements in solution. It is all here in the very files that you have provided. Didn't you even read them?"
"Of course I read them!" Shelly snapped. Her agitation at Oxford's arrogance was quite apparent. "But that is why I am here. I'm not only not a doctor or a pathologist, but I'm just an illiterate investigator working for a two-bit politician in a two-bit county. What is the missing ingredient? If Max isn't making it himself, in the lab, then where the hell is it coming from?"
"That, my dear, is precisely the question. Since you, as you so aptly put it, are the investigator, I suggest that you `investigate'. I might suggest Mr. Beemer as a good place to start. With this new bit of information at my disposal, I have reason to believe that he has managed to produce at least one viable sample of the finished product. Perhaps he has access to, or can identify the source of, the catalyst. Other than that, I would imagine that Calcutta is particularly miserable this time of year."
From the pocket opposite his watch, Oxford pulled out a fat black cigar. Passing the cheroot back and forth beneath his nose, he inhaled deeply, eyes rolling in anticipation. As he headed toward the door--and his luncheon--he bit off the end and spit it in Salvatore's general direction. "Oh, by the way, keep those vials on ice until you manage to acquire the catalyst. Not only are the contents worthless without it, it will deteriorate very rapidly at room temperature."
"One more question, if you please." Shelly's fingers dissapeared into a soft brown valise of distressed leather. She produced one of the small vials and passed it to the Coroner. "What, exactly, do I have here? Is this the finished product, or merely, as you put it, 'two inert elements in solution'?
Oxford reached for yet another of his linen handkerchiefs and accepted the vial, overtly avoiding any chance contact between the tiny bottle and his skin. The contents of the vial, resting on the pristine fabric, was slightly rose-tinted and very transparent. Using a corner of the handkerchief, Oxford plucked the vial from his palm, still maintatining a barrier between himself and the glass. He held it up to harsh morning light that flooded over a leather-inlaid desktop. His already piercing eyes refocused with a rodent-like intensity. Through oval-cut pince-nez, his vision pierced the glass.
"That, I cannot tell you." Gently tipping the vial back and forth, he seemed captivated by the contents rolling in slow motion, like one of those desktop plastic wave machines peddled by The Sharper Image. "What I cannot do is tell you 'exactly' what you have. I can, however, offer a hypothesis."
It was obvious that Oxford was relishing in the degree of attention that he had captured from his audience. Shelly was visibly agitated at what she considered to be grandstanding by a pompous ass.
Completely oblivious to a conversation that was for the most part beyond his grasp, Salvatore had busied himself with a paper clip and was digging sludge from beneath his fingernails.
"Judging from the clarity and color, this appears to be just as I suspected, the non-catalyzed raw ingredients. Once an enzyme, or stabilizer of some kind, is added, the color should deepen and darken to more resemble a young sherry wine."
Oxford paused, glancing at Salvatore. "Or perhaps an easier understood simile would be automatic transmission fluid." His comment went unnoticed by its intended recipient. "Furthermore, as I previously stated, when in this state, un catalyzed, it must be kept umder frefrigeration. Assuming that it has been at room temperature for any more than two or three hours, this sample is worthles."
With that comment, Oxford poitioned his upturned palm over a waste basket, and slowly tilted his hand. The small vial, probably the last earthly remains of at least two departed souls, rolled noiselessly from the handkerchief. A hollow mettalic clunk at the bottom of the steel wastebasket momentarily caught Salvatore's attention.
Shelly's pained expression validated the appropriateness of her nickname.