Fatal Reaction

never here.”
    “Where is he then?” I demanded, remembering how much Stephen was paying him.
    “Giving papers, going to site visits, getting interviewed on National Public Radio. It drives Remminger nuts.”
    “Who’s that over there?” I asked, chucking my head in the direction of a man with a wild head of brindle-colored hair and a tobacco-stained mustache.
    “That’s Dave Borland, our lead protein chemist,” replied Carl with a mysterious chuckle. “I’ll take you down to see his lab later, but I promise we won’t go before lunch.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “He’s the one who isolates ZKBP, the receptor we were talking about back in Danny’s office. It’s a very complicated process that we fondly refer to as grind and bind. You start by taking human spleens and putting them into an industrial-size blender.”
    “Where do you get the spleens?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.
    “From a medical supply house.”
    “You mean you can just call an eight-hundred number and get body parts?”
    “Yes. But they’re expensive. A spleen from a healthy cadaver costs four hundred sixty dollars. Ones that are discarded during transplantation of other organs we get at a discount. Same-day delivery is extra. It takes about forty spleens to make one gram of binding protein.”
    “I can see how that would add up,” I remarked faintly.
    “Believe me, Kate, one thing you learn in this busines is that there is no shortage of people who are worth more dead than they are alive.”
     

CHAPTER 6
     
    When Stephen walked into the room conversation evaporated and all eyes turned toward him with the fluid certainty of magnetism. Even Lou Remminger stubbed out her cigarette on the pink frosting of a half-eaten doughnut and offered up the full measure of her attention. I didn’t care what Carl Woodruff had just said about the differences in their backgrounds and motivations, the truth was that the scientists in the room had one very important thing in common. They had all come to Azor because Stephen Azorini had promised them personally that it was here they would have a chance to do the best science of their lives.
    “What’s our status with respect to the receptor?” Stephen demanded without preamble, rolling up his sleeves and scanning the room with his pale blue eyes. His shirt was a small miracle of starch. The old Polish woman who did his ironing was in love with him and somehow she managed to channel all her ardor into his shirts.
    “Well, for one thing,” sniffed Childress unpleasantly, “there isn’t enough of it.”
    Stephen turned to Dave Borland, the protein chemist. “I thought the new process was producing higher yields,” he said, lifting one black brow to eloquently punctuate the question.
    “There’s nothing wrong with the supply of protein,” Borland shot back defensively. “The problem is that crystallography is pissing it away. So far they’ve gotten nearly a gram of pure receptor—twice what everyone else has gotten put together—and they haven’t produced a single viable crystal.”
    “That’s not necessarily true,” ventured Michelle Goodwin timidly. “I’ve actually had some success with very small crystals.”
    “Considering the importance of solving the structure I don’t understand why chemistry and imaging should be getting any at all,” Michael Childress said, talking right over her as if she’d never spoken.
    “There’s one more thing we need to factor into all this,” interjected Carl, trying to be heard above the others. “We’re still having problems with the power.” The ZK-501 labs were so crammed with high-tech equipment that, within three months of moving in, Azor Pharmaceuticals’ power demands had outstripped the available supply. For months Commonwealth Edison had been promising to install additional transformers, but in spite of twice-daily calls from Carl Woodruff, no date had as yet been set for the upgrade.
    “The electricity is not the problem,” announced Lou Remminger, glaring contemptuously at Childress. Despite her punk persona her voice was straight from the Smoky Mountains. The effect was as incongruous as her fingernails. “The supply of receptor is not the problem either. The problem is that Dr. Childress is doing every other goddamned thing in the world besides his job.”
    “How dare you!” sputtered Childress, obviously stung by such a direct attack.
    “Well,” drawled the chemist sweetly. “Would you mind telling me