Jamie Brodie 01 - Cited to Death

much. She shrugged and smiled at me, as if to say what are you gonna do ? "Sure, no problem. Let me know if you have any questions." She went back to the station she'd left when we came in.
    Oliver walked us toward the back of the room. "Here's where the process starts." He pointed out a couple of machines and talked vaguely about what they did, and specifically about how much they had cost. Pete made encouraging sounds; I looked around. We walked around the end of the last lab bench. "And here's one of our associates. Dr. Ben Goldstein. Ben, these gentlemen from UCLA have expressed an interest in our work."
    Ben saw me, and his mouth dropped open. Lots of that going around today . He shut it quickly, but he was ashen.
    He was not pleased to see us.
    Interesting.
    Oliver kept going, and we walked past Ben, then stopped at the bench behind him. I could still see him from this angle. Oliver was talking about the machines, and Pete was responding, carrying most of the conversation. I was trying to spend my time looking around as much as possible. Ben was still at his work station, but he was following us with his eyes. Dr. Wray was up at the front of the lab, talking to a couple of the other workers. I wondered if there were other physicians working here or if the rest of the people were lab techs.
    I was studying the mechanism of a centrifuge when I heard Pete ask, "Are you treating any patients yet?"
    Dr. Oliver looked very uncomfortable. "Not just yet. We're not quite to that stage. We're still working on our procedure for in vivo testing. We have some way to go before we get there."
    Jeez. How many different ways were there to say no?
    Dr. Wray must have overheard; she walked back to our area. "As you can imagine, it's a very big step. Our procedure is the first in what has to be a series of successful steps before we're ready to fertilize one of the ova that we've created." She smiled at us. "We're putting the finishing touches on the perfection of our procedure. We should be ready to move ahead to the next step within the next six months."
    "Ah." Pete nodded sagely. "That sounds very encouraging."
    He and Wray continued to chat a bit; Oliver continued to look uncomfortable. I got the impression that he really might not know much about what was going on in his own lab. Interesting.
    Ben was still glowering off to the side, although he'd stopped watching us so closely.
    Dr. Wray went back to her work. Dr. Oliver turned back to us. "Well, gentlemen, that's our grand tour. Is there anything else I can show you?"
    He hadn't actually shown us much of anything. I now knew how much one of his machines would cost, but I didn’t know anything more about his procedures than I’d learned from reading his article.
    "No, thank you. This was very helpful. I understand much more now about what you're doing." Pete shook his hand.
    I reached out as well. "Thank you for your time. We really appreciate it."
    Dr. Oliver beamed as he showed us to the door. He certainly seemed relieved to be done with our questioning. "No trouble at all, gentlemen. No trouble at all. If you have any more questions, Dr. Ferguson, please contact me." He gave Pete one of his cards. It was printed on top-grade paper stock. "I look forward to hearing from you."
    Dr. Wray waved as we left. Ben didn't move from his stool.
    We didn't say anything to each other until we were into the car. Pete locked the doors and started the engine, then looked at me. “What the fuck ? You’d met her?”
    “I had no idea who she was on Monday. We didn’t exchange names. She said she usually swam at lunch, and she gave the same reason to Oliver today that she’d given to me on Monday.” I shrugged. “How could that be a setup?”
    Pete looked out the windshield, shaking his head. “I don’t know. But I don’t like coincidences.”
    “I know, I don’t either. But there aren’t that many public pools in West LA; maybe she lives nearby and she really does swim at lunch on a regular basis.”
    “Maybe.” Pete shook his head again. "I have to think about that for a while. What did you think of the tour?"
    "I think Oliver talked a lot and didn't say very much. And he looked very uncomfortable when you started asking about treating patients."
    "Yeah, he did." Pete pulled out of the parking lot and pointed the Jeep in the direction of UCLA. "He may have thought that I wouldn't have been as eager to give money if they weren't ready to produce any tangible results.