Shadowfires

line from an article that appeared in a
popular science magazine, more colorful than the technical journal
stuff: 'It may be possible, ultimately, for man to reshape himself genetically and thereby deny the claim of the grave, to live longer than Methuselah-and even to be both Jesus and Lazarus in one, raising himself up from the mortuary slab even as death lays him down upon it.”
    Reese blinked. “Funny, huh? His
body's stolen from the morgue, which is sort of being 'raised up,' though not the way he meant it.”
    Julio's eyes were strange. “Maybe not funny. Maybe not stolen.”
    Reese felt a strangeness coming into his own eyes. He said, “You
don't mean… no, of course not.”
    “He was a genius with unlimited resources, perhaps the brightest
man ever to work in recombinant DNA research, and he was obsessed
with staying young and avoiding death. So when he just seems to get
up and walk away from a mortuary… is it so impossible to imagine that
he did, in fact, get up and walk away?”
    Reese felt his chest tightening, and he was surprised to feel a
thrill of fear pass through him. “But is such a thing possible, after
the injuries he suffered?”
    “A few years ago, definitely impossible. But we're living in an age of miracles, or at least in an age of infinite possibilities.”
    “But how?”
    “That's part of what we'll have to find out. I called UCI and got
in touch with Dr. Easton Solberg, whose work on aging is mentioned in
Leben's articles. Turns out Leben knew Solberg, looked up to him as a mentor, and for a while they were fairly close. Solberg has great praise for Leben, says he isn't
the least surprised that Leben made a fortune out of DNA research,
but Solberg also says there was a dark side to Eric Leben. And he's willing to talk about it.”
    “What dark side?”
    “He
wouldn't say on the phone. But we have an appointment with him at UC1 at one o'clock.”
    As Julio pushed his chair back and got up, Reese said, “How can we
keep digging into this and stay out of trouble with Nick Folbeck?”
    “Sick leave,” Julio said. “As long as I'm on sick leave, I'm not
officially investigating anything. Call it personal curiosity.”
    “That won't hold up if we're caught at it. Cops aren't supposed to have personal curiosity in a situation like this.”
    “No, but if I'm on sick leave, Folbeck's not going to be worrying
about what I'm doing. It's less likely that anyone'll be looking over my shoulder. In fact, I sort of implied that I wanted nothing to do with anything this hot. Told Folbeck that, given the heat on this, it might be best for me to get away for a few days, in case the media pick up on it and want me to answer questions. He agreed.”
    Reese got to his feet. “I better call in sick, too.”
    “I already did it for you,” Julio said.
    “Oh. Okay, then, let's go.”
    “I mean, I thought it would be all right. But if you don't want to get involved in this-”
    “Julio, I'm in.”
    “Only if you're sure.”
    “I'm in,” Reese said exasperatedly.
    And he thought but did not say: You saved my Esther, my little
girl, went right after those guys in the Chevy van and got her out of
there alive, you were like a man possessed, they
must've thought it was a demon on their tail, you put your own life on the line and saved Esther, and I loved you before that because you were my partner and a good one, but after that I loved you, you crazy little bastard, and as long as I live I'm
going to be there when you need me, no matter what.
    In spite of his natural difficulty expressing his most profound
feelings, Reese wanted to say all of that to Julio, but he kept
silent because Julio did not want effusive gratitude and would be
embarrassed by it. All Julio wanted was the commitment of a friend
and partner. Undying gratitude would, if openly expressed, impose a
barrier between them by obviously placing Julio in a superior
position, and ever afterward they would be awkward with each
other.
    In their daily working relationship, Julio always had been in the
superior position, of course, deciding how to proceed at nearly every
step of a homicide investigation, but his control was never blatant
or obvious, which made all the difference. Reese would not have cared
if Julio's dominance had been obvious; he did not mind deferring to Julio because in some ways Julio was the quicker and smarter of the two.
    But Julio, having been born and raised in Mexico, having come to
the States and made good, had a