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The North Fork is sort of like Cape Cod, a windswept jut of land surrounded on three sides by water and covered with history.
Sounded better than Home of Top Secret Germ Warfare Scientists Ransacked and Scientists Found Murdered.
long. It was named the Spirochete, which as we know from Bio 101 is the nasty bug that causes syphilis. The Gordons had a sense of humor.
September is a truly golden month up and down the Atlantic coast, from the Outer Banks to Newfoundland. The days are mild, the nights pleasant for sleeping; it is summer without the heat and humidity, autumn without the cold rains. The summer birds haven’t left yet, and the first migratory birds from up north are taking a break on their way south.
There are many options in life, but one option you should never choose is the “Voice Warning and Advisory Option.”
I recalled a cartoon I’d once seen in The Wall Street Journal where a school guidance counselor says to two parents, “Your son is vicious, mean-spirited, dishonest, and likes to spread rumors.
“How did you know them?” It’s not a good idea to start answering questions—it gives people the idea that you’re a cooperative fellow, which I’m not. I didn’t reply.
It’s hard to read the faces of people whose job it is to read other people’s faces.
But whoever staged that wasn’t very convincing. This whole thing looked amateurish, or maybe it was done by foreigners who didn’t watch enough American cop shows on TV.
It struck me that there was a very thin line between all of this stuff. Bugs are bugs. They don’t know cows from pigs from people. They don’t know defensive research from offensive research. They don’t know preventive vaccines from air-burst bombs. Hell, they don’t even know if they’re good or bad. And
clock in the living room struck twelve chimes, and Mr. Ted Nash, with a sense for the dramatic and wanting to impress us with his education, undoubtedly Ivy League, quoted the Bard, thus: “’Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.”
There is a point in homicide investigations when you start to assemble more clues than you know what to do with. Clues are like ingredients in a recipe with no instructions—if you put them together in the right way, you have dinner.
“Trust me.” “No. Convince me.”
But basically the climate was benign, the coves and inlets numerous, the fogs and mists frequent: an ideal place for smugglers, pirates, rum runners, and more recently, drug runners. The wall phone rang,
I saw in my mind’s eye the image of the Jolly Roger flapping in the night sky, the death’s head white and grinning.
But I don’t believe in coincidence. I don’t believe that underpaid scientists from the Midwest often get involved in an expensive powerboating hobby and archaeology and local historical societies.
I looked under “D” for Drug Runner, Pedro, and “C” for Colombian Drug Cartel, but no luck. I tried “T” for Terrorists and “A” for Arab Terrorists, but I came up empty.
“Room 225,” she replied. Proving once again that the best security is a lie. She led us to the end of a corridor and opened door number 200.
I think he was generally pleased that he’d hired me, but he might be wondering how he could control a dollar-a-week independent consultant who was generally pissing off everyone.
The foot-and-mouth virus is perhaps the most contagious and virulent in nature, which is why the biological warfare people have always been fascinated by it.
Could you imagine such a thing today? And the 1918 virus wasn’t particularly virulent, and of course, travel was much slower then and less frequent. Today, the highways and skyways can spread an infectious virus around the world in days. The good news about the deadliest viruses, such as Ebola, is that they kill so fast, they barely have time to leave an African village before everyone in it is dead.”
Viruses are so simple, molecularly and genetically, but they are more challenging than bacteria in that they are easy to mutate, hard to understand, and hard to kill. In fact, the question is—are those crystals really alive as we understand life? Look at them. They look like ice chips.”
It was hard to believe that those guys and their cousins and brothers had caused so much human misery and death, not to mention animal deaths. There was something scary about an organism that looked dead but came to life when it invaded living cells, and reproduced so fast it could kill a healthy two-hundred-pound man in forty-eight hours. What was God thinking? Dr.
Years ago, you had to use special paper, rinse it in a decontaminating fluid, leave it to dry, then retrieve it the next day. Now, with the fax, your notes are waiting for you when you return to the office.”
Like most men of courage and action, myself included, Max didn’t like a danger he couldn’t pull his gun on.
Anthrax is easy to propagate, easy to handle, it diffuses nicely into the air, kills slowly enough for the infected population to spread it around, and cripples as many victims as it kills, causing a collapse of the enemy’s health care system.
“Why?” “Why? Because the genetic makeup of a virus has to be able to… well, mesh with a cell to infect it. Human cells do not mesh with FMD virus.”
“I have. It’s a real challenge—watch your mouth, cover your ass, grow eyes in the back of your head, smell for rats, and listen for what’s not said.”
There was a saying that in Manhattan the present was so strong, it obscured the past. But here, the past was so strong, it obscured the present.
This was a unique environment of sea, farm, and vineyard, an unusual combination found only in a few places along the East Coast.
“Really? Doesn’t sound too accurate.” “Accurate enough. It’s custom and law. High-water mark. The beach belongs to everyone.”
Daughters of the American Revolution don’t have group sex because they don’t want to have to write all those thank-you notes.”
That’s the way the Mafia operated—if you survived, you were usually left alone. But these gentlemen who were blasting away at me looked decidedly Hispanic. And those hombres didn’t always consider the job done until you were planted.
“Just a few routine questions.” There are no routine questions in a homicide investigation, by the way.
“The North Fork is a microclimate. Different from the surrounding areas. Do you know that we get more sunlight than they do right across the bay in the Hamptons?” “You’re kidding. Do the rich people in the Hamptons know that?” He continued, “More sunlight than right across the Sound in Connecticut?” “You don’t say? Why is that?” “It has to do with the bodies of water and the prevailing winds around us. We have a maritime climate. Connecticut has a continental climate. It can be ten degrees colder over there in the winter. That would damage the vines.”
“The autumn is long and lazy here. The orchards are still heavy with fruit and many of the vegetables haven’t been picked yet. It can be snowing in New England around Thanksgiving, and we’re still harvesting here.” She asked me, “Am I rambling on?”
There comes a time in an investigation where you just let it rip. Especially when time is running out.
Anyway, according to what a bartender told me, the building was once an inn when Greenport was a whaling port, and the bar where Emma and I sat was transported here by barge from Manhattan in eighteen-eighty-something.
My experience over the years has always been that if you miss a message, something interesting usually happens.
Anyway, I gathered my gun and holster and my jacket and then, fun guy that I am, I tied Mr. Stevens’ shoelaces together.
Oh, well. If you play hardball, to switch sports metaphors, you have to expect a beanball now and then.
I think the CIA, the FBI, and the government in general should always try out their bullshit on bartenders, barbers, and taxi drivers before they try to sell it to the country. I mean, I usually bounce things off bartenders or my barber when I need a reality check, and it works.
Unlike the most famous Long Island party-giver, Jay Gatsby, Fredric Tobin did not watch his party from afar. Quite the opposite, he was right in there, mixing it up, being the most perfect host ever.
Tonight, I felt I was on, hot as a three-dollar pistol; I tilted my hat rakishly, adjusted my sword, and began working the party.
Sometimes I make believe I’m angry so the other person thinks they owe me something.
And if you’re rich, you get even more due process than the average Joe.”
But my experience with fuel gauges—ever since I had my first car—was that they show either more fuel than you have left, or less fuel than you have left. I didn’t know how this gauge lied, but I would soon find out.
“I don’t need a lesson in physics.” She was angry and that was much better than the quiet resignation I’d seen taking hold earlier. It’s good to be pissed off when man and nature conspire to do you in.
Also, it’s good tactics not to go back the way you come; someone may be waiting for you.
The meaning of life has not much to do with good and evil, right and wrong, duty, honor, country, or any of that. It has to do with cutting the right deal.
