the Third Twin (1996) Page 5

  Berrington gave an irritated grunt. He had had the same thought himself, but it annoyed him to hear it from someone else. He poured himself a little scotch. They were drinking Springbank, a single malt.

  On the screen, Larry King said: “Philosophically speaking, how do your views differ from those of, say, the Nazis?”

  Berrington touched the remote control and turned the set off. “I’ve been doing this stuff for ten years,” he said. “Three books and a million crappy talk shows later, what difference has it made? None.”

  Preston said: “It has made a difference. You’ve made genetics and race an issue. You’re just impatient.”

  “Impatient?” Berrington said irritably. “You bet I’m impatient! I’ll be sixty in two weeks. We’re all getting old. We don’t have much time left!”

  Jim said: “He’s right, Preston. Don’t you remember how it was when we were young men? We looked around and saw America going to hell: civil rights for Negroes, Mexicans flooding in, the best schools being swamped by the children of Jewish Communists, our kids smoking pot and dodging the draft. And boy, were we right! Look what’s happened since then! In our worst nightmares we never imagined that illegal drugs would become one of America’s biggest industries and that a third of all babies would be born to mothers on Medicaid. And we’re the only people with the guts to face up to the problems—us and a few like-minded individuals. The rest close their eyes and hope for the best.”

  They did not change, Berrington thought. Preston was ever cautious and fearful, Jim bombastically sure of himself. He had known them so long that he looked fondly on their faults, most of the time, anyway. And he was accustomed to his role as the moderator who steered them on a middle course.

  Now he said: “Where are we with the Germans, Preston? Bring us up-to-date.”

  “We’re very close to a conclusion,” Preston said. “They want to announce the takeover at a press conference one week from tomorrow.”

  “A week from tomorrow?” Berrington said with excitement in his voice. “That’s great!”

  Preston shook his head. “I have to tell you, I still have doubts.”

  Berrington made an exasperated noise.

  Preston went on: “We’ve been going through a process called disclosure. We have to open our books to Landsmann’s accountants, and tell them about anything that might affect future profits, such as debtors who are going bust, or pending lawsuits.”

  “We don’t have any of those, I take it?” Jim said.

  Preston gave him an ominous look. “We all know this company has secrets.”

  There was a moment of silence in the room. Then Jim said: “Hell, that’s a long way in the past.”

  “So what? The evidence of what we did is out there walking around.”

  “But there’s no way Landsmann can find out about it—especially in a week.”

  Preston shrugged as if to say “Who knows?”

  “We have to take that risk,” Berrington said firmly. “The injection of capital we’ll get from Landsmann will enable us to accelerate our research program. In a couple of years’ time we will be able to offer affluent white Americans who come to our clinics a genetically engineered perfect baby.”

  “But how much difference will it make?” Preston said. “The poor will continue to breed faster than the rich.”

  “You’re forgetting Jim’s political platform,” Berrington said.

  Jim said: “A flat income tax rate of ten percent, and compulsory contraceptive injections for women on welfare.”

  “Think of it, Preston,” Berrington said. “Perfect babies for the middle classes, and sterilization for the poor. We could start to put America’s racial balance right again. It’s what we always aimed for, ever since the early days.”

  “We were very idealistic then,” Preston said.

  “We were right!” Berrington said.

  “Yes, we were right. But as I get older, more and more I start to think the world will probably muddle along somehow even if I don’t achieve everything I planned when I was twenty-five.”

  This kind of talk could sabotage great endeavors. “But we can achieve what we planned,” Berrington said. “Everything we’ve been working toward for the last thirty years is within our grasp now. The risks we took in the early days, all these years of research, the money we’ve spent—it’s all coming to fruition at last. Don’t get an attack of nerves at this point, Preston!”

  “I don’t have bad nerves, I’m pointing out real, practical problems,” Preston said peevishly. “Jim can propose his political platform, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

  ‘That’s where Landsmann comes in,” Jim said. “The cash we’ll get for our shares in the company will give us a shot at the biggest prize of all.”

  “What do you mean?” Preston looked puzzled, but Berrington knew what was coming, and he smiled.

  “The White House,” Jim said. “I’m going to run for president.”

  4

  A FEW MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT, STEVE LOGAN PARKED his rusty old Datsun on Lexington Street in the Hollins Market neighborhood of Baltimore, west of downtown. He was going to spend the night with his cousin Ricky Menzies, who was studying medicine at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Ricky’s home was one room in a big old house tenanted by students.

  Ricky was the greatest hell-raiser Steve knew. He loved to drink, dance, and party, and his friends were the same. Steve had been looking forward to spending the evening with Ricky. But the trouble with hell-raisers was that they were inherently unreliable. At the last minute Ricky got a hot date and canceled, and Steve had spent the evening alone.

  He got out of the car, carrying a small sports bag with fresh clothes for tomorrow. The night was warm. He locked the car and walked to the corner. A bunch of youngsters, four or five boys and a girl, all black, were hanging out by a video store, smoking cigarettes. Steve was not nervous, although he was white: he looked as if he belonged here, with his old car and his faded blue jeans; and anyway he was a couple of inches taller than the biggest of them. As he passed, one of them said quietly but distinctly: “Wanna buy some blow, wanna buy some rock?” Steve shook his head without pausing in his stride.

  A very tall black woman was walking toward him, dressed to kill in a short skirt and spike-heeled shoes, hair piled high, red lipstick and blue eye shadow. He could not help staring at her. As she came closer she said, “Hi, handsome,” in a deep masculine voice, and Steve realized it was a man. He grinned and walked on.

  He heard the kids on the corner greet the transvestite with easy familiarity. “Hey, Dorothy!”

  “Hello, boys.”

  A moment later he heard tires squeal and glanced back. A white police car with a silver-and-blue stripe was pulling up at the corner. Some of the kids melted away into the dark streets; others stayed. Two black patrolmen got out, in no hurry. Steve turned around to watch. Seeing the man called Dorothy, one of the patrolmen spat, hitting the toe of a red high-heeled shoe.

  Steve was shocked. The act was so gratuitous and unnecessary. However, Dorothy hardly paused in his stride. “Fuck you, asshole,” he muttered.

  The remark was barely audible, but the patrolman had good ears. He grabbed Dorothy by the arm and slammed him against the window of the store. Dorothy tottered in the high heels. “Don’t ever speak to me that way, you piece a shit,” the cop said.

  Steve felt indignant. What did the guy expect if he went around spitting at people, for Christ’s sake?

  An alarm bell started ringing in the back of his mind. Don’t get in a fight, Steve.

  The cop’s partner stood leaning on the car, watching, his face a blank.

  “What’s the matter, brother?” Dorothy said seductively. “Do I disturb you?”

  The patrolman punched him in the stomach. The cop was a beefy guy, and the punch had all his weight behind it. Dorothy doubled over, gasping.

  “The hell with this,” Steve said to himself, and he strode to
the corner.

  What are you doing, Steve?

  Dorothy was still bent over, gasping. Steve said: “Good evening, Officer.”

  The cop looked at him. “Vanish, motherfucker,” he said. “No,” Steve said. “What did you say?”

  “I said no, Officer. You leave that man alone.” Walk away, Steve, you damn fool, walk away.

  His defiance made the kids cocky. “Yeah, thass right,” said a tall, thin boy with a shaved head. “You got no call to fuck with Dorothy, he ain’t broke no law.”

  The cop pointed an aggressive finger at the boy. “You want me to frisk you for dope, you just keep talking that way.”

  The boy lowered his eyes.

  “He’s right, though,” Steve said. “Dorothy isn’t breaking any laws.”

  The cop came over to Steve. Don’t hit him, whatever you do, don’t touch him. Remember Tip Hendricks. “You blind?” the cop said.

  “What do you mean?”

  The other cop said: “Hey, Lenny, who gives a shit. Let’s go.” He seemed uncomfortable.

  Lenny ignored him and spoke to Steve. “Can’t you see? You’re the only white face in the picture. You don’t belong here.”

  “But I’ve just witnessed a crime.”

  The cop stood close to Steve, too close for comfort. “You want a trip downtown?” he said. “Or do you want to get the fuck out of here, now?”

  Steve did not want a trip downtown. It was so easy for them to plant a little dope in his pockets, or beat him up and say he had resisted arrest. Steve was at law school: if he were convicted of a crime he could never practice. He wished he had not taken this stand. It was not worth throwing away his entire career just because a patrolman bullied a transvestite.

  But it was wrong. Now two people were being bullied, Dorothy and Steve. It was the cop who was breaking the law. Steve could not bring himself to walk away.

  But he adopted a conciliatory tone of voice. “I don’t want to make trouble, Lenny,” he said. “Why don’t you let Dorothy go, and I’ll forget that I saw you assault him.”

  “You threatening me, fuckhead?”

  A punch to the stomach and a left-and-right to the head. One for the money, two for the show. The cop would go down like a horse with a broken leg.

  “Just making a friendly suggestion.” This cop seemed to want trouble. Steve could not see how the confrontation could be defused. He wished Dorothy would walk quietly away now, while Lenny’s back was turned; but the transvestite stood there, watching, with one hand gently rubbing his bruised stomach, enjoying the cop’s fury.

  Then luck intervened. The patrol car’s radio came to life. Both cops froze, listening. Steve could not make out the jumble of words and number codes, but Lenny’s partner said: “Officer in trouble. We’re out of here.”

  Lenny hesitated, still glaring at Steve, but Steve thought he saw a hint of relief in the cop’s eyes. Maybe he, too, had been rescued from a bad situation. But there was only malice in his tone. “Remember me,” he said to Steve. “’Cause I’ll remember you.” With that he jumped into the vehicle and slammed the door, and the car tore away.

  The kids clapped and jeered.

  “Whew,” Steve said gratefully. “That was scary.”

  It was also dumb. You know how it could have gone. You know what you’re like.

  At that moment his cousin Ricky came along. “What happened?” Ricky asked, looking at the disappearing patrol car.

  Dorothy came over and put his hands on Steve’s shoulders. “My hero,” he said coquettishly. “John Wayne.”

  Steve was embarrassed. “Hey, c’mon.”

  “Any time you want a walk on the wild side, John Wayne, you come to me. I’ll let you in free.”

  “Thanks all the same.…”

  “I’d kiss you, but I can see you’re bashful, so I’ll just say good-bye.” He waggled red-tipped fingers and turned away. “Bye, Dorothy.”

  Ricky and Steve went in the opposite direction. Ricky said: “I see you’ve already made friends in the neighborhood.”

  Steve laughed, mainly with relief. “I almost got in bad trouble,” he said. “A dumb-ass cop started beating up on that guy in the skirt, and I was fool enough to tell him to stop.”

  Ricky was startled. “You’re lucky you’re here.”

  “I know it.”

  They reached Ricky’s house and went in. The place smelled of cheese, or maybe it was stale milk. There was graffiti on the green-painted walls. They edged around the bicycles chained up in the hallway and went up the stairs. Steve said: “It just makes me mad. Why should Dorothy get punched in the gut? He likes to wear miniskirts and makeup: who gives a damn?”

  “You’re right.”

  “And why should Lenny get away with it because he’s wearing a police uniform? Policemen should have higher standards of behavior, because of their privileged position.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “That’s why I want to be a lawyer. To stop this kind of shit from happening. Do you have a hero, someone you want to be like?”

  “Casanova, maybe.”

  “Ralph Nader. He’s a lawyer. That’s my role model. He took on the most powerful corporations in America—and he won!”

  Ricky laughed and put his arm around Steve’s shoulders as they entered his room. “My cousin the idealist.”

  “Ah, hell.”

  “Want some coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  Ricky’s room was small and furnished with junk. He had a single bed, a battered desk, a sagging couch, and a big TV set. On the wall was a poster of a naked Woman marked with the names of every bone in the human skeleton, from the parietal bone of the head to the distal phalanges of the feet. There was an air conditioner, but it did not seem to be working.

  Steve sat on the couch. “How was your date?”

  “Not as hot as advertised.” Ricky put water in a kettle. “Melissa is cute all right, but I wouldn’t be home this early if she was as crazy for me as I was led to believe. How about you?”

  “I looked around the Jones Falls campus. Pretty classy. I met a girl, too.” Remembering, he brightened. “I saw her playing tennis. She was terrific—tall, muscular, fit as hell. A service like it was fired out of a fucking bazooka, I swear to God.”

  “I never heard of anyone falling for a girl because of her tennis game.” Ricky grinned. “Is she a looker?”

  “She’s got this really strong face.” Steve could see it now. “Dark brown eyes, black eyebrows, masses of dark hair … and this delicate little silver ring through her left nostril.”

  “No kidding. Unusual, huh?”

  “You said it.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know.” Steve smiled ruefully. “She gave me the brush-off without breaking stride. I’ll probably never see her again in my life.”

  Ricky poured coffee. “Maybe it’s for the best—you have a steady date, don’t you?”

  “Sort of.” Steve had felt a little guilty, being so attracted to the tennis player. “Her name is Celine,” he said. “We study together.” Steve went to school in Washington, D.C.

  “You sleeping with her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t feel that level of commitment.”

  Ricky looked surprised. “This is a language I don’t speak. You have to feel committed to a girl before you fuck her?”

  Steve was embarrassed. “It’s just the way I feel, you know?”

  “Have you always felt that way?”

  “No. When I was in high school I did whatever girls would let me do, it was like a contest or something. I would bone any pretty girl who would take her panties off … but that was then, and this is now, and I’m not a kid anymore. I think.”

  “How old are you, twenty-two?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m twenty-five, but I guess I’m not as grown-up as you.”

  Steve detected a note of resentment. “Hey, it’s not a criti
cism, okay?”

  “Okay.” Ricky did not seem seriously offended. “So what did you do, after she gave you the brush-off?”

  “Went to a bar in Charles Village and had a couple beers and a hamburger.”

  “That reminds me—I’m hungry. Want something to eat?”

  “What have you got?”

  Ricky opened a cupboard. “Boo Berry, Rice Krispies, or Count Chocula.”

  “Oh, boy, Count Chocula sounds great.” Ricky put bowls and milk on the table, and they both dug in.

  When they had finished, they rinsed their cereal bowls and got ready for bed. Steve lay on the couch in his undershorts: it was too hot for a blanket. Ricky took the bed. Before they went to sleep, Ricky said: “So what are you going to do at Jones Falls?”

  “They asked me to be part of a study. I have to have psychological tests and stuff.”

  “Why you?”

  “I don’t know. They said I was a special case, and they would explain everything when I get there.”

  “What made you say yes? Sounds like kind of a waste of time.”

  Steve had a special reason, but he was not going to tell Ricky. His answer was part of the truth. “Curiosity, I guess. I mean, don’t you wonder about yourself? Like, what kind of person am I really, and what do I want in life?”

  “I want to be a hotshot surgeon and make a million bucks a year doing breast implants. I guess I’m a simple soul.”

  “Don’t you ask yourself what’s it all for?”

  Ricky laughed. “No, Steve, I don’t. But you do. You were always a thinker. Even when we were kids, you used to wonder about God and stuff.”

  It was true. Steve had gone through a religious phase at about age thirteen. He had visited several different churches, a synagogue, and a mosque, and earnestly questioned a series of bemused clergymen about their beliefs. It had mystified his parents, who were both unconcerned agnostics.

  “But you were always a little bit different,” Ricky went on. “I never knew anyone who could score so high in tests without breaking a sweat.”

  That was true, too. Steve had always been a quick study, effortlessly making top of the class, except when the other kids teased him and he made deliberate mistakes just to be less conspicuous.