Dover Beach Page 5

  Hemphill nodded.

  "Cloning of mammals?"

  "Yes."

  "Cloning of human beings?"

  Hemphill shrugged. "Clone one mammal, you can clone them all."

  I couldn't think of a reason not to tell him the truth. "Professor, my friend doesn't really think he's Cornwall's son—he thinks he's Cornwall's clone."

  Hemphill shook his head. "No, that's not possible."

  "Why? Why couldn't Cornwall have made a clone of himself and impregnated a woman with it?"

  "It's not that easy." Hemphill shifted in his chair. Like Costigan, he was preparing to lecture. "Cloning a mammal is one thing; cloning an adult mammal is something else altogether. The success of the procedure declines precipitously with the age of the donor nucleus—and I'm talking days from the moment of fertilization, not years. We studied this at MIT. It probably has something to do with changes in the DNA due to cell differentiation. Cornwall couldn't have cloned himself, even if he knew how to clone a human being. He was too old, Mr. Sands."

  "My friend is a dead ringer for Cornwall," I said. "Maybe Cornwall solved this problem with cloning adults and didn't tell you."

  Hemphill shook his head. "Cornwall was not the kind to hide his scientific achievements. And that would've been a considerable achievement."

  "So then, what is my friend?"

  "I don't know, Mr. Sands. A human being, like all the rest of us. Perhaps Cornwall had an affair with a grad student and she became pregnant. I wouldn't put it past him."

  I wasn't getting very far with cloning. I decided to change the subject. "Can you think of a reason why someone would want to murder my friend?"

  Hemphill stared at me. "Murder?" he repeated.

  "Two days ago, near Northeastern, after he tried to find out something about Cornwall."

  Hemphill blushed. "What are you suggesting—that there's some deep dark secret about all of this?"

  "I'm really not suggesting anything, Professor Hemphill. I'm just trying to learn what there is to be learned."

  "I can't think that there's anything at all to be learned, Mr. Sands. It was a long time ago, and anything that happened back then is as irrelevant as the stock certificates I probably still have waiting for me in some safe-deposit box downtown. Why doesn't your friend just go on with his life?"

  "I don't know," I said honestly. "It seems to matter to him."

  Hemphill was silent for a moment; then he arose and walked over to the barred window. The dog stirred himself and growled, just to make sure I didn't get any ideas about going for my gun. Hemphill stared out at the barbed wire surrounding his home. "Cornwall couldn't have cared less about politics. He thought that this war wouldn't affect him—that he would go on with his work, somehow, because his work was important, and the world would have to realize that. I remember the last time I saw him—after the war, when everyone was beginning to realize that it may have been a tiny war, but things would never be the same again, things were going to be unimaginably worse for an unimaginably long time. And—and he found out I wasn't going to go to England, I was going to stay here and wait. And he laughed at me. 'George,' he said. 'You only have the one life. Don't waste it.'"

  "It sounds as though he would've gone to England, then, if he'd had half a chance. Are you sure he's dead, Professor?"

  Hemphill stared out the window, his gaze misty. "Yes, he's dead, Mr. Sands. And all that was a long time ago. Now I think you'd better leave."

  "But I'd really like to—"

  He turned abruptly to me, and the dog got to its feet, drooling as it waited for the command to attack.

  I stood up. "Well, thanks for your time, Professor. Sorry if I dredged up unhappy memories."

  Hemphill laughed. "I only have the one life, Mr. Sands. I don't intend to waste it on unhappy memories." He handed me my gun. "I'll see you to the door."

  I pocketed it. "Much obliged," I said.

  When I pedaled off, the dog barked after me until I was out of sight.

  Chapter 7

  I sat on a bench at Downtown Crossing and brooded. Hemphill had seemed awfully sure that Cornwall was dead. And that meant my client was not going to be happy.

  I didn't have any positive proof—no death certificate, no gravestone—but that kind of proof didn't exist anymore. Hemphill's emphatic statement was the most you could expect. I had done my job quickly and well. Case closed.

  Now what? Go to the Ritz and make my report? I couldn't face that just yet. Go back to my office and wait for the Sandman's second case? That seemed like an even worse idea. So I sat and watched the people go in and out of the Salvage Market. After a while I got hungry, so I bought a hunk of cheese and a hard roll from an old vendor, and I chewed while I brooded.

  Then Jesus Christ came by, lugging his seven-foot wooden cross. I waved, and he stopped by my bench. A little boy in a tattered jacket was with him. The boy looked at me nervously. Jesus gave him a little push, and he offered me a yellow scrap of paper. I took it.

  A message had been scrawled in pencil on the scrap. It took me a moment to make it out.

  The End Is At Hand.

  I smiled at the boy and put the paper into my pocket. "This is total bullshit, you know," I said to Jesus.

  "I pray for you daily, Walter," he said.

  "Thanks for nothing." I noticed the boy staring at the remains of my roll and cheese. I gave them to him. He looked up at Jesus, who nodded. The boy started eating hungrily. "Why don't you sit down?" I asked. "That goddamn cross looks heavy."

  "Of course it's heavy," Jesus said. "The sins of the world." He sat down, laying the cross next to my bicycle, and he hoisted the boy onto his lap.

  I looked at him and shook my head. His name hadn't always been Jesus Christ. It had once been Jimmy Parducci, and he had been reasonably normal and unreasonably happy. He had a wife and a baby and a good job killing rats for the government, and what more could you ask for out of life? Then his wife contracted one of our peculiarly gruesome modern diseases, and all that changed.

  When she died, he got religion. He had a vision or something, in which God told him that the last time had been just a warning, and if we didn't straighten out soon, He was really gonna give us what for. So Jimmy changed his name and took up the cross and wandered through the city, warning us to repent before it was too late. In my argumentative youth I had tried to point out to him that I—and most people—wouldn't be too thrilled with God, if what happened back then was His idea of a warning. But there is no arguing with revealed truth. Jimmy continued to spread the word, and his baby was growing up into a shy but obedient disciple, and I suppose there were worse ways for them to be spending their lives—except that the boy always looked cold and hungry and a little more frightened than he should have been, and if I were God Jimmy would have had to answer to Me for that.

  "Are you living a good life, Walter?" Jesus asked me.

  "Within reason," I said.

  "I've heard that you are now a private investigator."

  "True," I said.

  "I've read about private investigators," he continued. "They live very immoral lives."

  "Not true. They represent justice in its purest form."

  "Oh, Walter," he said softly. "Repent, for the hour is nigh."

  I shrugged. "I'd like to," I said, "but I've got this blond secretary with the hots for me back at the office and, well, you know how it is."

  He shook his head. "Oh, Walter," he repeated.

  I reached out and tousled the boy's hair. He stared at me and continued to chew solemnly. It was time to move on. "See you around," I said. I stepped over the cross and picked up my bike.

  "I'll pray for you," Jesus called out. I ignored him.

  * * *

  After some hesitation, I decided to go to City Hall. It was in Government Center, just a short jaunt from Downtown Crossing; I locked my bike in a rack outside the strangely shaped building and went inside.

  There was a large, brightly lit Christmas tree
standing in front of the broken escalators. That seemed to say something profound about our government, but I didn't stop to figure it out. I hiked up an escalator for a couple of flights, then followed the signs to the Water and Sewer Department. I stopped in front of an office midway down a dimly lit corridor. The nameplate next to it said:

  Charles T. Moseby

  Asst. Director

  The door was open. Inside, a dwarf was sitting at a desk littered with papers.

  "Excuse me," I said. "It has come to my attention that there are citizens of this Commonwealth carrying concealed weapons on their persons. To whom should I report this outrageously illegal behavior?"

  Stretch looked up and grinned. "Hello, Walter. You're under arrest." He was wearing a tie, his shirtsleeves were rolled up, and there was a pencil stuck behind his ear. Your typical dwarf bureaucrat.

  He motioned for me to come in. "So what really brings you to the seat of power?" he asked.

  I sat down opposite him. The room was surprisingly warm. I wondered how he could stand coming home to our frigid town house every night. "I'm here on business, actually," I said.

  "If it's Bobby's business, Walter, I'm afraid I—"

  "No, no. My own. Remember—my first case?"

  "Oh, right. The search for the long-lost... whatever."

  "Precisely." I hesitated. I didn't really see how this was going to achieve anything, but what did I have to lose? "I've been checking around, Stretch, and it seems that there's a possibility the guy I'm looking for got scooped by the British back when they were here maintaining law and order. They evidently felt obliged to kidnap some of our leading scientists."

  Stretch nodded. "I think I heard about that. But what's it got to do with the Water and Sewer Department?"

  "Absolutely nothing—except that it seems possible that somewhere in the reaches of our sainted government's archives there might be a list of who got taken. Or maybe there's some foreign service type who remembers, or who can find out. We're such good buddies with the British now, they'd probably be happy to tell us. So I thought I'd come to see my own good buddy Stretch, who knows all sorts of people in the government and maybe could help me out."

  Stretch pondered. "It's a tall order," he said.

  "Then you're just the man for the job."

  He glared at me. "Is that a size joke?"

  I smiled. "My, we're sensitive today, aren't we?"

  "Anyone who lives with Linc has a right to be sensitive."

  It was Linc who had started calling him Stretch. "All right, I apologize," I said. "So what do you say?"

  "I guess I can look into it," he said. "If any information does exist, though, it's probably down in Atlanta, so it might take me a while to get a hold of it."

  "Anything you can do, Stretch. I realize it's a long shot."

  Stretch sized me up. "My services come at a price, Walter."

  "Name it."

  "You listen to a lecture."

  I groaned. "Anything, Stretch, but not that."

  "Shall I give it to you now, or do you want to wait until we get home?"

  "Please, Stretch, I've suffered enough for one lifetime."

  "I know, Walter. We all have. But you've got to get out of this dream world you're living in. You've got to accept the world as it is, and yourself as you are."

  Except for his sensitivity about size jokes, Stretch didn't seem to let being a dwarf bother him. But it wasn't my fault he was so well adjusted. "You've got me wrong, Stretch," I replied. "I do accept the world as it is. I just think it's ready for a private eye."

  "Oh, come on, Walter. You're just playing at it because you don't know what else to do with yourself. The country needs people like you—you're tough, and you're smart, and you're good. We can't afford to let you waste your life pretending it's 1937. Frankly, I'd rather see you working for Bobby Gallagher. At least what he does is real."

  "People have to go it alone in this world—even more so than in the old days," I said. "That's where a private eye can do a lot of good: he can help them when no one else will."

  "Oh, bullshit." Stretch is never vulgar. He was very upset with me. And I remembered the way I had talked to Jesus Christ. Did Stretch think I was as useless as Jesus? It wasn't fair, but how could I argue with him? And then he struck a low blow. "Look, if my opinion doesn't matter, what about Gwen? She loves you, Walter."

  "What about her? She's never said she disapproves."

  "You know Gwen. She doesn't have to."

  "Well, if she loves me, then she should accept the way I want to live my life."

  Stretch shook his head sadly. "I guess I don't know how to convince you. Maybe you'll just have to get it out of your system. Maybe failing on this case will do the trick—they don't fail in those books you read."

  "I haven't failed yet."

  "If you're looking for my help, you can't be doing very well."

  I glared at him. "Is the lecture over?"

  "The lecture's over," Stretch said softly.

  I stood up. "I'll see you later, then. I've got private eye work to do."

  "Okay, Walter. I'll see what I can do to help. Honest I will. No hard feelings?"

  "Ah, you're too short to be angry at for very long."

  Stretch grinned. "That's more like it."

  I walked out of his office.

  Chapter 8

  Dr. Winfield was eating supper in his room when I arrived to make my report. There was a half-consumed steak and a bottle of wine on a tray next to his bed. The smell of the steak and the heat in the room made me feel a little light-headed. I took my parka off and sat in an armchair by the window.

  "Glass of wine?" Winfield asked. "The vintages are starting to improve again out in California."

  I shook my head. I noticed that most of the wine was already gone. Winfield's eyes were a little glazed. "Anyone try to kill you today?" I asked.

  "Didn't give 'em an opportunity. Just stayed in here and let you do all the work." He lay back on the bed and picked up his glass. "So what did you find out?"

  I took a breath. "The evidence seems to suggest that Robert Cornwall is dead," I said. And I told him what I had discovered from Hemphill.

  Winfield's gaze drifted past me as I spoke. I couldn't tell if it was because he was drunk, or because he didn't think me interesting enough to look at. At any rate, my report sounded pretty meager; if I were the client, I would not have been impressed.

  "This guy Hemphill—he didn't actually see Cornwall die, right?" Winfield demanded when I had finished.

  "He didn't say he had seen Cornwall die, but he seemed awfully sure of it."

  "But the only evidence he gave was that Cornwall wasn't publishing in these scientific journals, right?"

  "Yeah, that's right, I guess."

  Winfield finished his wine and sat up. "He's guessing. If he really knew, why wouldn't he give you more details?"

  "I don't know. If he was guessing, why wouldn't he say so?"

  Winfield waved away my objection. He put down his glass. He picked it back up again. He rose from the bed, swaying a bit. "Cornwall is in England," he said. "It's so obvious, really, when you think about it."

  It wasn't obvious to me. "But if he's in England, why—"

  "Why hasn't anyone heard of him? Think, Sands. Remember my theory that the government was making him work on a secret cloning project? It was full of holes, obviously. I admit it. But what if he's been working for the British? They have the resources—of course he'd go, if they asked him to. He has to continue his work."

  This idea was no better than his previous one. "But what would he be doing for them?" I asked.

  "Clones. Clones of military leaders, of politicians, of scientific geniuses. Of course, they'd keep it all secret."

  "But Hemphill doesn't think Cornwall could clone adults, and he knows more about the subject than either of us."

  "He doesn't know everything. The article I showed you yesterday—didn't you read it? Cornwall was working on
a way around the problem. Obviously, he succeeded. And that's why I'm here, and he's in England."

  "But England's government is as antiscience as our own. They're no more likely than we are to be running a secret cloning project."

  Winfield shook his head. "Hatton has only been in power there—what, nine, ten years? Cornwall would have gone to England over twenty years ago. The project would have been in full swing by the time the antiscience people took over. Maybe they just let it continue—maybe they had themselves cloned. It wouldn't be the first time a government's public posture didn't coincide with the way things really were."

  "Well, if Cornwall is working in England, who is trying to kill you?"

  That made him pause for a moment. "Maybe they have spies over here," he said uncertainly. "Or maybe you're right, it was just a coincidence. It doesn't really matter, does it?"

  I had no idea if it mattered. The whole thing seemed like some sort of alcoholic fantasy. All I had managed to do was find someone who was sure that Cornwall was dead, and here my client was imagining some bizarre conspiracy with the British government. It was absurd.

  Winfield sat back down on the edge of the bed. He stared in annoyance at the empty wine bottle. "The thing for me to do," he said slowly, "is to go over there and find him."

  I chuckled. It was a joke, right? Winfield did not chuckle. "Trips to England are a lot more expensive than trips to Boston," I pointed out. "I don't think even a doctor could afford one."

  Winfield gave me a what-do-you-know-about-it glance. "That's the least of my worries."

  "So what else is worrying you?" I asked.

  He clasped his hands and brought them up to his face. He appeared to be making an effort to sober up. "Going to England would be a serious step," he said. "It would involve burning a lot of bridges. That's all right. I'm willing to do it. I want to do it. But I need more information." He looked over at me. "I recognize a certain... credulity on my part, Mr. Sands. I want Cornwall to be alive. I want him to be special. All right, I'm rational, I can fight against that. So you have to bring me concrete evidence that Cornwall went to England. I don't need proof that he's still alive, just that he went there at some point. I give you three days to find me the proof. If you don't get it to me by then, I'm going home."