Frameshift

“I’ll say,” said Pierre grimly. “It’s against the law in this state to discriminate based on genetic tests — and I bet stealing cells from a body meets the legal definition of assault.”

“But we don’t discriminate!” said Tiffany. “The tissue samples are just for actuarial purposes.”

“What?” said Pierre, startled.

“Look — the new law, it’s crippling the insurance companies. We’re not allowed to get any genetic information from doctors unless it’s stripped of all other personal details about the individuals tested. How can we keep our actuarial tables current? We’ve got to have our own tissue database, do our own tests.”

“But you’re doing far more than that,” said Pierre. “You’re going after the policyholders—”

“What?” said Tiffany.

“The policyholders,” repeated Pierre. “If they’ve got bad genes, you—”

“We don’t keep any records relating the tissue samples to specific individuals. I told you, it’s just for actuarial studies — just for statistics.”

“But you—”

“No,” said Molly, still sitting next to Tiffany on the couch. “No, she really believes that.”

“It’s true,” said Tiffany emphatically.

“But then—” Pierre shut up. Maudit, she really didn’t know.

“Look,” said Tiffany, “please don’t say anything to anyone about that pen — it’ll cost me my job.”

“Do all the Condor salespeople use these pens?”

Tiffany shook her head. “No, no — only the top producers, like me. We get paid extra commissions for it, so—”

Pierre nodded grimly. “So no one ever leaves the company.” His voice was hard. “You want some advice? Quit your job. Quit today, right now, and start looking for work with another company — before everyone else from Condor is out there pounding the pavement with you.”

“Please,” said Tiffany, “my secretary doesn’t even know who I was seeing this morning. Just don’t tell them you got the pen from me, I beg you.”

Pierre looked at her for a time. “All right — if you don’t let anyone know we’ve got the pen, I won’t reveal where we got it. Deal?”

“Thank you!” said Tiffany. “Thank you!”

Pierre nodded, and pointed with a shaking arm at the front door. “Now get the hell out of my house.”

Tiffany rose, grabbed her attache case, and scurried out the door. Pierre leaned back in the chair and looked at Molly. They were both silent for a very long time. Finally, Molly said, “So what do we do now?”

Pierre looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “Well, a conspiracy like this would have to be at the very highest level of the company, so we need to get in to see the president — what’s his name?”

Molly went and got the Condor annual report, and flipped pages in it until she found the officers’ listing. ‘“Craig D. Bullen, M.B.A. (Harvard), President and CEO.’”

“Okay, we get in to see this Craig Bullen, and—”

“How on earth do we do that?”

“They might not have cared about what I had to say about their coercing abortions, but they will damn sure pay attention to me as a geneticist.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll send him another letter on Human Genome Center stationery, telling him there’s been a breakthrough — something that will revolutionize actuarial science — and that I’m prepared to give him an advance look.

Hell, even salespeople like Tiffany know all about the HGP; you can bet the company’s president is following it closely and will jump at the chance to get ahead of his competitors.”

Molly nodded, impressed. “But even if he does agree to see you, what do we do next?”

Pierre smiled. “We put Wonder Woman to work.”

Chapter 36

Molly and Pierre drove up to the Condor Health Insurance Building in Pierre’s Toyota. The building was located on a well-treed thirty-acre lot on the outskirts of San Francisco, not far from the ocean. The tower in the center of it all was a Bauhaus monolith of glass and steel, stretching forty stories above the landscape. It was surrounded by parking lots on all four sides. The whole property was contained by a high chain-link fence.

They pulled up to the gatehouse, told the guard they had an appointment with Craig Bullen, and waited while he confirmed that by telephone. The barricade, painted with black and yellow chevrons, swung up, and they drove in, parked, and made their way to the front door.

The spacious lobby was done in brass and red marble. Two giant American flags stood on poles in the atrium, which also contained a pond with goldfish the length of Pierre’s forearm swimming in it. Another guard was sitting behind a wide marble desk. Pierre and Molly presented themselves there and received date-stamped visitors’ badges.

“The executive offices are on the thirty-seventh floor,” said the guard, pointing to a bank of elevators. The sign above the faux-marble door-skins said 31st to 40th Floors Only.

They entered the cab, which had mirrored walls and pot lights in the ceiling, and headed up. The Muzak was an instrumental version of the old Supremes song “Reflections.”