Rudy tied up on the trim little dock and then exchanged kisses on the cheek. He had a round, boyish face that looked as if it had yet to feel a razor. The hair on his head was completely gone, save for a silver monk's fringe. Ellen and others felt he bore enough resemblance to actor Gavin MacLeod to call him Captain. He had responded by painting "The Love Boat" on the stern of his skiff.
"Where are the fish?" she asked.
"I throw them back. By this time of the season most of them know me by my first name. They bite on the hook just to come up and visit. Once in a while one of them will mess himself up enough that I'll have to bring him home and make a meal of him."
"It's good to see you."
She put her arm around his shoulders as they walked back to the cabin.
"So," he asked after fixing two cups of tea, "how did the vote go? Did you throw a monkey wrench into their machine?"
Ellen had spoken to him after Lynette Marquand's promise, but not since the visit from the man with the harelip scar.
"I didn't go in for the vote."
Rudy's eyebrows arched just a bit.
"So," he said, "I assume our friendly neighborhood vaccine is now the law of the land."
"Twenty-two to nothing."
"With one abstention."
"With one abstention. The first dose is scheduled to be given in a few days."
"The first of millions."
"Tens of millions, thank you," she corrected glumly.
"It's not ready," he said.
She brightened up.
"You have proof?"
"Not exactly. But as I told you before, we're closing in on something."
"Tell me."
Rudy looked at her kindly, then shook his head.
"You first," he said. "I'm a patient man, but there's a hole the size of Georgia in the middle of this conversation."
"I'm sorry, Rudy. I know how worried you used to get about me after Howard left. I wanted to tell you what caused me to abstain without having you get too upset. I just couldn't figure out how."
"Now, that's what I call one hell of an interest-piquer."
Ellen smiled ironically.
"I suppose it is," she said. "I'm sorry. You know me, the queen of worrying about people worrying. Rudy, the day before yesterday a man broke into my house and was waiting for me when I got home. He was huge and reeked of cigarette smoke, and had a thick scar right here above his lip. He sat there smiling while he produced pictures of Lucy, at school, in the yard, even one in her bedroom, and implied that she would be kidnapped and killed in a horrible way if I cast the vote that sent Omnivax back to the drawing board."
Rudy exhaled, whistling softly. "I'm sad to say I'm not that surprised. This big daddy vaccine means a lot of things and a lot of money to a lot of people. You can describe the bastard?"
"Of course, but what does that accomplish?"
"It's a start."
"He was so damn sure of himself, Rudy. He just sat there smirking, knowing there wasn't a single thing I could do except listen. He said that if I went to the police, they would be able to do nothing, and he would find out."
Ellen felt herself beginning to unravel. She bit on her lip and brushed some tears away with the back of her hand.
"He's probably right on both accounts," Rudy said. "I'm really sick that this happened to you." He reached over and awkwardly patted her hand. "Was there anything else you remember?"
"After he finished threatening Lucy, he made a call from his cell phone and a car pulled up. He walked out of the house as calmly as any door-to-door salesman and drove off, just like that. I tried to get the license number of the car, but it was gone too quickly."
"Did he say anything at all that gave a hint as to who had hired him?"
Ellen shook her head. "I don't think so. He said he was employed by someone who wished to get Omnivax into circulation as soon as possible. I asked if he worked for President Marquand or the drug companies, but he brushed that off."
"I wonder," Rudy said. "My money's on someone on the manufacturing end of all this. From what I know about Lynette Marquand, I doubt she's capable of hiring someone like this, but I can't speak for her staff — or her husband's, for that matter."
"Wait, he said 'employers.' Plural. I remember that distinctly."
"Well, here's some paper. I'd like you to write down every single thing you can remember about the man. His appearance, clothes, mannerisms, phrases he said, everything."
"What good'll that do?"
"I don't really know yet, but as my granny used to say, it couldn't hurt. Maybe something you forgot will pop into your mind."
"Maybe. I want to find him, Rudy. I want to find him and… and hurt him. I close my eyes at night and there's his hideous face leering at me. I wake up in the middle of dreams, soaked in sweat. Early this morning I actually got sick. I wanted so much to go to the police, but after what he said, I just couldn't."
"Easy does it, El. I'll help you. If he's out there, we'll find him. But first, get the facts down on paper. You know me. I need data. Let me get you some more tea while you do that."
"Then you'll tell me what's been going on with you?" "Then I'll tell you," Rudy said.
Rudy's study was the small second floor of the cabin, once an attic. The skylights, beamed cathedral ceiling, knotty pine paneling, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves helped make the room as comfortable as the man. Occupying much of the space was a large oak desk bearing a computer and other sophisticated electronics. A reading area with two worn leather easy chairs and a shared ottoman took up the rest. By the lone window, a telescope looked out across the yard toward the pond.
After she had finished writing down what she remembered of the well-dressed, well-spoken killer, Ellen kicked her shoes off and settled into one of the easy chairs. Rudy took the other. As he stretched his legs onto the ottoman, his bare foot brushed against hers. He quickly pulled it away and muttered an apology, his expression a strange mix of embarrassment and… and what? Ellen wondered. Then she noticed the heightened color in his cheeks.
"So?" she asked, as he replaced his foot on the ottoman a respectable distance from hers.
"Well, you know the problem I've been encountering trying to check up on this Omnivax. It isn't that there are any incriminating research data, there aren't. It's that, for a project this massive, there ain't that much data at all. And as a statistician, I like playing around with piles and piles of data almost as much as I like fishin'. The megavaccine has been field-tested, but not in any controlled way, and the components have all been tested individually and in some combinations, though not in any controlled way, either. Every piece of this lummox of a vaccine seems to work just fine, but only as far as it's been evaluated. I have no doubt that Omnivax protects people against every infection they say it does."
"I hear a but coming on."
"But, if this were a new arthritis medicine or birth-control pill, there is no way it would have been approved for general use on numbers this scant."
"To the best of my knowledge there has never been a tightly controlled double blind study of a vaccine."
"To the best of my knowledge, that is correct. Physicians and the pharmaceutical industry and some of my dear old friends at the CDC and FDA would rather take the chance there are no problems with a vaccine than risk depriving the public of protection against even one a them goldurn microbial buggers."
"Go on."
"Well, like I think I told you, I decided to focus what little time and resources we had on examining the weakest links in the Omnivax chain. So I weeded through the blocks of data available on each of the less common disorders — what I call the fringe players. And like I mentioned, this vaccine against Lassa fever heads that list. It's relatively new. So are the outbreaks of infection it was created to protect us against. It was approved for general use by the FDA about ten years ago. From a statistical point of view — my statistical point of view, at least — it was rushed into use too soon."