Frameshift

“Isn’t it more than just luck, Mr. Bullen?”

Bullen was becoming visibly annoyed. “We strive for good management.

I don’t suppose you’ve read Milton Friedman, but—”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” said Pierre. He was pleased to see Bullen’s eyebrows go up — but Friedman had won the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics. “I know he asked the question, ‘Do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible?’”

Bullen nodded. “And Friedman’s answer was, No, they do not.”

“But staying within the law is the key point, no? And that’s very hard to do.”

“I thought you had something to tell me about the Human Genome Project,” said Bullen, his face reddening. He placed the cap back on his pen.

Pierre’s heart was pounding so loudly he suspected Bullen and Molly could both hear it. He was suddenly confused. It had been happening more and more lately, but he’d been denying it to himself. That Huntington’s had already robbed him of much of his physical prowess he could accept, but that it also was bound to affect his mind was something he’d been refusing to deal with. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to remember what he was supposed to say next. “Mr. Bullen, I believe your company is illegally taking genetic samples from its policy applicants.”

Molly’s eyes went wide. As soon as the words were out, Pierre realized he’d said the precise thing they’d decided he would not say. All he’d intended to do was steer the conversation lightly around the issue, letting Molly listen to his thoughts. But now…

Bullen looked first at Pierre, then at Molly sitting next to him, then back at Pierre. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said slowly.

What to do? Try to backtrack? But the accusation was out, and Bullen was clearly on guard now. “I’ve seen the pens,” said Pierre.

Bullen shrugged. “There’s nothing illegal about them.”

To press on? Surely that was the only thing to do. “You’re collecting tissue samples without permission.”

Bullen leaned back in his chair and spread his arms. “Dr. Tardivel, that chair you’re sitting in is upholstered in leather, and today is a nice, hot summer’s day, even with the air-conditioning. Your forearm is probably sticking to the chair’s arm, no? When you lift up your arm, your skin will peel away from it, and you’ll leave many hundreds of skin cells behind on the chair. I could freely collect those. If you used my bathroom” — he gestured at an unmarked door set into the redwood paneling — “and left a bowel movement in the toilet bowl, there would be thousands upon thousands of sloughed-off epithelial cells from your intestines coating the feces, and I could collect those, too. If you shed a hair with attached follicle, or spit out some mouth wash in my sink, or blew your nose, or did any of hundreds of other things, I could collect samples of your DNA without you knowing it. My lawyers tell me there’s absolutely nothing illegal about picking up material people are dropping all the time anyway.”

“But you’re not just collecting cells,” said Pierre. “You’re using the information to determine which policyholders are likely to submit expensive claims.”

Bullen raised his hand, palms out. “Only in general terms, so we can plan responsibly. It lets my statisticians forecast the dollar value in claims payouts we’ll likely have to make to existing policyholders in the future — and that is to the policyholders’ benefit, actually. We were totally unprepared for all the claims related to AIDS, for instance; there was a while there in the late eighties when we thought we might have to file Chapter Eleven.”

“Chapter Eleven?”

“Bankruptcy, Dr. Tardivel. It doesn’t do a person much good to have a policy with a bankrupt insurer. This way, we’re able to responsibly plan for the claims we’ll have to pay.”

“I don’t think it’s that at all, Mr. Bullen. I think you’re doing it to avoid having to pay claims. I think you’re doing it to identify in advance and eliminate policyholders who will make substantial claims in the future.”

Molly shook her head slightly. Pierre knew he was going too far. Damn it, why couldn’t he think straight?

Bullen tipped his head to one side. “What?”

Pierre looked over at Molly, then back at Bullen. He took a deep breath, but it was too late now to stop. “Your company is killing people, isn’t it, Mr. Bullen? You arrange the murder of anyone you discover might make a big claim against you.”

“Dr. Tardivel — if you are a doctor — I think you should leave.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” said Pierre, wanting to resolve it once and for all.

“You killed Joan Dawson. You killed Bryan Proctor. You killed Peter Mansbridge. You killed Cathy Jurima. And you tried to have me killed, too — and probably would have tried again, except that that would have aroused too much suspicion.”

Bullen was on his feet now. “Rosalee!” he shouted. “Rosalee!”