the Third Twin (1996)

“I’m with Lee Ho, one of the senior accountants from Landsmann. We’re going over the final details of Genetico’s disclosure statement.”

“Get him the fuck out of there,”

Preston’s voice faded as he moved the phone away from his face. “I’m sorry, Lee, this is going to take a while. I’ll catch up with you later.” There was a pause, and he spoke into the mouthpiece again. Now his voice was peevish. “That was Michael Madigan’s right-hand man I just threw out. Madigan is the CEO of Landsmann, in case you’ve forgotten. If you’re still as keen on this takeover as you were last night, we’d better not—”

Berrington ran out of patience and interrupted him. “Steven Logan is here.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. “At Jones Falls?”

“Right here in the psychology building.”

Preston immediately forgot Lee Ho. “Jesus Christ, how come?”

“He’s a subject, he’s undergoing tests in the laboratory.” Preston’s voice went up an octave. “How the hell did that happen?”

“I don’t know. I ran into him five minutes ago. Imagine my surprise.”

“You just recognized him?”

“Of course I recognized him.”

“Why’s he being tested?”

“It’s part of our twins study.”

“Twins?” Preston yelled. “Twins? Who’s the other goddamn twin?”

“I don’t know yet. Look, something like this was sure to happen sooner or later.”

“But now of all times! We’ll have to pull out of the Landsmann deal.”

“Hell, no! I’m not going to let you use this as an excuse for going wobbly on the takeover, Preston.” Now Berrington wished he had not made this call. But he had needed to share his shock with someone. And Preston could be an astute strategic thinker. “We just have to find a way to control the situation.”

“Who brought Steve Logan into the university?”

“The new associate professor we just hired, Dr. Ferrami.”

“The guy who wrote that terrific paper on criminality?”

“Yes, except it’s a woman. A very attractive woman, as a matter of fact—”

“I don’t care if she’s Sharon fucking Stone—”

“I assume she recruited Steven to the project. She was with him when I met him. I’ll check.”

“That’s the key to it, Berry.” Preston was calming down now and focusing on the solution, not the problem. “Find out how he was recruited. Then we can begin to assess how much danger we’re in.”

“I’ll get her in here right away.”

“Call me right back, okay?”

“Sure.” Berrington hung up.

However, he did not call Jeannie immediately. Instead he sat and collected his thoughts.

On his desk was an old monochrome photograph of his father as a second lieutenant, resplendent in his white naval uniform and cap. Berrington had been six years old when the Wasp went down. Like every small boy in America, he had hated the Japs and played games in which he slaughtered them by the dozen in his imagination. And his daddy was an invincible hero, tall and handsome, brave and strong and all-conquering. He could still feel the overpowering rage that had gripped him when he had found out the Japs had killed Daddy. He had prayed to God to make the war go on long enough for him to grow up and join the navy himself and kill a million Japs in revenge.

He had never killed anyone. But he had never hired a Japanese employee or admitted a Japanese student to a school or offered a Japanese psychologist a job.

A lot of men, faced with a problem, asked themselves what their father would have done about it. Friends had told him this: It was a privilege he would never have. He had been too young to get to know his father. He had no idea what Lieutenant Jones would have done in a crisis. He had never really had a father, just a superhero.

He would question Jeannie Ferrami about her recruitment methods. Then, he decided, he would ask her to have dinner with him.

He called Jeannie’s internal number. She picked up right away. He lowered his voice and spoke in a tone that his ex-wife, Vivvie, used to call furry. “Jeannie, it’s Berry,” he said.

She was characteristically direct. “What the heck is going on?” she said.

“Could I talk to you for a minute, please?”

“Sure.”

“Would you mind stepping into my office?”

“I’ll be right there.” She hung up.

As he waited for her, he wondered idly how many women he had bedded. It would take too long to recall them one by one, but maybe he could approximate scientifically. It was more than one, more than ten certainly. Was it more than a hundred? That would be two point five per year since he was nineteen: he had certainly had more than that. A thousand? Twenty-five per year, a new woman every two weeks for forty years? No, he had not done that well. During the ten years he had been married to Vivvie Ellington he had probably had no more than fifteen or twenty adulterous liaisons in total. But he had made up for it afterward. Somewhere between a hundred and a thousand, then. But he was not going to take Jeannie to bed. He was going to find out how the hell she had come into contact with Steve Logan.