Vince Lucas listened without expression and sipped his tea. He was dressed elegantly in a gray flannel sport coat, white shirt, and silk paisley tie. A fat gold Rolex peered out from his wrist. With his slick black hair and tan, he looked like an Italian movie star.

"We're working on it, but unless we eliminate it, it'll never be marketed."

They were sitting in the lounge of Boston's new Four Seasons Hotel. Seven months from now Quentin was scheduled to pay Vince Lucas the first $2 million he owed him for his loan-and his life-the same amount to be paid the following July 1. That was on top of the $5 million he had already wired Antoine for the apricots. Nine million dollars in debt and nothing to show but some hideous monkey carcasses.

"But I think there's something we can do."

Vince looked at him with those unreadable black eyes. "I'm listening."

"But it's not legal."

"Now we're home."

The waiter came with a second Chivas. Quentin took sip then explained. "I'm thinking a deep-pocket clientele would pay serious money for an endless supply of Elixir. People who like their privacy."

"Howard Hughes is dead."

"I mean your Consortium."

The suggestion hung in the air. Vince sipped his tea patiently.

"Well, I'm thinking that maybe you and Antoine can approach them with the idea… a chance to live indefinitely, and what they would pay for it."

Vince lay his glass on the table. "The Consortium is not a club for rich hermits," he said. "What happens when the kid who used to drive your limo meets you twenty years later and he's forty-five and you're the same? You tell him you're taking some secret youth potion?"

"By then we'll have worked the bugs out, and the stuff would be on the market. I mean in the meantime. Like, you know, now."

Vince thought that over. "How long to get the bugs out?"

"Three years, four the most."

"Sounds like a trap, if you ask me."

"How's it a trap?"

"Say the Consortium is interested. They'll want a guarantee they can still get the stuff without any hitches or sudden price inflation."

"We'll give them written guarantees."

"Enforced by what authorities?"

Quentin looked at him without an answer.

"Another thing: Say you run out of raw materials again, or the Feds find out you're dealing in illegal pharmaceuticals and shut you down. What happens to your clientele? It's not like some junkie's supplier runs dry and they can tap another. People want peace of mind."

"We can work out some foolproof trust."

"No such thing." Vince removed a single almond from the dish of nuts and chewed it, all the while turning something over in his head. "You say Elixir still works on the primates as long as they get a constant supply?"

"Yes."

"Before you go looking for takers, you might want to see if it works on real human beings. Otherwise nobody's interested."

"That's the problem. We can't just walk into a clinic and ask who wants to volunteer for a longevity study that ends in death."

"Volunteers can be appointed."

Quentin looked at him blankly as the words sunk in. "I see."

"The real problem is at your end-getting people to make the stuff without the FDA finding out."

"Subcontractors," Quentin said. He had already worked that out. Outside jobbers would manufacture the compound-and nobody would know its purpose, and nobody would ask questions. And no worry about protocol.

Vince nodded as Quentin explained. "What about your lab people? Any problems there?"

Quentin finished his drink and ordered a third. "That's something I think we should talk about."

Adam blew a bubble, and Wendy laughed joyously.

It was two days before Christmas, and she was bathing him in the kitchen sink, thinking how full of love she was for her baby boy, who was giddy with laughter as she rubbed the washcloth across his pink little body. It was a small moment among the millions of her life but one she wished she could freeze forever.

She knew, of course, the notion was silly. If you could freeze such moments, how would they remain blissful? Joy was an experience defined by contrasts to lesser moments. Besides, there would be others.

As she dressed Adam for bed, she felt Elixir coil around her mind like a snake. At moments like these, she understood its allure.

She could hear Chris's words: "The trouble with life is that it's 100 percent fatal."

And: "I've never died before, Wendy, and I don't want to learn how."

And: "Think how many books you could write if you had another fifty or hundred years. You could be the Dorothy Sayers of the twenty-first century.

There was almost no escaping it. One night a few weeks ago, they watched a rerun of The Philadelphia Story. Before a commercial break, a young, handsome Jimmy Stewart turned to twenty-two-year-old Katherine Hepburn and said, "There's a magnificence in you, Tracy that comes out of your eyes and your voice and the way you stand there and the way you walk. You're lit from within…" While Chris got up for another beer, he wondered aloud how painful it must be for the eighty-year-old Hepburn, now wrinkled and palsied, to see herself in reruns. She probably didn't watch them, he concluded. Wendy's response was that Kate Hepburn was supposed to grow old and die. Painful as it was, she had no doubt accepted that. As we all must.

It was a good response, like her usual caveats about tampering with Nature, or her old standby: "'Death is the mother of Beauty.'"

With Adam in her arms, Wendy felt that the Stevens line never made better sense. Such moments were beautiful because they didn't freeze. Besides, all the animals had died from withdrawal, which meant it would be years before human testing, maybe never. She could only hope.

The telephone rang, jarring her out of the moment. Her first thought was Chris. He was at a two-day conference on cell biology in Philadelphia. But it was Quentin Cross.

"Chris said you were having trouble landing accommodations in the Caribbean."

"That's what happens when you make plans at the last minute," Wendy said. "Everything's been booked for months."

"Well, coincidentally, we've got a time-sharing condo at La Palmas on the east coast of Puerto Rico that's free for the first two weeks in February, if that interests you. Margaret and I go down every year, but with Ross's retirement and all the things going on, we're going to have to pass this time around. But you guys can go in our place," he said.

"Are you serious?"

Quentin chuckled good-naturedly. "Yes, and it's on us, free of charge."

"Oh, Quentin, I'm speechless. How generous of you!"

"The only catch is that you have to book with the airlines today. I hope you don't mind, but, just in case, I took the liberty of making reservations in your names. All you have to do is call Eastern and confirm. But it has to be today. What do you think?"

"My God, yes, we'll take it!" Wendy said. "And thank you, Quentin. Thank you so much. Wow!"

"Well, think of it as a little token of appreciation for what Chris has done for us-and you, for standing by him all the way."

Thrilled, Wendy thanked him again. After she hung up, she called Eastern and confirmed their reservation, thinking, How considerate of Quentin. Maybe Chris had misjudged him.