"You're saying it's a hell of a stretch between putting some new cells into a baboon's head, and fixing your dad."

"Exactly."

"How long would it take to cover that ground?"

"Well, I don't know. It's never been done before. But I would think it would take at least five or ten years, if everything went well."

"Why would they-"

"They're neurosurgeons, Mel. Neurosurgeons are the ultimate macho shitheads of the medical world. Nobody can stand them. Their solution to everything is cold steel. But they can never really do anything."

"What do you mean? Cutting a hole in a guy's brain seems like doing a hell of a lot."

"But there's no cure for most neuro problems. They can chop out a tumor or a hematoma. But they can't really cure the important problems, and, because they are macho shitheads, that drives them crazy. Clearly, that's the motivation behind this research. And the inflated claims."

Mel pondered this one for a while.

Mary Catherine sipped on her club soda and watched Mel ponder it. As usual, it seemed that his affair had a lot of dimensions that he wasn't telling her about. A gray winter light was shining in through the window, bringing all of the wrinkles in Mel's face into high relief, and suddenly the look on his face seemed frighteningly intense to her. "This is a tough one," he finally said, shaking his head. "Too much emotional shit getting in the way. Can't think straight."

"What are you thinking, Mel?"

Mel shook his head. "Five or ten years. See, I haven't really talked to anyone yet. All I get is feelers. These feelers are so subtle I can't even tell if they are really there. Like this here" - he pointed to the photograph and the papers - "came in the guise of a fund-raising mailing. They wanted to now if your dad wanted to contribute to this thing. But it's no coincidence. I know that for damn sure."

"Have they offered to fix Dad's brain, or not?"

"Absolutely not, and you can bet they never will," Mel said. "They will wait for us to ask them. That way, if it goes wrong, it was our idea. But from the way they are acting, you would think that they were ready to put him under the knife tomorrow."

"So here is the sixty-four thousand dollar question," Mary Catherine said. "Does Dad believe that these people can fix him up? Does he believe it enough to keep him from killing himself?"

"For now, definitely. He won't do it today, or tomorrow. But..." Mel stopped in midsentence.

"But if I blab my big mouth and say that this is highly speculative and might be five or ten years down the road, that's different," Mary Catherine said.

"I don't like to put this pressure on you," Mel said, "but yeah, I think you have a point there." He reached across the table, grabbed the photograph, and held it up. "This keeps him alive. It's his hope. It's all he has right now."

"Well, that's good," Mary Catherine said.

Mel gave her a penetrating look. "How is it good?"

She was taken aback by the question. "It keeps him alive, like you said. And even if it does take five or ten years before this surgery can be performed, we can keep his hope alive until then. And then, maybe someday, we'll have him back."

Mel stared at her morosely. "Shit. You've got it too."

"Got what?"

"That same look on your face as Willy had when I told him about this." Mel slapped the picture facedown on the table, broke eye contact, looked out the window, started rubbing his chin.

"What are you thinking about?" she prompted him after a few minutes.

"Same thing as ever. Power." Mel said. "Power and how it works." He heaved a big sigh. "The power that some unheard-of thing called the Radhakrishnan Institute is suddenly wielding over the Cozzanos." He heaved another big sigh. "And over me."

"Your emotions getting in the way?"

"Yeah."

"Get a detached opinion, then."

"That's a good idea. I should talk to Sipes down there at the U."

"Don't. Sipes is a big-time researcher in these fields."

"So he's a good guy to talk to, right?"

"Not necessarily. That means he has theories of his own. Theories that may compete with Radhakrishnan's."

"Good point. Very devious thinking by your standards," Mel said with cautious admiration. "Why don't you go check it out yourself?"

Mary Catherine was startled. She blushed slightly. "I thought the idea was to be objective," she said.

"Objective is nice, it's a cute idea," Mel said, "but there's nothing like family, is there?"

"Well-"

"Suppose we did find some supposedly objective doctor to check this Radhakrishnan thing out for us. Would you really take his word for it?"

"No," she admitted, "I'd want to go and see this thing for myself, before Dad went under the knife."

"Done. I'll hire you, on an hourly basis, as a medical consultant for Cozzano Charities," Mel said. "Your job will be to investigate the medical qualifications of research programs that we are considering donating to. And right now we are considering a donation to the Radhakrishnan Institute."

"Mel, I'm a resident. I can't take time off."

"That," Mel said, "is a political problem between Cozzano Charities and the director of your fine hospital. And I have been known to involve myself in politics from time to time."

14

During the wintry depths of his depression, his seasonal affective disorder in Elton, New Mexico, Dr. Radhakrishnan would have settled for any kind of surgery at all. He would sit in his house, looking out the windows into the dim blue light, which would sift down from the sky like a gradual snowfall, and watch the neighbors' dogs sniff and dig into snow-banks, and wonder how one went about getting one's hands on a dog, and whether it was technically illegal to do brain surgery on one, just for practice. Now that he was back in the saddle, though, he was starting to get picky. In this phase of the project, they were working on Mr. Easyrider and Mr. Scatflinger, not their real names. The samples of brain tissue that had been overnight-expressed to Dr. Radhakrishnan in Elton had belonged to these two men.

It was not entirely clear what their real names were. Both of the patients were in the category of found objects. Neither one was neurologically equipped to identify himself, and if either of them had been in the habit of carrying identification, it had been removed by other persons before they had come under the purview of the authorities. Before Dr. Radhakrishnan arrived to impose some sense of decorum on the Barracks, the Americans (naturally) had come up with these names. Like everything else that bubbled up over the rim of the icky cultural stewpot of America, the names were pervasive and sticky and could not be scrubbed off once applied. Actually, for a while they had referred to Mr. Scatflinger as Mr. Shitpitcher, but this was completely unacceptable - the nurses could not even bring themselves to say it - and so Dr. Radhakrishnan had changed it.

Mr. Easyrider had been run over by a motorcycle. They could not be positive about this, since there were no witnesses to the event, but the motorcycle track running over the side of his head provided telling circumstantial evidence. The resulting trauma had caused a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is to say that a blood vessel had burst inside his head and bled internally, killing part of the brain.

Mr. Scatflinger, nee Shitpitcher, had been employed in heaving cow manure on to a trailer. The trailer had tipped, an avalanche had taken place, and his legs had been underneath it. There were major broken bones. A fat embolism formed at the site of one of these breaks, passed up into his heart, and then apparently crossed over from one side of his heart to the other through a small congenital hole. From there it was pumped straight up his carotid artery into his brain where it caused a massive stroke. This was known as a paradoxical embolism.