"This is getting weird," Mel said.

"I don't want to wash a duck," Cozzano said. "I just want to bring the trousers."

"Understood," Mary Catherine said, "but I'm here to talk about the credibility of this process. And the point I'm making here is that it is extremely credible as far as the people at Pacific Netware are concerned."

"Okay, we got that point," Mel said. "Tell me about the institute."

"Beautiful piece of real estate on the California coast. Very secluded. Has its own private airport. Lots of open space for recreation."

Once again, Mel Meyer and the Governor were exchanging significant looks. "A guy - even a famous guy - could get in and out of the place without being noticed?"

"Mel, you could fly in, go down the road to this institute, sun yourself in the courtyard, swim on the beach, and no one would ever see you."

"Read me the blueprints," Cozzano said.

"You want some information about the building?" Mary Catherine guessed.

"Yes."

"The building is nice and new, like everything else. Some parts of it aren't even finished yet. There's an incredible operating theater, which looked like it was finished, but there's no way to tell that without actually going in and trying to do brain surgery there. And the actual rooms are luxurious. All private rooms. Big windows with balconies over the ocean. The patients hang out on the balconies, watch TV, listen to CDs, or whatever."

"You actually saw patients there?" Mel said.

"Yes. But because of privacy considerations, I couldn't go to their rooms or talk to them. I saw one or two, from a distance, sitting out on the balconies in their wheelchairs, reading news­papers or just staring into the distance."

"You saw patients there. Which means they have actually done operations on human beings," Mel said.

"I guess that's the conclusion we are led to," Mary Catherine said.

"Well put. Well put," Mel said.

"You think we are being led to a false conclusion?" Mary Catherine said incredulously.

"No way to know, is there?"

"There's a couple of small things," she said, a little uncertain.

"Tell us everything," Mel said. "We'll decide what's small and what isn't."

"I went to the bathroom at one point and washed my hands. And when I turned on the faucet, it sort of coughed."

"Coughed?"

"Yeah. Sputtered for a few seconds. As if there was air trapped in the pipes. It used to happen here, whenever Dad worked on the plumbing."

At first, Mel shook his head, not getting it. Then his eyes widened with astonishment. Then they narrowed in fascination. "You were the first person ever to use the faucet in the ladies' room," Mel said.

"Goddamn it! I think you are wrong," Cozzano said to Mel.

"Since parts of the building were still under construction, it's possible that they had to alter some of the pipes after that sink had been in use for a while," Mary Catherine said, "and that this caused air bubbles to be introduced."

"Please continue," Mel said. He was acting like a lawyer in a courtroom now, interviewing a neutral witness.

"I wandered around the grounds a little bit. It's a nice place for a stroll. And on the bluff, overlooking the sea, a few hundred yards away from the building, behind a little rise, I found the remains of a fire. Someone had piled up a bunch of straw there and burned it."

"Straw?" Mel said.

Cozzano nodded. "It keeps the patio slippery."

"When we used to pour concrete on the farm, we would cover it up with damp straw. You have to keep concrete damp for several days, preferably a week or two, while it cures," Mary Catherine said. "So it's not surprising that they would have a bunch of straw lying around a place where they were building a big reinforced-concrete building. There are a lot of ranches nearby and it's a natural thing for them to use. When I walked back from the site of the fire to the building, I saw a lot of pieces of loose straw caught in the undergrowth, and many of them were stained white with concrete. Some of the straw was still damp."

"So when they were finished, they got rid of the straw by dragging it to this place and burning it," Mel said.

"Yeah. They burned it the night before," Mary Catherine said.

"How do you know that?" Cozzano said.

Mary Catherine held up the little finger on her right hand. The tip was cherry red. "I made the mistake of sticking my finger down into the bed of ashes."

Mel said, "They got rid of the straw right before you got there."

"It was lying around somewhere after they finished the building," Mary Catherine said. "They knew that I was coming and they wanted the place to look tidy, so they burned it."

"What about the goddamn patients? What about other potential contributors? Don't they want the place to look tidy for those people too?" Mel said. "What's so special about you?"

"It was just a coincidence," Cozzano said.

"I think they finished the building the day before you got there," Mel said.

Everyone except Mel burst out in nervous laughter.

"Bullshit," Cozzano said.

"Mel you showed me a photograph of the place two and a half, three weeks ago," Mary Catherine said. She said it kiddingly. She knew what Mel was up to here. It was just like him to state things in the most exaggerated, overstated way possible, just to shake people up.

"There was something funny about that photograph. It was too clean-looking. I think it was fake," Mel said.

Cozzano shook his head and twirled one finger around his ear. There was no point arguing with Mel when he had shifted into full combat mode.

"They have ways of faking that stuff now," Mel insisted.

"And the patients I saw?"

"Actors."

"What are you getting at, Mel?" Mary Catherine said. She said it with one eye on Dad; she was trying to anticipate the kinds of things he would say if he could. "I can't think of any logical explanation for what you are saying."

"I can. Here's how it goes: Coover runs into that guy from Pacific Netware. Kevin Tice. They run into each other golfing or something. And Coover tells Tice about this guy Radhakrishnan and his work with baboons. Coover is a tired old guy with a soft spot, he just thinks of it as a way to help stroke victims. But Tice is a big idea man, he reads too much science fiction, he's not satisfied with just being a billionaire, he wants to have a supercomputer in his head as well. Because if what you are saying is true, then this process of putting chips into people's heads will one day be huge. It's the kind of technology that Tice has to get a jump on right now so he can become the world's first trillionaire a couple of decades down the road.

"So Tice starts pumping money into it for his own purposes. They continue working with baboons, maybe even round up some untouchables in Calcutta or somewhere and do it to them so they can learn how to do it on humans. And then, all of a sudden, Governor Cozzano has a stroke. And Tice and Coover see a big opportunity. By fixing the brain of someone who is powerful and famous they can jumpstart this new industry of theirs. So they go out and build this thing in California. I'll bet it 'was already under construction and they just hurried up the process a little bit. Just got it done yesterday in time to impress Dr. Mary Catherine Cozzano here. But she was a little too observant."

"Bullshit," Cozzano said.

"If what you say is true," Mary Catherine said, "then the worst conclusion we can come to is that they really want Dad as a client, and they've pushed their schedule up in order to make a good impression on him."

Mel thought that one over for a while. Cozzano, obviously amused, watched Mel's face. "I don't like the idea of them using Willy as a guinea pig," Mel said.

"Phooey," Cozzano said. "Better a dead pioneer than a live feeb."