Dylan said, ‘We’ve always been a great team, me and Shep.’
‘Team? Some team. You two couldn’t run a three-legged sack race without the sack ending up on somebody’s head.’
‘He ain’t heavy—’
‘Oh, don’t say it,’ she interrupted. ‘Don’t you dare say it, O’Conner. don’t you dare, you hope-drunk lunatic, you power-of-positive-thinking nutball.’
‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my—’
‘—idiot-savant brother,’ she finished for him.
Patiently, quietly, Dylan explained: ‘No. An idiot savant is mentally defective with a low IQ, but with an exceptional talent in one special field, such as the ability to solve complex mathematical problems at lightning speed or to play any musical instrument upon first picking it up. Shep’s got a high IQ, and he’s exceptional in more ways than one. He’s just… some kind of autistic.’
‘We’re doomed,’ she repeated.
Shepherd chewed another pat of butter with enthusiasm, all the while staring at his plate from a distance of just ten inches, as though he, like Dylan, had discovered the purpose of life, and as though that purpose were meat loaf.
19
Each time the door opened and a customer entered, Dylan tensed. The SUV crowd couldn’t have tracked them this fast. And yet…
The waitress brought the second round of beers, and after Jilly drew cold comfort from a swallow of Sierra Nevada, she said, ‘So we hole up somewhere around the Petrified Forest and… You said what? You said think?’
‘Think,’ Dylan confirmed.
‘Think about what, besides how to stay alive?’
‘Maybe we can figure out how to track down Frankenstein.’
‘You forget he’s dead?’ she asked.
‘I mean, track down who he was before they killed him.’
‘We don’t even have a name, except the one we made up.’
‘But he was evidently a scientist. Medical research. Developing psychotropic drugs, psychotropic stuff, psychotropic something, which gives us a key word. Scientists write papers, produce articles for journals, give lectures. They leave a trail.’
‘Intellectual breadcrumbs.’
‘Yeah. And if I think about it, I might remember more of what the bastard said back there in my motel room, other key words. With enough key words, we can go on the Internet and winnow through the researchers working to enhance brain function, related areas.’
‘I’m no tech whiz,’ she said. ‘Are you?’
‘No. But this search doesn’t take technical expertise, just patience. Even some of those stuffy science journals run photos of their contributors, and if he was near the top of his field, which it seems he must’ve been, then he’ll have gotten newspaper coverage. As soon as we find a photo, we have a name. Then we can read about him and find out what he’s been working on.’
‘Unless his research was all top secret, like the Manhattan Project, like the formula for fudge-covered Oreos.’
‘There you go again.’
‘Even if we get the full skinny on him,’ she said, ‘how does that help us?’
‘Maybe there’s a way to undo what he did to us. An antidote or something.’
‘Antidote. What – we toss frog tongues, bat wings, and lizard eyes in a big cauldron, stew them up with some broccoli?’
‘Here comes Negative Jackson, vortex of pessimism. The folks at DC Comics ought to develop a new superhero around you. They go in for brooding, depressive superheroes these days.’
‘And you’re a Disney book. All sugar and talking chipmunks.’
In a Wile E. Coyote T-shirt, hunched over his dinner plate, Shep snickered, either because the Disney crack rang his bell or because he found the remaining meat loaf amusing.
Shepherd wasn’t always as disconnected as he appeared to be.
‘What I’m saying,’ Dylan continued, ‘is that maybe his work was controversial. And if so, then it’s possible some of his colleagues opposed his research. One of them will understand what was done to us – and might be willing to help.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘and if a lot of money is needed to finance the research to find this antidote, we can always get a few billion from your uncle Scrooge McDuck.’
‘You have a better idea?’
She stared at him as she drank her beer. One swallow. Two.
‘I didn’t think so,’ he said.
Later, when the waitress brought the check, Jilly insisted on paying for the two beers that she’d ordered.