Jeffrey was abreast of the liquor store when he spotted a police car heading in his direction. Without a moment’s hesitation, he ducked into the store. The jangle of bells attached to the door wore on Jeffrey’s nerves.
As crazy as it seemed, he didn’t know whom he was more afraid of, the street people or the police.
“Can I help you?” a bearded man asked from behind a counter. The police car slowed, then went past. Jeffrey took a breath. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Can I help you?” the clerk repeated.
Jeffrey bought a pint-sized bottle of vodka. If the police cruised back, he wanted his visit to the store to appear legitimate. But it wasn’t necessary. When he emerged from the store, the police car was nowhere in sight. Relieved, Jeffrey turned to the right, intending to hurry. But he pulled up short, practically
colliding with one of the homeless men he’d seen earlier. Startled, Jeffrey raised his free hand to protect himself.
“Got any spare change, buddy?” the man asked unsteadily. He was obviously drunk. He had a fresh cut just by his temple. One of the lenses of his black-rimmed glasses was cracked.
Jeffrey recoiled from the man. He was about Jeffrey’s height but with dark, almost black hair. His face was covered with a heavy stubble, suggesting he’d not shaved for a month. But what caught Jeffrey’s attention was the man’s clothes. He was dressed in a tattered suit complete with a button-down blue oxford shirt that was soiled and missing a few buttons. He had on a regimental striped tie that was loosened at the collar and spotted with green stains. Jeffrey’s impression was that the man had dressed for work one day, then never gone home.
“What’s the matter?” the man asked in a wavering, drunken voice. “Don’t you speak English?”
Jeffrey dug into his trouser pocket for the change he’d received from his purchase of vodka. As he dropped the money in the man’s palm, Jeffrey studied his face. His eyes, though glassy, looked kind. Jeffrey wondered what had driven the man to such desperate circumstances. He felt an odd kinship with this homeless person and his unknown plight. He shuddered to think of how fine a line separated him from a similar fate. The identification was made easier since the man appeared to be close to
Jeffrey’s age.
As he’d expected, Jeffrey hailed a taxi easily at the nearby luxury hotel.
From there it took only fifteen minutes to get out to Harvard’s medical area. It was just a little after eleven when Jeffrey walked into the
Countway Medical Library.
Among the books and narrow study cubicles, Jeffrey felt at home. He used one of the computer terminals to get the call numbers for several books on the physiology of the autonomic nervous system and the pharmacology of local anesthetics. With these books in hand he went into one of the carrels facing the inner court and closed the door. Within minutes he was lost in the intricacies of nerve impulse conduction.
It wasn’t long before Jeffrey understood why Chris had highlighted the word
“nicotinic.” Although most people thought of nicotine as an active ingredient in cigarettes, it was actually a drug, more specifically a poison, which caused a stimulation and then blockade of autonomic ganglia.
Many of the symptoms associated with nicotine were the same as those caused by muscarine: salivation, sweating, abdominal pain, and lacrimation-the
very same symptoms that had appeared in Patty Owen and Henry Noble. It even caused death in surprisingly low concentrations.
All this meant to Jeffrey that if he was thinking of a contaminant, it would have to have been a compound that mirrored local anesthetics to an extent, something like nicotine. But it couldn’t have been nicotine, thought Jeffrey. The toxicology report on Henry Noble had been negative; something like nicotine would have shown up.
If there had been a contaminant it would also have to have been in an extremely small, nanomolar amount. Therefore it would have to have been something extraordinarily potent. As to what that could have been, Jeffrey hadn’t a clue. But in his reading Jeffrey stumbled across something he’d remembered from medical school, but had not thought of since. Botulinum toxin, one of the most toxic substances known to man, mirrored local anesthetics in its ability to “freeze” neural cell membranes at the synapse. Yet Jeffrey knew he was not seeing botulinum poisoning. Its symptoms were totally different; muscarinic effects were blocked, not stimulated.