The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [153]
“McVey’s in Paris,” he said, his eyes on the set.
“McVey’s in Paris,” Estelle said flatly. “So are a million other people. I wish we were in Paris.”
Abruptly he turned to her. “Estelle, go to work, huh?”
“You know somethin’ I don’t?”
“Honey, Estelle. Go to work. Please—”
Estelle Grossman stared at her husband. When he talked like that, it was cop talk that told her it was none of her business.
“Get some sleep.”
“Yeah.”
Estelle watched him for a minute, shook her head, then left. Sometimes she thought her husband cared for his friends and family too much. If they asked, he’d do anything, no matter how much it knocked him out. But when he got tired, as he was now, his imagination worked as much overtime as he did.
“Commander Noble, this is Benny Grossman, NYPD.”
Benny was still in his underwear, his notes spread out over the kitchen table. He’d called Noble because McVey had told him to, if he hadn’t called. And he had a real, almost psychic, sense that McVey wasn’t going to be calling, not today anyway.
In ten minutes he’d laid out what he’d uncovered:
—Alexander Thompson was an advanced computer programmer who had retired to Sheridan, Wyoming, from New York in 1962 for health reasons. While there, he was approached by a writer doing research for a science-fiction movie on computers to be made by a Hollywood studio. The writer’s name was Harry Simpson, the studio was American Pictures. Alexander Thompson was given twenty-five thousand dollars and asked to design a program that would instruct a computer to operate a machine that would hold and accurately guide a scalpel during surgery, in effect replacing the surgeon. It was all theory, science fiction, futurism, of course. It just had to be something that would actually work, even on a primitive level. In January 1966, Thompson delivered his program. Three days later he was found shot to death on a country road. Investigators found there was no Harry Simpson in Hollywood, nor was there a company called American Pictures. Nor was there any trace of Alexander Thompson’s computer program.
—David Brady designed precision tools for a small firm in Glendale, California. In 1964, controlling interest in the firm was bought by Alama Steel, Ltd. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Brady was put to work to design a mechanical arm that could be electronically driven, that would have the same range of motion as a human wrist and be capable of holding and controlling a scalpel with extreme precision during surgery. He had completed his working drawings and turned them in for review just forty-eight hours before he was found in the family swimming pool. Drowning was ruled out. Brady had an ice pick in his heart. Two weeks later, Alama Steel went out of business and the company closed down. Brady’s drawings were never found. As far as Benny had been able to ascertain, Alama Steel never existed. Paycheck stubs were traced back to a company called Wentworth Products Ltd. of Ontario, Canada. Wentworth Products went out of business the same week Alama Steel did.
—Mary Rizzo York, Ph.D., was a physicist working for Standard Technologies, of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, a firm specializing in low-temperature science and under contract to T.L.T. International, of Manhattan, a company involved in the shipping of frozen meat from Australia and New Zealand to Britain and France. At some time during the summer of 1965, T.L.T. moved to diversify, and Mary York was asked to develop a working program that would allow shipment of liquefied natural gas in refrigerated supertankers. The idea was that cold liquefies gas, and since natural gas could not be sent across oceans by pipeline, it could be liquefied and sent by ship. To do that, Mary York began experiments with extreme cold, working first with liquid nitrogen, a gas that liquefies at minus 196 degrees centigrade or, approximately, minus 385 degrees Fahrenheit. After that she experimented with liquid hydrogen and later with liquefying helium, the last gas to liquefy as the temperature