Chemistry Set

Dr. Leyton elbowed his way through the door with a briefcase in one hand and a hot cup of 7-Eleven coffee in the other.  Sylvia and Mallory sat together on the receptionist’s desk, laughing.  Leyton went to a table, opened the case and made a show of sorting through the contents.  When he felt sufficiently collected, he put on his casual grin and turned to the others.  The façade held firm while he considered his partner, but shattered like glass when he got to the girl. 

Her face was so sweet it was painful—like looking into the sun—and her long blonde hair seemed to shimmer in the radiance.  The outfit she wore of flannel and denim only highlighted, by understatement, a wonder of hill and dale beneath, and her scent—well, that haunted him through each workday, and infused his troubled dream-world by night…

“Good morning, Bernard,” she said, and his throat became dry and incapable of speech.  He raised the cup for a sip of scalding liquid.

“Morning Sylvia, Jim,” he managed.  (Her smile was a miracle of moist white teeth; his partner’s the usual smirk.)

“Let’s see what Bernie thinks,” said Mallory, placing a hand on the young woman’s thigh.  She seemed oblivious to the contact, but Leyton flushed with anger.  He was taunting him, the swine, flouting their intimacy.  And it was working like a charm; his blood pressure was sky-rocketing.

“We’ve been trying to decide on the worst way to go, Syl and me.  What do you think?  What’s the worst?  Absolute rock bottom.”

          “Go?”

          “Die.  Croak.  Kick the bucket.  She thinks drowning would be the worst.  You know, holding that last breath forever—”

          “Well, that’s a pleasant topic to begin the day.” 

          “It’s a quarter of ten, Bernie.  Hardly the crack of dawn.”  He made eyes at Sylvia, and they giggled some more.

          “Burned,” said Leyton.  “Being horribly burned.  Roasted alive like a pig on a spit, your skin going taut over the swelling muscles till it splits wide open like a sausage on the grill—”

          “Oh, gosh, Bernard,” said Sylvia, “cut it out, will you?” 

Mallory gave her a playful nudge.  “You started it, remember?”

“I know, but we don’t have to be so gruesome, do we?  And anyway, what about you, Dr. Jimmy?  What’s your idea of the worst way to go, huh?” 

He thought about it.  “Poison,” he said, and Leyton had just enough time to look away before coffee spurted from mouth and nose.  Mallory was there in a flash, pounding him between the shoulder blades.  “Bernie, Bernie!  Air down the little tube and coffee down the big tube!  We’ve been over this!”  As always, Leyton was acutely aware of his shortcomings when the two of them stood together.  Mallory towered over him like a monster, yet weighed in at one less sack of potatoes.

          “Bernard?” asked Sylvia.  “Are you O.K.?” 

          Embarrassment replaced suffocation as his main concern.  When he could breathe again, he said, “It sure pays to keep yourself in tip-top physical condition.”  She smiled at that, and his spirits soared.  She was fond of him, he knew she was, and if it weren’t for Mallory—

          His spirit’s engine sputtered and died, and headed into a tailspin.  Mallory.  Business  partner and former friend.  With the brand new Jaguar purchased against their meager line of credit.  And the string of co-eds hired on as ‘receptionists,’ but in reality, as his personal playthings.  Mallory, of the forked tongue and the crossed fingers (“We don’t need a lawyer, Bern—here, just take my hand…”), who’d squeezed him like a lime over one of his Beefeater gimlets until he’d solved their chief conundrum, then patented the discovery under his own name, the biggest success they’d had, might ever have: an enhancement to certain surgical adhesives.  Not very sexy, but potentially worth millions.  And now he was departing and taking it all with him: patent, formula and a sample batch of their breakthrough compound.  He’d sold his soul in secret to the Pfazer Corporation, the Big Fish, and was striking off to Better Living Through Chemistry.  

          But Bernard was on to him.  Old dumpy, balding, second-fiddle Bernard knew the score, and had now for weeks.  Ever since he’d intercepted the special delivery letter that the fool had had sent here to the lab, and steamed it open the way that he’d seen a P. I. do it on TV, and read with interest all about Dr. Mallory’s plans for a bold new future.  Plans that did not, sadly, include his chum and partner of seven long, back-breaking years.  Years spent hunched over burners and balances and titrating burettes, watching reagent pass by as his life did likewise, drop by miserable drop—

          “You sure you’re O.K, Bernard?  You look a little peaked.”  She always called him Bernard, always treated him with respect.

          “I’m fine, dear, thank you.  But late.  Takes a full six hours to make our magic potion—”

          “And I’m going to need an extra liter for those tests while you’re on vacation,” said Mallory.

          “You’ll have plenty.  I’m making a double batch.”

          “Perfect.  And don’t forget to—”

          “Sixteen degrees ‘C’.  Yes, I know, Jim.  I’ve been working with our product for a long time now, remember?”

          The other flashed a winning smile.  “I remember, Bern.  And you’ve done a fine job with it, too.”

          “Yes I have, buddy boy,” said Leyton, touching a finger to his partner’s chest.  “And that’s why you’re bringing a family-sized jug of Glenfiddich with you to dinner tonight.”

          “Oh, fine,” pouted Sylvia.  “A dinner party, and I wasn’t invited.”  Both men turned to her with identical hand-in-the-cookie-jar expressions.

          “Well, I—” Leyton began, before Mallory cut him off.

          “You told me you had an exam to study for.”

          “I do.  Physics.  I was only kidding.”  Mallory brightened, while Leyton’s heart hit the floor.  So now they were coordinating their schedules.  How nice.  If only she knew what a louse he was, if only she’d been around for last year’s conquest (Angelique was her name, with the cornrows)… 

         “Want me to kick it off today Bern?”

The question was rhetorical.  By custom, they split the lengthy preparation process into two phases: the first, a protracted series of weighings and distillations, and the second, a shorter, but truly dangerous step involving the addition of a toxic catalyst.  Mallory opted inevitably for the latter, saving energy, no doubt, for taxing bouts of philandering in the front office.  His partner didn’t much mind this arrangement, helping as it did to pass the time, while offering the occasional advantage…

          “No, thanks, Jim,” he said, poring over his data sheets.  “I’ll leave the heroics to you.”

*   *   *

          Leyton brought the volumetric flask to eye level, and using a squeeze-bottle of deionized water, raised the liquid up its narrow throat until the meniscus was even with a line etched in the glass.  He stoppered the container, inverted it, and watched as tiny snowflakes disappeared into solution.  Then he placed the vessel in the refrigerator, adjusted the thermostat, peeled off his disposable gloves and checked the clock.  Perfect, right on target.  Now there was only one more thing to take care of, one small detail, and he’d be off for a week’s well-deserved vacation.  

          It was time to murder his partner.

          And yet, despite everything, he hesitated.  Despite the fact that the man was a back-stabbing scoundrel who plotted to destroy their business, and with it, his own career.  And even though he had come to loathe this person in a way that he never thought possible, not only because of his deception and disloyalty, but also—and perhaps primarily—because of his attitude.  For they were no longer equals.  Not in Mallory’s eyes, and even worse, not in his own.  He felt inferior in every respect, which was patently ridiculous.  He was smarter, more accomplished, and better educated.  It was he who had led the way always, from the formation of their company to the direction it would take, and then in getting them across the finish line.  Mallory couldn’t have done it, would have been lost without him.  And yet somehow, over the course of months and years, he had managed to weasel his way into a postion of superiority, treating him more and more like an underling, until, almost subconsciously, he had begun to accept that role.  He would have accepted it, too, wouldn’t even have cared so much, if…  If it hadn’t been for Sylvia.  He was in love with her, why deny it.  That was his prime motivation, certainly, but there were others, and plenty of them.  The man was a menace, a bane, a blight on society; why, the act would be a public service. 

And the scheme he’d devised to carry it out was brilliant in its simplicity.  The final stage of preparation—the one that Jim would be handling—was the introduction of four hundred and fifty-six milliliters of p-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde to the base solution over a ninety-minute period.  No big deal, from a procedural standpoint, unless you understood that p-d happened to be one of the nastier substances on the face of the earth.  So nasty, in fact, that a permit from the State of New York was required to even store it on the premises.  So utterly nasty, in fact, that should you absorb so much as a couple of micrograms of the stuff during handling (i.e., a single sniff)—you could kiss your ass goodbye. 

According to G. Eric Sands, Industrial Hygienist, and author of the renowned, Dangerous Properties of Industrial Chemicals, within about four hours of exposure, you’d begin to exhibit the symptoms: cramps in the extremities, blurred vision, nausea, dizziness.  After a day or so, when the agent had hacked its way through your synapses like weed killer in a vegetable patch, you’d be blind and mumbling as electrical signals from your brain found themselves stopped at ‘Road Closed’ signs with ever-increasing frequency.  It was around this point that your vital organs would be affected, and then…

But workers protected themselves from such hazards with an array of  special equipment: gloves and face-shields to preserve the skin; respirators and fume hoods to guard against dusts and gases.  The severity of the threat in this case would call for the latter two to be used in tandem, although the hood alone—if operated correctly and properly functioning—would be just adequate.  This, of course, was all that James J. Mallory, Ph.D., Casanova, and Man’s Man, ever chose to employ. 

The hood was a beige metal box about a yard cubed.  It worked by pulling air in through a sliding sash window at the front, and expelling it through a duct at the top that ran outside the building.  The chemist would place the items he was going to work with inside it, draw down the sash as far as possible, then reach in underneath to perform his task.  Induced draft ensured that any air or gas flow would always be from the outside in, and never the opposite.

          With one exception.  On the exterior, right-hand wall of the box, near the back, was an unobtrusive and never-used lever that allowed the flow path to be reversed for a periodic cleaning of the filter element.  If the louvers were reconfigured to this position while the internal fan was engaged, the air in the hood would actually discharge through the sash opening to engulf anyone standing before it.  Nor would he have any indication of this development, as the bulb in the warning indicator had never been installed, and the air conditioning unit overhead—with its whining belts and gale-like emission—produced more than enough distraction to confuse the issue. 

          Not that there was a realistic chance of this happening accidentally.  Unless, that is, someone had been stupid enough to locate an aluminum coat rack only inches away from the cleaning lever, its silver prongs nearly identical in shape and size…

          Leyton knew that his plan was clever, oh yes.  But as a man of science, he knew also that nothing was guaranteed.  It was possible that the mission could fail, or worse, that it could work halfway, but that investigators would reach higher into the logic tree than the low-hanging fruit he’d provided for them.  It was conceivable that he’d be arrested and convicted and imprisoned in some hideous hell-hole with the dregs of society.  But the odds were against it.  Because short of an outright confession, there’d be no way to prove that the fatal occurrence in the laboratory were anything other than the hapless error it appeared to be.  And there would be no confession.  That much he could guarantee.  No; there’d be statements taken, sympathetic nods, crocodile tears, and then: case closed. 

Yet still, he hesitated.  It was just that, well, he wasn’t big on killing things.  Not the 

mallards he’d blasted with Grandpa, nor the rats that he’d chloroformed in college, much less a human being.  And Mallory was at least technically one of those, if a more vile example could scarcely be imagained.  

          Hands behind his back, he began to circle the long center island.  He knew that if he didn’t act today, now, in the next five minutes, he never would.  One lap completed, he started another before halting abruptly beside the pH probe, and raising his fist as if to obliterate the instrument in a fit of rage.  Instead, the arm fell limp at his side. 

          It was no good.  He couldn’t go through with it.

          Eyes misting, he shook his head in disgust.  Not only had he proven himself a coward (in addition to his other failings), but he’d still have to make good on the invitation, still have to sit across the table from that worm and watch him masticate.  At least he could ruin the meal; that was something.  He slipped off his lab coat, hung it up, and trudged for the office door like a condemned man to the gallows.  Reaching for the knob, he glanced at the Venetian blind over the connecting window, and noticed a darker strip along its base, meaning that the lights were out, for some reason, in the room beyond.  A sound came to him simultaneously, and he yanked his hand back.  No, he thought, it couldn’t be.  As he stood there listening, it came again.  He knew that sound—not, unfortunately, from personal experience, but rather from the movies—as in the kind they kept roped off in the back of the video store.  It was distinctive to the ear as the crack of a walnut, the whistle of a tea kettle, or the purr of a declining zipper: a female moan of passion.

          Leyton saw red.  Here he was, working his butt off in the laboratory while Mallory was in there pawing a girl half his age—with the lights out no less!  What the heck could they be doing?  An idea occurred to him, and he switched off the overhead fluorescents, equalizing the brightness on either side of the glass.  Then he carefully depressed a slat in the blind and peeked through the notch.  They had pulled the shade on the street-side window as well, but he could still distinguish them clearly enough.  Sylvia stood with her back to the filing cabinet, and Mallory—Mallory was pressed up against her, grinding and groping.  The nerve of that snake!  At least they still had their clothes on.  Impulsively, he reached over and jiggled the doorknob.  Her shirt gave birth to a huge white hand, and the two of them staggered in opposite directions.

          The doctor jerked himself upright, spun in place and retraced his steps to the coat rack.  With one eye on the door, he removed his smock from the hook, hung it on the fume-hood cleaning lever, and pulled down smartly with both hands until he felt the position change, and heard a telltale clunk.

*   *   *

          When he finally entered the office, the lights were back on, Sylvia had disappeared into the lavatory, and Mallory slumped in the client’s chair, thumbing his cell phone.  His bottle-black coiffure was freshly slicked with that goop he used.  “The potion’s in the fridge,” Leyton enthused.  “You’re all set up.”  His partner grunted.

          “So, what do you think.  Zucchini O. K.?”

          “Huh?”

          “With the steak tonight.  Or maybe sautéed mushrooms.  Which do you prefer?”

          “Either one’s good.  Surprise me.”    

           Alright; a surprise it is.  And Jim, I was thinking.  If you have any trouble with those tests next week, just give me a call at the house.  It’s not like I’m going away or anything.”

          “Thanks, Bern, I appreciate that.  But we’ll make out alright.”

          We.  Us.  Always rubbing it in.  “I’m sure you will.  Didn’t mean to imply otherwise.  Well, off for groceries.  See you at seven.”  His eyes went to the bathroom door.  “And be sure to say goodbye to Sylvia.  For me, that is.”  

*   *   *

The smoke alarm in the hallway would beep when he made toast.  If Leyton actually cooked something, the harangue became intolerable.  No sooner had he ascended a step stool to disconnect the battery than he smelled smoke, and realized that the sirloin was in fact on fire.  Scurrying back to the kitchen, he drew on an oven mitt, pulled out the broiler rack and blew out the flame.  Then he grabbed a fork, skewered the meat, and had peeled it off the grill when another sound—not a beep this time, but the crackle of tires on gravel—caused him to freeze in place, the steak drizzling fat onto the carving board.  At last he slapped it down and strode for the door.  But every step grew harder as panic pushed back like a stiff north wind.  What was he afraid of?  It was only Mallory out there, a man he knew well, had spoken to only a few short hours ago…

          Only it wasn’t.  This was an anomaly, an aberration, an affront to nature.  A thing that was stone-cold dead for all intents and purposes, but still twitching away, like a frog’s leg in Biology lab—

          DING-DONG.

          Leyton choked off a cry.  Then he took hold of himself, slipping on the neutral gray mask that he’d worn for so long now it seemed almost real.  It was the same one he’d donned as a boy when the others made fun of his weight, or the old-fashioned clothes that his mother dressed him in, or the inability to do a single pull-up in gym class.  How he’d longed to strike back at them somehow, to wipe those filthy grins from their faces—

          The door swung inward with a baleful moan, and here was one of them now, by gum, looking down his nose like all the rest.

*   *   *

          Whiskey splashed as Leyton poured between the glasses.  Grabbing a sponge, he took an exuberant swipe at the spill, then flung the pad to the rear of the sink.  He felt marvelous.  The tension he’d experienced earlier had abated somewhat when Jim had shown up looking fit as a fiddle.  It had reduced further during the meal and its attendant carafe of burgundy, again over after-dinner liqueurs, and now, as he carried their second round of highballs from kitchen to dining room, wasn’t even a speck in the rear-view mirror.       

“Mind if I steal one?” asked Mallory, pushing aside his dish and reaching for the cigarettes.

          “Please do,” said Leyton, noting with pleasure that his partner had to be well in the bag to be smoking.  Perhaps he’d veer into a tree on the way home and spare the coroner a lot of head-scratching and superfluous dissections.  Though it was also possible, he reckoned as he checked his watch, that there’d been no exposure after all.  He could have worn a respirator for once—there was a first time for everything—or put off the job till tomorrow… 

          Instead of the ashtray, Mallory tapped ashes on the remains of his cheesecake.  “You know something, Bern?”

          “What’s that, Jim?”

          “I admire you.” 

          That drew a snort.

“No, really, I mean it.  You’ve chosen the bachelor life, and you live it well.”  (Right, thought Leyton.  Like a midget chooses to wear short pants—)  “You’ve got a great house here, your affairs are in order, you keep your appetites under control…”  (Was that a slam at his physique?)  “You’re even a good cook.  I can’t remember when I’ve had a better—ow.  Ow!  Mother of—  Will you look at that!”  He banged his hand onto the tabletop, and Leyton watched in fascination as the fingers curled in on themselves as if he were squeezing an invisible tennis ball.  (‘Cramps in the extremities,’ intoned G. Eric Sands.  And so it begins…)

          “Happens to me all the time,” said Leyton, both thrilled and horrified at the spectacle.  “Hang on a second.  I’ll fix you up.”  He got to his feet and started for the medicine cabinet.  When he returned, Mallory’s hand appeared normal again, though he was still gawking at it in amazement.  His host rolled two amber capsules onto the place mat in front of him.  “Here you go.”

          “What’s this?”

          “Vitamin E.  Essential for the aging chemist.  I take them every day.”

          “But I’ve never had any trouble with cramping—”

          “And I had all my hair until it fell out.  Go ahead, take them.  You’ll see.  You’ll be a new man.”

          “I don’t know.  Maybe I should—”

          “C’mon, c’mon.”  After a pause, Mallory tossed the pills back and gulped his drink.

          “That a boy,” said Leyton, picking up the empties and heading for the kitchen.  “I’ll get us a refill.”              

          “Time marches on, Bern,” his guest called after him.  “You’ve got that right.  Ever since I turned forty, I’ve felt like an old jalopy that’s falling apart piece by piece.  Eyesight’s going, hearing’s shot—I’ve got age spots, for Pete’s sake.”  He held up the offending hand, frowning at the back of it this time.  “It may sound funny, but…that’s why Sylvia’s been so important to me.  She makes me feel young again.”

His host looked daggers at him from the counter, but he was staring into space.  Sure, thought Leyton.  Just like Angelique, and What’s-her-name before that.  It’s a wonder you’re not in swaddling clothes by now.  And a vision came then, of Mallory’s trip last month to the Washington convention.  Sylvia had gone with him.  It was supposed to be a secret, but they’d dropped enough hints to make it obvious.  He saw them now in the hotel suite, naked beneath their bathrobes, giggling over plastic cups of champagne.  He might have been a fly on the wall.  And suddenly it was imperative that he kill Jim NOW, this minute, that he take this heavy steel cleaver and go over there and begin hacking at him like a side of beef, chuckling with childish glee as the festive slivers flew hither and yon—

          But his partner was sliding his chair back and struggling to his feet, a hand clenched to his gut, complaining of discomfort and stumbling urgently for the bathroom, and there was G. Eric Sands at the lectern, reciting symptoms in the mournful cadence of a Grigorian chant: ‘NAU-se-a…  DIZZ-i-ness...’  Leyton padded over to stand outside the door, and listen contentedly to his guest heaving dinner into the john.

*   *   *

          By the time Dr. Mallory shuffled into the living room (looking ghostly pale and screamingly unwell), Leyton was planted on the sofa by the coffee table, toying with an ivory chess set.  “Hope that wasn’t a commentary on the cuisine.”

          “A thousand pardons, Bern.  Guess I can’t hold the sauce like I used to.  Alright if I crash here on the couch?  I don’t think I could make it home.”  As if to dramatize this point, he staggered into an armchair.

          “Not a problem.  I’ll fetch you some blankets.”  Leyton indulged in a languorous stretch before standing up again.  Then, noting some wobble in his own gait, he took it as a warning: no more booze for him tonight.  He’d need all of his wits about him in the AM, when he’d awaken, possibly, to a cadaver on the livingroom floor.  But no, he decided on the way to the linen closet; Jim was a tough old coot.  He’d hang in there till tomorrow afternoon, easy. 

When he got back, Mallory’d taken his place on the sofa, and was staring at the chessboard blearily.  He had one arm out of the sports jacket that drooped from a shoulder like a nobleman’s cape.  “Can hardly make the darn things out,” he grumbled.

          “I can hardly make you out,” said Leyton, piling the bedding beside him.  “Here.  This ought to do the trick.  If you get hungry later, there’s leftovers in the fridge.  Just help yourself.”

“The only thing I’ll be helping myself to is about eighty winks.  Wake me up for lunch.”

          “Or vice versa,” said his host, and he left his soon-to-be erstwhile partner wrestling with

the remaining sleeve.

*   *   *

          Leyton lay with his hands behind his head, staring up at the shadows.  Nature’s Rorschach test, thanks to a sugar maple, a gentle breeze, and the sodium streetlight outside his window.  In quick succession, he identified an antelope, a stagecoach, the coastline of the British Isles.  But mostly, he saw Sylvia; her breasts and buttocks and floriated mound, appearing and disappearing in a seething pageant of carnal revelation.  And he found himself stirred by the notion that, realistically, it could all soon be his.  For what could she see in a scarecrow like Mallory but the glitter of gold: the car, the suits, the Rolex—all derived from their discovery, and the patent that would now revert to him alone, thanks to the death clause in their partnership agreement—the only protection that Jim had conceded, assuming, of course, that it would never come into play. 

          The scene at the hotel returned transmuted, with Dr. Leyton in the starring role, and beside him at the restaurant, in the jacuzzi, on top of the heart-shaped bed in the honeymoon suite, his loyal, star-struck assistant…and lover.  Impossible?  Why, it was all but carved in stone.  Tomorrow morning, he would bid adieu to the zombie with comforting pats and platitudes, then spend his day in the garden with a pitcher of fresh lemonade, awaiting the inevitable phone call and its oh-so tragic news.  The thought put a smile on his lips, and when sleep began to beckon like a long lost friend, he did not resist its summons.

*   *   *

          Mallory rolled over for the thousandth time, the blanket wrapped like a tourniquet around his neck.  Cursing, he sat upright and ripped it away.  He felt terrible: hollow and wired and pulsing with an eerie discomfort that he couldn’t put his finger on.  Both smashed and exhausted, he still couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even begin to get comfortable.  With a valiant effort he hauled himself up on rubbery legs, and headed uncertainly for the kitchen, his shins battering like ice-breakers through a sea of foreign obstacles.  Finally he found the light switch, and a glass, and the bottle, and poured himself a triple.  He took a sip and felt better, then a swig and better still, and was about to kill the light again when he spotted Bernie’s smokes and figured, what the heck.

          Now when he hit the sofa it was welcoming at last.  Or more than that; it was blissful,

sublime, the stuff of dreams.  And before too long he was dreaming for real, of Sylvia Slyvinski; of her skin and her lips and the smell of her hair.  And a romance involving another sort of chemistry was near at hand as well.  For when he slid to the pillow, the red-hot tip of his cigarette met the inviting folds of chenille upholstery, and the heat of their passion seemed to know no bounds. 

*   *   *

          Zoltan Papp, bass guitar player for the cover-band Blinding Darkness, raised his boot off the gas pedal a half-block from the intersection.  When the signal went green he had to smile: another high note in what was fast becoming one kick-ass Friday night.  First they’d played to a packed house at the college, then he’d picked up a red-hot babe at the band party afterward, and now, tooling across town to his motel, she was snuggled up beside him like a puppydog.  It just didn’t get better than this—    

          A whoop and a flash and he stomped the brake, dragging the Camaro to a shrieking halt.  A huge red beast barreled across in front of them, then another one: fire trucks.  Holy cow, that was too darned close.  Should’ve been paying attention…

          “Follow them,” said the girl, the charge in her voice electric.  He gave her a kiss.   The big-block growled as he let out the clutch, hurling them around the corner.  They were in Leave-it-to-Beaver-land now, all flower beds and white picket fences, and there was an odd, purplish glow in the sky before an angry blaze leapt out of the darkness.  It was a single-story ranch off to the right, with bright orange flames lapping from every window.  Zoltan shook his head.  They weren’t going to save that sucker, no way…

          A car in the driveway glittered like a scarab in the hellish illumination.  It was a black Jaguar, noted Sylvia, a lot like Dr. Jimmy’s—but then a fireman was waving them forward and she averted her gaze, glad to escape the ugliness.

This story first appeared in WordWrights magazine.