Lessons in Chemistry(104)

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“The potato’s skin,” Elizabeth was asserting ten minutes later, “is composed of suberized phellem cells, which make up the outer component of the tuber periderm. They constitute the potato’s protection strategy—”

He stood by her side like a Secret Service agent, scanning the audience.

“—proving that even tubers understand that the best defense is a good offense.”

The audience was rapt, making it easy to catalogue every face.

“The potato’s skin is teeming with glycoalkaloids,” she continued, “toxins so indestructible, they can easily survive both cooking and frying. And yet I still use the skin, not only because it’s fiber rich, but because it serves as a daily reminder that in potatoes as in life, danger is everywhere. The best strategy is not to fear the danger, but respect it. And then,” she added, as she picked up a knife, “deal with it.” The camera zoomed in as she expertly excavated a sprouted potato eye. “Always eliminate potato eyes and green spots,” she instructed, gouging another potato. “That’s where the highest concentration of glycoalkaloids hide.”

Six-Thirty studied the audience, looking for one face in particular. Ah, and there she was. The nonclapper.

Elizabeth announced it was time for station identification, then left the stage. He usually followed her, but today he went down into the audience instead, instantly eliciting a few excited claps and cries of “Here, boy!” Walter insisted he not do this—that people might be afraid or allergic—but Six-Thirty did it anyway because he knew it was important to work the crowd, and also because he wanted to get close to the nonclapper.



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She was sitting on the end of the fourth row, her faced fixed in thin-lipped disapproval. He knew the type. As others in the row reached out to stroke him, he scanned the woman like an X-ray machine. She was stiff, unforgiving. Truth be told, he felt a little sorry for her. No one turned this mean without having been a victim of the same.

The thin-lipped woman turned to look at him, her expression hard. She reached a cautious hand into her large bag and took out a cigarette, tapping it twice against her thigh.

A smoker. That figured. It was a well-known fact that humans believed they were the most intelligent species on earth, and yet they were the only animals that willingly inhaled carcinogens. He started to turn away, then stopped, picking up a scent just beyond the nicotine. It was faint but familiar. He sniffed again as the Supper at Six quartet launched into their “And she’s back!” ditty. He glanced again at the nonclapper. She returned her bag to the floor on the edge of the aisle. Her hand shook as she brought the cigarette to her lips.

He lifted his nose in the air. Nitroglycerin? Not possible.

“Fill a large pot with H2O,” Elizabeth was saying, back up onstage, “then take your potatoes—”

He sniffed again. Nitroglycerin. When mishandled, it makes a terrifying noise, like a firework, or—he swallowed hard, thinking of Calvin— a backfire.

“—and place them in your pot on high heat.”

“Find it, damn it,” he could hear his handler at Camp Pendleton insisting. “Find the fucking bomb!”

“The potato’s starch, a long carbohydrate made up of the molecules amylose and amylopectin—”

Nitroglycerin. The smell of failure.

“—as the starch begins to break down—”

It’s coming from the nonclapper’s handbag.



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At Camp Pendleton, the dog was only meant to locate the bomb, not remove it—removal was the handler’s job. But occasionally some of the show-offs—the German shepherds—even did that part.

Despite the coolness of the studio, Six-Thirty began to pant. He tried to move forward, but his legs were like water. He stopped. All he had to do, he told himself, was play the game he liked least—fetch—while retrieving the scent he hated most—nitroglycerin. The idea nauseated him.



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“What the heck is this?” Seymour Browne said as he spied a ladies handbag, the handle damp, sitting on his security table just inside the door. “Some lady must be worried sick.” He unsnapped the purse to look for identification, but as the bag yawned open, he took a sharp breath in and reached for the phone.



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“Now stand with your arms crossed,” a reporter suggested to Seymour as he put a new flashbulb in his camera. “Look tough—like whoever did this messed with the wrong guy.”

Unbelievably, it was that same reporter—the one from the cemetery. Still trying to improve his journalistic odds, he’d recently installed an illegal police radio in his car and today it had finally paid off: someone had found a small bomb in a ladies handbag over at KCTV Studios.

He took notes as Seymour explained that the bag had simply appeared on his table; he had no idea how it got there. He’d opened it to look for identification but instead found a bunch of flyers decrying Elizabeth Zott as a godless Communist and two sticks of dynamite bound together with wires so flimsy, the whole thing looked like a broken toy.

“But why in the world would someone want to bomb KCTV?” the reporter asked. “Don’t you mostly do afternoon programming? Soap operas? Clown shows?”