"Look, Grant, I've got a busy morning. I'm going up to see Mom, not that you'd give a damn. So thank you for inquiring about my health, but frankly what do you care?" She paused. "Tell you what. If your 'favor' is so wonderful, I'll give you one phone call. Tonight, at home." She had Knickers' leash on a short hold and was waiting for the light to change. "But I've got to go now." Shit, he thought, the hook didn't catch. "Can't be on the phone, I'm telling you. I needed to see you. Why the hell do you think I took the trouble to catch you before your day got started? You know I hate getting up this early." He stepped onto the curb and stopped. "Ally, please listen. This is something I can do for you. I won't insult you by saying it's for old times' sake, but in a way it is. I got you a shot at a big job. Bartlett wants to redo the ground floor of his place on Gramercy Park. I told him about CitiSpace, and he sounded interested and said he'd like for you to come by and meet him and help him kick around some ideas." She looked at him, not believing a word. "You hacked into my life at seven o'clock Sunday morning for that. You had to see me? Give me a break. What do you really want? And this better be good." Okay, he thought. Cut to the chase. "You're correct. It's about your heart." "What about it?" Make it real, he told himself. This could be your only shot. "All right, here's the unvarnished deal. What I really did for you. About five years ago, Bartlett bankrolled a start-up bio-med firm called the Gerex Corporation. It was the brainchild of a Dutch doctor whose research project had just been sawed off at the knees by Stanford University. Then Bartlett moved the entire operation to a clinic at the BMD campus out in New Jersey called the Dorian Institute. It's all very hush-hush, but I can tell you Gerex has a new procedure in clinical trials that can literally work miracles. The head researcher, this Dutch doctor, has pioneered a new treatment using a stem cell procedure to trick an organ into regenerating itself, even a heart. It's like you grow your own transplant." Now she was finally listening. "I was talking to the Dutch guy late last week," he went on, picking up a faint positive vibe and hoping desperately he could build on it, "and he said he's looking for someone in their thirties with a rheumatic- heart thing--I think it's like what you have--to be part of this big clinical trial they're wrapping up. But they have to do it immediately, so they can put the data in their final report to the National Institutes of Health." "And you thought about me? That's very touching, Grant. Your idea of doing me a favor is to let some Dutch quack experiment on me?"