| General Fiction posted September 7, 2025 | Chapters: |
...9 10 -11- 12... 
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Abby reveals her motivation to join the project
A chapter in the book Beating the Devil
Beating the Devil - Chapter 11
by Jim Wile
| Background A cancer researcher invents an early cancer detection system. |
Recap of Chapter 10: On the way home with the new puppy, the family decides to name him Earl, after Johnny’s favorite banjo player, Earl Scruggs.
Brian calls Paul Rieke, his old professor at NC State whom he is now good friends with. He asks Paul for a recommendation for a lab tech to replace Mal. Paul recommends Roberta Chen, whom Brian calls. She expresses interest in the position and sends Brian her CV.
Brian then picks Abby up at the airport. She has come for a working visit and will help interview Roberta.
Chapter 11
As soon as she got in the front door, Johnny and Lindsay came bounding up. “Hi, Miss Abby,” said Johnny. “Guess what!”
“Hi, Johnny. Hmm… You can play “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” faster than your momma now?”
“Well… almost, but guess again.”
“We’re getting a puppy!” squealed Lindsay.
“You are? Isn’t that wonderful!”
“Yes, he’s going to be just like Bo, except he’s chocolate.”
“A chocolate puppy?”
“She means chocolate-colored,” corrected Johnny. “His name is Earl.”
“I’ll bet you named him, didn’t you, Johnny?”
“Yep.”
Julia came in from the kitchen to greet Abby, who had visited and stayed with the Kendricks often over the past five years. They have become good friends.
They all retreated to the screened porch, where Brian served margaritas to the grownups while the kids enjoyed Cokes. The kids talked non-stop about the new puppy until Julia finally told them to give Miss Abby some peace and encouraged them to go practice the pieces they wanted to play for her later.
“Sorry about that,” said Julia.
“Oh, not at all. They’re adorable. You two are doing such a good job with them.”
“Well, thank you,” said Julia. “Abby, we’re going to have some Carolina barbecue from Bubba’s for dinner tonight. I’ll go pick it up in a few minutes. If you’d like a short rest before dinner, you’ll have time.”
“No, I’m fine. I wouldn’t mind seeing what’s going on down in the lab, though.”
“Great,” said Brian. “Larry should still be here, and I can have him show you the breathalyzers he’s been building for a couple of days now. These are the ones you’ll be adjusting your algorithms for.”
When they descended the stairs to the basement lab, Abby greeted Larry, whom she had met on several previous occasions. Larry tended to be curt with people who visited the lab, but he had always been awed by Abby’s quiet intellect and was most deferential to her.
“Brian tells me you’ve been constructing the breathalyzers, Larry.”
“Yes, I’ve been enjoying putting these components together, and I’m anxious to see how well they work. With your and Brian’s expertise, I fully expect accurate results very quickly.”
Brian had to stifle a snort at this bit of brown-nosing.
“I have to say, you have a lot more confidence than me,” said Abby. “These are the first devices ever that have the GC-MS functionality built right into a small device. If we can get their results to compare to these relative behemoths over here,” she said, pointing to the full-size gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer in the lab, “then I’d say we’ve really got something special.”
“Frankly, I think it would be worthy of a Nobel Prize,” said Larry earnestly.
Brian had to bite his lip at this obsequious remark and then said, “We’ll get our first chance to see it in action the next few days, assuming we have one ready. Abby will be with us until Thursday evening. Will you have one completely built to begin testing tomorrow morning?”
“I’ve been working on all six because it seems most efficient that way, but since you need a completed one for tomorrow, I’ll be happy to work late and get one ready.”
“We’d appreciate that. And just to let you know, Larry, Abby and I will be interviewing a candidate for Mal’s replacement tomorrow at 1:00.”
“Good to hear.”
Once Brian and Abby returned upstairs, Brian said, “God, he’s so much nicer when you’re around. He knew about your trip here and that he’d need one completed breathalyzer ready. I think all that about working late was to impress you with his dedication.”
Abby just laughed.
“Hey, how about another margarita while we wait for Julia to return with the food?”
“You don’t have to twist my arm.”
Relaxing again on the porch, they could hear both banjo and violin sounds coming from upstairs.
“The kids love an audience and were excited about your visit so they could play for you.”
“Well, I can’t wait to hear them. Last time I heard Johnny play, I was so impressed with how good he was, and now Lindsay is playing the violin at age 4!”
“They got their mother’s music genes. They certainly didn’t get them from me.”
Julia soon returned with the food, and she and Abby put it into bowls to serve buffet style while Brian went upstairs to retrieve the kids.
Over a dinner of Southern comfort food, including barbecued pork ribs, collard greens, baked beans, mac and cheese, and, of course, hushpuppies, the conversation was lively, most of it centered around the new puppy and the experience the family had when Bo visited.
“Are you planning to train Earl to be a cancer-sniffing dog?” asked Abby.
“No, probably not,” said Julia. “I may eventually start training him to be a therapy dog, though. That’s what Bo is, and the program sounded wonderful the way Maddy described it to me. I think we’ll just let him be a plain old puppy for a while before I start thinking about that.”
“How’s your mom doing, Julia? Still as feisty and determined as ever?”
“She’s doing very well, thank you. Still in remission, going on five years now, and feeling great, she says. I think having these two grandchildren gave her extra incentive to undergo all that radiation and chemotherapy. She visits as often as she can. She’s still active in the New York Philharmonic and was recently promoted to the first violin section by winning an audition for it. You never know; she may even end up being concertmaster one day.”
“That’s great to hear. If Brian and I can get our system working, we’ll be able to detect such cancers way before stage 4. You know, I don’t remember if I ever told you, but I have a personal stake in this project too. A very good friend of Kenny’s and mine died just a few years ago of pancreatic cancer. His name was Eddie Phillips, and he was Kenny’s business partner and best friend. He’s the one who introduced Kenny and me.
“He was a wonderful man who once threw himself in front of a car to push our granddaughter out of harm’s way when she ran into the street to greet him. He survived it with a few broken bones, but it wasn’t long after that when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died eight months later.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” said Brian.
“What happened to your granddaughter?” asked Lindsay.
“Oh, she was fine. She got a bump on her head when she was pushed into the curb, but Eddie probably saved her life.”
“That was awfully brave to leap in front of a car to save her,” said Julia.
“He loved our little Emily. He was quite a character—a real wise guy and very crude. I’ve got a funny story about him the day he introduced me to Kenny, but first, what’s your family’s position on f-a-r-t-s?”
“Oh, we’re big on farts in this family. No worries there!” said Brian. “Especially when they involve Momma, right, guys?”
“Momma says she never farts, but she lies. I’ve smelled ‘em,” said Johnny, cracking up, and Lindsay joined in.
“Alright, mister, that’s enough of that,” said Julia with a mock frown. “Yours don’t exactly smell like roses either.”
When the laughter finally died down, Abby continued, “Well, anyway, I was working at the snack bar at a country club one summer when I was 20, and Eddie, who I knew pretty well, walks up with Kenny, who was fairly new to the club. They were competing against each other for the club championship, and they had just finished the first nine holes. Eddie introduces us, and there is an instant attraction.
“Later, I decided to bring drinks out to them because it was a hot day, so I load up some drinks on a cart, and I catch them on the 17th hole. Kenny is just about to take his swing when Eddie lets one rip. Kenny stops, and Eddie apologizes. So, Kenny gets ready to swing again, and just as he starts taking the club back, Eddie lets another one rip. Kenny stops his swing, and I punch Eddie in the arm and tell him to cut it out. I know he’s doing it on purpose because when I served him at the snack bar, he ordered a chili dog with extra onions.
“Eddie apologizes again and says he’ll move away behind some bushes. So, Kenny starts to get ready again, but he hesitates because he knows Eddie isn’t finished yet, and sure enough, Eddie blasts three short ones, which we can still hear. There are these officials watching the match, and everyone just breaks up, including Kenny. I’m laughing so hard that it hurts. So, I pull Eddie onto the cart, and we take off down the fairway to get him out of there so Kenny can finally hit. That’s the kind of guy Eddie was.”
When the laughter in the Kendrick family died down, Brian asked, “So, who won the match?”
“Well, another thing about Eddie was that he was lucky. People used to call him Lucky Eddie. This part is almost unbelievable. They’re tied going into the 18th hole, which is a par-3 hole. I stayed around to watch the last hole, and man, I’m glad I did.
“Kenny hits first and hits a beauty about eight feet from the hole. Then Eddie hits this very low shot, which is going way too fast and will run off the back of the green, but his ball hits Kenny’s ball and caroms right into the hole for a hole-in-one, and Eddie wins the match just like that. The most amazing thing I ever saw. He goes stomping around the tee, saying, “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Then he jumps into Kenny’s arms with his legs around him and starts pumping his fist into the air. Kenny just shakes his head and carries him over to the cart where I’m sitting and puts him down. They became best friends after that.”
“What a story,” said Brian, laughing. “I can see how you loved the guy and how much he meant to you.”
Abby grew silent for a few moments and stared. With a slight quaver in her voice, she said, “Yes, he was very dear to us. If only our system had been up and running a few years ago.”
 Recognized |
Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp
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