The Methuselah Gene (20 page)

“He said that?”

Julie nodded.
 
“
Felsen
confirmed it, and said he'd ask Cody to look into it.
 
I was about to ask to use the phone when Rebecca mentioned you and Cody were already investigating it, and then I pictured the Sheriff coming through the door any second.
 
So when Jimmy did his thing, I just . . .”
 
She left the sentence unfinished.

I shook my head in disbelief.
 
“This is weird, and ironic.
 
So we do need help here.
 
Maybe a SWAT team with M16s, or a Special Forces unit fresh from Afghanistan with a tank mounted M60 machine gun.
 
Somebody other than a drugged sheriff or some drunken Barney Fife with a silly grin.
 
Especially if there's bigger fish to fry.”

“Bigger, like who?”

I shrugged.
 
“No way of knowing.
 
But someone read an article I wrote, and obviously identified me as a person to spy on.
 
It's rumored some black ops agency once laced some marijuana and cocaine with an untraceable bio drug to scare dealers and junkies a couple years back.
 
It was like an experiment for them, to see if it would scare people into rehab.
 
Killed dozens of people up and down the eastern seaboard before the
Washington Post
got wind of it, and the operation was shut down.
 
Could be they're doing it again, experimenting here.”

Julie's piercing brown eyes narrowed.
 
“For what purpose?”

“Who knows?
 
I was hoping M-Telomerase would increase
lifespans
, but what if someone saw a way it could do the opposite?
 
Maybe the CIA intends it to aid population control in the third world, like with Arab countries hostile to the United States, as part of Homeland Security.
 
But before they go global they want to test their new and improved formula.”

“That's pretty—”

“Farfetched?
 
I wonder.
 
Darryl warned me about India.
 
The exploding population there.
 
They don't have controls in place like China does, or anything in the way of environmental standards.
 
And with so many new people hoping for SUVs, if not Mickey D's, you can kiss the ozone layer goodbye.
 
Meanwhile we're getting older, not younger.
 
Boomers will start to retire in droves, here soon.
 
And then the Feds won't be able to keep writing checks, in a tax revolt.
 
They've already racked up enough deficits to bust Social Security as it is.
 
Do the math, and then look at the oil fields either drying up or on fire, and you'd have to conclude there's some pretty drastic action needed.”

Julie was dubious.
 
“So, if you're right, you think the CIA would actually kill us for knowing what it's up to?
 
I thought all those agencies share information now.”

I laughed, despite the pain of it.
 
“Despite what they say, the Feds still don't share much, except with bulk mailers.
 
Their motive is to stay in office long enough to collect a big pension, because they'd never make it in the real world.”

She sighed.
 
“You sure have a cynical way of looking at things.”

“Cynical?
 
Me?
 
Maybe so.
 
Most Americans have couch potato eyes, and only flip the channel away from the NBA or the PGA when there's a billionaire reality show on, or some terrorist does a suicide dance on a public bus downtown.”

Julie favored me with a sour expression.
 
Maybe I'd said too much.
 
Maybe I was even wrong.

“Sorry,” I said.

“You keep saying that.”

“Sorry.”

We were silent for a while, trying to decide what to do.
 
As Julie slumped onto the couch beside me, I considered the enigma presented by her furnishings.
 
Her home was decorated on a western motif, with earth tones.
 
Overstuffed pillows on a heavy wood framed couch.
 
Images of horses everywhere, even on the mantle above the small fireplace, where the figurines of several stallions were forever frozen in defiant pose.
 
It felt like a man's house, except with no piles of dirty socks, and with the toilet seat in the bathroom properly down.
 
There were no framed photos visible anywhere that I could see.
 
Even the trinkets that she'd collected did not resemble a glass menagerie, indicative of some sensitive or lonely feminine homeowner, but seemed much more rustic, with the sharper edges of pine cones and the rougher symmetry of knotty wood in lamps and end tables.
 
I half expected to see a pipe or chewing tobacco if I opened a drawer.

“Do you own a horse?” I asked, tentatively.
 
Julie shook her head no as I pondered my next question, having to do with the size of the robe I was wearing.
 
But I chickened out, and instead asked: “What about your neighbor up the road.
 
Will he lend you his car?
 
With the phones out, he might not know to be on the lookout for me, yet.”

“Earl?
 
He's not too friendly to me lately.
 
Not since the day he made a pass at me, and I reminded him he was married.”

I frowned and nodded.
 
“If he's the same Earl that I met, I know what you mean.
 
What about Mabel?”

“Pritchard?
 
It's a possibility.
 
I did help her out once, but then again she's got Carl to care for, and she's paranoid about not having a car at her command in case he needs something.
 
Even more paranoid than I am about not having a license plate someone can eyeball.
 
Sorry, I really should have asked someone at church to drive me to Creston instead of panicking.”

I tried to imagine her in a full panic, but couldn't.
 
“What happened, exactly?”

Julie settled closer to me on the couch, but stared beyond me at the unusual antler-horned light fixture above her kitchen table.
 
“It was strange,” she confessed.

“Strange,” I said, and looked over at the light fixture too.

“More than odd.
 
Bizarre, actually, like he was in a trance.
 
And he isn't normally one of the holy roller types, either, I can assure you.”

“Jimmy . . .”

“Watson, right.
 
Well, right out of the blue Jimmy just stood up on the pew and pointed at the stained glass window over the choir loft and started yelling that he saw Jesus.
 
Gave me chills.”

“Chills,” I repeated, putting one arm around her shoulder.

“He was never one to act like that, either.
 
So I don't think he got religion any more than Rebecca did.
 
No, he got something else.
 
Like a virus, maybe.
 
Whether it came from the water supply or not.”

I looked at her in surprise.
 
“What do you mean, or not?”

She paused for a moment, pursing her lips.
 
“I don't know, but I didn't see many people acting oddly, as you would expect.
 
Maybe you're right about the dosage and the time mattering, but think about the few who appear to be under the influence, so far.
 
Sheriff Cody, Rebecca, George, Jimmy.
 
And I think
Felsen's
wife Sandra too.
 
She seemed more than a little drunk, and she's a teetotaler.
 
Still, you have to ask yourself, what do these people have in common?”

I shrugged.
 
“Beats me.”

“Well, not me.
 
They all live over west of town, over by the Watson and the Jensen hog farms.
 
Except for George, but his mother lives in a ranch house near there, and George visits her every week, from what I hear.
 
Brings her one of Edie's chicken pot pies.
 
Maybe whatever is happening is localized there, somehow.
 
It's something to think about, right?”

I studied her face.
 
“Are you saying you want to check it out?”

“No, I'm not saying that.
 
Maybe I'm wrong.
 
But Sandra did start playing ‘Nearer My God To Thee' on the organ when Jimmy stood up, pointed above the pastor's head, and started yelling, ‘Look, there he is!
 
It's Jesus, come to Zion!'
 
The others, they were just singing like they usually do.”

“I think I heard them, too.”

“I stared at the space where everyone looked, but I couldn't see zip.
 
Then Rebecca knelt, as if being told to do it.
 
Can you imagine?
 
And
Felsen
starts quoting from the Bible, ‘wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.'
 
Right then and there I freaked out, and I left Rebecca kneeling right there in the aisle.
 
I ran out past a water fountain in the lobby.
 
Came right home, and locked my door.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I contended.

“Self-preservation reflex, really.”

“Hey, I might have done the same thing.”

“No, you wouldn't.
 
I let you down.
 
It was a miracle you even found me.”

“Yes.”
 
I agreed with her there.
 
“A miracle.”

I touched her forearm, running the tips of my fingers gently, almost casually along her smooth skin.
 
Then I stopped, a little embarrassed, at the bend inside her elbow.
 
When she dropped her gaze, I realized how few of the details of her life I actually knew.
 
That she was a stranger seemed odd to me, though.
 
As if those details hadn't mattered, and that the mystery woman beside me was no mystery at all where it counted most.
 
“What do you do here, Julie?” I heard myself ask, after a more typical awkward silence.
 
“In Zion, I mean.”

“For work, you mean?
 
I'm a substitute teacher.
 
Elementary.”

I looked over at the fireplace mantel—at the stallions and the missing picture frames.
 
“Where's your family?”

“I can't tell you that.”

I should have let it pass, but curiosity, like an old and ill defined longing, craved secrets to be revealed, whatever they might portend.
 
And I remembered my conversation with her opposite, too.
 
Fake name of Nikki.
 
“What can you tell me, then?”

“I can tell you have ambition, but self-doubt.
 
And that you don't normally like to take risks with your life.”

The owner of a studiously lonely heart, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
 
“Touché,” I conceded.
 
“Right now I feel like I've stepped on my own fortune cookie.
 
Have trouble even bending over to pick up the pieces.”

She stared at my stiff leg.
 
“Sheriff Cody probably isn't going to help, either, I'm afraid.
 
To him you're a fugitive.
 
That's not your fault, though.
 
We've just got to get word to someone on the outside about our theories, is all.”

“And soon,” I added.
 
“Although who would believe it?”

“Well, if I can . . .”

Her eyes met mine, and the look held longer than either of us expected.
 
In those extra few seconds I thought I might need something like
Tambocor
if we ever actually kissed.
 
“Why do you trust me?” I asked her, breaking the look before it broke me.

She paused, and then for an instant resembled someone standing on a diving board over cold, dark water.
 
“It's not easy,” she confessed.

“No, it's not, is it?”

At my words she seemed about to come to a decision, then to pull back again.
 
When she finally spoke, it was more like testing the water than taking the plunge.
 
“I'm in the Witness Protection Program,” she said.
 
“Like you guessed.
 
They chose this place for me.
 
I didn't know anyone here.
 
My death was faked.
 
A car accident.
 
I witnessed a murder.
 
An execution, really.
 
That's all I can say.”