The Methuselah Gene (35 page)

I needed help, I realized.
 
But who could I trust now?
 
A private investigator?
 
I considered Darryl's cryptic hacker group, Hackers Anonymous.
 
Darryl had claimed to be vice president.
 
But how could I reach the president?

Jean Thurman said she'd worked as a nurse's aide when she lived in Cedar Rapids, and so she offered to tend to the dressing on my hand.
 
But I declined, saying that what I really needed was a hospital emergency room for the pain that now throbbed through my whole arm and leg in a constant dull agony.
 
It felt like the bullet which had gone through my hand had snapped several small bones, too, because I couldn't move my middle finger.
 
Although I didn't need to move my middle finger to give it to Jeffers, if we ever met again.

Jean's car was an old Chevy Malibu, with scrapes on the paint and a dented rear bumper.
 
Jean produced a key, but then started toward the boarding house, which was unnaturally dark except for a single light in an upper room.

“Come on,” I told her, “forget your things.
 
We need to get out of here.”

She looked back at the house as we pulled away, like Lot's wife looking back at a doomed city.
 
She pulled her son close to her as Julie drove.
 
“Mabel,” she said, with a backward nod.
 
“It's Mabel.”

I used the side mirror to look back.
 
A woman stood at the upper window, something in her hand.
 
Not a gun.
 
It was a knife.
 
She was a stocky woman, staring fixedly from the window as though it was a porthole and she watched the last lifeboat pull away from her sinking ship.

“She has short hair,” Jean said in amazement, then added, “now.”

We said nothing for long time.
 
As we passed Wally's Shell station, heading out of town at last, I thought I saw the fake legs move under a car in the bay.
 
But it was hard to tell, as most of the lights were off there too.
 
When we came to the blockade, I saw that it was still up but unmanned, next to the sign that I knew read ZION, IOWA, POP. 166.
 
We pushed past it, upending the row of sawhorses that Jeffers had no doubt replaced, crunching them beneath the undercarriage.
 
And then Julie
floorboarded
it toward
Macksburg
.

The air felt good on my face.
 
I felt the end coming soon.
 
I wanted it to be over.
 
And when it was over, I vowed, I would take a vacation.
 
We would all take one.
 
Anywhere but Zion National Park.

Julie checked the gas gauge more than once as we drove, and each time with a look of relief.
 
The road beyond our headlights curved and straightened again, but it remained empty under a bright patina of stars, and with no animal scents or smell of death in the air anymore.
 
For what seemed an eternity the stars appeared immobile above us, as though time had slowed and a limbo was being crossed to the next world.
 
Then the uneven gravel sound beneath the tires was replaced by a steady rumble, as the road became a paved one.
 
And there were lights on the horizon, too.
 
Lights that we fast approached.

“Finally,” Julie said, giving me a hopeful look this time.

The first building we came to was the closed
Macksburg
Country Store, which sat next to a feed lot and barn.
 
But it had a pay phone outside, under a sputtering fluorescent.

“Stop,” I said, then, “stop!”

Julie pulled in, fishtailing as she braked onto the gravel lot.
 
Jean gave me a quarter, which I wouldn't need for dialing 911, but it also gave me an idea.
 
As I got out and approached the phone, I wanted to cross my fingers, but the pain would have been too much.
 
Using my good hand, I scanned for the highway patrol in the Des Moines phonebook first, then picked up the receiver, and deposited the quarter.
 
There was a click, and then finally a dial tone.

Thank God.

I punched the digits.

“Hello,” a weary deep voice answered.

“This the highway patrol?” I asked, wondering if I'd dialed wrong.

“That's right.
 
State your business, please.”

“Listen,” I said, “there's a guy just took a potshot at me out the window of his Caddy with a pistol.”

“Where was this?” the officer asked, only mildly interested.

“On a dirt road heading northeast toward I-35 and Des Moines.
 
A dark blue El Dorado with Virginia plates.
 
Didn't think to write down the license plate number, I was too busy dodging bullets.”

“Bullets, as in plural?”

“That's right.”

“Hold on.”
 
I could now hear muffled talking, as the officer had momentarily placed one hand over the phone.
 
When he returned his voice telegraphed a skeptical tone.
 
“What road is this, exactly?”

“I don't know.
 
He's into Madison County by now.
 
Can't you stop him on I-35?”

“Why didn't you call 911, sir?
 
Who are you?”

“What?”

“Your name?”

I paused, thinking about that.
 
Did I really want the FBI or the CIA or Jeffers himself knowing I was alive?
 
“Look,” I said at last.
 
“This guy, he's probably killed people.
 
He had blood on his hand.
 
We're wasting time.”

“I need a name, sir,” the officer persisted.
 
“For the report.”

“Okay, it's Walter Mills.”

There was a pause, and in that moment my heart skipped a beat.
 
I sucked in a breath as I imagined one of Walter's men at the other end of the line, tapped in somehow and monitoring all calls.
 
Then:

“Address?”

I breathed in again, more deeply this time, holding it.
 
“Excuse me?”

“Something wrong?”

“No.
 
Sorry.”
 
I exhaled.

“Address?”

“Box sixteen, Zion.”

“Phone?”

“The phones are down right now.
 
I'm in
Macksburg
.”

“What's your home phone number when it's up?”

“I . . . don't have a phone.”

“Then I can't help you, buddy.
 
And I should warn you that giving a false report to police is a crime, and you're being recorded.
 
We've had several crank calls already this evening, and this is getting old.”

“What?
 
What did they say?”

“They mentioned shootings, mass killings.”

“Those aren't crank calls,” I told him.

“Really.
 
And next you'll ask me if I have Prince Albert in a—”

I hung up in disbelief, and then motioned Jean Thurman from the car.
 
“You'll have to do it,” I told her.
 
“Sorry.”

No problem.
 
She dialed 911, and told the dispatcher what I asked her to say.
 
That a gunman had entered Zion and shot up the town, killing lots of people, and that he was heading back to Des Moines in a blue El Dorado with Virginia plates.
 
She sounded far more convincing than I ever could, and when they asked for her name, she told them the truth, then began to cry.

The ER at Des Moines General seemed prepared for an eventful Sunday night, but it was oddly quiet—the calm before a storm only we knew was coming.
 
After an x-ray was taken of my hand, it was determined that I needed minor surgery, which could be done in the morning.
 
In the meantime I was disinfected and re-bandaged.
 
I claimed a gun cleaning accident, but was told by Nurse Reece that a police report would have to be filed nonetheless.
 
Given a morphine derivative, I was then asked to check in and await a Dr. Shapiro at seven a.m..
 
I didn't wait, though.
 
I snatched a vial of
Dilaudid
from a tray atop a med cart in the adjacent examination room, and slipped out.
 
I didn't warn the nurses what chaos they would be facing the next day.
 
They would find that out soon enough . . . while I found out just how well Jeffers had set me up, and whether he'd escaped.
 
As I returned to the parking lot, I observed though the front glass doors that my procedure-conscious Nurse Reece was now calling the police, probably because she suspected my gun-cleaning story didn't quite explain my obviously earlier leg wound, also from a gunshot.

In my absence, Julie and Jean had cleaned up too, after obtaining money from an automatic teller machine and purchasing clothes for all of us.
 
I was grateful.
 
It wouldn't look good for me to be wandering around the airport in an open backed hospital gown.
 
Then, as we drove toward the airport, Julie suddenly said, “I think we should talk about this.
 
What if your boss drove out of here just like he arrived?
 
What if they're already waiting for you at your apartment, in case you show up?”

“They?” I answered, having imagined a similar scenario involving the paranoid them.

“An accomplice, an agent, whoever.
 
Police might even be waiting for you at the Washington airport by the time you get there.
 
Then it'll just be your word against theirs.”

“What about your word?” I asked.

She looked back at the road.
 
“I can't go to Washington.”

“You mean right now,” I corrected her.
 
“You can stay with my sister Rachel in Wisconsin until this blows over.”

“No,” she said.
 
“I mean I can't go to Washington ever, even if you need me.
 
Because . . . because that's where it happened.”

“It,” I repeated, reminded of another little complication.
 
“Oh.”

“I can't talk about it.”

“I thought it happened in New York, whatever it was,” I thought aloud.

Julie frowned.
 
“I never said New York.
 
And what about Jean?
 
If she goes to the police now, they're going to force her to say where you went.”

“But they don't even know I'm alive.”

“They will.
 
You just checked into a hospital.”

“And out,” I reminded her, this time in frustration.

“Do you think they're stupid, Alan?” Julie wanted to know.
 
“Is that what you think?”

I considered it, then shook my head.
 
So far I'd been the only stupid one.
 
“How long have I got, then, do you think?
 
Before they execute me, I mean, or throw me bodily into solitary confinement for the rest of my life.”

Julie didn't reply.
 
She took the airport exit as though on automatic pilot.
 
Then we began to circle the mostly empty parking lots surrounding the complex, looking for a blue El Dorado.

“Jean doesn't even know my last name,” I said, in an attempt at conversation.
 
But it was useless, so I turned to Jean in the back seat.
 
Her son was asleep now, or pretending to be, his small head resting on her lap.
 
“Do you, Jean?” I whispered.

“No, I don't know you,” Jean Thurman replied, also at a whisper.
 
She continued scanning the cars we passed in the lot.

“Neither do I, then,” Julie declared, her expression never changing.

We circled through the short term parking lot without success.
 
Then Julie drove to the passenger
dropoff
point.
 
She wouldn't look at me.
 
A row of yellow floodlights on high poles above the car now lit the interior with an unearthly radiance as we rolled to a stop.

“I don't know what else to do,” I said, feeling my frustration building to a climax.
 
“You want me to just go to the police right now?
 
Take my chances, not knowing what kind of hand has been dealt me?
 
If I had to guess, I've got a pair of bloody deuces, and Jeffers has a straight flush.
 
I might walk eventually, but he's walking now.”