The Methuselah Gene (44 page)

“This?” I asked, surprised at my own mocking tone.
 
“What's this?
 
Let's shoot the breeze here, shall we?
 
We wouldn't want to upset the guests.”

He looked beyond me at the couple sitting across the pool, the wife reading the latest paperback courtroom drama like Mrs. Paul reads the want ads after all her fish sticks burn.
 
Then he looked behind us and up, and I followed his gaze to see Ray Strickland and another man in a blazer looking down at us from behind the tinted glass of the bridge thirty feet above.
 
My interrogator nodded.
 
His clone nodded back.
 
They continued watching us, and still the hand inside my would-be interrogator's coat never left it.

“Go ahead, Mister . . .”

“Public,” I responded with a smile.
 
“John Q. Public.”

“So you're a reporter?
 
Print or broadcast?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It doesn't matter.
 
Where's Mills?”

“He sold me his ticket.”

“Did he?
 
For how much?
 
And more importantly—”

“Why?
 
Because he needed the money.
 
He's quit the rackets, you see.
 
Then he calculated that his savings would expire a little sooner than he'd anticipated he would, without his family pension.
 
Of lung cancer.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“In a bar.”

“You're lying.”

“Why would I lie?”

“Maybe you're paid to lie.”

I smiled.
 
“And it really doesn't matter who I'm lying for?”

Blazer straightened in his chair, took in a breath to expand his chest, and gave me his best stern expression.
 
“For the last time.”

“Okay,” I said.
 
“I'm a writer, you're right about that.
 
But I don't do news.
 
I do travel pieces.
 
I'm the mystery cruiser that writes for
Cruise Holiday
, you know the column?
 
There is no byline, so I can't tell you who I am.
 
I'm a reviewer.
 
Okay?
 
This is a new ship, a maiden voyage, my man.
 
The gig is that I rate the amenities, see how the sales pitches are handled, interview a few residents and hear how they like the condo concept.
 
Check with the magazine, if you like.
 
But if I tell you who I am, there won't be a review.
 
Or let's say the review will be quite different?”

He studied my hand—that pulsing, bandaged thing at the end of my arm.
 
“Is reviewing always so dangerous?”

“Not usually,” I told him, “but sometimes it can be rough.
 
Know what I mean?”

“No, I don't.
 
Where's your camera?”

“Don't really need it for a cruise review piece.
 
It would give me away too, wouldn't it?
 
I'm sure the cruise line will supply whatever photos are necessary.
 
Eight by ten glossies, transparencies . . . taken with a larger format view camera.
 
Do you know how hard it is lugging one of those things around, trying to orchestrate a perfect shot with salt spray and screaming kids everywhere?”

The man shook his head slowly from side to side, but kept his eyes fixed hypnotically at the brace of the deck chair beneath me.
 
“This is very irregular, Mister—”

“Mills,” I said.
 
“Walter Mills.”

I returned to my room, and tried on Walter's swimsuit, ripping one of the seams a bit to get it on.
 
It was tight, but as long as I didn't bend over all the way . . .
 
A flowered short sleeved shirt with cargo pockets, plus steel rimmed sunglasses, completed my outfit.
 
I strolled through the ship that way, after purchasing another throw-away flash camera at the gift shop opposite the hair salon, just in case I got really lucky.
 
In the casino I thought I saw a man resembling Carson, and got my camera ready, but then he hit a jackpot and looked a bit too happy over the few coins that dropped from the slot into his grasp.
 
Next I checked each entranceway to Deck A and D—also called the Aquarius and Delphic decks—after making sure I was not being followed.
 
I found them all locked.
 
A brass warning plate advised: OFF LIMITS EXCEPT TO RESIDENTS.
 
Then, when a fastidious little man resembling Woody Allen in Bermuda shorts came out, I pretended to be waiting impatiently for someone.
 
I held the door open, calling for “Wilma” behind him.
 
But just as I was about to enter, a hall guard in a blue blazer appeared, and I put my hand on Woody's shoulder instead.
 
I escorted him out, striking up a conversation as if we were old buddies.

“Where's Wilma?” I asked Woody.

He blinked at me, like Ray had, shaking his head nervously.
 
“Who?”

“Oh sure,” I said, “pretend you don't know Wilma either.
 
She's only got the biggest mouth on the ship.
 
What—
is
she quiet since our divorce, now that she has my money?
 
Her boyfriend's hiding her in there, is that it?
 
Maybe you seen him—tall, thin, older, red hair?
 
A sugar daddy, hangs around with some nefarious types with greasy hair.
 
I told her she better be careful, this guy's a shark, but does she care?
 
What about our son, what about our little Walter?
 
He needs clothes and a nanny, and a private tutor, doesn't he?
 
Doesn't your son have that?”

“I don't—”

“Your daughter, little . . .”

“Really, I—”

“But you've seen this guy, come on.
 
Does he look sick to you?”

“Sick?
 
No, I don't think he's . . .”

The little man scurried for the elevator.
 
Momentarily stunned, I almost didn't make it in time to block his path.
 
“He's what?
 
You can tell me.”

“He's not sick,” Woody admitted, as if he'd said too much already.
 
“I don't know what he is, really.
 
None of my business.”

You got that right, pal, but I see a light at the end of your hallway.

“So what room is he in?”

The little guy squeezed past me, into the elevator.
 
He was silent now.
 
Fearful and turning away from me, repeatedly punching the elevator door button.
 
But I joined him, then followed him on his walk around the jogging path topside.

“Look, I'm sorry,” I said, “it's just so frustrating.
 
Those bodyguards of theirs.
 
All I need to do is to talk to her.
 
That's all.
 
You think you can at least let me know when you see one of them leave their room again?
 
I won't tell anybody about you, I promise.
 
You gotta help me.”

I wrote down my room number, offering to buy him a drink.
 
Woody declined the drink with a quick, nervous gesture.
 
But then he saw he wasn't going to lose me, and that I followed him quietly.
 
So it was on our third lap around the oval track that he finally gave in, looking a couple of degrees past uneasy, into queasy.
 
I
calmed
him by asking him about himself, first.
 
I learned his name was Jeremy Wells.
 
He and Alice had been art dealers in Boston, but Alice left him for a sculptor who lived in Spain.
 
There was a nude sculpture of Alice out there on tour somewhere, for all of Jeremy's colleagues to chuckle over at cocktail parties.
 
So he'd sold his private collection and taken his retirement early.
 
From now on he planned to spend his days surfing the Internet's museum websites and art archives, advising and estimating for select clients, and now and then putting together buyer and seller.
 
More out of habit or hobby than anything else, he reckoned it would keep him from going stir crazy aboard ship, where rowdy tourists lurked only one deck away.

“Like me?” I asked him.
 
He nodded.
 
Then I asked if he'd ever thought of having an adventure first, before settling down to this pampered life.
 
He glanced at me curiously, as if the idea had already crossed his mind subconsciously, and I'd just coaxed it to the surface.

“What do you mean?”
 
His animated eyes stared at me from a blank mousy face.

“Oh, I don't know, like going fishing for marlin off Grand Cayman, getting caught in a thunderstorm, and making it back before the little boat gets scuttled.
 
Or hunting tigers in northern India with a camera, with only a ride out on an elephant to protect you.
 
Or—”

He waved a hand at me to stop.
 
“That's not for me.
 
I'd lose my lunch, if I wasn't lunch.”

“Okay,” I conceded, “how about to helping stop an escaped mass murderer, then?”

He gave me a sideways glance that was a mingling of perplexed interest and vague suspicion.
 
“A what?”

“Mass murderer,” I said, “who has an alibi, and is in process of changing his identity with the help of a clandestine government outfit.”

“That's—”

“Bizarre?
 
I know, but let's pretend it's happening.”

“Where?”

“
Here.
 
Right now.
 
Play along with me, for the sake of discussion, will you?”

“Why?”

“Why not?
 
Let's say you've set up some office colleagues to take the fall for an accident that you caused, which incidentally resulted in dozens of deaths.”

“Yeah?”
 
His face changed to something a bit more elastic, as though reading murder mysteries had been his most favorite of secret pastimes.
 
Or perhaps Alice's favorite, while he dreamt of murdering her in real life.

“Now you're going to take the money and run, but the CIA knows who you are, and your colleagues are no longer going to be fingered.
 
Do you cut a deal?”

“What kind of a deal?”

“I don't know.
 
You tell me.
 
You're good at making deals.”

“But I'm . . . not sure what you're talking about.”

“Okay,” I said, “imagine it involves a story in the news.
 
Like that town Zion with all the dead people.
 
You hear about that yet?”

“Yes, I have.”

“You have?”

“Yes.
 
Why do you ask?”

“Well, hypothetically speaking, what if it was a virus that made those people go insane, and—”

“But that's what they're saying.”

I sucked in a surprised breath, and leveled my good hand in front of my stomach.
 
“Okay . . . and let's say the vice president of the failing drug company that made the virus—”

“M-
Telo
-something, I think it's called.”

“Uh . . . huh.
 
Well, let's say this drug executive, a man named Jeffers, was responsible for allowing a test of the virus there while hiring some surveillance experts to film a movie as a cover.”

“That's one of the latest theories, yes.
 
But how is the CIA involved?”

I lost control of my voice for a moment, and had to stop walking as pain flared in my leg.
 
“Uh, ah-huh, the CIA, right.”
 
I coughed as my throat
spasmed
.
 
“Listen, Jeremy, what if they weren't involved in the test at first?
 
The CIA.
 
But let's say that later they paid Jeffers a million dollars, then got out when it became too risky.”

“Why?”

“Well, because there were side effects when one part of the experiment got out of control.
 
So Jeffers' plans changed, and he double-crossed the ones who helped him, and then he split with the money he'd saved to buy a condo on the SS Seven Seas.”