The Methuselah Gene

by Jonathan Lowe

  I lifted my camera, ready for my first test.

  “Carson!” I called.

  Nothing. I listened for movement, but heard only the ocean. That and distant music from somewhere above.

  I leaned back in to find Jeremy holding a gun. Just holding it, like a child does a security blanket. “Am I in danger?” he asked, not looking directly into my eyes. I saw that his automatic had no clip. In his anxiety, he’d forgotten that he’d been too nervous to keep it loaded.

  “No, Jeremy,” I said. “And I’m not a criminal, unless stupidity counts. Burglars don’t rob cruise ship passengers while at sea. You want the truth?”

  His eyes welled with a tremulous light. His grip on the gun tightened. “Yes,” he confessed. “I do.”

  I nodded. “Okay. The story I told you on deck, about Jeffers being here? I’m betting it’s true.”

  “Jeffers?” Jeremy asked me.

  “That’s right. Tactar Pharmaceutical’s V.P.. Or ex V.P., rather. I want to confirm it, Jeremy, and I need your help. It’s been several weeks since you’ve actually seen him in the hallway, right?”

  Jeremy hesitated, staring blankly, his face aging by the second. Then he finally said, “How?”

  “Will you go knock on his door for me?”

  “I . . . I can’t, because there’s a Do Not Disturb sign on it. And the staff patrols, so . . .”

  I lifted a hand. “Okay. You’re right. He wouldn’t answer the door at this point, anyway, if it’s really him. What about dialing him?” I motioned toward Jeremy’s antique French phone, experiencing another brief feeling of deja vu until I recalled a scene with Peter Sellers from one of the Pink Panther movies.

  “You need permission to call,” Jeremy told me. “A special code. It’s for security, and privacy’s sake. It’s in the purchase agreement guidelines, even.”

  “Then there’s no other way,” I said.

  “No other way than what?”

  “Who’s next door?” I asked, and pointed toward the stern of the ship.

  “No one,” he replied.

  “Good.” I took Jeremy’s gun from his limp hand. “Where’s the clip?”

  “What?”

  “The clip, the clip. Bullets.”

  He showed me. I loaded the pistol, and stuck it in my pocket. Then I walked back to the heavy curtains, and discovered an unusually thick draw cord, snaking the full length of it free of the large metal runners. Jeremy watched in awe as I went out onto the terrace again, and looped the cord like a rope around my waist. “I need some kind of evidence, even if Jeffers is gone,” I told him. “If I fall, call the Captain and tell him man overboard. Okay?”

  Jeremy’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that. Your hand!”

  “I have to try,” I said. “Unless you’ll testify you saw him, identified him. Did they show his photo on the news?”

  “No, I don’t think so. At least I didn’t see it.”

  I nodded. “Then I’ve got no choice. Besides, I’ve got something for him.” I raised and clenched my good fist, feeling heat flush across my face as though from a sweeping lighthouse beam. “If I go out of sight for more than five minutes, I want you to call that ship’s security man out in the hallway, okay?”

  He blinked at me rapidly. He looked like he might faint. “You really think it’s him?” he asked, feebly.

  “Or his body,” I said.

  The cord now securely tied to the rail, I instructed Jeremy to release the knots when I gave the word. Then I hoisted myself over. The nylon bit into my back at the point where it circled twice outside the seam of my swimsuit, and stung with the tentacled embrace of the Portuguese man-of-war. I braced my legs against the ship, and pendulumed back and forth much like a mountain climber does rappeling on a sheer wall—or a cruise ship’s smoke stack—reaching for another hand hold. But I had only one good hand, so it took nine tries, grimacing in pain, to make the rail of the next suite. Then I put my elbow around it, and found myself in the predicament of being tied to the first rail, with no way to wiggle loose by myself.

  “Now, Jeremy,” I said.

  Like a magic trick, Jeremy produced a huge knife, and started to cut the cord.

  “No!” I almost shouted at him. “Just untie the knots.”

  He held the knife over the cord, as if in indecision, then tossed it behind him. His helpless terror metamorphosed into curiosity again.

  “Hurry,” I urged him.

  His fingers soon worked at the knots with fanatical zeal, a new sense of adventure animating his face. I levered myself over onto the adjoining terrace, then watched as Jeremy freed the cord. I gave him a nod, then went to retie the cord on the other side of the terrace. The curtains were drawn on the empty suite. No one would hear me scream, I realized. If I pinwheeled for balance and fell to the sharks below, no one except Jeremy would know. And I had the odd image of him frying himself an egg sandwich and forgetting the whole thing, regardless. What bolstered me was the competing image of Julie and me decorating this very suite on whose terrace I now stood, purchased free and clear from film rights to our story. We would only live here three months a year, though. That would be enough for hiding, I reckoned. The rest of the year we’d be with her parents, if they were still alive, which she hadn’t said. If not, we’d relocate with Rachel to Montana, as I’d promised, and just maybe live long, long lives. We’d toast each other with cool clear water, then, laced with nothing except maybe Alka Seltzer.

  On the other side of the empty terrace, I tied the same knot, then doubled it. Then I repeated my foolhardy maneuver, this time preparing to take the gun out of my pocket. I pendulumed once, twice . . . then grabbed for Carson’s railing with my good hand.

  It was a particularly and exquisitely painful save. I hung onto the hot metal, panting, listening, but all I could hear was that annoying music somewhere above me. No conversation, no television, no kitchen clatter. Was Jeffers gone? Had he decided to try the casino as his clone had earlier? Then, when my window of opportunity inevitably expired, along with my muscles, would he return to his cabin—after I missed him in the hallway, as Jeremy had—so he could watch American Idol?

  I thought about the flash. Although the film was rated 400 ASA, my photos might be too dark. Enhancement at a lab might not resurrect Jeffers’ features adequately for a positive ID. The tabloids, and not Time magazine, would carry a dark, grainy photo of what resembled Carson, only with dark hair. It would be as with any UFO photo, too—there would be believers and skeptics. And once I alerted the Feds to him, he would take off via helicopter for Kansas, never to be seen again.

  I pulled myself up the remaining few feet, wanting to scream, every inch an agony. Then I glanced over in Jeremy’s direction. He was watching me. Beyond him, way up on deck, a boy peered down at me too, from where all that upbeat music was emanating. See the crazy window washer, Mom? Over here, stop dancing and look at this. The pain in my back eclipsed even the agony of my hand and thigh, due to a cutting of circulation. Easing the pressure off didn’t help much, either. But I managed to hoist my head up high enough to see over the floor of the terrace.

  I was looking at two cushioned chairs and a telescope on a tripod. A green towel partly draped one of the chairs, and the lower half of it made a damp stain on the floor. The curtains were drawn, the door shut. Carson might be asleep.

  With absurd effort, I hugged the rail and eased off the cord, scraping my legs in the process. Snagging the cord with my foot, I looped it on the rail and tied a hitch knot. Then I climbed over with grunting effort, spilling onto the open space beside one of the chairs. I lay there for a moment, catching my breath and trying not to make a sound as I took Jeremy’s gun from my pocket. Then, reaching slowly up, I tried the door. There was a click, like a metal tumbler falling into place. The door had been unlocked, but my initial touch had made it catch. Now it was locked.

  I sat there in disbelief, with nowhere to look but out to sea. The distant white caps along the tops of all that rolli
ng blue belied a restless agitation. It was a familiar feeling. What now?

  Suddenly I heard a sound from inside. A sound like walking, moving toward me. It was coming. An end to all of it, at last. I gripped the pistol, seeing already how I would do it. Before breaking his nose, I’d tie him up, take some photos. Gather evidence. Then I’d leave him there, make my calls. No one would see me. And my final shot of Carson’s bloody face would be better than the first shot of Jacko’s baby. The story had teeth. Controversy too, in our age of intensive debate over intelligence and agency practices, to say nothing of the drug industry. With the proper spin and the right doctoring, it would be . . .

  I froze, gun lifted as the curtain parted.

  And then suddenly I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Because the face I now stared into was also just as unexpected, just as astonished. And when the door slid open, Russell Winsdon said, “You . . . you.”

  “You,” I repeated. “You?”

  The old geezer just stood there in a dark pullover shirt, his eyes wild, his gray brows angled high in mounting rage. “You,” confirmed his mindless robotic voice.

  There is a moment when surprise can be used as a weapon. I should have known that moment well, by then. But before I could fully stand, the old man suddenly rushed me, taking me off guard, tackling me in midriff, taking advantage of that surprise himself. I buckled and fell back against the railing, my wounded hand crushed behind me. Then he kneed me in the groin, and I screamed in agony. My pistol dropped from my other hand and skidded into the towel. Pain like an electric shock shot through my back as Winsdon began to hoist me, his aging muscles fueled by an adrenaline rush. He would toss me overboard as if I weighed nothing. As if I were his dirty laundry, which must be discarded before the guests arrive.

  I couldn’t believe what was happening. My legs still numbed from the loss of circulation, I stared down at Winsdon’s neck and saw the cords there standing out as he struggled to lift me over the rail. Methodically, he managed to bull me up and over my center of gravity, grunting with the effort, driven like a madman. He bellowed with the anticipation of it, not caring if he broke his back in the process.

  I used the only weapon I had in the closeness of our encounter—my elbow. I came down onto his temple with it, as hard as I could. It glanced off. He jerked once but amazingly continued to buck me up—another moment and the job would be over.

  I twisted to one side, and shot him another taste, this time with a sideways blow that caught at the juncture between his ear and lower jaw. He winced, was dazed by it. But by then I teetered on the railing, gripping desperately with one hand as he put his shoulder into it. He levered me over as I went for his eyes with my bandaged hand. But I couldn’t wriggle any fingers out to do damage to him, and so he caught and bit down on my bandaged forefinger, crunched bone and jerking his head from side-to-side like a shark does to loosen the meat.

  The pain of it eclipsed even the pain in my leg. I gritted my teeth, and fanned frantically for the loop of nylon behind me, which slipped away and whispered out of reach. Glancing to my left, I saw that Jeremy was gone now too. The little boy watched, though, from high above. He would be witness to my fall. He would see the waves swallow me, and hear my muffled cries in the churning wake of salt water, far too faint to be heard over the loud Calypso music up there.

  Winsdon backed off, spitting, and then stepped to my left to kick lopsidedly at my hands. He missed.

  “No,” I cried, my voice hoarse with exertion.

  “No?” He smiled that thin, economical smile of his. You don’t waste more on a dead man. I glanced beyond him, into the open room. The bed was mussed, but empty.

  “Where’s Carson?” I asked, as he lifted his foot again. “Dead?”

  In reply the old man kicked savagely at my weakening hand with his heel, connecting more by luck than skill. I screamed and swung out, dangling from one arm. Far below, the water licked up at me, a boiling wake of spray and foam. I was aware of everything—of the subdued laughter of oblivious revelers, of the ballooning whiteness of a seagull’s wings that enabled a hovering high wire act nearby, and especially of that faint fluttering shadow, that silhouette riding the bulging wave beneath me, which was cast from the masted Panamanian flag somewhere high above in the sun. Let go, an old voice inside me urged. Just let go.

  38

  Between the devil and the turquoise sea, I looked up, expecting to see my tormentor kneeling beside the railing, about to pry my fingers free. But, oddly, he was gone. I heard sounds of a struggle instead.

  Cursing, from inside. Muffled, intense grunts. Then silence, except for the distant lilt of steel drums.

  After an eternity, an arm finally reached down for me. I looked up past my fingers at the face above. A man in a blue blazer and dark sunglasses stood there on the terrace. My left hand was a numb and bloody mess, but it was the nearest to him. Our hands entwined, and he pulled with all his strength. It was enough, just barely.

  Four men were in the room now. None of them was Winsdon. After they patted me down, I was guided into a dining table chair, dripping blood on the brown marble tile there. I slumped into the chair, breathing heavily. The man who had pulled me up wiped his own hand dry first before getting a washcloth and wrapping my bleeding hand with it. The others seemed to be waiting. I started to speak, then decided against it. What was the game here?

  One of the other two, a stocky dark man with a goatee and a balding, sunburned head, seemed to decide the same thing. To remain silent. Then the staff member who had interrogated me on deck came in. He had Walter’s suitcase in one hand, which the bald man stared at as if for the first time. Finally, after some whispered words, everyone in blue blazers left, escorted out by Kojak’s twin, who locked the door behind them.

  He wasn’t one of them, I concluded. He wore a gray shirt, no jacket. He sat on the massive L shaped couch, and deigned me with a cynical smile. “Pretending to be a writer, are you, Mr. Dyson?” he said with subtle sarcasm.

  “What are you pretending to be,” I replied, “Mister—”

  “Levy.”

  “Mr. Levy.”

  “You don’t worry about that.”

  “Where’s Winsdon?”

  “Who?” He’d asked the question casually, and now took out a pack of cigarettes to light up. He waved his match into smoke. “Winston, did you say?”

  “Winsdon. The man who just tried to—” I stopped myself. “Where’s Jeffers?”

  He stared at me coolly, his eyes betraying nothing. When he put one arm atop the couch I got a better look at the holstered 9 mm automatic beneath his armpit. The suit jacket on the couch beside him was not blue, but gray. Even his tie was gray.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “What’s going on here?”

  He blew a smoke ring at me. I needed a gun to shoot through it, but the gun was out on the veranda.

  “Come on,” I said, “You, Curly, Moe, Bevis, and whatever fifth Musketeer you got protecting Tactar here aren’t exactly doing a smashing job of keeping the lid on things, wouldn’t you say?”

  Now I saw a reaction, and again it was in the eyes. A flicker, a softening. And something more than I’d seen before. The closest to it was fear, but it wasn’t that either. Not exactly. He observed me like a specimen under a microscope is observed, one you fear might escape somehow and multiply to infect the masses. You have control, but you are startled by the virulence of the bug just the same. Before you kill it, and disinfect the lab, you monitor its mutations in case they are ever observed again.

  “Is Carson dead,” I repeated, “or not?”

  Levy glanced down at his pistol, moving one hand over it lightly as if a fly had landed on it. But he said nothing.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he,” I said, “because he screwed up. Right? He died just outside Zion, because you couldn’t let him leave. You were watching.”

  “We?” Levy asked.

  “CIA. You couldn’t afford to walk away, not knowing what might happen. B
ut you missed me.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I? I was there. I saw everything. I heard confessions.”

  “Whose confessions?”

  “Stephan Rudnic. Kevin Connolly.”

  The names struck him with noticeable blows. He unclasped the strap on his holster, and took out his automatic. He looked at it, gave me a slight smile, then lay it on the couch beside him. “You’re bluffing,” he said.

  “Then why am I here? It’s you who’s bluffing, pal. Because you’re going to kill me, no matter what. Only reason you haven’t done it yet is you’d have to explain it to the cruise line. Those guys in the blue blazers.”

  “If that’s true, you should have spoken up while you could a moment ago, shouldn’t you?” He favored me with a toothy smile.

  Because he was right. I bit my lip, tasting more blood, then added, “And you’re curious, too, about how I got here. And why Walter Mills isn’t here.”

  “Oh? He confess to you too?”

  “Let’s say I know about Frank Fisher. He’s one of you, isn’t he? Independent head of Tactar security. Who hired him—Jeffers or Winsdon?”

  “You got it all figured out, don’t you?”

  “Most of it. Mills was a patsy from the beginning. Just like me. Sent here to be killed, after he killed Jeffers. Only now you know that Jeffers isn’t coming anymore, so this was to be Winsdon’s new retirement home, under your own little Witness Protection Program. No biggie, right? After all, he’s an old man, and the gene to keep him at the helm failed, while the Studio’s tests were bungled by bugs. Wouldn’t cost as much to offer him the Mediterranean, with filet mignon and Belgian waffles delivered by room service. Still, you didn’t count on me surviving. I was the original patsy, in case things went wrong. Mills was only a backup.”