Elixir. Part 30

Wally didn't quite know how to ask her.

It had been so many years since he had last dated-twenty-five, counting two years of cohabitation, nineteen of marriage, and four of celibate divorce-he wasn't quite sure how it was done. This was their sixth formal date and they had not yet been s.e.xual. How exactly did you word such a request to the Now Generation?

"Say, are you feeling romantic?"

Or: "Gee, Sheila, you know it's been a hundred and four days since we met, and we've exchanged six h.e.l.lo-and-good-night kisses. It's all been nice and innocent, but isn't it time we moved to Phase Two?"

Or: "So far this has cost me twelve hundred and thirty-nine dollars, and I still haven't scored yet. What about it?"

Or simply: "Want to f.u.c.k?"

They were driving back from a movie in Wally's Porsche with the top up because it was unseasonably cold. But the stars were out, the traffic was light, and the cotton was high.

And Wally Olafsson felt as happy as Tinkerbell.

It was especially momentous since that morning he had dropped below the 185-pound mark into territory he hadn't known since college. He was also down to a thirty-four-inch waist and 15 1/2 s.h.i.+rt. Even more remarkable, his hair had started growing back. Somehow the tabulone stuff had restimulated the follicles, producing a new golden growth that had covered a once-vast dead zone. It looked like fine silk, like that of a newborn's hair. Already an inch long, he had actually fas.h.i.+oned a part. He told Sheila that he was taking hair-growth stimulants.

"You look like a different person."

"The same Wonderful Wally, just less of him."

"You should patent that diet you're on. You could make millions."

"You can't put willpower in a bottle, lady," he said in his best John Wayne. In the mirror he patted his new hair, still in disbelief. G.o.d, it felt good to be alive!

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were getting younger."

Gulp! he thought.

"I mean it. It's amazing."

"It's you, my dear. You bring out the boy in me." Then he broke into a few bars of "You Make Me Feel So Young."

"Bull! It's ninety minutes a day on the StairMaster and old Menudo tapes you've been hiding."

He laughed happily. "Aw, she saw through my cover."

"So, how old did you say you were?"

It had become a game: He, the coy older companion; she, the insistent young inquisitor.

"Why is knowing my age so important?"

"Just curious. Besides, it's women who don't tell how old they are, not guys."

"I'm liberated."

"I'd say forty-four."

"Forty-four!" He slapped his chest in mock horror.

She laughed. "Okay, forty... maybe thirty-nine."

"That's better," he sniffed.

"You're going to hate me, but when you first joined the club I thought you were about sixty."

He made a sharp swerve of the car.

She chuckled again. "Surely, I erred, but you know what I'm saying-the weight and the hair."

"Yes, I do," he smiled. Tomorrow he would meet Roger for his next shot-the first of three large dosages s.p.a.ced a day apart. The high critical period, Roger had said. "I'll make a deal with you."

"Try me."

"I'll tell you my age if we can let the evening extend beyond a simple bon soir at your doorstep."

"Wally Olafsson, that's bribery."

"Or s.e.xual hara.s.sment, depending on how badly you want to know my age."

She smiled and thought about it for a few moments.

In the rearview mirror he fixed his hair again and noticed the same big SUV behind him, its headlights like twin suns bearing down on him. These days every other car on the road was some kind of sports utility vehicle. He felt like an immigrant in his Porsche.

As he flipped the mirror to night mode, he felt Sheila's hand rest on his leg.

"Your place, or mine?" she asked.

The rush of joy returned Wally from the mirror. The big Jeep Cherokee could have driven over his car and he wouldn't have noticed. "Which is closer?" he gasped.

She laughed and gave him a great big kiss on his part. "Yours."

28.

Roger had just turned down Margaret Street for his next delivery when he spotted a green SUV two cars back.

He couldn't see the faces of the two men, but it looked like the same Jeep Cherokee. If it was, then this was no casual surveillance. They had come up with evidence and had a warrant to take him in.

His first thought was Laura. She was shopping for food and a present for Brett whose graduation from Pierson middle school was in three weeks. He pulled out his cell phone. It would be a call he dreaded almost as much as getting caught.

The SUV kept a couple cars back. Traffic was light on the main roads so he could hold them in the mirror. If it was the Feds, they had come up with something. Something Wally had nothing to do with. He was far into treatments and having too good a time playing New Age Playboy. Something else.

On the floor sat a cooler containing four dozen ampules of Elixir. Since the day the Feds first dropped by, he had stashed the supply in the Igloo under a layer of ice, some insulin, and a couple cans of Pepsi. Another thirteen dozen ampules were in the freezer of their Minnesota condo. Except for the three year supply in the emergency tube around his neck, the remaining supply was buried miles from here. The Igloo went wherever he did, just in case. Even a man on death row is allowed his medicine.

Roger made two turns through the heart of town. And they stayed on him.

He slammed the wheel with his hand. This was not supposed to happen.

He punched Laura's number on the cellphone. They each had one registered under aliases. In thirteen years this was the second Red Alert. The first was a false alarm. G.o.d, that this was another.

He heard her voice, and muttered a prayer of thanks. "Where are you?"

"In the car. I just finished shopping."

"Where are you exactly?"

She told him the street. "Why?"

"I'm being followed. I think it's the Feds."

"Oh, Jesus, no."

He tried to keep his voice even, soothing. "Laura, don't panic. It may not be the real thing. But just in case, pick up Brett."

The first place the Feds would check was their house. They'd ask around and one of their neighbors would remember that Brett had a game at Pierson. He could hear her fighting the terror. "Laura, do you understand? Get Brett and head for the condo."

No matter how measured he kept his tone, the mention of their safe house made it more real. Their condo was in Minneapolis, a hundred miles from here.

"Laura, do you understand?"

He heard the catch in her voice. She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Yes. I'm okay. I'll get him." The thought of Brett being left parentless had steeled her resolve. "What about you?"

"I'll be there tonight."

"Tonight? Why tonight?"

He wished she hadn't forgotten. "I told you, I'm meeting Wally in Black River Falls."

If it weren't critical ma.s.s, she would blast him. From the start she had resented his treating Wally, even if it meant buying him off. She resented the very sight of the ampules. It was what had gotten them into this nightmare twenty years ago.

Before he hung up, he said, "Laura, we'll be fine."

But she clicked off.

For a moment, his mind was lost in the silence of the open line-a silence crackling with frightened disbelief that it was happening again. What they code-named the Awful-Awful. But all he heard was fear and anger.

The light at Fenwick turned yellow, and Roger floored the accelerator. The van careened across the intersection and made the first left down a side street. The Jeep must have pulled out of line and run the red light, because it appeared in Roger's mirror about a hundred meters back. He took three more turns then crossed the river and headed for the airport. The Jeep stayed with him several cars back.

He cut to an access road, weaving his way through traffic, then pulled into an industrial park consisting of rows of warehouses separated by long driveways where trucks pulled in for deliveries. Because it was Sat.u.r.day, there was no traffic in the complex.

The streets were potholed from all the trucks, yet the Jeep barreled after him as if on the Interstate.

Ahead, Roger spotted the familiar yellow sign that hung over the narrow alley separating Triple E Sheet Metal from DeLaura Display.

He floored the accelerator until he was maybe a hundred feet short, then slammed the brakes and cut the wheel, sending the van into a screeching slide that flung him into the alley. Luckily it was clear, so he floored it. A couple moments later, the Jeep turned in behind him. The alley was wide enough for a single truck. Behind it lay a s.p.a.cious lot with trucks and half a dozen cars including a 1992 dark blue Toyota Canary which he stored for just such a contingency.

At a point near the alley's end, Roger slammed on the brakes and cut the wheel, sending the van into a sideways rest. Even if the Jeep decided to ram through, the van was too heavy for a single shot to clear. It might also incapacitate itself.

Roger grabbed the cooler and bolted across the lot to the Toyota.

He heard no crash as he sped out the rear exit. But he could see the agents run after him in frustration. The one with a cell phone to his ear he recognized. Number 44 from the Town Day Race.

He was a fed, after all!

Roger had only a few moments reprieve before every cop car in a twenty-mile radius was alerted, so he raced across town to the munic.i.p.al lot off Jefferson where he kept the black Blazer registered to Harry Stork. Over the years he had rehea.r.s.ed these runs, hoping in his heart of hearts not to hear the curtain call. In the glove compartment was a stage makeup kit including mustaches, wig, and gla.s.ses.

In less than ten minutes, he was on the ramp to highway 94. Every atom of his physical being urged him to turn north to Minneapolis. Laura would be in a terrible state trying to make things seem perfectly normal to Brett. It was the worst possible time to be separated.

Yet, he knew what he had to do and turned up the south ramp that would take him to the Best Western Motel in Black River Falls to give Wally his stabilizing shot.

Laura was on the way back from the grocery store when she got the call.

As rehea.r.s.ed, she drove to a city parking garage where they kept a dark blue Subaru Outback registered under an alias. The police would be looking for her in a maroon Volvo. If this was the Awful-Awful, her face would be all over the media which meant she couldn't walk into a grocery market within hundreds of miles. So she unloaded the groceries from the Volvo, then raced out of town to Pierson.

Years ago she had pledged to stay with Roger all the way. But things were different today. They weren't the same people. If it weren't for Brett, she would turn them in and dump all the serum but what Roger needed.

She approached the school, frantically hoping not to find the place jammed with flas.h.i.+ng blue squad cars. It wasn't. But if the police were after them, she had small window before they showed.

The parking lot was full of cars for the game. As she pulled in, she felt under her seat for the box containing a loaded .38-caliber Smith and Wesson. Roger had taken her out to the woods to practice shooting until she felt comfortable. It made no sense to have a gun if you didn't know what to do with it.

She parked at the far end of the lot and slipped the gun into her shoulder bag, praying it wouldn't see the light of day. She cut through the cl.u.s.ter of small buildings to the playing fields. The good news was that the white Pierson team was at bat. The bad news was that Brett, number 33, was on second base.

A large boisterous crowd filled the grand stands and spilled along the baselines. Laura was active in the Pierson PTA, so she recognized many people. But the game was tied with two outs, so n.o.body paid her much attention as she cut behind the crowd. Brett spotted her and nodded.

Coach Starsky and his a.s.sistants were cl.u.s.tered by the Pierson bench. She didn't know how long before the sides retired. If there were hits or walks, it could go on for another twenty minutes. She waited, with her heart pounding, under a tree, thinking that she might suffer cardiac arrest if she didn't get Brett out of here.

The batter was walked, and she nearly screamed in frustration. The next batter took two b.a.l.l.s then cracked the third high to center field. Thank G.o.d, it was caught.

While Brett trotted off the field, she approached Starsky, telling herself it had to be sure and quick.

Starsky, a guy in his late twenties, was barking batter lineup when he saw her. "He's having a great game." He nodded toward the Scoreboard. "Three of those runs have his name on them."

She tried to look delighted. "Look, Star, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to take him out."

He looked at her in disbelief. "What?"

"It's a medical emergency. Roger. He's in the hospital." She began to choke up.