Dues of Mortality (49 page)

“
What’s
the last thing you remember?” Xavier asked Simonton.

“
Oh,
he’s the genuine article, alright,” Glenda said. “He
has a thirty-year-old raised scar on the back of his neck.” As
if she had to check. Her reaction to Peter Simonton bordered on
allergic and he still carried the scent of bipolar humility that was
hard to believe could be stirred up in a cloning lab like a martini.

“
What
do you mean?” Simonton asked. “Who have you been talking
to?”

Xavier
shook his head. “Uh uh, you first. She’s the one who
deserves the explanations.”

Simonton
sighed tortuously. “I’m so sorry, Glen. I just messed up
so bad.”

“
You
said that,” Xavier growled. “Now how about something you
haven't told us.
The
web reports had your remains discovered and identified beyond a
doubt. Yet here you are, alive and...well, alive. I dare you to try
and convince us you're not the reason we've come so close to getting
killed.”

Simonton
sneered at Xavier caustically. “
Who
the fuck are you? Why should I tell you anything? How do I know
you’re
not working for Wallace?”
He pouted at Glenda. “Who is this guy, anyway, Glen? Is he the
reason you left me? Ain’t that a bitch. You left me for a
younger guy. Shit, my wife would have a field day with this one.”

“
Oh,
will you shut up and stop trying to change the subject?” Glenda
retorted. “I know you, Peter. Remember?”

Simonton
deflated. “I really messed up.”

“
You
said that!” Xavier and Glenda shouted cooperatively.

Simonton
sat up and took Glenda’s soft, graceful hands in his own. He
gazed into her eyes in typical puppy dog fashion.
“
I
just wanted to be with you, Glen,” he sang.

Glenda
sighed, frustrated. “What are you talking about, Peter? What
did you do? Why does everyone think you’re dead?”

Simonton
dropped his head. Either he was too ashamed to look at Glenda or
feared she'd see right through him as he fished for lies. “It’s
what they wanted. It’s what they
all
wanted.”

Xavier
laughed. “Okay, if you’re going to tell us that you’re
a victim in this somehow, I think I’ll just shoot you now.”

Simonton
bared his teeth straight at him. “
You
know what, pal? You can go straight to...” He turned on Glenda.
“Shit, Glen,
who
is this guy?
”

“
He’s
the one who’s been keeping me alive, Peter,” Glenda said
straightforwardly. “But right now, I’m asking myself who
you are! Because I’m starting to think I never knew!”

Simonton
shrank, feeling the squeeze of sitting between a gun-toting thug and
the woman whose words could wound him worse than any bullet.

“
Peter,
for the past week, I have been through more hell than any human being
should ever have to go through in one lifetime,” Glenda said.
“I’ve been assaulted, shot at, accused of murder and I’m
practically a wanted fugitive! And, we know all of this has something
to do with Millenitech and your relationship with Jerome Wallace!”

Simonton
stiffened. He was partially hoping Glenda had figured out the whole
story by now and, aside from a little anger, was taking it rather
well. But he guessed that would be a pipe-dream. Nobody would take
well
what Simonton had done.
Nobody
...especially
Glenda. He pawed his face.
Was
there even anything left to gain by lying?
he
asked himself.
Obviously, he wasn’t going to get
anything more from the deal. Wallace had been snowing him from the
beginning. Now Glenda—Simonton's only reason for living—was
running for her life because of what Simonton had done.
Shit!
Why was the whole world suddenly against him? Why couldn’t he
make anything go right anymore?

Simonton
stood up and put some distance between himself and his jury of two,
keeping his back to them for his own sake. “I never thought
this town would turn on me like this,” he said. “I spent
my entire career giving this city back to itself...and the first
chance it got...it sold me out to a gene broker.”

Xavier
was about to nudge Simonton, unfriendly-like, to get to the point.
Glenda interpreted his intention and put up a hand to halt him.
Painful as it was, Peter would spill everything if allowed his
self-pitying druthers.

“
I
kept it all afloat as long as I could,” Simonton yammered on,
“but when the government started to pull up stakes, I had to
take a few extra risks in the market. I suppose it took me a little
too long to realize I couldn’t save it.” He paused,
looking perplexed. “I can’t believe how everyone just
turned on me. Everyone!” He drew up his palms, staring down at
them like piles of sand were pouring through his fingers. “For
years, I had them all: the mayor, the governor, the entire state
legislature. Then out of nowhere, Jerome Wallace swoops in with all
his white collar jobs and limitless investment capital and seduces
them like a pornstar. After that, it was like they couldn't even
remember my name. All my loans, development grants, and pension
guarantees, all of them slashed and eventually erased, just so they
could fold them over to the biotechs!”

Simonton
casually detached from the explanation how he had ignored the advice
to be more mindful of the biotech bandwagon other cities were lining
up to profit from. Ohio's business, academic and political leaders,
were determined to make the “controversial science” of
biotechnology the foundation of a new economy. Simonton had been
warned of the potential erosion of manufacturing jobs and how
high-performance steel would become easier and cheaper to produce.
But becoming dyslexic when the writing was on the wall was just
typical Peter Simonton.

“
It
took Wallace less than ten years to ruin me,” he said. He
turned to Glenda. “Marcia found out about you and went straight
to an attorney. Lord knows she would’ve crucified me in a
divorce. That, combined with federal charges, I’d have been
destroyed.” He shrugged woefully. “You were the only
thing left in my life that was worth all of it. As long as I had
that, I wasn’t about to just let them throw me in jail so they
didn’t have to feel guilty for betraying me.”

Xavier
guffawed. “Look who's talking.”

Simonton
threw him another dirty look and said, “Screw off.”

Xavier
balled a fist. “
I'll
screw
off
your head
if you don't get to the point. Why is Wallace gunning for us? Did he
know about you and her? Does she have something of yours that he
needs? Just what the hell is this all about?”

Simonton
looked away from them both.

“
What
did you do, Peter?”
Glenda
asked coldly. Peter always drew things out to the nth degree whenever
he’d done something inexcusable. She felt the early onrush of
outrage. Faking his death to avoid prosecution was, apparently, the
least of it.

Simonton
drew in his lips and threw a hand over his eyes.

He
couldn't say it.

He
couldn't just
blurt it out
like that...Glenda would be
abhorred. She’d detest him. Loving her was the only reason he'd
done any of it and if he lost that now...Oh shit,
shit
!
He wanted desperately to make something up, but energy and
imagination had long since deserted him.

“
Wallace
has been trying for years to get the federal government to ease the
cloning laws so he could expand his research,” Simonton said
finally. “And for all that time, a certain senator has been the
driving force in keeping public opinion against such legislation.
Wallace figured that if he could somehow discredit Shane Beaumont,
he’d have a better chance of manipulating the senate.”

Xavier
squinted, curious. “So it does have something to do with that
upcoming vote,” he said.

“Yes.
Wallace knew that Beaumont and I
maintained a mutually beneficial relationship. I financially
supported his candidacy and those who supported him. In return, he
continued to lobby and speak out against the proliferation of the
biotech’s power. But not even he was a match for Wallace...And
there's not much room for failures in this world.” Simonton
paused, looking askance at the shadows. “When I turned
twenty-one, my father gave me an old service pistol from some
relative who fought in some war back in I-don't-know-when. He knew I
was scared of guns, didn't know shit about them, but he considered it
an heirloom. I kept it in a safe in my study that not even my wife
knew about.” Simonton stayed unnervingly quiet for a moment.
The gun he so touchingly referenced, now sat unloaded on the
broken-down desk on the other side of the room. “Somehow it
just seemed the right way do it, you know.”

Xavier
flashed to just days ago in the old house, sitting alone and
frightened. He really
didn’t
want to hear this part.

“
But
just as I was about to pull the trigger, I looked in the safe and saw
something else I’d hidden in there.” Simonton looked
adoringly at Glenda. “It was that picture of you, the one in my
pilot’s hat?”

Glenda
used a hand to shield her eyes. She didn't want Xavier easily
deducing that the pilot’s hat was
all
she was wearing in the holograph.

“
Do
you remember that, Glen?” Simonton asked coyly. He teasingly
smiled at her, hoping she would return the sentiment.

She
did not.

“
It
was the day we came here to see if these properties were worth
anything,” he said. “I promised I'd give you the moon,
like guys always do in those old romance stories...and then the salt
air took control and made us both...”

“
Yes,
Peter, I remember,” Glenda replied, cutting him off. And as
she
recalled the salt air had taken
control of
only
one
of
them
. Glenda wasn’t
too keen on giving the spiders in this place a free peepshow. But
that was Peter’s strength and her weakness—his
spontaneity. Peter had a way of bringing out the wild child and prim
little princess in Glenda at the same time. He could make her feel
bad in the good way only a man could. She had been his queen and his
whore, his blessing and his curse, his priceless jewel and his
favorite toy.

“
Anyway,
that’s when it hit me,” Simonton said. “That’s
when I got the idea.”

Xavier
and Glenda fine-tuned their ears.

“
I’d
heard all sorts of things from Beaumont about Wallace’s
business, and about what he suspected was really going on there,”
Simonton continued. “At first I had a hard time believing it.
It sounded like a bunch of conspiracy paranoia. I asked him once if
he could prove any of it and he said he could but not without
compromising himself or his 'sources'. Not that helping to bring down
Wallace would have gotten me off the hook with the Feds.”
Simonton paused. “But as I was sitting there, dangling at the
end of my rope, I thought, 'what if it was true? What if Wallace
really was doing the things Beaumont accused him of doing?'”

“
You
mean the cloning?” Xavier asked.

Simonton
gave him a noncommittal glance. “I knew no one would be
satisfied if I just dropped off the planet. Besides, it’s too
damn difficult to just vanish anymore. I would’ve spent the
rest of my life looking over my shoulder. And with me being a
skydiver, if there was no evidence of a body, it would’ve kept
them guessing.” Simonton shook the mating of a thumb and
forefinger in front of his own face. “There had to be
indisputable evidence of my death, nothing left to question.”
He paused again, squaring his chest. “
So
I went to my greatest enemy and...cut a deal. I would give him all
the information he needed to completely destroy Beaumont...and in
exchange...
he would create an exact duplicate of me for the
authorities to find in a burnt out crash site.”

Glenda
and Xavier shared a look of borderline asphyxia.

“
Glen,
listen to me,” Simonton pleaded. “I have over forty
million dollars spread out in three different overseas accounts.”

“
Compliments
of ripping off your own company,” Xavier dug.

Simonton
ignored him. “All you have to do is get on the next plane with
me. We can leave this shit-hole and spend the rest of our days on the
beaches of the Caribbean.”

Xavier’s
hands gnashed harder at the back of the chair. The wood even creaked
a little as he threatened to reduce it to kindling.

“
My
god, Peter,” Glenda said. “You never know when to stop,
do you? All this pain and insanity you've caused and you're still
trying to turn a profit for yourself.”

Simonton
fell silent.

“
What
information are you talking about?” Xavier asked. He didn't
want Glenda giving Simonton opportunity to defend himself. Also—and
he didn't want to admit it—half of him was afraid she might
actually take Simonton up on his offer. She'd practically done it
before and...how many women would say no? “I thought Beaumont
got elected on a platform of decency and environmentalism. People
have been trying to dig up his backyard for years and they’ve
come up dry. What could you possibly know?”