The Methuselah Gene (11 page)

If I was exposed in the open, I suspected I would be seen.
 
This was mainly due to the light from the high rear windows of the Shell station, where I imagined Wally had dissected my Taurus, looking for drugs.
 
So I waited as long as I dared, then I ran lightly, keeping to the grassy, weedy spots.
 
And while praying that Walter Mills—if that's who he was—wasn't packing a concealed weapon.

I entered a chest high thicket at the base of the low hill, where crickets lived.
 
I turned to look back toward the distant road to see how well Walter may have seen me.
 
There was no way to tell.
 
Side lit from the Shell station's oblique windows back there, I imagined being discernible only as a moving human shape, since I now wore the black oversize tee shirt George had lent me.
 
That my face was identifiable at this distance in the dark seemed improbable, although I wasn't happy that I'd opted for caution in waiting, because now I couldn't tell whether Walter had changed directions, or if he was laying in wait for me.

I paused and tried to listen past the sound of the crickets for any sign of movement.
 
Some rustle of vegetation, or scrape of foot.
 
There was nothing.
 
Momentarily I felt a flush of panic, not knowing what to do, but knowing that I had to do something.
 
Where was he going?
 
Was there a cabin up there, guarded by Dobermans?
 
I had to know.

I moved forward, lifting and placing my feet carefully, mindful of any sound in the trees ahead.
 
To my left, the corn stood as silent as an army of sentinels.
 
Like dark rows of soldiers awaiting orders to attack.
 
I began to go uphill, leaning forward, slipping and stumbling on occasion into the deeper night.
 
Well beyond the light of the station now, I was looking up, despite myself, at the uneven ridge of trees.
 
A mosquito buzzed into my ear, protected from my slap until I dug an index finger in there to silence it.
 
At that, another stung my neck.

Then I saw it.
 
Up there, against the stars.
 
An oval shape, a massive squat silhouette blocking out an entire constellation like a black hole.
 
I rushed higher, up the incline, moving more quickly through the trees now, trying to keep the hulking shape in view among the spiky tops of a grove of evergreens, my breathing becoming labored.

Then I stopped and squinted, blinking at what it seemed to be.

A water tower?

Yes.
 
And at the base of the tower, a figure appeared.

I froze, taking slow, deep breaths.

Suddenly, a powerful flashlight came on.
 
Its narrow beam
sidelit
the man's face as he stood there, as motionless as I.
 
Like Darth
Vadar
with light saber lifted to the ready.
 
The beam stabbed at the sky, reaching to infinity as I inched further behind a tree which was too thin to completely hide me should that sword swing in my direction.
 
Another mosquito sank its spear into my neck, but I couldn't move, even as my blood was sucked into the insect's tiny but expansive belly, as if through a straw.
 
I thought about West Nile virus, and then—more disturbingly—about HIV.

The dark underside of the water tower loomed above the
treeline
, so large I wondered how I'd missed it in the daylight.
 
It was squat, like a frog about to squash the figure below it.
 
As I grew more accustomed to the darkness, I made out something at the man's foot.
 
Something oblong, with a handle.

A toolbox?

I stared in fascination as the flashlight beam next angled down to probe the metal box.
 
The man with the flashlight knelt to open it.
 
Metallic sounds as he riffled through it, looking for something.

A gun?

I began to edge away.
 
I would find the Deputy Sheriff, I decided.
 
I would bring him here, and expose the truth once and for all.
 
This was too bizarre, especially if this was the very man who pretended to be a fashion model on the Internet with me.
 
Could it be possible?
 
This skulking figure at the base of a water tower in Zion, Iowa, in dead of night—a man who resembled a serial killer in the movies I collected on DVD?

A sudden voice called from somewhere below the man at the base of the tower.
 
His flashlight swung, its beam dissecting the
treeline
near me, and then whipping to the other side.
 
As if the man wasn't certain of the voice's origin.
 
But then I couldn't tell the direction, either.
 
I couldn't be certain even of the name the second man had called.
 
Until the voice called again, and then I knew.

“Sean,” it said distinctly on the cool quiet air.

Sean.

“Over here,” the man with the flashlight confirmed, shining his flashlight downward to the other side of the low hill.

I heard movement in the brush over there.

“Ready?” the man identified now as Sean asked.

The second man said something in reply that I couldn't catch, but one of the words sounded like
damn.
 
That word was repeated several times in the same sentence.

The flashlight clicked off.
 
Sean picked up the toolbox—or whatever it was—and strode down to meet his ally, his accomplice.
 
I started forward, trying to glimpse something, if only a silhouette.
 
Was the second man Walter Mills?
 
Or was Walter's name really Sean?

My foot found a dry branch in the dark, and partly cracked it, adding a whipping sound as it twisted to fan the earth.
 
I very nearly slipped and fell.
 
The flashlight came on again suddenly over there, as if about to nail me.
 
The sword of light angled through the trees above, then it went off just as quickly, almost deliberately.
 
Even the crickets fell silent for that moment.

We all waited, listening.

I was the third man—the one who wasn't supposed to be here.

Or was there more than just two of them?

At last a whispering beyond the dark wall of foliage, somewhere.
 
Then rustling, movement.
 
Toward me, or away from me, I couldn't tell.
 
I remained frozen, blood pulsing like a thickness in my tongue, pounding behind my eye sockets, gifting me flashes of phantom light.
 
Soon the sound seemed to be widening, circling.
 
When I turned, about to run, it stopped again.
 
And when I once more heard the same sound, it seemed to be weaker, and further away.
 
They were leaving.
 
Thank God.

A nearby cricket startled me with its sudden, steady wail.
 
My heart went into full arrest for a moment, then beat abnormally fast before finally settling down once more into a normal rhythm.
 
I waited until the other crickets resumed their insect chatter from the direction of the water tower, and then I walked carefully back in the direction I had come.
 
Back, toward the Shell station, which was still bright against the eerie country night.

My Taurus was now parked to one side of Wally's station, repairs complete.
 
I spotted Wally inside the office, counting his receipts.
 
His head was down, as if in concentration, and he wore a clean white shirt now.
 
I crossed behind the station, and walked into the bay from the other side, looking for some defense against the bigger man, if it came to that.
 
Desperately, I eyed a wrench.
 
The fake legs were propped against the tall red Craftsman tool cabinet where the wrench protruded.
 
Its feet were up and stretched apart, like half a corpse left bobbing by a shark.

I picked up the wrench gently, but some tool below it shifted slightly, and made a metallic tapping sound.
 
I was about to slip the wrench into the belt behind my back when I saw Wally's reflection in a fisheye mirror positioned to hang outside the front office door, presumably so that Wally could view the area fronting the bays while working in his office.
 
As I moved back behind the tall red cabinet, shielding myself from the doorway between the bays and the office, I stared at the warped mirror.
 
Wally appeared to be removing something slowly from his drawer.
 
Something dark and hand-sized.

A revolver.

He got up cautiously and moved slowly toward the opening separating us, the weapon extended in his hand.
 
When he entered the bay, he scanned in a quick circle, looking finally toward the fake legs standing on the other side of the cabinet.
 
When I saw that he was going to move in my direction, while looking toward the other side of the bay, I hunkered down.
 
When he came within range, I sprung out and used the wrench on his extended gun hand.
 
Wally yelped in pain, dropping the gun.
 
I scrambled to pick it up, keeping my back to him as he kicked at me.
 
Then I stood with my prize.
 
Wally began to back away from me.
 
Toward the doorway.
 
His eyes were wild, now, and they widened.
 
His mouth formed an O.

“Is my car ready, Wally?” I asked him.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“I told you my name already.”

“
Ya
lied.
 
Rental slip says yer somebody else.
 
Sheriff'll
know who by morning.”

“You broke into the trunk?”

He didn't answer me.
 
The phone rang, startling us both.
 
Wally kept his eyes focused on the gun in my hand as he backed into the office.
 
I followed.
 
“
Ya
better go quick,” he suggested.
 
“Keys on the desk.”

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, annoyed by the loudness of the old phone, the abnormal brightness of the office.

“How ‘bout forty years?”

I glanced at the Nebraska Cornhuskers calendar on his wall, above a symmetrical stack of oil cans.
 
I imagined the room as my prison cell, the cans used as a ring toss game to pass the time, if I didn't get out of town quick.
 
I withdrew my wallet, fished out three twenty dollar bills.
 
It was all the cash I had left, after paying George.
 
I laid the money on the desk, and picked up the car keys.

“That should cover it, Wally,” I said, putting some emphasis on the word
should.
 
“This isn't like what you're thinking, either.
 
You naturally suspicious, or is there a killer out there, and you think I'm him?”

“I
dunno
, an' I don't wanna know,” Wally confessed.

The phone finally stopped ringing.
 
I started taking the bullets out of his revolver, one by one.
 
“There's nothing to know, except I'm not the criminal here.”

“So
ya
ain't a mobster?”

“A what?”
 
I stopped, leaving one bullet in the gun.
 
“Come again?”

Wally blinked at me rapidly, a dozen times, from across the small room.
 
“
Ya
said you were lookin' for a guy, but maybe it's a woman yer after.”

I shook my head in confusion.
 
“What do you mean?
 
It is a man.
 
Of course it's a man!
 
I thought it was a woman at first, but now I know at least that much.
 
I just don't want him to know I'm looking for him, okay?”

“Yeah?
 
An' where's yer own gun?
 
Hit man usually carries one.”

I laughed in disbelief.
 
“Hit man?
 
Who said I was a hit man?”

“Deputy Sheriff Cody.”

I shook my head.
 
“You been watching too many B movies, Wally.
 
Out here in the sticks with the rednecks and geezers.”

“Right.
 
So
ya
know about the cable guy, too?
 
You
sayin
' yer with him, now?”