“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I would and I will. So here’s Plan B: I let you live, let your family live, and trade you Rachel’s mom for Rachel. Which means our government, and not our enemies, will have Rachel’s mom. In addition, I’ll put the lid on the world-wide announcement I’m prepared to make about what’s going on at Mount Weather. Now that I have proof of a genetic code, the world will take me seriously.”
“You don’t understand. We need Rachel’s eggs.”
“You can keep her long enough to get one more.”
“We’ll want at least a dozen embryos.”
“You’ve already got one.”
“We have an egg, Donovan. Not an embryo.”
“I’ll personally deliver her eggs to you until you get a dozen embryos. After you let her go. On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to keep Sam in Area B for the rest of his life. So he, along with his mother-in-law, can care for his children. I’m sure the children will benefit from having not only their father, but their grandmother as well.”
Despite the gravity of the discussion, Roger had to smile. “You’d stick that poor man in a hole with his mother-in-law for the rest of his life? After removing his wife?”
I shrugged. “What do you think?”
42.
It makes sense to let Rachel stay underground long enough to produce a few eggs for the scientists. After all, Sherry Cherry will be in no condition to travel for at least a couple of months. I know the government won’t want this deal, but Roger will be very persuasive that it’s a good one. I’m counting on him to make a passionate argument for the deal, since everyone he loves will die if he doesn’t.
43.
Some people might question what kind of person would kidnap Rachel’s mother and force her to live in an underground hole for years and possibly the rest of her life to be a guinea pig for science. The answer is, I’m the type who’d do that, and I’d do it without hesitation. I’m not happy about the idea of Rachel’s kids being imprisoned for the next ten years or more, but I don’t know them, and apparently they’ll be Sam and Rachel’s kids, or the government’s, so I’ll have to deal with it.
44.
It takes eight days before the deal is struck, during which time Sherry Cherry’s blood work results are passed around the scientific community like panties in a prison yard. Seven of the days were spent trying to figure out where I’m hiding Sherry, and whether or not they can kill me before I turn her over to some radical enemy group. Roger was right, I’d never do that, but over the years I’ve developed a reputation with the government that leads them to believe there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do.
45.
In the end, I don’t get everything I want, but I do get Rachel back.
In six months.
Roger was right about Uncle Sam wanting at least a dozen embryos, and for some reason, they didn’t trust me to deliver the balance of them. I agreed to let them harvest all the eggs they can for the next six months, and that should give them enough to work with. In the meantime, I’m certain a genius like Sam could cut the ten-year time table for creating the synthetic gene to two or three. He’ll have the built in motivation of wanting to escape from the hole. Six hundred thousand square feet of living space will seem awfully small after a few years of living with his mother-in-law!
That’s the other part I didn’t get in the bargain. They refuse to hold Sam against his will for the rest of his life. They also refuse to deny him access to Rachel, which is the part that upsets me the most. But they do allow me to call her once a week, to keep her spirits lifted.
The first time I called she said, “I have no idea who you are.” Then she hung up. The next week she said, “I was just kidding.” Then she hung up. I can’t wait to hear what she says next week when I call. But that’s Rachel, ever unpredictable, still keeping me off my game.
46.
I’m not thrilled about what’s going on in Area B, but I’m glad to know dedicated scientists like Roger are working day and night to protect the world from the Spanish Flu. I hate to wait six months to hold Rachel in my arms, but I know the government will take good care of her. I expect they’ll even provide a qualified therapist to work on her mental health.
The six months gives Sherry plenty of time to get better, too. I’m pretty sure Rachel will be upset when she learns I stuck her mother in the hole for however many years she’ll have to stay there, but she won’t know about it until Sam gets out and tells her. By then, maybe her mother will also be released, and she’ll be clean and sober to boot. Rachel might end up having a relationship with her mother after all, in which case I could come out of this whole situation smelling like a rose.
Of course, I had to clear it with Darwin. There’s no way I could keep Sherry Cherry’s whereabouts a secret without his help. In return, he expects me to go back to work for him full-time, killing suspected terrorists for Uncle Sam. I’m willing to do that, since I miss the excitement. Not to mention it’s what I do best.
Now that I’ve got my deal, the first order of business is to pay off Doc Howard and get the code, so I can protect my brain in case Darwin decides to renege on our deal.
It will all work out.
Roger’s happy. He got his family back. He was thrilled to learn that Bernard’s leg is still attached to his body. That bed with a hole in it has gotten a lot of use these past few weeks.
Back at Sensory, Doc Howard and I re-program the chip. Then I re-program it again, on my own. Then Lou and I meet to discuss Sherry Cherry.
“In a few months not only will Sherry be drug-free for the first time in twenty years, she also gets the opportunity to watch her grandchildren grow up,” I say, putting a positive spin on things.
“Lucky Sam,” Lou says, chuckling.
“Maybe they’ll bond,” I say.
The next day I escort Jane and Bernard—still sedated—back to L.A. Roger helps me get them in his house, and I leave it to him to come up with an explanation for what’s happened to them over the past ten days.
I get a hotel room on the beach in Santa Monica and take two full days to recharge my batteries. Then I order a jet to fly me to New York City for my date with Miranda. On the way there, I call Billy “the Kid” King.
“I’m on my way to New York,” I say, cheerfully.
“I’m carrying a gun,” he says.
“What kind?”
“Smith & Wesson, .357 Magnum.”
“The four-inch?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it is.”
“Well, I think you’ve made a good choice,” I say.
“Yeah, why’s that?”
“Revolvers are simple. They don’t jam, so they’re reliable. They’re small enough to carry, powerful enough to stop a man. Make sure you’ve got it with you when I see you.”
“Why?”
“I can always use another gun in my collection.”
There is dead silence on the phone.
“Billy? Are you still on the line?”
In a very small voice, Billy says, “How can I make this stop?”
“I thought you’d welcome the opportunity to see me again. Prove to your friends I was lucky the first time.”
“You weren’t lucky. I just want to be left alone.”
I think about it a minute.
“You really want me out of your life?”
“More than anything.”
“Miranda’s trying to put herself through school.”
“So?”
“If you write her a check to cover her next semester, I’ll leave you alone.”
“I can’t write a check to a hooker! What if she takes it to the police? Isn’t that what happened to Jerry Springer? I’d lose my broker’s license!”
“You make a good point. Pay her in cash. Fifty grand.”
“What? That’s insane!”
“No, seriously. Tuition, books, study materials—I don’t know how
parents do it these days. Student loans, I guess. But Miranda’s trying to avoid all that.”
“By shaking me down.”
“You’re the one that punched her, Billy.”
“We were being playful. Things got out of hand.”
“Right.”
We were quiet a moment. Then I said, “So, you want me to pick it up personally?”
“Can we do it another way?”
“You know Guy at the gym? Z’s friend?”
“Yeah.”
“Put the cash in a duffle and give it to him.”
“I don’t want the guys in the gym to know about this.”
“That makes sense. Tell you what. I’m staying at the Pierre. Put the cash in a box, wrap it like a birthday present, and leave it at the front desk for me.”
“How do I know you’ll give it to the hooker?”
“Does it really matter?”
“What if you take the money and claim I never brought it?”
“Billy, listen to me. I’m a billionaire. I’d rather break your nose every time I come to town than steal your money. You asked what it would take for me to go away, and I’ve told you. But there’s one caveat.”
“What now?”
“You have to promise to stay away from her.”
“No problem.”
“I’m serious, Billy.”
“Me too.”
“No running into her, no booking her under an assumed name, no following her around.”
“The bitch is nothing but trouble. I never want to see her again.”
“In that case, we’ve got a deal.”
“What time should I bring the box?”
“Anytime tomorrow before five p.m. Surprise me.”
“You trust the front desk?”
“Billy. It’s the Pierre.”
“Okay.”
47.
Miranda Rodriguez looks like a million dollars. Then again, I love watching a gorgeous girl dig into a sixteen-ounce prime strip steak and a side of skillet potatoes and onions.
“Are we really going to see Jersey Boys tonight?” she says.
“We are.”
“That is so cool!”
Cool. Sometimes, when I forget I’m twice her age, she brings me back to reality with a single word like “cool.” She’s trying to say the right thing, but “awesome” is what she’d say if I were her age. “Cool” doesn’t sound right, coming from her twenty-year-old throat. I catch myself wondering what Rachel would have said, and come up with nothing. Because the fact is, Rachel is exactly what she claimed to be that very first day we had sex: unpredictable.
We’re at Del Frisco’s in Midtown, and my favorite waiter, Rob, is working hard to make me look good in front of my date. He brings us a couple of pineapple-infused vodka martinis. Miranda takes a sip and swoons.
“Oh…my…God!” she says. “This is to die for!”
She’s wearing the low-cut burgundy petal dress I bought her earlier this afternoon. After spending an hour trying to find matching shoes, I talked her into a pair of black (“goes with anything”) triple-platform strappy sandals with 5 ¾ inch heels that make her six feet tall.
“Do your feet hurt yet?” I ask.
“If they start to, I’ll deal with it,” she says, with a wink.
Normally I wouldn’t put a lady in such a pair of shoes. But the way her eyes lit up this afternoon when lifting the display shoe to inspect it, rendered me incapable of saying no.
“There are only so many years you can wear something like that,” I say. “May as well enjoy it while you can.”
Miranda doesn’t know it yet, but there’s a comfortable pair of black sandals in the box Billy left for me at the front desk. I opened it earlier, to check the contents, and tossed the shoes in as an afterthought. I’ll give her the present after the show, when her feet are killing her. The fifty grand should have a soothing effect as well.
“You’re pensive,” she says. “Anything wrong? Please say no!”
I smile. “That dress looks fantastic on you.”
“Wait till you see how it looks on the floor tonight,” she purrs.
I already know how it’s going to go. We’ll have a great time at the show, we’ll go to her place afterward, and she’ll be overwhelmed by the cash. She’ll say and do all the right things. When we start having sex, she’ll pretend I’m a stallion. She’ll start whimpering that breath-catching sound Hollywood taught women to identify with orgasm. It’ll start with a low moan, and build to a crescendo worthy of a porn star. She’ll throw in a few “Oh, God’s” and maybe call out my name. I start to say something about all this, and then change my mind.
“I’m sorry,” Miranda says. “I didn’t hear you.”
I had started to say, If we wind up in bed tonight, will you do me a favor? And she would have said, Of course. And I would have said, Could you be perfectly quiet while we have sex? And she would have said, Of course. And the fact that she wouldn’t have asked me why, or gotten the least bit offended about my asking, is why I decided not to pose the question in the first place. Because each brick of predictability might eventually pile up and make a wall between us.
“Donovan?” she says.
“Sorry. I was going to ask if you wanted me to order a soufflé.”
“You’re so sweet!” She touches my arm with her hand. “I couldn’t possibly. Is that okay?”
“Perfectly.”
Rachel thinks she knows me, but there’s a lot to be said for predictability. By the time we get to Miranda’s place tonight, my body will be screaming for her to relieve the sexual tension that’s been building up all afternoon. It’s a joy to know that having sex tonight is a foregone conclusion. I’ll not only get sex tonight, but it will be whatever type of sex I’m in the mood for. Of course, this is less a function of predictability than it is a feature of paying a hooker for her time.
Wait. That’s not a fair characterization. Miranda’s a courtesan, not a hooker.
But still.
As a plus, I won’t have to worry about falling asleep and possibly getting my throat slit, which is more a function of being with a sane woman than being with Rachel, who I love dearly.
Another excellent feature of being with a courtesan is, whatever I say will be fascinating to her. And damn it, sometimes it’s nice to be able to just say anything that’s on your mind, knowing the woman you’re with is not going to give you a look of disgust, or indignation. In fact, there’s nothing I can say to Miranda right now that would make her say, That’s disgusting! I hope you’re happy, you just ruined my dinner!”
Want an example? Check this out:
“Miranda?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Did you know there was a time in history when the entire world ran out of coffins?”
“What? Oh, my God! Really?”
“Yup.”
“What happened?”
“Ever hear about the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918?”
“No. Please tell me!”
—See what I mean? I’m with a beautiful girl half my age. I’m enjoying a wonderful dinner, getting ready to see an incredible show. I’m a fascinating conversationalist, and I’m going to get laid tonight by a woman whose mission in life is to be the best fuck I’ve ever had.
Want another example of how I can say anything to Miranda and not get in trouble?“Honey?” I say.
“Yes?”
“Have I ever told you I’m in love with a girl named Rachel?”
“I don’t think so, not that I recall.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Who wouldn’t be? She’s got to be the luckiest woman in the whole world!”
“You think?”
“I do,” she says. “But not tonight.”
“No?”
“Nope. ’Cause tonight, I’m the luckiest woman in the world!”
I hoist my vodka martini and realize with all this going for me, something’s missing.
What’s t
hat? You think what’s missing at this moment is Rachel?
What’re you, nuts?
I lift my chin in Rob’s direction, and my overly-attentive waiter instantly appears.
“Yes, Mr. Creed?”
“Do you happen to have any single-barrel Kentucky bourbon in this joint?”
Rob smiles. “We do, indeed, sir!”
“Would you be so kind?”
“Absolutely, sir! And would the lady care for some?”
Miranda looks at me. Most women hate bourbon, and I’m sure she’s no exception.
“That sounds delightful!” she says.
Rob leaves to fetch our bourbon, and I notice Miranda is squirming slightly.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She gives me a shy, practiced smile, looks down at her hand. My eyes follow hers. She opens it, revealing the tiniest pair of black panties.
“A present,” she says.
“For me?”
“Uh huh.”
She smiles again.
“If you put them in your jacket pocket, only you and I will know it’s not a handkerchief!”
She kisses her panties and hands them to me. I put them where my pocket square had been, and never bother wondering how many men she’s said that to before tonight.
Is she pretending?
Of course.
Do I care?
Of course not. In truth, I’m beginning to question how much of a future I have with Rachel. Her unpredictability has become predictable.
Maybe I’ll pretend something too. Maybe I’ll pretend the fifty grand is a present from me. Am I capable of doing something that shady, just to enrich my status in her eyes?
Of course I am. But will I?
I haven’t decided yet.
Rob brings us a shot of premium bourbon.
Miranda and I share a toast.
Life is good.
Then the chip in my head starts to buzz…