Thursday, September 6
11:04 P.M.
Central Park, Manhattan
99 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
The diner cook’s contact led Lyle to a dealer, who led him to another dealer, who didn’t like Lyle’s questions and pulled a gun. Lyle ran, the dealer chased him, and around the first corner shot and killed the wrong man. Lyle hid, terrified, but realized that the newly dead body on the sidewalk had his face: it was another Lyle, and the dealer thought he’d killed the right one. The dealer left, and Lyle struggled to calm his terror, and the next night he went back to spy on the dealer in secret, watching to see who brought him his stash. That led Lyle to spy on another minor supplier, who led him to a major supplier, who led him to a man named Stephen Nelson.
Stephen Nelson walked through Central Park almost every day, sometimes buying a hot dog, sometimes chatting and laughing with other men in suits. Street hot dogs seemed like a strange choice for an obviously wealthy executive, especially considering that most of his other lunches were buried in private rooms at high-end Asian fusion restaurants, but after a few days Lyle noticed a pattern: on the days when he ate hot dogs, Nelson carried a briefcase. No briefcase, no hot dog. Another few days of observation revealed the final piece of the puzzle: every time Nelson bought a hot dog, the same stranger was buying one at the same time, carrying an identical briefcase. Nelson would walk up, set his case on the ground, buy a hot dog …
… and leave with the other man’s case.
Lyle wanted a closer look at the man, and rattled his pocket for change. He found just enough to buy a hot dog of his own—his entire remaining food budget for the week—and approached the cart, holding up a single finger to the proprietor. While the vendor prepared the dog Lyle stole a closer look at the man with the briefcase, and felt a surge of fear and excitement when he realized he couldn’t determine the man’s race. That probably wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but Lyle had made a career of identifying race—in designing his cosmetics and calibrating the various colors, he had become an expert in skin tone, in eye shape, in facial proportion. It was his job, and he was very good at it. This man had dark skin, somewhere in the middle of the African spectrum, but with vaguely Middle Eastern features and a markedly Persian nose. His hair, in its color and appearance and spacing, was Asian, and his bright blue eyes were shockingly atypical compared to the rest of him. He was handsome, but completely unidentifiable.
To be presented with a racial background that Lyle couldn’t determine was a big deal, and meant one of two things: One, the man came from a long line of racially adventurous ancestors. Two, and more likely, the man had multiple genomes warring for attention. Before Lyle could even finish wondering which of NewYew’s various connections would experiment so liberally with overlapping ReBirth treatments, he knew the answer.
“Kerry.”
The man looked up sharply, his mouth half full of hot dog.
“Kerry White,” said Lyle. He hadn’t been planning to say anything to the man, but it was too much of a shock, and he couldn’t help himself. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
The man tensed, as if ready to run, but as he peered more closely at Lyle a light of recognition dawned in his eyes. “Lyle? Like, the real Lyle? Is that really you?”
“What are you doing here?”
“This isn’t a good place to talk,” said Kerry, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a folded wad of bills—Lyle couldn’t tell how many, but saw that the outside layer, at least, was a hundred—and handed it to the hot dog vendor. “You tell anyone what you’ve seen or heard just now, you’d better be the world champion at hide-and-seek.” He smiled brightly and slapped Lyle on the back. “Walk with me.” He picked up the briefcase, and walked through the park. “Obviously we have to start with proof of identity: who first came up with the idea of using ReBirth commercially?”
Lyle nodded—it was the perfect question, because nobody outside the executive board could possibly know the answer. It was too embarrassing, and they’d never discussed it with anyone. “Jeffrey.”
Kerry smiled and slapped him on the back again. “Good to see you, man, where’ve you been?”
“What are you doing here?” Lyle asked again. “That was a handoff, right? Stephen Nelson is selling ReBirth, and when you switched briefcases just now that was you giving him more lotion and him giving you money.”
“Looks like we’ll have to change some procedures,” said Kerry, “or cut out the weak link of whatever chain led you here.”
“I’ve been investigating the black market sellers,” said Lyle. “It wasn’t easy.”
“But it worked,” said Kerry. “Somebody named names.”
“Two somebodies,” said Lyle, “but they did try to kill me afterward. So that’s something.”
“They tried and failed? How hard can it possibly be to kill you, you’re like a … homeless Pillsbury Doughboy. No offense.”
Lyle glowered. “None taken. In their defense they did kill a Lyle, just not the right one.”
“That,” said Kerry, “is becoming a bigger problem every day.” He climbed the path to the western edge of the park, stepping out onto the street, and Lyle followed him north.
“Do you know where the Lyle lotion is coming from?”
Kerry shook his head. “I probably know less than you do, if you’re investigating the black market. Somehow, about a month ago, it just started cropping up everywhere. I promise we’re not the ones selling it, but a lot of our sellers have picked it up on the side.”
Lyle studied him. “You don’t seem very concerned.”
“I’m concerned about the future,” said Kerry, “when and if it becomes a problem for us. As of now, it isn’t significantly cutting into our profits, and we’re hoping that it actually drives people toward our product instead of away. We’re trying to start a ‘verified seller’ program, so you can be sure of what you’re getting, but controlling street dealers is like herding cats.”
“You’ll never pull it off,” said Lyle. “Do you know the kind of margins the street sellers are getting for my DNA? It blows your business model out of the water—a street-level pusher makes more on a single sale of unmarked Lyle Fontanelle than in four sales of branded ReBirth. Whoever supplies them is practically giving it away, and the dealers are hawking it for the same sky-high prices they get for your stuff. If they didn’t have to sell the real stuff to keep the prices high, they’d drop you altogether.”
“That’s because people like money, Lyle. That’s what you never seem to understand.”
“The dealers, yes,” said Lyle, “but what about the supplier? Someone out there is working night and day to distribute Lyle lotion, without making any money at all. In a world that claims to be driven by money, that’s terrifying.”
Kerry stopped on the sidewalk, thinking. He chewed his lip. “You’re right,” he said at last. “That’s very strange.”
Lyle shook his head. “‘Strange’ doesn’t begin to cover it.”
Kerry started walking again. “No matter. We’ll find a way to deal with it.”
“You’re not taking me seriously,” said Lyle. “You never do. Let me talk to Sunny.”
“I’m the only one left,” said Kerry.
Lyle’s eyes widened. “So that car bomb—that actually got them? Sunny and Cynthia and everyone?”
“What? No, of course not. They’re in São Tomé, just like we planned.”
“Not me, though,” said Lyle, and a hint of bitterness crept into his voice. “Was saving me ever part of the plan, or was I car bomb fodder from the beginning?”
Kerry put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him into the apartment building; the doorman frowned at Lyle’s filthy clothes and patchy beard, but Kerry waved him away. “Of course we were planning to save you, Lyle. You thought that we thought that the Lyle we killed was you? Of course we knew he was a fake, but he was just so eager to please us we kept him around until the big day. And he did a bang-up job on that launch presentation.” They stepped into an elevator and Kerry punched the top button—the suites. Lyle could only imagine how much a suite in this location must be costing him. The doors closed, and Kerry turned to face him directly. “So: no free lotion, even for a former shareholder, but what else can I give you? You need money? You look like you could use it—though I guess that’s understandable, since you’re a wanted criminal.”
“So are you.”
“Kerry White is a wanted criminal,” said Kerry slyly. “My name is Armando del Castillo, and Armando’s not wanted for anything but his gorgeous body.”
“I don’t want your money,” said Lyle, feeling angrier than he’d expected at the suggestion. “You’re a drug dealer, Kerry, I can’t support that.”
“And you’re the greatest drug designer who ever lived,” said Kerry. “At least take some credit for it—let me give you, what, a hundred thousand?”
The elevator stopped on the top floor, opening into a small but luxurious lobby. Instead of a hall leading to myriad small apartments, there were two ornate doors, each leading to its own private penthouse. Lyle whistled at the obvious wealth. “Nice place.”
Kerry shrugged. “It’ll be a lot nicer once I buy the other unit. Rock-star neighbors are just as noisy as the stereotype suggests.” He opened the door, revealing a giant penthouse that seemed to ooze money. The main room was dominated by a massive wall of windows looking out over Central Park. Lyle walked to the windows and stood in awe. “How much are they charging you for this place?”
“A lot less than that view makes it worth,” said Kerry. “Wait ’til tonight, when the city lights up and this room just overflows with more barely legal tennis players than you’ve ever seen in one place at a time. It’s heaven.”
“You throw parties?”
“Why on earth would I have a place like this and not throw parties in it?”
Lyle turned back to him, confused. “What about Carrie?”
“I told you, I’m Armando now.”
“No, I mean your wife, Carrie.”
“Oh.” Kerry frowned, scrunching his forehead in thought. “She might show up. You interested?”
“Are you serious?” asked Lyle. “Saving her was the thing that started this whole stupid product in the first place, and now you don’t even know where she is?”
“Things change…,” said Kerry weakly, but he was cut off when the front door opened again and Cynthia walked in, deep in conversation with a Bluetooth headset.
“… the deposits have all been made, and Kerry’s back so we probably have the new payments. I’ll—” She stopped short, staring at Lyle. “He has a Lyle with him.”
“Not just a Lyle,” said Kerry, pouring himself a drink from a glass decanter by the wall. “The Lyle.”
“The Lyle?” asked Cynthia. She paused a moment, listening to her headset. “That’s what I thought, too,” she said. “Looks like we blew up the wrong one.”
Kerry rolled his eyes.
Two thoughts flashed through Lyle’s mind in a single instant: first, that Cynthia was supposed to be in São Tomé. Kerry had told him she was there, and if he’d lied about that, what else had he lied about? Lyle was too trusting—practically conditioned, he thought, to going along with whatever the other NewYew executives told him. Even months away from them hadn’t dulled their power, or his own naïve gullibility. He mentally kicked himself, wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
The second thought followed quickly on the first, a fierce reminder that he knew exactly what he’d gotten himself into, and that getting back out of it was going to be absolute hell: Cynthia said that she’d thought they’d blown him up. Kerry had lied about knowingly killing the impostor. They’d been trying to kill the real Lyle all along.
And now he was alone with two of them, thirty floors from escape, with who knew how many Larries waiting in the back rooms of the house.
Kerry was already moving, his taut model’s body charging toward Lyle, head down, arms pumping. The room was wide, but Kerry would be on him in seconds. Lyle stumbled backward, bumping into a designer couch, nearly slipping on the polished floor, scrabbling in his jacket pocket, Kerry barely two yards away, and then Lyle found his gun and pulled it out and fired, and Kerry dropped to the floor with a strangled cry.
“Now he’s shot Kerry,” said Cynthia to her earpiece. “I’m going to have to call you back.”
Lyle looked up, wide-eyed, but Cynthia slipped back out the door and into the lobby, closing the door behind her. Kerry swore on the floor, clutching his shoulder. “You shot me!”
“You were attacking me!”
“Not with a gun! Where the hell did you get a gun anyway?”
“All the homeless Pillsbury Doughboys have them,” Lyle growled, and shoved the gun back into his jacket pocket. He grabbed a small blanket off the back of a couch—more of a shawl, really, once he had it in his hands—and wrapped it around the flailing man’s shoulder. “If you’re moving that much I didn’t hit anything important. Stick it out and the ReBirth will heal you in a couple of weeks.”
“That’s,” Kerry grunted, his teeth clenched in pain, “a four-thousand-dollar throw.”
“Then stop bleeding on it,” said Lyle. He pulled the knot tighter, eliciting another string of painful curses from Kerry, and stood up. “Is there any other way out of here?”
“The window,” Kerry snarled.
“Wonderful,” said Lyle, jogging to the kitchen, “you’re very helpful.” He made a quick circuit of the house—gun back out and ready, in case there was anyone else lurking in a back corner—but the apartment was empty, and there were no other exits. He ran through again, looking for a stash of ReBirth, but found nothing.
“We don’t keep the lotion here,” shouted Kerry. “Do you think we’re idiots?”
Lyle went back to the living room, looked around again, and saw the briefcase from the park handoff. Maybe there was something in there? He pulled it up onto the back of a couch and tried to open it, but it was locked.
“I thought you didn’t want our dirty money,” said Kerry. He had barely moved from his spot on the floor, and Lyle could just see him through the gap between a sofa and a chair.
“I didn’t want you to give me money,” said Lyle. He held up the briefcase, and walked toward the door. “This is me robbing you, that’s different.”
“How is stealing money better than earning it from ReBirth?”
“Just … shut up,” said Lyle. He reached the door, only to realize he had no free hands to open it. Which did he dare to set down, the money or the gun? How many Larries were waiting on the other side of the door, or at the bottom of the elevator, or in the lobby? He stared a moment longer, then turned and walked to the window. The fire escape wasn’t the best option, but it was the best one he had left.
“Lyle?” said Kerry. His voice was weak.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for not shooting my house. This stuff’s really hard to replace.”
“No problem,” said Lyle. “Say hi to Carrie for me.” He pushed open the window, stepped out onto the metal walkway, and started climbing down.