Tizzie stopped a moment, to take it all in. It was monstrous.
"That's what I was looking at," she said.
"And then, of course, you can't stop it, because you've created the damn thing to keep going and going. So it goes on and on, until finally there's only one thing that stops it. Cell death. And when you have massive cell death, you have progeria."
"Progeria?"
"Premature aging. Hutchinson-Guilford syndrome."
Alfred turned away, so that his back was to Tizzie and he was staring out at the island now approaching.
"Ironic, isn't it?" he asked. "You set out to increase the human life span and you end up creating Hutchinson-Guilford. You know the average life span of a person with Hutchinson-Guilford?"
"No," said Tizzie. "What is it?"
"From birth to death—12.7 years."
She whistled softly and pressed his arm to make him turn around and face her.
"And have you discovered anything to arrest it. Any vaccine, anything?"
"No."
"So the Lab — the scientists, their children, my father — they're all dying from this."
He nodded yes.
"You bastards."
He was quiet for a while.
"Of course," he said finally, softly, "we're just speaking hypothetically."
"Yes, of course."
"Do you think that's enough?"
"Enough?"
"Enough information. To save me?"
For the first time, she actually felt a flicker of pity for him.
"I think so. Especially if you keep your mouth shut now. Don't tell anyone anything about me. Right?"
"Right. I promise."
Albert looked at the beach, already filled with blankets and people.
"Do you mind if we just take the ferry back?" he asked. "I don't feel like swimming."
Tizzie returned to New York feeling anxious and restless. She didn't know what to do next. She felt it was too dangerous to go on working at the Animal Sciences lab, and besides, she thought she had learned everything she needed to know. She doubted the researchers would get anywhere in the search to tame the mutant enzyme. The stench of failure hung over the place. When she had told Dr. Brody that she thought she'd go back to the city, concocting a cover story about research results she wanted to check out back at Rockefeller University, she wasn't even sure her words registered. He was in the cafeteria, reading a novel, and he waved her off in a distracted way.
She felt herself in a kind of precarious semi-hiding. She didn't want to go back to her apartment. She remembered all too well how Uncle Henry had simply turned up there with no warning. On the other hand, if she didn't go back there, and the Lab checked on her, they'd immediately suspect something. And then they'd hunt her down. So she decided to hide in plain sight — to go home, go to her office, just as she'd told Brody.
And that's where Skyler found her. She'd only been home a few hours, when there was a knock at the door — the sound practically made her jump out of her skin. When she opened it, there was Skyler, smiling shyly. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.
"God, it's good to see you," she said, with a depth of emotion that even surprised herself. "How are you? How's Jude?"
Skyler explained that he and Jude had just gotten back to New York the day before, and were staying downtown under false names at the Chelsea Hotel, hoping to lose themselves among the drifters and rock musicians. Skyler had staked out her apartment and seen her arrive, but waited a few hours to make sure she hadn't been followed.
He told her everything about their trip to the island and meeting Kuta and discovering the shrunken aging children in the Nursery.
"I think I can explain that," she said. "We'll meet with Jude and go over everything together — everything that each of us has found out."
Then she told him about the Animals Sciences lab at SUNY and how she'd escaped from the dog only to fall into Alfred's clutches.
She noticed that Skyler looked pale sitting there, and he put his right hand onto his chest and grimaced.
"You're getting sick again," she said, and it was all he could do to nod.
She led him out of the kitchen, through the windowless study piled with books, and into the bedroom. There, she took off his shoes and put him to bed, puffing up the pillows behind him so that he could get a view of the street through the iron grille of the fire escape. She felt his forehead — perhaps a slight fever.
She leapt up and went to the bathroom. Looking in the medicine chest, she found aspirin and gave him three, then leaned over to kiss him gently on the forehead and covered him with a blanket up to his chin. She went out for supplies, bringing a prescription pad with her. Down the block was a drugstore, where she got more aspirin and a thermometer, cotton swabs and alcohol, and a bottle of nitroglycerin tablets. At a grocery store nearby, she bought two bags of food, including four cans of chicken soup.
When she returned, he was asleep. She woke him, gave him the nitroglycerin, took his temperature — it was one hundred — and then brought him a bowl of steaming soup and crackers on a tray. She fed him spoonfuls. Afterward, he felt better. He sat up in bed and smiled at her.
"I don't know what I would have done without you," he said.
She felt good, better than she had felt for a long time, and she hardly knew how to explain it, given the desperateness of the situation.
She stood up with the dishes and gazed down at him. "Just lay back," she said, "and get some rest." Something was poking at the back of her mind. What was it?
A few minutes later, while she was washing the dishes, she walked back into the bedroom, holding a dish towel in one hand and the soup bowl in the other.
"Skyler," she said. "When you were on the island, growing up, you said they gave you inoculations."
He said they did.
"Did they tell you what they were for?"
"Not always."
She finished drying the bowl and went back into the kitchen.
Jude hadn't expected to hear from Raymond so soon. He found a brief message on his answering machine. No name — Raymond was counting on voice identification. Jude never called from the Chelsea. He checked the machine in his old apartment from various pay phones around the city. He hadn't seen anyone tailing him since he'd returned from the Delaware Gap, but he didn't want to get cocky.
"Call me, quick," was all Raymond said.
From a phone booth ten blocks away, he called Raymond's office. The secretary gave him another number and told him to call it in ten minutes. On the first ring, Raymond picked up. Jude could tell he was at a booth, too, from the sounds of Washington traffic in the background.
Raymond cut to the chase.
"You win. Let's meet. I'll bring the file, you give me whatever other names you have. Right away."
"I thought you said the file was hopeless."
"Not hopeless, just thin. Plus, I've got something new on your friend Rincon that I think will interest you."
They fixed a time that evening and a place in Central Park.
"Don't be late," chided Raymond.
"Yeah, I know. The park's dangerous at that hour."
"Very funny."
He hung up.
Jude entered the park off Fifth Avenue, south of the Metropolitan Museum. The sky was a deep dark blue, and the streetlights were coming on. The footpaths at the edge of the park weren't deserted, but everyone on them was leaving, walking briskly. No one, other than Jude, was entering.
He took the wide walkway that curved north, passing Cleopatra's Needle, and soon the foliage blocked out the twilight and made him feel as if he were in a forest. There was no other soul in sight. It was amazing how quickly the city dropped behind; even the sounds were at first muffled and then seemed to disappear altogether. His footsteps echoed. He felt a breeze come up, rustling the leaves overhead.