"And another thing. When McNichol did the autopsy, he took samples of the organs and put them away for analysis and someone broke in and stole them. Why? You'd think it'd be to destroy evidence, so that nobody could prove the body was a double. But then why leave behind all the DNA evidence? That's the stuff that really established it. It doesn't make sense — unless they just didn't know what they were doing. And somehow I doubt that. They wanted those specimens for something."
The hand dropped away from his elbow. Tizzie looked almost as bad as Skyler. She said that she was feeling poorly and thought she would skip dinner. She turned and headed back toward her room, and as she walked away, Jude watched her receding figure, the shoulders uncharacteristically drooping. He wanted to go after her, but he knew it would be a mistake, and he felt a sudden sharp jab of loneliness.
Jude ordered room service — a ham and cheese sandwich, Diet Coke, potato chips and coffee — and while he was waiting, he opened his computer, plugging the modem into the phone socket. He went on-line and quickly found the web page for W in Jerome, Arizona, and once again the screen filled in with that strange image, the hooded-eye lizard clinging to a rock. He clicked onto the chat room. A discussion was underway.
"… you remember tithonus?"
"who?"
"Tithonus… it's greek mythology. he was a handsome young prince. One day, Aurora, the goddess of dawn, falls in love with him. she wants him for a husband, but after all he's only a mortal with a short life span, so she goes to Zeus and begs him to bestow eternal life on him. Zeus does and she sweeps him off to her palace in the east. For years everything's fine, they live in bliss. But there was one thing she forgot…"
"what?"
"she forgot to ask that her prince stay young forever. And so he aged. He got older and older and lost all his strength and shriveled down and his voice turned into a feeble squeak and he ached everywhere and could barely move. he shrank so much that Aurora put him in a little basket in a corner of her palace and he was miserable he only wanted one more thing — to die. But he couldn't. so he just keep shrinking until he turned into a grasshopper and that's what he remained forever and ever."
"got the point but still i'd want to live a long long time. think about it — what's so bad about old age?"
"Everything. your teeth rot, your size shrinks, you walk like a cripple, you lose control of your bowels, your memory goes — what's to live for?"
"still, you're alive. you know the old saying: where there's life, there's hope."
"where there's life, there's dope. give me kevorkian anytime…"
"see we've got a newcomer. hello luddite. we're talking about old age. Machiavelli here prefers the live fast die young route. how bout you?"
Jude typed the first nonsense that came into his head: "i think it's too bad old age is wasted on the old."
"ha ha. you're as funny as your name."
Jude asked the question he had come there for: "any you guys talked lately to methuselah???"
"who he?"
"i know him but he doesn't hang out here anymore. havent talked to him in weeks. why?"
"nothing much. just wondered. another thing — why is this site called jerome arizona?"
"dont know."
"i think cause that's where it was when it began long time ago. but none of those people come on anymore."
"who were they?" Jude asked.
"dont know."
"me neither."
Jude didn't want to spend any more time on-line than he had to. "gotta run," he typed.
"ok. remember: a minute from now you'll have sixty seconds less to live. ha ha."
"and a minute ago you had sixty seconds more. ha ha"
Without a riposte, Jude signed off, and was about to shut down the computer when he noticed a blinking mailbox: someone had sent him e-mail. He clicked on the icon, and instantly the screen was swallowed by a message that popped up with an address he did not immediately recognize. At that precise moment he heard a knock on the door — it sounded soft, tentative and his pulse quickened, because his sixth sense told him it was Tizzie.
He quickly read the name on the e-mail — it was from the University of Wisconsin, from Hartman.
Then he went to answer the door. A young man was standing there in a slightly frayed uniform, a tray hoisted on a bent wrist. Room service.
Jude let him in and watched him as he grandly lifted the silver warmer off the plate, revealing a small brown sandwich sitting in a pool of melted cheese, and fished in his pocket for a dollar tip. The man accepted it without a word and closed the door with the pantomimed sycophancy of a retiring butler.
Jude set the tray by the window and looked out into the darkened, deserted street. A car went by, rumbling with teenagers whose laughter penetrated the window, and then all was quiet again. The sandwich was cold and soggy; he ate only half of it and finished off the potato chips, swilling them down with Coke. Then he sipped his lukewarm coffee slowly, peering onto the street and thinking about their situation, turning the permutations and possiblities over and over. He felt he was groping in the dark, getting nowhere. The reference to Greek mythology played in his mind; he half dreamed that he was in a labyrinth, turning corner after corner, to the left and to the right, each one looking just the same, knowing that somewhere ahead or maybe behind was the dreaded Minotaur, the monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man, who fed on human flesh.
Then he noticed the laptop screen, still gleaming.
Hartman's message was brimming with Midwestern friendliness, but was nonetheless succinct.
I've been thinking of you two and wondering how you're coming on your quest. Hope you remember my words of wisdom. The more I think about your situation, the more I'm convinced that I'm right. One more thing I thought you should know — a couple of days after you left, two men came by asking about you — FBI or at least that's what their badges said. We didn't tell them much, not that we had much to say in any case. And we didn't serve them any of my special concoction. All best, Hartman.
Chapter 20
They followed Route 40 into Flagstaff, Arizona, a town set behind long-needle pine forests high in the mountains. On the outskirts, three crude wooden crosses, each with a name stenciled in black, had been hammered into the ground.
The highway fed into a street of traffic lights and fast-food restaurants and hotels. In the first block were Burger King, Econo Lodge, Hilton, Hampton Inn, Del Taco, Sizzler and Denny's. A Texaco station sold clay cow skulls and bright pottery with Hopi geometric designs.
Tizzie was feeling better, but Skyler, in the backseat, spent most of the time sleeping. He was still ill.
Jude looked for a place to stay. He parked in front of a two-story house down the street from Sbarro's Pizza and Mountain Jacks burger house. A ROOMS FOR RENT sign was taped to the window of a back door. He stepped outside and looked up and down the sidewalk. They were on the campus of Northern Arizona University. Young people carrying books walked by — the boys in bowling shirts, Dockers and jeans, the girls in tank tops, bell-bottom pants and shoes with tire-tread soles. Their pierced ears and eyebrows glinted in the sun.
Jude got back into the car and started the engine.
"What's wrong?" asked Tizzie.
"Too cozy. I'm sure it's run by a landlady who sticks her nose into everybody's business and gossips with the neighbors. We'd stick out a mile away. We need a place that's anonymous, where so many travelers come and go that nobody pays any attention."
Fifty-four miles south on Route 17, he found what he had in mind in Camp Verde, a drab modern crossroads. On one corner was a Giant service station advertising gasoline at $1.05 and $1.25 in yellow letters two feet high; monumental self-service pumps sat in the dark shadow of a concrete canopy. Across the way was a Taco Bell with a long faux Spanish-tile roof, and next door a Country Kitchen, separated by two parking lots. On the other side of the road was a shopping mall — brown windowless structures under a forty-foot flagpole. Overhead was a jumble of traffic lights, telephone lines and highway lamps on huge stanchions with elongated necks.