The Good Humor Man

by Andrew Fox

  “Even so.”

  “But you can’t back out of this, can you? MannaSantos is the only company with the know-how to use the Elvis to wipe out that Metaboloft gene.”

  “They’re also the ones who caused the disaster in the first place.”

  “An accident, right?”

  I’m quiet for a few seconds. The thought that scientists at MannaSantos could have deliberately released this scourge is almost too frightening to contemplate. “Probably. But being attacked today at a MannaSantos property… doesn’t increase my confidence in the company’s good intentions.”

  She winces as another cramp hits. “Couldn’t that — ugh — be a coincidence? You’ve told me that other people have been after the Elvis.”

  Do coincidences exist? I’ve never been much of a believer in fate, but after what I’ve learned — that my father’s worst incident of malpractice may provide the key to averting the mass extermination of all mammalian life — I’m not so sure anymore.

  “Maybe you should’ve asked Muthukrishnan to send agents to stay with us until we get on that flight,” she says. Her eyes flit to the gun on the nightstand. “Those fake Elvis guys… they could’ve followed us to Pensacola.”

  “For all I know, those ‘fake Elvis guys’ could be Muthukrishnan’s agents.”

  Her pretty green eyes grow big. “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know… it’s just that, with so much at stake…”

  “You don’t want to fuck up.”

  “Right.”

  “You need backup,” she says. “More than just me. What about that woman over in New Orleans you’d gotten friendly with? It sounds like she has bodyguards to spare.”

  Oretha Denoux? It’s a thought. It’s her world, too; all the eclairs and chocolate turtles in existence won’t stave off Metaboloft for long.

  I pull the card with her private number out of my wallet. It’s wedged next to my Good Humor Man badge, which now seems as abhorrent to me as an ID for the Nazi Party. But throwing it away wouldn’t feel right, either. I’ve got too much personal history bound up in that badge.

  Ms. Denoux picks up on the fourth ring. “Ahh, King Creole, good to hear from you again,” she says. “How is our friend, Elvis? Is he once more nestled in the bosom of your family?”

  I bring her up to date.

  “So allow me to summarize,” she says once my tale has wound down. “Because Elvis was willful and would not follow your father’s instructions, and because your father was unskilled at liposuction, and because — forgive my bluntness here — because your father ghoulishly decided to retain a keepsake, you now have an opportunity to save the world.”

  “In a nutshell, yes.”

  “Doctor, do you believe in destiny?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that all afternoon.”

  “I am a believer in destiny. Your flight to Las Vegas leaves tomorrow afternoon at 2:25?”

  “Yes.”

  “Three of my men will meet you at your motel no later than noon. Keep them with you as long as you deem necessary.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Ms. Denoux.”

  I wait for her to mention her quid pro quo.

  “Thank me by saving our world, Dr. Shmalzberg,” she says.

  I help Margo relax into sleep with a deep tissue massage. I let my fingers drift along her sides, around the subtle swellings of her hips, down her long, slender thighs. It might be my wistful imagination at work, but her body seems less girlish than the first time I saw it. When her breathing takes on the slow, even rhythm of slumber, I lightly kiss all those places my fingers had touched.

  Morning. A thin beam of sunlight strikes my face through a seam in the curtains. Margo’s still sleeping soundly. Remembering her cramps, I decide to get her some medication for the long flight, and find some light breakfast for both of us. Ms. Denoux’s men will arrive two or three hours from now, but I don’t want her to be in pain that long. There’s a drug store just up the road, about five blocks away.

  I write her a note telling her where I’m going and place it on the nightstand, next to the Elvis. Maybe I should ask her to watch over it while I’m gone? No; she needs her rest. I’ll take it with me. The gun, too.

  I step out into the morning. The last hazy remains of a winter fog are burning off, revealing a long strip of low-rise industrial parks along a four-lane highway. I place the Elvis in the trunk of my car. My fuel gauge shows only a tenth of a tank left, and my charge is low. Doesn’t matter. The airport’s barely three miles up the road, and the car will wait there until we return from Las Vegas.

  First time I’ve ever walked into a drug store with a gun in my pocket. I buy a bagful of over-the-counter stomach remedies, then walk a few doors down to a small take-out restaurant. The weather-beaten sign announces Vietnamese food, American food, and Fast Breakfasts. I stare in through yellowed, smudged windows. The only person inside is a short Asian man behind the counter, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette.

  I step inside. The acrid scent of jet exhaust from the nearby airport mingles with the aroma of artificial fat browning on a range. The man behind the counter looks up from his newspaper. “Help you with something?”

  Margo shouldn’t take her medications on an empty stomach. “I’ll have two breakfast specials to go, please. Eggs well scrambled. Double meat on both.”

  “That’ll be just a few minutes. Have to reheat the grill.”

  He disappears into the kitchen through swinging doors. I sit down in the booth by the window, so I can keep an eye on my car and the Elvis.

  Another customer’s coming. The owner will be pleased; he’ll get to sell another couple of eggs…

  My God. It’s Mitch.

  “Hello, Lou.” No smile. He eases the door shut behind him.

  “Mitch — how — how in the world did you find me?”

  “That doesn’t matter none.” He hovers at the edge of the table, blocking me from the door.

  My stomach turns as sour as a green grapefruit. “Why did you follow me all the way across the country?”

  “You’re in a shit-load of trouble, Lou.”

  “With the Good Humor Men?”

  “Yeah. But that’s not the worst of it.” His eyes drill me with contempt and sadness. “What the hell got into you? Did you crack up? You want to know why I’ve followed you across the country? Because you were my best friend. Because I feel like I should’ve protected you better. And because I’m scared for you, Lou. Scared of what you’ve gone and gotten yourself into.”

  Does he know what I did in New Orleans? The scam I pulled on Severald? I slowly slide my right hand into my jacket pocket, feeling for the cool steel there. “Tell me what kind of trouble I’m in, Mitch.”

  “You practically started an international incident!” He half laughs. “Jesus Christ… you quiet guys… when you go off the road, you do it in a big way. Assaulting the ambassador of a foreign country. Stealing from him. Trussing him up like a lab rat. And you want to know what kind of trouble you’re in?”

  The Ottoman. He must’ve found the Ottoman when he went looking for me. And the Ottoman convinced him to somehow follow me as I chased the Elvis.

  I pull the gun from my jacket pocket. This’ll only cement his belief in my guilt, but it can’t be helped. “I’m going to walk out of here,” I say. “And you aren’t going to stop me or follow me.”

  I slide out of the booth, keeping the gun trained on his broad chest.

  “You won’t use that on me,” he says, remarkably calm. “I’d bet a thousand bucks you’ve never fired that thing before.”

  He’d win the money. “Mitch, you have no idea what you’re getting involved in here.” Am I capable of shooting him? I’d know where to place the slug so it wouldn’t kill or cripple him… “Your friendship helped keep me alive, those years after Emily passed. But the future of the whole world depends on my catching a flight this afternoon.”

  A flicker of doubt shows on h
is face. “Tell me what this is all about, Lou.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “But you have plenty of time, Dr. Shmalzberg.” Behind me — “Place your weapon on the table. I am a much more accomplished marksman than you are. My first shot will not kill you, but it will be most debilitating.”

  It’s him, standing in front of the swinging doors. Thick black mustache, giant hands that make the silenced pistol he’s pointing at me look like a flimsy toy. “Be obedient, Doctor,” he says. “You would not be wise to give me cause for doing to you what I would most enjoy. On the table, please, where your friend can reach it.”

  I’m no gunfighter. And I’m no good to anyone if I’m dead. I push the gun toward Mitch. “Don’t do this for him, Mitch. I don’t know what he’s told you. But helping him is the biggest betrayal of America imaginable.”

  He picks up the gun. The Ottoman advances on us. “I’ll take that, Mr. Reynolds, if you please.”

  Mitch doesn’t hand it over. “Just a second here. I want to hear him out.”

  “He has nothing pertinent to say to you,” the Ottoman says. “Betrayal? He has betrayed his country by disgracing it. He has stolen my money and my property, property which I brought to him in order to verify its authenticity. You saw how he left me, Mr. Reynolds.”

  “He’s lying, Mitch. He threatened my family. The Elvis wasn’t his. He tried to force me to give it up or tell him where it was.”

  Behind the Ottoman’s smile is a cold anger. “Do you deny that you stole my money, Doctor?”

  “I don’t deny that.”

  Poor Mitch was never the swiftest train out of the station. Befuddlement is creeping up on him, and he doesn’t like it. “Look,” he says. “Mr. Quant promised that if I helped him find you, if I convinced you to return his stuff, he’d let this all drop. No cops, no secret police. That sounds like a good deal to me, Lou. You could start over. Maybe I could even smooth things out between you and the Good Humor Men. You could go home.”

  “There won’t be a home to return to,” I say, “if you don’t let me get on that plane.” I turn toward the Ottoman. Sweat droplets glide down my sides like damp snails. “Mr. Quant, I can’t give you the Elvis. If I don’t turn it over to the Department of Agriculture, every person on Earth starves to death within four or five years. There’s a rogue gene that’s spreading from the American Midwest. It’s called Metaboloft. A creation of the MannaSantos Corporation. It was designed to raise human metabolic rates. They intended to insert it in only a few select crops. But their design was faulty. Now it’s infiltrating thousands of other types of plants and crops, spreading on the wind.”

  I turn back to Mitch, who’s still holding onto my gun. “Don’t you remember the deer, Mitch? It’s Metaboloft. It affects all mammalian metabolisms, not just humans. It’s gotten into the leaves and grasses they eat. We’re higher in the food chain, but we’ve started melting away, too. Look at yourself. You’ve been losing weight these past few months. Haven’t you?”

  He turns pale. “Jesus Christ… I sure have. Thought I was sick or something…”

  “Scientists at MannaSantos are trying to create a countergene. And the Elvis — the liposuctioned belly fat my father saved from the operation — it contains bananas, real, old-fashioned bananas, which may be just what the gene engineers need to build their counteragent. My father punctured Elvis’s stomach with his cannula, accidentally sucked out his partially digested breakfast. Those bananas have been preserved in a vacuum jar for the past sixty-four years.”

  The Ottoman grunts with dry amusement. “Doctor, I would not have expected you to be such a talented fabulist. That story could command a place of honor among the tales of the Arabian Nights. Return my money and my property, and you will be free to concoct any tales that please you.”

  An idea seizes me. A Solomonic idea. “We can split it,” I say. “We can take the Elvis to a lab facility and I’ll divide it up. I need the stomach contents. Your emir wants the fat. We can both have what we need.”

  The corners of the Ottoman’s mouth jut out from beneath his mustache for the briefest of seconds. “I don’t think so, Dr. Shmalzberg. I don’t bargain with lying infidels.”

  Blood colors Mitch’s face. A good Baptist, he took that insult more to heart than I did. “Is this on the level, Lou?”

  “Every word,” I say.

  Mitch puts himself between the Ottoman and me. “I’m not real sure who stole that jar of fat from whom,” he says. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. Lou’s solution — that sounds like the right one to me.”

  “Mr. Reynolds,” the Ottoman says, “you have no authority in this. It would be best for you if you give me Dr. Shmalzberg’s gun.”

  Mitch’s ears turn red. “Fuck you.”

  “Americans…” the Ottoman sighs. His gun makes a sound like a burst of compressed air. Mitch shouts and stumbles backward.

  I dive for my gun. The Ottoman kicks it into a far corner. It disappears into a pile of boxes. His next kick sends me sprawling against a booth.

  When my vision clears, my fingers come away from my head bloody. Mitch looks much worse. The bullet tore into his stomach. The restaurant’s floor is turning dirty red. Mitch squirms into a fetal ball and weakly moans.

  The Ottoman places himself between me and the door. “Give me the fat, and I will allow you to summon an ambulance for your friend. Refuse, and together we will watch him bleed to death.”

  I kneel by Mitch, roll him onto his back, tear open his soaked shirt. Blood spurts from a hole just below and to the right of his sternum. Missed the spine. Possibly punctured the liver. “He freed you,” I say. “He helped you.”

  “I do not need his help anymore. And he was poor company in the car.”

  I tear strips from Mitch’s shirt. Roll one up and press it into the broken lips of the wound, then wrap two others around his midsection, tying them as tightly as I can. I wad up my jacket and shove it under his tailbone, trying to elevate the wound above his heart.

  “An admirable effort,” the Ottoman says. “Even so, your friend will soon glimpse Paradise, though its gates are shut to unbelievers.”

  “Why?” I pull Mitch’s belt out of its loops, tie it around my makeshift dressing. “Why does your emir want the Elvis so goddamned badly?”

  “My master studied in America as a young man. He heard the Blessed Troubadour sing, and it was a moment of illumination for him. He is old now, and wealthy almost beyond mortal imagining. He directed me to acquire Graceland, transport it across the oceans, timber by timber. My offer was rejected most discourteously. Insultingly, in fact. As you have insulted me, Doctor.”

  “So he went after the fat as a consolation prize? How did he even know it existed?”

  He raises eyebrows in honest surprise. “Was not its existence revealed in your national newspapers? The Enquirer? The Star? The Caliphate’s intelligence service searched all information databases for word of such relics. But this relic is a prize beyond all others. For it will allow us to midwife the birth of the Islamic Elvis.”

  Midwife the birth — “You mean you want to clone him?”

  “I believe that is your American term, yes.”

  I laugh. My hands are stained with my best friend’s blood, a foreign maniac has a pistol pointed at my head, and I’m laughing so hard tears spill out. “But that — that’s ridiculous! Even… even if you could do it, the clone wouldn’t be Elvis! He’d have a certain amount of genetic singing ability, perfect pitch, sure… but he wouldn’t have Elvis’s upbringing, all the things that made Elvis Elvis. There’d be no Gladys, no poverty-stricken childhood in Tupelo, no black gospel choirs for him to hear, no Grand Ole Opry —”

  “My master has arranged for the proper influences. The lad will be raised in the light of the Prophet. Nourished in the wisdom of the Book, our Elvis will extinguish all memory of his Western predecessor.”

  Mitch is bleeding through my dressing. I pull off my shirt, wrap that around him. �
�You want to clone Elvis? Fine! Do it! You only need a few ounces of the fat. Let me keep the rest. The Metaboloft gene — it won’t stay isolated in North America. Your Caliphate won’t be safe. Let me save your country at the same time I save my own!”

  His eyes, cold and black as marble in winter, narrow to contemptuous slits. “Perhaps when we first met, Doctor, such an appeal might have moved me. Before you forced me to endure the indignity of lying in my own filth. If what you have told me is true, I will rejoice in the wasting death of America. And Allah will protect my country —”

  The kitchen doors creak open. The Vietnamese cook, blood flowing from a long wound above his left eye, pumps a short-barreled shotgun. But Quant is faster — his bullet hits the cook’s upper torso before the Asian man can get off his shot. Flung against the wall, the wounded man finishes squeezing his trigger. The blast goes deafeningly awry. It hits the ceiling, showering the Ottoman with debris.

  I grab a metal napkin dispenser and hit him in the head with it as hard as I can. It barely staggers him.

  Still dizzy, I knock aside some of the boxes, dig wildly through mounds of plastic forks and ketchup packets for my gun. Can’t find it — I hear him behind me, grunting with pain and anger. And I pull the door open and run.

  I run past what might be the Ottoman’s car. Silver; not black? If I had my gun, I could flatten his tires. If the queen had balls she’d be king.

  Almost to my car now. The Elvis is wrapped in a blanket in the trunk. Way behind me, the restaurant’s door slams shut. I won’t hear his silenced gun when he fires. Just feel the slug splitting flesh, pulverizing bone.

  Keys. If I put my keys in my jacket pocket, I’m fucked. No, they’re in my pants pocket. I’m not dead yet.

  I duck low, unlock my door, and then I’m stunned by a boom like a truck back-fire. Suddenly my seats are covered with chunks of safety glass. I jam the key into the ignition. A bullet slams into a body panel. My tires crunch glass as I pull away.

  I’m out of the parking lot. Onto the access highway. Where to now? A police station? I wouldn’t know where to look.