The Good Humor Man

by Andrew Fox

  Check the rear-view mirror. There he is. Pulling onto the access road. His car’s bigger than mine. Probably faster. Signs point to Interstate 10. The coastal highway that runs west to New Orleans. Five, six hours away. If only it were closer… there, I’d know where to run to.

  At least I’m leading him away from Margo. He won’t shoot at me while my car is moving. He must realize there’s a chance I’ve got the Elvis with me. Shoot out my tires, shoot me, the car rolls and burns and then the Elvis is barbecued fat, no good to anybody. I’m invulnerable so long as I keep moving.

  A yellow caution light blinks on my dashboard. My fuel gauge. Fucking hell. Forty miles of invulnerability are all I’ve got left.

  He’s right behind me, his big silver sedan charging like an enraged rhino. He smacks my bumper, jerking my head into the seat back. Trying to intimidate me into pulling over.

  Something slides out from beneath the passenger seat. Margo’s cell phone! I scoop it up. Call the police? There’ll be a warrant out for me, too, thanks to the World of Wonders mess. They might confiscate the Elvis. No good.

  We merge onto I-10. The highway’s practically empty. A sign says it’s 280 miles to New Orleans. Won’t make much more than a tenth of that before running dry. But part of New Orleans, an armed and dangerous part, is coming to me. Somewhere west of me, on this very same highway.

  I dial Oretha Denoux’s number from memory, get an assistant. I say it’s an emergency. The clamor of the Ottoman crashing into my rear puts an exclamation point on it. Oretha gets on the line. I explain my situation as succinctly as I can. She puts me on hold. One very long minute; I spend it staring in the mirror at Quant’s face, hard as the visage of an Easter Island statue. She clicks back, tells me her men are less than ten miles from me, on the far side of the Florida-Alabama border.

  Another click, and I’m talking with a Mr. Sherman Johnson. “You’re being tailed?” he says.

  “Tailgated is more like it,” I say, gritting my teeth as I brace for another impact.

  “And you want to shake this guy? Permanent-like?”

  This isn’t a cartoon. They won’t lift his car from the highway with a giant electromagnet, then fly him back to their secret hideaway. By calling in their help, I’ve commissioned a murder.

  I look again in my mirror at the stone face of the man who would kill me. Who may have killed Mitch. Who would happily doom all America to mass starvation. If the law of self-preservation doesn’t apply now, it never will.

  “Make it as permanent as you can,” I say.

  “Describe your car. And his.”

  I do that.

  “We’re in a black stretch LaSalle,” Johnson says. “When you see us comin’, try to get at least three car lengths ahead of your tailgater.”

  Is the Nash up to it? “I’ll do my best.”

  The highway is an empty concrete ribbon. Far off on the western horizon, where the two sides of the highway merge into a single vanishing point, I see a black dot. It grows larger, into a stretch LaSalle.

  I jam my accelerator to the floor. The Nash whines with annoyance. Still, I begin to slowly, slowly pull away from the Ottoman. Maybe he’s toying with me, letting me get a little ahead before gunning it and slamming into my rear again.

  Too bad for him.

  When the LaSalle is almost even with me, I see four chrome pistols flash in the sun. Their whiplike cracks Doppler away behind me. In my mirror, the Ottoman’s car swerves to the right, leaps the shoulder of the road. It lands on two tires on the grassy slope, rolls and bounces and rolls. I feel a disturbing exhilaration when it bursts into flames.

  Islamic Elvis, you’re stillborn.

  I call 911 for Mitch and the Asian cook. I hope they pull through. Especially Mitch.

  We make the gate at the airport just before they’re ready to seal up the plane. Me, Margo, Sherman Johnson, and three other black men big enough to merit their own zip codes. We ran late because of one last precaution I had to take. The Elvis is back in its carrier, hanging reassuringly against my chest. I lost the remedies for Margo, so I had to dope her up with half a Dilaudid. She’s groggy, but at least the flight shouldn’t be unbearable for her.

  Margo asked me why I need to go to Las Vegas, why I couldn’t ship the Elvis or have Muthukrishnan collect it here. It wasn’t easy to explain why I need to personally see this through. I’ve been singled out for a special destiny. The events of the past three weeks — hell, the events of the past sixty-four years — have proven that beyond any doubt.

  The plane’s seats are discolored with decades of sweat and spilled beverages. I slide into a window seat, Margo beside me, her eyes fluttering in a losing struggle to stay open. Two of our escorts sit in front of us, two behind.

  A helicopter lands on the next runway over. A pink helicopter. With a lightning bolt insignia on its tail assembly. I can just make out the letters surrounding the bolt — TCB. Taking Care of Business. It’s from Graceland.

  Four men emerge from the copter, all dressed in gold lame suits. Thugs impersonating the King. Maybe the same ones who cleaned my clock at Worlds of Wonder.

  Our plane begins moving. You’re too late, you bastards. Too late. Tell Swaggart I hope his new nose sinks into his face.

  As soon as our wheels leave the ground, exhaustion envelops me. I glance over at Margo. Mouth open, asleep. I pull a pillow down from the overhead compartment and arrange her so that she won’t wake up with a stiff neck. Then I recline my own seat and close my eyes.

  One puzzle’s answer comes to me as I slide toward sleep. How Mitch was able to track me across the country. The Good Humor Man badge in my wallet. It’s embedded with a geo-positioning chip.

  If I’d discarded the badge after New Orleans, he couldn’t have followed me. I hope he makes it. Two deaths on my conscience are more than enough…

  “Sir, you need to bring your seat to its full upright position.”

  My eyes flicker open. “We’re landing? We’re in Las Vegas?”

  “You must not have heard the captain’s announcement,” the attendant says. “We’ve been diverted.”

  I push myself to full wakefulness. “Diverted? Where? Why?”

  “It’s no cause for concern. There’s been a runway accident at McCarran International. We’re landing at a private airport on the other side of the city. Buses will take you to the main airport so you can make your connections. There shouldn’t be too much delay.”

  Paranoia stirs in the bottom of my stomach. Harri and Muthukrishnan and the FBI agents are supposed to meet us as soon as we step off the plane. “Miss,” I call after her. “What field is this we’re landing at?”

  She doesn’t hear me. Margo is still asleep. I lean forward and touch Sherman Johnson’s shoulder. “Did you hear what’s going on?”

  “Nothin’ to be concerned about,” he says without turning around. “You’ve got four good men watchin’ out for you and the miss. We’ll get you where you need to go.”

  The landing gear whirs. We’re flying low over sandy-brown foothills. I see the control tower and a lone landing strip ahead, growing larger each second.

  There’s a hanger alongside the landing strip, large blue letters painted on its wide roof. I read them as we make our final approach.

  MANNASANTOS, INC.

  MERGING NATURE AND SCIENCE

  TO FEED A HUNGRY AMERICA

  CHAPTER 17

  The jet touches down on MannaSantos’s runway. The old plane’s tires bounce twice, jamming the Elvis into my solar plexus.

  A mobile staircase drives toward the plane’s hatch, followed by a bus. My blood pressure settles down — maybe the flight attendant was right, and this is just an innocent diversion?

  But then two other vehicles drive onto the tarmac. Big Suburbanlike trucks with MannaSantos markings, police-type light bars, black-tinted windows.

  Margo puts on a groggy smile as she unbuckles her seat belt. I don’t want to panic her. But she senses my mood as we head down th
e aisle; she strains to see what I’m staring at through the windows. Sherman Johnson and his lieutenant are ahead of us, the other two men immediately behind. Whatever weapons they brought are stowed in their luggage, now being transferred into the bus’s cargo hold.

  “Those trucks,” I whisper to Johnson. “They give me a bad feeling-”

  “Don’t worry,” he says, too quickly. “We got your back.”

  Hearing the stumble in his voice frightens me worse than anything.

  Margo clutches my arm as we descend the rickety metal stairway. The sun assaults us, rebounding from the plane’s fuselage, glinting off the trucks’ chrome bumpers. I don’t see the men and women emerge from the two trucks until I’m on the tarmac.

  They cut me and my companions off from the rest of the passengers, who are led toward the waiting bus. The men wear security uniforms emblazoned with MannaSantos’s logo. The women — they’re wearing hooded white robes. Like what Margo wore when she was one of Trotmann’s acolytes.

  We’re quickly surrounded, outnumbered more than two to one. One of the uniformed men places himself confidently in front of Sherman Johnson. “We need to speak with Dr. Shmalzberg,” he says. “Privately.”

  “Dr. Shmalzberg doesn’t go anywhere without us,” Johnson says.

  I hear Margo gasp. I glance over in time to see her face go white. “Mildred,” she asks one of the women, “what are you doing here?”

  “Striking a blow for the true Church.” Before I can raise a hand to protect Margo, the tall woman decks her. “Traitorous bitch.”

  I kneel to help her. She’s stunned more than hurt, thank God. Johnson and his lieutenant immediately move to restrain Margo’s assailant, but that’s when she and the others reveal their guns.

  “Isn’t it a shame,” a familiar voice asks, “that the airlines have such persnickety rules about carrying weapons on board?”

  I hear the approaching whir of an electric motor. Staring through a forest of legs, I see a figure in a wheelchair rolling toward us.

  It’s Trotmann.

  A thick bandage puffs up his left collarbone beneath his jacket, marking where Margo’s bullet passed through his frail body. Likewise, his right hand is lost inside a glove of plaster. My handiwork. I should’ve done worse.

  I help Margo off the tarmac. Seeing Trotmann here hardly surprises me. All the forces of darkness are gathering against us.

  Trotmann leers up at me, pats the Elvis with his good hand, then shares his leer with my four bodyguards. “I’ve always wondered how heroic gunsels are without their guns,” he says.

  I’ve been wondering the same thing. The shame-faced expression worn by Sherman Johnson tells me all I need to know.

  Margo grabs me tighter. I return her embrace. “Trotmann, you’ve got no idea what you’re doing,” I say. “This isn’t about you and me and my father anymore. If you love your country — if you love the world — you’ll let us give the Elvis to the scientists who need it —”

  He cuts me off with a sharp gesture. “Oh, no need to tell me your tale of woe about the wasting plague and sixty-five-year-old bananas. My patron has explained everything. You were much less discreet than you thought, Mr. Would-Be-Messiah.” He fondles the Elvis’s glass jar, still nestled securely in the carrier against my chest. His leer absolutely disgusts me. “I can’t tell you what joy this turn of events has given me. One of the horrors of old age is knowing that the world will continue blithely on after you’ve died. But now, not only do I collect my precious property, but I ensure that no one will dance on my grave. We all go down into the pit of nothingness together, eh, young Shmalzberg?”

  “You’re insane…” How can his guards listen to this and still follow his orders?

  “Insane?” He tilts his head; tufts of coarse gray hairs sprouting from his nostrils make him look subhuman. “No. Just petulant. And childless, thanks to your father. Maybe if he hadn’t persecuted me, I’d have a connection to the future, and I wouldn’t be so pleased to let the world choke on its own bile. We’ll have lots more to talk about once I introduce you to my patron. He’s eager to meet you.”

  Margo hugs me tighter. “Take me, too,” she says to her former Reductionist.

  Trotmann whistles appreciatively. “Brave girl. Braver than these slabs of muscle you brought with you. But the sponsor of our festivities gave me strict instructions that I was only to fetch the junior Shmalzberg. Besides, it’ll be a worse torture for you to be separated from your new Reductionist, wondering about his fate until your flesh melts from your bones.”

  He turns to his followers. “Take them. Keep them confined for forty-eight hours. Then let them go. By then, Dr. Shmalzberg won’t be a concern to anyone.”

  A MannaSantos security guard pulls Margo away. “Louis! I don’t want to leave you —!”

  “It’s all right,” I say, praying I’ll survive to repay such loyalty. And love. “Johnson — keep her safe. If you can’t help me, at least do that.”

  Oretha Denoux’s foot soldier barely meets my eyes. “I’ll — do what I can.”

  Half of Trotmann’s entourage shepherds my companions toward one of the trucks. Suddenly, I wish the Ottoman were still in the game. That human bowling ball would come in handy now. If he were alive, he could still track me… through the card in my wallet —

  “Margo!” She turns, resisting being shoved in the truck. “Tell Muthukrishnan — tell him a Good Humor Man is never lost!”

  I catch the look of bewilderment on her face before she disappears. I glance at Trotmann. Far as I can tell, he thinks my outburst was merely emotional bravado, not code. I pray Margo will repeat those exact words when she sees the feds. I pray the FBI agents will guess I’ve still got my card on me.

  I pray I can stay alive long enough for them to find me.

  Nightfall is still an hour away. The outskirts of Las Vegas look to be as much of a ghost town as Albuquerque. I’m squeezed between two MannaSantos goons, facing Trotmann in his wheelchair. He hasn’t taken the Elvis away from me yet. Maybe prying it away from me is so exquisite a pleasure that he doesn’t want to rush it.

  There’s so much I need to know. “The Metaboloft breakout… did the heads of MannaSantos know it would happen? Was unleashing the plague an intentional act?”

  Trotmann rubs his left shoulder; the dressing on his wound is matted with dried blood. “Oh, it was an intentional act, yes. But not on the behalf of the legitimate, visible corporation. Most of MannaSantos, including your friend, Harriet Lane, thought they were rolling out just another in a highly profitable series of products. But there is a visible MannaSantos, and there is an znvisible MannaSantos, dust bunnies that blew under the bed and were forgotten. A subterranean MannaSantos has been pushing the buttons all along, quietly laughing as hapless nonentities like your Harriet Lane have tried getting the genetic genie back in its bottle.”

  “Why would anyone want to starve the world?”

  “You’ll have to ask my patron that. You’ve been so involved with his ‘family’ over the years, he practically considers you an uncle.”

  I turn to the guards. Have they been listening to what Trotmann’s been saying? “Do you understand what you’re a part of?” I ask them. “Do either of you have children? They won’t live to see their adulthood unless I deliver this biological sample to the government.”

  They don’t answer. “You’re talking to a wall,” Trotmann says. “They think I’m a harmless loon, but they’ve been told to follow my instruc tions. Decent paying jobs in Nevada are about as common as icebergs in the desert. A MannaSantos paycheck is a prize to be lusted after. Isn’t that right, Jack?”

  “Absolutely, Dr. Trotmann,” the guard to my right says.

  “And don’t even consider trying to win over any of the women. They don’t think I’m a loon, but talk of apocalypse doesn’t faze them. It excites them. A melting away of all flesh fits quite delightfully with their mind-set.”

  We reach the edge of the fabled Las Vegas Str
ip. “Since you’re stuck with me, young Shmalzberg,” Trotmann says, “you might as well enjoy the ride. Behold the ruins of Las Vegas!”

  The Luxor casino’s gigantic black glass pyramid is still impressive, even though its once geometrically pure lines have been made jagged by the ravages of vandalism and weather. Guarding the boarded-up entrance, the concrete Sphinx and statues of Ramses look as ancient and decayed as the originals.

  “The American pharaohs didn’t build as well as their Egyptian predecessors,” Trotmann says. “That pyramid won’t last even one century, much less fifty centuries. Ah, look there — New York New York was always one of my favorites. All those years when I didn’t dare set foot in Manhattan due to legal concerns, I could come here and stare up at one-third scale mockups of the Chrysler Building, the Empire State, the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  He snorts, then wipes his nose with his good hand. “Actually, you and your friends are responsible, at least partly, for the somnolent state of Vegas. Didn’t your Good Humor movement help usher in the new age of American Puritanism? In banishing gluttony, didn’t you also burn up some of the other Seven Deadly Sins with your ridiculous flamethrowers?”

  He coughs so hard I expect to be hit with bits of lung tissue. I can’t help but look again at the filthy dressing covering his wound. “Trotmann, you need to get your wound cleaned. You’ll die of an infection —”

  “So what?”he snaps, kicking off another bout of coughing. “I’m die — dying anyway. We’re all dying, some faster than others. But some lucky ones get to move to the front of the line.”

  We turn off Las Vegas Boulevard onto a long entrance road leading to one of the massive gaming and hotel complexes. The road leads beneath the spread legs of a colossal statue at least a hundred feet tall. The sun is almost beneath the horizon, so the statue’s face is obliterated by the day’s final glare. But its stance, guitar, and jeweled jumpsuit are unmistakable. It’s Colossal Elvis, straight from my vision.

  “Trotmann, this place you’re taking me — what —?”

  He’s delighted by my awed expression. “Yes, my precious property is coming home in more ways than one. Welcome to the Viva Las Vegas-Graceland Casino. Formerly the Flamingo, one of the Strip’s earliest gambling resorts.”