on. Here's the lockbox code. Key's inside.'
Dave gave Andy the code and the address. It was just a few blocks away.
'What if someone comes over to look at the place?'
'No one's looked at that place in two months. Credit crunch.'
'What about the neighbors? Will they call the cops if they see the lights on?'
'Nope. House has automatic timers. A few lights inside come on at dark, turn off at midnight. So criminals think someone's still there.'
'Thanks, Dave. I owe you, man.'
'Andy, if I can't let my good buddy trespass on one of my listings, what the hell good am I? But try not to stain the sheets, okay. They're satin.'
Andy hung up and dialed Tres.
'Andrew, how are you?'
Andrew? The only person who had ever called him Andrew was his mother back when he was a kid and she had been really mad at him.
'Man, Andrew, remember that time you took a header for those senior citizens?'
'Uh, yeah.'
'Have you been back out there since?'
'Well, as a matter of fact, I'm-'
'We need to do that again, Andrew.'
'Fly off the ravine?'
'No, sit right there and talk.'
'Well, okay, but first-'
'How about today, Andrew? At two.'
Tres hung up. It was one-thirty. Andy rode back to Frankie and Jessie at the greenbelt.
'I need to go down the trail, to meet someone.'
'Can we come?' Jessie said. 'I'm scared.'
Andy put his arm around her and led them down the trail.
Just before two, Tres rode up on his trail bike. Andy, Frankie, and Jessie were sitting on the same rock he had sat on after taking the header that day. Andy introduced everyone then turned to Tres.
' Andrew? What's that about?'
'Didn't know if someone was listening in.'
'To your phone calls?'
'Hey, man, the Feds are spying on everyone these days.'
'But why you?'
'Because I asked the wrong question.'
'Which was?'
He glanced from Andy to Frankie and back.
'It's okay.'
Tres gestured at Frankie. 'This is her? Patient X?'
'No.' Andy nodded at Jessie. 'That's her.'
'Thought Patient X was a woman?'
Andy shook his head. 'A girl. Baby X.'
'Well, you were right, the Feds know all about her.'
'You found something?'
He nodded. ' 'Patient X: A Cost-Benefit Analysis.' '
'They studied her?'
'They studied the idea of her. No one knew if Patient X was real or some kind of medical hoax, but they run analyses on all kinds of hypothetical scenarios. You know, what-ifs. Like war games. Would she be good or bad for the economy? They discovered Patient X could bankrupt the government, put the country into another Great Depression. At least that's the conclusion after they ran the numbers.'
'What numbers?'
'The decreased cost of Medicare and Medicaid if Patient X could cure even a few diseases-the numbers are staggering.'
'So that's good.'
'Yeah, but those numbers are nothing compared to the increased costs of social security. Right now, life expectancy is seventy-four. What if it were a hundred? People start living that long, it would bankrupt social security. They'd have to raise the tax to fifty, sixty percent on top of the income tax. People would be paying ninety percent of what they make to the federal government. Society would collapse, there'd be social chaos. Our social programs are predicated on people dying on time.'
'But I pay fifteen-point-nine percent of my income into the social security trust fund. The government's investing all that money to pay me when I retire.'
Tres laughed. 'Andy, there's no trust fund. Your taxes aren't invested. Social security is a Ponzi scheme: the money you pay in today is paid out to old folks tomorrow. Any money left over is spent just like regular tax money. Last year there was a $175 billion social security surplus. But it wasn't invested in the trust fund. It was spent for farm programs and the Iraq war and pet projects for members of Congress. The so-called 'trust fund' is nothing more than a stack of IOUs from the government to the Social Security Administration. They're literally sitting in a file cabinet in D.C. The trust fund is just a huge hoax on the American people.'
'So the government won't help her?'
Tres shrugged. 'I called a buddy over at the FBI. He said they'll take her into the witness protection program, give her a new identity, move her to a new place.'
'We don't need the FBI for that,' Frankie said. 'And if she goes into protective custody, she'll be a freak again.' She shook her head. 'We're on our own.'
'No, Frankie, you're not on your own. I'm here.'
'Mom, what are we gonna do?'
'What we've always done, honey. Run.'
Jessie started crying. 'Mom, I'm tired of running. I want to live with Jean and Paul and Max and the birds. I want to fish and learn to ride a horse. And Paul's teaching me the guitar.'
Andy pulled Frankie aside and said, 'You can't run forever.'
'What choice do we have, Andy? They'll never stop coming for her, as long as she's alive.'
Andy looked over at Jessie sitting on the rock and crying with her face in her hands. He turned back to Frankie.
'Then we'll have to kill her.'
Three miles away, Cecil said, 'What do you want?'
Harmon put his hand over the phone. 'Caramel macchiato and a sugar-free brownie.'
Cecil got out of the car and went inside the Starbucks. Harmon said into the phone, 'Where the hell are they?'
'We don't know.'
The boss.
'Why don't you know?'
'We can't ping Prescott's phone.'
'Why not?'
'He either figured out we're tracking him with his cell phone and turned it off, or he's in a dead zone. When he comes out or turns it on, we'll have his location in minutes.'
Harmon hung up.
When Cecil returned, he said, 'Well?'
'We wait.'
Andy drove them to Dave's listing. He opened the lockbox, removed the front door key, and unlocked the door. They stepped inside and Jessie said, 'Wow.'
It was in fact a mansion.
