Lyle pulled the Yemaya Foundation advertisement off the wall and handed it to her; she scribbled something on the back and folded it in half, handing it back. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t,” said Lyle. He shoved the paper in his pocket, clutched his grilled cheese sandwich, and walked outside.
40
Thursday, September 6
11:04 P.M.
Central Park, Manhattan
99 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
The diner cook’s contact led Lyle to a dealer, who led him to another dealer, who didn’t like Lyle’s questions and pulled a gun. Lyle ran, the dealer chased him, and around the first corner shot and killed the wrong man. Lyle hid, terrified, but realized that the newly dead body on the sidewalk had his face: it was another Lyle, and the dealer thought he’d killed the right one. The dealer left, and Lyle struggled to calm his terror, and the next night he went back to spy on the dealer in secret, watching to see who brought him his stash. That led Lyle to spy on another minor supplier, who led him to a major supplier, who led him to a man named Stephen Nelson.
Stephen Nelson walked through Central Park almost every day, sometimes buying a hot dog, sometimes chatting and laughing with other men in suits. Street hot dogs seemed like a strange choice for an obviously wealthy executive, especially considering that most of his other lunches were buried in private rooms at high-end Asian fusion restaurants, but after a few days Lyle noticed a pattern: on the days when he ate hot dogs, Nelson carried a briefcase. No briefcase, no hot dog. Another few days of observation revealed the final piece of the puzzle: every time Nelson bought a hot dog, the same stranger was buying one at the same time, carrying an identical briefcase. Nelson would walk up, set his case on the ground, buy a hot dog …
… and leave with the other man’s case.
Lyle wanted a closer look at the man, and rattled his pocket for change. He found just enough to buy a hot dog of his own—his entire remaining food budget for the week—and approached the cart, holding up a single finger to the proprietor. While the vendor prepared the dog Lyle stole a closer look at the man with the briefcase, and felt a surge of fear and excitement when he realized he couldn’t determine the man’s race. That probably wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but Lyle had made a career of identifying race—in designing his cosmetics and calibrating the various colors, he had become an expert in skin tone, in eye shape, in facial proportion. It was his job, and he was very good at it. This man had dark skin, somewhere in the middle of the African spectrum, but with vaguely Middle Eastern features and a markedly Persian nose. His hair, in its color and appearance and spacing, was Asian, and his bright blue eyes were shockingly atypical compared to the rest of him. He was handsome, but completely unidentifiable.
To be presented with a racial background that Lyle couldn’t determine was a big deal, and meant one of two things: One, the man came from a long line of racially adventurous ancestors. Two, and more likely, the man had multiple genomes warring for attention. Before Lyle could even finish wondering which of NewYew’s various connections would experiment so liberally with overlapping ReBirth treatments, he knew the answer.
“Kerry.”
The man looked up sharply, his mouth half full of hot dog.
“Kerry White,” said Lyle. He hadn’t been planning to say anything to the man, but it was too much of a shock, and he couldn’t help himself. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
The man tensed, as if ready to run, but as he peered more closely at Lyle a light of recognition dawned in his eyes. “Lyle? Like, the real Lyle? Is that really you?”
“What are you doing here?”
“This isn’t a good place to talk,” said Kerry, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a folded wad of bills—Lyle couldn’t tell how many, but saw that the outside layer, at least, was a hundred—and handed it to the hot dog vendor. “You tell anyone what you’ve seen or heard just now, you’d better be the world champion at hide-and-seek.” He smiled brightly and slapped Lyle on the back. “Walk with me.” He picked up the briefcase, and walked through the park. “Obviously we have to start with proof of identity: who first came up with the idea of using ReBirth commercially?”
Lyle nodded—it was the perfect question, because nobody outside the executive board could possibly know the answer. It was too embarrassing, and they’d never discussed it with anyone. “Jeffrey.”
Kerry smiled and slapped him on the back again. “Good to see you, man, where’ve you been?”
“What are you doing here?” Lyle asked again. “That was a handoff, right? Stephen Nelson is selling ReBirth, and when you switched briefcases just now that was you giving him more lotion and him giving you money.”
“Looks like we’ll have to change some procedures,” said Kerry, “or cut out the weak link of whatever chain led you here.”
“I’ve been investigating the black market sellers,” said Lyle. “It wasn’t easy.”
“But it worked,” said Kerry. “Somebody named names.”
“Two somebodies,” said Lyle, “but they did try to kill me afterward. So that’s something.”
“They tried and failed? How hard can it possibly be to kill you, you’re like a … homeless Pillsbury Doughboy. No offense.”
Lyle glowered. “None taken. In their defense they did kill a Lyle, just not the right one.”
“That,” said Kerry, “is becoming a bigger problem every day.” He climbed the path to the western edge of the park, stepping out onto the street, and Lyle followed him north.
“Do you know where the Lyle lotion is coming from?”
Kerry shook his head. “I probably know less than you do, if you’re investigating the black market. Somehow, about a month ago, it just started cropping up everywhere. I promise we’re not the ones selling it, but a lot of our sellers have picked it up on the side.”
Lyle studied him. “You don’t seem very concerned.”
“I’m concerned about the future,” said Kerry, “when and if it becomes a problem for us. As of now, it isn’t significantly cutting into our profits, and we’re hoping that it actually drives people toward our product instead of away. We’re trying to start a ‘verified seller’ program, so you can be sure of what you’re getting, but controlling street dealers is like herding cats.”
“You’ll never pull it off,” said Lyle. “Do you know the kind of margins the street sellers are getting for my DNA? It blows your business model out of the water—a street-level pusher makes more on a single sale of unmarked Lyle Fontanelle than in four sales of branded ReBirth. Whoever supplies them is practically giving it away, and the dealers are hawking it for the same sky-high prices they get for your stuff. If they didn’t have to sell the real stuff to keep the prices high, they’d drop you altogether.”
“That’s because people like money, Lyle. That’s what you never seem to understand.”
“The dealers, yes,” said Lyle, “but what about the supplier? Someone out there is working night and day to distribute Lyle lotion, without making any money at all. In a world that claims to be driven by money, that’s terrifying.”
Kerry stopped on the sidewalk, thinking. He chewed his lip. “You’re right,” he said at last. “That’s very strange.”
Lyle shook his head. “‘Strange’ doesn’t begin to cover it.”
Kerry started walking again. “No matter. We’ll find a way to deal with it.”
“You’re not taking me seriously,” said Lyle. “You never do. Let me talk to Sunny.”
