On a cloudy July afternoon, Malcolm D. Claw — the ninth richest man in the world — realized life was a vicious little scam.
He had accumulated four wives, nine children, 127 cars, and enough money to buy a small country, mismanage it, and still turn a profit.
Unfortunately, he was seventy-four and dying.
As he stared out the window of his three-story penthouse above Manhattan, Malcolm contemplated his brief life.
Brief.
That was the hell of it.
Seventy-four years had gone by like a nightclub tab. Four wives. Nine children. One hundred and twenty-seven cars, most of them Lamborghinis and Ferraris.
Goddam, he thought, those Italians understood fun on wheels.
Now the fun was over.
Unless Harter could pull off a miracle.
Malcolm did not believe in miracles, despite the irritating fact that half the planet had been suckered into religion. Then again, he believed in money, and money had performed several miracles for him already.
His watch vibrated.
Harter was in the elevator, rising faster than a Formula One car with a guilty driver.
A private door opened. Dr. Harter stepped out.
He wore green scrubs. A stethoscope hung around his neck like an expensive rubber ascot. He carried a small medical bag.
Pink.
Malcolm stared at it.
No man should carry a pink medical bag unless it contained either a baby or a nuclear device.
Dr. Harter crossed the room without glancing at the view. That interested Malcolm. Everyone glanced at the view. The city sparkled below him like jewelry purchased by someone else’s labor.
Harter did not care.
Nor did he seem winded from the elevator ride, though the private lift had climbed eighty-three floors in under forty seconds.
Odd.
A moment later the two men sat near the north window, sipping brandy that cost $90,000 a bottle. Malcolm served it in thick jam jars with cheap pressed-glass handles, a wonderful find from a nearby ninety-nine-cent store.
Rich people collected Picassos.
Malcolm collected contempt.
“You know what we’re drinking, Doc?”
Harter sniffed the brandy. “Suntory Yamazaki 1960. The century-old stuff.”
“Top you off?”
“I’m fine.”
“You barely touched it.”
“I have rounds at the clinic.”
“Coke Zero?”
“No, thank you.”
Malcolm noticed Harter had not swallowed so much as a drop.
The young doctor smiled.
“The documents?”
Malcolm handed him a black folder.
How could someone that young have graduated from Harvard? How could someone that young know what Harter knew? For that matter, why did Harter’s skin have the smooth, pale quality of expensive soap?
The doctor skimmed the three pages.
An agreement to transfer one hundred million dollars to his Swiss account.
“All in order,” said Harter. “I hate to rush, but—”
“Right. Your clinic awaits.”
“It does.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me again.”
Harter looked him in the eye.
His eyes were very dark.
Almost black.
“I’ll give you an injection that will reverse your aging process. In six months your body and brain will be twenty-three years old. You’ll retain your present knowledge.”
“And my heart disease?”
“A bad memory.”
“My knees?”
“You’ll forget where they hurt.”
“And I’ll live forever?”
“Only God makes that claim.”
“I don’t believe in God.”
“That will simplify your paperwork.”
Malcolm almost smiled.
“What can you guarantee?”
“A thousand years. Minimum.”
“How?”
“You’ll repeatedly replace damaged cells with new ones. Your body will no longer accept decay as a management policy.”
“Death genes?”
“Evicted.”
Malcolm finished his brandy.
“If you’re bullshitting me, you’re a dead doc.”
“That would be inconvenient.”
“Shut up and listen.”
Harter folded his hands.
Malcolm liked that. No flinch. No apology. No little Harvard-boy tremble.
“If I die within twenty-five years — and that death is not an accident — if cancer gets me, or my goddam heart does me in, or I catch a cold my immune system can’t suppress, you will die a painful death.”
He paused for dramatic effect.
Malcolm enjoyed dramatic effect. It was one of the few pleasures that did not require a prescription.
“So back off now if this is a charade.”
“I want you alive,” said Harter. “I want to see your face when you pay my bonus in a hundred years.”
“The fifty million?”
“Plus interest.”
“You’re ambitious.”
“You’re desperate.”
Malcolm nodded.
He liked the kid more than he wanted to.
“And if I have an accident that can in any way be linked to you, your death will be a hundred times more dreadful than mine.”
“Understood.”
“You’re betting your life on this arrangement.”
“So are you.”
Malcolm studied him.
There was something wrong with Harter’s reflection in the window. Not absent. Not exactly. But faint. As if the glass had lost interest in him.
Malcolm blinked.
The reflection was there again.
Old eyes, he thought.
Old goddam eyes.
“What happens first?” Malcolm asked.
“Warmth. Strength. Hunger. Then sleep.”
“Hunger?”
“Your body will be rebuilding itself.”
“Will it hurt?”
“Only briefly.”
“How briefly?”
“Briefly enough that rich men call it discomfort.”
Malcolm tapped a few keys on his iPhone.
Ten seconds later a coded message verified that Dr. Harter was one hundred million dollars richer.
“There,” said Malcolm. “You may now save my life.”
Harter opened the pink medical bag.
Inside were three syringes, a roll of surgical tape, and a vial so dark it seemed to contain a small private night.
“What the hell is that?” Malcolm asked.
“The future.”
“Looks like cough syrup from Dracula.”
Harter smiled.
“Hold out your arm.”
Malcolm did.
A slight pinch as the needle entered his forearm.
He heard his heart.
Erratic.
Embarrassing.
Then he heard something else.
Harter’s heart.
Slow.
Too slow.
One beat.
A long silence.
Another beat.
“Is that normal?” Malcolm asked.
“No,” said Harter.
Then the room folded inward.
Malcolm tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
He fell through blackness with the terrible indignity of a billionaire unable to fire anyone on the way down.
When he woke, Manhattan was a carpet of lights.
He felt astonishing.
No pain in his knees.
No ache in his hips.
No dull pressure in his chest.
His breath came easily.
He could hear the city.
Not the traffic. Not merely the horns or helicopters or sirens.
He could hear individual things.
A woman laughing on a balcony three towers away.
A man lying to his wife on the sidewalk below.
A dog dreaming in the service elevator.
Someone’s pulse in the hallway.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Malcolm stood.
His body obeyed instantly.
He took three steps and realized he had not moved like that in thirty years.
He laughed.
Then stopped.
Something was wrong.
The enormous window reflected the city behind him.
The furniture.
The jam jars.
The brandy bottle.
But not Malcolm.
He walked to the bathroom.
The gold wash basin gleamed. The marble walls shone. The mirror above the sink reflected towels, orchids, Italian tile, a silver razor, and a framed photograph of Malcolm shaking hands with a president he had privately despised.
It did not reflect Malcolm.
“Dead,” he whispered.
He was dead.
Shit.
Well, at least when they found his body, the evil little doctor would die an excruciating and well-deserved death.
Malcolm examined his forearm.
The injection site had vanished.
He touched his neck.
There were two tender marks below his ear.
Not needle marks.
Teeth.
“That son of a bitch,” Malcolm said.
Then he noticed something else.
He was hungry.
Not hungry like breakfast.
Hungry like revenge.
Hungry like youth.
Hungry like the first time he had seen a woman remove her blouse and realized the universe might contain reasons to continue.
He opened the bathroom door.
The penthouse smelled different now.
Brandy. Leather. Flowers. Dust. Electricity. Polish. Money.
And beneath all of it, faint but unmistakable:
Blood.
Warm, private, living blood.
In the hallway.
In the elevator.
In the city below.
Everywhere.
Malcolm sat on the edge of the bed and laughed until tears came to eyes the mirror would never again admire.
He was not young.
Not yet.
But he was alive.
Or close enough for a man with offshore accounts.
An hour later, Malcolm was under silk sheets with the second most expensive companion in North America.
The most expensive one was busy with the president of the United States.
Malcolm had always believed second best tried harder.
He was right.
She was amazed by the old man’s stamina, though somewhat curious about the bite marks on his neck.
“Mosquitoes,” Malcolm said.
“In a penthouse?”
“Very ambitious mosquitoes.”
She laughed.
Malcolm could hear her pulse.
It was magnificent.
He kissed her throat and felt the hunger rise again, bright and terrible and young.
For the first time in decades, Malcolm D. Claw looked forward to morning.
Then he remembered the sun.
“Well,” he said softly, “there’s always a catch.”
If this story amused you, disturbed you, or made you briefly suspicious of wealthy men with neck wounds, I have a small free collection waiting for you.