The God Pill: Winter Jennings
Chapter 1

Copyright 2017

Sex Story: Chapter 1 - "Hello God? It's Winter. Winter Jennings? I know it's been a while. Okay, a long while. I could use some guidance though. It's about Silicon Valley - - billionaires, biotech, genetic engineers, raw ambition. Are they really trying to create the God Pill? Eternal life? Right here on Earth? What they're doing in those secret labs? Those unspeakable experiments? Science isn't my jam ... well, anyway I could use some help. Ma'am? Ma'am?" Clitorides: Best New Author -- 2017.

Caution: This Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Teenagers   Mystery   Mother   Son  

“Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”

Isn’t it odd the doggerel we remember from school? In this case, thanks to a quite-possibly demented middle school teacher, Mrs. Hannity. British History. Now why I’m recalling, on Lina Paloma’s wedding day, that Henry VIII guillotined 1/3 of his wives is fodder for a professional analyst. Or semipro maybe.

I don’t think I’ll mention Hank to Lina. Not today.


I’d been hoeing in some pretty high cotton. As we say down on the plantation. I’m fresh off a luxury seastead, The Globe, where residences start at seven figures. Pretty heady for this Midwestern girl.

Yet, I’m simply more comfortable in the demimonde called Kansas City. Where I ply my dubious PI trade. More comfortable and more engaged.

I had bidden adieu, adieu, adieu to the luxe life of The Globe.

Back at Mother Earth, KC version, I’m free to work the cases I know how to work. Insurance scams. Revenge porn. Business betrayals. Runaways and pimps and whores.

I function better at street level than at sea level. Time to get back to the kind of tasks I understand. But you know what they say about plans, make ‘em and god giggles.


“May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay Forever young”


Okay, close your eyes. Feel the Wrigley freight elevator creak and groan and rattle and wheeze its way up to the fifth floor. Listen to the slatted, wooden gate bifurcate and click open. Open your eyes ... your back is to Main Street so you’re facing west.

Left to right, our magnificent loft is 130-feet wide. And just under 80-feet deep. Almost all of it is one open, glorious room.

There are handsome furniture groupings, colorful area rugs, a large bar area, a modern dining section followed by the copper-rich kitchen in the back of the room. Framed artwork everywhere. Floor and wall sculptures, mobiles, built-in speakers throughout. A Diamond pool table with a blue cloth. About a zillion plants, all sizes, all shapes.

Today, Saturday, our loft is particularly festive. Wedding day.

Lina Paloma and Matt Whitney.

I’m Winter Jennings and I plan to Par-tay. Heartily. I’ll be flying out to San Francisco next week and I’m in over my head on this new case. Before I even leave town.

Why?

Well, I’m a 33-year old private detective who understands thugs. Crooks, hoods, scammers. Bad guys. Things like revenge porn? Pimps? I get it. Abusive husbands? Been there. (Not with my ex, but hubbies and boyfriends of my pro bono clients.)

But I don’t have a Nobel in, say, genetics. Don’t comprehend mitochondria. Not any more than I do glutathione. Sure, I looked them up. That’s easy to do these digital days.

Glutathione is “a powerful antioxidant that protects cells and their mitochondrial, which provide energy.” Huh?

I’m as science-challenged as can be, heading to Silicon Valley because a native Kansas Citian is nervous out there. Robert ‘Bobsy’ Atwater isn’t science-ignorant. He holds three patents on three different ... complicated ... scientific ... somethings. Held patents, past tense, since he sold the rights.

Patents that Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple wanted. They bid against each other and, according to people who follow these things, were pissed that Hayes-Harris, a venture capital firm, ended up with the rights to all three ... somethings.

Bobsy Atwater became an employee of Hayes-Harris. I guess they want first dibs on any new ideas he comes up with.

One Atwater patent, I do sort of understand. It’s like a mashup of that crowd-sourced traffic thing, Waze, and a Tinder type hookup app. Maybe cars get together and fuck. Or maybe I don’t really understand that patent either.

But all of that begins next week. Crank up the music.


The Winter cognoscenti can skip this little backgrounder.

> Winter Jennings, natural blonde, terrific boobs, pretty damned good brain. Tanned and tall. Private eye after three years on the Job. KCPD.

> Walker Jennings, 15, my son. Decent enough kid. Hormones, though. Let me rephrase that. Yea hormones! Why not?

> Vanessa Henderson. Gorgeous. Slavic architecture. Miss Indiana. Foolish enough to marry me. Majority owner, Euforia Restaurant. Wise enough to marry me.

> Pilar Paloma. Hondo, Colombia. Daughter of the bride. Live-in girlfriend, Walker division. Round, dark, almost luminous eyes.

Our loft is in the century-old Wrigley Hotel although it’s not part of the hotel operation. Located in the artsy-crafty Crossroads District, just south of downtown Kansas City.


Bulldog Bannerman’s number one Dragon Lady called me last Tuesday morning, “On the way.” I must be moving up in the world, Bulldog used to just show up, unannounced.

Mr. Behind-the-Scenes. Civic fixer. Getter of things done. In his 70s, hasn’t lost a step. Still wears his white hair in that short, Corps-cut. Still keeps his sinewy, slender body toned.

I looked out my Genessee Street office windows in the Livestock Exchange Building. Located in the now-bustling-again-without-the-stock stockyards neighborhood near the Missouri River.

Emile Chanson, Bulldog’s mysterious driver / bodyguard was opening the rear door of the long, black Cadillac. Bulldog slid gracefully out, followed, awkwardly, by a 12-year old kid. All elbows and eyeglasses.

Emile glanced up at me and I felt a guilty flash. Irrational. I’m allowed to look out my own fucking window. Well, Emile.

Bulldog did the intros, “Winter Jennings. Bobsy Atwater.”

The 12-year old is 23, 10 years younger than I am. Wealthier than 10,000 Winters will ever be. And a little nervous.

Part of his edginess was almost charming. Bobsy is painfully shy, socially inept, probably never been kissed except professionally. If he isn’t still a virgin.

I did look good that morning, credit due. My sleeveless white tee complimented my golden tan. No bra, nipples sedately doing their job. Jobs.

Thick blonde hair, still cut in the short, asymmetrical shag I prefer. Bright blue eyes, cheekbones and chin where they should be. Skinny jeans that clung to the right places more intimately than real denim could have done.

Bobsy stared. I didn’t mind.

But sexual dynamics aside, the kid was a little shook up. When he told me his California story, I sympathized. Eternal life, the quest to make death optional. Some call it the God Pill. And those troubling rumors about what certain Silicon Valley billionaires and scientists were willing to do. Were, in rumor anyway, already starting to do.

How unusual is a Robert ‘Bobsy’ Atwater, boy genius? As rare as someone able to hit a major league fastball? Daddy told me that maybe 100 babies a year would grow up with that talent. Able to hit .350? Maybe one baby a generation.

Bobsy’s no athlete, but I would learn that he’s no commoner either.


Lina Paloma and her daughter, Pilar, made an amazingly courageous journey from Hondo, Colombia to, eventually, Kansas City, Missouri. It was a fear-filled trek, almost seven months long, that included a gang rape, bribes all along the way, extortion, forced sex. Hiding in dark places, sometimes for days. Weeks. Walking, busses, a freight train, more walking, swimming across the Rio Grande.

The fact that they tried at all, let alone succeeded, speaks to their ferocious will power. Cunning, and strength. Lina knew that she’d be forced into having sex; she was able to protect her daughter’s from assaults.

What a difference a year in Kansas City makes. The Colombian mother and daughter are now US citizens. Thanks to a phone call from Bulldog Bannerman. Who may well call for a yet-to-be-specified return favor from me at some yet-to-be specified date. Even in backwater Kansas City, the Favor Bank sanctions deposits and withdrawals 24 / 7.

Lina is the hostess at Vanessa’s popular, and now starting to become profitable, Brookside restaurant, Euforia. Micro-regional Italian cuisine.

She is marrying a regular Euforia customer, Matt Whitney. An attorney, divorced now, and a pretty good guy. I had him checked out by Jessie and Jesse Sullivan, hackers I use from time to time. No, scratch ‘hackers’. Researchers, that sounds better. Diminutive redheaded twins who may be fucking each other. Which is neither here nor there. Nor anywhere else for that matter. Their business.

The early-evening wedding will be followed by a celebration bash, both held here in our Wrigley loft. I resolved to focus on the festivities and have a good time.


I hadn’t been all that surprised at Bobsy Atwater’s tale that some in Silicon Valley -- an elite combine of billionaires, tech geniuses, university labs, research centers, venture capitalists -- were trying to defy nature.

The Internet is a study in disruption. And of unintended consequences. For example, 3-D printing was first used to create stuff like wall hooks and cell phone cases. Now you can make plastic guns that don’t show up on metal detectors.

Or Twitter. Short messages to allow friends to keep in touch in loud nightclubs. By 2017, over 300 million monthly users. Tinder. Unattached college kids hooking up. Now it’s used by some maggots to prey on women.

Uber and Airbnb were founded to defy existing regulations. To ignore, break, or change laws.

So, Silicon Valley -- exemplified by mantras such as “Move fast and break things” and “Make better mistakes tomorrow” -- is understandably fertile territory for the God Pill.


I had hung out my professional shingle -- private investigator -- after three irksome years as a Kansas City cop. The irksomeness was mostly on me, I just don’t do well taking orders. And when everyone except for the other noobs is above me ... well, it wasn’t a salubrious situation.

Business started slow. I got a few recommendations from cops who knew either me or my father. The respected, revered by some, Homicide Captain Dave Jennings.

Then, after some modest successes, a few clients recommended me to a friend, a business acquaintance, someone with a problem he couldn’t resolve by himself.

One client is Phillip Montgomery, who now runs his hedge fund, Envoy Assets, from New York. And that company contracted with me to investigate a luxury residential yacht. One they owned 30% of.

I took an irrational pride in being hired by that hedge fund -- New York fucking City!

But having a referral from Bulldog Bannerman was perhaps an even higher accolade. Bulldog is a Kansas City legend, has been for decades. Although most people have never heard of him and he prefers it that way.

But no mayor, no city councilman, or woman, would be elected if he swiveled his thumb in a downward gesture. Public records would indicate he’s a real estate developer. And those documents would be accurate -- he has projects in both commercial and residential disciplines.

But real estate is only a fraction of what Bulldog oversees. I don’t know about most of his other enterprises, I’m certainly no insider.

Bulldog is both a mirror of Kansas City’s past and an architect of its future.

His introducing me to Robert ‘Bobsy’ Atwater ... well, this young fella will have my full attention. A full court press. Full Monty. Full as full can be.


On the morning of her wedding day, Lina Paloma sat down with Vanessa and me. Pilar by her side.

There was a solemnness to Lina. Understandable. Getting married is a big deal. And should be.

My stylist, Wendy, had shampooed Lina’s lustrous black hair and was now lovingly brushing it, braiding it. And studiously not listening. She also braided Lina’s thick black pubic hair. Lina smiled at us, “Matt likes me hairy.”

Because I’m so sophisticated, cool almost, I decided not to be startled when Lina had walked out of the bathroom stark fucking naked. It surprised me though.

Lina talked quietly about the arduous trek from Hondo, Colombia to Kansas City. Told us, again, about being gang raped the second day of the journey. She spoke without rancor of the bribes she had to pay, the sex she submitted to.

I listened quietly, intently. Lina was talking about that trip, but also about something else. Something obviously important to her. And to Pilar.

“Pilar was with me every second of our travel. She saw everything they did to me. Lina paused, breathing evenly, “We’re ... changed, Pilar and I. But we owe you our allegiance, Winter. And Sister Mary, back when she...”

Was alive.

Lina looked at me, “You and Vanessa. Walker. We’ll give you what we can, but it won’t be everything you want. Especially Walker.”

I understood. Maybe someday my son would too.

“Pilar and I are...” I thought she would say ‘damaged goods, ‘ but she said, “Altered.”

“Irrevocably?”

“I don’t know, Winter, I just can’t say. One way or the other, I just can’t say.”

Vanessa looked at me, we were both thinking the same thing. Lina and Pilar don’t care for Walker as much as he cares for them. And it’s not their fault, nothing they’re doing on purpose. They’ve been ... altered.

Later, thinking about Lina, I think her coming out in the nude was symbolic of what she was trying to communicate. Emotionally she’d been stripped bare.

Thank you, Siggy Freud.


Lina’s bridal shower had been purposely low key. Twenty or so girls counting Vanessa, Pilar and me.

The presents weren’t extravagant, purposely so. No Karen Blixen-style hats imported from Beretta. No custom-beaded handbag from a Maasai clan.

But lots of laughter, fascinating gossip, crisp champagne.


“Pardon the way that I stare There’s nothing else to compare The sight of you leaves me weak There are no words left to speak”


The marriage ceremony was brief, tender, and moving. Lina, so attractive anyway, looked like a bride should look. Pilar was the maid of honor. Matt Whitney, in a kindness probably found only in second weddings, tapped Walker to be his best man.

We had around 60 or 70 guests in our loft -- Lina’s coworkers, Matt’s office buddies, some of Pilar’s friends from school, our friends.

The music, on our terrific sound system, was too loud. There was too much champagne. Way too much laughter. Delicious hors d’oeuvres. Well, that was to be expected, Vanessa oversees the Euforia kitchen.

Lina danced with her husband, then with Walker. While Pilar danced with her new stepfather.

When the newlyweds come back from their San Francisco honeymoon, Pilar’s living arrangements will be a little fluid. She’d spend some time in the Brookside house that Matt had bought for them. He wanted to stay near his 6-year old son.

But mostly, Pilar would stay here, with us. Specifically, with Walker. Walker was 14, so I was okay, legality-wise, when he and Mindy started fucking.

These kids aren’t fucking, not yet. Oh well.

Lina and Matt left for the Rafael Hotel around 10. It’s only a few minutes from the Crossroads to the Country Club Plaza.

The party was just starting to rock.

Walker danced with Vanessa. His confidence is higher when he’s with that gorgeous woman. He looked so comfortable out there on the floor. Of course I can claim some credit. All those kitchen dance lessons when he was 10 and 11.

A slow number, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” cued up and my son held out his hand to me. Jay & The Americans. Walker was fully, proudly, erect and happy to make sure I knew it. Pilar, looking slim and elegant in a calf-length saffron dress, sipping champagne -- is that another felony or just a misdemeanor? -- winked at me.

My head barely comes up to Walker’s shoulders. I rubbed his boner with my tummy and whispered, “Why not have Pilar take care of you, babyboy?”

He slid both hands down to my butt. I was in a ... I don’t know, some kind of don’t-give-a-fuck mood. And proud. Proud of my tall, handsome son. Not yet a young man, but on his way.

Walker whispered back, “I rather you would, Winter.”

I masked my surprise, “That’s just silly. It’s only a hand-job. With me.”

Still slow-dancing, still pressed together, he placed his lips against my ear, “It could be more.”

New territory. And unusual territory. Walker doesn’t take the initiative, not with me. Vanessa had been telling me how much of Pilar’s confidence is spilling over to him. Could be.

“I love you baby And if it’s quite all right I need you baby To warm the lonely nights”

“Walk.”

“Winter.”

“Are you attempting to speak truth to power?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. More, it’s just what I want. Was hoping for.”

“Hmm.”

“Oh pretty baby Don’t bring me down I pray Oh pretty baby Now that I’ve found you stay”

The next song came on and I pulled back, smiling, “No, not tonight, my little darling.” My little darling who is the tallest one in his class, over six feet tall.

I was pleased with ‘not tonight.’ A hint of a promise, but far from a commitment. Give Walker something to sleep on. Or toss and turn on.


I like to think I give every client my full attention. Self-delusion has long been one of my stronger traits.

But Robert ‘Bobsy’ Atwater, coming to me via Bulldog Bannerman, will receive top notch service. Pip-Pip!

When I know nothing about a subject I normally just plunge right in, believing I’ll figure it out as I go along. But this eternal life stuff, the God Pill, I don’t know, maybe I’d better do, like, you know, some actual research.

Professor Google. Obvious, fast, and the price is reasonable. More than online searches, though, I called around. I’m not connected in the way that a Bulldog Bannerman is, but I know people who know ... well, you get the idea.

After seven and a half hours, with frequent breaks to rehydrate, I realized I knew less about this science stuff than I know about ... say, breeding elephants. Daunting. Then add in the mix of the elite Silicon people who are in the game and it’s double-daunting. Bordering, almost, on triple.

Biohacking. That’s one term for bridging the gap between science and the billionaires wanting more time on Earth.

And what billionaires some of them are.

The co-founder of Oracle has given hundreds of millions of dollars to study aging and its related diseases.

A Google co-founder created Calico to lengthen the human lifespan.

The co-founder of PayPal has launched the Methuselah Foundation to search for life-extending therapies.

And that’s only three of them.

I would learn that there are a couple of sort of parallel endeavors in this arena. One is to eliminate age-related diseases and provide longer, still vital, lives.

And there are the immortalists, those who are searching for eternal life. To make death an option. Lifers.

Guess which group is more aggressive.


Photography is such a fascinating medium, isn’t it? I don’t know of any other artistic discipline where an amateur can accidentally take a photo that is museum-worthy. Gallery-worthy.

My favorite photograph of Vanessa was taken by a waiter at BEAR on Broadway, Louie-Louie. He was just fooling around with a new camera and Vanessa wasn’t even aware he was shooting her. It was a Friday morning, the tables were set for opening the doors in a couple of hours.

Vanessa was sitting at a corner table going over the receipts from the night before. In full concentration mode. Sunlight was streaming onto her from her left side. Louie-Louie was across the room on her right.

The photograph is black and white, yet so rich, so textured, that it seems saturated in color. Vanessa is intensely focused on the task, her Slavic chin set, her dark eyes concentrated on the columns of numbers.

There is such potency in her expression, she could be the only person in the world.

It’s like a portrait shot, Vanessa’s profile and that strong, slender neck take up the entirety of the print. The curve of her neck has a coiled tension to it, as if she’s waiting to spring into action. You can’t see those wide shoulders, but their presence is implied. Strength, determination, fierceness, just off camera.

Her black hair is casually tucked back behind her right ear and curves back to caress her cheek and chin. Her cheekbone is chiseled and her shining eyes are half concealed by lowered eyelids.

Somehow, even in repose, Vanessa reminds me of a panther at the watering hole, focused yet imminently aware of everything around her. An easy balance between calm and vitality. While motionless, she showed the implied potential of sudden, concentrated action. She had pounced before and the photo says she will again. Latency.

Vanessa’s long eyelashes curve up into the sunlight, highlighted as if they’d posed on purpose. Her mouth is determined, but not dour, not downturned. In fact, her lips seem more kissable than ever. Bow-shaped, tilted slightly up at the corners. The lush upper lip promising laughter. The lower lip a naughty little sister, up for anything.


Walker hit the big one-five, known in some circles as 15, and Vanessa and I turned the celebration responsibilities over to Pilar. Well, we did eventually.

If I had thought about it, which I hadn’t, it would have seemed inevitable that Vanessa and I would have to have our first married fight, hell our first ever fight, at some point.

No, fight isn’t the right word, it was nowhere close to that. A tiff. Maybe somewhere between a tiff and a spat. Still, it shook me up.

Vanessa is not a complainer. She’s a worker, just rolls up her sleeves and does what has to be done. And I’m basically an upbeat person. I’ve led a lucky life, good solid upbringing, good solid kid. And wife.

I was caught off guard when Vanessa told me, “Babe, Walker thinks you don’t like Pilar. Or don’t like her very much.”

Okay, I probably became a little defensive. What sort of person wouldn’t simply adore the little girl who had already lived through so much?

“Well, Walker can kiss my butt.”

“Babe.”

Of course what bothered me about Pilar was one thing -- her age, just 14. She’s getting ready to fuck my son. And they may both be ready for it, but I’m not. Do I think she’s emotionally mature enough to handle it? I do. Physically ... probably. We all get through the act itself.

But my main concern, my only real concern, is the law and how they’d look at it. I’m uncomfortable with the proposition we might have a legal battle so Walker can enjoy some pussy that’s already legal. Fuck that.

All of which, I found myself spurting out to a surprised, mostly amused, Vanessa. Which further pissed me off. This is serious stuff and I don’t need to see any half smiles on any faces.

We got through it, Vanessa and I. Thanks mostly to her patience. And her perspective. Her own grandmother, Sasha had been sold to a pedophile when she was 8. And Pilar is six years beyond that.

So, Vanessa and I. One of us, it may have been me, apologized. Storm clouds scudded away.

When I consider my relationship with my son, with my beautiful Walker, I allow myself a non-censorious description: unconventional. I didn’t consciously start out to be ... different. In my defense, I believe I simply let my true personality determine the mother - son parameters.

I’m glad I’m his mom, happy that we’re pals, pleased that he has a crush on me. And not the least bothered that he masturbated to me. Still does, I bet. Maybe.

But 99% of my interaction with him is non-sexual. Physically anyway. Mentally ... well, both of us enjoy rich imaginations.

We talk over everything, always have. I answer all of his questions openly, honestly, frankly. Most of the time.

I set limits, establish boundaries.

I mention this because almost all of our relationship is tame. Normal. And that 99% doesn’t merit inclusion here. While I am a hoyden, I’m a mother first. So the naughty bits are just that -- bits, tiny bits, of our lives.


“Come with me My love To the sea The sea of love”


When Walker reached two, My husband, Richie, fell for another girl. He felt bad, felt guilty. He’s a good guy, and I say that even though he left me, moved in with her.

Unrelated to Richie’s leaving me, Walker woke up screaming one morning. He wasn’t a colicky baby, in fact he was a little dreamboat. A good sleeper, good natured, basically a happy kid. Some of my girlfriends were jealous.

I don’t panic, but when it comes to Walker ... okay, I did panic a little bit. After about 30 minutes of not being able to comfort him, listening to his anguished howls, I car-seated the little guy and headed straight for my pediatrician, Dr. Mamie.

Her office, she’s one of four doctors in the building, is across the street from St. Luke’s Hospital. Just north of the Country Club Plaza.

I didn’t have an appointment, but I knew she’d work me in. Would work anyone in with a baby in this much distress. The nurse took me to an empty room and Dr. Mamie was in to see us in a couple of minutes.

She’s in her 50s, pretty unflappable. Had been my doctor from toddlerhood on. Large, robust, confident.

Dr. Mamie looked, first thing, in Walker’s mouth. Which was open anyway as he continued to let the world know something was wrong. She nodded and smiled at me, “Walker is teething, six of them coming in at once.”

Fuck.

She said, “Pour a glass of whiskey, Winter. Dip your index finger in it and massage his gums. Then drink the whiskey.”


Without understanding it, without really thinking about it, I’ve always preferred apartment buildings to apartment complexes. Hotels to motels. Lately, Lyft to taxis. I’m not sure what that means, if anything.


Our fifth floor loft is in the six-story Wrigley Hotel building, but is independent of the hotel. The shared freight elevator requires a separate card key to stop at our floor.

There are two permanent hotel guests, thanks to the generosity of the building owner, Gene Austin.

One, known as Anastasia, a dowager in her late 70s, believes she is the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. The last sovereign of Imperial Russia. Thank you, Vladimir Lenin Ulyanov.

Anastasia’s real name, Mabel Humphries, is no longer used at the Wrigley. She prefers Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna and ... why not? She has a regal bearing, an imperious tone, and a stentorian voice.

The other non-transient guest is Wally Maypole. Nope, not an alias, that’s his real last name.

Wally is Mr. Milk Toast, meek, shy, seldom seen. He shuffles around, mildly befuddled most of the time.

Both guests make sporadic room payments at the front desk in the lobby. Debbie, who sort of runs Gene’s hotel operation, is patient and polite to them. She smooths out the wrinkled one-dollar bills, sorts the greasy coins, and keeps a straight face as she carefully and accurately writes out receipts.

Wally crumples his up, wads it in his pocket, and scurries back up to his room. Anastasia, head held high, reads her receipt suspiciously through her pince-nez. I guess you don’t get to be a Grand Duchess by being Anybody’s Fool.


Vanessa and I sometimes rollerblade, gloriously nude, holding hands, smiling broadly. Of course that’s only when we have the loft to ourselves. Listening to romantic tunes? Nah. Old school jazz. Harlem Nocturne -- Illinois Jacquet / How Long Has This Been Going On -- Eydie Gorme / Basin Street Blues -- Dianna Krall.

Vanessa inspires me, ups my game. Endorphins, yes, but so much more.

One Saturday morning Walker came back because he had forgotten his debit card. Vanessa just grinned and kept on blading. That wouldn’t have been appropriate for his mother. Must have been someone else who laughed. Out loud.


My father, Homicide Captain Dave Jennings, and Bulldog Bannerman are alike in some ways. Both are forceful, straight-ahead guys. Willing to do the hard thing when required.

And neither one of them seeks the spotlight. Nor brags.

This happened when I was on the Job. About six years ago. And I’d never heard the story until the night of Lina’s wedding when Sergeant Louise Finch told me about it.

She was watching Daddy dance with Pilar, so I guess he was on the sergeant’s mind.

A not-quite-poverty-stricken, but still proud couple, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Hopkins, started stopping by the station where Daddy was working at the time. They were shy, polite. But insistent on their son’s innocence. A creep named Ronald. Ronald Hopkins.

Stanley was retired Army and the 60-year old maintained a rigid, military posture.

Martha, a little plump, a little dowdy, cried softly into her hankie when discussing her son. Ronald, in and out of juvie, then jail. A real punk. Car thief, peeping tom, shoplifter, asshole.

He steadily escalated, moving up to muggings, armed robbery, attempted kidnapping.

Stanley Hopkins told Daddy, “We know the truth. Ron is working undercover. The jail time is just to give him credibility.” Martha nodded.

In fact, Ronald was a jailhouse snitch, a rat, a weasel. Everyone in the system, cops and robbers, knew it.

Stanley said, “I know you can’t admit it, I understand. But could you get a message to him? Let him know we admire him?” Martha said, “Love him.”

Ronald had convinced his parents he was a hero. Why not, he lied to everyone else. Daddy was, as always, courteous. Polite to the aching parents. They came by two or three times a year, always asking for Captain Dave.

Then Ronald Hopkins was stabbed around 40 times, the house-made shiv left in his throat as he died in his lower bunk, alone in a jail cell. Nobody, guards and inmates, trusties and administrators, saw anything. The same number of people in the system who mourned his passing.

He’d been downtown, his first night in jail this time around, awaiting arraignment for raping a nine-year old boy.

Daddy, once again did the hard thing. Drove out to the eastern edge of Kansas City and knocked on Stanley and Martha’s trailer door. Helped Stanley get his wife to a shabby couch when she collapsed. Stayed with them for over an hour until a neighbor got home from work.

Louise smiled fondly as Daddy was doing a credible Charleston with Pilar. “Winter, he bought a pair of emerald green cufflinks. Ceremonial. Had them engraved on the back. Valor. Valor. They were in a hinged hardwood display case.”

I could just picture him presenting the cufflinks in a solemn ritual. Telling Stanley and Martha Hopkins, “You must never tell anyone about this. Doing so would jeopardize our entire undercover operation. Your son died a hero.”

Sergeant Finch said, “I was there for the presentation.’

As she described it, I could see Stanley Hopkins stand a little taller. And Martha Hopkins kiss a framed photograph of her son, age 9.


“Mouth wide open, mouth wide open Mouth wide open like I was at the dentist Mouth wide open, mouth wide open Put it so deep I can’t speak a sentence”


I flirted with the idea of reuniting with my Irish - Swedish lover, Eamon Nilsson. It would mean a trip to Gothenburg. I even tasked my travel agent, Megan, to search out the least expensive flights.

Just discussing Eamon made Walker nervous. He didn’t want anything to come between Vanessa and me.

Vanessa didn’t ask me not to, she wouldn’t. But I read something in her repose, her quiet, something that made me decide not to pursue the idea. Having a shipboard fling was one thing. Flying to Europe to fuck a guy, something else.

Why was I thinking about Eamon anyway? Because I didn’t want to think about how little I understood of the Silicon Valley quest for eternal life. Bobsy Atwater’s curiosity about the God Pill. What people might or might not be doing to achieve it. I don’t have to be the smartest girl in the room, but I hate being the dumbest.


Between the glamor of a wedding / party and my PI job -- intense boredom with flashes of ... excitement, fear, joy -- there is the mundane life most of us inhabit.

Vanessa and Bear, with two restaurants and part ownership of the Unicorn Club between them, formed a coalition with seven other dining establishments.

Straightforward reason -- health insurance. Gertie Oppenheimer, our finance whiz, worked with a reasonably honest attorney and strong-armed Blue Cross into accepting us.

So I changed our insurance -- Walker and me -- to the group policy. The savings were enough, slightly over $200 a month to make the paperwork misery tolerable.

Pilar is continuing to teach Walker Spanish. I’m hoping to pick it up by osmosis. One year of high school hadn’t really steeped me in the language. Possibly because I was taking French.

Pilar, like she does most things, had a casual, nothing-to-it air with Walker’s lessons. A lot of breaks, a lot of laughter. Something about ‘tu madre.’

Walker, bless his heart, schools Pilar once in a while. Vanessa and I listened with straight faces as he went over the Monday menu at a new Brookside arrival, the Red Door Grill. I do like the entrance, it’s red and says, ‘Door.’

Walker was enumerating the online menu, “Okay, Monday is $5 burger day. Cheese a buck extra, same with fries.”

Pilar said, “So, $7.”

“Yeah, usually it would be $12, so it’s a good deal. But check this out.”

“The Remedy?”

“Yep, Ordinarily $15. It’s only $8 on Mondays. Includes fries and cheese, bacon, fried egg, lettuce, tomato.”

With my lightening quick computer-mind, I did the math. For a buck more than the $7 burger, you get bacon, fried egg, lettuce, tomato. Deal me in. Vanessa too.

Everyday stuff. The loft has to be cleaned, dinners organized, music listened to. Laundry. The beat goes on.


Thinking about the God Pill.

Since 1900, our average life span has increased by 30 years.

Over 150,000 people die every day. Most of them from aging-related issues. In America, accidents and violence are the leading causes of death up to the age of 44. Then cancer takes the spotlight. From 65 on, it’s heart disease.

Wealthy individuals want to live longer. A few of them forever. And several of them are willing to invest millions to accomplish it. Yet eliminating cancer gives us only 3.3 more years. Heart disease, 4 years. All life-threatening diseases? Our life expectancy would go up only into the 90s.

The maximum age we can hope to live to is currently around 115 years.

The consensus, where science meets tech meets money, is that we need to slow aging itself.

Many, probably most, longevity scientists are, to use their term, healthspanners, not immortalists. Healthspanners want longer, still-vigorous lives. But not eternal lives. That would have so many consequences. Social Security. A Hitler who rules for centuries. Boredom. Overpopulation.

And the elephant in the room. Is the God Pill treatment going to be so expensive that only the wealthiest can afford it? Income inequality to the max.

But there are those, some of them billionaires, many of them brilliant scientists, who believe that death will someday be an option. And they’re willing to invest a lot of money, time and talent to make that happen.

And, as I was to learn, some of those immortalists are willing to do almost anything beyond money, time and talent to find that elusive Fountain of Youth.

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