Chapter 1

The body strapped in the seatbelt on the driver's side of the Rolls Royce wasn't warm, but the fiery pyre I'd fashioned and would set off would raise its temperature beyond the melting point. Unwilling to leave the body to the vagaries of a chance explosion and fire, I'd charred its face and hands black before muscling it into the car. I closed the door, appreciating the expensive thunk of the Rolls one last time, and walked to the rear of the vehicle.

With my back against the trunk and my hands under the bumper, I dug in my heels and pushed, almost tripping when abruptly the weight of the heavy machine didn't require more effort to move it. I watched it roll down the embankment and off the edge of a cliff. When it struck the rocks far below, I pressed a button, and a huge fireball erupted in the night sky.

I watched the blaze with a critical eye. From my viewpoint, the raging fire was doing its job. Identifying the body would be next to impossible. Cremated bodies don't give the authorities much to work with, and my hand-written suicide note would give them pause to look deeper.

Using the light from the inferno, I carefully brushed away my footprints with a whiskbroom. Satisfied the prints couldn't be detected, I stepped onto the asphalt road. I stomped my feet to get rid of any dirt or dust, brushed away that dirt and walked down the narrow highway to a Harley Davidson motorcycle hidden in the brush. Moments later, I kicked life into the engine and roared away from my life as Vince Smith. The Arizona driver's license in my wallet named me Clint Wilson, age twenty-six.

A shame about the Rolls, but its destruction was necessary to authenticate my death, and this death wasn't my first. I staged my first demise when I was fifty years old. I'm seventy-six now, but I don't look a day over thirty, mostly because I stopped aging on December 23, 1959. My birthday was Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. I'm not aging, but I'm not immortal. Although I have an incredibly efficient immune system and heal ten times faster than normal for a man, I can't regenerate body organs or limbs. Cut me in half or off with my head and I'm a goner.

By the way, I'm also an accomplished telepath.

When the Harley rolled onto I-10, I goosed the powerful engine and cut a roaring swath through the starry night, my destination Phoenix, Arizona, or rather Gold Canyon, a distant suburb of Phoenix. Two years ago I'd purchased high-desert acreage backing up to the Superstition Mountains. I didn't buy the land in my name, or even my new alias. A number of corporations owned the property, and I defied anyone to trace the labyrinth of corporations, many of them offshore, that would tie ownership to Thomas Patterson, Vince Smith, or my new name, Clint Wilson. During the intervening two years, I'd built a refuge on the high-desert land that would ensure my privacy. I dubbed the estate Refugio de la Vida, or Refuge from Life, and I planned to spend the next twenty years in contemplative solitude.

As it turned out my plan turned into a joke from the get-go.

Two days later, after stopping only to eat and sleep since staging my death, I noted a sign announcing a truck stop a few miles ahead. I was hungry, so I took the exit but filled the motorcycle with gas before entering the restaurant. It was a typical truck-stop eatery, half-full of truckers, and a scattering of other travelers. I told the hostess I was alone but preferred a booth. She shrugged. My request didn't bother her, and she guided me to a booth. I tossed my helmet into the corner and, before I sat, removed my leather jacket. Sitting, I stretched out my long legs to get the kinks out, and twisted my head on my neck for the same reason.

The shiny menu offered nothing unique or appealing, so I ordered a club sandwich and a glass of ice tea. The cute waitress who took my order looked so young! Surely she wasn't old enough to work full time as a waitress.

You're seventy-six, you old fart, I told myself. You can't accurately guess the age of the young anymore.

I reached out and touched the cute waitress's mind with mine. Nothing there of interest for me. From her thoughts, I stopped worrying that she was breaking the child-labor laws. She was cute but had a crude mind.

Over the years I'd come up with labels for minds. Crude, confused, shallow, deep, empty, wistful, focused, optimistic, negative, religious, and evil are examples. I was also wise enough to know that any one label didn't come close to describing how an individual's thought processes truly functioned. The label didn't define personalities, either.

Predominately evil minds bothered me, though. I had to tell myself frequently that everyone, and I mean everyone, had evil thoughts from time to time. Still, some minds contain enough evil thoughts and attitudes to truly label those individuals evil. No, I don't get involved reporting the evil deeds I uncover in the minds of the sociopaths and mentally deranged among us, not anymore, that is. Been there, done that, and didn't buy the t-shirt. Superman I'm not. I have not and will not dedicate my life to stamping out evil. Put yourself in my shoes. You're immortal unless you have an accident that injures you beyond repair, or someone injures your body beyond its ability to sustain life. Would you avoid evil men and women? Sure you would.

Then why are you roaring down an Interstate on a Harley? you ask. Isn't that putting you in harm's way? Yes, like crossing a busy street or getting into an airplane. I take risks. Life without any risks wouldn't be living, and I spent a lot of time on a motorcycle when I worked construction jobs in Vegas for five years before I stopped aging. I was competent and comfortable straddling a Harley. I also wore heavy leather and a helmet.

The cute but crude waitress put a club sandwich in front of me, filled my glass with ice tea, gave me a winning smile, and sashayed away carrying the pitcher of ice tea, thinking about some fun things she did with her current boyfriend the night before.

I finished the sandwich, left a hefty tip, and paid my bill. Outside as I forked my Harley, a woman walked up to me.

"Where you headed?" she said.

I took in the sight of her while I connected my mind with hers. She sure wasn't involved in the trucking industry, not if the tailored, silk designer outfit she was wearing was any indication. She was also drop-dead gorgeous. Thick auburn hair, professionally styled, curled softly around her lovely face. Compared to my six-three, she was five-nine or -ten in her stocking feet.

"Phoenix," I replied.

Should I, or shouldn't I? she thought. I've got to do something different, something Hal and his birddog would never expect of me. If I don't, he'll find me. Find me and kill me.

"How about giving a lady a ride?" she said.

"Don't have an extra helmet," I said.

Go for it, she told herself. He doesn't look like a typical biker. No tattoos. And Hal's man can't be more than an hour behind me. This guy is the lesser of two evils.

"I'll take the risk," she said.

"Are you in trouble?" I asked. Would she tell me the truth?

"Yes."

"A man?"

"Yes."

"Inside the restaurant?"

"No."

"Chasing you?"

"Yes."

"To do you harm?" I said.

"If he can get his hands on me, he'll kill me."

"That's harsh. The restaurant has eyes. Walk around the corner. I'll pick you up there."

She sighed with relief, turned and strode away. I watched her walk. I would have watched her walk in any circumstance. She was poetry in motion. I started the Harley and rolled it slowly to the end of the building where she waited for me.

"How far behind is this man?" I asked.

"A man sent out to retrieve me by the man," she said. "An hour, maybe less."

"Hop on. We'll take the back roads through Coolidge and Florence."

By the time the hitchhiker and I roared into Gold Canyon two hours later, her thoughts had given me her story, and I decided to help her more than merely giving her a ride. So, instead of dropping her off farther down the road in Apache Junction, I turned off Highway 60 at Gold Canyon and guided the Harley to my new home with its magnificent view of the Superstition Mountains.

At my walled estate, I pushed a remote, and the heavy, wrought iron gates opened. As the gates closed behind us another remote opened one of the garage doors, and I parked the motorcycle. A Mercedes sedan, a Hummer, and a large Dodge pickup truck also occupied the garage. There was space left for another half-dozen vehicles.

"Where are we?" she said as she stood and straightened her short skirt.

"My home."

Definitely not a biker, she thought, and then said, "Ah, harboring me will put you in danger."

"Life without risk isn't living," I said. "I'm Clint Wilson. What's your name?"

"Robyn Carson."

"Mrs. or Ms.?"

"Mrs."

"The man after you, is he your husband?"

"Yes, Hal Carson. He labels himself a financier. I label him a controlling, brutal bastard."

In the true meaning of the word, I was a bastard. My mother, Elaine, was unmarried at the times of my conception and birth, a scandal in those days. On Black Tuesday, Elaine Patterson lived in Reno, Nevada, a cocktail waitress, she told me, but she also sold her body from time to time to survive. I never held hooking against her. Times were tough during the Great Depression. Besides, her soul remained alive and well. I loved her deeply.

So, I was a bastard, but I wasn't offended by Robyn's use of the word. Besides, I was neither controlling nor brutal.

"Come inside," I said. "We'll have dinner and you can tell me your story. If you wish to leave then, or if I decide I no longer want to help you after hearing your sad tale, I'll drive you into Phoenix and drop you off."

She blinked her large, dark eyes and sighed. "Fair enough."

Mrs. Greta Sharp greeted us as we entered my home. She was my cook/housekeeper. Two months ago, I'd hired her out of a shelter for battered women. She needed and wanted to get away from her violent husband, so when I offered her the job, which included room and board, she jumped at it. My groundskeeper, Juan Gomez, came from a homeless shelter. Before becoming homeless, he'd owned and operated a landscape maintenance business. He'd been clean for six months when I hired him. Also and surprisingly in this day and age, he was a citizen, not an illegal immigrant. He was born in Arizona and educated in Phoenix public schools.

Both employees fit my needs. I didn't want long-term help that would notice that I didn't age. In five or ten years, when they were back on their feet, I'd help them a little more and send them on their way, replacing them with others that needed a leg up in life. I'd do the same with Robyn Carson – or not.

"Welcome back, boss," Greta said with a bright smile. She was about forty years old, short and a little chubby, with a bubbly personality. I liked her. Shortly after I hired her, I'd returned to Houston to finish up my life as Vince Smith, telling her I was taking a business trip and would be gone for a couple of months.

I introduced the women, and added. "Greta, Mrs. Carson's husband is chasing her to do her harm. Why, I don't know. She'll be joining me for dinner to tell me her story, after which she might or might not stay here for a while."

Greta chuckled. "Another damsel in distress, huh?"

"Yep. Show her to the guest suite that opens to the pool."

"All right. What time would you like dinner?"

"Seven." I turned to Robyn. "Please join me at the bar in the great room at six-thirty."

She nodded.

Greta said, "Juan needs to talk to you."

"After I shower and change clothes," I said. "Say six o'clock."

"I'll tell him."

While the water splashed my head and back, I reflected back over the early years of my life, my life before I stopped aging. Starting a new life encourages a look back, I reasoned.

When I was five years old, my mother married a man named Lawrence Chadwick and promptly had four more children with him, one after the other, two girls first, and then two boys. One of the girls died during infancy, flu that developed into pneumonia. One of the boys died shortly after birth, what medicos call Sudden Instant Death Syndrome nowadays.

I never liked my stepfather, and he detested me. He was a large, brute of a man, and when he drank, he became a mean drunk. I was his favorite punching bag, but my mother and half-sister and half-brother weren't exempt from his abuse. In the spring after I turned sixteen, I decided to fight back, and as drunk as he was at the time, after our brawl I remained bloody but standing. He lay bloody and unconscious on the floor.

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Long Life and Telepathy

Paul Phenomenon

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