Elixir

As Brett exchanged his form for a numbered bib, Roger quietly admired his son. He had grown into a handsome, well-proportioned young man with sculpted musculature, a wasp waist, and hard round glutes. He looked like a young Greek god.

I love you, beautiful boy, Roger whispered to himself. The registration form asked for the usual data: Name, address, past ru

Roger was riding Elixir. He checked the 30-39 box and was given a number.

Roger liked to run. On weekends he and Brett would do some miles on the track at Pierson. Brett once commented how cool it was to have an athletic dad. Lots of other kids' fathers were out of shape and did little more than return a baseball. But his dad could wrestle, ski, lift weights, and run a six-minute mile.

They did their stretches and took their places. There were maybe three hundred ru

Brett and Roger took places about three or four deep from the front string, made up of members of the track teams from North and Memorial High and the UW campus as well as people with no body fat and all legs who took town races very seriously.

At the gun, the front wall bolted away, Roger and Brett stayed in the field just behind, keeping up a steady and comfortable pace. This was for fun, so there was no need to push themselves.

The weather was cool and overcast, perfect conditions for the race which would make a large circle from the head of Carson Park, along the river and down some streets, then back to the starting point.

By the end of the fourth kilometer, many who led the pack had fallen back, letting Brett and Roger through. Older ru

As they passed the sixth kilometer mark, the feeling was back-like a magnetic tug at the rear of his brain. Roger looked over his shoulder. A few ru

His attention fell on a white male. Number 44. A tall guy, in his twenties, who wore a headband, white tank top, and blue shorts and who held steady about ten paces back. He had been pacing Roger and Brett since the begi

Then it came back. At registration. Roger had first dismissed it as idle curiosity. But suddenly Number 44 did not seem like just another ru

Then Roger remembered something else. Earlier he had spotted him milling about the registration area with an older man in a windbreaker and shouldering a camera with a telephoto lens. Roger didn't like cameras, especially ones with big zooms.

They rounded First Avenue to River Street with less than a kilometer left. Brett was tiring, so Roger cut his pace even more.

Immediately 44 pulled ahead with a hard glance. Roger felt better. He wasn't a cop after all, just a ru

Brett didn't like Roger dropping his pace. "Keep ru

Roger shook his head. "I'm fine."

"No. Do it!" Brett was struggling, but he wanted Roger to open up.

"You sure?"

"Yes!"

But he didn't want to leave Brett behind. Brett must have read his mind because he gasped, "Burn him, Dad. Burn him!"

That was all Roger needed. For you, Brett, he whispered, then kicked into a sprint that no other fifty-six year old could possibly summon-and very few thirty-eights.

In a matter of seconds he closed the gap on 44. Someplace behind him he heard Brett let out a howling "Yahoo!"

At about a three hundred meters before the finish, Roger pulled to approximately five paces behind 44, so close he could see the shamrock tattoo on his right shoulder.

Roger kept that up for several seconds as he readied to pull away. Then he moved until he was neck-and-neck with the guy about ten feet on his left. Ahead the road was wide open. They ran in formation like that for awhile. A couple times the guy looked over to Roger. Roger hooked eyes on him, and in that flash something passed between them. Roger didn't know what it was, nor did he care. All his concentration was on that bright yellow finish line a hundred meters ahead.

Cheers from the huge gallery rose up as a small knot of local track stars crossed the finish line first.

At about sixty meters, Roger pushed his throttle to the limit. Straining with everything he had, he moved past 44 without a glance and pumped down the road to the fat yellow finish, crossing a dozen paces ahead.

The crowd went wild not because they knew Roger, but for his breakaway. From over a hundred meters they had watched the two run in perfect stride until Roger made his stupendous sprint to the finish.

Laura ran out to Roger as he panted and stumbled around to catch his breath. She embraced him and gave him some water.

He knew it was irrational, what he had just done-yielding to testosterone. But, Jesus, it felt good to take that guy.

Standing on a bench in the Park across from the finish, Agent Eric Brown shot off two dozen frames from the Nikon with the black zoom and motor drive as Roger flew across the yellow line and into the cheering crowd.

He takes a cup of water from someone. He bends over to catch his breath. He raises a pained face to the sky. He takes a hug from his wife, who looks older than he in the zoom. He dumps a cup of water over his head. He towels off. He downs more water. He high-fives his son. He gives a wave to Bill Pike when he crosses the line.

And Brown caught it all.

"Olafsson's right," Pike said when he finally made his way to Brown. "The wrong guy." He was still panting and mopping his brow with a towel.

"Yeah, but for thirty-eight, the bastard can run."

"Tell me about it." Pike's face was drained and his lungs still burned. "I don't know what his secret is, but he must have rocket fuel for blood, is all."

"Roger, I'm sorry to call you at the shop, but it's extremely important."

Je

And, yet, he still turned on her harshly. "If it's about the orchids, m'am, I can't help you. They're not available."

That was their code word. Whenever they discussed Elixir on the phone, her sister and Roger had referred to it as the "orchids."

It was so unfair, Je

"I'm sorry, m'am, I can't help you," he said, and hung up.

For a startled moment Je

But that was ridiculous after all these years. Roger and Laura had new lives, and Je