"Do you know where Foxx went?"
"Yes, I do," Riley said.
"How do I know you'll tell me the truth?"
"You've got my word on it. I'll have yours, and you'll have mine. Mine is good. What about yours?"
After a moment Remo said, "All right. We won't hurt you or the stuff. Tell your buddies to get into parade drill formation."
Riley nodded. "I'm trusting you," he said. He rounded up the apprehensive-looking young soldiers into a shambling unit in the middle of the clearing. They stood there in utter silence, every eye trained on the metal case filled with Foxx's formula.
That's what you call parade drill?" Remo said. "Even the volunteer army looks better than that."
Riley looked up, his eyes filled with anger and pride. "This is no parade unit, mister. This is the Team.
Chapter Fifteen
Randall Riiey joined the Team in April 1953. He'd retired from the army with a twenty-year pension at the age of thirty-eight. At a time when most men's careers were just beginning to take off, his was over. After twenty years and two Purple Hearts, he landed a job as a dishwasher in Chicago's South Side. . Then Foxx appeared. Foxx had been in the army, too, but an earlier army, the fighters of which were now old men, far older than Foxx himself. He had flown some of the earliest American aircraft in the dogfight days of World War I.
The information came out a little at a time. During the first brief meeting at the hash joint in Chicago where Riley was working, Foxx revealed little more than a smiie along with a handshake of understanding. Riley was drinking then, and fading fast. The bottle had seemed like the last refuge of a used-up combat soldier, and Foxx had understood.
"I'll be back," Foxx said. "I have a deal for you." And then he was gone.
The second time Foxx came into the restaurant was a week later. This time he arrived in a long limousine, with a hundred dollars in cash, which he handed to the
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besotted ex-Sergeant Riley. "This is yours whether you come with me or not. But if you come, there will be more. I plan to give you something worth more than all the money in the world."
"Whazzat," Riley asked as the two images of the man wafted in front of him in an alcoholic haze.
"Your self-respect," Foxx said.
"You from the Salvation Army or something?"
"I'm a doctor," Foxx said. "I don't belong to any organization. There's just me. If you jom me, there will be two of us. But after that, there will be many, because what I am offering is a chance for you and men like you to do what they do best, for the rest of your lives." He turned to leave. "Yes or no?"
Riley put down his dishrag and followed the strange, ageless looking man. He never saw Chicago again.
That evening, they sat in the lavish dining room of the mansion near Enwood, Pennsylvania, after a meal of duckling and asparagus, hearts of palm, sole meuniere, caviar, and baked Alaska. It was the grandest meal Riley had ever eaten. Afterward, he was offered a fine Havana cigar, while the butler poured a snifter of Napoleon brandy for his host.
"Think I could have a snort of that?" Riley asked pathetically.
"Absolutely not. If you agree to my contract, you'll never be permitted to drink again. It will interfere with my purpose."
Riley rose to leave. He didn't think he wanted to live in a world where every day started with a Blue Law. The butler restrained him.
"Hear me out," Foxx said, swirling the brandy temptingly in the snifter. The fire in the fireplace crackled. Through the open windows, the crisp smell of a
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cool April evening billowed in. "I have taken great trouble to find out about you, Sergeant Riley."
"Mr. Riley," he said bitterly. "I'm no sergeant anymore. That's over. I'm nothing but a dishwasher now. An ex-dishwasher."
Foxx raised an eyebrow. "Things are not always as they seem," he said. "As ! was saying, I believe I know quite a bit about you. I know, for example, what it is you want more than anything else in life."
"Easy. A tall one with ice." He guffawed roughly.
"I'm serious, Riley. Do you know? Think. If you could have anything you wanted, anything, barring no consideration whatever, what would it be?"
Riley thought a moment. Then he answered with perfect honesty. "A war," he said.
Foxx smiled. "Yes. I knew you were the man I wanted."
Riley passed ten days locked in a room in that house in Pennsylvania, while imaginary bugs crawled up his legs and elephants danced on the walls. Ten horrible days that left him senseless and drained and wishing he were dead. On the eleventh day, when Riley was too weak to sit up in his vomit-covered bed, Foxx came again.
He had a hypodermic needle in his hand. "With this, you will feel better than you ever did with alcohol," he said, and injected the needle into Riley's wasted arm.
Within minutes Riley felt stronger-so strong that he thought he could snatch the sun right out of the sky.
Foxx led him outside, into the garden. "Run as far as you can," he said. "But come back. If you don't return there will be no more injections."
Riley ran. He ran for miles, past ponds and forests and a farm, which, in later years, Foxx would buy and
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then destroy to ensure privacy. He ran to the nearest town, some thirty miles away, and, in less than two hours after his arrival, got a job loading produce for the Enwood Market. That evening Riley started to weaken. He began to sweat profusely, and a deep feeling of panic invaded every cell of his brain. He looked in the mirror. All of the newfound vitality offered by the shot was gone, replaced with a spectral emptiness.
The next day at work his boss complained that Riley was laying down on the job, but in truth he could hardiy raise his arms to lift the crates of melons and carrots. By mid-afternoon, Riley thought he was going to die.
He hitched a ride to Foxx's mansion. The driver of the car had wanted to take him to the hospital, but Riley said that his "uncle," Foxx, was a doctor. He crawled on hands and knees to the front door.
Foxx opened it, the hypodermic poised in his hand. "I thought you would come back," he said.
Riley was brought back to life, grateful and terrified. "Say, what is that stuff in that needle, anyway?" he asked, feeling his limbs come back to their former power.
"A special mixture of mine. It's based on a drug called procaine."
Riley learned that Foxx had been working on the formula for the past thirty years. With it, the ravages of time could be stopped. The young would stay young forever. Those on the brink of old age could hold off the final victory of death for all time.
"Holy cow," Riley said, filled with~ awe for the strange man with the magic needle. "You could make a fortune with that."
"I have," Foxx replied. "I've opened a clinic in