by John Sayles
Danny something. Been on the job for quite a while.
“So I’m not totally straight on how this jurisdiction thing works,” says Brent. You have to push back a little bit or they’ll steamroller you. “You can give me a speeding ticket?”
“Doing it right now.”
Danny what’s his name is writing on a pad of forms.
“And I have to pay it?”
The chief of reservation police glances up at him. “You plan to set foot on this reservation again? Drive on it?”
He has to smile. “You got me there.”
“You want to be careful out here,” says the officer, tearing off forms and handing him the carbon copy. “We got a lot of drunken white men on the road these days.”
He keeps it under seventy-five till he’s off the rez. That kind of petty shit, harassment when you can’t strike back, always knocks his chi down some, leaves him feeling deflated. There is a moment where he wants to just keep driving east, fuck Winnipeg, fuck the Russian, it’s all too fucking complicated. Cherkov is the guy’s name, sounds like jerk-off. Which is what the whole meeting might turn out to be, the Soviets are famous for that.
It’s the flame-off stacks that bring him back up, now that it’s dark enough to really see the gas burning against the sky. There are so many of them now, more light than this prairie has ever seen at night. How the Objectivist would have loved this, the way she loved all of man’s great transformative endeavors, his industry, his skyscrapers. It’s like driving over the top of a birthday cake with all the candles lit, he thinks, and gooses the Vette up to eighty.
A cake for somebody very, very old.
DUDLEY HAD ONE MORE scotch than usual at the club, but his head is clear enough to make the report. His machine comes on without a noise. He’s got a spot bandage over the video eye and retaliatory malware to protect his keystrokes from being monitored. You sneak into other people’s systems, you have to assume some of them might try to do the same.
The mission is straightforward, the health and future of the Company at stake. Dudley has studied complexity theory, he’s written code for predictive models used throughout the industry, but this one is simple mathematics. Oh, he’ll throw in the usual graphs and color charts, coat it in fiduciary obfuscation, but in the wrap-up paragraph the guillotine will have to drop. Crude had been hanging at ninety-five dollars a barrel for a good while but now has started to drop and will keep dropping as long as there’s so much oil and gas flooding the market, so at eight cents lower than the present rate it makes no sense to keep hydraulically fracturing wells in the Bakken. Nickels and dimes. Keep pumping whatever is producing already, fine, but pull your equipment out of anything you’re still drilling or stimulating and walk away. Frackus interruptus.
Dudley breaks his report into three sections and sends them delayed release, the first section to land in Houston the day after tomorrow, more to come. By the time they’re reading the inevitable conclusion he’ll be lost in the ether.
He developed the Ultimate Determinator over the last two years, the screen output enough to send even the nosiest office mates retreating from his carrel, and he’s been able to test it out on a couple of Mexican roustabouts who died on the job in the Permian. It quickly became clear that their names and social security numbers were fake, and in the interest of avoiding insurance payouts to family, Dudley was given the case. Once he teased out their real identities, he set the Program to erasing them. One had a credit card in Mexico, and the first run-through obliterated over twenty-four thousand pesos’ worth of debt, then computer records of his marriage, his two parking violations in Odessa, his fatal last hours in the emergency room. There is lots of paper still in Mexico, of course, so he still exists on the yellowing books and in the hearts and minds of his loved ones. The other worker, who he remembers was named Jesús, had managed to live most of his life untouched by the web, a nonperson to government agencies, to law enforcement, Nigerian pyramid schemers and online retailers. Jesús did not rise again three days after he was buried– in fact the little bit of encoded data he’d accumulated in his brief span (he was, by the coroner’s estimate, in his early twenties) was expunged forever.
But those were entities with friends and relatives unlikely to mount sophisticated cybersearches. Dudley, virtually friendless, distant to all his relatives, still has the Company, the federal government and the leechlike coterie of creditors and their client preference databanks to deal with. He pictures Ahab, pinioned to the submerging albino leviathan by his own lines and harpoons, dragged to a watery death.
If you can devise a program to discover every appearance of an individual in the great e-Book of Life, you can design one to wipe out that individual’s million coded footprints. Locked systems must be breached, of course, most with elaborate systems of protection and the ability to detect– Who? What? A program that will scour the universe for any sign of its creator for a few more months, then delete itself, a virus with a genetically coded end date.
The rental car’s continued absence will trip no warning at Enterprise, their paperwork revealing a credit card that no longer exists, that, when searched for, never existed. If found, without a license plate and with the VIN number removed, the gray Kia Rio will be only a mystery with an interior unsullied by blood or fingerprints, should anyone bother to check. The hotel will have no record of his visit, maids and desk personnel unable to describe his face if asked, only Caucasian, average this, average that. There will be a bit of a tail to the story of course, the computer record of the Company’s attempts to find him, to know how much he stole– no, that’s not the proper word. The breadth of the golden parachute he incrementally awarded himself during his years of service, web transactions overseen by only one privileged employee.
A guy known as The Dud.
Records of Dudley’s past interactions with the recorded world flash on the screen, then dissolve. He feels lighter already. Nobody can live in this modern world, they say, on a cash basis, no matter how much of it they’ve got stashed away. It will be intriguing to try.
Farewell to Virtual America. Dudley, we never knew ye.
MAKEUP CAN ONLY DO so much. The woman is young, not yet thirty, and looks like she’s been using this much base since she was in high school, but the evidence tends to ripen after a day. Right there along the left side of her jaw, and the way she holds her arm so close to her body. There they are on the bench together, less than six feet between them, the only people in the station at this hour.
“Empire Builder?” asks Jewelle.
“I’m sorry, what?” the woman replies, breaking out of a reverie.
“Are you waiting for the Empire Builder? The train.”
“Is that what they call it?” The woman glances at her ticket. “Yes, I am.”
“Spokane?”
“That far, then switching trains to Los Angeles.”
“Wow. Long haul.”
The woman, a natural blonde, at least from this distance, indicates the pile of magazines in her lap. “I’m prepared.”
What she doesn’t have is a suitcase.
“I get off in Spokane,” says Jewelle.
“Home?”
“Just a job.”
Jewelle doesn’t recognize her, but Teasers had gone to open booking in the last year, girls from all over the map swarming the place to try their luck on the floor. Like the Gold Rush, thinks Jewelle, when everyone and his sister showed up with a shovel and a tin pan.
She doesn’t look like she’ll be insulted to be asked, but you never know.
“Dancer?”
“I’m sorry–?”
“Are you a dancer? We might have worked together.”
“Oh no– but I was a cheerleader in college.”
“Kilgore Rangerettes?”
“Apache Belles.”
“Close.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. You dance in like, what– shows?”
“Clubs. Like the one right next door.”<
br />
It takes a moment to register.
“Oh. Like swinging from the pole.”
“That’s part of it.”
“That must take so much core strength. I’ve seen it in movies, where the men talk and there’s girls snaking around on it in the background.”
“I can snake with the best of them.”
“But to make it seem so effortless. It should be an Olympic event.”
Jewelle smiles. “Don’t hold your breath.”
The woman doesn’t move, but it feels like they’re closer.
“And you’ll be doing that in Spokane?”
“Stateline Showgirls, just across the border in Idaho.”
“Do they have oil too?”
“Not yet. It’s a different scene.”
The woman thinks for a moment, decides.
“Are you ever afraid?”
“In a club? There’s security, these big gorillas.”
“But when you walk around all those men, like, not wearing much.”
“It’s kind of like acting in a movie. Julia Roberts or whoever knows the monster isn’t really going to step on her.”
The woman nods. Jewelle gives it a beat, then, softly–
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes,” says the woman, in a very small voice.
“Of what?”
“Roid rage.”
Not a familiar term. “Hemorrhoids?”
She laughs. “God no.”
“Cause I was gonna say, I wouldn’t advise a marathon train ride if–”
“Steroids.”
“Ah. Too much gym candy–”
“They can alter your personality,” she says. “Or maybe he’s just a mean son of a bitch.”
Jewelle wonders if she’s danced for the guy. Sat in his lap.
“Well don’t be afraid here.”
“Oh no, I’m not. Trains are like– like under his radar? He’d never think of me leaving this way.”
“You live in Los Angeles?”
“No, but there’s a lawyer there I’ve got to see.” She holds up the magazine on the top of her pile, last month’s People. “He shows up in these all the time, doing big celebrity divorces.”
“You go, girl.”
She smiles. “My name’s Roberta, but I get called Bunny.”
“I was born Donna, but nobody calls me that anymore, unless it’s for a motel booking or a credit card thing.”
Jewelle glances past the woman. Just a handbag, and not a very big one.
“I’ve got Tylenol if you need any,” she says.
“Maybe later,” says Roberta. “It hurts some to open and close my mouth.”
“And I’m making you talk.”
“Oh no, it’s fine, it’s good. I didn’t get a chance to meet too many women here.”
“I think if you’re not local it’s hard.”
“Yeah. And how were you able to function here without a car?”
“It gave up the ghost yesterday. And the prices are still so jacked up here it makes no sense to buy another one.”
Roberta nods, thinking.
“You think you’ll ever come back here?”
Towns shut down and open up again, officials get greedy, lose office, the new
ones make a clean sweep and then come up short on cash–
“Do you know what purgatory is?”
“Like in religion?”
“If you’re Catholic, it’s where they keep you till your sins are worn away enough by time or by people praying for you that you’re allowed into Heaven. I’ve done my time in Yellow Earth.”
“You think anybody will miss you?”
Jewelle has to smile. “No,” she says. “They’ve seen my act.”
THEY DON’T GET TO use the Blackhawk Dynamic Entry Ram. Or the Flashbang grenade or the tear gas, or any of the other cop gear Tolliver is so impressed by. Will feels like an idiot standing in the brand-new house in a Kevlar vest, he and Jim Wilson from the Bureau facing the pregnant girl with her bare feet tucked under her on the huge brown leather couch. She was watching a video on the giant flat-screen TV when they charged in, Tolliver no doubt bummed that the front door was unlocked, and she held her arms up like it was a stagecoach robbery in an old Western. The video is still playing with the sound muted, something about teen vampires warring with teen werewolves.
“I’m not sure you can arrest me,” says the girl, who is wearing short shorts and a T-shirt with the logo of a band Will has never heard of printed on it. “I’m an enrolled member of the–”
“The federal government has jurisdiction here, young lady,” says Jim Wilson, carefully placing his helmet with the bulletproof visor on an end table, “and nobody is being arrested yet.”
“You’re Fawn,” says Will, finally placing her. “Harleigh Killdeer is your stepfather.”
“That’s right.” Behind her the teen werewolves, in their human form, are running through dense forest with incredible speed.
Jim Wilson does not look happy. “Would you state your relationship with Brent Skiles?”
The girl, Fawn, thinks for a moment.
“Friend of the family? He– they– him and Bunny– said I could come by and hang out.”
At the other end of the room, Tolliver, who always has his nose stuck in Guns and Ammo back at the office, is identifying the weapons in the arsenal as the ATF officer removes them from the cabinet.
“A Glock 34,” he says, “an AMT AutoMag III, an old Desert Eagle, Beretta 92– that’s a classic– Walther PK380, Smith & Wesson 1911–”
“You have any idea where they are now, Fawn?” asks Will.
“No. I mean Bunny is sposed to be in Jackson Hole, and Brent, Mr. Skiles, he’s always real busy.”
“Semiautomatic Mossberg 930 Watchdog Shotgun, chamber holds eight rounds,” Will hears Tolliver say. “Pump-Action Winchester Defender–”
“Have you ever fired any of these weapons?” asks Jim Wilson, nodding back toward the case.
“I never even held one. People shouldn’t own guns, unless they’re like– you know– to shoot snakes or whatever. If you have to be where there’s a lot of snakes.” “Have you ever seen Mr. Skiles firing them?”
“No.”
“Fawn,” says Will, “how did you get here? There isn’t a car outside.”
“Uhmm– Mr. Skiles gave me a ride.”
“So he’s nearby?”
“I guess. He dropped me here about an hour ago, but he didn’t say where he was going.”
“And he drives a Corvette.”
“Yeah. He put the top down today cause it wasn’t so cold.”
“Stag Model 3 Highlander AR 15– see the camo?” the deputy is saying. “That retro-looking thing is a Henry Big Boy, then a Remington 700, that’s just a hunting rifle–”
Will sits down on the far end of the couch, new leather squeaking under him. The girl is a little scared and a little excited.
“You weren’t going to spend the night here, were you?” he asks.
“No.”
“So I’m assuming that Brent– Mr. Skiles– is going to give you a ride home.” He’s heard the rumors.
He watches the girl weigh her options.
“He said he’d be back about five.”
Will looks to Jim Wilson, who nods. Will stands, takes off the Kevlar vest.
“I’m going to give you a ride home instead,” he says. “Let’s get your stuff together.”
“Mossberg 715T” says Tolliver, eyes gleaming, as they pass him and the ATF officer, “Steyr M1–”
Will lifts the mirror to see Fawn brooding in the rear of the patrol car.
“It’ll come out, you know,” he says. “About you and Brent.”
“He never gave me drugs or anything. It was totally consensual.”
They watch cop shows, forensics shows. Half the kids he hauls in are playing roles they’ve seen on TV.
“The trouble he’s in doesn’t have anything to do with you. But you�
�ll have to testify, and if you tell the absolute truth you’ll come out fine.”
“They’ll be under Bunny’s name, you know,” she says. “The guns. That’s how they work their business.”
“I believe the law will see through that.”
They’d found a stash of Dianabol in the little exercise room, might be an old prescription, might not, but nothing else indictable. The gun charge will keep him in the state till the killing in Idaho can be investigated, and maybe the Hickey boy’s body will turn up.
“Is my stepfather in trouble too?” asks Fawn. She sounds genuinely worried.
“I hope not,” says Will.
HE COULD HAVE SWORN there was a workover rig there just yesterday. Harleigh pulls the Denali off the road, crosses the mucky field to the edge of the drill pad. One of the workmen throwing equipment into the rear of a box truck acknowledges him with a nod.
“What happened to the well?”
“Never got to be one,” says the man, who has SARGE stitched on the front of his coveralls.
“But they were drilling.”
“They stopped.”
“Why?”
Sarge heaves something metal and bulky onto the pile already in the truck, shrugs. “Got a bad reading, decided it wouldn’t produce, who knows? We just move shit from one place to the next.”
“Where’s this stuff going?”
“Out of state.”
Only the collar of the annulus is still poking up above the surface, the gravel around it strewn with beams and struts, with equipment Harleigh couldn’t name if you paid him.
“They can’t just leave it.”
Another guy, whose empty hands indicate he is probably the foreman, steps over. “It’s been capped.” “I don’t see any.”
“Probably bridge plugs and cement, and if we’re here the top plug has been tapped to be sure it’ll hold. Plugged and abandoned. We’re part of ‘abandoned.’”
There is a cuttings pit, most of the liquid gone so you can see the liner.
“So who does the reclamation?”
The foreman looks around, raising his eyebrows. “What’s to reclaim?”
“They’re supposed to put it back the way it was– pull out the gravel and any drilling fluid left behind, regrade to the original contour, reseed.”