by Eden Sharp
The future must be open.
Give the poor information devices and feed their minds with social media and they drown in a sea of irrelevancies.
Give the poor code and provide access to information systems and five billion connected minds move toward a world at peace.
The Infinite 9.
We are one.
Transparency. Accountability.
Group intelligence for the good of all.
#0u1r1
1
Monday May 1st
Getting a beaten and resisting woman out of a building in broad daylight was going to be a problem. I’d brought the Nismo because a cab would never have worked. Not unless the driver had been particularly accommodating. There hadn’t been time to pick up an anonymous rental either, my heart had overruled my head. As much as I’d spent a lifetime trying to distance myself from the past some things could still work their way under my skin, unpaid debts being one of them.
To limit exposure, I had to get close to the apartment and drive into the alley behind, all the while hoping the crunching under my tires wasn’t glass. Like a shiny thing in a tarnished neighborhood, using my own car drew attention to itself and me.
I exited and distanced myself, striding away toward the building’s fire exit, breathing in stale milk and urine, confident my baggy sweat pants and hooded top would make me a blur in any potential witness statement.
I’d watched Lunnun leave but having no idea of where he was headed meant I needed to be quick. The SIG pressed reassuringly into the small of my back as I walked, and I slid my hand under my top’s loose jersey hem a couple of times as practice in case I needed it but hoped I wouldn’t.
The dumpster, pushed against a one-story extension at the rear of the building, gave me an easy way up and in via an open window. I pulled my sleeves down over my hands, hauled myself up, then took hold of the frame and climbed in to an empty communal landing. Flakes of paint had stuck to the cuffs of the fabric. If it came to it, forensically, I was screwed.
Every footstep I took echoed off concrete surfaces and I tuned in to pick up any extraneous noises in the no man’s land of mid-stairwell. No sounds came from down near the entrance door, no indications of an apartment door opening from above.
Luckily for me Lunnun’s door was fitted with a cheap, pin-and-tumbler lock from an ordinary hardware store. When locked the cylinder is kept in place by several pairs of pins which protrude into both the cylinder and its housing, preventing it from turning. With the right key, the pins are pushed up until they no longer enter the cylinder, so it can be turned, and the lock will open.
I chose a thick metal needle from my kit and inserted it, moving the rod around. When I heard a click, I placed a tension wrench into the lower portion of the keyhole and applied torque, first clockwise and then counterclockwise, to feel the firmness of the stop. Clockwise it felt firm and stiff. I turned it a fraction of an inch in the opposite direction and felt a little more give. The cylinder turned. I was in. Plan B had meant knocking. Plan C, damage and the possibility of unwanted attention.
I realized my mistake as soon as I entered the apartment’s hallway. The unwanted attention was unavoidable. Two male voices emanated from a room further in creating an unforeseen problem. Instinctively I reached for the SIG then thought better of it. Figured I’d try a new approach. I pulled back my hood and shook out my hair. When they saw a girl appear in the doorway they were less likely to feel threatened and it would buy me a couple of seconds of extra time.
Both men sat at a cluttered pine kitchen table. The skinnier one was rolling a joint. Facing the door, he saw me first. Before he could speak the heftier guy had noted his expression and was already swiveling round to see what had changed. I grabbed at a wooden broom resting against a refrigeration unit in my peripheral vision and holding it across my body swung right to meet the momentum of his head turning toward me. An instinctive elbow strike with the added extension of solid wood met his temple at double the impact. I was disappointed to see he hadn’t made it all the way off his chair to the floor and that the skinny guy was already on his feet.
The stoner still had an obstacle to clear before he could have at me and the beefier guy was dazed with his throat exposed so I followed through automatically with a couple of second level pressure strikes in quick succession, which no court of law would ever uphold as necessary force, and, burst at the skinny guy as he came around to my side of the table. As we were now up close and personal and I was taller than him, I pulled his head into me and struck him on the soft bone where the two sides of the skull join at the median point. With three knee strikes to his floating rib, a palm heel strike to the left side of his jaw and his right side slammed into the pine on the way down, he was out. I hadn’t remembered dropping the broom. I kicked it away and surveyed the damage. I was shaking and aware of the time constraint. Get in and out. I didn’t want to waste time trying to find bindings, so I darted in and out of two empty rooms before finding Chrissie in the third.
I hoped she was only sleeping and pulled her over from her side onto her back, glad that her shoulder felt warm. Both her eyes were black and swollen and her cheeks were grazed. I shook her awake. Two pinpoints stared back at me. I tried pulling her to her feet, but high she was a dead weight and non-compliant.
‘It’s Angela, get up.’
No response. She attempted to turn back on her side. I didn’t want to slap her, she was too bruised.
‘Chrissie, it’s Angela. We have to go.’
Maybe saying her name brought her round a little. She stared at me again.
‘It’s Angela. Now get up. We have to move.’
She looked around her and made an attempt at standing. I got her on her feet and tried to move her toward the door, but she was rooted to the spot.
‘I need my stuff,’ she said.
She bent down and pulled at a dirty patchwork bag on the bed. I knew exactly what stuff she meant but had no hope in hell of getting her to the car without it.
I grabbed her bag and put it on her shoulder.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
She laughed as she traveled forward with her eyes firmly shut.
My heart pounded in my chest. Not just from the exertion of half-carrying her to the front door but of passing by the kitchen. I avoided looking in. I knew I had used way too much force. My emotional reaction had meant I’d acted without thinking. Anger and hatred for what had been done to Chrissie had made me the inheritor of humanity’s five-million-year habit of lethal aggression. Violence is in all of us. The only thing that changes is our perspective on the justification and how emotionally involved we are.
We made it down the stairs without any more drama. As I opened the front door I half expected to see Lunnun blocking the way. Luckily for him the street was clear. I shuffled Chrissie along the sidewalk, around the corner of the building and more or less dragged her to the car.
I was reminded of a Nietzsche quote - Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. For when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
2
Things were going well enough until we hit Brannan. The traffic heading east had slowed to almost a standstill before picking up again. The reason soon became clear. This wasn’t due to the usual mass of vehicles bunching between junctions and signals. Up ahead, cops from San Francisco Police Department’s Traffic Unit were conducting a sobriety checkpoint or BOLO or similar.
Great. This was all I needed. One look at Chrissie and the next thing would be a search of the car and a narcotics seizure. I tried to keep up with the legal position for any such circumstances in my interactions with her that might leave me compromised and knew that the possession of heroin for personal use was a misdemeanor but one which still amounted to up to a year in county jail and up to a twenty-thousand-dollar fine. This was the case for most defendants at least, but I was unsure if she’d had any recent busts I didn’t know abo
ut.
A second misdemeanor of being under the influence of heroin also carried the same penalty for jail time and up to a thousand-dollar fine. Worse though might be to come. In the event of her having a larger amount than I suspected or two or more separate baggies we would be looking at a felony charge. That included me as well as her. The transportation for sale of heroin meant three to nine years in jail along with the twenty-thousand-dollar fine.
I checked to my right. Chrissie was one hot mess in a zoned-out stupor. I shook her shoulder but didn’t get a response. We moved forward a car’s length. I unclipped my belt, leaned right over her to grab both shoulders and shook her violently. She opened her eyes a little.
‘We’re gonna be hitting a traffic stop. You’ve got heroin in your bag, right?’
She smiled and nodded out on me again. Her bag was wedged between her right-hand side and the passenger door. I grabbed at it. Despite her being a world away she had a hand on it and clenched the dirty fabric tight, cursing something under her breath.
‘Chrissie.’
‘Uh?’
‘Put your bag under the seat.’
I didn’t even want to look inside. Who knew what else she might have in there? She could be carrying any amount of other substances to bring her up or chill her out or whatever. A gap had opened up ahead of me again and we were only about fifty yards out from the stop with the cops staring down the line. I rolled the car forward slowly and tried wrestling the bag out of her hand, but she wouldn’t let go. Opening the car door and ditching anything out wasn’t going to fly. We’d be spotted for sure.
‘Cops,’ I shouted.
That got her attention.
‘Hide your stuff under the seat.’
She did as she was told. The line seemed to be moving more quickly. Only twenty yards to go. I leaned over and opened up the glove box and grabbed a sunglasses case.
‘Put these on and try and stay awake.’
She made a half-hearted attempt with her eyes shut. I shot out a hand and clamped the Aviators on to her. They would do a decent job of covering her pinpoint pupils if she could just stay awake, but I was anticipating some interest in her beaten-up face.
We inched forward the remaining few yards. I took one last look at Chrissie and couldn’t talk myself into thinking she was going to get a pass. Then we were being motioned into where the cops wanted us, and we came to a stop. I wound my window down.
The cop glanced at me then across at Chrissie.
‘Can I see your license and registration ma’am?’
I flipped down my visor and retrieved my credentials. The cop kept an eye on my hand movements but was paying more attention to the bombed-out girl next to me.
‘What’s the story with your passenger?’ he said addressing me.
Before I could answer he shot a question across to her.
‘Ma’am do you require medical attention?’
She barely shook her head.
He’d read my DMV license but had stopped there, fixating on Chrissie instead.
‘Officer if you check the rest of my paperwork you will see that I am a Californian-licensed private investigator and I’m currently aiding my client who is the victim of a domestic dispute.’
His eyes scanned my credentials then snapped back in Chrissie’s direction.
‘Chrissie?’ I said.
‘I’m fine Officer. I’m being looked after,’ she said. She’d sounded almost coherent, but I wasn’t sure he’d been convinced.
‘Inspector Stuart Kerpen’s a friend of mine,’ I said. ‘He’ll tell you some stories. I was a part of that whole Ortiz and Aaron thing that got them busted.’
Almost all SFPD cops hated the two narcotics inspectors who had sacrificed the life of a rookie under their command for their love of hard cash. The odds were, he was one of them even if Kerpen did work for Internal Affairs. If not, there were other things I hoped would work to my advantage. The line was long. It was late in the day. The sun was unseasonably hot.
He looked into my eyes for a moment and held my gaze then handed me back my documents. Probably didn’t need the form filling back at the Hall.
‘Proceed on your way,’ he said.
3
I hustled Chrissie past the concierge desk in my building, into one of the elevators and put in the code to the sixtieth floor, the equivalent of having my own personal conveyor. After a little under thirty seconds, we arrived at the private landing outside my front door.
Inside my apartment she told me she wanted a shower and I rifled my closet for clean clothes. I laid out a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants on the bed. I was lean, but I knew they’d hang off her. Outside the bathroom door, I could hear the faucets were full-on, but the pattern of water drumming was constant, not intermittent like someone maneuvering under the flow.
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’
I wondered if she was taking another hit. She was already pretty strung out and I didn’t want her overdosing in my bathroom.
‘You want me to order in something to eat?’
‘Ice-cream.’
I smiled. The first time we’d met, we’d both been sneaking down into the kitchen in the middle of the night to steal food. We became co-conspirators, two twelve-year-olds sitting on the floor eating ice-cream in the dark except for the light of the open refrigerator door.
But it was hardly a well-balanced diet. I considered calling up a local gelato and smoothie place. Maybe a couple of blended fruit drinks to go with the order would provide some nourishment though it was going to take more than vitamin C to repair the damage she’d already inflicted upon herself.
I took out my laptop, sat on the bed and fired it up. If she was really high I couldn’t risk her vomiting while nodding in and out of sleep. I decided to wait and see. I connected to the internet and navigated to a previously bookmarked page from earlier research then rehearsed how best to sell the pitch, in varying combinations, to which I anticipated some strong resistance.
When she came out wrapped in a towel she could barely keep her eyes open. She crashed down on to the bed and I made a feeble attempt at pushing the clothes in her direction.
‘Here you can put these on for now.’
She muttered something incomprehensible and dozed off.
I shook her shoulder. Felt skin slide against bone, parts of the joint grating against one another, no cushioning of muscle or fat.
She made an attempt at pushing herself up to sitting and paying attention to me.
I pulled round the laptop, so she could see the screen.
‘I’m checking you in here tomorrow,’ I said. It’s not like any other place you’ve been in before. It’s high-end. They’ll take good care of you. Wean you down gradually with substitutes. Nothing harsh. It’ll be like staying at a luxury spa. You won’t have to worry about anything, I’ll pick up the tab.’
She glanced at the screen then looked me in the eye. In a moment of what felt like real connection I saw the old Chrissie.
‘You always find me,’ she said.
‘Because I’m always looking,’ I said.
Her head nestled into the pillow, lids closing.
‘Why?’ she whispered.
I pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, tucked it behind one ear.
‘You were my best friend,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Until I became a bitch.’
Her words came out like her mouth was glued up with syrup.
‘You had real good reasons though huh?’ I said.
I felt an intense pang of sadness and squeezed my eyes tight to stem any tears from welling. When I opened them she’d fallen asleep.
I closed the laptop lid, lay down, and stretched out next to her. I knew I’d have to stay awake because her breathing was way too shallow. Her respiratory rate would be depressed by the opiates in her system and if her heart stopped like it had in the past then I needed to be alert, to give her CPR to bring her back if her own survival mechanis
ms were too dimmed to wake her up. If I took her to a hospital she’d leave and refuse all offers of help. This was my only chance.
I ran through my argument again in my head, of how persuasive I could be to make her enter rehab voluntarily. That was the key. It had to be of her own volition. I had no power to make her go there or to stay. My last recourse would be to appeal to a court for a temporary committal to a psych ward on the grounds of her inability to take care of herself, but it was as unlikely to succeed as she was to agree to stay in such an institution after the requisite seventy-two-hour period came to an end.
After an hour or so I started to feel myself dozing. I shook my head and bunched up my face a couple of times to bring myself round. Chrissie was mumbling something to herself. I gave her a nudge and she opened her eyes for a moment.
‘Promise me you’ll stay here with me tonight. We can decide anything else tomorrow,’ I said.
She nodded and smiled then turned over and rolled away from me. Her breathing was a little more regular now her last fix had worn off a little and, as long as she was on her side, I figured she wouldn’t choke if she got sick. I propped a couple of pillows against her back to make sure she stayed in that position.
When I opened my eyes, it was possible to make out the objects in the room courtesy of a full moon though morning had not yet broken through. For a moment I was reassured by the sense of the pillow mound pressed against my left arm but when I turned to the side the space next to me on the bed was empty. I touched the sheet. It was cold.
I sat up and still held out a naïve hope that Chrissie had just gone to use the bathroom but then I noticed my laptop had gone. I guessed it would already have been used as a trade for a wrap of junk. It had nothing on it of any import. Nothing that constituted the panic I would have felt if one of the computers in my closet had been taken. They were too well hidden for her to have found them. Besides minimal items of jewelry there was nothing else to be concerned about apart from my SIG. I rolled over and checked the nighstand drawer and was relieved to find it still there.