Head On

by John Scalzi

“I can’t help but notice that you didn’t actually answer the question.”

  “Then you can assume I’m not going to,” Vann said.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “The statute of limitations is probably expired by now.”

  “It’s definitely expired by now.”

  “Vann.”

  Vann actually looked around and then leaned in. “Fine. I did some coke with a client.”

  “Actual cocaine,” I said.

  “Yes, you jackass. I’m not talking about soda.” Vann leaned back.

  “Why?”

  “Because the client was curious and because back in the day I liked cocaine. So when the client offered me an extra grand because she was curious, I took it.”

  “And then you went and bought some coke.”

  “Well, no. I just went to my stash. You think I was going to score some off the street? That shit’s mostly baby powder and fentanyl. It’ll kill you.”

  “I like that I’m still learning things about you, Vann,” I said, after a minute.

  “Oh, don’t act shocked,” Vann said. “You know my past. The irony is, the client hated it. Made her paranoid as hell.”

  “That’s no good.”

  “I wasn’t surprised. Cocaine makes you who you are, only more so.” She dug into her noodles. “And I had a point a long time ago, which was that if you’re an Integrator, it doesn’t matter if your clients are criminal or shitty people. It only matters if you let them be criminals or shitty people when they’re with you. I never did. I kind of doubt Fowler can say the same.”

  “You think she’s aiding in criminality.”

  “I think there’s a reason she doesn’t like to talk to law enforcement, and it’s not because of her libertarian political leanings.”

  “Did you find any connection between her and her two guests?”

  “No. But I did find a connection between one of her clients and her guests. I’ll give you a hint. It’s someone you know.”

  “Amelie Parker?”

  Vann pointed at me with her chopsticks. “Bingo,” she said. “More accurately, between Labram Industries and Richu and Semenov.”

  “What’s the connection?”

  “Labram does extensive business with both, mostly in shipping and construction. But, Richu and Semenov also have investment arms, and both invested substantially in Amelie Parker’s start-up a few years back.”

  “The one that Labram bought from her,” I said.

  “You know about that?” Vann asked.

  “I talked to my parents about it today.”

  Vann nodded. “They would know. The Richu and Semenov investment arms are also putting money into Parker’s new start-up, and into the NAHL overseas expansion.”

  “Labram is too,” I said. “The overseas expansion, I mean.”

  “Your dad’s about to do some business with some interesting folks,” Vann said. “Not only them, there are a lot of people investing in the NAHL and this MobilOn thing. But you should make them aware of it, too.”

  “They know.”

  Vann nodded again. “They’re smart people, your parents.”

  “Thanks, I like them,” I said, and then was quiet.

  “What is it?” Vann asked, eventually.

  “This still doesn’t help us,” I said. “Maybe Fowler was integrated with Parker and having a meeting with these guys, but so what if she was? She has legitimate reasons for doing so. It doesn’t tell us anything about what Fowler was doing in Alex Kaufmann’s bed, and whether she murdered him, or if he hung himself.”

  “If Fowler murdered Kaufmann, it’s possible she did it because Parker wanted her to,” Vann said.

  “Or that Parker was a witness, at least,” I said. “We would need to find out if she was integrated with her at the time. We could get a warrant for Parker’s client log.”

  Vann shook her head. “I already asked Judge Kuznia for her phone log. I’d need more evidence for a client log.”

  “So let’s bring Parker in,” I said.

  “I have news for you, Chris,” Vann said. “If Parker’s not already lawyered up to her armpits, she’s about to be. If she was integrated with Fowler when we came to visit, then she knows we had questions for her Integrator. She’s not stupid. She’ll put two and two together. But maybe there’s another way to talk to her without her lawyers around.”

  “How?”

  “Well,” Vann said. “Rumor is, she’s looking to hire you for a job.”

  “Sneaky,” I said.

  “We’re the FBI. That’s what we do. You should set up a meeting with her today. We have a hole in our schedule where talking with Alton Ortiz used to be.”

  I shook my head. “I already filled it.”

  “With what?”

  “With someone who by the sound of his response to my request for an interview, is going to be very, very happy to see me.”

  * * *

  “I am delighted to see you, Agent Shane,” Clemente Salcido said to me, as I stepped through into his personal space. It was clean, neat, sunny, uncluttered, and entirely off-the-rack. I recognized it as a basic hacienda model from PositiveSpace, a company that designed mass-produced personal spaces for Hadens with not a whole lot of money to throw around. It was the equivalent of tract housing.

  Or maybe something a little less than that. I looked over to one of the walls and the picture framed there. It was a cliffside with a threep posed just so right at the edge, looking out to a shore with gentle waves flowing in and out. And in the corner, words: The Metro Vista 3. Imagine where it will take you.

  Salcido’s wall art was an advertisement. Chances were almost all the art on his walls were advertisements. The advertisements were how Salcido, along with hundreds of thousands of other Hadens, lowered the cost of having a private space of their own within the Agora.

  As I watched, the cliffside advertisement faded into something new, this with sunflowers.

  Salcido followed my gaze to the wall art. “Not what you were expecting from a former Hilketa player, right?”

  “You’re the first former Hilketa player I’ve ever met,” I said, truthfully. “I have no idea what to expect.”

  “I like that answer,” Salcido said, and laughed. Then he motioned to the advertising. “It’s not so bad, really. If something offends you, they’ll remove it and put something else up. After the first few days it learned to give me landscapes. I can live with landscapes.”

  “Landscapes are nice,” I agreed.

  “Let’s go sit in the courtyard, Agent Shane. There is much less advertising there.”

  As promised, the courtyard was advertising-free. We sat on patio furniture while a creditable sun burned above us, and realistic-enough birds flitted among perfectly acceptable trees and shrubs.

  “I had a nicer personal space when I was with the Aztecs,” Salcido said, easing into his chair. “It was an actual hacienda. I mean an estate, not just a house. Much more realistic, overlooking a simulation of the Bahía de Banderas. My family is from Jalisco. I’d ride horses.”

  “It sounds nice.”

  “It was nice. But then I was cut and I had no more income and I had to decide whether I was going to spend my remaining money riding fake horses on a fake bluff over a fake ocean, or give my parents and family a nice house in the real world.” He opened his arms to motion about. “And as you can see, I made my decision.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  Salcido smiled. “I miss the horses. I don’t regret my mother and father and sister having a house. Now, Agent Shane. You are here to ask me about my seizure, yes?”

  “I am.”

  “What do you want to know about it?”

  “I’m curious about what brought it on.”

  “So am I!” Salcido said, laughing. “In all my life, before I had Haden’s or after it, I had never had a seizure. Suddenly during a game I have one. And since then I have never had one again.”

  “You were examined by doctors?”

>   “Lots of doctors. By the Aztecs’ team doctor right after. By a raft of doctors at the City of Hope right afterward. Test after test. By the doctors the Aztecs and league’s insurance carriers made me go to, just after they dropped me. And by the doctors my lawyers hired after I sued the NAHL and the Aztecs for dropping me as a player.”

  “No one could explain it?”

  “There was nothing to explain. No aberrant brain activity, no physical changes to the structure of my brain, no new physical ailments. For a Haden I was as heathy as any of us ever are. The seizure came out of nowhere and went back there just as quickly. I was healthy. Am healthy.” He raised his arms again to encompass the prefab hacienda. “And this is where it got me.”

  “So the league doesn’t want to have anything to do with you anymore.”

  “No,” Salcido said. “They wouldn’t have anything to do with me after their insurers decided I was a risk. Technically I was cut because of persistent health issues, but there weren’t any of those. Persistent, I mean. Which is why I sued. Now they won’t have anything to do with me because I’m suing. I’ve been blackballed.”

  “You’ve been told that.”

  “Of course not,” Salcido snorted. “They never tell you that. But no one will hire me, either. I’m twenty-eight, I’m healthy, I was a solid player, and my health isn’t an issue. I played five seasons for the Aztecs. I could have played another five, easily. I was popular because on the Aztecs because I was a Mexican when most of the players were from the U.S. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be playing. Except the one seizure and the fact I’m suing.”

  “And how is the suit going?”

  Another motion to the hacienda. “It’s not just my parents’ house that keeps me in this sort of personal space, Agent Shane. Lawyers are expensive. I’ve filed suits in Mexico and the U.S. Both the team and the league are stringing everything out as long as they can. They’re trying to bankrupt me to get me to drop the suit.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, how are you making money now?”

  “I do some convention appearances,” Salcido said. “I can’t appear in a Hilketa threep—they’re licensed by the league—and I can’t post any pictures of myself with league or Aztec symbols. But I can still sign photographs and pose for pictures.”

  “And that pays well?”

  Salcido shrugged. “It would be better if I could be in my Hilketa threep, like I used to be able to do. If you’re just showing up in a rental threep they don’t always believe you’re you. They don’t always want to pay for a photo. I also sell autographs and memorabilia online. I make enough for my family and my lawyers. Just not much more after that. I’d like to play Hilketa again.”

  “So, Mr. Salcido, you never had a seizure before or after that one game. You say doctors haven’t been able to find any reason for your seizure. But in your own mind, why do you think it was?”

  Salcido looked at me intently for a moment. Then, “This is about Duane Chapman, yes?”

  “I’m investigating his death, yes.”

  Salcido waggled a finger at me. “No, no. There’s something specific about his death that brought you here to me. Something similar to what happened to me. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here now. I know. I tried to get the FBI involved before. My lawyers couldn’t get past the door.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Of course you don’t. That’s my point.” Salcido waved his hand in dismissal. “So you don’t have to tell me. But I will tell you, because whatever you find I think will help me. And what I think was that I was drugged.”

  “How?”

  “Something in my supplements, is my guess.”

  “How would that work?”

  “How do you think it would work? Somewhere between the bag coming out of the box and it hitting my bloodstream, someone added something to it.”

  “Is this something you’ve told your lawyers or the league?”

  “Of course.”

  “What was their response?”

  “The league said there was nothing to it. They tested the bag and they tested my blood and urine and didn’t find anything they said was unusual. The lawyers went back to the manufacturer a few months later to find out if there were any remaining samples of the batch the bag was from. They found a box and tested it.”

  “So why do you think it was something in your supplements?”

  “What else could it be?” Salcido asked. “Nothing else had changed.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean I’d switched supplements about a month before. I had gotten an endorsement deal from Labram. We hadn’t announced it yet because they wanted to make a big deal out of it. I was their first player from the Aztecs and their first Mexican national. They were planning a campaign around me. Then the seizure happened and I was put on the injured list and then I was dropped. When I was dropped, Labram dropped me too.”

  “You just said you were using the supplements for a month without any ill effect.”

  “Maybe it took that long to take effect,” Salcido said. “What I’m telling you is that before I used Labram, I wasn’t having any problems. After, I had a seizure. It’s the only thing that changed.” He read my face, and smiled. “Ah, there it is.”

  “There what is?” I asked.

  “The look I get when I go on my supplement conspiracy theory. That is literally what the league’s fucking lawyer said to the judge when he tried to get my suit dismissed.”

  “Oliver Medina?”

  “You’ve met him!” Salcido said. “I’d like to feed him to sharks but they wouldn’t eat him.”

  “Professional courtesy,” I said.

  Salcido nodded. “You’ve heard the joke. The more I know of Medina the less amusing I find it. Fortunately the judge didn’t dismiss the case. Agent Shane, I know how my supplement theory sounds, believe me. You’re not the first person to give me that look. I just don’t have any other explanation.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s say for the sake of argument Labram did dope your supplement bag—”

  “Then why did they do it?” Salcido finished for me. I nodded. “And for that I don’t have any answer for you. It doesn’t make any sort of sense. It goes against the integrity of their product and against the integrity of the sport, and both of those are very bad for Labram. And it didn’t make sense to do it to me or the Aztecs. I wasn’t one of the team’s star players and the Aztecs weren’t in contention for the playoffs.”

  “As you say, it doesn’t make sense for Labram to do that.”

  “So maybe they didn’t. Maybe someone else did. Maybe gamblers who had bet on the match. Maybe someone who doesn’t like me.”

  “Does anyone not like you, Mr. Salcido?”

  Salcido grinned. “There might be a few angry spouses. And a few league lawyers at this point. Otherwise, no.”

  “So, no offense, it doesn’t really make sense for anyone to mess with your supplements.”

  “No. And yet I never had a seizure before that game, and I haven’t had a seizure since.”

  “Maybe it’s just bad luck.”

  “Perhaps,” Salcido said, and leaned in. “And perhaps Duane Chapman’s death was just bad luck as well. Perhaps we were both just very unlucky.” He leaned back. “But then, here you are, Agent Shane. I don’t think you’d be here if you thought all that happened to me, and all that happened to Duane Chapman, was bad luck. Everything looks like bad luck, until it doesn’t.”

  “It might still end up being just bad luck,” I said.

  “If it does, then my parents still have their house,” Salcido said. “But if it isn’t just bad luck, and it is something else, let me know. Especially if it makes the league settle my case. I would like my fake horses back.”

  * * *

  I popped back into my threep at the office and turned to Vann, who was sitting at her desk across from mine. “So, we should really get those results from the Labram supplements back from
the Philly FBI lab,” I said to her.

  “Oh, good, you’re back,” she said. “You ready?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “One: Report from the Philadelphia Fire Department investigators about Chapman’s apartment building fire. Definitely electrical, possibly arson.”

  “Possibly?”

  “Yes, because, two: The last company to work on the wiring, this last week, was a firm called AAACE Electrical and Wiring, owned by a Pedro Ortiz, who is—”

  “The brother of Alton, right?”

  “Let me finish.”

  “Sorry.”

  “The cousin of Alton, who does all the electrical work on all the properties owned by the landlord.”

  “That’s a hell of a coincidence.”

  “Pretty sure it’s not a coincidence. I’ve asked the Philly PD to do us a favor and pick him up for questioning.”

  “Why not the Philly Bureau branch?”

  “I’m not there yet. You’re interrupting again.”

  “By all means continue.”

  “So that’s the good news.”

  I waited.

  “That was a prompt,” Vann said.

  “You have me very confused about what I’m supposed to do here,” I said.

  “Now you ask me what the bad news is.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “What is the bad news?”

  “The bad news, and the reason I’m not asking the Philly Bureau branch to do another goddamned thing for us, is that they fucked up the testing of the Labram IV bag. Their lab technician apparently contaminated the sample. It’s useless to us now for anything but standing as testament to how the entire Philadelphia branch of the FBI should be burned to the ground.”

  “All right, that actually is bad news,” I said.

  “Yes it is,” Vann agreed. “Now ask me what the possibly even worse news is.”

  “There’s worse news?” I asked.

  “Possibly,” Vann repeated. “Somehow that reporter from the Hilketa News found out that Chapman and Kim Silva were boinking each other and put it up on their site.”

  “That’s not great, but that’s not horrible, either.”

  “That lawyer from the NAHL has called the director. They were classmates at Yale. Apparently he thinks you leaked.”