Switchback

by Matthew Klein

  ‘I hadn’t heard.’

  ‘Well, there you go. I’ll tell you what, Hans. I will make sure you get the August statements first, before anyone else, hot off the presses. When are you coming out west? I owe you some drinks.’

  ‘I don’t have plans.’

  ‘That’s a shame. The weather out here … well, you know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right, Hans. You want me to call you when the August statements are ready?’

  ‘I would appreciate that, Timothy.’

  ‘All right, my friend. I’ll speak to you soon.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Timothy hung up. He leaned back in his chair, stared at the ceiling, and exhaled.

  ‘Timothy?’ It was Tricia, leaning her head into his office. She smiled at him.

  ‘Yes, Tricia?’

  ‘I have Frank Arnheim from Perkins Coie on line one.’

  ‘Put him through.’

  Frank got right down to business. He was like a warrior in battle, his voice hoarse, adrenaline coursing through his blood. This was his element. He loved lawsuits. That they were directed at his client did not seem to decrease his enjoyment.

  ‘Yeah, I got a copy of the summons here,’ Frank said. ‘Son of a bitch. Twenty million dollars. Holding you personally liable.’ Then: ‘Hey, you even got twenty million dollars?’

  ‘Yes,’ Timothy said. ‘In gold bullion. I carry it around in the trunk of my car.’

  Frank laughed. ‘That’s a good one. Gold bullion.’ His voice dropped. ‘Say, why don’t you just give him his money back?’

  ‘I was hoping to hold onto it maybe a week longer.’

  ‘What’s going to happen in a week?’

  ‘I’m hoping Japan will throw in the towel. You know, just give up the whole industrialization thing, go back to Samurai swords and rice farming. Then the yen might fall.’

  ‘I see.’ Frank asked again: ‘Can you give the money back?’

  ‘Soon.’

  Frank sighed. ‘Okay, Timothy, have it your way. You’re paying by the hour. I don’t think a twenty-million-dollar judgment is gonna stick. But I’ll give you my professional opinion.’

  ‘Do I really want it?’

  ‘No, but here it is. You should give him back the money. The cost of not doing it is too high. I’m not talking about this lawsuit. We’ll make that go away. I’m talking about your reputation. In your business, you don’t need attention. Quiet is best. Do you really want a nosy CFTC investigator poking around your files, looking at your emails?’

  Timothy was silent.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘All right, Frank. I’ll think about it.’

  Timothy was about to hang up, but Frank quickly spoke. ‘Hey, Timothy.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Forgive me. But we’re going to need the monthly retainer paid in advance from now on. Let’s just start with twenty thousand. Not my decision. Just policy, in situations like this.’

  ‘I understand, Frank. I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Thanks, Timothy.’

  Timothy hung up and then said to the phone on his desk, ‘You son of a bitch.’

  At noon, Refco bought back a thousand yen future contracts for Osiris’ account. The huge order, quickly and sloppily placed, sent the price of the yen up another half-point on the Chicago Merc – Osiris effectively paid eighty and a half for contracts it had sold at seventy-five. The loss – real and irreversible, not just a paper marked-to-market loss – was six point eight million dollars. And that was only the portion of the yen gamble that had been placed using Refco as a broker. When it made the bet, Osiris had divided the trade among five brokers. Timothy knew that soon the other four would be calling, insisting that he close out their portions of the trade, too, effectively quintupling the loss. Timothy was sure that, despite their promise of confidentiality, the brokers spoke to each other often about client disasters, and perhaps even now the phone wires between Chicago and New York were burning with talk of Osiris and its impending flame-out.

  The Kid came to Timothy’s office and handed him a printout detailing the loss. Timothy pretended to study it. What did the Kid expect him to say?

  The Kid said, ‘It doesn’t look good.’

  ‘It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings,’ Timothy said. He glanced upward and half-expected a giant opera soprano, dressed as a Norse Valkyrie, with bear-skin pelts and a winged helmet, to drop out of the ceiling onto his desk.

  ‘I think I need to tell you,’ the Kid said, ‘that I’m interviewing at other firms.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ Timothy said flatly, staring at the Kid’s printout. He looked up. ‘I understand.’

  ‘But I’ll stick around for as long as you need me.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Kid,’ Timothy said. He stood up suddenly, removed the suit jacket that hung on the back of his chair, and slid it on.

  ‘Where you going?’ the Kid asked.

  ‘I’m calling it a day,’ Timothy said, fixing his shirt sleeves. ‘You’re in charge while I’m gone.’ The Kid’s face said he had just been awarded a dubious honor indeed. ‘Don’t worry, Kid. It’s only money. OPM. Other people’s money. Important lesson. Remember that.’

  26

  Timothy drove. He had no particular destination in mind. He simply wanted to go somewhere.

  He headed north into Portola Valley. It was a town of green and gold grassland and cedar homes nestled cozily along the San Andreas fault. Strict zoning laws – large indivisible lots, low rooflines – kept it rural and thinly populated. So too did the fear that the town might simply disappear one day, swallowed by the earth.

  Timothy sped down Alpine Road, through the town center – a cluster of shops offering video rentals and frozen yogurt – past horse stables, and into the foothills.

  He turned left at Arestradero Road, drove another quarter-mile, then stopped his car at the Arestradero Preserve. It was a county-run open space preserve, six hundred acres of rolling hills and grassland, crisscrossed with horse and bike trails. Katherine had liked taking him here. She liked to lead him up Meadowlark Trail, to the tallest hill in the park. She would race ahead, calling over her shoulder, ‘Come on, Gimpy, you can do it.’

  At the top of the hill, she would wait for him. There they had unobstructed views 360 degrees around, of brown grassland and crisp blue Bay – of fog and sun – of undulating hills strewn with California poppies and buttercups.

  Timothy left the BMW and walked into the park. He began climbing Meadowlark. He was wearing his suit and Cole Haan shoes. The sun was bright and hot; he started to sweat. He loosened his tie and took off his jacket, bunching it into a ball under his arm. The grade was steep, and his knee ached, but he wanted to keep going.

  He had traveled there to be alone, and to think in solitude, to come up with solutions to his problems, and he was surprised that none came to him. He just walked. He knew that his company was ruined, and that soon the damage to his reputation would be irreparable. He thought about what he had done wrong. Doubling up the yen bet, hiding his original losses from his investors. It all seemed obvious now – like a pat after-school television drama, those programs designed to teach lessons to young people – but he was unsurprised when he looked inside himself and realized that he regretted nothing. If given a chance, he would do the same thing again. This is who I am, he thought.

  From behind him came the sound of a rubber tire running over a pebble, sending the rock skipping over dirt. He turned to see a young woman on a mountain bike, riding up the hill toward him. Beneath her helmet she had a pretty face, coated in sweat and dust. She was just a girl, maybe twenty years old, probably a Stanford student. She smiled pleasantly at Timothy as she passed, and said, ‘Hi there.’

  Timothy nodded hello. She biked past him, standing now as she pedaled, the bike rocking left and right as she struggled to push up the hill.

  Like Katherine twenty years ago, Timothy thought.

  Then
the memories began. They came tumbling back, just one or two at first, happy ones – the memory of Katherine when he proposed to her in the Greenwich Village restaurant, by candlelight, when she was young and healthy, like that girl on the bike. And of Katherine on the day of their wedding – the way she looked radiant in her gown. But then quickly other memories began to rush in on him, one after another, a wild jumble: Katherine and Timothy in Big Sur, hiking up the switchback to the cliffs above the sea; Katherine making love to him, the feeling of the cold sheets and her warm thighs; Katherine sitting on the bed, writing her journal, and Timothy approaching from behind; Katherine cooking for him as he stood in the kitchen and watched – the memories came in no particular order, in and out of the slipstream of time, first from twenty years ago, and then from just two weeks past.

  At that moment, he understood why he had come here. It was true: he had come to be alone, and to find solutions to his problem. But the problem he cared about had nothing to do with Osiris and its impending liquidation, nothing to do with his tarnished reputation as a money manager; and nothing to do with Pinky Dewer or with investors or with the yen.

  As much as he had tried – to ignore the nagging doubts and unresolved questions; to focus on work, on his disloyal lawyer and employees, on the twenty-million-dollar lawsuit slapped on him by Pinky – he could not quite make one thing leave his mind: his conversation with Dr. Ho, the demonstration at the computer terminal, Katherine appearing to him from within phosphorescent pixels, a silicon wraith.

  The thought that kept returning to him, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, was this. What if it is not a hoax? What if it is all true?

  27

  He knew that he would call Dr. Ho, but delayed as long as he could, because somehow he understood that once he called, nothing would be the same.

  So he ate dinner, alone again at the kitchen table, another bowl of pasta and oil, and a bottle of cabernet from the cellar. When he had finished, he wandered into the living room and watched TV. He poured himself a Dalmore on the rocks, sat on the couch, and didn’t bother closing the curtains. The back yard was dark, the windows open, the night air warm; and he sat staring at the television screen, comprehending nothing, running his finger along the condensation on the outside of his Scotch glass. A drop of water gathered at the bottom of the glass and fell into his lap.

  When he finished the Scotch he padded back to the kitchen, where he replayed Dr. Ho’s telephone message, and scribbled his phone number on a yellow Post It. He dialed.

  A voice answered. ‘This is Clarence Ho.’ There was noise in the background – voices, glasses clinking – it was probably a cell phone.

  Timothy said, ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Mr. Van Bender?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ho said, ‘Hold on.’ In the background, Ho’s voice said something to his companions, and then came the sound of amplified rustling, and breathing, and a door closing. Now the line was quiet and crisp.

  After a long pause, Ho said: ‘I tried to explain to your wife what happened last night.’

  Timothy was silent. He was leaning with his forearm against the kitchen wall, over his head. The plaster was cool. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Are you at home?’ Ho asked. ‘Do you have a computer in your house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Write this down.’ He proceeded to dictate a single, arcane computer command. Timothy scribbled it on the Post It pad. Ho said, ‘Feel free to talk to her as long as you like. You can reach me in the morning.’ Ho hung up.

  Timothy wandered upstairs with the Post It clenched in his hand. He walked into the library. This had been her room: her oak bookshelves, her books – literary fiction he could never make it through – even her desk and red velvet divan, from her old New York apartment. On the desk sat her computer. He seldom used it. He sat down in front of it, reached under the desk and turned it on. After a moment the machine booted, and the whirr of the hard disk stopped.

  Timothy followed Ho’s instructions. He navigated to a command line and typed:

  telnet 33.141.61.254

  The cursor sat perfectly still for a moment. Then, words appeared on the screen:

  Please don’t throw the computer off the desk tonight.

  Timothy leaned back in his chair, thought about it. He was unsure what to type. Should he give in? Could this … this program possibly be her? Was it even a program? Was it perhaps Ho, sitting in his lab, chuckling as he typed?

  A new line appeared on the screen:

  Now is a really bad time to be technology-phobic, Gimpy.

  Then:

  (You’re not going to go crazy if I call you that, are you?)

  Timothy closed his eyes. The wine and Scotch were doing their job. He felt nothing, except dizziness. This thing in front of him, this text purporting to be Katherine, meant nothing to him. Of course he wanted it to be her. But he refused to believe it, with any certainty. His wife was dead. And he was drunk.

  He typed: I’m having a hard time believing this.

  She responded: I know. It must seem crazy. But it is amazing, Timothy. It is me. I am pure thought. That’s what I feel. I think about typing, and I make the words appear.

  Timothy rubbed his chin. Could it be his wife, in a computer? It seemed impossible.

  And yet.

  And yet. How many technologies had he seen arise, in his short life, that – when they first appeared – seemed like magic? Could Dr. Ho have done something as amazing as this? Storing a human mind in a computer? It sounded crazy when he thought about it like that, but then again, what technology didn’t sound crazy when it was developed? Didn’t the MRI sound crazy – the idea that you can see inside the human body without cutting it open? And didn’t it sound crazy to think that you could create a computer that could beat a human at chess? And didn’t it sound crazy when people started freezing their sperm and eggs in test tubes so that they could make babies whenever they chose, in a laboratory, like a Betty Crocker mix?

  Now we accept those developments as commonplace, Timothy thought. But when they first appeared, they sounded outlandish.

  And how outlandish is it, really, to record a human brain? The way Dr. Ho described it made sense. The brain is just a bunch of software. And we can copy software.

  And if there was any place in the world where such a technology could arise, this would be the place. And this is exactly how it would happen: a lone scientist and entrepreneur, laughed at by the medical establishment, but supported by a deep-pocketed Silicon Valley venture capitalist. How different was this from, say, Genentech, which pioneered gene splicing – putting a goat gene in an E. Coli bacteria – right down the street?

  And even if this thing in front of him was only a pale simulation of his wife, a kind of artificial intelligence parlor trick, did it matter? It certainly seemed like her. The thing on the screen responded the same way his wife would have. Wasn’t that good enough? After all, Timothy was glad to be talking to her again. He was not prepared to turn off the computer and walk away.

  He wrote:

  Why did you kill yourself?

  He immediately regretted it. It felt like an accusation. There was a long pause, as if his words had somehow hurt her. Then her response appeared.

  I don’t remember. I mean, I did think about it. When I learned about my illness, I made plans to do it. But that woman who killed herself – it wasn’t me. I’m the backup. I made a copy of myself the day before we went to Big Sur. Remember when I said I was going to have lunch with Ann? I went to Dr. Ho’s. And that’s the last thing I remember.

  Timothy tried to grasp this.

  Then she wrote:

  How was Big Sur? Did you score? (With me!) Did we have great sex?

  Timothy laughed. Now he felt it for the first time: an unimaginable happiness. A furtive joy, deep in his gut. Like a child with a secret – a young boy with a crush who has just been kissed for the first time – or a job-seeker being offered more money than he even
imagined asking for – he felt surprised and ecstatic. Could it possibly be her?

  He knew what he had to type next. He almost didn’t want to do it, because he was afraid that she would fail his test, that his happiness would be snuffed out like a candle taper, and he would never feel like this again, for the remainder of his years. But of course he had to know, to be sure. And so, very slowly – almost longingly – to avoid reaching the conclusion too quickly, he typed:

  Answer one question for me.

  She said: Anything you want.

  What were we going to name it? The baby. The last time we tried?

  The cursor sat there, hanging in the empty black space of the screen. It did not move.

  Timothy’s heart dropped, because he understood what the pause meant. It had all been a trick. Ho did not know the name of their baby, the child that he and Katherine had almost had, so many years ago. Ho was good: before her death he had asked her many questions, gotten a lot of the details right, even picked up her mannerisms and speech patterns. The glib ‘Did you score? (With me!)’ was a perfect Katherine imitation: insouciant, self-deprecating, hurt. It was a good trick. But it was only a trick.

  Then the cursor sped across the screen and a new line appeared:

  Connor. (I forgive you for bringing it up, Timothy.)

  Timothy looked at the screen. His hands shook. Then, something he didn’t expect: he started to cry. First it was just a tear, falling from his eye onto the desk, like the condensate from his glass of Scotch. But within seconds, it came, all at once, and his body shuddered and he rubbed his eyes and he wailed. His wife was there, talking to him. He had not lost her, after all. He had another chance.

  ‘Katherine …’ he said aloud, reaching his fingers to the screen.

  His tears blurred his vision, and so at first he did not see what she wrote next. It was just a smudge of shimmering text. He wiped his eyes and then read the screen. She wrote:

  I miss you, Gimpy. You need to talk to Dr. Ho. He’ll explain everything. I want to see you again. I want to come out.

  28

  Dr. Ho agreed to see Timothy the next day, at noon. He insisted on meeting in a public place. Apparently his last encounter with Timothy had made him think twice about meeting the volatile Mr. Van Bender alone in a deserted office park.