What Waits for You

by Joseph Schneider

  Here it may be helpful to draw a parallel to the work of Oxford scholar J. L. Austin, specifically in regard to his groundbreaking speech act theory. Austin posits that speech can broadly be categorized as performative and nonperformative. In other words, does the speech change the world in some meaningful way, or is it simply air? (True, phatic communication—what we might call small talk—serves a social purpose, but it doesn’t transform one established fact into another.)

  Professor Michael Drout gives a simplified explanation of the difference between performative and nonperformative speech. If, during a baseball game, a fan in the stands shouts that a player is out, that speech is nonperformative. The fan may proclaim his opinion as forcefully as he likes, but he lacks the required authority for his words to have an effect. On the other hand, the exact same words may be spoken by the umpire, and the world is then changed. The scoreboard immediately reflects this change, and a set of benefits and consequences are set into motion. This type of speech is indisputably performative.

  I reference Austin’s idea of performative speech because a similar conceptual model is effective in mapping the impact and transmission of criminal behavior. Once a new crime is committed, not only is a heretofore untested means of profiting from lawlessness revealed to be effective, but even the most average of criminals are able to devise dozens of fresh variations. A crime is an effective, if perverse, performative act. It indeed changes one established fact into another, but it’s also seemingly capable of self-perpetuation, spreading from community to community, even country to country—an infection of ideas. The true magnitude of a crime’s repercussions is therefore impossible to determine, since its influence is expended temporally and has no definite end.

  It could be said that there’s no upper limit to the damage a single crime may cause. If we may borrow the parable of Cain and Abel for the purposes of a thought experiment, we can argue that Cain pioneered the concept of murder—that but for him it would not have existed. Murder, then, was in a sense “invented” and passed along as a viable method of resolving conflict. We can extrapolate that there must also have been a first theft, a first embezzlement, a first sexual assault, a first mugging, a first confidence game, and so on.

  The second message communicated through the commission of a crime is subtler, and more difficult—if not impossible—to properly quantify. It can probably best be equated with the bandwagon heuristic, which is easily summed up in the rhetorical question, “Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t we?” In other words, a successful criminal act reveals a flaw or deficit in human processes that invites exploitation and, depending on the ease with which it’s perpetrated, may entice otherwise ambivalent and even upstanding citizens into breaking the law.

  Let’s say, for example, a city imposes a toll on a roadway, but to save costs decides against installing a collection booth or employing a toll agent. Instead, motorists are asked to deposit twenty-five cents in a pail every time they use the road. Signs are posted advising that avoidance of the toll is a criminal offense. Lacking effective enforcement, however, this new statute is obviously doomed to failure. But what’s truly insidious is the effect this ineffectual law is going to have on the populace.

  From a social standpoint, an easily broken or unenforceable law is far, far worse than no law at all. Regular violation of a law diminishes the value of the entire legal system and encourages disregard and disrespect of society’s moral fabric. Those who consider their law-abiding lifestyle a point of pride begin to feel foolish. Why, they reason, should they go through the trouble of obeying codes and ordinances if so many others do not? Why should they pay the twenty-five cent charge if there’s no consequence for not doing so? Why should they have to carry the burden of public responsibility? Indeed, when you think of all those quarters stacking up, what’s the purpose of being virtuous if those who transgress are “rewarded” with extra pocket change?

  The seduction I spoke of before becomes almost irresistible. Soon the once proudly law-abiding citizen forgets her quarter, but promises to pay it the next time she comes through. She neglects to do so, then begins a cycle of justification. She minimizes the importance of a single quarter to the city, then two quarters, then three, and so on. When this strategy is exhausted, she changes to a sturdier one. She questions the true value of a law if the city doesn’t bother enforcing it. The natural next step is to wonder what other laws might be circumvented or ignored. The final step is concluding that the following of any statute whatsoever is at the discretion of the individual. The rule of law is thus subverted, replaced with the ever-shifting standards of one’s “personal code” or, worse, mobocracy.

  * * *

  Jarsdel had grown to like the way Varma presented her ideas. They were plain but unassailable—obelisks of intellectual rigor. In a way, the absence of any writerly filigree made the work all the more impressive. Her logic and hard factual data spoke for themselves.

  He set the book down and took a bite of his lunch. He’d walked the few blocks from the station to I Panini di Ambra, a small café on Hollywood Boulevard that served good, simple cuisine. Morales had taken him there first, and he usually ran into someone he knew from work, but he never had to worry about Gavin. Word was the lieutenant hated Italian food, which made him a barbarian as well as a buffoon, but at least Jarsdel could count on the place as a sanctuary.

  He was almost done with a toasted Valtellina sandwich—bresaola, arugula, olive oil, and a thick slice of Grana Padano cheese on rustic bread—when he caught a familiar silhouette in his peripheral vision.

  It was Alisha Varma, waiting to pick up an order. Jarsdel felt a small thrill. A moment ago he’d been carried along on her ordered streams of rhetoric, and now here she was. Hard to miss, too, in a cream-colored business suit and matching shoulder bag, dark-brown high-heeled shoes, and painted lips. That cherry-red hue she’d worn previously. Jarsdel realized, amused, that she was clad in the precise colors, head to toe, of a Neapolitan dessert.

  He saw she was fiddling with something in her purse, and he waited for her to look up and notice him. The expression on her face was serious, focused. Jarsdel finished the last of the panini and rose from his chair. “Dr. Varma?”

  She glanced around, then spotted Jarsdel just as he approached. Her expression seemed startled, perhaps even worried, even though he thought he was giving her his most winning smile.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  It was an odd question. Maybe she’d forgotten who he was. “It’s me, Detective Jarsdel, from Hollywood Station.”

  “Of course,” said Varma. “I mean, what can I do for you?”

  “One sec.” Jarsdel went over to his table and returned with Matter over Mind. He tapped the cover. “I wanted to tell you, I really admire this. And this is going to sound odd perhaps, since I’m talking about a textbook on security—but I find it kind of beautiful.”

  Varma blinked. “Beautiful?”

  “The purpose behind it, and the meticulous formulae you’ve devised for reducing human suffering.”

  “You’ve actually read it?” she asked, surprised.

  “I did. Reviewing some of my favorite sections, in fact. I suppose I see it as a kind of blueprint for peaceful coexistence. Neutralizing crime by denying it nutrients, by denying it a place to take root.”

  “I’m glad you think so. Hope the city agrees.”

  “There’s just one thing I had a question about, if you’ve got a sec.”

  “Sure. I mean, when my order comes up, I’ll have to—”

  “Real quick.” Jarsdel sidled close to her and thumbed through the pages. She smelled good, but it wasn’t cloying. A tropical smell. You had to get near to smell it—a lotion, maybe a shampoo.

  “Here,” said Jarsdel. “This section where you talk about Elk River Penitentiary. And how after implementing your suggestions about rearranging the common-room furniture and th
en adding several large, unbreakable mirrors, violent assaults dropped by an average of twenty-five percent.”

  “That’s right,” said Varma, with some pride.

  “I don’t get it, though. It’s such a simple, easy thing to do. Inexpensive. You’d think other prisons would be interested in making those adjustments.”

  “You’d think, but as you can probably guess, bureaucracies aren’t in much of a hurry to embrace change. Besides, what’s the incentive to reduce violence in prisons? Some people might see that as going easy on crime, right?”

  “But what about the guards? Keeps them safer, too.”

  Varma nodded. “Preaching to the choir.”

  “Twenty-five percent is huge,” said Jarsdel. “Was that a monthly average? Or…”

  “Yearly. The study looked at the previous year’s numbers and compared them to after we put in my anti-affordances. It had to do, actually, with a reduction in the chances of being involved in a violent incident, and that did in fact come out to twenty-five percent. I know, it’s not really clear from the text. I’m gonna have a look at that with my next edition.”

  “Right,” said Jarsdel, closing the book. “Well, anyway. Very impressive work.”

  Varma’s order came up. Two glistening, steaming slices of margherita pizza. She hardly gave them a glance. “You know, I’ve been wanting to tell you, something you said the other day really stuck with me.”

  “It did?”

  “You were the one who came in and told me that story about that book you read, right? The one that scared you when you were younger?”

  “We Who Bump in the Night.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. And on your way out you said that one way to fight evil is not to give it a place to hide during the day. That really spoke to me as a metaphor. Because it’s easy for it to hide at night, in its own environment, but where does it go during the day? Where’s it vulnerable? I started thinking about that, and about vampires in their crypts. Because they’re not indestructible. They’re powerful and frightening when they’re in control, but there’s also a situation where they’re the ones who should be afraid. And their main weakness is that, like everything else, they have to rest. So you definitely reaffirmed some of my philosophies. And if—no, forget that defeatism. I’ll say when my next project is revealed, you’ll understand even more.”

  Jarsdel’s attention kept wandering to her lips—so red—and how when they moved, they flashed glimpses of the most dazzlingly white teeth. “You got something else brewing?”

  “Sure, but I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to anyone. It’s supposed to be under wraps until the big reveal next week.”

  “Bigger than PuraLux?”

  “Different. But again, please don’t—”

  “Would you…” Jarsdel began, then cleared his throat. “I don’t want your food to get cold. You’re welcome to join me, and we can keep this conversation going. And if you have some free time afterward, maybe we could walk and talk.”

  The smile playing at the corners of her mouth sharpened, bringing a dimple to her cheek. “I’d like that. It’s nice to finally talk to someone around here who gets what I’m trying to do. Kinda slammed today, though.” She patted her purse. “Gotta go over my interview notes. Some other time maybe?”

  “Sure,” said Jarsdel. “Should I call you?”

  “I’ll get in touch.”

  “Cool. Well, it was good running into you.”

  He went back to his table and gathered up his trash, crumpling the wax paper into a tight little ball. Varma took a spot outside, and Jarsdel watched as she brought out a thick folder and began turning the pages. Everything she did had a refined elegance about it. Even the way she took a bite of her pizza, holding the slice far from her spotless lapels. She made some margin notes and brushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear.

  As Jarsdel left the restaurant, Varma glanced up from her work and met his eyes. The look was brief, but it was enough to suggest that perhaps she would get in touch after all. He headed back to the station feeling better, lighter than he had since the Creeper had come to his city.

  * * *

  Jarsdel knocked on the lieutenant’s door. The blinds were down—normally a signal he was in a meeting or on the phone, but he’d just poked his head out a few moments earlier and called across the squad room.

  “Hey! Jarsdel! Come!” Then he’d swung the door shut.

  No one liked being summoned to Bruce Gavin’s office, where he could torment his subordinates privately and at leisure. His unique bouquet of hectoring, backhanded compliments, finger-pointing tirades, and ponderous philosophizing—made worse by his recent dabbling in the sciences—had come to acquire its own modifier. When one suffered under the lieutenant, one was “Bruce-alized,” and Jarsdel’s impending Bruce-alization earned him a roomful of sympathetic glances as he approached the office.

  At Jarsdel’s knock, Gavin’s strident voice spoke up again. “Yup! Open!”

  Jarsdel entered and, following a gesture from the lieutenant, sat in one of the chairs facing the desk. “Good to see you, sir.”

  “It is?” said Gavin. “You don’t even know why asked you in here. Could be I’m giving you freeway therapy.”

  “What for?” Jarsdel tried not to give any sign of distress—that’d be blood in the water to Gavin. Freeway therapy was a tried and tested method for getting undesirables to quit the department. They’d be assigned to stations as far as possible from their listed home addresses, subjecting them to what could easily amount to a four-hour round-trip commute.

  “I didn’t say I was,” said Gavin. There was a textbook on his desk—Fundamentals of Organic Chemistry. He appeared to notice a blemish on its cover, and rubbed at it with his thumbnail. “Got something to tell you, and it’s one of those things you’re either going to love or you’re going to hate. Or you may not even care, I don’t know.”

  Jarsdel nodded. Gavin had pretty much covered every possibility.

  “How’s your partner? Still got the flu?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jarsdel. “Says he’s a little better. Hopes to be back by Monday.”

  “Is he actually sick, or is this just so he can use up some personal days?”

  “I was at his house a couple days ago. Looked pretty awful. He joked about it, but I think he really might have a touch of valley fever.”

  The lieutenant scoffed. “Whatever. Okay. Reason you’re here—you know that team down at Homicide Special?”

  “Team, sir?”

  “The Creeper Task Force.”

  “I do, yes.”

  “It’s run by a Detective III, Goodwin Rall. He in turn reports to Lieutenant Sponholz, who in turn reports to Captain Coryell of RHD.”

  “Okay,” said Jarsdel. “Yes.”

  “Well. They’ve asked me to put either you or Morales on loan to work the case full time. I decided you should go.”

  The Creeper. You’ll get a shot at him after all.

  Jarsdel tried to conceal his excitement, lest Gavin change his mind. “Why me? Morales knows the Creeper just as well as I do, and he’s got a lot more experience.”

  “We need him here. There’re certain skills you just can’t learn out of a book. Even a way of moving, moving physically I mean, that…that just galvanizes a suspect.”

  “Galvanizes. Right.”

  “He’s an experienced detective—what do you want?”

  “Are you sure we can’t both go? He and I work pretty well together.”

  Gavin gave a squawk of laughter. “That so? News to me. Thought you’d both be grateful for some time apart. No, just you. Actually a pretty great opportunity, so I guess in a way I’m doing you a favor.”

  “When’s the transfer go through?”

  “It’s not a transfer. You’re on loan. And you’re coming back
when they kick your ass out or you bust the Creeper.”

  “Okay. When am I going?”

  Gavin leaned back and regarded the portrait of Max Planck. Then he plucked one of several copies of A Short History of Nearly Everything from a nearby shelf, glanced at Jarsdel, and put the book back. “Immediately,” he said.

  “Today?”

  “Immediately. Well, technically tomorrow.”

  “And Morales knows about this?”

  “He’ll be told.”

  Jarsdel considered. “What about HH2?”

  “It’s not going anywhere. Not as long as I’m in charge.”

  This, Jarsdel knew, was as brazen a lie as could be. Not only had Gavin openly derided HH2 since its inception, but he’d tried to have it shut down at least once before.

  “But the caseload. Morales and I are backed up as it is. Gonna be hard for him to make a lot of progress by himself.”

  Gavin gave a satisfied, humorless smile. “No one said he’d be by himself.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Got a pinch hitter for you.”

  “He’s getting a new partner?”

  “Uh-huh. Will Haarmann.”

  Jarsdel thought of the arm-wrestling table. Of the terrible grunts and groans, backslaps and whoops. “Haarmann’s in patrol.”

  “Not anymore. Passed his detective’s exam.” Gavin waited, studying him, probably hoping for a reaction. Jarsdel was careful not to give him one. He picked his words carefully.

  “I’m not complaining or questioning a command decision or anything, but doesn’t that go against the established format of HH2? I mean, as outlined by Chief Comsky.”

  “Huh,” said Gavin. “What do you mean exactly—as outlined?”