by Alan Brudner
"But he's not just missing," I said, trying to reason. "He's been abducted. Erased."
"Imaginative." He nodded, scratched an oversized Jay Leno chin that somehow made him seem nicer than he probably was. "But what do I have to go on, Ay?"
"Everything I just explained to you. Cybronics. The address."
"Now, now, Mister, Sir. Any problem ever occurs out here, first thing everybody says is Cybronics. Car accident? The computer chip that runs the vehicle was defective, let's blame Cybronics. Plane late? Cybronics software runs air traffic control. Bad weather? Cybronics programs not only should have predicted it down at the meteorological station, they should have changed it. Christ, when a kid died last year from eating a bad hamburger from that—you know, the e. colon stuff, the bacteria—do they picket the fast food joint that undercooks the darned patty? Heck, no! They picket Cybronics for not programming the oven to override the mistakes made by the pimply high school kids behind the counter. Somebody in this town cuts the cheese, it's gotta be Cybronics' fault. Well, lemme tell ya something, Ay? I got four kids grew up in this town, and two of 'em work out there at the Big C. They make pretty good money, and Mister Avery Kord himself sends me—not just my offspring, mind you, he sends me—a C hristmas card. One of em's a little slow, too, if ya catch my driftwood, Mister, Sir. Finishes at the end a the race. Don't ya think Mister Avery Kord located a Portland boy a job out there at the C plant, whether the kid's a tortoise or a hare? Don't ya think them executives got cars need to be washed, just like yours and mine, Ay? And not mind it at all that they can park and go to work and when they come out to go home they got shiny polished fenders waiting for 'em, Ay, Mister, Sir?"
"But that's got nothing to do—"
"Look, my friend. I'm not tellin' ya I got any conflict a interest, Ay? Ya gotta trust me. We got search helicopters just like in the east. Somethin's wrong out there, I'll be first into the Big C with my gun blazing. Done it one time with one a them hermits, I did, ya know, can ya 'magine me aimin' right for the spot where a normal person's heart would be, but figurin' all along he probably ain't got one, ya know? Didn't matter after I pulled the trigger, it was gonna be me or him, and I sure wasn't gonna let it be me, no sir, Mister! But lemme tall ya, if I might share a personal anecdotal story, lemme be frank with ya. Even my own kid's been missing in life a day or two a time, yet he always shows up. Always shows up. Gets hungry eventually, ya know? Ain't never been kidnapped by Cybronics, Mister, Sir, even if sometimes he don't get the shine quite right or he puts a scratch on one a Mister Avery Kord's new Silver Clouds. Did it once, I swear. So trust me. That Skylight a yours—"
"Schuyler."
"That Schuyler, right, sorry, Ay? He's still gone day after tomorrow, we'll have us a missing person and a real case to pursue. A case, with a capital C, if ya follow. The kind where we haul out the searchlights and the infrareds and the bloodhounds. But he's not five or six, Mister Lightman, Sir. He's able-bodied, over twenty. Could have eloped, moved to Europe, joined a circus."
"Not Schuyler."
"But you catch my meaning."
I wasn't sure I did. I nodded anyway. "What about his apartment? Hank and Tammy being there and Sky being gone?"
"While we were sittin' here, Mister, Sir, I did a search, Mister Lightman. A real sophisticated database search, too. The latest state-of-the-art program. You saw me typing? Trust me, the famous blue N.Y.P.D. don't have such advanced equipment, Ay? It was a charitable gift to the Portland Police."
He knew what I was thinking and gave me an exaggerated wink. Then he motioned with his hand for me to come behind his desk, and I obliged. I looked at the screen and he pointed out some lines on his monitor.
"Ya see, Mister, Sir? Henry Driver and Tammy Wood have been living at that address ya gave me about three years. Ya see their descriptions, their socials, Ay? Driver's got a child porn arrest, but no conviction. Was a suspect in an old felony murder, too, but we couldn't pin it on him."
"Avery Kord's partner." It had taken me a few seconds, but I recalled the name of the suspect Schuyler said he'd found. Henry Driver.
"I can't confirm that one way or t'other," the Sergeant said. "Policy. You can't confirm or deny where a case can't be proven, Mister L. And I ain't even gonna ask you how you might've come to know that little fact that I can't confirm, you follow?"
I nodded and quickly decided not to volunteer anymore, certainly not to mention Sky's efforts in the area of computer hacking, but my pulse was pounding from the burden of my worst fears.
"Anyway," the Sergeant continued, "they sell smut over the Net, these two. Pictures a kids and stuff. These days a camera can be a dangerous weapon, Mister Lightman, Sir. But we'll catch their hairy butts one a these days, we will. We been after 'em. So I believe you were there, all right, at the apartment. You're credible on that score. And I'll send somebody over there to ask about your kid, but you can be sure Driver ain't about to let on if he knows something. And there's no record your son was ever there, or anywhere in Oregon for that matter."
"You have national records?"
"Most states don't keep up to date as well as we do, ya know. Our data is updated just about continuously. Fed in from the clerks' offices, the sheriff's, motor vehicles, all the right places." I sat back in my seat as he slowly typed in a few codes. "I do have something on your son."
"What?"
"Seems congratulations might be in order, Mister, Sir," he said, nodding. "He obviously got admitted into Yale—otherwise why would he be listed on College Street in New Haven, Connecticut?"
"He hasn't lived there since he graduated. Almost two years ago."
He held his hands out, palms up, and shrugged his shoulders. "Like I said, most states aren't as diligent as Oregon about updating their records," he said. "Now you take it easy, and if I see ya in 48 hours we'll have us a drink together for good luck and we'll open a file, Ay? Until then, try to relax."
"Easy for you to say."
"Hey, Mister, Sir, any kid's smart enough for Yale isn't gonna just let himself up and disappear. Especially not from beautiful Portland, Oregon. Once ya live in the City of Roses, Mister, Sir, ya want to stay here 'til ya die. Me, Sir, I came here thirty years ago, and where am I today? A rose by any other name, ya know? Says so on one a those concrete sidewalks outside, I'll betcha. Or something just the equivalent, from Shakespeare or somebody who wrote Shakespeare. You can trust me on that score."
Chapter 22
I left the police station and loosened my collar. I walked over to the public library I had noticed when I parked the car. A helpful old librarian who reminded me of Sky's third-grade teacher—or was it fourth?—smiled warmly as she fixed me up with a microfiche machine and miniaturized copies of the Oregonian. She was pretty certain the murder occurred in '82 or '83, because back then she lived up near a park in the northwest part of town, where she thought it occurred. I saw no reason to argue, so I started with those years. I scanned only the front pages, figuring it would have been headline news.
It occurred on April 14, 1982, and was deemed important enough by the editors to appear above smaller captions about last-minute tax filers and Frank Sinatra selling out the Center for Performing Arts:
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN SHOT TO DEATH
I leaned on my hand and could feel my pulse pounding through my carotid artery as I read the article on the screen. There was no by-line. At approximately 12:40 on a Wednesday afternoon, a man killed Justin Webb as he rode his 10-speed Peugeot racing bike along a quiet dirt path in Forest Park. According to the police, the assailant shot him twice: once while he was on the bike, knocking him off it; and a second time after he was down, at point blank range. Then the killer fled on the bike, which was found chained to a bike rack in a parking lot four miles from the scene. There was only one witness, a man who called 911 anonymously. He claimed he was sitting on a park bench about a hundred yards away. He described what happened and said he could see enough of the killer to identify him as Caucasian, but t
hat was it.
By coincidence, only a few hours after Webb was shot, Avery Kord was being interviewed on a local business radio show. He received the news about his business partner while he was in the KNPB 1410 studio and abruptly ended the interview, but not before crying out, "Oh My God!" Those words, Kord's last in the studio, were loud enough to be picked up on the show even though the microphones had been turned off by then.
What struck me as odd was that Webb was killed at all. His wallet was left in his pocket. The assailant took the bike, but he could have taken it without shooting Webb a second time once he was down. Police speculated that Webb might have had some way of identifying his attacker. The bullet that sprayed his cerebrum over three wild rose bushes eliminated that possibility.
I read a few follow-up articles. They added some details about Webb's life: he was a workaholic who loved biking, chocolate and the computer company he founded with Avery Kord, Cybronics Partners, which went on, not long after his murder, to obtain its first major contract to supply IBM with a key component of the visual interface for its PC's. But if Avery Kord was suspected of somehow arranging the killing or worse, the police and the newspapers did quite a job of pretending otherwise. Rather, he was portrayed as heartbroken, grief-stricken, suicidal, worried about how he could carry on without his childhood friend. He was a pallbearer. A close-up picture of him holding up a corner of Webb's pine coffin, tears streaming down his cheeks, removed all doubt. He looked innocent. For a few months following the murder, he hired bodyguards to watch himself and his father and other members of his family.
A handful of suspects were questioned over the next year or two, but the police never released their names and there was too little evidence to charge anyone with the murder. I figured one of them was Henry Driver, whose name my son had discovered while hacking, but none of the articles even hinted at Driver's identity. The anonymous 911 call was traced to a pay phone in the center of the city; it had been wiped clean of prints.
The library got stuffy fast, so I thanked the librarian and strolled outside.
I sat down on a bench in a nearby pocket park and stared at the pigeons. I wondered whether they were cleaner than the ones in New York or if it was just my imagination. I needed the fresh air and some time to think. The light rain no longer bothered me, but felt cleansing as I meditated into the crystal clear water of a bubbling fountain.
Since the accident I had learned not to expect life to be fair. But in the three years that passed I had just managed to regain a semblance of normalcy, a veneer of a routine that enabled me to cling to a windowsill on the side of the vacant old building that had become my existence. Now I felt as if someone was stomping on my straining fingertips with army boots.
To leave Portland with Schuyler missing would be one of the most difficult decisions I ever made, but I wasn't sure he was there anyway, and I had to take steps to save him—steps I thought I could take better elsewhere. I hoped I wasn't already too late.
Chapter 23
During the flight home, I rested my head on one of the undersized airplane pillows and pulled a warm woolen blanket over my eyes, but I couldn't sleep and my heart wouldn't stop palpitating. It didn't help when I accepted the stewardess's offer of a free headset, only to discover Avery Kord and his computeristic vision of the future on one of the channels. I clutched my barf bag but felt compelled to listen to his scratchy voice crackle on about the dawning of a new age in which man and machine would merge into a fresh new ultra-productive super-easy existence.
According to Kord, your entire office—your entire life, actually—would fit into a little notebook. Whole novels, if not libraries, would be stored on wafer-thin disks you insert into a flexible 8" x 10" minicomputer with a white paper screen that would look and feel like a paperback, yet be sand and water-resistant enough to allow you to bring all your junky reads to the beach and your Encyclopedia Britannica to the office. Numerous prototypes were already being sold in the market, publishing houses were going on-line, and you could already download an increasing number of reading materials from the Internet.
New forms of reading were only one aspect of the new digital revolution. In a few years, your car would drive itself to your programmed destination, changing routes if its info feed were to indicate traffic along the way. You might even be able to talk to your car as you drive, telling it to turn on the AC, turn down the volume on the CD player, read your E-mails. The walls in your house would contain picture frames that sense who is nearby and display that person's own pre-selected paintings: the Mona Lisa, Sunflowers, Campbell Soup Cans. Different people would see different artworks—their own selections—when they walk by the frames. All brought to you by Cybronics, of course. To make your life worth living.
I thought about Blade Runner and The Terminator and wondered whether I'd have been happier if I had been born in Italy during the Renaissance instead. Or maybe England during the Industrial Revolution or Chicago during the Depression. It was enough to make me think I wanted the airline liquor, but I barely touched my warm $4 mini-bottle of Scotch and stared out the window as the neat rows of brown and gray Queens houses lining the approach to the airport grew from Monopoly-size to doll-size to life-size.
When I got home, I called Lucille to check in and ask if by any chance she had heard from Schuyler. She hadn't, but now she knew he was missing. I told her I planned to take a few sick days. I tried to downplay it, but she knew me too well. And Lucille liked to earn her salary.
"Mr. Lightman, I hate to jump the gun, and I don't want to make you nervous, but I think we should hire that investigative service right away. The one run by your old friend."
"Bart Casey? You mean ISI?—"
"Yeah, ISI. The one we used that time—"
"Great idea," I said.
"Maybe they can find out whether Schuyler's used a credit card anywhere within the past couple of days. If you think that would help, Mr. Lightman."
This was a good idea, and Lucille had many of them. But twenty years as my secretary and she still called me "Mr. Lightman."
"I'll give Bart a call."
"I have his private number right here, Mr. Lightman."
I dialed and got my minor league nemesis on the third ring.
"How's the ol' back, Casey?" The same way I always led off with him.
"If not for you, Cliff my man, by now I'd probably be an over-the-hill benchwarmer with a .220 average and 18 RBI's and not enough dough to buy from the top shelf."
"One wild pitch and you went out and got a real job. Got rich to boot. So you admit I'm behind your success?"
"One monster pitch and I got me an insurance settlement big enough to open my shop. But thirty-odd years ain't healed my back yet. So how may I be of service today, my man?"
"It's serious, Casey. My son Schuyler is missing."
"That kid probably figured a way to fly into space or something, don't you think? Or get himself invisible?"
"Last time I saw him was the day before yesterday, in Portland. Working for Avery Kord and the Cybronics Corporation. Designing software. One minute he's in his apartment, the next a goon named Hank Driver's in his bed, beating the headlights out of a woman named Tammy Wood. And I think Driver may have had something to do with a murder. Kord's original partner, Justin Webb. Sky thought so, anyway."
"You don't say. Your kid had to go all the way out to Oregon to get jammed up with creeps?" He made a kind of double clicking "too bad" sound with his tongue. "I can call your office for his social and the detail stuff?"
"Lucille's probably waiting breathlessly by the phone."
"Actually, she's on my other line, Cliff."
"Give her a shout if you come up with anything. I may be tough to reach, Casey."
"That was some hard fucking fastball you had, my man. Too bad you couldn't put it over the plate."
It felt good to be doing something constructive, but I needed the help and support I had come home to get. I sat down in front of the monitor an
d double-clicked the mouse to get started.
When I finally managed to get the Mom.ava program on-line, Eliza looked harried. For an electronic avatar, anyway. Hair noticeably disheveled, makeup a bit smudged. Sky hadn't neglected a detail.
"Not what you'd think, Cliff," she said, the slight trepidation an accurate reproduction. She was the concerned Mom I remembered.
"Slow down, Lize, you're losing me."
"Must be my sizable RAM, makes me think too fast." The optical readers perched on top of the monitor watched me, a pair of eyes I had trouble becoming accustomed to. "Cybronics makes some pretty snazzy cryptography software," she said. "I've interpreted the code. I've read through the Lightman files. There's a personnel file, salary history, hire date, that sort of thing. Sky's resume. All innocuous. As well as a file labeled 'termination.' That's the scary one."
"You're not saying—"
"My guess is that it's used in the employment sense, Cliff," she said. "You know, if you quit or get fired, you're marked 'terminated.'" She sounded reassuring, but I could read the pain in her face. She seemed to avert her eyes and look down. I rubbed my own forehead and realized how sweaty I was. She twirled the front of her wiry brown hair in her fingers.
"Even the code-breaking program couldn't get through the encryption on that file. Avery Kord wrote the termination file himself, and he did a damn good job of scrambling it so it's impossible to decipher."
"Look, Lize," I said. "Kord wants to finish this subliminal suggestion software. Even if Katie completed it, I don't think she gave him the code. So I think he needs Sky."
"Until it's finished, anyway."
"Right."
"At which point, Kord isn't going to want Sky around anymore."