But then he wouldn’t know the answer to the only question he cared about: Why?
Come on. You’re Mr. William Winston Cooley, bad-assed brawler, daredevil extraordinaire, man of action. What do you do? The answer to that question hit Goldsmith while he was already sprinting down the fire escape ladder, his long legs taking the steps three at a time.
You fucking run, of course.
17
Goldsmith’s feet hit the pavement below the fire escape. The fact that he was still up and running was his only indication that the security detail had not gotten a ThermaGun lock on him yet. It was not even worth worrying about. He could only keep going. If they pulled the trigger, he wouldn’t have more than two seconds to consider the awful ramifications anyway. He sprinted down the alley, instinctively dodging puddles to his left and right while covering forty yards of pavement in roughly four and a half seconds (the agility and hand–eye coordination training from that tenth grade Gymnastics progression he hated was paying off, just like the school said it would). He dashed into the crowds in the street around the corner and looked back over his shoulder.
Three detail officers had him in their sights. Assume they’ve sent word to their gyros to cut off all paths of flight in a ten-block radius. Also assume they’ve made a positive identification of the fugitive, namely him. And if that were the case, even if Goldsmith did escape them and managed to get back to the tower, they would be waiting when he arrived. He could maybe use up twelve years of goodwill and appeal directly to the headmaster … But at that moment, the priority was buying enough time to put together the mystery of these yearbook pages in his pocket. He squeezed his way into another heavy wave of pedestrian traffic on its way to lunch hour and ricocheted between strangers. They were still behind him: three officers in Tac IX utility vests moving fast, pulling off their black Nomex balaclavas (Goldsmith recognized them: Tannen, O’Shaunnessy, and Willets—nice guys, detail veterans) to ostensibly blend in with a packed street that didn’t seem to pay them much heed in the first place. They were closing the gap. He ducked into another alley and sprinted for an alternate route that might be hidden between the huge D Sector towers. Twenty feet inside the alley, he froze. Two uniformed San Angeles cops were strolling toward him. One twirled a humming shock stick in his hand.
“Is everything all right, son?” asked the man on the left.
“You need some help?” inquired his partner.
Goldsmith realized they were just two police officers patrolling their beat, oblivious to the mess he was stuck in. His mind sped through the list of possible choices and probabilities given the addition of this new element to the equation of his perhaps ill-advised flight from the security detail. Asking for their help was not an option.
Goldsmith saw their badges. The one with the shock stick was Barnes and the other was named Morrison. “Hey kid, you okay?” asked Morrison.
“Yes, Officer, I just—” Goldsmith watched as Barnes caught sight of the Stansbury crest on his blazer.
“Morrison,” hissed Barnes, turning pale, “he’s a goddamned specimen. One of those Stansbury kids.” He raised his shock stick and began circling Goldsmith, keeping him at arm’s length. Morrison whipped out a pair of handcuffs, held one hand in front of him as if he was trying to placate a rabid dog, and inched closer. Goldsmith wasn’t surprised. When it came to specimens, the SAPD trained their officers to subdue first and ask questions later.
“Here you go, kid … everything’s gonna be just fine … you just stay right there,” said Morrison, reaching out with the cuffs. “I’m just gonna slip these on you, and if you cooperate nobody’s gonna get hurt.”
Goldsmith’s heart kept its slow, steady beat padding along. He was not nervous. He saw everything happening in slow motion. His mind was shouting run run run but his body was not responding. Med cycle conditioning. Beta blockers. Just like that day at Guernica; he felt the essence of his impulses—nothing less than his free will—tugging with all its might at this pharmaceutical leash that kept his body in check. He refused to let it end like this. The cop started to reach toward him.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Goldsmith heard himself say.
“Sorry for what?” said Morrison. An instant later, Goldsmith’s right hand grabbed the cop’s cuff-wielding arm and snapped it down. Morrison yelped in pain and reached for his gun. Goldsmith kept riding his Phys-D conditioning, surfing this wave of pure, concentrated, effortless action. He cracked Morrison in the face with his fist and swung him into the path of Barnes’s woefully predictable shock stick swing. Barnes connected with his partner’s body, knocking him out. Goldsmith let Morrison fall to the pavement but held onto the handcuffs. Barnes let out a primal holler of terror and rushed him with the shock stick. Goldsmith ducked a mighty swing—the electrically charged steel whizzing past his ear—and saw eight countermove variations flash before his eyes. He opted for number four, slipping a steel handcuff around his fist. He paused, saw the right opening, and let an uppercut fly into Barnes’s jaw. He heard some of the cop’s teeth crack and felt the man’s blood spatter—warm and obscene—on his face. Both would-be captors lay prone before him. Goldsmith wiped Barnes’s blood from himself and was ready to start feeling the gut grinding of fear any time now. It never came.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t smart enough to figure out a better way than this,” Goldsmith said as he ran toward the crowded street on the far end of the alley. And, he thought to himself, I’m sorry for breaking our oath, Dr. Stansbury. Forgive me, Doc. You always talked about honor with a capital H. And somehow I think losing it is a hell of a lot easier than getting it back.
Hit the street. Stick with the crowd. Go with the flow. Keep the obstacles between you and the detail as numerous as possible. He glanced back into the alley and saw officers Tannen, O’Shaunnessy, and Willets leaping over the injured SAPD guys he’d left in his wake. Suddenly, Goldsmith felt a hand grip his arm.
“Hey! You’re one of those Stansbury kids!” came the voice to which the hand belonged. Goldsmith looked over and saw a toothless bum wearing a too-small suit that smelled like stale piss. His beard was missing chunks of hair, patches of smooth, dirty skin punctuating spots on his face, like he shaved his own personal crop circles. As soon as the word “Stansbury” lisped out of the guy’s mouth, Goldsmith saw heads in the crowd around him turn to stare. A gang of kids—outsiders about his own age—looked over. A guide leading a group of tourists in track suits stopped in midsentence and discreetly motioned with his head for the group to catch a glimpse of this exotic creature before it got startled and flew away forever. The tourists closed in around Goldsmith, creating a traffic jam. The distance between him and the detail had suddenly gotten much more crowded, a mob of people packing the street full.
“Sir!” called out a tourist, grabbing Goldsmith by the arm and pulling him away from the bum like he was a coveted toy doll on a store shelf during the Christmas rush. “Can you sign this paper here? Do you mind? Make it out to my son … He just applied for the Stansbury admissions packet!” Goldsmith looked over the man’s shoulder at the officers: they were pissed, stuck in gridlock and barking into microphones helplessly. Goldsmith took the paper and pen from the tourist, giving him his best Welcome to Stansbury Tower smile.
“Of course,” he replied. “What’s your son’s name?”
The tourist smiled back, grateful. His group pressed in closer, surrounding Goldsmith and clutching their own pens and papers, waiting patiently in line. “Make it out to Billy,” he said. Goldsmith started scribbling a message, slowly and surely moving toward the pedestrian traffic wranglers’ batons he spied in the corner of his eye down the block in the direction of the San Angeles monorail track. There was a train in the station. Its doors slid open. He handed back the paper and pen, then took another paper and pen from a different tourist. He felt the masses obediently give way to his body move-ment and momentum, anything to keep this rare catch from getting irritated and running off. Leaning them slig
htly to the right, Goldsmith succeeded in shifting into the channel of pedestrians headed for the wranglers. The tour group followed. The detail officers were way back there now. Here came the wranglers, big, stocky guys. They slid Goldsmith past without even looking at him. He felt a fluorescent white baton against his ribs and waist as he was thrust inside the monorail car. It filled up to its 150-person capacity. The doors slid shut. Goldsmith kept on smiling and signing autographs as he watched Tannen, O’Shaunnessy, and Willets far off on the other side of the rain-streaked glass door. There was a soft beep and the monorail hummed to life. They got smaller and smaller in the distance.
* * *
Once the Universal Taxi ascended to cruising altitude and headed back toward the tower, Goldsmith carefully pulled out the yearbook pages and unfolded them. There was Stella Saltzman. There was Riley. Who else have we got? The faces crossed out with red X’s in chronological order of pages: Mr. William Alvarez, Miss Monica Miller, Mr. Alberto Munoz Santana, and Mr. Daniel Ford Smith. None of them looked familiar. The only name on the six pages that had any academic distinction was Stella’s. He studied the faces. Alvarez had curly dark hair and his eyes were opened extra-wide, like he was mugging for the camera. Miss Miller had pinned-back eyes, dilated pupils. She was tripping on something potent, maybe illicit drugs; whatever it was must have been stronger than regulation meds. Santana and Smith just looked plain thuggish. Smith’s shoulders were huge. They took up the entire bottom part of the photograph. And then there was Riley: funny cowlicks in his hair, a skinny geek.
Goldsmith didn’t need any fancy pills to help him figure out the most relevant thing they had in common: death. He closed his eyes and felt the gyrotaxi roll into a sudden sideways tilt, getting nauseous for a moment before he realized that gyroscopic engines didn’t fail; it was just the sensation of his own mind going haywire. Goldsmith glanced down at the pages in his lap. His hands were clutching at them, the last remnants of a fairy tale he always loved but would never believe in again. Through the dark storm clouds, the tower rose in the distance.
* * *
It was quiet and calm inside the registration and reception lobby. Goldsmith walked through the air lock door expecting to see a phalanx of detail officers waiting for him, but there was only a uniformed guard—not Harvey. The guard saw him and jumped up from his seat, standing at attention.
“Mr. Goldsmith, sir!”
“Good afternoon.” Keep on walking, he thought. Don’t hesitate and arouse suspicion …
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“You were … um, authorized to be off campus, right?”
“Yes.” Just make it to the elevator pod. It was right there. Behind him, Goldsmith heard the guard rustling through papers at his desk. Goldsmith pressed the Up button and waited impatiently for the pod to arrive.
“Would you mind signing the entry log for…” The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Goldsmith quickly stepped in and started to catch his breath.
“You’re dripping wet, son,” said Captain Gibson. Goldsmith didn’t even notice him standing quietly in the corner of the pod. The doors slid closed but the pod remained stationary. He realized his shirt, pants, blazer, and hair were all still damp from his adventure in San Angeles.
“That guard at the desk spilled a glass of water on me,” he responded, instantly realizing how absurd this sounded.
“Cut the shit. You were at Riley’s pad. You went off campus without authorization, poked around a crime scene, and fled from the detail and—”
“Sir, I—,” he began, but Gibson grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the pod wall. Goldsmith started to choke under the pressure of his huge hand. Gibson got in his face.
“—and you coldcocked two San Angeles cops! Have you lost your fucking mind?” Goldsmith couldn’t breathe. Gasps were coming out muted. He felt veins bulge in his neck beneath Gibson’s palm. “They’re both in the hospital, one with a broken nose and arm and the other with a fractured jaw, you dumb sonofabitch! You might’ve just set back specimen–outsider relations by ten years.” Gibson finally let go. He gulped air back into his lungs. Gibson watched. “And you somehow overrode your med cycle conditioning to put that kind of hurt on those poor bastards. If your ass weren’t graduating so soon, I’d probably give a shit.” Goldsmith knew the relief was showing on his face. “Besides,” said Gibson, picking up on it. “There’s still the matter of Cooley.”
“That’s why I did all of this in the first place, sir,” Goldsmith said, finally breathing regularly again. “I was following up on a lead.”
Gibson studied him. “What lead?” he asked. Goldsmith ran through the scenario in his head and hoped his face didn’t show the synapses firing in his brain. Don’t flinch, he thought. Don’t hesitate. Get your lies straight. Throw him some pure, unbridled rectitude.
“I confronted Mr. Cooley after our session this morning. I saw an opportunity and took it. There’s too much at stake before the Senate committee’s vote today for me to have gone by the book.”
“More than you know,” Gibson said.
“You need me. You need my brain. So please explain what you mean by that, sir.”
“You’re not crucial to anyone, Mr. Goldsmith. But I’ll tell you anyway. Given the huge crime rate in San Angeles, the police department’s overworked. Very badly. During periods where crime spikes, it can take them days to get to routine murder cases.”
“Including Mr. Riley’s.”
“Yes. And even though the backlog is bad for the city, it happens to be good for us. We need to get this case solved, detailed, and delivered on a silver platter to the SAPD before they can get their people working on it and assume jurisdiction. After the stunt you pulled on those two cops today, the smart money says that time will come sooner than later. We’ve got nothing to hide, but the inevitable media frenzy will drag this school’s name through the mud.”
“And the Senate’s trillion-dollar grant will be frozen.”
“That’s right. So why don’t you tell me what Cooley said that got you riled to blatantly violate basic school policy.”
“He said that Mr. Riley had a gun and was acting paranoid, like he was expecting a hostile visitor. Cooley claims that gun disappeared when he found Riley dead in the bathroom.”
“Riley was killed with a laser syringe filled with a still-unidentified poison.”
“I know. But the gun seemed like a missing link worth following up on. Firearms are traceable. Cooley intimated there was another murder suspect. And frankly, we haven’t established what motive he may have had, if any.” That’s right, Goldsmith thought, lead him away from those yearbook pages in your pocket. Give up the evidence that you didn’t find. Sit on your new lead and see what develops. Keep your control. “Riley had to have gotten the gun from someone,” he continued. “That person might be able to give us evidence that incriminates Cooley or whoever else could be involved.”
“Did you find the gun?”
“No.”
“Cooley’s guilty. He was just trying to buy himself time.”
There went that air of zealous certainty again. Just like in the observation room following his peer review this morning. “Captain,” Goldsmith began, “I understand that Mr. Cooley is the primary suspect, but—”
“Save your breath, son. We’re about to take a little trip.”
“A trip?”
Gibson swiped his key card against the pod’s sensor and there was a beep. He pressed the disciplinary level’s unmarked button. The pod hummed to life. Gibson gave him a thin smile. Goldsmith felt a plantation of tiny goose bumps explode across his body.
“And one more thing, kid.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Keep your hands in your pockets. They’re filthy.”
Goldsmith flinched and looked down: his formerly pristine palms, knuckles, and fingertips were caked with dried, burnt red flakes of blood from men whose names he had already forgotten.
*
* *
Goldsmith followed Gibson down the disciplinary level corridor in silence, passing one examination room after another. They came to a stop outside Observation Room #6. Gibson opened the door and nodded for him to enter. Goldsmith stepped inside and looked around: the gang was all here. President Lang, the headmaster, and detail officers Jackson and Jamison. Gibson shut the door behind him. Lang smiled at Goldsmith and the headmaster gave him a curt nod. Jackson and Jamison ignored him. Either Lang and the headmaster didn’t know about his field trip to Riley’s apartment or they didn’t care. And besides, it wasn’t Goldsmith who was in the hot seat.
Through the one-way glass inside the adjoining examination room stood Harvey in his black standard-issue underwear briefs and nothing else. He was soaking wet and shivering. Rolls of fat spilled over his elastic waistline. Goldsmith could see Harvey’s chilly breath as it poured from his mouth in fits and starts. He glanced at the examination room’s temperature display: forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Through the one-way mirror a beep echoed, and the large circular showerhead above Harvey unleashed a stream of refrigerated water, which made his whole body tense up. He did not move from where he stood because someone had instructed him that if he stepped out of the water’s path, moved even an inch, things would get much, much worse.
“Please!” Harvey cried to no one in particular. “Don’t put me in here with one of the specimens!”
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