by Mark Russell
The twenty-eight year old MBA graduate had done well for herself in recent months, having successfully ridden the seesawing Dow Jones Industrial Average with a profitable straddle of call and put stock options. The realized profit from her market investments for the last quarter was more than half of her husband's annual salary. Stephen, however, viewed such investments as no less speculative than having a sizable punt at the racetrack, and had warned her as much. Of course she'd paid him no mind.
She returned the bottle to the fridge and wiped her palms across the front of her vicro sweat suit. She checked the platinum watch her father had given her for her twenty-first birthday. Nearly three. Stephen would take her to Dr Porter's for a general check-up and pap smear. The attractive Filipino whistled a Police song and skipped towards the bathroom, pleased from the profitable options her stockbroker had sold for her that morning. Auto-mechanic, Spider Anderson – an open admirer of Pilar – would deliver her XJS Jaguar around dusk, newly serviced and ready for tomorrow's drive to the Capitol. She had no reservation about seeing Terence Cruise again, and positively keened at the thought of leaving Baltimore proper, if only for a day.
She turned on the shower, peeled off her sticky sweat suit, and admired her trim brown body in the mirror. She stepped into the stall and lathered herself with a perfumed cake of soap. Rubbing her breasts, she fantasized about Spider Anderson ripping off his grimy overalls and making heavy-handed love to her.
TWELVE
Stephen Artarmon look plainly troubled. 'Jesus, Scott, I'm about to take my wife to the doctor.'
'It's too early to go home, mate.' Goldman stepped into the cold light of the computer room. 'Come on, Steve. I just want to use a terminal for a sec. Surely it's no problem.' The metal door slid shut behind him.
Artarmon cursed under his breath, obviously unsettled by the sudden turn of events. He grabbed a transparent Tupperware box with a brown apple core and a scrunched-up food-wrapper inside it. He shook his head and slipped the lunch box into an upmarket knapsack. 'Sorry Scott, no can do.'
'Look, nobody comes up here,' Goldman said with a sliver of desperation in his voice. 'No one has access except for you, Straker and General Kaplan. And if either of them should make a surprise visit ...' He stroked the underside of his chin. 'I'll just run one of your computer games on the screen beside me, then quickly shut off the screen in front of me I was using. That way anyone who came in would only think I was playing computer games, right? Anyway Straker's not gonna show and Kaplan's never been up here, has he? So just show me how to shut down the system, and I'll swear under any oath you name that I won't use the printers. Come on, Steve. Please mate. You know I'm good for it ...'
Artarmon shuffled his feet. 'No, Scott, I really must get going.' He shouldered his knapsack and headed for the door. He stopped and looked back at his uninvited guest. 'That is we really must get going.' He turned again for the door.
Goldman's chest leadened with disappointment. It was a big ask in the first place. Then something changed. His last-minute plea must have struck a fraternal chord, for Artarmon pulled up short of the door's motion-detector range. He stared with a pinched brow at the cork-tiled floor. Goldman could almost hear the whir of thoughts inside his co-worker's head: Straker wouldn't be back until Monday morning; and General Kaplan, or anyone else for that matter, wouldn't waste time snooping about the new computer room; so probably nothing would come of it if Goldman stayed behind.
Also, Goldman knew Artarmon and his boss would be at their new workplace late next week, which was Baltimore University if he remembered rightly.
The dark-haired computer graduate looked to the ceiling and shook his head, as if hardly believing he'd succumbed to the hair-brained proposal. 'Jeez, I must be out of my friggin' mind ... Okay, but don't stay long, and don't make any printouts. Comprende?' With a juridical air, he gave Goldman the once-over. 'Just get your dumb ass out of here as soon as you can.'
Goldman broke into a wide smile and patted him on the shoulder. 'Thanks mate, I really appreciate it.'
'And spare me your Aussie mate crap. Just do what I say. I'm putting my ass on the line for this.'
'Steve, I'm all ears.'
'Okay.' Artarmon showed his unexpected guest how to shut down the VAX computer, then made him repeat the steps out aloud. Satisfied the system would be properly shut down, Artamon handed over a floppy disk, murmured a terse goodbye and left the room.
Goldman didn't waste time, either. He dropped into a seat in front of the console Artarmon told him to use. Like a pirate about to open a chest of spoils, he rubbed his palms with excitement. He was heady with the knowledge the US Milnet was again at his fingertips. However instinct forced him to look about the windowless room. A part of him half-expected military police to storm in, cuff him and take him away. Of course he was breaking the law, and probably in ways he couldn't imagine; even so he wasn't prepared to back down at this last minute.
He whistled a Springsteen song and typed in General Turner's password, having memorized the password from the previous day. He hit the enter key and ghostly lines flickered across the screen as the Milnet-linked system got up and running. The adventurous chemist pushed the floppy disk he'd got from Artarmon into the disk drive next to him. The introductory titles to The Heavens are Falling flickered across the screen. Not one to skimp on the finer details of illusion, he played two rounds of the computer game and clocked up a convincing aggregate score, in keeping with his pretense for being in the room.
He wheeled back to the main screen:
WELCOME TO USAF MILNET GATEWAY
This database is an extract of AR25-400-2
Army Milnet and contains 34,618 documents.
BSD UNIX #20OCT 24PDT1980.
GOOD AFTERNOON GENERAL TURNER
VERTEX RED CLEARANCE
Please press displayed keys to access available listings.
Goldman looked through several directories, unguided by any particular interest or topic.
Nothing appealed. He unearthed a large directory he hoped would grant him access to personnel files. It did. He called up Silverwood Chemical Centre from the many military centres listed. It didn't take long to locate his employment file. In it he found nothing surprising or untoward. Disappointed, he looked for his father's employment file in a mammoth Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency directory, hoping to find in his father's DARPA file something of the secret and unexpected so lacking in his own.
He eventually uncovered the file, and was surprised to see his father's German concentration camp number had been properly recorded (he'd memorized those blue numbers on his father's forearm since early childhood). Also recorded, of course, was his father's many years as an electrical engineer at DARPA.
The detailed information on the screen affected the prying chemist. A lump formed in his throat and the pain of resurfacing wounds made him shift in his seat. His father's murder two years ago had been a terrible blow, as had been the death of his wife shortly after. Deep and jagged was the pain of his double loss.
He'd first met Rachel at a Fancy Vamp and Sleazy Tramp party in West Hollywood. He was twenty-six; she twenty-four and dressed in little more than black lace underwear and high heels. They kept on saying the right things to each other, and fuelled by alcohol and the excitement of the well-attended party, had ended up in bed together. They kept seeing each other socially and the chemistry between them grew stronger. Many friends saw them as soul mates who'd had the good fortune to meet early on in life. The couple eventually married in an ornate stucco chapel in San Diego, while a ten-day honeymoon in the Bahamas proved a perfect celebration of their planned life together.
Goldman worked as an assistant researcher at a UCLA medical research department, whereas Rachel, a newly accredited journalist, wrote a Life and Style column for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. Established as such, they put down a deposit on a Mediterranean-style house in Santa Monica, complete with a kidney-shaped swimming pool and a paved outdoor livi
ng area highlighted by lattices of purple bougainvillea. All in all they were happy newlyweds who worked hard at their chosen professions, while making the most of whatever time they had together.
However, after celebrating his third Christmas in the Santa Monica house, Goldman became frustrated with his lot. He'd lost interest in his synthesizing research and Rachel hadn't conceived due to IUD-scarred fallopian tubes. Also, he no longer cared for the weekend partying of his upwardly mobile friends about town and in the outer canyons. Goldman had always been a light drinker and had only dabbled with recreational drugs like marijuana and cocaine. However Rachel seemed more prone to letting her hair down at weekend parties. Nevertheless she was aware of the lurking dangers in continuous use of addictive substances and sometimes said no; whereas many of her friends seemed only too willing to partake in whatever drug came their way in the course of lavish parties celebrating the elan of a smart new generation.
Much like her husband, Rachel tended toward a more moderate life and had her heart set on raising a family. So she hadn't been too put out when her restless husband toyed with the idea of moving east, especially as Rachel's mother lived in Boston.
In need of a change, and tempted by the extravagant salary package offered, Goldman applied for the position of assistant researcher at Silverwood Chemical Centre. He got the job. No one was more delighted than Goldman's father. Joseph Goldman had been involved in military research for much of his working life and accordingly had used his influence in the US industry to help his son procure the position.
However soon after Scott moved east tragedy befell him. He was barely settled in his new job when his father was gunned down at a 7-Eleven in Camden, New Jersey. Joseph Goldman and a Korean-American teenager were fatally shot for no apparent reason when a crazed-gunman emptied the store of its late-night takings, according to several startled witnesses to the crime. The senseless killing had devastated Goldman, and more so his mother.
Nora Conelly met Joseph Goldman at the Mt Sinai hospital in Jerusalem in 1946. She was an Australian Red Cross relief worker and he a bronchial survivor of a Nazi prison camp in Poland. After his discharge from hospital they saw each other socially. Their growing attraction culminated in marriage, and soon after they sailed to Nora's home country to partake in the unprecedented economic growth of post-war Australia.
Nora went on to bear and rear their only child, while Joseph Goldman (with an impressive pre-war indenture to Austrian electrical engineer Alfred Biefeld), worked at the Woomera Test Facility in the sparse north-west region of South Australia. Employed by the Australian Department of Defence and based at the Instrumentation Building on Range E, Joseph Goldman helped develop the guidance systems of Liquid Oxygen and Petrol Guided Anti-Aircraft Projectiles.
However his specialized work slowly consumed him. He worked long hours and increasingly brought his work home with him. Precious weekends crammed with technical books and white board scribblings. As a result he grew more distant from his wife and child until spending so little time with them he was deprived of the warm resonance that only a devoted father can receive from his family.
Like many of her generation, Nora had resigned herself to the default setting of her marriage. But her husband's ongoing aloofness, paired with his desolate place of employment, had induced bitter disappointment. A price of her wived commitment was she began to drink, until not a day passed that her breath wasn't soured by alcohol.
Nora and her son lived a sketchy life at Woomera Village, a restricted-entry town connected to Woomera Test Facility, which nonetheless had the basic amenities of a school, hospital, police station, shopping centre and airstrip. Nora befriended other wives in the village and began to drink and play cards with them. She found her place amongst a tight-knit group of heavy drinkers and graduated from beer to spirits.
Over time she began experiencing blackouts. She wasn't a violent alcoholic, but nevertheless her daily drinking impinged upon the upbringing of her only child.
From an early age Goldman learned his mother kept him at arm's length, hoping he would find ways to entertain himself and leave her to the ebb and flow of her drink-dominated world. A world in which he seemed to have no rightful place other than those times when she would scold him or force him to do menial chores. Even so, Goldman did well at school and made friends with several boys in the village. Of course there were rivalries and sometimes physical fights to contend with, but nothing out of the ordinary for a boy growing up in rural Australia. Many of the Woomera Village youths entertained dreams of striking it rich at the nearby Coober Pedy opal fields. After graduating from high school, Goldman did in fact make several thousand dollars from fossicking at the world-famous opal fields.
He used the money to set himself up as a student at Sydney University. Possessing his father's scientific bent, he devoted himself to chemistry studies. He did well. Indeed his brain seemed particularly wired for the symbols, equations and meticulously performed sequences that went towards making his research degree. But unlike many of his age in bustling mid-sixties Sydney, Goldman rarely drank, and if he did, never to the point of outright drunkenness. Of course he knew this restraint was linked to childhood memories of his mother's drinking.
Joseph Goldman's innovative work on the guidance systems of multi-stage satellite launching rockets at Woomera came to the attention of the American government in the late sixties. DARPA wanted him. After he was granted a Priority Worker Permanent Immigration visa, Joseph Goldman migrated to the United States. Nora was over the moon. However Joseph laid down the law that since they were in a new land, the east coast of America of all places, Nora had to cut back on her drinking. Amazing herself, Nora did just that (though not without a rocky start). She studied nursing part-time, and only indulged herself in a glass or two of wine at mealtime. For several years she kept on this even keel and became a certified nurse at the Camden County Health Services Center.
But after her husband's murder, Nora hit the bottle hard. She would sometimes stay at Scott and Rachel's Baltimore row-house for days on end. After a walloping argument one night Goldman told her to leave. She'd become loud and unruly over his suggestion she seek help for her spiralling drinking problem. Goldman told her it wasn't the proper way to grieve for the loss of a loved one. In any case, her drunkenness was interfering with his own grieving process.
With little adieu, Nora left the following morning for her New Jersey home. A week later she flew to Oregon and stayed with her recently divorced friend, Jess Arnold, an old workmate who'd moved to the west coast.
Over ensuing weeks, Nora rang from Jess Arnold's place and generally found Rachel's sympathetic ear. She wooed her daughter-in-law with colourful anecdotes about her winning battle against the bottle now she was regularly attending AA meetings in Portland, Oregon. During one particularly long call she and Rachel bonded from the celebratory note between them: Nora hadn't touched a drop for two months and Rachel had finally conceived after a third attempt at In Vitro fertilization.
From the upbeat call Rachel decided to visit her mother-in-law. Incredibly she'd already made plans to fly to Oregon to research an upcoming newspaper article. An elementary school for African-Americans had recently opened in Portland, the first of its kind in the nation, and Rachel's editor thought it warranted in-depth reporting.
Rachel flew to Oregon, hired a car, did what was needed for her article, then visited her mother-in-law. Two days after she left, Goldman received a devastating phone call. Oregon police informed him that his wife had been killed in a car accident. Beside himself with anguish and grief, Goldman took the first available flight to Portland. A stony-faced state trooper from the traffic division of the Portland Police Bureau told him Rachel's hired Chrysler had overrun a sharp and sleeted corner only to smash side-on into a towering Douglas fir pine. Distraught, bandaged and bruised, Nora had sobbed quietly while the state trooper got her son to fill out legal paperwork.
The late-afternoon accident had occurred while
Nora and Rachel were on a sightseeing drive in Wasco County. One of Nora's favourite areas of wilderness. She'd said over the phone once the region's unpopulated stillness had an epiphanous quality that never failed to lift her spirits; well such was her reason for sometimes visiting the picturesque woods.
Goldman was dismayed to learn his mother had been behind the wheel at the time of the accident. Sober or otherwise, he would never know. Incredibly Nora hadn't been breathalysed at the scene; but nevertheless barely passed a breathalyser test later on at Salem police station. From this Goldman would hold a lifelong suspicion concerning his mother's claim to sobriety at the time of the accident.
He made arrangements for Rachel's body to be flown back east and returned to his empty Baltimore house, telling his mother to keep her distance from him. After Rachel's sedate Loudon Park funeral, Goldman told his mother to return to Oregon. Anywhere as long as it was away from him. He was angry, filled with all kind of blame and ill emotion, much of it stretching back to childhood. He could tell from Nora's breath and manner that she was drinking again, and didn't want her in his house. It was only too reminiscent of when his father died. Only this time he didn't have Rachel to comfort him. Now he was alone. Now he was primed to fly off the handle. And he didn't want to fight with his mother the day Rachel had been put in the ground. He wanted peace and solitude to assimilate his loss. Furthermore, he wanted to spend appropriate time with Rachel's grieving parents, and knew Nora's inebriate presence would only tarnish the milestone affair of Rachel's passing. Sensing it wasn't a time to make waves, Nora went back to Oregon.
Goldman couldn't forget Rachel had called him the night before she died. She'd said without reservation his mother was still a closet drinker. Nora had even tried to talk Rachel into having a bottle of wine with her at a restaurant. And she'd obviously talked Rachel into letting her drive that fateful afternoon. Goldman believed his mother had used the pretense of sunny sobriety to worm her way back into her son's life, causing in turn the death of Goldman's wife and unborn child.