Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

by Judd Trichter

  “Ha, ha!” Shelley punches the dash with his fist. A sign reads, THANK YOU FOR VISITING. The car’s CPU says, “You are leaving the Chumash Reservation.” Shelley rocks back and forth in his seat. He pulls out his cam and takes a loop of the Indian on the hood.

  “Pull over,” says Eliot.

  “Did you see that?” Shelley asks. “Did you see that shit?”

  “I said pull over.”

  Shelley slows to the far end of the bridge where the iron support beams extend from a patch of forest. The car pulls over and comes to a stop.

  “That was one for the books,” says Shelley. “One for the fuckin’ books!” He leans out the window exhilarated and takes a loop of the pileup he left in his wake. “Ha, ha!”

  Eliot opens the door and collapses onto the road. Water drains from the backseat. He gets to his knees and pukes. Shelley snaps a loop of that, too.

  Eliot wipes the vomit off his face. He takes off his shoes and dumps out the water and oil. He walks around the car to speak to the Indian on the hood.

  “Excuse me.” He tries to get the man’s attention. “Excuse me, sir?”

  Still, he just lays there, holding onto the hood as if the car were still moving.

  “Sir, can you please release my vehicle?”

  His fingers bleed and his face presses against the metal.

  “You’re outside your jurisdiction,” says Eliot. “Please release my vehicle.”

  The Indian turns his head as if he finally hears. He gradually relaxes his stiff, curled fingers and lowers one shaking foot back to the road. He sees his fellow officers in the distance standing by the mass of wrecked vehicles at the border of the reservation. He sees Shelley snapping loops, and Eliot standing solemnly to the side.

  “Thank you,” says Eliot.

  The Indian straightens his posture and sucker punches Eliot in the gut. Shelley laughs from the driver’s seat and snaps a final loop of Eliot crumbling to the ground. The Indian adjusts his sopping wet uniform and begins the long walk back across the bridge.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Boat

  It’s 3:00 A.M. by the time they park at the marina. Through the gate and across the dock, they carry the squirming torso, now devoid of Martha’s head and other appendages.

  “Home sweet home,” says Shelley of the forty-foot cabin cruiser he commandeered from his family after he dropped out of art school. Of the two sons, Eliot was always the more able seaman, but hey, women like boats, so Shelley likes boats, too. He likes the salty breeze and whiff of adventure it lends him to “live at sea.” He likes the way the hull rocks when he’s giving a young lady the business behind the curtain in the stern of the cabin.

  “Wanna beer?”

  “Sure,” says Eliot.

  They lay Iris’s torso on the floor of the galley where they keep her other parts. Pink’s laptop, the head, one arm, the legs—all the souvenirs from Eliot’s forays have been transferred to the boat. Shelley took the parts with him the night Eliot confessed at his apartment. Now, the boat gets moored at a different berth each night so the police can’t track it, so they can’t find the evidence that connects Eliot to Edmund Spenser’s murder. Shelley and Eliot even painted over the name—the SS Limbo—and changed it to the SS Humpty.

  “You want to start putting her back together again?” Shelley asks.

  “In a minute.”

  “I’ll get the tools.”

  Martha’s drip wears thin and the pain returns to Eliot’s shoulder. He rubs at it on the couch beneath the Snapple bottles glued atop the wooden shelves.

  “That one didn’t go easy,” Shelley says of the botwhore at the reservation.

  “I suppose not.”

  “And the DJ?” He pops the caps off two beers and hands one over. “Mr. Pink?”

  The torso uses up its battery as it wriggles on the floor in bra and panties. It squirms its way to the stairs but can’t negotiate the first step.

  “Pink got what was coming,” says Eliot.

  “For doing the same thing you’re doing.”

  “How you figure?” He takes a blanket from the couch and covers the torso for the sake of modesty.

  “Because like you,” says Shelley, “Pink was just another guy looking to reconfigure bots.”

  “He was a rapist,” says Eliot. “He tortured women on video.”

  “He tortured bots on video.”

  “Same difference.”

  Shelley finds the tool kit and opens it on the counter. “If you’re going to posit there’s no difference between bots and heartbeats, then by extension, what you did tonight was murder.”

  “Pink acted out of hatred and avarice,” says Eliot. “He turned a profit from the parts he sold. My motive was entirely different.”

  “So it’s okay to kill if your intentions are pure?”

  “Hasn’t that always been the case?” Eliot takes a swig of his beer and flops back on the sofa. “Revenge. Capital punishment. Euthanasia. War.”

  Beneath the blanket, the torso crawls toward the other parts as if by being near them, they might somehow find a way to attach.

  “But your victim tonight was innocent,” says Shelley.

  “How innocent?” Eliot stares at the low ceiling in the galley. “Not only were her parts stolen, they weren’t even assembled in any coherent manner. The bot was a monster.”

  “Because she was biracial?”

  “Stop.”

  “Because she was fat and of a mixed gender?”

  “She couldn’t even speak of herself in the first person. Her very being exuded the malfeasance of her construction.”

  “You’re full of shit.” Shelley points with a screwdriver as he talks. “Had she been a beautiful and coherent android you still would have pulled her apart.”

  “If she were coherent, I would have explained to her that the part she was wearing belonged to another bot. I would have offered her compensation. We would have struck a deal.”

  “Why didn’t you strike a deal with her pimp? He would have sold you the part.”

  “I considered it,” says Eliot, “but he seemed to have a genuine affection for the bot.”

  Shelley sits on the couch and puts his feet on the covered torso as if it were a moving coffee table.

  “Get your feet off her,” says Eliot.

  “I’m trying to keep her still.”

  “Move your feet.”

  Shelley takes his feet off, allowing the mound to squirm.

  “Besides,” says Eliot, “it can’t be murder because Martha isn’t dead. Chief could steal this torso back tomorrow and bring her back to life same as I’m doing with Iris.”

  “Then Pink wasn’t a murderer, either,” says Shelley. “By your own calculation.”

  Eliot swigs his beer as he watches the shifting mound. It approaches the eyeless head and pushes against it.

  “Maybe not,” he admits. “I don’t know. It’s all very confusing.”

  He watches as the torso throws off its blanket and tries again to assemble itself and escape. It can’t figure out how to do it, and even if it could, the two men in the boat wouldn’t allow it.

  “I send three thousand bots to suffer on Jupiter’s moon,” says Eliot, “and I’ll get a promotion. I kill one son of a bitch trapper, I’ll do life without parole. Does that sound right to you?”

  “Right or wrong—it is the law.” Shelley shrugs. “It keeps the peace.”

  “Until it doesn’t.” Eliot stands and crosses to the table to get his tools. “I just want my girl back,” he says.

  The torso shudders as its spinning engine runs out of juice. Its battery drained, the limbless, headless body flattens to the floor and falls asleep.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Pound’s House

  A dumb-muscled housebot greets Flaubert and Ochoa at the door of the Trousdale Estates home. He wears a sleeveless shirt with ruffles. White pants stretch tightly across the expression of his prodigious manhood.

  “May I
take your umbrellas?” asks the bot, holding the old detective’s hand just a bit too long.

  Flaubert thanks him and hands over his hat as well.

  “I’ll keep mine on,” says Ochoa.

  “Arthur said I should make you both coffee.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Flaubert muffles a cough into his fist. “Is Mr. Pound available?”

  “This way.”

  The housebot leads the two detectives across the marble-floored corridor where white plaster nudes line the walls. Male nudes. Flaubert admires them less for their craftsmanship then for their ability to make his young partner uncomfortable. The one-eyed sack tracks rainwater and sweats in the coat he refuses to remove.

  “Mr. Pound has been recovering from an affliction,” says the housebot. “He has been sitting in his den listening to opera records all week. It’s all quite disgusting.”

  Bay windows look onto a backyard swimming pool and a lawn sloping toward Beverly Hills. The rooms stink of antique electronics and sour cologne.

  “Terrible weather we’re having,” says the bot. “I haven’t been able to swim my laps today, and Mr. Pound hasn’t been able to watch.”

  Ochoa grunts in disgust. He likes homosexuals even less than he likes bots. Combining the two is more than he can stomach.

  “Arthur,” says the housebot as he enters the den. “The detectives are here.”

  A dull light penetrates the yellowed drapes pulled loosely across the windows. Pound sits on the couch with his feet on the ottoman and a video game controller in his hands. His eyes are red, his blanket raised to his chest. On an old TV, he plays some primitive arcade game in which a detective walks around 1940s Los Angeles shooting random people in the head.

  “If this is about that alarm the other day at my store, there’s nothing to discuss,” says Pound. “It was just an asthma attack from this … foul air.”

  The old detective sets his valise on the floor and takes a seat on a low-slung chair. He gestures to the TV, and Pound pauses the game.

  “Shall I turn off the music as well?”

  “Please don’t,” says Flaubert. “It’s Donizetti, is it not?”

  “You have an excellent ear.”

  “My ex would beg to differ. She told me I was a terrible listener.”

  “Perhaps she had nothing interesting to say.”

  The housebot lingers in the doorway eyeing the one-eyed sack as if he were an easy conquest.

  “Detective Ochoa,” says Flaubert, “can you please show Mr. Pound that loop from the office?”

  The young partner sits on the couch next to the antique dealer. He plays for him some footage of Edmund “Pink” Spenser standing before a pair of turntables at an underground. The DJ’s arms bulge, his chest pops as he sways to the music. Pound’s eyes soften at the sight of him.

  Flaubert asks, “Does the man in the loop look familiar?”

  “I keep up with the news.”

  “Did he ever come into your store?”

  “I can’t recall every customer.” Pound reaches for a bottle of schnapps and pours. His hand shakes, and the bottle clinks against the glass.

  “You deal antiques, do you not?”

  “I do.”

  “Mr. Spenser had a collection. Old vinyl records as well. I thought you might know a fellow connoisseur who shared such idiosyncratic tastes.”

  “To what tastes do you refer?”

  “The opera, Mr. Pound. There aren’t many who appreciate it these days.”

  Flaubert throws a suggestive glance toward the stud housebot lurking in the doorway, and Pound gets the point. He wipes his nose and sets aside his drink. “Raoul, be a good sport and buy yourself an oil change. You can use the money in the credenza.”

  “But I don’t need an oil change,” says the housebot.

  “Come on, Raoul,” says Ochoa, standing grudgingly from the couch. “Gimme the grand tour. You can show me where you hide the glory holes.”

  The young partner closes the door behind him as he walks the housebot away from the den. Pound waits until he can no longer hear their footsteps in the hall.

  “Yes,” the antique dealer admits, “it did occur to me that the victim looked familiar. Of course the picture in the newsbranes had him without his shirt on, and I was never so fortunate as to see Mr. Spenser so attired.”

  “He frequented your store?”

  “He did.”

  “When was the last time?”

  Pound shrugs. “I don’t recall.”

  “A week ago, a month ago?”

  “At least a month.”

  “Did he ever buy a gun?”

  Pound rubs the goose bumps beneath the sleeve of his shirt. “I recall he would usually buy albums. Often he would trade.”

  “Trade what?”

  “Watches. Books. Old laptops and game consoles. Any of the type of thing I carry in my store.”

  “From where did he obtain such items?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Any of them stolen?”

  “Not from heartbeats.”

  Flaubert removes the handkerchief from his pocket and holds it to his mouth as he clears his throat. “Did you ever sell or trade to Mr. Spenser a Smith & Wesson revolver?”

  “I did not,” says Pound.

  “Have you sold a revolver of late?”

  At this the antique dealer seems confused. “My understanding is that Mr. Spenser was killed by a radial saw.”

  Flaubert reaches into his valise and withdraws the revolver Detective Ochoa found in the catch basin. At the sight of it, the antique dealer reaches for his drink. He takes a sip, then another, then decides to finish the glass.

  Flaubert asks, “Would you feel better if I put it away?”

  “I would.”

  But the old detective does not put it away. Instead, he leaves the gun on the table pointed carelessly in Pound’s direction. The antique dealer shivers at the sight of it, and it occurs to Flaubert that there are some days he truly adores his job.

  “Mr. Pound,” says the old detective, “did you sell this weapon from your store?”

  “It doesn’t look familiar.”

  “It was purchased by you at an estate sale five years ago. Registered to your name and there hasn’t been any record filed that says it was lost, stolen, or resold.”

  A roll of thunder drums across the hills, and for a moment, it seems the old detective is possessed of a preternatural power to control the weather.

  “I-I think I … I might recognize the weapon,” says Pound. “Now that you mention it.”

  “And you remember selling it to Mr. Spenser?”

  “I do not.”

  “Did you lend it to him?”

  The antique dealer reaches for the bottle to pour himself another glass.

  “May I remind you, Mr. Pound, that it is a crime to transfer ownership of a firearm to another party without updating the necessary records.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Did you sell the weapon to this woman?” He shows the antique dealer a loop of the android Plath.

  “No,” says the antique dealer. “It would be illegal for me to sell a firearm to a bot.”

  “Perhaps you thought she was a heartbeat.” The rain falls forcefully against the windows. “Perhaps she came in well-dressed. Had one of those black market hearts ticking in her chest. Showed you a fake ID, and by the time you realized it, you were too embarrassed to go to the police. Or perhaps you were worried you’d lose your license.”

  “I never saw that little monster in my life,” says Pound. “Just in the newsbranes. Plath has never been in my shop.”

  “You say that definitively.”

  “Because I know it to be true.”

  “And I believe you, Mr. Pound. I believe you are telling the truth.” The wind picks up and they can hear the outdoor furniture scraping the cement outside. “But I do not believe you are telling the whole truth.”

  Streaks of rain against the window
cast worming shadows against the curtains. The old detective leans forward in his chair.

  “Do you have an alibi for last Thursday evening, Mr. Pound?”

  “I was in the hospital.”

  “You were released Wednesday night. Where were you Thursday?”

  Pound stays quiet, thinking it over. “If I wasn’t at the hospital, then I was most certainly here.”

  “And the housebot will testify to that?”

  Pound clutches the blanket and pulls it to his chin.

  “At this moment,” says Flaubert, “my partner is asking Raoul about your whereabouts on Thursday night. Shall I call him in so we can compare notes?”

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I—” He reaches for his glass, stops, then pulls his shaking hand beneath the blanket. “Because he isn’t the most honest of bots, and I don’t know what he’ll say.”

  Flaubert folds his arms and leans back in his chair. He crosses his legs and studies the shine on his shoe.

  “The weapon, Mr. Pound. How did it leave your store?”

  “It was stolen.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Stolen, except that he paid for it.”

  “Not stolen, but not legally sold.”

  “He point … he p-pointed it at my head.”

  “Spenser did?”

  “No.”

  “Plath?”

  “No.” Pound’s breathing falters as it did a week ago at his store. “He didn’t leave his name.”

  The old detective stands and pours another finger of schnapps into the glass. He raises the drink to Pound’s lips and guides it down the frightened man’s throat.

  “Drink up, poor fellow. You’ve been through quite an ordeal. I’ll help you as best I can, but you have to tell me the truth. You have to tell me why you didn’t report a stolen gun.”

  Pound swallows his drink and allows it to warm his chest. He closes his eyes and sighs as Donizetti’s aria comes to an end.

  “I suffered an asthma attack. I went to the hospital. And by the time I felt well enough to report the incident”—he holds his hand to his cheek and shakes his head—“the situation had already turned ugly.”

  The gusts die down outside the window. The rain tapers. Flaubert nods, satisfied, and puts the gun back in the valise. He withdraws his pocketbrane from the inside of his jacket and sets it on the coffee table to record the rest of the conversation.