The Memory Agent

by Matthew B. J. Delaney

  Clayton drove, Parker in the passenger seat, Charlotte in the back. She still wore her bathrobe and stared out the window, tracing the patterns of light on the glass with her fingers. Clayton glanced over at Parker. “You sure about this buddy?”

  “I can hear you back here,” Charlotte said. “I’m crazy. Not deaf. And you two clowns just made yourself responsible for a depressive suicidal wreck. You should be careful of your tone.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Parker said. “Right?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. I’ll be fine as long as there’s work. Probably blow my brains out when the job is over. But for now, I’m great.” Clayton drove past the Kip’s Bay movie theater. Crowds of people filled the brightly lit lobby. “There is a job, right?”

  “There’s a job,” Parker said. “Escape. Five person team.”

  “What era?”

  “1953.”

  “What’d the guy do?”

  “Don’t know that.”

  “You don’t know? I thought that was like the Parker Golden Rule. Never bust out anyone if you don’t know what they did. This guy could be like a serial killer of nuns for all you know.”

  “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my wife is in with him.”

  Charlotte shut her mouth. “Fair enough.”

  Clayton headed back toward the Upper East Side. Charlotte smoothed down her hair, tried to straighten her clothes. She sighed. “I’m a fucking mess.”

  “You really try to kill yourself?” Clayton asked.

  “That’s what my stomach pump results tell me.”

  “You kill someone at the brain stem. Bullet. Knife. Any kind of sharp object really,” Clayton said.

  “Okay crazy, next time I’ll try stabbing myself in the back of the neck. Thanks for the pep talk,” Charlotte said, then turned to Parker. “Who is this guy?”

  “Don’t mind him, he just . . . some lasting trauma,” Parker said. “From the war. Antisocial.”

  “Cave man is going in with you?” Charlotte said.

  “I object to that term,” Clayton said. “Despite my aggression and violent tendencies, I am a product of my environment, not heredity. I like things. Culture. Film. Art.”

  “Have you ever been into the system before?” Charlotte asked.

  Clayton shook his head. “Never.”

  “It’s a real mind fuck,” she said. “You need someone stable in there or you can get a brain break.”

  “What’s a brain break?” Clayton asked.

  “Inside the system, you inhabit the world created by the machine, or in essence the world created by the machine’s programmers. This is a fully articulate world composed of other prisoners and guards, all interacting in a completely realized environment,” she said.

  “When we enter the system,” Parker said, “we essentially hack into the machine, inserting my consciousness into a drone in the world of the prison. To increase the population of the system and make it harder to tell the difference between prisoners and guards, the system fills each world with drones, preprogrammed humanoids who act in a predictably unpredictable way. Like humans. But there’s no human consciousness backing them. They’re just empty shells. This is how we enter and stay in the prison world.”

  “But you need a stable psyche,” Charlotte said. “Someone not prone to mood swings.”

  “Why? What happens?” Clayton asked.

  “You can’t bond with the drone. The system detects the instability and sends every guard after you,” she said. “Stable mind. Stable drone.”

  They reached Charlotte’s building. The marked patrol car had vanished. A lone doorman stood in front, smoking a cigarette and staring off down the street toward the diesel belch of a garbage truck.

  “Do you have an Archivist yet?” Charlotte asked.

  “Working on it,” Parker said.

  “Going with Selberg?”

  “Rather not. But probably.”

  “The guy is a degenerate gambler.”

  “Good eye for details.”

  “He’s also a self-centered ass. Who knows what secret delusions he’s harboring. At least I’m open about my depression. That guy is wound tight. He’ll break if you put him under pressure.”

  “That’s why he’s not going in with us,” Parker said.

  “When are we going?”

  “Tomorrow sometime. I’ll let you know.”

  Charlotte blew the two men a kiss, then hopped out of the car. She was no longer the sullen shell that had shuffled out of the psych ward at Bell. She had something to do now. A job.

  “She calls me unstable,” Clayton said as they both watched her skip into the lobby of her building. “That one is bat shit crazy.”

  “She’s not crazy. Just lost and sad. We just gave her something to hope for.”

  Clayton pulled away from the curb. It was just after eight. Carriage horses made their way slowly around Central Park. A light fog rolled in from the west, giving halos to the streetlights and shrouding the clattering beat of hoof against pavement.

  Parker thought back to a few of the late century breaks he’d pulled. The horse and carriage jobs, he called them. Those were tricky. People were tougher back then. They led more physical lives. They were more desperate. And desperation brought violence. Men seemed quick to throw a punch, and weapons were everywhere. Brass knuckles. Lead saps. Billy clubs. And if the body of a stranger turned up dead in a barrel, it barely made the papers. So many people floated in and out of the city, carried in on the winds of immigration, that one or two going wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

  Only the guards would notice.

  “Where to?”

  “Brighton Beach,” Parker said. “Russians have a social club down there. All night poker. That’s where we’ll find our guy.”

  “Far trip. We need this guy?”

  “We need an Archivist.”

  Clayton gave him a blank stare. Parker sighed. The man wasn’t ready to go into the system. The first time was hard enough, even with training, and Clayton barely understood the basic concepts.

  “Archivists run historical research,” Parker said. “The system is designed off historical databases. So each system is populated with historically accurate figures pulled from census records. They all interact with each other in real buildings and locations. Sort of a collective consciousness. The Archivist runs the history of the buildings and the people. He determines the time periods and helps prevent you from saying something stupid and getting the guards on you.”

  “Your guy is good?”

  “He gets it done. He has a master’s degree in history from Yale. But he’s also got a gambling problem. Business like ours, sometimes you have to take what you can get. He knows the system. Needs the money.”

  “You trust him?”

  “Can’t trust anyone. You know that.”

  “I’m trustworthy.”

  “You, my friend, are an American classic.”

  They took the BQE along the outer edge of Brooklyn, the Verrazano Bridge shimmering in the darkness over the water. The Volga was a little Russian restaurant on the boardwalk in the midst of drab, yellow brick apartment buildings. A couple of heavy hitters in suits stood out front, smoking cigarettes and giving the eye to a girl walking her dog. Clayton parked on the corner.

  “Is this a heavy job?” Clayton asked.

  Parker looked at the two Russians. These games were invite only, and they weren’t the sort of players to welcome anyone in off the street. Especially two cops. The building itself was small. The front door was probably the only way out.

  “Maybe.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “If things go bad in there, might be tough getting out.”

  “That’s what you brought me for,” Clayton said. He popped open the glove compartment, rooted around beneath a pile of gum wrappers and retrieved a pair of brass knuckles. He slipped the knucks into his pocket. “Ready?”

  “Let’s go.”<
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  The two Russians straightened up as Clayton and Parker approached. One of them flipped away the cigarette he’d been holding and slipped a hand inside his jacket. Parker could feel the energy shift in the air. Clayton had both hands in his pockets. Parker held his hands up and out to the side.

  “Help you?” one of the men said as Clayton and Parker approached.

  “Yeah, know any good borscht places around here?” Clayton asked.

  “Oh, you a funny guy?”

  “Listen, fellas,” Parker said. “We’re just looking for a friend of ours. Think he’s inside. We really don’t want trouble.”

  “Joke like that,” the Russian nodded at Clayton, “and you’ll get trouble.”

  “I get it,” Parker said. “We just want to find our friend.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “Selberg. Little guy. Ferret looking.”

  “Don’t know him.” The eyes were the best lie detector ever invented, and the man’s flickered like a dying light bulb. Behind his shoulder, lights were on inside the restaurant. Parker heard the dull bass of Russian pop music playing.

  “He’s not really worth knowing,” Parker said. “But maybe we could check out the restaurant. Might run into him.”

  The Russian shook his head. “Private party.”

  Parker sighed. This was going to be trouble. He could feel Clayton slowly coiling up, tightening like a spring.

  “We’re not asking permission,” Clayton said.

  “Oh no?” The second Russian laughed. Then he took a step forward. He moved with the easy confidence of a big man used to getting his way. The Russian put up his hands to push Clayton away. He palms were outstretched, lazily moving forward, when Clayton’s right hand flashed out from his jacket pocket. He bent down, then the spring uncoiled ferociously, as he swung for the stars. The brass knuckles around Clayton’s fist crunched against the Russian’s jaw, and everyone heard the snap of breaking bone.

  The Russian went down hard.

  The second man backed away, hands up in the universal gesture of “please don’t hurt me.” Parker and Clayton walked by him and pushed open the Volga restaurant door. They didn’t have long before the guys out front got a group of their friends together and half of Little Odessa showed up with baseball bats.

  Inside, the restaurant was dark, but Parker had the impression he was surrounded by lots of gold-plated furnishings, polished wood floors, and mirrors. Pop music blared loudly. A handful of down-on-their-luck women flitted around a large, round table like fish circling a fat piece of bread floating in the water. At the table sat a half-dozen men holding cards. Cigarette smoke clouded the air like diesel exhaust.

  The men turned toward the door and stared.

  “We’re looking for Selberg,” Parker announced to the room.

  Dead eyes stared back at the officers through the smoke. Then one of the men stood from the table. He was in his late forties, with loose sagging skin and a nose that looked like it had been drawn by a drunken child with a crayon.

  “Selberg is a friend of yours?”

  “Well . . .” Parker said slowly, reluctant to admit Selberg was a friend. “We’re looking for him.”

  “I’m Boris.” The man approached them. He laid his hand over Parker’s shoulder. “Come, I’ll help you find your friend.”

  Boris led them through the restaurant. They passed a buffet table piled with lots of meats in fried pockets and soups. Bottles of vodka glinted in the dim light. Clayton had his hands back in his pocket and followed a few steps behind. From the shadows behind the bar, another man stepped forth. This one walked on the other side of Parker.

  “How you doing?” Parker addressed the second man. “What’s your name?”

  “Boris,” the man said.

  “Ah. I see. Popular name here.”

  Boris Number One guided Parker to the back of the large space, through a set of maroon curtains and into a private room of glass-topped tables and crystal chandeliers. Parker felt the slow burn of fear crawl across his heart. He had to remind himself that this was real life. This wasn’t the system. Whatever happened now would really actually happen. If these men chose to shoot him, he would actually die. Not just wake up.

  He suddenly wished they’d just tried to get a new Archivist. Selberg was good, but he certainly wasn’t worth a bullet in the brain. Parker didn’t even like the guy.

  They passed through a set of swinging double doors and into an industrial kitchen. Stainless steel countertops gleamed in fluorescent light. Knives and cleavers clung to a magnetic strip on the wall. The burner of a stove built to cook for an army flowered with blue petals of a gas flame.

  Selberg was in the center of the room.

  He was stripped to his boxers and tied spread-eagle to a wooden table. His face was a mask of blood. Two of the fingers on his right hand were bent so severely they looked almost torn from his hand.

  “This is your friend, yes?” Boris Number One said. “Maybe since he’s your friend, you pay the big fucking debt he owes us.”

  Selberg turned toward the sound of the voice. His eyes went wide when he saw Parker, two white circles in a slick coating of red.

  “Oh, Jesus, Parker, help me,” Selberg said.

  Parker turned toward Boris. “I need this man alive.”

  Boris shrugged slowly. “We all need something. I need the seventeen thousand dollars he owes me.”

  Parker shook his head. Stupid Selberg. Just pulled a job and gambles everything away and goes in even deeper to some crazed Russian gangsters. This would be the last time Parker worked with the man. And if this job wasn’t so important, Parker would have walked out of that kitchen, gotten back in the car, and driven away, never giving a second thought to how many cigarettes they put out on Selberg’s balls.

  Parker rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I need this man for a job.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Personal. But after the job, he’ll have your money,” Parker said.

  Still strapped to the table, Selberg nodded vigorously. “Yes. Yes. That’s exactly what I said.”

  A man stepped out from the shadows and punched Selberg once in the stomach, producing a wet slapping sound. Selberg grunted in pain. He turned his head slightly, then white vomit bubbled out of his mouth.

  Boris patted the top of Selberg’s head. He looked thoughtful and dangerous. “Must be a pretty big job, one man in the crew can come up with seventeen thousand in a day.”

  “Big enough.”

  “I’d like to get in on that,” Boris said, a sly look in his eyes. “I can help with certain things.”

  Parker shook his head. “We’re all full on this one. But give me Selberg and you’ll get your money.”

  Boris grabbed a thatch of Selberg’s hair and shook. The sound of hair being ripped from scalp echoed in the kitchen. “How do I know I’ll get my money?”

  “You’ll get it. And think about it this way. You kill Selberg now, you’ll get nothing.”

  From behind the group came the sound of running feet. Clayton sidestepped quickly away from the door. His hand went to the revolver that Parker knew was tucked in his partner’s waist. The swinging double doors flung open, and three men burst into the kitchen. Parker recognized one of the men from outside the restaurant.

  The three newcomers paused when they saw Boris. One of them held a length of pipe, which he slowly lowered. A quick exchange occurred in Russian between the men. Quietly, Parker unsnapped the holster inside his jacket, the revolver sliding free into his hand.

  Boris waved the men back toward the interior of the restaurant.

  One of them made hard eye contact with Clayton. “I see you soon.”

  “You see me right now,” Clayton responded. “Why wait?”

  The three men retreated back into the restaurant. Boris turned to Parker. “I will give you Selberg. When you are done with this job, you pay me my money. Or something very bad will happen.”

  The two officers
wrapped the blood-soaked Selberg in trash bags so he wouldn’t ruin Clayton’s car, then laid him out on the backseat. He groaned and curled his knees upward, his eyes fixed on the floor. Clayton pulled away from the curb, the crowd of Russians standing outside the restaurant watching him. He lit up a cigar and gazed through the smoke as the Volga grew smaller in the rear view.

  “Selberg, you dumb asshole!” Parker said. “You can’t make it one day without doing something stupid.”

  “I’m sorry, Parker,” Selberg said. His voice was raspy, like his mouth was filled with crushed ice. “I’m still good. You can count on me. God is my witness.”

  “You’re lucky this job is last-minute, because there is nothing I would not do right now to get you off this team. With everything going on, we need this Russian mafia heat?”

  “I’m sorry. It was stupid of me.”

  “Get some scratch tickets like a normal degenerate gambler. That way, if you lose, you don’t have your knee caps blown off.”

  “Fucking Russians,” Clayton said.

  Parker studied Selberg. “You look like shit. You need a hospital?”

  “I’m good. Might throw up again. But I’m good.”

  Clayton looked concerned. “Not in the car.”

  “Just get me home.”

  Selberg lived in a single resident occupancy in Hell’s Kitchen. He had a room with a single window view of an air shaft and a bathroom down the hall that he shared with a mob of mentally unstable homeless people. Once a month someone would end up getting slashed in the hall.

  Before it all went wrong, Selberg had been a history professor at NYU. Then the gambling bug bit hard and the descent soon followed. He would hop the bus to Foxwoods Casino in nearby Connecticut and disappear for days. He started missing classes. Becoming more erratic. NYU denied his tenure and warned him about his behavior. Selberg couldn’t quit. Eventually the school tossed him from the faculty, and without a steady paycheck, the money went fast.

  Parker never understood what addicted Selberg to the dice. Perhaps some men just liked the edge. Beneath the academic’s professorial demeanor, there seemed to be an always shifting wildness.