by Jim Nelson
"He might be able to knock Aggaroy down, but I can't imagine him strangling the poor guy when he was on his back in the gutter," she said.
"The walking stick is an affectation," I said. "He has no limp. I watched him hold his own in a set of tennis yesterday. His opponent was a semipro who could be his granddaughter.”
“That’s not much of a defense for a man whose interests you represent.”
“I’m not offering one.”
“Well, Aggaroy’s memex would’ve given us his last four to six hours of memories. That would’ve been pretty useful. Even more useful now that his retention server is gone.” She peered down and shook her head. “Another goddamned warrant.”
“Pardon?”
“Now I have to file another goddamned warrant for Gannon Chancellor’s retention server.”
“If he has one,” I said.
“All these richies have them,” she said. “Every detail of their lives is too precious to go unrecorded.” She stiffened. “That was between you and me.”
“If he has a server, it probably doesn’t hold any of his memories of him out here,” I said. “With all the electromagnetic interference, his memex couldn’t connect to the Nexternet.”
“Well, it’s still worth a look-see.” She bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “Just wish we had Agg’s to work with.”
“Sure. It’s not like you could fall back on any of the traditional police methods. You know, interviewing witnesses, following up on leads—”
“Don’t hand me that shoe leather crap,” she said. “All I’m saying is, Agg’s killer went to great lengths to mop up his trail. We’ll get our man.”
After a moment, I murmured to her, “Agg’s death is going to take a backseat, isn’t it.”
She exercised her jaw, considering her answer. “What would you have of me?”
Agg’s murder would have to wait until the questions were answered about a better-connected, better-respected man’s death. I couldn’t help but equate the imbalance to their physical appearances: Gannon’s quarterback good-looks and breeding compared to Aggaroy’s disheveled ways and portly face and expansive waistline.
"At least tell me what you've got on Agg's murder," I said. "You're right, what happened to his safe sounds like a pro job."
“Which is why I wonder if the burglar worked in the security field,” she said. “It was a clean B & E. In and out without so much as a fingerprint. They took nothing but the data on that machine. He had twelve thousand dollars cash in the office vault. A different safe, an old-fashioned one built in the 1800s.”
“I know the one,” I said. “Agg had a soft spot for the old-timey touches. He thought it brought some class to the office.”
“That lock could’ve been busted open with some bad breath,” she said. “All that cash untouched. All of it accounted for.” She peered at me with blank, accusatory eyes. “Not to mention his case files, his customer records, his—”
“You think I did it? You think I broke into Agg’s office? Because I would’ve taken the cash.”
“I’m saying someone in your line of work probably did it.” She tilted her head. “Can you break into an engram-locked safe? Like the one Aggaroy stored his server in?”
I shifted the blanket over my shoulders. “So you’re asking for my professional opinion on the matter? Or are you expecting me to crumple and confess on the spot?”
“If you put it that way, I’ll take the second.”
“Lots of richies use private retention servers,” I said. “CEOs. Bank presidents. Celebrities.” I jutted my chin at her. “Police chiefs. At a certain level of income and power, control over one’s own memories is a wise and obvious investment.”
“You and Aggaroy have that kind of disposable income?”
“No, but we have the skills for keeping a retention server running. It’s not the machine that costs money. Retention servers cost, what, fifteen thousand dollars? The expense is the people you have to hire to administer it. In our case, we don’t have to hire anyone.”
Whitcomb motioned down toward Gannon’s body. “I don’t suppose you took his memex?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You tell me.” She pointed out to the Edison. “I’m no techie, but I have ears. The word on the street is the owner of that boat made a backup of the entire Internet. That backup is now stored on Alcatraz Island. Meanwhile, the Commission overseeing that backup has hired you for reasons unknown.”
“My line of work is computer security,” I said. “It’s not a stretch they would hire someone like me.”
“This here is Gannon Chancellor, the son of the owner of that boat,” she continued. “And you were on that boat when you found his body. It’s all tangled together, Naroy. Don’t give me this crap about this taking a Sunday morning pleasure cruise with George Drake and stumbling on his son's dead body out here in no man's land.”
Confused, I wondered if this was some kind of bluff. I saw no way out but to ask. “Did I tell you that?”
“Yes!” she shouted. “Just five minutes ago, you claimed the boat trip was a personal matter unrelated to any professional interest you were—wait, are you denying that now?”
The white static of my memory loss was burning me again. I had to find a way to live without Blue Pharjé. I did not want to live the rest of my life a slave to my memex, recording every personal detail out of fear I would never remember the important moments. I’d lived forty years in the shadow of my past—the taunts, the humiliations, the sense of isolation. I’d reassembled my life, built a new name and a new face, and with those upgrades came a modicum of self-respect. Now I lived in fear of not remembering any of it, a past as blank and muddy as a European master’s painting dunked in a turpentine bath. I was only fifty-five.
“I—I’m not denying anything,” I struggled, wishing I could piece together what I’d told Talley. “This is a personal matter.”
“Personal, my ass.” She pointed a finger at Gannon’s body. “You tell me this is a coincidence. You tell me you found George Drake’s son ‘by accident.’”
“It is a coincidence." Every syllable emerging from my voice seemed weak and tepid. I know I’d devised a better story, I’m certain. I was a retiree searching the house for his bifocals.
Flustered, peeved, she ordered me to step away. She motioned to the forensics team they could start their work. She led me to the side of the cliffs near where I’d sat for two hours, or so I suspected.
“I should arrest you right now,” she said.
“That would be dumb,” I said.
“Dumb?”
“This could be murder, suicide, or an accident. You can’t arrest someone for suicide or an accident unless there’s some kind of culpability involved. Do you really think this is murder?”
“I can name a half-dozen theories that would make you very culpable. This death could be perceived as a threat. A message to George Drake from his enemies.”
“What enemies?”
“Maybe you haven’t been listening. I know my history about Drake and Clift. They’ve hated each other for years.”
Sometimes in a tight moment, a deep breath can turn things around. I held up one hand, asking her to slow down.
“Gannon worked for the Samuel Justin campaign. Have you spoken to anyone there about this?” A quick connection flashed in my mind. “Aggaroy worked for the Justin campaign as well. How do you know this isn't connected?”
She soured. “The campaign are not the most cooperative people to work with.”
“They didn’t give you much help with Aggaroy, did they?”
“They don’t have to. They don’t have to talk to me at all if they don’t want to. It’s the mayor, for crissakes.”
She peered behind her. The forensics team was performing their grim work inserting probes into Gannon and shining lights into his orifices. Powerboats continued to ferry police to and from the shore. I noticed one boat in particular launching from the Thomas Ed
ison. George Drake stood at the bow as it sliced through the currents.
“You know you’re not going to arrest me,” I told her. “If you want to ask me questions, fine, ask your questions. But you can’t hold me. I’m not a flight risk. I’m not being uncooperative. Hell, I all but reported the body. He could’ve been out here a week without anyone finding him. No one comes to this desolate wasteland. It’s a nightmare out here.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t buy your pleasure cruise story,” she said. “Why would you spend a day on the water out here in all of, in all of—” A coughing of thunder filled the air. “In all of this?” she shouted.
It was a question I didn’t have to answer. The police boat taxiing George Drake approached the shore. Someone had alerted the forensics team. They draped a white sheet over Gannon’s body. Drake leaped from the boat before it landed. He slogged through the foamy cold Pacific, water up to his knees, and rushed to the body as a force of nature, an unstoppable cannonball. It took a Sheriff’s deputy and two of the forensics team to hold him back from the draped corpse.
I heard none of it. The taxiing powerboats and the electromagnetic storm masked all sound. With Drake restrained, one of the forensics team drew back the sheet to reveal Gannon’s head and shoulders.
Up to that moment, Drake was a man of unmitigated determination. At the sight of his son’s glassy fixed gaze, he crumpled in place. The Sheriff was unable to hold him upright. Drake fell to his knees, shoulders shaking and face wet. Crouched feet from the body, arms limp, and torso jouncing like a Hasidic at the Wailing Wall, he mouthed a chant: My son, my son, my son.
25.
Talley Whitcomb and I were taxied to a SFPD patrol boat and motored through the gnashing mouth of the Golden Gate. An unmarked car waited for us at Pier 45. We cruised up and down the Hyde Street hill. At my apartment I changed out of my damp clothes and into a fresh suit while Whitcomb and a uniformed officer waited outside my door. Then they drove me to the Civic Center. After two hours of reciting my story as best I could manage and waiting an eternity in reception, Whitcomb witnessed my statement and signed me out. Gannon’s memex burned a white-hot hole in my pocket. One frisk-down and I was done for. It never came. I was released with the warning to remain reachable day and night.
It was well after two in the afternoon when I stepped out to the frigid rain. No time for autotrolleys now. I taxied to Divisadero Street. From there, I hurried on foot up Page Street toward the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. Among the rows of rococo Victorians, some occupied, some abandoned, stood a two-story painted birthday-cake blue with buttercream trim and floral lattice. The rains weren't so pronounced this far west and the overgrowth was not so dominant. A shingle on a pole modestly announced GILLETTE DALT in cursive lettering with a neat list of specialties spelled out beneath:
PSYCHIC & CLAIRVOYANT
MEDIUM ~ SEANCES
PAST & PRESENT & FUTURE
When I entered, an electric eye rang out a pleasant tone as I crossed the threshold. The Victorian's entry foyer had been repurposed to a waiting room with two doors at the other end, both marked PRIVATE.
Time was precious at this moment. I fidgeted, I paced, I considered hailing a cab and finding another clairvoyant. Dalt was the only one I trusted. After a tortuous expanse of time, one of the PRIVATE doors creaked open, revealing a dim room beyond. An elderly woman emerged, dusty and gray with her mousy hair in an electric frizz. Gillette Dalt followed her out. Taking her hand in the crook of his arm, he escorted her down the front steps to the sidewalk. A black town car had silently arrived. Its driver in tie and jacket were waiting at opened rear door. Dalt waved from the curb as they pulled away. He mounted the stairs and returned to the waiting room with a painful grimace on his face. He took down the ENTER sign, closed the door, and locked it thrice: two deadbolts and a chain.
"C.F. Naroy," he said in one exhale. "cf., trouble."
"Need a favor, Gillette. This is one I can't go to anyone else with."
"A favor," he said, savoring the bitterness in his pronunciation.
Gillette Dalt had gained weight over the years. A decade earlier, his embroidered western shirts and boot-cut jeans fit him well. Now the pearlescent buttons and jean zippers strained against his bulges. His goatee had turned a shocking white over the years as well. It ran from chin to sternum, a yardstick of the time he'd spent running his séance con job in San Francisco.
“I wish I could say this was a social visit," I said.
He motioned for me to follow him into the darkened room behind the PRIVATE door. "Fact is, I'd be happy if you dropped by less."
Velvet blue drapes covered the hexagonal parlor's walls. The drapes tented the ceiling as well. Aqua uplights in the corners and behind side tables illuminated waves of smoke from a smoldering incense stick.
From my pocket, I produced the wadded-up handkerchief. I unfolded it until the cloth lay like a wilted iris in my hand. The fleshy tack rested like a baby mushroom in the center of the petals.
"Why can't you be like the rest of my clientele," Gillette said. "Don't you have a dead nephew you want to talk with? Don't you want to know what you were in a past life?"
"I know exactly who I was in a past life."
He nodded at the package in my hand. "This is the moment that the law requires me to ask you to produce proof of guardianship over the neural device." His eyes had not left the memex since the moment I produced it.
"For once," I told Gillette, "I truly am asking you to speak to the dead. I need a replay.”
“Replay,” he echoed. “You want the replay transferred to another retention server?” Copying it to a retention server would allow me to view Gannon’s memories like watching a movie.
“No,” I said.
"Direct replay?"
Direct replay meant animating Gannon's stored memories right here in the parlor. This was the primary service Gillette offered—his séances, his clairvoyance, his ability to see into the past was nothing more than taking a loved one's memex and replaying their memories as a holographic projection. His software extrapolated those memories, juiced them up, made them more dramatic or more hopeful…whatever was necessary to ensure future visits for repeated contact with the departed.
"No," I said. "I want a mainline."
With two fingers, he plucked the limp memex from my palm. He considered it the way a health inspector would consider a cockroach found dead on its back.
"Everything on the memex?" he asked.
"That and a mainline off the retention server this memex is connected to."
“You know for certain the owner subscribed to a retention server?” Not everyone bothers to save every last memory of their life, instead using free or cheap commercial accounts to store selective memories, a scrapbook of one’s life rather than a full-length documentary. Some people don't even bother with a retention server. Their experiences are broadcast worldwide but stored nowhere, evaporating as soon as they're transmitted, like an echo against a cliff wall.
"I have a good idea the owner used a private retention server," I said.
"He or she could afford one?"
"Absolutely."
"I'm not a hacker," he said. "If the retention server's been locked down, I can't break through."
I pointed at the memex dangling between us, one of its tendrils pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
"I'm gambling the retention server is still live and recording," I said. "I'm gambling a mainline will give me direct access to the server."
Gillette considered the memex again. "Naroy," he finally said. "How fresh is the corpse this memex belongs to."
From my reaction, he guessed fresh. "This won't come back to you," I said softly. "Have I ever brought trouble to your doorstep?"
"This is different," he said, almost a growl. "Okay, sure, Grandma brings me dead sonny-boy's memories so she can talk with him five years after he's gone. This guy—" He shook the memex at my nose. "His body's probably warm. I'm not
a grave robber, Naroy."
No," I said, straightening my back. "You're Gillette Dalt, proprietor of a little shop of horrors in The Panhandle." I pressed in close. "You're Raymond F. Nickels, accused Nexternet hacker fleeing a Miami-Dade trial in 2033. Last seen entering Corkscrew Swamp in southwest Florida and presumed dead, succumbing to disease or cottonmouth or alligators." Voice low, I added, "I've kept the law away from you for years now. How about cutting me some slack today."
Gillette looked away, lips pursed. He shook his head.
"Risky as hell to mainline off this equipment if it's not functioning," he said. "I can replay the holographic store direct to your retention server, Naroy. It’ll take twelve hours to stream the copy.”
“I can’t wait hours,” I said. “It has to be done now. Look—the police are going to seal the retention server any minute now.” Once sealed, the server would go dark—offline—and inaccessible over the Nexternet. “I need you to skip-route the connection now.”
A hexagonal table bull's-eye in the parlor was outfitted with a sizeable rig of Nexternet transceivers and neural-enabled electronics. All of it was hidden inside painted wood boxes and sheer black shrouds to impart the impression of steam-era tech. The spaghetti network of fiber-optics led to a great egg of blue gel suspended in a transparent bag within a gilded birdcage. The egg was the size of a child's football. The neuro-mimetic gel had been doped with mercury flakes. They floated like dust motes in the suspension.
Sour, face pale, Gillette began disconnecting optical cables from his rig on the hexagonal table and rearranging the equipment. He produced a silver key from a ring in his pocket. It unlocked a cabinet of electronics and hardware. He patched in this additional equipment with his peeved, pursed face glancing at me occasionally.
“Mainlining can be more addictive than heroin.” He spoke while rewiring the additional equipment. “Mainlining grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. Heroin, you know when it’s got you. Horse laughs in your face when you're powerless. Mainlining tricks you. It leaves you thinking you're in control. It tricks you into putting your hands around your throat and it tricks you into squeezing harder and harder. It tricks you into thinking it's in your best interests to strangle yourself. Hey—" He clapped his hands once. "Are you listening to me? This isn't just wrong or illegal. It's a damn fine way to kill yourself."