He hoped that someday this misunderstanding would be over and even during the hours of going to and returning from work, cars would again be faster than old ladies.
On a less abstract plane, he also hoped that the box of celebratory candy on the back seat would not melt before he reached the office.
The news on the radio was focused on the economy. Years ago Dave had gone through a brief period of straining to fathom the confounded processes that created and distributed wealth. He had followed articles on the matter and had even read half of a text book. He’d given up on the matter long since, but still he listened with half an ear.
As usual, he understood all the words that made it to his brain, but it was the same old salad of empty meanings. Perhaps even the voices on the radio did not fully understand what they were saying.
It went like this: “Blah blabitty blah substantial growth blah blah blah stronger push blabitty blah blah vitality blah boost consumption blah blah total consumption blabitty dynamics of consumption blah blah consumer index blabitty blabitty curbing excess blah success and growth blah blah economic rebound blah blah blah retail sales going upwards blabitty...”
It ended on an upbeat note. Then again, economic news tended to end on an upbeat note since he was teenager—without seemingly being influenced by, or at least mirroring, simple facts like him having more money, or less money, or no money, or it being easy for him to find a job where he was, or having to uproot himself and settle in far away Muhosransk.
The stream of cars inched forward another ten yards before bogging down; first reviving and then ruthlessly dashing to pieces the optimism that flowers tenderly during such short bursts of traffic movement.
The detective’s gaze brushed absently the foot soldiers of the city. The workers. The students. Serious men and women. Not so serious boys and girls.
All walking with a paraded sense of purpose.
Naturally.
In the city, in daytime, if you don’t walk with a sense of purpose, you begin to stand out. Unless you are an obvious tourist, standing out makes you either a criminal, or a crazy, or a junkie, or a loser, or a confused soon-to-be victim of a criminal, or a crazy, or a junkie. A future loser.
It was now late autumn and he believed the intensity of the erotic signals emitted by the citizens subsided significantly in this colder season. They retreating to boots, jackets, overcoats and the occasional leather skirt.
Leather pants.
Studded leather hats.
Chains hanging from belts and handbags.
Belts.
Oops.
Dave revised his opinion. It sounded like a nice logical observation and he already anticipated the jolly banter with Anton about it. Now that he thought it through, it just wasn’t right.
In the autumn the erotic signal are as present as ever, he thought now, only the amount of uncovered body shown is less, this is the only difference. The significance is transplanted from one’s own skin to some object covering it, but it is still there.
Oh well.
A honk from behind alerted him to another movement of the cars in front of him. Alert now, he too moved forward.
Twenty-three minutes later he was in his office, looking at Maldiva’s erotic signals. Completely automatic, he thought as he nodded at her and fumbled with the nylon wrapper of the candy box.
She is in a cocoon of erotic promises and hints, maintained out of mechanical fashion momentum.
How many times he had been disappointed as a teenager, that wretched feeling of having been cheated, each time it turned out that girls could dress and talk and gesticulate like whores, without actually being ones, even being honestly indignant at the very thought of them looking and talking and gesticulating like ones.
It was total discrepancy between the outer signals and the inner persona. However, that was then.
If Anton was right about porn influencing life in general, then the gap between the outer whore and the inner core was now almost completely closed.
“How lovely. What’s the occasion?” Maldiva asked when, after patiently waiting out the struggle between man and box to reach a decisive crisis, she was finally presented with the chocolate candy by a radiant Dave.
She took it with grace, even allowing her scarf—this otherwise silent accusation concerning her employer’s insane fascination with open windows-to slip a little.
“Another case solved. The world a better place.” Dave said with affable pathos, and Maldiva replied with an earnest smile, “which sex crime was it, Mister Cohran?”
He squinted manfully, “The case of the destroyed sex toys.”
He saw that his words precipitated a dwindling of enthusiasm in Maldiva’s eyes. Did she expect something more exciting?
Maldiva interpreted his lingering look as a desire for a pat on the back, “Congratulations, Mister Cohran.”
Since his only reply was a slight twitch of his mouth, she plucked a piece of candy with her thumb and forefinger, and bit off half with delicate feminine precision.
“Mmm, it’s very nice, Mister Cohran.”
“Glad you like it, glad you like it,” said Cohran, waking up from his short stupor, and turned to the coffee machine to fill up his mug.
As he turned again to go to his private office, he saw Maldiva looking at her computer monitor thoughtfully and slowly rubbing half a candy on her lower lips.
Dave rolled his eyes and slunk away.
What’s wrong with this woman? he asked himself as he switched on his computer, and why the emphasis on ‘sex crime’? Of course I solved a bloody sex-crime, I specialize in sex-crimes, and she knows it.
He imagined Maldiva telling her friends, and her husband, about where she worked. How did she manage to present it matter-of-factly? Or did she hide it? Or flaunt it?
Suddenly David laughed out loud. Well, what the hell do I expect, he admonished himself. The woman is working in a sex crime detective agency. She’s made her peace with that fact. Of course she will act like this. To her it’s only logical. Only appropriate. I should be grateful she is so detailed in her loyalty to the cause.
Dave typed in the password, had his palm read, and noted that there were no updates from the police. Which in itself was excellent, it meant that no crimes in his sphere were committed in the city yesterday.
Must have been the position of the stars or something.
Then Dave saw on his desktop the Season Girls folder and the ‘shit strangler’ folder and stopped flying in the clouds. It was time for some nitty gritty detecting. Time for some harsh realities.
He typed ‘shit suffocation’ into a search engine.
Scores of links to fiction blogs appeared in front of his eyes. Also a dozen links to major porn portals. Also links to file sharing and download sites. And, that was just page one.
At the bottom of the screen a blurred train of pop-ups flickered for a second, before being shut off by his firewall.
The detective clicked the first batch of sites open and took out his phone. He dialed Anton, knowing that in another half-hour he would simply forget to make his appointment with the albino.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Anton took the bottle of whiskey from Dave and scrutinized at the label with urbane appreciation. “What’s the occasion? You were quite mysterious over the phone.”
Dave raised an appropriately mysterious eyebrow while unbuttoning his coat with elaborate finesse, “I closed one of my cases. The least important one.” He nodded and comically blew away a lock of hair from one eye. “Nevertheless—another triumph for detective Cohran.”
Anton gestured to the small table near the window and after submerging momentarily into the kitchen resurfaced with two small glasses.
Two inches of amber liquid quickly appeared in each. Hard-hitting strand
s of whiskey aroma slithered through the air.
The two friends took their chairs, leaned forward—glasses clinked. The liquids inside rolled with the movements and miniscule droplets jumped into the air and onto wrists and floor.
“To the great detective.”
“To the last philosopher.”
Anton checked the movement of his glass three inches from his mouth. “Now that’s an impressive title. Way to go, detective.”
“Eternally yours.”
Anton sipped his drink, made a quick appreciative grimace, relaxed his frame, leaned back and crossed his legs, “So, what’s that inconsequential case that you’ve solved, and why does it make you so happy to have solved it?”
Dave put down his glass and made his eyes glassy, “You will enjoy my tale, for it is filled with mystery and shocking revelations. Squirm on your chair, as astounding visions make your skin crawl. Scream in fear as the...the...” Dave snapped his fingers a few times to regain his momentum, “...as the terrible apparitions...er...goose bumps...you get the idea.”
Anton plucked a cigarette from his pack, “Not really, no.”
“Well, the long and short of it is the sex dolls that were destroyed...”
“There were sex dolls which were destroyed?”
“Yes, sorry,” the detective darted a look at his glass, but decided to put off the next hit, “three people had bought a certain type of sex dolls from one shop...”
“Which kind of sex doll, if I may ask?” Anton’s cigarette crackled as he applied flame to its head while sucking at its rear. He blew the smoke upwards, to spare Dave’s face
“The fifth grader cyberpunk girl.”
“I see,” Anton nodded thoughtfully.
Dave resumed his thrilling and shocking tale, signaling the kick off with a slap on his thighs, “Right, and these three victims all had break-ins into their homes, hours after purchasing the dolls, and all three sex toys were smashed or dismembered.”
“How curious,” Anton squirmed on his chair from the delight of having his interest in the macabre tickled, “and nothing was stolen?”
“Well, some valuables, naturally.”
“Naturally.”
“Nothing big. So, I went on my quest, and yesterday night I caught the culprit.”
Anton raised his glass again, in acknowledgment of the detective’s accomplishment. This time there was no grimace as he sipped the whiskey, only a brief tremor passed through his lips. Dave drank his like lemonade.
Anton put down his glass and immediately sucked at his cigarette again. His thoughts nibbled away at the new information from all sides. “So, that’s why you asked me over the phone if I think sex toys can go on rampage.”
“Right. It did look like a small fifth grader sex-doll.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“What was it?”
“It was a kid. A real kid.”
Anton studied the detective without showing excessive surprise, “A little cyber girl?”
“Only at first glance. A little cyber boy. A little cyber transvestite.”
Dave put his empty glass on the table with a slam and looked at the thoughtful albino. The thoughtful albino looked at Dave’s glass and then at Dave, “But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why everything?” Anton shrugged.
“Good question. Here the story gets ugly. Apparently, although the sex toy robot is going out of fashion...”
“Is it really?”
“Yes, apparently now gene-vat butts and tits are all the rage.”
“Oh yes, I saw the first pop-ups already,” Anton sneered, “they claim they are grown copies of the relevant parts of famous porn stars.”
“Whatever. Now, although the sex toy fashion itself is now on the low, there is a secondary fashion, inspired by the sex toys.”
Anton tried to out wait the dramatic pause and gave up after four seconds. “Please go ahead, you can cut the tension with a chainsaw.”
“Well,” Dave’s forefinger stood to stiff attention, “now people are more turned on not by the dolls themselves, but by other people pretending to be these dolls. Saying the same things, behaving in the same way...”
“Of course,” interjected Anton, a wave of agitation quickly rippling through his torso, “depersonalization. So, this kid was an underage transvestite prostitute, impersonating a sex toy?”
“That’s right. Fucked up, eh?”
“Very. The poor kid snapped I suppose?”
“Yes. Good lock picker too. He said he was liberating them.”
Anton’s features softened for a second and a shadow of melancholy passed over them, before he snapped back to his immediate social obligations, “Yeah. Well, congratulations for solving the case.”
“Thanks. Truth be told, I would have much rather preferred it to be a robot gone crazy.”
“Yeah, that would have been cleaner. So, what awaits to the kid in question now?”
“The usual,” Dave shrugged, “they’ll try to locate the closest kin, and then evaluate whether the kid should live with them, or in an institution.”
“I used to live with foster parents and in institutions.”
That was Anton’s custom. To drop a bomb out of nowhere, with a straight face.
“I, um, I had no idea,” Dave said.
“I know,” The albino calmly sipped his whiskey.
Dave quickly evaluated the atmosphere. Anton was ready to ramble on, without turning the conversation into a heavy drama.
“So,...wanna speak about it?”
“Oh sure,” Anton straightened out from his slouch and made a dramatic sweeping gesture with his left hand. “Prepare to hear the thrilling tale of the origin of the last philosopher.”
Dave applauded softly and cheered mutedly as if from very far away. Anton finished his whiskey and poured himself another one. Then he stuck a cigarette in his mouth.
“Well?”
“Patience, patience young Jedi.” Anton lit the cigarette and let out a jet of smoke at a right angle to Dave. “My real parents were unknown natives of the Amazon rainforest.”
Dave’s eyes lit up with skeptical merriment, “Get away.”
“It’s true. Deep in the Amazon jungle dwells the Aifaya tribe. Normal honest injuns, except for one thing—they have an abnormally high rate of albino newborns. Something like one out of eight.”
“But why?”
“No idea. Something in the genes. In these isolated tribes, there must be very little outsider DNA circulating,” Anton studied his smoking cigarette for a moment. “A stagnant gene pool.”
“Why, you’re not stagnant at all, Anton.”
The albino made a complicated gesture with his left hand to convey vague old-world politeness, “I accept your compliment with good grace. As I was saying: an unusually large portion of the newborn in the tribe was made up of albinos. They were not quite considered good luck, as you might expect.”
“You were a bad omen?” Dave giggled. “An injun Damien?
“I was, yes. Just like every other eighth or tenth kid. In this tribe, the albinos were treated somewhat harshly. You know, abuse, stuff...”
“Were you abused, man?”
“I don’t think so. If I was, there wasn’t a lot of it. You see, a certain foundation, a branch of the Institute for Global Fusion, decided to interfere.”
Anton let out some more smoke. His eyes darted from point to point as if trying to find something specific to look at but failing. Dave looked at his friend with growing amazement. “And?”
“And they told the natives that they will take the wretched albino children off their hands, and reimburse them with pots and pans and antibiotics and various trinkets. So, I was ta
ken at the age of about six months and flown here.”
“Wow.”
“Yes. It seemed a good deal for everyone back then. The injuns are relieved of the curse of the albino, and the poor albino kids are no longer abused but introduced into a white society. Back then, if you’ve read your history, you’ll know that this here was a white society.”
“Spare me the Nazi nostalgia, Anton. Do go on with your amazing tale though.”
“Righto. So, I was brought up here, in civilized society. First in an institution, and then, from ten to eighteen with my foster parents. This is my thrilling story. There will be no refund.”
Dave looked at Anton with pointed evaluation, “So, you are not really Anton Martorino, are you?”
“I am, but I understand what you mean in your simple bumbling way. Yes, my surname is that of my foster family and my name was given to me by the foundation.”
“I’ve never heard of this project.”
Anton uncrossed and re-crossed his legs, putting the left one on top this time. “One hears mainly of successful projects.”
“You mean this one was not a success?”
“No. For two reasons. One, had the institute bothered to follow the advice of professional anthropologists...back then, if you’ve read your history, you’ll know that there were real anthropologists...”
“For Christ’s sake, man.”
“All right. So, put simply, the albinos had a specific role in the local injun society. Everyone could take it out on them and everyone did. They were legitimate scapegoats for letting off steam. The gods said so.”
Anton took a thoughtful sip of whiskey. “Once a generation of albino kids was taken away, the balance of this society was damaged, and people turned on each other. Stuff that was unheard of previously, like inter-village violence started happening, families fell apart. The end of days in short.”
“Just because the albinos were taken away?” Dave asked, unfolding a questioning forefinger with a swirl of his wrist.
“Yeah.”
“Hm.” The detective thought for a while, looked at the window, but it was already dark enough outside for him to be able to see from his angle only reflections of Anton and various furniture. “What’s the other reason for the project’s failure?”
Shudder Page 19