The Memory Detective

by T. S. Nichols

  “That’s my bike,” the super said. He cocked his head to get a better look at Cole. It was obvious to each of them that both were lying. “Do you make a habit of walking into strangers’ buildings just because the door is unlocked?”

  “No,” Cole said. “There was just something about your door. Are you sure that bike is yours?” Cole could remember more of it now, now that he was staring into the killer’s face.

  “Come on in,” the super said to Meg as he pulled the bike in through the building’s side door, the one at the end of the narrow alleyway.

  “I shouldn’t,” Meg argued. Cole could feel how wrong it felt to her. Wrong. He couldn’t think of any other word to describe it.

  “Come on, young lady,” the super said with a smile. “Don’t worry. I ain’t going to touch you.” He kept that promise too. He never did touch her. At least, his skin never touched her skin. He wore gloves when he tied the rope around her wrists and lifted her body onto the table. Other than that, the closest they came to touching was the hammer.

  “It’s my bike. I’m sure,” the super assured Cole.

  “That seems odd,” Cole said, “because I could have sworn that it was my friend’s bike. She used to stay in a building just a few blocks from here.” Cole could see the anger begin to well up in the man’s face. “You know what also seems odd.” Cole kept pushing him. “I was looking at your tools”—Cole turned around to face the table again—“and I was wondering what happened to the hammer that came with this set.”

  Cole heard the footsteps. He had pushed far enough. The super was coming for him now. Cole grabbed the gun off of the workbench and wheeled around. When the super saw the gun pointed at his chest, he froze. He was about three steps from reaching Cole. “Who are you?” the man asked, staring into Cole’s face. Cole saw in the super what he often saw in murderers’ faces when they looked at him. He saw recognition. The super recognized something about Meg in Cole’s face. It happened almost every time.

  “I’m the ghost of the girl you murdered,” Cole snarled at the super. He wanted to pull the trigger. He actually might have if it would have done any good, if the gun had any bullets in it. That’s why Cole didn’t carry a loaded gun anymore, because he didn’t think he could stop himself from blowing a hole in the chest of every single murderer. The memories were too strong. They made him hate too much.

  The super heard Cole’s words and Cole saw his face turn, not to hatred or anger, but to anguish. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, though his voice was weak and unconvincing.

  Cole dug into the memories now. They couldn’t hide from him anymore. He stared into the murderer’s eyes and, with an eerie accuracy, repeated the murderer’s words back to him: “Don’t fight, young lady. It’s not going to do you any good. If you don’t fight, I might just let you go. But, if you do fight, I might have to go back and get your friend too. You do know that I have keys to every apartment, don’t you?” Meg’s love for Sam kept her paralyzed.

  “What the hell are you?” the super hissed at Cole as if he were talking to a demon.

  “I have her memories—the girl that you murdered. Her name was Meg. Did you even know her name? I remember everything you did. I can see it. I know who you really are.” The man took a half step closer to Cole. “Don’t,” Cole said, lifting the gun higher, toward the man’s head. The super stopped again, glancing around him when he did. His head was only a few feet from the gun now.

  “I’m not a killer,” the super said, his voice shaking. “I didn’t want to do it.”

  “You lured her here, tied her hands behind her back, laid her on a table, and bashed in her skull with a hammer. What do you mean you didn’t want to do it, you sick son of a bitch?”

  The super began shaking his head. “I didn’t want to do it,” he repeated. “I had to.”

  “Why?” Cole asked, wanting, as always, to make some sense of the violence in his head. He had his guesses: because she was gay, or maybe because she was dating a black woman.

  “Because she was young and pretty and she smiled at me,” the super said, “but I knew that she thought I was old and ugly, and I wanted her, and I didn’t want to want her, and I didn’t want her to think that I was old and ugly anymore.” He was nearly frothing at the mouth now.

  “You’re under arrest,” Cole said without taking his hands from the gun. He could sense how dangerous the man was becoming. “I’m a cop. I’m bringing you in.”

  “No,” the super said. “I won’t go.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” Cole said, moving his finger over the trigger of his gun.

  “Yes, I do.” The super extended one of his long, skinny arms into the air, reaching for the string on the light. He pulled the string and the room went dark, all except for the rectangle of bright light shining in through the open door to the alleyway. A moment later, the super was on top of Cole in a fury of madness and rage. Cole felt the gun get knocked out of his hand as he tumbled to the ground. He was shocked by how quickly the super came. Nothing in Meg’s memories prepared Cole for that. He struggled to push the older man off of him. The super was skinny, but his height gave him enough weight to make him hard to move. He was wiry and strong.

  They were on the ground close to the workbench. Through the darkness, Cole could see the outline of the thin man reaching out with one of his long arms. Cole pushed and kicked and hit, but the super would not budge. He had a strength borne from years of manual labor. Then Cole saw a gleam in the darkness, a quick flash of light as the super lifted his new hammer into the air and the shiny metal caught a sliver of light from the open door. Cole’s mind flooded with memories, memories of Sam and of Kansas and of flying across Manhattan on a bike; but also other memories, not just Meg’s memories, memories of the other murder victims and even some of his own, though he couldn’t for the life of him tell the difference. Music. Food. Loneliness. Lovemaking. Joy. Sadness. It all came rushing over him, a thousand memories in an instant. Then the hammer came down through the darkness.

  Unlike Meg, Cole wasn’t tied up. This time he could fight. Cole kicked his body upward, not enough to get the super off of him but enough to affect the hammer’s arc. So instead of coming down on his head, the hammer slammed into Cole’s shoulder. The pain was so intense that Cole jerked his body to the side, which threw the super off balance. Cole screamed and tried to roll farther away from the lunatic with the hammer. The super stood up, the hammer still glistening in his hand. Cole could barely move his right arm. Cole looked up at the killer, staring him in the face. “You have no idea what you did, what you took from this world.”

  Clasping the hammer, the super took two more steps toward Cole. Then a voice from behind the super cried out. “Freeze!”

  The super didn’t look back. He stopped for a split second before continuing to advance toward Cole. Two gunshots rang out just as he was lifting the hammer to make the final blow. Ed was careful. He was a good cop. Both shots hit the super in the upper shoulder of the arm holding the hammer. The hammer fell to the ground first. The super went down next, alive but unable to stay on his feet.

  Cole watched the super’s face as he lay on the ground, writhing in pain. He stared, hoping to purge himself of any more memories Meg had of this monster so that he would be able to concentrate on everything else in Meg’s life, and ignore the memories of its random ending. But when Cole stared at the super’s face, no more memories of the time Meg had spent tied up in his basement came into his head. Instead, more memories of Sam arose, simple memories; the sight of her smiling over a cup of coffee at night; the beautiful way she smelled first thing in the morning.

  It was over. That’s what Cole believed at the time, anyway. He still didn’t know about the other secrets still locked inside Meg’s memories, secrets of other murders, secrets that would lead Cole into a world he could never have imagined.

  Chapter 16

  As soon as Carter woke up, he knew that he wanted more. The memory
of those giant waves was still fresh. He’d never felt anything like that before. He’d had memorable moments in his own life. He’d made millions of dollars over the course of a few days. He’d had dinners in the world’s most exclusive restaurants. He’d stayed in hotel rooms that cost per night more than most people made in a year. But those waves were different. That memory made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt before, and he wanted more.

  “Bring Fergus to me,” Carter ordered one of the attendants who had been assigned to serve him until he was sent home. He was still in the building where they’d performed his surgery. The recovery wing was more like a spa than a hospital. He was told that they needed to keep him there for three days so that they could monitor him and make sure there were no complications. In truth, the monitoring was mostly psychological. Different people reacted differently to the new memories; the Company wanted to make sure that the people who left their building would be able to handle what had just been implanted in their brains.

  “Fergus isn’t here, sir,” the attendant informed Carter.

  “Then tell him to come here,” Carter replied. “I spent a lot of money on this. He can make the trip.”

  More than anyone else at the Company, Fergus understood the importance of happy customers. When he arrived, less than three hours after he received the message that Carter Green had asked to speak to him, Carter still hadn’t experienced another of the surfer’s memories. It had been almost twenty-four hours.

  “Mr. Green,” Fergus said as he entered Carter’s room. Other than the lack of windows, the room was indistinguishable from an extremely upscale hotel room. It was large and had all the amenities: a big-screen plasma television, a stocked bar, a black Jacuzzi bathtub open to the entire room. “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “Where are the memories?” Carter shouted at Fergus.

  “Sometimes they take time, Mr. Green,” Fergus answered him. “We told you that before the procedure took place. However, we can assure you that they will come and that they will be worth the wait.”

  “I can’t wait,” Carter said. “I need more now.”

  “We have people here who will teach you how to find your new memories.”

  “I’ve met with them,” Carter replied. “They told me their tricks. I paid too much money to have to wait. I want more, dammit. More like that first memory.”

  Fergus smiled. That first memory. That had been a brilliant addition to the procedure. So much better to have a client wanting more than simply wanting. “We can try to induce one more memory, but only one more.” Fergus already had a memory in mind. While targeting memories was not an exact science, Fergus knew Pierce’s history well enough that there was a chance. “After that, please trust me that the memories will have more impact on you if you come upon them yourself.”

  Carter thought back on his lone memory of surfing. “I find that hard to believe,” he told Fergus.

  Fergus laughed. “It’s true.”

  “But you’ll help me get one more first?” Carter felt comfortable ordering around the attendees, not so much Fergus.

  “One more,” Fergus promised.

  They had to drug Carter again, but this time they didn’t knock him out. He was awake. The drugs were simply Quaaludes, meant to relax him. They made it easier for him to access those parts of his brain that he wasn’t used to accessing. Everything was administered in Carter’s room. Once the initial drugs took effect, the medical team released a scent in front of him, a specific scent of a specific place, brought all the way from the South Pacific. Then he was given one more drug. It wasn’t much, just a slight injection of cocaine. The team knew from their forms that Carter hadn’t used cocaine in decades, so they suspected that only a small amount was needed to create the intended effect. All of this together was enough. Moments later, they could actually see Carter sink into a new immersion.

  His muscles still felt taut from a day spent surfing, swimming over and sliding down giant mountains of water. His tanned skin was still warm from the sun. Carter thought that maybe it was the same day as the previous memory. Or maybe it wasn’t? Maybe all the surfer’s memories were like this. How glorious would that be? Maybe there was simply memory after memory of spending the day surfing and the night, well, Carter was waiting to see where the memory of the night was going to take him. He didn’t want to rush it. It was enough for him, for now, to enjoy the memory of how the surfer’s body felt. It felt more healthy and more young than Carter’s own body had ever felt. Not healthier or younger but more of each. Carter remembered reaching down and picking a small vial up from the dresser in front of him. He took the lid off the vial and poured a small line of white powder on the back of his hand. He wasn’t particularly careful about it. Some of the powder fell off his hand and disappeared into the air. The surfer didn’t seem to care. Then he bent down and snorted the powder in one quick huff.

  The effect of the bump was almost instantaneous. His already electric body began to feel like it was vibrating inside his own skin. Carter remembered that rush. It was immediate and intense, but the surfer took it as casually as he seemed to take everything, acting as if this feeling was totally normal. He put the vial back on the dresser, now only two-thirds full. Then he walked toward the door of what appeared to be a small hotel room. He opened the door and was hit by the rhythmic beat of music echoing up from beneath him. The door led to a single twisting staircase. The surfer walked down the stairs like a man who owed the world nothing and owed himself even less. He felt light, careless, and totally free. His unbuttoned white shirt flapped around him as he descended toward the music, and it felt to Carter like what a cape must feel like on a superhero.

  It turned out that he wasn’t in a hotel. He had been in a private room above some sort of nightclub. The staircase led straight down to the dance floor, where the party was in full swing. The music was loud enough to drown out almost any thought other than the beat. Bodies were moving on the dance floor. They were young, lightly clothed women and men with bodies nearly as lithe and taut as the surfer’s. Carter remembered seeing the bodies grind into each other to the music. He could see the sweat glistening off the dancers’ bodies in the darkness. The bar had a scent, a ripeness that was dizzyingly erotic. That was the scent Fergus had captured: Asian spice, exotic wood, liquor, and the sweat of beautiful youth. Nobody stopped dancing as the surfer descended the staircase, but Carter could sense all the eyes on him, following him. It was as if the female dancers could sense him coming: the alpha male. Some stared at him as they grinded even more purposefully into their partners, as if to entice him. The surfer returned their stares as they performed for him. He teased them with his eyes and his smile. Carter had never known anything like that before. All of his power had always come from his money. This power was more intense, more primal. Carter wanted to steer the memory, to make the surfer go to the dance floor and pick out one of these beautiful women—but memories cannot be controlled or changed. That was part of their power. If they could be controlled or changed they would merely be daydreams. The surfer floated on a potent mixture of music, insouciance, and cocaine. He walked down those stairs the same way he surfed down the face of a giant wave, with grace and an almost complete lack of fear. The only thing that scared the surfer was the continuing passage of time.

  Once at the bottom of the stairs, the surfer headed straight for the bar. As he walked, he parted the dancers like some nightclub Moses. More eyes fell on him now, following each step as he walked. Now the eyes were a combination of lustful women and jealous men. It was like a dream, to be so wanted and so envied at the same time. When he got to the bar, the Thai bartender immediately came to him. “What can I get for you, boss?” he said with only a slight accent, as if he’d learned how to speak English by watching Humphrey Bogart movies.

  “You know what I want,” the surfer said to the bartender under his breath. The bartender nodded and then reached for a bottle of SangSom, a Thai rum. He began to prepare a glass with c
lub soda, lemon juice, simple syrup, and basil, pouring the rum in last. Then he slid the glass across the bar to the surfer. “Thanks,” the surfer said to the bartender with a conspiratorial smile and lift of a single eyebrow.

  “No problem, boss,” the bartender replied.

  The surfer took a swig of the drink. It stung his throat and warmed his stomach at the same time. He took another swig, finishing half the glass. Then he looked down the bar. A tall, brown-skinned Asian woman with dark hair and darker eyes was standing at the end with a curvy blond woman. The surfer leaned in to the bartender, motioning to the other end of the bar. “Who are they?”

  The bartender shrugged. “They’re new,” he said. “The blonde is from South America, I think. On vacation. The other one is her tour guide.”

  “Vacation? Like hell,” the surfer said, half to the bartender, half to himself. He stared back down the bar at the two women. “She isn’t on a vacation. She is a vacation. Please go tell them that they drink free tonight—my welcome gift.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” the bartender said before walking over to extend the surfer’s offer.

  Then the surfer waited. He finished his drink. He ordered a second. The electric, numbing sensation of the cocaine was beginning to wear off, but he didn’t worry. He had more. He knew the importance of patience. He wasn’t satisfied with simply picking up women anymore, even if it was two of them. He wanted them to want him first. That was the game for him now. He made them come to him. And while the surfer waited, Carter’s impatience grew. He wanted to urge the memory forward, but he remembered some of what he’d been taught. Let the memories come. If you try to change them, you could lose them. So Carter stayed patient as well. Then, about halfway through the surfer’s second drink, he heard a voice from over his shoulder. It was a woman’s husky voice with a slight accent. “I guess we should thank you,” she said.

  The surfer turned around. “For what?” he asked casually as he stared into the deep, dark brown eyes of the darker woman. While she had a British accent, she looked Asian. The surfer stared at her and wondered what sort of wondrous mix she was. What magic formula produced a woman who looked like that? The woman’s blond friend was standing next to her, smiling.