Conspiracies

by F. Paul Wilson

  Jack held out his hand for the cartridge. "You're probably right, but I'll never know until I look, will I."

  "Suit yourself," she said, shoving the cartridge into his palm. "But you're wasting your time."

  Turned out she was right.

  Jack situated himself before a viewer and began paging through the back files. The Express was a small town paper, devoted almost exclusively to local issues. Took Jack no time to scan through two months' worth.

  February 1968 was an uneventful month, but March turned out to be a whole different story—not a good time at all for the Village of Monroe: violent storms, protest marchers, and a man named Jim Stevens dying an ugly accidental death outside some place known as "the Hanley mansion." And then a few days later, mass murder and mayhem inside the same house.

  And that was it. Not a hint as to what might have caused the birth defects that popped up nine months later, and certainly nothing to back up Melanie's "burst of Otherness" theory.

  Jack returned the cartridge to Mrs. Forseman at her desk.

  "Should have listened to you," he said, trying to soften her up. "Couldn't find a thing."

  It worked. She actually cracked a smile. A tiny one. "Just trying to save you some trouble."

  "I guess any way you look at it, sixty-eight was a bad year for Monroe."

  "A bad year for the whole country," she said. "The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy came in the spring, followed by the riots in Chicago at the Democratic convention. And then the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia and slaughtered people in the streets." Her eyes got a faraway look. "Almost as if a dark cloud passed over the world that year and turned everything ugly."

  Jack hunched his shoulders to relieve a crawling sensation along his nape as he remembered Canfield's talk about a "burst of Otherness." You could almost make a case for something foul entering the world early in sixty-eight.

  He shook it off. "Any children of the cluster still around?"

  "Only two survived," she said, wary again. "But don't expect me to tell you who they are. They deserve their privacy."

  "I suppose you're right. I've already spoken to Melanie Rubin and Frayne Canfield and I thought—"

  "I saw Melanie recently myself. I hadn't seen her since her mother's funeral, but just last week I passed her old house and saw her standing outside with a very handsome man."

  Jack knew she couldn't be talking about Lew. "What did he look like?"

  She laughed. "Oh, I doubt very much I could describe him. My attention was too fixed on the monkey on his shoulder."

  "A monkey, ay?" Jack said. Hadn't Roma told Lew yesterday that he'd been looking forward to meeting Melanie in person? "Isn't that interesting."

  "Yes. Cute as a button."

  Jack shrugged. "I guess that's it then. Thanks."

  "Let those poor people be, young man," she said as he headed for the door. "Just let them be."

  Jack found a pay phone in the library foyer and called Lew's home number.

  When Lew recognized Jack's voice he gasped. "Have you found her?"

  "Not yet," Jack said. "Any sign of her out there?"

  "No," he said, his tone disconsolate. "Not a thing."

  "I had a nice little chat with Frayne Canfield."

  "Was he any help?"

  "Not much. What's his story?"

  "Still lives with his parents. Keeps to himself pretty much except for SESOUP activities. Debugs software for a living, but I don't think he's particularly successful at it. Why? You think he's involved?"

  "It's a possibility." A very good possibility. "I'm going to be keeping an eye on him. But you didn't tell me he was wheelchair-bound. He described his legs as 'deformed' ... which is also how he described Melanie's left arm." Not quite true, but Jack didn't want to let on that he'd broken into the Monroe house. "How come you never mentioned Melanie's arm?"

  "I didn't think it mattered."

  "It does if it's an identifying characteristic. Can I ask what's wrong with her hand?"

  "Well ... she doesn't really have one. According to the doctors, all the fingers on her left hand fused into a single large digit while she was a fetus. The same happened with the fingernails, leaving her with one large thick nail. She keeps it bandaged in public because it tends to upset people—they either stare or turn away."

  "I'm sorry," Jack said, unable to think of anything to say.

  Poor Melanie ... imagine having to go through life hiding one of your hands all the time ... and chopping the hands off your dolls ...

  "Nothing to be sorry about," Lew said. "She leads a full life. People stop noticing the bandage after a while. And.to tell you the truth, it never bothered me. I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her. The only thing it has stopped her from doing is having children. She's too afraid she'll pass on her deformity."

  Jack shook his head, remembering the wistful look in Lew's eyes this morning when he was playing with that toddler in the coffee shop.

  "There's always adoption."

  ''Someday I hope we will." His voice teetered on a sob. "If she ever comes back."

  "We'll find her, Lew," Jack said, only half believing it himself. "Just hang in there."

  "Like I have a choice?" he said and hung up.

  Don't fall apart on me, Lew, Jack thought as he replaced the receiver. You're the only one I've met in this thing who seems to be dealing from a full deck.

  He turned and saw an aerial map of Monroe with the streets labeled. He found Melanie's family home. He remembered the address of the Hanley mansion from the articles and, just for the hell of it, located its approximate location. Not too far from Melanie's place. Jack could see no line of causality between the storms and the deaths at the mansion in March to the birth defects in December, but he was sure some of the SESOUPers back at the convention could find multiple ways to link them. Probably link them to the King and Kennedy assassinations and every other nasty occurrence that year as well.

  But there couldn't be a connection. Just coincidence ...

  Shaking his head, he stepped outside and ambled toward his car. He was in no hurry to get back to the hotel. By now the SESOUP crew would be frothing at their collective mouths with theories about the ritualistic murder of one of their members.

  Good a time as any to do some more work on the new Social Security number, and maybe even sneak in a little time to help Vicky with her baseball skills.

  14

  "They cut out her eyes?" Abe said around a mouthful of frozen mocha yogurt. His expression registered disgust. "You're making me lose my appetite."

  "Wait," Jack said. "That's just the start. I haven't told you what they did to her lips and how they twisted—"

  He waved his hand in Jack's face. "No-no-no! What I don't know can't nauseate me."

  Just as well. Jack didn't want to talk about it anyway. He kept picturing himself finding Melanie in that condition and having to tell Lew.

  He'd brought a pint of fat-free frozen yogurt as a gift in anticipation of Abe's aid in authoring a letter to the Social Security Administration in Trenton. He hadn't mentioned the letter yet. He'd also brought a packet of sunflower seeds for Parabellum, who was patiently splitting the shells with his deft little beak and plucking out the tiny meats.

  Jack shrugged. "Okay. Bottom line is, she's dead."

  "And those tough guys in black did it?"

  "I'm assuming so. Never got the chance to ask. Tossed her room pretty well too."

  Abe picked up the sweating yogurt container and peered at the label.

  "Non-fat shouldn't taste this good. You're sure it's non-fat?"

  "That's what it says. And less calories too."

  "Fewer calories."

  "Less." Jack pointed to the bright yellow flag on the container. "Says so right there."

  "I should accept a yogurt label as my authority on grammar? Trust me, Jack, it's 'fewer.' Less fat—okay. But fewer calories."

  "You see?" Jack said, slapping a black-
and-white composition book down on Abe's counter. "That's why you're just the man to help me write a letter from a high school sophomore."

  Abe's eyes narrowed. "Have I just been suckered?"

  Jack blinked. "Why ... whatever do you mean?"

  Abe sighed. "Another letter to the SSA? Just rewrite the last one."

  "Nah. You know I like a new one every time. And besides, it's all your fault. You're the one who got me started on plastic money."

  "Had I but known what I would set in motion ... "

  When Abe finally had convinced Jack of the necessity of a credit card, he suggested adding Jack as an additional cardholder on his own pseudonymous Amex account. Jack chose the name Jack Connery—he'd been running some old James Bond films at the time—but needed a Social Security number to accompany the name.

  For Connery's SSN he used Abe's new—at least it was new at the time—method: he made one up. But that didn't mean simply pulling random numbers out of the air. Under Abe's tutelage, Jack learned that the SSN was divided into three sets of digits for a reason. The first set, the three-digit "area" number, told where the number was issued. If Connery had a New York birthplace and a New York address, he should have an area number somewhere between 050 and 134, indicating the number had been issued in New York. The second set of numbers was the "block" pair, indicating when the number was issued. Since Connery was listing a birth date of 1958, Jack didn't want to submit a block number that said Connery's SSN was issued before he was born. As for the last four digits—the "serial number"—anything goes.

  Abe submitted the information to Amex, a Jack Connery card was duly issued, and Jack joined the plastic money parade, making sure to charge a few items every month.

  Sixteen months later he was holding not one but three offers for pre-approved cards. Jack Connery signed up for his own MasterCard and, shortly thereafter, Abe canceled him as an additional cardholder.

  Jack Connery was on his own.

  "Used to be so easy," Abe said morosely. "You'd go to the registry, pick out the name of a dead guy, copy down his dates and numbers, and send those into the credit card company. Instantly, you've got a card. But now, computers have ruined everything."

  Jack nodded. "Got to love 'em, but they're a major pain in the ass too."

  Abe was referring to the SSDI—the Social Security Death Index that credit report companies like TRW and Equifax had compiled to ferret out credit cheaters. People like Jack and Abe weren't out to cheat anyone—they paid on time, to the dime—but the SSDI put their fake identities at risk. Even Jack's made-up number for Connery—someone just might happen to have that same SSN. What if that someone died and his number went into the SSDI? Neither Abe nor Jack needed a fraud investigator sniffing their way.

  So Jack had searched for a better way.

  He'd found it in the registry of vital statistics. Children ... the registry was filled with dead children, many of them infants, some gone from disease and birth defects, too many of them the victims of abandonment, abuse, or neglect whose immediate progenitors—to call them parents would be an insult to real parents everywhere—had cast them off like so much garbage. Jack collected a list of a dozen or so, all with the first name John, who had died ten to fifteen years before—without a Social Security number. For a small fee he obtained certified copies of their birth certificates ... and adopted them.

  As each reached his fifteenth or sixteenth birthday, Jack applied for a new Social Security number in that name.

  Jack pulled out a pen and opened the composition book.

  "Okay. This one's John D'Attilio. He'd have been sixteen next month. I've got Eddy working on the documents. The Hoboken drop is going to be his home address, so he'll be writing to the SSA office in Trenton. Let's make this a good one."

  Since the Social Security Act allowed someone under eighteen to apply for a Social Security number through the mail, Jack took full advantage of it. Over the years, he and Abe had composed a series of letters from various kids. Abe had a real knack for sounding like a reluctant teenager forced into applying for a Social Security number because his inconsiderate parents wanted him to ruin his summer by getting a dumb job.

  It took them about ten minutes to come up with a vernacular, handwritten request; Jack made a point of crossing out a word here and there along the way.

  The application required certified copies of the birth certificate, which Jack already had, and a school ID, which Ernie would provide. Then he'd put them all together and send the package off to Trenton. In a month or so, John D'Attilio would be issued a bona fide Social Security number, and added to the Social Security Administration's computers: another American cow branded and allowed to join the taxpaying herd.

  "How many times have we done this now?" Abe said.

  "Eight, I think."

  After Jack Connery had been spun off from Abe's Amex, Jack had added two additional cardholders—Jack Andrissi and John Bender—to the Connery MasterCard. A year and a half later, various banks and Amex were wooing Andrissi and Bender with pre-approved offers.

  He'd then spun off Andrissi and Bender and abandoned Connery. A new identity was added to each of the Andrissi and Bender cards. And so it went, an ongoing process of creating new identities and discarding old ones, leaving an increasingly attenuated, protracted maze that—Jack hoped—would be impossible to follow.

  "Kind of morbid," Abe said. "And such a megillah."

  Jack sighed. "I know about the morbid part—but I mean, I could be the only one in the world who's given one thought to some of these kids since the day they died—since the day they were born, maybe. They're almost like real family to me. And, in a sense, this gives them back some sort of life."

  "A virtual life—in the databanks."

  "So to speak. But as for the megillah ... you've got that right."

  He slumped against the counter as a dark cloud seemed to form up near the ceiling and trickle a cold drizzle on him.

  "You know, Abe, I've spent most of my adult life trying to get to this place. And now ... I don't know."

  It had been a long hard journey, full of dangerous curves, to achieve sovereign statehood, to become a nation of one. At first it had been kind of fun—the artful dodging, the hide and seek, the daily buzz of staying on his toes and living by his wits. But the buzzes had grown fewer and further between. And without the buzz, all the dodging and hiding became work—a lot of work. Jack's was a high-maintenance lifestyle.

  "Sometimes I get tired of all the upkeep ... and I start asking, is it worth it?"

  "You're just having a bad day."

  "No ... it's not just the day." He thought of seeing Vicky later and playing catch with her. "It's this schizoid life I'm leading."

  "Well then, the question you've got to ask is, will merging with the global mega-conglomerate out there make you happier than remaining a closely held corporation of one? It's a decision only you can make."

  "Tell me about it. But I'm beginning to see that it's not really a question of 'if'—more a question of 'when.' I mean, can you see me doing this thirty years from now? Who in his sixties has the energy for this?"

  "I'm in my fifties and I can barely keep up. I should retire."

  A shock of alarm pierced Jack. "What? And give up the gun trade? A lot of people out there depend on you, Abe. And what would you do? You couldn't get by selling just sporting goods, could you?"

  Abe shrugged. "You never know. Take Rollerblades, for instance. Such a racket. You sell them these inline skates so they can go out and have some fun exercise. But then they have to buy helmets and shin guards and knee pads and wrist protectors so they shouldn't maim themselves while having said fun exercise."

  "Hardly seems fair," Jack said.

  Abe shook his head. "I know. Gun running is a much more honorable trade."

  "Well, you could simply refuse to carry the skates."

  "What, am I crazy? You have any idea what the markup is on that stuff? I should let someone else make all th
e profit?"

  15

  "Eye on the ball, Vicks. That's it. Watch it all the way into the glove."

  Vicky did just that—watched it go into her glove and bounce right out. As she chased it across the tiny backyard, Jack had to admit that Vicky was a bit of a klutz when it came to baseball.

  He looked around. A backyard in Manhattan, a stone's throw from the East River. A private oasis in a ferro-concrete desert. What a luxury.

  The grounds had gone untended through the fall. Now Gia had already started weeding the flower beds, but the grass needed cutting, especially around Vicky's playhouse in the rear corner. Jack planned to buy a mower next week and take care of that. He hadn't cut grass since he was a teenager. Used to be his summer job. He found himself looking forward to mowing again. The city was filled with smells, but new mown grass wasn't one of them.

  Despite the neglect, it was still pretty out here, especially near the rear wall of the house where the buds on the rose bushes were swelling, showing some pink as they prepared to bloom.

  Gia had come out to paint. She was taking a break now, sitting at the white enameled table in the shade, nibbling delicate slivers of a bright green Granny Smith as she whittled them off with a paring knife. Her latest painting—the top of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge glinting in the afternoon sun as it peeked over the townhouse roof—sat half finished on an easel by the playhouse. Jack liked it a hell of a lot better than any of Melanie Ehler's work, especially that one in her study. Gia, on the other hand, might go for Melanie's stuff. Her appreciation of art was so much wider than Jack's. Vicky picked up the baseball and threw it—wild.

  She throws like a girl, Jack thought as he raced to intercept it before it hit her mother. But then, what else did he expect?

  Jack caught the ball a few feet away from a cringing Gia.

  "Many athletes in your family?" he said in a low voice.