fragments of ice, and looking at the micomprehensible page of shorthand as he swallowed the whole mouthful.
He glanced at some stuff on twins that he'd photocopied. He started to read it and later he would wish he had. But he kept hitting words like “follicle” and “ova” and polyovular’ and ‘homologous” and he scanned a page or two of it, half-assed speed-reading it, until the phrase “Multiple pregnancy monstrosities” hooked him for a secon. He read:
“Double-ovum twins are biologically not twins at all” (Noel would be crushed to hear it) “but are due to the fertilization of two ova in a single period of ovulation. Single-ovum twins represent twinning in the precise definition of the word, dividing an individual into two. This twinning can also be produced experimentally in animals and fish, but is fundamentally associated with the production of monstrosities, these being imperfect forms of the divisional process.” Eichord had no way of knowing that the book he had photocopied had been written years before the famous experimentation that resulted in the cloning breakthroughs.
He continued to read about the births of double-headed and four-legged monsters, and then he started hitting those words again: “teratomas” and “blastoderms” an-'placentation.” When he got to “fission of the bilateral halves of a single embryonic axis” he let tile paper slide to the floor where Dog sniffed over it for a moment and also found it of no interest.
The next page had the goodies on it but he hit the word “telegony” and let it slip through his fingers. The next page caught his eye and for a moment he read about how the pair of Siamese twins, born with a single vagina but separate uteri and cervices, had given birth to a child. It boggled his mind so badly that he just sat there trying to recreate the possible relationship out of which the event had occurred, but he made himself snap out of it, turned the page, and then poured another glass of the golden glow juice.
He read and drank and read some more. Found the page where he'd marked a yellow fluorescent hi-liner rectangle around a paragraph explaining that twins may find themselves “in aggressive or hostile situations in which sibling rivalry, jealousy, and the desire to dominate may be strongly manifested, and, the necessity to coexist causes each partnership to adjust to the separate personality traits of the other, in this way the two beings interlock in the closes bond that can exist between two persons. In extreme cases this bond can become pathological and destructive.” The word “pathway” came and superimposed itself on “pathological.'
And Jack kept reading and drinking finally he fell asleep snoring like a dockhand of what it would be like to bed down with. Identical twins. Knockouts like the two on TV—in his dream he couldn't recall their names, but he dressed them up like cheerleaders. It was his “I know you can see my panties when I jump up, that's why they match my skirt” fantasy. And the girls were warm. And wonderful. And when he woke up in the morning, head full of pounding drums and ocean's roar, he is fully dressed, on the bedspread of the bed in the motel, his arms around an extremely contented dog, and he knows that—at the very least—he has fleas. Fleas will be the least of it, he thinks, shaking his head in disgust, which he immediately regrets.
Now if only my heart will start again, he thinks, throwing open the door and evicting his sleeping partner.
Eichord hated the telephone yet he recognized that it was one of the great tools in his profession, like the MCTF computers, and he made as much use of it as he could in spite of his loathing for the hunk of plastic. It was funny about “solving” homicides. You could cover the streets with a phalangeal army of detectives, bring in the feds and the technicians with their sophisticated gear, keep a half-dozen lab people up all night working with the most expensive equipment money could buy, and end up pulling the case out of the ashes with a hype who couldn't remember how old he was or by lucking out with that loathsome piece of plastic.
“I gotta pull my chestnuts outta the fire,” he said for no particular reason as Wally Michaels walked past his desk.
“Damn straight, sir. Nobody wants to burn their nuts.” I'll drink to that, Jack thought. And he got up and went in the men's room and took a big pull off the pocket flask he was now carrying with him. He shuddered it down, loving the way it burned inside him. In his pants pocket he'd taken to carrying a tiny tinfoil square with a bit of toothpaste in it. He opened the foil and put the toothpaste in his mouth, rinsing it around with tap water. He smiled at the thought of someone coming in and seeing him dab around in the little piece of Reynolds Wrap with his finger, see a bit of something white, and figure him for doing toot on the job. Same difference, he’ supposed, returning to the desk without a trace of guilt. That'll clear your fucking sinuses. He glanced at the stack of abstracts.
He was doodling an elaborate thing around the word “symbiosis” which was followed by the printed definition “the living together more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms.” He capped his felt-tipped pen, reached over and dialed a familiar number.
“Public safety,” a bored woman's voice intoned.
“Police department, please,” Eichord said. He waited for a good sixty seconds while the ancient switchboard system rerouted his long-distance call.
“—lice department,” a male officer answered.
“Homicide, please.” Another long wait. He wondered how many times some poor slob being threatened, some wife about to be murdered, some terrorized kid, whatever, had phoned the police and waited two minutes to have the call put through.
“Homicide.'
“Is James Lee there please?'
“Nope, this is Brown. C'n I help ya?
“Bob, Jack Eichord. Who's in the squad room?'
“Hey, Jack. Ummmm. Me, Herriman, Tuny, that's it. Where are ya?'
“Dallas. Put Tuny on, will ya?'
“CHUNKY!” he could hear him scream through the hand over the mouthpiece.
“Yeah.'
“YEAH? What the hell kind of way is that to answer the phone?'
“Eichord?'
“In the flesh.'
“You bum. Where the fuck are ya, fuckin’ Hawaii on the taxpayers’ buck?” “I wish. Big D. Hey, do me a favor. You know that phone book of Lee's that he keeps in his desk? The one with the loose pages with phone numbers in the back?'
“Unngg.'
“Do me a favor, Dana. Look up Ozzie Barnes’ number and gimme the address too, if it's in there.'
“Who?'
“last name: B-A-R-N-E-S. The first name will be listed as either Oz, O-Z, or Ozzie. Okay?'
“What, do I look like a fuckin’ telephone directory?'
“You look like somebody swallowed four basketballs, but how's about lookin’ it up anyway, big boy?'
“You got it, sahib, hang on to yourself.” A short pause and he heard fat Dana grab the phone again, “Kay, you got somethin’ to write with—a pencil or like that?'
“Yep.'
“Okay get the lead out and write this down. Oz Barnes, Area Code eight-one-eight...” And he gave him the number, asked him if he'd drunk the Rio Grande or the Trinity or whatever caca river dry yet, and they exchanged a few insults and Eichord dialed again.
“Yeah.'
“Ozzie?'
“Hey.'
“Jack. Eichord.” “Oh, Jack. Nice surprise. Where are you?” He told him. “What can I do for ya?'
“Oz, this is kinda up your alley. Real far-out stuff.” He told him a little about the Grave-digger case. “I wondered if you had run across any weird stuff that might relate.'
“In what way?'
“Oh, any of that goofy R-and-D shit the intelligence community is ranking out. Mind-control crap. LSD in the oatmeal. Any of that stuff?'
And for the next twelve minutes the Wiz of Ozzie took him through the whole nine yards of mushrooms and
