SORRY HAD TO CANCEL FLIGHT BIG SPONTANEOUS RALLY INDIANAPOLIS. WILL SCHEDULE NEW VISIT. HANK.
IX
In the conference room the pipe smoke was thicker than ever. In its layers and eddies, the Orinoco people might have seen analogies with the weather of world events: laminar flow with occasional turbulence. The Orinoco people believed in containing local storms, smoothing them out and bringing them back into the general pattern of balminess. The world could be made to work given enough computing power and the ability to spot trouble in advance.
Today the centres of turbulence were few and obvious: the President had had a light stroke (the news would not reach the public) and so was postponing a few major decisions. Earthquakes in China were causing economic imbalances that would work their way through world trade figures — likewise the discovery of gold in the Sahara. American experiments near Jupiter were beginning to alarm the Russians, who believed they were trying to turn Jupiter into a sun. How to reassure them?
The problem of Entities still nagged. ‘Shouldn’t we be getting some Entity news from Minnetonka? The Agency isn’t going to let us down again, are they?’
‘I have an interim report,’ said someone, and dry liver-spotted hands rustled dry tissues of paper. ‘The Agency sent two men, and they have reported a probable kill of the Entity, with a certainty of point nine two two.’
‘I hear a
‘But they now disconfirm. The Entity is still at large, and no longer highly visible They now ask for a priority number so they can plan their hunt. Any ideas?’
‘Just how badly do we need this Entity?’
‘Good question. Not exactly a case for calling in more agents, is it?’
‘To make a worse mess of it. You know I can’t help wondering why this is all so difficult. Two grown men, experienced field agents, with all the Agency backing — money, help, equipment, administration — can’t manage to track down and kill a lone automaton. I gather the thing is none too bright, has no friends or allies — what
‘I don’t know, I can check. But we can’t let this thing run free, you know. Suppose someone discovers it — their co-worker or lover or neighbour turns out to be all full of electronic junk and no meat! Could start a bad panic — we’d have a devil of a time getting the media to sit on it.’
‘Exactly, exactly. The projections are all bad. But we do have these two Agency men still on it, I don’t see how we can justify more. Vote on it?’
The Hackme Demolition Company was halted, temporarily hung up on a legal snag, so Roderick had the day off. He decided to call up all his friends. Ida’s recorded voice told him that she was home, but not at all well and not taking calls today. Luke’s recorded voice told him he was out, seeing his children in a zoo. That exhausted the list.
Roderick wandered into an amusement arcade, to test his reflexes for half an hour. Then he prowled the streets and stared at the mannikins in store windows. Finally he found himself on Junipero Serra Place, just outside Danton’s Doggie Dinette. Might be fun to borrow a dog and go in? Let the waitress bustle about, setting out a bowl of ice water for the dog and a menu for him?
On the other hand he might run into Danton, not so funny. No, best thing was to just keep going, right on past this alley too, don’t even look down it…
Roderick saw Allbright back in his usual corner of the alley, sitting on a box and drinking something out of a bottle in a paper bag.
‘I’m glad they let you out. I knew you weren’t the murderer, Allbright.’
The bag tipped, paused, tipped again. ‘They said you described me perfectly.’
‘No I didn’t. I described that guy we saw that day, with the gold hair and tinted glasses.’
‘I believe you, I guess.’ The bag tipped. ‘You should have described me, so maybe they’d have picked him up.’
‘Well anyway you’re free. You’re innocent.’
Allbright nodded, wiped a grimy hand across his mouth, burped. ‘Yes, the innocent they let off with a warning. They don’t care a hell of a lot for innocence — they don’t know how to handle it.’
‘I guess that makes sense. Cops have to be suspicious.’
‘See as long as I looked guilty they treated me like a king. After all, they knew I’d be hiring a fancy lawyer for a fancy fee. They knew I’d be talking to the press a lot, maybe writing up my story as a sensational book, see? I was somebody and something.
‘Then the real killer sawed the leg off another woman while I was still locked up. Not guilty, I’m all of a sudden just another piece of innocent human shit.’ He offered the bottle. ‘Drink?’
‘No thanks, I don’t drink.’
‘That’s okay, I think it’s empty anyway.’ Allbright blew down the bottle and produced a low, dull note. ‘Let me give you some advice, kid. Don’t be innocent. Don’t ever be innocent, be guilty. Innocence scares hell out of people, they don’t know how to approach it — they don’t know what innocence wants from them. So they try to wipe it out. To wipe
‘So get some guilt. Be divorced. Go bankrupt. Have an old unpaid parking tag, at least. Drink too much. Put at least one parent into a retirement home against their will. Spoil a life. Need therapy. Get some guilt, or you are in trouble.’
‘Have
‘Only a goddamned stupid innocent could even ask that question. Of course I’ve got some guilt. I don’t know where to start, there’s so much… for one thing my talent, my precious gift frittered away in years of self-indulgence, pill-popping, snorting, lushing, messing up my one life and other lives… There was a girl who really took me seriously, took my work seriously. She was willing to quit the University and take a job, just to feed me and clothe me and keep me straight enough to maybe write poetry again. Only of course that wasn’t enough for me, no I had to nag her into popping pills with me… We ended up both broke and living in a dirty squat, an old packing house that always smelled of meat or shit, the timbers of the old place were all soaked through with blood. One morning I woke up and found her dead beside me, yes you could say I’ve got some guilt about Dora. Not just her dying but dying alone like that with me off in my head somewhere watching the pink and green lights in my head. So she died all alone in that shit-smelling place and I couldn’t do anything for her, just wrap her warm in an old quilt and just leave her there in that place, in that place. I’ve got some guilt. Much guilt.’
Roderick asked another question, but just then a jet plane roared over. Then Allbright was getting up and edging away, and no wonder: here came Danton, puffing steam, with a baseball bat in his hand.
‘You!’ he shouted, looking murderous. ‘Wood! Did I give you permission to come out in the alley? Did I?’
‘No sir, but — wait a minute, I don’t—’
Danton took a cut with the bat. Roderick jumped back.
‘You don’t what? You don’t work? I know that. I got a mountain of dirty bowls in there and nobody around, nobody!’ He took another cut and hit the wall. ‘I treat you like my own son, my own son! And you—’
‘But you fired me, Mr Danton. I don’t work for you.’
Danton paused, puffing steam. ‘Yeah, that’s right. I did fire you.’ He looked at the baseball bat in his hand, then stood on one foot and used the bat to knock imaginary dirt from his imaginary cleats. ‘Well, back to the old grind.’ He started to walk away, then looked back, the bat over his shoulder. ‘If you ever need a job, kid…’
‘Okay then, was it anything like this?’ O’Smith punched some more buttons on the pocket-sized gadget. In the little window a square chin changed to a pointed chin.
