the edge, and put his hand against the window. He could see the street sixteen stories below. He thought about what he had to accomplish today.
Binder had tipped off his journalist contacts about Todd Laurel and they were bound to seek him out later. That was the easy part. Before that, he had to meet with two representatives from Blue Water Capital, his largest potential client to date. He didn't know what to expect from these two, Marianne Madora and Dale Benedict. Of course, knowing what to expect wasn't his job. He had the Sorter for that. As with most clients, the Blue Water people had taken the test. The Sorter, however, had not yet returned the results. The delay worried him. He wondered what could be wrong with these people to make their psych profiles gum up the works. He was eager to know the answer.
After a few minutes of swimming, Reggie returned to his condo and showered. While standing naked, he unwrapped an insulin cartridge and placed it inside a pump. He attached a catheter between the pump and the port that was surgically mounted above his hip. A strap secured the pump to his side. Reggie dressed in crisp khakis, a blue cotton shirt and dark blue blazer. By his front door he found a pair of shined shoes and slipped them on. He didn't have any preference for style, only for what worked. He'd concluded that this attire struck the right balance between gravitas and casual confidence. He was happy to suffer people their little superstitions if it served his purposes.
There was a knock on the door. That was odd. Reggie lived in an exclusive complex. Unless you lived here, you didn't just walk up to someone's door and knock. Reggie didn't know anyone else in the building. That left one other possibility. He opened the door and wasn't surprised.
A tall man nearly Reggie's age and smelling of cigarette smoke entered the apartment.
“Lieutenant.” said Binder.
Keller walked into the kitchen. Todd Laurel's blood was still wet. Human blood takes ages to dry out.
Binder said, “I'm probably going to sell the place, now that it's served its purpose.”
The lieutenant sat in the seat at the island where Sara had been sitting a few hours before and said, “I'm sorry I couldn't be here for the main event.”
“But you're checking up on me now.” Binder sat on the other stool. “You shouldn't be worried. This...” he gestured at the blood stain. “...wasn't the main event. It wasn't even close.”
“Were you ever a master chess player?”
“Once.”
“I've noticed that they don't like winning. They like humiliating their opponents.”
“That's no less true of you.”
Keller said, “The commissioner is very pleased with the Sorter's results. He regrets not taking quicker action on many of its recommendations.”
“Can I assume that that will change?”
“You have no idea, Mr. Binder. I heard there was an important vote in the Senate tomorrow.”
“Of course. On the legality of using the Sorter in police activities and parole decisions.”
Keller smiled. “I get that's what this is all about. You're putting on a show and I get that, but I've got a secret for you. The commissioner is in DC today testifying before the Senate. That information's supposed to be confidential. Did you know about it?”
Reggie straightened up a little.
Keller said, “I'll take that as no.” He leaned forward. “The news says the vote is divided. You've heard of this freshman senator from Connecticut, Paul Varden? He's a pretty boy and he talks well and that makes him a media darling. CNN's saying he might sway the vote. If you've got a show planned, today is the day.”
Reggie leaned away from the Lieutenant. The man stank. Binder always had difficulty respecting anyone who couldn't respect their own body. Smokers and the morbidly obese were among his chief repulsions. The Sorter would have told him that there were circumstances, there were always circumstances. One of the unexpected annoyances of working with the Sorter is that it made it hard to judge people with an honest mind. Our opinions of others are so often consolations to ourselves. Losing them in favor of equations was like losing faith in a god. Reggie didn't like it much and found that even he, the Sorter's most dedicated promoter, had to leave himself little corners of irrational sentiment, or else risk going insane. These are the sacrifices one must make for the greater good.
Binder said, “What do you expect to get out of this? Don't tell me it's a promotion.”
“I'm sure you already know.”
“You're writing a tattle tale book, aren't you?”
“I've already got a publisher, but I'm holding out for a bigger scandal.”
“You have no idea, Lieutenant.” Reggie said, mimicking the tone of voice the other man had used with the same phrase. He stood up. “However, it doesn't end there.”
He surveyed his apartment, looking for his cell phone. He saw it face down on the counter by the sink. That troubled him; he would never have done that. Reggie had once dated a girl who'd smashed his phone. Maybe Sara had picked up this one with that intent and changed her mind. He could tell the screen was blinking because it cast a blue halo around the device on the granite surface. Binder flipped it over and saw that the blinking came from his own company's logo.
“What's the matter?” said Keller, craning his head to see.
“I never liked this picture.” said Reggie, turning the phone so that Keller could see the icon. “It's supposed to be the Great Sphinx of Giza, but I had always wanted the sphinx of Thebes. Do you know why?”
“Should I care? Did you say you had something else to show me?”
“The sphinx of Thebes chewed up anyone who failed to answer its riddle. The only man who could solve that riddle was Oedipus.”
“Seems appropriate for an electronic head shrink.”
Reggie waved his hand in dismissal. “Leave it Freud to ruin a good story. Lieutenant, you are as ignorant as the rest. Willful incest borne of shameful childhood eroticism has no relevance to this story. It couldn't have, because Oedipus didn't know who his parents were. This very ignorance brought him to ruin. Once in possession of the truth, he knew that to save his city he must sacrifice himself. That is what the Sorter is about. It tells people the hard truth they need to hear.”
“Do you have a hard truth you want to tell me?”
Binder came back to the island and placed the phone on it, face up.
He sat again, saying, “The Greek sphinx bears no relation to the Egyptian sphinx. However, my business partner, Dr. Kevin Nagel, convinced me that if I wanted a sphinx, it had to be Giza's. No one knew of any other one.” He glanced at the phone. “I hate conforming to public stupidity, but I sometimes relent if it serves a more important goal. Sometimes Kevin does have practical sense.”
They sat in silence. Then the phone buzzed. It was getting more urgent now.
Keller said, “Are you going to answer that?”
“The main event involves two visitors from Blue Water Capital, an investment firm. I am suspicious of these people. They remain unknown quantities. My hope is that this,” he gestured at the phone, “is the result of their testing.”
When Reggie continued to delay, Keller cocked his head and gave him a quizzical look. He leaned in again, assaulting Reggie with that cigarette stench.
The lieutenant said, “Are you afraid to know?”
Without saying anything, Reggie pushed the accept button. It said:
COMMENCE PROGRAM ASSET TWO
The look on Reggie's face was something Keller had never seen before. There was a mix of surprise and genuine anxiety. It went away, but for that moment it became clear that Binder's aura of omniscience was only a magic act, as if Keller needed any further confirmation.
Keller said, “What the hell does that mean?”
I'm going to kill George, Reggie thought.
George Simon was his chief coder and a mistake Reggie wished he hadn't made. George had seemed a perfect match. He'd aced his
interview exam, a feat no other applicant had come close to. The exam was more than a test of intelligence. It was a test of nuts and bolts know-how. Though Reggie ran the company, the Sorter was based on Dr. Kevin Nagel's theories. Those theories were dead on arrival unless someone could translate Kevin's chicken scratch into executable bits. Kevin was one of those people you'd call book smart. That is, the best way to steal his wallet was to remove his pants.
On the other hand, George Simon would pound out useful code like a bull on a cow, but he wasn't a big ideas kind of guy. For a couple years he worked out well. Then he lost focus, got depressed, or just plain blew a ball bearing somewhere. He got sloppy and unreliable. Some days he was still brilliant. The rest of the time he had a habit of malfunctioning. And so did the Sorter.
The lieutenant said, “Your baby's sick, isn't it?”
Binder closed the app and opened a photo album. He selected a picture and showed it to the other man.
He said, “Do you recognize this person?”
“Yeah that's John Smith. He's Detective Holland's boyfriend.”
“He's a wonderful subject.” Reggie closed the picture. “You were right, I do have something else to tell you. I am aware of your animosity toward your detective. You have this petty grudge against her.”
“I wouldn't call it petty.”
“I would, because you are a petty man and are capable of nothing else.” Reggie put the phone in the inside pocket of his blazer. “You used to work with this Yancy