Danny took her hands again and rubbed them as if they were cold. It was his hands that were cold.
“But I need some help…” he began.
“Money,” said Carol.
Danny dropped her hands and made a fist. Carol noticed how pudgy, pale, and weak his hand looked, as if the muscles there had been replaced by fat. Or creme filling, she thought. Like those Bavarian creme donuts he used to eat.
“Not just money,” he rasped at her. “Help. I’m ready to take the step to total reintegration, and Dr. Singh says that…”
“Total reintegration?” said Carol. It sounded like some new software telem package that Val wanted to buy for his VR shades.
Danny’s smile was condescending. “Yeah. Total recall. Complete reintegration of this past life with the soul-knowledge that I’ve gained during my time at the ashram. It’s like…you know…retrofitting an old gas-burning car for electric or methane. There are some people at the ashram who are actually at the stage where they can reintegrate their past lives, but… Jesus, you know… I feel like I’ll be lucky to handle this one.” He made the abrasive laughing sound again.
Carol nodded. “You need money for flashback that you use in this…therapy,” she said. “How much? How long a replay?” Her voice would have betrayed her almost total lack of curiosity if Danny had been paying any real attention.
“Well,” he said, excited, obviously thinking that he had a chance, “total reintegration is…you know…total. I’ve already liquidated what I had…the Lakeshore apartment, the Chrysler electric, the few stocks that Wally left me…but I’ll need a lot more to…” He stopped when he saw her expression. “Hey, Carol, this isn’t, like, a one-payment thing. It’s like…you know…a mortgage or car payments. It’s not really much at all when you look at it stretched out over the period we’re talking about, and…”
Carol said, “You’re talking about flashing back on your whole life.”
“Well…you know…what I mean is…yeah.”
“Total reintegration,” said Carol. “You’re forty-four years old, Danny, and you’re going to flashback your entire life.”
He sat up straight, his chin thrusting out in what Carol remembered as his belligerent posture. As pale, overweight, and soft as he looked now, the sight was a bit pathetic.
“It’s easy to make fun of someone who’s willing to be vulnerable,” he said. “I’m trying to straighten out my life, Carol.”
Carol laughed softly. “Danny, you’d be eighty-eight when you finished the flashback.”
He leaned forward as if he were going to impart a secret to her. His voice was wet and intimate. “Carol, this is just one life on the wheel. The most important thing about it is where we are when we end it.”
Carol stood up. “There’s no doubt where you’ll be, Danny. You’ll be broke.” She walked away.
“Hey…” shouted Danny, not rising. “I forgot to ask…how’s Val?”
Carol went out into the rain, could not remember which way the bus stop was, and began walking blindly toward the Civic Center.
Val and his friends were lounging in the steel viaduct buttresses fifty feet above the concrete riverbed when Coyne suddenly sat up, grabbed Val’s shoulder, and said, “Bingo!”
“Don’t you have your shades wired to news?” said Coyne, nodding and grinning at something in VR.
“News?” said Val. “Are you shitting me?”
Coyne took his glasses off. “I shit you not, Val my man. We have just been delivered a Jap.”
Val felt his heart sink.
“Delivered a Jap, delivered a Jap,” crooned Sully.
“What’s happening?” said Gene D., coming out of a ten-minute flash. From the look of the bulge in Gene D.’s jeans, Val guessed that his friend had been flashing on the Spanic girl’s rape again.
“Newsflash,” grinned Coyne. “Big stir at the Civic Center. The mayor’s headed over there with his Jap advisor buddy, Morozumi.”
“Civic Center,” said Val. “My mom works there.”
Coyne nodded. “We take that neat tunnel complex you showed us in from First Street. Do the deed there at that VIP plaza on Temple Street. Get our asses out through the tunnel to Pueblo Park and then didi mau ourselves away by bus. Leave the fucking gun in the fucking tunnel.”
“Won’t work,” said Val, searching his mind for reasons that it would not.
Coyne shrugged. “Maybe not. But it’ll be a mainline rush to check it out.”
“It won’t work,” said Val, repeating the phrase like a mantra as he followed the others.
Robert felt more alive than he had in years as he followed the boys onto a caterpillar bus and slid into the section behind them. His pace was lighter, his vision was clearer, and he felt as if he had cleared his head of cobwebs. He stood at the front end of the second bus section, watching through the accordion doors into Val’s section to make sure he did not miss it when the boys stepped out.
Robert wondered if the therapy persona was correct, if his flashback obsession was the result of a sense of failure at not protecting his wife from her final bout of cancer. “You are aware,” the program had told him, “that more than fifty years after the death of President Kennedy, there are thousands of people obsessed with conspiracy theories that have never been proven.”
“I don’t believe in a conspiracy,” Robert had muttered.
The bearded persona had smiled on the ITV wall. “No, but you perseverate in this protection fantasy.”
Robert had worked hard not to become angry. He had said nothing.
“Your wife died…how many years ago was it?” asked the counselor.
Robert knew that the program knew. “Six,” he said.
“And how long ago was it that the country was so wrapped up in the fiftieth anniversary of this assassination?”
Robert did feel anger at the simple-minded obviousness of this line of questioning. But he had promised Carol and the Medicaid caseworker that he would undergo the counseling. “Five years ago.”
“And the flashback obsession…”
“About five years,” sighed Robert. He had glanced at his watch. “My time’s up.”
The bearded persona… Robert thought it was a persona, he was never sure…showed white teeth through his beard. “Bobby,” he said, “that’s my line.”
The boys got off the bus at the ruins of the old Federal Building and Robert followed.
All the way back to the Civic Center in the rain, Carol looked around her with newly opened eyes. She looked at the ten-foot-high heaps of bagged garbage, the abandoned storefronts, the unrepaired damage from the Big One years ago, the slogans in mock-Japanese touting cheap Japanese recreation electronics, the security cameras, the cheap electrics lining the curb with their security holos pulsing ominously, the people hurrying along with gray faces and averted eyes the way she had remembered seeing vid from Eastern Europe and Russ when she was a kid…it all seemed to match Danny’s fat characterless face and whining, self-absorbed tone.
I’m going to take Val and Dad and move to Canada, she thought. It was not a whim. It was the strongest resolve she had felt in years. Or
Mexico. Somewhere where half the population isn’t zonked on flashback at any given moment.
Carol raised her face to the rain. I’m going to quit using that shit. Get Val and Dad to stop.
She tried to remember what the country had been like when she was a tiny little kid, looking at the kindly, grandfatherly face of President Reagan on the old-fashioned TV. You bankrupted us forever, you kindly, grandfatherly asshole. My kid’s kids will never pay off the debt. For what…winning the Cold War and creating the Russ Republic so it can compete with us in buying Japanese and EC products? We can’t afford them. And we’ve all become too stupid and too lazy to make our own.
For the first time, Carol understood why use of flashback was cause for execution in Japan…a nation that had not had the death penalty for sixty years before that. For the first time she und
erstood that a culture or a nation actually had to decide whether it would look forward or allow itself to lie back and dream until it died.
Total reintegration. Mother of Christ.
Carol had walked for more than an hour when she realized that the rain had stopped but that her cheeks were still wet. It was a shock when she turned the corner near the Civic Center and was stopped by security agents. She showed her badge at two points, was frisked by a sniffer, and then approached the north entrance where the mayor’s limo and several armored Lexuses sat within a cordon of police motorcycles.
She was already upstairs and had been checked by two more security people before one of the women from the secretarial pool came rushing toward her, tears streaming down the woman’s heavy face. “Carol, did you hear? It’s terrible. Poor Dale.”
Carol pulled herself free, went into her cubicle, and keyed her phone to vid news. The bulletin was repeated a moment later. L.A. Assistant Attorney Dale Fritch, a Japanese national named Hiroshi Nakamura, and five other people had been murdered in a downtown café. There was the usual montage of crime scene video. Carol sat down heavily.
Her urgent-message phone light was blinking. Numbly, Carol killed the news feed and keyed the message.
“Carol,” said Dale Fritch, his boyish image only slightly distorted by the poor pay-phone video, “I’m sorry we missed each other, but it’s all right. Hiroshi talked more freely with just me here. Carol…I believe him. I think the Japanese have been feeding this stuff to us since the late nineties. I think there’s something here bigger than the EC Payback Scandal, bigger than Watergate…shit, bigger than the Big One. Hiroshi has disks, papers, memos, payoff lists…” Fritch glanced over his shoulder, “Look, Carol, I’ve got to get back to him. Look, I’m not coming in this afternoon. Can you bring your datawriter and meet me at…uh…say the LAX Holiday Inn…at five-thirty? It’ll be worth it, I promise. Okay. Uh…don’t say anything about any of this to anyone, okay? See you at five-thirty. Ciao.”
Carol sat looking at her phone a minute and then recorded the message to a fresh disk, slipped it in her pocket, and keyed the news feed. A live reporter was standing in front of a restaurant where bodies were being removed on gurneys. “…police know only that Assistant D.A. Fritch was at the restaurant in an unofficial capacity when three men in black ski masks entered and opened fire with what one witness described as, quote, ‘military-type needleguns, the kind you see in the movies.’ Assistant D.A. Fritch and the others died instantly. The Japanese Embassy has no comment on the identity of the man with Fritch, but a CNN/LA news source close to the embassy informs us that the Japanese national was one Hiroshi Nakamura, a felon wanted by Tokyo Police Prefecture. Sources within the L.A.P.D. speculate that Nakamura may have been meeting with Assistant D.A. Fritch to sound out Los Angeles justice authorities on a plea bargain in exchange for a promise of no extradition. These same sources inform CNN/LA that the hit bears all the marks of a Yakuza assassination. The Yakuza, as you may remember, are Japan’s most lethal crime organization and a rising problem in the new…”
“Carol?” said a voice behind her. “Could you step into my office for a moment?” Bert Torrazio was standing there with several security men in plainclothes.
The mayor and his advisor, Mr. Morozumi, were sitting in leather chairs across from the D.A.’s desk. Carol nodded although no introductions were made.
“Bert,” said the mayor, “take me down to Dale’s office, would you? I’d like to offer my condolences to his staff.”
Everyone left except for Carol, two Japanese security men, and Morozumi. The advisor was impeccable in a Sartori suit, gray tie, and perfectly groomed gray hair. A modest Nippon Space Agency wrist chronometer that must have cost at least thirty thousand dollars was his only concession to extravagance. Mr. Morozumi nodded and the security men left.
“You returned from lunch three minutes too soon, Ms. Rogallo,” said the advisor. “The disk, please.”
Carol hesitated only a second before handing him the CD.
Morozumi smiled slightly as he slipped the silver disk in his coat pocket. “We knew, of course, that Mr. Fritch had called someone, but the city’s antiquated communications equipment succeeded in tracing the call only seconds ago.” Morozumi rose and crossed to a rubber tree near the window. “Mr. Torrazio should take better care of his plants,” the advisor murmured almost to himself.
“Why?” said Carol. Why kill Dale? Why feed a nation a drug for twenty years?
Mr. Morozumi raised his face. Sunlight glinted on his round glasses. He touched a leaf of the rubber tree. “It is a sign of slovenliness not to take care of those living things in one’s care,” he said.
“What happens next?” said Carol. When Morozumi did not answer, she said, “To me.”
The little man dusted another leaf with his fingers and then rubbed his fingertips together, cleaning them. “You live with your child, Valentine, and a father who is currently receiving counseling. Your ex-husband, Daniel, is still alive and… I believe…visiting your fair city even as we speak.”
Carol felt something like cold fingers close around her heart and throat.
“To answer your question,” continued Mr. Morozumi, “I presume you will continue doing your fine job here at the Justice Center and that Mr. Torrazio will be pleased with your performance. From time to time I will, perhaps, have the opportunity to chat with you and hear about the continued health and well-being of your family.”
Carol said nothing. She concentrated on staying on her feet and not swaying.
Mr. Morozumi pulled a tissue from a dispenser on Bert Torrazio’s desk, wiped his dirty fingers, and dropped the Kleenex on the D.A.’s blotter. As if on signal, the mayor, the D.A., and the security people came back through the door. Torrazio looked at Carol and then raised his eyebrows questioningly.
Mr. Morozumi averted his glance as if Torrazio had food on his upper lip. “We had a delightful chat and it is time to get back to business,” said Mr. Morozumi. He left with the slim security men. The mayor shook Torrazio’s hand, nodded in Carol’s direction, and rushed to catch up to the procession.
Carol and the District Attorney stared at each other for a full minute before she turned on her heel and went back to her cubicle. The file cabinet was empty and both her phone and computer had been replaced. Carol sat down and stared at a cartoon she had taped to the frosted glass of her partition four years earlier. It showed a court reporter typing furiously as a witness and lawyer screamed at each other, the judge pounded her gavel, the defendant stood shouting at the witness, the defendant’s lawyer yelled at him, and two jurors bellowed at each other on the verge of a violent confrontation. A woman behind the court reporter was saying to a friend, “She’s a good writer but her plots aren’t very believable.”
The underground mall ended at a ventilator grill between the landscaping and the Civic Center. Coyne had brought a crowbar. The boys found themselves standing with a small press contingent bristling with vid cameras and parabolic mikes. Local reporters shouted questions at the mayor and his Japanese advisor as they descended the stairs to the idling limousine. Val was within twenty feet of the VIPs. The ventilator grill was open and waiting twenty feet behind him. The security people ignored the previously searched press group and concentrated on watching the buildings and the crowd being held back across the little plaza.
“Do it,” said Coyne. “Now.”
Val took the pistol and cocked it.
The mayor paused just long enough to answer a shouted question and then wave at someone in the Civic Center doorway. Obeying protocol, Mr. Morozumi waited by the open limousine door for the mayor to finish.
Val raised the pistol. It was less then fifteen feet to the Japanese man’s head. The pistol barrel was just one more lens thrust toward the small knot of VIPs. Val was not aware of Coyne, Sully, and Gene D. sliding away and disappearing down the open grill.
Robert had almost not been able to pull himself up out of the o
pening. He thought that all of his strength was gone by the time he stood up, brushing rust and dead leaves from his pants, but then he saw Val, saw the gun, saw that he was closer to the target than to his grandson, and then Robert ran forward immediately, without thinking, without hesitating an instant.
Val pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He blinked and then clicked the safety off. He had just raised the pistol again when one of the cameramen near him shouted, “Hey!”
Robert ran full tilt at the black limousine. To put his body between Val and the mayor he would have to jump up and over the right rear of the trunk. He did so, forgetting his age, forgetting his arthritis, forgetting everything except the imperative to be there before the boy pulled the trigger again.
Val saw his grandfather at the last second and could not believe it as the old man vaulted to the trunk of the limo, skidded across it, and landed on his feet between the mayor and Mr. Morozumi. Security men leaped on Mr. Morozumi, pushing him down. The mayor stood alone, mouth still open to answer a question.
I made it! thought Robert knowing that he was between Val and the mayor, knowing that any bullet meant for the other man would have to go through him. This time I made…
Two of the Japanese security agents crouched, braced their weapons, and shot Robert from a distance of fifteen feet. At almost the same instant, a third security man raked automatic weapons fire across the press gallery. Val and three cameramen went down.
The mayor and Mr. Morozumi were pushed into the limo and rushed away before the watching crowd had time to begin screaming. Neither the mayor nor his advisor was hurt.
Val’s body was taken to the police morgue but Carol was allowed to visit her father.
“He won’t know you’re here,” said the doctor. His voice was disinterested. “The neurological damage is too great. There is some brain activity, but it is very limited. I’m afraid that it is just a matter of how long the life support can keep things up. Hours perhaps. Days at the most.”
Carol nodded and sat down in the chair next to the bed. She did not touch his hand. The room was illuminated just by the electronic monitors.