Stone Junction

by Jim Dodge

  ‘Roger is indisposed,’ Debritto whispered in his ear. ‘If you make another sound, you will suffer. We’re professionals, Dredneau, you and I. I respect your intelligence enough to assume you know that you have lost. As you see, you are connected to a polygraph. You will answer my questions with the truth. If you refuse, or if you lie, I will remove a part of your body – a kneecap, say, or an eye, a testicle, a finger. Believe me when I say I know what I’m doing. I’ve kept men alive up to thirty hours as I’ve whittled them down to a head and torso. If you still refuse, it will make no difference, for in that case I’ll use pentothal – vulgarly known as truth serum. I’d prefer not to resort to an injection; while the information would be forthcoming, it is occasionally garbled. If you force me to use the pentothal, when I have the information I seek I will treat you accordingly. Further, if you once raise your voice above a civilized conversational tone – which would be futile considering the Hilton’s acoustical design – I will cut out your tongue and we will have to proceed with a primitive system of nods. Please, employ your legendary intelligence. You do understand that you’re faced not only with a choice between truth and falsehood, but life and death.’

  Dredneau nodded.

  ‘The first question, then: Who stole the diamond?’

  Dredneau, trembling, bit his lip.

  Debritto mused, ‘He must not have heard me. I better check his eardrums.’ He reached past Dredneau and removed a long silver pin from the case.

  Dredneau quavered, ‘You’re going to kill me anyway.’

  ‘You didn’t listen, sir. Professional? A professional never kills unless it’s absolutely necessary. In your case, it isn’t necessary. All I want is information pertinent to this diamond I’ve been engaged to find.’

  Dredneau shook his head.

  ‘Of course,’ Debritto whispered. ‘Given your situation, why should you take my word? Please note the polygraph.’ Debritto tipped the case so Dredneau could see it clearly. ‘The machine is state-of-the-art. Watch the needle – the red area indicates a lie. Is your name Paul-Paul Dredneau?’

  Dredneau licked his lips. ‘Yes.’

  The needle didn’t move.

  ‘Have you ever killed a man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The needle jumped into the red zone.

  Debritto chuckled softly. ‘I didn’t think so. Next question: Are you a homosexual?’

  ‘No.’

  The needle wavered near the red zone.

  ‘Now see, this is interesting. You seem to possess some profound sexual ambiguity.’ He pointed the pin at Dredneau’s groin as if to indicate the locus of confusion. ‘Let me rephrase the question: Have you ever had sex with another male?’

  ‘No.’

  The needle shot into the red.

  Debritto giggled. ‘Ah-ha! How many?’

  ‘Two. When I was young.’

  The machine verified it.

  ‘I could ask you about women, but truly I’m not interested in humiliating you, and I’m sure you understand by now the machine’s capacity to discriminate. So, to my point.’ Debritto set the pin down on the table and deftly jerked the electrode from Dredneau’s thigh and held it to his own wrist. ‘The inside of the wrist is actually more sensitive than the thigh, but since your hands must be bound, I’d no choice. Now watch the needle while I make my statement.’

  He paused, then with a calm formality said, ‘If you tell me the truth, I will not kill you, nor will I harm you in any way. If you don’t, you will suffer unto death.’

  The needle didn’t move.

  ‘You see? The truth.’ He retaped the electrode to Dredneau’s thigh and picked up the stainless-steel pin from the table, idly testing the point against his own index finger. ‘I repeat: Do you know who stole the diamond?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very good. The truth is always good, isn’t it? Now, who stole it?’

  ‘His name is Isaiah Kharome.’

  The needle quivered at the red edge.

  ‘That appears to be a partial truth. I asked for the complete truth.’

  Dredneau said thickly, ‘The name is an alias I think, a constructed identity.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘This is a guess.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘The man’s real name is Daniel Pearse.’

  Debritto said, ‘The machine agrees, or at least that it’s a truthful guess. On what basis do you make that guess?’

  Sweat trickled down Dredneau’s neck. ‘I broke a code, an extremely difficult code. From radio transmissions. It took me almost eight months. Cryptography is a useful talent for a detective. I pay listeners all over the world to monitor coded radio transmissions. Most of the codes are trifles, unraveled at a glance. This one was provocative – what’s called a shift-cipher. I had to amass a huge sample before I could establish any sort of frequency count, much less discern the operative principles; with that, the code sets followed.’

  ‘You’re doing well. My compliments on your work, one professional to another. So, what are these code sets?’

  ‘Partial panagrams – a complete set is in my valise in the bedroom.’

  ‘Excellent. Who does this Isaiah Kharome-Daniel Pearse work for?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a guess. Based on style and odd textual references. It’s a group of alchemists or magicians, I think.’

  ‘A secret society?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘No national, racial, political affiliations?’

  ‘Maybe anarchists.’

  ‘There have always been rumors about such a group.’

  ‘If the code’s difficulty is any indication, they’re very careful.’

  ‘We’ll see. Now Daniel Pearse – why is his name a guess?’

  ‘Because early transmissions referred to “Danny Boy” and then changed to “Kharome.” Playing around one night, I reversed “Kharome” – still in code sets – and came up with DPearse. Logically, given the earlier Danny Boy reference, the D was likely for Daniel. I ran Daniel Pearse and Isaiah Kharome through my information network, which stretches from Interpol to the local PD – and voilà! A Daniel Pearse, but no Isaiah Kharome. Or no Mr Kharome right away. He began to show up on DMV and credit card screens. Clearly, someone was constructing an identity.’

  ‘Tell me about this Daniel Pearse.’

  ‘His dossier is in my valise with the code sets and frequency charts. What little there is is rather provocative. When he was fourteen, his mother, Annalee Pearse, was killed and Daniel was severely injured planting a bomb. He was suddenly represented by expensive lawyers and placed under the guardianship of questionable relations. From there––’

  ‘Stop!’ Debritto said. ‘I hope you’re right about this, sir. I get to clean up a mess. I killed his mother.’

  Dredneau said nervously, ‘My reports say a faulty bomb. Check them, please.’

  Debritto ignored him. ‘It was a rush job. I wasn’t supposed to kill her; just stop her. Foil it. Those fools don’t want to punish. I mean, they didn’t even want the police to know. They didn’t say why, of course. But a bomb in a nowhere alley in Livermore? It had to be a diversion for a run on the lab. Going public would hurt nuclear interests. They didn’t even trust their own field agents to handle it. By the time I was called in, getting there in time, much less setting anything up, was going to be tight. I barely made it. I’d just gotten on the warehouse roof above the alley when here she comes, bomb in hand. She caught the movement when I pulled my piece. She turned to run, yelling to somebody. I aimed for her legs, but just as I squeezed it off she slipped on the wet pavement and the bullet hit the bomb. I lost seven percent of my hearing in my right ear.’

  ‘Sure,’ Dredneau said wearily. ‘CIA. Did Keyes set me up or does it go higher?’

  ‘Please, Mr Dredneau. I don’t take orders from anyone.’ Dredneau nodded. ‘I like it,’ Debritto continued. ‘You see, when they paid me off, they told me the kid was in a coma and probably wouldn’t ma
ke it. I tell you, this is something. Now I have a chance to finish the job. And so: Where is our Daniel Pearse, aka Kharome?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you know anywhere he might be headed, any sense of a plan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know where the diamond is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your truths are boring me, sir. Surely if you had code access as the theft was being set up, you must at least have some idea of how he accomplished it.’

  ‘Some. They further disguise the code with their own idiom, but from what I gathered he was supposed to use a new nerve gas on the guards, blow the vault, and be picked up by helicopter flying under the radar. Those are the only elements of the plan – other than dates and names – I’m sure of.’

  ‘But he didn’t use the gas or explosive, right? So how did he do it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you knew it was going to happen. My, my, Mr Dredneau, you might have warned us. But it’s much more fun to waltz in and grab some glory with stunning deductions – and no doubt grab a little money, too, while you’re at it.’

  Dredneau said nothing.

  Debritto smiled. ‘It makes you uncomfortable to realize how much alike we are. You want the ten million just like me. Otherwise, you would have given the CIA his real name, rather than Kharome, which he’s probably changed ten times by now. Meanwhile, you wait for another transmission to decode, then maybe you and your large buddy retrieve the diamond yourself. At least you get to make another brilliant deduction. And if they offer ten, we professionals know they’ll pay twenty. Isn’t that how you were thinking?’

  ‘Yes. Yes it was.’

  ‘Anyone else have this information?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you withholding anything essential or pertinent?’

  ‘No,’ Dredneau moaned. ‘Please, it’s everything of value.’

  ‘I compliment you, sir. You’re a wise man. Not a single lie. You spared yourself some unnecessary pain. Just let me gather up my equipment and your valise, then I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dredneau begged, ‘it’s all there.’

  ‘I will have to gag you – I’m sure you see the wisdom in a silent departure.’

  Debritto gagged him with a rubber handball, holding it in place with swatches of silver duct tape. Dredneau began to breathe rapidly through his nose. Debritto gently pulled the electrode loose and coiled it into the case. In the bedroom Debritto went through the contents of the valise carefully.

  Satisfied, he returned to the living room, stopping behind Dredneau. ‘My goodness,’ he said, ‘I can actually hear your heart pounding. Relax.’ He put his left hand lightly on top of Dredneau’s head, leaning down to whisper, ‘I want you to know how I did it. Remember just before I held the electrode to my wrist, how I laid the pin down on the table? Did you notice it was touching the sensor? The pin is highly magnetized. It disrupted the electrical impulse on its way to the meter, and thus my lie went undetected. And you call yourself a detective.’ Dredneau shook his head wildly. Debritto dug his thumb and little finger into Dredneau’s neck. Dredneau exhaled sharply, straining. With a flick of his free arm, Debritto shook a long wood-butted needle from his sleeve. He pushed Dredneau’s head forward and drove the needle upward into the base of Dredneau’s skull. Dredneau stiffened as if hit by a cattle prod, bucked once against his bonds, then slumped.

  Debritto patted his head reassuringly. ‘It’ll take a little while. The slower the brain, the slower the hemorrhage.’

  He picked up his case and Dredneau’s valise and went to the door, pausing as he opened it to call back into the room, ‘Goodnight. I hope I’ve been helpful.’

  Debritto turned right and headed for the stairs. An old man was pushing a narrow carpet sweeper across the top stair, a transistor plug in his ear. He jumped back against the balustrade when he saw Debritto waiting to pass, jabbering, ‘Sorry sir. Didn’t see you.’

  Debritto smiled and nodded toward the radio. ‘Who’s winning the ballgame?’

  The old man looked confused. ‘No one.’ He removed the transistor plug from his ear. ‘No games this time of night. Just listening to some music to ease the work. That’s my whole job, the stairs. Sweep ’em top to bottom, then polish the rails bottom to top. There’s an elevator, by the way, you know.’ He pointed.

  Debritto smiled. ‘I need the exercise. Keeps the heart clean.’ He pointed at the old man. ‘Opera,’ he said. ‘I bet you were listening to opera. I’ve got an uncanny sense about people’s music. Now tell me: I got you, didn’t I?’

  The old man turned the earphone toward Debritto. ‘No sir, no opera for me. Far as I’m concerned, only two kinds of music – country and western.’

  Debritto caught the strains of Waylon and Willie – ‘Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys…’ He grinned at the old man. ‘You’re just lucky.’ He shook his head and went on down the stairs.

  Smiling Jack replaced the ear plug and returned to his sweeping. He gave it three minutes and then moved quickly to Dredneau’s door. When he heard the high nasal wheeze inside he took out his passkey.

  Debritto called Keyes from a phone booth across town.

  Keyes answered on the first ring.

  ‘Have you come yet, Melvin,’ Debritto asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was jacking you off, Melvin. He “deduced” this Kharome character from some shit-brained psychic named Madam Woo. He had a serious mental defect according to my machine. I corrected the defect. Raised his friend’s IQ up to zero first.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I bagged his papers. If anything looks promising, I’ll call.’

  ‘You will? I believe I paid for them.’

  ‘Fine. I don’t care. I just thought since I’d conducted the interview I’d be better able to evaluate them. I’ll drop them off as we arranged.’

  ‘Tonight. He might have been loony, but he’d been getting some results.’

  ‘He used snitches, just like everybody else.’

  ‘Did he figure out I sent you?’

  ‘Of course. But I would have done him anyway. Fucking queer.’

  ‘All smooth? No sightseers?’

  ‘An old fart sweeping the stairs. Had a radio plugged in his ear. We chatted a moment. He’ll never know that music saved his life.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t save anything?’

  ‘I had fun with Dredneau. I was in a good mood.’

  Volta had asked Smiling Jack to come to El Paso for a personal report and consultation, and had arranged a charter to deliver him. It wasn’t like Volta to duplicate effort. Jack couldn’t tell him more in person than he had on the phone. Smiling Jack thought perhaps Volta was doubting his own judgment. To Jack, who’d worked with him for twenty years, this only confirmed Volta’s judgment, for it took wisdom to understand that your heart’s entanglements might be affecting decisions. And courage to admit it.

  Over cognac, Smiling Jack recounted what he’d heard through Dredneau’s door during the detective’s torture, and his encounter with the killer on the stairs. Volta listened intently until Jack concluded with the information that Dredneau was still alive when they loaded him in the ambulance.

  ‘He died on the way to the hospital,’ Volta said.

  Jack nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said distantly, ‘no surprise.’

  Volta poured them each another shot. He lifted his glass. ‘We’ve worked together what seems like forever, Jack, and you still astonish me with your good sense and clear judgment.’

  ‘Shit,’ Jack said, ‘coming from you that’s almost more praise than I can stand.’ He lifted his glass. ‘But I will drink to good sense wherever it shows up.’

  ‘As I told you, though you might have mistaken my seriousness, I intend to retire when this Diamond caper is resolved.’ Volta smiled wryly. ‘Assuming it can be resolved.’

  ‘You used to relish complications. You’re the one who claimed y
ou found them inspiring.’

  ‘That’s when I was young and foolish.’

  ‘That was three years ago. In Montreal.’

  ‘When I was still young and foolish.’ Jack started to speak but Volta lifted a hand. ‘Let me finish before I dodder even further from my point. With your permission, I’m going to recommend you to replace me on the Star.’

  ‘Nope. I accept the honor and decline the nomination.’

  Volta sighed. ‘Daniel won’t bring me the Diamond, Charmaine refuses to serve as a go-between, you won’t accept what you’ve earned – no wonder I’m doubting my judgment.’

  ‘Charmaine wouldn’t do it?’

  ‘She flatly refused. She said it was pointless. I quote, “Volta, it is not something between you and Daniel, but between Daniel and himself.” And she’s right.’

  ‘Now there’s my candidate to replace you on the Star when we retire.’

  ‘Her clarity is beyond question, but she needs to refine her compassion.’

  ‘You’re just miffed because she told you what you already knew.’

  ‘Exactly. As I said, she lacks compassion.’

  Smiling Jack shook his head and smiled.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Volta continued, ‘I’d like to ask you a question. Were you tempted to kill that CIA agent when you met on the stairs?’

  ‘No, but if he’d decided to look at the transistor, I might have had to try. I’m old and he was obviously good. If he kills me, we lose the information I just risked my ass to get – like confirmation that the code’s cracked, that they have Daniel’s real identity, that this guy killed Annalee. Another thing, too. This killer told Dredneau that he – the CIA, actually – was tipped about Annalee planting the bomb, and I figured he’s our best way of finding out who did it. I liked that girl a lot. I brought her into the Alliance. I know the attempt had nothing to do with us, that it wasn’t our action and was against our policy, but she was betrayed, and I’d like to know who snitched.’