by Jim Dodge
‘I doubt he knows,’ Volta said. ‘He’s little more than a freelance assassin, and to judge by what you’ve told me, he wouldn’t even ask why. I think we can assume this is the elusive Debritto we’ve caught whispers about. The style’s right, and he’s supposed to work out of the Bay Area. Did you notice that he said his instructions were simply to foil the bomb being planted? And yet when Annalee saw him on the rooftop and began running – which indubitably foiled the diversionary bomb, and thus the attempt on the plutonium – he tried to shoot her, tried to shoot her knowing her son was in the car. He’ll be punished.’
‘Ah,’ Jack nodded, ‘now I understand why you wanted to see me. You have a personal problem.’
‘I’d like to think it was because I value your advice. My appreciation of your company is sharpened by the realization you came very close to being killed tonight merely because I feel I’ve earned the privilege of seeing this Diamond, though for no reason beyond my own personal satisfaction. When the Star Council found out about the Diamond, I’m the one who argued we should commit our full resources to wrest it from government control and return it to the elements. I argued that its possession, especially by a government, might be a disaster of the spirit. And that well might be the case. However, Daniel somehow managed to steal it, so in fact the mission has been accomplished. I never once mentioned to the Star that I personally wanted to see it. But I did tell Daniel. Daniel knew and understood that in exchange for my help in his training and the Alliance’s aid in resources and planning, he and I would return the Diamond together. You see––’
Smiling Jack held up his hands. ‘Stop. I see. You want to know if it’s honorable for you to trade his mother’s killer for the Diamond.’
‘Exactly,’ Volta sighed. ‘Except I wouldn’t have said honorable – I would have used fair. Is it fair?’
‘Yes,’ Smiling Jack said without hesitation. ‘More than that, if this Diamond has overwhelmed him somehow, it might bring him back to earth.’
Volta said, disgust and sorrow in his tone, ‘There are better reasons than revenge.’
Jack shrugged. ‘I would have used the word justice.’
‘Touché.’
‘Maybe just being forced to make the decision will bring him around.’
‘One hopes,’ Volta agreed.
‘We’ll hope together. But we should also be thinking about what we’ll do if he chooses to keep running with the Diamond.’
‘What can we do but let him go?’
‘I meant about Annalee’s killer, this Debritto.’
‘We’ll send a Raven to see him. Justice was your word, so you can set it up.’
‘Hey, be fair,’ Jack said. ‘You said punish.’
‘Precisely my point.’
Jack was distracted by another idea. ‘Volta, I got it. If Daniel doesn’t want to revenge his mother’s death, let’s offer it to Shamus. He’s crazy with grief, thinks you and Daniel conspired somehow to kill her. Who knows? Maybe justice would be cathartic.’
‘No. Shamus isn’t capable of the necessary judgment, either moral or strategic. Besides, like Daniel, Shamus really wants the traitor, the one who tipped the CIA.’
‘And you don’t think this Debritto guy knows?’
‘I’d bet on it. However, perhaps Mr Keyes can find out for us.’
‘You want me to call him and ask, or do you want to do it?’
‘You do it. Pay phones only, short conversations, and you always call him.’
Smiling Jack frowned. ‘Well yeah, I understand basic security, but should I just ask him to please tell me, or should I try pretty please with mustard on it?’
‘I wouldn’t say please at all until you’ve exhausted your leverage.’
‘That’s what I’m missing – leverage. If I tell him I was listening at the door they’ll know that we know the code was compromised, and then we can’t set them up for a dummy transmission. The way I see it, our strongest asset is their ignorance that we heard one word of what went on inside that room.’
‘True,’ Volta said. ‘But you might say you worked as a consultant to Dredneau, that he’d summoned you to the hotel for a briefing, and you just happened to see a man leaving with Dredneau’s valise. You hurried to the room to find Dredneau dying. His last act was to point to the room key that had fallen from his smoking jacket and to hold up two fingers. From which you finally deduced Keyes. Tape residue on Dredneau’s thigh led you to believe he’d been interrogated by polygraph. You ran a profile of the hit through your computer, and you’re fairly certain the assassin was Gurry Debritto. Explain that you’d come to detest Dredneau, because you and your computer wizardry did the real brainwork, while Dredneau hogged all the glory. Then trade your silence for the name of the informant on the Livermore plutonium attempt. Keyes will want to know why. Tell him you need the information to collect a large fee elsewhere. This is your test of his good faith in establishing what might be a mutually useful working relationship. If he refuses, intimate that Mr Debritto might make a more understanding partner. I assure you he doesn’t want Debritto to even suspect they’ve been linked, because Debritto’s only protection would be to remove Keyes from the chain of connection. On the informant, we want something concrete, verifiable – a taped call, a letter, or at least the name of the person who received the Livermore tip. They very well might not know who the informant was, but at least we’ll find that out.’
‘They can just say they don’t know,’ Jack said, ‘that it was an anonymous call just like mine.’
‘Perhaps. But it’s sometimes surprising how pressure elicits candor. And even if it was anonymous, maybe we can find out if the voice was male or female, adult or child.’
‘Uh-huh. I’m slow this morning. You’re afraid it was Daniel. Because when you tell him we’ve discovered his mother’s killer, he might figure if we have that, we have the snitch: him. And then he’d really run. And you’d go and find him if it took the rest of your life.’
Volta looked at Jack squarely. ‘No, I wouldn’t. A year ago, maybe. Not now. And I don’t believe he betrayed his mother, or only inadvertently if he did. Daniel’s in jeopardy. I intend to help him to the extent of my powers.’
‘And the Diamond? You don’t care about seeing it?’
‘Jack,’ Volta said passionately, ‘I can’t tell you how much I want to stand in its light. But it’s the nature of such things that you must let them go. I haven’t yet, but I’m trying.’
Transcription:
Denis Joyner, AMO Mobile Radio
Like wow, I just dropped down out of the Sierras tonight and cruised into the lovely Apan Valley. I don’t know what it is about coastal California – maybe that literally pacific ocean out there imposing its wavelength on mine – but every time I pass through on my spiraling circuit, I get this totally awesome feeling of cosmic mellowness. Blissed out, instead of my usual pissed off. Damn near tempts me to trade in this old funky-junk van and buy a Mercedes; maybe put a hot tub in the wine cellar. Viva est magnum, mama, especially if you’re holding the magnum, but I guess if you’re serious about racing the other rats, you want a comfortable ride.
You know who I’m talking to if I’m not talking to myself this sweet April night. Yea verily, you do know who I’m talking to, baby, vibing through silence into the whorls of your ear, but you don’t know why. Let me tell you: One perfect mind isn’t nearly as good as two imperfect minds.
Spin that around your cranium while I get down with some ID, though I haven’t got a cold fucking clue who, Miss Owl, who-who I am. But I can tell you that this is KAMO Mobile Radio, somewhere between snake-eyes and boxcars on them tumbling dice, and I’m rolling right along with it all, flying at you high and alive, done in and turned out. Yes! It’s the redoubtable DJ, and tonight he’s doubled up: Dream Joker and Diarrhea Jaws, too. So, if you don’t know what to believe, hey, stick with me. And if you don’t like what you hear, call the sheriff. Call the whole fucking posse, for all I care. Give the FCC
a jingle while you’re at it. Ring up the National Guard, too, and the Air Force, and whoever else you think can save your poor doomed ass. But whatever you do, don’t touch the dial, because I just clocked the time and Mickey has both arms straight up, surrendering to the moon, which means it’s time to tuck you in with a bedtime story. Snuggle down while I light a pipe of killer to clear my golden throat.
Ahhhhh. Better. You all settled? Okay. The story is ‘The Snake.’ And before we begin, let me make it clear that the snake in this story is not symbolic. It’s not a phallus. It’s not the Tempting Serpent, the Wingless Dragon of Unspeakable Evil, the Devil’s Lariat, or an emblematic metaphor of any form but its own. The snake in this story is a garter snake, a small, brightly striped, harmless, viviparous member of the genus Thamnophis. A critter of reptilian cast. A discrete expression of being. A life. THE SNAKE
I was visiting friends on the northern California coast, two women I’d known since high school, Nell and Ivy. It was about this time of year.
Since I can’t stand cultivating anything except bad habits, I’d been assigned to peeling potatoes while Nell and Ivy worked in the garden. I was rinsing the spuds at the kitchen sink when Nell and Ivy came banging through the screen door, clearly upset, each holding half of a snake writhing in her hand. One of them had accidentally chopped the snake with her hoe.
They laid the snake’s thrashing parts on the table. Ivy looked at Nell. ‘What do you think?’ Her voice had that tightness you hear at the edge of a bad car wreck.
Nell said, ‘I don’t think we can stitch its insides together.’
Silently fretting, they watched the parts twitch on the table, barely glancing at me as I came over for a look. It didn’t look good.
‘How about tape?’ Ivy suggested.
‘Sure,’ Nell said, ‘we can try. Maybe it’ll regenerate.’
I told them, ‘Snakes don’t regenerate.’ I’m a realist. Nell and Ivy are usually realists too.
‘Maybe this one will,’ Nell said, at once angry, defiant, hopeful, sad.
They used shiny black electricians’ tape. I helped, holding the upper half still while Ivy carefully wrapped.
We stretched the snake out in a shaded redwood planter to recuperate. I promised to check on it occasionally so they wouldn’t have to hike up from the garden.
When I went out a half hour later, the snake was dead.
True story, folks. I dedicate it to all of you realists as a reminder that some gestures transcend failure. I buried the snake in the planter box, fuel for the flowers. Because if you draw your breath down to its tattered center, dance with your ghost through the moonlit mountain pass, hurl your heart in the forge and your soul in the river, you can feel that the stone is a living fountain that dissolves and coagulates, sunders and joins; and then you can imagine that snake slithering through the high spring grass like a phantom glimpse of flame, and you can follow it if you’re brave enough, crazy enough, foolish, desperate, daring, hungry, dumb. Enter your wounds. Heal. Escape.
And when you get loose, come join me. I’ll meet you at Jim Bridger’s grave as soon as you can get there. We’ll make music we can’t hear alone, celebrate beauty yet to be born, take the Devil by the fucking horns and wrestle him to the ground. We’ll shoot for the stars, sweetheart. We’ll waltz in the moonlit cemetery like fallen gods, stand revealed, naked as air, and kiss each other’s scars.
Till then, my invisible friend, this is the Dream Joker bidding you his tenderest toodeloo. Dream on. THE THERAPEUTIC JOURNALS OF JENNIFER RAINE APRIL 3
Whhhhooooooooowweeeeeeeeee! And who, my goodness, is he? I’m in love! I can’t help it and don’t want to. The DJ done got to me.
I couldn’t sleep and was just lying there listening to Mia breathe, feeling our breath trapped in this room, how we just keep breathing ourselves, getting so down I had to get up. So I snapped on the radio and twirled the dial, looking for music or just another voice to get mine out of my head – and there he was, loud and clear. The boy can talk that talk, and it was like he was saying it straight to me. Magnificent gestures, the flame of snake flesh burning in petals, the stone river that sunders and joins… it was love at first flight.
Short flight, though – five minutes and he was gone. I listened to the spit-sizzle static on the blank channel for another hour before I let him go. I can’t feel whether I should follow or wait. He’s a bad-boy, which I like, and he does talk good. But sometimes wildness is only the fear of being held, and talking the talk isn’t walking the walk. I don’t feel he knows how lightning burns. I’m not sure he knows shit about birth, beauty, nakedness, or moonlight. But I love him anyway. I want to dream a real face for him. I want to feel him touch my scar. THE THERAPEUTIC JOURNALS OF JENNIFER RAINE TOO LATE THE SAME NIGHT
I never had a chance to dream. I woke as Clyde was crossing the room and before I could move he was on the bed, pinning me, trying to kiss me, he just wanted to kiss me, but I didn’t know that, how could I – rape, murder – how could I know? Jesus, I’m still shaking.
Clyde Hibbard, the retarded man I met my second day here. They’d loaded me with Thorazine when I’d been admitted, and Mia had wandered off. I was looking for her in the lounge. Clyde was the only one there, sitting on a beige vinyl couch, picking at the armrest as he stared at the IBM clock on the wall. He looked scared when he saw me; caught. I apologized, said I hadn’t meant to disturb him.
‘No-no, no-no, no-no,’ he stammered, ‘you didn’t, you’re not.’
I smiled to put him at ease because I hate to see people shrink up like that. Tried a little humor: ‘Guess I shouldn’t have said disturb, huh? Gotta be disturbed already to be here, right?’
It confused him. He tensed, like he was about to bolt, his jaw working for traction on something to say.
I barged right ahead. ‘I’m looking for my daughter, Mia. She’s eleven. Blond, blue eyes, wearing jeans, sneakers, navy sweatshirt with a hood. She’s imaginary, my daughter – wouldn’t think you could lose her, but they drenched me with so much fucking Thorazine I lost track.’
Clyde wrapped his arms around himself and shook his head vehemently. ‘No-no, never, I didn’t touch her, I didn’t, no-no, I wasn’t here.’
The chopped skidding language, the childlike exaggeration of gesture, that opaqueness in his eyes – it was plain as his face he was retarded. And from the why he’d collapsed into himself at the mention of Mia, I figured he was here instead of a ‘home’ because there’d been trouble with touching little girls. If I hadn’t been gauzed out, I would have seen it immediately. But I didn’t, and I felt like shit. I told him I was sure he hadn’t touched Mia, not to worry about it.
I started to walk away but he uncoiled out of himself and grabbed my hand with both of his – not hard, not snared – and said, ‘I’m Clyde. My name is Clyde Hibbard. Hi. Hi, how are you?’ He smiled uncertainly.
I let him hold my hand a moment, then gently slipped it free. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I said, ‘My name is Jennifer Raine, Goldie Hart, Serena del Rio, Belle Tinker, Annie Oakley, Lola Montez. Mia and I are new here. Just checked in. Glad to meet you, Clyde.’
He was nodding excitedly. ‘You-you-you are beautiful. You are. Just like the other men said. Beautiful.’
I tried to tell him as clearly as I could: ‘I’m not what anyone says, Clyde. Either are you. It’s complicated enough being who we are.’
It only bewildered him. He fastened his gaze back on the clock.
‘Nice talking to you, Clyde,’ I said. ‘I have to find my daughter now.’
He swung his eyes to mine, pleading a case I didn’t understand. ‘I’m thirty-three, thirty-three, thirty-three years old.’
‘Don’t watch the clock, Clyde,’ I said. ‘Clocks lie. Watch the sun and moon.’ I squeezed his shoulder quickly, and left him there.
And I didn’t see him again till he was on top of me tonight like some nightmare lover pecking my face with slobbery kisses. I think that’s all he really wanted t
o do, kiss me, because he had his clothes on and wasn’t choking me or anything, but just his weight had me pinned, my arms under the covers. But I didn’t know what he wanted, and I was terrified, so I yelled for Mia to crawl under the bed so she wouldn’t have to watch and then I tried to fight out from under him, twisting my face away from his mouth, finally squirming an arm loose, and when I turned to roll free my elbow caught him in the nose. The pain seemed to startle him, then scare him. He grabbed my bare shoulders hard, shaking his head as he looked at my face. ‘Please, please, please,’ he blubbered, each ragged breath spraying blood from his nose on my face, shoulders, breasts. He shut his eyes and lowered his head, moaning ‘Please, please, love, I love you, please.’
When he started sobbing he let go of my shoulders and I slapped him as hard as I could. He flinched and ducked as I swung again, and I know if I had a gun it would have meant nothing to me, nothing, to blow his stupid fucking brains out.
‘Love you,’ he cried, eyes closed, shaking his head.
‘No. You have to ask, Clyde. You need permission. This is rape, Clyde; you’re scaring me, hurting me.’
He opened his eyes then, looking at me, and his eyes just kept getting wider, as if he was trying to open them far enough to hold what he was seeing in my face. He worked his mouth, a gummy white string of spittle at the corner, a wet, strangled whimper rising from his throat.
I realized he was looking at his blood on my face. ‘You hurt me, Clyde,’ I hissed. ‘You did.’
He lifted his hands helplessly, beseechingly, his mouth trembling to speak what he found impossible to believe.
I helped him believe. ‘It hurts, goddamn you, Clyde, you motherfucker, it hurts!’
‘No,’ he begged me. ‘Love you. I do. I do. I do.’
It was too much pain and hopelessness and fear. I started crying.
