The John Varley Reader

by John Varley

  PRESS ENTER ■

  Osborne did, and a printer across the room began to chatter, scaring the hell out of all of us. I could see the carriage zipping back and forth, printing in both directions, when Hal pointed at the screen and shouted.

  “Look! Look at that!”

  The compugraphic man was standing again. He faced us. He had something that had to be a gun in his hand, which now pointed at his head.

  “Don’t do it!” Hal yelled.

  The little man didn’t listen. There was a denatured gunshot sound, and the little man fell on his back. A line of red dripped down the screen. Then the green background turned to blue, the printer shut off, and there was nothing left but the little black corpse lying on its back and the word ✶✶ DONE ✶✶ at the bottom of the screen.

  I took a deep breath and glanced at Osborne. It would be an understatement to say he did not look happy.

  “What’s this about drugs in the bedroom?” he said.

  We watched Osborne pulling out drawers in dressers and bedside tables. He didn’t find anything. He looked under the bed and in the closet. Like all the other rooms in the house, this one was full of computers. Holes had been knocked in walls for the thick sheaves of cables.

  I had been standing near a big cardboard drum, one of several in the room. It was about thirty-gallon capacity, the kind you ship things in. The lid was loose, so I lifted it. I sort of wished I hadn’t.

  “Osborne,” I said. “You’d better look at this.”

  The drum was lined with a heavy-duty garbage bag. And it was two-thirds full of Quaaludes.

  They pried the lids off the rest of the drums. We found drums full of amphetamines, of Nembutals, of Valium. All sorts of things.

  With the discovery of the drugs a lot more police returned to the scene. With them came the television camera crews.

  In all the activity no one seemed concerned about me, so I slipped back to my own house and locked the door. From time to time I peeked out the curtains. I saw reporters interviewing the neighbors. Hal was there and seemed to be having a good time. Twice crews knocked on my door, but I didn’t answer. Eventually they went away.

  I ran a hot bath and soaked in it for about an hour. Then I turned the heat up as high as it would go and got in bed, under the blankets.

  I shivered all night.

  Osborne came over about nine the next morning. I let him in. Hal followed, looking very unhappy. I realized they had been up all night. I poured coffee for them.

  “You’d better read this first,” Osborne said and handed me the sheet of computer printout. I unfolded it, got out my glasses, and started to read.

  It was in that awful dot-matrix printing. My policy is to throw any such trash into the fireplace, unread, but I made an exception this time.

  It was Kluge’s will. Some probate court was going to have a lot of fun with it.

  He stated again that he didn’t exist, so he could have no relatives. He had decided to give all his worldly property to somebody who deserved it.

  But who was deserving? Kluge wondered. Well, not Mr. and Mrs. Perkins, four houses down the street. They were child abusers. He cited court records in Buffalo and Miami, and a pending case locally.

  Mrs. Radnor and Mrs. Polonski, who lived across the street from each other five houses down, were gossips.

  The Andersons’ oldest son was a car thief.

  Marian Flores cheated on her high school algebra tests.

  There was a guy nearby who was diddling the city on a freeway construction project. There was one wife in the neighborhood who made out with door-to-door salesmen, and two having affairs with men other than their husbands. There was a teenage boy who got his girlfriend pregnant, dropped her, and bragged about it to his friends.

  There were no fewer than nineteen couples in the immediate area who had not reported income to the IRS, or who had padded their deductions.

  Kluge’s neighbors in back had a dog that barked all night.

  Well, I could vouch for the dog. He’d kept me awake often enough. But the rest of it was crazy! For one thing, where did a guy with two hundred gallons of illegal narcotics get the right to judge his neighbors so harshly? I mean, the child abusers were one thing, but was it right to tar a whole family because their son stole cars? And for another . . . how did he know some of this stuff?

  But there was more. Specifically, four philandering husbands. One was Harold “Hal” Lanier, who for three years had been seeing a woman named Toni Jones, a coworker at the LAPD Data Processing facility. She was pressuring him for a divorce; he was “waiting for the right time to tell his wife.”

  I glanced up at Hal. His red face was all the confirmation I needed.

  Then it hit me. What had Kluge found out about me?

  I hurried down the page, searching for my name. I found it in the last paragraph.

  “. . . for thirty years Mr. Apfel has been paying for a mistake he did not even make. I won’t go so far as to nominate him for sainthood, but by default—if for no other reason—I hereby leave all deed and title to my real property and the structure thereon to Victor Apfel.”

  I looked at Osborne, and those tired eyes were weighing me.

  “But I don’t want it!”

  “Do you think this is the reward Kluge mentioned in the phone call?”

  “It must be,” I said. “What else could it be?”

  Osborne sighed and sat back in his chair. “At least he didn’t try to leave you the drugs. Are you still saying you didn’t know the guy?”

  “Are you accusing me of something?”

  He spread his hands. “Mr. Apfel, I’m simply asking a question. You’re never one hundred percent sure in a suicide. Maybe it was murder. If it was, you can see that, so far, you’re the only one we know of that’s gained by it.”

  “He was almost a stranger to me.”

  He nodded, tapping his copy of the computer printout. I looked back at my own, wishing it would go away.

  “What’s this . . . mistake you didn’t make?”

  I was afraid that would be the next question.

  “I was a prisoner of war in North Korea,” I said.

  Osborne chewed that over for a while.

  “They brainwash you?”

  “Yes.” I hit the arm of my chair, and suddenly had to be up and moving. The room was getting cold. “No. I don’t . . . There’s been a lot of confusion about that word. Did they ‘brainwash’ me? Yes. Did they succeed? Did I offer a confession of my war crimes and denounce the U.S. Government? No.”

  Once more, I felt myself being inspected by those deceptively tired eyes.

  “It’s not something you forget.”

  “Is there anything you want to say about it?”

  “It’s just that it was all so . . . No. No, I have nothing further to say. Not to you, not to anybody.”

  “I’m going to have to ask you more questions about Kluge’s death.”

  “I think I’ll have my lawyer present for those.” Christ. Now I am going to have to get a lawyer. I didn’t know where to begin.

  Osborne just nodded again. He got up and went to the door.

  “I was ready to write this one down as a suicide,” he said. “The only thing that bothered me was there was no note. Now we’ve got a note.” He gestured in the direction of Kluge’s house and started to look angry.

  “This guy not only writes a note, he programs the fucking thing into his computer, complete with special effects straight out of Pac-Man.

  “Now, I know people do crazy things. I’ve seen enough of them. But when I heard the computer playing a hymn, that’s when I knew this was murder. Tell you the truth, Mr. Apfel, I don’t think you did it. There must be two dozen motives for murder in that printout. Maybe he was blackmailing people around here. Maybe that’s how he bought all those machines. And people with that amount of drugs usually die violently. I’ve got a lot of work to do on this one, and I’ll find who did it.” He mumbled something about not l
eaving town, and that he’d see me later, and left.

  “Vic . . .” Hal said. I looked at him.

  “About that printout,” he finally said. “I’d appreciate it . . . Well, they said they’d keep it confidential. If you know what I mean.” He had eyes like a basset hound. I’d never noticed that before.

  “Hal, if you’ll just go home, you have nothing to worry about from me.”

  He nodded and scuttled for the door.

  “I don’t think any of that will get out,” he said.

  It all did, of course.

  It probably would have even without the letters that began arriving a few days after Kluge’s death, all postmarked Trenton, New Jersey, all computer-generated from a machine no one was ever able to trace. The letters detailed the matters Kluge had mentioned in his will.

  I didn’t know about any of that at the time. I spent the rest of the day after Hal’s departure lying on my bed, under the electric blanket. I couldn’t get my feet warm. I got up only to soak in the tub or to make a sandwich.

  Reporters knocked on my door but I didn’t answer. On the second day I called a criminal lawyer—Martin Abrams, the first in the book—and retained him. He told me they’d probably call me down to the police station for questioning. I told him I wouldn’t go, popped two Dilantin, and sprinted for the bed.

  A couple of times I heard sirens in the neighborhood. Once I heard a shouted argument down the street. I resisted the temptation to look. I’ll admit I was a little curious, but you know what happened to the cat.

  I kept waiting for Osborne to return, but he didn’t. The days turned into a week. Only two things of interest happened in that time.

  The first was a knock on my door. This was two days after Kluge’s death. I looked through the curtains and saw a silver Ferrari parked at the curb. I couldn’t see who was on the porch, so I asked who it was.

  “My name’s Lisa Foo,” she said. “You asked me to drop by.”

  “I certainly don’t remember it.”

  “Isn’t this Charles Kluge’s house?”

  “That’s next door.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  I decided I ought to warn her Kluge was dead, so I opened the door. She turned and smiled at me. It was blinding.

  Where does one start in describing Lisa Foo? Remember when newspapers used to run editorial cartoons of Hirohito and Tojo, when the Times used the word “Jap” without embarrassment? Little guys with faces wide as footballs, ears like jug handles, thick glasses, two big rabbity buck teeth, and pencil-thin mustaches . . .

  Leaving out only the mustache, she was a dead ringer for a cartoon Tojo. She had the glasses, and the ears, and the teeth. But her teeth had braces, like piano keys wrapped in barbed wire. And she was five-eight or five-nine and couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten. I’d have said a hundred, but added five pounds each for her breasts, so improbably large on her scrawny frame that all I could read of the message on her T-shirt was “POCK LIVE.” It was only when she turned sideways that I saw the esses before and after.

  She thrust out a slender hand.

  “Looks like I’m going to be your neighbor for a while,” she said. “At least until we get that dragon’s lair next door straightened out.” If she had an accent, it was San Fernando Valley.

  “That’s nice.”

  “Did you know him? Kluge, I mean. Or at least that’s what he called himself.”

  “You don’t think that was his name?”

  “I doubt it, ‘Klug’ means clever in German. And it’s hacker slang for being tricky. And he sure was a tricky bugger. Definitely some glitches in the wetware.” She tapped the side of her head meaningfully. “Viruses and phantoms and demons jumping out every time they try to key in. Software rot, bit buckets overflowing onto the floor . . .”

  She babbled on in that vein for a time. It might as well have been Swahili.

  “Did you say there were demons in his computers?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sounds like they need an exorcist.”

  She jerked her thumb at her chest and showed me another half acre of teeth.

  “That’s me. Listen, I gotta go. Drop in and see me anytime.”

  The second interesting event of the week happened the next day. My bank statement arrived. There were three deposits listed. The first was the regular check from the V.A., for $487.00. The second was for $392.54, interest on the money my parents had left me fifteen years ago.

  The third deposit had come in on the twentieth, the day Charles Kluge died. It was for $700,083.04.

  A few days later Hal Lanier dropped by.

  “Boy, what a week,” he said. Then he flopped down on the couch and told me all about it.

  There had been a second death on the block. The letters had stirred up a bit of trouble, especially with the police going house to house questioning everyone. Some people had confessed to things when they were sure the cops were closing in on them. The woman who used to entertain salesmen while her husband was at work had admitted her infidelity, and the guy had shot her. He was in the county jail. That was the worst incident, but there had been others, from fistfights to rocks thrown through windows. According to Hal, the IRS was thinking of setting up a branch office in the neighborhood, so many people were being audited.

  I thought about the seven hundred thousand and eight-three dollars.

  And four cents.

  I didn’t say anything, but my feet were getting cold.

  “I suppose you want to know about me and Betty,” he said, at last. I didn’t. I didn’t want to hear any of this, but I tried for a sympathetic expression.

  “That’s all over,” he said with a satisfied sigh. “Between me and Toni, I mean. I told Betty all about it. It was real bad for a few days, but I think our marriage is stronger for it now.” He was quiet for a moment, basking in the warmth of it all. I had kept a straight face under worse provocation, so I trust I did well enough then.

  He wanted to tell me all they’d learned about Kluge, and he wanted to invite me over for dinner, but I begged off on both, telling him my war wounds were giving me hell. I just about had him to the door when Osborne knocked on it. There was nothing to do but let him in. Hal stuck around, too.

  I offered Osborne coffee, which he gratefully accepted. He looked different. I wasn’t sure what it was at first. Same old tired expression . . . no, it wasn’t. Most of that weary look had been either an act or a cop’s built-in cynicism. Today, it was genuine. The tiredness had moved from his face to his shoulders, to his hands, to the way he walked and the way he slumped in the chair. There was a sour aura of defeat around him.

  “Am I still a suspect?” I asked.

  “You mean, should you call your lawyer? I’d say don’t bother. I checked you out pretty good. That will ain’t gonna hold up, so your motive is pretty half-assed. Way I figure it, every coke dealer in the Marina had a better reason to snuff Kluge than you.” He sighed. “I got a couple questions. You can answer them or not.”

  “Give it a try.”

  “You remember any unusual visitors he had? People coming and going at night?”

  “The only visitors I ever recall were deliveries. Post office. Federal Express, freight companies . . . that sort of thing. I suppose the drugs could have come in any of those shipments.”

  “That’s what we figure, too. There’s no way he was dealing nickel and dime bags. He must have been a middle man. Ship it in, ship it out.” He brooded about that for a while and sipped his coffee.

  “So are you making any progress?” I asked.

  “You want to know the truth? The case is going in the toilet. We’ve got too many motives, and not a one of them that works. As far as we can tell, nobody on the block had the slightest idea Kluge had all that information. We’ve checked bank accounts and we can’t find evidence of blackmail. So the neighbors are pretty much out of the picture. Though if he were alive, most people around here would like to kill him now.”
/>   “Damn straight,” Hal said.

  Osborne slapped his thigh. “If the bastard was alive, I’d kill him,” he said. “But I’m beginning to think he never was alive.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If I hadn’t seen the goddamn body . . .” He sat up a little straighter. “He said he didn’t exist. Well, he practically didn’t. The power company never heard of him. He’s hooked up to their lines and a meter reader came by every month, but they never billed him for a single kilowatt. Same with the phone company. He had a whole exchange in that house that was made by the phone company, and delivered by them, and installed by them, but they have no record of him. We talked to the guy who hooked it all up. He turned in his records, and the computer swallowed them. Kluge didn’t have a bank account anywhere in California, and apparently he didn’t need one. We’ve tracked down a hundred companies that sold things to him, shipped them out, and then either marked his account paid or forgot they ever sold him anything. Some of them have check numbers and account numbers in their books, for accounts or even banks that don’t exist.”

  He leaned back in his chair, simmering at the perfidy of it all.

  “The only guy we’ve found who ever heard of him was the guy who delivered his groceries once a month. Little store down on Sepulveda. They don’t have a computer, just paper receipts. He paid by check. Wells Fargo accepted them and the checks never bounced. But Wells Fargo never heard of him.”

  I thought it over. He seemed to expect something of me at this point, so I made a stab at it.

  “He was doing all this by computers?”

  “That’s right. Now, the grocery store scam I understand, almost. But more often than not, Kluge got right into the basic programming of the computers and wiped himself out. The power company was never paid, by check or any other way, because as far as they were concerned, they weren’t selling him anything.