by Jim Nelson
Hearing Lotte utter my birth name and Dr. Lund's name triggered a deluge of memories within me, painful memories, raw memories. Dr. Daryl Lund and her theories of cognitive discord. One hundred and twelve court-ordered sessions I endured in her office, appointments from 1:00pm to 1:50pm every Tuesday and Thursday for eleven straight months. She kept her office at a temperature warmer than most people would call comfortable. Even with the heat on, she sat in her easy chair across from me with a throw blanket covering her from neck to knees, much like the two old men out on Alcatraz.
Twice a week, I spilled my depression and frustration and anger and regrets to Dr. Daryl Lund. Her advice rarely corrected my life’s trajectory. She heard about my formative years and my five frustrating years as an undergraduate in college. She heard about Detachment. She heard about a daily life of random ridicule, the knowledge that at any moment a stranger would recognize me and tear me down in public, or on the Internet, or on national television. All of it was for naught. After a year of running in circles under her therapeutic care, I had my face changed, I hacked a fresh identity for myself, and I fled to Japan. Heaving for air in my chair, my cooling memex among the dust bunnies in the office corner, I questioned for the first time in years my return to the place of my birth.
10.
Lotte and his merry-go-round of selective morality had chewed through a fair amount of my morning. Thanks to him muting our conversation, I couldn’t even add a photo of his face to my Wiki. With only his name to work on, my Wiki began searching for any listing at all. Within minutes, the Wiki confirmed no one by that name lived in San Francisco. I ordered it to expand its search to the Bay Area, and then all of California.
Legs stiff from sitting in the chair all morning, I locked up the office and ascended Taylor Street toward Eddy Street. Food trucks lined the perimeter of an old parking lot. A tent over an array of picnic tables offered a place to eat. It was muggy and not quite raining, a waterfall's mist permeating the air. At one truck, I bought a carton of cold coffee, and at another, a cheese Danish. The concessionaire offered a paper cup and ice for my coffee, which I declined. I drank straight from the carton at a stub of countertop at the end of the coffee truck. The counter was wide enough for two people, but only if those two people were on intimate terms.
“Naroy,” came a voice from behind me.
Detective Whitcomb sidled up with her hands in her trouser pockets. She wore a cream-colored denim shirt and a thin black tie clipped near her sternum. The silver clip sported a bold SFPD shield emblem. Her badge was casually attached to her belt beside her buckle. Her sidearm was casually holstered under her left armpit.
“Keeping busy?” she asked. "How's the brew?"
“Best coffee in town,” I said.
“Oh, it’s never been accused of being that.”
She winked at the concessionaire, who smiled in return. She asked for a hot coffee. He brought it to the counter for her. She dosed it with cream and sugar from the service.
“Learned something interesting this morning,” she said while stirring in her cream. “It was mentioned in passing to me that you took a trip out to Alcatraz Island. You went out yesterday about an hour after you left us.”
She paused for an answer. I waited for a question.
“About the time I learned this, another tidbit was brought before me,” she said. “This one told me your AI is scouring our missing person reports.”
“It’s an automated search. And those are public reports. Nothing illegal with that.”
“Who said illegal?” She smiled down to her steaming coffee. “I didn’t say illegal.” She brought the cup to her lips and discovered it was too hot.
I drank more of my coffee. I broke off chunks of the Danish and ate them slowly. I was lying through my teeth. This was nowhere near the best coffee in town.
“Sounds like you’re leading to a point of some kind,” I said.
“Why would the Old Internet guys on Alcatraz hire a Nexternet security consultant like you?” she said. “I mean, I can come up with a few guesses. Some of the guys in the department have their hunches too. But what do we know about all this newfangled stuff? We’re just cops.”
I adjusted my stance. The counter was too low for my height, and leaning against it hurt my lower back. Halfway through the Danish, my memex urged me not to finish the pastry. I threw it and its wax paper wrapper in the compost bin.
“So this is where I say I’m not legally permitted to discuss matters pertaining to the Old Internet Preservation Commission,” I said. “And this is where you say that by refusing to discuss those matters, I’m all-but-confirming they hired me. Something like that, right?”
“Something like that,” Whitcomb said.
The conversation steeped in the air for a moment.
“I’m suggesting a sharing of information,” she said.
The sugar syrup in my prepackaged coffee had settled to the bottom of the carton. I’d not thought to shake it before unsealing the top. The last of the coffee was oversweet sludge.
“Feel free to share whatever you have for me,” I said.
“We know why Aggaroy wanted to talk to you over breakfast yesterday morning,” she said. “His employers decided it was better to give us a little information than have us rifle through their operation like a bull in a china shop.”
“Who was his employer?”
She grinned and shook her head. “Look at you. You clam up the moment I say hello. Not a word of help. Then you expect me to be your oracle.” She straightened away from the counter and threw back her shoulders. “You’re a real piece of work, Naroy.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“But let me bounce this off of you anyway,” she said. “The reason Michael Aggaroy wanted to have breakfast with you—the technical question your buddy Agg wanted to pick your brain about—had to do with the Old Internet.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know what Agg was going to ask me,” I said.
“Well, an hour after standing over Aggaroy’s dead body, you’re on a ferry ride to Alcatraz to meet with the very people who are today in charge of preserving the Old Internet,” she said. “Your field of expertise.”
“I didn’t say that.” It came out weak. “I said I had some background with it.”
She moved so close, I couldn’t help but smell her perfume. It was cheap but not sleazy. It was a scent sold on a drugstore aisle and not over-the-counter at Macy’s. I’ll tell you what was in that perfume: dead rose petals, fresh grass clippings, and steel shavings.
She said, “I think Agg’s death has something to do with the Old Internet. You’re in the pay of the people in charge of it. What conclusion should I make from all that?”
“You’re reaching,” I said.
“Reaching for what?”
“Quit using Agg’s death to make captain,” I said. “Whoever killed him is running around free right now and you’re standing here drinking a cup of coffee. How about a little less speculating and a little more shoe leather.”
"How's this for speculation." She lowered her voice and stepped closer. "You were the last person to see Aggaroy alive."
"When we parted ways, he was breathing and standing on his own two feet," I said, not lowering my voice. "I know you were sniffing around at the restaurant yesterday. The waiters there told you what I'm telling you now: I had nothing to do with whatever happened to Agg."
“Who do you think did?"
"Agg had plenty of enemies," I said. "His job was to tap into people's memories and dig up their secrets."
"It's your job too," she said. "That's why I'm curious why those gray beards out on Alcatraz would hire you."
“You don’t need my permission to ask the Commission questions,” I said. “Go on over yourself and talk to Clift.”
“He won’t let us on the island. Never has. We’ve had reasons in the past to land on Alcatraz. Every time we’ve tried, we were told we would be denied no matter the reason.”
<
br /> “What kind of reasons?”
“Multiple complaints of sexual harassment, for one.”
“You can't get a warrant for that?”
“All complaints have been retracted or disputed before the investigation even starts. We can’t get on the damn island. It’s the only way for us to see the creep. He never comes ashore. He won’t even answer written questions.” She was winding up. “Clift seems to know every judge in the Ninth Circuit. He’s bunkered down on that fortress out there on the bay.” She shook her head, disgusted, ready to spit.
I tossed the spent coffee carton into the compost bin. "Keep it up," I said to her.
“Keep what up?”
“Doing the Lord’s work.” I began to retreat. “Good talking to you, Talley.”
She put a hand on my shoulder. "Hold up. You’ve helped us before and we’ve helped you in return.” She released me. “Why is this one different, Naroy?”
I considered my answer. Finally, I clamped my mouth shut and shook my head.
“Know that this is a one-time offer,” she said. “From here on, it’ll be the straight police line when you deal with us. I’m going to get Aggaroy’s killer one way or another.”
“I trust you’ll do your usual thorough work, then.” It was not sarcasm.
“If you know something you're holding back, now's the time to come forward. Either get on board or stay clear of this, Naroy." She picked up her cooling cup of coffee. "Otherwise, this isn’t one to get tangled up in.” She turned her back to me.
*
Before I left Alcatraz, the mute Brill handed me a slip of plain white paper with Leigh Blessing’s last known address printed on it, Jones Street at Clay at the top of Nob Hill. Sure enough, the door register indicated “L. Blessing” lived in apartment B. I thumbed the buzzer twice without receiving an answer on the intercom.
A mustachioed man my age murmured behind my back. He carried two paper bags of groceries. Rainwater ran off the brim of his hat and into the bags. He pressed a security fob to the door and let himself into the building. He motioned I was denied entrance, and so I remained on the rain-soaked sidewalk wondering my next move.
As discreetly as I could, I used my personal tablet to probe the workings of the door fob lock. My tablet was modified with a programmable near-field receiver. It revealed the door was tied to a standard keyless security system, one not nearly as sophisticated as memex-based locks. Most elderly people elected to avoid having a hole drilled in their spine, just as an adult male might think twice about converting to Judaism. Until the entire populace has moved to memexes, a strong market existed for these old-fashioned security systems. Given a few minutes with my wireless tablet, I could unlock the door. Doing it on the sidewalk in broad daylight seemed unwise.
A produce market did business from the ground floor of the neighboring building. Fresh-cut flowers in metal buckets crowded its entrance. Upscale liquors lined the wall behind the clerk. Blue Pharjé bottles lay on blue velvet under the lighted glass counter, giant frozen teardrops sold like fine jewelry. A woman in a business suit with a small wood basket in the crook of her arm perused a cold case of fresh pasta. I grabbed a basket of my own and went about the cramped store. I selected a bottle of connoisseur red wine, a box of dried pasta, and a jar of marinara. I set my haul on the counter. The clerk tallied it on the register.
“Leigh told me to put this on her account,” I gambled.
“Leigh?” The clerk’s reach for a paper sack slowed. His gray hair was fanned back around his bald spot like the tail fins of an old Cadillac. “I didn’t think she was still in the building.” As though verifying his own memory, he added, “She settled her account with me about, what, two weeks ago?”
“She's holding a going-away dinner party,” I said, winging it. “The last of her furniture is still in her apartment.”
His eyes considered the haul of foodstuff spread across the counter. "Well, then—"
I reached in my pocket. “I'll pay if it's a problem.” I produced a money clip and thumbed from my folded bills two twenties.
That smoothed things over. He snapped open the paper sack and began bagging it up.
“I’m surprised she’s back,” he said. “She was in a big rush to pay up her tab. I’ll tell you, I’ve seen people skip out on me. I shouldn’t run a tab for people. No reason anymore. With a memex, these days, you just pay and go. But some people…” He shrugged. “They like the idea of taking what they need when they need it and paying all at once at the end of the month. But some people skip out all the same.”
“It’s convenient all right,” I said. My neighborhood bodega had a similar arrangement for its regulars.
He had oversized hands for his frame. They grasped each box and bottle of my groceries with a kind of noble purpose. This was his profession and not a temporary gig until something more important came through.
“Do you mind me asking where Leigh went off to?” he asked.
“She’s still getting her new situation figured out,” I told him.
“It sounded like she was moving in with her boyfriend. I mean, I heard something like that when they were in here settling her account.”
“He was here?”
“Yeah,” he said. “A friend of yours?”
“No. I worked with Leigh.”
“On the island?”
“Before that.”
“And you’ve not met her boyfriend?”
“Can’t say I have. Maybe I’ll meet him tonight at the party.”
“I think he’s in politics,” the clerk said.
“He holds an office?”
“I got the feeling he was in politics somehow or another. Money wasn’t a problem for him. When they were in here, he was annoyed she was settling her account. He talked like paying off a debt was déclassé.” He invoked the French with surprising ease. “That’s what I’ve noticed about rich people, a lot of them think they’re not obligated to pay their way, even though they’re the ones able to afford it the most.” He brightened. “Leigh is too good for that, though.”
He handed me the change and pushed the sack across the counter toward me. “Tell Leigh I said hello, will you? Or maybe ask if she could drop by before the party starts? She always seemed sad about something. It was always better to see her happy.”
Outside in the rain, I looked for a place to ditch the bag of groceries. The streets at the top of Nob Hill were exceptionally clean. Even the thick overgrowth scaling the building fronts were well-tended. I didn’t want to litter the place. I didn’t want to become part of the problem. I went to the apartment door and stared blankly inside, wondering my next move.
An older woman in a thick wool coat and broad hat emerged from the apartment building. She held the door open for me. I thanked her and slipped inside.
M’pleasure, I heard her say as she ventured out to the rain.
Blessing’s name was taped to the mailbox for apartment B, same as the door register. Eight apartments total in the building, mostly elderly people from what I’d seen so far.
The second-story hallway was empty when I reached the top of the stairs. The paint was fresh and the hall carpet smelled recently shampooed. The place was opulent in a subdued kind of way. I set the groceries at the foot of the door to Apartment B. I knocked twice to no answer. How a graduate student could afford this address was beyond me. Perhaps her unpleasantly rich boyfriend kept her in stole furs and diamonds.
The lock was electronic, not mechanical, like the keyless street entry. I’d installed industrial-grade versions of the same locking systems in data centers and corporate offices. I tied in with my pocket tablet's near-field receiver and launched an attack. Eighteen seconds later, the first bolt retracted with a crisp click. Six seconds later, the second did likewise.
My fable to the market clerk was a weak one. A quick walk through the apartment told me Leigh Blessing was not planning to return. It was a furnished alright, but other than the couches and club chairs and
stripped bed and dressers, the place was empty.
Checking the view out the window is a hobby for most San Franciscans. We rate city views the way a Hollywood casting agent rates female attractiveness. I parted the drapes with one hand and peered outside. Leigh’s apartment had a grand view of Grace Cathedral and its baroque steeples. The bay waters roiled in the distance, their cream slopping against the foundations of the Bay Bridge and the shore of Treasure Island.
Below on Jones Street stood a young man in a plum-colored suit wearing a narrow-brimmed hat. His black London-banker umbrella was closed. He carried it like a caveman's club. I caught him peering up at the apartment window. He ducked his head and started walking. In two strides, he depressed a button on the umbrella and it blossomed open with crisp efficiency. Like a hawk, I watched the black umbrella and plum-colored pants legs beneath it proceed up Jones Street, turn on Washington, and disappear from view.
I called up my Wiki on my personal tablet. “It appears Leigh Blessing has abandoned this address,” I told it over my memex.
I’ll reroute the data, the Wiki replied. It had no voice, of course. The words I heard were only in my mind.
In my mind's eye, a portion of the Wiki’s data map appeared in three dimensions before me, a color-coded hologram of taxonomies and connections. The Wiki's data map was alive, never static. Old connections disappeared and new connections developed like green tendrils sprouting from the stump of a severed tree limb. My simple revelation about Leigh’s place of residence was like pushing over a sand castle’s turret. Obedient and programmed with infinite patience, the Wiki began assembling a new turret from fresh sand.
“Tell me about this apartment’s financials," I asked the Wiki.
Eight-unit furnished apartment house owned by a holding corporation since 2023. Units are rented on a two-year lease with a monthly lease thereafter.
