by Jim Stark
"We're just going down the road a bit for some lunch,” said Victor. “That's okay, isn't it?"
"No problem,” said Cam casually. “We got you covered. I'm just off to the range to work on my long irons ... can't seem to hit the ball straight with them any more. If you want to join me some time, just let me know, eh? You're going to have to take up golf if you want to work effectively with the old man, you know."
"I used to play a bit of golf ... a long time ago,” said Victor. “You have your own driving range here?"
"Oh yeah,” said Cam. “We're even building a nine-hole course this spring. Call me when you have the time, when you're bored. I'll show you the whole layout. We'll whack a few balls around."
"Okay,” said Victor. “I'll definitely do that. My back's feeling better than it has in years ... since I stopped driving cab."
"See ya,” said Annette.
Victor didn't have the one and only LieDeck on his arm any more, but he had vast experience in reading deception. He felt Cam was telling the truth when he said “We got you covered,” but it never occurred to Victor that he wasn't going off to practice his irons.
Cam O'Connor was a tall, thin man with a bulbous crop of white hair perched atop a pinkish face. He wore his authority like a pair of too-new jeans, and played the security game well, but with little finesse. As soon as Victor and Annette were out of sight, he dropped the smile and the golf bag and drove over to the communications center in the Patriot compound. The jeep showed up on the TV screens seconds after the helicopter went up, and Cam took over the direction of the operation, bumping Helen aside.
Grant Eamer followed far enough behind so the engine couldn't be heard. The radios crackled from the chopper to the coverage cars and back to the field house as the invisible caravan moved towards Ray's at exactly fifty miles an hour, the precise speed limit on this secondary road.
"This is great,” said Victor. “I got the impression that security was going to be really tight, that I'd be like a prisoner out there. I know Cam said he had us covered, but ... I don't see any security at all?"
"Hey, what am I?” Annette asked. “Chopped liver?"
"I mean ... besides you."
"It's tight,” she said. “You're not supposed to see it. That's the whole idea of good security. If you could see it, you'd realize we were in the middle of a convoy. The chopper is up and ... no, it's no use craning your neck. Actually, this whim of yours is costing old man Whiteside plenty."
"I just wanted a greasy hamburger,” said Victor, “and to be with ordinary people for a while. Like Helen said, and you agreed: now that I'm rich, I get to tell instead of ask."
"God,” said Annette, “we've created a monster."
It was only two miles to Ray's, but the sense of freedom was exhilarating to Victor. Annette used the drive down to Highway 148 as an opportunity to discuss a few things that she didn't want to get into at the restaurant. She told him about the early-morning false alarm with the over-aged lovers—they had a good laugh over that—and she filled him in on the plans that Whiteside's chief engineer had come up with for production of the LieDeck. The workers who were chosen to make the LieDeck would be sworn to secrecy, and their compliance with the oath would be LieDeck-verified, daily. “Cam hasn't told the workers anything about the LieDeck yet,” she said, “but apparently he and Laurent Gauthier—that's the chief engineer—have been having all kinds of fun with your prototype, that one you had in the cast. Mr. Whiteside told me they were trying to fool it, and were speculating on its impact on the government, on Cold War II, on terrorism, on terrorists, on the lives of ordinary people."
Victor was pleased to hear that events were moving ahead quickly and calmly. He was deathly allergic to conflict, and he had expected trouble right from the first moment that other people got their hands on his invention. He wondered if he might perhaps have miscalculated the effects of the LieDeck on humanity. Maybe I was wrong, he thought.
"So you—uh—like working for Patriot?” he asked.
"Well, I'm good at it, and they pay me well.” Annette dropped it there, wondering if she had already said more than she should have. “Look,” she said, “when we go in, watch for a big guy named Buck Ash and tell me what you think of him."
"Buck Ash ... the hockey player?” asked Victor.
"Yeah,” said Annette. “Well ... the former hockey player."
"He's ... a Patriot agent now, I bet,” he said.
"Good guess,” she said. “He's been with us twenty years, ever since he retired from the Detroit Redwings ... wrecked his knee up. The locals don't know he's one of ours. He reports gossip about the Whitesides, gets a fix on any poaching that might threaten the estate or the bubble at Wilson Lake—stuff like that. He lives just a shout from Ray's."
When the restaurant came into view, Grant Eamer dropped his craft below the horizon and veered off to the west. “They're taking over on the ground,” he reported to Cam at the compound headquarters as Victor and Annette drove into the lot and parked.
Claire Lapine, the alpha waitress, was one of the few constants at Ray's Restaurant, having watched its procession of owners for nearly twenty years now. She looked out the window and saw the two non-locals as they walked towards the front door. “Isn't that the guy was in Whiteside's limo the other day?” she asked as she brought another beer to Buck.
"What guy?” asked Merrick McFee through a mouthful of fries.
"Couldn't be,” said Buck. “He had a mustache, and a cast on his arm. And he looked normal. This guy...” The end of the sentence had to wait until after Buck's “time-out” for a cigarette cough. “This guy looks...” He tried clearing his throat with a loud hork. “This guy looks like a damned fairy,” he managed with a pinched-up voice.
"Bigot,” snarled Claire.
"Whaaat?” protested Buck when he got his voice operational. “I don't say nigger or frog or squaw or nothin' no more ... now I gotta call fairies gay?"
Victor was dressed in some of the clothes that had been bought for him at the Royal Oaks, and although he looked like any other cottager, his gait and his eye movements were still those of a taxi driver ... or a recently retired hermit. Annette had decided to go with a “lumpen camouflage” look, the one that discouraged wannabe mashers and hid most of her natural beauty. The twosome couldn't pass for locals, of course, but they did squeak by as ordinary people, undeserving of any special attention.
Victor walked over to the cigarette wall, helped himself to a pack of Rothmans, and waved it at Claire so that she'd tack it onto the bill. Annette found a table, took off her jean jacket and scanned the room for anomalies. She counted the people, made mental notes of their appearances, and double-checked that her gun was in her purse. She knew there were four Patriot agents inside a van in the parking lot, and of course Buck Ash was over at the corner table with his cronies, smoking his guts out and pretending not to notice her. Ever since her first day on the job with Patriot, when she'd been flattened by a sucker-punch from a drunk, her policy was: you can never be too careful.
"Coffee?” said Claire as she put two steaming cups down.
"Thanks,” said Annette. “We'll order in a few minutes."
Old Jesse McCain had showed up, so naturally he had the floor, and there wasn't a whole great deal anybody could do about that. It was generally accepted in the area that Jesse had been waiting since the late 1990s for old Joe Farley to relinquish the role of local elder and chief storyteller. Seein’ as Joe's up and died, Jesse figured, I might's well jump right in and take over.
"I really miss Joe,” he announced, unbidden, from the wall side of the most central table at Ray's—Joe Farley's old seat. “Jesse's voice never was no Stradivarius,” people in the Quyon area said ... even some folks who had no clue what a Stradivarius might be. And his voice had gotten squeakier over the years, to the point now where it was nearly impossible to ignore.
"I'll never forget the last time he showed up here,” Jesse laughed. “He stashed his
beat-up Chevy pickup out beside the concrete slab there where the gas pumps used to be twenty-odd years back. Always parked that contraption in the exact same spot. Figured something about it was better'n all the other spots, I guess. He lifts out his good leg and plants his cane in the snow, good and firm, before hauling the rest of hisself out. It was getting to be quite an operation for him to get into or outta that truck, ever since he got his hip done. That was back in twenty ten, close as I can recall."
Jesse didn't recognize Victor when he came in, perhaps because he didn't have the cast or the mustache. Claire hoped it would stay that way, especially after the crack he'd made the other day about Victor being too fat and old to go parachuting. “Jesse's a bit tangent-prone,” she said to Annette as she handed over a couple of menus with scrawled-in revised prices.
Jesse overheard the remark, but Claire's opinion had never been a reason for him to slow down or change course. “He'd picked up a cold, Joe had,” he continued, “same one been going around over at the school in February. Well, that's a big deal in these parts, old Joe Farley with a full-fledged nose cold! So he leans hisself against the side of the truck for balance and commences to unclog his nose. He was expert at that particular maneuver, but you know, I don't think he realized his reputation on that score preceded him wherever he went."
A quick reality-check told Jesse that he had the room now, if not spellbound, at least attentive. He displayed his power by shoveling half a chicken finger into his toothless mouth, making everybody wait for the punch line.
Victor had his back to the old man, and was reluctant to peek, lest he be recognized and singled out. “He doesn't exactly get the saliva churning, does he?” he whispered. “Is it possible he's trying to gross us out on purpose?"
"Can't tell,” said Annette as she watched Jesse gum the hell out of the chicken finger. “I think he's just holding court."
"Anyways, Joe turns his back to the restaurant, I guess figuring if he couldn't see us we couldn't see him, eh? He hangs his cane on the rearview, bends over twenty-thirty degrees, puts his left index up to his left nostril and heaves a lungful of soaking wet air at the ground. Snap, whap, an’ he clears her out in one shot, then he reverses hisself to clean out the other side. Then he touches things up with the backs of his hands, wipes his hands up and down the sides of his overalls, then turns around for to face the world, and ‘course retrieves his cane off the external rearview. Even if there wasn't nobody around to hear him, he'd say, ‘Snot's the only thing a rich man puts in his pocket and a poor man throws away.’ He'd always say that, every time he done that thing with his nose."
That drew smiles from the patrons who'd heard the long one-liner before, outright laughter from the few who hadn't, including Victor and Annette. It also triggered a flurry of independent storytelling on the subject of Joe Farley.
Claire remembered many a day when she'd personally witnessed this acclaimed nasal performance by the late Joseph W. Farley—"W.” for Wilfred. As a youngster, she figured Joe was about the best thing there was to be found in the world ... after cotton candy. She was taking Victor and Annette's food orders now, and she decided to fill them in on Joe.
"That guy Joe Farley that he's talking about, whenever he could get out of the house and down to the restaurant, I always used to hold the door open so he wouldn't fall over or get all tangled up. ‘How's doing, young fella?’ I'd always ask him. ‘Would it help if I complained?’ he'd ask back. ‘Not around here,’ I'd tell him. Jesse McCain's okay,” she added secretively, “but he's no Joe Farley."
"This place is really something,” Victor whispered as the waitress departed. “It's like a community center for hicks."
He told Annette the story of his brief encounter with Jesse McCain and Ray a couple of nights earlier, about getting the wrong change and the flipped dime and Ray's crack about the discount on cigarettes for those on welfare, and he told her about what it was like to have the LieDeck on his arm for such occasions. He told her about the last month and a half of his life, about driving cab with the LieDeck in place, about playing mind games with his fares with the plasticized card claiming he had Tourette's syndrome.
Annette told Victor about the current man in her life, a divorced dentist by the name of Lou Glassen. It was easy for Victor to see that this Lou chap wasn't her favorite topic of conversation. The way he read it, she seemed happy to have the assignment out at the lodge as a means of avoiding Lou for a while. She also talked about her best friend Helen Kozinski, who was probably worried sick because the two of them had ventured outside the security perimeters surrounding the estate. And she talked about Helen's boyfriend in the RCMP—she didn't like him much, but couldn't put her finger on why that was.
The chatter among the locals bounced from table to table, but for Victor and Annette, it was now inaudible.
"Are we having fun yet?” he asked boyishly.
Annette laughed. “You're okay,” she said. “And yeah, we're having fun."
"It was them no-good kids Bobby Thompson and Geoff Farley that robbed your place here,” hollered Jesse to Ray, who had shown up behind the cash. “Old Joe deserved better'n to have a bad grandson like that. You know how I can tell it was them that did it—them two boys? They always sit in the back there and snicker when they come in here. You watch when they get to court. It was them, I tell ya."
"I know Bobby got charged,” said Ray as he smoothed back his thinning hair, “but I don't think it was them that did it. Them two's usually so wasted they can't chew gum without gettin’ all freakin’ confused."
"You know, Victor,” said Annette quietly, “what you told Helen about your friend George Cluff, the guy that invented the—uh..."
"C.V.A.,” said Victor. “The Cluff Voice Analyzer."
"Yeah—well, what you said about Cluff maybe getting killed by the CIA, I was ... I was thinking that maybe we could use a LieDeck to get to the bottom of all that ... if...” She left the thought unfinished.
"No hurry,” said Victor. “After the LieDeck has been out there for a year, there won't be an unsolved crime in Canada. In fact, if you think about it, there won't be any crime at all, anywhere in the world. Crime's no fun if you're sure to get caught."
"I ... I guess that's true,” considered Annette, reeling once again at the coming wallop of the device, and of this odd man. “So, you think they'll let the police and the courts use LieDecks?"
"How could anyone prevent it?"
"So ... I could be out of a job because of your little doohickey,” she mused.
"You can be my personal bodyguard,” quipped Victor. “I'll even give you a raise."
"Uh ... thanks, Victor,” she said tentatively. “But I don't think so."
"Well, it's not going to threaten anybody's job for quite a while in any event,” said Victor. “Randall and I agreed to take our time, to not release the LieDeck until there's been a thorough study of its anticipated impact on society."
"Very prudent,” said Annette. “I'm actually rather relieved to hear that—I don't mean because of my own job, but ... in general."
"Can I ask you something personal?” Victor said. “Nothing terribly deep and dark, just a question I have?"
"Sure,” she said.
"Here you go,” announced Claire as she plunked down two hot pork open sandwiches smothered in gravy with French fries and peas on the side ... the special. “You wanted milk, sir, and you wanted just—uh—water, right?"
"Thanks,” said Victor.
"Well?” asked Annette after Claire left to get the drinks.
Victor dunked a golden fry in the gravy and savored his first bite of ordinary food in two days. “The thing is,” he said as he chewed, “I was literally a hermit for the last twelve years, while I was working on the LieDeck. Now, I'm faced with a problem. I'm about to be rich, and that's fine—in fact it's terrific. But I'm about to be famous, too, and that's the problem. I don't know how to act with people, and if I get famous because of the LieDeck, I'm scared ev
eryone will treat me ... you know ... like a famous person, and not accept me or deal with me as an ordinary guy. So I was thinking maybe they could leave my name out of it when the LieDeck is unveiled to the public, just say it was developed by Whiteside Technologies and leave it at that. Then I could live however I wanted, and get in touch with people again at my own speed, and on my own terms. Do you think it's possible ... that I could remain anonymous through all the hoopla? Do you think Mr. Whiteside would go for that?"
"Here you go,” said Claire as she brought their drinks. “Everything okay?"
"Everything's just fine,” said Victor.
Annette was enjoying her meal, and cutting the fat off the pork. “Victor,” she said, “we already told you ... when you're rich, you stop asking and start telling. You keep forgetting that. If that's really what you want, to remain in the background, just tell Mr. Whiteside, and that's the way it will be."
Victor worked away at his sandwich for a spell, wondering if he'd made himself clear, or if he'd even finished the thought. “The thing is,” he finally said, carefully, “that you're being paid to be with me. It might well be that you're enjoying yourself, but if I was still a poor slob of a taxi driver, the chances of you and I having lunch and laughing and getting to be friends would be zero, nil, zilch. That's why—"
"Victor,” interrupted Annette, with an edge to her voice, “you ... don't know that ... for a fact."
Victor half-smiled, more out of sadness than pride. “You hesitated when you said that,” he said. “Twice, actually. And the reason you hesitated was because a LieDeck would have tripped you up, or ... it could have tripped you up. You must understand, Annette—I've had an infallible prototype on my wrist for six weeks or so, and I've been fooling around with near-perfect models of the LieDeck for ... well, it seems like forever, because the damned thing has literally made me into a different person. It's not even hard for me any more ... to know when actual reality is happening and when games are being played. You'll see for yourself, soon, in a couple of days, when you get to play around with a LieDeck of your own. The fact is—"
