A Dead Man's Tale

by James D. Doss

  Charlie Moon shared neither his friend’s enthusiasm nor Parris’s assumption that the waiter had already returned with their food. The Ute had recognized the distinctive request for admission, which was more on the order of—

  A gentle rapping.

  A mere tappity-tapping.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  The Uninvited Guest

  In the hallway outside the private dining room, someone announced his presence with a tentative “ahem.”

  “C’mon in,” Charlie Moon rumbled.

  The door opened a crack, to reveal a vertical slice of Samuel Reed’s face. “Excuse me, I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “You’re excused,” Scott Parris grumped. Now hit the bricks.

  Moon gestured the man in. “Have a seat.”

  With a wary glance at the chief of police, the uneasy man eased himself inside. “I won’t be a moment.”

  “Help yourself to a piece of candy.” Parris pointed at the jar. “If you’re still here when the food shows up, you can pay for the eats.” He regarded the party crasher with frank suspicion. “How’d you know me’n Charlie was here?”

  “I’m living at the hotel nowadays.” Reed leaned his ivory-knobbed cane in a corner, hung his homburg on a hatrack, and slipped into a chair beside Charlie Moon’s. “One of the employees told me you were having a meal in the Paiute Room.”

  “And you figured you’d drop by.” Parris gave him the gimlet eye.

  “Well, yes.” Reed met the cop’s hard gaze. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Speaking of minds,” Moon said, “what’s on yours?”

  Unsure of how much he should reveal to the lawmen, Reed thrummed his fingers on the dining table. After considering several options, he decided on the minimalist approach. “I have recently had an unsettling encounter with an attractive lady that I’d never laid eyes on before today. I thought I’d ask whether either of you two know anything about her.”

  Each of the men instantly assumed his best poker face, which was world class in Charlie Moon’s case and fair to middlin’ in the instance of Scott Parris.

  “Her name is Theodora Phillips,” Reed said. “She represents herself as an attorney.”

  Parris waited for his friend to take the lead.

  Which Charlie Moon did in about 250 milliseconds. “Is she in town?”

  “She was.” Reed blinked owlishly at the Ute. “The lady left a few hours ago.”

  “That’s fortuitous,” Parris said.

  The man who’d been royally flimflammed looked from one steely-eyed cop to the other. “Is Ms. Phillips a disreputable person?”

  Parris rolled his eyes.

  Moon scowled but held his silence.

  “Well tell me!”

  The Ute looked at the white cop.

  Parris sighed. “You tell him, Charlie.”

  Moon did. “Don’t ever mess with Miss Phillips.” The period at the end of this bottom line was the size of a cast-iron skillet.

  Reed’s mouth gaped. “That’s it?”

  The tribal investigator nodded. “End of story.”

  “But you can’t just leave me hanging—”

  “Sure we can.” Parris’s eyes twinkled. How brightly? Like a couple of two-for-a-dollar sparklers on the Fourth of July.

  Moon should’ve left it there, but the merry Ute couldn’t help himself. “It’s what’s known in the trade as a short story.”

  Reed’s lips went thin. “Gentlemen, this is not funny!”

  “Neither’s that lady lawyer,” Moon said. “And don’t tell me and Scott what kind of business you were conducting with her.”

  Parris shook his head. “We don’t want to know.”

  “Forget you ever heard of her,” the tribal cop warned.

  Reed’s face paled to a chalky white. “The people she is associated with—are they as dangerous as she suggests?”

  The lady’s dangerous associates exchanged knowing looks.

  “Some folks who’ve crossed paths with ’em might say so,” Moon said.

  Parris added, “Those few who’ve lived to talk about it.”

  “But I expect their reputations are puffed up some.” The Ute’s eye-twinkle was more like a pair of fireflies at five hundred yards. “All of ’em together probably haven’t personally maimed and killed more than a dozen men.”

  Parris agreed with Moon’s estimate. “I’ve met tougher guys at Methodist Church socials.”

  It appears that my fears were justified. Reed thrummed his fingers on the table again. “Earlier this afternoon, I donated a significant amount of money to several worthy charities.”

  “Did you, now?” Charlie Moon was already feeling two dollars richer.

  The wealthy man nodded. “For the very first time.” He stopped finger thrumming long enough to slap his palm on the polished wooden surface. “And do you know what?”

  The Ute shook his head. But he knew.

  Scott Parris held his breath. He knew, too.

  “It felt good!” Reed commenced to thrumming again. “From this day forward, I intend to contribute ten percent of my earnings to those who are less fortunate than myself.”

  Parris’s mouth twisted into a sarcastic grin. “There’re plenty of us around.”

  “Tithing is a time-honored practice and good for the soul.” Moon looked down his nose at the novice philanthropist. “But are we talking gross or net?”

  The man of business thought it over. Thrummed harder. “Gross, by golly!”

  “Now that’s the spirit!” Moon shot his friend the Look. It’s payday, pard.

  Scott Parris stuck his hand into his pocket and came up with eight quarter dollars.

  “Thank you kindly.” Moon arranged the shiny coins into a neat stack. “Looks like some local official has been knocking off parking meters.”

  “Consider it advance payment for assassinating eight local lowlifes of my choice.” Parris aimed a finger at the Indian, cocked it. “I’ll give you the list tomorrow.” And Sam Reed’s nefarious name will be right at the top.

  “What’s this all about?” The object of Parris’s ill thoughts hated being left in the dark.

  “Nothing important,” the Ute said. “A small debt Scott owed me. Which reminds me—you still owe the both of us.”

  The recently fleeced citizen blinked. “Owe you what?”

  “The rest of your story.”

  Reed arched both brows. “Story?”

  The chief of police scowled at the paneled wall. “This danged room has an aggravating echo problem.”

  Moon patted the wealthy man on the back. “You never finished your short story.”

  “The one where you remember the future.” Parris put on a mocking smile.

  “Oh, that.” Samuel Reed cleared his throat in preparation for a flimsy excuse that never got past his lips.

  “Here we are.” Moon made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the occupants of the exquisite little hotel dining room. “Three chummy hardcases sitting around a smoky campfire.”

  “Chewing on rotten buffalo jerky,” Parris added.

  Moon aimed a reproving look at his friend. “That’s rancid buffalo jerky.”

  “Oh, right.” Parris took a moment to grind his molars on the imaginary rancid flesh. “Thanks, Charlie.”

  “Don’t mention it, pard.”

  “This past-its-sell-by-date buff jerky’s not half bad,” Parris said. “But ain’t we washing it down with some genuine campfire coffee?”

  “You betchum.” Moon tipped an imaginary tin cup of black coffee. “We’re sipping cowboy java whilst filtering the grounds between the gaps in our teeth.”

  “That is betwixt the gaps.” Reed smiled at the cheerful cops. “And I believe you two comedians have quite made your point.”

  The taller and leaner of the comics set the make-believe hot beverage aside. “Then it must be about time to hear the rest of your story.”

  “If you insist.” Reed turned up his nose and sniffe
d. “But you will not like it.”

  The Ute allowed himself just a hint of a smile. “That’s what you said that night during the stakeout.”

  A peculiar expression began to creep its way over Reed’s face. Like a dead soul staring into the abyss and preferring blindness to what he saw there, his eyes seemed to glaze over. “I do have a tendency to repeat myself.” As he withdrew from his unsettling vision, the scientist’s mouth curled into a slightly lopsided grin that suggested a mild stroke. The situation was far more bizarre than the clever lawman could possibly have imagined. Every word I utter simultaneously passes through countless lips.

  A madman’s thought? Hard to say.

  Moon’s faint smile had slipped away. Reed’s right. I won’t like it.

  Scott Parris: This’ll be off-the-scale creepy.

  Both assumptions were correct.

  But if he had tried with all his might, Samuel Reed could not have cared less what they thought.

  Chapter Sixty

  Professor Reed’s Tall Tale

  Prior to his life-changing encounter with Ms. Theodora Phillips, Samuel Reed would not have considered offering such an outrageously unbelievable anecdote—particularly to a couple of hard-nosed cops who might not take kindly to being trifled with. But a soul who has discovered that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive has enjoyed a foretaste of true freedom. The experience was exhilarating for a man who has been entangled with the dubious pleasure of amassing a fortune. Reed’s partial release from his worldly entanglements was delightfully intoxicating; he was now capable of saying and doing all manner of things that would amaze those who were acquainted with his former self.

  The recently emancipated sinner got right to the heart of the matter without so much as batting an eyelash. “My ability to peer for a few hours or days into the future is not what is commonly called precognition. On the contrary, it has to do with slipping backward in time. From today to yesterday; from this month to the one before.”

  Charlie Moon was not surprised. His eyes had seen what was between the covers of the book in Reed’s guest-house bedroom.

  Scott Parris’s mouth drooped into a distasteful scowl. “Sounds like science fiction.” He preferred Westerns set in the late 1800s, with big six-guns belching lead and smoke as bodies of bad guys thudded onto the saloon floor.

  The scientist who had taught university-level physics classes found the tone of the cop’s remark off-putting. But Sam Reed was not entirely displeased; no pedagogue worth 10 percent of his inflated opinion of himself can pass up an opportunity to explain an incomprehensible phenomenon. Particularly to one whom he considers his intellectual inferior, a category that typically includes about 99 percent of the earth’s adult population. But let’s listen in; Professor Reed is puffing up his chest for the task.

  He delivered his opening blow in the crisp tone of one who is in the know. “Time is a fantasy, a figment of our imagination.” Enjoying a favorite private joke, the successful investor generously decided to share it. “Which, since Time is Money, calls into question the reality of dollars, pounds, and francs—not to mention yen and rubles.” Confronted by Parris’s blank stare, the professor realized that humor was wasted on this knuckle dragger. “Can you tell me the time of day?”

  Parris consulted the Timex on his hairy wrist. “About twenty minutes past five.”

  “Well done. Now, pretend that you do not own a timepiece.”

  Parris shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Under that constraint, how would you find out what time it was?” Reed waggled a disapproving finger when the shrewd fellow eyeballed a Seth Thomas clock mounted on the dining-room wall. “You are not allowed access to any manner of man-made chronometer. Nor do you have any means of communicating with those who do.”

  The beefy cop was reminded of one of his favorite pastimes. “Like I’m off somewhere in the mountains hunting a bull elk?”

  “Precisely so. And because elk season ends at six P.M. sharp, you naturally wish to know what o’clock it is.”

  Parris raised his gaze to the plastered ceiling and watched a tiny eight-legged creature that was suspended on an invisible thread. Ever so slowly, the crafty creature lowered herself toward the brass chandelier. “If it wasn’t too cloudy, I’d check out the sun.”

  “Of course. And if your elkish rendezvous was scheduled for midnight, you might consult the moon.”

  Parris cocked his head. “So what’s the point?”

  “The point,” the scientist said in a condescending manner, “is that the fourth dimension, which we homo sapiens refer to as ‘time,’ is merely a human invention to keep track of changing physical events, particularly those of a cyclical nature. Such as the rotation of the earth, which produces the illusion that the sun is passing overhead. The phases of the moon. The annual circuit of our rocky planet around the nearest star.” Reed tapped his chest. “And the thumping of the pump that circulates blood through our soul’s fleshly abode.”

  “Everybody knows that,” the sensible cop said. “But time wasn’t invented by people; it’d still be here if everybody on earth was dead and gone.”

  “An excellent exposition of an almost universal misconception.” This is somewhat more difficult than I had expected. Reason having proven ineffective, Reed resorted to authority. “To paraphrase Professor Einstein—time is an illusion, although a very persistent one.”

  “I don’t care who said it.” Parris jutted his chin. “Any way you slice it, it’s still baloney.”

  Reed paused for a sigh, a roll of the eyes. “I should not expect to relieve you in a moment of an error that you have embraced for a lifetime. But just to raise a healthy doubt in your mind, I shall pose what scientists and philosophers refer to as a thought experiment.”

  The cop’s expression reflected his increasing uneasiness.

  “This won’t hurt a bit, and you might even enjoy the process.” Samuel Reed was obviously enjoying himself. “First, imagine a vast, boundless universe that is entirely empty.” Much like the space between your ears.

  Parris sensed a trap. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Merely to humor me.” Reed cracked a genuine smile. “That, and I’ll give you something special that I have in my jacket pocket.”

  The intransigent pupil was instantly won over. “This empty universe don’t even have a speck of dust?”

  “Not a solitary atom, electron, or quark.” A first-rate scientist is able to imagine impossible things. And unlike the so-called vacuum of our outer space, its immense emptiness is a true void. There is no energy. No matrix of space to warp. No virtual particles popping into existence, only to vanish immediately.

  Parris closed his eyes and tried to imagine Nothing.

  Professor Reed regarded his slow student with amusement. “Are you there yet?”

  The reluctant scholar grunted. “Close as I’m gonna get.”

  “Excellent. Now, let us place a single particle in this vast, vacant space.”

  “A particle of what?”

  “Never mind.” Reed’s eyes narrowed imperiously. “Just do as I say.”

  “Okay.” The cop imagined a teensy-weensy black speck. “Got it.”

  “Excellent. This is a very special particle, Mr. Parris. It has no component parts and it neither vibrates nor spins.”

  “Okay by me.” His sunburned brow furrowed. “How big is it?”

  “The question of size has no meaning, as there is no meter-stick in this imaginary universe to measure our lonely particle with.”

  Maybe so, but this was Parris’s imagination. The infinitesimal speck grew to the size of a BB like the ammo he’d loaded into his childhood Red Ryder air rifle. Little Scotty was about to pull the trigger and shoot the sphere across the empty universe when—

  Sam Reed added another constraint. “And as vast as its home is, this particle cannot move to another place.”

  Bummer. “Why not?”

  The physicist turned his head to ad
dress the silent Indian. “Would you like to make a guess, Mr. Moon?”

  The Ute shook his head.

  The haughty pedagogue returned his attention to the Caucasian cop. “With only a single particle, there are no places in this universe, Mr. Parris—no reference points. The concept of movement or velocity has no meaning whatever.” Inertia is another matter, but that subject is beyond the scope of this cartoon universe. He drew in a deep breath. “What we have is a rather simpleminded example of a perfectly static universe. As there is no possibility of change, the concept of time is meaningless. Thus, the temporal illusion in our own universe is unmasked for what it is—a mere artifact of physical alterations. Planets spinning. Satellites circling. Molecules vibrating. Automobiles passing mile-marker signs along the highway.”

  “So you say.” Parris opened his eyes and shot a wry glance at the Ute rancher. “So what does that have to do with the price of beef next week?”

  “Ah, I should have expected that you would get right to the point.

  Here it is. As the seasons and moons wax and wane, your wristwatch tickety-tocks, and my noble heart beats, I am approaching a significant mile marker. For the purposes of this discussion, I shall call the little green signpost on my life’s highway ‘June fourth.’ Quite unexpectedly, I encounter a Mack truck. Head-on.”

  Like his Ute colleague, the Granite Creek chief of police had examined enough twisted wreckage and mangled flesh to last for several lifetimes. “Sounds to me like you’ve cashed in your chips.”

  “An astute observation, and entirely correct—as far as it goes. My earthly husk is as deceased as a fossilized sunflower seed, and before many days pass it will be planted beneath the sod.” The scientist’s eyes assumed a dreamy glaze that was more appropriate to a visionary or poet. “But this is not the end of my story.”

  Parris waited for the punch line.

  Also Moon.

  “When my death occurred on June fourth, that ineffable essence of myself which contained my iron will, sparkling personality, and astounding memory—my humble soul if you prefer—found itself back at an earlier mile marker. I refer, of course, to May third.”