Memory Blank

by John Stith

  “Nobody says thanks anymore,” said Vincent.

  Cal gave Nikki an amused glance, released her, and said, “Let’s have it, Vincent.”

  “Mr. Donley?” said a man who looked familiar but still didn’t register.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve got the information you requested the day before yesterday. The payments from your account went to a Mr. Jerry Lopez. Do you want the address?”

  “No, thanks.” Cal stifled a wry grin. “The name is enough.”

  The clerk hung up, and Cal explained to Nikki that Lopez was the analyst. Nikki grinned.

  Cal began to feel guilty that he felt good about making progress with Nikki while Tom lay dead, and he caught himself.

  He was about to speak, but Vincent said, “Another message came in. It’s text, and you might want to be alone when you read it.”

  “I don’t have secrets from Nikki—any longer. Read it.”

  “It says, ‘Horvath died instead of you. Stay home or someone else might die, too. Like your wife.’”

  Cal couldn’t say anything for a moment. He took several deep breaths. His eyes probably reflected the shock he saw in Nikki’s. He sat down and motioned for Nikki to do the same.

  “I’d like you to do something for me,” Cal said slowly. “I think you’d be a lot safer if you—”

  “Don’t even start to say anything like that,” Nikki broke in. “I’m not running out to leave you by yourself to handle this.”

  “Isn’t there someplace you could go, for just a few days—”

  “You’re not listening.”

  Cal saw the determination in her eyes, knowing she could be just as stubborn as he could. He wondered fleetingly if his attraction to Michelle was based on her similarity to Nikki. He began to say something more and just stopped.

  “Yes, I’ll be careful,” Nikki said, responding to the unspoken request. “And I’ll expect you to be, too.”

  Cal quietly accepted the inevitable. “One of us should talk to Dorothy before she hears about Tom from the police.”

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “You’ve gone through enough already.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I guess I’ll give someone a call about going out for a drink.”

  “Not Michelle?”

  “No.” Cal explained about Leroy Krantz and wanting to know if his wristcomp showed any image defects.

  “Why don’t you call him before you leave?” Nikki asked. “That way I’ll know your plan.”

  Cal did so. Unfortunately, Leroy was still at his desk, so Cal learned nothing except that Leroy looked shocked when he told him Tom Horvath was dead, and he agreed that a drink together to lament Cal’s boss would be okay. They settled on a restaurant on Daedalus in an hour. Cal hung up.

  “So,” said Nikki. “That gives you a guaranteed opportunity to catch him while he’s got only his wristcomp to communicate with?”

  “Exactly.” Cal was still getting used to her perceptiveness and speed. “I passed by that place today. It’s being redecorated. So I can call him to change locations.”

  “If you’re not a spy, maybe you ought to be,” Nikki said, and grinned.

  “As a matter of fact, that’s still the only explanation I can see for some of the things I’ve found out. If it was for the police, I can’t say who I was spying on, or why they haven’t contacted me, but it seems most likely that’s what I was doing with some of my off hours.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I just wish there was some way to delay the Vittoria.”

  “Which implies there isn’t.”

  “No,” Cal said. “The time window they plan to use is pretty narrow. They want just the right trajectory while they’re still in the solar system. Besides, who would listen to me? I don’t really know anything.”

  Nikki began to pace. “We’ve got to do something.”

  “We will. Why don’t you go see Dorothy?”

  “While you—”

  “While I try to figure out what to do next.”

  Nikki nodded and started for the door. Halfway there she halted and turned. A few quick steps brought her back facing Cal, and she leaned down to give him a brief kiss on the cheek.

  Cal didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to expect anything. Nikki drew back, winked at him, and left.

  Cal was still sitting there several minutes later when he remembered his surroundings. “Vincent,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been able to figure women out.”

  “I’m probably not far behind you.”

  “You’re saying I’m slow?” Cal asked, rising.

  “I mean I don’t see much difference between men and women. It seems to me that it’s you who want to assign differences.”

  “You think you’re any closer to the truth than the computer that decided ashtrays caused cancer?”

  “No matter. You pay me to do the books and make telephone calls. Those I can understand.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk to Michelle.”

  “Is that the royal ‘we,’ the editorial ‘we,’ or the literal ‘we’?”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  A moment later Michelle’s face filled the screen.

  “Anything new?” Cal asked.

  “Nothing worth calling about yet. The building records show a maintenance call to your office yesterday. It could well have been Edmund, but there’s no way to tell.”

  “That was fast.” Cal thanked her for the information and hung up.

  Cal left the clinic. He had already decided on Galentine’s as the place to meet, but he soon realized that he had more than enough time to get there, so he detoured by his office.

  The cleanup crew was still at work removing debris. The three interior walls had been cleared away, leaving a large pile of rubble where his office had been and two smaller concentrations in the neighboring offices. Cal assumed that by now the forensic experts would have come and gone.

  He must have been right, for no one challenged him as he approached the office. He wrinkled his nose at the odor of melted plastic. The almost overwhelming feeling of sadness returned as he saw dark stains on the floor. He was aware, too, of the anger that had been building.

  As far as he knew, he had never been one to settle issues physically, but, right at that moment, he strongly wished he had the person responsible right there in what was left of the office, walking on Tom’s blood. Maybe slamming him into one of the remaining walls to get his attention would be a good start.

  Cal forced away the thoughts, trying to look at the area objectively. It was a struggle.

  Near a heap of melted plastic in the corner, he found a small green pulp that was barely recognizable as part of a plant.

  The desk wasn’t in the room. Or, more precisely, the desk as a whole object wasn’t. The explosive must have been inside it. Twisted metal pieces in the pile must have come from the desk.

  In the corner lay the remains of Cal’s swivel chair. Maybe its rollers had allowed it to move with the tide of violently expanding gas and metal fragments until it collided with the wall.

  Cal moved to examine the chair. After a moment he found attached to one of the legs a short segment of wire. That would have been the trigger.

  Anger flared within him again as he thought back to the wire in his Vittoria office. So Edmund, or whoever had done this, hadn’t set up anything so sophisticated that it was guaranteed to blow only when Cal himself was there. Anyone at all could have set it off. Except that Tom was not just anyone.

  Cal felt sick to his stomach.

  The cleanup crew came back for another load, so he moved out of their way momentarily.

  Once they were on their way again, he poked through the remaining pile, but had found nothing by the time Vincent told him he had a call.

  “Just a minute,” said Cal. He found a nearby empty office and closed the door. He avoided t
he chair.

  It was Michelle. “You were right,” she said.

  “Right about what? I’ve been wrong so many times lately, that should narrow down the possibilities, but I can’t guess which one you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about Domingo. Another database search I requested turned up something. Fourteen years ago the name Angelo Gabriel Domingo was on a list of rookies. Police rookies.”

  “You’re saying that swapping his first and middle name was all it took to obscure the record?”

  “I don’t know if that’s all he did. But you’ve got to remember that fourteen years ago there were a lot more Domingos and Smiths. He’s the same man. There was a class picture in the files.”

  “And it’s him?”

  “Right. So the odds that he was still in the police, but undercover, have to be enormous.”

  “Thanks, Michelle. You—”

  “Another call,” said Vincent.

  “Anything else, Michelle?”

  She said no, so Cal thanked her and answered the other call. It was Nikki.

  “I’m with Dorothy. She’s taken a sedative, so I can talk for a few minutes. I didn’t intend to ask her anything about you, but I did anyway.”

  “And?”

  “And there wasn’t much. But she did say that Tom was worried about you. It seems you had a talk with him, saying you might need to be out of your office occasionally. He was naturally curious, but you wouldn’t tell him why. You just asked for him not to tell anyone else.”

  “But Dorothy didn’t know any more than that?”

  “No. Tom told her he tried to find out more and couldn’t. In the end he decided the only thing he could do was just trust that you knew what you were doing, and you’d explain it to him eventually.”

  “I hope I don’t die without knowing, too.”

  “What?” Nikki asked sharply.

  “I said I hope I find out soon.”

  Nikki hesitated before she said, “I thought you were striving for more honesty lately.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just worried about all of this. Do you think Dorothy will be okay?”

  “I think so. I’ll ask someone from the clinic to check in with her frequently.”

  “Thanks for breaking the news to her. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

  “I was just lucky she hadn’t had the news on and heard about it before I got here. And that I made it ahead of the police.”

  Cal said good-bye. The crew was still at work in the hallway as he left the building. He had planned on going directly to Galentine’s, but decided to be cautious and go instead to the place he had mentioned to Leroy. Fortunately, they were close to each other.

  A few minutes later he stood in front of Angie’s, the bar he had named. “You’re still recording video, right, Vincent?” he asked.

  “On target.”

  “Then put a call in to Leroy Krantz.”

  Cal was in luck. Judging by the background view, Leroy was in the shuttle on the way over. The view appeared to be from lower than his head, off to one side. He had to be using his wristcomp.

  “How about if we make it another place?” Cal asked. “Angie’s is closed.”

  “Okay. Where?”

  “Galentine’s is close to here. You know it?”

  “Sure. I’ll see you there.”

  Cal hung up. He hadn’t been able to tell if the video defect he sought was present or not during the call. “Did you see anything?” he asked Vincent.

  “You mean image defects?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, but they’re not in the same place.”

  Cal didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He hurried to Galentine’s and found an empty booth. “Okay. Show me one of the frames.”

  Obediently Vincent brought up a picture of Leroy. His nose looked more hawklike from this angle. “I’m coloring the defective section red and enlarging it.”

  Cal saw the red in the bottom half of the image. The dots in the picture of himself that he had found had been at the top. The bad section continued to grow until Cal could see that there were three significant dropouts in the picture. Three black dots.

  “They look a lot like the ones in the other picture except for location,” Cal said. And then he knew the answer. “It was Leroy. If he’d had his arm down at his side when he took the picture of me, the bad section of image would have been swapped top for bottom. Retrieve the first picture, turn it upside down, and do a comparison.” Cal held his breath.

  An instant later Vincent said, “Perfect match.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Havoc

  “So Leroy has been behind it all,” Cal said, still surprised at actually finding the wristcomp that had taken the picture of him.

  “He’s at least guilty of taking your picture,” said Vincent. “Get the rope.”

  Cal signaled for a drink. “That doesn’t sound like a lot, but that was the picture I found at Edmund’s place. You can’t have forgotten Edmund, our friendly electrician.”

  “I haven’t forgotten him. I’m just reviewing the law. You have no proof that, because Edmund had a picture of you taken by Leroy, Leroy must therefore be guilty and convictable.”

  “You’re probably more accurate than your ashtray cousin. And even if he were convictable, it still doesn’t explain why he did it. In the thrillers the guilty party always explains why he committed his crimes, and what his next one is going to be. I don’t see it being all that easy.”

  “Based on your luck so far, I’d have to agree.”

  “So somehow I’ve got to get him to tell me why he’s done all this, without letting him know I don’t know already.”

  “Let me make sure I’ve got this right,” said Vincent. “If he thinks that you think that he thinks that you think that—”

  “That’s enough.”

  Vincent’s apology, if he was going to make one, was cut off by the arrival of Cal’s drink. Cal paid the waiter and took a large gulp.

  “You might need a clear head,” Vincent said.

  “I’m sure I will. This doesn’t have anything disruptive in it.”

  “How about ordering me a drink too? I need to unwind.”

  Cal didn’t reply. He leaned back into the booth cushion, and the gun in his pocket pressed against his hip. “Can you set up a three-way call with Nikki and Michelle?”

  “Do babies burp?”

  Cal made no attempt to reply. Already he saw that Vincent had divided the display screen into two sections. A moment later Michelle’s face appeared on the right side. Before he could tell her to hang on just a moment, Nikki was on the left.

  “Nikki, Michelle. Michelle, Nikki. Can both of you hear everything?” he asked. They confirmed that they could. “Okay,” said Cal. “I don’t have much time. I’m at Galentine’s, and Leroy Krantz is on his way over here. I’m sure he’s the one responsible for this.”

  Both women asked the same question at once.

  “Because,” said Cal, “the picture I found at Edmund’s has to have been taken by Leroy. That’s all I know. I still don’t know why all this is happening. But if either one of you get a marriage proposal from him after I’m dead, I want you to refuse.”

  Michelle agreed with a straight face, and Nikki grimaced.

  “What I’m going to do,” Cal continued, “is ask Vincent to relay all the video and audio he picks up to one of you, say Michelle, since you’ve probably got access to better recording equipment. I’m still not even sure yet what I’m going to do with Leroy, but either we get evidence of what he’s already done, or we get evidence of what he’ll do to me. You got that, Vincent?”

  Vincent acknowledged. Nikki and Michelle protested, so Cal told them about the gun. It didn’t seem to make them feel much better.

  “I’m sorry,” Cal said. “But I don’t have much time. He’s due here any minute. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Leroy didn’t arrive until more than ten minutes later, but Cal was
still glad he hadn’t taken a chance on Leroy finding him talking to someone.

  “I still can’t believe Tom’s really dead,” Leroy said after he entered the room and closed the door. His appearance shook Cal’s confidence in his new-found clue. Leroy really seemed to be shaken by the news.

  “It’s hard for me to accept too. But there wasn’t much margin for error. Whoever set the explosion must have been awfully conservative.”

  “What do you mean?” Leroy ordered a drink as he settled into the booth.

  “Just that the amount of explosive he used must have been ten times what it would take just to kill someone or destroy my desk. It leveled my office and injured people next door.”

  Cal tried to watch Leroy for reactions, without being obvious about it. It was puzzling that Leroy actually whitened slightly as he heard about the explosion.

  “Maybe a little bit goes a long way,” said Leroy.

  “I don’t think that’s the case. Oh, maybe there are explosives powerful enough to require only a couple of drops to do that damage, but this particular explosive comes in containers that hold about a liter.” Cal had the sudden hope that Leroy wouldn’t ask him how he knew that.

  Leroy didn’t. He was interrupted as the door opened and a waiter brought in Leroy’s drink. By the time the man had gone, Cal shifted the conversation away from the topic.

  “It seems like everything’s just about ready for the departure,” Cal said.

  If Leroy was relieved to switch subjects, it wasn’t obvious to Cal. The man still seemed agitated. He drank his drink quickly. “Yeah,” he said, making a nervous gesture. “It took a lot of preparation.”

  Cal’s impatience finally grew too great. It was time to start applying the pressure. “It sure is hard to find good help these days,” he said evenly.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that Fargo Edmund sure hasn’t been too reliable,” said Cal, watching Leroy intently.

  Leroy drained his drink and ordered another. “You’re being awfully vague, Cal. Isn’t that the guy you mentioned to me earlier? The one who fell while he was jogging?”

  “The same one. Except that he wasn’t jogging. He was running away from me.”