Montserrat was still squealing when the cops and ambulances arrived. I’d barely moved for thinking I should be dead, but Bobbi tore her shirt off and wrapped it tight around Karlbert’s head to stanch the bleeding.
Turned out to be as close to seeing her naked as I’d ever get. I do dream, though.
*
It cost the network a few dollars with the L.A.P.D. Widows and Orphans Fund to keep my name out things, but then Hollywood adjacent violence doesn’t really rate these days. Karlbert recovered, though he needed two months in the head trauma unit at Cedars. He had to give up his position as story editor on Burning Bright, but frankly the plots have gotten much better now that he’s gone. Even after they released him, poor Karlbert lost the ability to tell the difference between sweet and sour. The doctors are puzzled. I know the weed of crime bears bitter fruit and all, but not being able to enjoy a good Chinese meal seems a hell of a price to pay for your sins.
Bobbi left the show as well, albeit for a six-figure development deal with DreamWorks. I hear she’s come out of the closet, too, but then lesbian chic is in monster fashion at the moment. Word is she’s stalking Ellen DeGeneres.
It only occurred to me quite a bit later that even if it was real, the photo that started the whole mess—courtesy of the man who shot The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence—and which cost me five hundred bucks, wasn’t proof at all that John Wayne was buried wearing a dress, much less that he was gay.
I still don’t like to believe it, but for my own pathetic peace of mind (and admitted prurient interest) I had another go at the Ouija board. I went about it a little more seriously this time, thinking I had a shot at getting through to the Duke if I really put my mind to it. Hard as I tried, though, I couldn’t make contact. The best I could manage was Ward Bond, so just for the hell of it I asked him. Any John Ford fan might have guessed the reply:
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Jerome Rhodes
SEVEN STARS EPISODE SIX
THE DOG STORY
by KIM NEWMAN
Unlike his mother Sally, Jerome Rhodes relies on state-of-the-art technology in his investigations.
Conceived in the story ‘Organ Donors’ (Darklands 2, 1992), a toddler in The Quorum (1994) and grown-up in ‘Where the Bodies Are Buried 2020’ (Dark Terrors 2, 1996), Jerome is named after the author’s nephew and the adult character inhabits a world loosely connected with that of Kim Newman’s early science fiction stories, ‘Dreamers’ (Interzone #8, 1984) and ‘Patricia’s Profession’ (Interzone #14, 1986), and his debut novel, The Night Mayor (1990).
Dr. Shade was originally a fictional scientific vigilante of the 1930–50s, created by “Rex Cash” (Donald Moncrieff) for Wendover’s Magazine. With his identity hidden behind a cloak and goggle-like dark glasses, he employed a group of semi-criminal bully boys in his never-ending war against foreign elements importing evil into the heart of the British Empire. The character became even more popular as an official agent of the British government in a daily comic strip in the Evening Argus (1935–52), illustrated by Frank FitzGerald and written by Harry Lipman under the Cash pseudonym from 1939 onwards.
Introduced in Newman’s British Science Fiction Award-winning novella, ‘The Original Dr Shade’ (Interzone #36, 1990), the character took on a life of his own, later reappearing in the novel The Quorum (1994) as an alter-ego of Derek Leech.
THE CLIENT HAD fixed the meetsite, Pall Mall. Neutral ground, equidistant from his Islington monad and her Brixton piedater. He was used to getting-about. Types who needed an Information Analyst didn’t want the need known. It usually meant they were in a reverse, and even a rumour could key terminal panic. Vastcorps were conservative, prone to dump at the first smokesign, trailing a plankton-field of small investors who’d unload at decreasingly sensible prices. A whisper could drag down an empire toot sweet.
Though he spoke with what he knew from old teevee to be an English accent, Jerome thought of Pall Mall, like all else, as Paul Maul.
The London Board of Directors had gotten so weary of Former Americans visiting the Mall and asking where the stores were that the strip had been rezoned for commercial development. Preservation-ordered buildings, no longer needed after the out shifting of admin to Bletchley, were subdivided into franchise premises: Leechmart, Banana Democracy, Guns ’n’ Ammo, Killergrams. Some stores here were so chic they had actual goods in stock, for real-life inspection.
The client had called the place Pal Mal, like an elderly person would. Her face ident, however, scanned as girlish. For an inst, he’d optioned asking her if her parents knew she was accessing their comm-hook.
She had a name, not a corporate ident. Geneviève Dieudonné. He’d worked for private citizens before, though he was usually indentured to corps or gunmints. He did not come low-budget. She’d have to meet his price, either in currency or access.
She had specified an old address, between fast outlets, clothes shops and the dream parlours. A prime site neglected in the redevelopment. He was to wait outside for her.
It was a cool day at street level. The cloud-kites were over the East End, which let unfiltered sunlight pour down here, bleaching everything pastel. A few other get-abouts strolled in the chill light, toting parasols. The odd unperson nipped out, though they were supposed to stay behind the scenes, darting across the open to shade, covering their eyes against the burning glare.
He sat on a pink play-bench and turned down his earpiece, lulling the info-flow. If the client had a problem, he needed to clear his mind.
He was distracted anyway, by a barking dog. A couple of gay get-abouts were shamed by their unruly Alsatian. The hom tried to calm the dog, adjusting the collar with the handset; the fem apologised to passersby, explaining there must be some glitch in the mood-collar.
A micro-event, but it rang a bell.
On the people-mover, there’d been another dog, a miniature of some breed yapping in an old woman’s grip. Get-abouts had got about, shifting to another carriage.
Two geek dogs. Not info on which to build a case.
“Jerome Rhodes?”
She wore a thick wraparound eyeshade, a heavy sun-cloak and a wide-brimmed black straw hat with a scarlet silk band. She must have skin cancer in her genetic background, or be extra-cautious, or need the disguise. She was a pretty lady: he intuited he might have seen her before, once, long ago.
He stood and offered his hand, making a fist so the bar-code on the back was smooth. She did not produce a reader to confirm his ident. She also did not offer her hand.
“You conch that without ident exchange, no contract is legally enforceable?”
It was surprising how many of his clients were ignorant of the regs of Information Analysis.
She shrugged, cloak lifted a little by the airflow.
“I should terminate this meet,” he said.
She took off her eyeshade and looked at him.
“But you won’t,” she whispered.
It was as if she saw through his eyeshade, accessing his brain.
“I want you to locate a ghost,” she said.
That wasn’t an unusual request. Ghosts were rogue idents, projected into the InfoWorld, often leashed to their physical persons by a monofilament of ectoplasm. Some spook-makers cultivated a swarm of ghosts. You had to mind it was a baseline form of Multiple Personality Disorder, that ghosts sprang from meat-minds.
Something about the way she had put it didn’t quite scan. He was acute to precise meanings, even when words offered multiple readings.
She’d meant ghost the way he took it. But she had a B story minded, another meaning. “A ghost, as in …?”
She smiled at his prompt.
“As in Jacob Marley? As in Henrik Ibsen? Perhaps. But, primarily, the breed of ghost you know about.”
He had a reputation as a ghost-buster. Two years ago, Walt McDisney hired him to bust a cadre of disgruntled ex-employees who assumed the idents of wholly-owned cartoon characters and har
assed accessors of Virtual McDisneyland. That was a big case for Rhodes Information, involving InfoWorld banditry, pop culture terrorism, copyright violation and several different layers of obscenity law. The culprits were under Household Arrest for the rest of their lives, shut out of the InfoWorld forever.
The barking Alsatian had set off another animal, a snapping terrier. They were noisemaking in disharmony, not competition. Jerome heard a third canine whine, joining in from backstage. A lot of unpersons kept dogs on traditional strings.
The client was distracted, too. She slipped her eyeshade back on, but he’d caught the narrowing of her eyes. It was if she had suffered a sudden brainpain.
“What’s the ghost’s tag?”
“Seven Stars.”
Jerome pulled out his earpiece, shutting off info-flow, suddenly concentrating on only the A story.
“Seven Stars?”
He needed a confirm. She gave it.
“Seven Stars isn’t a ghost,” he said. “Seven Stars is a terrorist-corp. Gunmints have gone after them. And vastcorps. What info do you have that puts us in a better start position than the heavy hitters?”
“Seven Stars is one person, physically. Of course, she might be considered a Legion.”
He tagged the reference.
“Mark. Chapter Five. Verses Eight and Nine. ‘For he said unto him, “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit”. And he asked him, “What is thy name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion: for we are many”.’
“King James Version, Jerome. Very impressive. I thought Post Christians used the Jeffrey Archer translation.”
“I’m not a P-C,” Jerome said. “The Bible is of cultural importance beyond religious significance.”
“How are you on the Old Testament?”
He didn’t want to get into a Trivial Pursuit session, so he shrugged modestly.
“Look up Exodus, Chapters Seven through Twelve.”
“The Plagues of Egypt?”
“Very good. To answer your original question, I have the ident of Seven Stars. The meat-name.”
He winced. He had not expected vulgarity from her.
“It’s Mimsy Mountmain.”
She spelled it for him.
*
He still didn’t quite believe Seven Stars was one person. Most theorists put them down as an Info-Army, covertly funded by a consortium to disrupt the InfoWorld. The vastcorps all had their private security people out looking for them, not to mention various Global Information Police forces.
Over the last year, Seven Stars had been busy.
At first, the Scramble Bombs seemed random, disruptions of the info-flows. Vastcorps and gunmints set aside their info wars to post rewards for the expulsion of Seven Stars. Derek Leech himself, the visionary of the Information World, the ultimate stay-at-home, stepped out of his Pyramid for the first time in a dozen years to appear on a realwelt platform with the Managing Director of London, the CEO of McDisney-Europa and the Moderator of the Eunion.
Then came serious pranks, calculated to undermine client confidence. Jerome had been amused, with the cynicism about stay-at-homes endemic among get-abouts like him, when a hundred million people were convinced by a phreak edition of OnLine Vogue that the latest fashion was for rouged and exposed anuses. When a hundredth of the subscribers lipsticked their recta, it counted as a genuine fashion trend and the real Vogue, a Leech publication, was obliged by law to report it. The fact that the fashion followers’ registration fees went to an untraceable account in Virtual Switzerland was an extra giggle.
The pranks became murderous, and Seven Stars seemed scarier. A few high-profile ident assassinations were costly embarrassments for heads of states and CEOs, deleted from the InfoWorld or metamorphosed so their access signatures made all users read them as unpersons. After an ident assassination, you could always get another life, even if it meant going back twenty years and starting all over. When a random percentage of Leech-Drug prescriptions were tainted, a substantial death-toll of meat-lives—realfolk—mounted. Stay-at-homes struck dead in their monads, were reclassified by their Households from home-user to waste material.
If the long-foretold Collapse were to come, Seven Stars might look good for the role of Anti-Christ. Empires were shaking, and a lot of independents were going psycho “in the tradition of” Seven Stars.
One person. One ident. Mimsy Mountmain.
Jerome had asked the client for back-up confirmations. She just knew. That was scary in itself.
He was as good at reading people as at conning info-mass. People had readouts and flagged items too. He believed the client. Though there was something about her that didn’t scan.
*
Back at the monad, he jacked his earpiece into the Household and pulled in a few info-blips. He often started with a random trawl, seeing if connections could be made.
The dog story was an epidemic. The first theory was that a sound pitched only to sensitive canine ears was causing all dogs—including the few wolves left in realwelt zoos—low-level irritation. However, no such ultra-sound could be detected by instruments other than dog-brains.
Even through his monad-block’s soundproofing, Jerome heard distinct animal noises. He was grateful that he didn’t have a companion or minion dog. There were reports of minion dogs—gene-designed for guard and attack duties—savaging stay-at-home masters. It couldn’t be an Info-Prank. Dogs weren’t generally jacked into anything other than the Actual.
He set searchers on Mimsy Mountmain, cloaking himself for caution. For added coverage, he put a search out on Geneviève Dieudonné. It was always a smart keystroke to learn as much about the client as the quarry. Often, something the client didn’t know about themselves was the breakthrough clue.
He subscribed to the usual police sites, from which he downloaded the surface material on Seven Stars. He didn’t want to chance a full-on search yet. The last thing he wanted was to flag his own name. Seven Stars could have him wiped. Or killed.
Should he make a comm-link with Sister Chantal and initiate discussion on the Plagues of Egypt? Since the Fall of the Vatican, she was freelancing out of Prague but would still be up on Biblical scholarship. He skinned his thought package. He had a perfectly good reason to call Chan, but was reluctant to do so. He had an emotional case-file on her, and knew she’d interpret a call as personal rather than professional. Then they’d have to go forward or back. And he wanted to stay where they were.
He left it as it was.
The dog story was a mushrooming news-bomb, eclipsing other developing stories. Most channels offered feeble alternatives—something about an astronomical anomaly, a human interest orphan massacre, a new development in endocrinology—but the dog story was global, a stone mystery, affording a full response spectrum from farce to horror. He couldn’t afford to get caught up in the mediamass of speculative coverage.
On Cloud 9, the premier Leech newsline, extreme theorists were getting the coverage: a canine groupmind, begging for a cosmic bone; a conceptual breakthrough, representing the sudden attainment of sentience in a competitor species; a literal curse of God, a rebuke for the collapse of most organised churches in the Religious Wars of ’20.
Jerome forced himself to tune out on the dog story.
His search results were downloading. The first thing he learned was that Mimsy Mountmain was a real person, born 1973—which made her fifty-three now. Her mother was listed as Maureen Mountmain (d. 1998), her father was not known. There were sealed police records from the 1990s, which he’d take the trouble to gut later. Nothing much after the turn of the century. Hot links fed off to biographies of several family members, stretching back to the 1800s. They would be a distraction just now, but he made a mental flag to find out why they were supposed to be so interesting.
The real woman of mystery was Geneviève Dieudonné.
A person of that name had been born in France in 1416. She apparently died—there was some doubt about exact circumstances and date—i
n 1432. At sixteen.
A person of that name had been born in Canada in 1893 and died under her married name of Thompson in 1962. A life’s worth of data on her scrolled past swiftly.
A person of that name was mentioned in the acknowledgements of Some Thoughts on the Bondage of Womanhood, by Katharine Reed. Published 1902.
And a person of that name was on the payroll of the Free French for several months in 1942. She worked in Los Angeles, presumably for the War Effort, though the nature of her service was not listed.
There was no record of the woman he had met this afternoon.
Geneviève 1893–1962 left a portfolio of photographs, from childhood through to old age. Geneviève 1902 and Geneviève 1942—definitely different from the 1893–1962 woman and probably from each other—left no pics.
It seemed likely his client had used an off-the-peg ident to contract with him she had not offered him her hand for reading, he minded—but must also have gone to some trouble to find a name that would not yield miles of scroll on many different people down through the centuries. Over a thousand people on record were called Jerome Rhodes.
An afterthought downloaded. A search gave you public record info first, then revisited any sealed files you’d previously accessed. This blip came from his own master contacts file. A Geneviève Dieudonné was listed as a contact of the Sally Rhodes Agency in 1998. Unless on some major rejuvenative surgery kick, this could not be the same woman.
His mother had, as usual, not kept a proper record. From the notation, it was ambiguous as to whether this Geneviève was a client or an informant. She did not seem to have paid anything, which was just like Mum. Too many deadbeats rooked her out of a fee for services rendered.
He would have been five or six. He minded the times. Neil, Mum’s boyfriend, was teaching him how to find things out. They had even gone to paper-and-dust libraries to look things up. It was the start of his induction into the InfoWorld.
Had he seen Miss Dieudonné then? At first sight, the client had seemed to ring a distant alarm. But this couldn’t be the same woman.
Dark Detectives Page 45
