Head On_A Novel of the Near Future

by John Scalzi

  Ortiz gaped. “That’s nuts,” he said, finally.

  “We’re happy to hear an alternate theory of the case,” I said.

  “I didn’t dope that supplement bag! Test it yourself!”

  “We can’t,” I said. “The lab contaminated their test sample. It’s unusable for legal purposes.”

  “There was an autopsy,” Ortiz protested.

  “Nothing conclusive at this point.” This was true as far as it went.

  “So in fact you have nothing on Mr. Ortiz,” Sanborn said.

  “We have his cousin’s testimony and his tweets and, as I said before, means, motive, and opportunity.”

  “All of which will be destroyed in court if you’re stupid enough to charge my client.”

  “Possibly,” Vann said. “If you take it to court at all.” She turned to Ortiz. “See, this is where I make the point that I think the NAHL, Ms. Sanborn’s boss, will be delighted to have you make a plea bargain, Mr. Ortiz. When we’re gone she’s going to make the case to you—the correct case—that if this goes to trial, it’s going to be essentially our word against yours, and our word is better. So she’ll want to see if you’ll go along with a plea for a lesser charge, which the prosecutors will go along with because it saves the government money. Then the problem will be solved. No one will snoop around any further. The NAHL can get back to its very important business of expanding into Asia and Europe, which this little investigation of ours is complicating.”

  Ortiz was now looking at Sanborn with a pissed-off expression on his face.

  “I think maybe she already brought up the idea of a plea to him,” I said to Vann.

  “Wow,” Vann said. “I think you’re right. Even Pedro’s public defender didn’t open with a plea.”

  Ortiz turned his attention back to us. “I didn’t murder Duane. He was my friend.”

  “A friend whose wife you were fucking,” Vann observed. “I’m guessing he wouldn’t have thought that was very friendly.”

  Ortiz put his face in his hands. Sanborn cleared her throat to say something. Ortiz put a hand up to her, as if to say, Don’t you even.

  “We do have another theory of the crime,” I ventured.

  “And what is that, precisely?” Sanborn asked.

  “One that also hinges on a supplement bag,” Vann said.

  “You said the supplement bag was contaminated.”

  “Not the supplement bag, a supplement bag.”

  “The supplement bag that was contaminated was part of a particular shipment. One that was meant for Kim Silva and shipped to Duane Chapman’s apartment,” I said.

  “Yes,” Ortiz said. “I went to the apartment and got the supplements for the game.”

  “Unfortunately, Mr. Ortiz, the box of supplements your bag came from burned up in the fire.”

  “What if there were another bag from that box?” Ortiz asked.

  “Then depending on what we find, it would go a very long way to clearing you of the murder charge,” Vann said.

  “That’s good to know,” said Ortiz, “because I took two bags with me when I left the apartment. The other one’s still in Duane’s town house.”

  “And you can get into Chapman’s town house?”

  “I still have the door code.”

  “Fine.” Vann looked up at the clock on the conference room wall. “It’s twelve thirty. Shane and I have an interview up in Trenton. That’s going to take a couple of hours. Let’s meet at the town house at four thirty. Then you can take us in.”

  “So you’re not going to charge me for murder?”

  “That depends on whether those supplements are where you say they are, Mr. Ortiz.”

  “Why Trenton?” I asked, as we waited in the car, several addresses down from the Chapman town house.

  “I said that an hour ago and you’re asking me about it now?” Vann said. She was sipping coffee from behind the wheel. A hand with a cigarette was held outside the driver’s-side window.

  “I’ve been thinking about it since then.”

  “It’s close enough to be a plausible trip and far enough away to take a lot of time. That’s it.”

  “So, no special memories of Trenton.”

  Vann looked over. “No one has special memories of Trenton, Chris.”

  I was going to comment on that but then noticed down the street someone heading up the Chapman steps. The person punched in an access code on the door and then let themselves in.

  “Jesus, I actually do owe you a dollar,” I said to Vann. “I didn’t think they’d actually send someone through the front door.” When we made the bet, I’d put a small camera on the rear entrance and garage of the town house, which I had been monitoring. It was picking up nothing but stray cats.

  “These are arrogant people,” Vann said. “And we said we would be out of town. Why would we lie?”

  “But which arrogant people are they?”

  “Let’s go find out,” Vann said, and got out of the car.

  We came up to the town house just as the interloper was coming out. They came out looking away from us as they closed the door, and didn’t see us until they were down the entrance steps entirely.

  It was Rachel Ramsey, of the Philadelphia branch of the FBI, clutching a plastic bag.

  She seemed surprised to see us. “What are you doing here?” she asked, stupidly.

  “We just got back from Trenton,” I said.

  “What are you doing here, Ramsey?” Vann asked.

  “I . . .” Ramsey began, and there was an infinitesimal pause before she continued. “I was following up on an investigative tip about Marla Chapman’s death.”

  Vann nodded at the bag. “And you put whatever it is in a plastic Wawa bag?” she said. “We’re not being exactly rigorous in our chain of evidence, are we, Agent Ramsey?”

  “Look, Vann,” Ramsey began.

  “Oh, let’s not,” Vann said, shutting her down. “Here’s the deal. You’re going to give that bag in your hand to Agent Shane. If it’s anything but a bag of IV supplements, then I’ll apologize to you, we’ll have a big laugh about our misunderstanding, and then you’ll give us everything you have on Marla Chapman’s death because as you know we are the lead investigators and you really should have told us what you were up to in the first place, and you didn’t. Did she, Agent Shane?”

  “I don’t have anything from her in my mail queue,” I said.

  “But if it is a bag of IV supplements, Ramsey, and it is, then you’re going to tell us everything, starting with who told you to come get the bag.”

  “Or what?” Ramsey said.

  Vann rolled her eyes at Ramsey. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. What do you want me to say, Ramsey, that I’ll shoot you?”

  “She might in fact shoot you,” I said, to Ramsey.

  “But I’m not going to because I don’t have time for the paperwork,” Vann said. “I don’t have time for any of this shit. I don’t have time for you. I don’t give a shit about you, Ramsey. We’ve spent an entire day working up a chain of people we don’t give a shit about so we can get to the ones we do. You’re just the next link. But as I told another one of you earlier today, if you want to make it about you, I’ll be happy to give you my undivided attention.”

  “You might prefer being shot,” I said to Ramsey.

  “You might,” agreed Vann. “Ramsey, if you didn’t have the IV bag in your hands, you would have passed that bag over to Shane by now. So why don’t we stop fucking around and get to it.”

  I watched Ramsey through all of this. Her poker face wasn’t very good, and Vann had been having a day of running over people in order to not give them enough time to think. Ramsey didn’t even have a lawyer around to help handle the steamrolling. She knew she had been caught, that her career was about to go up in flames, that she might be headed for prison, and believed Vann would cackle while it happened.

  And Vann would, if it came to that.

  But it didn’t have to come to that. It was time for
me to play good cop.

  “Ramsey, there’s a way out of this for you,” I said. “Tell us what we want to know, right now, and work with us moving forward. Do that, and if anyone asks—”

  “And they will,” Vann said.

  “—we’ll say you’ve been working with us all this time. Quietly, so you wouldn’t spook whoever approached you. Work with us now, and you can still turn this around.”

  “Or don’t and we burn you,” Vann said. “All the way to the ground.”

  Ramsey looked at me. “You’ll say I was in on it.”

  “Right from the beginning,” I said.

  “You’re serious about that.”

  I almost said Pinky swear but stopped in time. “Yes. Ramsey, we could use your help. And we could use it right now. Before whoever you’re breaking the law for realizes you’ve been found out.”

  “Yes,” Vann said. “Clock is running.”

  Ramsey looked at us both, sighed, and handed over the Wawa bag. I opened it. The second bag of supplements was in it.

  “Talk,” Vann said. “Fast. To the point.”

  “I’ve been on thin ice at work,” Ramsey said. “Bad performance reviews. Too many days out because I have to deal with my mother. She has Haden’s-related dementia, and her care costs are too much, especially now.”

  “Since Abrams-Kettering,” I said.

  Ramsey nodded, and then motioned to me with her head. “The thing with the threep you borrowed from us was the last straw. It was on me, and that on top of my reviews . . . well. I’m pretty much screwed. Then the other night I go home and there’s an envelope on the door. Inside is an inactive cryptocurrency card and a note with a phone number. I call the number and a computerized voice picks up. Tells me the card has enough currency on it to pay for my mother’s care for six months. One month was accessible on it already. For the rest of it, I just had to get rid of Duane Chapman’s IV sample.”

  “So you did it,” I said.

  “I was pissed at you anyway,” Ramsey admitted. “You were going to get me fired from the agency.” She pointed at Vann. “And she’s the asshole that didn’t let me shift the cost of the burned-up threep to D.C. So, sure. It wasn’t difficult to mess with the sample and make it look like a routine screwup. I sent evidence of it and then the rest of the card unlocked.”

  “You weren’t worried that this was some sort of setup?” I asked.

  Ramsey looked at me with a tired expression on her face. “Agent Shane, I can barely afford my mother’s care. Forgive me for not looking this sudden and unexpected gift horse in the mouth.”

  Vann pointed to the current IV bag. “And this?”

  “Text on my personal phone less than a half hour ago. Told me what to look for, gave me the door code, promised a quarter of a million dollars in another cryptocurrency card when I delivered.” She shrugged.

  “What have you done with that first installment of currency?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Ramsey said. “No time.”

  “You can’t keep it,” Vann said.

  Ramsey gave her a look. “No, of course not.”

  “You’re supposed to deliver the IV bag?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. I need to send a photo showing I have it in my possession, including the bar code, and we’ll set up the exchange.”

  Vann and I looked at each other. “And you think this is a wise thing to do,” Vann said.

  “I’m not going to meet them in an isolated parking lot at midnight, for Christ’s sake,” Ramsey said. “I may not be a great FBI agent but I’m not entirely stupid. We’ll make the exchange in broad daylight somewhere busy.”

  “When are you going to contact them?” I asked.

  “Actually, I should have already sent them a picture of the bag.”

  “Do it,” Vann said.

  Ninety seconds later: “The George Washington statue at Independence Hall,” Ramsey said. “One hour.”

  I turned to Vann. “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  She looked me up and down. “Get you a rental threep,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty

  The rental threep was a Sebring-Warner Pallas, one of their more affordable models, and also the only one the rental place on Chestnut Street had in their inventory. I paid an extortionate amount for the last-minute pickup, ported in, and immediately walked out of the parking garage, heading east toward Independence Hall.

  “I’m in the rental,” I said to Vann, over the internal phone.

  “Good,” she said. She was at the Hotel Monaco, in the lobby, out of sight. My personal threep was in the car I borrowed from my parents to drive to Philadelphia, in the hotel’s valet parking. The valet was weirded out by having to drive a threep along with the car, but Vann tipped up front. “Are you recording?”

  “I am,” I said. “Just as a warning, this rental isn’t high-end. I wouldn’t count on the recording being crystal clear.”

  “You can see out of it, right?” Vann said. “It’ll be fine. Record the handoff and then follow the recipient.”

  “I know my job,” I reminded Vann. The asphalt of Chestnut Street gave way to cobblestones and I walked into the park where they kept the Liberty Bell, across the street from Independence Hall and the statue of George Washington. Both were awash with tourists and school groups being herded by exasperated adults. Occasional threeps dotted the area. I was not notably conspicuous in my rental threep.

  “I see Ramsey,” I said to Vann. She was hovering by the east side of the statue, looking at her phone and trying to act casual.

  “Anyone coming up to her?”

  “Not yet.”

  There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned and saw three tourists smiling at me. “Yes?” I said.

  One of them held out her phone to me. “Would you photo?”

  I looked at the tourists and took a guess at their country of origin. “Would you like me to take a photo of you, or did you want a photo of me?” I asked, and the translation came out in Spanish a fraction of a second later. I took the phone.

  They were all very impressed with my fake fluency. “A photo of the three of us, please, if you wouldn’t mind. In front of the Independence Hall,” the one who handed me the phone said, in Spanish.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s go ahead and cross the street for a better shot.”

  “What the hell are you doing,” Vann said. Her audio channel was still open to me.

  “Blending in, if that’s all right with you,” I said, internally.

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “I’ve positioned myself for a better view of the exchange, actually.” I motioned the three tourists to stand in front of the Washington statue, and held up the phone and took several shots with Ramsey also in the frame. The tourists smiled and waved and were oblivious to everything but getting their picture taken, as tourists often are. They thanked me and took their phone back and positioned themselves on the west side of the statue and then took selfies with their phones at arm’s length, because of course they did, why wouldn’t they.

  I looked up from them just in time to see a man in a hoodie walk up to Ramsey. He was also carrying a plastic Wawa bag. He held it up to her, swapped out his bag for hers, smiled, and then walked away without a word.

  “Got it on video and following,” I said internally to Vann. I took a step to follow the man with the bag and almost missed the threep who walked up to Ramsey, pulled a handgun out of its own bag, and shot her directly in the head and then in the chest.

  Ramsey went down. The tourists at the statue and everyone else started screaming and running. The threep collapsed, inert, gun still in its hand. Whoever had been using it had exited it and left it behind. It was a very expensive act.

  “What just happened?” Vann asked. I assumed she was looking out of the lobby and seeing people scattering.

  “Ramsey’s shot,” I said. “A threep.”

  “I’m coming. Go
after the bag.”

  “Ramsey’s—”

  “Go after the bag, Chris!”

  I could see the man, walking east on Chestnut, turning right on Independence as people ran past him. I also started running, toward him.

  I turned the corner onto Independence and saw the man half a street down, looking back directly at me as he walked. He broke left across the street and started running. I chased after him.

  The Sebring-Warner Pallas model is not fast by any stretch of the imagination. But one thing you get used to when you walk around in a threep is navigating through crowds and busy sidewalks, since non-Hadens will literally walk into threeps because they don’t see them as quite human. It’s not intentional. It’s one of those unconscious biases that people don’t even know they have.

  Well, most of the time it’s unintentional. Some people are just assholes.

  The point is that I was not running faster than the man I was following. But I was gaining on him. Because I was doing a better job of threading through people as we ran.

  The dude took a right on Locust, heading toward Washington Square, picking up speed because there were fewer people. As he did he shook the supplements out of the Wawa bag and then jammed his right hand into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a knife. He was going to tear open the bag and destroy the evidence. By this time his hoodie had fallen back from his head. His face was mostly away from me, but as he turned slightly I could see the earpiece lodged into his ear.

  He leapt onto Sixth, avoided the traffic, and headed into Washington Square—

  —and tripped over the curb, slamming himself into the sidewalk pavement and sending the IV bag and the knife sprawling.