The Big Sheep

by Robert Kroese

  “Noogus,” she said, “was my teddy bear.”

  “Eh?” I said.

  “When I was little. His name was actually Nicholas, but I couldn’t pronounce it, so I called him Noogus. Nobody knew about that except my mother. I lost Noogus shortly after my mother died, when I was four.”

  “Huh,” said a voice from behind her. I had left the door open a crack, and I now noticed Erasmus Keane was standing there, just outside my office. Priya stood, turning to face him.

  “Wow!” Keane said, taking a look at Priya. He walked into the office and began to duckwalk around her the way he had with the sheep. “You should be a model,” he said. “For humanity, I mean.”

  “Erasmus Keane,” I said, “meet Priya Mistry, the internationally acclaimed star of DiZzy Girl and numerous television commercials she may or may not have actually made.” Priya scowled at me, and I shrugged. “I was just about to show her out.”

  “What on Earth for?” said Keane, still staring at Priya. “She’s gorgeous. And completely crackers, judging by the conversation you two were having.”

  “How long were you standing there?” I demanded.

  “Long enough to know that this little chickadee has gone around the bend. Classic narcissist with paranoiac tendencies. She’s on the verge, this one.”

  Priya bore this assault with quiet dignity, which had the unfortunate effect of reminding me of Mark the sheep.

  “Stop objectifying the poor thing,” I snapped at last.

  Keane shrugged. He stood up straight and held out his hand to Priya. “We’ll take the case,” he said.

  “What?” I growled. I turned to Priya. “Give us a moment, please.” She nodded uncertainly. I grabbed Keane’s arm and pulled him into the hallway, closing the office door behind me.

  “Why the hell would we take her case?” I demanded. “You just said she was nuts!”

  “Oh, she is, most definitely,” said Keane. “But she’s also receiving letters from her teddy bear, and that’s worth looking into.”

  THREE

  There had been no talking Keane out of taking Priya’s case, which he had taken to calling the Case of the Concerned Teddy Bear. I had suggested this be amended to the Case of the Concerned and Surprisingly Literate Teddy Bear, but Keane preferred pith to thoroughness. So now we were working two cases simultaneously, trying to find a lost sheep and trying to protect Priya Mistry from probably imaginary assassins. I didn’t like the idea of double-booking cases, but I had to admit I was a little relieved not to have to kick Priya to the curb. The desire to save damsels from dragons was so deeply ingrained in males of our culture that even the ordinarily oblivious Erasmus Keane seemed to possess it. The fact that the dragons in this case were almost certainly imaginary made little difference.

  I flew Priya to the Ritz-Carlton, where she had been staying while working on DiZzy Girl. I handed her over to her bodyguard, a massive Samoan who was pacing in the lobby. The bodyguard was either beside himself with concern about Priya or he was an Oscar-level actor. I thought the guy was going to burst into tears. The letter Priya had shown us had said to trust no one, but I found it hard to imagine that this man meant her any harm. For a split second I entertained the insane notion that this was Noogus himself, all grown-up and returned to watch over his beloved Priya. In any case, if her bodyguard was going to kill her, he’d presumably have done it already.

  Priya feigned being drunk and claimed she just needed to sneak out to spend some time with a friend. I played the part of the friend, which mostly consisted of me quaking in fear and apologizing profusely to the Samoan. The role came naturally to me. I suspected I’d be able to outmaneuver the bodyguard if it came down to it, but there’s something primally terrifying about a man that size. Priya shot me a fearful glance as she walked to the elevator with the giant man, and I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring nod. I’d told her that Keane would have her under surveillance for her safety, but I could tell she had her doubts. She might have been reassured to know that the small nondescript man who entered the elevator along with her and the Samoan was in Keane’s employ, but we found it was generally better in these cases for the client to remain unaware of the identity of our operative.

  Pavel Kratchovil was comically diminutive next to the Samoan, and I had to suppress a laugh until the elevator door closed. Pavel’s unobtrusive nature was an asset, because it was Pavel’s job to remain unnoticed. He would exit the elevator with Priya and her bodyguard and enter the room across the hall from hers, which he had reserved per Keane’s instruction. He would spend the night, staring at a monitor connected to a peephole camera pointed at Priya’s door, so he would know if anyone entered or left her room. If anyone did, he would alert Keane. In the morning, he would follow Priya to the set of DiZzy Girl and do his best to keep tabs on her while she worked. It would be difficult to keep a close eye on her during the shoot, but Keane figured it would be pretty unlikely for anyone to try to kill her on the set, with hundreds of people around, and if somebody was trying to kill her, then it would be a lot easier to flush them out if our operative remained incognito. I don’t think either of us really believed she was in any danger, but we had taken the job, and that meant doing it right. The first priority was to ensure Priya’s safety as best we could. While Pavel kept an eye on her, Keane and I could look into the threat, such as it was.

  My role in this was to consult with one April Morgan, an intellectual property lawyer I had met while working at CSI. April and I had dated a few times, but that was shortly after Gwen disappeared, and it was pretty clear that things weren’t going to work romantically between me and April anyway. We remained friends, though, and occasionally I relied on her legal expertise on cases. Sometimes this meant hiring her as a consultant; usually it just meant bribing her with dinner. Keane had retrieved, from some dimly lit alcove of his brain, the fact that April’s old law firm, Ballard and Greene, had once represented Marcus and Shea, the advertising agency behind the Prima Facie commercials. He wanted April to find out whether Ballard and Greene had processed a contract for Priya to appear in the ads. I figured I could probably get this information from April for the price of dinner.

  I had called April before taking Priya back to her hotel, and she had agreed to pick me up at six P.M. When I got back to our building, Keane was ensconced in his office, presumably meditating on errant sheep or sympathetic teddy bears. I had just enough time to change my shirt, wash my face, and put on a second coat of deodorant. April drove us to a local Thai place she liked, and we sat outside. It was unusually warm and humid for January, though not unpleasantly so. We spent half an hour catching up. I told her of the day’s events, doing my best to present a professional account of my meeting with Priya Mistry, but April clearly wasn’t buying it.

  “Is she pretty?” April asked.

  I hesitated. I was fairly certain April no longer had any romantic intentions toward me, but women can be funny about this sort of thing. Best to tread lightly.

  “You know,” I said, “there are some faces that look good on TV, but not so much in person.”

  “Uh-huh,” April said. “So you’re saying Priya Mistry is not attractive in person?”

  I shrugged in a heroic effort to appear nonchalant. “Well, she’s not unattractive. She’s just a kid, really. You don’t really think about how young she is when you see her on television. It’s hard to think of her as an actual person.”

  “You don’t think of her as a person? What do you think of her as?”

  I spread my hands in a gesture of supplication. There was a point at which silence was the best tactical response. April stared at me for some time, her face completely expressionless. Then a smile crept across her lips. She broke into a laugh. “God, you’re easy,” she said.

  “Heh?” I replied.

  “Relax,” she said. “I’m just having some fun with you. Priya Mistry is gorgeous. Any chance you can introduce me?”

  I sank into my chair and exhaled, feeling
like I’d just gone ten rounds with a sparring bot. “No,” I grumbled irritably. “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Oh, stop,” April chided. “You should have seen the goofy look on your face when I picked you up. You looked like you were in love. Frankly, I’m relieved to find out it’s not the sheep.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that. I really need to give April more credit.

  “So, what’s she like?” April asked. “Don’t tell me she’s a total bitch offscreen. I love her character on DiZzy Girl. Lie to me if you have to.”

  “She’s nice,” I said. “Honestly. Surprisingly levelheaded. Except…”

  “What?”

  “Well, I think she might be crazy.”

  “You just said she’s levelheaded.”

  “Yeah, she’s the levelheaded sort of crazy. The kind of crazy that looks you in the eye and tells you in all seriousness that she’s getting letters from her teddy bear.”

  “Letters from her…?”

  “I don’t have the energy to explain,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t understand it myself. She’s obviously in distress, though. I feel bad for her. She thinks someone is trying to kill her, but it’s all in her head.”

  “But Keane took her case?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “I guess he thinks there’s more to it.”

  “This poor girl is imagining she’s in danger, and Erasmus Keane is taking her money to protect her?”

  I shrugged. “You know Keane. It’s not about the money. It’s about the puzzle.”

  “But you said yourself the puzzle is in her head. Does Keane think he’s a psychologist now too?”

  “I don’t know what Keane thinks,” I said irritably. “He doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “I guess I hit a sore spot,” said April.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I go a little nuts, dealing with him all day.”

  “I understand,” said April. “I’m just worried Keane is taking advantage of Priya.”

  “You and me both,” I said. “Keane can be a real asshole. But to be fair, I’ve never seen him intentionally hurt someone just for his own amusement. If Keane agreed to take this case, it’s because he thinks there’s a mystery to be solved. And you have to admit, there’s no one better at solving mysteries. You’ve seen the good he’s done.”

  “Hmm,” said April. “It seems to me that the good he does is mostly incidental. What Keane does is find interesting situations to insert himself into, and then alter things to suit his sense of … I don’t know, aesthetics, or whatever it is.”

  “What about the hologram case? He found that kid, Julio Chavez, and brought him to justice.”

  “Technically, he got Julio Chavez a job with CSI,” she said. “And got you to quit. Not two weeks later you were Erasmus Keane’s employee. Keane manipulated that case to get what he wanted. Hell, for all I know, he put that Chavez kid up to it in the first place. And he still hasn’t done a thing to help you find Gwen.”

  “Wow,” I said. “And I thought Priya sounded paranoid. Just so I know I’ve got this straight: you’re saying Erasmus Keane incited a fourteen-year-old kid to engage in intellectual property theft so CSI would hire Keane, which would allow him to humiliate me, causing me to quit so he could then offer me a job? So the entire hologram case was a big scam of Keane’s to … what, get somebody to make his coffee for him?”

  “You do make a mean pot of joe,” said April.

  “Be serious.”

  “Seriously?” said April. “I don’t think Keane is evil. But I don’t completely trust him either. You know what he did before he set up shop on the DZ border.”

  I sighed. This was a favorite topic of April’s. She’s something of a conspiracy theory buff. “Can we not talk about Keane anymore? I have to deal with him all day, and then—”

  “Precrime,” said April. “He worked for a secret unit of the LAPD whose purpose was to predict and stop crimes before they happened.”

  “You’re being dramatic,” I said. “First of all, this is all rumor and hearsay. Second, if that unit existed, its goal was primarily to predict social unrest. Riots and that sort of thing.”

  “Sure,” said April. “That’s how it started. Then, after Santa Monica, they started getting funding from the Pentagon to develop ways of predicting terrorist attacks.”

  “Rumors and unfounded conjecture,” I said, without much enthusiasm. April and I had had this argument before, and I wasn’t really interested in going through the motions again.

  “I was working at Ballard and Greene at the time,” April said. “I heard things. I remember when I first heard the name Erasmus Keane. Nobody knew who he was. The LAPD claimed he didn’t exist. And I suppose they were telling the truth, in a sense. There are no records of any Erasmus Keane before he set up shop as a private investigator.”

  “Phenomenological inquisitor,” I said, more out of habit than an attempt to be contrary. “Look, I know ‘Erasmus Keane’ is a pseudonym. He’s made no secret of that.”

  “But he hasn’t told you his real name.”

  “No. Nor has he told me his hat size or favorite Weavil Brothers song. Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Of course,” said April, with a smile. “I’ll find out whatever I can about Priya Mistry. Just promise me you’ll watch out for her.”

  I promised.

  FOUR

  It was still early when April dropped me off, so I decided to recommence my research on Esper. Keane was still holed up in his office, and I had no idea what he planned to do in the morning. Evidently, Priya’s case was at the forefront of his mind, so in the interest of not duplicating our efforts, I figured I’d spend my time on the lost sheep.

  I spent the next four hours browsing articles about the Esper Corporation, genetic engineering, and organ transplantation. I didn’t learn much of interest, although I ran across some fascinating speculation on a few conspiracy websites about illegal research occurring shortly after the Collapse. During the Collapse, law and order largely broke down, which led to a surge in criminal activity. Many large corporations were known to have taken advantage of the lapse in enforcement to engage in a variety of illegal and unethical behavior, from insider trading to corporate espionage. Most of these transgressions were likely opportunistic; large corporations tend to be creatures of habit, fearful of change, and slow to take advantage of sudden changes in their environment. But certain sorts of research flirted daily with the legal and ethical constraints separating what is from what if?, and those pushing the boundaries didn’t have to be told twice that the federal government was going to be busy putting out fires (often literally) for a few months. A few months turned into three years, and rumors abounded that certain companies, Esper among them, had engaged in some very questionable activities during the law enforcement holiday. Research into human cloning, animal-human hybrids, and illegal bioweaponry were all rumored to have taken place, and in some cases the rumors were confirmed by federal investigations conducted post-Collapse. A mere handful of cases made the news, but only the most naïve observer believed this was a reliable indicator of the scope of the misconduct. Other than a few rumors, Esper had managed to keep its alleged infractions out of the news. Whether this was because they had ceased any illegal activities or had been smart enough to cover their tracks was unclear.

  I knocked off a little after midnight, knowing Keane would likely want to start early the next morning. I dreamt of a frightened sheep in a laboratory. Keane was there, grinning at me. “I have taken measure of this sheep’s soul,” he announced, and then stepped aside and swept his hand toward the sheep, as if introducing it. I saw that the sheep was completely shorn, and its wool lay in piles around its feet. Keane shook his head, and I saw he was holding a pair of shears. “There’s never enough wool,” he said. “No matter how much you give them, they always want more.”

  “Someone is trying to kill me,” said the sheep. “Trust no one.”

  “I think I can get a bit more,�
� said Keane, snicking the shears together and turning back to the sheep.

  The sheep screamed.

  “I know you’re in there,” said Keane, and the snick-snick of the shears had inexplicably morphed into a deep thudding. “Fowler!” Keane shouted. “You hear me? I know you’re in there!”

  I opened my eyes in the dull gray light of my bedroom, and the sparse rays poking through the boarded-up windows told me it was dawn.

  “Yeah, I hear you!” I yelled back. “Give me a minute.”

  I took a quick shower, shaved, brushed my teeth, and threw on some clothes, all while Keane banged on the door to my quarters about every forty-five seconds or so. In between these percussive bursts he said something about conducting interviews with employees of Esper Corporation. Evidently, he’d gotten a call from Esper’s vice president of research and development, Jason Banerjee, who was eager to have Keane continue his investigation now that a “key suspect has been eliminated.” They’d lined up interviews with all the employees who had access to the lab.

  We got to Esper just after eight A.M. A security guard ushered us into a conference room, outside of which three lab coat–wearing employees were already waiting in the hall. None of them looked particularly happy to be there, and their demeanor wasn’t improved by Keane insisting that the interviews be delayed until the room had been adequately stocked with Dr Pepper and Circus Peanuts. It was almost eight thirty when we finally started.

  We had forty-six employees to interview, and I didn’t hold out much hope of getting through them all in a day. Fortunately, the interviews went quickly, with Keane disqualifying most of the prospective sheep thieves with only a question or two. He didn’t even bother to interview several of the employees on the list; Esper had provided dossiers—complete with criminal records, employment histories, and credit reports—on all the suspects, and Keane had evidently been able to eliminate many of them based on this information. He seemed to have a fairly solid idea of what a sheep thief was—or at least was not. I had to trust his judgment on the matter, but when we’d completed the interviews without identifying a likely suspect, I began to wonder whether he’d been too quick in his assessments.