The Tomorrow File

by Lawrence Sanders

  I followed him out into the hallway. He was a short, thick, comose man. About my age. Competent.

  “Well, doctor?” I asked him.

  “Well, doctor?” he said ironically. “You want her force-fed?” “No. You want off the case?”

  He thought seriously about that.

  “I should,” he acknowledged.

  “Strap her in—”

  “Oh, don’t give me all that kaka,” he exploded angrily. “I’ve heard it all before. I simply have to do nothing—right? As if sins of omission are less tainted than sins of commission.”

  “You want off,” I said stonily, “you’re off. It won’t change things.”

  “Goddamned son of a bitching bastard!” he cried furiously. He actually stamped his foot.

  “My sentiments exactly, doctor,” I said.

  “Ahh,” he said. “The dear lady.”

  This quote from Leon Mansfield startled me.

  “Would you come up to my rooms, please?” I asked him. “A professional consultation. I have some natural brandy.”

  “Only sensible thing I’ve heard today,” he grumbled, and followed me up the stairs.

  I poured us each a glass. Then I stripped down. He took a look at the colors.

  “Pretty,” he said. “Hit by a truck?”

  “Two of them,” I said. “Check the ribs, please.”

  He helped me unwrap the stripping of tom sheet. He probed me gently.

  “Breathe deeply,” he commanded. “Again. Again. Pain?” “No punctures,” I said. “No fractures. I think.” “Contusions,” he said. “Here and here. Drive back with me. We’ll take some plates.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not that important. I’ll have it done when I get back to New York. I have wide tape here. Just strap me up.” “Idiot,” he growled.

  “Exactly,” I agreed.

  He taped me up. We finished our brandies. He wanted to give me a meperidine. I insisted on a codeine. It took me another brandy to get it. By the time he departed, he was feeling no pain. And neither was I.

  I wandered about the grounds. A gray, overcast day. I was gray and overcast. Codeine plus hangover. But I was computing in a dazed kind of way, jumping circuits.

  I think I ate something. I know I visited my mother again. We held hands and chatted away like magpies. Mrs. McPherson didn’t seem shocked, but I know Mother and I were trading absurdities. It pleased Mother. I think. It certainly pleased me.

  Afterward, the pain coming on again, my whole body aching, I debated: Another codeine? No, I decided. Because the anxieties were worse than the pain. So I popped a new manipulated amitriptyline I just happened to have in my case. It worked on me like a hypnotic. Get rid of the anxieties and then you can sleep.

  I slept until noon. I took a sponge bath and shaved carefully. I was tracking. A little deliberate, a little dulled, but functioning. My bruises hurt like hell. I accepted the pain gladly. I had been lucky and I knew it.

  I spent most of the day with Mother. She had been off barbiturates for almost twelve hours; I thought it safe enough to allow her the natural vodka she craved. I cut it with water, but she didn’t notice. Her color improved, her spirits perked, she laughed.

  The copter had taken off for the airport at 1700, to pick up my father. At 1730,1 took a bottle of natural brandy and glasses out to the lawn table. I waited for him there, not drinking. It was almost 1840 before I heard the copter throb. Beryl came slipping in neatly, hovered, set down gently. A skillful ef.

  Ben Baker got out first, then turned to assist Father. He climbed out wearily, Clumsily. Sad to view. They ducked low as the main rotor revved, then slowed to a stop. I stood, called out. They saw me and came over. Both were obviously fatigued, depressed. “Nick,” my father said.

  Ben Baker nodded briefly. I gestured toward the brandy. “Medicine,” I said. “Doctor’s orders.”

  They accepted gratefully. Father downed his in one gulp, shuddered, drew a long breath, then held out his glass fora refill. We all sat down at the metal table.

  “How is she?” my father asked.

  “Better,” I said. “A little. I got some fluid into her.”

  “Eat?”

  “No. You have any luck?”

  Baker shook his head gloomily-

  “Can’t find it, Nick,” he said. “Checked out everything. It couldn't have happened, but it did.”

  “And might happen again,” Father said. “Goddamn it to hell!” “Faulty input?” I suggested.

  Baker shook his head. “No way. We’re still using plastic from the same shipment. It’s up to specifications.”

  “Maybe heavy analysis of the spoiled doll will tell the story,” I said. “Wait for that.”

  Neither seemed cheered by the possibility.

  “Ben,” I said, “give me a rough idea of how the doll is made. The process. Just the highlights.”

  “We get the plastic in pellets,” he said. “Mix for flesh color desired. We market the Poo-Poo worldwide. White, pink, tan, yellow, red, brown, black. The plastic is melted down, poured hot into alloy molds. Front molds and back molds. The Poo-Poo tubing and devices are laid in the back mold. The front is pressed on and heat-welded. Excess is sheared. The complete body is dunked lor cooling and washing. Then it goes for eye insertion, facial stenciling, wig-gluing, dressing. These are semihand operations. Then inspection and packing. Shipping. That’s it.”

  “But the plastic is controlled?”

  “Absolutely. Fluidity and temperature. Automatic.”

  “What about the molds?”

  “Steam-scalded after every impression. Practically sterile.”

  I computed the problem a few moments. We all watched the night creep in, darkness flowing around us, coming from the lake like fog.

  “Ben,” I said, “where does the factory get its water?” “What water?”

  “When you Wash the hot doll bodies to cool them and rinse off scrap.”

  “In a tank,” he said. “Constantly running, constantly flushed. ” “Where from?”

  ‘ ‘The Connecticut River. We pump in one end and have a gravity flow out the other.”

  “Is the intake filtered?”

  “What are you getting at, Nick?” my father demanded.

  “Ben, is the water intake filtered?”

  “A gross filter. Just to take the crap out. Nick, we don’t drink the stuff.”

  “What’s upstream from you?”

  “Nick, I’m not following.”

  “What is this?” my father asked again. Bewildered.

  “What kind of factories are upstream from you?”

  “Oh—let’s see. ... A foundry. Alloys. A bauxite refinery. Some small tobacco-processors. A rayon manufacturer. A few others. I don’t know them all.”

  “Do they exhaust into the river?”

  “Not if they want to stay out of jail. You know the law.” “But an accident? Or maybe a quick dump at night, hoping no one could trace it? Like that rayon factory, pouring carbon disulphide into the—”

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted.

  He stood suddenly, spilling his brandy all over the table. He began running awkwardly toward the house, elbows flopping out at his sides.

  “What?” my father cried in alarm. “Where is he running? What’s happening?”

  “Calm down.” I soothed him. “He’s going to flash your Connecticut factory to order objects to check on accidental or deliberate spills in the river from upstream plants. The ruined run of dolls was probably rinsed in polluted water. Maybe carbon disulphide sludge from the rayon factory. Why didn’t you dunk the hot doll bodies in sulphuric acid and be done with it?”

  “Oh, God.” He groaned.

  “You’ve got to monitor the water intake,” I told him. “Constant analysis. It can be done automatically.”

  “Nick-ol’-as!” he shouted, leaned over, pounded my back. My bruises. I tried not to wince.

  “You’ve got to come into the business,” he said. “Gott
o!” “Let’s not go into that again.”

  “Nick, I’m getting old,” he said piteously. “I need help.” He watched Beryl finish strapping down the copter. She glanced toward us, then waggled off toward the guesthouse.

  “You need help?” I said scoffingly.

  “Not with that.” He giggled.

  He dragged me up to the house for dinner, hugging my arm, laughing like a maniac.

  “I feel twenty years younger,” he declared. “I want to buy you something. Anything. What would you like?”

  “Nothing,” I told him. “You know I’ve got everything.”

  It was almost 2200 before I could get away from them. I pleaded a heavy schedule on the following day. I left them in the library, glassy-eyed and belching, trading coarse and not very funny jokes. I felt sorry for Beryl. Briefly.

  I looked in at my mother on the way upstairs. She appeared to be sleeping. Mrs. McPherson was sitting there, ramrod straight in her chair. But her eyes were closed. They opened when I put a wool blanket softly across her.

  “Thank you, sir,” she whispered.

  At the top, in my suite, I checked the glued thread from the jamb to the door of my secret place. It had not been disturbed. I switched on the light, locked the door behind me. I stacked the four books alongside the sprung Morris chair, poured a brandy, settled down. . .

  Egon Schiele had done many nudes, em and ef. The thighs were deliberately spread, genitalia represented in almost finicky detail. I found these portraits so harrowing, I could not view them without dread. The artist had gone beyond sexuality. I sensed something of death in beauty, beauty in death.

  At this point in time, I wantonly to look into the eyes of the self-portraits. There was a demented possession there. But perhaps I considered it “demented” simply because it was foreign to me, not part of my conditioning.

  When you cannot comprehend what is being said, if an object seems to be wildly pleading in a language utterly unknown to you, then your instinctive reaction might well be fear. Terror. That was close to what I felt, staring into the burning eyes of Egon Schiele. I strove to compute. There was something for me there. I wanted to learn what those eyes knew.

  X-12

  I called Ellen Dawes from the Detroit airport, told her what flight I was taking, asked her to have a Section copter meet me at Kennedy. She must have alerted Paul Bumford; he was waiting at the compound pad when we let down.

  “Nick,” he said, “what happened to your ear?”

  “Stumbled and scraped it on a brick wall. Nothing serious.” “How’s your mother?”

  “All right, thank you. Are we set?”

  “Everything ready. We’ve got—”

  “Wait a minute. Let’s go over it with Angela.”

  “Can’t. She’s gone down to Washington.”

  I thought a moment, then nodded.

  “That’s Angela,” I said. “So she can be the first to tell DIROB his daughter was arrested for homicide and crimes against the state.”

  “More likely tell the Chief Director,” Paul said, “Anyway, she’s made arrangements for an open line to DIVSEC from 1930 on.”

  I glanced at my digiwatch.

  “We’ve got time. Come up to my place. I need a fresh zipsuit. You can fill me in there.”

  In my apartment, Paul followed me into the nest. When I stripped down, he saw the taping and bruises. His eyes widened.

  “My God!” he breathed. “Nick, what the hell happened?” “Nothing happened. A disagreement.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course. Minor aches and pains, that’s all.”

  “What’s under the tape?”

  “Jesus Christ, Paul,” I shouted. “Don’t stress me. Possibly a crack or two. I’ll have a plate taken tomorrow. I’m functioning. I’m perfectly capable of winding up this whole thing. Now . . . what have you got?”

  He pouted.

  “All right.” I sighed. I patted his cheek. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  He brightened.

  “I don’t mind, Nick. Really I don’t. I know you’ve been pressurized.”

  “Just tell me what’s happening.”

  “Burton Klein has been briefed. He and a squad of twenty objects left here at midnight. They’re in position now, reporting every ten minutes to DIVSEC. So far everything is quiet, no unusual activity.”

  “Good.”

  “Before we left, Klein picked out a car for you, a white sedan. There’s a beeper under the hood. Klein will track you in.” “That was smart.”

  “The car is in the motor pool now, under guard. The carton of material is in the trunk. I assembled it. Everything on the list.” “Transmitter?”

  “At the bottom. We’ve got omnidirectional mikes; they’ll pick up everything. The Electronics Team rigged it. We checked it out here, but Klein will stop you on the road up there for a final check.”

  “Were you there when Angela briefed Klein?”

  “No, she briefed us separately. But I talked to Klein later. He’s a pig, Nick, but he knows what he’s doing.”

  “As long as he knows the code.”

  “He does. He said to ask you if you wanted a gun. You can draw one from DIVSEC if you want it.”

  “A gun? What for? These objects aren’t thugs.”

  “I told that to Klein. He said maybe you should carry one—just in case.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t anticipate any violence. If Klein knows his service, no one will be injured.”

  I came into the living room, zipping up my fresh uniform. “Now what about Mansfield?” I asked.

  “Angela said she briefed him and furnished a gate guard’s zipsuit. She said to pick him up at 1700 at ‘the usual place.’ That’s all she’d tell me. She said you’d know where it is. Do you know, Nick?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one tells me anything,” he grumbled. “Anyway, are the times right?”

  “Barring accidents. If I’m to pick up Mansfield at 1700, I better leave here in about"—I glanced at my digiwatch—‘ ‘in about forty minutes.”

  “Can I come with you, Nick?”

  I smiled at him.

  “No way. But thank you, Paul.”

  “You will be careful?”

  “Of course. Anything else?”

  “No, I . . . Oh, yes, another thing: Angela has already given orders for their interrogation. After Klein takes them, they’re to be separated and sent to Hospices 2, 4, and 7. She said we’d get better results if we kept them apart.”

  I shook my head admiringly.

  “She thinks of everything,” I said.

  “She surely does,” he said. “Bitch!”

  We ran through the whole thing once more to make certain the timing and communications were as foolproof as possible. Paul said he’d wait at DIVSEC headquarters for news of how the raid went. That reminded me of something else.

  “Did Angela arrange for an Uncle Sam?” I asked.

  The law allowed the security section of any government department to make arrests for crimes against the state, providing the,

  arresting officers were under the command of a server of the Bureau of Public Security (formerly the FBI) of the Department of Rewards. (The DOR had originally been called the Department of Justice, then the Department of Merit, then the Department of Virtue, and now the Department of Rewards. Everyone agreed the title was not quite right yet. The Office of Linguistic Truth was working on it.)

  In any event, the law requiring a BPS server to be in command when arrests were made by security officers of other government departments was easily circumvented. A token BPS officer was requisitioned, put in nominal command, and the necessary documents executed. The borrowed BPS object, who was rarely present at the time and place of the arrests, was known in Public Service circles as an Uncle Sam.

  Paul assured me Angela Berri had remembered to requisition an Uncle Sam. The required papers had been filed in Washington. Everything was legal.

  I pic
ked up Leon Mansfield at the Mess Hall on Seventh Avenue at 1700, after driving the white sedan around the block twice, despairing of finding a parking space, and finally double-parking in front of the restaurant. I could see him inside, playing his chess game. I honked the horn twice. He looked up, saw me, folded his little chessboard, put it in his pocket, and came out to me.

  He was wearing a soiled raincoat, but took it off before he got in the car. His tan zipsuit, a gate guard’s uniform, fitted reasonably well.

  “Who’s winning?” I asked him.

  “What? Oh, you mean the chess game. Well, when you play yourself, you win and you lose. Am I right, Mr. Nicholas Flair?”

  “Right.” I nodded and swung into traffic.

  He didn’t say a word while I maneuvered over to the West Side Freeway.

  "Did Angela Berri give you your orders?" I asked, as we headed north.

  “I have my orders. The dear lady.”

  After that, there was no more talk. He seemed unusually reticent. I was just as happy; his cryptic comments, always hinting at something beyond the obvious, were wearisome.

  When we were about thirty meters from the access road to Hammonds’ Point, I slowed down, trying to spot the sign. An object came out onto the highway, signaled us to a halt with a swinging lantern. There was a red filter over the lens.

  He was wearing a white plastisteel helmet with transparent faceguard. His body was bulky in nylon-alloy armor: cuirass, cuisses, greave. He looked like an obso baseball catcher, before soccer became the Great American Game. He came around to the driver’s side.

  “Dr. Flair?” he said.

  He turned the torch on my face, briefly.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve seen you around. I’m Art Roach, X-0 of DIVSEC. Flair is here.”

  I looked around, thinking he was speaking to someone else. But then I saw his throat mike. The miniaturized transceiver would be in his helmet.

  “Where's Klein?” I asked.

  “Roger,” he said. “Pull off to the side a moment. Please.”

  His voice was cold, cold. I pulled onto the verge, cut the motor. The silence out there had a ring to it.

  Roach came back to my side.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “Will do. Where is the package, Dr. Flair?”

  “In the trunk.”