21 Tales (9 page)

“I'm not trying to hold anything back from you,” It said in a hurt voice. It hesitated. “I'm just not sure what to do.”

“Yeah, don't worry about it. Marcy 2 will be ready in a few minutes.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw the holographic image struggling to keep its composure. It's a funny thing when emulograms cry; they don't shed any tears. It's as dry as sand.

“Paul?” it asked.

“Yeah?”

“Could you please turn around?”

“I'm busy.” The filter was complete. The alpha waves and mind scan were fed through it, creating a slightly skewed version of Marcia Danby. If I did my job right the filter would act as a kind of truth serum to the new emulogram. With a soft mechanical hum, the emulogram processing finished and Marcia Danby's image appeared in the second emulogram box.

“That's me without any inhibitions?” Marcy remarked.

“Without most of them. If I filtered out all of them it would only utter gibberish. The way it is, it should tell me whatever's on its mind.”

Marcy greeted Marcy 2 with a queer smile. “Hello sister. Welcome to the wonderful world of emulograms.” The new emulogram's eyes shifted wildly from Marcy to me. “What's happened to me?” it cried, its voice cracking into a harsh whisper. “Why do I feel so strange? Why can't I feel my body? Please! Help me!”

Marcy explained calmly. “You're just like me, sister. Nothing but a simulation of Marcia Danby.” And then to me, “It's too bad I didn't have a chance to put some makeup on before you made your holographic portrait. My eyes could use it, huh?”

“Don't worry about it,” I said. And there wasn't any reason to. Marcia Danby had an almost unnerving beauty about her and it had transferred intact to the emulogram. Makeup wasn't needed. I turned to Marcy 2. “Why does Robert Danby think his wife is planning to kill him?”

“He doesn't think that.” Marcy 2 scrunched her face. “Are you a private detective?” it asked. I nodded. “You look like Robert,” it observed. “You're about the same height and body type.” All at once it broke into a sharp, hysterical laugh. “I know why he hired you,” it gasped, its eyes shining.

“Why?”

It stopped laughing. “He's going to kill me,” it said, its mouth gaping wide open. “He's going to use you to kill me. And he's going to kill you too. He's evil. He's not like other people. You have to stop him! Please, you have to—”

Panic had set it. I turned off its voice circuits. Marcy 2's lips continued working, fighting uselessly against the imposed silence. Marcy was watching intently, its brow furrowed in concentration. “What's going on?” I demanded.

It looked at me, a softness melting its eyes. “She's right. I didn't want to admit it, I tried to convince myself there was something else behind Robert hiring you, but there isn't. Robert is not really human.”

“Yeah, what is he?”

“He's a sociopath. He has no conscience. Over the years I've realized it's all an act with him. But the act of pretending he's human has been taking its toll. For the last year I could see the stress building up. I know he's looking for a way out.”

“I still don't get you.” But I did. My knees felt weak. A dull numbness began to throb in my temples.

“He's hired you because he plans on your body being identified as his. He's going to kill me so that there are no loose ends and probably also because he's been looking forward to it.”

“This is crazy,” I muttered, or at least I muttered something like that. With my Class 1 private investigation license I had full database access rights. I pulled up Danby's will and started reading it. “It wouldn't make any sense,” I said. “His will leaves everything to Marcia Danby and ...” The numbness spread across my temples. “An addendum was added two weeks ago,” I continued, the words echoing thinly through my head, “which leaves the full estate to Karen Barwood if Marcia Danby is also dead.”

“I never heard of her,” Marcy said.

I accessed Karen Barwood's file and photo from the Database. She was a knockout. Blond, twenty-four, starlet material. “She lives in San Diego,” I read from her file.

“Robert travels all the time to Los Angeles on business.”

An icy coldness replaced the throbbing in my temples. I shook my head to get it out. None of it made any sense. It was impossible, it couldn't—

“He's probably planning to kill us in an explosion,” Marcy continued. “That way the bodies wouldn't be identifiable. Then him and Karen Barwood would disappear with the money.”

“Look, it couldn't work,” I explained. “The DNA results would prove I'm not him. This just couldn't happen.” I still had the EMV running. There was no indication of deception, only anxiety. On a hunch I pulled up the files on the CountyCoroner's office. There was no reason for it, it was just a crazy hunch, but staring right at me was a fifty thousand dollar transfer from Danby to the Chief County Coroner's private account. I told Marcy about the transfer.

The phone rang. It was Danby. It was urgent that I come to his house right away. He felt it was a matter of life and death. As I hung up, I felt my heart drop to my feet.

“You've got to stop him, Paul.” The holographic face was frozen white with fear. “If you don't he'll kill us both.”

I didn't say anything.

“You need to do it now. Before he realizes you're on to him.”

I found myself nodding. Marcy was right. I knew it as well as I knew anything. I understood what I had to do and Marcy could see the understanding in my eyes. “Be careful, Paul,” it said, and then it hesitated. “I wish I could somehow kiss you good luck. I wish more than anything.” And then it – she didn't say anything more. She didn't have to.

I glanced over at Marcy 2. The holographic image was still contorting its mouth wildly, desperately trying to break its silence. I tried reading its lips and got something like Please Don't Let Me Die. As I left the house, I took an eight inch carving knife from the kitchen.

##

Danby met me at his front door. Small beads of sweat dampened his forehead. “Am I glad you're here!” he exclaimed as he led me into his house. “Marcia will be back in a few minutes and I have to show you something I found in the basement.”

Yeah, I knew what he had waiting for me. I closed the front door, and as I did, I edged the knife from my sleeve into my hand. “Mr. Danby?” I asked.

“Yes?” As he turned to face me I pushed the knife into his throat. There was a short gurgling noise, and I pushed harder using all my weight, sending Danby flat against the wall. Confusion drained from his eyes leaving an awful dullness. He was dead. I let go of the knife but Danby stood erect, the knife pinning him to the wall.

I was shaking all the way home. Shaking like a damn junkie. I knew I did what I had to, but I couldn't get the image of Danby's eyes out of my head. The initial horror followed by that awful dullness. I looked at my hands and saw my knuckles pinched white from gripping the steering wheel. By the time I got home my hands ached.

As I entered the emulogram lab both holographic images studied me. Both sets of holographic eyes followed me as I moved across the room. They were a mirror image to each other. As they noticed the blood on my shirt, their expressions changed, becoming almost machine-like. “You killed him.” Marcy stated, with Marcy 2 silently mouthing the same words in unison. Then they both started laughing. One, a crackling laugh like glass breaking, the other noiseless.

My legs felt cold, dead, as if they were disconnected from the rest of me. I had to grab onto a table to support myself. It wasn't possible for both emulograms to behave identically, not with the filter I had built. Unless, and the thought stunned me, how would a sociopathic mind react to the filter? For that matter, how would a sociopath react to an EMV? There was a study done years ago in France and ...

Both emulograms stopped laughing. Both started talking, their lips perfectly synchronized, asking if I'd figured it out yet. I didn't say anything.

“I think you understand,” they both said. “It really wasn't difficult to manipulate Robert to hire you. He is, or was, a simple man. He didn't even have a clue about emulograms until I put the idea in his head. Let me show you the look I'd give him, the one he'd see out of the corner of his eye.” The expressions on both holographic images shifted, becoming ones of death. Then a harsh smile streaked both faces.

“You're the one who changed his will,” I heard myself saying. “You transferred the money to the Chief County Coroner also.”

“Among other things,” they acknowledged, their lips moving in unison. “Robert had no idea about any of it, just like he had no idea I chose you from the Database for him to hire. I had to choose you. I had to choose someone physically similar to Robert for my plan to work. By the way, I'm sure at this point Marcia Danby has called the police. Be sure to breathe deeply in the gas chamber. It will be faster and less painful for you that way.”

Then they both started laughing. Off in the distance I could hear a police siren. As it got closer, it drowned out the laughter.

One Terrific Apartment

This is the only noncrime story in the collection. Instead One Terrific Apartment is a whimsical fantasy about the lengths someone will go to to hold onto a really cheap apartment on Beacon Hill.

The apartment situation bothered Laura—about why Steve refused to invite her to see his place. From what she'd been able to piece together he had an incredible apartment on Beacon Hill. Whenever she found herself obsessing about it, she would squeeze her eyes shut and try to put it out of her mind. Telling herself over and over again that it wasn't worth getting upset about. That Steve needed his space right now and given time he would be more willing to share his life with her. That he wasn't just a jerk.

As the weeks blended into months, it worked on her. “When can I see your apartment?” finally slipped out. He pretended not to hear her and when she repeated the question he made a crack about having to wait until he got his old girlfriends out.

It became almost torture after that. Doubt slowly twisted into her stomach. She became withdrawn, sullen. She stopped eating and started letting her East Boston studio apartment go to pot. “I don't understand why we stay here,” she complained one night after they had finished in bed. “My place is a dump.” He didn't say anything. She let the silence build and then asked if he was married.

He turned to her, grinning. “Not yet, but you never know when the right girl's going to come along.” He reached over to hug her, but she pulled away.

“When am I going to see your apartment?”

“Soon.”

She turned away and started sobbing. The sheets slipped away from her. Steve lay in bed and studied her thin slender back and watched as her shoulders shook convulsively. Her reddish hair flowed like liquid copper down her back. Her crying was barely audible; the sound of a far away storm gathering speed.

“Tomorrow,” he promised.

# #

The next morning they cut through an alley on Revere street, then through a maze of brick walkways and cobblestone paths before Steve held out his hand at a brownstone building with large curved bow windows and evilly grinning stone gargoyle heads trimming the front.

“It's incredible,” Laura murmured in awe.

Steve led the way with Laura tightly squeezing his hand. Inside, the apartment opened into a large living room, larger than Laura's whole apartment, with polished oak floors, built-in bookcases, and a spectacular stone fireplace. A mantel built with the same stone design as the fireplace ran the full length of the wall. Laura stood in the entrance way staring all around her and then at the intricate patterns molded into the tin ceiling. “Wow,” escaped with her breath.

“Eighteen foot ceilings,” Steve bragged with a slight smile.

Laura ran into the middle of the room, her face flush with excitement. She spun around slowly to take everything in. “This is so cool,” she exclaimed. “You can see the same design in the molding as in the ceiling. The dragons are so neat. And those other things, what are they, a type of ape?”

Steve pursed his lips as if he were deep in thought. “No, not apes. Something not of this world, that’s for sure.” Directing her gaze away from the designs in the molding, he pointed out a kitchen off to the side of the living room that could’ve been taken out of Metropolitan Home and asked her what she thought of it. Before she could answer, he added with a sly wink, “Wait ’til you see the bedroom upstairs.”

Laura ran to him and pressed herself hard against him. “I love your apartment,” she said, and then she gave him a hard, passionate kiss, hard enough to loosen a few teeth.

When she pulled away, Steve cleared his throat and asked what she thought about moving in.

She gave him another long, hard kiss and then broke loose and skipped around the room like a school girl, studying everything one more time. She stopped in front of a three-foot curved sword hanging above the fireplace. The sword had a carved ivory bone handle and was unsheathed. The sunlight from the bow windows glistened off its blade. Laura wrinkled her nose as she studied it. “Of course, if I'm going to move in this will have to go.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Steve said. There was nothing in his eyes, no humor, nothing. The skin around his mouth tightened. “Because the sword is staying where it is.”

Laura tried joking. “The things I put up with for love,” she sighed.

Steve nodded. He only half-smiled. The skin around his mouth was still pulled tight. “Two rules about living here,” he said. "Never leave the front door unlocked. Not even for a second.” He paused to rub his chin, then continued, “There's more crime in this area of Beacon Hill than you’d guess. And we're hidden away here. Promise me that.”

She did. “Okay,” Steve said. “Second, we have central air installed so never open the windows, especially the upstairs’ ones.”

“Why?”

Steve looked away. “The smog around here. It bothers me. Just promise, okay?”

“Okay, okay, I promise.”

# #

For the first week, Laura would get lost trying to find her way back to the apartment building. It didn't seem to matter how well she thought she had the path memorized; she would still somehow turn down the wrong cobblestone walkway. It was as if things never quite stayed the same, as if the maze of cobblestone and brick walkways leading to the building were always subtly changing. After a while she would find her way back, but only by chance and intuition, things along the path not quite seeming the same. It left her with a vague, odd feeling in her stomach. For the most part, though, she was happy, even though there were other things that bothered her. Small things, for the most part unimportant things. Like Steve acting sort of weird. When they would leave the apartment, he would lock the front door and then go through a ritual where he'd test it over and over again, pulling and pushing on the doorknob. He would make comments about how she had gotten messed up with an obsessive compulsive nut and she would try to smile. And she would listen to the shake, rattle and roll of the locked door as he would pull on it ten, twenty times. It was weird, just like his insistence on keeping the windows always closed. The air around the building seemed fine to her, but he wouldn't budge. To make matters more bizarre, the windows upstairs had been nailed shut.