The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces (12 page)

“‘Would it kill you to give me one lousy example?'” Prudence said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Those are the words on the note,” she said.

“But how can you know the words on the note?” I asked. The police wouldn't have released such detailed information yet. “If Sadie Campbell was murdered just yesterday, how do you two know so much already?”

“I talked to Lieutenant Wallace,” Prudence said.

“Hold that thought.” I put my right hand on my stomach and groaned. I stood up. I snatched Sadie's manual off my desk. “Excuse me.”

I ran to the washroom, got the door closed, dropped my pants and sat down just in time.

You'd think they would make phony conversation and laugh and move around, maybe sing campfire songs, to mask all the embarrassing noise I was making, but all was quiet in my office.

“Hey, Sadie Campbell was on the BOD list,” I yelled when things quieted down.

No reaction from Prudence and Yuri.

But speaking of the BOD list, it hit me then that the list wasn't a list of suspects. It was a list of victims.

“Maybe the killer is systematically knocking off people on the BOD list,” I yelled.

Silence outside.

“Hey, maybe he didn't write all over the body this time because he didn't want anyone to think this was some kind of bizarre sex crime.”

So, if they weren't some kind of bizarre sex crimes, what were they?

“So, what do you guys think?”

No answer. Some people just can't talk through a closed bathroom door.

It looked like I was going to be in there for some time. I opened Sadie's manual.

I felt myself slip into Dennis mode as I flipped through the pages. I found myself getting interested in the technical details in spite of myself. By the time we realized Dennis was hooked, it was too late. We didn't need to be at a computer to imagine what it would be like to install NodeHoofer II.

When you go into a computer problem you can get frustrated and throw up your hands and give up or you can go deeper; you can scream obscenities or you can go still deeper; you can jump up and kick the wall; you can sweep everything off the top of your desk onto the floor or you can go deeper. Completely focused. The sounds and smells of the outside world disappear. The porcelain ring hugging your butt fades. You forget where you are. The stuff that's always lurking in the corners of your eyes isn't lurking anymore. All the bells in your ears stop ringing.

You see the shape of the thing; you see the beauty. Sure, it's a lot better if you're working at the computer, but if you're good, you can do it all in your head. Sometimes when you get like this, your favorite computer is a Turing Machine, a paper computer, a pure mental construct.

Until you hit a bump in the road, a dead end in the tunnel, a fly in the ointment, a glitch, probably not a bug, but definitely a confusion.

Come on Sadie, for crying out loud.

If only the manual would give you one lousy example.

I almost leaped to my feet, which would have been a really big mistake.

The note!

Would it kill you to give me one lousy example?

“Eureka!” I shouted.

The killer wasn't just killing documentalists; he was killing bad documentalists!

Oh, Sadie!

Gerald hadn't mentioned the key concept ‘exceptions' in his index. Randy had screwed up his index, probably throughout, but certainly on page sixty-six, and Sadie had produced garbled prose that could have been saved with an example or two at key points. Instead, hers were instructions that would turn the average computer user into a head-banging basket case.

The Russians still might have something to do with the big picture, but I was convinced the killer's main motivation was revenge upon people who had frustrated him (or her) and wasted his (or her) valuable time.

“The killer's mad as hell and not ready to take it anymore!” I yelled.

No response.

I figured it was time to stop pussyfooting around with these two. “I wasn't asleep when you guys came in,” I yelled.

They had nothing to say to that.

I took a few more minutes to finish up my business. I didn't delude myself that the parsley juice was through with me, but it did seem to be taking a break. I pulled up my pants and opened the door, ready to confront Yuri and Prudence.

They, of course, were no longer in my office.

nine

It was a little after three in the morning. I sat down behind my desk and looked at the pile of produce and the juicer, which proved I hadn't made up the events of the evening. I picked up an apple. I put it down again.

I wondered if Prudence and Yuri had ducked out before they'd heard my revelation about why the killer was killing people.

I pulled up my keyboard and straightened my monitor and ambled on over to alt.dead.nerds. I posted a short note explaining my reasoning in regard to the killer killing bad documentalists.

Next, working on full automatic (maximum intuition), which is the way I work best, I tossed a question into cyberspace. People, I said, tell me if you've ever been irritated by bad documentation. Do any of you even read it? I was looking for some insight into the mind of a person who would kill over bad documentation. Sure, any one of us might feel like it, but what kind of person would really do it?

Finally, I posted a note consisting of nothing but the word DATAPANTS. I now believed that Yuri and Prudence had wanted me to find SOAPY's warning to Gerald, but maybe they hadn't expected me to find the DATAPANTS file, and they might not be the only ones who would get nervous thinking that I knew something I shouldn't. I wanted to see what I could spook out of the woodwork.

But then I wondered why I should even bother. I was pretty much at a dead end. Not to mention the fact that my client was lying to me. I told myself I should get smart; I should quit following Frank, drop the Documentalists Murders case, come clean with Lucus Betty about Dennis, and spend the next few weeks going to meetings maybe three or four times a day—get my head screwed back on straight. But if I were smart I'd be some other person living some other life in some other place and time. The truth was that if I stopped being a detective, I'd disappear. I'd simply cease to be. You ask me what I'd do if I couldn't be a detective and I tell you I'd rock and hum.

Instead of dwelling on that, I decided to do something. Doing something is almost always better than thinking about doing something. But what would it be?

Just then something from my middle desk drawer, the drawer where I toss things I know I'll get around to needing sooner or later, called out in the persistent mouse voice of memory, “Try me, try me!”

I pulled open the drawer to see what was trying to get my attention, and it didn't take me long to find the scrap of paper containing my list of 900 numbers for psychic services. Oddly, I'd never called any of the numbers. I'd meant to. I'd talked to my therapist Roger about it, wondering if my collecting these numbers might mean anything, and he'd said it probably did mean something, and I'd asked if it were a good idea to call one of the numbers, and he'd guided me to the conclusion that if I thought it was okay, it probably couldn't hurt to give them a try sometime, but I'd never gotten around to it until now.

YOUR PERSONAL PSYCHIC

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL PSYCHICS

PSYCHIC AMIGOS

YOUR OTHER EYE

PSYCHIC SIDEKICKS

WE KNOW

AND SO ON

Go on, I told myself, just pick one and see what happens. I could try for a Psychic Amigo, for example, and when someone answered they'd say, “Hola” and I'd say, “No hablo … er…” and Dieter would mutter, “Jeeze Louise, hola on the phone?”, already deconstructing my daydream and getting into a fight with my new psychic amiga, who would say to him, “What? You expected bueno?”, but who to me would simply say, “No problema!” The truth of the matter being that neither Dieter nor I really know much Spanish.

If there were conspiracies afoot (and who could doubt that there were) maybe the people to call would be the people at We Know. But if they were really the people in the know, they probably wouldn't come right out and say so.

Okay, I would leave it to the same luck that had led me to the numbers in the first place. I closed my eyes and turned the list around and around until I'd lost track of which end was up. Then I ran my finger down the numbers hoping for a little tingle to tell me I was on the right spot, but I felt nothing, so finally I just stopped and opened my eyes and looked at what I'd chosen. Psychic Sidekicks. Upside down. Well, I already had all the Watsons I needed. In fact everyone in my head took a turn being Watson, but maybe someone out of the loop altogether would bring a fresh viewpoint to the problem. I grabbed the phone and dialed the number before I could come to my senses.

Would the fact that the list was upside down influence my Psychic Sidekick? Maybe I should believe just the opposite of what I was told? How did that work with the tarot?

There was a welcoming message, then a very businesslike exchange about my credit card and then a pause and then a woman came on the line and told me her name was Greta and asked how she could help me. The voice was strangely familiar. Did she sound like my mother in the old days? No, that wasn't it.

“Are you there?” she asked, and I realized my Psychic Sidekick sounded just like the voice in my head when I was Lulu.

I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it, counted my fingers wrapped around the receiver, counted to ten, blinked my eyes a couple of times.

“Hello, hello?” Greta said when I put the phone back to my ear. She'd probably been saying that for some time. She was probably ready to hang up.

“I'm here,” I said. I was no longer sure this exchange was external, and that uncertainty made me feel suddenly loose and fancy-free.

“How can I help you?” she asked.

“What are you wearing?”

“I don't think you quite have the concept here, gumchew,” she said.

Show me an edge and I'll go over it, but this time I had to be hearing things. Look at my logic. I pick a number at random from a list of psychic hot lines that's been in my desk for months and I get Prudence Deerfield pretending to be Greta, my Psychic Sidekick, who is actually Lulu? I didn't think so.

“What did you call me?”

“Sir,” she said. “I called you sir. Now can we get down to business?”

“Sorry,” I said. “What I meant to ask before was what
will
you be wearing?”

She laughed and her laugh was nice. Just that laugh would be worth the lousy $3.99 a minute.

“So are we looking into the area of romance?”

“Probably not,” I said.

“Fame and fortune?”

“Maybe,” I said. “The thing is I'm a detective and I have several puzzling cases I hoped you could give me some insight on.”

I was pretty sure I had the killer's motivation pinned down. My new theory explained the words on the first two bodies and the note found with Sadie Campbell, but I didn't know who he was, and I didn't know what Yuri and Prudence were up to. I didn't know what had happened to Pablo. Not to mention the fact that I didn't have a clue what Frank Wallace was up to at the Quack Inn.

“Well, I don't know,” she said.

“It'll be fun,” I said. “We've got the Evil Empire and the Russians and the Secret Society of Mexican Food Cooks.”

“I see,” she said.

“I hope so,” I said. “We've got some murders, and this guy in the other case I'm following for his wife, and he goes to this motel, but for all I know he was there alone, and I need to figure out what's going on.”

She didn't say anything.

“So, what do you see?” I asked.

“I see too much at once,” she said. “Take it a little slower. Fill me in while I lay out the cards.”

“Okay,” I said, stalling for time to organize my thoughts, “let me see. Well, okay. Just the facts. The pertinent details. The very essence of things.”

“Maybe you'd better take a moment to organize your thoughts,” she said. The way she touched my mind and said just what I needed to hear convinced me I'd done the right thing when I called her. I could hear her slapping the big tarot cards down on a green felt surface, maybe a poker table, yes, a green felt octagon. Everything is dark outside of the cone of light that shines down on the table. There is a column of smoke to her left.

“You're smoking,” I said.

“Not yet,” she said. “I'll need the facts first.”

Yes. The facts. So, I told her about how Prudence Deerfield came into my office and dumped the case in my lap. I told her how Gerald Moffitt was killed. I told her about Pablo. I told her about how I already had a case following a ‘city official' for his wife, and another case I didn't want to talk about. I didn't tell her Frank's name. I didn't tell her he was a homicide detective. I can only be lulled so far by a woman's voice. But then I told her about Frank and Marvin bringing me the news of the second murder, and maybe I mixed the two cases up at that point. I told her about following Frank to the Quack Inn. Or actually I told her about my operative Lulu (“who by the way sounds a lot like you”) following Frank to the Quack Inn.

I told her about GP Ink, and I gave her the details of Randy Casey's murder. I told her about SOAPY, and I told her about the BOD list. I brought the list up on the screen and read her the names, both known and unknown. I told her about Yuri and how I thought he and Prudence were holding out on me. I explained my theory on how the killer was killing off the creators of frustrating software documentation. I told her about Sadie.

“Oh, so that's the disturbance on the astral plane everyone is picking up on,” she said. “Murders. Yes, murders out in Oregon.”

“Did you figure that out from my area code?” A sudden attack of skepticism?