“Mary, you know I adore you,” Ernest said as they ate. “I’d give up a lot to be with you lawbond.”
Mary smiled, then shivered. “I’d like nothing better, but I don’t want either of us to give up anything. We haven’t peaked yet, professionally. After we peak.”
Ernest had seen her shiver. “Don’t joke with me. I might give up and clink a barrio sweet.” He poured her a cup of tamarindo. Ernest drank no alcohol took no drugs. “But I say that almost every time, don’t I?”
They toasted each other. Mary lifted her hand and stared at it as if it were detached.
“So what else is wrong?” Ernest asked softly.
“Theo called.”
“Nervous Theodora,” Ernest said. “Does she have her heart’s desire?”
Mary shook her head. “She was passed over again. Third time.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Ernest said.
“Oh?”
“You tell me she’s your friend, Mary, but I never saw such a friend. She reflects off you. Doesn’t love you. Wants to be like you, but hates you for being different.”
“Oh.” She put down her glass.
“Did she cry on your shoulder?”
“Your lunches are like love,” Mary said after a pause. “I sincerely regret not being able to stay longer.” She lifted in salute an exquisite lacework bread cage filled with herbed farm shrimp.
Citizen Oversight occupied the first seven floors of an early twenty first commercial tower rising from Wilshire in old Beverly Hills. The waiting rooms on the second floor made no pretense at decor; they were minimal uncomfortable white and harshly lighted.
Mary waited patiently as the minutes advanced past her appointment. Three other pd from Long Beach and the Torrance Towers waited with equal patience across from her. They said little to each other. They were not in their element.
Oversight controlled information pd could not get through a court order. Getting such information was an art not unlike politics. Individual pd or pd districts who asked too often were marked as greedy.
Throughout the USA vid monitors and other sensors tracked citizen activity in private cars buses trains aircraft even walkways, wherever citizens used public concourses or buildings. Private service company records financial records medical records and therapy records all went into Oversight and new officials were publicly elected every year in each state to administer the information so gathered.
Oversight had proven its worth a hundred times over in giving social statisticians the raw data necessary to make plans track trends understand and serve a nation of half a billion people.
When first proposed and created Oversight had been absolutely forbidden from releasing any data involving individual citizens or even specific groups of citizens whatever their activities to the judiciary or pd. But even before Raphkind the wall between Oversight and the courts and pd had thinned. During Raphkind’s seven years in office the walls had thinned even more, been breached, and information had flowed freely to the pd and federals. Now in pendulum swing Oversight offered scant pickings to pd on a strictly regulated basis.
There were now stiff financial penalties and even incarceration awaiting Oversight officials who made errors in releasing data. Consequently each query by pd was a battle of wills. Wills against won’ts Mary thought of it; she had never been granted information in her four attempts at making queries. She did not expect to get information now, despite the severity of the crime she was investigating.
The arbeiter in charge of the front desk called her name. She passed her ticket through the slot and took a short flight of stairs into a small office cubicle with two doors on opposite walls and an empty desk acting as barricade between. There were no chairs. The relationships here were adversarial not comfortable.
Mary stood and waited for her contact to enter through the other door.
A middle aged man dressed in casual blue midsuit, hair thinning, entire attitude proclaiming physical lack of pretension and weariness, entered and looked at her resentfully. “Hello,” he said.
She nodded and stood her ground, arms folded before her parade rest.
“Lieutenant Mary Choy, investigating the murder of eight people in the third foot of East Comb One,” the contact said.
“Yes.”
“I’ve looked over your request. This is an unusual case in a comb or anywhere for that matter. You wish to know if citizen Emanuel Goldsmith has been oversighted anywhere within the USA during the last seventy two hours. You would use this information to narrow your search to some locale or to travel outside the USA to continue your search.”
“Yes.”
The man looked her over impartially not judging just looking.
“Your request is not out of line. Unfortunately, I cannot release full information due to conflicting assessments in three of our districts. There is insufficient public need. In our judgment, you will capture the murderer without it. However, I have been authorized to tell you that we do not have a record of Emanuel Goldsmith conducting any financial or other personal transactions outside of the city of Los Angeles, within the United States of America, within the last seventy two hours. You may appeal again after twenty four days on this same subject. Appeal before that time will be rejected.”
Mary did not react for several seconds. The oracle had told all that it would. She relaxed slightly dropped her arms and turned to leave.
“Good luck, Lieutenant Choy,” the weary man said.
“Thank you.”
Old dark men with gray
Beards Execute tribal justice Teeth rotten
Eyes yellow Fingers stiff Minds
Dreaming Man steals other’s Wife
Land Cattle Finger gone or scar on
Forehead mark of thief or
Shariya forfeit right Hand
Gray wigs black robes sonorous sleepy
Rooms with wood same old
Dark men with gray Beards
Yellow Eyes Better Teeth.
18
Martin Burke inserted the card into his phone. Paul Lascal’s face appeared saying, “Yes. Hello.”
“Burke here.”
“Good to hear from you, Mr. Burke. Any decision?”
Martin’s lips were numb and dry. “Tell Albigoni I’ll do it.”
“Very good. Are you free this afternoon?”
“I’ll never be free again, Mr. Lascal.”
Assuming irony, Lascal laughed.
“Yes, I’m free this afternoon,” Martin said.
“I’ll have a car at your door at one o’clock.”
“Where will I be going?”
Lascal coughed. “Sorry. Please allow us this much discretion.”
“This much and more,” Martin said cheerily, the voice of hired help. “Oh, and Mr. Lascal…I’ll need every scrap of information you can give me about our subject. It’s all right to inform him about the procedure—”
“He’s given his permission.”
Martin was surprised into silence.
“I’ll arrange to have all bio and related material available on your arrival,” Lascal said.
Martin stared at the blank screen for a time, empty of thoughts, rubbing his hands on his knees. He stood and walked to the window to look out at shabby genteel La Jolla, still dreaming of a glory fled to the north to the monuments or west across the broad sea.
He had come to love La Jolla. He had no ambition to regain the monuments or God forbid the LA combs. Yet if all went as planned as conspired he would soon be very far from here, back in a place if such it could be called that he loved even more than this, in the Country and with Carol as well.