“You got a team.”
“I know, but those two dipshits couldn’t tail a blind man. I need somebody good for this. The mark’s smart. He’s also experienced and well trained.”
“Cop, huh?”
“It is what it is.”
“What’d he do?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s why I need you.”
“Well, at least tell me what I’m looking for.”
“He was implicated in a homicide-that body in the burned car that we can’t identify.”
“Holy shit? That case? I saw that on the news. They pulled out the fucker’s teeth so you couldn’t identify him after he was fried. That was awesome.”
“It wasn’t so fucking awesome if you had to be there to peel him off the seats.”
“You think this cop did that?”
“I don’t know. I got my doubts, but I gotta follow up on it.”
“You want round-the-clock?”
“Yeah.”
He whistled through his teeth. “That ain’t cheap, my muscle-head friend. I’d have to get my guys pay and a half.”
“I’ll come up with the money.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I’ll get someone to approve it. Let me worry about that. I just need you to start as soon as possible. Tonight would be best.”
“Who’s the mark?”
“Jon Stanton. He’s a detective from San Diego, here as Orson’s pet for a few weeks.”
“You really think he did this?”
“I don’t know. But if he did, he’s one dangerous motherfucker. Make sure your boys are packing and vested up.”
19
Stanton checked his messages first thing when he woke Monday morning. Nothing from Marty. There was one message from Orson, asking if he wanted to go golfing that day, and one from Mindi, saying she had a hit on Fredrick Steed’s home address. There was another from his son, speaking in whispered tones, wishing him good night.
He dialed his ex’s number, and no one answered. He hung up without leaving a message. Next, he called Mindi’s number, and she answered on the second ring. He could hear a shower running in the background.
“Hey, Jon. You get my message?”
“Yeah, how’d you find him?”
“Found a case in the statewide. He’s still on probation for a robbery charge from 2010. And you should see the rest of his history.”
“Any sex offenses or burglaries?”
“No sex offenses. Don’t remember if I saw any burglaries. Why?”
“Most sex offenders start off as burglars. When they enter a home and find someone asleep, they commit their first sexual assault and get a taste for it.”
“Really? I thought they started out with sex offenses.”
“Sometimes, but not usually.”
“Well, I’ll go grab his file and come get you. The place he’s staying at is like an hour outside the city, so we should leave now. I should probably tell you, though, I Googled it, and it’s, like, a weird commune. Like… a white supremacist compound or something.”
“I don’t think we should go alone, then.”
“We’re cops. What are they gonna do?”
Stanton grinned. Her innocence had its charm. “A lot. I’ll talk to Orson and get some backup.”
“I really don’t think we need it. And that’ll take a bunch of time. Let’s just head out there.”
“That’s a bad idea. We’ll get some backup from Orson. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to get approved.”
“All right, you’re the boss here, I guess. I’ll see ya at the precinct.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye.”
He placed the phone down on the side table and crawled up on the bed. There was a long cylindrical pillow lying there, made of a fluffy crimson material that was soft against his skin. He leaned his head back on it and flipped on the television. It was on a channel playing an infomercial for acne cream, but he didn’t bother to change it. He wasn’t watching for entertainment. Sometimes, he just needed background noise while he thought, fooling him into thinking he wasn’t alone.
The video replayed in his mind. Professor Hoffman, his dissertation advisor, once had him run through memory studies as part of the psychology department’s colloquium on modern mnemonic techniques. The premise was that they would teach an average student-Stanton, in this case-mnemonic techniques that could advance his recall. At the time of the study, no memory system ever developed had been statistically validated in any significant way. As Hoffman liked to say, they were selling psychological snake oil.
But Hoffman, one of the foremost memory experts in the United States, had stumbled upon a book on the history of ancient Greece while browsing the library. There was a section on Simonides of Ceos. During a party he was attending with over seventy other people, the roof of the home collapsed. Everyone was buried inside, and Simonides was the sole survivor. When help arrived, they needed assistance finding the victims in the palatial home. Simonides, the story said, was able to recall exactly where every single guest had been when the roof fell.
Hoffman discovered that the ancient Greeks had a highly developed system of mnemonics associating concrete memories with those that would stand out. As he followed the thread to ancient Rome, he discovered politicians who were said to recite entire speeches lasting hours directly from memory. The ancients, or so he believed, had something that we had lost.
The associations were simple. One could have a house, a tent, a field, or anywhere that person liked. He would place the thing he wanted to remember with something so out of the ordinary that he was bound to remember its outrageousness and, hence, the object he wanted to recall, as well. Hoffman gave an example of being out on the town with his wife when he saw a horse-drawn carriage riding past. Realizing his anniversary was coming up, he wanted to remember the phone number on the side of the carriage without writing it down so that his wife would not notice. He thought of a home he remembered from the past, ran upstairs, and placed a horse in a bedroom. Next to the horse, he conjured a duck-for whatever reason, he had found ducks funny as a child-and painted the phone number in bright-red lettering on the horse. For extra effect, he imagined fireworks going off just outside the window. He remembered the phone number, even thirty-five years later.
After choosing Stanton for the study to be presented to the colloquium, Hoffman found that Stanton had perfect recall without the use of his new memory system, down to the number of women’s earrings in a high school class photo that he had seen only for a few seconds.
Stanton had read about eidetic memory as a graduate student but found it indefinable. How could he tell if he was recalling something perfectly or if he was only perceiving it as being recalled perfectly? Stanton had noticed one trait in himself, though, that he didn’t see in other officers: everything stayed with him. Ten years after visiting the scene of a homicide at a hotel, he could recall how many sticks of gum were left in the pack lying on the side table, what the thermostat had been set to, and… the exact expression on the corpse. Detectives in Homicide called it the “glamour shot,” the final facial expression at the time of death. He remembered every glamour shot from every victim he had ever seen. Sometimes, in quiet moments, they came to him. He would close his eyes, but they would be right there, seemingly between his eyes and eyelids. He was unable to shake them and would have to tolerate them until they went away on their own.
Stanton sat up in bed. He grabbed his phone and dialed Orson.
“Jon, what’s goin’ on?”
“Hey, I have a quick favor to ask.”
“Anything.”
“I need to pay Marty a visit and make sure he’s okay. You think I could get his address?”
“Sure. Hey, you should’a come out to the green yesterday. I left you a message, but you never called me back.”
“Sorry about that. I’ve been preoccupied with this case.”
“That’s why I chose you for this, I guess. I’ll have someone at the office text you the address.”
“Thanks.”