Daniel, heeding Shamus’s message to be careful of Volta, decided Volta should be considered as well. There were just too many unknowns. First of all, Volta would have had to know what was happening – where and when – which meant somebody would have had to tell him. Only Shamus and, for a few hours, he and his mother had known where the bomb would be placed. Of course, Volta had been strongly against the plutonium theft, and knowing how Annalee and Shamus felt about each other, he might have put tails on them. But it’s the nature of tails to follow, not anticipate, though perhaps there had been a way to get to the bomb before it got to Shamus. The other thing was, none of it felt like Volta’s style. But he knew exactly what Shamus meant about Volta. Even when discussing the weather, Volta always seemed to say just a little bit less than he actually knew.
After ten hours of hard solid thought on every possibility he could imagine, Daniel gave up. There were too many unknowns, too many improbable sequences, and all the evidence pointed to the obvious: a faulty bomb, probably a malfunction in the timer.
Transcription: Telephone Conversation Between
Volta and Daniel
DANIEL: Hello, Volta? This is Daniel.
VOLTA: And how are you, Daniel?
DANIEL: Broke and nowhere.
VOLTA: (chuckling) At least you’re making progress.
DANIEL: You’d have to convince me.
VOLTA: The last time we talked you were merely broke.
DANIEL: (sullenly) I suppose.
VOLTA: Have you made inquiries?
DANIEL: Yes, but without any startling discoveries.
VOLTA: Are you satisfied Gideon killed your mother?
DANIEL: Not completely.
VOLTA: I’m not satisfied at all. The more I’ve thought about it, the more it seems too improbable that your mother connected the bomb with Gideon just moments before it exploded. As I mentioned before, it seems far more likely she heard something inside the case – some sound, the timer connecting – that convinced her the bomb was about to explode.
DANIEL: That’s my tentative conclusion, also.
VOLTA: Have you explored it at all? The possibility of a faulty bomb?
DANIEL: No.
VOLTA: I have. I’ve talked to four demolition experts who all said it was virtually impossible there would be a warning sound, though it would depend on the type of bomb. One of the experts, ‘Blooey’ Martien said that if your mother was a particularly receptive soul she may have ‘sensed’ imminent death – he entered it as a possibility, but noted it was highly doubtful. However, when I attempted to obtain the police report on the bomb, it was missing. No record. Gone. So while you may indeed be nowhere, you’re not alone.
DANIEL: What do you mean the police record is gone?
VOLTA: I’m not sure I can be more explicit. The bomb report is not on file. With every bombing, there’s a lab analysis of the traces to determine the composition of the bomb, the type of explosive, so forth. Either the report was never filed – highly unusual – or it was removed. Or, mostly likely, it was misfiled in the bureaucratic paper shuffle. You’re welcome to look if you choose. I must say, though, we have an exceptional contact inside the department, and she’s gotten nowhere. Also, your inquiries will no doubt excite their curiosity about you, thus their scrutiny, and perhaps their wrath.
DANIEL: How do I know that you’re not making this up?
VOLTA: You don’t. But you’re free to verify the information. In fact, we’ll increase your pay to $120 a month to do it. It’s a rather strange arrangement, paying you to verify our honor, but
AMO has traditionally delighted in strangeness.
DANIEL: I’ll take your word for it. But thanks for the raise. I can afford lunch twice a week now.
VOLTA: Really, Daniel. Like most human beings, sniveling does not become you.
DANIEL: (quickly, trying to catch Volta off guard) Did you know my mother was seeing Shamus in Berkeley?
VOLTA: No. But I clearly surmised the possibility, since I did request your mother to call me should he appear.
DANIEL: What made you think he’d show up?
VOLTA: His eyes when he talked about Annalee.
DANIEL: Were you having Shamus watched? Or us?
VOLTA: (patiently, but with some snap) No, Daniel. You must understand that while I didn’t want Shamus stealing nuclear materials, and would have tried to dissuade him, I would not have physically intervened, and certainly not by killing your mother. If you think differently, we’re wasting each other’s time and spirit.
DANIEL: I’m sorry if I offended you. I’ve been asking questions for the past few months and I’m a little hungry for some answers.
VOLTA: All I can give you is my word that I knew nothing of the plutonium theft until the day your mother died in the explosion.
DANIEL: One of the reasons I ask is that Shamus says not to trust you. I wonder if you trust him?
VOLTA: Less so lately than before. He’s not doing well. He’s evidently drinking heavily and taking drugs – one of the painkillers, Percodan or Dilaudid.
DANIEL: That’s not like him. Does he still wear a black glove?
VOLTA: Yes, but with the fingertips cut off. All this comes from Dolly, by the way.
DANIEL: It’s depressing about Shamus.
VOLTA: Alchemy is full of cautions about becoming fascinated with the powers of decay. It is also traditionally held that a man burned by silver is marked by the moon.
DANIEL: (abruptly, but not demanding) I’m tired of thinking about all this. I don’t see anywhere left to go with it. What’s next, if anything?
VOLTA: Take a three-week vacation. The man I want to connect you with won’t be back till the twenty-eighth. Call around then and I’ll put you in touch. His name is William Clinton.
DANIEL: What will I be studying?
VOLTA: Concentration.
DANIEL: I thought that’s what I studied with Wild Bill.
VOLTA: Indeed. I trust you’re well prepared.
William Rebis Clinton was the ace safecracker west of the Rockies. Willie the Click, as he was known to his cohorts, could drill or blast any lock devised. However, as he repeatedly and vehemently pointed out, the highest expression of the safecrackers’ art was opening combination locks by touch alone, by becoming the spinning wheel, the tumblers and pins, by disappearing through your fingertips into pure sensation. On his fortieth birthday, Willie had resolved never again to use anything but his hands to open a safe. He hadn’t, and he was pleased. Drills and explosives did what Willie believed all technologies did: They killed feeling. By assassinating time and space under the guise of saving them, they keep people out of touch when the better state of being, according to Willie and others, is in touch. In his more delirious screeds, Willie claimed that industrialization was a Christian plot to destroy the pagan reflex between sensation and emotion.
Willie was a short, wiry man with intense brown eyes. His most notable trait was his tendency to speak in whirling bursts of proverbs, obscure quotations, metaphors, speculative observation, and oblique conceits. When Daniel had arrived at Willie’s apartment in the Mission District, Willie had taken Daniel’s offered hand and scrutinized it a few minutes before ordering Daniel to sit down and spread both his hands palm up on the worktable. Curious, Daniel complied, and then became suddenly anxious when Willie sat down opposite him and opened a case containing five silver needles, needles so slender they flirted with invisibility.
‘What are those for?’
‘The obscure by the more obscure, Daniel, the unknown by the unfathomable. To gauge sensitivity. Synaptic discrimination. Your particular neural awareness. It’s painless. Though I believe it was Carlyle who noted, “The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.”’ Willie lifted a needle to the light. ‘Now shut your eyes and tell me when you feel something – the slightest pressure or other sensation.’