"Archie was my best man when I married her. When I moved out, Archie moved in with another starving actor, Miles Bowman. I got to know Miles a little, but a year later both of them moved back to England. By the time I made detective, Archie and I had lost touch altogether. A couple years later, right before I was killed, Houndtor Down Hunts hit the media, fox hunting was back, and Miles Bowman was big news, filthy rich, and married to the daughter of an earl. But no mention of Archie Quartermain."
I glanced at Shad. “You suspected something?"
"Sure. I sent a message to Archie and he eventually sent back his thanks but no thanks for the attempted rescue. According to him, everything was going according to plan. I did a little checking on my own and found out why Archie wasn't getting any billing. He's a really silent partner in Houndtor Down Hunts. Archie Quartermain is the fox."
"You're joking."
"No. See, he copies his engrams before each hunt. If he wins he wins, but if he gets killed, he's copied into a new bio cloned from his previous meat suit. It's really not as grim as you might think."
"Perhaps I'm making too much of being torn apart by a slavering pack of hounds."
"He never remembers getting killed, see? When he does get killed, the set of engrams copied before the hunt are imprinted into the new fox suit and the new fox inherits but doesn't remember."
"But he knows he's going to get killed."
"Archie told me it's like getting a knee operated on, except when he wakes up from his procedure it doesn't hurt."
"It still strikes me as rather a punishing way to make a living."
"You've never been an actor, have you?"
"No."
"Take my word for it, boss; there are roles to kill for and roles to die for.” He gave a duck shrug. “Besides, win or lose, Archie's take per hunt is close to three million."
"Per hunt?"
The duck nodded. “Each of the followers pays thirty thou or so to ride to the hounds, and there are eighty to a hundred or more per hunt, but that's not where the real money is. The big cash cows in the fox hunting racket are the tally-hovers: air hover pods that follow along the route of the hunt, giving their passengers all the thrill and excitement of the hunt without the need of learning how to ride or risking any jumps. Tally-hover seats run three thousand per, which includes the virtual of the hunt complete with the purchaser's face and body CGI substituted for the scarlet or black coat of his or her choice, and the entire ride experienced from the point of view of one of several riders."
"How many of those tally-hover seats do they fill on an average hunt?"
"Thousands."
"Astonishing. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would pay that much for a bit of a thrill ride that can be excelled by any number of virtual computer games."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong. See, inspector, it's not just the thrill of a dangerous horse ride and the challenge of ganging up with hundreds of hounds, nags, and snobs to chase down and kill a small dog. What you also get for your money is to be seen at the opening tea ceremony and other refreshment stops along the route, dabbing lips and raising pinkies with such luminaries as Lady Iva Bowman and Lord Peter Talmadge. Talmadge is the hunt's paid snob draw. There's also an old rock star and an old movie star as draws for the upwardly mobile Lumpenproletariat who crave an association with fame. Archie Quartermain has fifty percent of the company. I'm betting he's the richest fox in the world."
"And the dottiest.” I frowned as I thought of something. “Does Lady Iva inherit Miles Bowman's interest?"
"Unless she's found guilty of murdering Miles."
"If she doesn't inherit, who does?"
"They don't have any children, so Archie gets it all. Interesting, no?"
"To say the least.” I turned toward Shad. “None of which explains how a New York City cop wound up being a duck in Interpol's Artificial Beings Crimes Division."
"This is where I bare my soul, right?"
I held up a hand and dropped it to my lap. “Not a requirement. A desire to understand."
"In that case, I'll tell you. I think I said I was wounded in the line of duty."
"Actually, you said you were killed."
We began descending from the Bovey Tracy Roundabout. “I was backing up some guys taking down a perp. The next thing I knew all the bullets in the world were headed in my direction and I was fricassee. When I came to, my engrams were in memory, Shondelle was pounding on my keyboard demanding to know where the car keys were, and I get a call on my modem from my agent wanting to know if I'd be willing to have my engrams imprinted on a mechanical shark for a remake of Jaws that was going into production."
"You agreed?"
He faced me with an expression of astonishment. “It was Hollywood. Jaws. With a role like that in my credits, who knows what other roles I might've been offered? That was when my agent changed my name. He figured a shark named Donald Lipper would be hard to take seriously."
"Your given name is Donald?"
The duck leveled a rather menacing gaze at me. “Don't go there, man."
"What about your wife?” I asked, judiciously changing the subject.
"Shondelle,” muttered the duck. “Even though I explained what a huge break this would be for us, she took a walk. With the bread I could've made from a production like Jaws, I could've had my engrams imprinted on a six-figure bio of anything or anyone she wanted. No dice, though. The first person she called after she left my terminal was a divorce shark."
"My sympathies. What happened regarding the remake?"
"What else? Jaws bit it. I was about ready for a karma transplant. A week later, though, my agent came through with a pretty good commercial gig. It was a role that before had been limited by computer-generated imaging and trained animals. They were finally ready to move up to a real actor."
"What was it?” I inquired.
"Spokesentity for an insurance company."
Shad saw my expression.
"Yeah. That's the one. Really. That's me."
I frowned at him. “That duck was white."
"Make-up,” Shad explained. He looked forward as our descent crossed the edge of Dartmoor, vast expanses of hilly bracken and grassland interrupted by rocky tors all beneath a gloomy sky. “Good years of really great physical comedy. I was on all the talk and game shows. I was the duck who turned the world on to disability insurance. But then the company was taken over by another insurance outfit. The new bunch wanted to use their own mascot: a creepy little computer-generated lizard, the same old animation they'd used for fifty years."
"Unfortunate. I really enjoyed your commercials, Shad. Very amusing."
Shad shook his head and angrily padded on the seat from one webbed foot to the other. “Treat me like some CGI that'd gone out of style. Me! I put life in that duck. I brought new dimensions to that role. I was the one who made that company a household name in every palace and hoodoo hutch on this planet. That's what dedication, hard work, and loyalty get you: No severance, no residuals, out with the old letterheads.” He took a breath and let it out. “Anyway, alone, out of work, and no prospects, I went to the International Police Benevolent Association and invoked the ‘still living and able’ employment clause. They either had to put me on pension or find me a job in law enforcement."
"So they sent you to ABCD."
"First I was with Northern New England Wildlife Protection investigating duck hunting violations. Lucky I had this connection with Archie Quartermain."
"Oh?"
"Whether it's illegal to shoot a wildlife officer who's a duck during duck hunting season really hasn't been settled yet."
"I see what you mean."
"Besides, I had a supervisor who was an eared grebe. That's a bird."
"I assumed it was either that or an illegal wrestling hold."
Shad gave my joke a truncated pity laugh and continued, “Dudley Baumgartner. A small bird, he had a big black crest and these flaky little golden ear tufts he was really proud of. He could've been an American bald eagle, but BioDyne couldn't legally recode the bald eagle DNA to give him black head feathers."
"Why on earth would he want that?"
"Baumgartner was very sensitive about hair loss."
"Eagles don't have hair."
"Tell it to Baumgartner. Red eyes, his voicebox implant programmed to talk like a frog—I'm telling you, boss, this case is saving more than my life."
"Speaking of programmed voiceboxes, Shad, why do you use this duck voice? I mean, it's still rather comical."
"This was the voice that made me a star."
The cruiser came in over the village of Leighon and up a gentle rise to a wood of oaks, maples, and conifers at the eastern foot of Hound Tor. In the center of the wood was a clearing, and in the center of the clearing, at the intersection of a maze of bricked paths and boxwoods, was the grand lodge of Houndtor Down Hunts, a city within a palace made familiar by countless posters, post cards, vid story settings, skyvault projections, and telly commercials.
A circular drive only slightly smaller than the M-5 ran from the front steps to an improved road that lead north toward Manaton. Most of Houndtor's clientele came in by air. The huge skydock was south of the lodge. The dock appeared to have parking slips for only a few hundred vehicles, but as we came in over it, I could see the access lanes to additional parking slip floors below ground level. As we descended onto one of the multiple landing targets, I noticed with some alarm that Shad was shaking his tail feathers back and forth. “I say, Shad, do you need to go to the loo?"
"What?” He glanced back at his own shaking tail. “Oh.” He dismissed my concern with another wave of his wing. “Updating my anti-virus definitions."