The Bad Place Part 23

"Well... yes.

"And going from one place to another, instantaneously, as an act of sheer willpower... as far as I'm concerned, that's teleportation."

"But how?" Julie asked.

Bobby shrugged again. "Right now, it doesn't matter how.

Just accept the a.s.sumption of teleportation as a place to start."

"As a theory," Hal said.

"Okay," Julie agreed.

"Theoretically, let's a.s.sume Frank can teleport himself."

To Frank, who was sealed off from his own experience by amnesia, that was like a.s.suming iron was lighter than air in order to allow an argument for the possibility of steel-plated blimps. But he was willing to go along with it.

Bobby said, "Good, all right, then that a.s.sumption explains the condition of these clothes."

"How?" Frank asked.

"It'll take a while to get to the clothes. Stay with me. First, consider that maybe teleporting yourself requires that the atoms of your body temporarily disa.s.sociate themselves from one another, then come together again an instant later at another place. Same thing goes for the clothes you're wearing and for anything on which you've got a firm grip, like the bed railing."

"Like the teleportation pod in that movie," Hal said.

"The Fly.

"Yeah," Bobby said, clearly getting excited now. He put down his coffee and slid forward on the edge of the sofa, gesticulating as he spoke.

"Sort of like that. Except the power to this is maybe all in Frank's mind, not in a futuristic machine He just sort of thinks himself somewhere else, disa.s.sembles himself in a fraction of a second-poof!-and rea.s.sembles him self at his destination. Of course, I'm also a.s.suming the remains intact even during the time the body is dispersed disconnected atoms, because it would have to be the sheer power of the mind that transports those billions of particles and keeps them together like a shepherd collie herding she then welds them to one another again in the right configurations at the far end."

Though his weariness was sufficient to have resulted from an impossibly complex and strenuous task like the one Bobby had just described, Frank was unconvinced.

"Well, gee, I don't know.... This isn't something you go to school to learn about doesn't have a course in teleportation. So it's...

Instinct? Even supposing I instinctively know how to break body down into a stream of atomic particles and send it some where else, then put it together again... how can any human mind, even the greatest genius ever born, be powerful enough to keep track of those billions of particles and get them all exactly as they belong? It'd take a hundred geniuses, a thousand years, and I'm not even one. I'm no dummy, but I'm no brighter than the average guy."

"You've answered your own question," Bobby said.

don't need superhuman intelligence for this, 'cause teleportation isn't primarily a function of intelligence. It's not instinct either. It's just... well, an ability programmed into your genetic makeup like vision or hearing or the sense of smell. Think of it this way. You look at things with your eyes. Your eyes are composed of billions of separate points of color and light and shade and texture, yet your eyes instantly order those billions of bits of input into a coherent scene. You don't have to think about seeing. You just see, automatic. You understand what I meant about magic? This is almost magical. With teleportation, there's probably a mechanism you have to pull-like wis.h.i.+ng yourself to elsewhere-but thereafter the process is pretty much automatic; the mind makes it happen the way it makes instantaneous sense of all the data coming in through your eyes." Frank closed his eyes tight and concentrated on wis.h.i.+ng himself into the reception lounge. When he opened his eyes and was still in the inner office, he said, "It doesn't work. It's not that easy. I can't do it at will."

Hal said, "Bobby, are you saying all of us have this ability, and only Frank has figured out how to use it?"

"No, no. This is probably a sc.r.a.p of genetic material unique to Frank, maybe even a talent that sprung from genetic damage-"

They were all silent, absorbing what Bobby had conjectured.

Outside, the layer of clouds was cracking, peeling, and the old blue paint of the sky was showing through in more places every minute. But the brightening day did not lift Frank's spirits.

Finally Hal Yamataka indicated the pile of garments on the coffee table.

"How does all this explain the condition of those clothes?"

Bobby picked up the blue cotton sweater and held it so they could see the khaki swatch on the back.

"Okay, let's suppose the mind can automatically shepherd all the molecules of its own body through the teleportation process without a single error. It can also deal with other things Frank wants to take with him, like his clothes-"

"And bags full of money," Julie said.

"But why the bed railing?" Hal asked.

"No reason for him to want to take that with him."

To Frank, Bobby said, "You can't remember it now, but you clearly knew what was happening while you were caught up in that series of teleportations. You were trying to stop, you asked Hal to help you stop, and you seized the railing to stop yourself, to anchor yourself to the hospital room. You were concentrating on your grip on that railing, so when you went, you took it with you. As for the clothes getting scrambled the way they are... Maybe your mind concentrates first on getting your body back together in the proper order because error-free physical re-creation is crucial to your survival, but then sometimes you might not have the energy left to do as good a job on secondary things like clothes."

"Well," Frank said, "I can't remember prior to last week, but this is the first time anything like this has happened since then, even though I've apparently been... traveling more nights than not. Then again, even if my clothes have come through okay, I seem to be getting more weary, weaker, and more confused day by day.... He did not have to finish the thought, because the worry in their eyes and faces made clear their understanding. If he was teleporting, and if it was a strenuous act that bled him strength that could not be restored by rest, he was gradually going to get less meticulous about the reconst.i.tution of clothes and whatever other items he tried to carry with him But more important-he might begin to have difficulty reinst.i.tuting his body, as well. He might return from one of his late-night rambles and find fragments of his sweater woven into the back of his hand, and the skin replaced by that piece of cotton might turn up as a pale patch in the dark leather of his shoe and the displaced leather from the shoe might appear as integral part of his tongue... or as strands of alien cells twist through his brain tissue. Fear, never far away and circling like a shark in the dept of Frank's mind, abruptly shot to the surface, called forth the worry and pity that he saw in the faces of those on who he was depending for salvation. He closed his eyes, but it was a rotten idea because he had a vision of his own face when he shut out theirs, his face as it might look after a disastrous reconst.i.tution at the end of a future telekinetic journey: eyes or ten misplaced teeth sprouting from his right eye socket;evicted eye staring lidlessly from the middle of the cheek below; his nose smeared in hideous lumps of flesh and gristle across the side of his face. In the vision he opened his misshapen mouth, perhaps to scream, and within his sight were two fingers and a portion of his hand, rooted where the tongue should had been.

He opened his eyes as a low cry of terror and misery escaped him.

He was shuddering. He couldn't stop.

HAVING FRESHENED everyone's coffee and, at Bobby's suggestion, having laced Frank's mug with bourbon in spite of the early hour, Hal went to the nook off the reception lounge to brew another pot.

After Frank had been fortified with a few sips of the spiked coffee, Julie showed the photograph to him and watched his reaction carefully.

"You recognize either of the people in this?"

"No. They're strangers to me."

"The man," Bobby said, "is George Farris. The real George Farris. We got the picture from his brother-in-law."

Frank studied the photograph with renewed interest. "Maybe I knew him, and that's why I borrowed his name but I can't recall ever seeing him before."

"He's dead," Julie said, and thought that Frank's surprise was genuine.

She explained how Farris had died, years ago... and then how his family had been slaughtered far more recently. She told him about James Roman, too, and how Roman's family died in a fire in November.

With what appeared to be sincere dismay and confusion, Frank said, "Why all these deaths? Is it coincidence?"

Julie leaned forward. "We think Mr. Blue killed them /."

"Who?"

"Mr. Blue Light. The man you said pursued you that night in Anaheim, the man you think is hunting you for some reason. We believe he discovered you were traveling under the names Farris and Roman, so he went to the addresses he got for them, and when he didn't find you there, he killed everyone, either while trying to squeeze information out of them or... just for the h.e.l.l of it."

Frank looked stricken. His pale face grew even paler, as if it were an image doing a slow fade on a movie screen. The bleak look in his eyes intensified. "If I hadn't been using that fake ID, he never would've gone to those people. It's because of me they died."

Feeling sorry for the guy, ashamed of the suspicion that had driven her to approach the issue in this manner, Julie said, "Don't let it eat you, Frank. Most likely, the paper artist who forged your doc.u.ments took the names at random from a list of recent deaths. If he'd used another approach, the Farris and Roman families would never have come to Mr.

Blue's attention. But it's not your fault the forger used the quick and lazy method."

Frank shook his head, tried to speak, could not.

"You can't blame yourself," Hal said from the doorway, where he had evidently been standing long enough to have gotten the gist of the photo's importance. He seemed genuinely distressed to see Frank so anguished. Like Clint, Hal had been won over by Frank's gentle voice, self-effacing manner, and cherubic demeanor.

Frank cleared his throat, and finally the words broke out. "No, no, it's on me, my G.o.d, all those people dead because of me."

IN DAKOTA & DAKOTA'S computer center, Bobby and Frank sat in two spring-backed, typist chairs with rubber wheels, Bobby switched on one of the three state-of-the-art IBM each of which was outlinked to the world through its modern and phone line. Though bright enough to work by, overhead lights it was soft and diffuse to prevent glare on terminal screens, and the room's one window was covered with blackout drapes for the same reason.

Like policemen in the silicon age, modern private detectives and security consultants relied on the computer to make the work easier and to compile a breadth and depth of information that could never be acquired by the old-fas.h.i.+oned gum methods of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Pounding pavement, interviewing witnesses and potential suspects, conducting surveillances were still aspects of their job of course, but without the computer they would be as ineffective as a blacksmith trying to fix a flat tire with a hammer and nail and other tools of his trade. As the twentieth century progressed through its last decade, private investigators who were ignorant of the microchip revolution existed only in television dramas and the curiously dated world of most PI novels. Lee Chen, who had designed and now operated their data-gathering system, would not arrive in the office until around nine o'clock. Bobby did not want to wait the hour to start putting the computer to work on "Frank's case!" He was not a primo hacker, as Lee was, but he knew all the hardware, had the ability to learn new software quickly and was almost as comfortable tracking down information in cybers.p.a.ce as he was poring through file age-yellowed newspapers.

Using Lee's code book, which he removed from a locked desk drawer, Bobby first entered a Social Security Administration data network that contained files to which broad public access was legal. Other files in the same system were restricted and supposedly inaccessible behind walls of security codes required by various right-to-privacy laws.

From the open files, he inquired as to the number of men named Frank Pollard in the Administration's records, and within seconds the response appeared on the screen: counting variations of Frank, such as Franklin and Frankie and Franco-plus names like Francis, for which Frank might be a diminutive-there were six hundred and nine Frank Pollards in possession of Social Security numbers.

"Bobby," Frank said anxiously, "does that stuff on the screen make sense to you? Are those words, real words, or jumbled letters?"

"Huh? Of course they're words."

"Not to me. They don't look like anything to me. Gibberish." Bobby picked up a copy of Byte magazine that was lying between two of the computers, opened it to an article, and said, "Read that." Frank accepted the magazine, stared at it, flipped ahead a couple of pages, then a couple more. His hands began to shake. The magazine rattled in his grip.

"I can't. Jesus, I've lost that too. Yesterday, I lost the ability to do math, and now I can't read any more, and I get more confused, foggy in the head, and I ache in every joint, every muscle. This teleporting's wearing me down, killing me. I'm falling apart, Bobby, mentally and physically, faster all the time."

"It's going to be all right," Bobby said, though his confidence was largely feigned. He was pretty sure they would get to the bottom of this, would learn who Frank was and where he went at night and how and why; however, he could see that Frank was declining fast, and he would not have bet money that they'd find all the answers while Frank was still alive, sane, and able to benefit from their discoveries.

Nevertheless, he put his hand on Frank's shoulder and gave it a gentle rea.s.suring squeeze.

"Hang in there, buddy. Everything's going to be okay. I really think it is. I really do." Frank took a deep breath and nodded. Turning to the display terminal again, feeling guilty about the lie he'd just told, Bobby said, "You remember how old you are, Frank?

"No."

"You look about thirty-two, thirty-three."

"I feel older."

Softly whistling Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll," Bobby thought a moment, then asked the SSA computer to eliminate those Frank Pollards younger than twenty-eight and older than thirty-eight. That left seventy-two of them.

"Frank, do you think you've ever lived anywhere else are you a dyed-in-the-wool Californian?"

"I don't know."

"Let's a.s.sume you're a son of the suns.h.i.+ne state." He asked the SSA computer to whittle down the remaining Frank Pollards to those who applied for their Social security numbers while living in California (fifteen), then to whose current addresses on file were in California (six).

The public-access portion of the Social Security Administrations data network was forbidden by law to reveal Social security numbers to casual researchers. Bobby referred to instructions in Lee Chen's code book and entered the restricted files through a complicated series of maneuvers that circ.u.mvented SSA security.

He was unhappy about breaking the law, but it was the way of high-tech life that you never got the maximum benefit your data-gathering system if you played strictly by the rules. Computers were instruments of freedom, and government were to one degree or another instruments of repression; two and could not always exist in harmony.

He obtained the six numbers and addresses for the Frank Pollards living in California.

"Now what?" Frank wondered.

"Now," Bobby said, "I'll use these numbers and addresses to cross reference with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, all of the armed forces, state police, major city police, other government agencies to get descriptions of these Frank Pollards. As we learn their height, weight, hair color of their eyes, race... we'll gradually eliminate them one by one. Better yet, if one of them is you, and if you've served in the military or been arrested for a crime, we might even be able to turn up a picture of you in one of those and confirm your ident.i.ty with a photo match." StarTING AT the desk, cadicorner from each other, Julie and Hal removed the rubber bands from more than half of the packets of cash. They sorted through the hundred-dollar bills, trying to determine if some of them had consecutive serial numbers that might indicate they were stolen from a bank, savings and loan, or other inst.i.tution.

Suddenly Hal looked up and said, "Why do those flowerlike sounds and drafts precede Frank when he teleports himself?"

"Who knows?" Julie said. "Maybe it's displaced air following him down some tunnel in another dimension, from the place he left to the place he's going."

"I was just thinking.... If this Mr. Blue is real, and if he's searching for Frank, and if Frank heard those flutes and felt those gusts in that alleyway... then Mr. Blue is also able to teleport."

"Yeah. So?"

"So Frank's not unique. Whatever he is, there's another one like him.

Maybe even more than one."

"Here's something else to think about," Julie said. "If Mr. Blue can teleport himself, and if he finds out where Frank is, we won't be able to defend a hiding place from him. He'll be able to pop up among us.

And what if he arrived with a submachine gun, spraying bullets as he materialized?" After a moment of silence, Hal said, "You know, gardening has always seemed like a pleasant profession. You need a lawnmower, a weed whacker, a few simple tools. There's not much overhead, and you hardly ever get shot at."

BOBBY FOLLOWED Frank into the office, where Julie and Hal were examining the money. Putting a sheet of paper on the desk, he said, "Move over, Sherlock Holmes. The world now has a greater detective."

Julie angled the page so she and Hal could read it together. It was a laser-printed copy of the information that Frank had filed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles when he had last applied for an extension of his driver's license.

"The physical statistics match," she said.

"Is your first name really Francis and your middle name Ezekiel?"

Frank nodded.

"I didn't remember until I saw it. But it is me, all right. Ezekiel."

Tapping the printout, she said, "This address in El Encanto Heights-does it ring a bell?"

"No. I can't even tell you where El Encanto is."

"It's adjacent to Santa Barbara," Julie said.

"So Bobby tells me. But I don't remember being their Except..."

"What?" Frank went to the window and looked out toward the distant sea, above which the sky was now entirely blue. A few early gulls swooped in arcs so huge and smoothly that their exuberance was thrilling to watch.

Clearly, Frank was neither thrilled by the birds nor charmed by the view.

Finally, still facing the window, he said, "I don't recall being in El Encanto Heights... except that every time I hear the name, my stomach sort of sinks, you know, like I'm on a roller coaster that's just taken a plunge. And when I try to think about El Encanto, strain to remember it, my heart pounds, and my mouth goes dry, and it's a little harder to get my breath So I think I must be repressing any memories I have of the place, maybe because something happened to me there, some thing bad...

something I'm too scared to remember."

Bobby said, "His driver's license expired seven years ago and according to the DMV's records, he never tried to renew it. In fact, sometime this year he'd have been weeded out even from their dead files, so we were lucky to find this before they expunged it." He laid two more printouts on the desk.