Last update: 22-Nov-1997 by ABS.
"You mean the Feds?" I asked, now curious even as I hustled away.
"Think bigger." He caught his breath and coughed. "The Big Heat. Watch out." And he vanished behind me into the mist.
Then all the lights went out, as I felt the horrible thud of the sap during my last remaining instant of consiousness, like the bouncer for life itself eighty-sixing me.
They might have gagged and bound me and tossed me into the black Pacific off the pier. Or maybe they chloroformed me and hauled me off to a construction site where they could take their time shooting me and dumping me in just the right wet cement. I'll never know. All I can be sure is that I died again that night.
Call me Name. State Name. I'm a private eye, and not a very good one. At least I wasn't until a few weeks ago. The jury is still out on how my new supernatural powers will affect my P.I. skills. Maybe if business picks up I'll be able to move out of Hollywood, to some place decent like downtown or Pasadena. Or Redlands. And maybe a secretary instead of a tiny outer waiting room and a beaded glass window to see them coming.
You see, I have this new, peculiar ability to remeber things I might've done wrong, but didn't. Is this making any sense? I can sometimes remember "the path not taken" when I get to a choice in life. It's like I can run the movie backwards and try again. I mean, I don't actrually see any moves backwards or anything. I don't think I'm getting this across.
Let me give you an example. A dame walks into my office. I think to myself, I'll be a wise guy and say, "You look like a hundred bucks!" Then I rember doing it, and having her knee me in the groin and slit my throat. I mean, I didn't do it, but I can remember what would happen if I did. So I don't. Instead I say, "Is it business or pleasure that brings you here?" And she says, "Pleasure," and pulls a 38 special out of her handbag. Now I remember trying to bluff her down and having her shoot me. So I don't. So I sit tight and then knock over the coat rack to distract her, and she shoots me anyway. So I die. Next thing I know, I wake up, I'm fine. I shave, shower and shine my shoes, mosey over to the office, and this dame shows up in the waiting room. Again I remember the knee in the groin. This time I rember the gun in the handbag, too. So I hop over to the file cabinet and pull my gun out of the file marked 'G' to be ready for her when she slides into my inner office.
I think you get the idea. It's been damned handy. But I really wish for the love of Saint Michael that I knew what was going on.
One: The Brunette in the Tight Fuscia Dress
This one began on a gray mid-morning on the 2nd of December, 1948. Case number Aleph Sub One. I call it "The Case of the Missing Fork."
I had just finally gotten used to the war being over. I was about to have a drink to celebrate this small victory when I realized she was there. I could smell her before I could see the shadow of her passing across the pebbled glass window set in my peeling wooden inner office door. She smelled like money -- not wealth, you read me, but fists full of dough, criminal money -- somehow it seems like the brunettes in tight fuscia dresses always do. I figured if I walked into Bullocks downtown, went down to the bargain basement, and asked for their most expensive perfume, I might end up with her fragrance, which of course she used too much of.
A wide straw hat with a fuscia ribbon helped the waves of brown hair hide her face. As she tilted back her head her fuscia lips came into view, just as she was saying, "Do you mind if I smoke?" A thin cigarette in a black holder appeared in her gloved hand, pressed to those lips. I'll let you guess what color the gloves were.
I fumbled for my Zippo and tried to come up with one of those witty things us tough guys are supposed to always be saying. I got stuck on "Do you mind if I drink?" Trouble is, they always do.
"Lady, you were smokin' when you came in here," was the best I could muster. She leaned forward as I lit the middle of her cigarette. Just thinking about it no w I hvae troubble typiong. But I kept my eye on her handbag.
"Please, Mr. Name, you have me at a disadvantage. I had hoped I would find you a gentleman." At last she exposed her baby browns, which she batted at me exsquisitely.
"The way I see it," I explained, composing myself, "you have a gun in your purse, I have a gun under my desk, and it looks more like a draw to me."
This made her sputter. The mum-sent-me-back-around-the-horn-to-Wellsley-prepatory-school-for-girls accent vanished beneath the waves. "It's not whacha think, Name." Her neck began to glow fuscia. She leaned forward to show me more of it, and said in a breathy voice, "I don't know who I can trust. I'm so afraid!"
"Me too," I agreed. "Talk to me."
"I hardly know where to begin," she protested.
"Well," I lit my own cigarette and leaned back in my broken wooden swivel chair, declining to put my feet on the desk in case of any upcoming gunplay, "you could start with your name, and then lead right in to why you need a Private Eye."
"Well, I'm Tootsie, Tootsie Role, and my grandfather's jeweled oyster fork has been stolen by a close family friend. We think he'll return it for money. We're hoping to avoid a scandal."
There was something fishy about her story already. "Why don't you go to the police?"
She tilted her hat back and brushed a hair away from her face. "The fork has some carved figures as part of the silver and jeweled handle, Mr. Name. It's an oyster fork, as I said." I could have sworn she winked without batting an eye. "Grandfather was a bit of a libertine, and a patron of the arts, you see. I'm not ashamed of him, really, but people would talk. Our friend knows that. He's very crafty. I just need you to negotiate the deal and handle the exchange."
"Well, Toots," I tolder her, putting my feet back on the floor, "I make one hundred dollars a day, plus expenses." I knew I was going to regret this. But at least her thirty-eight special stayed in her purse as she pulled out a crisp C note.
Two: A Wild Ride on the Santa Monica Red Car Line
I knew this was a dumb idea, but here I was squinting into the setting sun, hanging onto handles as I stood riding the trolley west to Ocean Street in Santa Monica, straight out Santa Monica Boulevard, also known as U.S. Route 66, through the west side at rush hour. Used to be the trolleys were fast and safe -- that was before they had to share the road with so many cars. And now Detroit had started making more cars again since the war was over.
That's right, I finally got used to it being peacetime. I was going to celebrate with a victory cup of Meade, which made what I was doing instead doubly dumb. Tripply dumb if you count that I was walking into a death trap and I knew it, and was counting on my new hypothetical memory to protect me.
Well no sooner had I started thinking like a paranoid when one of my real enemies took a shot at me. A 22 rifle by the sound of it, and of course everyone on the trolley started screaming and ducking and scattering.
I was remembering the future again. How I'd pulled out my police service revolver and started shooting back at the unseen sniper. How the crowd went crazy at that one, leaping out of the car, screaming down the street, and how a block later two blue-uniformed LAPD jumped on the outside steps in a crouch, then burst through the trolley car doors with guns blazing, mowing me down. Well, I guess I didn't want to try that defense.
I never really noticed before how closely the Red Cars pass each other, or how high the relative velocities are. Now I was hanging on the back of one trying to figure if I could jump onto the steps of the car coming the other way. Adrenaline poured through me. Time seemed to speed up. At Beverly Glen I jumped onto an eastbound on the Downtown line. At the L.A. Country Club we veered right onto the tracks down the middle of Wilshire Boulevard. At Vineyard I hopped onto a westbound on the Venice Beach line. Then at Culver Junction a grabbed a northbound on the Soldiers Home line -- I'd never ridden one of those before. Took me up past U.C.L.A. where I hopped off onto a bank and rolled down a wet, grassy hill into a rambling philadendron with huge roots somewhere on the edge of the yard of a modest mansion overlooking Sunset Boulevard.
I sat in the bush and waited for my heartbeat to slow down below my I.Q. Before that could happen, an approaching dog's bark pushed me on down the hill to the Boulevard, where I caught a bus to where Sunset ended at the ocean, then walked in the twilight fog along the edge of the surf the two miles south to Santa Monica pier. I'd be late with my rendevous with the "old family friend" who was waiting to blackjack me, but I didn't care. I needed some time to think.
I don't believe in spooks or goblins, or those medium types who claim that spirits of the departed dwell outside our nornal, three-dimensional space, and can turn socks inside out by flipping them over in the fourth dimension. But there was something very occult about what was happening to me. Fact number one: I could remember future mistakes, almost as if I could wind the clock backwards after I died. Was it always after I died? I thought about it. Yes, the evidence seemed to suggest that only after a deadly mistake could I back up and try again. Almost like a replay in a pinball game.
Fact number two: somebody was trying to kill me, the had a lot of soldiers, and it seemed like I was only one step ahead of them. I almost said to myself, it's like they know my every thought, my every move... But they didn't! They knew what I was likely. to do, how my thought processes tended to run. But they didn't know if and when I'd act impulsively! That was my secret weapon.
Clearly, I was going to have to stay on my toes, and keep doing the unpredictable.
Three: Sneaking Through the Fog
I was approaching the pier. The lights faded in and out throught the inconstant fog. "I sure wish I had a pair of binoculars," I muttered to myself.
"Would you like to borrow mine?" came a voice behind me. I whirled around and saw a jolly, white-haired man in a Hawaiian shirt, sitting on a folding beach chair. Without thinking, I shot him right between the eyes. Damn, I was wound too tight here.
The gunshot brought some men in windbreakers and wool hats down the stairs from the pier, carrying nets over their shoulders. I didn't like the looks of this at all. I turned and ran north up the beach, I was hoping into the fog, but I tripped and they caught up to me. They flung their nets on me and piled on themselves, and I felt a needle going into my haunch as a wave of grogginess came over me. Then I passed out. I'd gotten myself killed again.
I was approaching the pier. The lights faded in and out throught the inconstant fog. "I sure wish I had a pair of binoculars," I muttered to myself.
"Would you like to borrow mine?" came a voice behind me. I whirled around and saw a jolly, white-haired man in a Hawaiian shirt, sitting on a folding beach chair. A pair of binoculars hung around his neck.
"What the heck are you doing here?" I demanded.
"Waiting to watch the sunset," he explained, in raspy voice. "If this fog clears, it should set below the clouds, and then I might get a look at that mysterious 'green flash' that is so hard to see."
"Is tonight the special night, or something? Is this like the grunion running?" I wanted to know.
"No, I'm here most every night at dusk, and then I head over to Kelbo's for happy hour." He smiled, and his freckles wrinkled. "I've just always wanted to see the green flash. And, I learned in the South China Sea never to drink before the sun crosses the yard arm."
"You were in the War in the Pacific? I'm sorry, I should introduce myself. State Name, Private Investigations. I was in the Marines at Iwo Jima."
"Nice to meet you, State." He stood up and shook my hand. "I'm Ted Tinker. I was a radar technician on the U.S.S. Herbert Wells. Now I'm a radar engineer over at Hughes Aircraft. So, do you want to borrow these?" He held out the binoculars.
A few minutes later I was approaching the end of the pier from the park on Ocean Street, hiding behind the Camera Obsucra building as I peered throught the binoculars at the carousel. I was looking for that old man. I had a few questions for him.
I heard a noise behind me. I spun around to find the old man sitting on a park bench. I was getting sick of this.
I didn't waste any time. "Who is the Big Heat?" I demanded.
The fog was so thick I saw it pass between us, even though he was as close to me as a pulpit is to the front row of pews. He spoke in a near whisper. "Did you ever have a case where you stumbled on some corruption high up, and you wondered, how high does it go? Well, ask yourself, how high can it go? Think about that now."
"Are you talking about that new League of Nations thing? The -- uh -- Unified Nations? United Nations?"
"Think bigger."
"Men from Mars? What are you saying?"
"Wrong direction." He closed his eyes.
"Don't give me riddles, give me something I can use! I don't even know who I can trust."
"You can trust the old timers," he told me.
"Who are they? You mean folks like you? Why are you playing with me?" I pleaded. "Someone's trying to kill me!" I looked around in a panic. When I looked back he was gone. Only an old newspaper fluttering on the bench. I trotted over and looked at it for some unknown reason. The headline read: "NATIONAL GUARD QUELLS L.A. RIOTS ON DAY 4; LARGEST DAMAGE FROM CIVIL UNREST IN U.S. HISTORY" Riots? What riots? Then I noticed the date: April 19, 1992. And the paper was the Rancho Mirage Times, "serving the Coachella Valley." Obviously a gag paper, both for the date and the fact that there is no such place as Rancho Mirage in the Coachella valley. I should know, it's where Palm Springs is, and I've worked enough divorce cases out there. Rancho Mirage indeed.
But I picked up the paper, rolled it up and stuffed it in my inside coat pocket, on a hunch. I noticed that the engineer's binoculars were still hanging around my neck. Where did he say he was going for happy hour? Kelbo's? I didn't think there was any way I could get past the goons on the pier to chase down my only point of contact with the bad guys, so I decided to head inland. I took off up an alley to Third Street and then hailed a cab from in front of a hotel. "Kelbo's" I told the driver. Let him figure it out.
Turned out Kelbo's was this phoney Hawaiian place, just the kind of place where swabbies would reminisce about the war.
>>>notebook with engraving, lost earlier on bus
No matter how I played it after that, the fishermen from the pier caught me with the nets. I was about to give up on the pier altogether, when I tried something just before the needle went in.
"You guys work for the Big Heat?" I asked, from under the nets. "Do you know who you're really dealing with?" I was bluffing, of course. "I'll double what they're paying you. Did they threaten you? I can get you away from them." It didn't stop the needle from going in.
But I didn't die. I woke up in a dreamy trance in a warehouse, tied up and sitting in a wooden chair. At least I wasn't tied to the chair. I could fall down on the ground if I wanted to.
The goons were on the phone to somebody. They sounded worried. Good. They hung up. "How are we supposed to take him?" one asked the other. "Let's put him in the rumble seat." was the reply.
They did, but then they shut the rumble seat. It was like being in a small trunk. The deuce coupe these gangsters had probably stolen sped down the street and onto a major highway, near as I could tell, rumbling along under the rumble seat. They turned on the radio, and the speakers were mounted in the back seat, right next to me. Lousy jazz music blared, almost like torture. I lost track of time.
Eventually the car stopped, and so did the music, and they pulled me out into another warehouse, to meet Joe from New York. I only saw his silhouette. He was behind some kind of black screen.
"Who are you working for?" the shadowy figure demanded.
"Tootise Role," I said, truthfully. "And you must be working for the Big Heat." There was a silence. Maybe I stunned him.
"He doesn't know anything," he finally said. "He just heard those two words somewhere. Shoot him and feed his body to the mountain lion."
And they did.
I woke up in a dreamy trance in a warehouse, tied up and sitting in a wooden chair. At least I wasn' t tied to the chair. I could fall down on the ground if I wanted to.
The goons were on the phone to somebody. They sounded worried. Good. They hung up. "How are we supposed to take him?" one asked the other. "Let's put him in the rumble seat." was the reply.
They did, but then they shut the rumble seat. It was like being in a small trunk. The deuce coupe these gangsters had probably stolen sped down the street and onto a major highway, near as I could tell, rumbling along under the rumble seat. They turned on the radio, and the speakers were mounted in the back seat, right next to me. Lousy jazz music blared, almost like torture. I worked my hands free and yanked out the speaker wires. "Shit!" I heard one of them say. "The goddamn radio's on the fritz again."
I listened as they drove for hours. It was the most amazing conversation I ever eavesdropped on, at least up to that point.
"So, what's in this little book they gave me?" one of them asked the other. I called him Apprentice as I tried to sort out their relationship.
"Oh, the Guide?" responded the other, who I called Journeyman. "Well, it's got some useful stuff in it, but you have to read between the lines. Here, read some of it to me and I'll show you what I mean." Apparently Journeyman was driving.
"Where do I start?" asked Apprentice, "Here's the table of contents."
>>>
Five: Desert Playground of the Stars
>>> escape and recapture, earthquake, escape again into 1992 (ESRI Conference) >>> convention center, newspaper machine, tram to San Jacinto, storm death
I was approaching the pier. The lights faded in and out throught the inconstant fog. "I sure wish I had a pair of binoculars," I muttered to myself.
"Would you like to borrow mine?" came a voice behind me. I whirled around and saw a jolly, white-haired man in a Hawaiian shirt, sitting on a folding beach chair. A pair of binoculars hung around his neck.
>>> get "notebook" for saving state, meet at Kelbo's for ride to Palm Springs, Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory, another time axis. >>> "Well, I can recommend three books: All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven, The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold, and Schroedinger's Kitten's and the Search for Reality by John Gribben. But none of them will be written for over a generation."
>>> Office, look out window.
>>> Office, jump out window.