Post a response to this discussion thread
RBB [voiceover]: She didn't like the tone of my voice, but I didn't care. I had to cut through the fog of emotion and yearning and confusion that was threatening to swamp me, and if I had to get her angry to do it, then that was what I was going to do.
RBB: Look, lady, you came to me with some story about being a marine biologist and dealing with an expedition to Kamchatka and missing coelenterates and a hole in your memories. It sounds like a bad episode of THE X-FILES to me, and besides, you know something about Jason Cranky and what he has done to me. Now talk.
NAMAGOMI: I don't know who would be wanting to shoot at me, I swear to you! And I truly do not remember anything about what happened to me in that missing time. All I remember is a name ... a strange name ... timleary
RBB: What was that? Dr. Timothy Leary? He's dead, and his ashes were shot into earth orbit to burn up on re-entry about a year back.
RBB [voiceover]: I had to keep her off balance. Her voice was still getting to me. It was the kind of voice that soon would reduce me -- well, most of me -- to jelly, and that would be of no use to either of us.
NAMAGOMI: No, for some reason I remember it as just one word, all lower-case letters: timleary. I also remember the word Nexus and some kind of dog ...
RBB: Dog?
NAMAGOMI: This one is mixed up with some old song.
RBB: What old song?
NAMAGOMI: Something that poor Jim Croce used to sing. You remember?
RBB [voiceover]: She started to sing, softly, a cappella, and I swore under my breath as I felt tears in my eyes and a pain in my heart. It was partly her voice -- a beautiful, pure mezzosoprano that reminded me of my one true love. But it was something more, something that reminded me of painful experiences back in L.A. She was singing "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" by Jim Croce, and I knew where she was going -- she was about to get to the phrase "junk-yard dog."
RBB: Enough, dammit!
NAMAGOMI: Professor Bernstein, I came to you for help. I did not come here to be sworn at.
RBB: I apologize. I usually speak that way only to pseudoclever libertarians.
NAMAGOMI: Well, I am neither a libertarian nor -- what was that word -- pseudoclever?
RBB: My own coinage. Sorry.
NAMAGOMI: You think that the shooting was intended for me? And that all this is mixed up with my missing memories?
RBB: It's the only theory I've got.
RBB [voiceover]: I didn't tip her to the other theory that was scuttling around the back of my mind -- that the bullet was meant for me, as a warning. But a warning from whom? And why? But then the lady proved that she *was* clever.
NAMAGOMI: There *was* one other person sitting at that table, after all. Maybe the bullet was meant for you?
RBB: Why do you say that?
NAMAGOMI: We have to think about all the possibilities, do we not?
RBB: We?
NAMAGOMI: Will you help me?
RBB [voiceover]: I looked at her, and she looked back at me. Her magnificent eyes were flashing, and her chest was heaving with emotion, and the combination took my breath away. Her hands were clasped on the table before her, the knuckles white with tension. I always was a pushover for a pair of strong, well-shaped hands, and her voice was already doing things to me that some part of my mind was screaming in protest about. But I wasn't going to listen to that part of my mind. It often saved my butt, but just as often it had denied me happiness and peace out of a misguided desire to protect myself from being hurt. Not any more, I swore to myself, not any more.
RBB: OK, I'll help you. What should the next move be?
NAMAGOMI: I thought I'd be asking you that.
RBB: It's better to figure out what your thought processes are, because they may well help cast some light on what you are having trouble remembering. Right now, we have two clues -- timleary and the phrase "junk yard dog." I'm afraid they point in one direction.
NAMAGOMI: Where is that?
RBB [shuddering]: Southern California.
[to be continued....]
Post a response to this discussion thread