MEMP’IS

BOOK TWO – “SUSPICIOUS MINDS”

(Wednesday, January 3, 2035)

CHAPTER ELEVEN – “JAILHOUSE ROCK”

...all through the night, Norlin presumes, once he, Ice and Homes return to C-Squad after clocking-in and roll call. Numb, muffled, angry and... well... desperate. Ice, having brought in a case of Integral Herbal 76, his preferred strength, backhands the prisoner as he kicks open the door to the refrigerator.

Ripping off Frank's gag, Eric asks: "Ready to drop the dime on the Iatollah of your funhouse mirror mob? He some sort of invalid, pushin' pawns around a checkerboard til' they fall over? An individualist?... or else an unknown, some enigma in a crummy lozenge above the Hamorite Strip?"

"Keb you!"

"How 'bout the Zeutrons?" he persists, overflowing with uncommon cheerfulness after his own refreshing evening on the Strip.

"Ask 'em yourself, jateshole! You're the keb what used to mob wit' 'em..."

"Thing is, Frank..." Norlin intervenes, "...everybody does stupid keb when they're young. Goes with the territory... right? That's what being young is for. But those as don't get killed or sent up to Feliciana, well... they grow up. Most of 'em..."

"Keb you, asshole!" Frankie lashes back. "Jatesholes! Take your precious piss, and..."

He's silenced, abruptly, by the hamlike fist of Homer Sack, driven into his stomach.

"You do not use the name of Master Jates in vain," snarls the believer, "not here..."

Sack's intensity discomfits even the usually-diffident Officer Ice. "Hey Homes... take it easy. He's still... heh heh... unarmed!"

Frank tries to voice something defiant, but something has broken within his thorax, and he can only manage a sputter of bloody froth.

"Think he means it, Frank," Norlin nods, warning Homer away with a glance. "Think it over. Maybe, when you can talk again, you'll talk about this guy in Cain Circus, Northeast. Sells illegal sausage outta backs of hydrovans that we know's been tapping into public electricity. Meat sausage... high fat, very criminal? Or that bunch puttin' up those meters, their own parking meters all over the Southeast, slashin' tires?"

"Live rat's better than dead peevee hero..." Eric chimes in.

Frank's head sags, blood drips to the greasy linoleum of C-Squad. Norlin activates his pleader, scrolls down the morning's electronic messages. There are summaries warning of the development of new, simulated-clean urine from the Far East, fugitive alerts from the New Betty Ford complex and a notice from the desk of Germany Smith, mandating: "All Intelligence and Intelligence-related personnel will give full co-operation in the matter of maintenance of the Trouble Factory's fifteen percent commission on pan-American asset forfeiture, investigation to be under the auspices of Eb Parlance, NMC, and Furman Jones, LLD, MPCR, Jd Sc."

"Ever heard of this kebbin' Jones, Corpse?" asks Ice, peering over Norlin's shoulder.

"Furman Jones may be a WestAmerican agent, working under the auspice of the Granted Liberties Organization," Norlin opines. "Parlance is a burn-man, but I haven't any intelligence on the parameters of his latest scam."

"Wants a slice of our slices?"

"Pretty much..."

"Keb ‘im!" says Ice. There's a sharp knock, and Clem Clarke, Detective... waiting upon Norlin's invitation to enter, like a vampire of the law, and order... hovers at the threshold of C-Squad. His one good eye scans the Corporal, his men and the prisoner.

"Can we do anything for you?" Norlin sighs.

Clem Clarke stretches and says, cunningly, "...there was a burglary, last night, in Blue City. Just as you reported... or, shall we say, predicted? In your report, yesterday..."

"Did I write that?" Norlin frowns.

"You did. Which brings us to the matter of how you knew."

"I.... I had a confidential informant," says the commander of C-Squad.

"A nut!" Eric chimes in.

"I'll be judge of that. By definition, Ice, informants who provide responsible information to the Trouble Factory are assets." The Detective's good eye intimidates Frankie from making the wisecrack he'd opened his bloody mouth to utter. "Unless, Norlin, his handler chooses to keep confidential information confidential from his superiors... well then, it's obstruction. We're not dealing with obstruction here, Norlin, are we?"

"I don't know what we're dealing with," Norlin exhales, scratching behind his ear. "The only information I received mentioned a burglary in Blue City...not even where it took place. Would I be out of order in asking?"

Clem Clarke's foot taps the greasy linoleum floor of C-Squad. "Asking where?" Norlin persists.

"At about twenty three hundred hours last night," Clarke finally admits, "the constabulary up in Blue City received a complaint from Professor Grover Pearson that his residence had been entered and objects taken..."

"Crime happens," Norlin shrugs. "Even in Blue City..."

"Pearson's a giglio. Dean of Astrophysics at Man Ray, and one of the foremost partisans in the calendrical controversy..." Clem Clark replies, almost yawning.

"For Mars?" Eric perks up, "...or Venus?

"None of your business. Suffice it to say that the Blue City cops are in over their square, crop-eared suburban heads. Kebbin' old Zeuts! We sent Patrols over there, 'round midnight," the Chief of Detectives sighs, "and I'm headed there myself at thirteen hundred hours. You, you win the blue ribbon, on account of your report... I'm taking you and that... that loaner from the Sun Police, Henry kebbin' yellow Hat! And Cattigan! Haulin' a real menagerie up to Blue City, I am. Be in my office no later 'n twelve thirty, Norlin... better make it twelve twenty."

Clem Clark lets himself out and Eric Ice begins to sing an altered standard from the King...

"...don't want no one-eyed love! Baybee, you're the one Clem's thinking of..."

"Shut up, Eric," Norlin threatens, "...or I'll make you come, too!"

"And get my ass away from C-Squad for a whole kebbin’ hour? Sign me up..."

The autocom buzzes, relieving Norlin of the necessity of a reply. Pointing to the files on Eric's desk, he orderes: "Back to work, clerks."

It's Angie, or Alice... one of those. "Personal and confidential... yeah!... for Corporal Norlin. Peg Reilly."

"I'll take it," the Corporal answers, as Eric sniggers into his palm and Homer Sack pretends to be absorbed in Departmental paperwork.

Norlin adjusts his headphones and kills the speaker, to the dismay of Ice, Homes... even Frankie.

"Norlin."

"Officer Norlin... it's Peg. Peg Reilly..."

"Peg?"

"They were all there, all night... Victor, the quick-sketch man, the dogs. The foundations of justice undermined," Peg Reilly gasps, "...surely as piping gas out from beneath Texas caused Amarillo to fall down that underground canyon in WestAmerica..."

Norlin closes his eyes, as if telepathically willing that Peg should see... and believe... that he is devoting vast resources of mental concentration to her concerns.

“Good... good girl, Peg," he says, gravely. "Put it in a letter – a memo to Germany Smith."

Norlin shuts off the autocom, but it buzzes right back at him... another angry hornet flying out of a disturbed hive... John Crum from Patrols on the line...

"Norlin... got a situation, a walk-in," the Chief barked. "Right up your alley..."

"John... I gotta go out to Blue City in less than an hour..."

"I know. This won't take long, but we need your expertise. Compliance. Interview room eleven, we'll be waiting on you..."

Norlin switches off the autocom with a disoriented pique, and pride... knowing what even the small gesture has cost the Patrols Chief. "K'ball!" he swears. "Nothin's supposed to happen in C-Squad... all of a sudden, we're hotter than Triple-J's permanent residence."

Homer doesn't rise to the dig, but Frankie does. "Hey!... hey, I'm still here, assholes," he whines. "Get me outta here!..."

"Eric, you're in charge for the duration," Norlin snaps, looking down at the fex on his desk. "Deal with Frankie as you see fit..."

"Oh, I will! Hey, there's one-percent shares of a five percent Frank White goin' on the block, Monday the fifteenth... or whatever day they make it... wanna go in wit' me?"

"Sounds kinda diluted," Norlin scowls. "And who's kebbin' Frank White? 'Nother of them blown-up baseball players from the oughts?"

"Keb only insiders appreciate. Ran for Governor of Arkansas back in the day... Clintons challenged him to piss in a bottle, both of em, blew 'im out of the water when he stood on principles, for a while, and a couple of Presidencies were born. Very esoteric, very high-end, low-profile..."

"Very watery, Eric. Talk to you later."