MEMP’IS

 

 

BOOK TWO – “SUSPICIOUS MINDS”

(Wednesday, January 3, 2035)

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE – “LITTLE SISTER”

 

 

 

Norlin closes the door softly, walks down the basement corridor to the atrium, down another corridor and knocks at a door with the placard 0611.  A voice replies "... come in!" and he enters another mildewy observation room, encountering Chief John Crum and one of his patrolmen, a vegetable soul whose Elvis-like sideburns overflowers Departmental standard.  Behind the glass, a skittish teenage girl cringes and chews her fingernails while the angry mother rails at a couple more uniforms.  John Crum glances wearily over to Norlin, pointing...

"Tastycakes!  Kid gets home from cheerleading last night and guess what... she's starting to bleed!  Says the middle-school moisture on her panties looks just like the King, so the mother thinks it's some sort of sign.  Wants to talk to somebody high up..."

          And John Crum's lip curls, fine as the King's, into a wolfish grin that exposes his long, yellow canines as Norlin realizes he's become the butt of another Trouble Factory joke.

          "I'm so kebbin' lucky!"

"Shoulda thought about it before you ratted out Max," Crum counseles.  "Oh... the angry dumpling's Mrs. Klort, and her little darlin' goes by the name... big surprise, here, you traitorous keb!... of Lisa Marie.  In you go..."

Norlin rubs at his hair in the glass, then opens the green door with the one-way lock that separates the observation and interview rooms.  The grateful uniforms shrink back against the wall - Mrs. Klort's piggy little eyes sweep over the intruder.

          "Are you... somebody?" she grunts.

          "Norlin, ma'am, I'm the head of C-Squad."  He extends a hand, ignored or... perhaps more specifically, rejected.  "Uh... that's for cheerleading..."

"They have a whole Department, just for cheerleading?" Mrs. Klort asks suspiciously.  "You're not in uniform."

          Norlin turns on the charm, whistling... in fact... a few bars of "The Wonder of You."  "They do, ma'am.  Cheerleading and... and, uh, Ceremonies, manifestations, all sorts of that, you know..." and he winks, confidentially... "Conspiracies!  I am a man undercover.  We take care of important, sensitive matters.  If I was in uniform, they'd suspect something, wouldn't they..."

          Mrs. Klort's tiny eyes glitter under her great, furrowed brow as she reasons, and comes to her conclusion.  "Oh... you're right.  Finally... a policeman with common sense."

          Sitting casually at the table's edge, he smiles, coaxing: "Lisa Marie... that's a pretty name... why don't you tell me just what happened."

The girl, thin and anxious in her yellow and green uniform, begins speaking hesitantly...

"We were doin' like splits... you know?... where I'm standing on shoulders of the bigger girls.  Jean and Raelynn, and I'm about to jump down and give 'em the "B" for Basilisk when there's this... like... explosion and I feel all wet, and Raelynn screams 'cause my blood's dripping over her hair, which she spent a whole hour styling, and Miss Nateson helps me down and gives me the talk..."

"That kebbin' atheist lesbian Nateson!" Mrs. Klort buts in "...as if her own mother wasn't good enough to...”

"Ma'am, what your daughter is saying is important," Norlin chides, but gently.  "Lisa, please go on..."

"Well, Coach Nateson gave me this towel so I put the panties in my bookbag and didn't take them out until this morning, they were dried out by then and, well... it does sorta look like him, if you hold it a certain way, doesn't it?"

          Norlin rubs his thumb and forefinger together, a proprietary, police gesture.  Jaw set in a determined aspect, Mrs. Klort opens her oversized purse, handing the reeking, crusty garment across the table.  Norlin raises them up to the hissing, sputtering fluorescent illumination of the observation room with a scholastic frown.

"Sorta does," the Corporal finally allows, waiting for the relieved gasps from daughter and mother.  "Listen, I'm takin' a chance on this.  There's an international college that analyzes everything pertaining to the King, and I'm going to send these on for an opinion.  Real hush-hush and expert-like, you know, so it might be a few months before I hear from them, but we'll keep in touch.  Here's my card..."

Squinting suspiciously, Mrs. Klort asks, again... "C-Squad?  What did you say the 'C' stands for?"

Nodding sagely, as if to endorse his complainant's attention to detail, Norlin leans forward and intimates: "Critical!  Critical cheerleading conspiracies that lead to coincidings in... uh... Ceremonial ways..."

          The metal clasps of the enormous purse snap shut like a rifleshot.

"Thank you, Officer.  I'm grateful to be turning this matter over to the professionals.  It's just... this wouldn't happen under a Martian calendar.  I don't like being forward - women should stay at home like Mrs. Jates did, but what's a mother to do?  Certainly not teaching or looking up the private parts of girls... can't you do anything about Miss Nateson..."

          "I'll see to it personally that her name goes into Drawer 21," Norlin winks...

“Drawer Twenty One... that sounds like it’ll make her sorry she was ever born.”  The grateful mother bullies her daughter out the door and, once the Klorts have gone, the secret door in the wall slides open, and Norlin tosses the panties on the table for John Crum, who picks them up, thumb and forefinger, as if handling a dead rat.

          "Run these over to Wire for processing... just in case," he tells the uniformed patrolman with the sideburns.  Elvis nods, crumpling the bloody undergarments in a mottled, sunburned fist, raises them to his brow in a salute, and departs.

Probably another collector, Norlin thinks as he tries making conversation.  "Anything in on your bank jobs?" he asks.

"Keb!" the Patrols Chief spits.  "Funny thing is why the perp dropped off his take, on that last job, instead of just fading away.  Lost everything he'd taken off from Third-Fifth National, down on Southwest Seventh... bank that handles mostly clones an' mutes, you know, somebody has to.  Only a few hundred, still... left under one of them godawful benches Compliance has to maintain at bus stops.  Kids got at it, of course, rounded up a dozen of the little kebs takin' time away from cuttin' people's ears off as they've started doin' to make them more... quote unquote... rectangular.  Recovered maybe half the swag.  Who knows, maybe confused the pickup guy.  Amateurs... good catch on Blue City, by the way.  One of those nuts actually having something to say..."

          "Everybody gets lucky, once in awhile," Norlin shrugs.  "Even C-Squad..."

John Crum fixes him with the infamous fish-eye stare, sharpened over years patrolling and supervising patrolmen on the Hamorite Strip.  "You tell anyone I said so... Clive, Germs, the Captain... I'll cut you a new, kebbin' fexhole!"