MEMP’IS
BOOK
TWO – “SUSPICIOUS MINDS”
(Wednesday,
January 3, 2035)
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!"