David Baldacci: Memory Man

He looked down at his clothes. Another problem. He glanced around and saw the storefront. He had bought some things there before. A long time before.

Grady’s Big and Tall Shop.

Well, I’m big and I’m tall. Right now I’m bigger than I am tall.

He slid out his credit card. It had a limit. A pretty low limit. But it might just be enough.

He went to the shop and the doorbell tinkled when he walked in.

A well-dressed, rotund man came over to him and then just as quickly took a step back.

“Can I help you?” he said from a respectful distance. He probably thought Decker was homeless and looking to rob him.

Decker took out his wallet and flashed his PI badge. He did it fast so it looked like something else. He glanced down the street toward the precinct to add another layer to this subterfuge. Lying did not come naturally to him. And after the hit on the gridiron his filter had been vastly reduced, so it was even harder for him not to always tell the literal truth. He instinctively craved precision and was reluctant to accept anything less than that. Yet as a policeman who often moved in the underbelly of the criminal world, he had had to prevaricate. As a detective and now a PI, he had to be able to bullshit, otherwise his job would have been impossible. He had finally struck on a method that had seemed to work.

I will lie, perfectly.

He said to the man, “I’ve been working an assignment for too long. Let myself go. Chase rats you have to look like one. Gotta get back to civilization. Understand?”

The man had followed Decker’s gaze to the precinct and nodded. His manner relaxed. He even smiled.

“You’re not the first,” he said encouragingly. “We get lots of customers from the Burlington Police Department.”

“I’ve shopped here before,” said Decker.

“Sure, I remember you,” lied the man.

Decker shopped fast. Jacket, size fifty-four extra long. Pants, size forty-eight, which were still snug, and he let his belly droop over the waistband as many out-of-shape men did. He opted against purchasing a belt. His pants were definitely not going to fall down. Luckily his legs were long and he could get a pair already hemmed that fit. Shirt, mammoth. Tie, cheap but effective. Shoes, size fourteens. He opted for the faux leather. They pinched his feet. He didn’t care.

“Wouldn’t happen to have a brush and an electric razor?” asked Decker, looking in the mirror.

“In our toiletries section over here.”

“Briefcase?”

“Accessories, over here.”

He paid for everything on credit. When Decker asked, the clerk threw in a legal pad and some pens that he had behind the counter in a box of office supplies.

“They keep cutting our budget,” Decker explained. “How do we protect people if we can’t even afford pens?”

“It’s a crying shame,” said the man. “World’s going to hell. You interested in a tie clip or pocket square?”

Decker took everything to the restroom, rinsed off in the sink, rolled on antiperspirant he had purchased, buzzed off much of his beard, leaving only a shallow layer of fuzz over his chin, jaw, and upper lip, trimmed and tidied his hair, dressed in his new clothes and shoes, and put the old ones in the store’s bag.

He walked out carrying the bag and headed back to the precinct. The tie cut into his throat, and despite the deodorant, he already felt a bit sweaty under the armpits, though the air was cool. But he didn’t look like he had looked before. He hadn’t looked this respectable even when he’d been a cop.

He added the bag of clothes to the gun in the trash can and marched up the steps of the precinct. He knew this was stupid. Insane. He hadn’t been gone that long from the force. He could be recognized at any moment, like with Pete Rourke. But he didn’t care. He really didn’t. This was his shot. Maybe his only one. He was taking it.

He cleared the magnetometer. There was one young cop in the lobby manning the entrance. Decker didn’t know him and he didn’t know Decker.

Good and good.

He walked over to the information desk. The elderly woman sitting there was obviously not in uniform. She must be a civilian. Having a uniformed officer sitting at the front desk was not a smart deployment of resources.

His cover story formed in his head, Decker looked down at her. She looked up at him. Her eyes widened, perhaps simply to take in the whole of him.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“You have a prisoner in the holding cell, Sebastian Leopold?”

She blinked in confusion. “I’m not sure what you—”

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“And who are—”

“He needs counsel. I don’t think anyone has been appointed to rep him yet.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Sixth Amendment, right to counsel. Can’t be denied. Just need a few minutes with him.”

“I’ll have to phone—”

“If you have to you have to. But I know things are pretty hairy around here right now. So if you don’t get an answer, I just need a few minutes with him.”

Decker lifted up his briefcase so she could see it and patted the side. “His arraignment is coming up. He’ll need to be prepped for the plea. I’ve got some ideas.”

“If you could have a seat.”

Decker looked around at the police officer manning the magnetometer. He was staring at Decker, which was not good.

Realizing he might have just blown a bunch of money he didn’t have on lawyer-looking attire, Decker sat down in a chair bolted to the wall and waited. The old woman picked up her phone and slowly, ever so slowly, punched in numbers.

Numbers. Always numbers.

They had a hypnotic effect on him, sending him to places he didn’t always want to go.

Decker closed his eyes and his mind began to whir, back... back to the day, no, to the exact moment when his life changed forever.

THE CROWD WENT berserk every time the hit was replayed on the megatron, and that was often, I was told later. My helmet flew five feet and rolled another six, ending at the feet of a zebra who picked it up and maybe checked inside to see if my head was still in there.

I think my brain bounced against my skull multiple times like a bird trying to introduce itself to a window until its neck snaps.

Yep, the crowd cheered and whooped whenever the megatron belched out the replay.

Then I was told that they stopped cheering. Because I didn’t get up. Because I didn’t move a muscle. And then someone noticed I had stopped breathing and had also turned blue. They told me the head trainer was alternating pounding on my chest like a punch press attacking metal slabs and blowing air into my mouth. Later, they told me I died on the field twice but he brought me back both times from the hereafter. They told me he was screaming in my ear, “Hang on, ninety-five. Hang the hell on.” I was such a nobody that he knew my jersey number but not my name. My professional football player identity was a nine and a five printed on my chest. Nine and five. Violet and brown in my counting colors mind. I never consciously assigned colors to numbers. My brain did it for me without my permission.

The collision changed everything about me, because it essentially rewired my brain. So I died, twice, and then came back, essentially as someone else. And for the longest time I thought that would be the most awful thing that would ever happen to me. And then came that night and those three bodies in neon blue, and the gridiron blindside dropped to a distant number two on the list of my personal devastations.

“Excuse me, sir? Sir?”

Decker opened his eyes to see the woman staring down at him. Not the old lady from behind the desk. She was far younger, maybe in her late twenties, dressed in black slacks and a light blue blouse with the two top buttons undone. She had a fresh complexion and an optimistic, efficient air about her. She must be very new, he thought. She wouldn’t look this way in a year. Or maybe even in six months. Dealing with scumballs all day aged you faster than the sun.