Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

Syd chewed her lip. “I don’t know. I don’t know, Dar. Nothing connects. But all the loose strings seem to point in his direction somehow.”

“You think Dallas Trace ordered his own son to be killed?”

“No, but—”

“You think he killed Esposito, Donald Borden, and the girl, Gennie Smiley?”

“I don’t know. If—”

“You think he’s the head of the Five Families, Chief Investigator? Squeezing it in between his law practice, his book writing, his weekly CNN show, his public appearances, his stints on Nightline and Good Morning America, his charity work, and his nights with that beautiful new child-bride?”

“Don’t get angry,” Syd said.

“Why the hell not? You knew he’d seen my accident reconstruction video before.”

“Yes.”

“So you dragged me in there just so you could watch him and he could see me . On the off chance that he’s the Big Man, you had him take a good look at me, so he would know for sure who to send his hit men after next time.”

“It’s not like that, Dar…”

“Bullshit,” said Dar.

They drove in silence for some time.

“If this conspiracy is as big as I believe it is—” began Syd.

Dar cut her off. “I don’t believe in conspiracies.”

Syd glanced at him.

“I believe in evil institutions,” said Dar, trying to control his anger but unable to keep his words light. “I believe in La Cosa Nostra and shitty car makers and evil people like tobacco merchants and those shitheads who give away baby formula to Third World mothers so they’ll keep on buying their baby formula even while the babies die of diarrhea from the filthy water…” Dar stopped and took a breath. “But conspiracies…no. Plots are like churches or other multicelled organizations—the bigger they get, the dumber they are. The law of inverse IQ.”

“If there are no conspiracies, what do you believe in, Dar?”

“What does it matter?”

“I’m just curious.” Syd’s voice was flat and emotionless now as well.

“Well, let’s see,” said Dar, looking out at the traffic mess ahead of them, the solid wedge of automobiles and trucks moving at ten miles per hour. “I believe in entropy. I believe in the unbounded limits of human perversity and stupidity. I believe in the occasional combination of those three elements to create a Friday in Dallas, Texas, with some asshole named Lee Harvey Oswald who learned to shoot well in the Marines getting a clear field of fire for six seconds…”

Dar stopped speaking. What the hell am I talking about? Had it been Dallas Trace’s arrogance or the death stench of the hospital that had set him off? Maybe he was just going crazy.

After several minutes of silence, Syd said, “And you don’t believe in crusades, either.”

He looked at her. At that moment she was a total stranger to him—certainly not the woman whose company and repartee he had enjoyed so much over the past several days…

“Crusades always end up sacrificing innocents. Like the original Crusades to free the Holy Land,” said Dar harshly. “Sooner or later it’s a fucking Children’s Crusade, and kids are on the front line.”

Syd frowned. “What are you so angry about, Dar? Vietnam? Or your work with the NTSB? The Challenger ? What are we—”

“Never mind,” said Dar. He was suddenly very tired. “The grunts in Vietnam had a saying for everything, you know.”

Syd watched the traffic.

“No matter what happened,” said Dar, “the infantrymen would learn to say, ‘Fuck it. It don’t matter. Move on.’”

The traffic stopped. The Taurus stopped. Syd looked at him and there was something more than anger in her eyes.

“You can’t base your philosophy on that. You can’t live like that.”

Dar returned her stare, and only when she looked away did he realize how angry his gaze must have been. “Wrong,” he said. “It’s the only philosophy that lets you live.”

They drove into San Diego in absolute silence. When they were near Syd’s hotel, she said, “I’ll take you up the hill to your condo.”

Dar shook his head. “I’ll walk to the Justice Center from here. They’re releasing my NSX from impoundment this afternoon and I’m meeting the body-shop guy there.”

Syd stopped the car and nodded. She watched him as he got out and stood on the curb. “You’re not going to help me any further with this investigation, are you?” she said at last.

“No,” said Dar.

Syd nodded.

“Thanks for…” began Dar. “Thanks for everything.”

He walked away and did not look back.

Tuesday was a big day for guns, culminating in a high-velocity rifle bullet aimed directly at Darwin Minor’s heart.

The day started dismally with more heat, more rain clouds threatening—unusual for Southern California for this time of year, of course, but almost all of Southern California’s weather was unusual at almost any time of year. Dar started his own day in a foul mood. His anger from the previous day bothered him. The fact that he would not see Sydney Olson again bothered him. The fact that this bothered him, bothered him the most.

The repairs to the NSX were going to cost a fortune. When Harry Meadows, his body-shop friend—and one of the few people in the state who could do decent bodywork on the Acura’s aluminum skin—met him at the Justice Center on Monday evening, all he could do was shake his head. The final estimate on repairs had made Dar take a full step backward.

“Jesus,” Dar had said, “I could buy a new Subaru for that.”

Harry had nodded slowly and mournfully. “True, true,” he said. “But then you’d have a fucking Subaru rather than an NSX.”

Dar could not argue with the logic of that. Harry had taken the bullet-scarred NSX away on a trailer, swearing that he would take as good care of the car as he would of his own mother. Dar happened to know that Harry’s aged mother lived in poverty in an un-air-conditioned trailer sixty-five miles out in the desert where he visited her precisely twice a year.

On Tuesday morning Lawrence called. There were several new cases that needed photographing. Lawrence did not know which ones would require reconstruction work—it depended upon which went to litigation and jury trials—but he thought that he and Dar should visit each site.

“Sure,” said Dar. “Why the hell not? I’m only about a month behind in my paperwork as it is.”

As Lawrence drove, he must have sensed something was wrong with Dar. There is a certain bond between men that goes deeper than verbal communication. Men who have known each other for years and worked together—occasionally on dangerous projects—begin to gain a sixth sense about their friends’ thoughts and emotions. This allows them to communicate on a level deeper than women could ever understand. Lawrence and Dar had just picked up coffee and donuts at a Dunkin’ Donuts in north San Diego when Lawrence said, “Something wrong, Dar?”

“No,” said Dar.

Nothing more was said.

The first accident site was halfway to San Jose. Lawrence parked the Trooper in the crowded parking lot of a low-rent condo complex and they walked over to the inevitable yellow-taped-crime-scene rectangle around a 1994 red Honda Prelude. The accident had occurred in the middle of the night, but there were still two uniformed officers there as well as a few gawkers—mostly gang-banger-aged kids in droopy shorts and three-hundred-dollar athletic shoes. Lawrence identified both himself and Dar to the nearest police officer, politely asked permission for Dar to take pictures, and then got a statement from the officer.