Kem Nunn - Chance

“Was anyone hurt?”

“There’s a whole story there,” Newsome said. “Guys in the Mercedes took off. Ran over a girl on a skateboard trying to get back on the road, then abandoned their car in Golden Gate Park, where contraband was found inside the vehicle.”

Chance didn’t ask about the contraband and Newsome didn’t say. He asked about the girl instead.

“Girl’s going to make it. But that’s only one piece of it. There was a homicide in progress with multiple victims at very nearly the same time and only blocks away. A dirty cop was involved so of course the media’s all over it. Front-page news as of today so I’m not telling you anything you won’t read in the papers.”

Chance was aware of certain physiological changes taking place, a distant, high-pitched ringing, a prickly sensation at his hairline. He wondered aloud about the men in the Mercedes.

“Still at large,” Newsome said. “But yeah… we’d love to find ’em. Witnesses made them as foreign looking. The dead cop had Romanian mob ties, but like I said, you can read all about it. Papers probably know more than I do at this point.”

Chance doubted it. He was beginning to doubt the detective’s conviviality as well. Surely, he thought, it was a trick on hoopleheads, a trap waiting to spring. He inquired after the old man.

“Nothing serious. Probably just too old to be driving… couple of onlookers said it was his fault.”

“How did they find me?”

“Some guy on the beach walking his dog. At least that’s what he said. He didn’t stick around. When we tried to trace the call, we hit a dead end. Phone was a burner. Do you know what those are?”

Chance said that he did.

“Doctors told me you weren’t remembering much about the incident. I’m wondering if you remember why you were there?”

“I enjoy the walk up to the old baths and I needed to clear my head,” Chance told him. “We’ve been having some trouble with my daughter…” This is how it begins, he thought, the cat and mouse of it.

“I understand there was a missing persons report filed but that now she’s back.”

“Still some things there we need to address, but yes, it was a great relief. The last thing I remember is getting out of my car, putting my keys in my pocket.”

“That would have been by the Cliff House.”

Chance nodded but he was thinking about his pockets and what else might be there… a little sheath with wires on it.

“You’re a doctor, they tell me.”

“Neuropsychiatry.”

“Interesting stuff,” Detective Newsome said. “Does the name Raymond Blackstone mean anything to you?”

Chance said that it did not, but pretended to deep reflection. “Of course, I’ve seen many patients over the years, but the name does not stand out.”

“Well,” Newsome told him. “He’s the cop I was telling you about, but he was also one of the victims. He was found nearby but witnesses have also placed him near the Cliff House. Do you recall seeing anyone else anywhere near you before you fell?”

“The answer to that is no. My amnesia for the event is quite complete. It’s my guess that I’m missing about an hour altogether.”

“Weird how that works, isn’t it? But then I’d guess you’d know more about it than most.”

“We are continually in the business of laying down memory,” Chance told him, only too happy for the opportunity. “With an injury… such as mine… that physiological process inside the brain gets interrupted. But as to exactly how or why the retrograde component can vary so wildly… why there are people whose memory loss may be a matter of minutes while others may lose months or even years…”

“And it’s not just the severity of the injury?”

“That’s of course a factor, but there may also be psychological factors… psychogenic amnesia… We tell ourselves stories to make sense of who we are. Certain types of highly charged, highly traumatic events are simply too terrible to fit into the narrative we have created. So we block them out. You find this in soldiers, others with post-traumatic stress…”

“Cops.” Newsome was smiling at him.

“Police officers are certainly in a position to have those kinds of experiences.” He supposed it was time to rein it in.

“And what are the chances that any of this comes back?”

“That too varies. Some people, over time, will remember everything. Others never do.”

Detective Newsome produced a card. “You get any of it back, call me.” He placed his card on the table at Chance’s side. “You’re an interesting guy. I’d enjoy talking some more, when you’re up to it.”

“The nurse said you’d taken my clothes.”

“Yeah, sorry. We want to look them over, see if maybe you and Blackstone came into contact or were victims of the same perp.”

“Really?”

Newsome shrugged. “We’re still trying to determine where exactly Blackstone was injured. Like I said, he was seen at Ocean Beach. Same location the guys in the Mercedes were trying to get away from, in a hurry. And here you are… a doctor. Maybe you saw something out there, tried to help. Lab may tell us more… fibers, hairs, blood… Let me put it like this. I’m not a big believer in coincidence. Goes with the job, is what my wife tells me.” He smiled once more.

With Newsome gone, Chance rang for additional morphine and a copy of the day’s paper.

The detective had been right of course. It was all there, the obvious stuff anyway. Raymond Blackstone had been found dead in a room at the Blue Dolphin Motel. Incriminating evidence had been found at the scene linking the former homicide detective to a prostitution and human trafficking ring with ties to a Romanian mob based in Oakland. As to whether or not the body had been moved, as Newsome had suggested, the papers weren’t saying. A second body had also been found in the motel, a Romanian male with ties to the same Oakland-based mob. Two more men, also believed to be Romanians, had been seen fleeing the scene of an accident at nearby Ocean Beach. These men were also wanted for a second hit-and-run incident involving a pedestrian and finally there was mention of the San Francisco–based doctor, name withheld, who had fallen from a cliff at very nearly the same time and place as the two hit and runs.

There was a good deal of speculation as to how all of these things had occurred in such close proximity to one another and what if any were the connections between them but little in the way of fact. Additional witnesses had yet to come forward and authorities were still looking for the men in the Mercedes. Anyone with information was being asked to contact the police.

Chance stayed where he was and willed himself to remember, to little avail. It occurred to him that Jean-Baptiste had for a time trafficked in hypnosis and was supposed to have been quite effective. A phone call to the building, however, informed him that Jean-Baptiste’s condition had worsened suddenly. He was in the building but had withdrawn to his apartment and was declining calls.

In the absence of verifiable fact there was little for it but to work with what he had. Certainly he and Blackstone had come within reach. The Starlight coupe had collided with the Mercedes. Horns had sounded, but here already he was into the realm of conjecture. Horns would have sounded. Metal would have screamed and given way. Glass would have broken. Anyone even remotely near the scene would have turned to look. Chance would have taken the opportunity to plunge his blade into Blackstone’s chest at a point more or less even with the second button of the pale blue dress shirt the detective had worn… And all of this seemed to have happened… the bloodred blossoming across another’s chest… the rhythms of a heart in cardiac arrest felt even by way of steel run to the aortic arch…