Robert Sawyer - Frameshift

The black man shook his head. He was in his early forties, with a dusting of snow throughout his close-cropped hair. “I don’t think so. I think he’s got a hell of a lot more to say.” He looked directly at Pierre.

“Don’t you?”

Pierre’s legs were trying to walk out from underneath him. “Well…”

“What business is it of yours?” said Molly, cutting Pierre off. The elevator had arrived and the doors slid open.

The black man reached into his jacket. For a horrible moment, Pierre thought he was going for a gun. But all he pulled out was a slim, much-worn leather business-card case. He handed a card to Molly. “I’m Barnaby Lincoln,” he said. “I’m a business writer for the San Francisco Chronicle .”

“What do — ?” began Pierre.

“I’m covering the shareholders’ meeting. But there’s a better story in what you were saying.”

“They can’t see the future — can’t see where it’s all going,” said Pierre.

“Exactly,” said Lincoln. “I’ve been covering insurance stories for years; all these guys are out of control. There needs to be federal legislation preventing the use of genetic profiles in determining insurance eligibility everywhere.”

Pierre was intrigued. Ivan Marchenko had been free for fifty years now; a few minutes more wouldn’t matter. “ D’accord ,” said Pierre.

“Can we go somewhere for coffee?”

“All right,” said Pierre. “But before we do, I need you to do me a favor. I need a photo of Abraham Danielson.”

Lincoln frowned. “The old man doesn’t like having his picture taken. We don’t even have a file photo of him at the Chronicle .”

“I’m not surprised,” said Pierre. “Do you have a telephoto lens here?

Surely you could snap off a shot from the back of the room. I need a good, clean head-and-shoulders picture of him.”

“What for?”

Pierre was quiet for a moment. “I can’t tell you now, but if you take the photo, and get me some prints of it right away, I promise you’ll be the person I call first when” — he knew the appropriate metaphor in French, but had to rack his brain for a moment to come up with the English equivalent — “when the story breaks.”

Lincoln shrugged. “Wait here,” he said. He went back into the auditorium. As the door opened, Pierre recognized Craig Bullen’s voice coming over the speakers. So much the better: Abraham Danielson had clearly sat back down and would hardly be on guard against his picture being taken now. Lincoln returned a few minutes later. “Got it,” he said.

“Good,” said Pierre. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Avi Meyer,” said a familiar Chicago-accented voice.

“Avi, it’s Pierre Tardivel at LBNL.” He hit the transmit button on his fax machine.

“Hey, Pierre. What’s new with Klimus?”

“Nothing, but—”

“We don’t have anything new, either. I’ve got an agent in Kiev, working on digging up records of his time in a displaced-persons camp, but—”

“No, no, no,” said Pierre. “Klimus isn’t Ivan Marchenko.”

“What?”

“I was wrong. He’s not Marchenko.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“Damn it, Pierre, we’ve spent months following this up on your insistence—”

“I’ve seen Marchenko. Face-to-face.”

“In Berkeley?”

“No, in San Francisco. And Molly saw him on a street wearing a trench coat.”

“What is this? The new version of Elvis sightings?” Avi breathed out loudly. His tone conveyed that he was regretting ever getting involved with an amateur sleuth. “Damn it, Pierre, who are you going to finger next?

Ross Perot? He’s got jug ears, after all. Or Patrick Stewart? There’s a suspicious-looking bald guy. Or the pope? Fucking guy’s got an Eastern European accent, and—”

“I’m serious, Avi. I’ve seen him. He’s using the name Abraham Danielson now. He was the founder of a company called Condor Health Insurance.”

Keyclicks in the background. “We’ve got no open file on a guy with that name, and — Condor? Aren’t those the people who have that abortion policy you don’t like? Goddamn it, Pierre, I told you not to fuck with Justice. I could have you jailed for this. First you sic us on your boss ‘cause he’s pissed you off somehow; now you try to get us to hound the guy whose company offends your delicate sensibilities—”

“No, I tell you I’ve got him this time.”

“Sure you have.”

“Really, damn it. This guy is a monster—”

“Because he encourages abortions.”

“Because he’s Ivan Grozny. Because he runs the Millennial Reich. And because he’s ordered the executions of thousands of people here in California.”

“Can you prove that? Can you prove one word of that? Because if you can’t—”

“Check your fax machine, Avi.”

“What? Oh… Just a sec.” Pierre could hear Avi setting down the handset and moving about the office. A moment later the phone was picked back up. “Where’d you get this picture?”

“A reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle took it.”

“That’s — what was the name you said? — Abraham Danielson?”

“That’s him.”

“Shit, he does look like Marchenko.”

“Tell me about it,” said Pierre with satisfaction.

“I’ll have my assistant dig up his immigration papers; that could take a couple of weeks. But if this doesn’t pan out, Pierre—”

“I know, I know. Anne Murray time.”

Amanda still hadn’t said anything aloud, although, according to Molly, she could mentally articulate several hundred words — many more than she’d yet to learn in American Sign Language.

Saturday afternoon meant it was time for Klimus’s weekly visit. The old man arrived at 3:00 p.m. He brought no gift for Amanda — he never did — but, as usual, he did have a small notebook in his breast pocket. He sat back on the couch, making notes about Amanda’s behavior and her ability to communicate with her hands. Throughout it all, Molly had to keep Amanda far out of her zone: Amanda understood that unless she was close to her mother, her mother couldn’t hear her thoughts, but she didn’t yet understand that this ability was a secret, and so Molly simply kept her distance, hoping that nothing in Amanda’s behavior would give it away to Klimus.

After two hours of this, Klimus got up to leave, but Molly sat down next to him on the couch. “Please stay,” she said.

Klimus looked surprised. He’d grown accustomed to Molly and Pierre’s hostility.

“What for?” he asked.

“Just to talk,” said Molly, inching even closer to him.

“About what?”

“Oh, this and that. Stuff. We don’t really know each other that well, and, well, if you are going to be part of the family, I figured we should—”

“I’m a very busy man,” said Klimus.

But Pierre sat down as well, in a chair facing the couch. “We’ve got more coffee on. It won’t be a minute.”

Klimus exhaled and spread his arms. “Very well.”

Amanda toddled over to her mother and started to climb into her lap, but Molly blocked Amanda’s way. “Go over to your father,” she said.

Amanda looked at the distance, obviously thinking the lap at hand was just as good, but then seemed to shrug slightly, and made her way across to Pierre, who lifted her up into his lap.

“Tell us a bit about yourself,” said Molly.

“For instance?”

“Oh, I don’t know. What TV shows do you like?”

“The only one I watch is 60 Minutes . Everything else is garbage.”

Pierre’s eyebrows went up. 60 Minutes had been where the story about Ivan Marchenko first broke; no wonder Klimus had known the name.