Philip Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

“They’re systematically taking all victimless crimes off the books,” the corporal said. “That’s been the process for ten years.”

“ This? This is victimless?”

To Mufi, the corporal said, “What do you find about young boys that you like? Let me in on it; I’ve always wondered about scans like you.”

“‘Scans,’ “Mufi echoed, his mouth twisting with discomfort. “So that’s what I am.”

“It’s a category,” the corporal said. “Those who prey on minors for homosexual purposes. Legal but still abhorred. What do you do during the day?”

“I’m a used-quibble salesman.”

“And if they, your employers, knew you were a scan they wouldn’t want you handling their quibbles. Not after what those hairy white hands have been handling outside the workday. Right, Mr. Mufi? Even a used-quibble salesman can’t get away morally with being a scan. Even if it’s no longer on the books.”

Mufi said, “It was my mother’s fault. She dominated my father, who was a weak man.”

“How many little boys have you induced to go down on you during the last twelve months?” the corporal inquired. “I’m serious. Are these all one-night stands, is that it?”

“I love Ben,” Mufi said, staring fixedly ahead, his mouth barely moving. “Later on, when I’m better off financially and can provide, I intend to marry him.”

To the boy Ben, the corporal said, “Do you want us to take you out of here? Return you to your parents?”

“He lives here,” Mufi said, grinning a little.

“Yeah, I’ll stay here,” the boy said sullenly. He shivered. “Cripes, could you give me the covers back?” He reached irritably for the top blanket.

“Just keep the noise level down in here,” the corporal said, moving away wearily. “Christ. And they took it off the books.”

“Probably,” Mufi said, with confidence now that the pols were beginning to depart from his bedroom, “because some of those big overweight old police marshals are screwing kids themselves and don’t want to get sent up. They couldn’t stand the scandal.” His grin grew into an insinuating leer.

“I hope,” the corporal said, “that someday you do commit a statute violation of some kind, and they haul you in, and I’m on duty the day it happens. So I can book you personally.” He hawked, then spat on Mr. Mufi. Spat into his hairy, empty face.

Silently, the team of pols made their way through the living room of cigarette butts, ashes, twisted-up packs, half-filled drink glasses, to the corridor and porchway outside. The corporal yanked the door shut, shivered, stood for a moment, feeling the bleakness of his mind, its withdrawal, for a moment, from the environment around him. He then said, “Two eleven. Mrs. Ruth Gomen. Where the Taverner suspect has to be, if he’s anywhere around here at all, it being the last one.” Finally, he thought.

He knocked on the front door of 211. And stood waiting with his plastic and shot nightstick gripped at ready, terribly and completely all at once not caring shit about his job. “We’ve seen Mufi,” he said, half to himself. “Now let’s see what Mrs. Gomen is like. You think she’ll be any better? Let’s hope so. I can’t take much more of that tonight.”

“Anything would be better,” one of the pols beside him said somberly. They all nodded and shuffled about, preparing themselves for slow footsteps beyond the door.

In the living room of Ruth Rae’s lavish, lovely, newly built apartment in the Fireflash District of Las Vegas, Jason Taverner said, “I’m reasonably sure I can count on forty-eight hours on the outside and twenty-four on the inside. So I feel fairly certain that I don’t have to get out of here immediately.” And if our revolutionary new principle is correct, he thought, then this assumption will modify the situation to my advantage. I will be safe.

THE THEORY CHANGES—

“I’m glad,” Ruth said wanly, “that you’re able to remain here with me in a civilized way so we can rap a little longer. You want anything more to drink? Scotch and Coke, maybe?”

THE THEORY CHANGES THE REALITY IT DESCRIBES.

“No,” he said, and prowled about the living room, listening … to what he did not know. Perhaps the absence of sounds. No TV sets muttering, no thump of feet against the floor above their heads. Not even a pornochord somewhere, blasting out from a quad. “Are the walls fairly thick in these apartments?” he asked Ruth sharply.

“I never hear anything.”

“Does anything seem strange to you? Out of the ordinary?”

“No.” Ruth shook her head.

“You damn dumb floogle,” he said savagely. She gaped at him in injured perplexity. “I know,” he grated, “that they have me. Now. Here. In this room.”

The doorbell bonged.

“Let’s ignore it,” Ruth said rapidly, stammering and afraid. “I just want to sit and rap with you, about the mellow things in life you’ve seen and what you want to achieve that you haven’t achieved already…” Her voice died into silence as he went to the door. “It’s probably the man from upstairs. He borrows things. Weird things. Like two fifths of an onion.”

Jason opened the door. Three pols in gray uniforms filled the doorway, with weapon tubes and nightsticks aimed at him. “Mr. Taverner?” the pol with the stripes said.

“Yes.”

“You are being taken into protective custody for your own protection and welfare, effective immediately, so please come with us and do not turn back or in any way remove yourself physically from contact with us. Your possessions if any will be picked up for you later and transferred to wherever you will be at the time.”

“Okay,” he said, and felt very little.

Behind him, Ruth Rae emitted a muffled shriek.

“You also, miss,” the pol with the stripes said, motioning toward her with his nightstick.

“Can I get my coat?” she asked timidly.

“Come on.” The pol stepped briskly past Jason, grabbed Ruth Rae by the arm, and dragged her out the apartment door onto the walkway.

“Do what he says,” Jason said harshly to her.

Ruth Rae sniveled, “They’re going to put me in a forced-labor camp.”

“No,” Jason said. “They’ll probably kill you.”

“You’re really a nice guy,” one of the pols—without stripes—commented as he and his companions herded Jason and Ruth Rae down the wrought-iron staircase to the ground floor. Parked in one of the slots was a police van, with several pols standing idly around it, weapons held loosely. They looked inert and bored.

“Show me your ID,” the pol with stripes said to Jason; he extended his hand, waiting.

“I’ve got a seven-day police pass,” Jason said. His hands shaking, he fished it out, gave it to the pol officer.

Scrutinizing the pass the officer said, “You admit freely of your own volition that you are Jason Taverner?”

“Yes,” he said.

Two of the pols expertly searched him for arms. He complied silently, still feeling very little. Only a half-assed hopeless wish that he had done what he knew he should have done: moved on. Left Vegas. Headed anywhere.

“Mr. Taverner,” the pol officer said, “the Los Angeles Police Bureau has asked us to take you into protective custody for your own protection and welfare and to transport you safely and with due care to the Police Academy in downtown L.A., which we will now do. Do you have any complaints as to the manner in which you have been treated?”

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Enter the rear section of the quibble van,” the officer said, pointing at the open doors.

Jason did so.

Ruth Rae, stuffed in beside him, whimpered to herself in the darkness as the doors slammed shut and locked. He put his arm around her, kissed her on the forehead. “What did you do?” she whimpered raspingly in her bourbon voice, “that they’re going to kill us for?”