Death Match (23 page)

“
No!
” Handerling screamed: a thin, high keening sound.

“Come now, Mr. Handerling. Don’t excite yourself.”

“I didn’t kill them!” Tears were starting from his eyes. “Okay, so I went to Arizona. I have relatives in Sedona, I was going there for a wedding. Flagstaff was nearby. And Larchmont is only an hour from my house.”

Mauchly folded his arms, listening.

“I wanted to
know
. I wanted to
understand
. You see, the files just didn’t explain. They didn’t explain how somebody could be so happy. So I thought maybe, if I just saw them—if I could just watch them, just for a bit, from a safe distance—I could learn . . . You’ve got to believe me, I never killed anybody! I just wanted to—I just want to be
happy
, like them . . . oh,
Jesus
. . .” And Handerling dropped forward, his head hitting the desk with an ugly sound, sobs racking his frame.

“No need for dramatics,” Mauchly said. “We can do this with your cooperation, or without. You’ll find the former far less of an inconvenience.” When Handerling did not respond, Mauchly bent toward the physician, whispered in his ear.

But for Lash, the scene had suddenly changed, and changed utterly. The cries of Handerling, the murmuring of Mauchly, drained away to silence in his head. A chill passed through him. Eden could interrogate, could examine, this man as much as they wanted. But in his gut, Lash sensed Handerling was innocent. Not of stalking—he was clearly guilty of abusing sensitive information. And he’d spied on the Eden supercouples. But he was no killer. Lash had seen enough suspects sweated to know when someone was lying, or when someone was capable of murder.

The worst thing was he should have known before. The suspect chart he’d worked up on his whiteboard, the theoretical profile he’d written and Mauchly had just delivered to the room, suddenly seemed as thin as the rice paper woodcuts in Lewis Thorpe’s study. They were full of inconsistencies, false assumptions. He’d been too eager to solve this terrible puzzle before more people died. And this was the result.

He sank deeper into the shadows. A haiku of Bash–o’s kept repeating in his head, eclipsing the wails of Handerling:

Spring passes
and the birds cry out—
tears in the eyes of fishes

It was close to midnight by the time he pulled his car into Ship Bottom Road. He killed the engine, got out of the car, and walked slowly, deliberately toward the mailbox. Something had been tugging at the back of his mind since he’d left the Eden building; something that had nothing to do with Handerling. But Lash steadfastly refused to pay attention. He felt more tired than he’d ever felt in his life.

When he opened the mailbox, his first sense was relief: there was mail today, it hadn’t been pilfered. If anything, he realized, there was too much mail: at least a dozen magazines lay scattered among the circulars and catalogues. There was a gay lifestyles magazine, another devoted to S&M and bondage fetishists; many others. All had subscription labels bearing his name and address. Among the envelopes were another dozen subscription notices with demands for payment.

Somebody had been filling out subscription requests under his name.

He walked toward the house, pausing to dump everything but a utility bill into a garbage can. It seemed Mary English had switched tactics. It was regrettable, but a call to the Westport police might be necessary after all.

He stepped up to the door, put his key in the lock, then stopped. A courier package marked
BY EXPRESS
—
HAND DELIVER
and bearing Eden’s logo lay against it.
Probably more confidentiality agreements for my signature
, he thought bleakly. He stooped to pick it up, tore away one end. Moonlight revealed a single sheet of paper inside, to which a small pin had been attached. He pulled out the sheet.

Christopher Lash
17 Ship Bottom Road
Westport, Connecticut 06880

Dear Dr. Lash:

We at Eden are in the business of providing miracles. Yet I never tire of having the honor to announce each of them in turn. So it is with the greatest pleasure I’m writing to inform you that the selection interval, which followed your successful application and evaluation process, has now concluded in a match. Her name is Diana Mirren. It will be your own delightful duty to learn more than that, and you will soon have an opportunity to do so. A dinner reservation has been made in your joint names at Tavern on the Green for this coming Saturday evening, at eight o’clock. You will be able to identify each other by the enclosed pins, which we ask you to wear on your lapels on first entering the restaurant. They may be disposed of after that, though most of our clients treasure them as mementos.

Once again, our congratulations on completing this journey, and our best wishes as you embark on another. And in the months and years to come, I feel certain you will find that bringing the two of you together is the beginning, rather than the end, of our service.

Kind regards,
John Lelyveld
Chairmain, Eden Inc.

TWENTY-EIGHT

W
hen the elevator doors opened onto the penthouse perched atop Eden’s inner tower the next morning, Richard Silver was there, waiting.

“Christopher,” he said. “How are you faring?”

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.” Lash shook the proffered hand.

“Not at all. I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you again.”

Silver guided Lash to a seat. Sunlight slanted through the windows, throwing the still parade of ancient thinking machines into sharp relief, gilding the polished surfaces of the vast room.

“I’m also glad to have the chance to apologize in person,” Silver said as they sat down. “Mauchly told me about the letter, your getting the nod. Such a mistake has never happened before, and we’re still looking into what went wrong. Not that a mere explanation could make it less humiliating for you. Or for us.”

Lash glanced over as Silver fell silent. Again, he was struck by the man’s lack of artifice. Silver seemed genuinely concerned about how Lash would feel: rejected as an applicant, only to later learn a match had been mistakenly found for him. Perhaps, up here in his aerie, consumed with his ongoing research, Silver had remained free of the dehumanizing corporate taint.

Silver looked up, caught Lash’s eye. “Of course, I’ve instructed Mauchly to roll back the match, and to contact this woman—sorry, I don’t know her name—and inform her another match will be found.”

“Her name’s Diana Mirren,” Lash said. “But that’s not what I wanted to see you about.”

Silver looked surprised. “Really? Then forgive my assumption. Tell me why you’re here.”

Lash paused. The conviction he’d felt the night before now seemed blurred by weariness and the remaining traces of more Seconal. “I wanted to tell you personally. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“Stay on this investigation.”

Silver frowned. “If it’s a question of money, we’d be happy to—”

“It’s not that. I’ve been paid too much already.”

Silver sat back again, listening carefully.

“I’ve been away from my patients two weeks now. That’s a geologic age in psychiatry. But it’s more than that.”

He hesitated again. This was the kind of thing that normally he’d never admit to himself, let alone discuss with anybody else. But there was something about Silver—an unstudied frankness, a complete lack of arrogance—that seemed to invite confidence.

“I don’t think I can be of any more help to you,” Lash continued. “Early on, I thought all I needed was access to your files. I thought I’d find some magic answer in your evaluations of the Thorpes. And after the death of the Wilners, I grew certain it was homicide, not suicide. I’d hunted serial killers before, I was sure I could hunt this one as well. But I’ve come up blank. The profile I’ve drawn up is self-contradictory. Useless. With your help, we’ve now examined all the likely suspects: Eden rejects or employees, the people who could have known both couples. There’s no place else to go. At least, no place I can help with.”

He sighed. “There’s something else. Something I’m not proud to talk about. I’m too close to this case. It was the same in the Bureau, toward the end. I grew too absorbed. And it’s happening again. It’s intruding on my personal life, I brood about it day and night. And look at the result.”

“What result is that?”

“Handerling. I was tired, overeager. And I had a lapse of judgment.”

“If you’re blaming yourself for Handerling’s interrogation, you shouldn’t. The man isn’t a murderer—our tests confirm that. But he abused his position terribly, committed grave offenses. Information can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands, Christopher. And we’re grateful for your help exposing him.”

“I did very little, Dr. Silver.”

“Didn’t I ask you to call me Richard? You’re selling yourself short.”

Lash shook his head. “I’d suggest you go to the police, but I’m not sure we could convince them a crime’s been committed.” He stood up. “But if this is a serial killer, he’s likely to strike again very soon. Perhaps as soon as today. And I don’t want that to happen on my watch. I don’t want to sit here, looking on helplessly. Waiting.”

Silver watched him rise. And then, unexpectedly, a smile surfaced on the careworn face. “We’re not exactly helpless,” he said. “As you probably know, Mauchly and Tara have security teams running hands-off surveillance on the other supercouples.”

“That might not stop a determined killer.”

“Which is exactly why I’m taking additional steps myself.”

“What do you mean?”

Silver rose himself. “Come with me.”

He led the way to a small door Lash had not noticed before, built cleverly into the wall of bookcases. It opened noiselessly, revealing a narrow staircase, covered in the same rich carpeting. “After you,” Silver said.

Lash climbed at least three dozen steps, emerging at the end of a hallway. After the floor below, almost dizzying in its openness, the long, narrow corridor ahead of him felt cramped. There was no sense of being atop a skyscraper: they could just as easily have been far below the earth. And yet it was decorated just as tastefully: the walls and ceiling were of dark polished wood, and decorative wall sconces of copper and abalone threw off muted light.

Silver motioned him forward. As they walked, Lash looked curiously at the rooms to the left and right. He noticed a large personal gym, complete with exercise flume, weight machines, and treadmill; a spartan dining room. The hallway ended in a black door, a scanner set beside it. Silver put his wrist beneath the scanner, and for the first time Lash noticed that he, too, wore a security bracelet. The door sprang open.

The room beyond was almost as dimly lit as the corridor. Except here, the light came solely from tiny winking lights and dozens of vacuum-fluorescent displays. From all sides came a constant low rush of air: the sound of innumerable fans, breathing in unison. Rack-mounted equipment of all kinds—routers, RAID hard disc arrays, video renderers, countless other exotica unknown to Lash—covered the nearest walls. Opposite them, half a dozen terminals and their keyboards were lined up on a long wooden desk, crowded together. A lone chair sat before them. The only other piece of furniture was in a far corner: a narrow and very curious-looking couch, contoured almost in the fashion of a dentist’s chair, sat behind a screen of Plexiglas. Several leads snaked away from the chair to a nearby rack of diagnostic equipment. A lavalier-style microphone was pinned to the chair by a plastic clip.

“Please excuse the lack of seats,” Silver said. “Nobody but me ever comes here.”

“What is all this?” Lash said, looking around.

“Liza.”

Lash looked at Silver quickly. “But I saw Liza the other day. The small terminal you showed me.”

“That’s Liza, too. Liza’s everywhere in this penthouse. For some things I use that terminal you saw. This is for more complicated matters. When I need to access her directly.”

Lash remembered what Tara Stapleton had said over lunch in the cafeteria:
We never get near the core routines or intelligence. Only Silver has access. Everybody else uses the corporate computer grid
. He looked around at the electronics surrounding them on all sides. “Why don’t you tell me a little more about Liza?”

“What would you like to know?”

“You could start with the name.”

“Of course.” Silver paused. “By the way, speaking of names, I finally remembered where I saw yours.”

Lash raised his eyebrows.

“It was in the
Times
a couple years back. Weren’t you an intended victim in that string of—”

“That’s right.” Lash realized immediately he’d interrupted too quickly. “Remarkable memory.”

There was a brief silence.

“Anyway, about Liza’s name. It’s a nod to ‘Eliza,’ a famous piece of software from the early sixties. Eliza simulated a dialogue between a person and the computer, in which the program seized on words typed in by the person running it. ‘How are you feeling?’ the program would start out asking. ‘I feel lousy,’ you might type in. ‘Why do you think you feel lousy?’ the program would respond. ‘Because my father is ill,’ you’d type. ‘Why do you say that about your father?’ comes the reply. It was very primitive, and it often gave ludicrous responses, but it showed me what I needed to do.”

“And what was that?”

“To accomplish what Eliza only pretended to do. To create a program—‘program’ isn’t really the right word—a data construct that could interact flawlessly with a human being. That could, at some level,
think
.”

“That’s all?” Lash said.

It was meant as a joke, but Silver’s response was serious. “It’s still a work in progress. I’ll probably devote the rest of my life to perfecting it. But once the intelligence models were fully functional within a computational hyperspace—”

“A what?”

Silver smiled shyly. “Sorry. In the early days of AI, everybody thought it was just a matter of time until the machines would be able to think for themselves. But it turned out the littlest things were the hardest to implement. How can you program a computer to understand how somebody is feeling? So in graduate school I proposed a two-fold solution. Give a computer access to a
huge
amount of information—a knowledge base—along with the tools to search that knowledge base intelligently. Second, model as real a personality
as possible
within silicon and binary code, because human curiosity would be necessary to make use of all that information. I felt if I could synthesize these two elements, I’d create a computer that could teach itself to learn. And if it could learn, it could learn to respond like a human. Not to
feel
, of course. But it would
understand
what feeling was.”