Visions of Liberty (21 page)

She laughed when I tried to say how sorry I was.

"You've already told me, at least a thousand times." She asked if I felt hungry and brought a tray of food. Suddenly ravenous, I gorged on river fish and hellcakes and roasted silvernuts and camel cheese. I was able to limp with her out into the clearing. Huge crimson blooms blazed from the vines that twined the trees around it. The air was sweet with their scent, and the jungle's dark power seemed almost kind. We went down to the dock to watch the little steamer come in with a load of cured rubber from a plantation down the river. The name painted on the bow was
Laurel
.

Next day she was even happier.

"Bart was on the radio," she told me. "He's back from Terra with great good news. Your stories about Gilliyar's bombardment set off new Free Space riots on a hundred planets. Revolution came so close that Cleon III had to abdicate. His son is promising to negotiate the independence of a new Free Space Federation.

"The new government has recognized our own freedom and ordered Gilliyar's forces out. They wanted to rename the planet Avalon. Bart told them no. He says Lucifer fits us better. They wanted him to stay as our ambassador. He said no to that. Ambassadors are government.

"But he did get them to guarantee free trade and free travel. They want angel wood and silvernut for medical research. We're free to visit Terra if we like." Soberly, she shook her head and caught my hand. "Not soon, I think. Our lives are here."

She found a place for us on a camel train when I felt strong enough. We rode together back up the hell road, back out of the rain and the bugs and the stink of the swamps, back through the fog into bright sunlight, back through narrow passes into the Vale of Avalon. I was still half-drunk on the angel tea and my dreams of our future together. She was more realistic.

"Freedom won't come free," she told me. "It never does."

On the giant screen in Union Square a marine running full tilt toward the camera suddenly spurted blood where his head had been. I was glad there was no sound—I felt sick enough already.

Before I could wonder what had happened to the cameraman the screen blanked for a fraction of a second, and the scene shifted to a bird's-eye view of the jungle battle. And then cut to an ad.

On the old-fashioned ticker underneath—a copy of the relic in Times Square—the headline marines retreat appeared, one letter at a time.

A screech of brakes and the sound of scrunching steel jerked my attention back to the street. Most everyone on the sidewalk had come to a dead halt. Including me—and I hadn't even noticed. I suddenly became aware of the unnatural silence: after all, it's not every day you see someone's head blown off live on a five-hundred-foot three-dimensional screen. Drivers were mesmerized too. One of them must have hit the brakes and taken his car out of automatic. The roadnet braked the cars behind, but not fast enough to prevent a spectacular pile-up.

A lady nearby was throwing up in the gutter. My stomach started to churn so I took a few steps back. I felt a bit sick too, but I couldn't feel sorry for the guy. He'd volunteered knowing full well what the risks were. And was—had been—highly paid to take them. After all, every man and woman in both the Eighth Army and the Marines get a share of the holo and web rights. With the ratings on this mêlée his family, if he had one, will be well taken care of.

How much time had passed? More than I thought. Now I had to hurry to be at the hearing on time. As I and hundreds of others started moving again the normal Union Square bustle returned. Though it would be a while before the traffic followed suit.

8th army odds on; marines 27–1 was now scrolling across the ticker. I'm not a gambling man but I can't resist an all-but-sure-thing. 27 to 1! That was like taking candy from the mouths of babes.

A few taps on my phone and I learned that the US Marines were retreating all across the front. But the retreat was slow and it didn't seem like they were about to fold. Sure wouldn't do their marketing image any good if they gave up so easily.
We Never Quit
was their motto.

If they only held out for just a few days I'd clean up. A good friend of mine, an executive of the Eighth Army Inc. had told me that their client—don't ask me whether it was the government of Colombia or the government of Venezuela; I haven't really been following this fracas too closely—had run out of money. That's real money I mean: they had plenty of that stuff they printed down there, whatever they called it, and a wheelbarrow full of it and a silver dime might get you a cup of coffee in San Francisco if the vendor was short of toilet paper.

Whichever gang of thugs it was, if they didn't pay up by Monday the Eighth Army Inc. was flying straight back home. Today was Friday. Planes and choppers were on standby over in Florida to pull them out at a moment's notice. Then all that would stand between the US Marines and the thugs running Venezuela (or Colombia) was the ragtag gaggle of bandits they called their army.

Those marines would walk it in the rest of the way. And the bookies would have to pay up.

A few more taps and I placed two hundred ounces (gold, not silver) on the Marines to win. If the Eighth Army pulled a rabbit out of the hat over the weekend, losing that gold would hurt, but it wouldn't kill me. Like I told you, I'm not a gambling man. You always gotta calculate the odds. If you work with an insurance company for as long as I have without learning that you're still pushing paper.

The phone beeped to tell me I had a couple of minutes to be on time. Then it rang and Joe's ugly face (he's my partner) appeared on the screen. "Where the hell are you?" he growled.

I looked to find out. "Just walking into the lobby of the building," I told him. I turned the phone so he could see for himself.

He harrumphed, and his face disappeared from the screen. Joe was like that: didn't waste any time on pleasantries. Wasn't much good with small talk either.

I took my seat just before the judge walked in, followed by his staff. Adjudicator-in-Chief was his official title, but everybody called them judges.

When he was young, my granddad became a cop just before the tax revolt brought down the government and cops disappeared altogether. Here, anyway. I guess there are still cops in Colombia (or Venezuela) and other places which still have governments. What he told me about judges in his time bears no relation to adjudicators today. For a start, adjudicators are unbribable. Well, Chief Adjudicators. Offer one of
them
a bribe and he resigns your case. Then you're in deep doodoo. Boycotted. You'll never get another reputable adjudication outfit to take you on.

In a way, I guess I'm following in my grandfather's footsteps. Joe and I run San Francisco Investigations, one of the biggest agencies in the city. Occasionally we do some of the things cops used to do. Like today's case: murder.

Judge Wainwright was pushing eighty, though you'd never have guessed it. He strode into the room with the walk and energy of a much younger man. That, and his full head of hair—even if it was gray—meant he could pass for fifty-something. I resolved once again to spend more time at the gym—his youthful look made me jealous. Hell, he looks younger than I am!

Wainwright commanded the highest fees in the business, such was his experience and reputation for impartiality. Any of the freshmen advocates from his firm could have easily handled today's case. I'd expected one of them to be mediating. So why does All-Risk Insurance—they're our biggest client—want to spend so much money when any junior could have taken his place for peanuts? It didn't figure.

Wainwright sat down at the head of the table in the center of the room. Adjudicators' hearing rooms are often highly personalized. This design was one of the more interesting.

The only way to know this table's "head" is by where the judge sits. It's almost, but not quite, circular. Look a second time and it seems triangular. It's both.

Wainwright's staff arranged themselves on one side of the circular triangle. The All-Risk team sat at another.

To any casual watcher on the web it should have been immediately clear why a junior adjudicator could have handled this hearing: the third side was empty. The defendant, Gerald Murdock—the murderer—wasn't represented. And he hadn't shown up. Not that anyone expected him to: he'd disappeared straight after the murder and no one knew—or was willing to tell—where he'd gone.

That's why Joe and I were both here. Our firm had handled the case; we carried out the investigation, took the depositions, and so on. The moment the adjudicator ruled we were going to have to find the guy and get him to cough up what the judge was about to decide he owed.

Anyone who knew nothing about the killing of Randolph Ackerman had to be blind, deaf
and
dumb. With group sex, drugs, wife- and secretary-swapping, questionable business deals, not to mention nude bodies (one of them dead) and a murderer who'd done a disappearing act with bundles of money, the tabloids had a field day.

Last Saturday evening Gerald Murdock joined Randolph Ackerman for dinner and a group sex party at Ackerman's penthouse on Nob Hill. Murdock's secretary, Annabelle Pearson, Ackerman's wife, Sophia, and her sister, Jude, were also there to join in the fun and games.

The two men had a few business interests together and over the last couple of years there'd been lots of friction and disagreement between them. Apparently, both of them felt their partner was getting more than his fair share of the profits. They'd come to a peace agreement, and the purpose of the dinner was to celebrate and cement it. Bury the hatchet, if you will.

After dinner, after several bottles of wine, tabs of cocaine and God knows what other cocktails, and lots of group groping, Ackerman and Murdock got into an argument over one of the women. The argument quickly degenerated into a vicious rehash of every accusation they'd ever made against each other.

Seemingly livid with rage, Murdock grabbed a gun from his jacket and shot Ackerman between the eyes. Waving the gun at the women he quickly dressed, ran out of the apartment, down the stairs and into a passing cab.

The women were so stunned—not to mention drunk and/or drugged—that they were slow to act. They first called an ambulance, which arrived just minutes after Murdock had left the building. Not that an ambulance was any help to Ackerman by then. Only after that did they call security. The place was crawling with armed guards (ours) just moments after the ambulance arrived. Just moments too late.

Both witnesses—Annabelle Pearson played mute—agreed with each other down to most of the fine details. And since they were both interviewed while the body was being taken away, still semi-naked, wrapped in sheets or towels, they didn't have time to concoct any fairytales.

Ackerman's hobby, however, made it an open and shut case. Seems he liked to record his sex parties with multiple holographic cameras and then edit them into home porn shows. He had hundreds of them. Someone bootlegged the files. The murder—along with Ackerman's entire porn library—is readily available all over cyberspace. It's the worst thing to hit Hollywood and the holo nets in years.

We tracked down the cab Murdock had picked up on Nob Hill. He'd gotten out at Union Square, and then his trail disappeared. We couldn't find any trace of him. We figured he had a car parked there and a second identity already fixed up, probably with one of the sleazier insurance outfits.

By Monday it was obvious that Murdock hadn't fired that shot in a moment of angry passion. Over the previous months he'd quietly sold all his business interests and closed his stock and bank accounts. He'd turned the last of his real estate into cash just the week before. All but one of his bank accounts were cleaned out. He'd even managed to skim some of the cash from his joint ventures with Ackerman just minutes before the banks closed on Saturday. Ackerman hadn't suspected a thing.

One of his companies remained. The reason emerged when we asked the Insurance Association data bank for information on Gerald Murdock: he had no insurance cover whatsoever in his own name. One reason he wasn't represented before the adjudicator.

His sole remaining company, GMR Holdings,
was
insured. With the Mafia Corporation of Washington, DC. They weren't too cooperative. Never were: just the minimum level to ensure that other insurance agencies cooperated with them when they needed it. It was part of their heritage. At least according to their marketing, they were proud of their history as a private protection agency back when the government kept trying to put
any
competitor out of business.

As Mafia insured the
company
, not Murdock, they were under no obligation to give us the time of day. When we called they were as mute as mollusks.

And on Monday Annabelle Pearson paid every remaining bill and proceeded to shut that company down too.

All the money was gone. Thousands of gold ounces.

Gerald Murdock's legal identity had been tied to his company. His credit cards, bank accounts, agreements and everything else. Very clever. He could deal normally in our society and any trace would lead back to his company, not him.

It also meant there were no records of Murdock: no voiceprints, fingerprints or retina scans on file that we could access to help track him down.

We made a voiceprint from Ackerman's holo of the party. We found fingerprints that were probably Murdock's. We ran them through the data bank and—as I'd expected—drew a blank.

It was as if Gerald Murdock didn't exist. No doubt exactly what he had in mind.

"Good morning, gentlemen," said Wainwright. "We're here today to adjudicate the accusation that Gerald Murdock murdered Randolph Ackerman. Is Mr. Murdock present?"

When there was no answer, Wainwright asked, "Since Mr. Murdock does not appear to be here, who stands to speak for him?"

Again, no answer.

Wainwright was a stickler for procedures. He already knew that Murdock wasn't represented. But any missing step could give grounds for a rehearing or appeal. If Murdock ever surfaced to make a challenge.