Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; Chapter Eight

Jason is deciding what his next move should be.

He really wants to hedge against further police activity, and is considering hiding in the jungle or remote South Pacific islands. He then tallies his resources: some money, is handsome, has Charisma, and 42 years as a six. He also has his collected experiences. He decides an apartment would be nice for now; but he can't put his own name on anything, as landlords are required to update the police on residences. So, somebody else that has an apartment, like a woman he seduces. After rolling it through his head a bit, he gets a quibble (apparently these are software piloted, so like a johnny cab) and directs it to fly to reno, to a specific hi-tone club he knows. He calls it up, and charms the matre'd by remembering the man's name. It all goes wrong, though, as he gives his name and the Matre'd says "try booking us in two weeks."

Once again, denied, he grinds his teeth and sends "sheets of pain" through his mouth with his now destroyed filling now almost off entirely.

Course correction for the Quibble: make it Las Vegas.

Jason enters another hi-tone club, but no so hi-tone a nobody like him can't get in. He knew "classy chicks" hung out here, and gets lucky: he sees a woman he once had an affair with when Heather Hart was out of town for a few months. Her name is Ruth Rae. She's thirty-eight, still not bad looking, so Jason decides to go for it (after a lot of deets flash through his head as to how old she is - she wears bifocals at home!!!!!) Using the fact that Rae is unaware of their pre-existing relationship, Jason seduces a woman that as far as she's concerned is wearing a "seduce me" sign. The band that night is Freddy Hydrocephalic. Oh, and I guess the Saint's Row universe is nearby, as Rae thinks she recognizes Jason from the Phantom Baller Show.

Oh, and Ruth thinks the ones that really protect you are strangers, as she destroyed a cash deposit last year of four $50 bills, and was nearly sent to the Gulag in Georgia (it was an entrapment sting) and her boss somehow made it go away. Anyway, so she says she considers Jason a friend, so he is in like Flynn.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; Chapter 7

A man in a luxurious quibble sits in the parking lot atop the police HQ. He reads the above-fold headlines, then carefully places the newspaper on the back seat. He's General Felix Buckman. He's a police general. The novel sketches the command structure (above Felix are Grand Marshall, and above that a mysterious Director) but the impression the book gives is that Buckman is the head of all natpol in at least Los Angeles if not California. He's coming in to start his day when the day shift is just ending. He's mid fifties, known by all, concerned for his subordinates well-being. He walks through the office of now empty and clear desks for agents, and notices one desk still messy: this is McNulty's desk. To Buckman, McNulty is an enthusiastic dummy; a necessary kind that must be tolerated. Buckman starts reading what he's working on; apparently there is a Jason Taverner, and he doesn't exist.

His assistant, Herb Maime, meets his boss as he reads McNulty's notes. The notes are weird and interesting enough that Buckman gets Maime to call McNulty at home. Buckman quickly interrogates McNulty about what he's found so far. Jason Taverener, handsome dude, apparently wealthy, got Kathy the forger to make *unusually good* forgeries, good enough to pass a pol checkpoint. Then, briefly, what happened last chapter. Taverner still had a tracker dot on him, and a good thing too: trying to find out more from the world data banks has shown that he's missing from all of them. What was a low level thing with ident cards is now maybe national security - the ability to remove oneself entirely from *all* databases is extraordinary. Where does Taverner get his money? Who does he work for?

Well, now he has the eye of the General of Police.

In his office, Felix finds his sister, Alys, asleep on his couch. This is intensely irritating to him. She's mid thirties, and dressed no-shit like a punk. Skin-tight black pants, a man's leather shirt, hoop earrings, with a metal studded belt with a wrought-iron buckle. I guess this is also fetish gear, (which Alys is totally into) but if Felix is the model of law and order, Alys is rebellion and personal power personified. She also *may* be his fraternal twin, but honestly it's difficult to tell if that's just drug talk later on Alys's part or Dick just forgetting he wrote both characters with a 20 year age gap.

Anyway, she's stoned, and so *of course* she uses Felix's shit to break into the police HQ to pass out in his office. Naturally Felix gets into a puritanical snit about it. One thing here is that it's really difficult to tell if anything Alys does is actually illegal - her position as family of a police general would likely make her immune to consequence, but as the two discuss it the issue is that it bothers the shit out of felix to have a sister who's basically a chaos imp implacably opposed to everything good, IE The Law. Alys brings up her being a political weakness to her bro, which he dismisses, as she's already "well known" to the six marshals and the one director above him. The argument continues through Buckman's suite of offices, with even Buckman threatening to shoot her not phasing Alys. Just while he's working himself into a good puritan fury about what a degenerate pleasure seeker she is, McNutly calls. His thesis is confirmed: his staff compared all of Taverner's bioinformatic data, and none of it exists anywhere on earth. Jason Taverner is not only an alias, he's someone with no paper trail at all. He doesn't exist.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; Chapter 6

The guy immediately ahead of Jason evidently went to a shit forger, as he's immediately grabbed and thrown into a police quibble. But, Kathy does good work, as they pass inspection. The men attempt to give him grief about his tracker dot on his natpol card being scraped off, but he just says "I don't know what an electric dot is" and they let him pass.

Kathy was lurking in the darkness. She pops out to say "see, I did good work". Jason realizes she's done it again; by proving the cards are good, Jason now owes her one, and has lost his status as Kathy's victim. Trapped again, Jason and Kathy head back to Kathy's shit apartment, while she tells him about her pet turtle (kept at the good apartment.)

But somebody's waiting back at Kathy's: Mr. McNulty, her handler. He gets off Kathy's shitty couch and extends a hand to Jason; he reaches to shake it and McNulty corrects him: no, I'm not offering to shake your hand, I want to see your IDs. Jason gives McNulty his wallet. McNulty is late middle age, modestly dressed but impeccably groomed, smelling of onions and hot sauce. He's eyeballing Jason with interest. His real leather shoes, his lack of fear. He also notes that Kathy's forgeries are much better than he thought she could do. He asks who planted the tracker dot on Jason's person, and she confirms it was Ed, the hotel clerk. Kathy confesses she told Jason "some things", and McNulty asks about Jack being part of those things. McNulty then informs Jason that Jack is dead: killed three years ago in a traffic accident, and Kathy's belief about the camp in Alaska is a psychotic delusion. (Side note - that means Kathy is working for the police because McNulty is holding a delusion over her.) Kathy naturally denies this, that Jack is alive, and starts to silently weep large tears. McNulty is taking Jason in, naturally, but finishes up his business with Kathy, making sure they were square for the week. "After Jack gets out you won't be able to count on me at all" Kathy says; McNulty cheerfully rejoins that for Kathy, that day will never come, while cheerfully winking at Jason.

Jason thinks "we live in a state of betrayal."

Jason isn't being arrested, he's just being taken along to the station for some biometric ID recordings. Jason almost objects until Kathy shoots him a warning look.

Processing at the station must be a bit different from today, as Jason is put in a vast waiting room filled with people waiting to be summoned. Some gizmo McNulty pinned on Jason's lapel gets him moved out of that room and processed - fill out a form, footprint, voiceprint, EKG scan. McNulty and the officer identify him as - Jason Taverener, age 39, Diesel Engine Mechanic from Wyoming. This is wrong, obviously, but the record is clean and no other records come up in the database, so bingo, that is who Jason is. He's free to go.

Then they pull a classic Columbo; at the police station entrance, a loud page calls him back to processing. They have a 15 year old photo of "Jason", and he is ugly and doesn't look anything like Jason aside from being white and male. McNulty says "you've had plastic surgery" and Jason runs with this, saying "yeah, I mean look at the old me." He explains where the evidently large sums of money came from by improvising a story from scattered details he's glanced at from "Jason's" form. This satisfies McNulty, and Jason is free to go. Then McNulty Columbos Jason *again* - he takes his old IDs and gives him a police temp pass instead. The temp pass is real, and universal, but only lasts a week, the idea being he'll have real IDs reissued by then. For the third time, Jason is free to go.

Jason thinks he's traded up: a totally genuine and real pass for Kathy's forgeries. And the process getting genuine, abet mistaken IDs has started. So no worries about forced labor camps! Unless of course, they decide to arrest him for the counterfeit passes.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman said; Chapter 5

Kathy and Jason are holding hands as they walk down the street. Kathy is talking about love and auras; Jason is numb to the world. She eventually tunes in to his non-replies being non replies, but Jason is at a distance now, constructing his own psychological models. He's concluded that Kathy is a solipsistic narcissist who's chief skill is manipulation, and any attempts at communication will just prompt a deflection or some other defense reaction. Her sheer hostility to any logic was the castle moat.

She asks if he feels like catching a captian kirk. He's like sure, whatev. She asks if he wants to return to her place and screw like minks. This pegs his desire to get the fuck away from Kathy, consequences be dammed. A conversation about honestly quickly leads to Jason saying he thinks Kathy should be in a mental hospital and he wants nothing more than to get away from her. And so he walks away, into the crowd.

Wondering if he's just doomed himself, Jason finds a phone booth and using the gold Kriegerands payphones apparently take, calls Heather on her mega-ultra-secret line. Heather, naturally, has no idea who he is and instantly classifies him as a stalker, no matter how much weird personal info Jason can give about Heather. Several calls happen, where Jason basically bombards Heather with her secrets, and Heather is enormously freaked out because...who the fuck is this guy? Things end only when Jason runs out of Kriegerands. Jason is behind himself with frustration and has damaged one of his silver fillings through grindings.

Having tried that and failed, Jason can only fantasize about what a TV show his predicament would made. He gets lost in this reverie, and walks into a police checkpoint.