Downloading, by Terry Dowling When shadows move in Casna Park and the wind is in the trees, I can't help but see it as the most terrifying place in the world. It's brightly lit at night really, with more than enough lampposts throwing light along the intersecting paths, illuminating under the big trees, around the bandstand and war memorial. It's on the eastern side, the cemetery side of the park, that the darkness begins to take on its customary face, that the lampposts at one in twenty meters become one in fifty, then eighty, then infrequent enough for you to be in darkness, and light to be something over there, away from you, something to leave and reach again when you hurry along the paths. And when the night wind comes to shiver the water of the pond and set the Moreton Bay figs tossing, shuddering, rushing like waves on an unexpected shore, then, then, it is a place to be away from. I went there because he did. Went there (tracking it back) because a pattern emerged that showed he did, because he was one of those faceless people in a crowd who finally did get noticed, because I was asked to find patterns. No. Because I had a corner window looking along Bennett Street, then because of a conversation about patterns and how some things just don't get noticed till you look for them. Maybe because of the kind of cop Harry Badman was, that too, but for me it was the window, then the conversation, then the man, then the park. I was still recovering from the car accident, and a left leg broken in two places, in the last week of being confined to a wheelchair I called Miss Nancy in my second-floor apartment above Bennett Street, looking forward to two or more months of brokering actual legwork to other PIs and the occasional errand "boys" I could safely farm easier jobs out to. Paying the bills had always had a certain novelty aspect to it; now I had to be more creative than ever. Fortunately, Benny and Sue could be trusted; fortunately I had the phone and desk interview patter down well enough to make "assigning operatives" sound like the very best personal service money could buy. It was mainly that in a region like the Hunter people just didn't need PIs that much, let alone Jay Wendt Investigations. Oh, and in case you're thinking that all this is too Sam Spade to be true, trust me, there really is a breed of private investigator who fits the Raymond Chandler model to the letter, just as there's a breed that never quite does but wants to really bad. Then there are those like me who, no matter how hard we try to avoid the stereotype and break it every chance we get, keep getting cast in the role by others so we're left grinning wryly at the irony, which somehow looks tough-guy knowing and cool too and just confirms all the clich?s. That's how it was with Harry Badman and me from Day One. For a start, he didn't for a moment seem to read my agitation for what it was when he showed me his official ID. I'd seen him around a few times and my first thought was: Shit, what have I done?! "So what can I do for you, detective?" I said, pulling back to let him in, doing my best professional roll away from the door. "You're just like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window up here, aren't you?" Harry Badman said, riding his own stereotype. At least he didn't say "ain't ya?". I guided my chair towards the window, glanced briefly out over Bennett Street, then turned smartly. I'd practiced that turn. "Or that TV series, Ironside. That had a wheelchair and Raymond Burr in it too, if you appreciate that sort of thing." It was the one prepared tough-guy line I'd put together and, wouldn't you know, this time my delivery was perfect. "Synchronicity," Harry Badman said, a word I'd never have expected from this particular balding, aging, grey-suited cop, and broke his stereotype in one stroke. "I'd like to think we can be as lucky." We. "How do you mean?" Harry Badman sat in one of my old armchairs. "This isn't official business, Jay. At least not in the way you think. I want to hire your services." "You do?" It was slackwitted on my part, would've sounded lame and obvious to anyone else. Badman seemed to take it as cynical disbelief. Maybe there was a hearing problem. Tonal drop-outs. Maybe I reminded him of someone else. "Look, Jay. Can I call you Jay? There are cases we've got that we just don't have time to do properly. Don't have the staff. Don't have the evidence and so the authorization. Cases that don't catch the public eye. Little human interest. No one cares." "Go on." It must've sounded tough and considered. "I'm a bit like you, I guess. I'm in it because, well . . ." I was glad he hesitated. "You believe in justice," I said. "Yep. In doing whatever we can." He actually meant it. He really did, and in my profession, you quickly learn that truth is the first casualty of self-interest. This tired-looking police detective who stood in my living-room/office was a bona fide "more than the job" type, and -- by a quirk of circumstance, a blending of stereotypes and old movies -- he was seeing me as one! I didn't dare snigger or flinch, just stared, aware of the traffic and people noise from Bennett Street. And, heaven help me, I replied with another of those lines. "Where do I come in?" Which had me self-quipping: through the clich? door like everyone else. It really was one of those days. "Hey, you're stuck up here convalescing. You're already doing what I can't get someone to do officially. Watching Bennett Street." "And?" I decided to go with it, run the movies, trying not to spot the mannerisms. Harry Badman took two disks from his jacket pocket. "What system you got?" "Word 6. IBM compatible." He handed me one, put the other away. "Run that when you get a chance." "But you're going to tell me too." It was easy now. Harry seemed to think a moment. "Let's just say that over the past eight years thirteen people have gone dangerously schizoid on that street down there." I admit it threw me. I'd expected drug-deal surveillance of school kids, possible breaking and entering checkouts, confirming the presence of some major player hiding out in town, maybe even tracking the latest taggings by the Runalong graffiti raider everyone was upset about. "Schizoid?" Bogart, Chandler and the rest went out that window. I just couldn't manage the poker-faced, four-beat, even gaze the occasion demanded. And I understood Harry Badman's problem: How could this possibly be a criminal matter, for heaven's sake? Unless . . . I managed something of a recovery. "Dangerously schizoid? What exactly does that mean?" "How about coffee while I talk?" he said, standing, then walked over to the kitchen area, switched on the kettle, found cups, waited till he'd made us both coffee and was seated again. Then he continued. "I've spoken to experts over at Blackwater, so I'm pretty well up to speed on this. Dangerously schizoid means an unstable, disordered personality showing clear signs of dysfunctional or antisocial behavior. Extreme anxiety and paranoia. Given to sudden outbursts." "Violent behavior?" "Quite often. They're the easy ones to spot." "Surely your people would be involved then." "Jay, there are thousands of locals using Bennett Street each week, but some of the thirteen were tourists, travellers passing through." "Then how did you find out . . . ?" "It's on the disk. Doctor Dan and I got talking. He's in charge of the clinic over at Blackwater. Patient and next of kin questionnaires entered into the new DHP database showed the overlap. Eight cases who were okay before passing through Everton, who showed marked behavioral differences afterwards." "That sort of data showed?" "Over eight years it has. A lot of paranoid schizophrenics are happy enough to talk about their condition -- when they first heard voices, had insights and convictions." "But Bennett Street? So exact?" "Jay, five of the thirteen occurred in the past fourteen months. They're becoming a lot more frequent." "Or just the ones reported are." Harry Badman regarded me over his coffee mug, nodded as he set it down. "Good point. That's exactly it. That's why I want someone watching. You're right here on the corner. You see it all." "What part can Bennett Street play?" "Exactly. What could possibly happen here? Down there?" He gestured towards the window. "But the questionnaires, Jay. Nine of the thirteen mentioned something here. They first had the feeling, heard the voices, saw themselves followed or watched, saw visions here!" I truly didn't know what to think or say. Harry Badman probably saw that as considered resolve, matched it to some idea of appropriate response. "It sounds way out, I know. You can see why there can't be an official investigation. Doctor Dan is really pushing for it though -- we both are. It's -- it's one of those demographics that, well, shouldn't be swept aside." "Who are the five locals? I've read nothing." "Why would you? They're borderline types. Jack Winters out Greta way. Mary Ash from Box Valley. Tom Coatley's youngest girl." "Who?" "Exactly. Just what I mean. No one prominent. The media rarely reports on people going to hospital for this kind of observation. It's often gradual, inconclusive. Behavioral anomalies are seen as dietary, hormonal, some new spinoff of lead poisoning or attention deficit disorder. Victims are admitted to a psychiatric ward, then moved to the appropriate facility later when their conditions are diagnosed as chronic." I actually rolled my chair over to the window, looked out at maybe fifty-two shops, the post office, the Imperial Hotel; at pedestrians, people going through their usual daily routines. I recog...
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