Barking Dogs - A Mitch Helwig Book

  BARKING DOGS

  Terence M. Green

  Phoenix Pick

  An Imprint of Arc Manor

  Barking Dogs copyright © 1988 by Paul Cook. All rights reserved. This book may not be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise without written permission from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual persons, events or localities is purely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher.

  Tarikian, TARK Classic Fiction, Arc Manor, Arc Manor Classic Reprints, Phoenix Pick, Phoenix Rider, Manor Thrift and logos associated with those imprints are trademarks or registered trademarks of Arc Manor Publishers, Rockville, Maryland. All other trademarks and trademarked names are properties of their respective owners.

  This book is presented as is, without any warranties (implied or otherwise) as to the accuracy of the production, text or translation.

  ISBN (Digital Edition): 978-1-60450-491-0

  ISBN (Paper Edition): 978-1-60450-254-1

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  ****************

  For

  Conor and Owen:

  streaks of uncanny brilliance

  and pleasure in the darkness:

  I love you, greatly

  ****************

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book, like all others, was planted and nurtured before it broke ground. Many people helped the breakthrough, and supported in various ways. For this reason, I would like to thank John Robert Colombo, Pat Cadigan, Andrew Weiner, Art Geddis, Ken Luginbuhl, Robert Sawyer, Jim Frenkel, Sharon Jarvis, Arn Bailey, and the entire East York C.I. Library staff. I would also like to thank my sons, my best friends, to whom this book is dedicated

  ****************

  ONE

  Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?

  Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,

  His cases, his tenures, and his tricks?

  —William Shakespeare, Hamlet (5.1.104)

  They have no lawyers among them,

  for they consider them as a sort of people

  whose profession it is to disguise matters.

  —Sir Thomas More, Utopia: Of Law and Magistrates

  1

  The black woman in the dark blue dress raised her hand, and Zwolinski acknowledged her.

  “Ma’am?”

  She rose as he headed up the stairs and held the microphone in position.

  “I wanted to ask Pope Martin why the church is so gol-darned worried about people’s sexual behavior.” She nodded sharply and glanced about her. There was a smattering of supportive applause from the audience. The camera cut to Zwolinski’s weathered, friendly face, highlighted by the perfectly coiffed silver hair—hair that, according to a group of the world’s most notable stylists, ranked in the world’s Top Ten. His lips pursed impishly, his blue eyes sparkled. Then Pope Martin was centered in frame, the first American pope, suntanned from his recent visit to poverty-wracked Mexico. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, to catch every word.

  “I mean,” she continued, “if it’s only between two consenting adults, who cares? I mean, who really cares?” And pleased at having cut so incisively through all the theological and intellectual clutter, she sat down, nodding again determinedly.

  “I care,” the pope replied, simply.

  In his modular Scandinavian living room, viewing with modest interest the encounter on the tube, Mitch Helwig waited for the sensation of cold, piercing steel in his left side, below his rib cage. To his surprise, it did not appear.

  The pope—transfixed, transported, and transubstantiated into the electron particles on the TV screen—seemed to sense that this was not enough. They want more, he realized.

  “God cares,” he added, applying invisible adhesive to his comment.

  This time, Mitch did feel the tingling in his side. Not the icy shaft of pure fabrication—but merely the tingling that indicated that the words uttered were suspect. Just a tickle, a tremor from his Barking Dog.

  He’s not sure, Mitch realized. The pope...the goddamned pope himself, deep down, isn’t sure....The hairs on the back of his head prickled, and a flush of goose bumps shivered into prominence.

  The goddamned pope himself, thought Mitch, leaning back, the tingling in his side receding. It was quite a revelation, he had to admit. I realize, he reflected, that the pope can’t really know if God cares or not—not “know” in the scientific sense of experimentation, observation, and conclusion. But he has to believe it. He has to “know” it intuitively. How the hell else can he function as pope?

  Mitch Helwig, who was not Catholic, suddenly felt compassion for Pope Martin. The man, he thought, somehow just got in over his head.

  Like we all do.

  “God knows,” continued the pope, “and he wants us to understand, that the very essence of our humanity is inherent in our appreciation of the sanctity of each and every human life. Our sexuality is both a representation of and a reaction to that sanctity, and certainly our most intimate form of appreciation and communication.”

  Smooth, thought Mitch. He certainly is smooth.

  “And,” he went on, “it is not accidental that the procreation of human life is so integral a part of such a profound representation of our identities. For, in essence, our sexuality is ineluctably entwined with our Total Being. Thus, the church is not off course at all in focusing on sexuality as a potential key to Christian behavior and attitude. On the contrary, it is central to the church’s theology, and central to the concept of caritas.”

  The camera switched to the befuddled woman who had asked the question, catching her alternately rolling her eyes and glaring at the pope.

  Why can’t he talk at her level? thought Mitch. Who the hell can follow that? It might be all bullshit—who can know? Unless they’ve got a Barking Dog....

  The tingling in Mitch’s side had once again been stimulated: a rustle, like a leaf stirred by a breeze, then nothing.

  Zwolinski himself decided to leap into the fray. He hadn’t hosted this show for over twenty-five years for nothing. Timing, he had.

  “What this lady probably wants to know,” he proffered, extending a hand in her direction, “is whether what is morally right or wrong shouldn’t be decided by what people feel is right or wrong—not by what someone thinks God feels is right or wrong.” He glanced skyward and held a hand out as if expecting rain, eliciting a chuckle from the audience via his stance and expression, adding the needed comic relief to the potentially tragic morality drama he was hosting. “I mean, how can anyone be sure what God thinks?” he asked pointedly.

  The black woman nodded appreciatively at his comprehension and good sense.

  Pope Martin, the priest from Detroit who had become, mysteriously, the Prince of the Church, remained staunch. His was the first papal visage in history, this banker’s son, that did not resemble that of a Balkan peasant who had suffered life’s ghastliness in silence. He radiated American health, vigor, and progress. In a gray business suit instead of his ceremonial vestments, he might have sat at the head of an IBM shareholders’ meeting.

  “Then,” replied Martin, “one would have Situation Ethics. There would be no Absolutes. What would be morally right for one person in one place and time would not necessarily apply to another person, in another place or time. The church m
aintains that there are Absolutes, that some things are Right or Wrong. In any place. At any time.”

  “But how can we know what these Absolutes are?” added Zwolinski.

  “We have the best theological minds in the world constantly poring over these very issues. They weigh and consider, then they advise me. I, then, seek God’s counsel and guidance, through prayer. God,” he affirmed, pausing, “would not let me down.”

  His smile held tremendous confidence, the certainty of blind faith. Mitch Helwig, his feet propped on his teak coffee table, felt a piercing cold stab through his vitals, where before there had been merely tingles.

  2

  “There’s only one way you can beat a Barking Dog,” the lanky salesman had said. “That’s if you’re schizoid or mentally ill, and really believe what you’re saying. It’s the belief in what you’re saying that’s measured. “Crazies”—he gestured helplessly with his large hands—“believe in all kinds of delusionary nonsense.”

  “And a con artist can’t beat it?”

  “No way.”

  The salesman confronted the customer in the small store in Thorncliffe Plaza—a store that, like so many others of its ilk, had appeared suddenly and quietly on the scene. Guardian Intelligence and Protective Services. It was, the customer knew, a sign of the times. The customer was Mitch Helwig.

  The salesman saw the customer frowning. “Check Consumer Reports’s.” Lovely, venerable old Consumer’s, the salesman mused. The neutral arbiter. Just mention its name and customers relaxed visibly. It sold more units of just about everything than any other dozen testimonials. “They evaluated the top five Barking Dogs: Sony, RCA, Quasar, Panasonic, and Hitachi. Every one of them checked out perfectly in the Judgment Reliability category. It just can’t be beaten. A con man might be a good actor; but even he can’t control his heart rate and the subsequent effect on his larynx.”

  Comforted, Mitch asked, “Ever have a dissatisfied customer?”

  The salesman chuckled. “Well,” he said, peering through twinkling, watery eyes, “there was one fellow. He told people he was using it.” He rolled his swampy orbs upward in a silent plea for basic common sense. “Everybody stopped talking to him until he got rid of it. But he found out one useful thing: his bookie was cheating him. Knew the guy for fifteen years. Shows you that you never know. He started betting the opposite of whatever his bookie told him. So, before he stopped using it, he made money. Made enough to pay for the machine!”

  The customer, he noticed, was nodding. They always appreciated this story. The possibility of financial insights. It hooked them every time.

  “How much again?” Mitch knew, but figured asking it out loud might reduce the answer.

  It did. The salesman also knew the game.

  “I can let it go for seventy-nine hundred. Cash.” He let his new price sink in.

  Mitch was sure now. Best price in town—no doubt. “Hmm...pretty expensive for a luxury item.”

  “Luxury item?” The salesman feigned astonishment. “Sir. Knowing the truth is not a luxury in this day and age. It’s a survival tool worth whatever we have to pay for it. Like a sextant to a sailor in ancient times!” His enthusiasm was expansive.

  “These things didn’t used to be all that reliable. How’d they improve ’em?”

  “You understand the basic premise, of course?”

  “I know what I’ve read. I know they work. But the technical part, I’m not too sure of.”

  The two men stood gazing at the wallet-sized silver trinket, the way they would gaze at a refrigerator capable of producing crushed ice.

  “All lie detectors,” the salesman began, “are basically stress detectors. The precursor of this”—he gestured toward the Barking Dog—“was the voice analyzer developed by the CIA and U.S. Army Intelligence back in the time of the Vietnam war. They were looking for simpler ways of interrogating prisoners. Body odor seemed promising. Everyone gives off distinct odors under stress, but sorting them out, by themselves, proved too difficult, and often inconclusive. So, they went to voice pitch. Certain vibrations, microtremors, change when the speaker is under stress. What they devised was a device that could pick up the microtremor, the voice tremolo inaudible to the human ear. That was the start. Compared to what we have here, though, that’s a Model T.”

  He glanced at the customer, who was listening carefully. The salesman knew a buyer. This was a buyer. This one was worth the time, he knew. He continued. “The Barking Dog is essentially a microcomputer of incredible sophistication. It starts with voice pitch, and cross-references it via microelectronic circuitry with body odors, face temperature, response of pupil and retina, a microwave respiration monitor, measuring stomach palpitations caused by rapid breathing under stress. It also monitors, when on video, facial expression.”

  “Facial expression?” Mitch’s own facial expression was worth monitoring at this point.

  “It has programmed into it a complex cartography that details the role of facial muscles in the expression of human emotion. The CIA and KGB investigated the area years ago. In fact, they gave it a name: FACS—Facial Action Coding System.” He shrugged casually, as though it might be common knowledge. “From basic neurology, we know there are two independent pathways from the brain to the facial muscles. There’s the one for deliberate expression, and one for spontaneous expression. The pathway for the former originates in the cortex; the latter, the spontaneous, is largely subcortical. The intentional cortical route leads to asymmetry in expression, while the subcortical route produces more symmetry.”

  “It can do all that?” Even Mitch was impressed.

  “You bet it can. Each of those factors, by itself, is insufficient to produce a one-hundred percent reading. But, together, cross-referenced via the microcomputer’s chart analysis, plus the fact that we know a lot more about the wave frequencies of the microtremors than we did thirty years ago, results in a well-nigh perfect reading every time.” He paused. “Check Consumer’s again.”

  “Once more,” Mitch said. “Give it to me once more what you do.”

  “Well, it depends on the situation. If you keep it in your pocket, out of sight, it still works at over ninety-nine percent efficiency. It can’t scan the facial features, or check pupil and retina response, but everything else will register, providing you’re within two meters.

  “How about using it on the TV set, or on the phone?”

  “Same thing. Some of the input will be missing, but enough will get through to satisfy it. If you hold it up so that it can scan the TV screen, for instance, it’s still sensitive enough, if held steady, to get not only the facial expression, but also the pupil and retina response.” He reached down and picked it up from the display case and placed it in Mitch’s hand, giving him tactile contact with it, a kind of sure-fire consumer intimacy that was usually guaranteed to close a deal.

  “Best place for it is in your inside jacket pocket. Then you run the wire up under your shirt and attach the sticky electrode to your side. No one knows you’ve got it. When someone lies to you, you feel the momentary, telltale cold in your side, and you can react accordingly. If the situation calls for it, or if it will allow it, you can take it out and hold it up directly in front of the individual. That’ll get you maximum, unblemished reading. In effect, sir, it frees you. Think of it. Free.”

  Mitch did think of it. A lot. He liked thinking how he might use it to set things straight for Mario. What else was a partner for? Mario, he knew, would do the same thing for him. Price was not an issue. Not when it came to your partner.

  He tried to get Mario out of his mind. He missed him.

  “Have you got one?” Mitch asked.

  “Me? You bet I do. I saved money buying a used car from a guy when he knocked two hundred bucks off after he’d already sworn black and blue that he couldn’t go any lower.” He chuckled.

  “Sounds sneaky.”

  “Mister, when I first got into business, I thought people were basically honest. But, I�
��m sorry to say, there are very few people whom I trust now. You wouldn’t believe the dirty games people play. Look at the stuff we sell here. There’s a need for it all, and the need is growing every day.”

  Mitch glanced at the electronic exotica surrounding them: wiretapping and debugging equipment, phone scramblers and bomb detectors, vehicle monitors and video wrist transmitters and receivers.

  The salesman put his big hands in his trouser pockets and shrugged. “Yeah, yeah, I know...People ask if it’s really moral to use a Barking Dog. Well, the only answer I give ’em is, do you think it’s moral to lie?” He shrugged again, absolving himself of culpability: a rational man who knows and accepts sharks, bacteria, government, child molesters, and earthquakes, all as part of life’s sludge—part he has no control over. “You want to lie, I tell ’em, then write a letter.”

  He had finished his pitch. It had been a good one, he thought.

  “O.K.” Mitch sighed with the relief of decision. “Deal.”

  The salesman allowed himself the luxury of a smile. These things were hard to move, he knew, in spite of what they could do. And they could do it. But they were still priced out of sight. This guy really wanted it, and he couldn’t help wondering why. He didn’t fit the profile of the typical buyer, a white-collar businessman. And the store did little walk-in business like this.

  He could have had it, too, for seventy-two hundred, if he’d had a Barking Dog to use. Such were life’s ironies, the salesman reflected, as they filled out the forms completing the transaction.

  3

  Saddled into his skimmer on his way to the station, Mitch mulled over the “Zwolinski” show he’d watched. Working the afternoon shift left him at bizarre odds with the working stiffs in the megalithic office towers he was passing. Elaine went off to work at eight. Barbie bounced off to school shortly afterward. Alone, Mitch read the Sun, had a second cup of coffee, then popped on the tube from nine to eleven. “Canada A.M.”: nine to nine-thirty. Today they’d had a father-son modeling team, how not to argue with your teens, aphrodisiacs, and five centenarians. “Let’s Make a Deal” followed at nine-thirty. A guy dressed like a carrot traded a vacation in Marseilles for Door Number Three and ended up with a set of light green inflatable patio furniture. The sap. “Zwolinski” rolled on from ten to eleven.