False Memory

it turns out his last chance was no chance at all? What then, Martie?”
    The strength in her voice lifted him, as always she lifted him:
    “Then at least you tried.”
    Dusty looked toward the dining area, at the back of Skeet’s head, his hair rumpled and uncombed. The scrawny neck, the frail shoulders.
    “Come on,” Martie said softly. “Give him a new life.”
    Dusty turned off the running water.
    He tore a few paper towels from a roll and blotted his face.
    He wadded the towels and dropped them in the trash can.
    He rubbed his hands together, as if he might be able to massage the tremors out of them.
    Clickety-click, claws on linoleum: Inquisitive Valet padded into the kitchen. Dusty stroked the dog’s golden head.
    Finally he followed Martie back to the dinette table, and they sat once more with Fig and Skeet.
    Thumb to middle finger again.
    Come the magic now, good or bad, hope or despair, joy or misery, meaning or emptiness, life or death: snap.
    Skeet opened his eyes, raised his head, sat up straighter in his chair, looked around at those assembled, and said, “Well, when do we start?”
    He had no memory of the session.
    “Typical,” Fig pronounced, nodding his head vigorously.
    “Skeet?” Dusty said.
    The kid turned to him.
    Taking a deep breath, then speaking the name as an exhalation, Dusty said, “Dr. Yen Lo.”
    Skeet cocked his head. “Huh?”
    “Dr. Yen Lo.”
    Martie gave it a try: “Dr. Yen Lo.”
    And then Fig: “Dr. Yen Lo.”
    Skeet surveyed the expectant faces around him, including that of the dog, who had stood up with his forepaws on the table. “What is this, a riddle, a quiz or something? Was this Lo some guy in history? I was never any good at history.”
    “Well,” said Fig.
    “Clear cascades,” Dusty said.
    Baffled, Skeet said, “Sounds like a dish-washing soap.”
    At least the first part of the plan had worked. Skeet was no longer programmed, no longer controllable.
    Only the passage of time would prove, however, whether or not Dusty’s second goal had also been achieved: Skeet’s liberation from his tortured past.
    Dusty pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. To Skeet, he said, “Get up.”
    “Huh?”
    “Come on, bro, get up.”
    Letting the clinic blanket slip off his shoulders, the kid rose from the chair. He looked like a stick-and-straw scarecrow wearing a fat man’s pajamas.
    Dusty put his arms around his brother and held him very tight, very tight, and when at last he could speak, he said, “Before we go, I’ll give you some money for vanilla Yoo-hoo, okay?”
    62
    The wheel of luck was turning. Two seats on United, out of John Wayne International Airport, to Santa Fe by way of Denver, were available on an early-morning flight. Using a credit card, Dusty secured the tickets from the phone in Fig Newton’s kitchen.
    “Gun?” Fig asked, a few minutes later, as Dusty and Martie were at the front door, preparing to leave brother and dog in his care.
    “What about it?” Dusty asked.
    “Need one?”
    “No.”
    “Think you will,” Fig disagreed.
    “Please tell me you don’t have an arsenal big enough to start a war,” Martie said, clearly wondering if Foster Newton was something more troubling than a mere eccentric.
    “Don’t,” Fig assured her.
    “Anyway, I’ve got this,” Dusty said, drawing the customized .45 Colt Commander from his jacket.
    “Flying, aren’t you?” Fig said.
    “I’m not going to try to carry it on the plane. I’ll pack it in one of our suitcases.”
    “Might get random scanned,” Fig warned.
    “Even if the baggage isn’t carry-on?”
    “Lately, yeah.”
    “Even on short-haul flights?”
    “Even,” Fig insisted.
    “It’s all these terrorist events recently. Everyone’s nervous, and the FAA's issued some new crisis rules,” Skeet explained.
    Dusty and Martie regarded him with no less astonishment than they would have shown if he had suddenly opened a third eye in the center of his forehead. Subscribing to the philosophical contention that reality sucks, Skeet never read a newspaper, never tuned in to television or radio news.
    Recognizing the source of their amazement, Skeet shrugged and said, “Well, anyway, that’s what I overheard one dealer telling another.”
    “Dealer?” Martie asked. “Like in drug dealer?”
    “Not blackjack. I don’t gamble.”
    “Drug dealers sit around talking current events?”
    “I think this impacted their courier business. They were ticked off about it.”
    To Fig, Dusty said, “So how random is random scanning? One bag in ten? One in five?”
    “Maybe some