DINKYMAIL READY.
I clicked on LOCALE. I’d been in the study almost three hours by then, with only one break to take a quick piss, and I could smell 246
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myself, sweating and stinking like a monkey in a greenhouse. I didn’t mind. I liked the smell. I was having the time of my life. I was fucking delirious.
I typed CINCINNATI and hit EXECUTE.
NO LISTINGS CINCINNATI
the computer said. Okay, not a problem. Try Columbus—closer to home, anyway. And yes, folks! We have a Bingo.
TWO LISTINGS COLUMBUS
There were two telephone numbers. I clicked on the top one, curi-ous and a little afraid of what might pop out. But it wasn’t a dossier, a profile, or—God forbid—a photograph. There was one single word:
MUFFIN.
Say what?
But then I knew. Muffin was Mr. Columbus’s pet. Very likely a cat. I called up my special letter again, transposed two symbols and deleted a third. Then I added MUFFIN to the top, with an arrow pointing down. There. Perfect.
Did I wonder who Muffin’s owner was, or what he had done to warrant TransCorp’s attention, or exactly what was going to happen to him? I did not. The idea that my conditioning at Peoria might have been partially responsible for this disinterest never crossed my mind, either. I was doing my thing, that was all. Just doing my thing, and as happy as a clam at high tide.
I called the number on the screen. I had the computer’s speaker on, but there was no hello, only the screechy mating-call of another computer. Just as well, really. Life’s easier when you subtract the human element. Then it’s like that movie, Twelve O’Clock High, cruising over Berlin in your trusty B-25, looking through your trusty Norden 247
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bombsight and waiting for just the right moment to push your trusty button. You might see smokestacks, or factory roofs, but no people. The guys who dropped the bombs from their B-25s didn’t have to hear the screams of mothers whose children had just been reduced to guts, and I didn’t even have to hear anyone say hello. A very good deal.
After a little bit, I turned off the speaker anyway. I found it distracting.
MODEM FOUND,
the computer flashed, and then
SEARCH FOR E-MAIL ADDRESS Y/N.
I typed Y and waited. This time the wait was longer. I think the computer was going back to Chicago again, and getting what it needed to unlock the e-mail address of Mr. Columbus. Still, it was less than thirty seconds before the computer was right back at me with E-MAIL ADDRESS FOUND
SEND DINKYMAIL Y/N.
I typed Y with absolutely no hesitation. The computer flashed SENDING DINKYMAIL
and then
DINKYMAIL SENT.
That was all. No fireworks.
I wonder what happened to Muffin, though.
You know. After.
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XVI
That night I called Mr. Sharpton and said, “I’m working.”
“That’s good, Dink. Great news. Feel better?” Calm as ever. Mr.
Sharpton is like the weather in Tahiti.
“Yeah,” I said. The fact was, I felt blissful. It was the best day of my life. Doubts or no doubts, worries or no worries, I still say that. The most eventual day of my life. It was like a river of fire in my head, a fucking river of fire, can you get that? “Do you feel better, Mr. Sharpton?
Relieved?”
“I’m happy for you, but I can’t say I’m relieved, because—”
“—you were never worried in the first place.”
“Got it in one,” he said.
“Everything’s eventual, in other words.”
He laughed at that. He always laughs when I say that. “That’s right, Dink. Everything’s eventual.”
“Mr. Sharpton?”
“Yes?”
“E-mail’s not exactly private, you know. Anybody who’s really dedicated can hack into it.”
“Part of what you send is a suggestion that the recipient delete the message from all files, is it not?”
“Yes, but I can’t absolutely guarantee that he’ll do it. Or she.”
“Even if they don’t, nothing can happen to someone else who chances on such a message, am I correct? Because it’s . . . personalized.”
“Well, it might give someone a headache, but that would be about all.”