girl, Nora Jean Aimes, born October twelfth of the year you were born and who
died one month later, right here in San Francisco. We have a laser printer with
virtually an infinite choice of type styles and sizes, with which we’ve already
produced a facsimile of the kind of birth certificate that was in use in San
Francisco at that time, and it bears Nora Jean’s name, vital statistics. We’ll
make two Xeroxes of it, and you’ll receive both. Next, we tapped into the Social
Security files and appropriated a number for Nora Jean Aimes, who never was
given one, and we also created a history of Social Security tax payments.” He
smiled. “You’ve already paid in enough quarters to qualify you for a pension
when you retire. Likewise, the IRS now has computer records that show you’ve
worked as a waitress in half a dozen cities and that you’ve faithfully paid your
taxes every year.”
Travis said, “With a birth certificate and legitimate Social Security number,
they were then able to get a driver’s license that would have real ID behind
it.”
“So I’m Nora Jean Aimes? But if her birth certificate’s on record, so is her
death certificate. If someone wanted to check—”
Van Dyne shook his head. “In those days, both birth and death certificates were
strictly paper documents, no computer files. And because it squanders more money
that it spends wisely, the government has never had the funds to transfer
records of the precomputer era into electronic data banks. So if someone gets
suspicious about you, they can’t just search out the death records On computer
and learn the truth in two minutes flat. They’d have to go to the courthouse,
dig back through the coroner’s files for that year, and find Nora Jean’s death
certificate. But that won’t happen because part of our service involves having
Nora Jean’s certificate removed from public records and destroyed now that
you’ve bought her identity.”
“We’re into TRW, the credit-reporting agency,” one of the twin Spielberg
look-alikes said with obvious delight.
Nora saw data flickering across the green screens, but none of it had any
meaning for her.
“They’re creating solid credit histories for our new identities,” Travis told
her. “By the time we do settle down somewhere and put in a change of address
with the DMV and TRW, our mailbox will be flooded with offers for credit
cards—Visa, MasterCard, probably even American Express and Carte Blanche.”
‘Nora Jean Aimes,” she said numbly, trying to grasp how quickly and thoroughly
her new life was being built.
Because they could locate no infant who had died in the year of Travis’s birth
with his first name, he had to settle for being Samuel Spencer Hyatt, who had
been born that January and had perished that March in Portland, Oregon. The
death would be expunged from the public record, and Travis’s new identity would
stand up to fairly intense scrutiny.
Strictly for fun (they said), the bearded young operators created a military
record for Travis, crediting him six years in the Marines and awarding him a
Purple Heart plus a couple of citations for bravery during a
peace-keeping-mission-turned-violent in the Middle East. To their delight, he
asked if they could also create a valid real-estate broker’s license under his
new name, and within twenty-five minutes they cracked into the right data banks
and did the job.
“Cake and pie,” one of the young men said.
“Cake and pie,” the other echoed. Nora frowned, not understanding.
“Piece of cake,” one of them explained.
“Easy as pie,” the other said.
“Cake and pie,” Nora said, nodding.
The blonde with copper-penny eyes returned, carrying driver’s licenses imprinted
with Travis’s and Nora’s pictures. “You’re both quite photogenic,” she said.
Two hours and twenty minutes after meeting Van Dyne, they left Hot Tips with two
manila envelopes containing a variety of documents supporting their new
identities. Out on the street, Nora felt a little dizzy and held on to Travis’s
arm all the way back to the car.
Fog had rolled through the city while they had been in Hot Tips. The blinking
lights and flashing-rippling neon of the Tenderloin were softened yet curiously
magnified by the mist, so it seemed as if every cubic centimeter of night air