Chapter 41

It seems that I may be Hugo again, and now to all. Irving says this. And more; I will have work that brings me money.

Irving says he now believes the tale that Linda and I say to him. “Consider me sold, Linda,” he tells her. “The human lie-detector business is kind of icing on the cake; it’s the machine lie-detector results that do it for me. They say you’re both telling it like it is, and that means I have to buy into the whole thing. You’re right, the fact that it’s never happened before, or never been documented at least, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen this time. I can’t get around those damn tests.”

“Now it’s my turn to start thanking you, Irving,” she says. “You know, I really love him, I didn’t care about me, it was just that he was going to get put away forever and—”

“Please shut up, my dear, I care no more about your sex life than you about mine,” he interrupts. “But this ‘Jim Tremaine’ thing will not do. You’ve seen how easy it is to puncture that balloon.”

I hear the sense of his speech. “How else may I have ID I need?” I ask.

He turns to me. “Well, Hugo, we’re going to get you your very own ID,” he says. “A real one, in your own name and not some fake.”

“But how, Irving?” asks Linda. “Danny and— Cut. I couldn’t—”

“Your brother is safe, Linda,” Irving stops her. “And you’re safe, and Hugo is safe. Keep the Tremaine ID for now, it will pass muster under casual inspection and for him to have none at all could create problems. But try to avoid having to use it, continue maintaining a low profile until we can get him his own.”

“You can do that?” Linda asks him.

He smiles. “It helps to have contacts with the right people. To be in a position to pull some strings. And I think I’m going to have a vested interest in pulling those strings.”

Linda had turned her head to look at me, but now she gives her full attention back to Irving. “What?” she says.

“This talent for knowing when people are lying is, well, remarkable,” he tells her. “And potentially an asset of considerable value to a law firm that specializes in criminal representation. You know how easy it is for a defense to fail because the client has lied to his attorney, even about something seemingly unrelated. And then witnesses ... The benefits would be enormous.”

“Of course!” she says. “If I’d had him in the baby rape trial—”

“Quite. We’ll have to do more tests, of course, I need to find out how reliable he is. But today’s demonstration was ... impressive, to say the least.”

He turns to me. “You knew all this just from the one sentence I spoke, Hugo?”

“The children, yes,” I tell him. “And when you speak of wife your manner is ... I do not know how to say this. Feeling is not right. But also when we meet first I see some. Not ... open?” I look at Linda with question, the word is not right.

“Obvious,” she says.

“Not obvious. But is there. This is why I ask you before I speak, I think you know what it is I will say.”

“I suppose I might have,” Irving says. “It was incautious of me to tell you to go on. But how do you do it? Is it the voice only, body language, how do you know?”

“Is all. Voice, language of body—is a good way to say this, I never hear before—movement of eyes, of hands, muscles inside, more. It is not a thing one can teach another by this thing and that thing, all must go together.”