Chapter 22: I Shot a Man in Reno Just to Watch Him Die...

Logan had to admit he was curious. Yet he didn’t want to nose into Lacy’s past, into her colorful sidebar cons. Then, as they ate a leisurely room-service breakfast in the Brown Palace, he decided he was being silly. Either they trusted each other, or they didn’t.

“So, pool hustling, bottom dealing, shaved dice. That’s not on everyone’s CV.”

Lacy laughed, “Probably not. As I mentioned, it was more learning a discipline, developing a mindset, than actually scamming a mark. Well, Chase regarded pool as a possible opportunity. A long-shot, but a lot of McMansion guys have a billiards room. Some with a snooker table. But he didn’t bother with billiards and snooker — the tables are too big; the skill sets are completely different from pocket pool.”

“Example?”

Lacy served them both more kippers, “Okay, Chase had a 4 1/2 by 9-foot Diamond table in the Hamptons. He brought in an old hustler, Jimmy Irish, to give me basic lessons — grip, stance, stroke. How to apply English, how to avoid a kiss on certain bank shots — the usual.”

“Okay.” Logan thought: Not the usual, not at all.

“There are a million prop bets — proposition bets you can make. But to get into serious wagers, I had to reach a certain skill level.”

“Then what?”

“Depends on the game. Most guys play 8-ball. There’s a way to pattern-rack the balls so you have an edge. Same with racking for 9-ball — leave a tiny gap between balls at just the right spot and you’ll make the wing ball almost every time. And leave the cue ball in the middle of the table for a shot at the 1.”

“Remind me never to chalk a stick around you.”

Lacy grinned, “My favorite little hustle was pinball.”

“Pinball? God, I haven’t seen a pinball machine for years.”

“Chase is prescient about a lot of things. And he predicted pinball would make a comeback — a sort of retro-reaction to all the digital gaming.”

Logan poured more coffee, “I could see that. A nostalgia thing.”

“And a money-maker. A lot of gentlemen’s clubs started refurbishing old Bally’s and Data East and Stern. Swapped out 50s pinups with naked pictures of their own dancers.”

“Still sounds sort of nickel-and-dime.”

“Except instead of quarters, it’s digital payments. Guys have a few drinks and decide they can beat the house.”

“The house pays off?

“Sure, just like mom-and-pop places used to do. But today, you can wager ten bucks, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a game.”

“Okay, so what’s the angle? From your point of view?”

“Well, first of all, I get a guy betting against me, not the house.”

“There has to be more to it than that.”

Lacy grinned, mischief and an almost child-like delight peeking out, “A shim.”

“Like a tapered piece of wood?”

“Like that, except metal. And it’s painted the same color as the leg of the pinball machine. Or the rubber sleeve that keeps the leg from sliding. The color varies from brand to brand, so you have to do a little homework first.”

“Okay. You’re in a loud club, lights flashing, DJ doing her thing, dancers up on the stage, champagne flowing ... and pinball?”

“Sure. I use both hands and gently lift the right side up. Use my right foot to nudge the shim underneath. That increases my odds of cashing in from around 15 to 62, 63-percent.”

Logan shook his head.

“Of course it depends on the manufacturer. Some machines, I have to shim the left side instead.”

“Of course.”

After Kath had swallowed and Mr. Verret gave her a roll of mint candies, she took the stack of paperwork and walked over to Marie’s office.

The City Attorney immediately ushered her in. Kath handed her the papers, “Mr. Verret; I don’ know what it means, me.”

As she digested the come-ons, the easy access to credit, Marie’s face darkened. “Forget about this, Kath. I’ll call on Mr. Verret and straighten him out.”

Eulalie had a memory-catalog of the different conversations Chase and Ethan had with her. Like going into this room or that room of a large house. Music, art, politics, food, clothing.

And tech — arguably her weakest field. Even though she understood little of what Chase had been saying, she could remember the latest incident almost word-for-word:

Chase had received a call and said, “Calm down. Tell me the precise symptoms.”

Eulalie stared — it was like listening to one side of a foreign language conversation.

“Don’t worry about the seed AI for recursive machine-improvement. The evolutionary substrata can’t be altered.”

“Your lab mainframe was infected by a root kit — turned it into a zombie bot. It’s being used as a way-station to mask both financial transactions and video uploads.”

“What does Tech Maintenance say?”

“Okay, you obviously have a rupture and all the ancillary sectors have dropped off.”

“Hmm ... your network’s been breached and evac protocols are compromised. Listen carefully — spike it with UTILIDOR, and then the DISS system for Sub2 will go offline.”

“Prepare for R-Force intervention if the System Override locks you out.”

Again, Eulalie thought: The things I don’t know.

Later, Chase smiled at the little girl, “Singularity is that guy’s current worry. That’s when we reach the point with AI where technological growth becomes irreversible and unstoppable.”

“Can you teach me all of that stuff?”

“I could, but why bother? It’s like learning an obscure idiolect that you’ll rarely need.”

“But you learned it.”

“Yes. For one specific mission that I couldn’t outsource. It involved moving a large sum of money from Point A to Point Q in a nanosecond. While the CEO of a hedge fund was in the same room. And I was being electronically monitored by his IT team at the same time. I needed specific insider knowledge to make it look like the transfer was moving around the world in multiple directions, all at once.”

“But you still learned.”

“And what I learned was ... probably twenty percent was obsolete a month later. Technology moves at warp speed.”

He smiled, “There’s an old British saying, ‘Why buy a dog and bark yourself?’ Besides, I prefer to contract with someone who’s smarter, faster, more skilled, than I am. An expert in one particular field.”

“Like Mr. Zhao in Szechwan Absolute.”

Chase regarded Eulalie with appreciation for her memory. Appreciation bordering on admiration.

Quintin Apache called Goose-Step Gorman.

“It may have been a trap.”

“Was it the bitch or not? I paid good jack for that lead.”

“Do not use that tone with me, Goose-Step, do not.”

“Sorry.”

“It may well have been the cunt. It certainly looked like her. But it felt wrong, like a trap. If there’s one thing I learned in the Army, it’s to suspect everyone. And everything. So, I took a pass.”

Goose-Step had never quite gotten used to Apache’s odd cadences. The way he stressed a random word here and there. The speech patterns stood out this time because most of his conversations were clipped, terse. One or two sentences, then a hang-up.

“So, the hunt is still on. The next real lead is worth $20,000.”

“Twenty?”

“And another twenty when I get my hands on the bitch.”

“I’m on it, hoss.”

The Dobermans — TooTall and YesBut — were veteran cops. Used to boring stakeouts, long, unrewarding hours. And, they were pros. Marie had told them, told them herself, “This Quintin Apache is trouble. Safety first — your own safety. If there’s any question, take the fucker out.”

They nodded, no surprise there. The Chief and the City Attorney would make sure there was no blowback. So they pinned up Apache’s photo in the video room. Taped copies to their dashboards.

Told the five cops they trusted the most, “Keep on the lookout. The fucker probably has a sniper rifle, handgun, and definitely a knife.”

Both of the Dobermans felt a slight resentment — YesBut a little more than TooTall — at not knowing who Marie’s special guest was. Rémy had explained who the previous seven visitors were. Not only who they were, but why they were in hiding, and who was after them.

This case though ... this Mr. Smith, was just the opposite. A mystery man with no details known about him. YesBut thought to himself: Well, we’ll see about that.

Bull walked in to join Ethan and Madison for breakfast, “No word from Logan and Lacy?”

Ethan shook his head, “Not yet. But it’s better they take their time, do it right.”

Madison, “You look a little edgy, Bull. Something wrong?”

“Duty calls.”

“Storage problems?”

“An opportunity. A guy in Minneapolis is thinking of selling. He has 32 locations all over the upper Midwest.”

Madison gave her father a sad face, “Another one is leaving me, Popsicle.”

“Poor baby.”

As they ate their breakfast in the Brown Palace, Lacy said, “Let’s dip down to Colorado Springs, it’s only about an hour away.”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“One of my watchers has a nugget. May or may not fit in.”

As she drove south, Logan glanced over at Lacy and realized she was opening another door to her life. Letting him meet one of her sources.

“Your brain.”

“Okay.”

Chase liked how Eulalie could convey so much nuance with just a single word. Mild curiosity, openness, even a slight skepticism that she would find the conversation remotely interesting. Lacy Danube was like that too — a noncommittal “Hmm,”, a raised eyebrow, a sideways glance.

“Your brain, Eulalie, — every human’s brain — is, essentially, a prediction machine.”

“Okay.” Heightened interest, a little diminution of doubt.

“Your brain is a statistical organ, built to forecast what will happen next.”

Eulalie frowned, thinking it over.

“The brain has evolved over millions of years. Back in prehistoric times, the ability to anticipate could be the difference between eating your next meal, or being the tiger’s next meal.”

“Okay.”

“Now, when I’m looking — or you and I are looking — for an edge, a slight advantage, it can help to introduce uncertainty in the other person. His brain will kick into overdrive, will start to consume extra energy. He metabolic count will soar.”

Eulalie frowned again.

“Think of it as an overheated computer — he will have less bandwidth available for higher-order thinking.”

“He’ll be off balance?”

“Yes. And the complexity of processing that he goes through can actually be measured in joules, and blood flow, and brain temperature. A sense of threat, of being uncomfortable with the unknown, produces irritability and stress.”

“Throws him off his game.”

“Exactly. When you break someone’s routine, when you introduce new pathways, it disturbs the familiar scaffolding of his life.”

Eulalie crossed her arms, “Example?”

“Look at your own morning routine. Shower, breakfast, Jon boat to the City Docks, Vespa to school. Take away any one of those steps — no hot water, the stove doesn’t work, boat won’t start, Vespa is out of gas.”

“It fucks up my day. Part of it, anyway.”

“That’s right. And say you have a final exam that morning — Advanced Calculus.”

Eulalie snorted.

“You may still pass the test, but you’ll be a little off. You didn’t take a shower, or had to skip breakfast, or were running late. You won’t be bringing your A-game into the classroom.”

Eulalie looked thoughtful; Chase, Ethan too, had introduced her to so many new ways of looking at life.

Chase said, “Now, you already know how to introduce uncertainty. You do it instinctively in your dealings around town. Ladies Night, Moms Gone Wild, those photographs of the dancers — each of those ushered Sausalito into a new way of thinking.”

Eulalie sighed, “I need to be more conscious of what I’m doing.”

“Yes. You have an extraordinary foundation, a natural talent. The trick is — the opportunity is — to nurture, to refine, to enhance your thought process.”

“I would have taken a shower anyway, hot water or not.”

Logan was surprised at the Colorado Springs neighborhood. It could have been in suburban Kansas City. Gently curving streets, ranch style houses, basketball hoops in a few driveways. Neatly trimmed lawns, Crime Watch signs, bikes and trikes in front yards, swing sets in back.

As ordinary as things looked, Lacy parked two blocks away, and took a meandering path through side yards, around an above-ground swimming pool; watching carefully the entire time.

She spoke softly, “Maxine is among the best. And when you work with the best, you’re not the only customer she has.”

Logan realized that Lacy already knew he would be aware of that; it was just her way of sharing.

Maxine Reyanosa, or whatever her name really was, didn’t hesitate to fling her front door open, “Barbara, come in, come in!” Lacy accepted a velvety hug, and said, “Mr. Green.” Maxine shook hands with Logan.

Maxine weighed well over 200 jiggly pounds. Wore a shapeless housedress and had sparkly cat lady glasses dangling from a silver chain.

Logan looked around the living room: dozens of what appeared to be family photographs. At least a hundred Hummel figurines. A huge gold cross high on a wall. Keane portraits featuring big-eyed children. He counted eight separate cats entwining their way around Maxine’s fat ankles.

Grandma’s gingerbread house.

Maxine nodded at Lacy, and looked at Logan, “Her, I know. What’s your DarkWeb knowledge level?”

“Rudimentary. I know it’s far larger than the surface web. And difficult to access. Host to a lot of illegal activity.”

“True. But if it’s so illegal, why doesn’t the government, any government, build a search engine capable of penetrating the DarkWeb?”

“Why?”

“Because the government doesn’t have the coders, the best coders, the rock stars.”

Logan said, “So why doesn’t Silicon Valley tackle the problem?”

“Money. There isn’t any to be made. If the sites in the DarkWeb wanted advertising and click-referrals, they’d come on the Internet. As it is, they turn away far more visitors than they let in. If a government, or Silicon Valley intruded, they’d just dig deeper down.”

Lacy said, “And that’s what Apache is part of. He provides the infrastructure for some of the DarkWeb sites.”

Maxine nodded, “Bitcoin became the currency of record there. Parties can exchange money and remain anonymous from each other.”

She led the way down a picture-filled hallway to a basement door. She grunted with the effort as she used both hands on the side rails to descend into a cedar-lined den complete with a huge flat-screen Sony.

The three of them walked through an alcove with three freezers humming along, and into a large room that was lined with sheet metal. To soundproof it? To make it impervious to electronic snooping? Maybe. But more probably to protect the banks of computer components, bundles of power cords, surge suppressors, display screens, and some equipment that Logan had never seen, not even in Naval Intelligence.

Maxine said, “It’s twenty-five hundred bucks, Barbara.”

Lacy frowned in surprise.

Maxine sighed, “I know, I know, it’s not much. But it only took me a couple of minutes.”

Lacy counted out the bills, handed them over. Maxine deposited the thin stack somewhere inside her neckline. She said, “All I have is eastern Oregon. I didn’t hear anything about a Knife Man and didn’t inquire.”

“Of course not. Let’s see, eastern Oregon, that’s mostly unpopulated, which makes sense. It’s about three hundred miles from Boise to Bend and it’s pretty deserted.”

Maxine yawned, which sent all three chins jiggling. And signaled the end of the meeting.

As he drove them north, back to Denver, and then on to Laramie to visit Paul Citron, Logan said, “I can have Bull check for military bunkers in Oregon.”

“Good. And my people are on it too. Apache would have had to buy it or lease it. No way he’d set up a server farm without title to the property.”

“I agree. And let’s see what Goose-Step has to say about it.”

“After we brace Citron.”

“After we brace Citron. We’ll be there before lunch.”

Other than adjusting the seat and mirrors, Logan and Lacy were interchangeable drivers. Moving easily with the flow, changing lanes only when necessary, no sudden accelerations and panicky stops.

Logan said, “That eastern Oregon lead from Maxine ... how does she do it?”

“Furtiveness.”

“Oh?”

“Think of the prototypical hacker. A teenager, maybe a tweener, usually a boy waiting for his acne to clear up so he can get laid.”

“Okay.”

“Maxine was already doing everything that the kid is just starting to grasp. He’s learning how money moves through the system. Checking airplane and hotel reservations. Snooping in corporate HR files.”

Logan nodded.

“But all of that stuff is getting better protected than ever. And the corporations are hiring hackers of their own to sniff out digital intruders. You usually can’t bust in through brute force. Code-breaking is difficult, and the penalties can be harsh.”

“Understood.”

“So what Maxine does is nibble around the edges. Those same corporations that are becoming harder to hack into are ruthless when it comes to the bottom line. A recession hits? Or is even on the horizon? Layoffs. Two pharmaceuticals merge? More layoffs.”

“So ... tens of thousands of frustrated workers scrambling to file for unemployment benefits, sending out résumés, networking like crazy.”

“That’s right; you’re not quite as dumb as people say, Logan. So Maxine cruises the digital streams looking for people who were laid off from certain corporations. Certain corporations in certain industries. Not often, but every once in a while, she’ll find someone who knows something. Passwords, security weaknesses. Even the name of a system controller could help.”

“How so?”

“Maxine will use a program that generates every iteration of the guy’s name, his significant calendar dates, names of family members and pets, addresses, phone numbers...”

“And it wouldn’t take ten seconds to engineer, and check for, every variant of a corporate password.”

“Yep.”

“But that isn’t what she did with Apache. He’s hardly a suit.”

“No, but I imagine Maxine used the same social engineering skills, just on an individual basis. Apache’s name and photo. Army background. Knife rep. And, she has cultivated an underground legion of snoops, watchers, listeners, priers.”

“Huh.”

“Maxine is like a pirate ship. People sign on for a voyage because she doesn’t ask questions and it pays well. Plus, it’s usually more engaging than a straight gig. When the ship pulls into an interesting looking port, some hop off. New ones join the team. It’s fluid, and it’s stronger for the ever-changing flow.”

“So eastern Oregon. If Apache’s there, what do you think he’s doing?”

“Besides making mostly-legitimate money from his server farm? If I were Apache, I’d cultivate a cadre of like-minded outsiders. Survivalists like up in Idaho. People who don’t ranch, don’t rely on skiers and tumbleweed-prairie visitors.”

“A tripwire, an ad hoc early-warning system. Like Marie set up in Sausalito and the Cajun Bayous.”

“One difference — Marie’s people are loyal to her.”

“And, Apache is a loner.”

Eulalie was lying on her tummy, a faint sheen of perspiration the only sign of the vigorous lovemaking minutes earlier.

Chase had finished his Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and could feel his heart rate slow down to 45, 43, 40. He waited a couple more minutes, then said, “You’ve heard of Bloomingdale’s?”

Eulalie paused, “Clothes? New York?”

“That’s right. Upper East Side, 59th and Lex. There’s also a subway stop there — on the IRT. The Lexington Avenue Line.”

“Okay.”

“There’s an escalator — one of the longest in the world — that carries passengers from deep underground up to street level.”

“Where Bloomingdale’s is.”

“Right. And there are two kinds of escalator riders. The majority stand on the right side and simply let the moving steps haul them up. But New York being New York, some people are too impatient to just ride. They stride up the stairs — getting a little exercise and saving a little time.”

“I can picture that.”

“Now which ones — the standers or the striders — are smarter?”

Eulalie started to answer — obviously the striders. Then she frowned and closed her mouth, thinking. Chase didn’t see things in black and white, didn’t picture a one-dimensional world.

She lay there in his bed, chin resting on her fists, feet in the air, ankles crossed.

“Neither. They shouldn’t be in a position where they have to ride a crowded subway, then a crowded escalator.”

Chase patted her pert butt in appreciation, “You’re learning how to think things through. Now, often the subway is the fastest, easiest way to get from Point A to Point B. And sometimes when you’re on the 4, 5, or 6 trains, you need to get off at 59th Street. But you’ve made some dubious life decisions if that’s part of your daily routine.”

Eulalie thought: The things I don’t know. Then: But I’m learning.

Chase studied the little Cajun girl. Her eyes — large and dark, full of mischief and intelligence and promise — were particularly expressive when she was truly engaged with someone. He knew, knew at a cellular level, that she would prosper under his tutelage.

Lacy and Logan didn’t have an appointment, just breezed into Citron’s office lobby and identified themselves to the matronly receptionist. Who frowned at the unannounced intrusion, but agreed to see if Mr. Citron would admit them.

He looked the same, physically. But while he wasn’t just a shell of the man he’d been before, he didn’t display any of his usual bluster. Just, “What now? Another bite?”

Lacy regarded him calmly, “No, I said it was a one-off and it is. Any news on Apache?”

“None. And I haven’t been asking. I’m finished with that ... with all of that.”

Logan said, “Just be aware that he’s still after Ethan. And now Madison.” He nodded at Lacy, “Probably her. And me as well.”

Lacy, “He won’t find me.”

Logan looked directly at Citron, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he circles back to kill you too.”

Citron blinked and sat up. He obviously hadn’t considered that possibility. “Huh.”

As they drove away, Lacy said, “He’ll step up his security.”

“Yep.”

For their Spokane stay, Lacy had booked them into the pretentiously named Historic Davenport, Autograph Collection. Logan smiled, “Another grand dame.”

“We’re only 50 miles to Coeur D’Alene. And tomorrow’s Sunday.”

They showered, stayed naked, and reviewed their Goose-Step Gorman notes.

Logan said, “Typical of so many Orange County cops. He did his twenty in the Tustin PD, then pulled the pin, moved up to northern Idaho.”

Lacy, “But he didn’t join a lot of other cops in the white supremacy movement. Not overtly, anyway. I wouldn’t have predicted it, but he’s living in Gethsemane Fields Forever. An evangelical ... what? Commune? Compound? Whatever they call it, it’s closed off to outsiders, To nonbelievers, to those who haven’t been born again; born of water and the Spirit.”

“Leaves me out.”

“San Francisco hippie.”

“Lexington white trash.”

Lacy said, “Now, Goose-Step may not be living with the neo-Nazis, but he’s one of them. He’s divorced, but both of his daughters are middle-class, white supremacists.”

“There’s a subtext among some evangelicals — born-again applies to whites, and whites only. Preserving our moral traditions means segregation from others.”

“However, with Quentin Apache, I don’t have the sense that he’s a rabid supremacist. He seems like a loner, not a joiner.”

“I agree. But we’re starting with Goose-Step. And like a lot of those Orange County cops, he had a thick file of formal complaints against him. Usually involving Blacks and Latinos. So, with his background, with his daughters’ involvement with the movement ... well, it’s a place to start.”

Lacy, “It surprised me how many women are on the front lines. I thought most of them were of the ‘barefoot and pregnant’ school.”

“Not these days. The mantra is — if Blacks and Latinos can rally around their history, be proud of their heritage, why can’t white people?”

“That’s actually a legitimate question.”

Logan knew she had lobbed him a softball, but he swung anyway, “Yeah, it is, except it creates a false equivalency. White men weren’t lynched; white kids weren’t forced into substandard schools. White women weren’t denied a seat on the bus.”

“So, how you wanna play it tomorrow?”

“Lacy, I could tell you my plan, but why don’t we save time and you tell me what we’re really gonna do?”

“You’re learning, you’re learning. Slow, but headed in the right direction.”

Later that night, as she lay in his arms, Lacy said, “Lexington, Kentucky. I used to spend as much time out of the house as I could. Men were drawn to Consuela — she was still sexy, and she’d do about anything for the next hit.”

“Where did you go?”

“When I was five, maybe six, it was a big deal to me to even leave the front porch by myself. I mean it was pitch dark, midnight or later. But inside that house ... well, I started by forcing myself to make it to the front sidewalk. Then going to the end of the block and rushing back as if I’d done something wrong.”

Logan kissed the top of her head. He knew that by sharing intimate glimpses into her childhood, Lacy was gifting him with something rare. Maybe Chase knew the details, he probably did, but that would have been it.

“Pretty soon, that became my own special time. I’d roam for hours in the dark, looking at all the nice houses, trying to imagine who lived there, what it would be like. Sometimes I’d see a light on, or a shadow in a window, a TV playing. But mostly it was just me and the night.”

Logan stroked her hair.

“By three in the morning, Consuela and her boyfriend de jour, or boyfriends, would usually be conked out, so it was safe to sneak back in, go to bed.”

“So young.”

Lacy laughed, “In the daytime, especially on weekends, I’d practically live in the back yard. Not much of a yard, mostly just dirt.” She paused, “I never even told Chase about my God game.”

“God game?”

“Once in a while, Consuela would get a maternal urge and drag me to church. I hated it, my shabby clothes, my slutty mother sitting in a pew. But mostly I hated the sermons — hellfire and damnation.”

“Okay.”

“I also came to despise the idea that God knew everything I’d done and everything that I was going to do. So, there I am in our dusty back yard. I’d walk toward the gate that led to the McGregor’s house and suddenly dart to my right. Or feint to my right and spin left.”

Logan laughed, “Trying to surprise God.”

“I wonder if it worked.”

“Well, if anyone could surprise Her...”

She reached under the sheet, “Surprise me.”

Sausalito had a handful of doctors, several lawyers, even a couple of psychotherapists. And Eulalie, usually through Marie, had met most of them. But she’d never been exposed to the variety and depths of the conversational topics that she listened to, and tried to absorb, with Ethan, with Chase, with both of them.

One morning after she had fixed them breakfast and cleaned up, Eulalie sat on the floor, resting her head on Ethan’s thigh. Freshly showered, her hair smelled of verbena. She was wearing a brilliantly white tee-shirt and both men idly wondered what, if anything, she had on underneath.

Chase was playing some classical music from his seemingly endless supply of playlists. Ethan smiled, “That’s nice. Bach.”

“Yep, his Cello Suites, this is the third one. Yo Yo Ma.”

Ethan tilted his head, “There’s something different. Besides the instrument.”

“Good ear. Bach wrote the Suites during that brief time he wasn’t in service to the church. When he didn’t have to write Sunday cantatas.”

“Around 1720?”

Eulalie thought: The things that I don’t know.

“That’s right. He had two or three years where he could experiment. He was already playing the organ and piano of course, and the oboe. But the cello — what could he learn about the cello?”

“He wanted to discover what it could do.”

“More than that, and I agree with the scholarship, he wanted to learn what it couldn’t do. You hear that especially in the fourth, fifth and sixth Suites.“

“Like what?”

“The cello can’t hold many notes at once. And Bach, it’s believed, invented a method of using the listener’s ear to fill in what he couldn’t do polyphonically.”

Eulalie frowned: What the fuck?

Chase, “Let’s skip ahead to the fourth Suite ... right here. Listen carefully. He gives us one note so that it’s in our memory, then leaves it so that a few seconds later you hear the second note, but at the same time, you’re still hearing the first one. A ghostly echo.”