Read Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said for Free Online Page A

different from the others so they can’t be superimposed. That’s where so many documenters”—she smiled as she opened the door—“that’s what we call ourselves—that’s where so many of us fuck it up. They take one signature and transfer it to all the documents. See?”
    “Yes,” he said, entering the musty little closetlike room after her.
    Kathy shut the door, paused a moment, then said, “Eddy is a police fink.”
    Staring at her he said, “Why?”
    “‘Why?’ Why what? Why is he a police fink? For money. For the same reason I am.”
    Jason said, “God damn you.” He grabbed her by the right wrist, tugged her toward him; she grimaced as his fingers tightened. “And he’s already—”
    “Eddy hasn’t done anything yet,” she grated, trying to free her wrist. “That hurts. Look; calm down and I’ll show you. Okay?”
    Reluctantly, his heart hammering in fear, he let her go. Kathy turned on a bright, small light, laid three forged documents in the circle of its glare. “A purple dot on the margin of each,” she said, indicating the almost invisible circle of color. “A microtransmitter, so you’ll emit a bleep every five seconds as you move around. They’re after conspiracies; they want the people you’re with.”
    Jason said harshly, “I’m not with anyone.”
    “But they don’t know that.” She massaged her wrist, frowning in a girlish, sullen way. “You TV celebrities no one’s ever heard of sure have quick reactions,” she murmured.
    “Why did you tell me?” Jason asked. “After doing all the forging, all the—”
    “I want you to get away,” she said, simply.
    “Why?” He still did not understand.
    “Because hell, you’ve got some sort of magnetic quality about you; I noticed it as soon as you came into the room. You’re”—she groped for the word—“sexy. Even at your age.”
    “My presence,” he said.
    “Yes.” Kathy nodded. “I’ve seen it before in public people, from a distance, but never up close like this. I can see why you imagine you’re a TV personality; you really seem like you are.”
    He said, “How do I get away? Are you going to tell me that? Or does that cost a little more?”
    “God, you’re so cynical.”
    He laughed, and again took hold of her by the wrist.
    “I guess I don’t blame you,” Kathy said, shaking her head and making a masklike face. “Well, first of all, you can buy Eddy off. Another five hundred should do it. Me you don’t have to buy off—
if
, and only if, and I mean it, if you stay with me awhile. You have…allure, like a good perfume. I respond to you and I just never do that with men.”
    “With women, then?” he said tartly.
    It passed her without registering. “Will you?” she said.
    “Hell,” he said, “I’ll just leave.” Reaching, he opened the door behind her, shoved past her and out into her workroom. She followed, rapidly.
    Among the dim, empty shadows of the abandoned restaurant she caught up with him; she confronted him in the gloom. Panting, she said, “You’ve already got a transmitter planted on you.”
    “I doubt it,” he answered.
    “It’s true. Eddy planted it on you.”
    “Bullshit,” he said, and moved away from her toward the light of the restaurant’s sagging, broken front door.
    Pursuing him like a deft-footed herbivore, Kathy gasped, “But suppose it’s true. It could be.” At the half-available doorway she interposed herself between him and freedom; standing there, her hands lifted as if to ward off a physical blow, she said swiftly, “Stay with me one night. Go to bed with me. Okay? That’s enough. I promise. Will you do it, for just one night?”
    He thought, Something of my abilities, my alleged and well-known properties, have come with me, to this strange place I now live in. This place where I do not exist except on forged cards manufactured by a pol fink. Eerie, he thought, and he shuddered. Cards with microtransmitters built into them, to betray me and