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Lepidopt’s toupees that sat on a Styrofoam head on another desk.
    â€œBert needs to hear the tape,” Lepidopt said.
    â€œRight, right,” the old man said, turning away to zip up his trousers and fasten his belt. “I haven’t got anything since that one burst. I’ll wait in the living room, I don’t like to hear myself talk.” The old man caught the “holograph” medallion that was swinging on a string around his neck—required equipment for every Halomot remote viewer—and tucked it into his shirt before buttoning it up.
    When he had left and closed the door, Lepidopt sat on the bed to rewind the little tape recorder. Malk leaned against the nearest desk and cocked his head, attentive now.
    The tape stopped rewinding, and Lepidopt pushed the play button.
    â€œâ€”on, right,” came Sam’s reedy old voice, “turn off the light, I don’t want afterimages.” There was a pause of perhaps half a minute. Lepidopt tapped ash onto the carpet.
    â€œOkay,” came Sam’s voice again, “probable AOL gives me the Swiss Family Robinson tree house in Disneyland, I don’t think that’s right, just AOL, analytical overlay—let me get back to the signal line—voices, a man is speaking—‘And we’ll not fail.’ Following somebody saying, ‘Screw your courage to the sticking place,’ that’s Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth, this may be off track too—the man says, ‘She’s probably about eighty-seven now.’ The house is on the ground, not up in the tree, little house, it’s a shed. Very crapped-out old shed…‘She doesn’t drink whisky,’ says the man. They’re inside the little house now, a man and a little girl, and there’s a gasoline smell—I see a window, then it’s gone, just empty air there—and a TV set—‘An ammunition box,’ says the man, ‘I don’t think she’s ever had a gun, though.’”
    Sam’s voice broke up in a coughing fit at this point, and Lepidopt’s recorded voice said, “Can you see any locating details? Where are they?”
    After a few seconds Sam’s voice stopped coughing and went on. “No locating details. I see a headstone, a tombstone. Bas-relief stuff and writing on it, but I won’t even try to read it. There’s mud on it, fresh wet mud. The man says, ‘Bunch of old letters, New Jersey postmarks, 1933, ’39, ’55—Lisa Marrity, yup.’ Uh—and then he says, ‘Is that real?…I mean, isn’t the real one at the Chinese Theater? But this might be real…She says she knew Chaplin. She flew to Switzerland after he died.’ Now there’s someone else, ‘It’s your uncle Bennett…’ Uh—‘One, two, three,’ and…a big crash, he pulled the tombstone down…and sunlight again—three people walking toward a house, the back door, with a trellis over it—a broken window—something about fingerprints, and a burglar—‘Marritys,’ says the new man, and the little girl says, ‘ “Divil a man can say a word agin them”’—the first man is at the back door, saying, ‘If there was a thief, he’s gone.’”
    Lepidopt reached out now and switched off the recorder. “Sam loses the link at that point,” he said mournfully.
    â€œWow,” said Bert Malk, who had perched himself on the corner of a desk in line with one of the fans. “He said Marity. And Lisa, which is close enough. Did Sam know that name?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWe could call the coroner in Shasta, now that we’ve got a name, see if a Lisa Marity died there today.”
    â€œFor now we can assume she did. We can get Ernie’s detective to call later to confirm it.”
    â€œIt wasn’t a tombstone,” Malk went on thoughtfully.
    â€œNo, pretty clearly it was