Forests of the Night Read Free

blowing gashes in the drywall.
    The cat must have escaped, because when the shooter staggered into camera view again, his arrogance had crumpled into misery. He stared at the lens, shoulders weighted with doom, bitter tears muddying his eyes, and he jammed the pistol against his temple.
    â€œYou worthless punk,” he snarled at the camera. “Jerry Cox can’t even kill a freaking cat. A freaking alley cat. Jerry’s a scum-sucking dumb-ass bastard shit-for-brains. Can’t even kill a freaking freaking cat.”
    Charlotte knew he wasn’t going to shoot himself. The kid was spent. His eyes were dark vacuums, mouth slack, disgusted by his own grim appetites, his abject failure to accomplish a simple chore. For two or threeseconds the boy struggled to pull the trigger, then he lowered the pistol and trudged to the camera and switched it off.
    Maybe the kid had wanted to be a voyeur of his own cruelty, or perhaps the tape was meant to win him admission into some ruthless cult of juveniles. Either way, the event turned out to be merely a testament to the boy’s utter ineptitude.
    The screen went black and Charlotte sagged in the padded chair.
    In the observation room, she heard voices, then the door between the rooms opened.
    â€œI should get fifty percent for the last one,” she said without turning from the empty screen. “He shot at the cat, but didn’t shoot himself.”
    Dr. Fedderman was silent. She could feel him looking at her. When he spoke, his voice was huskier than it had been earlier in the day.
    â€œWhen you voted no, you were reacting to the scene with the cat. You had no way to know the young man was going to consider suicide. This will count as an incorrect result.”
    â€œHey, relax, Doc. I’m just kidding around with you.”
    â€œOh,” Fedderman said. “I see.”
    â€œWhy’re you so upset? Am I making you mad for some reason?”
    She swiveled her chair to catch his face. The room was still dim. Only the weak glow of the blank screen. Fedderman was a short, sleek man with a shaved head and a goatee. For two weeks he’d worn black turtlenecks and sharply creased blue jeans. Nobody in Miami wore black turtlenecks. Like he’d been time-warped in from a fifties Bleecker Street coffeehouse. Him and his bongo drums.
    â€œAnd why would I be angry at you, Officer Monroe?”
    â€œMaybe because I’m doing too well. Beating the averages.”
    â€œIt’s research. I have no vested interest in any particular outcome.”
    â€œWhat about the software you’re peddling?”
    â€œYou’re participating in a clinical trial. All data is useful.”
    â€œBut if I keep beating your program, then your system isn’t as amazing as you say. Some ordinary patrol officer can do better, why should a department shell out the cash? Isn’t that why you’re pissed?”
    He stared at the empty screen and spoke with what was probably meant to sound like scientific detachment.
    â€œMs. Monroe, so far you’ve produced fine results. They may turn out to be a statistical anomaly or they may not. If you continue to score this well over a longer period, then we’ll seek to explain how you accomplish these feats, and that information will help us refine our program. That’s the purpose of these experiments. Data collection. It is certainly not my intent to try to prove the superiority of my software over ordinary people.”
    â€œYour throat’s tight. There’s a squeak in your voice. You’re pissed.”
    He shifted his gaze and gave her a bleak appraisal. This was a man who knew the name and function of every muscle strand in the face and had learned through arduous practice how to tighten or relax them in every possible combination to signal the entire range of human emotions. Thousands upon thousands of expressions with only the subtlest differences among them.
    Facial coding, it was