The Helper

THIRTY-THREE

Three days later. Doyle at home, enjoying the peace and tranquility. Enjoying life with his family.

Tucked up in bed, Amy asks, ‘You catch any bad guys today, Daddy?’

Doyle strokes her forehead, pushing strands of hair off her face. ‘Not today, hon. Today was pretty slow.’

‘Then tomorrow you’ll have to catch lots more. Hundreds of them. Or maybe even dozens.’

Doyle smiles. ‘I guess I will. It’s gonna be a busy day.’

‘I’m gonna be busy too. I hafta draw two pictures for Miss Olefski.’

‘Mrs Lefty?’

‘No, Daddy! Miss Olefski. My teacher.’

‘Oh! I thought you said Mrs Lefty. Like maybe she has only one hand. And the other arm has a big crab claw at the end of it. And she has a big hump on her back. And one of her eyes has a-’

‘Daddy, stop it!’ says Amy, even though she can’t stop giggling. ‘I’m gonna tell Miss Olefski what you said about her.’

Doyle puts his hand to his mouth as though he’s terrified at the prospect. ‘Oh, no. Please don’t do that.’

‘All right, I won’t. I’m not a tattle-snail, are I?’

‘No you’re not a tattle-snail.’ He pauses for a moment. ‘Hey, I got something for you.’

‘You have? What is it?’

‘It’s been in my pocket for days. I keep meaning to give it to you. Here. .’

He slips his hand into his pocket and takes out the object he found taped to Gonzo’s apartment door. It’s the button. The one with ‘Captain Awesome’ written on it. The one he pinned on Gonzo.

He says, ‘Shall I put it back in your shiny box?’

‘You don’t have to. You can keep it if you want.’

‘Can I? I’d like that. Thank you. It means a lot to me.’

‘That’s okay. Can you turn out the light now? I’m tired.’

Doyle gives her a goodnight kiss and then switches off the light. As he leaves, he closes his fingers tightly around the button, then drops it back into his pocket.

In the living room, Rachel is at the computer again, working on her photographs. As he strolls over to her, music starts playing over the computer speakers.

‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me?’ by Travis.

Doyle stops in his tracks. Rachel turns to face him.

‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

A ghost? Yeah, something like that.

‘What? No. It was just. . the music. Took me by surprise. After me asking about it the other day.’

‘Actually, that’s what made me dig it out. I haven’t listened to this in ages. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No.’ Although he does mind. He could happily live the rest of his life without ever hearing this song again.

Doyle steps closer to Rachel. Standing behind her, he looks at what she’s working at on the computer. He sees the same image he saw a couple of weeks back: the old black man sitting on the stoop of his apartment building.

‘Whatcha doing?’ he asks.

‘A local magazine saw my photo. They want to use it on their cover. Only they don’t want any product placement.’

Doyle leans closer. ‘What product placement?’

Rachel grabs the mouse and makes a few clicks. Another window opens alongside the first. The same man on the stoop again.

‘Spot the difference,’ says Rachel.

He sees it then. In the original photograph, there’s a can of Dr Pepper on the step at the man’s feet. In the new image, it’s gone. Not a trace of it ever being there.

‘The soda can,’ says Doyle. ‘Where’d it go?’

‘I took it out.’

‘You can do that?’

‘I can do anything I want. The wonders of technology. I can turn him into the President, or Mickey Mouse. The media do it all the time. The newspapers take people out of photographs and they put others in. Foreign governments put their dead leaders in situations that make it seem they must still be alive.’

‘I guess so. That private eye I was telling you about? He musta done something like this to fake a photo of Mrs Sachs’s daughter.’

‘See? Happens all the time. Never believe what you see on an image that’s been through a computer.’

A call of ‘Daddy’ comes from Amy’s bedroom.

‘I’ll get it,’ says Rachel. She gets up from the chair.

Doyle continues to stare at the computer screen.

Never believe what you see. .

‘By the way,’ Rachel says. ‘You might need to get your pal Lonnie to come and look at that machine. Amy says it’s been doing funny things when she’s talking to Ellie on it. She says it keeps showing her pictures of a weird guy with red hair and glasses. I haven’t seen it myself, but that’s what she says.’

And then she’s gone to tend to Amy.

Slowly, Doyle raises his eyes and looks straight into the webcam.

‘Gonzo? Are you out there, man?’

He expects no response. Expects just to feel stupid for talking to an inanimate object and waiting for it to talk back.

But a response is what he gets.

The screen darkens. The photographs Rachel was working on disappear.

When the monitor brightens again, it shows Doyle a view into an empty room. A study, with lots of bookshelves. Doyle doesn’t recognize it.

He wonders whose room this is. Wonders, too, how many other supposedly private places in the world are being observed right now. If Gonzo could do it, then so can others.

Movement on the screen. A figure enters the room, walks across it and sits in front of the computer.

No, thinks Doyle. It can’t be.

It’s one face he thought he would never see again. A face that is being shown to him in order to taunt him, to make him realize that he doesn’t always get things right. To make him feel humble.

And he does. Humble and sad and guilt-ridden.

Because the person staring back at him, now somewhat older than in the photographs he has seen, is Patricia Sachs, long-lost daughter of Olivia Sachs.