Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

The Digital Date by Doug Allyn

An Edgar Allan Poe Award winner and the record holder in the EQMM

Readers Award competition, Doug Allyn is one of the best short story writers of his generation — and probably of all time. He is also a novelist with several critically acclaimed books in print. The latest,

The Jukebox King, was published in Europe by Payot & Rivages in November 2009. It’s the second Allyn novel published to great success overseas that is still available for first U.S. publication (editors take note!).

“Is that him?” Marcy asked. “Wait! Don’t turn. Is it him?”

“How can I tell if I can’t look?” Flo said. The two women were seated at a table in the Jury’s Inn, a busy singles bar near the Murphy Hall of Justice, downtown Detroit. A clean, well-lighted room, garnished with ferns, bustling with yuppie couples and singles cheerfully cruising for Mr. Right or Miss Right for Tonight. Clattering with cocktail chatter and pickup lines.

The tables are small, but quite tall, each seat offering a hawk’s-eye view of the crowded room. Marcy had chosen a corner table tucked behind a bank of ferns. Near the rear exit.

“Sorry, Flo, I’m jumpy as a cat. First dates are the pits. Check him out, please, but forgodsake don’t gawk.”

“I never gawk.” Flo grinned. “I’ve been known to ogle, though.” The two women were a sharp contrast. Flo dressed in Western butch, a denim jacket over a Toby Keith T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots with hammered silver toes. Her fiery red hair was cropped short as a man’s.

Marcy’s outfit was almost a uniform. Navy blue Donna Karan suit with a high neckline and a bit of lace at the throat. Flat heels. Librarian chic.

Both women were attractive, though. Big-shouldered and brash, Flo had an irresistible smile. Marcy’s oval face could have been cut for a cameo, wide blue eyes and tightly curled blond hair.

Swiveling her generous hips, Flo surveyed the room, apparently trolling. Barely taking note of the lone stag waiting at the greeter’s station.

“He’s definitely the guy in the picture,” Flo agreed, turning back to Marcy. “What’s his name? Bradley something?”

“Brad Sullivan. And?”

“He doesn’t have two heads, and the one he has isn’t half bad. He’s no Brad Pitt, but he’s not a dork either. Look for yourself. The hostess is showing him to a table.”

Marcy risked a quick glance over her shoulder, then held it a moment. “Fair to Midland,” she conceded. Medium build, tweed jacket over a golf shirt, and Dockers. Thick, dark hair shorn even shorter than Flo’s, almost military. Not handsome, exactly, but... interesting.

“Looks okay to me,” Flo said. “Still has his hair, looks like he works out. But I’m the wrong honey to ask about breeder guys. Does he pass inspection? Or do we fade out the back door?”

“No,” Marcy said, taking a deep breath, straightening her skirt. “I’ll give him a try. Do I look okay?”

“Like a freaking angel,” Flo said fondly. “I’ll wait a bit. If you need rescuing, just tug on your left earlobe.”

“Hi... Marcy?” Brad rose, offered his hand, then held a chair for her a bit clumsily, as though he didn’t do it often. “Glad you could make it.”

They ordered white wine, then fenced and fumbled through small talk for a while. They shared similar backgrounds, both from suburban Detroit, white-picket-fence childhoods, parents gone now, no family to speak of.

Brad was a mechanical assembly line analyst who traveled a lot on assignments. Marcy and Flo owned an antiques shop, Auntie Em’s, named after Marcy’s late aunt, who cosigned their start-up loan.

“And how’s business at Auntie Em’s?” he asked.

“We do all right. But if you’re hoping to marry me for my money...?”

“No need.” He smiled. “Is Flo the lady you were with when I came in?”

“You saw us?”

Brad shrugged. “I notice details for a living. I was afraid you’d take one look and split. I’m glad you decided to stay.”

“These may change your mind,” Marcy said, putting on dark horn-rimmed reading glasses to scan the menu. “I know they make me look like a geek...”

He didn’t rise to the bait. She glanced up and met his eyes. Deep brown and thoughtful.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to stare,” he said, looking away. “I’m a little rusty at conversation. I troubleshoot assembly lines, which means I work mostly with blue-collar types. We talk shop or sports, in language that would give your Auntie Em a coronary. I’m worried about slipping up, saying the wrong thing and scaring you off.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“You mean you haven’t flunked me. Yet.”

“Flunked you?” she echoed.

“You mentioned marriage to see if I’d faint dead away. When I didn’t, you put on glasses that obviously aren’t yours—”

“Why would you think that?”

“Your outfit’s expensive and very attractive. The glasses aren’t. I’d guess they’re an old pair.”

“You’d be right,” she admitted. “You’re very... perceptive.”

“That’s what they pay me for. I’m also direct, so here goes. I like you already, Marcy. You’re even prettier than your Web picture, you’re witty and also wary, which proves you’re intelligent. So, if you have any more test questions, anything the dating service missed on the forms we filled out, bring ‘em on. Don’t worry about offending me, I work with roughnecks every day.”

“My, you are direct.”

“Too much?”

“No. To be honest, I’m new to this whole digital dating thing—”

“Me, too. Please, fire away.”

“Okay, in your personal history, you mentioned your mom stayed at home?”

He nodded. “She was a housewife. Remember them?”

“Yes, but that’s not me, Brad. I’m a businesswoman and I like my work, so if you’re hoping to meet Suzy Homemaker—”

“Actually, I came here to meet a woman who might just possibly be right for me. Selected from umpty million others by the high-tech computers of a very expensive dating service.”

“And how’s the computer doing so far?”

“I don’t know much about computers,” he admitted. “But I’m going to check the Digital Dating stock price tomorrow. I think the company’s got a great future.”

He didn’t try to kiss her that first night. They did kiss on the second date, with a hunger and intensity that caught them both by surprise.

On their fourth date, they met for dinner at the Ponchartrain Hotel, then retired to a room Marcy had prepped in advance with fresh flowers and scented candles.

They made love like porcupines their first time, very carefully. Both a bit awkward and self-conscious. Yet they managed the deed in fine fashion.

Afterward, they nestled together, naked beneath the sheets, to watch a Tom Hanks DVD, sipping champagne from fluted glasses. They put the movie on pause in the middle to make love again. And again, even more urgently, while the credits were rolling at the end, screwing themselves into delicious exhaustion this time, happy as honeymooners.

But they weren’t honeymooners.

They were both worker bees with responsibilities. Brad had to fly to Minneapolis the next day on assignment. He promised to call Marcy every night he was away, and she believed him.

Until later that afternoon, in the back-room office at Auntie Em’s.

“So,” Flo said, her heavy features bluish in the glow of her computer screen. “How’s Mr. Wonderful in bed?”

“Close to perfect,” Marcy admitted, smiling at the memory as she unwrapped a parcel. “He’s trainable, too. He listens, and follows directions.”

“Wow, that’s rare in a man. Or a woman, for that matter. Does he smell?”

“What?”

“In bed, you know? Did you notice a peculiar body odor?”

“What on earth are you talking about, Flo?”

“Just saying your perfect digital date should smell kind of funky, babe. He’s been dead since nineteen seventy-three.”

“What?”

“Read it and weep, darlin’,” Flo said, swiveling the monitor toward Marcy. “I did an extended search. Bradley Joshua Sullivan, born at Ecorse Samaritan, October ninth, nineteen seventy, died in April, ninety seventy-three. Congenital heart defect. And twenty years later, your Bradley J. Sullivan applied for a Social Security card, a driver’s license, and a passport. Listing the same DOB, same hospital, same town.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Marcy said, scanning the screen. Her face was ashen.

“You’ve been burned, hon,” Flo said gently. “And not by an amateur, either. Your boyfriend’s not a married guy using a bogus credit card to cover his tracks. This is a first-class false identity. Credit history, work history, bank accounts, all entirely legit.”

“Maybe he is legit.”

“Right. And a kid with the same name and vital stats just happened to die twenty years before your guy applied for his Social Security number? That’s bull and you know it. We’re blown, Marcy.”

“You think he’s a cop?”

“I don’t know, but I’d hate to find out the hard way. We have to shut down and bail out.”

“I’m tired of running, Flo.”

“You were more tired of prison. You want to go back there?”

“No, but before I trash five years of hard work, I want to know what kind of a game this sonofabitch is running. Do you think he’s a narc?”

“If so, he’s not a local. Detroit P.D. couldn’t assemble a fake ID this elegant. More likely he’s some kind of Fed. Customs, maybe, or an FBI undercover.”

“In every sense of the word,” Marcy said grimly. “He played me like a fish, didn’t he?”

“We don’t know that,” Flo said uneasily. “Look, babe, I know you’re ticked off, but don’t flip out on me. You can’t just kill him, you know.”

“Why not? It’s a lot cheaper than running.”

“Think, Marcy. If he’s an undercover cop, they’re already onto our smuggling operation. He’s probably stringing you along to get a line on our suppliers. But if he’s not a cop, then he has to be some kind of a heavyweight to have a cover this deep. Those Russians up in Warsaw Heights have stiffed us on two deliveries. Maybe they’re making a move to squeeze us out.”

“We’ve always dealt with them through cutouts. They don’t even know who we are.”

“We tracked down Brad. Maybe the Russians found us somehow.”

“Or maybe Brad’s exactly what he says he is. The dates could be a coincidence.”

“He must be super bad in bed if you believe that crap.” Flo sighed. “Want me to call up Plymouth Correctional, tell ‘em to reserve our old cell?”

Flo flinched from Marcy’s prison-yard glare, cold enough to crack concrete.

“I made this mess,” Marcy said abruptly. “I’ll clean it up.” Popping out the bottom drawer of her Victorian roll-top desk, she took out a Walther PPK automatic, checked the magazine, then jacked a round into the chamber.

“What are you going to do?” Flo asked.

“If he’s a cop? Nothing. It’s already too late. If he’s with the Russians? I’ll cap him and leave him in an alley. They’ll get the message.”

“And if he’s a straight citizen?”

“Maybe we’ll live happily ever after in a quaint little cottage with a picket fence. But he’s not a citizen, Flo. Is he?” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Flo said. “Probably not. Sorry, hon.”

“The hell with it,” Marcy said. “It was all a pipe dream anyway. Take a bus to Taos, Flo. Call me in three days. It’ll be settled, one way or the other.”

“Or you’ll be dead. Or in jail.”

“Don’t sweat it. Either way, I won’t rat you out.”

“Nah, I think I’ll stick. I’m too wide to hide, anyway. And we’ve worked too damn hard to run from this mutt. C’mon, I’ll help you do your hair and makeup. By the time we’re finished, you can sit next to Brad in a taxi without being made.”

Flo’s redo wasn’t quite that dramatic, but it was damned effective. A dark rinse took Marcy’s hair from blond to mousy gray. Gum pads bulged her cheeks. Heavy framed glasses and strategic padding made her dumpy and anonymous as a babushka.

She could have walked through a saloon full of drunken steelworkers without drawing a wolf whistle or a second glance.

Using a nondescript rental car, she staked out Brad’s apartment building the next morning, hoping against hope that he’d drive to the airport and take a flight to Minneapolis to analyze somebody’s assembly line.

But he didn’t. He came out at noon dressed in gray coveralls with a slouch cap pulled low. No luggage. Not even a toolbox. He climbed into a battered, anonymous pickup, got on I-75, and drove straight south to Toledo.

She had no trouble tailing him. He was in a hurry, seemed distracted. Laying well back, Marcy trailed him to a rundown apartment house in Maumee, near the river. From up the street, she watched him circle the block once on foot before ducking inside.

Hurrying to the entrance, she glimpsed him disappearing into the rattletrap elevator. No doorman, no security cameras. She waited until the elevator stopped on the fifth floor, then took the fire stairs, racing up five flights, taking the steps two at a time.

Panting, sweat-soaked, she eased the metal fire door open — and froze. Brad was walking away from her down the dimly lit hallway, checking the apartment numbers. Stopping at an apartment door, he checked both ways, then rapped sharply on the door with a short piece of iron pipe.

The door opened the width of a safety chain. She could hear the guy inside telling Brad to get lost.

No hesitation. Brad kicked in the door, trashing the guy’s face, then hammered him to the floor with the iron pipe.

The guy was screaming, “No, don’t!” Tried swinging a wild punch at Brad, a huge mistake. Casually deflecting the blow, Brad twisted the guy’s wrist, then jammed the pipe across his elbow joint, dislocating it!

“Ahhhh! God! Lady, help me, call nine-one-one!”

Brad whirled, spotting Marcy, who’d opened the fire door wider than she’d meant to. He didn’t even blink. Jerking an automatic from his coveralls, he calmly shot the screamer in the head. Twice. Point-blank. The silenced rounds barely louder than a cough.

Before she could react, Marcy found herself staring down the gun barrel into the coldest eyes she’d ever seen. He kept the gun on her as he kicked the dead man back into his apartment and pulled the door shut. Trotting to the fire door, his weapon still aimed at Marcy’s head, he thrust her back into the stairwell, closing the door behind them.

Frisking her quickly, he found her Walther, and shoved it into his pocket. “Walk down two flights,” he said quietly. “And don’t do anything sudden.”

She did exactly as ordered. His tone was flat. Lifeless. She knew she was only a heartbeat away from being as dead as the man on the fifth floor.

“Stop here. Turn around.”

She faced him, keeping her hands where he could see them. The gun was centered on her heart.

He scanned her made-over face curiously, then nodded. “You’ve got one second to tell me why you’re here. If you lie to me, you’ll die.”

“Your identity bounced. Brad Sullivan died in nineteen seventy-three. I needed to know who you are. Why did you kill that guy?”

“He saw you, you saw him. The people I work for never leave witnesses.”

“So I’m next?”

He didn’t answer, which was an answer of sorts.

“Who was he?”

Brad hesitated, then shrugged. “A degenerate gambler. Took the Bulls over the Pistons, dropped sixty grand he didn’t have. Thought a few crummy mob connections would buy him a pass. How did you crack my ID?”

“We hacked into a LEIN program that scans death certificates.”

“Are you a cop?”

“No. The shop’s a front. We run a high-end smuggling operation. Chinese speed and forged art, mostly.”

“So... there’s no Auntie Em?”

“Every single thing I told you from the first moment we met was a lie. I grew up in foster care, got pimped out at fourteen, hooked in hotels till I knifed a john who beat me. Did eight years in Plymouth Women’s Correctional. All I know about happy families and antiques I got from TV or the prison library.”

“Why the digital dating thing?” he asked. “Trolling for suckers?”

“No, that... was personal. You grow up in foster care, you dream about having a nice family. Like the Brady Bunch or something. You?”

“Not so different,” he admitted. “Ran away, got ganged up. Did some people before they did me. Turned out I’m good at it. But I always work alone, no friends, no backup—”

“—no witnesses,” she added.

He nodded. “Years go by, you get hungry for some kind of normal life. ‘Honey, I’m home.’ All that crap.”

“But instead of Susie Housewife, you got me. Tough luck.”

“Tough’s all I’ve ever had. Should’ve known it wouldn’t work.”

“Actually, it did. Sort of.”

“How do you mean?”

“Don’t you get it? We both fed the dating service the same bogus histories. Good families, Lassie Come Home childhoods. So naturally, they matched us up. A hooker and a hit man. It’d be funny. Except for the part where I get killed. Can I ask you one favor?”

“You can ask.”

“Leave Flo out of this. She’s standup, she won’t rat you out.”

Again, his silence was an answer.

“Then at least make it a clean hit, damn it! Not like that deadbeat upstairs.”

He nodded. “I can do that. Look, I’m... sorry—”

“Screw yourself, Brad, or whatever your name is. I’ll save you a seat in hell. Do what you gotta do.”

Turning to face the wall, she closed her eyes. Emptying her mind, trying not to tremble. She heard a soft click as he cocked the hammer, then felt a sudden rush of air. As the room exhaled.

When she opened her eyes, she was alone.

The Jury’s Inn on a Friday night. Bustling with the usual upscale crush of cruising singles and couples. Sheryl Crow crooning on the jukebox, barely audible in the cheerful din.

Opening her purse, Marcy made sure the .25 automatic was within easy reach, then briskly crossed the room to Brad Sullivan’s table.

“Waiting for somebody?” Marcy asked.

“Not anymore.” He rose to hold a chair for her, like the gentleman he definitely wasn’t. She sat with her purse in her lap. Open.

“What are you doing here, Sullivan?”

“Hoping to run into you. I tried the shop, your number’s disconnected.”

“We relocated.”

“There was no need to do that. Nobody knows about you.”

“Except you, you bastard. I’ve been jumping out of my skin every time a car backfires the past month, waiting for you to finish the job. And surprise, surprise, here you are.”

“I’m not here to make trouble. I’m sorry if you worried. I was a bit worried myself. Expecting a visit from the Ohio law.”

“I told you, we don’t rat. Besides, we couldn’t burn you without burning ourselves.”

“I was long gone anyway. There was some heat over the Toledo thing. I had to get out of the country. It cost me a chunk of change to straighten it out, but it’s settled now.”

“Good for you. But I’m tired of looking over my shoulder, Br — what is your damn name, anyway? It’s sure as hell not Brad.”

“It’s... just stick with Brad. I’ve been Brad awhile.”

“Fine, Brad. So straight up, Brad, are we on your hit list or not?” Beneath the table, her hand slid inside her purse.

“Chill, Marcy. You’re off the hook, I swear. If I wanted you gone, you’d still be in that stairwell.”

“Gee, that’s a comfort. Then why are you here? Meeting your next digital date?”

“No, I’m done with that. It didn’t work out too well.”

“You weren’t exactly Prince Charming yourself. So?”

“So... I came here to clear something up. But I don’t want to tick you off or hurt your feelings—”

“Hurt my feelings?” she echoed in disbelief. “Look, you two-bit thug, meeting you was the worst freaking thing that ever happened to me, so say your piece then get the hell out of my life!”

“Hell, why did I even bother?” he growled, looking away.

“I don’t know, but since you’re here, spit it out!”

“Fine! In the stairwell, with all that makeup on? You looked like crap.”

“I was supposed to look like crap! What’s your point?”

“It didn’t matter. The way you looked, I mean.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Sullivan?”

“I knew you’d lied to me, and you were made up to look like a freakin’ bag lady, and none of that made any difference. On our digital date? You put on those glasses, and said they made you look dorky?”

“I noticed you didn’t argue the point. So?”

“I’m no talker, Marcy. Can’t be, my line of work. But that time... I couldn’t say anything. You looked so fine I could hardly breathe.”

She blinked. Then leaned in, enraged, even more furious than before. “That’s a total crock! You know what I am, what I’ve done. I’m not what you came here looking for. You said so yourself.”

“I know. But laying low in Toronto, waiting for things to cool down? I did some serious thinking.”

“Hope you didn’t strain a muscle.”

“Jesus, cut me some slack, okay? What I thought was, suppose you really were Suzy Homemaker? Every minute we spent together would be a lie.”

“Every minute we spent was a lie, you moron! We lied to each other about everything.”

“But we don’t have to. Not anymore. I can ask how your day went and you can tell me the flat-ass truth. And I can do the same. Do you know how rare that is, for people like us?”

“What are you saying? What do you want from me?”

“The same thing I wanted that first night. To meet a special woman. A perfect match. Selected from umpty million others by a very expensive computer.”

“But I’m not that woman! I lied to the dating service. So did you.”

“That’s right,” he said, leaning forward, their faces only inches apart. “But if we’d both told that damn computer the absolute, swear-to-God truth about everything, it would have matched us up exactly the same way.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. Thinking faster than any machine. Getting it.

“Sweet Jesus,” she said softly. “You’re right. Either way, it would have put us together.”

She shook her head like a fighter shaking off a punch. And snapped her purse shut.

But before she could back away, he cupped her cheek with his hand and kissed her on the mouth. Thoroughly.

When they finally separated for air, she was smiling in spite of herself, and so was he. Grinning widely as wolves, at their own private joke.

Their long kiss drew curious glances from the other diners, who couldn’t help smiling too.

It’s such a rare thing, nowadays, to see a perfectly happy couple.

Having a perfectly wonderful time.

Copyright © 2010 Doug Allyn