Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 6. Whole No. 283, June 1967

The Memory Bank by Avram Davidson

Avram Davidson’s newest story has a curious connotation for your Editors. We recall that when the Ellery Queen novel titled INSPECTOR QUEEN’S OWN CASE (subtitled NOVEMBER SONG) first appeared in 1956 (is it that long ago?), only one reviewer throughout the country mentioned the major theme of the novel — gerontology. It was as if all the critics but one had failed even to become aware of the main theme... Well, we won’t fail to mention the basic theme of Avram Davidson’s newest story. It deals with a crime which comes into being because of one of the most important of contemporary problems — automation. We don’t know if this is the first crime story spawned by automation — probably not; but surely it is an early example...

Thom Hart’s only dissatisfaction with having cooked Joe’s goose lay in the latter’s being really so far beneath him. A junior, even a very junior, executive shouldn’t have to bother noticing an old clerk long overdue for retirement. A young man whose shirts are tailored for him in the right shop ought not to have to trouble himself with an old man whose rumpled and dirty suit hasn’t been dry-cleaned from one year to another; someone favored with so good an appearance — Thom checked that line of thought with a mental shrug. Joe with his dirty eyeglasses — Goodbye, Joe.

The Board of Directors Room, now. Thom looked around it approvingly. Its decor was dull and dingy with age, but that didn’t matter much at the moment. That could all be changed. Maybe the Directors and the senior executives — men like Roger Stanton, C. Langley Hopkins, Sidney Edwards, John H. B. Powell, and the others — didn’t realize that one day Thom Hart was going to sit at the head of that table. In fact, come to think of it, few of them were likely to be alive by that time. Some of them didn’t seem to be very alive even now. But Thom Hart was!

Promotion and advancement (not always synonymous) were reasonably sure in the normal course of events — although you never knew. But Thom Hart wasn’t going to wait for the normal course of events. He caught sight of his reflection in the glass case of one of the ship models (ship models!) and allowed himself a brief smile. It was fortunate that he was neither too handsome nor too sentimental. Then he attended to what Mr. Sidney Edwards was saying.

“It’s too bad, though, I suppose. Joe is an institution.”

And Roger Stanton, nodding, said the same thing.

It was true enough. If anyone, for example, wanted to know how many rounds Corbett and Jackson went in 1892, or the batting figures on Ty Cobb for 1914, or exactly when Braddock was heavyweight champion, Joe knew. For more academic tastes or interests, Joe also knew when Colley Cibber was Poet Laureate, whom Millard Filemore appointed to head his State Department, the ships involved in the Battle of Jutland on both sides, the details of every preferential tariff that ever was, and the unlisted phone numbers of all the company’s best customers. It was always a good game to call in Joe to impress a visiting fireman by asking Joe for an arcane and unlikely bit of data.

Joe always knew.

He wasn’t employed for that, though, but it gave some idea of what he was employed for — his phenomenal memory for every single detail of the company’s business. Joe knew where every item of stock, however small or scant, was located, had been located, or was not located. He knew exactly how everything could be done, could not be done, had once been done, and could (or could not) be done again, if necessary. Joe knew why X weight carbon paper had been discontinued as a stocked item since 1928. That Scotch (and which brand) was the thing to send Mr. Armstrong, whereas Irish (but which brand not) was the only thing for Mr. Bainbridge. And so on.

In short, although all this and much more were on file here and there and somewhere else, it was — it seemed — always easier to just ask Joe.

Who, speaking of the devil, had finally got around to coming in. It would have been just like him not to show up on time. Not that it would have been hard to find him, for he never went far; in fact, for years he had even lived here, in a tiny apartment originally meant for a watchman.

“...served us faithfully and well,” John H. B. Powell was saying. “I am not even sure that this machine, computer, memory bank or whatever they call it, can do your job. In which case, we’ll—” he chuckled — “have to be calling you back out of retirement.”

Joe said, “No.”

It wasn’t quite clear that he realized exactly what was going on. It wasn’t quite certain, for that matter, that automation was called for as a matter of present necessity to the company. But that — although the older men here didn’t realize it — wasn’t the point. Any more than it was the point that May Jenson was a good stenographer. The point there had been that there were lots of good stenographers and that Thom Hart didn’t need to keep on anyone he didn’t care to. May had eventually got that point and climbed into Thom’s black Jaguar in her new red dress and not much later had taken the same dress off without getting out of the car.

But the point here was that Joe wasn’t going to live forever and was bound, eventually, to be replaced by magnetic tape. What circumstances might obtain then couldn’t be predicted. They might be circumstances which would be of no particular use to Thom — which was why he had to act in the matter now. Now.

By proposing the new equipment Thom had connected himself with it in everybody’s mind. He had also made it his business to become informed all about it. May, having become more or less reconciled to things, had then become annoyed when he had spent so many evenings studying equipment instead of studying her. Thom made a mental note: she’d have to go too, one of these days.

Meanwhile and afterward, as automation moved on up in the company’s needs, Thom Hart would naturally move on up with it.

“Think of all the ball games you’ll be able to see from now on,” Sidney Edwards said jovially.

“I never watch them,” Joe said. “I just remember the figures.”

The perhaps very slightly embarrassed pause in the ceremony was finally broken by the first V.P., a reformed Lothario turned moralist. “I’m sure,” said Roger Stanton, “that you won’t in any event find life in retirement dull. If anyone can, you can say, ‘My mind to me a kingdom is.’”

Joe looked at him through his bleared spectacles. Now he’d have to be moving out of his fusty, familiar little cell in the warehouse. And eat elsewhere than in the company employees’ cafeteria. And live where? And do what?

“‘Such present joys therein I find,/That it excels all other bliss/That earth affords or grows by kind:/Though much I want which most would/Have/Yet my mind forbids to crave.’ — Edward Dyer, 1540; 1607. Rawlinson Poetry MS 85. You mean,” Joe added as the admiring chuckle died down, “that I can remember good. So I can think about all the things I remember and I won’t get bored.”

“Exactly,” said Stanton. “So—”

Joe nodded. “Maybe, though, I spent too much time on that. Maybe I should of had more, like, a good time. Girls and things. And cars.” He fell silent.

With a look around at his colleagues and in a let’s-get-on-with-it tone of voice, Stanton said, “Thom, it seems appropriate that you should make the presentation.” He handed him a flat thin box.

Thom hadn’t expected it, but he rose to the occasion. “We have something else for you to remember, Joe. Our — the company’s gratitude. It’s one of the best watches money can buy, and—”

Joe’s comment did not seem a deliberate interruption; his comment might have arisen from some private thought, the way he said it. “I don’t really need no watch.”

Then Joe nodded and seemed to focus his eyes on the young man now looking at him with a trace of annoyance. “You don’t spend your time that way, Mr. Hart,” he said. “You got this ’66 black Jaguar and a key to the executive parking lot. June 16 — that fell on a Wednesday, average temperature 85 — you were there from about 10:45 to, say, 1:30 with a girl in a red dress name of—”

Thom hadn’t known his face could get so hot. It was old Mr. Hopkins who broke in with a cough and a brisk, “We want you to have this watch, Joe, because—”

The dull eyes moved over to him. “There weren’t any Jaguars in those days,” Joe said. “You had a red Bearcat, Mr. Hopkins, license number W 1809. Week-end of Labor Day, 1928, you spent all Saturday night in your father’s old office here with a lady in a white dress, name of Mrs.—”

“That’s enough, Joe! Do you hear?” Old C. Langley Hopkins seemed about to get up, but he sat down again.

Mr. Sidney Edwards said, “More than enough.” His deadly look was directed, not at Joe, but at C. Langley Hopkins, and Thom — for a fleeting and uneasy second — felt convinced that Edwards had more than a good idea who the lady in the white dress must have been.

Then Mr. John H. B. Powell said, “Not another word of that, I warn you, Joe.”

Joe, unruffled, looked at him and said, “Mr. Powell.”

Gray-haired Mr. Powell said, “You’d better be quiet, Joe. I was a married man when I first came here and I still am and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve never even looked at another—”

He began to talk about how Mr. Powell had been the first to introduce training films to the company. The men present subsided somewhat — though only somewhat. There was a great deal of throat clearing and shifting around in seats.

“On October 11, 1933,” Joe went on in his monotonous voice, “After the company didn’t declare a dividend for the third year in a row and the Brunswick National Bank said they couldn’t extend our note again, sometime between eleven p.m. and midnight the old north warehouse, that didn’t have hardly anything in it, burned down. Luckily, by Mr. Powell’s orders and against everyone else’s wishes, the payment on Phoenix policy number 27876 had been paid just two days before; it only took care of the old north warehouse and Phoenix had to pay off. But it covered the Brunswick National note.”

John H. B. Powell seemed to have shrunk a bit back into his gray suit. His face seemed to have gone gray to match it. Joe went on to talk about certain fragments of celluloid film found in the ruined warehouse.

“Phoenix couldn’t prove they didn’t belong there,” Joe said. “But they didn’t. Film was stored only in the main warehouse — third, fourth, and fifth shelves of the third bin on the right-hand side of aisle G, west end. Morning of October 12, training films RD 113 to 127 inclusive were missing. We didn’t restock them till next April 23, though, because Mr. Powell never ordered any of those films showed till then and so it wasn’t until then that anyone noticed they were missing. Anyone else,” Joe added reflectively.

There was a long, long silence, broken only by loud breathing. Then C. Langley Hopkins said, in a flat, controlled voice, “Suppose you retired on full salary, Joe. Eh? Instead of just your pension. Would you want to do that? And take a trip around the world at our — at company expense?”

Joe said, “No.”

“What do you want, then?”

Joe looked around the room — at the photographs and portraits of deceased members, at the ship models, at the Seth Thomas clock; he looked out of the window at the factory and warehouse and yards. “Nothing,” he said. “Just want to keep on here like always. That’s the only thing I want.”

The silence this time was briefer, and marked by an exchange of quick glances among the Directors, Sidney Edwards said, “Well, I’m sure it can be arranged — it’s a very moderate desire. After all, automation isn’t everything. Humanity counts for something. We — the company is not ungrateful, Joe. Stay on — yes, by all means stay on. And as long as you like. But, er, do take the watch. Please. After all, we’ve already had it engraved, so we can’t get our money back.” He watched the man remove the thin flat box from Thom Hart’s suddenly fumbling fingers. “Thank you, Joe.”

Then, as Joe started to shamble away with gift in hand, Mr. Powell checked him. “One more item. You’ve told us a number of interesting things about some of us, Joe.” He chuckled thinly. “But only about some of us. This, ah, sort of leaves some of us at a — shall we say? — disadvantage. Wouldn’t the rest of us agree? I rather thought you would. So — Joe — before you go — let’s hear some interesting memorabilia about the others. You might begin with Mr. Stanton, for example.”

Roger Stanton roared and pushed himself halfway up from the table, but he was immediately voted down by a voice vote. Joe shambled back.

“On January 11, 1936, when Mr. Stanton told his wife that he was going to Bermuda—”

It was Mr. Hopkins who interrupted this time. “I really do not believe that we need detain Mr. Hart,” he said. “It is true that Mr. Hart knows a great deal about computers and memory banks. Indeed, it was at his original suggestion that we decided — mistakenly, as it now appears — to replace Joe with one. Nevertheless, I am sure that Mr. Hart can find something else — besides memories — to occupy his time — while he is still with us, that is.”

Hart rose and excused himself. For a moment more he observed them still looking at him, before their eyes swung back to Joe. And not lovingly, either. They were certainly not a happy bunch right now. Still, they might not fire Thom Hart after all. They just might keep him on, as they were keeping Joe on. But most assuredly they would never advance or promote him.

It certainly looked as if Thom Hart had cooked the wrong goose.