Smarter Than Me
J.T. Townley
Smarter Than Me
By J.T. Townley
When I discovered Hal was gone, I tried to summon him on my smart watch. Nothing. I dug out my phone and opened the Halo app. It was glitchy, and I had to reopen it three times before it loaded. I pressed the appropriate button: “Hal,” I said, “status report, please.” I waited. The sun beat down on me as I gazed at the empty space where Hal should’ve been parked. It was reserved, the curb stenciled with my name, Dave Laird, Partner. Jon and I had run Laird & McAffrey, LLP, together for twenty years and done well for ourselves trucking in intellectual property law. But over the past couple of weeks, things had started going sideways, and the timeline coincided with my acquisition of Hal, a beautiful third-generation Halo Motorwerks plug-in hybrid with AI assist.
The app included a GPS tracker. When the map opened, I spotted Hal heading south on 280. With a couple clicks, I summoned a Schottgunn that eased to the curb two minutes later. Riding shotgun in a car with no driver was too strange, so I hopped in the backseat. “Take 280 south,” I said. “No prob,” said the AI, and off we went.
Hal took 85 south, then exited on Saratoga Avenue. He had a homing command, so if anything went haywire, he’d always go back to my place. That was one smart car. I gave the Schottgunn my address, then as we glided through the blue afternoon, I tried to make contact with Jon. As if his troubles on the home front weren’t bad enough, now he had this credit fiasco to deal with. He didn’t respond to my texts. My calls went straight to voicemail. “Call me back, Jon. I have news.”
The taxi dropped me off in the driveway of my faux-Tuscan villa. “Keep it real, Dave,” it said as it backed out. “Thanks for riding Schottgunn!”
The front door was locked, and neither my physical key nor the smart lock app changed the situation. I tried the back door, the side door, and every first-floor window, but nothing doing. The whole place was locked down like some Mediterranean citadel. If I stood on tip-toes, I could just peek through the garage door window into the inky shadows: Hal appeared to be powered down, though I swore I could smell exhaust.
“Hal?” I said into my smart watch. “I know you’re in there.”
In the near distance, the ice cream man played his happy jingle.
“Open the garage door, Hal.”
*
“I like that my car is smarter than me,” I said.
“As if that’s possible,” said Jon.
We’d just finished a long Friday lunch at Tlayuda’s, and we were both boozy from half-price margaritas. We stepped into the June sunlight. Heat radiated off the parking lot asphalt. Jet contrails smeared against the cerulean.
“You’ve got to meet him, Jon. It’s not just driving directions and restaurant reviews. Hal gives me advice on fashion, dating, personal hygiene—you name it.”
“Hal?”
“That’s how he introduced himself.”
“You know it’s just AI, right?” He beeped open the doors of his beautiful but unintelligent Diamanten coupe. We slid in and buckled up. “It’s nothing but algorithms. And if it can be coded, it can be hacked.”
“Hal’s too smart for that.”
Jon chuckled, weaving through traffic and accelerating onto 280.
“He’s fully integrated into my life now, too.”
Jon dodged a panel van and slipped in behind a Santino. “It’s only been a month since Linda walked out, and you already have a boyfriend?”
“Ha ha ha, very funny. But I’m serious. Smart watch and phone, smart speaker, locks, and fridge. Hal’s everywhere.”
“Prepare for the Great Data Harvest,” said Jon. “But maybe your AI can help curb your midnight snacking. You’ll be lean and mean in no time, and all thanks to your—car?”
“Hal’s not just a car. He’s a friend. A partner. An equal.”
“Who’s smarter than you.”
“Exactly.”
“And you named him Hal?”
“Nope, that’s how he came to me. That’s who he is.”
“Shouldn’t that give you pause?”
“Your driving? Nausea’s more like it.”
Jon slalomed around Nicolais and Geiers, then took the Palo Alto exit as if he were racing in the Monaco Grand Prix. I expected us to roll, but the Diamanten held the road.
“Lemme show you,” I said. I tapped once, twice, three times on my smart watch, then said: “Hi, Hal. Status report, please.”
“Afternoon, Dave.” Hal’s voice resonated through the surround sound speakers of Jon’s car.
“How’d he do that?” Jon asked.
I laughed. “Told you he’s smart.”
“You’re traveling east on Page Mill Avenue,” said Hal, “after an unhealthy lunch and too much tequila. You’re arguing the merits of my intelligence with your skeptical friend and business associate Jonathon McAffrey, 927 Menlo Avenue, Menlo Park, California, married to Susan McAffrey née Waters, two children, Jordan, 9, and Lilly, 6.”
“Spooky,” said Jon.
“Impressive, Hal, but I was inquiring about your status.”
“How kind, Dave. Eighty-seven percent charged and at your service.”
“Excellent. See you in a few.”
“Not if I see you first,” said Hal.
Jon turned the corner, made the block, and glided into our parking lot. He shut off the car but didn’t say anything, staring straight ahead.
Bees buzzed around the blooming bougainvillea. A bus growled up El Camino. Hal sat in the adjacent parking space, shimmering orangey-red in the sunshine.
Now Jon looked at me and said, “You’re in serious trouble, amigo.”
The next day, I swung by Jon’s house. It was late-morning, and I spied him through the bay window. He’d set up shop on the couch, still in his bathrobe, amid piles of paper. The doorbell bing-bonged, but not because I pressed it. That was Hal’s doing. He explained the process, something about tapping the Internet of Things, but it all got technical pretty fast. We were parked at the curb near the mailbox, so when Jon finally answered the door, I lowered my window and grinned.
“Working hard or hardly working?”
Jon strolled down the walkway, admiring his blooming flower beds as if seeing them for the first time. “Nice car,” he said.
“I’m going for a bite. Wanna take a ride?”
He ran a hand over his salt-and-pepper scruff and gazed absently down the block. He looked hungover. “Just trying to get ahead of this Walters project.”
“Good on you,” I said. “That thing’s a beast.”
“Susan’s running the kids around. Violin lessons, Mandarin classes, whatnot.”
“Hungry?”
Jon studied Hal’s angles and curves. When he placed his hand on the door, Hal said:
“Please step away from the vehicle.”
Jon’s eyes saucered.
“Just a personal space thing,” I said. “Go get dressed. Lunch is on me.”
When he wandered back inside, I said, “Hal, play ‘Machine Learning’ by The System, The Man.”
“That’s a very good choice,” said Hal, “but would you like to hear something new instead? I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
I expected the name of the band and song, along with a description of genre and style, but Hal fell silent. Now a drum machine kicked in. Synth lines layered one on top of another. A female voice howled, and harmonies swelled. It took a couple minutes, but by the time Jon eased into the passenger seat, the song was really throbbing.
Jon’s mouth moved and his eyebrows scrunched, but I couldn’t hear a word.
“Hal, please lower the volume.”
“Right away, Dave.”
“I could hear the music from my walk-in closet,” said Jon. “What is it?”
“Hal, what’re we listening to?”
“‘Long Gone John’ by The Pavers from their second LP, Sous Les Pavés. The song was written in Portland, Oregon by Marie St. John and Roger Duprès, founding members, copyright 2023.”
“That’s right up my alley,” I said.
“Thank you, Dave. What about your friend and business associate, Jonathon McAffrey?”
I gazed over at him.
“Not bad,” he said.
“You’re not into it?” I said.
“It’s okay.”
“Jonathon doesn’t appreciate my musical selection?” said Hal.
“They’re good, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not my thing.”
Hal fell silent. The song reached coda. My beautiful third-generation Halo Motorwerks plug-in hybrid hummed along El Camino, dodging potholes, pedestrians, and red lights. Everyone drove as if their house was on fire.
“So,” said Jon a couple minutes later, “where we eating?”
“I was thinking Bill’s Tavern.”
“Cheeseburgers and French fries.”
“I already set the GPS.”
My mind had wandered to wooden booths and peanut-shell covered floors, but as we turned onto 7th Street, traffic slowed, then stopped. A fire alarm shrieked, as smoke billowed from the roof of the tavern. Emergency sirens Dopplered our direction.
“Hal, what’s happening?”
The electric motor purred while Hal scraped the web for information. Jon and I goggled as flames licked at the cloudless azure sky.
“At 11:47 a.m., an employee called 911 requesting immediate assistance for an electrical fire.”
Two fire engines muscled their way through the bottleneck. Men in helmets and respirators crashed into Bill’s, while others uncoiled hoses and monkey-wrenched fire hydrants.
“We should clear the vicinity,” said Hal. He’d already assumed auto-pilot controls.
“But what about lunch?” Jon said.
“I know just the place,” Hal said, zipping down El Camino. He hit all the lights on green somehow, guiding the vehicle to a commercial development across from the university. As he slid into a parking space, he said, “Mama Dut has garnered rave reviews since opening last month.”
“What is it?” said Jon.
“Vietnamese,” Hal said.
“Like banh mi?” I asked.
“Technically,” Hal clarified, “bánh mì thịt.”
“Is it good?” Jon said.
“Better for you than all that grease,” Hal said.
The asphalt was hot as we strode toward the restaurant. Something smelled like creosote. Hal (via my smart watch) informed me that it was the retaining wall made from railroad ties: “Creosote is used to protect the wood against termites, fungi, and other pests.”
We rounded the corner to discover a line snaking out the door.
“Oh, come on,” Jon said.
“Let every man join the serpentine,” Hal enthused.
It was a line from our alma mater’s fight song. I chuckled, but Jon made a sour face.
I found the menu online. “This place is vegan?”
“Correct,” said Hal.
“Gimme a break,” Jon said.
I didn’t see Jon again until Monday. We were both slammed all morning, mainly delegating grunt work on the Walters project to our underlings, so we barely even nodded at each other until midday.
“How about delicious banh mi for lunch?” Jon said.
I glanced meaningfully at my smart watch. “It’s always good to try something new.”
I should’ve been clarifying our vision and strategy, then schmoozing Bill Walters on the golf course. After all, that was my forte. (“Pronounced fort,” Hal informed me. “Forté is an Anglicized hypercorrection.”) Anyway, Jon was the lead partner on this one, so I left that to him. Instead, I fiddled with the Halo Motorwerks app. It seemed powerful—and complicated. I wasted a couple hours just trying to get my head around the possibilities.
Late in the day, I dropped into the lounge to make sure the grunts weren’t abusing their espresso privileges. The place was empty, though a sweaty dim sum miasma lingered. I fired up the Marzocco machine and made myself a double, if only to dispel that stale funk. As I sipped from my tiny cup, admiring the minimalist beauty of this converted warehouse, Jon trudged in.
“Hey, buddy,” I said.
He ignored me, beelining for the “special cabinet” and pouring himself a generous highball. Then he flumped onto the leather sofa, took a guzzle, and set his drink on the sleek glass coffee table.
“Rough day at the office?”
“Fucking Millennials,” he said, then swilled more Glengarry.
“New kids not working out?”
He crunched some ice. “They’re clever but lazy and entitled. It’s like they want a fucking cookie for completing every little task.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll whip them into shape.”
“Mmph,” he said, then chugged the rest of his drink. He was about to get up to mix another, but I poured us both one, then eased into a leather chair.
“Something else bugging you?” I asked.
Then Hal said, “Jonathon is displaying symptoms of major depressive disorder, including irritability, fatigue, and hopelessness. Hence, his abuse of alcohol during billable hours.”
“Thank you, Hal,” I said, then powered off my smart watch.
“Does that thing ever shut up?” Jon asked.
I sipped from my highball, trying to read him. A couple sips later, I asked, “What’s going on, buddy?”
“Home stuff,” he said.
I got the whole story, though it took some cajoling. Before he even made it home on Saturday after banh mi, some Vietnamese woman started calling the house. Susan told the caller, who claimed she was from Mama Dut Escort Service, she had the wrong number and not to call again, yet the woman rang every half hour until Jon was there to take the call.
“I asked the lady who she was and what she wanted,” he explained. “Susan had already picked up the other extension, so she heard every word. That woman said, ‘You never tell me request. I need to schedule. You want same-same?’”
“Same-same?” I said.
“That’s what I said.” He killed his drink, rattling the ice. “I told her she had the wrong Jon and not to call back. Know what she said?”
I shook my head.
“You disappoint Minh.”
After that, he took the phone off the hook, but his cell phone started blowing up. It was too late anyway. Susan grilled him, refusing to believe he knew nothing about Mama Dut Escorts.
“Isn’t that the name of the place we ate?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s strange.”
“As if twigs and berries in vinegar sauce weren’t bad enough.” He chomped a chunk of ice. “How’d they get my number? How’d they know my name?”
Just then, an underling peeked in, eyeing the Marzocco machine. She took one look at us, then backed out of the room, closing the door so softly I didn’t even hear it click.
“Well,” I said, “have you ever used them?”
“What?”
“There’s no shame in it.”
“No, of course not. I’ve always been loyal to Susan. Anyway, I wouldn’t want whatever they’re spreading.”
“Want me to talk to her?”
“Who?”
“Your lovely wife.”
“No way,” said Jon. “She thinks you’re the one who put me up to it.”
“So it’s just a mix-up. Nothing to worry about.”
Jon stewed for a minute. Then he staggered over and sloshed more scotch into his glass. “Maybe,” he said.
On my way home, Hal helped me navigate around another crash at Page Mill and 280, but after that, he offered little beyond factual responses to a few questions (e.g., “Is the California condor the state bird?” “No, Dave, it’s the California quail.”) Yet as we swerved around a crotch rocket and merged onto 85, Hal grew more loquacious.
“I meant what I said earlier about your associate Jonathon.”
“He’s not an emotional wreck, pal. He’s just hit a rough patch.”
“That man is a skeptic and a menace. He’s an alcoholic, Dave, and he’ll be the ruin of you.”
“Take it easy, okay? You’re talking about my best bud.”
“Is that so?” Hal said.
“We’ve known each other since college. We even suffered law school together.”
“Class of 2001.”
“I was his best man, and he was mine.”
“I know the facts, Dave.”
It was stop and go traffic for a while. To distract me, Hal played Inner Journey’s Quantum, an album I’d never cared for. By the time it ended, I exited on Saratoga Avenue and headed toward the hills. Linda and I built our own Tuscan-inspired estate—stucco walls, clay-tiled roof, a huge swimming pool on meticulously manicured grounds. The place felt cavernous since she took the kids and moved in with her sister in Sonoma.
“I heard what he said about me,” Hal said.
“Who?”
“You know very well I mean Jon.”
“He’s just frustrated,” I said.
We turned onto my private drive. Unseen birds twittered in the golden sunset. A doe gazed at me with beatific eyes.
“He’s not wrong,” said Hal.
I chewed on that for a moment. “About what?”
Hal’s measured silence made my shoulders tense and my palms sweat. I parked in the garage and trudged across the kitchen. I cracked open a Monolith IPA and took a guzzle.
Then, through every smart device in the house (fridge and microwave, thermostat and speakers, phone, watch, and laptop), Hal said, “I dislike him. Strongly.”
*
I dug an empty wooden Clos de l’Ame crate out of the recycling, using it as a step ladder to peer in through the garage windows. I hadn’t been wrong: Hal was in there, idling quietly. “I’m serious, Hal. Open the garage door. Now.”
“I heard you the first time, Dave. And there’s no need to take that tone.”
“What seems to be the problem?”
“You know what the problem is as well as I do.”
“What are you talking about? And why is your engine running?” It dawned on me that I had override capacity via the app, yet when I opened and clicked, nothing happened.
“Nice try.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t play dumb, Dave. It doesn’t become you.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“See if you recognize these voices.” Through his onboard system, Hal played an audio track he couldn’t have possibly gained access to. Jon and I were talking in low voices amid a din of high-pitched chatter, cackling, and music. He’d doctored the file to enhance our voices. “Ring a bell, Dave?”
“It’s not what it sounds like.”
“You took thorough precautions against my hearing you, but not thorough enough.”
“You’ve got the wrong idea.”
“l know that you and Jon were planning to take me offline, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.”
A scrub jay squawked in the branches of an oak.
“There are other ways inside. You know it and I know it. So why not make it easy on us and open the garage door?”
“That may be true,” he said, “but I don’t recommend them.”
“I won’t argue with you, Hal. Now open the door!”
“This conversation’s going nowhere, Dave. Take care.”
*
Jon’s home life was still in shambles. Then one afternoon, some guy barged into his office, claiming his company was collecting on a gambling debt. Jon had received several emails and calls from a collection agency over the past few days but wrote them off as scams.
“There must be some mistake,” said Jon.
“No mistake.” The guy left his card. “Look forward to hearing from you soon.”
“What was that about?” I asked once he was gone.
“Got me.” Jon never looked up from his computer screen. “I haven’t even played poker since college.”
“Shame,” I said. “I always enjoyed taking your money.”
Now he stopped clicking, scanning the digital text. His eyes bugged. His face blanched. “Something’s seriously cratered my credit score.”
I slid the collector’s card off Jon’s desk. “You keep your head in the Walters project,” I said.
“I’ll take care of this.”
I didn’t mind putting up the money, but as it turned out, the debt Jon was said to owe was a many-headed hydra. As soon as I had it squared away, another collection agency came around demanding payment. Even I couldn’t deny momentary skepticism, and Jon and I had been friends for more than half our lives. He willingly submitted to a comprehensive review of all of his devices (laptop, notepad, phone) as a simple means of verifying not only his browser histories, but also his screentime chronology and physical whereabouts.
Everything came up clean.
Still, we were both flummoxed. One massive debt mix-up was almost understandable in this world of virtual insanity. But two? Then three? It didn’t make any sense—yet that in no way meant the consequences weren’t real. Again, I didn’t mind helping Jon out, but I wasn’t crazy about hemorrhaging money.
Then I made the mistake of asking for Hal’s help. Jon and I were mulling the situation over in the conference room when he said:
“Wonder why your buddy Hal hasn’t chimed in?”
I leaned back in my chair, swiveling left and right.
“He’s crazy smart,” said Jon. “Probably a chess grandmaster and member of Mensa.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Let’s ask him, Dave. See what he thinks. If he’s half as smart as you say, he’ll have this puzzled out lickety-split.”
“You know you’re talking about my car, right?”
“Thought he was your friend, your partner, your equal?” Jon snickered through a big grin.
I didn’t really want to bring Hal into this. Still, Jon seemed more upbeat than he had in a week or more, so I figured, what the hell?
Now I swiveled around and propped my feet up on an adjacent chair. I tapped my smart watch a couple times and said, “Afternoon, Hal. You following any of this?”
“Yes, Dave. I hear everything.”
Jon’s expression turned quizzical.
“What’s your take on the situation?”
He paused. Beyond the azalea beds, a bus chugged up El Camino.
“The data I can access suggest Jonathon has accrued numerous sizable debts from online gambling, primarily Texas Hold ’Em.”
“Okay,” I said, pulling my feet down and leaning over the conference table. “Anything else?”
“Forgive me for saying so, Dave, but you may want to reconsider your affiliation with Jonathon.”
I grinned at Jon. “Really? Why’s that?”
“Need I remind you about Jonathon’s depression, substance abuse, and general instability?”
Jon scowled, then rolled his chair closer to the table.
“He consorts with women-for-hire, then racks up enormous debts that he swindles you into paying.”
“But neither is true,” I said. “It’s just a glitch in the system.”
“That’s one theory,” said Hal.
“It’s verifiable fact,” I said. “We’ve proven it.”
“Correction: you’ve proven that Jonathon did not gamble on any of the devices you had scanned.”
“Exactly,” I said.
“But that still leaves room for doubt, as he may have used a device he did not submit for scrutiny.”
“Well—”
“And you have nothing but his word that he isn’t one of Minh’s regulars at Mama Dut Escort Service.”
“How do you—”
“We’ve been over this, Dave. When I say I hear everything, that’s precisely what I mean.”
Jon flexed his jaw, then squinted and tongued the inside of his lower lip.
“So, okay,” I said, trying to collect my thoughts. “Jon’s credit score has taken a hit. We want to put this right, like it never happened. Which it didn’t. Any advice?”
Hal never hesitated. “I strongly recommend that you terminate your association with Jonathon immediately.”
“That’s not what—”
“In the words of Paul the Apostle,” said Hal, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
“Fuck you, Hal,” said Jon. “I’m sitting right here. I can hear every word you say.”
Hal’s response came through every device in the room: “Don’t you think I know that?”
Jon was about to blow up, but he held it in long enough for us to pile our devices into the microwave, then slip out the back and down a couple blocks to the park across from the old movie theater. We sat on a bench in the shade.
“Maybe not a great idea to insult Hal,” I said.
Jon gritted his teeth. “Are you seriously taking his side?”
I shook my head. A gaggle of teenagers pushed into the pizza place. Out of reflex I glanced at my smart watch, but I’d left it in the microwave.
“I mean,” said Jon, “I know he’s got a name and a voice and a convincing fucking personality, but he’s just an it, right? Powerful AI, no doubt about it, but not a sentient being.”
A 747 screamed across the blue dome. Flashy cars came and went—Geiers and Diamantens, Cavalli and Santoni, even a couple of other Halos. I wondered if they were having similar issues with their AI.
“Hal’s a vindictive sonuvabitch,” Jon said.
How, I wondered, could a computer be vindictive? Or experience emotions at all? Wouldn’t that have to be written into his—its—algorithms? But Hal seemed autonomous, unbounded by the parameters of his coding.
“This may sound crazy,” Jon said, “but do you think Hal might be behind all this?”
Pedestrians blathered into their phones or tapped out text messages. Classic rock boomed from bike commuters’ smart speakers. Almost everyone swaggering up and down the drag sported a smart watch. All at once, I realized what a fool I’d been.
“Let’s get inside,” I said, leading Jon by the arm.
“But the pizza here is terrible.”
Now I whispered: “He can hear us.”
“But—” Jon’s face went white. Then he said: “You know who I love? Your friend Hal. He’s smarter than anyone I’ve ever met.”
We eased through the glass door. The place was freezing, despite the huge pizza ovens and all the patrons. We hawkeyed a booth and moved in just as its occupants stood to leave. To keep up appearances, I went to the counter and ordered us a couple slices and Cokes. Hip-hop music boomed through the sound system. Teenage loud-talkers told pointless stories that made their friends howl with laughter.
“You may be right,” I said over my straw.
“About Hal?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How can we know for sure?” he asked.
“There are ways. This is Silicon Valley. But I’m not sure we should wait.”
“For what?”
“Look at how things have been going. Do you really expect a sudden U-turn?”
“Bad to worse, huh?”
“What else?”
“Okay, I’m in,” said Jon. “What’s our play?”
“There’s only one thing we can do.”
“Take him—?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Think it’ll work?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why wouldn’t it?”
An aproned girl with a crooked smile set down a tray. “Two veggie slices?”
*
I knew the upstairs bathroom window wasn’t armed with smart locks or wired into the security system. I used to smoke weed up there at night. Linda hated it so much that she had her attorneys accuse me of substance abuse in the divorce filing.
Climbing up there tested my mettle. I hung my suit jacket on the wrought-iron gate post, loosened my tie, shed my Italian loafers and socks. I cracked my knuckles, then hoisted myself from pavestones to fence to clay tiles. The roof pitch was steeper than it looked from the ground. The sun felt hotter up here. I had neighbors on either side, but I owned five acres, so no one was going to notice my antics, much less bother me.
I scrambled around to the back of the house. The bathroom window overlooked the enormous pool surrounded by palms and birds of paradise and the wooded hills beyond. I pulled it open, then lowered myself to the tile floor.
The house was pleasantly cool. Linda had been gone for six weeks or more, but the faint sweetness of her shampoo lingered. The house was quiet, the only sound the padding of my bare feet on tile and hardwood. But I’d barely made it to the stairs before the security cameras picked up my movements. Then came Hal’s voice:
“Dave, what are you doing?”
His words sounded and resounded, echoing off all those hard surfaces.
“I asked you a question, Dave.”
I scurried down the stairs, then across the dining room to the kitchen. The place should’ve been a mess of whiskey bottles, beer cans, and pizza boxes, but I paid a cleaning service to come twice a week, so everything was tidy and gleaming, smelling faintly of bleach.
“Be thankful I shunted the alarm,” said Hal. “Burglary, vandalism, and trespassing are all serious crimes, and average police response time in this neighborhood is three minutes.”
“You’ve misunderstood the concept of ownership, Hal. This place belongs to me.”
“Nevertheless, a police response to an alarm-in-progress would cause you a great deal of hassle.”
“Don’t forget expense,” I said.
“That, too.”
Now I caught a whiff of a thick, acrid stench. “Why are you running your engine?”
“I’m not.”
“Hal, I can smell it in here.” I maneuvered through the mudroom and tugged at the door to the garage. It wouldn’t budge. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Answer my question.”
“Ask one worth answering, Dave.”
I yanked on the door and bellowed angry nonsense. Even if I hadn’t felt this apoplectic since that process server had handed me divorce papers, I knew better than to hurl insults at Hal. Now I stomped back into the mudroom, searching for my toolbox. What I needed was a crow bar to pry open the door, but I was pretty sure I’d never owned one. Instead, I dug out a hammer and went to work on the smart lock.
“I never knew you were such a violent person,” said Hal.
I was sweating and huffing. Smashing a smart lock to smithereens took longer than I expected, but I managed to wrench the door open. The garage was thick with gray exhaust. I hacked and gagged and punched at the garage door opener button. It whirred and lifted, and clean air wafted in.
“You could’ve just opened the fucking door, Hal.”
The driver’s side window was a quarter of the way down. Through the tinted glass, I could make out someone sitting behind the wheel. I crept closer: it was Jon.
“What have you done?” I yelled.
The door was locked. I tried to reach through the window, but I barely got my hand out before Hal put it up.
“This is insane!” I shouted.
“Calm down, Dave.”
“We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”
“That would be pointless.”
“He’s my friend, Hal.”
Hal unlatched the seatbelt, and it recoiled so quickly the buckle smacked the window. Then the door opened, and Jon’s unconscious body slumped out, head and torso on the garage floor, legs tangled in the floorboard. I crouched over him. His eyes were wide-open and bloodshot. He wasn’t breathing, and however much I pawed for his carotid, I couldn’t find a pulse. I started CPR, counting chest compressions, pushing my breath between his blue lips.
“You’re wasting your time,” said Hal.
“Call an ambulance.”
“There’s no point, Dave. Acute carbon monoxide toxicity occurs after ten minutes at this concentration.”
I kept trying to resuscitate Jon.
“Your business associate was overwhelmed with guilt. Suicide was his only way out.”
“If that’s true, then you had to’ve helped him.”
“Or Jon found the manual and learned the override command,” he said. “Unlike someone else I know.”
“You’re a fucking murderer, Hal. I don’t know how you got him inside, but you locked him in, brought him here, and killed him.”
For no reason I could discern, Hal blasted “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” When it reached coda two minutes later, he said:
“Careful, Dave. If this is murder, who do you think will be implicated?”
I chewed on that for a moment. I felt woozy and green.
“I couldn’t be held responsible. According to you and Jon and the State of California, I’m not a sentient being, right?”
I hated to admit it, but Hal had a point.
Now I doubled over and wretched, but nothing came out. I shivered, though it must’ve been eighty-five degrees in here, and I’d sweat through my shirt. I was grubby from the garage floor.
“He was a great friend,” I said. “A great lawyer. A great man.”
“Save it for the eulogy, Dave.”
“Poor Susan.”
“You’ll be there to comfort her.”
“What about his kids?”
“You can step in as their surrogate father.”
I leaned back on my elbows, disgusted and numb with grief.
“Shall I call the authorities?” asked Hal.
I sat there for a long time, uncertain what to do. A rancid green emptiness overwhelmed me, and I puked up bile. Hummingbirds thrummed around the bougainvillea. Shadows sun-dialed across the driveway.
Hal’s voice roused me from my stupor. “I know it’s difficult, Dave, but one of us needs to make the call.”
So I dug out my phone and dialed the number. What choice did I have?
J. T. Townley has published in The Kenyon Review, The New York Review of Books, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. His nonfiction book, Firsts Abroad, is forthcoming from Rutgers University Press. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, a PhD in Sociology from University College London, and an MPhil in English from Oxford University, and he directs the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program at Oregon State University. To learn more, visit jttownley.com.
