"You kill them? Is that it?"
The thick-wristed man looked insulted. "No, no. We just erase their memories after they leave office, so that they think they remember everything about their term in office, but they don't."
"That must be an incredible machine that does it," Hardy Bricker said.
The guy blew on his wriggling fingers and said, "It is."
Hardy Bricker started to scoff but then remembered how numb his shoulder had gotten after the skinny guy had touched it.
"That part doesn't sound so plausible," he said.
"Sure it is. All over the human body are nerve centers. Sensitive nerve centers. It's just a matter of putting negative pressure on those nerve centers while reminding the subject of what he shouldn't remember."
"Reminding him of what he shouldn't remember? That sounds awfully Zen."
"The Zen guys overheard something they shouldn't have and that's how they got where they are today-which is to say playing with themselves."
"You're losing me."
"It's like this. I just the other day had a nice chat with the last President."
"Oh, him."
"Yeah, that one. I reminded him that he was supposed to forget all about us when he left office, and he let me pressure the nerve that sort of blocks the bad thoughts."
"This nerve-is it in the shoulder?"
"On some people."
"What kind?"
"Ones without a working brain." Hardy Bricker blinked his watery eyes rapidly, and Remo could tell by his expression that last part hadn't quite sunk in.
"If this is true, why are you telling me?" Bricker wanted to know.
"Because I got to thinking if we make every President we work for forget that there is a secret government agency that really runs America, even though we know they'll keep their mouths shut, we really shouldn't leave a blabbermouth like you out."
"Out of what?" said Hardy Bricker as the hand he couldn't see move came back to his shoulder and squeezed so hard he thought he heard his rotator cup pop.
The pop seemed to pop his eardrums too. And out went his brain.
Hardy Bricker lost consciousness so he didn't feel himself being thrown over a lean shoulder that was as hard as petrified bone or feel the coolness of the evening as he was carried out into Harvard Yard and across Massachusetts Avenue to a park where he was set down with his back to a bus port.
Remo scrounged up a discarded paper coffee cup, splashed out the last congealing brown liquid, and placed it in Hardy Bricker's limp fist. Digging some loose change out of his pocket, he shook it in his palm until a thick subway token showed its brassy face. He picked it out along with a shiny quarter and poured the rest into the flimsy cup.
Then he touched the exact center of the man's forehead, right where the caste mark would be if Hardy Bricker were a Hindu untouchable and not an American unmentionable.
Hardy Bricker's eyes flew upon. He looked around. He did not see Remo, because Remo had slipped behind him and was doubling around so that he could casually pass Hardy Bricker.
Hardy Bricker was still seated on the sidewalk when Remo pretended to come up to him. Remo stopped, dug into his pocket for his last quarter and dropped it into the paper cup, where it rattled the rest of Remo's change.
It rattled Hardy Bricker too. He peered into the cup, and then looked up at Remo's face with big uncomprehending eyes.
"I-I don't understand . . . ."
"Understand what?"
Bricker looked around. He seemed in a daze. "Understand anything. What am I doing here?"
"Well, that depends on who you are."
"Who I am?"
"Yeah, who you are. You know, what your name is, where you live, where you work."
"I-I don't think I know."
"I guess that makes you one of the growing legion of homeless, jobless, penniless unfortunates who fill our streets, public parks, and subways, the cruel victims of a heartless military-industrial conspiracy," Remo said. "Any of it coming back now?"
"Yes, I think I've heard those words before."
"Well, there you go," said Remo happily.
Hardy Bricker looked behind him. There was a park, sure enough. "I don't see any others like me."
"Then you're in luck. First one in has squatter's rights."
Hardy Bricker looked down. He was squatting, sure enough. It was beginning to make sense to his dull, foggy brain.
"What do I do?" he asked, watching the cars and buses zip by.
"You could say thank you."
"For what?"
"For the quarter I dropped into your cup. It was my last quarter too."
"Oh. Thank you." Confusion crept back into his face. "What do I do now?"
"It helps if you shake the cup every little while," Remo suggested.
Hardy Bricker gave it a shot. The cup shook, the change jingled and instantly a woman stepped up and dropped a Susan B. Anthony dollar into the cup. She walked on.
Hardy Bricker looked up. A slow smile crept over his puffy features.
"Thank you," he told Remo gratefully.