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It was the detail. Addresses, names, vehicle registrations. Cases and crimes. Cloud formations and smokestacks. The puddle by the drinks dispenser which Sam had invariably almost slipped on every morning for the past week. The taste of cold boiled chicken and over-warm pudding.
The number of steps it took to get from his desk to Gene's office door (seven), and the number of steps to get back (five).
*
It was the little things. Gene grabbed him with bare hands and punched him in gloves, and as the sting rippled through his guts, Sam grabbed and punched him back. But he was impressed by the competence with which Gene handled the Cortina, the ease and comprehension, as though the immaculate bronze body was an extension of himself.
Sam held on like his life depended on it.
"Don't be such a jessie."
"Just because I lack a death wish--"
"Shut it, Tyler. You're either here with me, or you buy flipping a bus pass."
Sam looked Gene in the eye, seeing attentiveness if not patience. "I'm here."
A brief nod. "Good," Gene said, and ground the Cortina to a halt.
Sam was swung forward roughly despite being belted in. He blinked out the window. "Maude's? What's this?"
"Dinner."
"We just ate!"
"Nought else to do spent crammed in with you for the next six hours."
"I thought we could exchange humorous anecdotes," Sam drawled. "Beats actually observing the scene, yeah?"
"Now you mention it, I bet my foot up your jacksie would be bloody hilarious."
Sam huffed out a breath. Then he got out.
"Try to remember the vinegar this time," Gene's voice trailed after him.
*
It was the impossibilities.
Three days after the Kramer case, Sam was back at Vinyl Heaven, thumbing between L and P. Manfred Mann, Moody Blues, the New York Dolls. Nico. Shit, but he'd certainly never heard this one: the Osmonds' "One Way Ticket to Anywhere" in standard -- gorgeous, ghastly -- seven-inch 40g. press. He slipped it under his arm. Discreetly. He also picked out copies of Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player, For Your Pleasure, and as he made it to the counter, Exile on Main St., just in case his taste should come into question.
The clerk had a broad smile for the plucky Technicolor family.
"It's for a friend," explained Sam, handing over a tenner. "I'll take a bag, please."
The turntable in his bedsit was an ancient thing, and the speakers were warped and gravelly, but he managed to cook his dinner omelet to the strains of "Crocodile Rock" without catastrophic injury before drinking four doubles with Messrs. Ferry and Eno.
By the time the needle hissed round the final groove, he was reeling, bleary and sick. But he was also cognizant: if he'd never heard the Osmonds record, and this was all in his mind, there would be nothing to hear. The music wouldn't exist.
He put it on. Silence. There would be silence, there would be--
It was every bit as horrible as he imagined.
He listened to it twice.