She slid her coffee mug aside, folded her hands on the table.
“We couldn’t find you, Mr. Gage, because Clayton didn’t carry a single valid form of ID. His driver’s license wasn’t only out of date, it was fake. We had no access to any records of him. We had to use the truck, registered to you, at an address you haven’t lived at in years. A house that was condemned and torn down.” Maureen paused. “A lot of effort was in fact expended trying to find you. You’re a hard man to track down. And that doesn’t seem to be accidental. You can’t dodge the system and then complain when it doesn’t serve you.”
Gage looked away, taking a deep breath, using the moment to collect himself. He smoothed his tie with one hand and turned back to Maureen. “When y’all find a car, abandoned, stolen, whatever, and you need to find out about it, what do you use?”
“The license plate,” Maureen said, “the registration. If that’s no good, like in your son’s case, we go to the VIN. We can get a lot from that usually.”
“And a gun,” Gage said. “You recover a gun used in a crime, or take one off a criminal, you look for the serial number, run it through your computers, see if that gun has a history.”
“True. That’s why people try so hard to destroy the serial numbers. Destroying that number can hide a lot of bad things.”
“When you were born,” Gage said, “you got your name, Maureen, which your parents gave you, based on their desires and their histories. Do you know the history of your name?”
“Of the name Maureen? I have no idea. I know my mom wanted me named after her mother, Morrigan, which is the name of some war goddess from Irish mythology. My father thought it was too … aggressive. And he worried it was too weird for where we lived. He was a soft, uncreative man. Maureen was a compromise. Another battle my mother lost to my father’s charm, to hear her tell it. Or maybe that was Grandma Fagan who said that, the Morrigan of the story.” She shrugged. “That’s the history as my mother tells it. My father isn’t around to argue.”
“So, as I said,” Gage said, “your name is the product of your parents. Well, the next thing you got when you were born was your Social Security number, which the government gave you. Now why was that?”
Maureen sighed. She had every confidence Leon Gage would answer his own question if she let him. She resisted the urge to check the time on her phone. Why had she agreed to this meeting? This was the guy Detillier had pinned his hopes on? Good luck with that. He carried his share of rage, that was for sure, but she was having a hard time imagining him cutting someone’s throat in a cemetery. He seemed like the kind of man who yelled at the television news. Maybe that was why he kept throwing glances at the TV.
“We pay into the system when we start working,” Maureen said, “and then we get paid by it when our turn comes. I guess. Sounds pretty simple and fair to me. You give, then you get. I haven’t thought about it much.”
Gage chuckled. “That’s exactly the way they want you. Thoughtless. Oblivious.”
“Ah,” Maureen said, nodding. “The ominous they. I was wondering when they would show up.” Maybe, somehow, she thought, this conversation would get entertaining.
“You know anyone who goes to work at birth?” Gage asked. He checked his watch, glanced at the television again. His mouth hung open. He appeared to be thinking, calculating what he would say next. He refocused on Maureen. “Why give you a number then? You won’t work for at least, what, fifteen years after you’re born. Why is that number assigned at birth?”
“Because it’s our serial number,” Maureen said, shrugging in surrender to Gage’s wisdom. “And Social Security is a scam, a veil or distraction to cover up that fact. It’s how the government controls us. I have seen the light. I thought you wanted to talk about your son?”
“You’re making fun of me,” Gage said. “I don’t mind. Everyone does. In the beginning. We’re conditioned to think a certain way. It’s a strange education; I went through it myself. But you wait, you’ll find yourself thinking about what I said here today. At night. When you’re alone, when you turn on your computer. That’s how it starts. The questions make too much sense to ignore.”
“Mr. Gage,” Maureen said, “do you consider yourself a Sovereign Citizen?” Fuck it, she thought. Why not come right out with it? If he was going to open that door, she figured, she might as well walk through it. She was losing her patience with Gage’s condescending tone. If Detillier and Atkinson wanted finesse in the questioning, they could sit with this tedious bastard their damn selves.