Corridor Man: Auditor

by Nick James

  “That would be putting it mildly.”

  Chapter Three

  I followed Bonnie over to her home so I could meet this Ignatius guy.

  Before we left she told me, “You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? You meet Iggy just once and it’ll be like getting the whole book. He’s been living in my lower level for the past six months.”

  Bonnie lived in Woodbury, a suburb due east of St. Paul. It was an uneventful, twelve-minute drive on I-94 from my office to her place. I pulled into the driveway behind her. Her home was a split level that wasn’t more than fifteen years old. It had an attached double garage and a soccer net in the front yard with three boys about nine or ten kicking a black and white ball around. What was left of the flowers in the front of the house looked like they’d fallen victim to more than one soccer match, except for about a half-dozen daisies at the far end of the front garden that had somehow managed to survive. Morton popped his head up in the back seat, checked out the kids playing with the soccer ball and gave a little whine.

  “Mom, there’s nothing good to eat,” the shortest of the three boys said as Bonnie got out of her car. He was blonde and looked a lot like her, including that space between his two front teeth.

  “Then you’ll just have to wait for dinner, J.D.,” Bonnie said and headed for the front door, I had to hurry to catch up. “This is my friend Mr. Haskell, he’s going to be helping Iggy and me.”

  “Hi,” J.D. said, then focused on lining up his next kick, ignoring me completely. He gave the ball a good boot and it sailed over the net and out into the street.

  “Come on in and ignore the mess,” she said, walking into the house. I followed.

  The entryway was maybe eight by ten feet and covered with black and white tile, I think. There were a half-dozen Barbie dolls, an odd assortment of shoes, two nerf guns, a bucket full of legos, a blue windbreaker, what looked like a broken bicycle lock and a toy truck scattered around the entry. A short staircase led up to the main floor and a carpeted staircase led down to a closed door on the lower level.

  Bonnie headed up the stairs to the main floor and I dutifully followed.

  “I’ll give him a call and let him know we’re coming. You want anything? A coffee? A beer? I think there’s a couple of Cokes left in the fridge. Go ahead and just help yourself, I’m running to the bathroom.”

  “I’m fine, don’t hurry on my account.”

  The living room was large with a peaked ceiling. The room morphed into a kitchen in one corner separated by a counter of beige granite. Cereal dishes and milk glasses were stacked in the sink. A half-filled coffee mug from Las Vegas with lipstick along the edge sat on the end of the kitchen counter.

  On the far side of the counter was a dining room table with eight chairs around it and a sticker book featuring whatever the latest Disney movie was. The characters looked familiar, but I was way too out of touch to even guess at the names. At the far end of the dining room table was a sliding door that led out to a fairly large deck. The living room area featured a glass-topped coffee table in front of a chocolate brown ‘L’ shaped couch. A large flatscreen TV sat on top of a cabinet opposite the couch. A kid’s blanket was balled up on the coffee table with three toy trucks parked beneath.

  I examined the dozen or so framed photos on the wall. Bonnie with the three kids, two boys and a girl. The boy I’d seen playing soccer in the front yard looked to be the oldest. Based on the photos, I guessed the kids might be two years apart. I was examining a picture of Bonnie and the kids at a beach somewhere, clearly not Minnesota. Given the age of her oldest, I think she’d called him J.D., the photo might have been taken two years ago. After three kids, she still cut a stunning figure in a bikini, although it looked like she’d added a half dozen more tattoos over the years.

  “Ignore that photo, I look fat,” she said, stepping out of the bathroom.

  “You look great, I’m guessing this was a couple of years ago?”

  “Yeah, Nags Head, really gorgeous. It was shortly after the divorce and we all needed to get away. It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered, sun, surf and acting stupid. On the drive home, when we weren’t singing Bingo or Old MacDonald Had a Farm, I came up with the idea of a simple link, just one click, to handle everyone’s marketing needs. We got back here and the rest is history. Let me give Iggy a call, he always likes a heads up before I knock on the door. Otherwise he probably won’t answer.”

  I returned to studying the photos. Bonnie pushed a speed dial button and started speaking a moment later.

  “Yeah, Iggy. Hi, it’s Bonnie. No, not a problem. I was thinking pasta, with chicken tonight, interested? No, I know. Okay, hot dogs it is. No, probably not until 5:30. Listen, I’ve got my friend, Dev Haskell here. Yeah. No, I don’t think so. No, I understand, we’ll see you in fifteen minutes. Sure, thanks.”

  I turned from the photos on the wall. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s just in the middle of something and he needs some time to get ready.”

  “Get ready?”

  “I think you’ll understand once you meet him.”

  I nodded and turned back to the photos on the wall. “So this is J.D., what’s that stand for?”

  “Jack Daniels. Actually, it was after that wedding of my sister, Chrissy.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Yeah. I married one of the groomsmen, Wayne. I don’t know if you met him that day. I’d been seeing him and, well, we were married about seven months later.”

  I could have mentioned that she’d spent the night of her sister’s wedding with me, but why? “Okay, so Jack Daniels, then you had your daughter,” I said pointing at the little girl in the beach photo.

  “Yeah, my sweetie, Stella. And before you ask, yes she was named after Stella Atrois, the beer. And the baby there, he’s the youngest, Bud.”

  “After Budweiser?” I joked.

  “Exactly,” she said, not kidding. “The two youngest are at daycare right now, I pick them up around four. You sure you don’t want a coffee or something? I’m going to make a fresh pot, we’ve got a few minutes before we go downstairs.”

  “Yeah, okay, I’ll have some coffee. So, I can’t be the first person to ask about the kid’s names.”

  She set the timer on the oven then pulled the coffee pot out and poured the remnants of the pot into the sink. She filled the pot with water and poured it into the coffee maker. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a coffee filter, placed it in the coffee maker, then pushed a button on a grinder that whirled and ground coffee beans.

  Finally she said, “Well, JD was sort of a natural, because of the theme at my sister’s wedding…”

  Once again I remembered we, she and I, had enjoyed a one-night stand the night of her sister’s wedding, but I didn’t mention it.

  “…Stella seemed like a natural, and she likes it because she’s the only Stella in her class. Once we had the first two named, Buddy seemed like a natural. He’s a laid back little guy, exactly the sort of kid you’d probably call Buddy, anyway. So, we just stayed with the theme and named him Budweiser.”

  Chapter Four

  We chatted for a few minutes drinking coffee until the timer on the oven went off with a ding. “Okay,” she said, took a sip, then set her mug on the counter. “Let’s go introduce you to Iggy.” I followed her down the steps toward the front door, then down the carpeted set of steps to the lower level where she knocked on the closed door.

  A moment later a muffled voice from the other side asked, “Who’s there?”

  Bonnie looked back at me, rolled her eyes and said, “It’s me, Iggy, and Mr. Haskell, the security specialist.”

  “Just the two of you?”

  “Yes.”

  A lock snapped and then the door opened. The room was fairly dark, illuminated by a number of computer screens giving off a sort of blueish aura to the areas around them. I counted at least ten screens, all with bits of data and lines of code running across th
em.

  “How’s it going?” Bonnie asked, walking into the darkened room.

  “Making progress,” a voice said from somewhere in the dark, then closed the door behind me.

  “Iggy, this is my friend Dev Haskell. We go back a long way. He’s the private investigator I told you about.”

  “Could I see some identification?” a squeaky voice asked.

  I waited half a moment for the laugh signifying a joke, it didn’t happen. “Yeah, sure, will a driver’s license do? I’ve got my VA card, a five-dollar gift card to Target, a…”

  “Just the driver’s license, please.”

  I handed him my license. He clicked on a small flashlight, examined the license, flashed the light in my face and studied me for a moment, then handed the license back to me. “Thank you.”

  I attempted to regain my vision as he walked toward a bank of computer screens. I could just make out a tall, thin figure who could have been the poster child for the nerd club. He wore glasses in black frames, the kind of frames kids in grade school wore, with very thick lenses. He had an exceptionally high forehead with hair of medium length sticking out at various angles. The hair was anything but trendy, rather more like an eternal bed-head. He wore a Star Wars t-shirt, Luke Skywalker with a light saber, with the words ‘The Force Awakens’ below the image, and a pair of suspenders. I guessed the silver sheet he had wrapped around his shoulders was most likely Mylar. The cap he wore appeared to be tinfoil. I extended my hand, wondering if he’d shake it. He did, although I noted he wore latex gloves and was in desperate need of a shower.

  “Bonnie told me you develop software,” I said, trying to ignore the weirdness in front of me.

  “Yes, yes, I can give you a little demonstration, if you’d like.”

  “Please, I’d like that,” I lied.

  “Come over here,” he said and hurried toward a bank of three computer screens. At this point Bonnie was drifting off in the darkness somewhere. Iggy sat down in front of the three screens and indicated a chair next to him. As I sat I noticed a number of what looked like Star Wars figures scattered around the desk. I could make out a couple of posters on the wall, Star Wars again, I think, but it was too dark in the far recesses of the room to be sure.

  “So what we need to do is offer a multi-lingual methodology to our clients with just the touch of a button.” He went on from there, rapidly clicking the keyboard as he spoke, although that opening line was about the only thing I understood. It was clear he was in his element, constantly going off on a tangent, maybe mentioning the occasional something to Bonnie, who seemed to understand what was being said. From my point of view they might as well have been speaking Latin. Fortunately, it was dark enough in the room that neither one could pick up the blank look on my face. After about twenty minutes there was a pause in the conversation and Iggy’s hands came off the keyboard.

  “Very interesting. So, tell me how you envision using my services?” I said.

  Iggy sort of shrugged, rubbed his latex-gloved hands back and forth and stared into the dark beneath the desk.

  “We’re about to bring the product online. I can go over funding with you in a bit, suffice to say it’s no longer the best kept secret and we’ve had, umm, some unwanted interest,” Bonnie said.

  “There’s been a substantial increase in the electromagnetic field,” Iggy added, raising his eyes upward toward his tinfoil hat. “Scanning my brain, most likely attempting to read the code, possibly an effort at mind control, mind reading. It’s been increasing steadily for the past six months. I thought things would improve when I moved in here, but they found me. I can’t imagine what would happen if I ventured outside.”

  I nodded like I understood, then looked into the dark where I thought Bonnie was standing. Her voice suddenly sounded about ten feet to the left of where I thought she would be. “Well, as you can see, Iggy, we’ve got a top-notch private investigator, a real security specialist, on the case so you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  “Do you have a relationship with the highway department?” Iggy asked.

  “The highway department?”

  “Yeah,” Bonnie inserted herself. “Iggy’s been aware of the efforts of the highway department to read his mind for quite some time. If I recall correctly, you stated in your interview that you had no relationship with them. You do not work for them and you never have worked for them.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” I nodded, then swiveled my chair to face Iggy and embellished. “I have absolutely no relationship with the highway department, never have, never will.” This seemed to bring a smile to his face, and he flashed a mouthful of crooked teeth, suggesting I’d passed the test.

  “We’ll let you get back to work, Iggy. I just wanted you to meet Dev, so if you see him around, he’s just here to help and to keep everyone safe, especially you.”

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Haskell,” Iggy said then sort of giggled in a certifiable way.

  “The pleasure was all mine, Iggy. Keep up the good work.”

  “Come on Dev, I’ll show you our files,” Bonnie said and suddenly stepped out of the dark.

  Iggy followed us to the door, making a sort of weird giggling noise along the way. The moment we exited he closed the door and then a lock snapped shut.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” I half whispered.

  “Shh-hhh,” Bonnie put a finger to her lips, then pointed upstairs to the main floor.

  Chapter Five

  “Well, what do you think?” she half whispered up in the kitchen. She opened up a cabinet and took out two glasses, then held them under the ice dispenser on the refrigerator door until they were filled with ice.

  “Just a Coke for me, Bonnie. What do I think? My first question would be, are you guys safe? No offense, but he’s not exactly playing on a level field.”

  “But he’s a genius. The software he’s written is flawless. All the work he’s done would have taken a team an entire year, and he’s done it all, on his own, in half the time.”

  “Does he ever sleep? I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’m not sure where to even begin.”

  “Well, yes, he does sleep, sort of. As near as I can figure out he’s on some sort of lunar schedule.”

  “What in the hell is a lunar schedule?”

  “You know, the lunar calendar. He basically does his best work when the moon is full.”

  “Are you kidding? What the hell does he do when there’s a lunar eclipse or clouds?”

  “That can be sort of problematic.”

  “Bonnie, maybe you’ve heard this once or twice before, but that guy really needs some professional help, and a lot of it.”

  “But he’s a genius, Dev. I’m not kidding, the programs he’s written, we’re going to take the market by storm.”

  “Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you do. You think your pal downstairs is going to be able to handle that? I mean, for starters he might have to be exposed to daylight. God forbid he’d take a shower.”

  “Very funny. That’s my job, handling sales, doing the marketing. I’ll do a couple of presentations for Google, Amazon, maybe Facebook or even Twitter and offer them an exclusive contract, first come first served. Once the bidding starts, I expect to be on easy street within the next six weeks. Just in case that doesn’t work, I can offer the product to individuals.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Do? I don’t expect you to do anything, really. Other than make Iggy feel safe. He’s got some fine-tuning to do on his programs and, as you may have picked up, he’s got a bit of a tendency to obsess.”

  “So there really isn’t a threat? No one is trying to steal his secrets? No one is attempting to steal his programs? No one’s trying to read his mind?”

  “I just said that stuff to make him feel, umm, not so alone.”

  “Not feel alone? The guy is wrapped in tin foil!”

  “It’s Mylar, actually.”

  “Well, there
you go. What about the kids?”

  She flashed a quick smile. “They’re leaving in two days to spend a month at my sister’s lake place over in Wisconsin. I expect to have everything signed, sealed and delivered by the time they’re back.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re leaving yourself very much time.”

  “Honey, once they see our demonstration, it’ll just become a bidding war, and the highest bidder wins. It’s simple.”

  I figured I had to be missing something. “So, I’m still not clear what it is you want me to do.”

  “Well, make it look to Iggy like you’re providing security. I expect I’ll be doing some traveling, maybe you could make sure he’s comfortable.”

  “Comfortable?”

  “Yeah, while I’m gone, you know.”

  “It sounds like you want me to babysit.”

  “That might be too strong a term. I can promise you there’ll be some additional benefits thrown in along with a paycheck.”

  “Would it be okay if I called you tomorrow? I’m guessing you’d like me to start after your kids leave for the lake.”

  “Okay, but call me before noon, because if you can’t do it I’m going to have to find somebody else.”

  “Fair enough. Nice to see you again, Bonnie.”

  “Told you I’d be in touch,” she said.

  ‘Ten years ago,’ I thought, but didn’t mention that piece of information. “Yeah, you did. Okay, I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

  “Hope you say yes,” she said, then raised her eyebrows and ran her tongue over her upper lip.

  “I better get going,” I said and headed down the stairs and out the front door. One of the kids, probably J.D., had let Morton out of the car, and the three boys were tossing a nuclear pink frisbee to him. All that remained of the daisies at the far end of the front garden was some petals scattered across the lawn. Victims of the frisbee, Morton, or a combination of the two.

  “Come on, Morton, let’s go, buddy.” Morton ran to the car with the frisbee and hopped in the back seat as I held the door for him. I wrestled the frisbee out of his mouth, and he turned his attention to the rawhide he’d been chewing earlier.