Drysdale was leaning forward, and I moved a step closer. We watched as the
unconscious Colonel was secured to the chair. His captor was wearing delicate-looking gold spectacles and had a jet-black mustache too large for his face. His skin was dark -
he looked like he might be Middle Eastern, though he could have been wearing makeup and a false mustache for all I knew. Other than his complexion and facial hair, he looked nondescript, average. His would be a difficult face to identify. One thing was certain, though - he was much too short to be the man who’d posed as the countess’s butler.
Within thirty seconds, the dark-haired man had the Colonel thoroughly fastened to the chair. There hadn’t been one wasted movement - this guy was obviously a professional.
He lifted the Colonel’s rag-doll head and waved what appeared to be smelling salts under his nose. With a jerk, the Colonel’s head snapped back, eyes blinking wildly.
The dark-haired man turned calmly to the Colonel, who was shaking his head, trying to clear away the cobwebs. Almost breezily, the man removed a small silver case and extracted a cigarette. As he methodically lit what I presumed was a now-familiar French cigarette, he spoke softly to the Colonel, too softly for me to make out the words. After a moment, the Colonel looked up. “I know who you are. I’m just wondering what took you so long.”
The words were clear, but the voice sounded far away. I couldn’t catch what the stranger said in reply, but he went on speaking for some time. The Colonel moved slightly, testing how securely he was tied down. It was hopeless. He wasn’t going to escape.
“You and whoever you’re working for can kiss my ass.”
In a blur, the interrogator slashed his hands across the Colonel’s face. After several seconds, a red line appeared on the Colonel’s cheek, and blood began to seep out of the wound. The Colonel stared back defiantly. “You might as well go ahead and kill me. I haven’t got anything to say to you.”
The soft voice continued, now more menacing. The Colonel interrupted with a spiteful laugh. Again, the attacker lashed out, and the Colonel began to bleed from both sides of his face. He continued to smile as blood ran into the corners of his mouth. “You got the wrong guy. How should I know anything about the Winter Chip. Why don’t you check with someone at CAPRICORN? It’s their chip. Oh, I forgot. You blew the place up.
Looks like you’re just out of luck.”
The stranger walked around the desk and picked up the valise he’d dropped when he’d made his attack. Setting it on the desk, he opened it, and I saw something inside gleam as it caught the light. Out came a hypodermic needle and a small bottle. Slowly and deliberately, he filled the needle and walked back behind the Colonel. The stranger spoke for some time, his voice so low as to be almost imperceptible. When he finished, the Colonel took a deep breath. “Go to hell.”
The answering voice rose slightly, and I detected a slight accent. The Colonel looked straight ahead and didn’t respond. His interrogator held the hypodermic up to the light and pressed until a stream of liquid spurted out the end. Leaning down, he inserted the needle into the Colonel’s neck. The Colonel struggled at first, then slowly relaxed.
Finally, his head lolled forward, onto his chest.
The dark-haired man put away the needle, then left the room. Moments later, he reappeared along with another man whose face I couldn’t get a clear look at. Together, they released the Colonel from the handcuffs and carried his limp body out of the room.
It was impossible to tell if he was still alive. The small man returned and walked past the camera. The lights shut off, and the screen went blank.
@@@
Five minutes later, I was standing at the checkout counter, collecting my wing tips, overcoat, and fedora. The old cop working the counter handed over my clothing, as jolly as a sub for Santa doling out gifts to an impoverished child.
“Now here’s a nice hat. I used to wear a hat like that. That’s how I lost my hair.” He guffawed loudly. I ignored him and emptied the contents of the manila envelope onto the counter. Keys, wallet, lighter, cigarettes (thank God), several envelopes (one full of cigarette butts), the blue index card, and the Perry Mason book. As I returned the items to the appropriate pockets, I noticed something sticking out between the pages of the paperback.
It turned out to be a picture of the Colonel, who was dressed like a pirate, and a beautiful young woman, who was wearing a neon-pink bikini and holding a trophy. I flipped the photo over and read “Happy Halloween! Love and Kisses, Melahn.” The bald cop
contorted to get a look at the front side of the photo.
“Here, son. Mind if I take a look at that?”
I handed it over and continued distributing. The cop whistled. “Haven’t seen this one for awhile. What a piece of work she was.” Through the snickering, I took back the photo and looked at it again. So, the Colonel had found himself a little plaything. I had to admit, she was an eye-popper. I wondered whether the cops had found anything linking the Colonel to this Melahn person. Maybe if I could track her down, she’d have an idea why someone had cut her sugar daddy’s finger off. It was worth a try. I slipped the picture into my pocket along with the paperback and went looking for Mac.
Malden, despite his seniority, had been stuck in the late shift for as long as I’d known him and still hadn’t been able to adjust his internal clock. He was slumped against a coffee machine, eyes closed, waiting for his cup to fill. I walked over, pulling out a cigarette. Bilge water gurgled from the bowels of the machine, filling the air with a wet ashtray smell. Mac heard me approaching and opened his eyes grudgingly. “Coffee?”
I lit my smoke. “I’d love some, if you have any.”
Mac shrugged apathetically. “Suit yourself.”
He extracted the cup of pond scum and aimed his tired girth in the direction of his office.
Just as we’d gotten seated, Mac’s vid-phone beeped, and he answered it. From the tone of the conversation, it was his wife Joanne.
I pulled out the photo of the Colonel and Melahn and looked it over again. The old man always had a taste for younger girls - not too young in the legal sense, but young enough to offend churchgoers. I inspected the photo closely. With my vague recollection of what the Colonel had looked like a few months ago, the picture was taken recently.
Maybe he’d still been seeing this girl.
She was beautiful in a slightly soiled way. The Colonel had always preferred his playmates a little trashy, and this one certainly fit the bill. But even under the fashionably excessive makeup and overenlarged breasts, there was something
undeniably appealing about Melahn. She was the kind of dame that got men into trouble.
I wanted to meet her.
I knew that Drysdale would pursue every angle to find out who the Colonel’s abductor had been, but I was planning on making my own inquiries. At one time, I’d felt a real affinity for the old man, and I couldn’t just stand by knowing that he’d been murdered.
Besides, if I found out who the killer was, it might get me in good with Drysdale, who’d be a considerably more useful contact than Mac Malden.
The fat cop disconnected from the vid-phone and looked at me pathetically, like a dog on his last trip to the vet. I’d never met Joanne…I only knew the effect she had on her poor husband. I decided to change the subject.
“You look great, Mac. The extra weight sure suits you.”
Mac pulled a soggy Merit out from beneath his yellowed mustache, sprinkling ash on his tie. He was obviously too tired to care about friendly provocation. He looked exhausted and irregular, and his scalp glistened beneath a thinning layer of blond hair.
“Looks like you worked things out with Drysdale.”
I nodded. “I owe you one for the tip. It bought me just enough time.”
“I didn’t give you a tip, so shut up about it.” Mac dropped his cigarette into a pool of stale coffee at the bottom of a Styrofoam cup, then reached into a brown lunch bag and pulled out a dou
ghnut. His jowls jiggled as he took a bite. Another doughnut was the last thing he needed. I felt a need to express my concern for his health.
“I think there should be a warning printed on doughnut boxes: Eating these can result in double chins, tight pants, and will kill you as fast as cigarettes.”
Mac stared at me like a beef cow as he slowly chewed his cud and swallowed.
“For your information, this is a Diet Donut. Fat free, cholesterol free, forty calories, and ten grams of fiber. It tastes like a dog toy, but Joanne’s forcing me to eat ‘em. She makes these surprise visits to the office, and if she catches me with an actual pastry, she’ll rip my head off.”
“Well, you know what they say, Mac. Be good to your bowels and they’ll be good to you.”
“Go to hell.”
The lump of a policeman downed the last of the snack and reached for his pack of Merits. “What’s on your mind, Murphy?” Mac picked up my Zippo like it was his and held it to the end of a poorly packed cigarette. The tobacco seemed to cleanse his palette, and he looked somewhat refreshed. I was happy for him.
“Take a look at this for me.” I handed over the photo I’d found in the paperback.
Mac stared at it apathetically and tossed it onto the desk in front of me. “Nice looking broad.”
“You recognize her?”
Mac shook his head. “Should I?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a hunch she has a police record. Her name’s Melahn. That’s all I know about her.”
Mac turned on his computer, pointed and clicked several times, then typed in his name.
He leaned over and picked up the photo and held it up to the screen. “Tode. T-O-D-E.
Melahn Tode. Been picked up twice for soliciting and once for possession. She got suspended sentences for all of them, but she’s still on probation. Here’s an address. No phone number.”
Mac rotated the monitor, and I made a note. Now, there was one other item of business.
“Tell me, Mac, how busy is your crack investigative team at the moment?”
The fat cop reached for another Merit, then consulted a desk calendar.
“Well, Lenny’s wife is visiting her mom over the weekend, so he’s hosting the poker game on Friday. Don’s hair plugs got infected, so he’s out sick for a few days. And, of course, Wednesday is our bowling league night down at Lois Lanes.” Mac leaned back in his chair. “Looks like we’re booked. Why?”
“I’ve got something of a mystery on my hands, and I was hoping your guys could help out.”
Mac shrugged. “Let’s hear it. Try to make it exciting…I’m barely awake.”
“OK, in a nutshell, I was hired by someone calling herself Countess Renier. I went to her house, which turned out to be a mansion in Pacific Heights. 2429 Fillmore.”
Mac wobbled forward and made a note.
“The details of the case aren’t important, but I ended up in Brownsville, Texas, where someone played jai alai with my head and put me in the hospital for a couple days.
When I got back in town, I went to see my client, and her house was cleaned out. Turns out, it’s been up for sale and supposedly empty for months.”
Mac focused his eyes, now more alert. “A scam.”
I nodded.
“And you want me to have the boys look the place over.”
“If they can fit it into their hectic schedules.”
Mac leaned his head against the back of the chair and blew a smoke ring toward the dingy ceiling. He took his time finishing the cigarette, then sat forward, elbows on the desk.
“Tell you what, Murphy. Things are a little slow around here. We haven’t had a good murder case in months. Every day it’s the same old thing - some Mutant’s been beat up, a gang of Norms broke into some Mutant’s store, some old Mutant shot a Norm on the subway. Mutants, Norms, Mutants, Norms. I’ll tell ya, I’m so sick of this crusade crap I could puke. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned crime?”
I shook my head sympathetically.
“I’m with you, Mac. The world’s going to hell. But this case is a real mystery and doesn’t have a thing to do with Mutants or Norms.”
Mac doused his Merit.
“OK, Murphy. We’ll check this place out for ya. I just got an anonymous tip that someone broke in there. I’ll let you know if we turn anything up.”
UAKM - CHAPTER TEN
The city sparkled with Christmas lights, and the metropolitan air space was jammed with speeders, filled with shoppers returning from the extended-hours holiday frenzy. It was annoying. This was my least favorite time of the year. The weather was cold and clammy, and something about the yuletide season always brought out the grinch in me. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the fact that a simple Christian celebration had been grafted onto a set of pagan rituals and fertilized with steaming piles of commercialism, turning the whole event into a bastardized maelstrom of greed and questionable religious value. Or maybe it was because Santa never brought me a pony.
The bottle of bourbon tucked under my arm represented a third of my remaining liquid capital. I unlocked the door to my office and stepped into the darkness. The chilly, damp street air gave way to the warm, smoky smell of home. The green glowing numbers on my watch read 11:11 PM. It’d been one of the longest ten-hour stretches of my life, and I was exhausted…but I wasn’t going to sleep.
The white glow from the streetlights outside fell through my venetian blinds and washed across the floor, giving the room a ghostly look. I crossed to my desk, set the bottle down, and turned on the banker’s lamp. In less than a minute, I was shoeless, hatless, and coatless, with a loosened tie and the melancholy strains of Miles Davis echoing off peeling wallpaper.
A speeder flashed past my windows, headed in the direction of the new city. Five million lost souls, clustered together among piles of rubble and sleek, sterile construction. Things were different now. I wondered if things were different back home, too. Probably. Everything was going to hell.
I tore the plastic wrapper off the top of the Jack Daniel’s bottle and removed the cap. I’d made a quick stop at a liquor store on the way home and decided to buy the good stuff.
Seeing the Colonel buy the farm had made me feel even more mortal than usual. For all I knew, this might be my last night on Earth. I stuck a Lucky Strike in the corner of my mouth and poured myself half a glass of sedative. My two best friends. I picked up the tumbler and raised it in memory of my late mentor. Three shots of bourbon coursed down my throat: one for him, one for me, and one to fill the empty feeling in the pit of my gut. I took a deep drag and refilled the glass. There was a message on the vid-phone.
I pressed the playback button, then leaned back in my chair, eyes closed and feet crossed on top of my desk.
Alaynah’s face appeared on the screen. “Hello, Tex. I just wanted to call and say I had a great time today. It was lovely to see you. Give me a call. My number’s 671-3892. Bye.”
I opened my eyes and watched smoke curl around the gold and green light of the banker’s lamp. Miles stepped aside as John Coltrane’s plaintive sax played an aching eulogy. I reached over to the vid-phone and erased the message. Another sip of bourbon burned in my throat.
I turned my head and looked in the direction of a photograph hung on the wall. All I could see was the reflection on the frame, but I knew what it showed. It was me, the Colonel, and Xavier Jones…an old photo. I wondered why I’d held onto it all these years. Maybe as a reminder of more innocent times. Or maybe for the same reason I kept a picture of Sylvia on my desk - to never let me forget the biggest mistakes of my life.
I leaned forward to stub out my cigarette and thought back to the last time I’d seen the Colonel, trying to remember everything he’d said during his mysterious visit. Even through the fermented haze of that night, I knew there wasn’t much to remember. The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that he’d come by for a purpose. Did he know his life was in danger? Was he looking me up as insurance? So I’d follow
up on him? If that was the case, why me? He’d said that he’d heard about me, that I’d done some good work. But there had to be other people he trusted, people he worked with.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he wasn’t sure who he could trust.
Then there were the things I’d heard the Colonel say to his killer. He’d mentioned CAPRICORN, which I knew a little about, and something called the Winter Chip.
Whatever this Winter Chip was, it seemed to be the thing the killer was looking for. The Colonel had always been hard for me to read, and I wasn’t sure if he’d been bluffing or telling the truth when he’d said he didn’t know about the Winter Chip. Regardless of what all this means, the Colonel had obviously gotten himself mixed up in something big and dangerous. He was the best PI I’d ever known, and it had gotten him murdered.
And I knew I was about to get involved.
I slid another Lucky Strike out of the pack and fired it up. After another sip of bourbon, I drew in deeply on my cigarette and reached for the items I’d taken out of my overcoat pocket and laid on the desk. I picked up the blue index card with the code. BXK
+A261184. I was now almost certain that the Colonel had sent this to me. Was I supposed to know what the numbers and letters meant?
I spent the next several hours smoking one cigarette after another and attempting to solve the code. I looked through reference books, racked my brain, analyzed, and stared until my eyes started to loose focus. It was useless. I’d always believed I had a knack for codes and brainteasers, but I had to admit I was beaten at the moment.
I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for solving puzzles. I turned off the lamp on my desk and paced slowly around my office, stopping occasionally to refill my glass, pick up a smoke, or stare out the windows at the black-cold night and the crimson moon which stared back like a blood-shot eye.
I did a lot of thinking while the city slept. I thought about the Colonel. I tried to remember every detail of my dealings with the countess. Had she sent someone to follow me? It was the only explanation that made sense. And why bother to jump me, when all I was planning on doing was returning the statuette and getting paid? Throw the code into the mix, and it was like trying to assemble three jigsaw puzzles from one big pile of pieces.
Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02 Page 9