Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02

by Under a Killing Moon

  “Want some peanuts? Or I think I got some goldfish crackers around here somewhere, if you like those.”

  “No, thanks. Actually, I was wondering if you might possibly have for the Bay City Mirror from a couple of days ago.”

  Denny furrowed his substantial brow. “Lemme think. I might have one laying around somewhere. I got today’s. Louise is reading it.”

  He motioned toward the dowager three booths away from mine.

  “No. I need the want from the day before yesterday. The 6th.”

  The Bartender pursed his lips importantly. “I’ll see what I can do. Go ahead and have a seat.”

  I thanked him and return to my booth. Denny disappeared into some nook behind the bar. Impatiently, I glanced around and, for the first time, looked closely at the surroundings. The Lounge had probably been something special in its heyday. The silver-sheened wallpaper was-top-of-the line a hundred years ago. Now it was patched and dull, like most of the clientele, at least those I could make out in the dim, smoky light. There was a pretty good crowd for the time of day. At least a dozen people were drinking alone in books or at tables. Three college kids were shooting pool on a single table crammed into one corner. A handful of haggard regulars were clustered at one end of the bar, engaging in barfly banter.

  Half a smoke later, Denny stopped by and handed me a newspaper. I thanked him and spread it out across the tabletop. I started by turning to page A8. There were only six columns. In fact, none of the pages had more than six columns. I’d never noticed. I checked the 8th paragraph, the 8th sentence, the 8th line, and the 8th story. Nothing.

  I moved on to B8, then repeated the process for the C, D and E sections. All came up empty. I turn back to the front page and started a methodical search. There was no way to know what I was looking for, so I made sure to inspect every word closely. By the time I hit the local-news section, however, it struck me that I wasn’t conducting a very logical search. If I wanted to leave a message in a newspaper, where would I place it? I flipped to the back and found the classifieds.

  This portion of the newspaper, unlike the others, was divided into 10 columns. I turned excitedly to the 8th page and read the entire 8th column, but nothing stood out. I tried other combinations of 8 and 8. Three cigarettes later, I had squat. I was tempted to abandon hope, but I still had a strong hunch I was on the right path. Since I didn’t have to be anywhere anytime soon, I decided to cover the entire classifieds section.

  Other than an embarrassing fascination with the Women Seeking Women personals, I’d never had much interest in this part of the paper. For me, it was the sports section, the comics page, my horoscope, and maybe the crossword puzzle. The personal ads were a seedy, pathetically lonely place I’d never wanted to visit.

  Undaunted, I pulled a pen out of the breast pocket of my coat and began scanning. As I read through Men Seeking Women, I marvelled that guys who obviously had difficulty meeting women in person would be capable of such macho posturing. As I perused Women Seeking Men, I wondered at the level of desperation that drove these ladies to pay good money to advertise for Mr Right. As I scanned the Women Seeking Women, vague visions of naughtiness danced in my head.

  I stopped cold at Men Seeking Men. I guessed I’d been wrong about the code in the Colonel’s notebook. There didn’t seem to be anything relevant in the newspaper. He certainly wouldn’t have been corresponding in the Men Seeking Men section. Not the Colonel. Not that I had a problem with it. I’d always been an open minded, live-and-let-live kind of guy. It was just that… well, it was like country music. Some people really liked it, and that was fine. It just wasn’t my bag, so to speak.

  I picked up my lighter and clicked it open and shut several times. I knew I should check it out anyway. At least I was in an anonymous setting where no one I knew would catch me hunched over, intently studying the Men Seeking Men section. I glanced around, just to be sure, and then started going through the entries.

  I was prepared for some weirdness, but the fourth ad was especially odd: “I gave the extra one to David. He seems elated. Counting exact as per policy norm.” It certainly wasn’t much of a personal ad. I had a feeling it was what I’d been looking for.

  I checked the Colonel’s notebook. What was the damn 8X8 reference? Maybe it had something to do with counting exact as per policy norm. I tapped a pencil against my cheek. I was missing something. Maybe the word norm was important. 8X8. Eight times eight. Multiplication had always been one of my strong suits-using single-digit numbers, at any rate. That would be sixty-four. I counted the letters in the message. There were sixty-four.

  Maybe I was on to something. I moved my glass of bourbon to the side and set the cocktail napkin on the newspaper. Using my pen, I copied down every eight Letter.

  EEHLNCOM. That wasn’t it. I tried every eighth letter starting with the second letter, then the third, and so on. No dice. I tried every other letter, then every third letter, but came up empty doing that as well.

  Sherlock Holmes might’ve called this a “three pipe problem.” All I had was Lucky strikes, so I slid another one out of the pack and lit it. C’mon, nicotine. I walked to the bar and took a stack of napkins. Back at my table, I balled up the first napkin and tossed it to the side. 8X8. There was something to that, otherwise the Colonel would’ve just written 64. I started copying the message. IGAVETHE. After eight letters, I stopped and started another row. EXTRAONE. if I kept doing this, I’d end up with a square of letters, eight by eight!

  I started copying more quickly. After a minute, I had the entire message written down: IGAVETHE

  EXTRAONE

  TODAVIDH

  ESEEMSEL

  ATEDCOUN

  TINGEXAC

  TASPERPO

  LICYNORM

  It looked like a word-search puzzle. Unfortunately, at first it didn’t play like one. After several minutes, I hadn’t found any significant words except the ones in the original message. Then I saw it. Running diagonally from the lower left corner to the upper right corner were the words land mine. There was a dance club in the new city called The Land Mine. From what I’d heard, it was something of a college hangout. It wasn’t in my Happenings book, so I’d never gone there.

  I checked the other diagonal.IXDECXPM. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I probably would have missed it. Adding a few dashes made it IX-DEC-X-PM. 9 December, 10pm.

  There it was. A planned meeting. I had the time and the place. The Colonel was supposed to meet someone at The Land Mine the following night at 10 o’clock. He wouldn’t be there… but I would. Now the question was, who was going to be waiting there? And how was I going to find them?

  UAKM - Chapter thirteen

  It was 9:30-in the morning-and I’d already showered and shaved. My teeth were polished, and my fingernails were trimmed. My cuticles were impeccable. I was wearing a clean, cream-coloured long-sleeved shirt, my good olive trousers with the perma-crease and pleats, and an understated burgundy tie with a chess-piece motif. I was lean, neat and smelled spicy. My wallet contained all of twenty-two dollars, and I wasn’t on anyone’s payroll, but I was fresh from a 19 hour coma, and it was a good day.

  I collected my tan trench from the coatrack and slipped it on. I then picked up my cocoa-brown fedora, removed a mysterious twig from the brim, and set it on my head at a sassy angle. I checked for wallet, keys, smokes, and lighter, and then set out with intentions of breaking my fast.

  As I locked the office door behind me and stepped out onto the fire escape landing, I tried to put my finger on what had changed my outlook. It had to have been breaking the code from the Colonel’s notebook. Maybe I’d been afraid my lost month had turned my brain into pickle juice, and actually figuring something out was proof that it hadn’t. And, even though I wasn’t getting paid for tracking down the Colonel’s killer, at least it was more exciting than my last project before I started drinking: constructing the world’s largest ball of cigarette foil.

  For the first time in weeks, the su
n was out. It was still a few degrees below comfortable, but it felt pretty good after the clouds and rain of the past several days. As I trotted down the fire escape, I noticed Chelsee at the newsstand. She was wearing a bright red sweater and a bag-like, though attractive, hat with a flower in it. With any luck, my businesslike attitude of the morning before would have her intrigued and eager to talk to me. Immediately, my fancy turned to thoughts of amore. The old Murphy charm seethed and boiled inside me. I could feel it coiled like a cobra, ready to hypnotize his victim, then strike.

  I strode jauntily across the street. Ever since I’d met Chelsee, right after moving into the Ritz, we’d always gone through the same little ritual every time I’d visit the newsstand.

  I’d strike up a conversation, we’d flirt a little bit, and then I’d ask her out and she’d turn me down. She always claimed it was irritating; I preferred to think of it as foreplay. This morning, however, the ice would break. Chelsee smiled and waved, completely unaware of her impending doom.

  “Hello, stranger.”

  “You know, Chelsee, I can’t keep it inside any longer. Every time I see you, you break my heart.”

  A malicious glint flashed in Chelsee’s eyes. “Why? Because I’ve got a steady job?”

  Oof.

  “No. You’re just so beautiful it makes me ache.”

  Chelsee pouted most attractively. “Poor baby.”

  I leaned onto the counter. “Let me buy you a drink, and I’ll tell you where it hurts.”

  Chelsee raised an elegant eyebrow. “Gee, Tex, that kind of talk could get you into trouble.”

  Her come-hither tone had me up on my hind legs like a Wiener dog begging for a piece of jerky. I clasped my hands. “That’s all I’m asking for. Just a little bit of trouble.”

  My dream girl wagged a finger at me. “You know I don’t drink with customers.”

  “Don’t toy with me, Chelsee. I’ve seen you and Louie shooting tequila at the Brew and Stew.”

  “Oh, Louie doesn’t count, and you know it.”

  I could sense she was about to change the subject on me, but I wasn’t about to break off my pursuit. Maybe if I sweetened the deal… “C’mon. Let me buy you a drink. I’d be happy to throw in a chilly dog-“

  “Well, an offer like that is hard to refuse… but no, thanks.”

  Her tone implied firmly that, once again, her snowshoe-hare love had eluded my panting-wolf yearning. I’d also wasted my chili-dog gambit, which I had used previously with great success. She was truly a strong-willed woman.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to your work. Doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?”

  Chelsee flashed her perfect smile.

  The Brew & Stew was always more peaceful in the mornings. The nighttime sounds of inebriated laughter and clinking glasses were replaced with a rustle of newspapers, yawning, and loud stretching. A majority of the folks in the surrounding neighbourhood relied exclusively on Louie’s Armageddon to stimulate their synaptic functions and get their heart rates out of the single digits. On most mornings (or, more often, early afternoons) I, too, was a card-carrying member of the Coffee Generation. Today, though, felt different. Not that I would dream of skipping the Armageddon-it was just that I couldn’t remember the last time I hadn’t woken up bleary-eyed and lethargic.

  I sat down at the counter as Louie burst out of the kitchen through the swinging doors, his stubby arms balancing half-a-dozen plates piled high with breakfast fare. He gave me a wink and steered his girth around the end of the bar. A newspaper was sitting unused on the counter. I dragged it over and started to scan the front page as I lit up an appetizer. The lead story was about the Capricorn bombing. I read the article and was interested to see that Interpol had taken over the investigation, though it didn’t appear that they were close to making any arrests.

  I inhaled the sweet tobacco taste and wondered if there was a connection between the Colonel’s death and the Capricorn bombing. In my mind, they were obviously linked in some way. I thought about the rendezvous the Colonel had planned for that evening. Did it have anything to do with Capricorn? I went over the things I’d seen on the Colonel’s videodisc. The killer seemed to think that the Colonel was in cahoots with Capricorn, and that he had this thing they referred to as the Winter Chip. Maybe the Colonel’s contact at The Land Mine was someone from Capricorn. It seemed as likely as anything else, but why would they have to be so clandestine about it?

  An oversized mug of coffee being slid in front of me interrupted my musings. I picked it up and glanced at Louie as I blew steam away and took a sip. He smiled widely and nodded his head. “You look good, Murph.”

  I took another drink and felt even more rejuvenated. “I feel good.”

  Louie reached for a menu and dropped it in front of me. “Order somethin’.”

  I took a drag and smiled at Louie. “What do I want?”

  Louie raised his eyebrows and went back into the kitchen without saying a word. I had some more of the Armageddon and turned my attention back to the newspaper. I perused the front section of the newspaper and ran across quite a few articles related to the bombing, as well as the growing unrest between Mutants and Norms. One of the articles even compared it to the events leading up to the American Civil War. That seemed a little much to me, but it made good for copy.

  By the time I finished the initial section of the paper, I decided I’d had enough of political rhetoric and turned to the sports section. I’d just completed my analysis of the box scores when Louie reemerged from the kitchen and laid a large, heaping platter and a set of silverware in front of me.

  The platter was just big enough to hold a massive omelette, a pile of fried potatoes, and three slices of wheat toast. Louie ducked back into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a large glass of orange juice.

  “You gotta drink this juice, Murph. You know, you’ve really got to keep up on yer vitamin C on account of all the smokin’ you do.”

  I raised the glass and took a sip. Mmm. Fresh-squeezed and icy cold. “Pretty good-tasting medicine, Louie.”

  I grabbed the fork and cut out a big slice of the omelette. Anywhere but the Brew & Stew, I’d do an autopsy on a mystery omelette before diving into it, but if I couldn’t trust Louie, who could I trust?

  My trust was well-placed. It was a chili verde filling, with large chunks of chicken.

  There was just enough bite from the chilies, but not so much that it obscured the sweeter tastes of onion and tomato. As I chewed leisurely, savouring the flavours, I reached for a thick slice of wheat toast and spread a generous layer of strawberry jam over the top of it. When I finished, I dug my fork into the fried potatoes. As I took a bite, I detected a hint of garlic. The potatoes were unbelievably good, sauteed in butter with chunks of onion and, if I wasn’t mistaken, tiny bits of real crumbled bacon.

  As usual, Louie stuck around to watch me eat. Cooking was his calling in life, and seeing people enjoy his work was his greatest reward. He sipped his coffee expectantly.

  “Good?”

  My mouth was full. I nod vigorously, then washed it down with a long sip of

  Armageddon.

  “You are a true artist. The Picasso of potatoes. The O’Keeffe of omelettes.”

  I took a hearty bite of toast as Louie refilled my mug and topped off his own. He set the pot down and then had another sip.

  “Ya look like a new man. What’s the story? You in love or somethin’?”

  I shook my head. “God, no.” I took another drink of orange juice. “I’m working on a case, and it’s starting to get interesting.”

  I filled Louie in on most of what happened up to that point. Louie had been disgusted when I told him about the dog and the finger, and appropriately saddened at the likelihood of the Colonel’s death, but then he’d never met the Colonel. The big mutant had enjoyed my description of Melahn and had perked right up when I’d illustrated how I’d broken the Colonel’s code.

  “So, you got some kinda secret meeting toni
ght. Now I see what’s got ya pepped up.”

  I nodded, my mouth full of chili verde and spicy potatoes. Louie leaned onto the counter. “You still got that blue card with the numbers on it?”

  I wiped my hands on a napkin and pulled the card out of my overcoat pocket. Louie took it from me and examined it closely as he drank his coffee. He stared at the code for a good five minutes as I finished most of of the omelette and all of the potatoes. When I’d pushed the plate away, he handed the card back to me. “You’d think we could figure that thing out.”

  Louie sounded a little frustrated. It was bothering me too, since I’d begun to feel strongly that it had something to do with the case. I looked at the card again, thinking it might be easier to figure out now. It wasn’t. There was nothing resembling a date, and BXK didn’t seem to be the initials of a publication, though the A2 could refer to a newspaper section.

  For now, it didn’t matter. I was full of good food, enjoying in after-meal smoke, and all was right with the world. I pocketed the index card and had another hit off the Armageddon. Louie topped off my mug. “Anything else I can get ya, Murph?”

  I shook my head. “You’ve made me very happy, Louie. The only thing I’d want right now is enough money to pay off my tab.”

  Louie waved a hand at me and walked off, coffee pot in hand, to check the well-being of the other customers. I switched my half-burned cigarette to the other hand and went back to the newspaper. I read through the comics, then started where I’d left off on the front end of the paper.

  I skipped most of the articles until I found one about the Moon Child. I remembered the name from watching television in the hospital in Brownsville. Apparently, the Moon Child was more like a satellite station than a spacecraft. The author of the article said that details were kept secret, but estimated that it would have cost hundreds of millions, maybe billions to construct. The author speculated on where that kind of money came from. The official statement from the Crusade for Genetic Purity said that the Moon Child had been funded by private contributions. Maybe I was in the wrong line of work.