The Hidden Throne

by Charlie Cottrell

  At 4:00 PM, Captain O’Mally called. I clicked open the vid window with his betusked face in it, offering him a noncommittal expression as he asked for an update on the case.

  “I’m getting the run-around from Wallace’s former boss,” I said. “Calthus is hiding something, I’m sure, but I couldn’t tell you what just yet.”

  “Any other leads?” O’Mally asked, his whiskers twitching slightly.

  “None yet. I’ve got some feelers out, though, and should have something in the next day or two.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted.” O’Mally signed off, and I went back to losing at Solitaire.

  ‘Round about 7:00 PM, a knock came on my door. I’d sent Miss Typewell home for the evening, giving her the chance to take a break from the rather fruitless effort of hacking Calthus’s computer system. Not surprisingly, the richest man in Arcadia also had the best security tech, easily thwarting each of her efforts to breach his firewalls. If I was going to find any dirt on this guy, it was going to have to be done the old-fashioned way.

  I rose to get the door, and the knock came again, louder this time. “Just a second,” I groused, irritation jostling with some other feeling that suddenly crept over me.

  As I neared the door, it burst open, the lock shattered and the hinges ripped from the doorframe in a crackle of protest. I suddenly recognized that other feeling: the sense of deep dread you only feel when someone is about to make your day worse in a rather terminal way.

  Standing in the doorway was either Mr. Worthiton or Mr. Alfonse, a .44 magnum gripped in his fist. The gun, despite its size, looked tiny in his massive hand. I stopped dead, realizing there was no weapon anywhere near me. All I had were my wits, and God knows those weren’t going to be much help against a gun.

  “Don’t shoot, I bleed easy,” was the phrase on the tip of my tongue, but I instead found myself saying—with a certain amount of bravado, “Hey, you can’t just bust in here!”

  Alfonse or Worthiton, whichever he was, raised the gun to fire. I jumped behind Miss Typewell’s desk as gunfire barked out, deafening in the small space. A flash of fire from the muzzle and a chunk of doorframe where my head had been a moment before was just gone.

  This was the second time in the past few months someone had busted into my office and started shooting at me. The first guy, Clarence, hadn’t been bright enough to come around the desk to shoot at me. I wasn’t going to be so lucky this time. The thug moved into the room, allowing his companion to enter. I huddled under the desk, unsure of what to do with my last few moments of life. Events from my past flashed across my mind’s eye; a lot of the past couple of decades was pretty blurry, whiskey having been a major part of that time period. Things before that weren’t always great: my mom abandoning me, getting booted from Arcadia PD, Tess leaving me…my life hadn’t been so much a series of ups and downs as a continuous downhill skid.

  I was saying my final prayers—more a curse, really, aimed at anything and everything that could have possibly been responsible for my predicament, including God, the thug, Calthus, the city of Arcadia, the dead Mr. Wallace, and my eighth grade civics teacher for making me think civic duty was important—as the first thug made his way around the desk. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, waiting for the bullet that would end me, when I heard a new voice from the doorway.

  “Gentlemen, I’m afraid you’ve arrived after office hours.” Two shots, fired in quick succession, rang out, and two bodies thudded to the ground, dead. I continued to huddle under the desk, unsure of whether it was a good idea to come out. Someone had just shot two men dead in my office, after all, and I wasn’t sure if they’d want to add a third to the body count.

  “Eddie?” The voice called out.

  “Depends,” I replied, holding position, “are you a bill collector?”

  “No, Eddie,” The voice replied, a smile evident in the man’s tone. “It’s Bodewell.”

  I groaned. “Can you revive the two thugs? I’ll take my chances with them, I think.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I sat across my desk from John Bodewell, a man graying at the temples and well into his late 50s. Bodewell was clearly a man who’d taken decent care of himself, though his middle was softening as he aged. His clothes were similar to mine—basic suit, in navy instead of my usual gray, trench coat, wide-brimmed hat worn low over the eyes, and a tie that was always worn loose, though rather less rumpled than my own sartorial trappings. His clothes looked a bit more worn than mine, though, more threadbare at the elbows and patched and repaired in numerous places. Bodewell was someone who’d seen some action in his day.

  He was also my old mentor, the man who’d taught me the ways of the hard-boiled detective, and a guy I really didn’t want to see at the moment.

  The police had arrived, and Marcus Franklin had taken the late Messrs. Worthiton and Alfonse away in body bags. Officer Higgins had questioned both Bodewell and myself, and the cops were just finishing up their investigation of the scene while Bodewell and I sat in silence, studiously avoiding each other’s eyes.

  Finally, Bodewell broke the silence. “So, Eddie,” he said.

  “John,” I replied, noncommittally.

  “I got the message at the dead drop,” Bodewell continued.

  “I see,” I replied, my tone neutral.

  Bodewell sighed in frustration. “Eddie, you reached out to me. I’m here to help, but you have to give me something to work with.”

  “Those two guys were sent to kill me by Raymond Calthus. You just heard me tell the cops the exact same thing. What more do you think I could, or would, tell you?”

  “It doesn’t really explain much, Eddie,” Bodewell replied. “For starters, why would Calthus want you dead?”

  “Why does anyone ever want a private detective dead?” I asked, annoyed.

  “How much money do you owe him?” Bodewell asked.

  “None!” I snapped.

  Bodewell nodded knowingly. “Ah, so it’s a case. How long did it take to piss the man off this badly?”

  I glanced at my watch. “Eight hours?”

  Bodewell laughed, a dry, raspy sound. The sound of someone who’d spent a lifetime drinking hard liquor and smoking a pipe. “That might be a new record. My personal best was twelve.”

  “Well, regardless, those two bastards were definitely Calthus’s enforcers, but good luck proving it. I’m sure they’re paid through a shell company of some sort that’d take months to trace back to Calthus. Meanwhile, he’ll wrap the whole thing in so much red tape and legal nonsense that I’ll be dead long before he takes a fall for anything,” I said, watching the police gather their things and head for the door.

  “True, true,” Bodewell said. “So, what’s our play, then?”

  I arched an eyebrow at the word “our.” Bodewell and I hadn’t worked together in over a decade, and with plenty of good reason. “I have no damn idea,” I finally said through gritted teeth. “He’s got information he’s hiding, but I can’t get to it. We tried to hack Calthus’s system, but it’s too well protected. Our only option is to gain access from his personal terminal, and I’m damned if I can figure out how we’ll do that. Of course, even if we could get into his private office, I don’t know his password or anything like that, and I have no idea what I’m even looking for, so it’s not like I’ve got a lot of options.”

  Bodewell stroked his chin. “That does pose a problem,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe we need to approach this from a different angle. Maybe we need to figure out what he’s trading in first, then figure out how to tie it to him.”

  “I know it’s a weapon,” I replied, “but I’ve got no idea what kind or where it could possibly be. It’s likely some sort of military thing, given the complexity of the wound it leaves, but there’s no way we could gain access to military systems.”

  “If it was used on the streets, it’s not in the hands of the military anymore,” Bodewell said. “We have to check in with local gangs, maybe the Org
anization.”

  I stood, my face twisting in anger. “No,” I snarled. “I’ve had too much to do with the Organization lately as it is, thank you.”

  “Hey, I understand you don’t want to get tangled up with crime bosses too much, Eddie, but sometimes circumstances make for strange bedfellows,” Bodewell said placatingly.

  “You don’t understand,” I said, pacing the room. “I know…I know who the Boss is. She…well, we’re not on the best of terms right now. I don’t want anything to do with her or her damned Organization.”

  “A lady, huh?” Bodewell said, rising. “That’s interesting.” I silently cursed myself for giving away that little piece of information. It wasn’t that I wanted to help Vera Stewart keep her secret identity or hold on to her illicit empire, but the more people who knew her secret, the greater the chance she’d be outed or killed, pitching everything into chaos. I wanted that like I wanted Kirkpatrick to show up with his Compound 16 poison pills again.

  Bodewell walked to the filing cabinet and found where I’d hid a bottle of whiskey. Well, not so much hid as put someplace where I could find it easily and drink as much as my body could hold. “What about Kirkpatrick’s Confederation?” he asked, returning to his chair and unscrewing the cap. “They done anything to upset your delicate sensibilities?”

  I turned on Bodewell, feeling like I could burn a hole through him with my eyes. “Aside from trying to kill me? Even putting that aside, I don’t think Roger Kirkpatrick will want me anywhere near him, after what went down a few weeks ago,” I growled, my hands involuntarily clenched into fists. Bodewell looked askance, but seemed to recognize that I was not opening up that particular can of worms at this time and let the issue drop.

  “Eddie, relax,” he said, taking a step back. “We need a connection to someone in the underworld, and our choices are kinda limited to one of those two groups. I say we use the Organization, ‘cause they’ll have better connections and are more likely involved, but I can chat with Kirkpatrick instead if you’d prefer.”

  I sighed, unclenching my hands. “No, you’re right. The Boss is probably our best bet. I just have to suck it up and talk with her again.”

  “All right,” Bodewell said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Let the games begin, eh?”

  VI.

  A contractor from Pithman Construction showed up early the next morning to fix my door. Walter Ellicott was on the three-man crew that was in, fixed the door, and out before I’d had my first cup of coffee. I’d slept in my office, a gun clutched in one hand and a bottle of hard liquor in the other. Miss Typewell found me in a pretty sorry state when she arrived. I was bleary-eyed and hung over, barely aware of the workers around me and their quick, practiced replacement of my outer door. All of which was typical. The paranoia and pervasive sense of dread were not.

  “You should consider getting a modern door here, buddy,” the lead contractor told me as they were finishing up. “No hinges or any of that nonsense to worry about, no structural integrity issues.”

  “Yeah, I’ll take that under advisement,” I mumbled, squinting against early-morning sunlight and too-chatty workers. They finished the job as Miss Typewell handed me a steaming cup of coffee.

  “The bill will be in the mail by close of business today,” the lead contractor said, and I nodded slightly, sending my head on what felt like a tumbling trip off my shoulders. Ellicott hung back for a moment to give me a significant look and drop a small datachip on Miss Typewell’s desk, and then he was gone, too.

  With the workers gone, Miss Typewell turned to me and finally asked the questions she’d wanted to ask since she walked in, but didn’t want to ask in front of the workers.

  “What the hell happened, Eddie?” she said. “Are you okay? Does this have something to do with the case? Most importantly, will I still get paid this month?”

  I held my head with both hands, attempting to prevent it from cracking open and spilling precious brain meats on the floor. “There was a break-in, I’m fine, the goons were from Calthus’s office, and only if I’m still alive when this case is over,” I replied quietly and slowly, afraid each word might shatter my fragile skull.

  “What’s the plan now?” Miss Typewell pressed, digging in her desk drawer for some aspirin. She handed me two pills, which I took with my coffee in a large, rather-too-hot gulp.

  “I’m meeting with John Bodewell this evening to try to case Calthus’s bank, see if we can get back in,” I said, rubbing my temples. “In the meantime, I need to see…” I trailed off, unwilling to speak the name aloud, lest I conjure her like some auburn-tressed demon.

  “See who, Eddie?” Miss Typewell prompted when I hesitated.

  “Vera Stewart,” I concluded, causing Miss Typewell’s frown to deepen. I rose to my feet slowly, haltingly, expecting at any moment my brains to ooze out of my head and drip on the carpet. When they didn’t, I made my way to the desk and grabbed the datachip Ellicott had left behind.

  “Eddie, isn’t that kind of…stupid, even for you?” she said, hands on her hips.

  “Probably tremendously so,” I replied, finishing my coffee, “but unless you feel like a little B&E and some industrial espionage, I gotta find myself a tech expert.”

  “No, I like having a clean record,”” Miss Typewell sighed, taking the empty coffee mug from me. “Just be careful, Eddie. You can’t trust that woman.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, my face grim. “But what other choice is there?”

  I stepped into my office and shut the door behind me softly. Easing down into my seat, I slotted the datachip into the receptacle on my desk and pulled up a new vid window. A short video of Walter Ellicott greeted me.

  “Eddie,” he said, his eyes trained on something off-camera, “I talked to my buddy in R&D, and whatever you’ve gotten mixed up in, it’s beyond top-secret. There’ve been rumors popping up all over military channels about this weapon, and apparently the thing is hot. Whatever’s happening here, get out while you still can.” The video went black, and I sat back and contemplated what Walter Ellicott had told me. It wasn’t really anything new or revelatory, to be honest. I already figured it was stolen; Walter’d just confirmed my suspicion. That was how detective work often went: you didn’t find clues to lead you to a killer, you leapt to conclusions following gut instinct and then tried to make the pieces fit into the picture you’d already painted. It wasn’t perfect and didn’t always pan out, but for the most part, the process worked. Granted, I still couldn’t prove Calthus was the thief, but c’mon, all the signs pointed to him. It’s only in fiction that the most obvious suspect isn’t the guilty party. In real life, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you don’t assume it’s a magical, exotic mynah bird from fairyland.

  I stood up, gathering my hat and coat. I walked back through the anteroom, saying over my shoulder as I left, “Hold my calls. I’m going out to see a woman about a computer-hacking horse.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  Since the incident with Kirkpatrick a few weeks ago, Vera and I had formed an uneasy truce or entente, an unspoken agreement that we wouldn’t interfere with each other and might even, if circumstances called for it, help one another out. To that end, she’d given me the location of one her secret hideouts. She had several scattered across the city, and I knew that on this particular day, she’d be at the one I knew about.

  I stood in the Warehouse District on Pier 7. If nothing else, I knew it was the right place because there were a half dozen massive thugs gathered outside the main entrance, looking menacing and lurking about without making any effort to conceal themselves. I walked right up to them, hoping bravado and an air of “I’m totally supposed to be here, honest,” would get me through. It didn’t.

  “Whudda yew want?” one of the thugs growled at me. The rest made an effort to straighten up, though I’d swear a couple of them still had knuckles scraping the pavement. Vera’s guards weren’t chosen for their cleverness or abilit
y to think on their feet. They were hired to make someone’s day as bad as possible if they got anywhere near her. They were good at it, which I’m sure was usually a good thing for her. Now, maybe not so much.

  “I’m here to see the Boss, gentlemen,” I said casually, looking the lead thug straight in his squinty little eyes. “You gonna let me through or what?”

  The thug processed my comments, running them past the gerbil in the wheel that stood proxy for his brain. He didn’t care for what he eventually understood. “No, I don’t think we will,” he said, cracking his knuckles and grinning. The other thugs gathered behind him, each doing their Neolithic version of a long-distance runner’s warm-up stretch. There were a lot of individuals cracking knuckles, taking brass knuckles out of pockets, cracking their necks, and generally limbering up for the Physical Violence Olympics.

  I backed away a few steps, raising my hands defensively. “Now, guys, let’s not get hasty here,” I said, trying to maintain that veneer of icy cool that all tough guys ought to have. It was admittedly melting pretty damn quick; as was the thin ice I was apparently standing on, metaphorically speaking.

  I was saved by the proverbial bell when a small intercom over the door of the warehouse squawked to life. “Let him through,” a distorted, mechanical voice said firmly. The thugs, clearly disappointed, dropped their hands to their sides and went into what could easily be thought of as a standby mode, leaving a path to the door open for me.

  “Thanks, guys,” I said, patting the leader on the arm as I walked by. He actually growled at me as I passed.

  The interior of the warehouse was better lit than I’d expected from the outside. It also looked very little like a warehouse. Most of the warehouses still standing on the piers along Montague Bay were in shabby shape. No one had used them much after the shipping and manufacturing businesses had mostly gone belly-up thirty or forty years ago. There’d been some massive economic catastrophe, a nationwide plunge in industry and trade, and Arcadia had been hit particularly hard. It’s about the same time Old Town became the cesspit that it is today.