The Hidden Throne

by Charlie Cottrell

  “Where…where’d you get the cosh?” I asked as I struggled to my feet. The painkillers were quick and effective, but I wasn’t going to be winning any races anytime soon.

  “I palmed it in the apartment,” she replied. “Kirkpatrick had left it sitting on the table, and I grabbed it while you were fighting Bodewell.” She looked down at my former mentor. “What do we do with him?” she asked, uncertainty emanating from her very being.

  I frowned. “I’m not really sure,” I said. “On the one hand, he’s a pretty dangerous guy, especially if he’s got Kirkpatrick’s Confederation behind him. On the other hand, I don’t really feel like committing murder today.”

  “Can we take him to the police?” she asked.

  “Only if you want to have to answer some difficult questions about your own involvement in this whole mess,” I replied.

  “Oh.” We stood there for a moment in silence, giving me time to wonder how long it’d be before I bled to death.

  “Oh, hell,” I said, grabbing my cane and hobbling forward slowly to the next flight of stairs. “He’s not worth the time. After this mess, I doubt Kirkpatrick’s little alliance will even still exist. And it’s not like I can carry his ass.” Maya came over and continued helping me down the stairs.

  III.

  We ran into the Insertion Team on the 12th floor, led by Ellicott. They’d cleared out everything lower than that already, and were slowly working their way up to the top. I told them about Bodewell on the stairs around floor 23, and Kirkpatrick’s body up on the 34th, and then someone had to carry me down the rest of the way because I passed out from the pain and blood loss.

  I woke some great length of time later. I was in a hospital bed again, something that was becoming much too common on this particular case. Miss Typewell and Maya Janovich were both sitting by my bed, Miss Janovich with her nose in a vid window and Miss Typewell was staring down at her hands and fretting.

  The best I could manage at the time was a small groan, but it got their attention. They both tried to talk to me at once, a confusing jumble of questions, shouted accusations, and demands to know what the next step was and how I was feeling. It was rather overwhelming, and the drugs I was on were quite spectacular, so I’m afraid to say they were both sorely disappointed when I merely drifted back into twilight.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I woke up again probably the next day; time was difficult to judge in the room, with its heavy curtains that blocked out any possible natural light. Miss Typewell and Miss Janovich were both still there, though Maya had fallen asleep in her chair. Someone had covered her up with a blanket. She looked peaceful, like a small child.

  “Hey,” I croaked at Miss Typewell. She started, almost falling out of her chair.

  “Eddie, you’re awake,” she said, much quieter this time.

  “Yeah,” I managed, my throat and mouth dry as only a dead-sober man’s could be. “What’d I miss?”

  “Well, Kirkpatrick’s dead, as you probably already knew. His little Confederation seems to have collapsed without him around, so I guess Ms. Stewart doesn’t have any major competition to worry about for now.” She glanced over at Maya, sleeping soundly. “Bodewell’s still missing, though,” she continued. “Walter didn’t find him on the stairs, or anywhere else in the building. Bodewell’s a clever one, you have to give him that.”

  “No, I don’t,” I replied. “What about…what about the knife and the data? The rail gun? Who got that?”

  Miss Typewell smiled. “Well, that was an interesting one,” she said, looking at Maya again. “When the Insertion Team found the two of you, there was no sign of a knife or Kirkpatrick’s computer and the datachip. They must’ve been destroyed in the fighting. And the gun seems to have somehow been slagged. Guess someone fired it too many times in a row or something. It’s a real shame.”

  I smiled faintly, settling my head back on my pillow. “The Boss must be…very angry,” I managed.

  “Beside herself with rage, in fact,” Miss Typewell said. “She fired Maya.”

  “Guess I’ll have to…give the girl a job,” I replied.

  “I thought you might feel that way,” Miss Typewell said with a faint smile. “She filled out her W2 yesterday.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I was in the hospital for over a week. The doctors kept telling me I was lucky I’d survived, with as much blood as I’d lost. The break in my leg wasn’t too bad, and a couple of cell-stim treatments had it on the mend quickly. The gut wound took longer, the torn stitches and a slight infection creating some complications.

  I had a slow trickle of visitors over the next few days. Walter Ellicott came by and filled in the gaps in the whole climactic battle, described the destruction of the mass accelerator, and told me about not being able to find Bodewell.

  “So, you took care of the gun?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “It didn’t seem right to let it fall into anyone’s hands. I took it out into the mountains and emptied the clip as fast as I could pull the trigger. Barrel was slagged, ammunition clip was warped, and the damn thing ended up at the bottom of an abandoned coal mine that’s not on any maps.”

  “That’s pretty thorough,” I mused.

  “Yeah. Then the whole place was blown up with some military-grade experimental explosives. Compound something or other, I think,” he said. Compound 15 probably would’ve disintegrated the gun, superalloy or not. Say whatever else you will about members of the U.S. military: when they set out to get a job done, they don’t do it half-assed.

  “What about Bodewell?” I asked, shifting gears.

  “Gone. The bastard is slippery,” he said, almost admiringly.

  “Yeah,” I replied, eating lime-flavored gelatin. “But he’ll pop up again at some point. We just have to be on guard.”

  By the end of the week, I was back up—if rather unsteadily—on my feet. On the day of my discharge, I was informed the bill was being taken care of by an anonymous benefactor. I figured it was Vera’s payment for the whole debacle of a case.

  Miss Typewell drove me to her place where she could more-easily keep an eye on me while I continued to mend. She didn’t say anything, but I knew there were Organization enforcers stationed in her building around the clock while I was there. No one was saying anything, but everyone was worried Bodewell would come after me to finish the job. I won’t say I necessarily rested easier knowing I was being watched over, but it certainly didn’t cause me to lose any sleep.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  After a week at Miss Typewell’s, I was starting to feel a bit of cabin fever. I returned to work on a Tuesday, nearly two and a half weeks after the assault on Kirkpatrick’s Confederation. Walking into the office, I saw that Maya had set up a small desk in the corner of the anteroom. The desktop was covered in computers in various states of dismantled chaos, and an array of various other devices, most of which I didn’t recognize, were strewn about in an almost haphazard way. Maya was sitting at the desk, her feet tucked up underneath her in that somehow-comfortable way that young people can manage and older folks find impossibly uncomfortable, engrossed in tinkering with something complicated and electronic. When she saw me walk in, her face erupted in a smile that threatened to split her head in half. She jumped up and ran over to me, flinging her arms carefully around me for a hug.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay!” she said, letting go and taking a small step back.

  “Yeah, takes more than broken bones and severe blood loss to keep me down,” I said, wincing. My gut wound wasn’t going to heal completely for a couple of weeks, the doctors said. I was still using the cane to help maintain balance and support for the weak leg, which actually felt considerably better than it had since I’d left the hospital the week before.

  “I’ve been working on some new equipment for you, Eddie,” Maya said. She proceeded to launch into a description of a half dozen different items, each of which did a number of things I
couldn’t quite follow. Miss Typewell, seeing the slightly concussed look on my face, politely came over and extricated me from the situation, telling Maya I needed to go sit down before I did myself harm.

  “Doctor’s orders,” Miss Typewell said, which seemed to be sufficient for Maya. She went back to her desk, humming a tune under her breath as she returned to her tinkering.

  “She’s certainly enthusiastic,” I said, “though I don’t know how I’m going to pay for her salary, yours, and my own.”

  “That’s apparently been taken care of,” Miss Typewell said. “Ms. Stewart may not have been happy about losing the rail gun, the knife, or the files, but she also recognizes that Maya’s a good sort and that you’ve done the Organization a big favor by helping her take out Kirkpatrick. An anonymous donation has our operating expenses taken care of for the next couple of years, actually.” Six months ago, the very idea of accepting money from Vera Stewart and the Organization had driven me into a quandary so complex it’d taken the quick thinking and self-sacrifice of Miss Typewell to pull me out of it. Now…well, times change. I wasn’t completely sure accepting the cash would be a good idea, or that it wouldn’t leave us beholden to a crime boss who would probably come around expecting favors somewhere down the road, but it kept us secure for the time being, and that was enough for me.

  I chuckled, which turned out to be a painful idea. “Well, at least we can worry about something new for a change,” I said.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  Maya set a datachip on my desk the next day.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Um, the information you asked for about Pithman Construction,” she replied. “Y’know, you asked for it when we were, uh, breaking into Calthus’s office.”

  “You were able to find something?” I asked, surprised. I’d completely forgotten about the Pithmans in all the other dirty business we’d been involved in since.

  “Yeah,” Maya said, blushing. “It’s not much, but it links Pithman to Calthus, and links him to some pretty awful stuff.”

  I inserted the datachip in my machine and pulled up the information in a vid window. I read through the documents, then reread them to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. When I finished, I dragged a hand across my face and read them a third time.

  “Miss Typewell,” I called, rising gingerly from my chair. “Can you give Captain O’Mally a call for me?”

  “Sure,” she replied, sticking her head through the doorway. “What’s up?”

  “I need him to meet me at Pithman Construction,” I said. “We’ve got an arrest to make.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  Miss Typewell drove me to the construction company’s headquarters in her neat little subcompact car. My knees were up under my chin, though I had an easier time than poor Maya, who’d somehow folded herself into the almost nonexistent backseat.

  Captain O’Mally and Officer Higgins met me in the parking lot.

  “What’s going on?” O’Mally asked, shaking my hand.

  “We’ve got a loose end, Edison,” I replied, then led them inside.

  We were greeted by Old Mother Pithman, seated behind her receptionist’s desk. “We’re here to see Mr. and Mrs. Pithman, ma’am,” I said.

  “Oh, sure, young man,” she replied, “come on through.”

  Jonathan and Margaret Pithman were sitting in an employee lounge down the hall, drinking bad coffee in silence. They both glanced up guiltily as we walked in.

  “Johnathan, Margaret, we need to have a chat,” I said, taking a seat and propping my lame leg up on another chair. Both Pithmans gave me blank stares.

  “Margaret, first of all, I’m sorry about that little misunderstanding a few weeks ago,” I began. She continued staring at me with uncomprehending eyes. “I think I probably said a few rather cruel things, and I didn’t mean to do that. I hope you can forgive me.”

  She said nothing.

  “And Jonathan,” I said, turning to the husband, “I’m also afraid I had you pegged completely wrong.” The big man’s face began turning bright red. I pressed on. “See, I thought you were a nice guy, maybe a bit naïve, but completely innocent of whatever crime your wife was complicit in. Turns out, I had it all backward. You’re actually the criminal mastermind, which was a bit of a surprise, really.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr. Pithman replied, his deep voice a low rumble.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” I said. “I’m sure all the files I found that show you doing unspecified upgrades to the infrastructure of buildings owned by Roger Kirkpatrick were completely innocent. I’m sure you didn’t aid and abet a criminal attempting to upend the city. And I’m sure all the extra money in that hidden account your wife doesn’t know about is just pure happenstance.”

  Margaret turned to her husband with an astonished look on her face. “Jonathan?” she said, the single word loaded with more betrayal and hurt than you’d imagine possible.

  “Your husband’s been helping prop up a paper tiger, Mrs. Pithman,” I said. “Raymond Calthus had details on the whole business. Jonathan here was adding heavy-duty reinforcement to the buildings Raymond Calthus directed you to purchase. The two of you were in a legitimate real estate business together, I know, and he was directing you to purchase buildings for Kirkpatrick. Your husband was then upgrading them.” I gestured to Miss Typewell, who pulled up a vid window containing details of the bank account, all the transactions, and lots of important fiddly details that were beyond my concern. “Of course, you were aware of all this, weren’t you, Mrs. Pithman?”

  “How do you figure that?” she asked.

  “Well, our little conversation a few weeks ago. You were scared of me getting too close to things. You knew I’d find out about Jonathan’s side job. When you threatened me, you weren’t trying to protect yourself. You were trying to protect him.”

  Mrs. Pithman hung her head. Mr. Pithman looked off into the distance distractedly. Neither of them said a thing.

  “Officer Higgins?” I said.

  The uniformed officer stepped forward, taking handcuffs from his belt and clasping them around Jonathan Pithman’s wrists. “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  It was Thursday before I asked my last question about the case. I’d been putting it off, afraid of what the answer might be.

  “What happened with Calthus?” I asked over lunch. I was sitting in the anteroom with Miss Typewell and Maya, enjoying take-out from the Thai place just down the street.

  “O’Mally wants to bring him up on charges,” Miss Typewell said around mouthfuls of drunken noodle, “but they don’t have enough evidence. Everything’s circumstantial, and any hard evidence would have come from your B&E, so it’s inadmissible.”

  I pondered this while slurping down some curry. “Of course,” I said, frustrated. “He was probably blameless for a bunch of it anyway, I’m sure. At least, that’s how his pals in the military will see it.”

  “Military R&D gives one a fairly, um, privileged position,” Maya said as she stuffed another bite of pad thai into her mouth. “Too bad we don’t have anything solid connecting him to Bodewell.”

  “I know,” I replied, deep in thought. “I kinda think I should go have one more chat with the man. Just for closure.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I stood in front of the Arcadia Savings and Loan. The place was becoming surprisingly familiar.

  As I stepped in, my good friend Papper Ogin started up to me, recognized me, and proceeded to start panicking. The color drained from his face and his jawed worked up and down as he tried to remember how to speak. I smiled as big as possible and said to him, “Good afternoon, Papper. I’ve recently come into a large sum of money, and I would like to invest it here at Arcadia Savings and Loan.” Papper’s mouth continued to move up and down, though he was now emitting a high-pitched squeak that I was certain only dogs could
really here.

  “I understand this establishment has a variety of investment and securities options available,” I continued, blithely oblivious to Papper’s impending breakdown.

  “It’s quite a large sum of money, I should say,” I added, looking at him as if for the first time. “Are you quite all right, Papper? You seem unwell.”

  Papper remained unable to speak.

  “Is there, perhaps, someone else I can speak with?”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  Calthus’s personal assistant, Percy Chancel, was standing by the large reception desk in Calthus’s personal office. His neck still bore the yellowed skin of old bruises, bruises I’d given him a couple of weeks earlier in my search for answers. His face drained of color, too, when he saw me step out of the elevator, but he said nothing as I approached. When I finally reached the reception desk, he gestured toward the inner door and simply said, “This way, please.” He led me through the door and into Calthus’s inner office, his face a mask of suppressed fear and the urge to wet himself. I smiled somewhat menacingly at him, just for effect. I’m pretty sure I saw him shudder.

  Calthus was sitting behind his desk, as per usual, a look of utter contempt and disdain on his face. “Raymond,” I said, being purposely familiar. He flinched a bit when I used his given name.

  “Detective Hazzard,” he managed through clenched teeth. I swear, I could almost hear him grinding his molars from across the room.

  “Please, call me ‘Eddie,’” I said cordially, taking a seat on one corner of his massive desk. The look in his eyes could have set fire to industrial Chicago and ancient Rome at the same time, and without the benefit of things like Mrs. O’Leary’s cow or a crazed inbred playing the lyre on the roof.