And what about the phone monitoring? If tabloid journalists were constantly tracking Prince Charles’s conversations, then presumably the police were managing to keep a tap on this line even though it had been forwarded to the cell phone. So where was Iain McCorquodale? Where was Michele Armstrong? Where were all the policemen posing as indigents hanging out at the Y? Where were some real indigents? I would settle for anyone. Why was it that I felt as if I were walking through one of those science-fiction movies where all the other people on earth except two Valley girls had been vaporized?
I passed a framing shop and a leather shop on my way to the walkway over the YMCA. It was quintessentially Edmontonian to have a pedway to the fanciest hotel in the city cutting across a corner of the downtown YMCA, which had stood there several dozen years longer than the hotel. I figured that this had to be the final step for Tremor. I noticed that from halfway across the pedway, one could spot the bus station. I slowed down, calculating the distance between the front door of the Y and the main doors of the bus depot, given that there was an open parking lot between the two, making it possible to go directly cross-country.
Just then the phone rang, startling me, even though I’d been expecting it.
“Are you thinking I am still planning to get over to the locker to pick up the cash, sweetheart?”
Damn the man, where was he that he could spot me and read my mind?
“I’m afraid I may have led you down the garden path, darlin’. I’ve got the cash in hand now. There is just nothing like making people second-guess themselves to get cops off my tail, though. I have a feeling two-thirds of your minders are over at the depot, checking Locker 541 one more time. Actually, this was grandstanding, pure and simple. I just wanted to let Ray and Katie know they might as well go back to chasing kiddie porn, because they are just not going to get the better of me. I’ll leave your precious Babel, babe, but only because you asked so nicely. But doing so won’t put so much as a dent in my livelihood, and there’s not much you can do about it. Face it. Systems are my business. Once you see the whole world as one code or another, there’s nothing you can’t manipulate. This is the new world order.”
“You don’t scare me, Tremor.”
“Sure I do. And you’re wise to be scared. Stay scared, doll. After all, I know everything there is to know about you. It wouldn’t take much, believe me.”
“They’ll get you,” I whispered. “Wherever you are.”
“You want to know where I am? Turn around, why don’t you?”
Slowly I turned, my back to the bus depot. I was facing east now, toward City Hall, and about sixty yards from me and one storey up was another walkway.
There, silhouetted against the lit interior of the glass corridor, was a man in black, a sports bag slung over his shoulder. He might be an executive heading home after hitting the gym. I couldn’t make out his features, but I could see one hand held up to his ear. Tremor waved with his free hand, and then reached for something hanging around his neck. My heart lurched until I remembered that people don’t carry guns slung around their necks like cameras.
Cameras? Sure enough, I could see the glint of a huge lens and realized he was staring at me through a zoom that could likely spot blackheads and the filling on the front of my left bicuspid. I moved my free hand up to my neck in an automatic gesture, as if by taking my picture he was somehow going to steal a part of my soul, located near my thyroid.
“Kiss kiss bang bang, sweetheart.” I didn’t see a flash, but then again, I doubt he would have used one to good effect, with all the glass to glare off. I heard the click of the camera, though, very clearly, through the phone, just before I heard a dialtone.
We stood there, watching each other. As I watched him transfer the money from the gym bag to a backpack, I dialed the number of Kate’s cell phone, and very calmly told them where I was. Steve was fine. Winston/Sanders was winning at Scrabble with “quixotic” on a triple-word score. Ray was raising hell with the folks at the bus station, and Kate was dispersing the troops to the airports and highway roadblocks. Apparently, Michele Armstrong and Iain McCorquodale were close behind me in the pedway system, and I was to wait for them where I was. Fine by me. This was surreal. Tremor waved, turned, and walked briskly toward the shopping mall, from which he could get to two parkades, another LRT station, an express bus top, or a cab stand. I could hear sirens in the distance, but I was pretty sure the cops didn’t stand a chance.
I had to hand it to Tremor. He’d hacked his way into my city, finding its quirks and vulnerabilities, like a master. I’d bet, in forty-eight hours, he had come to know Edmonton better than most of us residents. What was more, he knew all about me. I only had his word he wouldn’t be back to use any of that knowledge. I slid to a crouch against the glass wall, suddenly too exhausted to move.
53
They never did catch him. After a couple of more days of coffee and takeout, though not all of it consumed in my little apartment, Ray and Kate and the other assorted traveling Banzai Web crusaders packed their tents and headed home to Austin. They charged Thea as an accessory to murder, using the transcripts of the chat discussions with Alchemist and Tremor and my cell-phone discussions as evidence. Apparently there had been a few other cases that they were tying to Tremor, as well, so the Babel connection was enough to get them some warrants on other clients of the big bad wolf.
His word was good on staying out of Babel. It had been over a month since our standoff downtown, and neither Alchemist nor I had spotted him in the chat room. I found myself feeling really odd for about ten minutes in my first conversation with Alchemist after his outing as a machine. It was probably how chess master Gary Kasparov felt, shaking hands with Deep Junior on the draw. It was so tough to stay mad at him, though, since he was so tuned in to me. It was like having a totally empathetic best friend for a workmate. A best friend with a brain the size of a planet. We made up and got on with things, and pretty soon we were exchanging bot jokes—but tasteful ones, if you know what I mean. Monitoring on Babel continued to be alternately fascinating, maudlin, and church-potluck-supper enjoyable. The money was good, the hours reasonable, and it looked to be pretty steady for the future, which was a good thing, with education cutbacks in this province being what they were. I was still trying to figure out how to make some money writing about my adventure, but so far I hadn’t managed to organize it into anything pertinent.
Sanders continued to hang out in Babel and was good enough not to expose me as a paid monitor to the rest of the crowd, which would have meant the end of my job. I think he was placated by the allowance to interview the Banzais and write up the group psychology of stakeouts from a phenomenological perspective. Talk about pertinence, eh? Supposedly, the article would be in next June’s issue of Psychology Today. I heard through Steve that he and Detective Lewis meet for drinks and Scrabble on a semi-regular basis.
Speaking of semi-regular, Steve and I are back together for sure, which pleases Denise no end. We keep extra toothbrushes and sweats in each other’s apartments and see each other more days than not, but, although we’re rumba-ing around the idea of marriage, we’re not quite there yet. Anyhow, I wouldn’t tell Denise even if we were. If I know her, she’d haul me off on another shoe-buying expedition.
I ran into Dr. Flanders again at the Safeway the other day, and he gave me the URL to his home page. He has posted three of his scholarly articles and a jillion pictures of the trip he and his sister took to the newly rebuilt Globe Theatre last summer. He was asking me whether I would be interested in contributing to his local theater blog. I told him I’d think about it. I still don’t like writing for free.
Of course, I will chat on a dime.
Also from
Janice MacDonald
Sticks and Stones
How dangerous can words be? The University of Alberta’s English department is caught up in a maelstrom of poison-pen letters, graffiti and misogyny. Part-time sessional lecturer Miranda Craig seems to be b
oth target and investigator, wreaking havoc on her new-found relationship with one of Edmonton’s finest.
The men’s residence at the U of A wants to party and issues invitations to the women’s residence, each with specific and terrifying consequences if female students don’t attend. One of Randy’s star students, a divorced mother of two, has her threatening letter published in the newspaper and is found soon after, victim of a brutal murder followed to the gory letter of the published note.
Randy must delve into Gwen’s life and preserve her own to solve this mystery. Is someone trying to kill Randy, and if so, who? An untenured professor? An unknown student? Gwen’s killer?
0-88801-256-X /pb $14.95 Cdn./$12.95 U.S.
Hang Down Your Head
Some folks have a talent for finding trouble, no matter how good they try to be, especially Randy Craig. Maybe she shouldn’t date a cop. Maybe she should have turned down the job at the Folkways Collection library—a job that became a nightmare when a rich benefactor’s belligerent heir turned up dead.
Randy tried to be good—honest!—but now she’s a prime suspect with a motive and no alibi in sight.
978-0-88801-386-6 /pb $16.00 Cdn./$16.00 U.S.
Condemned to Repeat
For anyone other than Randy Craig, a contract to do archival research and web development for Alberta’s famed Rutherford House should have been a quiet gig. But when she discovers an unsolved mystery linked to Rutherford House in the Alberta Archives and the bodies begin to pile up, Randy can’t help but wonder if her modern-day troubles are linked to the intrigues of the past.
978-0-88801-415-3 /pb $16.00 Cdn./$16.00 U.S.
Available at your local bookstore.
www.ravenstonebooks.com
About the Author
Janice MacDonald is a former instructor of undergraduate English courses, much like her heroine, Randy Craig, at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, where she lives with her husband and her two daughters. She has written children’s books, musicals and textbooks. She has also worked as a monitor, host and cybrarian for several Internet sites. The Monitor is her third Randy Craig mystery.
The Monitor Page 26