The Lost and the Damned
Page 2
I rubbed my eyes. Four twenty–five in the morning. I knew I should sleep, but I was a little juiced up by the furious writing. I went and watched TV for a while. MASH was on. That’s always the sign that you’re up too late. Mr. Smith, my feline friend, was on the ottoman next to me, but he didn’t even react when I got on the couch. He remained sleeping. Sometime during the episode I passed out on the couch and fell into a fitful sleep. I woke late in the morning, sore from the couch and not feeling rested. The television was still on, playing some game show. I flipped it off and forced myself to exercise.
I exercise every day – if I can. Sometimes when I’m tailing someone or staking out their home, I just don’t get the chance to exercise. But when I can, I exercise. I hate exercise, to be truthful. It’s not that I’m a lazy bum. I just get so bored because it’s so repetitive. I generally do a routine of stretches and martial arts exercises. I never got very far in any martial art, but their warm-up exercises don’t require any equipment and can be done anywhere. I’ve spent enough time in hotels and gas stations to know the value of do-anywhere exercise. I still hate exercise, though. I know I should do it, and that’s why I do it. For health and image.
I’m about six-foot-one with a strong frame. I’m not one of those guys who just naturally ripples with muscle. What muscle I have I worked for. One of the reasons I exercise is that I want to look and feel good. Other times I exercise purely for image. A six-foot-one man with muscle is more imposing and intimidating than shorter or less defined men. This opens doors when you’re a detective. Not that I directly threaten people, but it’s easier to add a little lean to my conversation to make them squirm and make a mistake.
After exercise, I waited for the hot water to heat up for the shower. I scratched my head and looked at myself in the mirror. Pretty good looking, if I say so myself. Not too worse for the wear after my thirty years on this earth. A few scratches and a very small scar on my cheekbone, but still pretty good. I count myself fortunate that my nose hasn’t been broken yet. I hear it gives a man character, but I’m not buying that. I prefer to keep my nose pristine for the lady in my life.
Unfortunately, there’s no lady in my life. Do you want to hear the lonely guy detective story another time? Start up the lonely guy jazz, pour me some gin in a dirty glass and start the tortured narration. You’ve heard it all before, even the narration telling you that you’ve heard it all before. It’s the same story, boy meets girl, boy loses girl. Things just don’t work out for me. I’m taking a break right now. Dating can be trouble.
I finished the shower and got dressed. I began packing my suitcase of things I would need on my trip. Mr. Smith finally deigned to spend time with me, rubbing his furry head against my arm as I packed the suitcase. Mr. Smith is the only real partner I have in this life, though I wonder if he would even want to call our relationship so close. I know he doesn’t like the hours I keep and since he’s an indoor cat, it’s not like he can go outside to seek adventure. If it wasn’t for Frannie, he would be a very angry kitty when I got home after a long day of surveillance. As it stands, he’s fickle and petulant when I do get home.
After I finished packing, I took a quick look at those numbers again. Just to see if anything clicked. No such luck. I got my shoes on and went next door.
Frannie answered the door after three knocks – I don’t think I’ve ever found her not home. She works from home programming account management software. She gets her groceries delivered and has every cable channel imaginable. I don’t think she’s actually agoraphobic, I think she just likes having everything she wants right there in her apartment. The door opened tentatively, just a small crack, but enough for me to see red curly hair and freckles. Once she saw it was me, she opened it up. “Morning, John,” she said lazily. “Another job?”
“Morning,” I said, “Yeah, another job. Out of town one, actually. I fly out a little later.”
“That’s a new one,” she said with surprise. “Must be big bucks if they’re going to fly you out. Sure it’s business and not pleasure?”
“I wish,” I replied. “If it were pleasure, I wouldn’t be going to Chicago.”
“Not a fan of the Windy City? I have a friend who just loves it there.”
“For pleasure, I’d go more Maui, Barbados, or Cancun,” I said. “Nice sandy beaches where the liquor flows freely.”
“Mmm, sounds nice. Need a companion?” she asked.
“For Chicago? Nah. Only if I’m lucky will there be sandy beaches. If so, we can talk.”
“I guess that’s the best a girl could ask for with you, huh?” she asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. “So you need me to watch little Smithy?”
“He prefers ‘Mr. Smith’,” I said.
“I think at this point, I spend enough time with him that I might know better,” she said.
This was almost true, sadly. I’m not the best cat owner. With the hours I keep, I just can’t be there. When I can’t be home, Frannie watches him, feeds him, and plays with him. She also likes to put him with her cat Barbara and pretend that they have a little kitty wedding. She always suggests we get them married “for real”. The subtext is not lost on me, as suggestions for dinner are not far behind. It’s not that I haven’t considered it, visions of red hair and freckles dancing in my head. Last New Year's Eve I was one glass of wine short of a reckless kiss, but I held myself back. While romantics would cite fate for us living next to each other, dating your next door neighbor has certain potential complications. Besides that, I mess every relationship up, so I’d lose her as a friend as well.
And yes, that’s cowardice you’re recognizing.
“I just need you to watch him for maybe a day or two,” I said.
“Maybe? Not sure how long your trip is? I figured you’d have a return flight.”
“I don’t know,” I said distantly, thinking about the dream. “I might have a lead. I might not. It’s… one of those things.”
“Well, don’t get lost there and never come back,” she said. “You’ll have someone who loves you very worried about you.”
Did she just say that she…? There was an awkward moment. She blushed and became as red as her hair.
“W-what –“ I started.
“Mr. Smith!” she blurted out, her eyes wide. “Mr. Smith would miss you.”
“Ah, yes,” I said quickly. “He doesn’t need to worry. I can take care of myself. But you’ll take care of him?”
“Of course,” she said, becoming just a little less red, “Just like he was my own. As always.”
“Good,” I said, pausing. “Well, I gotta go run and pack. Thanks!”
I beat a hasty retreat back to my apartment. I sat on the couch stroking a purring Mr. Smith where I had fleeting thoughts of red curls and freckles before getting back to the job.
When I arrived at the airport, I was no closer to figuring out my dream. I ran the numbers into a search engine, but didn’t get any meaningful returns. I tried different permutations of the numbers, but gave up on that. There were spaces between the numbers on the signs I saw. I think. The memory was getting fuzzy. But I wrote them down with the spaces, so that must be significant. I figured if I tried too many permutations, the results might be meaningless.
I waited for my flight, looking over the Vanders dossier again. Katie was the lead singer of SVMM, a four member rock band. She didn’t appear to have a day job, even when the band wasn’t making any money. I paged through the documents and confirmed she had a trust fund, which was what paid her bills. I confirmed again there was no credit card activity since her disappearance. I had her cards flagged so that if any were used, I’d have an email sitting in my inbox. So far, nothing. I looked back at the profile. She had a BA in Communications from the University of Chicago under Katherine Van Derholm. Shortly after graduation she had the name legally changed, probably to make a break from her father. Mother had passed away when she was young. Estranged from her father, who was now dead.
The dossier indicated her apartment was untouched, not even a suitcase missing. Kidnapping was definitely on the table. But why? She wasn’t famous yet. She disappeared before MTV started playing her video ad nauseam, launching her into success and stardom. Nobody had known she was really a Van Derholm, only a Vanders. She wouldn’t have been a ransomable target unless someone could tell the future.
Next was the runaway theory. Also on the table. Maybe she just got up and left. She got frustrated with life and walked away. I can’t say I never thought of that when I was younger and times were tough. Her father had just died and that’s always a traumatic experience. I leafed through the dossier, but there was no mention of when and whether she was told about her father’s death. Maybe she heard and immediately went on walkabout to get her head together. Possible, but it had been quite a few months. Another problem: her face was plastered everywhere. If there was a record or electronics store, it had her picture. It’d be hard for her to be just hitchhiking and traveling without being noticed. Not unless she purposely disguised herself. And if she was deliberately hiding, there were going to be problems with this job.
My flight was called and I joined the slow moving line of travelers as we lurched onto the plane. I had a window seat, wedged in next to an old man with a curious smell who was not willing to give up his armrest under any circumstances. The plane had an uneventful takeoff while I continued to look over the dossier. Without access to the internet, I had just the dossier and my notebook where I wrote down the dream notes. I paged through the dossier for a while, but I didn’t make any new connections on Katie. Snack service came by, nothing for free, not even peanuts. They had the same Three Musketeers bar I had seen at a news stand in the terminal for sixty cents, but the flight attendant wanted three dollars for it. What’s that, a dollar a musketeer?
After snack service, I went back to my notebook. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the dream was not only significant, it was significant to this job. The conversation between the two men in my dreams was provocative, but its contents were banal. The one-armed man with the numbers suggested more, if not because the numbers did not even have a mundane function. What did they mean? I found an empty notebook page and wrote them down again. I tried adding them together, dividing them. Were they a safe combination? It was too short for a credit card. An access code? The one-armed man had said “Now”, the only word that was intelligible from his voice. What did it mean? Was it even “Now”? Maybe those were the only syllables that got through.
I rubbed my forehead and looked out the window. Maybe I was pushing too hard on this. The Vanders dossier, the numbers, the dream – maybe I needed a break. I hadn’t slept well the night before. I closed the window shade and leaned against the window, closing my eyes. Maybe I could have drifted off to sleep, but instead my rest was interrupted by an obnoxiously loud conversation from three rows up. Two men were discussing their recent rock climbing trip in Austin. The conversation itself would have been normally innocuous, but for some reason their volume was way louder than necessary since they were sitting next to each other. I had the suspicion that they were talking loudly so that everyone was aware of their great outdoors yuppie lifestyle.
I tried to block them out, but one went on at great length about his climbing at Enchanted Rock State Park. He talked about the rock faces he climbed, the young lady he impressed up there, and the exciting night camping with that same lady. I heard about everything, the rope, their pulleys, the type of boots they wore, the tent, the brand of their GPS tracker –
I bolted up in my seat, wide awake. I opened the window shade for some light and grabbed my notebook. Maybe I had been thinking about it wrong. The one-armed man had the numbers on two different sheets of paper. I rewrote the numbers, separating them as I recalled them on the sheet. On one line I had 44 47 and on the next line I had 072 32. I looked down at it and the format just looked so familiar. I thought back to the word. I wrote “Now” down at the bottom of the page and circled it.
I tapped my pen on the pad as I thought. I felt so close to it, but I just hadn’t gotten it. I stared at the numbers. Then it hit me.
I grabbed the pen. Now. N and W. N44 47 and W072 32. GPS coordinates. The one-armed man was trying to tell me a location.
Two
When I arrived in Chicago O’Hare, I didn’t go directly to baggage claim where a representative from Intersperse was supposed to meet me. Instead, I pulled my laptop out of my bag and hooked it up to an internet terminal. I had to try the coordinates. I had to know what was there at those coordinates. A city? My mind had raced through the possibilities throughout the flight. I just had to know.
I loaded my laptop up and entered my credit card number to use the wifi. I could write it off as a business expense later, which was good, since the rates were gouging. Captive audience, I guess. I went to my map search page of choice and plugged in N44 47 W072 32. I had to wait through the slow internet for the page to load. Finally it loaded, and…
Nothing.
Or more specifically, the middle of nowhere. It was in Vermont, so it was somewhere. But it wasn’t anywhere. It wasn’t on a road or near a town. I switched to satellite view and it was just a patch of green. I zoomed in as much as I could, but there were just trees as far as I could see. At that location there was a fold between where satellite pictures were taken, so there was a line where they did not match up. But even with the mismatch, there was… nothing.
I was crestfallen. I was sure I had made a great breakthrough. Even more than that, I was sure I interpreted the dream correctly. I just knew it was right. It felt right. I just had a hard time getting my mind around the fact that there was nothing at those coordinates. I was missing something. I just didn’t know what.
I nearly slammed my laptop closed, but thought better of it at the last second. I bought a regular priced Three Musketeers bar from a news stand and put the energy from my frustration into getting down to baggage claim to meet the Intersperse rep before he got bored and left.
The Intersperse guy was easy to find. He was the one holding the sign with my name misspelled: K-E-E-T-S. I considered biting his head off in righteous indignation, but I just skipped it. I get mad, he gets pissy, and at the end of the day, he still won’t be putting the A in my name. Alan, the representative, was middle management. High enough up to be briefed on the Vanders Situation, but low enough down he had to wait for me at the airport. Because of the situation, it couldn’t be a lackey that met me – there’s too much opportunity for something to slip out of management and into the peons, then leaked to the unwashed masses. So it had to be an exec or manager. And since he was at the bottom of the food chain, Alan was pretty unhappy that he had to meet me.
We did the typical meet and greet, then got into his car. I had only carry-on, so we weren’t stuck waiting for luggage which would never come. I was only supposed to be in Chicago for a night or two, assuming I found no lead. Even if I did, I had become adept at stuffing a nice kit of essentials into a single suitcase. It’s less an art and more a necessity when you’re on the move when following someone. Alan’s car was a new black Lexus. Probably his promotion present to himself or a company car. He didn’t have interest in talking so I settled back in the seat and rested while he drove to the local Intersperse office.
Intersperse Records is headquartered in New York, not Chicago, so its presence in Chicago was a relatively small office space. A few offices, some cubes, some framed posters of gold and platinum albums on the walls. The cube workers were mostly hooked up to headsets, rattling away about albums, deals, and up-and-coming acts. We bypassed the cubes and Alan herded me into a confe
rence room before excusing himself to check messages.
The conference room was dominated by a meeting table that was larger than the meeting room could comfortably contain. The chairs were pushed almost to the walls. If there was a full meeting, people couldn’t get by occupied chairs, so the first person in would need take the farthest seat for maximum occupancy. On the table sat a conference phone and its satellite microphones. One wall was dominated by a white board that still had company business strategy left unerased. There were boxes, arrows, and squiggles that someone might be mortified by my seeing, but people often don’t realize that most of that type of stuff is meaningless to someone who wasn’t at the meeting.
Alan appeared again, explaining that Robbie, the band member I was meeting, would be late. He then sighed, simply saying, “Musicians,” before shrugging. He left again, leaving me in the room alone. I considered making long distance calls to Thailand to pass the time, but decided against it. I grabbed my dossier and notebook. I jotted down some brief questions of what I planned to ask Robbie and then looked through the dossier. It really didn’t matter what I asked him. I doubted that he’d have too much to tell me. This was one lead that had been tapped far too many times, a lead with which I’d be scraping the bottom of the barrel. If there was any lead here, anyone with half a brain would have found it already. Still, there was always the chance I’d find that one thing that would click in my head. For half a million dollars, I’d be willing to run down the stupidest leads if one of them got me to Katie Vanders.
It was forty-five minutes later when Robbie was herded into the room. He took a seat at the end of the table opposite to me. He put down a travel mug of something that smelled like alcohol on the table and then took out a pack of cigarettes. Alan quickly told him that he couldn’t smoke in the office. Robbie nodded. Then Alan left, leaving us alone. Robbie immediately lit up a cigarette, savoring the feeling before putting his feet up on the table. He said nothing and simply smoked his cigarette.