by Nick Keller
“Yeah, but what’s it mean?”
“I don’t know, but I can tell you this.” He clicked open the URGENT project map. Dozens of homes were demarked by colored circles. “All these files were closed when I booted up Professor Erter’s computer, except this one. It was open. Thought that was kind of weird.”
Bernie leaned away thinking, putting the mystery together. “He was studying this file—this map—when he left this apartment for the last time.” He wagged a pointer finger at the map file. “There’s something about this map. Can you send this to me?”
“Bernie at Investigations dot com?”
Bernie jerked a look at him. “Yeah—how’d you know?”
“It’s easy. I just made an educated guess.”
“Forget it.” Bernie shook his head realigning his thoughts. “Just make it fast, kid. We gotta get out of here.”
Jacky typed and clicked, rapid fire. “Where we going next?”
“We got a stop to make.”
“Where?”
“Doctor Graves’s. Let’s go.”
By the time they hit the 110 from Pasadena, Jacky had his laptop out on his lap. He was clicking and thumb-rolling the mouse pad.
Bernie looked over. “What’s that?”
Jacky said, “Huh? Oh, this is called a laptop computer.”
Bernie cleared his throat maintaining his composure and asked very patiently, “What are you doing?”
Jacky said, “Oh yeah, well, I’m actually shutting down his house.”
Bernie jerked his head, said, “What?”
“Doctor Graves—he has a smart house. I tapped into it a few days ago, you know, just in case. Now I’m shutting it down—security systems and all.”
“How the hell do you shut down a house?”
Jacky took a deep breath. How does one explain technology to a Neanderthal? “What you have to understand, Mr. Bernie, is it’s all about I.P. addresses, right? If it’s a device, like Bluetooth or wireless, you can tap into its I.P. Then it’s yours. I could open his garage door if I wanted to, or turn on his stereo, whatever.”
“And you tapped into his …”
“I.P. address, yeah. It was tricky, much trickier than those mass-servers. But actually, it’s not that hard. All you have to do is …”
“Yeah, okay, shut up, kid,” Bernie said, and took a swig from his bottle of Jack.
When they came to the house in the Hills it was after one o’clock in the morning. Bernie parked across the street. There was nothing going on.
Jacky said, “No cops.”
“They don’t have a warrant. That means no search yet. If your little thingamajig worked, we should be in the clear. Let’s go.”
They padded across the street, through the yard and up onto the porch. Bernie noticed the Vue, knew what it was. He sighed hoping the kid’s thingamajig had worked. If not, a thousand eyes could be looking at him right now. Or even just two. “Get the door,” he said.
Jacky popped his universal key and inserted it into the deadbolt. He jiggled and worked it, one eye squinted and gave a sudden twist. Trying the door handle, it opened.
“Nice job, kid. Move,” Bernie said, entering, gun on holster. It was dark inside. But it was cool. “Air-conditioning,” Bernie whispered. Then he threw a switch and lights came on. “Everything’s paid up. Someone cares.”
“But he hasn’t been here in two years.” Jacky sounded nervous.
“That’s the rumor,” Bernie said.
“Isn’t that enough for a warrant?”
Bernie chuckled. Now the kid was stepping into his wheelhouse. “No judge is going to sanction a search for that. Owner might claim it’s a summer home, or a second property, whatever they want. Charges get dropped. Trust me, I know this. Upstairs, c’mon.”
They went up a classical-style ornate staircase and into a hallway. Pushing open a door Bernie peeked into an office room. There was a large mahogany desk with file drawers and a personal computer that had been powered down for months. He motioned Jacky over. “Can you break into that?”
Jacky went to it and powered it up. The sign-in feature popped up. He gave a deflated look and said, “Man, that’s going to be hard, Mr. Bernie. Would take time. I don’t know enough about this guy to start a password search.”
Bernie said, “Paper files it is, then.” He attempted one of the drawers but it was locked. Jacky opened one of the smaller cubby drawers and pulled up a small brass key between two fingers. Bernie gave him a capitulatory nod. Jacky opened the file drawers.
Bernie’s drawer was jammed with manila file folders. He started rummaging through them whispering to himself as he read. It was all personal stuff—bills, important papers, work files. He shook his head disappointed.
“Gee, Mr. Bernie, check it out,” Jacky said with a tight voice. “Was this guy a mad scientist or something?”
He handed him a file and Bernie snatched it. There were full-color pictures taken from published medical reports. As Bernie pulled one up he cringed, disgusted. There were people whose faces had been obstructed by tumor growth. Piles of purple flesh all jumbled into families of large round nodules hung from foreheads, cheeks, chins.
“The fuck is this?” he said.
“Here,” Jacky said, handing him a stack of printed medical articles.
Bernie read the first one. “Pituitary cancer events with necrotic syndrome.” He read the next. “The world of mind cancer.” He shuffled to the third one. “Today’s war against the psychology of necrotic cancers.” He whistled, “That’s some bad shit, buddy.”
“You think he was making this stuff?” Jacky asked with terror-laced words.
Bernie scrunched his lips, thinking, letting his investigator’s mind start to angle in his head. “Rich doctor, well-known, involved in community services, then up and disappears—no way. He wasn’t making this shit. I think this guy has this shit.”
Jacky’s eyes went big. “You think he’s crazy?”
“Crazy enough to abduct someone,” Bernie said.
“Crazy enough to kill them?”
They looked at each other. This was very bad.
They left the house as they found it, except for the front door lock. Jacky’s little tool was good for unlocking doors. It just couldn’t lock them back again. Bernie gave him a disgruntled look to which Jacky shrank and said, “At least you didn’t have to kick it, Mr. Bernie.”
They got into Bernie’s car as quickly as they could, started up, and moved away from the curb, Bernie’s engine revving up as they left in a hurry.
Once the Chrysler made it to the end of the street and turned to the south with its taillights disappearing in the night, a second pair of headlights kicked on from down the street. A Ford Taurus pulled out from its covert position under the night shadows of an enormous Oak, and moved off in their direction. Once at the intersection, it initiated a southward turn, and followed.
Bernie and the kid came to Whittier off the 710 and sidled up to the curb in front of Dobbs Investigations. Bernie killed the engine and the two sat in silence. Neither wanted to get out, but neither knew where to go next. Bernie took a swig. God, it felt good to buzz again. He’d been too consumed in the business at hand to fully enjoy his first return to the world of alcoholism. It felt like it had been years and years since his last foray. But something told him tonight would have been pure hell without it. Circumstances aside, a piece of him was enjoying the shit out of this.
The Ford Taurus drove by without notice and continued down Whittier until it was out of sight.
Jacky finally asked, “What’s next, Mr. Bernie?”
Bernie thought for a second, said, “If Will’s facing what Mark Neiman faced then time won’t stop for him. So, time can’t stop for us, either.”
“What’re you going to do?”
He took a big breath and said, “I’m going in there to study those files until one of two things happen.” Jacky looked at him, waiting eagerly for him to continue. “Either I f
igure this out,” Bernie said, “or I pass the fuck out.”
Jacky nodded glumly.
Bernie squinted at him, curious. “What’s your M.O., kid? Why you doing this?”
Jacky’s eyes glazed. He fought a tear as it tried to trickle down his cheek. He said in barely more than a whisper, “I love Professor Erter. He’s my idol, Mr. Bernie. I love him for that.”
Bernie felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. He’d been too consumed inside his own head for so long that the feelings of others had hardly occurred to him. Maybe he’d always been that way—hard, brash, unlikable, a real piece of shit. But their feelings were real, too. They deserved his attention, like it or not. He sipped from the bottle and said, “You did real good today, Jacky.”
Jacky grinned. After a moment he asked, “What’s your M.O., Mr. Bernie? Why are you doing this?”
Bernie cocked his head to the side, much like a puzzled dog. He wasn’t fully aware of himself when he answered, “I gotta find some peace, kid.”
Nia Helms turned her car onto an adjoining street and banked fully around in an empty lot facing Whittier. She nosed forward until the Chrysler was visible two blocks down. It sat on the curb with those occupants still sitting inside. She had punched the license number into her onboard dash computer. According to the DMV, that car belonged to a Bernard Dobbs, L.A. resident. All his essential information was shown—date of birth, address, height, weight, et cetera. He was a big man, but what was his interest in the Graves house?
She tapped her lip with a finger in thought looking down the street. The driver door of the Chrysler opened and she watched Mr. Dobbs get out, move toward the office. Then the passenger door. The other participant, whom she would file away as male, five foot seven, early twenties, possibly Hispanic, got out and followed.
She didn’t have enough for a warrant. A breaking and entering charge would get her nowhere. But she had enough to investigate. She opted not to approach them. She knew private investigators. They were as savvy about their rights as cops. If he wanted to shake her, he could.
Dropping the Ford into gear, she pulled out and headed back to the station.
43
O.D.
William stared at the ceiling. He had hardly blinked in an hour. From all appearances, his mind was blank, perhaps questioning whether he would last through another killing, knowing he wouldn’t. When he’d last encountered Mark Neiman, the man’s sanity had been stripped from him. He’d been depleted to a terrified shell of his former self. William understood now. Death, it seemed, was the only escape.
But all appearances were wrong. For William, there was hope yet, even if just an ember. There was a computer over there, a wireless keyboard, an internet waiting for him to post a scream for help tot he world.
William kept constant tabs on Graves’s behavior. The man was over there at his computer, mindlessly probing the digital world. He chewed leisurely on a sandwich, and the chitter chatter of old Three Stooges reruns went on endlessly in the background. It tweeked his nerves, giving the whole place a perverse quality—like children giggling in a dungeon. Hours ticked by. The sun began to show through the high windows of the warehouse. William’s patience was an iron thing. He simply waited. Then …
Graves pounded his fists onto his workstation barking, “What!” He clicked frantically, said, “No. No, you bastards!”
William forced his head up and looked over. He couldn’t see the monitor. Graves was in the way, but something on his computer screen was upsetting him, making him have a fit. The man got to his feet in a violent motion knocking his chair over. William could see the screen. He recognized it. It showed Graves’s Vue monitoring system surveillance window. It registered no image. Someone had disabled it.
William laid his head down grinning. This was the work of Jacky Lee Hobar. It had to be. The kid was looking for him.
Graves yanked his hooded sweater from its coat stand, and threw it on mumbling furious things below his breath. He shot an angry look at William and said, “We’ll continue this when I get back,” and flipped his hood over his head submerging his face in shadow. Those words struck William with a foreboding sense, made his panic surface. But it was short-lived. He watched Graves storm away with that dramatic limp of his, heard the tunnel door engage against its restraining cables, then slam down with an echoing boom. He was gone. It was time.
William jerked to the left, then the right, feeling the table’s legs come up off the floor. He felt it balance for a second at the zenith of its own inertia. He gasped out.
Don’t fall. Don’t fall!
It rocked back, settled. He sighed with relief. He wanted to scoot, not fall. Rocking the table completely over would be the end of his escape. This was a game of balance. He’d have to control his own zealous tendencies, maintain his patience even through his urgency. “Okay,” he whispered, licking his lips.
Again.
He rocked the table underneath him, a busted pendulum, but he managed to scoot it just an inch toward the computer station.
And again.
The table scooted another inch. He glanced over. The workstation was ten feet away, maybe twelve. A hundred inches, maybe more. No time to huff and puff. “Come on, William,” he groaned, and thrust himself another inch toward the computer. It worked, metal legs coughing against cement with each tremendous effort.
And again. Yes. Breathe.
Again. Yes. Breathe.
And on and on. Slowly, he felt his plan come closer to unfolding. The table began to pivot at his feet. That would play out in his favor. It would slowly draw the table parallel to the computer station. A tiny blessing. It came nearer. Salvation was getting closer.
Yet his neck began to cramp. Everything was in pain. Sore muscles. Rending bones. Joints that had been superheated were now barking their disdain at his plan. The flesh of his right wrist began rubbing raw from its cuff as he jerked repeatedly. Blood turned it slick allowing him to spin his hand around. Still, he could not free the hand inside.
Stick to the plan. See it through. Find the willpower. This is the way to freedom.
Finally, the table bumped into the workstation. The computer monitor trembled. The keyboard was at eye level as he craned his head over to stare at it. It wasn’t six inches away from his nose, almost close enough to lick.
Now what?
Up above, on a shelf, there was that ceramic cup with pens and pencils exploding out from the top. Tools. Typing things. If he could just get one in his teeth. He took a big breath and held it, judging the amount of force needed for his next maneuver. He jerked over, then back rocking the table against the workstation. The two banged together violently, making William hiss through clenched teeth. The computer monitor started to tip over, but steadied. Up above, that cup jerked from its position and sat at the shelf’s edge, the rounded edge of the cup’s bottom showing.
This was good, very good.
Pursing his lips, he rocked again, banging the workstation. The cup toppled free and came down. It shattered against the desk’s edge. Writing utensils scattered everywhere and William observed each one in a sure shot of heightened sensory. Three of them teeter-tottered off in the shadows down by his torso. A group of them jittered and flipped to the floor. Some of them went behind the computer. But one…
A narrow red pen.
Came to rest flat against the forward lip of the keyboard. His eyeball watched it settle perfectly in place, as if calling his name.
William. I’m the one. I’m salvation.
He thrust his neck forward, mouth open, straining with all his might, tongue jutting forward. He probed it around slathering the desk and tasting dust and aluminum. But he rubbed the pen. It flittered ever so slightly, so he tried it again, this time poking at it hard. It canted over just enough and he pinned it down under his tongue.
His mind screamed, freeze, stop, don’t move!
Not even breathing, he drew the pen closer to his teeth slowly, a micro-inch at a time until it drew
near his lips, and he jerked toward it with his mouth. He caught it, biting down hard and relaxing his head back. Then his eyes rolled back with joy and he smiled. One tiny grin. It was a fatal mistake.
In a stab of panic, he felt the pen slide from his mouth and get lost somewhere in his periphery. It clattered to the floor. The very sound of it struck him like the shutting of his own coffin. It boiled inside him—the impotent, helpless rage, the hot, hot anger. He threw his head back and screamed a long blast of fury wrenching against his cuffs in an inhuman fit of power. The blood and heat made everything slick. The pain in his wrist was a white-hot blast that deepened his anguish, made him come alive, so he used it. He let it hurt. He let it wrack him with dizziness.
Pull, goddammit, pull!
And in a sudden motion, the hand jerked free. Everything stopped as he stared at it, blood-streaked and whole, through huge red eyes. He articulated the fingers. Everything worked.
Jesus, he was free!
He went to work on the other cuff prying at it with mania and jerking his arm at the same time. The tiny key lock had the strap secured over the wrist. It wouldn’t give, not so much as a micron. He would have to slip his hand free. With clenched teeth he pulled at his own forearm feeling the wrist joint begin to pull apart, separate. It simply wouldn’t give. He needed a lubricant. Blood.
Scanning the desk he found one of those pens that had fallen away and snatched it up, held it like a stabber. With mad eyes and holding his breath, he slammed it down sticking it deep under his skin. Blood surfaced in a thick, oozy pool. Ignoring the pain, he jammed his hand deeper under the cuff plying the blood around. It smeared in a thick paste making the whole operation slick. He jerked and jerked until he felt the fleshy part of his palm squeeze into the cuff.
Yes, yes. Almost there!
A noise banged way off in the cavern. It froze him still. He looked over fear-stricken. The devil was home, emerging from his tunnel.