by Steve Rzasa
“It’s a very nice collector’s item.” She made sure I got nowhere near the display case.
“Sure looks like it. Nil, what do you think?”
He put on a good show of examining the gun. “It would go well with the firearms in my collection.”
The clerk’s expression perked up a bit.
“Hey, you’re the boss. We’ll think about it,” I said.
Nil and I wandered around. He seemed fascinated by some of the objects. Good for him. The more he looked like the interested collector, the better.
We gathered up a list of items sure to grab some interest. I pulled out my phone and got on Twitter. [Pearl-handled revolver, 1900. Value has to be $2,000.]
Had to wait and see if anyone bit at those status updates. I switched over to Facebook. Yeah, there were a few comments. The fake buys I’d “made” earlier in the year, coupled with my existing “Lancaster Foss” stash, made for a record that should keep sellers interested. Plus, I kept yammering about playing chaperone for an alien art collector.
Something caught my eye. There was a beautiful hand-carved end table sitting in the back. It had some books sitting on what looked like a marble top. I grabbed the stack.
The top book was an old Bible.
It was worn out, with a black leather cover that had faded around the edges. The gild was gone from the pages. I opened it with care. Good shape, considering it was seventy years old.
Nil was back by the front door. He sniffed at a tall wardrobe, complete with mirror.
If I really wanted to read the Bible, I could have downloaded the eBook or pulled up a website on my tablet. But the smell of the cover, the feel of the pages . . .
Boy, am I a sucker.
We left the store with me carrying a gun and a Bible. Nil carried two paintings and the end table. “You seem to have left me the quirrnok’s share of the bundles to carry.”
“Don’t whine. You’ve got four arms.” I made a face. “What’s a quirrnok? Do you mean like ‘lion’s share’?”
“It is a similar expression. A quirrnok is more the size of an Earth elephant, except it has striped fur and walks on its hind legs. However, it is carnivorous like your lions.”
Yikes.
“Will this suffice to establish our reputations?”
“For now. Easy with that table.”
“How will you get all these things back to your home?”
“News flash, Nil. I don’t keep most of what I buy.”
“Don’t your prospective clients become suspicious when they don’t see a collection at your home?”
“Facebook is my gallery. I never take them to my real one, and I don’t have a fake one. We always meet at hotels or elsewhere.” Which was how I was going to have to contact Fisk, when and if he got wind of my work. I wanted him to sell. Which means I needed to buy something ridiculously expensive. This stuff was a good start.
We got our first load back to the car. I figured we could take one more look-see before we made our next stop.
There was another store on the opposite side of the street that showed off most its goodies behind tall windows. You could see pretty much everything in there, and it all looked like high-value: jewelry, paintings, and statues. There were a dozen statuettes, ranging in size from a few inches to two feet tall, lined up in front.
Sweet. Now all I had to do was buy the most expensive one.
Or ones.
Nil squinted in the window. “Is fifteen thousand dollars a considerable amount of money for this item?”
“For a statue of a guy on a horse? Yeah.”
The doorbells jangled as we walked in. The man behind the counter smiled at us. “’Morning.”
“How you doing?”
“Well, no complaints so far. What can I do for you . . . folks?” His gaze shifted to Nil. His smile flickered but came right back up to full wattage when I drew my wallet.
“Nil here is very interested in Earth artwork, especially Western examples. He wants some to fill out his collection offworld.”
“I see.”
“He wants a horseback rider statue, like the ones you have in the window.”
He looked over my shoulder. “That’s a fine pick. Which one would you like?”
“All three.”
“Oh. Well, ah, sure can do that. You do realize there’s three zeroes after each number.”
I tapped my credit card on the counter. “And you do realize this card has a hundred thousand dollar limit we haven’t even scratched yet.”
He nodded fast. “I’ll ring you gents up.”
<<<>>>
The library was off Fort Street, which I guess was one of the main drags through town. Could’ve fooled me. There were so few cars around I could have easily passed the Ford pickup in front of me. Instead I tailgated.
You could see the twin peaks of the building jutting up from behind a bank and law office. It was tan with dark bronze trim, with mirrored glass for windows, very edgy yet also a kind of natural feel. Fit right in with what I’d seen of the area. I turned us right onto the next street, Adams, so we could find a parking spot.
That was easier said than done. Never seen so many kids in one place outside of elementary school. The horde was spread all over the lawn along the front of the building. There were so many minivans, SUVs, and e-cars clogging up the parking lot I thought maybe they’d relocated ComicCon this year. Except it was ComicCon for soccer moms.
“Should not your younglings be in studies at this time of the day?” Nil sniffed. “It smells too early for lessons to be over.”
“It’s mid-June. There’s no school today or any other day of the month in most of the western U.S. of A.”
“Perhaps that says something about your achievement level as a species.”
“Bite me.” Hoped he didn’t take that literally. Dude had some serious fangs.
I pulled into the nearest spot, a little ways down the block. Looked like the kids were engrossed in a game to see who could spit watermelon seeds the farthest. Two women in yellow T-shirts were busy giving orders. One was older with gray hair and glasses, waving her arms around and shouting as loud as the kids. Looked like she was having just as much fun as them. The lady with her had short hair that was completely white. She was busy speaking with a reporter, a young man with a monster camera slung over his shoulder, who scribbled notes on a tablet.
None of the kids paid us any attention. What did you expect? None of them were old enough to remember a time when four-armed aliens didn’t walk up and down Main Street. The adults glanced over, stared a good second or two, and went right back to corralling the youngsters.
I turned to Nil. “Stay here, will you? And stay out of fights.”
“If I fought those younglings, we might be evenly matched.” Nil showed his teeth.
Alien humor. I snorted.
“You are certain we can find what we’re looking for here?”
“Hey, it’s either this or the local burger joint. I’ll stick out way less here if I play tourist looking for his long-lost buddy.”
I walked past the giggling, laughing, shrieking kids. Way too many of them. The sound battered me.
It was much quieter inside. Once through the double doors, the air conditioning of the lobby washed over me like a wave at the Jersey Shore. No, not like the show—I’m talking OC, the boardwalk, AC, and the casinos. Never mind.
Off to the left was the teen hangout. It had four guys busy playing a game on the holo-generator. Couldn’t tell which one, what with all but the loudest sounds absorbed by glass walls and racks of graphic novels. The librarian in there, a short lady with long gray and brown hair, put on a pair of reading glasses and pointed out a novel on a tall shelf to a teenage girl with her arms full of books.
Inside the main part of the library, I picked out a dozen people milling about under ceilings that angled sharply skyward. It was a comfortable place, set between thick stone pillars and framed by heavy wood beams. Patrons hunched
over rows of computers off to the right. There were books everywhere. A bunch of old guys read newspapers and tablets behind a glass partition. Their voices were mellow. Everything about the reading room was mellow, actually. Soft brown and white, comfy chairs, tables.
Paintings lined the walls. Local works. One was a view of Buffalo from a hilltop—downtown a hundred or more years ago, my guess. Now that was something I’d get for my apartment, to go right next to the beach scene. Just because it wasn’t painted by some world-famous brush-holder didn’t make it any less impressive.
Loved the place. Somebody in there had to know something about my suspect. Librarians know everything.
“Hello.” A lady with a grin to rival mine appeared around the corner of a bookshelf. Her hair was brown, highlighted with blonde and tied up in a ponytail. She was only as tall as my shoulder and wore the same yellow T-shirt as the women outside. Close up, you could make out the crazed cartoon animals in garish colors with some cheesy slogan for a summer reading program. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yeah, sure. My name’s Caz. I’m trying to find a pal of mine, Tyler Fisk. Haven’t seen him in years, and, you know, I’d like to drop in on him. He’s a kidder, he loves surprises. But I don’t got his phone number or his address. He’s kinda hard to find on the Internet.”
Lots of lies stuffed in there. Except the hard to find part. No Facebook, no Twitter, no public listings, nothing. He didn’t even have a driver’s license, for all I knew.
The librarian looked thoughtful. “We have phone books at the desk. Is he related to Randy Fisk?”
“Dunno. Haven’t met his family.”
“Randy has property east of town, toward Ucross. He has a couple of sons, I think.”
That confirmed what Agent Rutherford had texted me. “Great. You know, that’s probably his dad or uncle or something. Tyler and I know each other from the Army. Served off-planet.”
“One of Randy’s boys did go into the military after 6/16, but I hadn’t seen him in a few years. I didn’t know he was back in town.”
“Think he’d be hanging out with his old man?”
“Well, unless he had another job lined up, he’s probably working at the family’s gravel pit off Highway 16. All the Fisk boys do.”
Gotta love libraries. “You’ve been a great help. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Enjoy your day!”
I went to the front desk. There were enough computers and book scanners to make any checkout clerk happy. There was a younger woman standing there, wearing the same yellow T-shirt as the rest of the staff. She spoke with a middle-aged mom who hung onto a bulging bag of books with one hand and a squirming boy with the other.
The mom and her kid cleared off. I flashed a grin. “Hi.”
She smiled politely. She was tall and thin, with long, straight brown hair. Her eyes were bright blue. “Hello.”
“Can I borrow your phone book?” She seemed nice. That was the route for me to take, then—pleasant and polite as her.
“Johnson County?”
“Yes, please.”
She rolled open a desk drawer on the other side of the counter and handed me the green and yellow book. “Here you go. Do you need a pen and paper?”
“Nope, I’m good.” I tapped my cell phone. Grinned once more for good measure. “Thanks.”
Her cheeks went bright red. “You’re welcome.”
Nice girl. Didn’t catch her name. Come to think of it, I didn’t see any nametags on anyone working in the place. Didn’t see any men either.
I’d already tried Whitepages.com and came up with nothing. So I paged through the phone book. The noise of children running and blabbering burst behind me. That group must have come inside. They drowned out every sound, even the lady shelving books off to one side and the phone ringing.
Shoot. No Fisks in the phone book. That’s no good. I drummed my fingers on the book.
“Find what you need?”
It was the pretty one from the front desk again. “No, actually. Unlisted number. That don’t matter too much. Mostly I need the address.”
“You could try the county assessor’s website. They updated their property records last summer.”
“Really.” Man. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
She led me over to a computer kiosk. Her fingers danced over the keyboard. Half a minute later we were looking at the search screen. “Name?”
“Randy Fisk.”
She entered it. Hey. This was slick—property boundaries, name, address, tax records, and updated aerial photographs.
“Nicely done.” She smiled. “Could you print that off for me?”
“Just the address?”
“Property map too, please.”
She ran the whole works out. Fifteen cents later, I had a fuzzy but accurate map of the property of Randy and Charlene Fisk on U.S. Highway 16 East. Looked like it was a few miles into the hills beyond my hotel.
Again. Libraries are awesome. My cell phone buzzed.
[Suspect hs record with local PD. Proceed with caytion.]
“Seriously gonna get you a texting for dummies book while I’m here,” I muttered.
If Rutherford thought I was gonna go blab my job to the police chief, he was a first-class idiot. Not that I didn’t trust cops to stay quiet. But in my line of work, I had to consider all the angles. Chief mentions something about me in passing to his wife over dinner, she lets slip a version of his info to the gals at her office, on and on it goes, until half the town knew what we were up to.
But see, librarians have a very strict deal about confidentiality.
Whatever questions I asked here would stay here.
I made for the front door before that herd of kids hemmed me in.
Ally stood right there.
She had her arms folded across her chest. Her hair was shorter than I remembered, and the sun highlighted a stray strand or two of blond among the brown. Couldn’t forget those stormy blue and gray eyes or those freckles. She had on a tight green blouse, short-sleeved, and tan capris. Yes, I know what capris are, so sue me.
Looked not unlike her Facebook profile. Didn’t really expect to run into her, as big a state as Wyoming was and as far apart as the towns were. Also, had no clue she lived in Buffalo, right up until, you know, she walked through that door.
“Caz.” She shook her head. “Here I thought I was having a good day.”
“Hey, Ally. It’s been a while.”
“Yes, a decade, give or take a few years.”
Thirteen years and six months. Yes, I was counting.
“What brings you west of the Mississippi?”
“Work.”
“I’d have guessed you’d be on unemployment by now.”
“Nice. Good to see you too.” My mind was buzzing with scenes, like a fast forward on Netflix. Most of them were rated PG-13. “So, uh, what brings you to the library?”
She waved a hand at the kids heading off to the right-hand wing of the library. “Summer school. Kids with emotional difficulties. They get to come down to summer reading if they’ve kept up on their homework.”
“So you’re teaching.” Which, I must say, I already knew. Maybe I Googled her a few times. Every year. Never mind, too much information.
“And you’re on the lookout for special artwork.”
“Rather not talk about work here, Ally.” I gritted my teeth. “Just a guy with lots of cash to burn on antiques.”
“Right.”
“Maybe I’ll see you around.” I tried a grin.
No dice. Shields were up. She squinted her eyes at me, and just like that I couldn’t figure out whether I wanted to growl in frustration or kiss her. She poked my shoulder, hard. “You can only hope.”
She walked off after her students.
The sensation of her touch faded to a dull buzz. She’d done that all the time, once, but with an entirely different sentiment.
Man. Ally Bannister. The girl I’d almost married.
I looked up from my duffel bag. Its contents were spread all over the backseat of the Bimmer. “What are you talking about?” Nil leaned up against the car. I almost barked at him about scratching the paint, until I remembered the foot-sized dents on the hood were courtesy of his hoofers. Gonna need a body shop while we were here. “Something troubles you. I smelled it as soon as you returned from the library.”
“Yeah, well, that’s none of your business.” Batteries charged?
Check.
“We are working on the same investigation. Your mental stability or lack thereof is my concern. I do not see what that has to do with commerce.”
“That’s not what I meant by business.”
“But you said—”
“Look, just shut up for two seconds so I can get the drone set up, okay?”
The drone was one of my favorite tools. Did I say tools? I meant toys. It was the size of a dinner plate, squarish with bulges at the four corners. Those bulges housed the fans. I tugged it from the duffle bag and set it on the ground. Behind the car. It was painted a dull brown and green.
Nil sniffed. “That device smells rank. It will be discovered instantly.”
“Two seconds up already?” I got out my tablet, queued up the app for the drone. The fans whirred to life, kicking dust and pebbles into a cloud. It hovered at chest height. “Lucky for us the lowly human beings out at the gravel pit don’t have your snout, Nil.”
The drone soared off over the road. It cut left toward a line of trees that rose up over the hill. You couldn’t see down the dirt road leading beyond the fence and the sign that said “Fisk Gravel and Stone” in black and red letters. But I had my trusty printout from the library, coupled with a Google map that was somewhat less detailed than the county assessor’s aerials. It told me plenty.
Like that the line of trees extended clear down into the property, past the gravel pits and right up to the houses.
“We park this baby in the trees, Nil, and presto—our own surveillance camera installed with no fuss or muss.”
I flew the drone with ease. Hey, man, decades of Nintendo paid off, even if these flat screen panels on the tablet were a far cry from the black cross and red buttons on the controllers of my youth. The drone had four cameras, one on each face that could swivel in any direction. They were tiny things, no bigger than a marble. Right now the front camera showed the tops of the aspens as the drone sped along and to the left. The tips of a roofline poked above the leaves.