by Josh Cook
Max raised an eyebrow at Trike. Cleared his throat.
“Oh, right,” Trike said. “Federal agents didn’t arrive at the scene until after I revealed the door in the study—which was totally awesome, by the way. I just learned from Lola that, quote, ‘The only concrete fact I could find at all about the house was the electric bills were exorbitant,’ unquote, which would be explained by the lights and other electricity-demanding equipment needed to grow weed in a basement. And finally, the keystone that bears the weight of this conclusion—”
“Agent Munday is a narc,” Max concluded.
“Agent Munday is a narc,” Trike said with a nod.
Max leaned back and rubbed his forehead. Tapped on his desk.
“Changes things a bit,” Max said.
“It does, Max, it does.”
“… Weirder?”
“I don’t know yet, Max. Though now I am certain that Joyce faked his disappearance and left the house through the basement. But we can’t find information about the structure of the basement.”
“Lola couldn’t … dig it up?”
“No.”
“Weird.”
“Yep.”
“Still working on it?”
“Sicced her on Joyce. The man himself.”
“Poor fella.”
“Not as long as he doesn’t have any secrets.”
“It’s … possible.”
“Okay. Max, you get back on the horn with your bureau buddies and give them a polite what-the-fuck. You might be able to get a little further now that you’ve got some more information.”
“You got it, boss.”
“I’m going to read newspapers while I analyze possible scenarios that make this ridiculous situation realistic.”
“If I find anything … I’ll knock,” Max said.
“I’m not going to be tossing knuckle children into the trash can. You don’t have to knock.”
“Boss … it’s creepy when you read.”
“Really?”
“You hold your hands like you’ve got a book or a paper. You even … jerk your hands like you’re snapping the paper straight, but you don’t have a paper. It looks like you’re reading your hands … and like you’re a lunatic.”
Trike shrugged.
“It’s just a neuro-mechanical recollection technique triggering clearer recall through approximate kinetic replication.”
“Easy for you to say. You look insane.”
“So I shouldn’t read that way at the coffee shop?” Trike asked.
“No.”
“Explains why the new baristas sometimes give me free coffee.”
“Could.”
“Okay. Max. Phone. Trike. Brain,” Trike said, pointing at each item. “Get me if Lola calls.”
“Plan.”
“And no smoking in the office.”
“Haven’t forgotten.”
“I’ve quit smoking.”
“I know.”
“So don’t tempt me.”
“Won’t.”
“Even with one sneaked cigarette—”
“Read your book and let me call the Bureau … crazy-pants.”
Trike gave a thumbs-up and went to his office. Max picked up the phone.
THE SLEEVES DAMN NEAR ROLLED THEMSELVES
During the three hours he’d been on the phone, Max hung his jacket over the back of his chair, unbuttoned his vest, loosened his tie, and rolled his sleeves.
Everyone he talked to knew that the Feds kept weed around. It was just that kind of world. Scientific research. Dog training. Something to give to undercover agents. Other.
Max never expected a personal file mailed to the office. He wasn’t surprised that no one could give him even a lazy charades-hint of a name. The jacket was hung because the accountant below turned the heat up. Heat was still behaving.
One of his contacts was sure she could slide him something. She’d put him on hold with lines like, “Just give me a sec and I’ll find something for you,” and return with “That’s weird. Can’t seem to find it now.” For forty minutes. Max’s vest got unbuttoned.
His contact kicked him over to a hacker they knew. The guy could squeeze binary code from cat piss and tell you what its owner thought about NAFTA. He told Max it would be a couple of quick click commands. There were many awkward pauses. He assured Max that much would be revealed after a few gibberishes were jabberwocked. Nothing was revealed. That loosened the tie.
Four more calls and two favors later, Max ended up talking to someone at the end of paper trails. Someone without plausible deniability. If he said, “Max, I can’t tell you anything about this Joyce character,” Max would have thanked him very much and politely hung up.
Instead, the guy who knew all the code names said, “Joyce? That small-time shit doesn’t even get to my secretary’s desk.” Sleeves damn near rolled themselves.
After that chat, Max sat still for a while. He had plenty of favors left in the clip, but you don’t empty a clip at a small target. Especially if, as Trike suspected, Joyce was not actually in danger.
Lola strode through the door and placed two full accordion folders on the waiting-room chair.
“Looks successful,” Max said.
“Successful!” Lola launched. “Successful. Do you know what these folders are full of?”
“Not anymore.”
“Nothing. There is nothing in these folders. I could find nothing. After a day of finding nothing, I figured, hey, that’s got to be something. Nothing doesn’t just happen on its own. So I brought samples of all the records I should have found. Because there’s nothing. And that’s got to be something.”
“Pattern?”
“Not that I can see. You guys turn up anything?”
“One thing,” Max answered.
“What’s that?”
“Joyce probably grows weed for the Feds.”
“Oh,” Lola said with an expectant inflection.
“Calling the Bureau revealed nothing.”
“But? Your sleeves are rolled up.”
“True. Similar experience. Where there should’ve been something … there was nothing.”
“This is getting weird, Max.”
“I agree.”
“Trike in? I should show him this,” Lola said, indicating the folders.
“Reading.”
“Oh, I hate it when he does that. It’s just so creepy.”
“I told him to stop doing it at the coffee shop.”
“He’s been doing it at the coffee shop?” Lola gasped.
“I can hear you, you know,” Trike shouted from his office. “Stop draining the water cooler and get in here, so we can figure out what to do next.”
Lola picked up the folders. Max held the door for her and they entered Trike’s office.
“So the accordion folders are filled with records showing where information should be, but isn’t?” Trike asked.
“Exactly,” Lola answered.
“Including?”
“Driver’s license, tax records, medical records, education, insurance, bank stuff. He didn’t even buy the house himself.”
“Who did?”
“A corporation that appears to have been incorporated for the sole purpose of purchasing the house.”
“Tax dodge?” Trike asked.
“Not that I can tell.”
“Does the company pay the utility bills?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Must say I enjoy afternoons spent with ‘maybe’ as much as I like waking up with ‘to seem.’ ”
“The bills are in Joyce’s name, but, and I included copies of receipts I could dig up, they’re paid in cash.”
“In cash?” Trike disbelieved.
“In cash,” Lola confirmed.
“I have never heard of utilities taking cash payment,” Trike persisted.
“As a rule, they don’t, but there were a handful of other accounts paid in cash.”
“Huh. And Maxitaxus, I
see the phone call reached rolled-sleeve proportions.”
“Got even less.”
“So I heard. Care to shovel a pile of less my way?”
“Talked to many people. All had an awareness of the … situation, but no knowledge. Eventually got to somebody whose name cannot be shared, who told me Joyce wasn’t even worth his secretary’s time.”
“Below the secretary, eh?”
“Important context … this secretary is relatively important.”
“Of course.”
Trike grabbed his fedora from the hook that kept it off the ground. Put the hat on. He leaned back in his chair and set his feet on the desk. Then he tipped his hat brim down and laced his fingers over his stomach. A gunslinger feigning sleep. He was still for 136 seconds.
Still still, he said, “Where’s the money?”
“What money, boss?” Max asked.
“Exactly, Max. What money? Disappeared billionaire with an unclear wealth-generation mechanism beyond growing weed for the Feds, who, to all appearances, went through quite a bit of trouble to very poorly fake his murder or kidnapping, in order to go into hiding to do, you know, something. There should be money here. There is always money. If the two Ps are not present—”
“The two Ps, boss?”
“Passion and psychosis. If they are absent from the crime scene, then the source of the crime is almost certainly money. All this other stuff,” Trike waved a dismissive hand, “makes me suspect that this involves vast amounts of money, far vaster than anything we have considered. In such quantities, money can conceal itself, but every magician runs out of smoke eventually. Unless, of course, we are dealing with something too dark and terrifying to consider while sober.”
Trike unlaced his hands, reached one under the desk, pulled out a tallboy, cracked it open, and took a swig.
“Trike?” Lola couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“Lola.”
“Did you put a mini-fridge under your desk?”
“That is what is implied by the visuals.”
“But did you?”
“No. I did not, in fact, put a mini-fridge under my desk. That would be ridiculous. I simply extracted the beer from the office fridge—which we all hold near and dear to our hearts—and brought it together under the desk with the top-shelf-records stool to create the aforeobserved gag. How’d it go?”
Lola and Max looked at each other. Shrugged.
“More effective on those who don’t know how much you drink,” Max said.
“Unlike the last one, this actually felt like a gag. And your timing improved,” Lola added.
“Got a strange way of … entertaining yourself, boss.”
“Well, Maxify, I got a strange self.”
Trike took another sip of beer. Rested the can on his stomach.
“All right,” he continued, “here’s the plan. Lola, get us a map of the sewers under the Joyce House. He escaped through the basement, and if he planned to go anywhere else unobserved it would be easiest to do so through a nearby connection to the city’s sewer system and let’s just spend a quantum instant with the wild and fleeting fancy that the connection to the sewers and/or the sewers themselves imply a likely trajectory.”
“I’ll see what I can find online, but the maps might need to wait till Monday, when the Hall of Records and the Water Department open.”
“Understood. Max, we need a van.”
“A van?”
“A van. There are unattributed noises in the eaves of that house, and I want to see the squirrels scurrying or catch the ghosts on film.”
“A … stakeout?”
“My apologies to your lost leisure time.”
“Right. Leisure time. So, boss, the actual task. Find a van and convert it into a surveillance van without any money because the reward for the last case fell through.”
“You’re the best, Max.”
Max sighed. Rolled his sleeves down.
“And what’ll you be up to?” Lola asked.
“I am going to finish this beer, slightly warmed for the sake of the gag, and most likely several of its cool brethren, listen to the radio, and process the information you two have just provided, with the express intention of deducing a brilliant conclusion sometime in the middle of the night. Lola?”
“Yeah?”
“How are the folders organized?”
“This one is chronological. The other is organized by the strangeness of the absence, so it is extremely strange that something is missing with the stuff at the front, less so with the stuff in the back.”
“Excellent. Max?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you can’t tell me the name of the individual with the relatively important secretary?”
“There would be consequences.”
“Ah yes, consequences. Well, I’ll be here for the foreseeable future. Contact at home over the weekend when discoveries are made. Good luck.”
Max and Lola said casual goodbyes and left. Trike watched Lola leave from beneath his hat brim. When they were gone, he turned on the radio.
“The Hustle.” “Stayin’ Alive.” “I Will Survive.” “Funkytown.” “Shake Your Groove Thing.” “Shadow Dancing.” “In the Navy.” “Celebration.” Breaking news story.
“This just in,” the DJ broke in. “Sources are now reporting that an anonymous reward has been posted for the safe return of Joyce and/or the capture and conviction of his kidnappers or kidnapper or murderers or murderer. The reward is five million dollars. I repeat, five million dollars will be rewarded, anonymously, to whoever solves The Joyce Case. Important note, disco lovers, and I’m quoting here, folks, the reward will diminish by fifty thousand dollars every day Joyce is not found starting tomorrow. So get shaking, folks. And since you’re shaking, this is WDSC, bringin’ you the best disco of the seventies and eighties, so get on this case and get your tail feather shaking.”
“No,” Trike said. “That’s the wrong money.”
DEBT, DISAPPEARANCE, AND THE ORGANIC WHOLE
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It is not uncommon for wealthy people to use vast portions of that wealth to secure even vaster amounts of wealth, generally through a variety of legal, semilegal, not delineated, and illegal methods of hiding income from the institutions that would levy taxes upon it, but bodily disappearance is not one of the ways to hide income; bodily disappearance is one of the techniques used to shed inordinate amounts of debt, and if the disappearance is properly planned and executed, one is able to shed said debt while retaining a meaningful portion of whatever wealth was generated and was not leveraged in service to said debt, unless of course one is subsequently found, at which point the original mechanisms of debt collection will be supplemented by whatever law enforcement consequences are earned through the actions of disappearance, and, if debt is the issue, the anonymous reward money, at least in the purely theoretical sense, would have some explanation, but one would have to conclude that the debt owed to whoever posted the reward must be in grand excess of the $5 million posted, which calls into question
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the entire idea of dodging debt, as it is very difficult to generate a debt proportionate to the reward with legitimate l
ending institutions; institutions which would, rather than adding an additional cost to the recovery process of an anonymous reward, leverage existing legal methods for recouping that debt; however, a loan shark or other illegal or semilegal lending institution or organization would use techniques appropriate to its nature to pursue the disappeared, through direct contracts either with private eyes, collection specialists, or thugs, and certainly would not want to risk drawing attention to itself by posting a $5-million reward, for such rewards are never completely anonymous, and this is before considering the FBI connection, because, of course, the FBI would have that kind of money lying around and would be able to post that kind of reward without fear of legal recrimination because they are the recriminators, and one could at the very least consider the possibility that Joyce has $5 million worth of secrets and information in his head, and the FBI would certainly also have motivation to obscure their involvement with Joyce by making the reward
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anonymous if Joyce is involved in something particularly unsavory, which we can be almost certain almost certainly involves growing and perhaps selling weed, but they know I am on the case and would know of their involvement and would discern said unsavoriness, adding an additional and substantial risk, at which point one would have to ask why bother even offering the reward as, no matter the amount, they are not going to attract a more capable detective than the one already busting his brain over the problem, unless, of course, the reward is an attempt to either draw Joyce himself out of hiding, which would, of course, only work if he were more in need of the money than in need of the disappearance, and regardless of what money he is receiving for his services to them, unless there is the previously discredited issue of debt, it is unlikely that Joyce would need money more than disappearance, given just how much wealth is indicated by the house and especially the sitting rooms. Maybe the Rembrandt copy, though that was probably paid for in cash, with no reason for the gallery to keep track of anything about the purchase once it is finalized, but even if