by Jay Smith
"But no laptop."
"Just a USB drive." She held up a black drive inside a heavy plastic case.
"You think..?"
"I'll get my laptop."
The USB drive contained folders of information. THE WONDERLOST represented runaways and a community of transients who crossed the country by rail, at-risk youth who were targets for slavery and drug running. Young, mentally ill, and expendable, the notes explained how Alan Horus set up a foundation called The Wonderlost to find and mentor these children and locate missing minors. With King Kline's fund raising and political savvy, the foundation expanded across the country. Parker was part of the investigations team, setting up an infrastructure of investigators. But the larger problem emerged when many of the children involved in the program began to disappear, many of whom were mentees of Kline and Parker.
Also included were some scanned maps and written notes found among the effects of the missing and on the bodies of those few kids found too late. Through them Parker learned of a man called "Ole Skeeter" and a place where kids went to re-invent themselves like Lost Boys in Neverland. There were hundreds of pages of evidence and I didn't have time for more than the abstract and a few picture files before realizing this wasn't going to get us where we needed to go.
The "KIEV PIPELINE" folder was more helpful as insurance. Russian IT Networking Specialist doubling as hired muscle. Good to diversify in this competitive market. I copied those files to Diane's cloud storage.
The "FIRST CHURCH OF AETERNUS" looked like a fun read about spreading the gospel of Alan Horus to the tax-free real world. But it had nothing to do with my situation, so I copied it to the cloud as well.
"Fuck. There's nothing I can use here," Without the laptop I couldn't hope to figure out what Parker wanted me to do or how I could get Alan Horus and his cult off my back. "The note doesn't say how I'll get it, though. If they sent it anywhere, maybe even Carla's place…"
She read the letter before replying, "I doubt it. Those two were bugging out. I hope at least J-P made it. You sure he wasn't among the involuntary skydivers?"
"I can't be sure. I don't even know if this 'other method' even left Ebetha."
"You said the electronics were important. The electronics aren't here. But Huan and Reilly are still looking. That tells me they didn't know about or find either one. Just a hunch, but if they had what they needed, why bother Claire?"
"A warning? Scare me into compliance?"
"If it were me, Winston, that's not how I would scare you."
I remembered the panic in Claire's text when police contacted her about Carla. Maybe they were scrambling, too. Maybe they were just toying with me.
"Let's get this stuff stowed," I said as Diane drove away from the curb.
~
The security lights had just flared to life as Diane left the storage unit into the cool May air.
"A hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars," she whispered to me so the other storage units wouldn't be jealous.
That sounded like too much money to be hiding in a steel closet out along a state highway. Certainly it was more valuable than anything else in there. My overstuffed chair was front and center in the storage shed waiting for me to join in a tomb befitting the lower middle class, a throne of eternal obsolescence. Instead of jewels and precious metals, my offerings were sparkling game dice in that purple Crown Royal bag and my books, clothes I hadn't worn since before my hospital stay and I was fifty pounds heavier.
Each brick of cash was fresh and crisp, uncirculated. "If it was bad money," Diane suggested, "It's been laundered. My guess is this was some kind of reserve fund because there are bricks of tens and twenties here among the benjamins. Walking around money for people who need bribe money or payoffs."
"You think Parker was corrupt?"
"I don't know. But I will say that good guys have to pay to play, too."
"Is it safe here?"
"I put it in the very back in a box marked 'Hamdingers' and buried it under a museum of 1990s fashion. Plus the whole unit smells like pig shit now so…I'd say Fort Knox."
"There's one last place we could try. If for no other reason than we'll get their attention."
Diane was listening. "Did I mention you're now officially on the clock?"
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Canary Street.
Looking up and down the block, I didn't notice any change since my last visit. The windows of the yellow townhouse were still drawn. The plastic flower gardens out front remained intact. All the windows on the Funeral Home were sealed, including the one that I saw peeled up.
A sign out front indicated the property was for sale by Dirk Jeremy, agent of Stockman Realty Company, LTD.
By the time I reached the front door, Diane had the house key out of the gray lock box under the handle and unlocked the door.
"How can you…?"
"I dated a realtor. It's a magnetic key they use so they can get into any of the lock boxes to open up the houses. You can get them online but I preferred the method of getting an ex-boyfriend drunk and lifting his key. Less paperwork.
She read off a realtor dossier on her tablet. "This corner complex is listed at $1.2 million. Holy shit. They'll never get that. These downtown row homes best be tricked out to get near six figures."
"Oh, this is a special place, all right," I said and walked through the vestibule.
The place was empty. Not just empty, trashed. All the camera mounts were missing, torn from the walls and ceilings. The communications panels were missing as well, leaving wires and cables hanging over the ripped drywall. Plaster and drywall dust covered the mud-stained carpets. The furniture was gone, of course, except for a few pieces that looked like they wouldn't fit like the leather couch where I met the attorneys that day. It was on its side and cut up like someone took out their aggression on it and literally cut the stuffing out of it. The kitchen was empty and pieces of the central island scattered on the scuffed and gouged tile suggested it was removed with extreme prejudice along with the hanging cabinets.
Around the entryway and up the stairs someone made their mark with black spray paint. I recognized the symbols: Aeternan – Aelfish.
"Doesn't surprise me. Kids see a For Sale sign and they have a party."
"I don't think so. I think they bugged out."
Upstairs, the carpet was torn and dirty as well with boot prints clearly visible in spots. All the doors were missing, a more efficient way of removing the electric locks and sensors with them, the latches pried out of the frame. In the Dungeon Room, the same hasty hands tore out all the fake stone castle wall hangings and the room was recently painted a neutral tan. It was a bad job, too. Paint splattered all over the hardwood floor. The new drywall over the door sealed the secret doorway to the funeral home.
Every room had been cleaned up.
Back downstairs, I checked the patio and back yard. Walking through, I almost impaled my foot on an upturned nail in a piece of broken crown molding. The yard was a mess of broken lumber and plaster. The hot tub was gone, replaced by a pile of moldy paneling. A recent rain left soggy furniture and mattress pieces in a dangerous mess of splintered wood and broken glass. People emptied the upstairs through the windows, it seemed. The high security hedges were covered in debris and the chain link fence that had been chained shut, hung together by unsecured links. Red plastic cups lay scattered across the yard. An empty beer keg hung in one of the bushed toward the back of the lot. Diane was right about the party but I still believe cheap, quick labor was used to clean out the site.
Everything downstairs had been done in a hurry. Anything they needed to keep or protect – the intercoms and security equipment – was gone. Everything else was destroyed or removed. The sitting room smelled like someone tried to start a fire in the sealed hearth, which I confirmed when I saw the tall pear-shaped char mark rising from the pit over the mantle and wall and the ashes of pizza boxes on the log rack. Dried foam and the extinguisher it came from covered
the floor in front of it. Behind the murdered sofa, more spray paint. Like the front room it read, in Aelfish: "NO LONGER SACRED."
I was on my way to the basement I looked for a switch and ended up stabbing my finger on bare wire. It was the first time I realized there was no power in the house. No power, no light. No flashlight, either. The stairs leading down were so dark below the third step that there might not have been stairs, either.
"Hmm."
On a hunch, I checked the directory in my Magic Book. The name Dirk Jeremy brought up an active account for "Visor Crownthrope the Enchantor." He was in on it.
If IT wasn't monitoring my Magic Book, they would have a hard time ignoring me after I dialed Dennis Reilly's phone on the cell they probably bugged and mentioned I was at the Safe House.
"What now? I guess this isn't what you expected."
"Nope. Not at all."
On our way out the front door, we noticed the long, blank limo at the curb. The short, hairy man in the Hawaiian shirt put up his arms and shouted, "Winston Casey, you old so-and-so!"
Chapter Thirty
"Hey, boss!"
"Murray?"
Murray the Bartender, nature's attempt to build a better Patton Oswalt, stood at the foot of the steps with a broad grin holding a big paper grocery bag with twine handles.
"You remember! I'm flattered. Can I ask you something? Do people actually enjoy living in this climate? I mean, I don't own pants and here they seem mandatory."
"Who is this," Diane asked likely equating Murray to the usual gamer geek stereotype.
"Only half the year." I followed him as he went to the window and looked out. "Did Jean-Paul send you?"
"Of course he did. I wouldn't come here voluntarily. But there was money involved." He turned back to look me over like I was cat puke over his favorite Hawaiian shirt.
"How did you find me?"
"Your ex. I only had that address to go on. She said you were assaulted yesterday? Looks like somebody hit you with an angry cat, man."
Murray's appearance was strange, but when he put the flowers down on my bed tray I realized he was the only natural choice for getting that second crate to me. I asked, "Is Jean-Paul okay?"
"Last I saw J.P. he was cleaning out Parker's cabana and had a special mission for me. Nadeim was heading west with Parker's dominatrix friend from Vegas – Mistress Huan. Big tits, always looks like she's walking through a fart cloud?"
That's her. "Nadeim left with Huan? Voluntarily?"
"Dunno. The desk manager told me Huan showed up at the front desk, Nadeim was about to punch out for her vacation so I guess they offered her a ride to the airport. They left together. J.P. was probably already in the air. He left with the tour guide the night before. Tour guide said J.P. got dropped off at Virgin Airlines and handed him a resignation letter."
"That's how Nadeim got caught. She didn't get out in time."
"Sorry?"
"She's dead, Murray. Alan had her killed."
Murray's face dropped. "Shit. No. Alan who?"
I studied him a moment. He looked angry, completely surprised by the news.
"Fuck. There's killing happening in all this? Is that why you're all fucked up?"
"Yes."
"Fuck. Serious?"
"Serious as fuck, Murray." I gestured to the big grocery bag still in his hand. "What did you bring me?"
He suddenly remembered and spoke as if from a script. "Greetings from the Caribbean nation of Ebetha, a hearty handshake and a box of electronics in a diplomatic pouch courtesy the Ebethan Embassy."
He opened the bag and tipped the top toward me.
Parker's laptop case.
Bartender ex Machina.
"Well, they do what I tell them. In my spare time I am the Ebethan Ambassador to the United States."
"You're shitting me."
"No. I won the title in a poker game with the Prime Minister. I'm also the Minister of Fun, but that's more of an unofficial title."
"Wow. You're not just the wacky, cherubic man-child I thought you were, Murray."
"Posh! I only use my office for free trips and avoid your happy-handed TSA creeps. We have an office in DC and one pool car…so, okay…car. It's like a little bit of Ebetha rolls with me. So listen, I just drove three hours to find you. Care to dine with the Ebethan Ambassador at one of your esteemed strip mall gourmet restaurants?"
"There's a TG Applebusters up the road."
"Never heard of it."
"It's a Guy Fieri masturbatory nightmare."
"Perfect. Let's go."
"Hang on. Let me get my friend down the hall. Diane!"
"What?"
Diane rounded the corner from the waiting area, looking just a little more impatient than the hour before. Murray looked quite surprised and pleased to see her. She towered over him, which seemed to please him in a disturbing way.
"This is my friend Diane."
He beamed. "Yeah! Hi! Murray!"
Diane seemed amused by Murray and they lingered in one another's eyes for a short time before I asked who was buying.
~
Parker's military laptop case sat at the bottom of a pile in the back seat of Murray's Lincoln MKC, a shiny black SUV so posh and luxurious that it made Murray look more like a resort valet than the diplomat. The driver made sure all of us were comfortable in the back before taking his seat behind the wheel up front. Murray said something to the young man through the glass partition. We left without further instruction.
The interior smelled like cinnamon and orange. The air filled with Jamaican love songs.
"Do you like this, Diane?" Murray was looking for some sign of interest in her. I focused on the case. It took me a moment to remember the combination of the locks, but I was able to open it up.
Diane was professional and cordial. "Ambassador, this is lovely. Do you visit the embassy often?"
"Twice a year for the gathering of the old, stuffy men's club. Most of them are former cold war grumpy gusses. The last time Ebetha mattered to anybody was in the 80s when the US and Soviets both thought we'd make a great tactical base for or against Cuba. We had just earned our independence from France – though I think 'earned' is too strong a word. They forgot about us I think. The Prime Minister told Reagan and Brezhnev to bugger off. Since then it's been all rum and tourists."
Diane leaned forward. "Interesting."
I got into Parker's account. The system was taking forever to load. It wanted to access the SUV's Wi-Fi for a stronger connection.
Diane flirted. "And you're a bartender, too?"
"Pays better. You're a private eye?"
Diane smiled. "Yes I am."
"Former police?"
"Didn't pass the psyche exam for State Police. Anger issues. But I'm past that with love in my heart and certified for corporate, private, and government investigations."
As the dial spun on the login screen I said, "I didn't know that. Government, too, huh?"
"Yep."
"Fantastic. You must have stories."
"I do, but most of them are private."
"Sure, they are. You armed?"
"Yes."
"Can't tell. Are you a good shot?"
"Most days."
"Wow. Are you married?"
"Ambassador, are you flirting with me?"
"Yes. Yes I am. Winston, you get that thing working yet?"
The connection reset for the fourth time and asked for the car's Wi-Fi credentials. "The uplink isn't working. It wants your password."
"Oh. Sure," Murray replied. He read off several digits from memory and I typed them into the text field.
"Maybe you need to reboot it," Diane suggested, leaning over to me and putting a finger on the touch screen to move my cursor out of the text box. "Look, your system is dragging."
"It's been shut down for a week, Diane."
She touched the Shutoff icon in the upper right corner of the screen. "Seriously, trust me. We'll be out of the car anyway and…"
"Oh we can still use it in the restaurant. It's got decent range."
I lifted my hands out of the way as she touched REBOOT on the drop-down menu that appeared below the shutoff option.
"I know," she sang. "But I hate these things when they can't establish a firm uplink they never work right."
She sat back in her seat again while the laptop shut down and rebooted. Murray seemed more annoyed by this development than he should have even been interested.
"Computer expert and private eye. I like the package."
"Thanks, Ambassador. So where are we really going?"
"Lunch," Murray replied with a chuckle.
"I heard something about TG Applebusters and we're on our way in the wrong direction. Your driver there has the route up on his navigator. Looks like we're headed for the airport."
Without thinking about it I snapped the laptop shut and put it back in the case. "What are we doing where now?"
Diane whistled. "Winston, you're a bright guy but you've got the street smarts of a baby squirrel on a highway."
Murray was impressed. "You can see that from there? Wow. I'm just… holy hell, man."
Still confused, I asked. "You're not really an Ambassador are you?"
"Oh, I am. Always have been. And a bartender. And A Knight of Lord Bunting-upon-Stropf's sacred order. Not in that order of course. Actually, reverse that order and you get the idea of how my life goals are managed. Diane, do you know about our sacred order? Did Clueless MacGoo there tell you what we're all about?"
I interrupted, my brain catching up. "Did you kill them?"
"Nadeim and JP? No. That's Huan's job. And the Russians. Speaking of, Lord Wynncase: you know that your soon-to-be-ex-wife is having new plumbing and kitchen tops installed today, right? We gave her a great deal, man. The installation was FREE. You know what that labor goes for?"
"Jesus, man. Clownshoe is one of your people, too?"
Murray laughed. "Oh hell, no. He's just knows a good price when he sees it. So, to answer your question, Diane: we are going back to Vegas so our runaway Courtier here can answer for Treason. Are you up to speed yet, Winston? You see why she didn't want you to log in?"