The Invisible Crown (Hazzard Pay Book 1)

by Charlie Cottrell

  I made my way toward the front of the building, looking for a stairwell. I didn’t know precisely where Stewart’s office was, but if he was as high-ranking in the firm as his wife seemed to think, it was a safe bet his office was in the general direction of up. I finally encountered a fire door leading to an industrial-looking stairway and followed it up four flights before I ran out of stairs. That made the fourth floor as good a place as any to start my search.

  The fourth floor was mostly a large, single room filled with cubicles. The outside walls were lined with private offices with actual windows, something the peons in the cubicle farm would have killed to have. Personally, I’ve spent a good chunk of my adult life trying to avoid too much natural light, preferring to do most of my detectively skulking under cover of darkness. Also, the light of the day star does seem to heighten certain aspects of a hangover.

  I walked the room’s perimeter, trying to avoid making eye contact with any of the drones moving purposefully about the office space. No one paid any attention to me; they were all busily locked into their own little worlds filled with office politics, gossip about who was sleeping with whom, and who might be up for a promotion if they nailed the Henderson presentation. It was all alien to me. There aren’t a lot of presentations in my line of work, outside of presenting evidence to a court when you catch a crook. But since most of my work usually involved unfaithful spouses caught in various states of undress, I didn’t often have to go to court.

  Stewart’s office turned out to be on the floor, up against the southern wall of the room. It had a large picture window overlooking the cubicle farm and another one overlooking the street. There was a desk positioned right outside the door, currently unmanned. Apparently his secretary really was out, but there were no indicators of whether or not it was a planned absence or if she’d be gone long. I stepped into Stewart’s office, closing his door softly and drawing the blinds closed to afford myself a bit of privacy while I got down to snooping.

  The man’s desk was a model of accountant efficiency; there were no papers piled up on it, save for the small, neat stack in his out tray in one corner. One wall of the office was made of built-in shelves, all of them filled with accounting books, codices of tax law, and the occasional knick-knack or candid photograph. He was a weasely-looking guy, wearing glasses in a day and age when most people got preventative gene therapy as a child or even just corrective surgery if they had bad eyes for non-genetic reasons. His were large, thick, and round, a throwback to a time when the term geek was a pejorative, well before Stewart’s birth. Here was a guy born with a Kick Me sign taped to his back.

  But hey, he must’ve had some good qualities, because that wife of his was . . . damn.

  Ahem. Moving on.

  I fired up the computer built into Stewart’s desk and brought up a vid window to hover over the desktop. I found a port built into the desk and inserted a small data chip that Miss Typewell had programmed for me. Nowadays, everything is computerized. If you’re going to dig up any dirt on anyone, you have to be able to navigate computer systems and even do a little light hacking.

  I’m not completely hopeless with modern technology. I can use a personal computer, bypass electronic locks, and even occasionally get the coffeemaker to prepare a cup of java for me. But hacking . . . no, it’s not in my skillset. Thankfully, Miss Typewell was pretty handy with computer systems. They just made sense to her in a way they never did for me. She’d put together a little virus/hacking program. All I had to do was plug the data chip into a system, and it would do the rest.

  There were a couple of muted beeps from the computer, and the vid window switched from the default login screen to Stewart’s desktop. I opened up his calendar and email, looking for anything that might be related to his disappearance. The hacking program helped. It ran routines looking at the people he communicated with the most, did data analysis on when he most frequently sent and received messages, and checked if there were any messages with unusual contents or attachments. While the program ran, I decided to do some rummaging through the man’s desk. The top drawer was locked, but I made quick work of that with my lockpick. The drawer slid open with a whisper on its gliders, revealing the typical office junk drawer contents: rubber bands, staples, pens and pencils, paperclips, and sticky notes. Nothing unusual there, though I did grab a couple of pens because you never know when you’ll need one.

  The next drawer down was deeper than the first and contained a series of hanging file folders. Each folder contained a number of documents. I glanced through the files in the first hanging folder, discovered a bunch of spreadsheets filled with transactions, payers, and payees. Nothing out of the ordinary for an accountant. A quick survey of the other folders revealed pretty much exactly the same thing. I slid the drawer shut with a frustrated sigh and looked up to see the data chip had completed its search routine. I hit a button on the keyboard on Stewart’s desk, sending a copy of the data to Miss Typewell to examine, and then ejected and pocketed the data chip.

  The sound of someone clearing their throat in a manner designed to grab someone’s attention did exactly that to mine. I looked up to see three guys in suits with earpieces and sunglasses looming over me.

  “Is there something we can help you with, sir?” the first goon asked.

  “No, I’m good, thanks,” I said, giving what I hoped was a charming grin.

  “Sir, we can’t help but notice that you are in Mr. Stewart’s office without permission.”

  I feigned surprise. “You mean this isn’t my office?” I said, shock radiating from my face. “Damn, the amnesia must have been worse than I thought!”

  I tried to rise and exit the room, but the third goon put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down into the chair while goon #1 held a hand to his earpiece and reported to security.

  “There’s a man in Stewart’s office,” the goon said. “Vaguely ethnic, mid-thirties, scruffy-looking—”

  “‘Vaguely ethnic?’ I’m clearly half Native American, you racist ass,” I protested.

  “—about six feet tall, maybe 220,” the security goon continued.

  “I’m really about 6’1”,” I told the other two goons companionably, “but I slouch.”

  Goon #2 dug through my pockets and pulled out my private detective’s license. “He’s got a P.I. license,” he said, waving the badge at goon #1.

  “It’s real, I promise,” I said, not helping my case any.

  “Got it,” the guard speaking with the security office said. He looked back toward me. “Chief Li wants to see him,” the guard said. Without a word, the other two grabbed me by the upper arms and hauled me out of the chair, whisking me out of the office and into an elevator so fast that I barely had a chance to protest in a snarky way.

  “Now you see the violence inherent in the system!” I shouted to the cubicle drones as I was dragged through their office space. Hey, I said I barely had a chance, not no chance.

  III.

  A meeting with building security can go one of two ways.

  In the first case, it can go badly. The chief of security decides you are too much of a liability and has you quickly and quietly disposed of, usually via the process of a bullet to the back of the head in some quiet corner, and left to rot in a dumpster in some dark alleyway several blocks away.

  This way is, as one might imagine, less than ideal. Don’t get involved in a case where that’s what security will do to you.

  The second way meeting building security might go is like this: you are ushered into a well-lit room, where a man sits behind a desk with his fingers steepled like a movie villain. One wall of his office will be composed entirely of viewscreens showing a rotating parade of the various hallways, offices, and spaces within his domain. Big Brother surveying his kingdom. He’ll speak to you, possibly as an equal, possibly as a child, and tell you that you have no business being in his building, and that he will let you off with this warning because he is merciful, and then he’ll have you e
scorted—read thrown—out of the building, probably via the back door so as not to attract too much attention. There will be an unspoken agreement that, if he catches you in the building again, he will resort to violence, or rather have his men resort to violence. And you can tell they’re the sort of guys who like resorting to violence, men with a penchant and taste for causing other people pain. You will not want to come back into the building, and hopefully you won’t have to, but maybe you’ll be prepared for violence if you do come back.

  Maybe.

  I was dragged into a well-lit office, where a slim, well-dressed man of Asian extraction sat behind a large desk piled high with various reports and datasheets. One wall of his office was, in fact, composed entirely of viewscreens displaying the hallways, offices, and communal spaces of his domain, a rotating parade of images reminding you he was in charge.

  The man wasn’t as physically imposing as I’d thought he would be. He also didn’t have the military-style haircut these security chiefs usually had. He did have a massive scar down the left side of his face, cutting across his left eye and down around the curve of his mouth. His dark hair was long and swept back from his temples, creating feathery wings over his ears. He looked young and old all at the same time. There was an ageless quality to him; he had the good genes that would keep him looking younger than his years for decades until, like a switch was flipped, he’d suddenly look downright ancient, and then would look exactly the same for the next four or five decades. It was a neat trick.

  “So, you’re the detective who was trying to bluster his way into Wally Stewart’s office this morning,” he said. His English was lightly accented, but the accent was central European. German, if I had my guess. That was an interesting twist.

  “That’s me,” I replied, trying to sound casual. “Bluster and harsh language are two of my best tools.”

  “What concerns me, Detective—Hazzard, is it?”

  “Yup.”

  “Yes. Well, what concerns me, Detective Hazzard,” he went on in that cultured accent that reminded me of the villains in so many action movies, “is that, despite being turned away by reception, you still managed to find your way into the building and into Mr. Stewart’s private office.”

  “Yeah. Your security needs some work, guy.”

  “You may call me Chief Li,” he said smoothly, betraying no emotion. “Detective Hazzard, this firm does business with some very powerful clients. Those clients have very . . . sensitive data that we keep here. And we promise them we will keep that data safe. Allowing someone like you to waltz in does not help us keep that promise.” What had started out as a best-case scenario was quickly escalating into what looked to be a worst-case scenario. I started looking for alternative exits, but the only door out of the office was the one I’d come in through, and three goons stood between me and freedom.

  “Well, see, Chief Li, I’m not particularly interested in the private data of any of those clients. I’m just looking into the disappearance of Mr. Stewart.”

  “But Mr. Stewart is not missing,” Chief Li responded. He gestured to one of the viewscreens on the wall. “Here is footage from his office from yesterday.” The screen went temporarily blank, then shifted to an image of the scrawny accountant seated at his desk, lost in his work. A time stamp in the bottom right corner of the image indicated it was from yesterday around 2:00 PM.

  “So why would his wife report him missing if he’s still coming into work?” I asked. “And why would the same office tell me was out of town on business when I asked about him?”

  Chief Li gave me a faint, knowing smile. “I cannot speak to Mr. Stewart’s personal affairs or private life, Detective Hazzard. If he is having marital problems, that is none of my concern. As to whether or not he is away on business . . . I’m afraid you are not cleared for that information.” He gave me a thin-lipped smile that had no humor in it.

  “Well, if that’s the case, I guess I’ll be on my way, then,” I said, adjusting the tilt of my hat and turning for the door.

  “Just one more thing, detective,” Chief Li said. I turned back toward him. His face still bore that thin-lipped smile, but his eyes—both the living right eye and the dead left one—glinted under narrowed lids. “If you darken the doorstep of Struthers & Miles again, I will take what I consider to be appropriate action against your person.”

  “Do I even want to know what ‘appropriate action’ would look like?” I asked casually.

  “No, you do not,” Chief Li replied.

  “Great. Glad I know where we stand,” I said, only a hint of sarcasm creeping into my tone.

  Chief Li swiveled away from me in his chair. “Have a good day, Detective.”

  IV.

  I was deposited—gently, I should note—on the street outside of Struthers & Miles. I could tell something was up in that building, that they were hiding something, but I wouldn’t be able to know exactly what they were hiding until I’d looked through the data Miss Typewell’s program had pulled from the computer.

  Making my way back to my car, I considered my next move. I had a few contacts in the criminal underworld, some of whom might even be willing to talk to me. I could always check with the couple of people in the Arcadia Police Department who’d still give me the time of day. Either of those avenues might yield results, or might turn out to be useless. There was only one way to find out.

  But first, I pulled up a vid window and called Miss Typewell. I needed to get her started on the hacking data.

  “Hey, Eddie,” she said as soon as we had an audio connection. “What’s up?”

  “I had your hacking program do a dig through Wally Stewart’s work computer. It should’ve already sent you the data. Think you could take a look at it and see if it turned up anything useful?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Just port the results to my personal machine when you’re done,” I said, signing off.

  I decided to head back into Old Town and visit . . . well, not a friend, exactly, because this guy didn’t have friends so much as he had people who paid him or who he hadn’t mauled yet. He tended to hang out on the corner of 4th Street and Shirley Temple Avenue, deep in the fetid, rotten heart of Old Town, a place called Wodehouse Square. Back before the economic crash had ruined the shipping and manufacturing industries that had been the lifeblood of Arcadia, Old Town had been a pretty nice place. Nowadays, the respectable types had all hightailed it to Downtown, and Old Town squatted south of it like a malignant tumor.

  This particular corner was known as the hangout for one of the few freelance criminals in Arcadia. Generally speaking, most of the criminal muscle in Arcadia was controlled by the Organization, the criminal syndicate that ran everything illegal in the city. You couldn’t sell drugs, run guns, kidnap a wealthy industrialist’s daughter, or buy a politician’s vote without it being okayed by the Organization’s shadowy leader, the Boss. No one really knew who the guy was, but everyone agreed he had a lock on the city’s criminal class.

  As a result, freelance thugs were pretty few and far between. Most goons signed up with the Organization as a matter of course; the syndicate was run more like a massive corporation than a criminal enterprise. The few individuals who did operate independently did so either with the grace of the Organization or because they were too scary or unpredictable—or both—to be controlled.

  The most notorious of the freelancers was Vinny the Pooh, so named because he either scared or beat the shit out of everyone he encountered. Vinny wasn’t so much a person as he was a gorilla in a suit. I don’t mean that metaphorically, either. He was literally a gorilla who wore a suit, because a certain level of professional attire was expected of enforcers in Arcadia, regardless of one’s genetic origins.

  No one was quite sure where Vinny had come from. He was definitely a gorilla, but he could talk and had some basic reasoning and logic skills. The best guess anyone had come up with so far was that he was a science experiment gone wrong, an early effort at genetic
modification—gen-modding—in reverse: giving human intelligence to an animal. Most gen-mods gave a human some animal characteristics: lizard scales, cats’ eyes, a dog’s sense of smell, stuff like that. Over the years, they’d become fairly common and reasonably cheap, so much so that street toughs and gang kids could even afford them.

  Vinny didn’t like people much, though he did enjoy beating the stuffing out of them. The Organization tended to let him be, probably because they were just as scared of him as everyone else. The Boss hired Vinny on occasion for contract jobs, and Vinny didn’t try to commit any major crimes that would interfere with the Boss’s criminal empire, and everyone was mostly happy about the arrangement. He frequently did work for a couple of lower-level management types in the Organization, one of whom would be the sort of guy who could give me a lead.

  I found Vinny in his favorite alley, some poor bastard clutched in one enormous paw as he mashed the guy’s face into pulp with the other. It was disconcerting, watching the ape work, but interfering might give him certain ideas about who to punch next. Vinny’s worldview was pretty simple: it was divided into people to punch and people to not punch. Folks in the latter category included whoever was paying him at the time, folks who had nothing he wanted or needed, and small children. Folks in the former category were potentially everyone else in the world. I’d just have to take my chance with getting his attention and hope that he didn’t identify me as a target.