The Solid-State Shuffle (Sunken City Capers Book 1)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  It's quite the staircase to make an entrance on, wearing a long-sleeve silver-buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up and straight-legged black cargo pants with my super-sexy black rubber-soled canvas shoes. In a place like Korum's you want to be able to flee quickly and/or knee bastards in the balls and punch them in the throat without them being able to grab onto loose clothing.

  The wide stairs empty into a large gothic setting with twenty-foot arched ceilings of gray and yellow brick. Stone columns supporting the archways punctuate the space, breaking up sight lines and creating many nooks and crannies which are good for private meetings. It's actually one of the reasons I hate the place. The farther back you go, the more hidden the alcoves are from the door. So naturally, like a high-school cafeteria in the movies, a parsing of rank and position happens. Those of higher rank are farthest from the main entrance, and it's rigidly enforced (don't ask).

  I step off the stairs onto the concrete floor, stained to look like boxed wood parquet floors. It sounds like it'd be a cheap effect, but it really sets off the space nicely. The large circular glowing chandeliers hanging by a single black chain in the center of the archways and matching wall sconces fill the space with a soft warm light that plays off the floors expertly.

  Now if it were clear of the riff-raff, and if there were no steady stream of smoke from patrons' cigars and cigarettes, it might actually be a cool place to relax—so long as (like vampires and criminal types) you don't desire to see natural light as there are no windows. There are no vampires here, but don't be deceived; several of the current occupants are soulless, blood-sucking asshats.

  Speaking of which, one of Hayes's underlings threads his way through the tables towards me. Smoke swirls around the tall lanky man in a tan blazer that's too long in the midsection. His finger-length dirty-blond straight hair dumps down on his forehead, and he has a small thin mustache on an otherwise clean-shaven face for a quality-pedophile kind of look complete with a too-long chin.

  Long Chin comes over. "Are you here to see Mr. Hayes?" he asks in a deep voice. His pale-blue eyes keep roaming around the entrance—everywhere but at me. Dismissive, disrespectful prat.

  "No." I try to push past him to follow the way he came. When Long Chin tries to stay in front of me, I kick his back heel in the air over his other leg and he trips and falls into a nearby table with a clang and all sorts of commotion. I keep moving.

  So this is why Hayes constantly wanted to be coming over here—to show off his position in the high-school cafeteria and insult me by sending a lackey and pretending I was coming to him at his beck and call.

  Hayes just moved from annoying to needing to be dealt with. If Hayes is the one behind all this, then I'm going to freaking steal the nipples off his own chest and put the little prick in his place.

  I pass the bar that’s pressed up against the back wall, strategically located in the middle of the establishment so that the low-classed plebes don't have to pass the higher-class aristocracy on the way to get a drink. Korum herself is tending bar, her bald dark-skinned head and looped gold earrings reflecting patches of the soft light.

  I nod briefly at her as I walk by. She's been watching me out of the corner of her eye while tending bar since the commotion of Long Chin. Even though we're both Germanic in origin, we ... uh, didn't hit it off the first time I was here. Say what you want about the cops, but at least they publicize and educate the public on the rules.

  Hayes is sitting alone at one of the curved high-backed booths facing outward on the wall farthest from the entrance. The tall dark leather backing of the booth makes the small little man look like a small little boy. Almost sad. The black-copper pendant light hangs over the smallish circular table, like a streetlight shining down on an orphan lost in a land of giants.

  He too has been watching me and doesn't smile as I approach. He fiddles with a pack of cigarettes on the round wooden table in front of him. "You do know how to be discrete, don't you?" he asks, looking past me, presumably at Long Chin picking himself up.

  "No." I slide into the booth. "Move," I command him.

  I smile inwardly as he jumps at my tone to obey but then schools himself. He slowly moves over like it's his own decision and stares daggers at me in the process.

  He was sitting in the middle and with me on the edge it would've been a little too close for comfort. "What is that cologne?" I ask. "Manure or feet?"

  "I thought you were going to contact me to set the place to meet?" Hayes asks annoyed.

  I shrug in response. Always keep 'em guessing—another nugget my father passed along.

  Long Chin finally catches up to me.

  Hayes says, "This is Truman, my—"

  "Yes," I say to Long Chin, "I'd like a vieux carré, neat and in a tumbler. And get my friend here a booster chair." Vieux carrés should be served in a tumbler, but a lifetime of ordering them and getting them in floofy martini glasses has taught me to be explicit.

  Long Chin's pale blue eyes narrow in annoyance and looks to Hayes for direction. Hayes nods curtly, and Long Chin wanders off to the bar for my drink. My impression of Long Chin would go up considerably if he actually brought back a booster chair.

  Hayes stares at me through narrowed eyes and a tightness across his forehead. "Do you want this job or not?"

  "Yes," I say through clenched teeth. We need to get closer to Hayes, and any cash—if there is any. A payment to the Citizen Maker is looming.

  "Then what climbed up your—"

  I snake my hand out and grab his cigarettes, cutting him off. Surprise flits across his face, disappearing quickly by controlled calm.

  "Personnel problems," I answer while fiddling with the cigarette pack. Which is sorta true.

  Hayes cocks an eyebrow, never taking his eyes off of the cigarette pack.

  He's so fixated on them that I finally flip the pack open and take one out and throw the pack back at him. "Yeesh. Consider it an advance on the job. Got a light?"

  Hayes slides the cigarette pack off the table and slips it into his brown tweed sports jacket that looks way too warm to be worn. "Are you still able to do the job?" Hayes asks me. He doesn't offer me a light.

  "Yes." I look around the bar for a source to light the cigarette. I hate smoking, but I wanted to see how Hayes would react. And then I really wanted to see what was so damn special about those cigarettes he was so fixated on. "I'll have it worked out tonight," I tell Hayes. "Then I won't be so ... difficult."

  That's as close to a conciliatory tone I'm going to give Professor Manboy with tufts of gray near his temples.

  Puo and Winn are both listening in, but are on strict orders not to interrupt me unless it's important. Puo is piping in low classical music so we know if we're cut off again. Right now it's Mozart piano concerto number I-don't-give-a-shit. It's pleasant though, makes me think I should be wearing a hundred-pound dress in a ballroom. Although, I thought a piano concerto would only be the piano, shows what I know.

  Long Chin returns with my drink and unceremoniously sets it down on the table with a thunk, almost slopping the amber brown liquid over the top of the glass—a mortal sin.

  "Would you be a dear, and go fetch me a light?" I ask sweetly.

  Truman again looks to Hayes, but then complies.

  I dip my forefinger into the vieux carré to test it for chemicals before sipping the drink (my fingernail comes out clean). I savor the complex flavors. The base is a spicy rye whiskey, with a sugary note of cognac and a sweetness from the vermouth. But then the bitters and Benedictine add anise and herbal notes for a layered flavor profile. It's a lesson in contrasts—kinda like me and Winn.

  Hayes waits a few seconds, surveying the area around us before starting. "Are you familiar with Professor Julia Locklear?"

  There's no point in lying to him. "Yes." She's something of an urban legend based here in the Seattle Isles. She's a Professor Emeritus at The University of Washington, and eccentric to say the least. She owns a classic townhouse in the Central
District on Center Island, and it's rumored to be packed full of art: paintings, sculptures, and odd pieces of architecture—a reclamation specialist's jackpot.

  She's also paranoid. So paranoid she's said to have designed her own security, and Cleaners are wary of the job. Three crews have been caught trying to escape. Getting in is easy. Getting out, not so much.

  "You think you've solved it?" I ask. Professor Locklear's townhouse is something I've had my eye on, but it was too close to our old gig back on the east coast that we're trying to lay low from.

  Long Chin lanks back over and plunks down a glass ashtray and a box of cigar matches.

  The lanky goon makes to sit next to Hayes. I give a slight shake of my head "no" to Hayes.

  Hayes dismisses Truman with an indifferent backhanded wave.

  Truman complies with a dirty look for me and walks off into the crowd toward the main entrance.

  I take another sip of my vieux carré and appreciate the undertone of bitters to the sweetness before I scorch my throat with tobacco smoke. I light up and manage not to cough. I'm no tobacco expert, but I think this cigarette is bad—the smoke has a slight yellow tinge to it. Gross.

  "You have disgusting taste in cigarettes," I tell him. I set it down.

  "It discourages leeches," he says dryly. "And yes, I have a solution—"

  "That requires us to work together," I finish for him.

  "Yes. I need an extra set of hands. Professor Locklear will be at an all-night student lock-in at the North American Art Museum with her students. She controls the townhouse's security. One team will trigger the alarm at the museum. The authorities will lock the place down, no one in or out. And, the key is, they'll signal jam the entire museum. The other team will then hit the home. She'll be none the wiser."

  "Do you have a plant?" I ask—a replica of what we're going to reappropriate. Professor Locklear is a hoarder—of nice stuff—but still a hoarder. Hoarders have uncanny memory of all their stuff, which is why they can't let go of it. Sticking a fake in helps assuage their sense of balance and keep them blind.

  Hayes nods.

  It's clever. I'll give him that. Nothing will actually be taken at the museum, confusing the authorities. And with a townhouse stuffed to the brim with art, she won't likely give the plant a thorough once over, if at all.

  Yellow smoke curls up from the halfway burned cigarette in the ashtray that I haven't touched since the first acrid puff.

  "Falcon here," Winn whispers into my ear. Winn is on the ground outside Korum's keeping an eye out for an ambush, while being close at hand in case I need back up.

  "The lanky one," Winn continues, "exited Korum's and checked in with Hayes's squeeze who's lounging around the corner on the street. No sight of the Bald Accountant."

  Those three make up Hayes's team. The Bald Accountant, near as we can guess, is their tech support, holed up somewhere like Puo keeping an eye on things. And Squeeze is Hayes's girlfriend, a small mousy woman whose purpose beyond being Hayes's squeeze is hard to discern.

  "You found a Cleaner to take the job?" I ask. I'm really hoping the answer is no.

  "Yes," Hayes says.

  Damn. I hate dealing with Cleaners. Pain in the ass the lot of 'em.

  Hayes refuses to give any more details on the Cleaner, and I let it go for now. I'll dig more when I meet them.

  "What's the take?" I ask.

  "A celadon jade Chinese vase from the Quianlong period."

  Ooh, I bet it's gorgeous. Chinese vases have the most amazing, intricate carving of jade, while celadon refers to the pale green color.

  Hayes makes motions on the bench between us below the table to indicate about the size of a basketball.

  "Who's the fence?" I ask.

  "I'll take care of that," Hayes says.

  "No."

  "Don't trust me?"

  I shrug. "Since we're big on trust, let me take it to my fence, and then I'll cut you in."

  Hayes fiddles with his jacket. "Fine. I'll bring you along."

  The fluttering piano music playing through my comm-link dims momentarily and Puo whispers in my ear, "Queen Bee, there's a ton of emitting EM activity in Korum's. I'm not sure what it means, but it's concentrated there, in our band of interest."

  "We'll split two and two," I say to Hayes. "Truman and one of mine to the museum, you and I and the Cleaner to the townhouse."

  Now that we know how the solid-state drive was phoning home, we're monitoring that EM band to see if there's a way to figure out where the receiver is. Problem is, it's relatively easy to find emitters, but nearly impossible to find passive receivers.

  Puo continues, whispering through the comm-link, "The signals move in and out of Korum's. I think they're on the patrons. Be on the lookout for a receiver there if you can."

  My cigarette has burned to the butt.

  To Hayes I say, "May I have another cigarette? I'm afraid I let this one burn out."

  "No," Hayes answers without looking at me. "Anything else?"

  Yeah. What's with the cigarette pack that's moldy, and that you don't have a lighter for, and that I've never seen you smoke before? Does it have a receiver of some kind in it? "No."

  "Nine-thirty tomorrow. Meet at—"

  "No," I say. "I'll contact you directly at nine-twenty on where to meet up."

  Hayes shakes his head in annoyance. "With all this paranoia, I'm curious why you're even taking the job."

  I take a last sip from the vieux carré in front of me, the sweet and bitter flavors hitting the front and back of my tongue, and then slide out of the booth. "The same reason we all take these jobs."

  Hayes seems to accept that. All thieves accept money as the first motivation. He also likely knows about our money woes and the looming payment to the Citizen Maker. Bastard. "Don't be late," he calls after me.

  I resist the urge to give him the one-finger salute over my shoulder while I saunter out through the tables toward the main staircase leading out.

  Once I'm safely enough away from prying ears on the middle of the wide stairways alone, I ask Puo, "Toad, are you recording the activity?"

  Puo pipes in, "Yes. There's a lot of it. If they're all using a similar encoding technique with that much data, it may not be difficult to find patterns to start to crack it open."

  One thing at a time. "Stay focused on the task at hand—" It's time to transition to the shadow game on Hayes. "—Save your decoding energy for the other device first," I say. Colvin’s solid-state drive.

  "Oh, yeah," Puo says as an afterthought. "I have news on that front."

  "It'll have to wait," I say. "We need to transition." I don't want to risk any eavesdroppers gaining anything beyond what we absolutely have to say. Our comm devices should be secure; I had Puo take extra steps. But they clearly know how we're communicating.

  "Well, well, well," Puo says, "Queen Bee, I'm proud of you. Delaying gratification and all. Look how much you've grown these past few months."

  Winn adds nothing to this except silence.

  I grind my teeth at Puo.

  Korum's hired muscle swings the right twelve-foot door inward as I approach, letting in the diffused sunlight from the setting sun obscured through overcast clouds.

  Time to get started.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I SLIP PAST The Rusty Gate diner in the shadows of the buildings on 13th Avenue running north/south and quickly duck into an alley and run along its length. The overcast sky and buildings block the worst of the evening setting sun, but the humidity seems to collect in the shadows.

  I wipe the growing sweat off my forehead. "Status?" I ask Winn and Puo.

  Winn answers, "I still have eyes on two of his crew."

  Puo answers, "I'm hooked into the municipality systems. Nothing out of the ordinary, no sign of Baldy."

  "Falcon," I say, "I'm en route, ETA in eight, ten minutes. Maintain eyes on the two, watch for Homunculus. Prioritize Squeeze for eyes on Homunculus."

  Winn acknowledges.


  To Puo I ask, "Toad, do you hear the beeper?"

  "Yeah," Puo answers. "I've got it amid all the crap, as well as audio. Sounds lively inside a pocket."

  I don't smoke. But I do deftly plant trackers with audio bugs when fiddling with cigarette packs.

  The heavy air smells like the coming of a storm. It feels thick on the skin as I hurry through the streets, wet, causing me to perspire and creating a desire to rinse off. It didn't feel this way on the way into Korum's.

  I spiral out on the streets and alleys for a bit before doubling back to meet up with Winn. He's staked out on the fourth floor of a building across from Korum's, in a lawyer's office closed for the evening.

  The lawyer's door, green painted with the firm's name etched onto it in gold, is unlocked. I slip on a pair of thin wrist-length black gloves and open the door. I find Winn hanging back a bit from the window facing the street with a pair of auto-binoculars. He looks at me briefly and motions to a black duffle bag on the ground that contains a change of clothes for me.

  I grab the bag and instinctively wander to another office so Winn can't see me change. I tie up my hair in a ponytail and change into black yoga pants and a matching black tank top. I change out my canvas shoes for flexible, softer black flats and wander back to Winn.

  "Anything?" I ask.

  "Not yet," Winn answers.

  "Toad," I say to Puo, "Pipe in the beeper audio."

  I hear the muffled sounds of Korum's, and then loud rustling as the cigarette pack moves around Hayes's pocket. I tell Puo I hear the audio. And then we wait.

  And wait. Apparently Hayes really likes Korum's. Content to just sit there.

  I take a turn on the auto-binoculars. They scan my eyes and auto-focus on Long Chin and Squeeze below. Little green boxes are already framed around their heads (set up by Winn) and move around with them as the two move and talk. Bits of conversation are translated at the bottom of my vision as the auto-binoculars try to lip-read and translate. The lip-reading tech is not very good and easy to fool, as evidenced by what it's reading now, The carpet puddle wore goggles.