Evil Genius

by Rice, Patricia

  Curiouser and curiouser was our enigmatic host.

  EG and Nicholas were slamming cabinets in search of who-knows-what when we entered. I left Nick and Mallard to consult while I marched EG upstairs at finger point.

  “There’s enough rare antique silver in here to pay for my college education at Harvard,” EG remarked insouciantly as we reached the elegant dining room. “I could smuggle it out in my backpack, store it at the bus station, and we could live off a few teaspoons a week.”

  I rolled my eyes. Where did I start? Raising kids required a lot more than feeding them when they’re hungry. “One, this is our house and we’re not leaving.” I stated my goal first, to impress her. “Two, you are putting schoolbooks in your backpack, not silver, and you’re going nowhere near a bus station.”

  “That’s three.”

  I continued. “Three, I wager Magda didn’t teach you to steal from your hosts.”

  She grimaced but didn’t argue the point. I just had to hope she hadn’t made a habit of stealing from any of our various “Daddies.” Powerful men tend to be vindictive when crossed.

  “Four, this whole house is bugged, and he probably hears every word you say.”

  Her eyes grew huge at that. Ha! I knew something the genius didn’t.

  “And fifth, stealing is a crime, and you won’t like jail.” Belatedly, I added, “Besides, it’s wrong to take from others.”

  “I was wondering when you would get to the morals clause,” the candelabra in the dining room said. “You have a unique outlook on life.”

  It had been a long day, and I was well past my pleasant quotient. Resisting flinging the ornate candelabra out the leaded glass window was the most I could manage. “EG isn’t stupid, just young. What’s your excuse?”

  “Not youth.” The microphone clicked off.

  I buried the candelabra beneath a ton of linen in the sideboard. I might admire Graham’s technology and ingenuity in bugging the whole damned house, but I didn’t have to put up with it.

  “Did you deliver the bruschetta?” I whispered as I pulled out some china for our dinner and handed EG the silverware.

  “He has a stand outside his door,” she whispered back. “I left the tray on it.”

  “What else is up there?”

  “I didn’t look. I figured I’d better not make him any madder.”

  As I’ve said, she’s not stupid. Just annoying. Guess I’d have to be the one to explore the top floor and find out more about our sexy-voiced, enterprising spider.

  Chapter Six

  Of terrorists and kings, and Ana dons a disguise.

  There’s something about midnight that gives cause for reflection, especially midnight in a creaky old mansion, knowing an eccentric spider haunted the top floor. I had to hope he wasn’t venomous.

  I ordered EG into bed at nine so I’d have a few hours to myself. She’d protested my checking on her, told me she didn’t need a mother—she already had one. I knew better, but I didn’t argue. I read somewhere that kids needed rules to feel secure, and I figured I needed a few to have peace. A bedtime ritual couldn’t hurt either of us.

  So she was tucked in with an old volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and I was sitting at the desk in my room, staring at a web site on Islamic fundamentalism that gave me creepy goose bumps. I wanted a mother to tuck me in for the night and tell me the world wouldn’t blow up while I was asleep.

  “They want to annihilate anyone who doesn’t think as they do,” I whispered, reading the translation that a Cambodian virtual assistant had sent.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” the intercom asked.

  I jumped three feet and turned over the Aeron desk chair.

  “Quit doing that,” I told him, righting the chair. I wanted to put a face to that impassive voice, and then I wanted to punch it.

  An instant message flashed across the screen. “Is this better?”

  Amazingly, it wasn’t. I needed a human voice right then. I hated admitting vulnerability, but at midnight, it seemed justified. “The instant message would have been a better way to call attention to yourself,” I admitted grumpily—aloud. “But now that I know you’re there, you may as well have your say.”

  “Nazis thought everyone should be like them.” The intercom spoke again. “For centuries, African tribes killed other tribes who weren’t like them, or shipped them out as slaves. They’re still eradicating each other over there. Christianity attempted to wipe out Islam in the Crusades. The need to annihilate anyone different isn’t limited to any particular race.”

  I didn’t have a high level of tolerance for bigots—which probably made his point: I wouldn’t mind annihilating the stupid. “People never learn,” I admitted.

  “Not until we learn to respect our differences and use them to work together to solve problems instead of waging war, but I’ll spare you the lecture.”

  I admired his philosophy, but logically speaking, it was kind of hard to believe it was possible to “work together” with a stupid bigot. Wiping out bigots seemed more productive.

  I scrolled through the translation of the web site of the fundamentalist organization that listed Pao’s name as a fund-raiser. From where did he raise his funds? And for what purpose? Mosques or terrorism? “How do you expect me to find this guy? Go to Cambodia?” I asked. It wasn’t as if I’d turned up an address for Pao’s palace or hovel or even his elephant. I suspected guys like this traveled as much as Magda, for entirely different reasons.

  Or maybe not so different. They were both running away.

  “I have reason to believe Pao is in the D.C. area,” Graham said, “raising funds for the Indonesian organization whose website you’re looking at. Illegal funds, since they don’t appear to be leaving the country by any legal means.”

  I’d ask him why in hell he didn’t do his own research if he knew that much, but I suspected I wouldn’t like the answer, and I certainly didn’t want to lose the job.

  “What are you, FBI?” I didn’t like the idea of a real spook in the attic, but it sure looked like I had one. In movies, spies got blown up—along with everyone around them. Maybe staying here wasn’t such a cool idea after all.

  But I knew a lot of CIA from hanging around embassies in my youth. They came in all colors and sizes, and except for those in war zones, none I knew had blown up lately.

  “It’s CIA that handles international security,” he lectured, “and no, I’m not one of them.”

  I heard something in his inflection that whispered he might have been one of them, once upon a time, and I shivered. Our resident spook was inordinately chatty at midnight.

  I tilted the Aeron chair back and put my feet up on the desk. “Pao owes you money?” I guessed. Remembering the accounting file, I opened it, but balance sheets were beyond me. I ran a search for Pao’s name in the document, but it didn’t appear. “Did he help you finance this house?” I asked, just to get a reaction.

  “The house is mine.” He sounded irritated at the suggestion.

  At least I’d disturbed his dispassionate professorial attitude. Score one for me.

  “Just locate Pao,” he finished. “My purpose in finding him is not your concern.”

  “If I spend all my time locating your fugitive, I’ll need more time to find my absconding lawyer.” I tried negotiating, without mentioning my ulterior motive of Tex. “I’ll need a month here instead of a week.”

  The following is not irrelevant information: It was hot up in my second floor bedroom, so I’d taken a shower, changed into shorts and halter top, and left my hair down to dry. When I leaned back in the chair, my hair fell free and swayed over the carpet. While I talked, I lifted one leg and admired the burgundy paint job I’d given my toenails. In the middle of my leg lift, the intercom went abruptly silent.

  The sudden silence made me sit up and take a look around. I’d seen men swallow their tongues when Magda performed that leg lift exercise. I hadn’t realized I’d imitated it until now.

 
Was there only one bug in here, or had he installed cameras, too? Did I dare go on a rampage in a home that wasn’t my own? I scanned the room for hiding places. The painting of John Quincy Adams over the daybed had eyes that seemed to beam at me with disapproval.

  Graham’s silence could have been just annoyance at my presumption, but I tested my theory that Max’s office held a concealed camera. I wiggled my toes at the painting. I had decent legs when I chose to flaunt them. I was thinking I should wear a pair of kick-ass heels to see if John Quincy would swallow his tongue.

  An irritated message flashed across the screen. “Find him. We’ll negotiate later.”

  “Fat chance,” I told the intercom, but I already knew it was dead. Maybe I was developing EG’s intuition, only mine applied to machines.

  I hadn’t proved a thing except Our Man Graham wanted Pao badly enough that he didn’t throw me out on my shell-like ear.

  Maybe I could find our missing lawyer, introduce him to Pao and Graham, and let them all blow each other up.

  Entertaining ideas of Pao’s nasty fundamentalist group exploding Brashton’s yacht in mid-Caribbean, I threw a sheet over the painting.

  Maybe I ought to write a book some day.

  Chapter Seven

  Ana visits the home of US government and learns the ghost in the attic is real.

  Early Thursday morning, I carried my breakfast into the library where the Cobalt Whiz waited for me. I loved that computer, and wanted nothing more than to surf its waves to see how far it could take me, but I had clients waiting on projects, as well as a scoundrel lawyer and a mysterious Cambodian businessman to track down, so playing was way down my list of activities . The perfidious senator was also way down the list. I’m not a detective. I was hoping the police would solve the case before I had to get involved.

  I’d sent more inquiries to my fellow virtual assistants in Southeast Asia asking for further translations of some of the websites I’d turned up. I couldn’t do much about finding Pao until I had replies.

  My old Dell had been delivered before I’d showered. I set it up in the library next to the Whiz and used it to follow up on my regular clients. I checked for a DSL line on the telephone and satisfied, dismantled the network connection and used the modem. Some of my clients value their privacy, so I took a lot of precautions. Unless Graham sneaked down here in the middle of the night, turned on the PC, figured out my password, and decoded the files, he was up a creek. Oh, and I changed my password daily and hid my hands while I typed it in.

  Out of nagging curiosity, I dug out the old files in the Dell that I’d built for my missing client. I’d kind of enjoyed his wry observations and the erudite language of his messages. He typed everything without capitals, but otherwise his e-mails were far more grammatically correct and elaborate than the usual clipped messages of the Internet, as if he were old enough to remember what it was to write real snail mail. I’d pegged him as an elderly corporate mogul.

  Although now that I perused his file, I could see that his interests were a little weird for the business world. Aside from the usual searches for ownership of various companies, I’d run searches on politicians, compiled campaign finance and elections laws for every state, and started researching the ownership of several textbook publishing companies at his behest.

  I pulled up his last e-mail, the one with the text of envelopes, poison, top hats, and pow. It still didn’t make any sense, although the pronunciation of “pow” was the same as “Pao.” It was scary that “poison” was mentioned just before he disappeared. I rummaged some more, opening document after document. I had a niggling feeling at the back of my mind that there was something in here I ought to remember, but I didn’t see any reason why it should be important—unless I wanted to believe the Oracle in the attic was my missing client. And I didn’t. The writing style was completely different. They didn’t even use the same type fonts from the little bit I’d seen of Graham’s messages.

  I sneezed and vowed to have Mallard vacuum every available surface in here. Old cat hair was the worst for allergies.

  The library was wall-to-wall books except for the fireplace. There was a stylized two-hundred-year-old image of Washington D.C. hanging over the mantel, but no evil eyes watched me from it that I could detect. The PCs were parked on a mahogany library table wide enough to spread out half a dozen volumes around me and still leave room for a board meeting. There was a certain irony to placing computers in a room full of books—sort of like the Smithsonian hanging the Wright Brothers plane over a space shuttle.

  I located a box of Kleenex in a drawer after another fit of sneezing. I’d never had pets growing up, but I’d run across enough cats to recognize the reaction.

  Graham waited until I had finished with my clients and had powered up the Cobalt Whiz before he intruded.

  “One of your correspondents sent an e-mail today giving us a new alias for Pao. Good job.”

  He’d forgotten to IM me first, but I’d been expecting him. I managed to stay in my chair this time, despite the dry compliment.

  He went on as if I were a secretary taking dictation. “The name corresponds with a man currently contracting a low security assignment at the General Services Administration. I can arrange documentation and access for you by ten today.”

  I didn’t ask why Graham couldn’t go himself. I was beginning to suspect he was an invalid who couldn’t leave the house.

  I was a virtual assistant because I didn’t like going out in the rat race. Obscurity is me. “It would be helpful if you could tell me why you want this guy and what Edu-Pub is,” I growled back, doing my best to be professional.

  “Because Edu-Pub may be part of an international cartel bent on taking over the world.” The intercom clicked off after that little bombshell.

  Swell, now I was working for a paranoid old guy. Which meant I’d better apply myself to his projects or he’d be calling me a spy and hiring the CIA to heave us out.

  It was early yet. I’d just heard Nick and EG go upstairs after breakfast. While waiting for my documentation, I avoided thinking about tangling with the GSA by researching Edu-Pub. I checked every database available to me, and that’s more than is available to the general public, but Edu-Pub was apparently privately owned. The secretary of state’s office had a filing on their officers, but Pao wasn’t listed. None of the other names rang my chimes, but I began a detailed search for each of them. They’d all used the same address as listed for the company on the Edu-Pub website, an address that appeared to be in a bad part of D.C. , if Google Map was any indication. I went back to Pao’s website. Sure enough, the donation address was for a post office box in the same zip code.

  What any of it had to do with anything was beyond my understanding except under the theory that Pao might somehow be using Edu-Pub for money-laundering.

  I sneezed a half dozen times, grabbed a handful of Kleenex, and at the sound of an odd creak, glanced up in time to see a long, furry black tail slipping out the partially open library door. Short hair, not long, but definitely cat—a large one. Where had he come from?

  I emerged from the library in pursuit of the animal just as Nick and EG hit the foyer prepared to traipse off to the local school to get her registered with her manufactured records, then off to buy school clothes and paraphernalia.

  “Where are you going wearing that?” Nick demanded at sight of me.

  I thought I was dressed respectably in a black blazer over my black knit T-shirt and loose blue jeans, and I took umbrage at the criticism. “How professional do I have to be to sit in a library?” I decided not to mention the potential visit to government offices or he’d bodily cart me upstairs.

  “You look like a woman imitating a man. Would it hurt to try something feminine?”

  I’d learned long ago that the right clothes made me invisible, and that’s the way I liked it. If I had to brave the real world today, I was wearing my armor. “I’m not taking fashion tips from a gay guy wearing an apricot ascot,
” I retorted.

  He offered an inappropriate finger and shoved EG out the door.

  I was tired of spinning wheels, especially in a room infected by a feline. I wanted Pao located now. As soon as EG was gone, I entered the library and started hitting all the buttons on the intercom. “Where is the documentation?” I demanded of the wretched machine.

  The intercom sputtered to life with a definite ring of male annoyance. He didn’t like it when I intruded on him as he did me. “Your identification papers are in the envelope on the table.”

  I wondered if one of the buttons I’d hit had set off some kind of alarm, and I grinned at the thought. Maybe the police would come screaming down the road any minute.

  I glanced down the table and found a manila envelope where one hadn’t been before. How had he done that? I’d just stepped out for a minute.

  One more puzzle I’d have to figure out. Later.

  I opened the manila envelope and studied the contents. By golly dadgum, he had a new copy of my passport—my old one had more stamps than the U. S. Post Office and screamed terrorist threat. I slid the ID into my jacket pocket and prayed it passed inspection. I was really going to have to research our landlord more.

  I couldn’t believe I was volunteering to meet a guy who sponsored inflammatory religious nonsense on the Internet, but the only other alternative was to believe the spook in the attic was tracking terrorists. That’s not the job of private citizens. Given our missing millions, I was placing my wagers on financial hanky panky. “Mallard has the address and instructions?”

  “I’ve arranged an appointment through the security desk,” the intercom continued. “You’ll have to memorize your instructions. Mallard will burn them afterward.”

  Mallard would burn my instructions? Maybe Graham really was insane. Or a sarcastic bastard. I could relate to that.

  The intercom blinked off. One of these days, I’d fling it out the window. If Oppenheimer came through, one of these days this house would be mine, and I would fling Graham out the window. It would be kind of peaceful having that top floor to myself.