The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

  He started to close the door, but Cotten caught it with her hand. “You’re not in any trouble, I promise. I’m just looking for some information on Mr. Calderon.”

  “I told him we were screwed. That they’d come looking.” He pushed on the door to close it.

  “Please, sir, I only want to talk. You have nothing to fear from me, I assure you. Please. Just want to ask you a few simple questions. That’s all. Then I’ll leave.”

  The door closed, but then the chain rattled.

  “You better not be lying,” he said as the door opened. Stepping away with obvious reluctance, he let her enter.

  “Thank you, Mr. …” Cotten walked into the apartment and heard the click of the door behind her. The foul smell of a landfill greeted her nostrils. Trash littered the floor, the sparse furniture, and the kitchen. Food wrappers, heaps of clothes, a mountain of dishes and plastic food containers encrusted with moldy remains—layer upon rancid layer contributed to the odor causing her to cover her mouth and nose. Her eyes focused on a bloody rag that had dried to a deep brownish rust color wadded in the corner of the sofa.

  “Franks,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m Franks. Jimmy Franks.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Franks.” Cotten didn’t extend her hand, and Franks didn’t offer his.

  He brushed back his straw-like hair that appeared combed with a Weed Eater and then stuffed his jittery hands in his pockets. Still, he couldn’t hide having the shakes. Small facial tics and eye twitches combined with repeated sniffling were dead-on clues as to his malady.

  Cotten had the feeling that Jimmy Franks was about to short circuit. “Are you all right?”

  He gave a nervous laugh. “What the fuck do you want, anyway?” He looked around the room with the same anxious glances as when she stood in the doorway.

  Cotten knew this conversation was going to be short-lived and limited to single-syllable words. “What happened to Jeff Calderon?”

  “They fuckin’ gave him some shit. Sick fucks. They gave him something that fucked him up.”

  “Who, Mr. Franks? Who made him sick?”

  “All we wanted was to get in there and score some shit. We just wanted to get high and maybe pinch something we could pawn. Sick bastards. They fucked him up.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “Yeah, a bunch of sick fucks.”

  “Okay, how about a location? Where did this all happen?”

  He shook his head. “Some warehouse. I don’t know. Over near the expressway.”

  “Queens Expressway?”

  “Maybe.” Franks rubbed his head. “I don’t know—I was messed up.” He clasped his hands on the crown of his head and bent his elbows in close to his face. “Oh, God, they’re gonna come get me.” Franks danced from one foot to the other, his hands dropping off his head to massage the back of his neck. “Off Furman or Doughty, maybe. Near the bridge. Called T-Kup.”

  “Teacup?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I think. Shit, I was so fucked up.”

  “You and Mr. Calderon went there to buy drugs?”

  Franks laughed, then sniffed and wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve. “We broke into the place—Jeff did, I kept watch outside. He never came out. Fucking sick bastards. He was in there forever. I left. Said fuck it. He finally showed up five or six days ago. Said he got away and had been sleeping in a dumpster for a couple of days. No sooner gets here and he starts getting really sick, man. Blood and shit coming out his nose and ears and everywhere.” Franks turned his head and grimaced. “I never seen nothing like that kinda shit. Scared the hell out of me. I tried to get him to go to the clinic, but he was afraid they’d find out about what we done and he’d end up in jail. At first he thought he was going to get better, but he was fuckin’ dying, man. Finally, he could barely open his eyes. Just laid there.”

  Franks motioned toward the couch and the bloody rag. “Watched TV sometimes. In and out of it, like a really bad trip. Got to where he didn’t make good sense. Confused, you know, really mixed up. Once he thought I was his friggin’ mother for Christ’s sake. Freaked me out. Then he saw some bitch on TV and said he was gonna go find her. Tell her what happened. Like he could just get up, get dressed, and head into the city all perky like. I told him his ass wasn’t going nowhere, not the way he was, but he swore he was gonna try—had to see her about what those bastards done to him.”

  Franks’ eyes widened as if he noticed Cotten for the first time. He studied her for a minute. “Fuckin’ A,” he said, running his hands over his face, obviously making the connection. “It was you. Is this gonna be on the news?” Franks tugged at his hair. “No TV, lady. Oh, sweet Jesus, they’ll see it and come for me.”

  “No, Mr. Franks. No TV. You don’t have to worry about that.” Cotten tried to calm him. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “I took off a couple of days ago—didn’t want to catch whatever Jeff got. Put my stuff in a plastic bag and bailed, man. Was sleeping on the street—anything’s better than being around whatever the fuck got him so sick. Then I hear that Jeff’s picture is all over the news and that he’s dead. So I come back here this morning to get the rest of my shit.” Franks started to pace, turning his back to Cotten, his hands on top of his head again. He seemed to forget she was there. “God damn.”

  “Mr. Franks, did Mr. Calderon say what happened to him?”

  Suddenly, Franks became even more agitated. “Jeff said he didn’t tell them about me being outside keeping watch, but I don’t know.” He wiped the sweat from his hands on the front of his shirt. “I don’t fucking know. They’re gonna come get me. Give me the same shit.” He swabbed the perspiration from his face on his sleeve. “Oh shit, I’m fucked. That’s it. No more talk. Get out.” He started for the door.

  Following him, Cotten asked, “Was there anything else he said? Anything at all?”

  He nudged her into the hall and slammed the door. As Cotten heard the clunking of the deadbolts, Franks yelled, “Said they used him like a fuckin’ lab rat.”

  t-kup

  Cotten stared at the New York City business directory on her computer monitor and the results of her search for businesses called tea cup and any derivative of the words. There was a knickknack store selling miniature dragon and wizard fantasy figures, an Asian tea parlor specializing in exotic imported tea and coffee, a Persian rug dealer, a high-end china and crystal specialty store, a pet shop selling tiny dogs, and a few others, none of which were located in the area described by Jimmy Franks.

  “We’ll be ready for you in ten minutes,” the assistant director said as he stuck his head in her office door.

  “Thanks,” Cotten said, looking up. The weekly taping of her Relics show was about to begin and she had to get to makeup. Maybe this whole Calderon thing was a waste of time anyway, she thought. What was she dealing with here? A couple of guys strung out on drugs, breaking into a business of some sort to steal narcotics. One got sick and died—the other so paranoid that he may be beyond help. She felt sorry for both, but she wondered if she had invested too much time in it already.

  Still, there was something nagging at her gut. Why had he chosen her? The reasoning that she was a familiar face on TV made some sense. But he could have given his two-word message to anyone and requested they tell her. Even more than his efforts to find her, the thing that kept nudging her mind was the message itself.

  Black Needles.

  He didn’t say, bad needles, as in contaminated or dirty hypos. He didn’t say I’m sick, get me to a doctor. With his last breath he said, Black Needles.

  Then there was Jimmy Franks. Obviously on drugs and out of touch with reality as he rambled on. He kept referring to they. Who were they? Why did they make Calderon sick?

  “Cotten?”

  She looked up. The assistant director again. Waving, she said
, “Sorry—on my way.”

  Cotten picked up her copy of the Relics script and headed out of her office to the studio and makeup.

  Four minutes later, and with only seconds to spare, she dropped down into a forest-green wingback chair on the Relics set, smoothed her skirt and blouse, gave the sound engineer a voice level, and took in a deep breath. Her guest, a French forensic scientist from the University of Paris, sat on a matching couch to her right. Behind her was a backdrop graphic displaying a dark, mysterious-looking composite photograph showing ghostly tunnels and partially excavated tombs with the word Relics scrawled on what looked like ancient parchment. As the stage manager counted down, Cotten smiled and gazed into the camera, its lens hidden behind the teleprompter. The script rolled from the bottom to the top of the teleprompter screen and she read, “Good evening and welcome to Relics, the weekly SNN investigation into ancient man and myth, folklore, and legend. Pieces of our past that just might shed new rays of light on our future.”

  Electronically superimposed over her shoulder, an image of a small bone appeared.

  “Is this the rib of Saint Joan of Arc or a fake, what some think is actually a bone from an Egyptian mummy? Tonight we attempt to answer that by traveling back in time to the small town of Rouen, France. The year was 1431, and a young girl was about to be burned at the stake.

  “And we’ll also discuss new test results on recently discovered pollen samples taken from the famous Shroud of Turin. Could the samples be from a rare thistle plant thought to have been used to fashion the Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus Christ at the Crucifixion? All this and more on Relics.”

  Cotten leaned back in her chair. “We’d like to welcome a new sponsor tonight—Blaze PCs and their new generation of wireless notebooks. Blaze notebooks bring you blazing speed with their exclusive octo-core processors from—”

  The scrolling script paused, waiting for Cotten to continue. She stared at the words. Composing herself, she continued, “Their exclusive octo-core processors from T-Kup Technologies.”

  ___

  “Blaze doesn’t make T-Kup processors,” said the SNN international sales manager. “They just use the technology. You know, like Intel or AMD.”

  Cotten sat in the sales manager’s office. “Where is the Blaze corporate office?”

  “Singapore.”

  “And T-Kup?”

  “Seoul, South Korea. A bunch of engineers from Samsung decided to put together their own chip manufacturing company. In business for a couple of years—claim to have the fastest processing chips around—eight cores, whatever that means.”

  “So does T-Kup have any manufacturing facilities in New York City?” Cotten asked.

  “Seems like the marketing manager at Blaze mentioned that they have a service center here and one out on the West Coast in Los Angeles. No manufacturing, just replacement parts and repairs.” He turned to his keyboard and typed. A moment later, a sheet of paper slipped from his laser printer. “Here’s the info. The facility here is located in Brooklyn.”

  “Thanks, you’ve been a big help.” She stood and took the paper.

  “Hey, anytime,” he said. “So why the interest?”

  Cotten smiled. “I’m thinking about buying a new laptop.”

  cages

  The sign over the door read T-Kup Technologies, Factory Service and Support. The building, one of three in a row along Doughty Street, was a windowless, three-story brick structure. As Cotten watched the taxi that brought her pull away, she began to have second thoughts of coming alone. The new intern had offered to accompany her, but canceled at the last moment, saying something had come up. So with determination and a glance in both directions, Cotten pulled on the handle to the front door of T-Kup Technologies, but found it was locked. She pushed the button on the security entrance speaker. No response. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number on the sheet given to her by the SNN sales manager. A recording stated the number had been disconnected.

  Next, she walked down the sidewalk to an alley running along the side of the building. She glanced over her shoulder at Fulton Ferry Landing and the hundreds of tourists snapping pictures of the New York City skyline across the East River. The constant thunder of traffic from the Brooklyn Bridge and Expressway in the distance never let up.

  She headed into the alley. A hundred feet later, she passed a dumpster and came to a loading dock. Beside two large metal roll-up doors was a back entrance. Climbing the steps, she knocked on the rear door. A sign read: T-Kup deliveries. No answer. She tried the knob. Locked. But pushing on the door caused it to give. Someone had used duct tape to keep the lock in the open position. With a rusty screech, the door swung open.

  A large empty room, probably the shipping department, stretched before her—shiny floor, scarred white walls, a few scraps of paper. The place reeked, not unlike the rancid odor inside Jeff Calderon’s apartment.

  She pulled out her small LCD Maglite and a handful of tissues from her purse. Covering her nose with the tissues, Cotten aimed the light as she wandered through the semi-darkness of the vacant warehouse. The place had been stripped bare. She shone the light in a sweeping arc, suddenly coming to a stop on the only objects left behind. Jimmy Franks’ story started to make sense.

  ___

  “Cages?” Ted Casselman said.

  “Yeah.” Cotten and her boss sat on a bench just inside Central Park across the street from SNN headquarters.

  “You mean like security cages for parts or supplies?”

  “That’s what I thought at first. There were twenty in all—ten stacked on top of ten.”

  “Okay, so?”

  “How many storage cages have you ever seen with a mattress in each?”

  Ted glanced at the traffic on Columbus Circle. “Well, you got me there.”

  “They were just big enough for someone to lie down in. Not much more. Like cages in the back of a vet’s office for boarding pets, but imagine them large enough for humans instead.” Cotten watched a double-decker tour bus swing into the Circle. She could almost hear the camera shutters clicking. “Calderon told his buddy that whoever made him sick used him like a lab rat.”

  “So you think he was kept in one of those cages?”

  She nodded.

  “What did you find out about the building?”

  “Owned by a consortium of Asian investors called Rising Moon. Based out of Hong Kong. Privately held. The warehouse in Brooklyn is their only property in New York. But they also own a building in Los Angeles. Their sole tenant in each location is T-Kup Technologies. Then I expanded the search to other countries. Wait until you hear this list. They span the globe, owning property in the UK, Russia, Poland, France, Greece, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Japan, and Australia. And that’s not all. They have holdings in Brazil, China, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, and the Netherlands.”

  Ted turned from the traffic and gave her a sly smile. “Let me guess. Their only tenant in each country is T-Kup Tech.”

  “Correct. This whole Calderon thing smells bad, Ted. Literally and figuratively. I can’t tell you what it is or why I feel that way other than my gut says something ain’t right in T-Kup land.”

  “Could be nothing more than a coincidence?”

  “You really believe that?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “Read me that list of countries again.”

  She did.

  He smacked his lips then nodded. “Sounds like a list of the U.S. allies in World War Two. Except for Japan. That’s the only one that doesn’t fit.”

  “Interesting. I’m going to make a mental note. It might mean something to us later.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, right now you don’t have much to grab on to. Don’t make it your life’s work, but dig some more. Shake a few bushes and see what falls out. Maybe it’s time for us to take a look at T-Kup Technologies in the cold light of dawn.�
��

  As they crossed Central Park West heading back to SNN, Ted said, “Where did John wind up going?”

  “Some out-of-the-way strip of land between Moldova and the Ukraine called Transnistria.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  the path

  Moon walked alongside the General Secretary as they wandered through the gardens of his palace near Wonsan on the Sea of Japan coast. She had traveled to the east coast by rail that afternoon at his request—the subject of the meeting not disclosed to her in advance, only that it was important.

  The night breeze chilled her as it swept in off the ocean. Even the heavy durumagi she wore over her clothes didn’t keep the frosty air at bay. Hidden in the foothills of Mt. Kumgang, the replica of the Loire Valley Chateau de Blois was surrounded by 8,000 acres of heavily patrolled forest. From the path below the mansion, she saw the Wonsan city lights in the distance.

  “We have closed the satellite lab in New York City, Dear Leader,” Moon said. “We moved it to a new location in a neighboring state. I ordered there be nothing left behind that could lead the authorities to believe it was anything more than an electronics manufacturer’s warehouse.”

  “We will trust your orders were followed.” He did not look at her, and that caused a hairline fracture in her normally granite confidence. She had been warned many times over the years that if he chose not to make eye contact, he harbored resentment or anger. She hoped that he was simply preoccupied with other matters of state.

  They came to a bend in the path. A waist-high wall protected them from a rocky precipice that dropped into the darkness.

  “No plan is immune to failure, Dr. Chung,” he said as he gazed out over the wall toward the distant city. “Even one as exquisitely planned and meticulously executed as yours.”

  “Dear Leader, I fully realize—”

  He held his hand up. “I know you do, Dr. Chung.” His voice was almost a whisper. “We sympathize with your tremendous task and marvel daily how you manage to accomplish so much. It is a mountain of an undertaking for anyone—even someone of your unquestionable talents and abilities.”