Chapter 2

Tuesdays are minutely better.

I took the stairs up to the office. I didn’t want to startle Doll Face, so the early warning system of the steps would announce me. I shook my head as I remembered how many times those stair treads had alerted me to trouble.

I had the third from the top and the last tread before the landing rigged. The third one would squeak when weight was placed on it. The other made a popping sound. It didn’t matter where you stepped on either one of them. They made noise.

My office is on the third floor and shares a wall with this stairwell. I have Doll Face’s desk right up beside the wall and she has ears like an eagle has eyes.

My ears don’t work so well any more. The doc says too many gunshots in enclosed spaces will do that. No doubt the shoes and fists have left some damage in there too.

I finished up my climb. The early warning stair treads did their thing. I turned to the right and walked the eight paces to the office door. As I opened the door, the tantalizing aroma of fresh brewed special blend called out to me.

I took off my hat and threw it at the hatrack. I turned and said “Hi Doll Face. It sure is good to see you.” She stood up from behind her desk and walked over to me. “Phillip, what made you think I would be here today?”

“Ummm. Ah. Well, I never thought about it being any other way. I mean, I never wanted you to leave in the first place.” I glanced up at the wall monitor and was about to change the subject when she stopped me cold.

“Phillip, a girl never wants to be taken for granted. Don’t ever do it again.”

I felt just like I had when Granny scolded me. I guess it showed on my face too because Doll Face punched me on the arm and walked back to her desk, grinning.

She looked over her shoulder and said, “I don’t know what you thought you were doing with those servers, but it didn’t work out did it?”

I looked at her and grinned, “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And, thanks for getting the servers back clean and green. It’s been a pain with them slow as molasses.”

I went to the credenza and poured my first cup of coffee. The aroma and taste of the special blend was wonderful. A few years ago I gave up having cream in my morning coffee. The blend of different beans didn’t need any milk to make the brew better.

As I sat down and started to look at the stats, Doll Face said “Tell me about our new client.”

“I don’t know much about our new client. In fact, all I know is his name.” Then I gave her a slightly abridged version of the conversation with Ulrika. Abridged because I didn’t see any need to tell her about the eyes or the perfume.

“So you really liked her?”

I tried to look innocent and said, Like her? Hell I barely know her. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes that she was here. Besides, you know me better than that.”

“I know that wistful look on your mug. I’ve seen it on other men when they have a new woman in their sights.”

“You got it all wrong,” I said, “she was just the messenger”.

I was about to defend myself some more when she gave me a high sign and pointed to the wall where the stairwell was. I listened, thought I heard a footfall, then two heartbeats later the unmistakeable pop from the warning tread.

I eased up from behind my desk and slid over toward the other desk. Doll Face was listening intently to something. Then there was a dull thud followed almost instantly by a sound I’ll never forget. Haven’t forgotten. And never will.

It was the unmistakable drumming of shoes on the hardwood floor. It’s what some call the ‘death rattle’. When the involuntary muscles lose control, and the feet and legs jerk and quiver. Yeah, I’ve have heard it before. Too many times in too many places.

I motioned Doll Face to stay where she was and eased over to the door. I turned the knob and inched the door open. When I looked down, I could see the corpse. He was lying on his stomach with his head turned toward the door.

He didn’t quite cover the entire doorway, but enough so that I had to side-step to make it out into the hall. A quick peek both ways confirmed no one else around.

I stepped back inside and said “Grab your hat and coat. Get your purse and anything else you’ll need for a while.”

She gave me a strange look and tried to peer past me to the door. I said “There’s a dead guy on the floor and you’ve got to get out of here.” I took her hand and led her to the hinge side of the door.

“Don’t let any part of your body or your clothing touch any part of him.” I stepped out into the hallway and took her other hand to steady her as she came out of the office. I don’t know if she had seen a dead person before, but I damn sure knew she hadn’t seen one here before.

When we were clear in the hall, I gave her a double sawbuck and said, “Go down to China Sam’s place, get some coffee and wait. Do you have your Thumby?” She nodded and I said “When you get to Sam’s, call Perk and tell him that I’m about to get nabbed. You’re doing fine, kid. Now get going. Oh yeah, if you see that the patrol car is still here, just go on by. I’ll be alright. Now git.”

I watched her until she got in the elevator then I went to work. I figured there wasn’t too much time before someone came by.

I stepped over the body and went to my desk. I powered down the desktop unit and the items in the credenza. After I unplugged the external drive, I turned the inboard mounting screw on the monitor plug it’s final one and one-half turns in. I moved over to Doll Face’s desk and repeated the same procedures.

That nifty security device was still amazing to me. It wasn’t my idea, but I love it. Dink installed the special switches to make the perfect cloak. If the monitor plug on the back of the cpu is not secured by either of the screws, the unit performs by booting the internal drive. If both screws are secured it works the same way. But if the outboard screw is in and the inboard screw is at least one and one-half turns loose, the unit powers up the external drive and boots from it. I never have had any data on either of the internal drives. Almost perfect cloak.

I went to the wall monitor and thumbed the magnetic catch. I spun the frame around so that the real oil painting was showing and secured the magnet again.

I snagged the external drives from both desks, putting them on the floor in front of the credenza. I eased the east end of the credenza toward me and felt for the catch. When I had it, one turn released the sliding floor plate. I opened the floor plate and touched the dna lock on top of the floor safe.

When the safe door opened, I placed both of the external drives inside. I removed the IR receiver and the security drive from the credenza cubby and placed them beside the drive units. After closing the safe door, I dipped the corner of a tissue in my cold coffee and wiped the dna lock port.

I opened the bottom right drawer of my desk and took out a pair of psudgloves, and made my way to the waiting body. As I slipped on the gloves I surveyed the room. It looked like I had remembered everything.

The dead guy seemed to be about thirty-five. Brown curly hair. Rather long face with bushy brown sideburns, down almost to the jaw line. A few inches more and they would be called mutton chops. Nothing exceptional about the face. Unless you count the pink froth on the lips and the blood trailing out of the open mouth. The eyes were a lightish blue and staring the stare of the dead.

My gaze moved to the clothing. Nice suit. Dark blue. Maybe silk. Jacket less worn than the trousers. An office worker who removes his jacket at work? White shirt with pink blood stains on what I could see. Conservative red and blue necktie.

I eased the jacket lapel back to see the label above the inside pocket. Huh? European? The tag said:

The Bogie by Bacall
London, Paris, Madrid, Athens

Sure enough, European. Maybe expensive too.

I turned my attention to the knife. It was about midway down on the right side. Stuck in up to the hilt. The hilt was small and looked like brass, although it was pretty blood caked. The handle was stacked leather, tapered both ways. And, the pommel was a plain cast brass acorn. French, and not new. The leather showed sweat stains and there was a fair amount of dark gunk in the grooves of the pommel.

French dagger and European clothing. What the hell?

I was adjusting the jacket where I had moved it to see the label when my hand brushed the inner pocket. Something hard in there. I slipped my hand into the pocket and removed a smallish mailing tube, sealed on both ends. About two inches in diameter and seven inches long. It didn’t weigh too much, but it was solid.

As I rolled it over in my hand I saw the printing. All it said was ‘Spade San Fran’. Handwritten. Black ink smudged at the end where the ‘cisco’ should have been. No address or anything else. What the hell?

I got the clothing rearranged on the body and stepped back into the office. I took the small package into the bathroom. The rat hole was the perfect hiding place for something like this.

The rat hole was real. Well, it wasn’t from a rat. It was from a mouse. Down at the baseboard behind the door. I put my finger in the hole then rotated my hand so that my finger was pointing straight up. I clicked the catch and pulled the wall board out and down.

Inside the space between the wall studs was my small shelf of emergency stuff. My old 38 special and spare box of ammo, two loaded clips for Betsy, a dummy passport, and a few hundred bucks. I put the package on the shelf beside the cash and closed the wall board. Nobody would think to look for things in a rat hole. And, if they used a sniffer all they would get would be real life mouse turds.

Back in the office, I stripped off the gloves and looked around again. It looked right. I went to Doll Face’s desk and took the notes from the pad and my gloves and placed them in the opening in the wallcinerator. I clicked the switch to on and then to mix. There wouldn’t be anything for anyone to put back together when that thing finished.

Back to my desk and one final look around. Satisfied, I picked up the phone receiver and punched in the code for Metro police. I gave my name and said “There is a dead man on the floor in front of my office”. The dispatcher asked for the address and told me to stay put.

I took Betsy out of the shoulder rig and removed the clip. Then pulled back the slide to remove the live round from the chamber. I put all three items on the desk and glanced at the clock. 10:14. How time flies when you’re having fun.

I put my feet up on the corner of the desk, fired up a Lucky, and thought about the dead guy, the package, the dagger, and wondered what was going on. Whoever sent the guy with the package sure didn’t kill him. So, who did? And, why didn’t they take the package?

It was 10:17 when I heard the elevator making it’s noisy way up here. Three minutes. Pretty fast service. Then the heavy footsteps in the hall.

Sergeant Pepper from Metro stopped in front of the door and looked down at the stiff. He stepped over the body and came in. Following Pepper was a young cop who was looking a little green around the gills.

Pepper said, “How ya been, Spade? Up to no good, I’ll bet.”

“I’ve been better.” was all I said.

The young guy walked in and looked at me “How come you killed him?”

I looked up at him, then down at Betsy. “I haven’t cut anybody in a long time, sonny.”

He looked down at the hardware then looked over to Pepper with a quizzical look. Pepper nodded and said “It’s OK. There’s a ddos lock on the entire building.” He looked at me and said “We’ll wait in here until the detectives make it. If it’s alright with you, that is.” His chuckle made it clear that we both knew it didn’t matter whether it was alright with me or not.

I was just about to offer them some coffee when the early warning went off in the stairwell. They both heard it and looked at me. Squeak pop, squeak pop. close together. Someone was coming up fast.

Then I saw the shadow on the wall opposite the door. It had a huge malformed head, knobs and protrusions. There was something like a spike or probe pointing up at an angle from the chest. Like a space monster.

The first trooper came rushing in. Hardly glanced at the body. He scanned the room and spoke softly into his com unit. As he glided across the room to peek into the bathroom the other three came in.

GYMI searchSquad officers. Now what the hell? The light blue uniforms aren’t that frequent a sight in a private building. Not ever in this office.

The fifth man came in then. He said, “I’m Major Bettemore of the searchSquad.” He looked at Pepper and said, searchSquad has take jurisdiction on this case. You are relieved.”

Pepper started to say something when he stiffened and got a distant look on his face. He said, “Connect” and was quiet for a moment then said, “Understood. End.” Pepper looked at the young cop and said, “We’re headed back to the station.”

The two of them were almost out of the door when Pepper turned and looked at me. “I don’t know what it is Spade, but you’re in it deep.” Then they were gone.

The four troopers had taken up station at each corner of the room. The battle helmets made them look spooky. Lots of lenses and stuff built into them. The little rifles they carried with such ease didn’t look spooky at all. Just deadly.

They were the new model 71 by NeuHollindia. Caliber .187, selective fire. Standard issue is with a 50 round clip, but these looked to be at least twice that. Strange firearm.

There isn’t any shell casing. The slug is embedded in the propellant. The whole thing less than a half inch square. Nothing strange about the firepower though. The little 40 grain slug leaves the barrel at over 5,000 feet per second and when the selector is in the burst mode, three shots are fired before the recoil can even start. Deadly.

The major had been speaking into his com unit and now turned to me. “Please remain where you are, Mr. Spade, and don’t move. Someone will be here to speak to you in a few minutes.” Mmm. I didn’t like the sound of that.

The elevator started it’s hard journey against the force of gravity. Lots of foot traffic headed this way. Four more troopers come in followed by three with suitcases. The suitcases had the initials CSI emblazoned on their sides. Two more came to stoop over the body. Then he walked in.

Lt. General Pierepointe L. Mattingly, GYMI searchSquad commander. Medium height, slightly overweight, slightly balding, and immensely powerful. The power of politics. The power of the ruling class. Powered by a spineless Congress and a political system gone to hell in a small handbasket.

Mattingly looked at me and said, “Hello Mr. Spade, please stand and move over beside the door.” So, that’s what I did. Careful not to even look down at Betsy. I walked toward Mattingly and the door. He motioned for me to stop and turned to one of the troopers with the suitcases.

“Sweep the room. And find it all.” Then he turned and looked up at me, pointed at the stiff, and said, “Did you know this man?”

“Never saw him before”. He nodded and turned his attention back to the men waving instruments around the room.

One of them said, “There are three camera microphone combinations in the ceiling.” Mattingly said, “Get them.”

The other guy was at Doll Face’s desk poking around on the keyboard. He shot me a look of pity and shook his head. He headed over to my desk and started in on my unit. After a bit of keyboard work, he looked at me and asked, “Now why would you need 8 gigs of memory to run Win98?”

I said, “Just a slow learner, I suppose. That’s the way it was when I bought the thing.” Mattingly looked over at the tech and said, “bag them up.”

He turned to watch the other guy working on the cameras. When the trooper got the cable loose and pulled the little unit down, he said, “there are two transmitters but no receivers. One transmitter was turned off, the other was still sending when I unplugged it.”

Mattingly turned to me and said, “Where are the receivers, Spade.” I must have had a dazed look on my face because he made a sound of disgust and turned back to the tech guys. “Sack it all up. I want to know everything that ever went on in this room. I want to know every keystroke that was made on those keyboards. I want to know every IM message he’s ever had. I want to know every website he ever visited. I want it all.”

He turned to the Major and said, “Major, please escort Mr. Spade to the van downstairs.”

I looked up at that and said, “Why? What reason do you have for detaining me?”

Mattingly turned red at the collar line and spoke very low. “How about using an infrared transmitting device in a hospital zone? Get this filthy spammer out of here. Take him to the main data center and get him instantiated.”

The Major and two of the troopers escorted me down to the elevator. I looked back over my shoulder and said,”Lock up when you get done”. The tech bending over the corpse didn’t even look up. No sense of humor, I guess.

When we went out of the main entrance, the big van was parked parallel to the curb with it’s big side door open. Inside I could see other troopers working at portable desks. The big, ugly, logo on the side of the van was there for all the world to see. Like an egg on it’s side. Oval shaped, light blue field, white lettering…GYMI. The big letters on the van proclaimed Computer Search Investigations. Yup. CSI.

As they stuffed me into the back of the squad car, I was thinking about Tuesdays. In general, they ain’t too bad. The first half of this Tuesday hadn’t been too great though.

Ya. Tuesdays are marginally better than any Monday. But just barely.