"Yeah, I called her and I told her I was going to be talking to you, 'cause, y'know, I didn't know if you were really legit or not. But she told me I should tell you everything I knew, so, like, I guess I have. I mean, I don't know very much about Cam, really. Is there anything else you want to ask me?"
"Not much. Was there anyplace he hung out, where he might have headed, or anyplace where he might talk to people about where he was going?"
RC grunted. I couldn't tell if it was a thinking noise or appreciation of the food. "I don't know exactly, but I do know he was kind of into music, and I think he said he was going to meet his sister down-town once, but other than that, I don't know."
"OK," I said. "Let me give you my business card, and if you think of anything—like that guy's name—or if something comes up, give me a call, OK?"
"OK," he said, swallowing the last of the spanakopita. He ran his tongue over his teeth, eliminating any wayward bits of spinach, and guzzled down the last of his soda as I fished a business card out of my bag.
I handed him the card. "You've been a lot of help, RC."
"I have? Cool." He tucked it into the pocket of his shirt, grabbed his bag and headed for the door. "Hey, thanks for the food."
I watched him go; then I headed down to the administration buildings. I rounded up a list of offices for Cameron's instructors, then walked to the engineering building.
Only one of Cameron's instructors was available. In answer to my question, he blinked and snapped at me, "No. I haven't seen him in class or elsewhere. Haven't heard from him, either. He's failing, at this point. Hasn't shown up in…" He flipped through a notebook. "At least a month. If he doesn't make some kind of arrangement with me, he will not pass. I don't give NCs. What he will get is an F. And you can tell him that."
"When I see him, I'll be sure to let him know. Thank you."
I left his office grateful I was no longer in college.
I was walking across one of the many quads when my pager went off. I couldn't see any phone booths around, so I entered the nearest building and found a pay phone near the math department office. Someday, I swear, I am going to get a cell phone. I called my pager number and listened to the voice message.
"Hi, Harper, this is Quinton. I've got the stuff to set up your alarm system, though I've still got a couple of questions before I install some of it. I'd like to get onto it today, if that's convenient for you. Give me a call," he added, rattling off a phone number, "but do it before two, if you can, because I'll be leaving this location then, and may not get near a phone for a couple of hours after that. Thanks."
I checked my watch. "Ah, hell…" It was 1:55. I punched the number and waited through the rings.
Through the noise in the background, I just made out a male voice saying, "…garage."
"Is Quinton there?" I asked, raising my voice.
Hang on.
In a second, a slightly quieter environment reigned as Quinton answered the phone. "This is Quinton. How can I help you?"
"This is Harper Blaine. I'm returning your call."
"Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, Harper. I can go ahead with your project whenever you can get me access. When would be convenient?"
Was I talking to the right guy? I could almost hear the necktie strangling him. "Are you at work?" I asked.
"Not precisely, but that's a good suggestion. Three o'clock would be fine."
"Actually, I was going to head downtown to do some research, so I might be a little late back to my office. Could you wait a few minutes if I'm not there?"
"Certainly. I'll be seeing you then. Thanks for calling." The connection cut off with a click.
I went back and climbed into the Rover, trying to concentrate on what I planned to do next, rather than obsessing about Quinton's odd behavior and odder job. He was just not in the same game as the rest of us.
I turned onto the freeway and headed back downtown. I thought about the job, the job… but phantom images seemed to press in harder than before, trailing their cold mist and rushing around the truck. When I got off the freeway downtown, I was firmly back in Ghostville. I parked the car and shouldered my way, shivering and queasy, through a thin fog of shadow-things, toward the main records repository in the county building.
A cold gust blew through me. I shuddered and leaned against the Metro tunnel facade to catch my breath. Several scruffy panhandlers cast suspicious glances at me. I figured I'd better move on before they took exception to my sullying the tone of the neighborhood.
Once in the records room, where even ghosts fear terminal boredom, I started searching for any sign of a furniture company, importer, or freight handler doing business under the name Ingstrom in the last twenty-five years. The list was short, but discouraging: a shipwright, a real estate office, and a bakery. The residential listings were more daunting. There were a lot more private citizens named Ingstrom, since one-fifth of what is now the city of Seattle had been settled by Norwegians and Swedes. I paid for photocopies of the listings.
By the time I'd finished, it was nearly three fifteen. I trudged back toward my office. I'd taken Sergeyev's money but done almost nothing so far, and that rankled. I hadn't done more than glance at the papers he'd sent. The hour-plus I'd just spent could be a washout. Maybe the Ingstrom he wanted wasn't even in King County. Seattle may have been just an unloading point for a pickup. The guy could have driven from Pullman, for all I knew, and then taken the parlor organ away again. I didn't even know for certain what a parlor organ was.
Quinton was sitting on the floor just down from my door, leaning against the wall, reading a paperback copy of de Tocqueville. He was wearing a button-down shirt and trousers under his jacket. No sign of a tie. Without even glancing up, he got to his feet and fell in beside me. Finishing his paragraph, he marked his place with a ticket agency stub for the Paramount Theater and stuffed the book into his backpack.
"Hi," he said. "I was starting to get worried. There were a couple of two-legged rats scratching around your door when I came up, about half an hour ago. When they figured out I wasn't going to leave, they slunk off, but I thought they might have been waiting for you downstairs. Did you see them?"
"No," I answered. "What did they look like?"
"One nondescript in a very concentrated sort of way. Very beige, very bland. Very spooky. The other was scruffier, but nothing unusual for this neighborhood," he added as I unlocked my door.
I nodded. "Probably the same guys who tossed my office. Either that or tax collectors."
He nodded. "Yeah, I thought they were thugs."
I raised an eyebrow at him. He grinned back.
"I've got everything I should need to get this job done in a couple of hours at the most," he said, putting his pack down carefully by the file cabinet.
"I've still got some work to do," I warned. "You're not going to need me to leave or anything, are you?"
"I don't think so. I need to drill a couple of holes and I'll need to work on your phone line at some point, but I should be able to do the installation without much noise or mess. Oh, I'll need to load some software onto your computer, too, but that'll only take a minute, right at the end."
"Let me know when you need the phone line. I need to make calls."
"No problem," he agreed and began to scramble around in his pack.
I settled myself behind the desk and called the Shadleys' bank. It took a few minutes after I introduced myself and explained my business to get me connected to the person with the lowdown on ATMs.
The ATM expert asked me for the numbers. I read them to her and she clacked away on her computer.
"Hmm… some of these are other companies' machines, so I can't you any more information than I have right here. They all appear to be in Seattle, looks like downtown. Of the ones that belong to us—let me see—there's the First and Cherry location, Main, Pine and Seventh, and the South Industrial."