“Thank God. I thought I’d lost this.” I held up by Spiderman Pez shooter.
Louie admired it. “Good Thing she found it.”
I pocketed the items. “Are you sure this is all? I mean, there wasn’t a box of any kind, was there?”
Louie shook his head. “No That’s all of it.”
“All right. I’ve got to get a move on. Do you mind if I leave my suitcase here?”
“Of course not, Murph. You can leave your things and stay as long as you like.”
“I appreciate it. So long, Louie.”
I left through the back door in the kitchen. It was fairly early in the evening, but it was already quite dark. I walked up the alley behind the Brew & Stew to the back of the Ritz. I had to get into my office for several reasons, even if the place was being staked out by the NSA. As long as no one was actually inside my office, I was pretty sure I could in and out without being seen. I peeked into the alley that ran alongside the Ritz and out to Chandler Avenue. There was no one in sight. I hurried across to the back of the Ritz and climbed a pipe that ran down from the roof. It was familiar and sturdy and ran right by the window at the back of my apartment. I peered through my window. It was pitch black inside. Holding onto the pipe precariously with the one hand, I was able to slide the window open.
Seconds later, despite a likely hernia, I was in my apartment. Closing the window behind me, I limped across the room. Suddenly, a glimmer of light swept under the door to my office. I froze. For at least a full minute I stood like a post, ears straining. Apparently the intruder hadn’t heard me enter. The light flashed again past the door. I moved quietly, until my hand wrapped around the doorknob. Tensing my muscles and ignoring a painful hernial twinge, I threw open the door. to
A masked figure whirled around, and immediately the flashlight went out. I lunged in the direction of the trespasser, but moved too slowly. Hitting what must have been one of my chairs, I stumbled and fell to the floor. To my right, the door to the fire escape flew open, and the intruder was gone like a shadow. By the time I limped to the door, no one was in sight.
I closed the door and waited for my eyes to readjust to the darkness. Whoever had been in my office, it probably wasn’t the NSA. The Feds had no reason to be secretive. Besides, an NSA agent would have just shot me, not run away. So who was it? This was a rough part of town, but I doubted that it had been a run-of-the-mill breakin. My office just wasn’t the kind of place someone would want to rob. Whoever had broken in had to be connected to the Malloy case. The only thing I knew for sure was that, even though the thief probably wasn’t NSA, the agency was watching. And they had one eye on me and one eye on the clock. It was a little after 8pm — I had less than fourteen hours left… and counting. I decided to leave the lights off.
The office was already trashed from before. I didn’t get a good look at the intruder, but I hadn’t seen anything except a flashlight in his hands. Regardless, there was nothing relevant to be found here. The box was either still at Chelsee’s apartment, or she’d taken it with her. I was inclined to believe that she’d left it. Otherwise she probably would have mentioned in her note that she had taken it. Now I’d have to search her place to find the box. Why did I have to do everything the hard way?
My first priority was to look at the disk I found in Malloy’s suitcase. I crept to my computer and turned it on. When it finished booting, I stuck the disk in and ran it. A message appeared on the screen: CONTENTS ENCRYPTED. PLEASE ENTER AUTHORISATION CODE. I wasn’t surprised, but it certainly was a pain. Without a hope in the world, I began typing in possible passwords. THOMAS, MALLOY, REGAN, ROSWELL, FITZPATRICK, BLUE BOOK, BLUEPRINT, PEKING, SPACESHIP, 1984, ORWELL. Everything possible that I could think of. Nothing worked. Frustrated, I popped the disk out and shut down the computer.
As I slid the disk into my coat pocket, I felt the paperback books and remembered the e-mail address. I crossed the room to my modem. To my horror, it was now in three easy to carry pieces, undoubtedly courtesy of the NSA thugs. How could they? What had this little gadget ever done to them? Now I was going to have to borrow someone else’s modem.
The voice messaging unit had a short message from Regan Madsen, asking me to call her as soon as possible. The second message was from my broker, telling me he had some bad news about my 401K dividends. The last thing I needed to hear about. The third message was from Chelsee, telling me she had arrived and asked me if I’d gotten the note. She left a number, which I jotted down in a notebook.
The final thing I needed to do was purely hygienic. I changed my clothes and grabbed my toothbrush, a bottle of aftershave, and my deodorant. Being manly doesn’t mean you have to smell like it. I left the way I came in.
I had one more visit to pay before leaving Chandler Avenue. Not wanting to risk going in the front, I walked to the side door of the Fuchsia Flamingo and knocked. After knocking again, the door opened a crack. A large, ugly bouncer, not Leach, stared down at me.
“This ain’t the entrance, pal. Go around front.”
I smiled pleasantly. “I don’t want to come in. I need to speak to Gus Leach, please.”
“Mr Leach is working up front. Go around and talk to him there.”
“I need to talk to him here.”
The trolls voice went up a notch. “You tryin’ to be stupid? Go around front.”
“Look, friend. I don’t want to make trouble, but I have something extremely important to tell Gus. It’s a private matter, and we need to discuss it here. If you don’t mind.”
The bouncer opened the door and moved his massive frame into the just slightly larger door frame. “I say you can’t come in. You wanna make trouble?” took a step back, smiling pleasantly. “I’d rather not, but I really have to see Gus. I’d be happy to pay you for your efforts.”
With startling quickness, the giant troll grabbed the lapel of my overcoat. “Okay, that does it.”
The bouncer’s fist came at me. I jerked my head, causing his punch to glance off. It was like being hit in the face by a baseball instead of a bowling ball. I struggled like a gazelle in the jaws of a lion.
After the third punch, I was about to go limp and play dead when I heard Leach’s voice. “Let go of him, Hoss.”
The pavement slammed into my head. Through the birds, stars, and other metaphorical light flashes, I made out Leach pulling me to my feet.
“You sure have a way with people, don’t you Murphy?”
I was too busy focusing to respond.
“So what are you doing trying to get in the side door?”
Slowly, my speech returned to normal. I recounted to Leach what had happened with Malloy. Leach’s reaction was subdued, but I could see that the news of Malloy’s death affected him deeply. I want to find out more about what their relationship had been, but time was golden. I’d come to deliver the news and the cash I’d found, no more. After a moment of silence, Leach thanked me for letting him know. He took the money from me and said he would tell Emily later. I asked if I could come back at another time and ask a few more questions. Leach nodded and went back into the club.
Still woozy, I bent down and brushed gravel off my trousers and overcoat. There was a neat little tear on the side of my left pant leg. Damn it. I’d just changed.
I walked back down the alley, behind the Ritz, the Electronics Shop, and the Brew & Stew, to my speeder. As I stepped out of the shadows and into the parking lot, my nose caught a familiar scent, and voice startled me.