“Find anything interesting?” I walked past where Regan was primly seated and dropped into my desk chair. She looked at me openly, the very epitome of innocence.
“What do you mean?”
“Searching a PI’s office would be like me going through your purse.”
Regan smiled disarmingly. “You can look in my purse. I don’t mind.”
“That’s not the point.” I lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Regan still smiling at me.
“Are you always this friendly when you get up?” She was incorrigible. It didn’t seem to matter that I was annoyed. The more I got to know Regan, the more I realised that I had to take her on her own terms. Being upset by her uncontrolled curiosity was like resenting a carrot for being orange. She was the way she was, and if that wasn’t enough, then too bad. Unfortunately, even in a state of pique, I was overwhelmingly attracted to her. What I really wanted to do was leap over my desk and show her all the steps of the Forbidden Dance of Love. But caving in to carnal desire at this point would only condone her attitude. I had an image to uphold.
I turned back to her, a pillar of strength in terry cloth. “So, did you find anything useful in the notebooks?”
“Maybe. What’s it worth to you?”
“Do you take checks?”
“Sorry. I require full payment… up front.” her tone allowed for very little interpretation. Be strong, Murphy.
“I’m a little insolvent right now, though I’d be happy to write you an IOU.”
“There’ll be interest charges — you’ll have to make regular payments.”
“That’s OK. As soon as I get my finances organised, I’ll completely satisfy the debt… with interest.”
Regan made a nice sound. “I’m looking forward to it.” She reached down and pulled the notebook from her purse. Opening one of them, she took out several sheets of paper and handed them to me. “This is a summary of what I was able to figure out. Ninety percent are the contents of the alien symbols and notes on translating. As far as I could tell, there isn’t much of anything useful until the end of the second notebook. It’s all pretty vague.”
Regan’s notes had frequent references to OE and EW. the context implied that these were people. EW was almost certainly Elijah Witt. As for OE I had no idea who it could be. Other information included references to PD and the Roswell Complex. The number 186 was noted, which just happened to be the item number of the power cell had recently liberated from Roswell.
“What do you think this means?” Regan had come around the desk and was now standing behind me, pointing at the PD reference. “Do you think he was working with the police?”
I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure it stands for Pandora Device.”
Regan sat down on the corner of my desk. “Excuse me?”
“The Pandora Device. Apparently, your father was working on it not long before he died.”
Regan folded her arms. “How do you know about it?”
“It’s a long story. The important thing is, I’m pretty sure that it’s tied up with the boxes were looking for.”
Regan leaned forward excitedly. “So what does this Pandora Device do?”
“I don’t know. But it’s obviously something big. Seems like everyone and their grandmother is trying to get their hands on it.”
Regan jumped up and walked away. “I knew it! I wasn’t sure exactly what he was working on, but I knew it’d be worth a fortune.” She whipped around to face me.
“We’re close, Tex! We’ve just got to find the other boxes. And then… we take Manhattan!”
I didn’t really want to put a damper on her enthusiasm, but there were other considerations. “Don’t you think we should find out what the Pandora Device is first? Maybe it’s something we don’t want to let into circulation.”
Regan pulled up, a blank expression on her face. “What are you talking about? That’s why we’re in this. For the money.”
I considered telling her about Fitzpatrick and the warnings he’d given me. Regan only saw the financial possibilities. She needed to be aware of the other ramifications, but I decided to keep Fitzpatrick out of the mix for the time being. “Whatever your father was working on, he wanted to keep it away from the NSA. That tells me it’s the kind of thing that could be bad if it fell into the wrong hands.”
“Then we’ll only sell it to the right people.”
“And what if it’s not that simple? What if it’s something that would be better locked up forever than let loose?”
“That’s not an option. Whoever we sell it to, I don’t care what they do with it, whatever it is. It was my father’s work, so by rights is now mine to do with what I will. I don’t necessarily want the NSA to end up with it, but it’s my birthright, so to speak, and I’m going to cash in on it. And I can work with you or I can do it alone.” She suddenly looked around the office. “Where are the boxes?”
“Not here.”
“Well, where are they? I want to keep them myself.”
“They’re hidden away, someplace safe.”
Regan’s face turned a shade redder. “You don’t have the right to keep them from me. They’re mine!”
“No they’re not.”
She turned on her heel and began pacing around the room. I waited patiently. After several minutes, an abrupt change came over her, like the sun slipping out from behind a cloud. She walked toward me and knelt down on the floor beside my chair. Placing her hand over mine on the arm rest, she peered up into my eyes. “You’re right, Tex. I’m being foolish… and irresponsible. We’ll wait and see what the Pandora Device is. If there’s nothing terrible about it, we’ll make a lot of money and live happily ever after.”
Maybe she was on the level, maybe she was baiting a hook with me. Either way, I reached down and ran my hands through her hair.
“You’ll take care of me, won’t you Tex?”
There were very few things I wouldn’t have done for her at that moment. She kissed my hand then stood up and returned to her chair. “So what we do now?”
Like a sign from God, the Vid-phone beeped. I leaned forward and hit the Receive button. Lucas Pernell’s face appeared on the screen. “Hey, Murphy.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got the stuff you wanted. You want to meet?”
“Yeah.”
“Same place?”
“Sure. Give me an hour.”
I flipped the Vid-phone off and turn back to Regan. She wanted to ask who Pernell was, but she was trying desperately to be a good girl. That made me happy. I didn’t offer any explanations. Instead, I thought of an errand she could run that would give her something to do while I met with Pernell. If she got lucky, she might even get some useful information.
“I have to hook up with this friend of mine. In the meantime, there’s something you can do for me.” I pulled a notepad from one of the desk drawers and wrote down Archie Ellis’s name and address. Regan took the address and looked it over.
“I want you to go talk to this guy. Runs a UFO shop called the Cosmic Connection. Remember the EW your father referred to in his notebooks? I think it stands for Elijah Witt.”
Regan picked up a pen from a desktop and jotted the name down. “Who’s he?”
“He was, apparently, a friend of your father. He’s also a big wig in the UFO community. Wrote a book called There are Messages from Outer Space. He almost certainly knows something about the Pandora Device and whatever else your father was working on.”