I leaned back over the keyboard. For the hell of it, I typed FOUR RARE CASES. The screen blinked. I was in.
Hello, Elijah. I see you figured out my little puzzle. And since you’re reading this, I’ll assume that something has happened to me. You always said I was looking for trouble. Well, I think I found it.
You should already have received a package from me. I’ve sent similar packages to four others. The five of you are the people I trust most in his back-stabbing, selfdestructive world. Collectively, you are the Council which now holds the key to a locked door, beyond which lies the knowledge of ancient and distant intelligence.
As you know, visitors from other worlds have come to our little corner of the galaxy. You’ve always believed, but now you have a chance to see evidence with your own eyes. Unfortunately, there are others who want what I’ve discovered, and not for the altruistic motives we share.
For that reason, I have created something I have taken to calling the Pandora Device. The contents of the package I sent you must be used with those contained in the packages sent to the others. Together, you will learn what I’ve discovered. Together, I hope that your combined power, influence, and wisdom will determine what should be done.
You know I have a tendency to the labour the point, but let me end by saying this: what awaits you is something the world may not be ready for. If this is your conclusion as well, keep in mind that it’s better to destroy something than allow it to destroy.
Sincerely,
Thomas
I paged down to a schematic drawing of an odd-looking contraption. It vaguely resembled a camera with all the attachments hooked on. Under the drawing was the caption The Pandora Device. Paging down again, I saw that the contraption was comprised of three interlocking pieces. It appeared to have a small control panel.
So this was the Pandora Device. It seemed utterly innocuous. I looked at the diagrams closely, trying to fathom what message, what power, could be contained inside. Malloy had given no further clues.
I read the message to Witt several times, then leaned back away from the computer. Unless Malloy was a terrible exaggerator, the implications were even more serious than Fitzpatrick had led me to believe. For the first time, I wondered whether it was my place to be in the middle of this. Regardless, I was in the middle, and with no way out. And Fitzpatrick was counting on me. I needed to find the other boxes.
Fitzpatrick already had two of the boxes: Regan’s and Emily’s. Archie Ellis had received one, but it had been stolen. I didn’t have high hopes of finding that one, but I had to try. Another box, obviously, was in Witt’s possession. That left one box unaccounted for. Maybe it had been sent to OE. Unfortunately, I have no clue who that was, though his or her identity would probably turn up if I kept looking.
For the time being, I decided that the trail of my investigation led to the Cosmic Connection. Ellis was my only link to locating Elijah Witt. I wasn’t optimistic that Ellis could help with finding out who’d stolen his box, but maybe Regan had gotten some information regarding Witt. I picked up the phone and called her hotel. She wasn’t in. Feeling impatient, I decided to pay Ellis a visit and beat Witt’s address out of him if I had to.
The door to the Cosmic Connection was locked, and the Closed sign was out. I peered into the darkness, trying to see if Ellis’s was around. The place appeared to be deserted. I knocked on the door several times, but there was no answer. I checked the lock, but it was a dead bolt, shut tighter than Rook’s wallet.
A narrow alley ran down the right side of the shop. I followed it to the end. There was no back door on this side of the building. I started back toward the front when I noticed a small piece of rain-stained plywood crate on the ground, set against the side of the building. Just on the off chance, I knelt down and pushed it aside. A small, cracked window looked big enough for me to squeeze through, though I’d have to take off my fedora. It was a big price to pay, but this was a big job.
After a few minutes of trying to pry the window open, I resorted to brute force and kicked it in unceremoniously. Managing to climb through without tearing my overcoat, I found myself in the bowels of the Cosmic Connection. With nothing more than five-second intervals of match light and my innate sense of direction, I stumbled around the dark basement until I found a light switch. Shadows sprang up around me, and I found myself amid a jungle of cardboard boxes, piles of books, and a plethora of indescribably odd objects. To my right was a rickety set of stairs leading up to the main floor. I reached the top and, throwing open the basement door, stepped in to Ellis’s shop.
The smell of incense was much less noxious than it had been before. Ellis wasn’t here, and my guess was that he hadn’t been for awhile. But I was wrong.
As I looked around, I caught sight of something behind the counter. As I approached, I saw the bottoms of a pair of old sneakers. Leaning over the counter, I looked straight into the glazed, unseeing eyes of Archie Ellis. The hole in his head was new. A pool of congealed blood had gelled around him. He looked like an overgrown kindergartener taking a nap on a giant raspberry fruit roll-up.
Life was getting cheaper by the minute, and I felt like the Grim Reaper’s calling card. I lit a smoke. Poor bastard. I checked around. Whoever had killed him, it hadn’t been a burglar. Who was I kidding? He’d gotten waxed on my account. He wasn’t worth killing for any other reason. Malloy, I could understand, but not Ellis. Things were coming to a head. Someone was going around, tying up loose ends, maybe trying to find the box Ellis no longer had. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon. I needed to find Witt.
I made a systematic search of the Cosmic Connection. I don’t know how long Ellis had run his shop, but he’d collected a few lifetime’s worth of paraphernalia. One entire section of the store was piled high with newspaper articles, Magazine clippings, and news-wire photographs. Several file cabinets were stuffed full of correspondence. There were racks of home videos, undoubtedly of UFO sightings, and an impressive library of laser disks, dealing with all forms of paranormal subject matter. Ellis had apparently stashed things in one spot until there was no room left, then moved to another section of the building.
After some time, I found the most recent dumping ground. Rooting through the stacks of paper, I found what I was looking for: a scrap of paper with the name J.I. Thelwait, Witt’s alias, written on it. There was also an incomplete mailing address: PO Box 24, Richfield. The state and zip code had fought a battle with a coffee stain and lost. They were smeared to the point of illegibility. But at least I had an address. Now I just needed to find out where it was.
I seemed to remember Ellis saying something about Witt retiring to a place in the Northwest. He could have been trying to throw me off, but it was a good place to start. There was a vid-phone on the counter, sitting on top of a vid-phone directory. I opened the directory and found the page with the area-code listings. Starting with one of Washington state’s four codes, I dialled 1-509-555-1212. The operator’s voice came on and asked for a city. I said Richfield and asked for the number of J.I. Thelwait. The operator told me that Richfield was in area code 206. The 206 operator informed me that there was no one by that name listed. I asked him to check Elijah Witt. No luck.
In Oregon, there was no city named Richfield. California had a Richfield, but no Elijah Witt or J.I. Thelwait. I resorted to checking the other Western states. The Richfields in Nevada, Utah, and Idaho didn’t pan out. Montana, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona had no Richfields. I wasn’t too keen on trying every state in the country. Could Ellis have meant western Canada? Maybe Witt was across the border. I dialled the number for Canadian information. There was, indeed, an Elijah Witt in Richfield, British Columbia, but his number and address were unlisted. I didn’t care. Just like the Mounties, I had enough to get my man.