Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02 (22 page)

“I have absolutely no idea.”

My response had come out with an unintentionally sarcastic edge to it. The punch happy-goon made another move. This time I was ready and managed to deflect the blow.

“Listen, Ching. If your goon doesn’t quit hitting me, I’m not gonna tell you a @#%$

thing.”

Ching stared at me passively for a long moment, then waved the apes away. They stepped back, and I got my first look at the thugs. They were not handsome men. But they were unbelievably big and radiated violence - the kind of guys who honed their craft through childhood by stealing lunch money and intimidating teachers into raising their grades to D minuses.

“All right, Mr. Murphy. Just mind your manners, and we’ll get along fine. Answer my questions, and you’ll have a decent chance of getting around the rest of your life without a walker. Now let’s talk about the bird, shall we?”

“We can talk about it all night, but it won’t change the fact that I don’t have it.”

“Fine. Just tell me where I can find it.”

“Well, I’m not sure. But I’d start looking in Brownsville, Texas.”

Ching shook her head, confused. “Texas?”

“Yeah. That’s the last place I saw it. I stopped there for cigarettes, and someone jumped me in the parking lot. Which reminds me -” I dug into my pocket, which caused the goons to tense up. I pulled out my pack of smokes and held it up innocently. “I hope you don’t mind. This is a smoking office.”

Ching watched me thoughtfully as I lit my cigarette. I blew out a long stream of smoke, and she tilted her head slightly. “Why should I believe you?”

“It probably won’t prove anything, but there’s an unusually large bump and several stitches at the base of my skull. That’s about as good as you’re going to get.”

Ching was silent for a moment, then jumped off the desk. “Imbecile! You have absolutely no idea what you’ve done, have you?”

“You don’t need to insult me.”

Ching moved around to the back of the desk and began to pace. “Why did you steal the bird?”

“I was hired to find it. My client said the statuette had been stolen from her. As far as I knew, I was just retrieving it.”

“Who was your client?”

Hell if I knew. I was sure I’d been set up and that the countess was almost certainly a fake, but I didn’t know what else to tell Ching. “It was an older woman. She said her name was Countess Renier.”

Ching stopped pacing and shook her head. “Jacques Fou. I’d bet my life on it.”

Fou. That was the name the Interpol agents had used. The real name of the Chameleon.

It was hard to believe that the countess could actually have been a man, but I’d been fooled along those lines before. It was a horrible memory. Fortunately, Ching interrupted.

“Why you? How did you get involved?”

I shrugged. “The countess, or Fou, whoever…called and offered me the case. That’s it.”

Ching circled back around the desk and leaned against it. “Let me tell you what you’ve done. There is a group - a cult - more powerful than you can possibly imagine. The bird is very important to them, and I went to great lengths to keep it from them.”

Ching was getting worked up.

“I can’t belive that one idiotic PI could just stumble into the middle of all this and ruin everything!”

I was starting to take exception to the verbal abuse. It simply wasn’t my fault. “I really wish you’d stop calling me names. And what’s the big deal with the statuette? You could probably find one just like it at Goodwill.”

Ching stuck a finger in my face. “You don’t get it, do you? This cult is planning on destroying the world! Finding the bird was the last thing on their list!”

I thought back to what Professor Perriman had told me about the brotherhood. It hadn’t sounded very believable then, and it didn’t now.

“This sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to me.”

Ching was upset. “It sounds ridiculous to everyone! That’s the whole point! When everyone realizes that it’s actually going to happen, it’ll be too late! We’ll all be dead!”

I wasn’t convinced, but Ching certainly seemed to be. And she was clearly in charge of the situation. I didn’t think I should provoke her any more than absolutely necessary.

“All right. I belive. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Give me a cigarette.”

I handed her a Lucky and lit it. She took an agitated drag and began to pace frantically.

After some time, she stopped and looked at one of the photos on the wall - the one with me, the Colonel, and Xavier. She whipped around. “You know the Colonel.”

I nodded behind a cloud of smoke.

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“I’ve found out a few things. Interpol thinks Jacques Fou murdered him.”

Ching looked at me, reassessing. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a complete incompetent. Apparently, that’s not the case. And there aren’t many left on our side.

Maybe you can make yourself useful.”

I thought it over. My PI instincts told me that Ching was on the level. Maybe this cult stuff was true, maybe it was a gross exaggeration. Regardless, it had gotten a lot of people killed. And if Ching was in the know, and I had no reason to believe she wasn’t, it seemed that I’d unwittingly been an accomplice in their plans. I pulled the data-storage clip from my pocket. “Maybe you can use this.”

Ching took it from me and examined it. “What is this?”

“A chapter in a long story.”

“We don’t have a lot of time. Make it short.”

As Ching went to my computer and loaded the clip, I recounted the events that had led me to GRS. When I finished, she had something on the screen. Even the goons were interested - there must have been pictures. They moved behind her and peered over her shoulder. I joined them. Ching was paging through a directtory. She clicked on a file labeled COLONEL, and a document appeared on the monitor.

It was a series of journal-like entries, dating back more than three months. We read the text in silence.

8/14/42 - I’ve made initial contact with the cult. The Colonel’s information was right on.

At least two employees here are members. I haven’t been able to find a solid link between GRS and the cult, but I’m sure that Tucker knows what’s going on. Over the past month, I’ve been letting people know that I support the eugenics movement. I was contacted today by a cult member named Murray. He’s a project supervisor. I’ll be attending an initiation meeting sometime next week.

8/17/42 - I’ve gotten to know one of Tucker’s assistants. I’m fairly sure he knows nothing about the cult. He told me that Tucker doesn’t trust most of his staff and has the project groups working separately. I’m trying to work my way into a position where I can find out what’s going on, but everyone’s keeping quiet.

8/20/42 - Fifteen or sixteen people came to the meeting at Tucker’s home. There were eight employees of GRS, and I didn’t know the others. I got the name of only one other cult member, a little nazi named Camden Leander. Reminded me of Heinrich Himmler.

He seemed to be the highest ranking member. I didn’t learn much; they seemed more concerned with grilling me. Apparently, it was some type of pre-initiation.

9/22/42 - I’ve been attending the cult meetings every week, but everything I’ve learned is essentially a crash course on the Crusade for Genetic Purity. A lot of talk of eugenics, getting rid of the Mutants, etc., but no specifics.

10/11/42 - I heard something disturbing at the meeting last night. It wasn’t said outright, but it was implied that everyone involved in the project who isn’t initiated into the cult knows too much and will be eliminated when the project is finished.

11/19/42 - It lloks like the project is almost completed. The cult members are ecstatic. I keep hearing them use the words “purification” and “alluvion.” I don’t know what they mean, but whatever’s going to happen is going to happen soon. I’m planning on notifying the Colonel this week so we can make the delivery.

11/23/42 - A man attended our last meeting wearing a mask. His voice was somehow familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He went by the name of Phoenix, and apparently he’s in charge, the way everyone treated him. I noticed him watching me during the meeting.

Afterwards, he pulled me aside and said there would be a special place for me in the

“new order.” I’m not sure if they’re onto me or not. I’m going to hold off on the delivery until I know.

12/03/42 - Something has gone wrong. The chip was supposed to be delivered last night.

I’m afraid something has happened to the Colonel. I have no choice but to keep playing along.

12/05/42 - I was just informed that we’re moving in two days. The GRS phase of the project has apparently been completed. From what I can gather, we’re relocating operations to the lunar penal colony. I have no idea why. I’ll send a message when I can.

When I finished reading the entries, I returned to my chair. Ching resumed pacing, lost in thought. After a while, she seemed to reach a decision. “What do you think, Mr.

Murphy?”

I crossed my legs nonchalantly and wiped a dirt smudge from my wing tip.

“I think we’re going to the moon.”

UAKM - chapter twenty-one

Ching and I discussed our plans for more than an hour. Talking to her, I came to the conclusion that she would be a good person to have in my camp. She said she had connections and would find a way for us to get passage to the lunar penal colony. Even I knew that getting to the moon required clearance, but Ching said it could be bought from the right people. We determined that it was too late to retrieve the satuette. All we could do now was try to find out what the cult planned to do. And the answer seemed to be off-planet.

Ching told me that she’d contact me as soon as she made arrangements, and then she left. Her thugs, who were intoduced as Lou and Felipe, didn’t seem too happy about me joining their vigilante band, but I shook their hands anyway and wished them a good night. When I was alone, I wondered if I was getting involved foolishly. I already suspected that I was getting in over my head, and everything Ching had told me seemed to confirm this. But the things she had said also led me to believe that if we didn’t do something, no one would. With CAPRICORN decimated, the Colonel dead, and the rest of the world in blissful ignorance, I was inclined to agree.

The question was, do what? We had almost no clue as to the cult’s intentions. What was the aim of the project at GRS? Why would they need to continue their work at the lunar penal colony? Again, I found myself asking a million questions and coming up with no answers. Maybe I just needed a few mugs of the Armageddon.

Business at the Brew & Stew was surprisingly slow. Even at eleven o’clock on a weeknight, the place was usually half full. When I stepped inside the diner, I counted eight heads. Rook was sitting on his preferred bar stool, playing chess with another old Mutant, who I didn’t recognize. Louie was leaning on the other side of the counter, intently watching the match. He looked up and waved. “Hey there, Murph. C’mon in! I think we can squeeze ya in somewhere.”

I sidled over to the bar and sat next to Rook’s back. Rook glanced over his shoulder.

“Well, if it isn’t Murphy. How goes the search for true love?”

“It’s a myth, Rook. The best I can hope for is the companionship of swell friends like you.”

Rook snorted and returned to his game. Louie grinned and shook my hand, but his expression became concerned when he noticed the knuckle-shaped marks on my chin.

“Geez, Murph, what happened?”

My hand went self-consciously to my jaw. “Oh, nothing. Shaving accident.”

Louie turned his head slightly and gave me the eye. “You gotta take better care. If you ain’t careful, yer gonna end up lookin’ like me.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Louie. You’re a handsome man.”

The big Mutant actually blushed. “So, what’ll yer poison be tonight?”

“Just a cup of the Armageddon.”

“Comin’ up.”

The television behind the bar was tuned to a music video station. If the on-screen action was indicatice of the music, I was glad the sound was muted. I heard Rook’s friend call check and decided to investigate the chess game. It didn’t require any neck cranning to look over Rook’s petite, rounded shoulder. I’d never been much of a chess player, though I’d loaded it on my computer. The chess program had ten levels. I could win on level one with my eyes closed, but level two beat the snot out of me every time. It was just like my experience with women. Almost exactly.

Despite my lack of chess expertise, it seemed pretty clear that Rook was being taken to school by his chess buddy. Rook seemed to sense that I was peeping an turned around indignantly. “Don’t you have something better to do than leer over my shoulder? Look, there’s a TV. Why don’t you watch that?”

I held up my hands. “Sorry, Rook. Don’t let me disturb you. Looks like you’re having a hard enough time without me witnessing the humiliation.”

“You are so very funny.” Rook turned back to the game as Louie emerged from the kitchen with a small plate and a steaming mug of java.

“Fresh pot. And I thought you might like a little something to munch on.”

Louie had cut up three or four kinds of cheese and laid the slices out with pieces of ham and turkey. There was even a dollop of brown mustard in the center of the plate. At any other restaurant in the city, this little dainty would’ve run anywhere from five bucks to a C-note - at Louie’s place, it came with the coffee. I helped myself to a chunk of sharp cheddar while Louie dipped a slice of turkey in the mustard.

“Tell me something, Louie. You ever gotten yourself into a situation and realized you’re in over your head?”

Louie chewed pensively, then took a sip off a can of Diet Shasta. “Sure. Got one of them right now, as a matter of fact.” He set the can down to free up his hands for gesturing.

“You see, my sister’s boy, Dalton, is graduating from Berkley. Now, I think of him like my own son, so I told him I would be at his graduation. Then, as luck would have it, my goddaughter is gettin’ married on the same day. Well, I wasn’t even thinkin’ about the graduation, and I said I’d come to the weddin’.”