The Pandora Directive: A Tex Murphy Novel (19 page)

With reckless optimism, I tried my hand for awhile, but I realised within minutes that I was accomplishing nothing. I put the paperbacks away and turned back to the newspaper. Lucas Pernell’s byline caught my attention. The piece dealt with the history of local government corruption. An idea hit me like a blind-side haymaker. The Bay City Mirror produced its own puzzles. I was willing to bet that they were generated by some kind of computer program. I also had a gut feeling that Malloy’s anagram of There are Messages from Outer Space was going to end up being important. And I just happened to know someone who worked at the Bay City Mirror.

I fished out Lucas Pernell’s card and punched in the number. After several minutes, I got Pernell on the line. “Just read your article in today’s Mirror. Good stuff.”

He sounded equally annoyed and flattered. What’s up, Murphy? I’m pretty busy.”

“Can we talk? I mean now, over the phone?”

Pernell gave me a scrutinising look. “Important?”

“I’d like to think so.”

He checked his watch. “You know where. The first place. Half an hour.” I beat Pernell to the Twilight Lounge by five minutes. On the flight over, I’d thought of something else I needed to ask about. I didn’t know how often he spoke to Mac Malden, but I needed to contact Mac as discreetly as possible and find out what he knew about the NSA — specifically, what they were doing about me.

Pernell threw his hat and coat into the booth and slid in. “Got an extra bad boy?”

I pushed my pack of Lucky Strikes across the table. Pernell pulled one out and leaned over as I lit my ex-cigarette. He slumped behalf against the back of his seat and exhaled through his nose. “What’s up?”

I packed a smoke of my own. “You want a bourbon?”

Pernell flashed a hint of a cynical smile. “Oh, this must be good.”

I caught the waitress’s eye and signalled for two bourbons. It was still pretty early, but I figured it was happy hour somewhere.

“So… spill it.”

I smoked a cigarette and waited for our drinks to arrive. “You still working on the Black Arrow Killer story?”

Pernell nodded in mid-gulp. “Why? You got something?”

“I do. Maybe enough to help you wrap up the details.”

The reporter reached into his frayed sports jacket and pulled out a pen and notepad. He opened the pad, licked the tip of the pen, and looked up at me expectantly. “Let’s have it.”

I buried my cigarette stub into the ashtray. “Hold on. I need two favours. I’ll trade.”

Pernell was leery. “How good is your information?”

I smiled. “Remember the best sex you’ve ever had? This is better.”

The reporter grinned fiercely and drained his bourbon. “What do you want me to do?”

I pulled out There are Messages from Outer Space. “Ever heard of this?”

“Sure. It’s like a bible for UFO nuts.”

Everyone except me knew about this book. “I have reason to believe that someone made an anagram out of the title. I need to find a computer program that will check for all the possible anagrams.”

Purnell shrugged. “That’s easy enough. I know the guy who does the anagrams. I’m sure he can take care of things for you. I’ll give you a call when he’s had a chance to check it out. So what’s the other thing?”

“I’d need to contact Mac Malden.”

Pernell gave me a dopey look. “Go ahead. Don’t let me stop you.”

I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “Look, I’m in a little trouble with a certain powerful government agency. As far as I know, they’re staking out my office, and Mac seems to think his transmissions are being monitored. I haven’t slept in my apartment for two days. I have to contact Mac and see if he’s heard anything new.”

Pernell considered for a few moments. “That second thing, I’m not too excited about that. Tell you what — you give me some of the dope, and I’ll decide whether I want to shake on it.”

It seemed reasonable, and I didn’t really have much choice. I told Pernell about tracking down the Black Arrow Killer, up to the point where I followed him to the roof. I left out Emily’s name at the part about the box. When I finished, Pernell looked up at me like I was a ten-thousand dollar hooker who just said “Time’s up.”

“So then what happened? Did you find out who it was?”

I lit up a smoke. “Shall we give Malden a call?”

Clearly frustrated, Pernell reached into his jacket and pulled out a cellular vid-phone. He pressed a rapid dial button.

After a few seconds, I heard Mac’s familiar rasp. “What?”

Pernell covered the mouthpiece. “What do you want to ask him?”

“Ask if he’s heard anything recently about his old friend, who brought the woman and the cigarettes the last time they talked.”

Pernell repeated my message.

Mac had apparently forgotten. It took him a minute to catch the wave. “Oh, yeah, that useless bastard. I haven’t seen him for a while, but if you run into him, let him know that the bill collectors have backed off. They were pretty damn upset at first, but it looks like someone paid his bills for him. Don’t ask me why. All I know is that, for now, everything looks OK.”

Pernell answered. “All right, Malden. I’ll let him know if I see him.”

Why would the NSA have backed off? If the Feds were giving me some slack, they were probably just waiting until I wove enough rope to hang myself with. Having the NSA watching and waiting would be like having a bum ticker. Everything would be fine until the minute I dropped dead. But at least it gave me some breathing room.

Pernell pocketed his vid-phone. “Is that what you wanted to here?”

I took a drag of my smoke. “Yes and No. But I appreciate your help.”

He hunched over his notepad. “I’d send my grandmother up the river for a hot story.”

I gave him all the details: the struggle on the roof, the Black Avatar, Dag Horton’s name. For good measure, I even described my little trip to the NSA Office, and meeting the delightful Jackson Cross.

“I knew it!” Pernell was lit up like the resident floozy at an office Christmas party. “I was sure the NSA had their dirty paws all over this thing. With my connections, I’ll have this story on the front page in week.”

Under normal circumstances, I’d have been nervous about Purnell publishing the story. The NSA could easily put two and two together and come up with who the “anonymous source” of all the information was. But, for better or worse, I’d already offended the agency. Stepping on the metaphorical toes one more time shouldn’t make much difference.

I was about to get up when I remembered another detail Pernell could help me with. He was bent over his notebook, scribbling. I waited for him to finish. “You got a few more minutes to burn?”

“It will make me thirsty.”

I caught the barmaids eye and motioned for another bourbon. “You remember Sandra Collins?”

Pernell nodded impatiently. “Yeah. Berkeley.”

“Look… I won’t bother you with the details, but she figures into this whole mess. Do you know what she was doing at the University before she was murdered?”

A flicker of interest crossed Pernell’s face. He played with his empty glass, thoughtfully. “It’s been a while… she was hired to work as an assistant on some research project.”

He paused and looked up at the barmaid who’d arrived with his bourbon. He took a sip as I paid for the drink. The waitress walked away, and Purnell spoke softly, the glass halfway to his lips. “She was working with a guy named… it began with an M… Mann, Mathers, Matlin…”

He paused and took a drink.

“Malloy?”

Pernell shook his head with a mouthful of bourbon. I tried to think back. Fitzpatrick had said that Malloy was using an alias. What was it? Pernell looked apologetic. “It’s been a long time.”

I remembered. “Matthews? Tyson Matthews?”

Pernell snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “That’s it! Matthews. Anyway, Sandra Collins turned out to be at the top of her class in optical science. Holographic projectors, virtual-reality simulators, that sort of thing. That’s apparently how she got onto the project. It was just her and Matthews working together.”

“Did you ever talk to this Matthews guy?”

“No. He disappeared from the University a little but before the murder. I didn’t really try to track him down.”

Did any of the authorities find out if he was involved? Or if what Sandra was working on figured into the murder motive?”

Pernell finished off his drink. “Not that I know. For all the police knew, it was the Black Arrow Killer, open and shut. Apparently, the Feds treated it the same way.”

“Do you think that there’s anyone at the University who would know what Sandra and Matthew’s were working on?”

“No. I asked around. It was an airtight project, sanctioned by someone way up on the food chain.”

Pernell flashed a sneaky grin. “You got something interesting you want to tell me?”

I got up from the table. “Not today. Maybe sometime when I’m really broke and really thirsty.”

“You smoke too much.”

I looked up from my matchbook, a Lucky dangling from my lips. “Yeah, so?”

Regan smiled serenely as I looked up. “I have a theory about people who smoke too much.”

I exhaled a tremendous amount of smoke. “Please, enlighten me.”

“|Smokers are lonely. Cigarettes are their one good friend. No matter what, they can always reach into their pocket and find their little friend, Mr Smoke.”

“I’m not a lonely guy.”

Regan leaned forward, chin resting in her hand. “Sure you are.”

I inspected my tie and flicked off a lint ball “I’ve just found myself to be the only consistently reasonable person I know.”

Regan sat back as a waitress arrived. “The two of you must be very happy.”

A glass of wine for Reagan and a cup of black coffee for me. I’d already had a bourbon with Pernell. Catching a buzz around lunchtime wasn’t on my list of things to do. I looked around. The Imperial Lounge was busier than it had been yesterday. It made me a little nervous, but crowded rooms always did. I looked back at Regan as she finished leaving a soft, red impression of her lower lip on the outer rim of the wine glass.

“You certainly didn’t pull any punches yesterday.”

Her tone was as cool as a mint julep. I stared into the ashtray as the butt of my cigarette gave up the ghost.

“Was I too hard on you?” I looked up and met Regan’s eyes. She was smiling in a way that made me curious.

“Don’t flatter yourself, shamus. I’ll let you know when you’re too hard.” She certainly had a way with a phrase. “There you go again, twisting my words. How do you expect us to get anything accomplished with you talking like that?”

Regan tossed me a mocking pout like it was a bone. “I’ll be good if you insist. But you’re brushing off an extremely sincere effort. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am.” I reached down for my backpack and pulled out the notebooks I’d taken from Malloy’s room. Setting them on the table, I took a sip of coffee. It tasted like dishwater. Louie could teach these people a thing or two about brewing a part of Joe. Regan leaned over the table to get a look at the notebooks.

“What’re those?”

“Notebooks.”

Regan looked up sarcastically. “Really? How do they work?”

“They’re full of paper. People write in them. These particular notebooks belonged to your father.”

The caustic look evaporated. “My father? Where’d you get them?”

“That’s not important. What is important is finding out what’s written in them. Your father used some kind of shorthand. I can’t make out a thing. I was hoping you could.”

Regan pulled one of them across the table and opened it. She flicked through the pages quickly, pausing only to moisten her fingers. After some time, she looked up and took a sip of wine. She seemed to enjoy making me wait.

“What do you think?”

She set down her glass and looked back at the notebook. “He never liked to write on the computer. Most everything he wrote was in notebooks like this.”

“Can you read it?”

She flipped pages idly. “Some. It’ll take awhile to get through it all.”

I was relieved. “How long do think it will take you to figure them out?”

Regan closed the notebook and reached for the Pinot. “I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

I was impatient, but her tone said that I’d just have to wait and like it, damn it. She drank the rest of the wine, subtly making love to the glass. On cue, the waitress arrived and asked if we’d like another round. Regan said yes, leaving no room for discussion. When the waitress left, Regan reached across the table and took one of my smokes.

“I hope you don’t mind.”

I motioned nonchalantly. She lit the cigarette with her eyes locked on mine, like she was kissing another man. Her wine arrived, and the waitress sloshed a stream of so-called coffee in the general vicinity of my cup. Regan smiled as I mopped up with a cocktail napkin. “Tell me something… something interesting about yourself.”

“What you want to know?”

“Anything. I feel like you know a lot more about me than I do about you. It’s not very fair.”

I retreated to my pack of Lucky Strikes. “I was married once. How’s that?”

“Only once? That’s not very interesting. Everyone’s been married once.”

“I never said I was interesting.”

Regan poised her cigarette over the ashtray and flicked delicately. “So, what was she like?”

“Beautiful, intelligent, sexy… and rotten to the core.”

Regan smiled indulgently. “So why did you marry her?”

“I lost a bet.” I took a drag and wished I hadn’t brought up the subject.

“Do you hate all women now?”

I shook my head and reached for my cup of dishwater. “They’re like tequila, the greatest thing in the world until the one night you overdo it. After that, the slightest whiff of it makes you want to vomit. For a long time, you can’t even think about it without getting nauseous. After a while, you take a little sip, and you’re surprised to find that you can keep it down. Eventually, you go back to drinking it, but you never, ever forget that first miserable night.” I took another sip of dishwater. It tasted a bit like Cuervo.

“Nice metaphor.”