The Pandora Directive: A Tex Murphy Novel (9 page)

Both of them were still looking at me.

“Okay. One more question, and I’ll get out of here. Do either of you know why Malloy’s on the run?”

Emily cleared her throat and took a sip of her drink. “Thomas never talked about his work. He said it was better that way, safer for me. I honestly don’t know why he left,” She said wistfully.

A dumpster sat in the alley by the side door to the Flamingo. With any luck, the wrapping paper would be inside. Dumpster searching hadn’t been a part of my PI training curriculum. The movies that inspired me to become a detective never showed that part of the job. Oh, well. I rolled up my sleeves and dug in.

It was stinking, rotten work. Damp tissues, gum, coffee grounds, little hairy slabs of food. It reminded me of the buffet restaurants by fat Uncle Monty always took me to. I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything.

Eventually it paid off. I’d gotten lucky. The brown-paper wrapper had been stuffed into a garbage bag with a stack of newspapers and was stain (and smell) free.

I stepped inside my office. Laying the wrapper on the desk, I went to my file cabinet to retrieve my investigative props. Kneeling down, I opened the bottom drawer.

They’d been moved.

I looked through the other jurors in the cabinet and the desk. Nothing seemed to missing, but someone had certainly searched my office. The inspector the locks and a daughter the fire escape, as well as the windows. There was no sign of forced entry. Whoever had broken in had even gotten Hold Of My access code, or was a consummate professional. Me the possibility was very appealing.

I sat down and lit a Lucky Strike, trying to relax and come up with a rational explanation. Maybe Nilo had gotten bored and decided to snoop around some of the rooms. Unlikely. Nilo would have stolen something. Maybe I’d forgotten to lock the door… no, I was certain I’d locked it.

I didn’t want to accept the fact that a professional had gone through my place. Unfortunately, there was no other reasonable explanation. I speculated on why nothing had been taken. Then a thought hit me. The box. Whoever had been in cahoots with the phoney Black Arrow Killer knew about the box and hadn’t located it. Logically, they’d figure that the police or I had ended up with it.

The vid-phone chimed.

“Hello.”

“Murphy? This is Malden.”

I flipped on my video relay. Mac looked worried and rushed. “We’ve gotta meet. Right now.”

“Uh…”

“No questions. Meet me at the usual place as soon as you can get there. Bring that woman and your cigarettes. And make sure no one follows you.” he switched off the feed.

I had no idea what that was talking about. He and I had never met anywhere outside of the crime scene or the precinct. He was the woman he preferred to? This medicine? He couldn’t possibly think that I’d never had to find her. I couldn’t come up with any other woman that Mac would have in mind. And why the reference to my cigarettes? I thought it over. Maybe menu that someone was listening in an couldn’t actually name the place where you want to me. The woman and the cigarettes must be clues.

I punched up the city directory on a computer. First, I checked for any place called the Lucky Strike. There wasn’t one. But there were several places with the word “Lucky” in the name. As I scrolled through the list, a name jumped out at me. The Lucky Lady Cafe. My cigarettes, a woman. I jotted down the address and hurried out my speeder.

Ten minutes later, I walked into a greasy spoon on the other end of town. Remembering what Mac had said, I’d been careful not be followed. Mac was sitting in a booth away from the windows, eating a frosted cake doughnut and sipping coffee.

“I hope this is important. Perry Mason was on, and I’d just made some espresso.”

Mac’s face was as serious as a face can be with sprinkles and frosting on it. “The NSA is probably at your office right now. They were coming to get you.”

It took a moment to sink in. “What does the NSA want with me?

Mac washed down the last bite of doughnut with a slug of foul-smelling coffee. “Remember the guy you tossed off the roof?”

“I didn’t toss him off the roof,” I said indignantly.

“Whatever. Turns out he was an agent. An NSA Special Agent.”

Oh, God.

Mac took a bite out of another doughnut. Glazed.

“His name was Dag Horton. The information came about half-an-hour ago. Five minutes later, word came through the office that they were gonna nail you. That’s when I called.”

“So here we are.”

Mac nodded, his mouth packed. I leaned against the backrest and pulled out my pack of smokes. What was I going to do? I didn’t have a lot of options. They’d catch me eventually, and… then what? Kill me? I’d obviously gotten in the way of something, as well as contributed to the death of an agent. Sure, this Horton guy was as crooked as Lombard Street, but was he murdering women for his own sport, or on behalf of the agency? Maybe they just wanted to question me. A voice in my head said don’t bet on it. I needed leverage… a bargaining chip. The box.

Mac was watching me, mouthing half a doughnut like a cow chewing its cud. I drew in on my cigarette, then slowly exhaled the smoke in one long breath. “The cops who picked me up last night, did they bring a box in from the crime scene?”

“What you mean?”

“You know, a box. A metal box that holds 3-by-5 cards. Like the kind your Mom kept recipes in.”

An anguished look passed over Mac’s puffy face. “My mother didn’t keep recipes. When I was eight, she took me and my brothers and sisters to the circus. A couple of days later, she disappeared. She ran off with one of the circus clowns. Beppo. Left my Dad to raise all nine of us on his own. I’ve hated clowns ever since.”

It was a sad story, but we all had sad stories. I even had my own reason for hating clowns, but that was a long time ago and I tried not to think about it any more. “Sorry to bring it up. But you know what I for am talking about, right?”

Mac picked up a sticky bun. The prospect of a third pastry seemed to ease him out of his bitter memories. “Sure. There was no box. Our boys didn’t bring in anything except a gun and what was on the body. Took everything to the coroner.”

I thought back to the events leading up to Horton taking his last dive. In my mind’s eye, I could see him running across the street and scrambling over the fence into the alley. Suddenly, I realised — he wasn’t carrying the box! His hands were free when he climbed the fence. Horton must have dumped the box somewhere behind the Electronics Shop and the Brew & Stew. And since someone had searched my office earlier today, it was clear that the box hadn’t been found. If I could find it first and put it somewhere safe, it might just give me the leverage I needed to keep breathing.

I got up to leave.

“Where you going?”

I was feeling a lot better now that I had a plan. “I’ve gotta go find something. Something the agency wants even more than me.”

Mac pulled out a cigarette. “I wouldn’t go back to your office for awhile. Knowing the agency, they’ll have lookouts crawling all around your place.”

“I appreciate the warnings, Mac. I guess I owe you on this one.”

Mac waved his Merit at me. “Let’s just say we’re all squared up. And, by the way, we didn’t have this little talk.”

I flew my speeder in low over Chandler Avenue, hoping, or rather not hoping, to see something that would confirm what Mac had told me. There were three people loitering near the Ritz — a clearly marked “no loitering” area. Even though the rule was never enforced, the Ritz just wasn’t the kind of place people hung around. I had to assume that the loiterers were the Fed’s Malden had warned about.

I nosed up and headed aimlessly toward the new city. I needed time to think. My first priority was to find the box Horton had ditched last night. Secondly, I have to get back into my office and recover the wrapping paper I’d dug out of the dumpster. Last, and least, I was eventually going to need a place to sleep and maybe take a shower, though I had a first rate deodorant and tried to sweat as little as possible.

I spent the afternoon in a booth at the twenty-four-hour pool hall. A barmaid with six new stitches to her forehead had been very attentive and only charged me for half my drinks. She said her name was Candy, the nickname her boyfriend had given her for good reason. I couldn’t help but speculate that she was looking for a man to tide her over until her true love got paroled. It didn’t look like she was going to let me go until I finally told her that my boyfriend called me Dumpling.

Outside, it was just getting dark. I felt a little more comfortable looking for the box under the cover of night. Home field advantage was my only edge on the G-men, and I intended to use it. On second thought, there was one more thing in my favour. The men waiting for me at the Ritz had no reason to think that I knew about them. Mac hadn’t just saved my skin, he also give me a head start.

I landed my speeder in the parking lot to the left of the Brew & Stew, in a dead end of the Chandler cul-de-sac. A few people were up and about, starting the business day. I waited in a speeder until it appeared that no one seemed move. Removing a flashlight from the glove compartment, I slipped out and hurried to the alley that ran behind the Brew & Stew.

The alley was empty. At least a hundred metres separated me from the back of the Ritz. I was standing where Horton had been last night when I doubled back to the newsstand. The box had to be somewhere close. I paused and tried to put myself into Horton’s shoes. The best thing would be to retrace his steps. I walked toward the Ritz, just until I passed the back of the Electronics Shop. Turning around, I began to examine everything in the alley.

Okay. I’m Horton. I’m being chased, and it looks like I might get caught. I’ve got to dump the box. Someplace where it won’t be found accidentally, but where I can come back and find it easily. To my right, there was a concrete wall, eight or nine feet high. Horton could have lobbed the box over the wall, but I doubted it, for two reasons: one, it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly where the box had gone over, and two, the box might be damaged. No, Horton would have found a clever hiding place somewhere in the alley.

I looked around. Several garbage cans and a dumpster stood in and around the alley. I doubted that Horton would have put the box in any of them. Why would he take a chance on them getting emptied before he could return? Of course, maybe he was panicked and not thinking clearly, so I gave them a quick once over. No box.

Apparently, logic wasn’t going to save me any time. I started a methodical search, picking up scraps of garbage and scanning underneath with my flashlight. For almost an hour, I made my way slowly down the alley, searching every inch. Nothing. I was almost at the end when I moved an empty cardboard box and saw the manhole cover. The metal lid was heavy, but I managed to pry it up and slide it to the side. A ladder descending into the darkness. I stepped down.

Holding my flashlight, I scanned around. To my left, two large pipes intersected. The beam from my flashlight reflected off the box, sitting on the cross section of the pipes! I grabbed it and climbed to the surface. I suddenly felt like getting the hell out of there. Cradling the box, I ran to my speeder, jumped in, and lifted off.

Now I had my leverage. I felt like I’d taken a hostage.

I put the speeder on autopilot and flicked on the interior light. The box was made of metal — lightweight and very strong. It was small, about eight inches by four inches by six inches. One side appeared to be the lid, judging by the almost imperceptible cracks around the edges. Someone had apparently tried to pry the lid open, leaving several barely visible scratches. I turned it over, looking for a keyhole or a disguised latch. Emily had been right — there didn’t seem to be any way to open it. Looking closely, I could see three very thin lines running horizontally across the front of the box. I experimented, tried to get a section of the box to move, but with no luck. Admitting defeat, I set the box on the passenger seat and took the speeder off auto.

Now what? The box was my only bargaining chip, and I wasn’t about to be caught carrying it around. I could put it in a safe-deposit box, but then I’d have to carry around a key that could be traced. Besides, a mere safe deposit box wouldn’t slow down the Feds. I could hide the box somewhere, but then if I were caught, I wouldn’t have access to it. After some thought, I decided that I needed to put it in the care of someone I could trust. Then I could leave instructions for my ally that would help keep me alive if I were nabbed.

At times like this, I regretted myself imposed title of Social Leper. I went through the short list of people I counted as friends and realised for the first time how short it was. Louie was a good guy and a true friend, but I’d already asked him for a few hundred too many favours. This one would be too much. Rook was probably my friend, but it was hard to tell. Mac Malden fell into the same category as Rook, plus he’d already done me a huge service.

It came down to Chelsee. I knew I could trust her, but would she be willing to help me? It seemed like half the time I talked to her, I was asking for big favours. It didn’t matter. I had to see if she was willing. If she wasn’t, I’d make other plans, though I had no idea what those plans would be. “Want coffee?” Chelsee asked.

“What kind you got?”

“Let me think… I got Parisian Potpourri, Hawaiian Macadamia… I might have a little of the Hungarian Mint.”

God, those weren’t coffee — they were horribly mutated forms of hot cocoa. They should have names like Chernobyl Chocolate and Three Mile Island Delight. “You don’t have any plain old black stuff?”

“Sorry. I do have some plain old Earl Grey.”

Tea? Who did she think I was? “Uh… no tea, thanks. Any kind of coffee will be just fine. You decide.”

Chelsee walked away, into the kitchen. She called out through the open door. “I’m glad you came by. Sorry I missed your call. I was… out. It’s been a busy couple of days.”

“Tell me about it.” I was willing to bet that my last couple of days had been a little more eventful than hers, though I’d probably done less shopping and watched fewer controversial talk shows. I wondered how much I should tell her about what happened after she left me at the Flamingo. Some explanations could be required for Chelsee to do me the big favour I needed.