I forcibly rejected the notion. Because of me, they were about to be subjected to a police search. No, I would stay in one of my other pied-à-terres.
* * *
It took continent hopping to get ready for my date. I had spent too much time working and hadn’t noticed that while it was still light in New York it was now dark in Vienna. Time zones are a bitch when you have to be in the proper form to teleport. I had to wait until it was fully dark in New York before I could teleport to my flat in Vienna and dress as Lilith. Which meant I had to contact Brent and ask if we could push our date back an hour. Once in Vienna I dressed in a short skirt, silk blouse, and knee high boots with a very high heel. That’s actually the worst part of assuming my Lilith form, the damn high heels. Foot binding and girdles might have gone the way of the dodo, but I was convinced that high heels were designed by frightfully insecure and fearful men to torture women. I also retrieved a small SIG Sauer pistol that could fit in a pocket or a purse.
Brent had suggested the bar of the Tavern on the Green, a dreadful tourist trap, but the perfect choice for a simple man trying to seem sophisticated. I teleported into a secluded area of Central Park, and actually met a mugger. Crime has gone down in New York City as the population aged and the city changed. Disney has replaced the porn shops from Times Square, even Jokertown has Starbucks and an upscale Hyatt hotel, and the mask and cloak shops now sell more to tourists then to residents. I left the mugger groaning and clutching his bruised balls and walked on. Passing a trashcan, I dumped the cheap .38 he had been carrying. A few moments later and I saw the lights through the windows of the restaurant as they flowed across the grass and trees.
I went inside and scanned the bar. Brent spotted me, slid off the bar stool, and waved frantically. He was wearing khaki slacks and a silk turtleneck with a sports jacket tossed casually over one shoulder. The debonair bon vivant. I recognized the look. Men who have gone to a discount suit broker and placed themselves in the hands of a sales person who had decided to find his inner valet. It wasn’t a bad look. It just tried too hard. I stifled a sigh and walked over to him.
“Lilith?”
“Yes. Brent?”
“Yeah.”
I slid onto a stool. His eyes dropped to the flash of the milk white thigh I exposed. He gestured to the bartender, who ignored him. Yes, Brent was one of those men. I crooked a finger and the young man jumped to attention. I ordered the most expensive cocktail on the menu and watched Brent from the corner of my eye. He blanched. Then I ordered an appetizer of oysters on the half shell. That was another thirty dollars.
Brent was starting to sweat. “So, uh, you just joined Happy Couples. ‘Cause I sure would have noticed you before now.”
“Yes, I’d tried Ace Affairs, Wild Card Couples, and few of the other wild card dating sites, but aces can be so full of themselves.” There was no way of hiding my wild card, Lilith’s silver eyes will always give me away.
“So you’re not an ace?”
“No.” I gestured at my eyes. “Not sure if these make me a joker or not. They are sort of a physical deformity.”
“Oh, no, they’re beautiful. You’re beautiful,” he blurted.
“Why thank you, what a sweet thing to say.” The oysters arrived. I squeezed lemon across them, stirred the horse radish into the cocktail sauce, dabbed it onto one, picked up the shell and slurped down the oyster. I gestured at the plate. “Would you like one?”
“Uh, thanks… uh maybe later.”
I ate two more oysters then asked, “So what do you do?”
“I’m in… uh… I’m an architect.”
Poor baby, I thought. Start out lying and you’ll only end up in the suds. “Why, how interesting. Have you designed any buildings I might know?”
“Probably not. I just do ordinary stuff. What do you do?”
“Guess.” I teased him with a flutter of my eyelashes.
“Actress? Model?”
Well, at least he hadn’t said exotic dancer. I gave him credit for that. I lifted the last oyster and held it out to him. “You sure?” He shook his head. I told him I was a dress buyer for Bloomingdales. He told me that didn’t surprise him. He liked my outfit. The inane conversation continued. I learned he was divorced with an eight year old son. The longing in his voice as he talked about how weekend visits with his boy just weren’t enough caused a flare of pain in the center of my chest. The fact he pulled that reaction from me turned the pain to anger. How dare he be real? I ordered another overpriced martini.
“Do you like kids?” he asked. “Would you like to have some?”
“Not really and no,” I snapped.
“Oh, well okay then.” He surprised me by fishing out his wallet. “Look, this has been really nice, but I don’t think we’re gonna work out.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I really want to remarry. Have more kids. Family is important to me. Thank you for coming, but.…”
It was the last thing I had expected, and it rather charmed me. I held out my hand. “No problem, and thank you for being so forthcoming.”
He got the bill, turned an interesting shade of grey and handed over his credit card. The bartender came back with a half-sneering half-regretful expression. “I’m sorry, sir, but your card was declined.” I watched as Brent fumbled through his wallet, pulling out and then mentally discarding the three other credit cards.
“Let me,” I said. “It’s the twenty-first century, after all.” I pulled out cash and settled the bill. We walked to the door. I gave him a hug and stole his phone.
Once I was out of sight I downloaded the contents of his phone into mine. Then I returned to the bar and handed the phone to the bartender.
“My companion dropped this. Will you hold it for him?”
“Sure. So I’m guessing not a great meet up. Wanna try again with somebody who hates kids too? And I won’t stick you with the bill.”
“You won’t stick me with anything, bucky,” I said, and left.
* * *
The next morning I was skimming through the downloaded contents of Brent’s phone. Pictures of a grinning pudgy boy, an overweight woman with the pudgy boy. His email was mostly messages from the ex about visiting and alimony. Emails from the boy reminding Brent of his baseball game. It was all rather sad, and nothing raised any flags.
My phone rang with Niobe’s song. I shut the door to the outer office then stood, cell phone pressed tight to my ear as if it could bring her closer, and stared out the window. A cold autumn rain was sheeting down the glass and the tops of the skyscrapers were lost in the clouds.
“The police came,” she said. “They didn’t find anything.”
“Of course not. I’d never endanger you.”
There was a long silence then she asked, “You didn’t kill that woman, did you?”
“No. If I had I would have disposed of the body far more efficiently.”
“Stop! Don’t act like that with me.”
“I’m sorry. I apologize.”
“One of the cops indicated you might get kicked out of the Oakwood.”
“Very likely. I’ll just stay in one of the flats.”
“Why don’t you come home, Noel?”
“You know why.”
“Actually I don’t. I still don’t understand why you left us.”
A stone seemed to have settled in my chest. “I’m not good for Jasper or for you. Better if I just provide you with a good living.”
“A child needs their father. You’re not protecting Jasper by abandoning him. You’re hurting him. You and your father were so close. Why would you deny that to your son?”
“Because I’m not my father! He was.…” Grief washed over me, as cold and grey as the rain beyond my window.
“A good man?” she suggested softly.
“Yes.”
“You’re trying to be, Noel. You have been for a long time.”
“And what happens when I’m not?”
“We get through
it. Together.” The stone in my chest had lodged in my throat and I didn’t trust myself to speak. After a long silence she said. “Just think about it. Come home. We love you.”
I stood holding the phone long after she had hung up.
* * *
After Niobe’s call I almost cancelled Brent’s appointment, but mentally heard Captain Flint telling me to dot every I and cross every T.
Brent now sat in the chair across the desk from me. He looked nervous. “I guess you wanted to ask about sweeping the building. I already talked to the cops.”
“I’m not surprised, but I wanted to hear from you directly. Can you tell me anything that might shed light on how Ms. Yamaguchi ended up inside?” I found myself nervously clicking the top on my ballpoint pen. I sat it aside.
“Not really. I checked my floors and Dominic checked his.” He gave a slight chuckle.
“What?”
“It’s sort of funny. Usually Dominic takes the lower floors. He’s always whining about climbing all the stairs, but this time he said he’d take the upper floors.”
“I see. Did you hear anyone in the stairwells?”
Brent shook his head. “It was pretty noisy outside with the trucks coming in to haul away the debris.”
“No strangers loitering around the site?”
His eyes narrowed and his mouth worked from the effort of recall. He shook his head. “No, not that I remember.”
I tried to think if I was missing anything, but nothing occurred. I stood. “Well, thank you for coming.”
* * *
I was dealing with the insurance issues that had arisen due to a dead body on my site when Dogsbody called me on the intercom to tell me Dominic had arrived. As they entered Dominic was casting uncomfortable looks at the joker. The construction workers never came to my office, so this was a first for him.
After Dogsbody left Dominic ran a hand through his thinning and rather greasy hair. “Wow, a joker… and a… dude. Didn’t expect that. Thought a big important guy like you’d have a gorgeous babe.” He gave a nervous laugh.
“The city offers tax incentives to companies that hire jokers,” I said with an indifferent shrug, thus indicating I was a fellow bigot. It was also absolutely true that I was happy to get the tax break.
Dominic gave me a knowing grin. “Oh, okay, that makes sense then.”
“Please sit down.” I put a hand on his back and guided him to a chair. At the same time I lifted his cell phone from his pocket and slipped it into mine. “Thank you so much for coming in,” I said, as I perched on the corner of my desk.
“Uh… sure. I’m mean it was… terrible… what happened. I have no idea how that… happened.” His eyes shifted left, right, up and down, but he never actually looked at me.
MI-7 had honed my interrogation skills, though I wouldn’t have needed them in this situation. Dominic was a terrible liar. I was also beginning to see why he played poker on-line. “So why don’t you just take me through the morning.”
“Sam had Fred and Bob opening up the wall to explode the girders. Rusty was hanging around drinking coffee while he waited. Sam picked me and Brent to search the building. We divvied up the floors. He had one through six. I had seven through twelve.”
“The indication is that the woman was on one of the middle floors. So it could have been either you or Brent who missed her.” Dominic squirmed. “Can you assure me that you checked every room on every floor?”
“Yes, sir. I sure did. I absolutely did. I can’t speak for Brent.” He paused and licked his lips. “Look, I don’t want to cause the guy any problems…” Meaning that he absolutely did. “… but I know Sam has gotten on Brent’s case about how he’s doing his job. I mean, I’ve never seen a guy have such bad luck with the subways.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s late a lot.”
“Thank you for letting me know. I’ll speak to Sam about that.” I stood, indicating the meeting was over.
Dominic dragged his feet as he walked to the office door. “Uh… that lady did she have a family?”
“I have no idea,” I answered. “Should it make a difference? She’s dead.” He flinched at the word. I find it fascinating the American inability to just say died. All these euphemisms—passed on, went to a better place.
“I guess not. Just hard on her kids or husband if she did have a family.”
“Your sympathy does you credit,” I murmured, and enjoyed watching him flinch again.
He left and I settled at my desk and pulled out his phone. I quickly jacked it into my laptop and downloaded the entire contents onto my computer. Then I hurried out of the office and caught him waiting at the elevator. I held out the phone. “This slipped out of your pocket. I found it in the cushions of the chair.”
“Oh, gee, thanks, Mister Mathews.”
I told Dogsbody to hold my calls and settled in to dissect Dominic’s life. Like many people he was lazy about removing old emails and totally eliminating deleted voice messages. It seemed that Dominic had taken to playing in some less savory corners of internet gambling, and he had racked up a very large debt. Judging by their phone messages, the people holding that debt were of the very large and very unsympathetic variety. The threats had grown ever more threatening and the promised bodily harm more graphic. Then abruptly the calls stopped. The day after Belinda found herself squashed by a collapsing building.
There were some sent emails by Dominic that didn’t correspond to any received. Somehow the messages to which he had replied vanished off the server. Which indicated a level of technological sophistication beyond what your average thug could muster. Dominic’s responses however were damning.
Why would you want to forget the debt?
What do I have to do?
I’m not real comtable with this.
Okay I geuss I can do that.
What was abundantly clear was that Dominic’s online creditors had offered him a solution for his financial problems. A solution that Dominic had accepted. Also that Dominic was a shining example of the American educational system.
I selected the relevant emails and prepared to print them, but suddenly a hack detected alert came up on my screen and an alarm started sounding. My program began trying to backtrace the hacker, but it was an aggressive assault designed to take over my machine. Most people’s computers would never have detected the hack, but I have extra layers of protection and surveillance on all my tech.
The faceless hacker and I sparred and struggled as my fingers flew across the keyboard. Windows flashed by, text scrolled, but he was very good and I was losing. He would be able to download the contents of my machine before I could trace him, and possibly insert something into my files. There was only one thing to do. I hit the burn command, unplugged the computer, poured a cup of tea across the keyboard. It sparked and died. I opened the case, pulled out the hard drive, and beat it into pieces with a heavy paperweight.
Panting a bit from the exertion, I fell back into my chair and considered. Someone with a high level of computer skills had been on the other end of this hack. They had paid Dominic not to make a sweep of the upper floors. I had to believe the man wouldn’t have gone through with it if he’d actually come across an unconscious… or dead… woman in one of the rooms. Someone was clearly trying to destroy me, and since the person who had been actively engaged in that attempt had ended up squashed at one of my job sites I had to look for another culprit.
One sprang quickly to mind. My former employer.
I paced the office pursued by the stink from the destroyed computer, and fought the rage that threatened to overcome me. Could this really be the Silver Helix coming after me? The level of sophistication of the hack suggested that.
I was ready to teleport to a working laptop and immediately release all the damning material I had stolen to Wikileaks, but I stopped myself. It’s never wise to react in haste and anger.
I sat back down at the desk and began to write a list. What I knew. What I didn
’t know and more importantly what I thought I knew. I realized there were a lot of blanks under what I actually knew. It made no sense for the Silver Helix to use this method to destroy me when it would also destroy them.
No, the answer had to rest in the details of Belinda’s life and company.
* * *
I bought a new laptop, settled in at a coffee shop in Jokertown, fired up my personal hotspot, and began to dig into Belinda Yamaguchi. Born Belinda Fujasaki in Los Angeles, California, attended USC where she earned an MBA. Husband Harvey Yamaguchi, summa cum laude MIT, grad school at Cal Tech specializing in computer science. I had a new candidate for the attack on my computer.
I continued digging. Harvey had met Belinda at a mixer. Love bloomed and they married in 1999. One daughter Megan born in 2004. A few years after Belinda founded Elite Solutions Harvey had founded an IT company, Brilliant Solutions. The similarity in names was nauseatingly cute.
After Belinda began her assault on my company I had begun researching ways to take the fight back to her. Buy any outstanding debt, look at her investors and supplier and see if any of them could be squeezed. I still had the file so I pulled it down from the cloud and started to review. A name floated past – везучий. My Russian was a bit rusty, but the meaning came back to me. Lucky. Something niggled at the back of my mind. I had seen that name before. Then I remembered. It was the name of the company that owned the on-line poker site where Dominic played and had lost so much money.
I took a sip of my now cold coffee, leaned back in my chair and considered. So what did an on-line gaming site and a demolition and aftermath company have in common? I turned my attention to the Russian company and had soon traced it back to a particularly powerful Russian mob family in Brighton Beach run by Ivan Grekov. He had money, foot soldiers, and even a few aces on his payroll, but as yet the hapless cops of the NYPD had nothing on him.
Most of construction in New York City is heavily mobbed up. When I’d first founded Aces in Hand several large men with Italian surnames wearing cheap suits, shiny pointy-toe shoes, and large bulges beneath their arms had come visiting. They told me they could rent me equipment at very reasonable prices. I told them I had no need of their equipment. Our discussion became more heated until I pulled a gun on them. They had left threatening retribution. I had changed to Ilya, caught them on the street, and teleported them into the center of the Nefud Desert. The good thing about predators is they recognize when they’ve met a bigger one. Since then I’ve had no trouble.