The Day Before Yesterday's Thief: A Prequel to the Eric Beckman Series

by Al Macy

  “Hold on,” I said. “I have to drive.”

  He put his finger on the menu. “The Ripple comes in small bottles.”

  “Ha!” I looked up at the waiter. “I’ll just have sparkling water, thank you.”

  After the waiter left, Bolton leaned toward me and took my hand. “You know you don’t need to drive.”

  “I think my Porsche is maybe too much for you to handle.”

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “They have very nice rooms here.”

  “Why, Mr. Vance. I think you have evil intentions.”

  He nodded. “Nothing but.”

  “But ah barely know you, suh.” I could do a passable Southern accent. Not sure where I’d picked it up.

  “You do declare.”

  “Ce? … What?”

  “But, suh! Ah do declaya that ah barely know you.” His accent was better.

  We laughed together.

  I whispered, “Will take more than fancy talk to get me into your bed.”

  “Who said anything about my bed?”

  “I think no hanky-panky today, but are welcome to keep trying.”

  He seemed to take the rejection well—is sign of maturity.

  He fell asleep on the drive home. I looked over at him. He’d been clean-shaven in the morning, but the dark whiskers, like tiny iron shavings, had begun making an appearance. I reached over and ran the back of my fingers across his cheek. Pretty scratchy.

  After crossing the bridge, I nudged him. He was a sound sleeper. I jiggled him harder and put a sing-song tone into my voice. “Bolton … is time to wake and go to school.”

  He sucked in a big breath and ran his hand over his face. “Where are we?”

  “Back in San Francisco. You need to tell me where you live.” As if I didn’t know.

  “The Green Hill Tower.” He yawned. “You know where is … where it is?”

  “Ha. Is contagious, yes? How I speak?” Ten minutes later, I stopped in front of his condo building.

  “Would you like to come up for a drink?” he asked.

  “No, but I’d like to come up and look through your luggage for a priceless diamond.” Of course, I didn’t say it. Should go up? That was whole point, yes? I looked at his square jaw and strong chin. Am not a prune when comes to sex. This was the seventies. Free love. What is to lose?

  But if it turned into a one-night stand, I’d only get a single chance to look through his bags. They might be in a basement storage locker. No, a more serious, longer lasting relationship would be better. But maybe that was my heart talking, not my head.

  He put his finger under my chin and raised my gaze toward his eyes. “Viviana?”

  I snapped out of my reverie. “Not tonight, love.” I smiled. “But nice try.”

  His warm kiss almost changed my mind. Then it went on longer, and it did change my mind. But before I could tell him of my change of heart, he was out on the sidewalk. He smiled and wagged a finger at me. “Just don’t you disappear again!”

  Not a chance.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day was foggy, with an icy drizzle that coated my condo’s windows with droplets. Bolton called in the morning, and I expected him to suggest we get together. Instead, he told me he was out of town at some kind of graphic design conference, something that happened frequently. He offered to cook me dinner at his place when he got back. That would work.

  The day after that, the fog cleared out early, and it was a perfect day for getting out of the house. I brewed a few cups of coffee and poured them into my Thermos. After putting on a black tracksuit, I packed a warm jacket and drove to my favorite deli. Luigi built me an Italian sub on a Dutch Crunch roll, and I stashed it in my car’s boot. I parked at Crissy Field, and after a quick stretch, started jogging toward Fort Point.

  Sometimes I’d close my eyes briefly, focusing on the sounds: my running shoes scritching against the sand on top of the paved path, an occasional sea lion bark, and the constant calls of the seagulls.

  Freezing at first, I warmed up by the time I got to Fort Point. It didn’t hurt that after I turned around, the wind rushing in through the Golden Gate was at my back. By the time I’d returned to my car, I’d put in six miles. I took off the tracksuit and stashed it in the car. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me. After looking around as if appreciating the view, I continued my run down to the Embarcadero and back in a T-shirt and running shorts. I walked the last half mile. Was good workout.

  Back at the car, I put on my jacket, grabbed the food, and walked to the waterfront. I collapsed onto a park bench, two benches back to back, actually, and poured my coffee. The wind was blowing at least twenty miles per hour at that point, and windsurfers were flying across the water and back. Apparently, when the tide is rushing out and the wind is rushing in, the sailors can always be heading a little downwind and still come back to the same place.

  Seagulls didn’t know how lucky they were. Floating and diving, barely needing to flap their wings. A huge supertanker had just come in under the bridge along with the salt tang of the ocean.

  While unwrapping my sandwich, the bench creaked. Someone sat down behind me. Another jogger? “Don’t turn around, Viviana.”

  I froze. Okay. Someone had been watching me. I didn’t turn around, but I looked over toward Alcatraz, catching a bit of the man’s figure from the corner of my eye. A guy in a ripped sweatshirt with a hood. I opened my mouth—

  “Don’t talk,” he said. Deep voice. “Someone else is going to come sit next to me. It will look like I’m talking to her, but I’ll be talking to you. Don’t answer me. Keep looking out over the bay.”

  Should tell him to take hike? I do not like being told what to do. But nothing to lose by listening. I took a bite of sandwich, which contained a thick pile of Italian cold cuts.

  A woman in a lime-colored tracksuit ran toward us then put on the brakes. “Bill? Bill Conners? I thought that was you. How the heck are you?” She dropped down next to the man with the deep voice.

  Although the cadence of his voice sounded like an appropriate greeting, like Oh, Sue. How are you? Long time no see, his words were different. “Viviana, my name is Dwayne Sibbett. I’m with the FBI. I’m gonna make this short and sweet.”

  The woman spoke some more. Even someone close by would conclude that the two were having a conversation—nothing related to me.

  “Someone is probably watching you,” he said. “We know you’re involved with organized crime. With the mob. Today—”

  I brought my fist to my mouth, as if coughing, but spit out the word “Not!”

  He ignored that. “Today, I’m just introducing myself. On your windshield, there’s a flyer advertising a sailing trip on the bay. Do what it says, and we can talk without being observed.”

  Sue said, “We can help.”

  The couple rose and walked off together. I finished my sandwich, enjoying it despite the drama. What the hell was going on? I work alone. I’d seen The Godfather, and that was all I knew about the mob.

  I took my opportunities to look around without appearing to be searching for anyone. Everyone looked innocent, but what did I know? I wasn’t a secret agent. Or an FBI agent.

  Could this have to do with the Portensia diamond? No. If they thought I had the diamond, they would have just arrested me. Some other job?

  Back at the car, a pink sheet of paper flapped under my windscreen wipers. It looked like those on other cars, but it wasn’t. The others advertised ferryboat tours. Mine had a drawing of a sailboat. It read, “For a wonderful champagne day cruise, find The Ugly Duckling in the marina west of Pier 39.” There was no phone number.

  * * *

  Zaharia’s lab was magnificent. It occupied the full height of the warehouse building—three stories? Spotlights near the ceiling, the type seen in gymnasiums, illuminated the space. Two blue catwalks extended along the sides of the main room and held the minicomputers. Four tape decks, each the size of a vending machine, alw
ays seemed frantic to me, their tapes spinning this way and that. One computer displayed an IBM label, two others said Digital Equipment Corporation.

  Wires and cables! So many. They sprouted from the backs of the computers and dropped over the catwalk railings down to the machines below. Could Uncle Zaza really keep track of all those wires?

  The main floor was crowded, with only narrow aisles between the pieces of equipment. The centerpiece was the time machine itself, a blue cylinder—hexagonal in cross-section, actually—the size of a compact car. A sliding stainless tray extended from one end of the machine exactly like the corpse trays in a morgue. The chamber itself would barely accommodate a human.

  The whirring of cooling fans was the dominant sound, and the heat of the machines was enough to make the room uncomfortably warm. The swimming pool scent of chlorine washed over us as we entered the room. Zaza explained that the odor came from ozone released from one of the devices.

  Zaharia had a problem. He could send living creatures into the future, but he had no control over how far they would travel, time-wise. He’d made some new adjustment and wanted me to help him test it. He could run the machine himself, but having an assistant made things easier—less running back and forth.

  Every creature he’d sent so far had vanished, never to return. I asked how he knew the animal had been sent to the future and not simply dematerialized. He had some elaborate explanation that I didn’t understand. But today would be different, he told me. He’d added some kind of modulator or something that would allow him to choose a smaller time offset.

  Zaharia experimented with different animals for a reason I never understood: rats, rabbits, snakes, even a bat.

  That day’s innocent time traveler would be a mouse. It was a piebald strain, with a gray patch of fur on its right hindquarters. We placed its cage in the center of the tray and slid it into the machine.

  The procedure was controlled by the computers above our heads. Once things had been set up, something that involved many steps, a press of the Start button was all that was needed. Zaharia pressed it.

  The two of us bent down, looking into the tunnel of the machine. A countdown clock reached zero, a bell sounded, and the mouse vanished. I found it awe inspiring all by itself, but my uncle wasn’t impressed. He’d seen it before. A light atop the machine glowed green, indicating the chamber was empty.

  “Acum ce?” I asked. Now what?

  “English, please. Now we wait.”

  The side of the room held two comfortable chairs and a cot. Even though his residence was steps away, he sometimes slept here, awaiting some buzzer or bell to alert him to an important event. I went over and sat while Zaza remained bent over, his eyes on the cage. I finally convinced him to join me, reminding him that the green light would change if the animal returned.

  He straightened up, rubbing his sore back, and came over and sat next to me.

  “Zaza, I have some news. Good and bad.”

  That tore his attention away from the light. “Yes?”

  “I have met a man.”

  “Ah, Viviana, I am so happy for you.”

  “Maybe. We have only been on one date, but we had a good time together.” I filled him in on the details, leaving out the parts related to the diamond.

  “Do you think this could be a longer term relationship? It could help you with your problem.”

  “I don’t want to talk about my problem.”

  He put his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking out loud.”

  “Am thinking yes. Maybe long-term.”

  He patted me on the knee. “And what is the bad news?”

  I began telling him about the FBI agent, but he cut me off.

  “Viviana, I really don’t want to know about that part of your life. The dark part. You know my feelings. You are a big girl and good at handling things. Perhaps this could help you—no, I do not want to get involved in this. Please forgive me. If—”

  He stopped. I followed his gaze. The green light had gone out and a red light had turned on.

  We both jumped up and rushed over to the machine. Zaza pulled the tray out.

  A mouse—the mouse—lay on its side in the cage.

  “We did it!” He clapped his hands once.

  I leaned forward. “But is dead.”

  “I think not.” He opened the door of the cage and pulled the mouse out, holding it in his palm. It was breathing. He took it into the animal room and placed it in its home cage.

  “Should we give it mouth-to-mouth?” I was half serious.

  “No. It’s breathing okay on its own. It’s been through a lot.”

  We watched for a few minutes and were finally rewarded to see the animal shake itself, get up, and walk around the aquarium as if nothing had happened.

  “So, have solved the problem of how far into the future creature is sent, yes?”

  Zaharia sighed, puffing out his cheeks and fluttering his lips. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “But the mouse came back in about half an hour.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I was trying to send it only thirty seconds into the future. So I was off by a factor of sixty. I think it’s even luck that it was that close to what I intended.”

  “You’re sure that’s the same mouse we sent?”

  My uncle looked at me as if I’d said, “You’re sure it’s not an elephant?”

  “Of course it is,” he said.

  I chased the mouse around with my hand then gently picked it up and showed it to Zaza. “See this patch of gray? I’m pretty sure it was on his right side before.”

  * * *

  Walking home from the library after sunset, I once again had the strange feeling of being watched. I slowed down and looked around. Unobtrusively. I took my compact out and, while pretending to touch up my lipstick, checked behind me. No one.

  I thought back to my training at one of Cousin Cezar’s camps. I’d learned how to know if someone was following you and how to reverse the tables. One trick was to turn a corner and wait for your tail to do the same. But I didn’t see anyone tailing me. I decided to try it out. I wouldn’t grab the bad guy, I’d just see if someone rushed around the corner, out of breath. Could I blend into shadows? Follow him? I saw the perfect corner ahead.

  Something caught my eye on the curb. A twenty-dollar bill. My lucky day. I was reaching down to pick it up when my internal alarm bells went off. Was bait! No more subtle than a worm on a hook.

  The side door on a black van slid open, and two men reached for me. A third charged from a dark doorway.

  I was already halfway to the ground. I dropped myself flat on the pavement, and Doorway Man flew over me, knocking his two accomplices back into the vehicle. I was up faster than they could recover, but could I outrun them?

  “Help!” I yelled.

  I sprinted for the corner I’d already picked out. Their running footsteps were close behind.

  I turned the corner. When in danger, my brain always sends me a message. It isn’t verbal, but if it were, the message would be Up! On my left was an ornate doorway bordered by blocks on each side. The blocks rose to an arch at the top and alternated in width. Reminding myself of the Chinese pole-climbing show, I went up the side of the door, my fingers in the cracks between blocks and my toes on the outside corners of the wider ones.

  The blocks didn’t extend out far enough that I could rest. I had to use all of my finger strength to stay up there. But perhaps I’d only need thirty seconds. The night was dark, but a streetlight was only a half block away.

  Two of the men charged around the corner and kept going. The third came ten paces behind.

  If they’d been in one group, I would have made it. Someone in the first group turned to look back.

  “There she is!” he shouted.

  They scrambled over and gathered below me. One pulled a sawed-off shotgun from his black coat. Fog drifted through the streetlight’s beam.

  I had no options, even had there
been no gun. But what the hell. I jumped down from my height of two to three meters, my foot smashing into the arm of the man holding the shotgun. Risky, but it paid off. The gun discharged, and the largest of the bad guys screamed.

  I was off again but with no head start this time. Doorway Man tackled me almost immediately, pain exploding from my chin when it bashed into the concrete.

  Police sirens echoed over us. Their heads all jerked up.

  “Hurry,” the man with the gun yelled.

  Doorway Man pulled me up in a bear hug and lumbered toward the van. I kicked and thrust my head back, but he seemed immune to my attack. Gun Man ran beside us, dragging his injured comrade along the sidewalk.

  The sirens were close.

  A fourth man in the driver’s seat watched us tumble into the back, and we were off, the side door sliding shut. I got a good strong kick onto something that had been a foot but was now just a bloody mess. He howled like a dog whose hindquarters had been run over by a truck.

  One of my kidnappers drew back his fist, but Gun Man shouted, “No!”

  I was soon trussed up with clothesline. We rounded a corner—it seemed as if we were up on two wheels—and the police car siren faded. Then it jumped in volume again. Two cars. They were close behind.

  One of the kidnappers turned toward the front. “John?”

  The driver looked out the side-view mirror. “They’re right behind us.”

  Gun Man went to the back of the van. “Tell me when we’re about to turn a corner.”

  I screamed and kicked. Anything to sow confusion.

  “Now!” John yelled.

  Gun Man threw the rear door open and fired two shots with the gun. Bang. Bang. We made a hard right. Sounds of a crash reached us.

  “John?”

  The driver watched the mirror. “That did it.”

  They put a black hood over my head. I gave up my struggle. I thought about what might be coming next and evaluated my meager options.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The injured man moaned beside me and then went silent. There was a brief argument over whether they’d dump him at the entrance of an emergency room or take him to a doctor who was part of their organization. He’d lose that foot in any case. I had no remorse about that. Kidnap me and you deserve to die. Am not sociopath.