Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02

by Under a Killing Moon

  As I described my meeting with Dubois, Agent McCovey nodded occasionally while Agent Andrews took notes. I wrapped things up by recounting Dubois’s apparent abduction. When I’d finished, Andrews looked up from her notebook. “Any idea where we could locate Dubois?”

  I shook my head. “Like I said, I had a bad feeling that he’s been located for the last time.

  And he didn’t leave me with any way to get in touch with him.”

  My fingers had warmed sufficiently to have another smoke. I cupped my hands around the Zippo flame, then let loose a long stream of half smoke, half breath steam. I told them what I knew. Maybe they’d toss me another bone.

  “What can the two of you tell me about CAPRICORN? Do you suppose it figures somehow into the Colonel’s murder?”

  Agent McCovey, who’d been very attentive while I was talking, resumed his leisurely pacing. “Odds are pretty good. Whoever decimated CAPRICORN knew what they were doing. They had to have someone on the inside, to provide information, but they also needed manpower and resources. That doesn’t come cheap.”

  “So who was it? Could it have been this Phoenix person, the one Dubois told me about?”

  McCovey shook his head. “We’re not sure. And we don’t have any information on who Phoenix is or how he figures into this. What we do know is, the Crusade for Genetic Purity had the most to gain from CAPRICORN being dismantled. We also have reason to believe that the Crusade isn’t the real power in the equation. There is another group behind it… nameless and faceless, probably very small, with a lot of money and an agenda. What the agenda is… we don’t know, but we intend to find out.”

  “And you think this group behind the Crusade had the Chameleon kill the Colonel?”

  McCovey shrugged. “Seems likely.”

  He turned and walked around to the driver’s side. Agent Andrews opened the passenger side door and crawled in. Apparently, our interview was over. I slid into the seat and shut the door as we lifted off. Once we were airborne and headed back to Chandler Avenue, Agent McCovey turned to me.

  “There’s another thing I wanted to ask you about. I understand that you asked the police to search a vacant house out in the Pacific Heights area. There was also something about a Duchess and a stolen statue. It didn’t make much sense.”

  “It never does, coming from Malden.”

  As we flew back to my office, I recounted my meeting with Countess Renier and what had followed. I could hear Agent Andrews taking notes in the back. At one point, Agent McCovey interrupted to ask me to describe the statue thoroughly. My story wrapped up just as we landed at the curb behind my speeder.

  “That’s why I had the police check out the mansion.”

  Agent McCovey nodded silently several times, then took a breath. “Well, Mr Murphy, thanks for your time. I hope we didn’t keep you up too late.”

  There were other questions I wanted to ask, but I was being dismissed. I opened the door and held it there as Agent Andrews’ shapely legs emerged from the back seat. She looked up at me and held my eyes-not with any interest, but to keep me from

  comfortably scanning her gams-until she was safely seated beside her partner. I shut the door, and the speeder took off.

  As I walked back to my office, I realized the Interpol agents had never shown me any identification.

  UAKM - Chapter 16

  Getting up at a reasonable hour the previous day seemed to have taken a toll on my thirtysomething body. It was eleven something when I rolled over and squinted at my alarm clock. What a piece of junk. The LED read 11:88. Even worse, the plastic bumps on the snooze bar had worn off completely, making it harder to find those all-important eight minute incre-ments of extra sleep. What I needed was one of those voice response devices with the special Monique feature. They had a sultry female voice that would make naughty sex noises instead of beeping and could be programmed to say things like,

  “Time to get up, handsome. I’m ready for some breakfast in bed.” Of course, I’d just set the alarm over and over and spend the rest of my life in the sack.

  I lurched over the side of the bed, staggered blindly in the direction of the bathroom, and began making myself beautiful. It was a longer process than it used to be, but five minutes later, I was modestly presentable. With breakfast smoldering between my fingers and the coffeemaker belching like a steel worker, I settled into the chair behind my desk and began composing my daily list of things to do.

  (1) Get up. Check. (2) Splash water on face. Done. (3) PI breakfast. Almost ready. (4) Lose weight and get into shape. (5) Go see Percival.

  The coffee hadn’t even finished brewing, and I’d already covered half the list. I leaned back in my chair and took a drag, feeling like I had things pretty well in hand. When the coffee was ready, I poured a mug and returned to my chair.

  Reading while eating breakfast is one of life’s simple joys. Back when I could afford cold cereal, I knew the Cap’n Crunch box like the back of my hand. I fished the now dog-eared blue card out of my overcoat and examined it for the umpteenth time as I downed my coffee. BXK+A261184. I still couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Maybe I should have shown it to the Interpol agents. I’d forgotten to ask.

  Staring at the index card started to get me frustrated, so I switched to the Colonel’s notebook. Maybe I’d overlooked something the first time through. I opened it up and saw the three names I’d jotted down when I’d been talking to Paul Dubois: Phoenix, Chameleon, and Professor Perriman. The first two were almost certainly code names, but Professor Perriman sounded like someone I should be able to track down.

  Dubois had told me that he’d gotten the name from the Capricorn mole’s report. The mole was working inside the Crusade for Genetic Purity, which was based in New San Francisco. Hopefully, the Professor was also a citizen of our fair-to-middlin’ city.

  I pulled up the directory on my computer and found eighteen Perrimans listed. Then I got on the horn and started calling. Eventually I reached a Mrs Perriman, who said her husband taught classes at the University of San Francisco until one o’clock and probably wouldn’t be home until dinnertime.

  After my third cup of sweet caffeine, I left the office and flew my speeder to USF. The campus was bustling with fresh faced students who didn’t look old enough to have driver’s licences. One of these, a cute redhead with newly straightened teeth, helpfully informed me that Professor Perriman taught history in the Jerry Rice building.

  I followed her directions and found the building shortly before one o’clock. I paused outside the door and joined several students in a pre-lecture smoke. As we puffed, I listened in on their conversation, which was laced with sophomoric philosophy and rumours of huge, post finals keggers.

  I finished my cigarette and stepped inside. On the third floor, I found a directory and made my way to room 319. The door was open, and I looked in to see a heavy-set man rummaging through a stack of papers on top of a file cabinet.

  “Professor Perriman?”

  The large man turned to face me. His hair was thick and untamed and had almost completely lost the pigment battle, though his impressively feral beard still had streaks of black in it. He had a high, broad forehead and a pinkish complexion, with red blotched cheeks that peeked over the top of his beard. A pair of bifocals sat forgotten on the bridge of his bulbous nose. Professor Perriman had the look of a man who had lived a full life and still had a ways to go.

  “What can I do for you?” He took a step toward me, so I stayed where I was.

  “I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth. A friend of a friend said that I should look you up.”

  “Who’s the friend?”

  Dubois hadn’t known the Professor, and I didn’t have any other names. I decided to get the point. “Someone who works for CAPRICORN.”

  The Professor tilted his head forward and stared at me over his glasses. He looked like Santa, trying to decide if I was naughty or nice. After a moment, he motioned for me to come in and close the door behind me.
I stepped into his office and looked the place over. He was a man after my own heart. There was a desk-shaped pile of books and papers and three other mounds with armrests. It pleased me that the Professor didn’t apologise as he cleared space on two of the chairs. When we were seated, he pulled a pipe from his herringbone jacket and tapped it on the side of his desk. “CAPRICORN, eh? I didn’t think they were still in business.”

  “I’m not sure they still are.”

  The Professor grunted as he packed his pipe. He smoked Captain Gold. The smell it emitted was the only entry in my top 10 list of aromas that wasn’t related to food or women. The old man clenched the pipe in his teeth as he dug through his pockets. I would’ve offered my Zippo, but any smoker worth his salt knew that you just didn’t use lighters on pipes. The old man located a red-tipped match and soon had the nest boiling.

  He settled in and turned his attention back to me. “We ought to introduce ourselves.”

  I stuck out my hand. “Murphy. Tex Murphy.”

  “Benjamin Perriman. So tell me, Mr Murphy, What brings you to my office under such murky pretenses?”

  I smiled. “Well, I’m a PI, and, in my business, you’re what we like to call a ‘lead’. It’s like proselytizing missionary work, except I get to smoke, drink, and swear.”

  Smoke curled out from under the professor’s expansive moustache. “A private investigator, eh? So this visit is related to a case of some sort. Murder, I hope. Nothing better than a good whodunnit.”

  “Actually, their seems to have been a murder committed, though it’s more of a whydunnit than a whodunnit.”

  “So how did it happen? In the conservatory with a candlestick?”

  “Good guess. We won’t know for certain until the police find the body. All they found so far is a finger.”

  The professor leaned forward, holding a pipe in his hand. “Anyone I know?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. You heard of Colonel Roy O’Brien?”

  The professor’s brow furrowed, and he puffed thoughtfully for some time before nodding.

  “I can’t say that your news is totally unexpected, though it’s certainly unfortunate.”

  “You knew him, then?”

  Perriman removed his pipe. “We met several months ago. I gave him some information.

  From what he told me, I believed he was putting himself in great danger.”

  “I’m trying to find out who murdered him.”

  Unexpectedly, the Professor smiled, though it could have been more of a grimace. “I would be surprised if you ever do.” He sat back in his chair. “But that’s academic. How does this involve me?”

  I leaned forward. “That’s what I’d like to find out. If you’ve got a few minutes, I’ll hum a few bars, and you can jump in whenever it starts to sound familiar.”

  Perriman waved his hand, and I started at the beginning. He listened patiently as I told him about being hired by the “Countess.” It wasn’t until I offhandedly described the statuette that I got a reaction. The professor literally sat up. “The Habuh.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Professor Perriman set his pipe on a stack of books and stood up. Without a word, he walked to a jam-packed bookcase and began searching for something. He quickly found a large, hardbound volume and started leafing through it as he returned to his seat.

  Finding what he wanted, he turned the book around and held it in front of me, his finger pointing to a drawing of the countess’s statuette. “Is this the one you saw?”

  I nodded, unsure of what this meant. Everything I’d heard about the statuette led me to believe it was valuable and highly prized, but seeing it in this ancient book put it in a whole new light. When the Professor turned the book back around, I caught a glimpse of the title: A complete History of Arcana and the Occult.

  Perriman set the book on the floor by his chair and collected his pipe. “This is foreboding news… ominous. How much do you know?”

  “Not enough, apparently.”

  “How much do you care to know?”

  “As much as you want to tell me.” The Professor pulled a match from his vest pocket and proceeded to relight his pipe. After several puffs, he leaned back and crossed his legs. “Are you familiar with either the Brotherhood of Purity or the Secret Doctrine?”

  I shook my head while the Professor continued. “If you like, I can tell you about the people who murdered Roy O’Brien. By doing so, you’ll be in the same danger your friend was in.”

  “A little more danger won’t make much difference.”

  Perriman nodded. “The Habuh, the statuette, is the sacred talisman of an occult cabal known as at the Brotherhood of Purity. The origins of this group predate written history.

  The order was started in the Far East among a small group of men, whose concepts reached literally thousands of years into the future. While other more primitive men were barely learning the uses of metal and stone, this brotherhood was embracing the rudimentary principles of eugenics. Are you familiar with the term?”

  “You bet.”

  “Of course, even these advanced thinkers were limited by lack of technology. The Brotherhood’s trail is only faintly traceable for centuries. It is not until around 400 BC

  that we begin to see clear indications of its presence. To those familiar with the Secret Doctrine, there is much that can be interpreted from many of the Greek philosophers’

  teachings.

  “The Brotherhood of Purity grew steadily in power during the rise of the Roman Empire.

  Despite its enormous wealth and influence, it’s anonymity was strictly preserved. The number of those who were initiated-and who received the teachings, signs, and passwords-was kept to a bare minimum, ensuring complete dedication and fealty, as well as avoiding the dilution of quality, which inevitably comes with overpopulation.

  There was also no need for a large following. As I have learned, the Secret Doctrine is filled with prophecies that would not reach fruition for many years. The order was concerned primarily with maintaining the rituals and making sure that the Brotherhood continued on toward the day when it would fulfil its destiny. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  “When the Roman Empire fell, the Brotherhood survived unscathed. In fact, it is speculated that the order hastened the downfall for its own ends. The empire had grown obese and sedentary and was no longer conducive to the higher ideals of the

  Brotherhood of Purity. In keeping with early prophecies, the members of the order cast their eyes toward the fierce and hungry tribes of Angles and Saxons, which were not as intellectually advanced as the Romans, but had not suffered the physical and spiritual decline.

  “Many pivotal and powerful figures of the Middle Ages became secretly affiliated with the Brotherhood of Purity, including Charles the Great, Henry the Lion, Otto the Great, Philip of Swabia, Conrad IV, and Frederick Barbarossa. While Emperor Charlemagne was not deemed intellectually suitable for the Brotherhood, his closest adviser and confident, Hugo von Touron, was a high-ranking member. His influence on

  Charlemagne drastically affected the course of Europe’s, and the world’s, history.

  “Counted among the members of the Brotherhood were not only kings and statesmen, but also religious figures, such as the Bishop Klingsor, the Count of Acerra, and Eckbert of Meran, the thirteenth century Bishop of Bramberg. The Spanish Inquisition was instigated by a single radical member of the brotherhood who held a high position in the papal order. It is commonly believed that the thousands were put to death because they refused to join the Catholic faith. In actuality, these deaths were the result of an enormous ethnic cleansing. This was done, however, of the brother’s own volition and was not a sanctioned act of the brotherhood.

  “Throughout the Middle Ages and into the 20th century, other factious branches sprang from the brotherhood. The Crusades were in part associated with one of these branches.

  Eventually, the main body was able to pare off the splinter groups, but not without great bloodsh
ed and civil war. Most of these conflicts have been misinterpreted by history, which in and of itself proves the extreme and far-reaching power of the brotherhood.

  “Heinrich Himmler, who was in charge of the Nazi Occult Bureau at the height of the Nazi movement, somehow obtained a manuscript of the Secret Doctrine and showed it to Adolf Hitler. They were greatly influenced by the brotherhood’s principles, though they almost certainly were never allowed to enter the Order. It took many years for the brotherhood to undo the damage done by these madmen. Even in the years since, the main core of the brotherhood has had to deal with other contentious splinter groups, some of which have grown to massive proportions before the brotherhood could bring them under control.”

  Professor Perryman paused to empty his pipe ash into a trash can. I felt fairly sure that I was keeping up with him, but I had a few questions.

  “So, what is the point of this brotherhood? You mentioned something about fulfilling their destiny, but it doesn’t sound like they have done much more than keep themselves a secret from the rest of the world. And how is it that you know about them?”

  The Professor ran a hand over his long beard. “I’ll answer the last question first. I stumbled on to them quite by accident. When I was a student, years ago, I was doing research for my doctorate in a library in Vienna. I was searching through a dusty volume on German folklore when I came across an ancient manuscript, handwritten on brittle, yellowed parchment. In those days, my knowledge of the German language was

  marginal at best, but I was able to understand some of the contents. It was on that page that I first saw the terms Brotherhood of Purity and Secret Doctrine.

  “The parchment had been placed between two pages, one of which displayed a lithograph of a painting. It was dated 1604 and signed by a man named Basilius. From what I could gather, it was an allegorical path to enlightenment, filled with symbols scattered along the way up to what I can only describe as a wizard’s kitchen, filled with crescent-moon and sun designs. I’ll never forget the symbols: a black raven, peacock, swan, pelican, lion, and eagle. Over the years, I have learned that each of these has a distinct attribute that must be attained by members of the Brotherhood.