Chain of Desire (A Rare Finds Tale)

by J. S. Volpe



  Chain of Desire

  A Rare Finds Tale

  by J. S. Volpe

  Copyright © 2011 J. S. Volpe

  All rights reserved.

  Cover image: chaoss/Shutterstock.com

  When the old man shuffled into my office, my first thought was that he had the wrong address. The fact is, I don’t get many old folks coming to me for jobs. The things they want aren’t the kinds of things I can get them.

  He stopped just inside the doorway, one bony hand still on the knob, and peered at me through a pair of those thick, square, black-framed glasses that were the height of fashion during the Eisenhower administration.

  “Can I help you?” I said.

  He raised a shaky finger at the sign on the door, which read: “Rare Finds.”

  “This agency,” he said, “you’re the place that locates hard-to-find objects for people?”

  “That is correct.” I stood up and held out my hand. “Gilbert Solomon.”

  “Bert Papacek,” he said, shaking my hand. His hand felt uncomfortably light and fragile in mine. It was like holding a bird’s wing.

  As he sat down, I noticed the worn, shiny areas on the knees of his brown slacks and the loose strings hanging from the hem of his thin gray sweater, and I wondered if he had enough money to hire me. I often have to turn away would-be clients because they haven’t figured out yet that finding incredibly rare items is incredibly expensive.

  “What can I help you with, Mr. Papacek?” I said.

  “Roboto,” he said.

  I stared at him blankly. All I could think of was that “Mr. Roboto” song by Styx, but I knew that couldn’t be what he meant.

  “Roboto?” I said. “What’s that?”

  He cleared his throat to give the explanation he’d obviously been preparing ever since he decided to pay me a visit.

  “Most of my life I worked at Booth Industries. They’re mainly into chemicals these days, but they used to have their fingers in all kinds of different pies. I worked as an electrical engineer at the Lansing Works, which was where they developed and manufactured electrical equipment. We worked on all kinds of things—TVs, generators, refrigeration units…and Roboto. Roboto was a robot, obviously, one of the first and best, years ahead of its time. Here, I brought this so you could see for yourself…”

  He handed me a yellowed piece of paper that had been folded and unfolded so often that the creases were fuzzy and full of holes. It was a July 8, 1950, newspaper story about Roboto. Two photos accompanied the story, one of which showed the famed robot.

  Just over seven feet tall, Roboto had a boxy silver humanoid body and a face creepy enough to give Stephen King nightmares. They’d designed the face to look as human as possible, but since the head was far larger than a man’s and was made of metal and was thus clearly not human at all, it ended up being a freakish mockery of a human face. They’d equipped it with a nose and a pair of ridges that were supposed to be eyebrows, all of which were completely useless and looked it. Large camera-like lenses filled the spaces where the irises and pupils should have been, giving the robot a dead, glassy stare. Worst of all was the mouth, which was hinged like a ventriloquist doll’s and to which they’d added full, round lips that were darker than the rest of the face. I don’t know why, but there’s something unsettling about lips on a robot.

  The second photograph showed the team of engineers who had designed Roboto. They were young and well-scrubbed and had that postwar, can-do, full-of-hope attitude you don’t see in young people anymore unless they’re either mentally retarded or handing out the Watchtower. Among these young men I recognized Papacek—fifty years younger and sporting a full head of blond hair.

  “Yep, that’s me,” he said, seeing me seeing him in the picture. “Those guys and I spent three years working on Roboto, and he turned out better than we ever hoped. He could answer simple questions, turn his head toward noises, walk, move his arms, and even wiggle his fingers. He was years ahead of his time. If they took Roboto apart today, there’s probably stuff they could learn even now.”

  Actually, I thought Roboto sounded more like a tricked-out Furby than a cutting-edge technological wonder, but I didn’t say anything. I’ve found it’s wisest never to offer my honest opinion of the objects my clients hire me to find.

  “Roboto became a sort of spokesman for Booth,” he continued. “They used him in their advertising for a while, and he toured all around the country, performing in malls and department stores. He even performed at the World’s Fair one year. Everybody thought it was the future come to pass…” He paused, then slumped a little in his seat and let out a long, tired sigh. “Then it all changed.”

  “What changed?”

  “Everything. Booth started taking more and more contracts from the government, and the focus of the Works shifted to military hardware. Roboto didn’t fit in with Booth’s new direction, so he was put in mothballs in the basement. I made a point to check up on him every so often, clean off the dust, polish him up a little, stuff like that. I kept visiting him for a while even after I retired in 1970, but before long my life got too busy and I couldn’t find the time to visit him anymore. And then in 1976, Booth closed the Works. By the time I learned about it, the place had been cleaned out, and no one I talked to had any idea what happened to Roboto.”

  “Who exactly did you talk to?”

  He shrugged. “Anyone who might have taken Roboto—the guys in the engineering department, the administrators. I even sent a letter to old Otis Booth, the president of the company, but he didn’t know anything either.”

  “Hmm.” I already had an idea where to start the search, but before devoting another millisecond to Roboto, I had to determine whether or not Papacek could afford my services. I quickly explained my billing system to him: a base rate of two hundred dollars per hour, plus any additional expenses incurred in finding and procuring the item. And there tended to be lots of expenses.

  “Steep,” he said with a nod, as if he’d expected steepness. “I can go up to forty-five thousand. That’s most of my life savings. My wife died seven years ago, and my kids’re all set up on their own, so they don’t need anything. As for myself, I was diagnosed with lung cancer a year ago. I don’t have much longer—maybe two years at most—so that money isn’t gonna do me much good.”

  I know what you’re thinking: Old man with a sob story—be a Good Samaritan and at least give the guy a discount.

  Screw that. I run a business, not a charity. If this guy has 45K he’s happy to give me, why the hell would I turn him down? It’s his choice.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

  “You will?” His blue eyes sparkled with delight. Or maybe it was just his cataracts.

  “Yep,” I said. Then I had him sign a contract.

  * * *

  Most people overlook very obvious things, and Papacek was no exception. When he told me whom he’d talked to in his search for Roboto, I noted one glaring omission: He had talked to the scientists and the bosses, but he hadn’t even thought of talking to the people who would have had the most day-to-day contact with something stashed away in the basement: the janitors and maintenance crews.

  It took me nearly a week to acquire a list of such people employed at the Lansing Works in its final year. I’ll spare you the boring details and say only thank God for bureaucrats who keep records on everything even when the information is laughably out-of-date.

  Eighteen janitors and six maintenance men were employed by the Works in 1976. I started with the first name on the list: Hubert Ramsey, head of the janitorial staff. He still lived in Lansing, and since I was already there, having just gotten the list of employee
s from that thankfully anal bureaucrat, I stopped by his house, a grimy one-storey structure with peeling white paint and a yard full of crabgrass.

  A squat stocky man in his sixties answered the door. He had graying stubble on his chin and a sloppy comb-over on his scalp. His shirt, originally white, was yellow from cigarette smoke.

  “Help ya?” he said, eyeing me with what might best be described as bored suspicion, as if I were the latest in a never-ending parade of visitors hoping to part him from his money. I sympathized.

  “Hubert Ramsey, former employee of Booth Industries?”

  “Yeah. But I work at Ipico Steel now.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about Roboto.”

  For one brief instant his eyes went wide with shock and alarm. Though he quickly adopted a look of feigned disinterest, it was too little too late: Based on his initial reaction, I was sure that not only did he possess Roboto but his possession of the robot wasn’t legal. He had never asked his bosses if he could have the robot in the basement; he just took it and hoped everyone would forget it had ever been there. And so they had, all except one old man.

  “Roboto, huh?” he said. “I remember that silly thing. What about it?”

  “Someone hired me to track it down.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’re you gonna do when you find it?”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “I’m gonna offer him a deal. Or rather, offer you a deal, if I’m not mistaken.”

  His eyes narrowed. I could practically see the calculations unfolding behind them. It wouldn’t take him long to realize that knowledge of his theft gave me no leverage over him whatsoever. My job, after all, was to procure Roboto for my client; if I turned Ramsey over to the police, Roboto would be confiscated, and I’d be out a hefty paycheck.

  Defiance blazed in his eyes as if he’d read my thoughts. “What if I told you Roboto’s not for sale?”

  “For the right price, everything is for sale.”

  He shook his head. “Not this. This thing’s got historic and scientific value. Which means it’s worth money. Real money. And the longer I sit on it, the more money it’s gonna be worth. I figure, when I’m set to retire, I’m gonna call the Smithsonian or one of them places and offer it to them. And I’m not even gonna think about selling it a day before that. That’s my retirement fund. It’s not for sale.”

  “Do you mind if I see it?” I saw his look of sudden suspicion and quickly added, “Just to confirm we are indeed talking about the same thing and that its condition is such that it’s worth haggling over.”

  “There’s nothin’ to haggle about, but I’ll show you.”

  He led me to the garage. When he raised the door, a stench of must and mold billowed out, and I discovered why his rusting 1999 Ford Explorer was parked in the driveway: The interior of the garage was a maze of dining room chairs, bookcases, dog cages, used tires, rusting engines, boxes full of silverware, plastic bags stuffed with clothes, and countless other items. Clearly Ramsey was one of those packrats who hoard anything they think might net them an extra twenty or thirty bucks. I’d run into the type many times before in my work.

  We navigated our way to the rear of the garage, and there, amid the junk, was a sheet-shrouded humanoid figure, about seven feet tall.

  With a self-satisfied flourish, Ramsey whisked the sheet away, revealing Roboto. It hadn’t aged too well, which wasn’t surprising considering the conditions it’d been stuck in for the last few decades. A thin layer of grime covered its body, and there were small spots of rust here and there. A brown spider, disturbed by the sheet’s disappearance, scuttled up Roboto’s chin and disappeared into the slit between those thick, creepy lips.

  “It could be in better shape,” I said, “but I’m sure my client would be willing to overlook that and pay quite a hefty sum just the same. More than you might think.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Roboto’s one of a kind, pal. It don’t matter if he’s perfect or not because you ain’t never gonna find one better. And as for the money, maybe you didn’t hear me too good before: I ain’t doin’ a thing with it till I retire. Then I’m movin’ to fuckin’ Hawaii. Things like this get more valuable as time goes on. I’d be a fool to sell it now.”

  I couldn’t argue with him there. The man knew how to milk an investment. But I had a job to do, and I still had one more card up my sleeve.

  “What about a trade?” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “I not only buy things, I also negotiate trades. Often in the course of my work, I run into objects that are effectively priceless. That is, their owners consider them more personally valuable than any amount of money anyone could offer. The issue them becomes: Is there any other item in existence that said owner does not possess and would consider of equal or greater value than the object of my search?”

  He frowned. “You mean, is there somethin’ I want bad enough I’d trade the robot for it?”

  “In a nutshell.”

  He shook his head and opened his mouth, no doubt to tell me yet again that the damn thing was his retirement fund, but then he froze and a greedy, eager light sparked deep in his eyes. And that was when I knew I had him.

  “What kinds of things’re we talkin’ about here, exactly?” he asked.

  “Any physical object you desire, within certain obvious physical and legal limitations, of course. I can’t very well get you, say, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, but I could surely swing a piece of it. And as for objects in museums, well, sometimes I can—”

  He shook his head impatiently. “Nah, none of that shit. What I want is an issue of a magazine. The only issue of the whole run I don’t have.”

  “What magazine?” I smiled inwardly. This was too easy. I almost felt sorry for the poor chump. Finding old issues of magazines is a cakewalk to me. Unless, of course, we’re talking about one of those Holy Grail-level rarities, like a mint-condition copy of the second issue of Anarchy NOW!, which had a sheet of blotter acid stapled in its center, or a copy of the now-legendary and profoundly disturbing “Mister Black” issue of Serial Killer Quarterly, or, if you want to talk about a real challenge—

  “The first issue of Pink,” he said.

  My inward smile sagged into a frown. Of course. It had to be that one. Of all the issues of all the magazines in all the world…

  Not about to let Ramsey see my distress, I nodded and said, “Let’s be clear on this: If I get you the first issue of Pink, you will then hand over Roboto, correct?”

  He gaped at me. “I…yeah, I’ll do it. But it’s—I mean, you know how rare that issue is, right?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  I returned to my car. As I got in, I glanced up and saw Ramsey watching me from the entrance to his garage. He looked baffled, as if he couldn’t figure out whether to pity me or admire my pluck.

  To be honest, I wasn’t so sure myself.

  * * *

  Here’s the story: Pink was a third-rate porn magazine published from December 1988 to October 1998—a decent run for a piece of junk like that. It featured the usual shots of young women in garter belts and high heels bending over and spreading their pussy lips and ass cheeks for all the world to see. Ho-hum. A dime a dozen.

  Indeed, most issues of Pink were pretty much worthless. You’d be hard-pressed to sell them on eBay for much more than a buck apiece.

  The December 1988 issue, however, was another matter entirely.

  Yes, it was the first issue, which meant the magazine had no reader base yet and its print-run was the lowest of any issue in its history. But that, in and of itself, wasn’t why it was so rare. The real reason it was so rare was that one of the models in that issue, one of those young women in a garter belt and high heels spreading her privates for all the world to see, was a certain then-unknown now-famous Hollywood superstar who shall remain nameless because I don’t particularly care for getting my ass sued. You’d know the name. Trust me. Everybody knows the name.

  At the time she was a struggling actress who found h
erself coming up short with the rent money, so she put on a garter belt and high heels and bent over and made some fast and easy money.

  No biggie, right? Lots of struggling actresses have done the same.

  What made this actress different was that she came to hate having done it. I don’t know if she concluded it was degrading or if she just feared it’d sink any seven-figure deals she hoped to make someday with the Disney Corporation. Whatever the case, the existence of those photos irked her so much that the moment her star started to rise thanks to a supporting role in a certain movie starring a certain big-name action hero, she sought out the photographer who had taken the pictures and paid him a hefty sum for the original photographs and the negatives, all of which she then destroyed. But that wasn’t enough. The magazine itself was still out there. So she decided to seek out and buy every copy of that issue of Pink she could find.

  She did a remarkable job. It helped that the print-run had been barely over four thousand. It also helped that she had enough money to run want-ads in cities where the magazine had been on sale, in which ads she offered one hundred dollars for copies of the issue.

  By all accounts she got around 2500 copies. No big surprise there. I mean, if you had a porn magazine of no notable value and someone offered you a hundred bucks for it, you’d sell it, too, am I right?

  That left 1500 copies, which probably sounds like a lot, but bear in mind that all but about half a dozen of them were in landfills. Though some guys, like Ramsey, collect porn mags, most just throw the damn things away when the next issue comes with its fresh load of young women in high heels and garter belts. I mean, once you’ve beat off over the pictures a few times, it’s old news, you know? You need some new pictures. Porn fantasies have a shockingly short shelf-life.

  So there were about half a dozen copies still out there, most now in the hands of private collectors who were keeping their identities secret so as to avoid the attention of she-who-must-not-be-named. A year earlier, a copy had gone up for sale on eBay. The bidding hit fourteen thousand dollars before you-know-who’s attorneys scared everybody into shutting down the auction.