Paper or Plastic

by Mackey Chandler

  Roger eased up on him with a light hand on the controls, until he could see Josh’s face in the glow from the wands. When he was within an arm’s length he jabbed the wands down together and Rog eased the ship down, trusting Josh would have made sure the roof could take the load. When he looked Martee had a big grin.

  "This is just like the picture they show on TV after the news," she reminded him. "In all the worlds of men, I can assure you there isn’t any city that reaches up and shines in the night so gloriously."

  "That’s nice, Martee. We’ll try to show you around while we’re here." They were down, with the sliding door facing a little equipment shack on the flat roof. Josh had put them down on the side opposite the door though. Josh had the door open and grabbed his sack of surveillance equipment even before they were out of their seats. He was wearing a New York Yankees baseball hat.

  My God, Roger thought, he’s gone native already.

  "How about showing us down to our rooms?" Rog asked him urgently. "I need to use the bathroom if you don’t want me to do the deed on the roof here."

  "No problem. It’s just the next floor down, not far from the elevator and stairs. Come on," he urged. Josh peeled a cover off a sticky backed camera about the size of a postage stamp and almost invisible. He slapped it on the equipment shed looking back at the ship. "Lock it up for sure will you Martee?" he asked as he walked on around, to the door and stairway. He slapped another tiny camera on the wall inside looking down the stairs.

  Before they made it down to the room, he had stuck eight of the little cameras overlooking the route. When Roger came out of the bathroom he was standing on a chair, fastening one on the wall above the entry door and had guided Martee in.

  "You guys go ahead and get some rest," he gestured to the two doors to the bedrooms. "I’m going to sleep in the ship until we have a chance to unload it tomorrow. We’ll only use this room tonight, then I have some security coming mid-day and we’ll let them have this room." Seeing the tired look on his face Josh held up a hand to forestall questions.

  "Get some rest first, it will make more sense when I explain in the morning."

  "Do it," Martee urged him. "I’m too tired to hear a big story tonight too." She walked like a zombie into the left bedroom and Roger took the other. He kicked his shoes off and flopped on top of the far bed that had the covers turned down already. He watched through the open door as Josh moved the chair and pasted another camera up on the opposite wall, looking at the door. Somewhere in the middle of watching that he blinked and was asleep.

  Chapter 19

  The sunlight pouring in the windows was what woke him up. Somebody had closed his door and he peeked out to see if anybody else was up. Martee was out of the bathroom already, dressed and peering out the window of the sitting room at her magical city.

  Josh was sitting at the desk, working at one of those multiple screen laptops that geeks love. One fold out screen, Rog could tell from clear across the room, was a view of the ship. The other wing screen was a hallway, probably the one outside their door. The center screen was text.

  "I have breakfast on the way up," Josh reported too cheerfully.

  "Yuck," Roger informed him, sticking his tongue out in disgust and promptly got the hiccups.

  Martee turned around all happy too. He hated happy, early in the morning. Then he looked out at the sun and had to admit it wasn’t that early. Oh yeah… four time zones, he remembered. Orbital travel must mess your internal clock up even worse than jet planes, he decided. He needed some of those pills, that help reset your internal clock.

  "You have to try the shower," Martee gushed. "It’s beautiful cream colored marble and the bathtub is so big you practically need a boat to get across. The shower has all kinds of nozzles and they pulse at you," she illustrated with repeated jabs of all her fingers. "I think this suite is bigger than your whole cabin. Isn’t it neat?" she asked.

  "It’s lovely, though it wouldn’t take much of a pulse to knock me on my butt this morning. I’ll go try it. Just try to keep Josh from eating everything, if it comes before I get out." He didn’t include his favorite alien in those instructions.

  When he came out, Rog had to admit that would be tough even for this pair to put a dent in the spread they had laid out. There was a table for three with real linens, silverware and china that was nicer than anything he’d ever owned.

  The robe they had provided was luxurious, too. The Turkish toweling felt about a half inch thick. There was a huge pitcher of orange juice, with an insert blown in the glass to hold ice without watering it down and a silver carafe of coffee. A platter held a pile of Danish, bagels and muffins, with a mound of pale butter balls on ice. A lazy Susan had marmalade and preserves.

  A long cart to the side was attended by a fellow in a white jacket, who was chatting with Josh in what sounded like French with an Italian accent. He had a waffle maker on board the cart, closed up with steam coming out of it and an omelet pan waiting with a low flame under it, ready to fill on Roger’s instructions. Rog decided he might want to live after all.

  "Can I get you something sir?"

  "How about a mushroom omelet?" he asked. "With whatever you have there that goes good with mushrooms and start another waffle for me when that one is done please." As he watched the fellow started his omelet and pulled Martee’s waffle. He did a quick recharge in the iron, then brushed butter over the waffle and made it disappear beneath about a pint of sliced ripe strawberries and a good two inches of heavy whipped cream on top. Martee tore into it like she hadn’t eaten in a week.

  "Potatoes, sir?" The server asked Roger.

  "Sure, the works," he gestured expansively.

  The omelet when he bit into it was fantastic. "What in the world is in here besides mushrooms?" he asked and then added, "it’s marvelous," when he saw the worried look on the fellows face.

  "Butter of course and morels, we have a fellow that cultures them in Jersey and they taste just the same as wild. Add a pinch of roasted sesame seed and fresh farmer’s cheese with just a little Brie. Then a little dash of reduced champagne, with a pinch of cardamom in it."

  "Really? Cardamom? Josh asked surprised. "That’s very interesting."

  "Yes," the fellow smiled, "just a hint to where you wonder if it’s there or not. Would you like the same as the lady on your waffle sir? I have blueberries, golden raspberries, or hot glazed apples with raisins if you’d rather."

  "Blueberries please, with the same treatment of butter and whipped cream. Do you have some nutmeg there?" Roger asked.

  "Yes, we have a shaker of nutmeg and of cinnamon, for the coffee."

  "Dust some nutmeg on top of the whipped cream then please. It goes nice with the blueberries," Roger said. The potatoes had chives and sour cream, with grated sharp cheddar on top when he tried them.

  "I tried to have them bring up what I thought you guys would like," Josh said. "If there’s anything you need, they can run it up I’m sure."

  "I think I want to live here," Martee told him.

  "There are several residents that keep a suite as an apartment," their server informed them.

  "You should see some other places before you decide something like that," Josh advised her. "You might find something you like even better."

  Martee didn’t look like she could imagine that was possible.

  When breakfast was finished and the chef gone, Rog pointed at the computer screen. "How the devil did you arrange for us to park on the roof?"

  "Bribery," Josh assured him. "I told the manager we needed to put a sort of small shed, like a hunter's blind, on the roof with electronics for our communication needs, if we were to stay here. I asked if he’d accept a cash payment for that – like it would be doing us a great favor. I made sure he understood we would be taking a small suite and a larger one, while we used it. So long as we are here, he is getting five hundred a day cash in his pocket, so I believe he will be very helpful to us. I offered him four hundred and he jacked it up to fi
ve hundred. I didn’t try to make him meet me in the middle. I want him firmly believing he is taking advantage of us."

  "What’s that under the ship?" Rog asked peering at the screen. "You haven’t been moving it about in the day have you?"

  There was a mottled grey tarp wrapped around the ship now, leaving the door uncovered and some sort of plate with a pattern of grey on it under the landing pads too.

  "No it hasn’t gone anywhere. Those are two sheets of one inch waterproof plywood. They are painted to blend with the roof and they are just to make sure the weight is safely distributed. You sat right down on them last night just where I directed you. If you didn’t notice them when you got out that doesn’t surprise me; you were pretty whipped and staggering when you got here last night."

  "It’s a nice place," Roger allowed. "I’m glad you took my advice not to skimp, because image is important in New York. If we contact a diamond cutter and he asks where we’re staying, I don’t want to tell him we’re staying at a Red Roof out in New Jersey."

  "You seem to know more about that than me, so I’ll follow your lead, but the security guys I have coming should help with image. I figured a company hauling around a fortune in uncut stones wouldn’t have their executives doubling as guards. I’ll set them up in these rooms and tell the desk our security is moving in the suite opposite. If anybody comes looking for us they will come here first, to the wrong room. It gives us a layer of protection."

  "But if the management calls on the phone won’t they see we’re in the wrong rooms?" Martee asked.

  "Well, yes – normally they would, but I’ve been in the phone closet already you see…The lock was nothing and the equipment is really not very well secured. Now I pretty much have control of it on my laptop there. They’ll see what I want them to see. If I don’t renew the commands every six hours it all reverts to the default settings it had before I cracked it. As a bonus I can listen to any of the phone calls to and from the other rooms. Not that I want to sit and play voyeur," he hastened to add, seeing the look on their faces. "But if some police agency moved in next door, thinking they were spying on us I’d know real quickly. I have a key word search monitoring the whole system already."

  "That’s what is running on my main screen," he explained, gesturing at the computer. "I can shut the whole system down too, if someone is using it against us. It’s all software, so if six hours passes and it resets, they have no way to connect it to us. The down side is we are going to have to eat downstairs, or come down the hall and use this room for dinner, to keep up the illusion to the staff we are here.

  "This has to be adding up," Rog guessed, nervous about the expense, "Let’s get some of this platinum sold soon. I don’t want to worry about running short of cash. I wanted to do some shopping and upgrade our appearance, before doing any serious business, but we’ll skip that for the metals dealer. Wear your best suit, Josh, we should look as prosperous as possible."

  "I’ll wear my best and only suit," Josh said amused, "but we should wait for the security detail, take one of them with us in the car and take the extra diamonds and at least some of the platinum in the trunk to spread around in storage. I have a couple good two wheel carts. We should go up right now and bring our metal and stones down to the other suite before our guards get here.

  "That’s fine I guess it will sub for me doing my morning work-out, but I have to get back on schedule tomorrow," he insisted.

  "It’ll be plenty of exercise, Rog. Those cases are still heavy and we have a stairway to bring them down from the roof – no elevator. You better hold your shower until we get them down too, because you are going to get sweaty."

  "Sounds like a plan. You have a hold on room service on that other suite?

  "Yes, nobody will be snooping in there. We’ll call for service when we have most of the goods out. We can always find an excuse to stay in while they clean, if we need to once or twice. I’ll call the concierge now and ask him to have a car for us this afternoon."

  "You better ask for a van," Rog suggested. "If we load the whole lot in the trunk, we’ll have the bumper hanging on the pavement and bust the springs."

  * * *

  The security was impressive when it showed up. The four were dressed better than Josh, although he had a fedora on that was much too nice for his suit, a situation they would correct soon. There was a very poised fellow, Steve Coontz, in charge, who introduced each of the others in turn.

  Josh introduced Roger and Martee. He didn’t use any substitute name for her and none of them blinked at the oddity. This wasn’t Sitra Falls.

  "Here are our cell phone numbers," he had them on cards for each of them and blanks to get their numbers. "If any of you are not carrying a cell phone we’ll get you one right now." They all had them.

  "I requested at least two of you be qualified and legal to carry arms," Josh reminded him. Was that possible?

  "Anderson and Ono are both sworn officers and are armed," Steve said. Anderson was the oldest of the four and Ono was Oriental but not Japanese or Korean, he had that beefy look that made Josh think of Filipino. Harris was quiet, but had that set unhappy look that didn’t seem to need any reason.

  "We are going to be going out soon and expect to be gone most of the day. We’d like one of the officers to come with us. He’ll remain with our car when we go in to do business. We’re reasonable people. We don’t expect to micromanage you. Pair up and switch off however you work best. However you want to work on and off is fine, as long as we have two covering. Just make sure the fellow in the car has a reliable, charged cell phone."

  "Can four people really keep two on duty all the time?" Martee asked. That means each is working a half day. That seems like long hours to me."

  "Yes ma’am, we can for a short assignment like this," Steve answered. "It’s a pretty comfortable assignment, not sitting in a car somewhere. If we had to do it for months, we probably would ask for six people, but working out of this room with a bathroom and a meal just an elevator ride away, it’s probably easier than the officer’s regular jobs."

  "I have one question," Roger spoke up. "Are either of you off work because of a shooting?"

  "No," Anderson told him, "I get so much vacation now I have to take three weeks off or lose it. I’m a widower and it’s so expensive to live in the city I’d rather make a few bucks, than go off and spend it."

  "In a matter of speaking yes," Ono said. "I got shot in the butt and haven’t been cleared to return to duty. I’m fine for this, but there’s a lot of paperwork and exams, before I can go back."

  "Literally?" Josh asked.

  "Literally. There is no dignity to be found in it lying on your belly, being stitched up, so I just tell it straight."

  "And the criminal that did this to you, what happened to him?" Martee wondered.

  "He’s no longer with us, due to the other officers protecting me," he replied. He was visibly watching her, waiting for a reaction.

  "Good," she said. "Partners should be dependable."

  "Please feel free to do what you need to for comfort," Josh said. "If you need to sit, stand, or walk around, do it. If you need to sit on a pillow or whatever, don’t worry about how it looks. That name, Ono, are you Hawaiian?"

  "That’s right," he agreed, looking pleased it was recognized.

  "When you are on duty here gentleman, feel free to eat at any of the restaurants downstairs and put it on the other room tab. We won’t argue about what you get unless it gets unreasonably lavish, to where we feel you are taking advantage. We’d rather you didn’t use room service unless we're with you. If you want to go down and bring something back up for the two of you, or get something outside so you can eat together, fine. You’ll probably be more alert for getting out and walking around now and then."

  "I have this laptop," he produced a small single screen computer much simpler than his. "It will show three views split on the screen. The communications shed we have positioned on the roof and the corridor outside her
e and the stairs leading to the roof. We want that monitored and if there is any trouble have one of the officers make the call to get the police here."

  "This shed on the roof – you’re not doing any snooping, or data intercepts that may cause us legal problems later?" the fellow who hadn’t spoken, Harris asked. "We are hiring on as guards and if we get into behavior that requires a private investigator’s license, that could be a problem."

  "We don’t have receiving equipment for anything but public usage bands," Josh assured him. "We stayed in this room last night and had breakfast here. We’ll move down to the other suite now. We figure this gives you more time to call the police and safeguard the valuables we are carrying, if somebody knocks on your door and asks for us. Nobody in the city is aware we are here."

  "There are no other partners or employees besides we three to phone or send anybody, so if anybody asks for us, call us, because you can figure that they are up to no good. Even when we make some sales calls in the next few days, our clients might know we are staying at the Michelangelo, but we will not be giving our room numbers to the people we are dealing with," Josh said. "The front desk has a note for answering our calls, asking they don’t give it out either.

  "Can you tell us what these goods you are traveling with are, so we can gage the risk involved?" Steve asked.

  "You’d figure that out pretty quick anyway, because we are going to be visiting the diamond district. We have some bullion we’re selling too, but we figure on finalizing all that today, so it won’t be a factor tomorrow. The only way somebody might follow us here, is if a thief is watching a diamond dealer and follows us. That’s how most gem dealers get robbed now. Somebody sits and watches a jewelry store, or a jewelry manufacturer, until they see somebody go in that has the right sort of case. Then they usually follow them and rob them at a gas station or restaurant parking lot, if they don’t go back to their hotel. There is not much we can do about that sort of danger, except hire someone like you."