The Brummie Con

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  He shakes his head. “No. No, they must’ve done it. I wasn’t aware—”

  “Bull. Shit. They’re Cleaners. They need their squeegees to work and you can’t selectively make one bug not work like that without them being physically aware of it.” Ty starts to equivocate again, but I cut him off, “This isn’t open for debate.” I shove the paper deep into his hard collarbone.

  Ty slaps his hand over the paper and closes his eyes tilting his chin up briefly in a bid to stay calm. He lowers and smoothes out the piece of paper and reads it, his eyes widening. “What’s this?” he manages to ask.

  “That, Ty Randal Sauer, is your entire life. Bank accounts. Credit cards. Military enlistment records. All of it. So don’t fucking lie to me. Oh, and all that below it? That’s Margaret Tillery’s, who, by the way, is several orders of magnitude wealthier than you. We included those numbers there for your enjoyment.” Chew on that in the middle of the night, asshat.

  His neck tightens, two little cords like steer bars run down from his neck to his shoulders. His nostrils flare.

  “Apparently she gets quite the allowance from Mummy and Daddy. Did you know?” I ask, driving a stake between them. “One month of her allowance could fund your business for a year, but apparently you’re not a wise enough investment.”

  Ty’s lips fall open, his teeth clenched underneath; he nods his head like he’s not aware of it, running things through his mind.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  His eyes snap back to me, narrow. “Nothing,” he says.

  Liar.

  “They took the photo,” Ty continues. “They’re supposed to text me the location when they find him.”

  “Give me your tablet.”

  “What?”

  “Give me your tablet.”

  “No.”

  “How do you like prison Ty Randal Sauer?”

  “What?”

  “You see that fifth line down? Recognize it?” It’s his tablet password. “Be a shame if some incriminating evidence found its way on there and someone tipped off the cops.”

  “I haven’t done anything illegal.”

  I just smile at him. “Since when is that relevant? Give me your tablet.”

  “If you have my password, why do you need it?”

  “Good point.” I put my finger to my ear. “Your text messages from unknown numbers are being diverted from now on. We’ll text you the location seventy-two hours after the Cleaners text us.”

  “Us, is it, now?” he asks, crumpling the piece of paper in his hand as it falls to his side.

  “You damn well know who we are.” At least he thinks he does: CIA. “We’re watching your credit cards. We’re watching your bank accounts. We’re watching your GPS. If you so much as take out a hundred pounds in the next seventy-two hours, or skip town, we’ll wrap you up so tight for the cops with a pretty Christmas bow that they won’t be able to resist. And that goes for Margaret Tillery as well. Although her lawyers will probably get her off. Think they’ll spring for you?”

  Those steel cords running down his neck look like they’re about to pop.

  “And the deal is still on,” I say. “One half of one share. We got it writing after all.”

  Ty doesn’t say anything, just stands there with his lips pressed together and the piece of paper crumpled in his hand.

  “Seventy-two hours.” I turn on my heel and walk away. Seeing Ty so wound up has me feeling better, like I somehow transfered away jackknives to a better home.

  Several streets away, once I verify I’m not being followed, I say to Puo, “Well?”

  “Not bad,” Puo admits. “But now they’re going to be looking for surveillance and set up alternate communication channels.”

  I shrug. We should be long gone before they sort all that out and are ready to move. With any luck, that’s the last I’ll see of that bald prick.

  “And he was lying,” Puo says.

  “Duh.”

  “The Cleaners already found and told him where to pick up the Christmas ham. An assistant lecturer in New Dublin.”

  “Whoa,” I say. I expected Ham to be harder to find.

  “Yeah. What do we do?”

  I hesitate as I think it over. But we really have no choice here. Ty knows Ham’s location. At best we have a couple of days before he alerts Ham and Ham goes on the run again. “Get packed.”

  At the very least, this confirms the Cleaners in the States aren’t organized over here. But if Ham was this easy to find, why haven’t they looked?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ON THE TRAIN to New Dublin that afternoon it occurred to me that the forty-eight hour timer has to be a bluff. Forty-eight hours to what? To kill my father? Then what? Where’s their leverage then? If they really are so stupid as to kill my father then I’m free take my time to lovingly tie the noose around their necks and enjoy shoving them off a ledge. It has to be a bluff. Puo thought so too.

  Still. There’s no time to waste.

  Old Dublin was a total loss when the mega-quake hit nearly a hundred years ago. Not as bad as Amsterdam, but pretty close—swept under an indiscriminate hundred-foot blanket of seawater. But unlike the Dutch, the Irish gave the encroaching sea the finger and picked up and moved their city twelve miles inland: New Dublin.

  The stubborn Irish did a pretty good job of capturing the architectural style and flair of the old city with one key exception. European cities grew out of settlements hundreds to thousands of years old. This natural growth leads to twisting, confusing paths, buildings packed so close together as to be practically on top of each other and other oddities that can only be explained by: “Well, that’s the way it’s always been.” New Dublin was laid out by city planners. They tried to add some of that winding path stuff, but it’s not the same. It just isn’t.

  By late afternoon, Puo, Winn, and I are in our chosen flat in New Dublin. It’s a wonderfully lit and airy modern space with wood floors and stone columns that rise up to smooth fluted white ceilings. Splashes of green from planters stand out from the light-earth color motif and all the clutter. Dishes are drying by the sink. The garbage is half-full. Clothes are strewn about (mostly socks and shoes in the living area). Pillow cushions are askew. Opened mail is spread around.

  This is a good thing. The owner is in Spain for Christmas. So we took pictures of the clutter to leave it how we found it; he won’t even know we were here.

  “Hey, look,” Puo says as he traipses into the front living area to retrieve a black duffle bag of his stuff. “A fire place.”

  I bob my head in acknowledgment while kneeling down and rifling through my own bag. There’s a gas fireplace to the right of the entrance. The living room is centered around the sleek rectangular fireplace set against white marble.

  I continue digging through my own things looking for my face wash. We’re only unpacking the absolute essentials—mostly Puo’s computer equipment.

  Puo stops. I can feel him staring at me. “What?” I ask, still searching through my bag.

  “Still wondering what to get Winn?” he asks, there’s a hint of something in his voice.

  Winn is off surveying the sleeping arrangements.

  “Yes.” I continue my search. Hopefully Puo has a gift idea that’s good and easy.

  “Well,” Puo says. “I was just thinking, with the fireplace and all ... you could ... ya’ know ...”

  “Yes? Could what?” Where is that face wash?

  “Get him a bottle of wine,” Puo says with what I now recognize as suppressed mirth.

  “What?” I turn toward him to understand what’s he’s jabbering about.

  “Or a bearskin rug.” Puo breaks into a huge grin. “I could make myself scarce—”

  “Puo!” I feel my cheeks burn.

  “Ooh! You blushed!”

  “Puo!”

  “I knew it!”

  “Knew what?” I look for something to throw at him. “Get to work! We needed to make contact an hour ago.”

/>   Puo starts to say more, but I say, “How many hours left?”

  That shuts him up. We both know exactly how many hours: forty-two.

  Puo hefts the black duffle bag of computer equipment up onto his shoulder and heads to the kitchen to set it up on the large wooden table in there. On the way he can’t help himself and adds with a smile, “Just let me know if you want me to stay in my room.”

  “You can stay in there with the drone alarm,” I threaten.

  “Heart attack,” he says lightly over his shoulder at me. “Heart attack.”

  “Your heart attack immunity is hereby revoked!” I call after him.

  Puo pushes the swinging dark wood door open into the kitchen and splurts, “Pffft.”

  Freaking Puo.

  What am I going to get Winn? Christmas is tomorrow. With any luck, we’ll grab Ham tonight and be too busy to do the whole gift thing.

  Winn, oblivious to Puo’s suggestion, wanders back to the front room to report that there are two bedrooms and an office. He offers to take the office, which is the way it should be, but I find I can’t look at him at the moment with Puo’s image so squarely stuck in my head. My cheeks are still impossibly hot.

  I spend the next half hour or so unpacking my essentials (one change of clothes, toiletries), freshening up, and hiding in my temporary room: memorizing and taking pictures of where things are to make sure we leave it in the same state we borrowed it in. By the time I’m done, Puo has his computers set up and is working.

  “Any luck?” I ask as I pass through the kitchen, avoiding locking eyes with Winn who is standing by the antique spring-green one-door refrigerator, looking over a take-out menu for dinner.

  Turns out the Cleaners only gave us a job title and a city, but no name or home address. Freaking Cleaners. Oddly, this makes me feel slightly better about them giving us a location so fast. They didn’t actually find Ham, just narrowed it down. It’s like dealing with genies where you have to be super specific about your request. Ty was out of his league with the ass-glitterers.

  “Yeah,” Puo says. He’s recreated his electronic nest at the large wooden kitchen table that sits three on each side. At least at this flat there’s still room for us to use the table.

  Winn lowers the menu; I keep my attention focused on Puo.

  Puo continues, “My money’s on Harold Wanger, Assistant Lecturer of Computer Science at Trinity College. He’s one of four in the New Dublin area that started working in a computer science department within the last semester and doesn’t have a photo posted.”

  “Do you have addresses?” I ask.

  Puo nods. “For three of the four. But Mr. Wanger here is proving a little harder to pin down.”

  “Sounds promising,” I say.

  “He has a post office box, which has to be tied to a physical address. So I’ll pull that.”

  “You can just do that?” Winn stupidly asks. “I mean that quickly,” he says seeing both of us staring at him.

  “I can,” Puo says.

  “He’s already done it on the British side a few months ago, how hard can it be on the Irish side?” I explain.

  Puo sticks his tongue out at me.

  But something is nagging at me.

  “Wait,” I say. Puo stops what he’s doing and looks at me. “Ham’s too smart for this. Whatever address you pull is going to be a dummy address at best, or a surveillance post at worst. We need to flush him out. Have him come to us.”

  “How?” both Puo and Winn ask.

  “Can you get into his work email?” I ask.

  “Oh yeah,” Puo says, instantly seeing where I’m going.

  “Umm,” Winn says, “I hate to point out the obvious, but it’s Christmas Eve. He’s not going to believe that anything work-related can’t wait until after the holidays.”

  “We don’t need him to physically show up—” I start to explain.

  “Just reply to a well-crafted email from his tablet,” Puo cuts me off and steals my thunder. “Which I can then use as an entry point to sniff around.”

  “Puo!”

  “Ya’ know,” Puo says. “You seem awfully stressed out lately—”

  Grr. If he suggests Winn and I—

  “—want me to tell you a story?” Puo finishes.

  “No,” I say immediately and turn to Winn to give him instructions.

  Puo starts anyway, “There once was a man from Nantucket—”

  “I swear to God,” I say, looking up at the ceiling. “If you tell me a limerick right now I’m going to scream.”

  “It’s not a limerick!” Puo roars. “Why does everyone assume everything that happened on Nantucket is a limerick?”

  Winn answers, “Because it rhymes with—”

  Puo plows on, “There once was a man from Nantucket. His name was ...” Puo eyes us, his eyes twinkling and daring us. “Joe Bob Lucket—”

  “Oh, come on!” Winn howls.

  “What?” Puo asks innocently, with what I swear is a hint of a smile. “That was his name. You can’t make this stuff up.”

  Yes, you can! I want to howl, but it’ll only egg Puo on further. Ham, focus on Ham!

  Puo continues, “Now, Nantucket was an island and, during prohibition, served as one of the distribution points to New England. Joe Bob sniffed opportunity and formed the Lobcocked Gang—he and his brother Bitty. They planned to dig a tunnel to the mainland to smuggle the booze through—”

  “A tunnel? Underwater?” Winn asks. “That’s got to be—”

  Puo holds up a finger. “Using a narwhal.”

  Both of us stare at Puo. We are so far off track here.

  Puo nods. “Narwhals are the natural tunnelers of the sea—”

  “No they’re not!” Gah! I couldn’t help it.

  “Yes, they are!” Puo insists. “What do you think those long horns on their heads are for?”

  “Narwhals live in the arctic,” I say.

  “Exactly!” Puo says triumphantly. “That’s how they tunnel through the ice. Now shush! I’m telling it. Joe Bob and Bitty reached a deal with the Canadian Coalition—very dangerous, very polite folk. In exchange for profit sharing, the Canadian Coalition delivered a narwhal, the national animal of Canada—”

  “It’s not—” I start.

  “It is,” Puo says and continues to talk over me. “But the darn thing wouldn’t tunnel for them—”

  “Told you!” I say and immediately regret it.

  Puo waggles a smug finger at me. “Not because it couldn’t. But because it was lonely. Narwhals live in the arctic, the poor thing didn’t have any of its friends to tunnel with. It’s a social activity. Pretty soon, the Canadian Coalition wanted their first payment—asking menacingly, but with perfect manners, of course.

  “Well, Joe Bob and Bitty were pretty stressed out. No tunnel, no profits. Their plan—”

  “Let me guess,” I cut in. “Tape horns to some dolphins so that the narwhal wasn’t lonely anymore. Can we get back on point?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Puo sniffs and waves his hand at me. “They hung mirrors off a harness they attached to its head so that the narwhal saw its reflection and thought it wasn’t alone anymore.”

  I roll my eyes. Now who’s being ridiculous.

  “It worked.”

  “Bullshit!” I say and immediately grab my hair in frustration. Gah! This didn’t really happen! I yell at myself.

  “So they built a tunnel?” Winn asks.

  “Nope,” Puo says. “Tunnel collapsed on the narwhal as soon as it started digging. Ka-poof!” Puo slaps his hands together to demonstrate. “The sea bottom is too soft, you see. The narwhal didn’t make it.” Puo hangs his head solemnly. He stays there, waiting for something.

  Winn and I share a look. Winn gestures towards Puo, signaling me to ask the next obvious question. I shake my head no, and threaten my finger at him telling him not to either.

  Winn asks anyway, “So what’s the point of the story?”

  “The point,�
�� Puo says, looking up, “is while they were all stressed out about one thing, it was something else entirely that killed them. Something they should’ve seen coming.”

  This is your way of telling me I need to relax? “That’s an awful story—it doesn’t even make sense.”

  “Sure it does,” Puo insists.

  “Narwhals don’t tunnel.”

  “Yes, they do! They even have the narwhal corpse on display at Harvard Museum of Natural History. Recovered it in a scientific excavation. You can go see it if you don’t believe me. They think to this day that the mirror contraption was a rogue veterinary optometrist trying to optimize animal locomotion so that they didn’t have to turn around—”

  “That museum is underwater,” I say, cutting him off before he starts getting going again. We once considered hitting it.

  “Doesn’t change the fact that it’s there,” Puo says.

  I’d bang my head on the table if I were sitting at it. “Okay, moving on,” I say. To Winn I order, “Let’s split up and go check on the other three addresses to make sure Ham didn’t have a brain fart and slip up.”

  “You got it.” Winn tacks the menu he’s been holding back on the refrigerator where he found it.

  To Puo I say, “Now that that’s out of your system. Get into his email and his tablet. As soon as you know anything—”

  “I will promptly make a sandwich and enjoy it,” Puo snarks at me for cutting off his ridiculousness. “And then maybe nap a little. Ya’ know, a light nap. Not anything too deep. Don’t want to get too groggy. One those refreshers splayed out on the couch, like a narwhal—”

  “Puo!” At least someone in this group is acting like themselves again. I’ll have to remember to ask him how he’s managed it.

  ***

  Puo informs us that he’s finished eating a corned beef sandwich and thinking about going down for a nap while Winn and I are in a hovercab, making our way to investigate the third and final address.

  “Is it him?” I ask, trying to breathe shallowly. The overpowering air freshener in the hovercab fails spectacularly at covering up the lingering cigarette smoke clinging to the cabbie.

  “Oh, it’s him all right,” Puo says. “He had security protocols set up around tracing his tablet. They were good, I was better.”