Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1)

by Matthew Storm

  He found himself in a storage room lit by one bare, flickering bulb in the ceiling. The room was filled with metal shelves cluttered with old electronic equipment. DVD players, televisions, and old computers were stacked on top of each other in haphazard piles. In one corner he could see a man-sized gun safe. The room was covered in dust and looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in years.

  Tyler had taken his pistol out from under his shirt. “Rocky?” he called. “You in here?”

  The shop was quiet. Rocky, whoever he was, wasn’t answering. A rectangular object caught Oliver’s eye. “Is this a Betamax?” he asked quietly. “I’ve never seen one of these in real life.”

  “Might be,” Tyler said. “You can ask Rocky about it.”

  Oliver ran his hand over the ancient video player. He was sure it was authentic. “Why would anyone hold onto this?” he wondered. “Who would buy it?”

  “I don’t know,” Tyler said. “Probably nobody. The thing is, he’s not really a pawnbroker.” He looked through the doorway into the main room. “Rocky?”

  “What is he really?” Oliver asked.

  “He’s a…aw, shit.” Tyler said, spotting something. He went through the doorway.

  Oliver peered through the doorway after him. Tyler was in the center of the room, kneeling down next to an overweight man in a dirty white T-shirt and jeans. The other man was balding, unshaven, and didn’t appear to be breathing.

  “Oh,” Oliver said, feeling a knot form in his stomach.

  Tyler felt the other man’s neck for a pulse. “Come on, Rocky,” he said quietly. He waited, but then shook his head. “Nope. He’s all done.”

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” Oliver said.

  “Don’t be. He was an asshole.” Tyler sighed. “How was Teasdale going to do you? Injection?” He tugged at Rocky’s shoe and removed it, followed by the sock. Oliver winced as Tyler pried the other man’s toes apart and inspected the skin between them. “Nothing there,” he said. He went to work pulling off the other shoe.

  “Is that really necessary?” Oliver asked. It seemed somehow obscene to be examining a dead man’s feet.

  “If you want to know what’s going on here, then yes. There. See?” He motioned for Oliver to look at the skin between the first two toes on Rocky’s other foot. Oliver could see a tiny red mark there. “Injection site,” Tyler said. “This could’ve been you.”

  Oliver felt sick. “But why?”

  “Why kill you? Like I said, we don’t know yet.”

  “No, not that. Why kill him? What does he have to do with this?”

  Tyler stood up. “You think Mr. Teasdale is in the phone book? He’s not. If you want to hire him, you need a middle man. Rocky here is…was…one.”

  “A middle man?”

  “Yeah. A guy with connections. He knew everyone and could get you most anything. I didn’t know until now he was the broker on your contract, but even if he hadn’t been, it would have been a good bet he knew who was in the market for a killer.”

  “So why kill him?”

  “The deal’s gone to shit. You got away and now we’re involved. If he’s dead, he doesn’t tell us who’s behind this. I guess Mr. Teasdale didn’t trust him to keep his mouth shut.” He took his phone out of his pocket. “Damn it. Artemis is going to be pissed.”

  Tyler made a quick call, telling the little girl what had happened and listening to her instructions. He hung up with a grimace. “She’s sending cleanup,” he told Oliver. “You may as well look around the place, see if there’s anything you want.”

  Oliver looked around, confused. There was nobody else working. “You mean steal things?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Steal. Loot. It hardly matters now. Leave some money on the desk if you want.” He spotted a stack of old records and started flipping through them. “You never know what he’s going to have.”

  There was something grotesque about looking through a dead man’s merchandise while the dead man in question was lying on the floor in front of them. “What did you mean by cleanup?” he asked.

  “Grab his computers and files. I’m sure it’s all encrypted but we’ve got a guy. There may not be much we can use, but you never know.”

  “Oh.”

  “And of course, scrub away any trace that we were ever here. Hair, fingerprints, skin cells. Anything with DNA that could lead back to us.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Sure. It’s easy, if you know how. And if you have the right tools.”

  Oliver didn’t feel like browsing around the shop. He went to stand by the door. “How long until that team of yours gets here?”

  “A few minutes.” Tyler had chosen a few records and was looking through a stack of comic books. “You sure you don’t want anything?”

  “That man is dead!” Oliver snapped.

  “And you’re alive,” Tyler observed. “Keep that in mind.”

  Oliver shook his head in disgust. He was thinking about calling his office, although he knew he didn’t dare. The police must be finished over there by now. How much would they have been able to get off of the security camera footage from the lobby? If they managed to get a good photo of Mr. Teasdale, maybe they were out looking for him. Of course, that meant they were likely out looking for Tyler, too, given that Tyler was the one who had actually dragged him out of the office.

  He made a mental note to update his resume when he got the chance. And he’d have to think of an answer for when somebody asked the reason he’d left his last position. He wasn’t sure a story about an assassin showing up at his office was going to cut it. Hostile work environment, he thought. That sounded better.

  “Nice!” Tyler said. He held up an old Spider-Man comic so Oliver could see it. Oliver looked at him blankly. “It’s rare,” Tyler said by way of explanation.

  “That’s great,” Oliver said dryly. He didn’t know of many grown men who got excited over comic books. That was stuff for kids, or people who lived in their parents’ basements. But then again, maybe for people in Tyler’s line of work it counted as research. The next time you had to fight a killer robot from the future, you could try doing what Superman had done in that situation. It wasn’t like that kind of thing was taught in schools.

  “Why do you take orders from a little girl?” Oliver asked, curious whether he could get any more information about these people.

  Tyler looked up from his comic. “Let me give you some advice. Never call Artemis little, and never underestimate her. And for god’s sake don’t make her angry.”

  “What, she’s supposed to be dangerous?”

  Tyler didn’t blink. “More than you can imagine.”

  Oliver studied the other man’s face. There was no sign that he was about to grin and betray that he’d only been joking. “Okay, then.”

  “Okay.” Tyler went back to his comic.

  Minutes passed and then there was a sharp rap at the front door. “It’s still locked,” Tyler said. “Do you mind letting her in?”

  Oliver peeked through the window. Sally was waiting there, arms folded in front of her. He wished Artemis would have sent someone else. Sally’s presence here could lead to another confrontation, and he really wanted to avoid having that happen again.

  Oliver unlatched the deadbolt a bit nervously and opened the door, hoping his face didn’t betray the fact that he was at least a little bit afraid of her.

  Sally nodded at him as she entered the shop, latching the door behind her. She didn’t look happy to see him, but Oliver was pleased that the rage he’d seen in her eyes earlier was gone. He wondered if she’d ever really shot anyone with that gun she always seemed to carry, or whether that was just an act she put on to intimidate people.

  No, he thought. There was no way that was an act. She had definitely shot someone. Quite possibly a lot of someones.

  “His office?” she asked Tyler, completely nonplussed by the dead body in the center of the room.

  “Over there,” Tyler pointed. “Where’s S
even?”

  “Seven had a nutty. He’s not coming.”

  “Figures,” Tyler said.

  “Who’s Seven?” Oliver asked.

  “Tech support,” Tyler answered.

  “I’ve got this covered,” Sally said. “You guys can get out of here.”

  “We can give you a hand,” Tyler offered.

  “No. Artemis wants you two mobile in case you’re being tracked. You have any other leads you can follow?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Not really. There are some people I can talk to. Rocky was my best shot, though.”

  “Yeah.” Sally looked at Oliver and he noticed her shoulders stiffen slightly. “I’m…” she began. “Damn it.” She took a deep breath. “Oliver, I’m sorry I hit you earlier. It was uncalled for and wrong of me.” The apology sounded rehearsed. Oliver wondered how long she had been working on it.

  “Oh,” Oliver said. “Okay. Well, I’m sorry I tackled you.”

  “You tried to tackle me,” she corrected him.

  “I’m sorry I tried to tackle you.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Done.”

  Tyler stared at her in shock. “What did Artemis say to you?” he asked.

  “Never mind,” she said, her eyes challenging him to make an issue out of it.

  Tyler looked like he wanted to say something else, but then just shrugged. “All right.”

  Sally nodded at Oliver again, and then went into Rocky’s office. Tyler watched for a moment as she began dismantling a computer, then turned to Oliver. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since she apologized for something?” he asked quietly.

  Oliver had no idea, having only met her this morning. “It’s not a big deal,” he said.

  “It’s a very big deal,” Tyler disagreed. “It’s progress.”

  “Oh?”

  “Anyway, let’s get going. There’s nothing more for us to do here.”

  “Where are we going?” Oliver asked, hoping that there wouldn’t be another dead body wherever they wound up.

  “Trust me. I have an idea”

  Chapter 9

  Tyler drove them to Haight-Ashbury, a neighborhood that had been famous in the 1960’s as the center of the hippie counterculture movement in San Francisco, if not the entire United States. A lot of time had passed since the “summer of love,” and the neighborhood had taken a sad turn for the worse. Homeless people and drug dealers outnumbered aging hippies and curious tourists by a wide margin. The Haight was still a good place to score a little weed, if that was your thing, but it was also a good place to get robbed, or stabbed. Or possibly both at the same time.

  Tyler drove up and down the streets slowly, scanning the sidewalks and trying to peer down alleyways as he did so. He was clearly looking for something. “Are you lost?” Oliver finally asked.

  “No.”

  “What are you trying to find?”

  “Not what,” Tyler said. “Who. And there she is,” he pointed up the street. Oliver looked, but all he could see was a dirty teenage girl sitting on the steps outside of an apartment building. She wore ratty jeans and had a tangled mess of rainbow-colored dreadlocks running down her back. She was smoking a cigarette, taking long drags and watching the smoke thoughtfully as it rose into the sky.

  “Her?” Oliver asked. “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope.” Tyler pulled the Charger off to the side of the road, nearly rolling one tire up onto the sidewalk.

  “You’re right in front of a hydrant,” Oliver pointed out.

  “We won’t be long. You got a twenty?”

  “What?”

  “Twenty bucks.”

  “Oh. What for?”

  “Never mind, just give me twenty bucks.”

  Oliver went into his wallet and fished out a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “Here.”

  “Thanks,” Tyler said. “Stay here.”

  Tyler got out of the car and started up the sidewalk. Oliver watched as he approached the smoking girl, who stood up and smiled when she saw him. Oliver wondered how they knew each other. She couldn’t just be some random homeless girl. Could she also work for Artemis? Maybe she was some kind of secret agent, working undercover.

  Tyler and the girl spoke for about a minute, Tyler at one point motioning towards Oliver. Oliver saw the girl look at him. He raised his hand instinctively to wave at her, and immediately felt like an idiot for doing so. But the girl just waved back and nodded to Tyler. He handed the girl Oliver’s money and started back for the car. The girl headed off in the other direction.

  “Who was that?” Oliver asked as Tyler got back behind the wheel.

  “Her name is Khameleon. With a K.”

  “Khameleon? Really?”

  “No, of course not. I don’t know her real name. That’s what she’s calling herself these days, so it’s good enough for me.”

  “Oh.” Oliver watched as the girl disappeared around the corner. “So does she have special powers? Her skin changes color or something?”

  Tyler looked at him like he was an idiot. “No,” he said slowly. “She’s just a girl.”

  “Well it’s about as plausible as a guy getting shot in the head and then getting up and walking around five minutes later,” Oliver said defensively.

  “Hmm. Yeah. Fair enough,” Tyler admitted.

  “So what was that? What is she doing now?”

  “Putting the word out,” Tyler said. “We need information. They have it.”

  “Who? Homeless drug dealers?”

  “She’s not a drug dealer. Well, she is, but not today.”

  “But she is homeless?” Oliver asked. He hadn’t been entirely serious before.

  “Yeah.”

  Oliver was sure he had to be missing something. “You’re expecting a homeless girl to help us?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re serious?” Now who was the idiot? “You just gave her twenty bucks? You realize she’s probably buying drugs right now?”

  “She’s not buying drugs. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Tyler drove them aimlessly around San Francisco for half an hour before he finally asked, “Are you hungry? I’m hungry. Why don’t we get something to eat?”

  Oliver didn’t feel much like eating, but the thought occurred to him that he hadn’t had any food today other than Tyler’s blueberry muffins. He really ought to eat something more substantial, if for no better reason than to keep his energy up. He might need to run later, particularly if he saw Mr. Teasdale again. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  A few minutes later they were at a run-down Chinese restaurant in North Beach. At first Oliver didn’t even think it was open. One of the windows had been boarded up, probably after having a rock thrown through it by vandals, and the neon “Open” sign hadn’t been turned on. But there were diners inside, and a friendly Asian waitress greeted Tyler by name. He had obviously been here before. The waitress showed them to an out-of-the-way table and left to get them glasses of water.

  There was a small television bolted to the wall in the corner. The local news channel had broken into whatever mindless late afternoon talk show had been on with a special alert. A small building was on fire in the Tenderloin. Oliver squinted at the television. The building looked awfully familiar to him.

  “Hey, isn’t that…” he trailed off, realizing what it was.

  “Oh, I don’t believe it,” Tyler spat. “She burned it down.” The news channel only had a helicopter camera shot of the blaze, but it was clearly Rocky’s pawn shop, currently engulfed in a massive fire. It was clear very little would be left of the building once the firefighters had managed to put the fire out.

  “Did you know she was going to do that?” Oliver asked.

  “No. But it doesn’t surprise me all that much.”

  “Do you think Artemis told her to…”

  “No, but she didn’t tell her not to either. That much is obvious.” He shook his head. “This is the last thing we need.”

  “What
?”

  “Attention.”

  Tyler sulked until the waitress returned with their drinks, along with a serving cart holding three dishes of food. “We didn’t order yet…” Oliver began, but Tyler waved him off.

  “I always start with this,” he said. “Thank you, Li-Jen.” The waitress smiled at him and left them alone.

  “You always start with three plates?” Oliver asked.

  “Yeah. Dig in. It’s all family-style here.”

  Oliver wondered how the man could have so much of an appetite. Half an hour ago they’d been looking at another man’s corpse. And now that corpse was burning up in a fire his partner had set.

  He wondered if Sally was eating right now, and if so, with how much gusto. Probably a great deal, he thought. He doubted death and destruction bothered her that much. They might even turn her on.

  “What are we going to do now?” Oliver asked.

  “Wait for a while,” Tyler said. “Eat. You really should eat something. Have a pot sticker.”

  “I don’t want a pot sticker.”

  Tyler shrugged. “More for me.” He popped one into his mouth. “It’s good,” he said, his mouth full.

  Oliver sighed. “I still don’t know who you people are,” he said

  Tyler ate another pot sticker. “We’re private detectives,” he answered.

  “Oh,” said Oliver. That was a much simpler answer than he had expected. “Really?”

  “No,” Tyler shook his head. “But close enough, I guess. Or I guess you could say we’re a secret society, but there really aren’t enough of us for that, I wouldn’t think. How many people do you need before you can say you’re a society?”

  “I don’t know,” Oliver admitted.

  “So why don’t we say we’re a group with a certain interest in…I don’t know. I want to say esoteric things, but I’m not exactly sure what esoteric means.”

  “It means…” Oliver started to explain, but then he realized he wasn’t positive either. “It means unusual, I think.”

  “Okay.”