by Dan Willis
Barton raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“And how is that going to help?”
“Tell him to invite everyone in the building,” Alex explained. “Then make it known that you plan to attend.”
“Why?”
“So no one will skip it,” Alex said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. After all, who’d miss a party when the big boss was going to be there?
“Again,” Barton said. “Why?”
“Arrive late, after everyone is there, then take Whitley around and introduce him to everyone. Talk your other employees up to Whitley and talk him up to them.”
Barton nodded after a moment.
“So they’ll understand why I hired him, and he’ll know why I hired them,” he said.
“It’ll give them some common ground to build trust on,” Alex said.
Barton handed over the cash, but held on to it when Alex tried to take it.
“You’re pretty smart, Lockerby,” he said. “I could use someone like you around here. Why don’t you come work for me?”
Alex grinned at that but shook his head.
“You wouldn’t like that, Mr. Barton,” he said. “I’m annoying, remember?”
Barton chuckled and released the money.
“I guess you’re not as smart as I thought,” he said. “Or just too damn independent.”
Alex shrugged, pocketing the cash.
“Take your pick,” he said, depositing his cigarette butt in the ashtray on Barton’s desk.
“Hey,” Barton said as Alex turned to leave. “If you’re dumb enough to turn me down, maybe you’re dumb enough to botch things with that gorgeous redhead. You still seeing her?”
“Jessica,” Alex said with a nod. “And I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.”
“Too bad,” Barton said with a chuckle and a shake of his head. “Well, phone me if you change your mind,” he called after Alex. “Or if Jessica comes to her senses."
2
The Runewright Detective
Alex caught a northbound rail crawler from Empire Terminal, and fifteen minutes later, he got off only three blocks from his office. The only real problem with Barton’s new sky bugs, as most people called them, was that he simply couldn’t add new rails and their millipede-like passenger cars fast enough.
Normally Alex favored the cars with an open upper deck. He liked the view of the city and the feeling of the wind in his hair. Being mid-September, the weather had lost the scorching edge of summer, which would have made for a very pleasant ride.
Except for the fog.
When he went to see Barton it had been a hazy mist that made everything look like a photograph taken through a dirty lens. Now, however, it had thickened quite a bit. Whereas before, Alex could see well beyond a block, now his vision was half that. Fog in the city wasn’t unknown, but it only happened on rare occasions and usually when the weather shifted suddenly from hot to cold or vice versa.
Alex shrugged as he lit a cigarette for his walk back to the office. The weather had been nice, and he hoped the fog wasn’t a herald that it would shift suddenly. He liked riding in the open sky bugs.
His office was in a squat professional building on the mid-ring side of the outer ring border. It was cheap but still looked respectable, which was all Alex asked of it. The building didn’t have an elevator, so he had to climb the stairs to his third-floor office, but he didn’t mind. It reminded him that he was still alive, and he’d take that any day.
As he rounded the railing on the third-floor landing, he caught sight of his office door. He’d come a long way from the basement hole in Harlem where he’d started out. The sign read, Alex Lockerby, The Runewright Detective, and had the runewright ink bottle and quill symbol in the bottom right corner in case anyone doubted his bona fides.
A year or so back, Alex had helped catch the infamous Ghost Killer, and during the investigation the tabloids had dubbed him the Runewright Detective. The idea that he had such a public nom de guerre embarrassed him initially, but after the case was done, he got a steady stream of clients looking for the Runewright Detective, so he decided to embrace it.
“How did it go with the Lightning Lord?” Leslie asked as he let himself in. Leslie Tompkins had been his secretary for almost a decade now. She kept his calendar, screened his clients, and handled the money. Alex often reminded himself that if he didn’t keep solving cases, she’d probably go into business for herself.
“Case closed,” he said, crossing the outer office and depositing the hundred and fifty on her desk.
Leslie flashed him a dazzling smile. She used to be a beauty queen in her youth, and even though Alex knew she was in her forties, time had been very good to her. She wore a loose shirt covered with a form-fitting blue vest and a matching skirt. Her eyes were naturally gray, hazel to be exact, and they had a tricky way of matching any dark color, so today they were blue. Leaning down, Leslie opened the bottom drawer on the left side of her immaculate desk and pulled out a heavy steel box with an intricate rune engraved on the lid.
“Open sesame,” she said, knocking on the box.
The rune flashed orange for a moment, then the box top popped open with a ringing clang. Inside the box were a pad of paper, a roll of bills secured by a rubber band, and a pencil.
Leslie noted down the cash Alex had given her on the pad and totaled the sum, then she unwrapped the bills and counted them out, checking the amount against the note pad.
“Any new prospects?” Alex asked as she counted.
“On your desk,” she said, not missing a beat. “A couple of record searches, someone looking for their grandmother’s missing wedding ring, and I even found you a lost dog.”
Alex smiled at that. There had been a time when the best he could do was tracking down wayward pooches. Now it was a rare treat.
“You take good care of me,” Alex said, turning toward the door marked Private that separated his office from the reception area. “Did you find the title for that disputed building?” he called over his shoulder.
“Yes,” Leslie said, irritation creeping into her voice. “I was at the records annex going through their storage room for hours. My blue jacket is covered with fifty years of dust and muck.”
“I’ll whip you up a cleaning rune,” he promised.
“Before five,” Leslie called back. “Remember, I’m going out of town right after work.”
Alex was of two minds about that. During the Ghost Killer case, he’d sent her out to Suffolk County to look up some land records. Ever since then, she’d had an on-again, off-again relationship with the County Assessor, one Randall Walker.
“So how is Randy?” he asked, more out of a desire to be polite and supportive than any real interest.
“He’s wonderful,” Leslie said with a contented sigh that made Alex turn. She stood holding the strongbox but not moving to put it away, and her face had a wistful expression.
“What’s all this?”
Leslie jumped as if he’d startled her and hastily put the box back in her bottom drawer.
“I didn’t want to say anything,” she explained as she stood up, her cheeks a little pink. “Not until I was sure, but...I think Randy is going to propose.”
A million thoughts cascaded across Alex’s mind. Chiefest among them was the question of how he could possibly run his office without Leslie. With a Herculean act of will, he managed to keep those thoughts off his face. Instead he smiled.
“That’s great,” he said. “I’m happy for you.”
Leslie blushed, but she chuckled as well.
“Liar,” she said. “But thanks.”
“If he does propose, tell him he can’t have you until you’ve helped me find a new secretary,” Alex said in a gruff voice but with a smile.
Leslie saluted at him.
“Yes, boss.”
Alex turned and entered his office, shutting the door behind him. As Leslie had promised, a small stack of folders sat in his in-box, potential
clients waiting for him to take their cases. Hanging his hat and coat on the stand beside the door, he crossed to his desk and sat down. He stared at the folders for a while, then pulled open his right-hand drawer. A bottle of decent, single-malt scotch lay inside with two glass tumblers, but he didn’t reach for them.
His thoughts wanted to focus on Leslie, on what he would do if she left, but instead they turned to Jessica. They’d had their own on-again, off-again relationship. The only difference was that they were never officially off. Jessica just never really had time for him. He hated that, but it was impossible to be angry. Jessica and her mentor, Dr. Andrea Kellin, spent most of their time working on a cure for Dr. Kellin’s daughter, Linda. Linda had polio and spent her days in an iron lung at a sanatorium upstate.
“How am I supposed to compete with that?” he asked his empty office.
He shut the desk drawer and reached for the stack of folders.
Half an hour later, Alex set the folders aside and rubbed his eyes. Leslie was right, these were all good clients. He’d call most of them tomorrow and officially take their cases. The lost dog he’d try to do on his way home.
A wave of exhaustion washed over him and he rubbed his eyes with suddenly-trembling hands. Pushing back from the desk, he opened the center drawer and withdrew an engraved silver flask. Unscrewing the lid, he took a swig of the bitter liquid inside and forced it down.
“Yuck,” he said, just as he had every time he’d had to drink Dr. Kellin’s rejuvenator. It tasted awful, but it kept away the bouts of exhaustion and shaking. In recent months, they’d gotten more frequent. Alex hadn’t told anyone, because there was nothing to be done and they’d only worry. He was dying and he knew it. He’d made peace with it.
Maybe it’s a good thing Leslie is leaving, he thought.
Alex replaced the lid on the flask and shook it. There wasn’t much of the rejuvenator left and it sloshed. Dr. Kellin had given him enough to last for two months. This batch had barely made it five weeks.
“Well at least that gives me an excuse to go see Jessica,” he said, tucking the flask back into the drawer. His trembling had almost completely subsided, and his mind was able to focus again. Dr. Kellin might be a strange old bird, but she knew her alchemy.
The intercom on his desk buzzed and he pressed the talk button.
“Yes?”
“There’s a Miss Karen Burnham here to see you about a missing person,” Leslie’s voice came through the little speaker.
Alex picked up the folders he’d been perusing, squared them, then dropped them back into the in-box.
“Send her in,” he said.
A moment later his office door was opened rather hesitantly by a girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty. She had long, straight, black hair that hung down past her shoulders and brown eyes in a pleasant, if unremarkable face. Her clothes were functional — a simple blouse and a knee length skirt with black flats. Despite the blandness of her appearance, Alex could tell that the clothes were of good quality, which meant the girl had money, she just felt no desire to show it.
“Mr. Lockerby?” she asked.
Alex wondered who else she thought he could be in his otherwise empty office, but he smiled and nodded in his most reassuring way.
“Won’t you sit down, Miss Burnham,” he invited, standing and indicating the comfortable, padded chair in front of his desk. “Why don’t you tell me who’s missing?”
She looked startled, but then seemed to remember that Leslie had told Alex the reason for her visit.
“It’s my grandfather,” she said. “He didn’t come home last night, and I can’t find him anywhere.”
“He lives with you?”
The girl grinned and shrugged.
“Actually I live with him,” she explained. “He lives in the west side mid-ring. I moved in with him to take an internship with Harrisons; they’re an advertising agency.”
Alex nodded; he’d heard of them and they were, by all accounts, a reputable firm.
“So your grandfather didn’t return last night,” Alex said. “Does he usually go out in the evenings?”
Karen looked embarrassed and shrugged.
“As far as I know he never goes anywhere,” she said in a small voice. “He’s usually tinkering in his workshop behind the house. Sometimes he loses track of time, but he always comes in for dinner. I cook for him.”
“Did something disturb him recently? A letter maybe, or a phone call?”
Karen shook her head.
“He doesn’t get mail or calls,” she said.
“You said he spends time in his workshop,” Alex said. “What does he do there?”
Again, Karen shrugged.
“He has lots of lab equipment,” she said. “But I don’t know what he’s doing.”
Alex raised an eyebrow at that. Lab equipment wasn’t the kind of thing you expected to find in a backyard workshop.
“Is your grandfather an alchemist?
“No,” Karen said. “He’s an engineer. He used to work for Dow until a few months ago.”
“Was he fired?”
“No, he retired. They threw a big party for him and his boss tried to convince him to stay. It was the only time the two of us ever went out.” She started shaking and pulled an embroidered handkerchief from her handbag, pressing it to her eyes. “Please, Mr. Lockerby, I need to find him. Can you help me?”
Alex wanted to ask a few more questions. The more he got to know someone, the better chance his finding rune had to locate them, but it was clear Karen Burnham was barely holding herself together.
“I will,” Alex said. “I have a finding rune that can locate your grandfather, assuming he’s still in the city.”
She looked up, wide-eyed at that, but Alex went on.
“I’ll need something personal of his to help the rune find him. Something he treasured or something he used every day.”
Karen reached inside her blouse and removed a silver wedding band on a chain.
“This belonged to my grandmother,” she said, slipping the chain over her head and handing it to Alex.
He held it up and examined it closely. There wasn’t a stone or any engraving, and the ring had clearly seen its share of wear.
“He gave this to you?” Alex asked.
She nodded.
“Years ago, when I was ten.”
“How long ago did your grandmother die?”
“Before I was born.”
Alex handed the ring back.
“Is something wrong?” Karen asked, fear in her voice.
“That ring has been out of your grandfather’s possession for too long,” he explained. “I need something with a more recent connection.”
Karen looked at the ring in her hand with a distraught expression.
“Don’t worry,” Alex said, soothing. “I can still cast the rune for you once we get a better catalyst. I charge twenty-five dollars for the rune, and I’ll knock off ten if it fails to find your grandfather — but that doesn’t happen often,” he added quickly. “Is that all right?”
After a moment, she nodded.
“How will I know what to bring you for the rune?” she asked. “I don’t want to waste any more time.”
Alex opened his left-hand drawer and pulled out a notepad and pencil, passing them to Karen.
“Put your address down there,” he said. “I need to prepare a fresh finding rune, but that won’t take too long. I’ll meet you at your grandfather’s house in an hour or so.”
She scribbled down the address and passed the notebook back, then she stood, and Alex escorted her from the office.
“As soon as I’m done writing a few finding runes, I’m going over to the west side to cast one for Miss Burnham,” he told Leslie as he headed back to his office. “Do me a favor and call Iggy; tell him I might be late for dinner.”
3
The Doctor is Out
The home of Leonard Burnham was a modest two-story domicile on a quiet st
reet in the center of the West Side mid-ring. A walkway of pea gravel ran from the street to a small porch complete with a rocking chair. A coat of sturdy blue paint covered the exterior boards of the house, with the shutters and the trim painted white. All the paint appeared to be in good shape and well maintained. The grass had been recently cut and there weren’t any weeds, but the shrubs showed signs of not having been trimmed in some time. Heavy curtains covered the windows, revealing nothing of the interior.
A gravel driveway led to an empty carport on the left side of the house, and Alex could see a tall, barn-like structure behind it. Alex started up the drive, but motion off to his left caught his eye. When he turned, a woman in a pink bathrobe and curlers ducked back, out of a neighboring window.
Nosy neighbor. Maybe she saw something.
“Mr. Lockerby,” Karen Burnham’s voice broke over him as he turned to investigate the neighbor. The gravel crunched as Karen ran across the drive to him and Alex abandoned his designs on the curler-wearing neighbor. “I was worried you wouldn’t come.”
“Nonsense,” Alex said, setting down his investigator’s kit and greeting her with a smile. He nodded toward the barn behind the house. “Is that where your grandfather spent his time?”
“His workshop,” she said with a relieved nod. “I’ve been wracking my brain to think of something to use for your rune Mr. Lockerby,” she went on, speaking so fast her words ran together.
“Call me Alex,” he corrected her.
She blushed and pushed her hair away from her face, behind her left ear.
“Alex,” she said, “I don’t know what to use. Grandpa wasn’t the kind of man who held on to things. Would his toothbrush work, or a comb?”
“They’ll do in a pinch,” Alex said. “But most people don’t have any kind of special attachment to those kinds of things, even though they use them every day.” He pointed toward the workshop. “If that’s where your grandfather spent his time, we’ll probably be able to find something useful there. Do you mind?”
