Cyber Genius

by Patricia Rice

  Oops, yeah, a rich bitch wouldn’t walk to the Metro.

  “By the pub?” I asked with just a hint of condescension. “I’ll walk over. It will be faster.”

  I raised my eyebrows expectantly at the good men in bad suits. What were they going to do? Had I been my usual self, they would have blustered and demanded a search and otherwise been obnoxious. They might still do that.

  But for right now, they saw a fabulously wealthy pain in the ass who liked to sue people and held a reasonable grudge against officialdom. For all they knew, I’d have Oppenheimer down here chewing their butts if they got in the way. And they had utterly no good reason to be here. Yet.

  They strategically retreated, holding the door so I could sway away.

  I’d better warn Oppenheimer that they’d be calling him next. We really were suing Graham. I hadn’t lied at all, except by the omission of one crucial fact.

  ***

  Tudor’s take:

  On one of Graham’s wall monitors, Tudor watched Ana strut down the front walk in a barmy hat with two cops glaring after her. Tudor grunted. “If she was six inches taller, I’d say that was my mother.”

  “Not to demean your mother,” Graham muttered, switching screen views to show a hectic restaurant kitchen, “but that’s Ana’s collie dog act. She just herded the big bad wolves from her flock. Text and tell her the car really is around the corner, ready to take her to the hotel’s restaurant.”

  Tudor did as told while thinking their host had lost his very expensive marbles. No one told Ana what to do. “Do collies bite the noses off bullies?” he asked, trying to warn his host, because, like a nutter, Ana had done just that to a bully when Tudor had been four. Watching the massive tosser’s blood spurt after contact with tiny Ana’s teeth had been a defining moment in his childhood.

  “Yup,” the madman said with satisfaction.

  Oh well, he’d tried. “Isn’t she better off digging into MacroWare with us? She’s a devil behind the computer, and that stupid worm needs to be stomped before it mutates or goes any further.”

  “Why waste that outfit on a basement?” Graham’s tone almost sounded appreciative and certainly not worried about Tudor’s problem.

  Tudor shot him a suspicious look, but the swot was flipping channels like a game pro. “I don’t think she’ll eat in a pricey restaurant by herself. She’s pinching pennies.”

  “Did she answer your text?”

  Tudor glanced down at the el cheapo phone Ana had given him so he didn’t have to use his international call plan. “She wants to know the chef’s name.”

  “Adolph. Adolph Nasser.” Sounding chuffed, Graham settled back with his keyboard and began typing. “Go back to digging into those names I gave you.”

  Not understanding how a chef would save him from being arrested by half the governments in the world, Tudor slumped in his seat and did as told.

  ***

  Ana takes a limo

  I wasn’t about to question how Graham had pulled off the limo when he’d commandeered helicopters in the past. Exiting the hired Lincoln in front of the downtown hotel where Stiles had been poisoned, I handed the hotel valet a ten and asked to be directed to the catering director. I preferred working from the bottom up, but if I was dressed like a ridiculously wealthy socialite—even I recognized the designer name inside my new clothes—I might as well behave as one and go straight to the top.

  I’d talked to Sean on the way down here and knew he’d harassed the kitchen staff without result. He was now parked in a bar across the street, writing up the story I’d given him about Kito and waiting to see what I’d turn up. He’d earn his pay eventually.

  I didn’t have a business card saying Patty Pasko, nouveau-riche, so I merely introduced myself as Patricia Pasko and smiled coolly at the catering director. “I need to hold a reception for two-hundred-fifty people. Tray assures me that your kitchen staff was in no manner responsible for the unfortunate incident earlier this week, but I expect to interview them before I make a final decision.”

  Roger Tulane, according to his name tag, appeared to pale beneath his stylishly-gelled blond hair. “Tray?” he asked with careful curiosity.

  Huh, so he knew MacroWare’s private chef, interesting. “Yes, of course. The function will be a memorial in honor of Mr. Stiles for local MacroWare employees, coordinated with the west coast service. Low key, just chairs and a light buffet. We expect a substantial discount, naturally. Before we discuss details, may I see the kitchens? We don’t mind helping you with public relations, but we have to consider the concerns of our employees first.”

  I think I stunned him into submission, then roller-coastered him into action when I got up and walked out the door. Never give the enemy time to think.

  My childhood wandering embassies, hotels, castles, tents, and hovels across half the world had given me access to any number of kitchens. I’d never been inclined to examine them, except to avoid men with big knives. That didn’t mean I couldn’t pretend to know what I was doing, sort of.

  Tulane hurried to open the staff elevator for me and punched the buttons to the lower levels. We walked out into a dim corridor in the bowels of the hotel where cacophony reined. Shouts, slamming pans, and the rumble of big machines gave a nice impression of hell.

  My escort looked nervous as he murmured apologies and tried to keep me from marching onward. Given the level of discord I was hearing, I guessed that he wanted to calm his employees and talk to the chef first. So did I, except chaos was my friend. I had arrived at a convenient time—probably right after news of Kita’s death had broken.

  My smile was cold as I kept walking. Magda had been known to bring grown men to their knees with that look. I was too short to pull off intimidation but that didn’t hold me back. “If Adolph is available, I would like a word with him while I’m here,” I told him, upping his anxiety another notch. Name-dropping came in many grades.

  “It’s early yet. I’ll be happy to give him your number...” His voice trailed off as we reached the overheated, noisy underworld that was the hotel kitchen.

  A small woman of Asian descent shouted in what sounded like Korean—and hurled a pot of liquid at a tall, skinny young man with a really bad goatee.

  White-coated staff scattered. Goatee Man dodged the pot, but the liquid apparently scalded. He screamed in pain and grabbed one of those huge knives I preferred to avoid.

  I sighed, pulled my police whistle from beneath my clothes, and blasted the room with a shrill shriek.

  Nine

  Ana makes a new friend

  The catering director and most of the kitchen staff covered their ringing ears after my whistle blast. One of the larger male chefs had the sense to use the distraction and grab knife-wielding Goatee Man.

  I separated the hysterical soup-flinger from the crowd. I admired her style. If I couldn’t talk to Adolph, I wanted someone furious enough to spill everything she knew.

  “You’re a friend of Kita’s?” I asked curtly, steering her toward what appeared to be a back exit.

  Behind us, Tulane shouted at his kitchen staff. I left them to it.

  My hostage stiffened and muttered in Korean. Over the years, I’d learned a few curses and basic pleasantries in numerous languages. “Please shut the shit up” in proper Korean was the first one that came to mind and was probably not an appropriate response. I stuck with “Please,” opened the exit, and practically shoved her out of the kitchen into a dim basement corridor.

  She was willing to go, so willing that she kept on moving, leaving me to hurry after her. Fortunately, her legs were as short as mine.

  “Look, I’m on your side,” I told her in English as she slammed open a locker.

  Flinging her white hat on the floor and stomping on it, she uncovered her short, ragged black hair. Silently, she retrieved her purse and coat.

  “You’ll need a new job after that diva performance. I might be able to help. Let’s get a cup of tea and talk.”

 
She rattled in more furious dialect that I recognized as curses. Since they seemed directed at the hotel and men in general, I followed her to a different elevator that took us to a staff exit. Outside, she crossed a graveled alley, turned left on the street, and entered a Starbucks. So much for tea. At least my new boots and hat were keeping me warm.

  “You know Kita?” she asked in angry, accented English after I’d bought her some obscenely expensive espresso concoction. “They insult a good, good man.”

  My over-priced tea landed me solidly on the side of deciding Graham owed me an expense account. I followed her to a table near the window.

  Given the lady’s level of hysteria, I assumed she knew Kita was dead. “You know the police found him?” I asked, treading carefully in case flinging hot liquid was her hobby. Boiling coffee in the face wouldn’t be any less painful than soup.

  She bit her lip and stared out the window. “He wanted too much, too fast.” She wiped away a tear.

  “That’s the American curse.” I blew on my boiling tea and went with my gut instinct in prodding her. “You have to choose your friends wisely.”

  She stiffened and glared, so I knew I’d hit pay dirt. “He was a good chef. He deserved this position. He should not have to pay anyone to get it. If he’d just waited for his papers to be fixed...”

  Paying someone to land a job smacked of all sorts of illegalities. What kind of place was this posh hotel? I shrugged in response to her cry. “Waiting for papers might have taken years unless he knew people in the right places.”

  She wiped angrily at her eye. “Americans are bad as Communists. Everyone has hand out. Tray say he get him this job. Kita just need to do favors for these men.” She glared at me suspiciously. “I don’t want job for favors. I am excellent saucier. My papers are correct.”

  “You’re not going to get a great reference after scalding Goatee Man. Who is he?” I let her change the course of the conversation until she was feeling more confident.

  “Goatee Man.” She snickered. “He is Nazi Adolph hired.”

  I bit back a snicker. Nazi Adolph was even better than Goatee Man, but she was referring to Goatee as the Nazi. Because he was German? I needed names.

  Unaware of my distraction, she continued, “Adolph did not want to hire Kita because his papers were not correct. Now, Adolph fears he’ll lose his position and reputation and everyone fears losing their jobs.” She sighed. “I do not know what to think.”

  I thought we needed to talk to the police, but I was afraid she would shut up if I suggested it.

  I held out my hand. “I apologize for my rudeness. My name is Patty Pasko. I have a rather large family with a lot of connections, some of whom are interested in finding the killers behind Kita’s and Stiles’ deaths. They can help you find a new job.” I only half lied. I had every intention of following through.

  She hesitated, then reluctantly offered a brief shake. “Euon Yung,” she replied, half-Americanizing her name. “I was Kita’s friend. We went to school together. Our families know each other back in Seoul.”

  I’d done my research. Yes, fugu was a Japanese dish. But Koreans fished the same waters. Their traditions were different and not as regulated as the Japanese, but they made blowfish dishes too.

  “I know about large families,” Euon said. “Why does yours want to catch Kita’s killer?”

  “We have a family member who may have learned too much about the murders,” I improvised. It could be truth—who knew? “We won’t feel safe until the killer is behind bars.”

  “I don’t think American justice any better than Korean,” she said regretfully. “Rich men brought Kita here. Rich men died. Now Kita dies. I do not see justice for a poor man like Kita. Rich men control too much.”

  I wouldn’t argue that, but I was a cynical citizen of the world. I had a pretty good idea of how these shady immigration deals played out and how difficult it was to nail the villains. I still needed the names of the rich men.

  I pulled out my Patty-the-accountant card with my public email address on it. “Send a resume to that address. When we’re done here, I’ll make a few phone calls about jobs. First, do you have any names you can give me? Who did Kita do favors for?”

  “I don’t know. Tray Fontaine was his boss in Seattle. He may know. Kita was waiting for his belongings. There might be papers there or in his room at the hotel. The police must have them.” Sullenly, she sipped her caffeine.

  I went for direct this time. “Would Kita have deliberately poisoned Stiles for cash?”

  Euon didn’t take offense but merely shook her head. “No, nothing like that. The request for the soup was made in advance, possibly through Tray from his superiors. This is not unusual. Kita practiced to be certain he remembered the details of cutting up the fish. It is very complicated knowing which organs to remove. Regulation requires that he test the soup on himself every time he made it. The police do not believe me, but it is so. If the soup was poisoned, it was done after it left his stove.”

  “Is that possible? Poisoned livers dropped in the bowls maybe?”

  She shrugged. “Possible, I suppose. I do not cook fish. I am vegetarian. When he heard people got sick, Kita called me. He was scared. He said he must go to police. I did not understand then. I told him he did nothing wrong, let police come to him.”

  “But his reaction was not that of a completely innocent man. He knew something,” I concluded, watching her expression.

  She sighed and nodded almost imperceptibly. “I think so. I think he was frightened of those men. He made soup, like they ask, and people died when they shouldn’t have.”

  “Do you know who served the soup?” That was the best way I could see that the poison could have been delivered.

  She shrugged. “I was not there that night. Maggie O’Ryan, probably. She’s our best server, and they usually call her in for VIPs.”

  The woman in the video? I made a mental note and continued while we were on a roll. “Have you seen these men? Or did Kita describe them at all?”

  She pondered a moment. “He said once that businessmen were like sharks, and he was swimming in deep waters, but they got him his papers, and now he could work anywhere. These do not sound like people who poison.”

  “No, they sound like predators who hire poisoners and cover their tracks with the bones of the innocent. I’ll need your resume so my people will know what kind of job will suit you, but let me start the process so you know I’ll hold up my end of the bargain.”

  I knew I had to establish trust. It’s a necessity in any business, not just with potential witnesses. While Euon watched, I texted Tudor to tell him to look into positions for sauciers—Graham could figure that out. Then I called Nick at the embassy, so she could hear me asking about chef positions for a hotel cook.

  He laughed at my request. “Oh, right, in case we want to poison any foreign diplomats? I’ll get right on it.”

  “Not funny, Nicholas,” I said, using his full name so he knew I had an audience. “I’ll forward her resume so you can see where she’ll fit in. She already has a low opinion of American authority. Let’s not reduce it. Come to dinner tonight and I’ll explain.”

  He cackled again but agreed to ask around. I hung up and offered my hand again. “If you learn anything else, you can reach me at the number on my card. If you run into any trouble, don’t hesitate to call. Women in the work force must stick together.”

  She almost smiled at that. She shook and carefully placed my card in her pocket. “You are one of the sharks, correct? Perhaps I will return to Seoul.”

  I tilted my head and tried to think of dowdy me as a shark. I couldn’t. “No, I believe I’m more of a puffer fish. Treat me with respect, and I’m good.”

  She laughed then. “I am but a minnow. I will stay out of the way of sharks.”

  That was probably a safer attitude than mine. And more normal. But doing nothing just wasn’t in my genetic make-up.

  I picked up my portfolio and walked
out, carrying my undrinkable tea. I wandered around the block until I found the tavern where Sean had said I could find him. I glared at the blaring sports TV and almost walked out again. A wolf whistle from a dark corner made me roll my eyes, but I turned to study the interior and found him.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you,” Sean said as I approached. He scanned my outfit in appreciation. He stood like the gentleman he usually wasn’t and pulled out a chair for me. His dark curls looked rumpled, as if he’d been ramming his hands through them. It was a good look, but he wasn’t Graham.

  “It takes a skirt to make me unrecognizable?” I asked sourly. I appropriated a spoon from his side of the table and lifted ice from his iced coffee to drop in my tea.

  “It’s the hat. You look like a Russian princess.” He turned his laptop around and shared the screen.

  I skimmed the story he’d written. “Tell me you’ve learned something new and interesting since you sent this.” The story didn’t mention Graham.

  “The kitchen staff stops in here before and after hours to complain about Adolph,” Sean said smugly, retrieving his toy. “I’ve compiled a dossier on him and sent it to you. Patra gathered a few nice tidbits from her celebrity contacts. The head chef’s an asshole with numerous drunk driving convictions, but he’s never poisoned anyone that we know of.”

  “He didn’t want to hire Kita,” I said, texting Tudor to ask about the limo’s whereabouts. “It sounds like Tray Fontaine at MacroWare may have had something on Adolph that forced him to employ our dead fish chef. Adolph has hired a tall lanky fellow with a pathetic goatee. Has he been in here?”

  “No, but the staff hates him and think he’s Adolph’s lover. Name is Wilhelm but the staff calls him Wee Willy. Don’t have a full name yet.” He two-finger typed on his tiny keyboard. “Patra can dig the dirt on Tray. West Coast is more her bailiwick.”

  “It’s really MacroWare we need to get inside,” I mused aloud.

  Sean laughed. “Right-o. There’s a job for Superman.”