by Mike McKay
***
Once again, I am going to be home after seven. My poor little wife has to cope with all the chores. I am riding my bike in twilight and recollect the day events.
Woxman stood guard at the shack while I went down to Patch-3 to phone Python about the scattered books. Tom was astonished and decided to come at once. About one hour later we met the sweating CSI at the scene. Naturally, this time he couldn't use the horse and had to push pedals all the way from the Station.
Tom glanced into the hut and whistled. “I tell you that much, gents. Someone was looking for something here. Real hard.”
“I also thought so,” I said, “Can you establish what were they looking for?”
“God knows. Offhand, it must be something small and flat. Something that can be hidden in a book: between the pages or in the spine. Although… It could be pretty much anything you can imagine. Maybe they were just looking for a specific book. Did you touch anything in here?”
“I did,” I admitted, “That book on the floor, about alloys. I was holding it.”
Python gave me a ravenous look. He is going to squash me to death and eat me in one piece, as per the pythons' habit, I thought.
“And that do they do with all these books?” Woxman asked, “To be honest, I don't even understand the titles.”
“About the titles, you are not alone,” Tom said, “I don't understand them too. Not my specialty.”
“Are they about Physics?” I suggested the first thing that came to my mind.
“Not quite,” Tom said, “They look to me like Engineering and Material Science, but very advanced.”
“Very advanced – are you judging by the titles?”
“Not only. These books cover a diverse range of knowledge. For example, at home I keep a little library on criminalistics, programming, and lab procedures. But I only have two dozen titles. Of these, only three or four books I use frequently. And with all this, I call myself an expert. But here! At least two hundred volumes, and it looks like all were used a lot. Someone needed all kinds of material properties: specific resistivity, ion polarization, density, compressive strength, you name it. Must be very advanced stuff, what else?”
“Victor Chen works in electronics repairs,” Woxman pointed.
“Not this type of books,” Tom said. “From the stuff the 'tronics guys use – there are only two. See, here: the Microcontrollers Bonanza. Also, I've seen another one somewhere, like a thick catalog, Semiconductor Devices and Integrated Circuits. For an electronics man, this is hardly enough. If Victor has more books about electronics, he surely keeps them at his shop. The rest of the books is some kind of super-technologies.”
“Who in our Slum would need such super-technologies?” I asked.
“Who in the whole United States would need such super-technologies today?” Tom smiled.
“Maybe – the Pentagon?” Woxman asked.
“The Pentagon? I guess,” Tom said.
“What shall we do now?” I asked.
“Good question,” Python scratched his head, “I will change into my coverall and spend few hours talking to my fingerprint kit and my flashlight. I don't see the alternatives. And you gents, it would be very nice if you carefully went around the shack and check every square foot one more time. The probability is thin, but you may stumble on something… unusual. Any more suggestions?”
No suggestions followed. We kept searching until the sunset, nearly nose to the ground, like those bloodhounds. I wouldn't mind working some more, but only Tom had a flashlight.
Woxman kept complaining and grew angry by the minute: for his bad luck, for such a puzzling case, for the absence of clues, for his pants being shit-dirtied once again (“Why did you put them on, man, what was wrong with your kilt?” Tom teased him). The Deputy Investigator cursed our Amerasian Slums. As if his own obamaville at the west outskirts of the stinky Landfill, leached to the roofs with by-products of garbage recycling, was a bloody palace!
