by Steve Jordan
Then I happened to notice a skycap nearby, who was also watching her as she headed inside. He looked at me, with obvious envy, and said, “Ah, wherever she’s goin’, you oughtta be goin’ too.”
Now that was a thought-leak I’d never argue with. “Amen, homes,” I said before turning and getting back into the car.
4: Back to work
By the time I got back to the apartment, Pete was back, hanging on the balcony with a beer in his hand. He turned when he heard me come in. “Hey, bro! Where you been all day?”
“Me?” I closed the door, stopped in the kitchen for a beer, and joined him on the balcony. “You’re the one who was out most of the day! I just went out to hit—” I started to say “Starbucks,” then thought I’d duck that one for now “—the store, then Gail came by, and we hung out here until I took her to the airport.”
Pete nodded. “I thought the place had a familiar smell to it. Where’s Gail going?”
“San Francisco,” I replied, sitting down and pointedly deciding to ignore the “smell” crack. (Oh, that was probably not the best way to put that…) “A business meeting.”
Pete nodded again. “Never liked it when they sent her on those business meetings. I always felt like… well.” He took a pull on his beer. “Listen, I’m going to take Riley out tonight for dinner, and we may end up back here afterward. You know, depending on how things go.”
“Good for you,” I said.
“Can you make yourself scarce, if we do come back here? I’ll call you if we’re on the way.”
“No problem,” I replied. “I’ll either hide in my room, or go find some all-night action somewhere.” I said that, knowing that I hadn’t even stopped to try to find any kind of “all-night action” since I’d come to San Diego. I’m an IT guy. An IT guy’s idea of all-night action was usually a session of WoW with a few friends spread across a few dozen time zones. And in fact, meeting Gail had turned out to be all the all-night action I ever needed. I realized I might really miss her tonight. All the same, I said, “Good luck, bro. Hope you get everything… fixed up.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t say ‘straightened out’,” Pete grinned.
Boy, even the comments I didn’t internally verbalize were leaking now. I really need to get that checked.
After we’d hung out and talked for awhile, I went back to my alcove, while Pete got himself duded up for a night on the town. I was fresh enough to dive back into my research, though I still didn’t really know where to go next. But I had a feeling I was getting close to some answers. I sure hoped I was getting somewhere: So far this particular episode (uh… of my life, of course… heh…) was running pretty weak.
About two hours came and went, during which Pete left, a pizza I’d ordered arrived, and I got pretty much nowhere with my server logs strategy. One of the logs chased me back into the e-mail database, trying to find a correlation between them, and before I knew it, I was poring through the e-mails yet again, and wishing I could think of somewhere else to waste my time.
Then I got a surprise, which I’d almost missed: An e-mail from two weeks back, mentioning that a certain Mel Cooley, a senior account executive of BM, was going to be in Los Angeles in a day, on business. I say “a certain Mel Cooley,” because I didn’t want this Mel Cooley to be confused with the selfsame Mel Cooley who was a fictional executive on a certain old sitcom… and because this particular Mel Cooley just happened to be involved in the “Merc” thing, whatever it was.
If this had been television, my eyes would’ve been twinkling right then. I instantly imagined finding this Mel Cooley and finding a way to get the details out of him. I might be able to do it clandestinely, too, since I was pretty sure I hadn’t met this guy. Even better… I had a car! So I could drive to L.A. overnight, and be there to grill the guy over lunch! Yes! The plot thickens! The game’s afoot! And it only took four chapters!
Hurriedly I started packing up my gear and loading it into my gear bag, stopping only to gnaw on another slice of pizza, before I closed the box. Then I went into my room to collect a few articles of clothing for the trip. I wanted to take the most professional-looking clothes I had with me, which actually didn’t amount to anything professional-looking at all; in fact, my “professional” clothes essentially included a pair of long jeans and polo shirt that I’d worn when I came to San Diego. I quickly ran into Pete’s room, to see if he had maybe a sportcoat I could take with me. To my delight (and surprise), I found one that didn’t clash with the jeans and shirt, and brought it back to my bag. I finished my packing, and returned to the Borg alcove, now looking noticeably un-Borg-like with most of my gear packed up. I started to sweep up the gear bag and pizza box… and stopped, deciding to leave a note for Pete. It took me a minute to find something to write on, finally finding a subscription coupon from one of his magazines with enough whitespace for a note. I jotted down:
Gone to L.A. for a few days.
Hope things went well!
They might with me, too.
M.D.
I left the note on the dining room table, which Pete was sure to notice was visible again, and resumed collecting my stuff. With the overnight bag, gear bag, and pizza box, I looked like I was ready for a road trip. And to be sure, I was ready… the possibility of getting closer to this mystery had me wired, and I felt like I could’ve run to L.A. on pure adrenaline alone. I left the apartment, turning off all the lights and locking the door on the way out, and made my way down to the parking garage, and Gail’s car. I put the overnight bag in the trunk, my gearbag on the floor of the passenger’s side, and the pizza box on the passenger’s seat. A second later, I removed the pizza box from the passenger seat, went back to the trunk, and dug around until I found a small plastic bag to place between the seat and the box. Hey, this is a nice car, okay?
Once set, I drove out of the parking garage, ready to head for the highway… with one detour. I drove the three blocks to the Starbucks, and for the first time, drove up to the drive-in window around the side.
“Grande double-shot skim milk espresso with room, in a personal cup,” I told the microphone. “And step on it!”
The speaker said, “ We don’t have your personal cup in here.”
“Oh… right,” I said sheepishly. “Let me pull up and give it to you…”
5: On the road again
My shattered dramatic moment outside of the Starbucks was soon forgotten once I was on the highway north to L.A. Fortunately, the trip would only be about two hours and change, thanks to the lateness of the day, leaving me time to grab a cheap motel for the night, and then try to figure out my next move. I was assuming, of course, that I’d be able to figure out how to find Mel Cooley in L.A. without his itinerary… but I hadn’t gone through all of his e-mails yet, so I hoped I’d find some clues in there.
Then I had to figure out exactly how I was going to con the information I needed out of him. Not being a con man, I naturally searched my memory of the closest approximations I had of the doings of con men… which would be television. Visions of screwy PIs, city slickers and sitcom annoyances began dancing through my head… but unfortunately, I had been born too late to enjoy what my brother Pete liked to refer to as the “heyday” of con artist shows… Baretta, The Rockford Files, Simon and Simon, Switch, etc, etc… I’d never even sat through an entire showing of The Sting. So I was working from a serious disadvantage there.
Fortunately, I had one thing on my side: Anger. Anger and an overriding need to know… okay, two things. Anger. An overriding need to know. And determination… yes, three things, anger, an overriding need to know, and determination, well, determination should probably come before an overriding need to know… let me start again: I had anger, determination, and an overriding need to know; and I expected that to be helpful in allowing me to bull my way to the truth. Also, he wasn’t expecting me, so I had surprise on my side— damn! Four things: Anger; determination; an overriding, wait, next should be surprise; then an overridin
g need to know… oh, bloody ‘ell.
Yeah, yeah, I know. But it sure helped to pass the time on a two-hour drive.
A few quick calls as I approached the city directed me to a motel in mid-town that had passably-reasonable prices and passable internet access. It was pretty close to eleven when I got there, which was perfect for me: I could get settled in, get a bit of sleep, then work out my day’s strategy… wait, I should probably do that the other way around, just in case… anyway, I was covered. So I checked in, moved in, and set up my gear on the dining-tray-sized work table that every motel gives you… and on the floor next to it. Soon I was online and exploring again.
Right off, I found the e-mail that detailed Cooley’s travel plans, and I saw that he was staying at a pretty swank downtown hotel. He had the place for two more days, so I had some time to prepare. What I couldn’t find were details on the business Cooley had in L.A., so I didn’t know if it was related to Merc, to something else, or to some personal “business.” That could complicate things, if he happened to be travelling with someone from BM who might know me, though that seemed unlikely. The other thing that complicated was when I would actually catch him at the hotel, and if I couldn’t work that out, I’d have to prepare to hang out like a gumshoe and wait for him to appear in the lobby. Boredom quotient aside, that would suck.
Presently, I figured out a plan to find him and get to him, in a fairly innocuous but mildly devious manner. As it required little in the way of preparation, other than looking up the nearest post office, I decided to go on to bed, confident that I’d be able to pull off my plan tomorrow.
I’d set an alarm on my watch, but as it happened, I was keyed up enough to wake up on my own beforehand, just before seven. I used to wake up at 6am daily, to go to work, but these days, getting up this early was like waking up in the wrong country, it seemed so abnormal. All the same, I got dressed, gathered up my gear, and headed out for my hopeful appointment with destiny.
First stop: The post office. There just happened to be a drugstore a few doors down from the post office, which was perfect for my needs: I promptly went in and bought a half-dozen assorted magazines. Then I took these to the post office, where I purchased a box large enough to hold the magazines, and some wrapping supplies. I wrapped the package while at the post office, so I imagine there were some funny looks as I walked back out of the post office carrying my package. It wasn’t meant for them. This was designated for hand-delivery only.
From there, I drove over to Cooley’s hotel, and found a place to park within view of the front entrances. Grabbing my cellphone, I called the hotel lobby. As I waited for someone to pick up, I began thinking of Burgess Meredith’s Mick voice from Rocky, and prepared for a sore throat.
“ Good morning, this is the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, may we help you?”
“Yeah, Bona-venchire? Dis is Frankie at Arrow Courier. We gotta package fer a Mel Cooley, an’ we was givin’ dis address to drop it off. Is Cooley stayin’ there now?”
“ Hold on, sir, let me check,” the voice said. I rolled my eyes at the very idea that this was working, but sometimes— “ Yes, sir, we have a Mel Cooley staying here.”
“Hokay, great! I’m gonna have a guy right over dere. We wuz told to do a hand delivery, straight to da guy. What’s his room number?”
“ Mister Cooley is staying in room 517.”
“Great. T’anks loads, kid!”
“ I’m thirty-one…”
“Yea, whut-evva.” I hung up, and considered how long I could afford to wait to make my entrance convincing. Glancing around, I happened to spy a nearby building in my rearview which happened to be sporting a Starbucks on the ground floor. Well, I did need to fix my sore throat, I considered wryly. So I popped out of the car, headed over to the Starbucks, and ordered my grande double-shot skim milk espresso with room. (I hadn’t brought my personal cup, as I didn’t want to be too conspicuous.) I hung out in the Starbucks for about fifteen minutes, which I figured was less obvious than sitting in Gail’s car on the street. Then, fully caffeinated and rarin’ for action, I returned to the car, retrieved my package, and headed into the hotel.
I walked leisurely past the counter, only half-expecting to be challenged… none of these guys looked that interested. But one of them challenged me anyway. “Can I help you, sir?”
I smiled politely. “I’m from Arrow Courier, doing a delivery to Mr. Cooley in 517. ‘Kay?”
The guy at the counter smiled back. “Yeah, I just talked to your boss.” He nodded his okay, and I started off, when the guy added, “Anyone ever tell your boss he sounds just like the old trainer guy in Rocky?”
“Not to his face,” I replied casually, and continued on.
Riding the elevator up to five, I got out and found Cooley’s room. I checked the small tape recorder I had in my pocket, and made sure it was on and running. Then, tucking the now-pointless box under my arm, I knocked on the door. I heard a muffled voice on the other side, and said, “Hey, it’s Frank.”
I heard a muffled “Who?” and presently the door opened. An older guy looked back at me through the crack in the door. “Who?”
“You Mel Cooley?” I asked, now trying to channel my best informal private eye impersonation… Pete always said, when in doubt, always go with Jim Rockford.
“Yeah,” Cooley replied.
“Good,” I said, pushing my way inside. “I was about to be mad. First the guy at the front desk sends me to the wrong room, and the lady there chews me out, and I had to go all the way back downstairs to get the right room.” I closed his door behind me. I was looking forward to the next part: I had come across the name of one of BM’s direct competitors in Baltimore, and one that had been mentioned at least once in the e-mails in connection to Merc… specifically, to make sure they never, ever heard about it. I wanted to see what Cooley would do when I tossed their name at him.
“Cooley, I’m from Lohimar.” Then I dropped my box on the floor… to get his attention.
“We need to talk,” I continued. “ About Merc.”
Have you ever seen the color drain out of someone’s face… I mean really, right in front of you? Trust me, it’s a sight to see.
6: The confession
Cooley took a step back from me. “M-merc?” he said. Yeah, he actually stammered! This was going well.
“You have a problem, Cooley,” I said, taking a step towards him. “Merc is your problem.”
“What are..?” he looked around the room, presumably for something to hide behind or hit me with… but he wasn’t finding anything, which made him even more frightened. (Of me… an IT guy. What a hoot.) “I… I don’t know you—”
“Of course you don’t know me!” I snapped. “I work for the other guys, don’t I? And we know about Merc now. We also know about your problem.”
“My… problem? What are you talking about?”
“Cooley, you stooge,” I shook my head. “BM changed their plans on you—”
“We never call it ‘BM’,” Cooley actually interjected. “It’s always B&M, or Byers & Mig—”
“Whatever! BM is planning to kick off Merc while you’re out of town, and arrange things to implicate you with it.”
“W-what!” Cooley’s eyes popped, equal parts shock and anger. “T-they wouldn’t! They couldn’t!”
“They are,” I said smoothly. “Fortunately, we found you first. Which means we can turn the tables on BM… you can alert the authorities and stop them, while you’re out here, absolving you of guilt while they get locked up.”
Cooley seemed to like that idea… for about a second. Then he started thinking… not a good sign for me, because I was close to exhausted of my con artistry skills. “But… why set me up?”
“They decided they needed a patsy, obviously.”
“But we had a patsy from the last time! Some contractor’s IT guy.”
Yes! Confession on-air! My day was made… but I needed more. “They hoped you’d go to Club Fed while they al
l floated away to their little island retirement paradises.” Or was it paradi?…
“No… I can’t believe it,” Cooley was muttering. He suddenly extracted his cellphone from a pocket. “I’m gonna call—”
I slapped the phone right out of his hand. “Are you deranged? You want to tip their hand, so they can go ahead and frame you? Listen, Cooley! We’re trying to help you out, here! We don’t want Merc to happen. If it just went away, that would be one solution… but if your people were exposed, BM would be wiped out… which would be that much better, to us!” I stepped forward again, and lowered my voice conspiratorially. “And if you cooperate with us, we can make sure you stay clean, while they get put away. Is that clear enough for you?”
Cooley thought about it a moment. He looked at me, while I did my best to throw him a “You are so dead if you don’t cooperate” look right back. Finally, I saw his shoulders sag, and he dropped his head. “What do you want me to do?”
I had him. I wanted to exult, but I wasn’t finished. There was still a teeny, tiny little matter to deal with: I still didn’t know exactly what Merc was. I dug back into my rehearsed routine and started prodding him. “All right,” I said, giving me a moment to frame my thoughts. “We don’t know enough about Merc’s details. How can they kick it off, and still frame you while you’re out of town?”
“Uh.” Cooley’s eyes went blank. Uh-oh. That was not a good sign. Did he really know that little about this secret plan of theirs? “Um…”
“C’mon, Cooley!” I prompted. “You must have some idea!”
“Well…” Cooley thought about it, and I thought I saw a glimmer of an idea in there. “Well, they were going to send it from an isolated computer… but if they sent it from mine, that might be enough to implicate me after the fact.”
“After the fact?” I repeated, thinking furiously about what he’d already said.
“Well, yes,” Cooley continued. “Because it all happens too fast for anyone to react, once it starts.”
