by V. B. Larson
“Ha,” he said aloud. “Fucking cats.” That was it, of course. The whole complex was crawling with cats. Cats were against the rules, of course. But that didn’t stop anyone from having them. Apartment cats soon became masters of jumping up onto balconies, and now one of them was fooling around on his. He felt it was quite unfair for one of the furry bastards to interrupt such an intimate moment for him.
He sighed and turned back to the computer screen, trying to get back into the mood. But another, louder sound came from the balcony. His blood froze and his erection turned to putty in seconds. Someone was forcing the lock on the slider. Someone was breaking in.
Ray shoved the tire iron more deeply into the crack between the door and the latch, then levered it over. The soft aluminum doorframe bent and scarred, showing a glint of silvery metal beneath the paint.
The latch popped suddenly. Not hesitating, he threw open the slider and flipped on the big double D-cell halogen flashlight he had in the other hand. In a second, he had transfixed the shocked Nog, who squirmed like a toad in the unfamiliar light. His belly slopped over his open pants and his hand still rested on his half-dead penis. Ray’s first reaction was to snort with amusement, but then the warm, stale smell of the place wrinkled his expression into one of disgust. Finally, only a bare second later, his expression shifted to anger when he saw the image of his smiling wife on the fat pervert’s computer screen.
He stalked into the room. This galvanized Nog into action, he reached for his desk and scrambled about for his cell phone. Plastic CD cases clattered and half-empty snack-bags showered the carpet with peanuts, chips and M amp;Ms.
“Looking for this, Nog?” asked Ray, lifting up the cell phone from the top of the TV and waggling it in front of the flashlight. He reached back and sent the door gliding shut. He turned back to Nog, replaced the cell phone on the TV and hefted the tire iron.
Nog gave a strangled whoop and heaved himself out of his chair. His cut-offs, still wide open at the fly, were kept from slipping to his chubby knees only by the bulk of his thighs.
“Sit back down,” ordered Ray, slapping the tire iron in his palm meaningfully. “I want to talk to you, Nog.”
Nog sank back down, blinking into the glare of the flashlight. “Vance?” he asked, shading his eyes.
“Dr. Vance to you, boy.”
“You scared the shit out of me, you asshole.”
“And I’m not done yet.”
Nog snorted. “Going to lower another of my grades a notch in the old roll book, eh, teacher-man?”
“We’ve got more to talk about than grades this time Nog, my man.”
Nog reached out and fumbled for the light switch. He rarely used it, but it still worked. The room was dimly illuminated by a 60-watt, dead-bug-coated light bulb.
“So, Vance, are you out to expand upon your recent crime-spree?”
“Listen, you fat fuck,” said Vance, advancing a step. “I know you wrote that virus. You wrote it, you set me up for the scapegoat, then you loosed it on the world. But this isn’t the worst of your crimes.”
Nog tried to look cool, but he shrank several inches into his chair. “It sounds like you’re trying to make me into your scapegoat, Vance. I suppose this image of your wife is getting to you. Well, it’s public property, Vance. It’s lifted right from faculty picnic pictures taken two years ago and posted in a public place.”
“I’m not talking about the virus or the picture. Frankly, I don’t give much of a shit about either one right now. What I want to know is what you have to do with my son’s kidnapping.”
Nog frowned. His mouth opened, then closed. It was clear that he was taken aback. This disappointed Ray, who watched closely for a guilty response. He had watched students lie a thousand times in his class and office. Most people were lousy liars. They hesitated before they lied, they looked away and pursed their lips. All he saw in Nog’s misshapen face was a moment of real confusion. He doubted Nog could fake it so well. Part of the reason for his direct approach was to shock Nog, who, like most nerds, lacked social skills.
“What are you talking about?” Nog asked.
“My kid, Justin, is missing. There was a 9-1-1 call from my house this afternoon. The house had been broken into and Justin was gone.”
Nog blinked behind his coke-bottle lenses. He nodded, as if piecing things together. “So, now I get the uncharacteristic tough-guy stuff. I didn’t know anything about this.”
“It’s all over the news, man.”
Nog snorted. “I don’t watch the news. I’ve been watching the investigation from the inside, on the net. You know, with eavesdropping utilities and shit.”
“But you know something, don’t you?” demanded Ray.
“Look man, I don’t know what happened to your kid. He probably went to the park and got lost somewhere.”
Ray shook his head. “No, Nog. A virus hits and my kid vanishes in the same day? These two events are linked somehow. And you know something.”
“Sorry.”
Blood rushed up Ray’s neck and he felt heat in his face and arms. He lifted the tire iron and flashed it down. Nog instinctively lifted his flabby arms to protect his face. The spiked end of the tire iron punched through one of Nog’s keyboards and bit deeply into the desktop below.
Ray breathed hard for a moment, regaining control of himself with difficulty. “Look man, I’m asking you, I’m begging you and I’m threatening your life all at once. Tell me whatever you know.”
Nog had difficulty breathing. His hands had balled themselves into fists, but he kept them at his sides. He shook his head.
Ray stepped away, toward the door. His mind raced and his sides heaved. “So, this is your place? You make two million, and you live in the same off-campus place and still never date and still have no life. Your mind is festering in here, Nog. You built a virus to get even with the world when the world has never harmed you.”
“Three million, and you don’t know what you’re talking about, teacher-man.”
Ray nodded his head to himself, vigorously. “Yes, yes I think I do. You probably dream of stalking women too, but you don’t have the guts to do it, do you?”
Nog chuckled. “I’ve had more women than your sorry ass ever will.”
Ray glanced at him, then at the door. “You’re right about one thing, Nog. I’m a criminal now, and it seems to my criminal mind that you’re an easy man to get to.”As he spoke, he touched the sliding glass door. He opened it. “I would have thought your place would have an alarm, Nog.”
Nog grinned. “I never said it didn’t, fool.”
Vance looked at him. He pondered, for a hard moment, beating the shit out of Nog. He pondered it coldly, with the walnut-sized reptilian layer of his brain which had now been awakened as it perhaps never had been in his life. His child had been taken, and at this moment all his instincts sang, turning his nerves into steel wires.
Nog looked at him and must have seen something in his eyes. He blinked, then swiveled in his chair. As an afterthought, he covered his exposed penis. Ray thought he had rarely seen anything more pathetic.
“It’s a silent alarm. The cops will be here any minute, Vance,” he said. He paused for a moment, Ray could tell he was thinking. When he went on, he sounded as if he spoke to himself. “You have to pay extra for that hook-up, you know. You have to pay the sheriff’s office, the phone company, and the alarm boys for that one.”
Ray nodded his head. He recalled a similar arrangement that protected the school datacenter when no one was present.
Nog ran a finger over the tire iron that pinioned his keyboard like a staked vampire. Ray walked out onto the balcony feeling stunned and deflated. He couldn’t quite attack Nog. He wondered if that made him an inferior creature, one that deserved to lose his only son. If he only understood Nog’s role, he told himself, violence would come easily. But without any real evidence… Looking out at the parking lot, he saw a squad car pull into the drive. The car’s lights were off. He sh
ook his head, Nog hadn’t been shitting him about the alarm. He threw one leg over the railing.
“Vance,” he heard a voice call behind him. He glanced back into the dank room. The lights had been turned off again, leaving only the blue glow of the computer screens to silhouette Nog’s toad-like form.
“Log onto ‘No Carrier’, Vance. Look for someone with the handle: Santa.”
Ray breathed deeply, nodded over his shoulder, then dropped off the balcony.
… 61 Hours and Counting…
6:00 A. M. said the cool green digits. Vasquez struggled to reach the top of the alarm clock. She was betrayed by her short arms, struggled with the blankets, and finally managed to hammer the snooze button with her fist. The buzzing ceased and silence blissfully prevailed.
Sitting up, she automatically gathered the stiff, white hotel sheets against her breasts. Outside, the sun was shining. She always left the blackout curtains open, as having sunlight in the room seemed to help her wake up. She wasn’t a morning person, and she needed all the help she could get.
When her eyes could focus, she saw the blinking screen of her notebook, set up on the letter desk in much the same spot that Vance had set his. They had ransacked that room, but come up with nothing useful. They did know that it was Vance, the night clerk was pretty definite on identifying his photo. They also knew from the rearrangement of the room that he had a computer with him, which heightened the odds greatly that Hapgood’s account had been used by him. But that was it. He had checked in, used a computer, then disappeared. They’d waited until two for him, then put a squad car with two uniforms in the parking lot, but there was no sign of him.
She wondered if their anonymous tipper had had a fit of remorse and also tipped Vance. Sometimes that happened. The truth was that all police work, even that of the Bureau with all its the fantastic resources, relied largely on informants. The police forces simply couldn’t cover all the bases, they couldn’t be there at every crime scene. But very often, someone was. Somewhere, somehow, a pair of quiet eyes witnessed most crimes. For an agent on the job, the informant was usually faceless, a disembodied, hushed voice on the phone. Of course, you never knew if you could rely on the information or not, particularly if the source was a paid one. It was a frustrating way to solve crimes.
The message blinking on her computer said that she had e-mail. She allowed herself a trip to the bathroom where she peed and fired up one of those dinky one-cup pots of coffee. Still in her underwear, she sat at the letter desk. Her machine had gone into sleep mode. She roused her machine by nudging the mouse.
She had mail, explained a cheerful, rotating icon. She had the volume on the sound card turned down or it would have told her aloud as well. The computer was still attached to the HUNTRESS account. She clicked twice and the message came up.
Agent Vasquez,
I’m sending you this to help you find my son. Whether you believe the case of the virus and my son are related or not, please take my input seriously. I believe the virus was written and released by John Nogatakei. His motives are fairly clear: he hates me and has a thing for my wife. I don’t know who took Justin yet, but I am doing my best to find out. I’m sure it wasn’t Nog who did the kidnapping, it isn’t his style, he has never been a direct, physical person. This indicates an accomplice, as yet unidentified.
P.S. Don’t bother to stake out this system. I won’t be using it or this account again. Use your time to find my son.
The system data at the end of the message indicated it was from an anonymous local address. The timestamp read: 12:31 A. M. He had sent it with a delayed delivery option, it had only arrived at five this morning.
Vasquez hammered her fist on her bare thigh. “Dammit!”She had blown it by grandstanding on the system and calling herself HUNTRESS of all things. She had stupidly underestimated Vance. She swore she wouldn’t do it again.
She got up to get her single cup of instant. Pouring it into the provided Styrofoam cup, she immediately started another brewing. Sipping and burning her lips intermittently, she reread the message several times. She thought about it while she showered and dressed. As usual, she received her strongest ideas in the morning shower.
When she was ready, she called Johansen for breakfast.
“Already had mine,” he said. “But I’ll sit with you.”
She frowned. He was the only partner she’d ever gone on a field assignment with who was always up and fully alert before she could even function. Doesn’t the man ever sleep? she wondered. She chalked it up as one more exhibit in the mounting evidence that proved their incompatibility.
She used her portable fax machine to make a hardcopy of the e-mail message and took it with her to breakfast. John Nogatakei. She supposed they would have to check it out, but it annoyed her to be getting tips from her prime suspect. What could be less reliable than that?
… 60 Hours and Counting…
“Another tip came in last night,” said Vasquez, handing a slip of paper to Johansen. “He’s driving Brenda Hastings’ car around. I’ve got the plates and the make here. Could you call the local station and put out a bulletin?”
“Sure thing,” said Johansen, “Brenda took a chance on an accessory charge by doing that.”
“Well, at least he has friends that believe in him,” she said.
Johansen reached over the breakfast table to take the note from her. As he took it from her, he touched her hand for a lingering moment. It was just a light touch, but it went on for just a half-second longer than necessary. She felt a flash of heat across her face, then the contact ended. Without raising her head, she slid her eyes up to look at him. He appeared intent upon the note. She frowned and briefly wondered if he was trying something new, something more subtle. She forced such thoughts from her mind and tried to focus on the situation at hand. She forked the last sausage on her grand-slam plate.
The restaurant had the haunting and somehow reassuring familiarity of that every Denny’s possessed. Overhead, sputnik-like lamps that dated from the seventies hung suspended from a ceiling that was plated with beige acoustic tiles. Booths lined the windows and the counter was manned by an army of truckers and cops. On every table the napkin-dispenser huddled-up with its team of condiments.
“I received some interesting e-mail this morning,” she began. She quickly told him about the message from Vance. She was gratified that he didn’t laugh at her for getting caught by her own game.
“Hmph,” he said, munching on one of her pieces of diagonally-cut white toast. “Sounds like he spotted us first.”
“Exactly.”
“So what’s our next move?”
“I think we should press the wife for her help. Maybe she can talk him into giving himself up before he sinks himself more deeply into this. After all, if he’s innocent, he should give himself up.”
“It’ll only work if she thinks that we’re doing a good job of finding her kid,” said Johansen, “I get the impression that neither of them care about anything else right now.”
“Naturally enough,” she said, “but I think I can convince her.”
“Right. In any case, it’s better than just waiting around for one of the uniforms to pick him up by chance.”
She glanced at him again. He didn’t sound overly confident in her persuasiveness. “We’ll get her to come around, it might just take a few days.”
“Right,” he repeated. “In the meantime, what about this Nogatakei guy?”
“I suppose we’ll have to check it out.”
“Huh,” he said, “so our fugitive suspect is now feeding us leads. He’s typing them, no less.”
“The irony isn’t lost on me.”
“But is this tip just a red herring? Something to keep us busy while he works his own plans?”
“That’s what we’re paid to find out,” she said, sliding out of the booth.
Johansen stood up with her and picked up the check. On the way out the waitress, a gum-snapper in her twenties, gave th
em an up-down glance. Vasquez grimaced, having seen it before. Everyone automatically assumed they were a couple, and invariably people thought it odd to see that one of them was a good fourteen inches taller than the other. Not to mention a good deal more pale in complexion. At least the waitress had the good grace not to smile in amusement at them.
By a long-standing agreement between the two of them, Johansen always picked up the tab when they ate together. He said it was to keep a low profile as a couple, but she always suspected that he wanted to play the male role. Recently, she had begun to suspect he wanted more of that role than she had realized.
Following his towering form through the glass doors, she recalled his light touch. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant memory.
… 59 Hours and Counting…
Sarah hardly knew she was dropping tears into her breakfast until the doorbell rang. She blinked awake and dabbed her eyes. She glanced down at her cereal. The milk had sat too long in the bowl and turned rice squares to swollen mush. Then the doorbell rang again, and she got up to answer it. Her newly installed peephole revealed Mrs. Trumble’s permanently worried face. She opened the door.
“Mrs. Trumble?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, dear,” said the old woman. She wore slippers and a quilted housecoat.
“What is it?”
“I have a message for you, I got a call from Ray quite early this morning.”
Sarah’s mouth sagged open, then shut again. “When?”
“Oh, about six. Abner answered the phone, you see, and he’s so hard of hearing now that it took a few minutes before he knew who it was. Then he handed it to me.”
“Six?” snapped Sarah, “Why did you wait so long to tell me? It’s after eight.”
“Oh, my stars, I’m sorry! I thought that I shouldn’t wake you. What with Justin gone missing and all… I thought you could use your sleep. I’m sorry if it’s important. Abner said that I should come over right away, but I didn’t — ”
Sarah fluttered her hands in exasperation. Normally, she could put up with hours of Mrs. Trumble’s ramblings before she got to the point, but today wasn’t like any other day. “Please. What’s the message?”
