Black's Beach Shuffle: A Rolly Waters Mystery

by Corey Lynn Fayman

  The building sat silent and still, a looming featureless box in the darkness. It was indistinguishable from hundreds of others that filled up the scrubby brown earth of Torrey Pines Mesa and the valley below it, clinging to the sides of the hills along the freeway corridor, each one a tightly packed container of technological wonders, not like the sprawling old factories of the east coast or Midwest. These buildings didn’t produce steel beams or automobiles. They contained a bunch of desks with metal boxes sitting beside them, cathode-ray screens on top of each desk. And inside those metal boxes were millions of ordered electrons, ones and zeros, long strings of digital product created daily by young men eating cheese puffs and tapping on plastic keyboards.

  Rolly didn’t understand how it all worked, but the order of the electrons made them valuable, so they had to be guarded by other electrons, secret codes, encrypted numbers. Each of these buildings was a chugging, smokeless factory churning out a glowing future where every bit of information, every song and movie and book, would be available to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world.

  But it still required human beings to make it work, people who spent days and sometime nights inside these dull buildings, people with problems and personalities and conflicting ways of seeing the world. People came without warrantees or quality assurance. People couldn’t be reformatted and rebuilt once they broke.

  “So how do we get in?” Marley asked.

  “Around the side,” Rolly said, waving his hand towards the left side of the building. They crept along the edge of the building to the side door. There were no lights on inside, no cars in the parking lot. A tiny red LED by the door indicated the spot where the security card should be placed. Rolly pulled the card out of his back pocket, held it up next to the light. The light turned green. The lock clicked. Rolly grabbed the door handle and tugged. The door swung open. They were in.

  They paused in the entryway, a small, square room with a concrete floor. Another door stood in front of them. It had a security lock also. Rolly held up the card, heard the door pop, pulled on the handle and walked into the building. Marley followed. If Rolly remembered his tour with Alesis correctly, the room with the computer was just beyond the door on the left.

  They waited a moment, letting their eyes adjust to the darkness. The skin on Rolly’s arms shone like a pale moon in December. He felt his way along the wall with his hands. He carried a penlight in his pocket, but he wanted to avoid using it until they were inside the room. His left hand bumped against a metal strip, a doorframe. He felt around for the lock, but his hand fell through the doorway. There was no lock, no door, only empty space.

  “What’s going on?” whispered Marley.

  “The door. It’s open.”

  “So?”

  “This door’s supposed to be locked at all times.”

  “Are you sure it’s the right room?”

  Rolly reconsidered, reran the tour with Alesis and Fender in his head. He was sure he was in the right place. But the room was completely dark. Silent. He pulled out the penlight, flicked it on.

  The room was empty, except for the twisted remains of the security cage around the computer. The spot where the lock had once been was now a crumpled hole. The metal gate was open, hanging on one hinge. Various pieces of the computer were strewn about the room, a cable here, a circuit board there, as if it had been disemboweled.

  “Holy crap,” said Marley. “What’s going on here?”

  “That car we saw leaving. He must have done this.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone who works here.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. Take a look through this stuff. See if you can figure out if anything’s missing.”

  Rolly followed with his penlight while Marley picked through the various pieces of the computer, looking them over and assembling them in one central area next to the cage.

  “Well, I see one thing missing,” said Marley. “There’s no hard drive. Everything else is here, but there’s no hard drive.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, you can’t really store any information without one,” said Marley. “It must have had one.”

  “So he stole it?”

  “Somebody did.”

  “Shhh,” Rolly said. He heard something out in the hall. He switched off the penlight.

  “What is it?” whispered Marley.

  “I don’t know,” said Rolly. “I thought I heard something. Hang tight while I check it out.” Rolly felt his way out the door, turned to his left to face down the hall.

  There was a faint blue glow at the end of the hall, dark still shadows, but nothing moving. He listened, heard a faint rapping in the distance, like someone tapping on a glass door. He crept down the hallway, moving towards the center of the building. He passed through the open area where Alesis’ code monkeys worked. It was quiet now, with only the low electrical hum of sleeping computers in the air.

  There was a large opening ahead where the hallway seemed to get lighter and he realized he was approaching the lobby. He paused by the edge of the wall, revved his courage up, took a peek around the corner. Outside the main glass doors was the dark silhouette of someone peering in. The figure held something in its hand, a long dark tubular shape. It raised the shape up next to its head. A blast of light assaulted Rolly in the face. He wheeled away behind the wall and held his breath. A halo of light danced against the wall in front of him, twitching from one side to the other.

  A tapping came on the front door, then a voice, “This is the San Diego Police Department. We’ve received a silent alarm call for this address. If there’s someone in the building, make yourself known. Move slowly and hold your hands in the air.”

  Rolly waited. It sounded like the officer hadn’t seen him, or wasn’t sure if he’d seen him, anyway. He held his position behind the wall. He wondered how long the officer would wait. Someone with a key had probably been contacted also. It would only be a matter of time before they opened the building.

  “This is the San Diego Police Department. Come out from behind the wall. Hold your hands away from your body so I can see them.” Rolly still wasn’t sure if the officer had seen him or was just playing a hunch. There was something familiar about the voice. Rolly sat down against the wall, forcing himself to breathe slower, waiting, forcing himself to think it through, to be patient and wait.

  He heard a soft pad of footsteps to his left, someone breathing.

  “Rolly?” It was Marley.

  “What?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the police.”

  “Shit,” Marley said.

  The officer called out again. There was a reason the voice was familiar.

  “This is officer Bonnie Hammond of the San Diego Police Department. Rolly, if that’s you sitting back there and you don’t come out in the next thirty seconds I am going to kick your ass.”

  Rolly turned to Marley.

  “Here, take my car key.” He bumped into Marley as he stood up, grabbed Marley’s hand, and passed him the car key. He pulled out the Magic Key and handed it to Marley, as well.

  “Take this, too.”

  “Who’s out there?” Marley said.

  “It’s a cop. I know her. I’m going to go out there and let her in. While I’m doing that I want you to head out the other door, get back in the car and drive home. Call me in the morning. If I don’t answer, I want you to call a guy named Max Gemeinhardt. He’s a lawyer, lives in Del Mar.”

  “Rolly, you’ve got ten seconds,” yelled Bonnie from the door.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Marley said.

  “If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn’t have brought us here in the first place.” He gave Marley a little nudge with his hand.

  “Go.”

  Rolly waited as long as he could while Marley stumbled away from him down the darkened hall, then put both hands over his head.

  “Bonnie, it’s me. It’s Rol
ly. I’m coming out.” He stepped out into the lobby and walked towards the door. He couldn’t see her, but he kept walking. A blast of light hit him full in the face from the other side of the right column by the door. Bonnie had taken cover just in case. She turned out the light after confirming it was him. He opened the door and let her in. Her revolver was in its holster, but the fastener on the strap had been unsnapped.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Bonnie said.

  “Working,” said Rolly.

  “At this time of the morning? You know, it’s a good thing you told me at the bar you were working a case for these guys. When I saw your face in the flashlight, it looked like you, but I wasn’t sure until I put the two together.”

  “Lucky for me. I guess I set off the alarm. This was supposed to get me in.” He showed her the security card, or at least the side of it without Curtis’ picture.

  “I guess you did. Is there anyone else here?”

  “Not that I know of.” He hoped Marley had made it to the side door. He would be escaping down the driveway as they spoke.

  “So what are you doing here at this hour?”

  “Investigating.”

  “Investigating, huh. What are you investigating?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Client confidentiality, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. I know I’m gonna have to take you down to the station, too, unless someone shows up here to vouch for you.” Bonnie might give him some slack, but she’d keep a good grip on the rope.

  “It’s an internal investigation. They don’t want me around the office during regular hours. They don’t want me to disturb the employees, make them suspicious.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” mused Bonnie as she shined the flashlight around various parts of the lobby. “I think I should take a look around, anyway. Come on.”

  “Bonnie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Someone did break into the building tonight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t me,” said Rolly, holding up the security card again. “I got in with this. But I’ve been looking around. There’s some computer equipment that’s been messed with.”

  “Messed with?”

  Rolly sighed. He’d hoped that she’d just let him go, not be so thorough. But that wasn’t Bonnie. She always did things by the book--almost always, anyway. He needed to show her the computer room.

  “Here, I’ll show you.”

  They walked down the hall, Bonnie’s flashlight leading the way.

  “Kind of weird décor,” said Bonnie as the light reflected off a couple of the gargoyles on the blood red walls, the white plastic sides of the code monkey cages.

  “Yeah, it’s kind of an unusual business here, all around,” replied Rolly, wondering what kind of business it really was.

  They arrived at the door to the computer room. Rolly switched on the light. There was no need to stand in the darkness.

  “I wonder if anything’s been stolen,” said Bonnie.

  “The hard drive,” said Rolly.

  “Well, whoever did it must have been some kind of neat freak, I guess,” said Bonnie, kneeling beside the well ordered parts Marley had laid out.

  “I put everything in order so I could figure out what was missing,” said Rolly.

  “So you were messing with a crime scene and getting your dirty fingerprints everywhere.”

  “Um, yeah,” gulped Rolly. Bonnie sighed.

  “Rolly, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take you in. You may be telling me the truth about this whole thing. I’m willing to believe that you are, but if I don’t follow procedure here I could get myself in deep shit.”

  Rolly sighed. It had been a long day. It had been a long night. It looked like it was going to be a long morning.

  The Lockup

  Later that morning, Rolly found himself sitting on an uncomfortable metal folding chair in an interview room of the downtown lockup. True to her word, Bonnie had loaded him into the squad car and booked him into San Diego County Jail. He was tired, depressed, feeling a little unloved. He put in a call to Max, but only got the answering machine. There was no telling where Max might be. Max had retired. He didn’t keep office hours anymore, didn’t even have an office. He might have gone out early, on the hunt for some rare Mexican hummingbird in Rose Canyon, getting out of the house ahead of rush hour. Or he might be traveling, on one of his minor league ballpark tours. If he was, he’d be out of town for a week, maybe more.

  The door to the interview room opened. Bonnie entered, followed by two well-groomed men in gray suits. One of them wore a red tie. The other wore blue. They smelled of oranges and after-shave lotion.

  “Mr. Waters, this is Mr. Hayes and Mr. Porter,” Bonnie said.

  “Hello,” Rolly said to them.

  “Hello, Mr. Waters,” said the man with the red tie. “I’m Mr. Hayes. Mr. Porter and I are investigators for the Atlantic Insurance Company. We’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind. Your participation is entirely voluntary.”

  The man with the blue tie, Mr. Porter, placed a stenography tablet on the table. He tapped a blue mechanical pencil against his thumb.

  “What kinds of questions?” said Rolly, looking back and forth between the two men.

  “We understand you are a private investigator?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And you are currently employed by a company known as Eyebitz.com.”

  “Well, I don’t usually give out the names of my clients,” Rolly said. Of course, he’d given the name out to Leslie and Marley. And to Bonnie, of course. She must have told these guys. And she must have a reason for telling them.

  “We also understand that you were in the offices of Eyebitz.com last night, which is where Officer Hammond arrested you.”

  There was no sense denying that part.

  “Yes, I was in the offices last night.”

  Mr. Porter reached into his pocket and tossed Curtis Vox’ security card on the table, encased in a clear plastic baggie.

  “It has also come to our attention that you had this entry card in your possession,” said Mr. Hayes.

  Rolly glanced up at Bonnie, standing behind the two men. He wondered what kind of trouble he was in now. Bonnie gave him the slightest nod of her head. He decided it was best to trust her, give these guys whatever they wanted.

  “Yes, I used the card to get into the building.”

  Mr. Hayes went back on point. “Can I ask you, Mr. Waters, how you came to possess this card?”

  “I found it.”

  “You found it?”

  “On the beach.”

  “On the beach. I assume you are aware the owner of this card is dead?”

  “I read the newspaper.”

  “Where on the beach did you find the card?”

  “I found it at Black’s Beach, just north of the access road. I believe it was in the same area where Mr. Vox’s body was found.”

  “Was this just an accident that you found the card, or were you there for a reason?”

  “I wanted to see where the body was found.”

  “Would you be willing to tell us the nature of your work for Eyebitz.com, Mr. Waters?”

  “I might be. But first you guys are going to have to tell me what this is all about. Is there some kind of insurance angle?”

  Mr. Hayes and Mr. Porter looked at each other, then back to Rolly. Bonnie stood as still as a statue by the door, her muscular arms folded across her chest.

  “Mr. Waters, have you ever heard of something called a dead peasant policy?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “It’s not a term my employer prefers us to use. It’s a slang term for life insurance policies taken out by a company on its employees.”

  “You mean if an employee croaks, the company makes money?”

  “Yes, if an employee croaks, as you put it, the company is reimbursed for the insured amount.”

  “This is legal?”

/>   “Perfectly legal, Mr. Waters. Eyebitz.com has taken out a similar policy on all of its employees.”

  “How much are these policies worth?” Rolly said. He glanced back at Bonnie, but she wasn’t giving away anything.

  “Not a lot, usually. Forty or fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Usually?”

  “Well, Mr. Waters, I guess that brings us to why we’re here talking to you. You see, Mr. Vox was insured for ten million dollars.”

  “Wow. Doesn’t sound like a dead peasant to me.”

  “Precisely. As you can imagine, Mr. Waters, my company would like to investigate this matter as thoroughly as possible before paying out. As with most life insurance policies, there are conditions under which the policy will not be paid.”

  “Like suicide?”

  “Yes. Also, in this case, any loss of life that occurs through company negligence or while on company property. I hope that provides sufficient explanation for why we’re here.”

  “Yeah, that’ll pass. But I’m not sure I can help you.”

  “Just tell us what you know, Mr. Waters. What are you working on for Eyebitz.com? Why were you at the site of Mr. Vox’s death?”

  They meant Black’s Beach, of course. But that wasn’t where Curtis had died. Rolly had been at the original site of Mr. Vox’s death. It was in a swimming pool in a mansion at the top of the cliffs overlooking the ocean, not down on the beach. But these guys didn’t know that, at least he hoped they didn’t, since that would put him at the death scene—both of the death scenes.

  “Well,” he began, “I can tell you this. I was hired by Eyebitz.com to find something, a key.”

  “What kind of key?”

  “A Magic Key. It’s for a computer.”

  “A Magic Key? What makes it magic?”

  “Well, it has some important data on it. Some encrypted code that’s critical to the company’s business. They’re concerned that their competitors might obtain a copy. At least that’s how it was explained to me.”