Dire Means

by Geoffrey Neil

  “Which is why I’m calling you for help.”

  McCrane sighed and then said, “I’m going to transfer you to my secretary. I want you to give her your contact information because I intend to get to the bottom of this. Nothing would make me happier than to discover that you are incorrect.”

  “I hope I’m wrong too. But evidently, Neva Boyston has carte blanche when it comes to use of the shelter’s resources.”

  “Absolutely not. Wilson Proctor funded it with a non-discretionary legal endowment to prevent such a misuse of resources. I will investigate this further and discuss the matter with my colleagues. I thank you for your call.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McCrane.”

  Chapter Twelve

  BY THE TIME Mark arrived for dinner at Bonfiglio, the packed café was silent as everyone focused on the television. The body of the man found in the street had been identified as Keith Mendalsen, the first person to go missing on November 1. The news reported that a second body had been found in the middle of a street two miles from where Keith’s body was discovered. There was reason to believe that this new body was that of Brandon Chargon, the second person to vanish. Police cautioned that official identification of the second body was still pending.

  Back home, as he fumbled through his keys, he heard Todd’s footsteps and then his voice. “Buddy, is that you?” Todd stepped outside his door holding a small package like the first that Pop had sent. It was wrapped in green paper and tied with a golden bow.

  “It’s halftime or you wouldn’t be getting this until after the game.” Todd gestured for Mark to catch the package from five feet. “You weren’t here for a delivery today, so I offered to hold it for you.”

  “Thanks,” Mark said, as he caught the package. “What did the delivery guy look like?” he asked.

  Todd, already stepping back into his apartment, said, “She was hot—tall—brunette. You should have been home!” He then screamed at a replay of a fumble and Mark went into his apartment to unwrap the gift.

  He knew what the box held. Not only was the phone identical to the first, it was packed in the same confetti. No shred was wide enough to display an entire typed letter, but fragments of black lettering, again, were clearly visible on each piece.

  Mark blew some paper dust from the phone and took it to the couch to make the call.

  Once again, the phone’s number keys had holes where the buttons had been. He pressed the Send button and put the phone to his ear. The “beep” sounded, followed by the distinct, calm voice. Pop, cleared his throat and said, “Mark, I want to hire you for a professional consultation. Are you willing to make your services available to me?”

  The question caught Mark off guard. “I’m a computer technician,” he answered. “What sort of consultation are you looking for?”

  “I know what you do. And I’ll pay you your rate of one-fifty per hour to consult on a confidential project. I believe we’ll find it mutually beneficial although you will be the one earning cash.”

  “Is this your way of revealing the mysterious thing that you claim will make me happy?”

  “Yes, and to ease any concern you might have, we’ll meet in a public place.”

  “Where’s your office?”

  “I have a location in the ALCO building on Arizona Avenue. Are you familiar with that address?”

  “Yes.” Mark had just installed lobby cameras for Cody there. “I am familiar with that office building.”

  “Fantastic. Can you meet me tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.?”

  Mark’s personal policy was to take weekends off, but Pop had intrigued him and performing a professional service for him strangely legitimized a meeting. “Sure, what office?”

  “I’ll meet you in the vestibule, outside the elevators of the fourteenth floor. Are you comfortable with that?”

  “Fine, see you then.”

  “Excellent. You won’t be sorry.”

  Mark spent the next two hours doing client billing and paperwork. Thoughts of his impending meeting with Pop broke his concentration. In the kitchen, he scrolled his phone’s address book to the name of Cody Graham. It was 7:20 p.m. and the recorded message at Cody’s office offered a pager number in case of emergency. Mark dialed it.

  He returned to his sofa to check the evening television news. Almost all the coverage was on the second body that had been found earlier in the day. There were reports that a recorded message of some sort was around the neck of the first body, but officials would not confirm it.

  His phone vibrated and Mark checked the caller ID. It was Cody returning his page. Mark answered, saying, “Hey, Cody, I need your help.”

  “Did you see the fight?” Cody said, his mouth full of food.

  “What fight?”

  Cody paused to swallow. “This afternoon in the lobby in our building, a domestic dispute got physical after a couple left Harper Law Office on the sixth floor. I saw it live and got the whole thing recorded on the cameras you put in. You didn’t see it?”

  “No. I know it’s fun, but I don’t have time to log in and watch your cameras. Listen, I need your help.”

  “Sure, whatever you need,” Cody mumbled, his mouth full again.

  “I have a new client in your building and I’m meeting him tomorrow.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know what company. The guy’s name is Pop. I’m meeting him on the fourteenth floor. Can you remember the names of any tenants you have up there?”

  “Nobody—yet. Well, actually,” Cody belched, “the tenants are new. We were beginning construction to divide that space into four suites and then Gina showed the space to this corporate horticulture company. We offered them roof access for their nursery and they fell in love with the space. They leased the entire floor—paying our price—no negotiation.”

  “Do they have a name?”

  “Plaunte Designs. They’re only two weeks into build-out of their full-floor suite so I don’t see how they would need you for computers yet. When I checked in on them a couple days ago they were repairing some water damage done to the floor by one of their ingenious contractors who tried to modify our sprinkler system for their plants.”

  “Do they have a guy named Pop there?”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar. A woman runs the show for them. Her name is Rosy. I’m not kidding.”

  “Plaunte Designs—thanks,” Mark said. He laughed and sketched the rough shape of a rose on a napkin and put a “y” after it.

  “Gotta get back to dinner. Drop by my office after your appointment and I’ll show you the fight tape,” Cody said, then hung up.

  Mark’s fingertips pummeled his laptop’s keyboard as he hit search engine after search engine looking for information on Plaunte Designs. The company had a simple website—little more than a placeholder with an address, phone number, a fancy logo and a link to examples of their work. When he linked his search to the word “Pop,” he got no results. After an hour, convinced that Pop was either an alias or held little rank in the company, Mark went to bed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  MARK WOLFED DOWN breakfast at Bonfiglio and left for the ALCO building. The abductions had national—even international attention from all forms of media. News vans and satellite trucks lined more and more of Santa Monica’s main thoroughfares. Police set up checkpoints around the city’s borders.

  Mark pulled into the ALCO building’s garage and noticed two armed security guards posted on either side of the entrance. One of them stepped into the driveway blocking his car. The guard held up a hand for Mark to stop, then approached. Mark rolled down his window. The guard leaned in, examined the interior of the car, and asked for ID. After barely glancing at Mark’s driver’s license, he waved him into the garage. Mark assumed the kicked-up security was a response to the pressure Cody felt from his tenants. “But you’re not gonna catch the bad guy on camera if you scare him away with guards at the garage entrance,” Mark muttered to himself.

  He cheered silently when he saw
the parking space closest to the elevators available. The garage was often full during the week and such good fortune would have been unheard of without arriving at the building before dawn.

  He rode the elevator to the lobby level where visitors were required to check in before continuing to higher floors. As he exited, he waved to the cameras he had installed and after making sure no one was watching, he mouthed the words, “Hi Cody,” at one of them.

  Neville was on duty and when he saw Mark, he rubbed his eyes then opened them wide in exaggerated disbelief. “Hey, whatchu doing here? You sleep walkin’? It’s Saturday!”

  Mark held up his arms like a zombie and they laughed.

  “Did you bring my computer?” Neville asked.

  Mark smacked himself on the forehead, looking as distressed as possible over having forgotten Neville’s free computer yet again. “Oh man, I forgot it. Actually, I’ve got a meeting,” Mark said. He took a clipboard from Neville’s hand and signed in.

  “Cody ain’t around,” Neville said.

  “I know—I’m meeting a new client on the fourteenth floor. Today’s the only day we could meet.”

  “Fourteen?” Neville frowned. “Okay, but nobody’s up there. At least I haven’t seen anybody there today.”

  “It’s supposed to be a new company—plants or something. What do you know about them?” Mark asked.

  “I see contractors come and go—always have to tell ‘em not to use the passenger elevator for freight—but I haven’t met anybody that actually works there.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what I learn after my meeting,” Mark said. He pushed the clipboard back and checked his watch. Right on time.

  In the elevator, Mark pressed floor fourteen, the ALCO building’s highest floor. The elevator shuddered and lifted.

  Mark checked the floor indicator. Floor seven blinked on, then eight, and nine. At fourteen, the elevator stopped. Mark felt a twinge of excitement; the mystery of Pop was about to be solved. He wiped the faintest perspiration from his hand onto his pants.

  He stepped to the elevator door, anticipating it opening, but it didn’t. He pressed the “open door” button a few times, but the doors remained closed and the elevator still. After twenty seconds, he was tempted to press the red emergency button, but didn’t feel panicked enough yet and he didn’t want to give Neville the pleasure of rescuing him.

  Mark was about to pull out his phone when the elevator began to move—sinking. The floor indicator above the door remained on number fourteen. He put his hand to the crack of the door. It vibrated and he felt air rushing in.

  When the elevator stopped, he moved toward the door again, wondering if it had returned him to the lobby. The doors opened to a dim corridor about thirty feet long with thick, dark foam cushion lining every inch of the walls and ceiling.

  Two men and two women dressed in red Polo shirts and black slacks stood just outside the elevator doors. At the sight of Mark, one woman, a short college-age blond, began to jump up and down, clapping her hands and squealing with excitement. The grinning men applauded Mark. They reached out to greet him with firm handshakes and a gentle tug to coax him from the elevator.

  The other woman, a tall brunette with supermodel looks, covered her mouth as she joined the others approaching Mark. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I am so honored to meet you, Mr. Denny.” She took Mark’s hand and clasped it between both of hers. Her voice wavered as though she might cry. She hugged him around the neck whispering, “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “We’re huge fans of yours,” the blond woman added.

  Mark was speechless. If this was Pop’s idea of something that would please him, then so far he was wrong. When the elevator doors closed behind him, he tried to take in the strange space. The padded floor, walls, and ceiling sucked up voices so thoroughly that it was a challenge to understand any of them without watching their lips. The applause of Mark’s fans made little more than a tapping sound that seemed to evaporate inches from their hands. He felt his feet sink slightly into a padded floor covering. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light in the vestibule. He examined the four people who greeted him so enthusiastically.

  After pausing to notice the confusion on Mark’s face, his greeters laughed and the brunette woman said, “You’re going to have to pardon our excitement, Mr. Denny! We saw you on television and you were absolutely amazing.”

  Mark began to understand the reason for their excitement. But he was here to meet with one person not four.

  “I have an appointment with Pop. Where is he?” Mark asked—utterly confused.

  “And he can’t wait to meet you. We work for him and we’ll take you to him now,” she said, and then gently pulled Mark by the arm toward the end of the corridor while the men flanked him, patting him on the back. Mark walked slowly as he tried to make sense of these people—and this space. They guided him around a corner to a large red door.

  Mark recognized their uniforms. The red shirts and black slacks were standard attire for Trail Bladers Subterranean Data Destruction employees. Their shiny black and red trucks cruised the streets of Santa Monica and surrounding areas every day. They shredded documents, hard drives, DVDs, flash drives, and any other hardware that could contain their clients’ proprietary information.

  They were known for an unusual, if not ingenious gimmick that set them apart from other companies: “onsite silence.” Every word of communication between Trail Bladers and clients was done by telephone via the Trail Bladers’ corporate office. Associates who drove trucks and picked up the locked document and data containers were forbidden to speak a word while on client premises. For clients with intercom systems, Trail Bladers associates carried a small voice recorder that gave the generic greeting, “Trail Bladers at your service.”

  Asking questions of onsite Trail Bladers’ personnel became a game for many of their clients. People told jokes, made faces, or asked silly questions in an attempt to get a Trail Blader to slip up and speak. Mark had seen them servicing many tenants in the ALCO Development building.

  The brunette squeezed Mark’s hand. “My name is Morana and this is Nanette,” she said, pointing to the blond woman.

  “I’m Teddy,” one man said.

  The other one, muscle-bound and bigger than the gas-money con, waved to Mark. “My name is Raphael. Glad to meet you, sir.”

  Morana said, “You’re uneasy, Mark. Don’t worry. Pop will explain everything to you. You’re going to be so excited!”

  A waist-high, glass console sat next to the door. Nannette stepped to it and placed her hand on a glass panel the size of a paperback book. A bright green light illuminated her hand, and a heavy “clunk” came from within the door. Raphael spun a wheel handle counterclockwise and swung the door open. His strain indicated the door’s weight.

  They entered a spacious room that took up most of the floor. It was painted with the official colors of the Trail Bladers Subterranean Data Destruction. Six white pillars were all that interrupted the deep red walls. The pillars gave the vacant space a gutted, skeletal feel. Deep scrapes and dings on the concrete floor told of heavy items dragged to and from all locations of this space.

  A row of large metal containers with wheels sat along a side wall. Each had a prominent Trail Bladers logo. Two uniformed men worked in the room, one sweeping the massive floor and the other wiping down a far wall with a cloth. Morana waved to them. They stood up straight to return her wave. “Have you heard of Trail Bladers Subterranean Data Destruction?” she asked Mark.

  “Yeah, sure. I see your trucks all over town,” he said. “I think I have some clients that use you guys.” He slowed his walk and looked at each of them again. The level of their excitement still confused him.

  Halfway across the red room, Raphael, the muscular man, pointed Mark toward a wide freight elevator on the opposite side. Its black frame and red doors matched the walls. This time Teddy placed his hand on another glass console beside the elevator door. After a flash under
his hand, the elevator display blinked to life and Mark heard the sound of the elevator car en route to their floor.

  “This was one of our main destruction facilities,” Teddy said, turning to Mark as they waited for the elevator. “We’ve moved our equipment to a larger location—completely underground.”

  Mark glanced around the room and then back to the four people who still had the gawky grins of celebrity watchers as they beamed at him. “Where are we taking the elevator to?” he asked.

  “Relax,” Morana said, putting her arm around him. Mark looked at her hand on his shoulder—uneasy with the physical contact. Yes, she was beautiful, but he didn’t know her and he didn’t know where he was going. “Papa is waiting to meet you at our new corporate headquarters. We’re going to take you there.”

  “Pop? You call him Papa?”

  “Oh, yes. He insists.”

  “Where exactly is your headquarters?”

  “I’m sorry, Mark we can’t disclose that to you—yet,” Morana said. “But I can tell you it’s nearby and we’ll have you back safe and sound within two hours.” She smiled warmly at Mark then reached over her shoulder to Raphael, her hand open. He fished in his front pocket and pulled out three crisp hundred-dollar bills and tucked them into Morana’s hand. She opened the bills, and handed them to Mark.

  “What’s this for?” Mark asked.

  Teddy said, “Timing is everything for Trail Bladers, so we pay our consultants and vendors promptly, if not in advance.”

  Mark whispered a barely audible, “Thank you.” He shook his head, trying to make sense of this situation. The freight elevator opened and they entered it, surrounding Mark. The elevator bumped and began going down. Mark saw the illuminated floor display count down from floor three.

  “What floor were we on?”

  “Five,” Teddy answered.

  “Why did Pop tell me to meet him on floor fourteen?”

  “He’s going to answer all your questions. For now, let me just say that Papa is extreme with the privacy of our operations. It’s the nature of our business. After all, secrecy is our profession. You’ll find Papa isn’t so personally secretive when you talk to him face to face.”