Under a Killing Moon

UAKM — CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The City went haywire. Immediately, a deafening cacophony of alarms went off. A massive dust cloud billowed from ground zero, then slowly dissipated, revealing piles of debris, corpses, and body parts scattered in all directions. Passersby who had survived the blast lay on the street and sidewalks, some dying, others only stunned. Within minutes, the area was flooded with fire department personnel, policemen, and horrified onlookers. The explosion had not only gutted the entire LPE skyscraper, but it had taken out most of the surrounding block. Few, if any, survivors would be pulled out of the Percival building. I suddenly remembered talking to at Alaynah and Percival. Now, only minutes later, they were both almost certainly dead.

I set my speeder down several blocks away and walked toward the destruction in a semi-stupor. On every side, emergency personnel were tending to the wounded. I’d never had the dubious honour of serving in the war, but this was what I’d imagined it would be like. Dazed workers from nearby buildings were streaming out to survey the damage.

Television vehicles began to appear, and the airspace was jammed with media craft.

Stopping just outside the perimeter of debris, I considered getting out of the way and returning to my office, but the awesome spectacle of the annihilated skyscraper held me fast. After several minutes, I caught sight of a familiar face. Mac Malden, along with most of the SFPD, was beginning to question eyewitnesses.

I approach Mac, who was talking to a shell-shocked-looking young woman. When he was done, he looked up to see me and walked over. “Can you believe this?”

I shook my head. My stomach was starting to get queasy.

Mac pulled out a pack of Merits. “What’re you doing down here? Just lucky?”

Lucky was exactly how I was feeling. It had only just occurred to me that I’d been inside the building about three minutes before it turned to dust. If I’d stepped into the bathroom, or talked to Alaynah a while longer… I didn’t want to think about it.

“I was in the building.”

Mac lit his cigarette. “When?”

“A few minutes ago.”

The cop glanced at me, his eyes wider than I ever thought they could be. “@#%$.”

“Tell me about it. I think I’m gonna vomit.”

“What were you doing in there?”

I choked down a brief wave of nausea. “I had an appointment to see Lowell Percival.”

“He was in there?” I nodded. Mac looked me over. “You don’t look good, Murphy. Go home. There’s nothing else to see here. Give me a call when you’ve got your feet under you. I’d like to hear what happened.”

I turned and walked unsteadily back to my speeder. By the time I got there, my stomach was under control again, but I had a case of the spins. I climbed inside and sat at the wheel for several minutes. Eventually, my equilibrium steadied, and I fired up the engine.

My mind was racing as I guided the speeder over the panic-stricken city. Who had bombed LPE? Was it linked to the Capricorn bombing? Why the LPE building? To get Percival? Why Percival?

Back at the Ritz, I stumbled into my bedroom and fell onto the bed. I didn’t realize that I’d fallen asleep until an incessant banging woke me up. The room was dark. I checked the time: 7:10. My body was aching, but my brain felt relatively normal. I pushed myself up and crossed to the front door.

It was the Interpol agents. I stepped aside, and the female agent walked past. The man, Agent McCovey, looked me over. “Post-traumatic stress. It will pass.”

I shut the door. “Yeah, I know. I used to be married.”

McCovey grinned and followed me over to the desk. I dropped into my chair, and the agents sat in the two guest chairs across the desk from me. Half a pack of Lucky Strikes was conveniently waiting. I took out a cigarette and lit it, without asking permission.

Agent Andrews covered her mouth and coughed delicately. I ignored it. “So, what in the world brings the two of you to my humble abode?”

Apparently my visitors had drawn straws, and McCovey had lost.

“Lieutenant Malden said he spoke with you at the scene of the bombing. You saw it happen?”

“Got a bird’s-eye view.”

“What were you doing down there? Malden said something about you having seen Lowell Percival. Quite a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence.”

McCovey flashed his boyish grin again. “Really? You were one of the last people to see Colonel O’Brien alive. Same with Paul Dubois. You’re a nominee for the coincidence poster boy. What do you call it?”

“Dumb luck. In my heart of hearts, I’m a Sagittarius.”

Agent Andrews seemed to be getting impatient and cut in.” Why don’t you just tell us why you went to see Percival?”

I took a leisurely drag off my cigarette and directed a long stream of smoke just to her left. “I was trying to find out what he knew about the statuette.”

McCovey spoke with exaggerated friendliness. “The one you told us about the other night?”

I nodded, and the agents sat forward. “What did he tell you?”

“Not enough. Just pretty much confirmed what I already knew. He was interested in buying it and said he didn’t have it.”

Agent Andrews had her notebook out. “Did you talk about anything else?”

“Yes we did. It turns out we both love Carmen Miranda movies. Or loved, as the case may be.”

Andrews shook her head and turned to her partner, then back to me. “Was there anything odd about his behaviour? Did he seem nervous?”

“He acted perfectly normal for a man about be blown into little bits.” I took a drag.

“How the hell should I know? It wasn’t like we were lifelong pals. I barely knew him.”

The agents glanced at each other and seemed to decide that I wasn’t going to be a font of information in my current frame of mind. Andrews put her notebook away, and

McCovey sm led politely. “Well, we’ll get out of your hair.”

They started to get up, but I had a few questions of my own. “Before you go, tell me something. Was this bombing related to the one in LA?”

McCovey shifted in his seat. “We’re not sure. There are some similarities. Both places have heavy security. The explosive device looks to be identical and planted in the same part of the building. That’s off the record, by the way. We won’t know for sure until the investigators finish sifting through the rubble. Could take days, maybe weeks. Right now, we’re treating it as a serial bombing.”

“But the Capricorn bombing was pretty clearly politically motivated. As far as I know, Percival didn’t have any official ties to Capricorn, the Mutant League, or any other political organization, for that matter.”

McCovey frowned pensively. “We thought of that It certainly makes the connection harder to figure out. It’s conceivable that Percival himself was the target, although the similarities to the Capricorn bombing seem to contradict that theory. Be that as it may, Percival turned out to be mortal, and all hell’s breaking loose.”

“You found the body?”

McCovey nodded. “What was left of it.”

“What kind of hell is breaking loose?”

The agent shrugged. “The stock market’s in a panic. Percival’s fingerprints were all over Wall Street. Analysts are predicting another crash.”

I didn’t know or care much about what happened in the financial world, but another, more personal concern came to mind. “Percival had a receptionist. Her desk was just outside his office.”

The agent shook his head regretfully.

I crushed out my cigarette.

The agents looked at each other, then silently stood up and headed for the door. After they’d gone, I popped open my CD player and put on a Nat King Cole disc. His smooth vocals always had the same effect on me as two Lortabs and a bottle of JD. I was out of prescription drugs and whisky, so Nat would have to do. As I reached for another smoke, the vid-phone beeped. I leaned over and flipped on the receiver. Unexpectedly, Melahn Tode’s nicely constructed face appeared on the monitor.

“Murphy? You told me to call if I found anything else of Roy’s… the Colonel’s.”

This sounded promising. “I appreciate you calling. What’d you find?”

“It’s probably nothing… a newspaper.”

Hmmm. This was familiar territory. “Bay City Mirror?”

“I think so.” Melahn looked down. “Yeah.”

“What’s if the date?”

She paused to check. “November thirtieth. It was folded open to the personal ads, and one of them was circled. Want to see it?”

“Please.”

Melahn reached off-camera, then held a folded newspaper page up to the screen. I got close and squinted, but couldn’t quite make out the print.

“Maybe you should read it to me. It’s a little fuzzy.”

“All right. It says, ‘Gorgeous, rabid single seeks confidential, open minded lover. Take away our love, and our Earth is a tomb.’ That it.”

I finished writing down the message and looked back at the screen. Melahn seemed upset.

“Why would he look for someone else? Especially in the personals… it’s so… sleazy. I thought we had something special.”

The Colonel might have been checking the personal ads for personal reasons, but I doubted it. From what I’d learned, his interest in the ads was purely professional. On the other hand, if Melahn was convinced that her boyfriend had been looking for love in a newspaper, it might make losing him less painful, but I felt like she ought to know the truth.

I explained the situation to her without any of the details. She seemed at least partially relieved, but started asking for particulars. I told I wasn’t at liberty to share the information, but that she could be sure the Colonel’s motives in the matter were innocent. She thanked me and said she’d call back if she found out anything else.

After disconnecting, I turned my attention to the message Melahn had passed along. I started by counting the letters-there were 84, unless my spelling skills had completely vanished. If this was a code, it didn’t appear to be like the other one I’d found in the paper. I went through the other approaches, every other letter and so on, but without any luck. After a while, I decided that I would never make progress without a stiff drink.

Then I saw it. I’d been looking too hard. It was the initials. “Gorgeous, rabid single seeks confidential, open minded lover.” GRS seeks COL. COL was the abbreviation for Colonel. This was definitely a communication meant for the Colonel to see. Now I just had to find out who GRS was. And what was the meaning in the rest of the message?

The initials didn’t make any sense. At any rate, it didn’t sound like a code; it sounded like a literary quote. Unfortunately most of the literature I knew started with “There once was a man from Nantucket.” Maybe if I found out where the quote was from, it would help me to interpret the message.

There was only one logical place to check. I’d never been to the public library, but my tax dollars were helping to fund it. I decided to tap the resource and looked up the number in my directory. I glanced at my watch. It was just after eight o’clock. They were probably closed, but I’d try anyway. To my surprise, someone picked up. It was an older woman, with white hair tied in a tight bun and spectacles hanging on a chain around her neck. She looked to me like a veritable vault of quote knowledge. “City Library. Can I help you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I have this literary quote, and I’m trying to find out who said it.”

“My goodness. Trivia. Well, let’s hear it, though I can’t promise anything.” She was a trooper.

“OK, here goes. ‘Take away our love, and our Earth is a tomb.’”

The old woman mulled it over. “If I had to guess, I’d bet it’s probably Robert Browning.

It sounds just like the kind of thing he’d say. We have quite a good selection of his work down here, if you’d like to look around.”

I smiled appreciatively. “I just might do that, ma’am. Thank you for your help.”

“Not at all. Thank you for calling.”

Going to the library actually seemed like a pretty good idea. I could check on this Browning guy and browse through the newspapers from the past couple of weeks. I had a hunch there would be other messages. If only I had money. There were sources on the Internet that could give you access to newspaper data from all over the world.

Unfortunately, my web subscription was one of the first things to lapse when I’d gone broke. At least I didn’t have to pay to use the library and, apparently, it stayed open to at least nine o’clock. I grabbed my coat and left.

When I reached the San Francisco Public Library, I was pleased to see that the posted hours were 7 A.M. to 10 P.M. I stepped inside and breathed the pleasant smell of books.

These days, more and more people were using their computers as reading material.

When they weren’t glued to the television, that is. Online libraries offered a direct entry to the Library of Congress, and actual libraries couldn’t compete when it came to selection. The book you were looking for was always literally at your fingertips, since it never had to be checked out. Plus, you could always find what you wanted and print it out.

Despite all the advantages, in my opinion, it just wasn’t the same as lounging in the tub with an old, yellowed hardback. Ever since I was a kid, I’d had a soft spot for real paper books. I’d grown up with the Hardy Boys, then moved onto Sherlock Holmes. By the time I discovered Chandler and Hammett, my destiny was clear.

I started by looking up the past three weeks of Bay City Mirror issues. This time, I dispensed with the cover-to-cover search and went straight to the personal ads. I hit pay dirt in the November 23 edition, which was seventeen days previous and a week prior to the ad Melahn had found. The message read, “Grandfather reaching sixty seeks comfortable, old-fashioned lady. Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.” There it was again — GRS seeks COL. The quote at the end sounded like something from a Greek play or maube Shakespeare.

Sensing a pattern, I skipped ahead two weeks to the December 7 issue. Again, I found what I was looking for: “Green-eyed, redheaded Scorpio seeks curvy, outgoing Leo. We sail tonight.” The last part didn’t sound like a quote. It sounded vaguely fateful.

I went on to check the other days in between, but there were only the three messages. It was almost closing time when I went to the front desk. The elderly lady I’d spoken to on the vid-phone came to the counter, smiling pleasantly. “I hoped to see you in here, but I didn’t expect it would be so soon.”

“You were very convincing.”

I showed her the Pyramus and Thisby quote. She was all over this one and told me that the line was from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I got directions to Robert Browning and went on a search. Just at ten o’clock, I returned to the front desk with a copy of his Collected Poems and a small paperback of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The elderly lady checked out the books for me and wished me a good night.

I returned to my office and took the books to bed. It took quite a bit of searching before I located the Browning quote. There was nothing in the rest of the poem that clarified the message. I picked up the Shakespeare paperback and started scanning through the play. I paused after the first act and rubbed my eyes. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock, and I was dragging. I fired up and went back to my speed-reading.

Finally, in act three, I found the line “Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.” It appeared in a scene where a bunch of knuckleheads were trying to practice their parts in a play. I’d never been an avid Shakespearean, but the scenario read like a bad episode of Three’s Company. I read it over and couldn’t find anything that made the quote meaningful.

Maybe the numbers at the top of the page were significant. The top right and left corner each had a number; I assumed they indicated which lines of the play were on that page.

Fatigue was creeping up on me. It took me three tries to figure out the line number for

“Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.” I grabbed a pen and wrote down act three, scene one, lines forty-nine and fifty. When I finished, I laid back to rest my eyes for a moment.

An especially loud snore startled me out of a deep sleep. I’d been dreaming, and the images were still fresh in my mind. I’d been talking to Alaynah and was relieved to see that she’d miraculously survived the bombing. We were discussing the personal ads.

When I asked her who GRS could be, she winked at me and pointed. I followed her finger down to a sealed enveloped on her desk. Printed on the envelope were the words Genetic Research Systems.