Part 5 (1/2)

The phone woke me up a little after five PM PM. The sun was still up but it was on its way down; I could feel it immediately, without bothering to futz with the curtains. I hated that stupid phone. It jangled away in my purse, in the other room, nowhere near my bed, which was where I wished to remain.

It wound through its cycle and I lay there, expecting the electronic blip that warns of incoming voice mail, but no. It began to ring again with an immediacy that implied the caller was prepared to go on doing this all night, if necessary.

So it must be Horace.

I mentioned earlier, when I was trying to contain my natural tendency to digress, that I have a contact at a museum. He's a crooked little motherf.u.c.ker who used to work as an acquisitions manager at a big NYC auction house, retired, and took a leisurely sort of job as a collections a.s.sessor at a museum. If ever there was a corollary to the old adage about the fox guarding the henhouse, this is it it.

I'm not going to lie and say it hasn't been good for me. I get most of my best cases from Horace, so he's a handy fellow to know. He's mercenary to the core, with no regard whatsoever for art, history, or sentimentality. His whole business model could best be described as, ”I know a guy who wants a thing. Raylene, I'll pay you fat sacks of cash to go and get it.”

Usually I say yes. Sometimes I say no.

I hauled myself into the living room and answered the cell phone before he'd finished his third round of persistent redial. He didn't wait for me to say anything like ”h.e.l.lo,” ”Raylene here,” or ”d.a.m.n you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you woke me up.” He just dove right into his sales pitch.

”This will be an easy one, if you're game,” his nasally voice wheedled. ”It's just a little box, somewhere in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Smithsonian. I've got a collector who thinks there's an Aztec relic inside. I've emailed you the details, the deadline, and the budget.”

”Tell me...” I cleared my throat and tried again. I tasted clotted O-positive in the back of my throat, which was not nearly so nice as the fresh stuff. ”Tell me what the deadline is.”

”Why? Do you have a hot date or something?”

”I have another client,” I told him.

”You're s.h.i.+tting me!”

”I s.h.i.+t thee not. not.”

He paused, and if I knew him, he was chewing on the end of his gla.s.ses while he thought about it. ”Another client. But I'm your favorite, right?”

”Favorite?”

”Most reliable. Highest paying. Most flattering, oh my beautiful, sticky-fingered queen of the night?”

I yawned. ”You're pus.h.i.+ng your luck.”

”Then let me give it another little shove. This woman I'm talking to, she's got a wish list as long as your arm and more money than G.o.d. You'll love her.”

”I don't want to love her if she wants her goodies anytime in the next couple of weeks.” I guessed at how long I'd need for Ian's a.s.signment. It might go as quickly as forty-eight hours, or it might take me a month. A couple of weeks was a good middle-of-the-road estimate, and one that was flexible.

”We're talking next month. Is next month too soon? She wants it in time for some weird calendar event; I think she's one of those multicultural hippie pagans who's trying to get in touch with someone else's tradition.”

”What's that mean?” I asked.

”She's a white woman who's inordinately fond of indigenous religious artifacts.” He stopped, as if he was finished with the thought. Then he added, ”If you want my opinion, she's a little creepy about it.”

”Next month,” I echoed his earlier statement, since that was the one I found important. ”Next month might be doable.”

”Is that a yes?”

”It's a maybe. It's a probably probably yes, but it isn't a yes.” yes, but it isn't a yes.”

Not everyone can sulk out loud without saying a word. Horace has elevated it to an art form. ”What are you, a Magic Eight Ball?” he finally demanded. ”Ask again later? Is that how it's going to be?”

”Ask again later, yes. That's an excellent idea. It's a perfect idea, in fact, and it's one I plan to insist upon. Let me get a bit deeper into this current case, and I'll get back to you.”

”You will? You promise? You're not just trying to get rid of me?”

”Oh, I'm trying to get rid of you, yes,” I a.s.sured him. ”I just woke up. I need a shower. It's kind of cold in here, and I'm in my underwear. So make no mistake about it-I am am trying to get rid of you. But I'll also make a point to call you in another week or so. Deal?” trying to get rid of you. But I'll also make a point to call you in another week or so. Deal?”

The pretty-pretty princess sighed and said, ”Fine. I suppose I'll have to take it.”

”I suppose you will,” I said, and I hung up without any more salutation than he'd offered at the start of the conversation. It's okay. He knows me. I know him. We never take it personally...or at least I don't. Maybe he takes it personally sometimes, but as long as he continues to throw work my way once in a while, I don't give a d.a.m.n.

But I didn't really need the work right at that moment, and if he was going to get p.i.s.sy about it, he could kiss my a.s.s. Sometimes I swear he thinks I'm on call for him, 24/7. Well, I'm not. And he could learn it the hard way, if he had to.

Besides, I had to a.s.sume he had other, um, ”acquisitions specialists” on the payroll somewhere. If he wasn't willing to wait a few weeks, he could field the job out to a member of the B-team-if it was such an easy job as all that.

Of course, this made me think that it wasn't such an easy job after all. Otherwise he would've been happy to pay someone else a lot less money to take care of it. Even more reason to put him off.

I wandered back into the bedroom, gathered a few clothes, and took a nice, hot shower-during which I mentally sorted through the things I'd need for the evening. I could start on the Internet, and why wouldn't I? The information was easy, free, and even if it wasn't accurate (which was always a risk), it usually gave me a good starting point for finding better facts elsewhere.

Within about half an hour, I'd learned that Holtzer Point was a top secret facility in St. Paul, Minnesota. I'd gathered that much already, but it was nice to have it confirmed by a series of websites that appeared to have been composed by middle-school-aged conspiracy theorists with a pa.s.sion for stupid-looking animated graphics.

Depending on which frothy-mouthed Internet pulpit-beater I chose to believe, Holzter Point might conceal anything from alien artifacts to Bigfoot's sperm samples, plus a few pickled flipper babies from Three Mile Island and Jimmy Hoffa's stomach contents. I'd like to make fun of those guys, but I had information from a blind vampire that the storage facility held details of medical experiments conducted by the military on the unwilling undead.

So far be it from me to call anyone nuts.

I composed an email to a mortal colleague of mine, a guy whom I jokingly call the Bad Hatter. Hey, if I'm Ches.h.i.+re Red, we might as well run with the Wonderland theme, right? We also have a Red Queen and a White Rabbit. Someone get us a White Queen and a set of flamingo croquet mallets and we'll be in business.

Though when I talk about Duncan being my colleague, I only mean it in jest. At best he and I (and those other couple of specialists) are a loose network of freelancers. You see, sometimes when you work by yourself in a field such as ours, it helps to share knowledge among professionals. I'm not saying that we watch one another's backs or anything, because we don't. It's more of a back-scratching than a back-watching affair, as in, ”You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.”

Officially, none of us has ever heard of any of us.

In real life, I've got a few email addresses and a phone number or two. I don't use them often, and the freelancers don't often use mine. But if I can help a brother out, it's often worth the trouble of doing so. A year or two previously, the Hatter needed some specs to help him pilfer on-site from a marine recovery operation. I gave him the hookup, and now I needed a hookup in return.

I didn't know much about Duncan. I might've been able to find out more with a little digging, but as a matter of professional courtesy I never tried. I'd inferred that he'd been part of some special forces branch, and he'd demonstrated before that he was savvy about military affairs and locales.

So when I wanted a few preliminary observations about Holtzer Point, he was the man to ask. While I was at it, I double-checked the envelope and added a query about ”Jordan Roe,” whatever that that was. As far as the Internet was concerned, it didn't exist. And in this day and age, if the Internet says it doesn't exist, it's either dead boring or totally fascinating in a top secret men-in-black kind of way. was. As far as the Internet was concerned, it didn't exist. And in this day and age, if the Internet says it doesn't exist, it's either dead boring or totally fascinating in a top secret men-in-black kind of way.

After hitting SEND SEND, I leaned back and pondered my next move. The sc.r.a.p of paper beside my laptop was still staring at me, with that one word ”Major” snagging my eyeball every time it rolled past.

I picked it up again, made an educated guess as to whether the first number was a five or a six, and plugged the sequence into my cell phone. Someone else's phone rang twice, and was answered by a scowl I could hear all the way over on my end of the line.

”Who is this?”

I don't want to sound like one of those b.i.t.c.hy old ladies who fusses all the time about how kids these days have no manners at all, but just once I'd like to hear someone answer a phone with ”h.e.l.lo.”

I said, ”h.e.l.lo?” And maybe it was just because I'd had army-on-the-brain all evening, but I went ahead and guessed, ”Major?”

”Who is this? How did you get this number?”

He didn't answer my question. This called for mult.i.tasking. While I laid out the fresh-from-my-a.s.s story, I went into the kitchen and opened a drawer. ”I got the number from Trevor,” I said. I pulled out a cheap prepaid cell phone. (I keep a small stash. I'm paranoid, remember?) ”He said you wanted to talk about the website?” I put a Valley girl question mark at the end of the sentence because I had now officially exhausted every ounce of information I possessed.