For Blood or Money

Other Titles by Nathan Everett

The Volunteer

Journey inside the head of G2, a chronically homeless man that in a less politically correct age we’d have called a hobo. This dystopian literary fiction takes the reader into G2’s concept of the present and his memories of a time before he volunteered to trade places with a homeless man.

For Money or Mayhem

Computer forensics detective Dag Hamar is pulled from behind the safety of his computer and takes to the streets when he discovers a link between an online predator and real life kidnappings around Seattle. His fledgling romance is threatened when his girlfriend’s daughter is suddenly among the missing.

The Gutenberg Rubric

Two rare book librarians race across three continents to find and preserve a legendary book printed by Johannes Gutenberg. Behind them, a trail of bombed libraries draws Homeland Security to launch a worldwide search for biblio-terrorists. Keith and Maddie find love along the way, but will they survive to enjoy it?

Steven George & The Dragon

Steven has always known he was a dragonslayer, but on the day his village sends him to slay the fearsome beast he realizes he doesn’t know what a dragon looks like, where it lives, or how to kill it. His quest is facilitated by the exchange of “once-upon-a-times” with the people he meets on the endless road. Think Grimm. For young adults, not children.

For Blood or Money

Nathan Everett

Elder Road LLC

Bellevue WA

Copyright

©2009 ©2013 Nathan Everett

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Second Edition

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ISBN 978-1-939275-22-6

ElderRoad@comcast.net

Biting the Big One

IPICKED UP A TAIL at the start of display Aisle 200 and she was sticking to me like cat hair on a blue suit. I didn’t really mind. She was the only thing I’d seen in a skirt all week. Cocktail waitresses don’t really count.

I was in Vegas for the annual Geek Convention, also called SpyCon. A lot of private dicks, investigators, cops, and undercover geeks get together to view the latest in high tech toys, hear improbable tales of law enforcement, and act like they are on covert missions. Basically fun, and the only reason I drive from Seattle to Vegas once each year.

I’m Dag Hamar, PI. And I’m a tech geek.

I dallied in front of a display of long-range listening devices, guaranteed to filter individual voices out of a crowd at a hundred feet. She either had to stop in front of a display of interrogation techniques or move on to join me. She chose the latter.

“Do those things really work?” she asked. “They seem too small to be effective. You really need a tripod to steady it if you are going to pick out an individual, don’t you?”

Good technique. A tail would never actually approach her quarry. Doing so would call attention to her and therefore disqualify her as an effective tail. Unless she thought you’d invite her to join you. That would make the job of tailing you a lot easier. Well, it was a good ploy. I’d play along for a while.

“You’re right, a nice big mic on a tripod would be best, but it’s an interesting technology. Supposedly you can even bounce off any solid surface. It has possibilities.” We walked on to the next booth and she asked the exhibitor a detailed and intelligent question about miniaturized transmitters. The exhibitor was all too thrilled to give her an equally detailed response, just to be in her presence. She was tall and slender, and the kind of natural honey blonde whose hair stuck out in all directions. And cute. She had no end of cute.

I decided to hang around and wait for her instead of losing her at just that moment.

We chatted as we walked down the display aisle that included everything from night vision glasses, to telephone bugs, to high-resolution miniature digital cameras. This was really toy heaven. I’d already selected a miniaturized homing device in the top of an innocuous looking ballpoint pen. It was the kind of thing you could give to a mark or slip onto him without his ever knowing you were tracking him. I do like gadgets.

For her part, my tail was proving herself charming, funny, and flirtatious—sure signs she was not what she appeared to be. It’s been years since young women have been charming, funny, and flirtatious around me. I’m not only a PI, I’m a retread.

We turned into Aisle 500 and she turned more abruptly than she intended and stumbled into me. I caught her and she leaned into me and said breathlessly, “What would you say if I asked if you’d like to get lucky?” She looked up at me with teasing eyes that held a hundred unspoken promises.

Okay. I’m flattered, even if I know this is a pro job. What’s a man to say?

“Well, hypothetically speaking,” I said, “I’d have to consider that you are a very beautiful young woman making an obvious pass at an older and distinguished gentleman. Then I’d have to say, no.” She looked up at me startled.

“No?”

“No.”

“Why not? Don’t you like me?”

“Oh, I like you very much. I think you’re delightful company.”

“Then why?” I couldn’t tell if she was acting hurt or insulted, or a little of both. It was the first crack I’d seen in her act.

“First of all, I try to never get involved with anyone less than half my age,” I said. Plus seven, I added silently to myself. How true. Unfortunately I’m pretty successful at it. She did not seem impressed.

“Okay, do you remember that long distance mic that could pick a single voice out of a crowd?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“They have one over on that balcony, considerably less than a hundred feet away, that’s been following us ever since we left that booth, meaning every word has been recorded.” She appeared startled and turned to look.

“Third,” I continued, “you are a woman of exquisite taste, but the buttons of your blouse don’t match. That tells me that the one in the middle is a fisheye camera that you are using to record our interaction.” She clapped a hand over the offending button.

“And finally, judging by your Olympic University lapel pin, I’d have to say that Lars Andersen is standing around here someplace laughing at us for all he’s worth,” I concluded.

“Wow,” she said. “He told me you were good.”

“The best I ever trained,” Lars interjected walking up behind me. “How you doing, Dag?” I greeted my old friend and mentor warmly. “It’s good to see you haven’t forgotten everything I ever taught you,” he said. “I was worried about your skills going downhill stuck in that office all the time. No field work, no fun.”

“Oh it’s not that bad,” I said. “I accomplish a bit here and there.”

“Like what?” Lars asked.

“Like three embezzlement cases, two bank fraud cases, six child porn cases, three industrial espionage cases, and fifteen identity theft cases,” said Jordan Grant walking up next to Lars. It was turning into old home week. I shook Jordan’s hand.

“Sixteen if you count John Doe,” I said. Damnedest case we’d ever had. He had stolen over twenty identities, but we never could identify who he really was, even after he was in custody. He had completely erased his own identity in the process.

“So you guys all know each other,” my tail said. “Anybody want to introduce me?”

“Dag,” Lars said, “Let me introduce you to the finest student I’ve had since you and Jordan. This is Miss Deborah Riley.” I reached out to shake her hand.

“I’m glad to meet you D…” I broke off as she squeezed my hand in vise-like fingers.

“If you call me Debbie, it will be the last time you ever use your tongue,” she intoned lowly.

“Geez, Riley,” I said, “why don’t you say what you mean?”

“Riley,” she repeated lightening her grip. “I like that. Nice to meet you Mr. Hamar.”

“Now what I want to know, Lars, is why you think she’s so good? I picked up on her right away.”

“Yes,” Lars winked at Riley. “I figured you’d made her back at the long-range mics. What do you have to say for yourself Riley?”

“Dagget Hamar. Arrived in Las Vegas Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 driving a yellow 1983 Mustang in mint condition. Accompanied by a small dog named Maizie, checked into the Capricorn Motel just off the Strip. Dogs accommodated. Conservative tastes. Even wears a suit to a geek convention. Spent a lonely evening last night in the third row of “Cavalcade” enjoying an adult circus show. Plays in the casino for no more than half an hour at a time with modest bets—mostly Blackjack.”

“You compiled quite a dossier,” I said.

“I’ve been following you for three days,” she answered. “Lars told me I had to get caught today or we’d never get together.”

“Now I am impressed,” I laughed. “It’s always good to welcome another one of Lars’s protégés.”

“He said there’s a lot I could learn from you,” Riley said, winking at me. “I’d like to find out.”

“Dag,” Lars interrupted, “we’ve got reservations for four at the Monte Vista Room at 7:00. Why don’t we pick up the conversation there. We all need to get out of this den of spies and get cleaned up before dinner.”

It was arranged, that fast. When I got to the Monte Vista Room, Lars, Jordan, and Riley were already there waiting for me. The first thing I noticed was that even though Lars and Jordan were well into a martini, Riley was sipping tonic. My kind of girl. I ordered one as well and shortly thereafter we were seated.

It’s always a lively conversation when Lars, Jordan, and I get together as we do most years at this convention. Even though he’s a good bit younger than I am, Jordan and I studied criminal justice under Lars at the same time. I went into private business and Jordan eventually joined the Feds. Our paths keep crossing, though, since I do so much computer forensics work for his department, FinCEN—the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. We’ve got along great for years.

Riley, it turned out, had done her undergraduate work in computer science and went into a graduate program in criminal justice under Lars. I have to admit: even when she wasn’t being a vamp, she was bright and beautiful, and just plain fun to be around. As of the end of May she would be all but thesis for her Master’s Degree and Lars wanted her to apprentice in a working agency. He’d chosen mine.

I usually work alone, but lately I’d had a lot of smaller projects that could easily have been handled by an assistant. It sounded like it might be workable. I suggested that she come to interview when we got back to Seattle.

When dinner was over, I stood to leave while Lars and Jordan had another drink. Riley stood and walked out of the restaurant with me.

The casino we were in was an aging beauty of the old Strip, not likely to last much longer against the modern megaplexes that now dominated Las Vegas. It had a gold rush theme from the 1840s. The waitresses were dressed in old-time cancan skirts with the hem pulled up and tucked in the waistband.

I estimated some of them to be the original owners.

Riley put her hand through my arm as we walked through the casino, maybe as much for protection as from any sense of attraction. The tall, elegant blonde was dressed in a black cocktail dress that exposed about fifty not so very square inches of flawless flesh to the harsh casino lights.

“So, Dag Hamar,” she said looking up at me. “You wanna get lucky?”

“I thought we’d covered that point, Riley,” I said.

“I mean in the casino,” she said laughing. “Teach me how to play roulette.”

“That’s easy,” I said. We stepped up to an opening at a table and I asked the croupier for four $5 chips. I handed one to Riley and said, “The best way to play roulette is to lay your first bet on your age. If the ball rolls into that slot it pays 35 to 1.” She pushed her chip onto the 29 square. I looked at her with one eyebrow raised. She moved the chip to 28, glanced at me and sighed, then moved it to 27. I reached out and dropped the remaining chips on 26 just before the dealer called “No more bets.”

When the ball came to rest, he reached over and put the pip on top of my chips as he called out “Black 26.” He scooped off the other players’ chips and paid my three red chips with five black, and a green. I left the red and green chips on the table for him, scooped up the five hundred, shoved four in my pocket and handed one to Riley.

“You are supposed to be honest when you bet your age,” I smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her less than fully composed.

“How did you know?” she asked. “My birthday is in two weeks!”

I suddenly found that I couldn’t answer her. My smile was still on my face and I was looking at her, but I couldn’t see her. She faded in and out. There was a pain in my chest and my right leg was crumpling under me. A roaring sound deafened my ears. I reached toward her and she held my hand as I sank to the floor in the middle of the casino.

“Call 911!” I heard her yell. It was going to be too late. I knew that. I’d never had a heart attack, but there was no mistaking what was happening. Then she was shoving something into my mouth and forcing me to chew it. I tasted the bitter flavor of aspirin.

I was sure a heart attack in the company of a beautiful young woman was supposed to be under different circumstances.

Eight Months Later

TROUBLE BLEW INTO MY OFFICE with the scent of lilacs on a spring breeze. A tear collected in the corner of my eye.

I sneezed.

Damn allergies.

“Are you Dag Hamar?” she snapped, turning toward me.

“Yes ma’am,” I responded, standing. There were still tears in my eyes. Floral scents really kill me.

“I liked you better with long hair and a beard.” I wiped my eyes and looked at her—above the spike heels, tight skirt and ample bosom. The bubble burst. What she meant was she liked me better 30 years ago.

“You found your way in, I assume you can find your way out,” I growled as I sat back down.

“I want to hire you,” she said. “I need a private investigator.”

I was about to tell her to have her privates investigated elsewhere when Maizie came to the rescue. She slipped up behind my unwanted guest and stuck her cold wet nose in the back of her right knee. The lady gave a short screech, tottered on her high heels and fell over backward into the chair behind her. I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

“What the hell is that?” she asked indignantly, clamping her knees together to block Maizie’s assault on her next target.

“My dog,” I said. “Maizie, here! No personal sniffing.” Maizie came scrabbling around the corner of my desk with all four feet skidding to gain purchase on the hardwood floor. She leaped up into my lap and began licking my ear.

“I can see it’s a dog, but what is it?”

“She’s a mix,” I said. Then I went ahead, “A Pit Bull and Dachsund mix.” I could see the wheels start turning.

“Which was…?” she started. “Never mind,” she finished, shaking her head. She started again. “I need your help. Not some other detective. It has to be you. Please treat me as you would any client.”

Any client? Not likely. This woman was one of Seattle’s most prominent women. Her picture was in the paper at least once a month shaking hands with the mayor, the governor, or the president of a major corporation. Rumor had it that she had a finger or some other body part in any arts, politics, or business plan in the city. There weren’t many reasons I could think of for her to want me on an investigation, and those I could think of weren’t good.

“Okay, Mrs. Barnett” I said. “Let’s suppose you just came in here to hire me. If the job interests me, won’t interfere with my other work, and if I like the client, I might take it. So spill.”

“Simon is missing,” she plunged in. “I haven’t heard from him since he left Sunday before last. I need you to find him.”

Simon Barnett was the president and majority owner of a privately held conglomerate with revenues in nine or ten figures and a net measured in billions. His office was on the top floor of the Washington Building, but for all the space, I’d heard he employed relatively few people there.

The Simon Barnett that I knew was more than a corporate bigwig—and much less. If I were in his position, I’d probably disappear too. One reason was sitting right in front of me. I stared fixedly at Brenda Barnett. As much as Simon shunned publicity, Brenda lived for newspaper photographers and famous handshakes. While she smiled for the cameras, he quietly bought and sold people in the form of stocks and corporations.

“That’s only ten days,” I said at last. “Surely it can’t be that unusual for your husband to go away for a while. He probably has a mistress.”

“Yes, well…” She paused. “This is different,” she sniffed.

“Did you go to the police?” I asked.

“No. Simon wouldn’t want it.”

“And you think he’d want you to come to me?” Something was fishy here and it wasn’t just the smell of Puget Sound lapping up against the pier where my office was located. “I don’t do missing persons. I’m a computer pathologist.” Computer forensics is actually the field. Most of the time, I try to recover data erased from hard drives. Sometimes the job includes extracting evidence of computer crime for the police. I don’t do missing persons.

“That’s why I’ve brought you this,” she said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a sizable laptop computer. Not the latest model by any means, but a good little computer. I held up both hands to stop her from putting the thing on my desk.

“Hang on,” I said. “Keep that in your lap and not on my desk. I want to know more before it leaves your hands.” She sat back with the laptop on her knees. “Why are you coming to me? I’m not the only one in this business anymore.”

“Simon says,” she answered.

“So we’re playing that game again,” I sighed. Simon Says. The very phrase transported me back to college days with two friends I thought would be with me for the rest of my life. I was older by a couple of years because of my military service, but Simon and Brenda were my constant companions from Freshman Orientation on. Most of the time we agreed on what we were doing, where we were going, and when we were doing things. We were tight. But whenever there was a question, we always yielded to Simon. He was clever about things, knew where things were happening, how to get in, and which direction to take to avoid the campus cops if we were out past curfew. (Yeah, we still had curfews back then.) We started calling it “Simon Says.” If there was a question, we waited for what Simon said, and that’s what we did. Now Brenda was telling me that Simon says he wants me on the case, in spite of the bad blood that had kept us apart for decades.

“Look,” Brenda sighed. “I wouldn’t come to you. Simon left instructions. We have uh… an open relationship. Hell, he’s probably slept with more women than Wilt Chamberlain. And I’ve… Never mind. But there’s always been a code. Check in at least once a week. If he doesn’t check in within the week, open the envelope.”

“A week was three days ago,” I said.

“I didn’t want to open it. I didn’t want to know what was in it. I was afraid that it might be a farewell note; that he’d left me. I stared at it all day Monday. When I opened it Tuesday, I couldn’t believe what he said.” A tear gathered in a corner of one of her eyes and she dabbed at it with a tissue. I reminded myself that I was dealing with Brenda Barnett.

“What was in the envelope?” She handed me an envelope that had been torn open along one end. I shook the sheet of notepaper out and unfolded it on my desk. The writing was clear. Simon always printed in block letters. Something about having studied drafting way back when. The note was short and simple:

“If you are opening this, I’ve been gone for at least a week without a word. Take my laptop to Dag Hamar. Dag, Simon says, FIND ME.”

I was going to be plunged into the regretful past whether I wanted or not. “Simon says.” Old habits die hard. I found myself unable to say “no.”

“Brenda, presumably you’re holding Simon’s laptop. Do you know what’s on it?”

“I don’t care what’s on it. I’m interested in finding Simon. He says give it to you.”

“You need to know that if I have that laptop, I have all the information that is on it. If he does on-line banking, I will know your bank accounts. I’ll be able to read his e-mail. I’ll know if he visits pornographic websites. In essence, I will have his entire identity at my disposal, and probably yours. Are you ready to trust me with that?”

“Are you saying you’d steal my identity?” she asked, coyly, as if it were a great compliment.

“No. I like my own identity, thank you.” I reached in a desk drawer and took out a blanket release form and pushed it across the desk toward her. The form gives me permission to access any and all information on a hard drive and affirms my confidentiality. She signed it without reading.

“I’ll need a $5,000 advance,” I said nonchalantly. “I charge $1,000 a day plus expenses. I’ll bill you weekly for everything I’m working on. I won’t bill you time that I’m working on other cases.” She didn’t even blink as she wrote out the check and pushed it across the desk to me.

“You said you’d have access to all my banking information,” she smiled. “Just deduct your expenses from it.” The smugness in her voice made me cringe as she set the laptop on the desk and stood to leave as my assistant, Riley, burst into the office.

“Dag, I’m sorry I’m late. It’s time for your pills,” Riley said as she rushed in pulling off her jacket. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a…” she looked at Brenda and then at me, “client?” she finished.

“Oh, your new squeeze, Dag?” Brenda asked with a smirk. “I’d heard you grew out of your juvenile phase. I see I heard wrong.”

“Riley’s my assistant,” I said, irritably.

“Then she won’t mind if you have dinner with me tonight,” Brenda said. I thought better of what I’d just said.

“Sorry, no can do. It’s employee appreciation week and I’m taking Riley to dinner tonight. I promised.” Poor Riley was standing staring open-mouthed, but her eyes went wide when I said I was taking her to dinner.

“Well, I’m sure the invitation will still be open when you get tired of her,” Brenda said. “Tomorrow?”

“I think we’ve finished for today, Mrs. Barnett. If you want results on this case, I should get to work. Now as I said before, I assume since you found your way in you can find your way out. Good day.”

I turned my attention away and Maizie jumped down from my lap to run around and greet Riley. Brenda saw the dog move and took the hint to leave.

“Sorry, Dag,” Riley said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just realized that I hadn’t gotten back to get you your pills and I knew you’d forget. So who was the muffin-top?”

“It’s okay, Riley. It didn’t make a difference. You could have been Mother Teresa and Brenda Barnett would have thought the same thing and said the same thing. It’s just the way she is.” I took the pills that Riley shoved at me and pulled the laptop closer to me.

“What’s a muffin-top?” I asked absently. Riley laughed.

“It’s a size 12 woman stuffed in a size 10 dress… and bra,” she answered. “Come on, now. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice. Her cups overfloweth.” Riley is pretty blunt about some things. I had to chuckle.

“That’s our new client, Riley: Brenda Barnett. Her husband is missing and she wants us to find him.”

“Probably ran away. And it’s only you she wants, not us.”

I looked up. Riley was sitting on the front edge of my desk with her feet propped up drinking a cup of coffee. Maizie sat on her lap licking the breath she exhaled. I envied her. This heart dictates that I lay off the caffeine.

“Well, she gets the pair, whether she wants it or not. Brenda has a very low opinion of women. She has already dismissed you and expects that you will be gone before she ever sees me again. That’s a big advantage for us. She doesn’t know you will be investigating.”

“Really, what do I get to do?” Riley asked excitedly.

“Number one, rush this check to the bank. I don’t want to invest a minute on this case without cash in hand.”

“You think she’d cheat you?” Bad choice of words. Would she cheat on me? I guess that’s not what she was asking.

“She wouldn’t even recognize it as cheating. She’d be reckless. She might not have the funds in her account. She might assume that I won’t cash it for a couple of weeks and not be concerned, or that the bank would cover it if there was a problem. She might figure that I’ll just forget about it and it won’t make a difference. But there’s really only one reason that I’d take a case like this.”

“What would that be?” Riley said shoving her limited cleavage together and then dropping the check down her front.

I swear, I wasn’t watching that.

“Money.” I said. “She and Simon can pay more than any client we’ve ever had.”

“There’s another reason,” Riley probed seriously. “You don’t do missing persons and it would take more than money to get you into this.”

“Yes, that’s what Simon says,” I mumbled. She didn’t probe anymore which is good because I really wasn’t ready to say anything else.

“You’re really taking me to dinner tonight, though, aren’t you? Say to the Ninety-Nine?”

“Look Riley, you know I’d like to, but I need to get home. I’ve got Maizie and this laptop to start tearing down.”

“You said. And besides I’ll take Maizie home on the way to the bank. Then I’ll go home and get changed and pick you up at 7:30. That gives you another four hours this afternoon to stare at the outside of that computer case and then hide it before I get back.”

“Okay, but I want you to do some real work while you are at it. We are looking for Simon Barnett, CEO of Barnett, Keane, and Lamb. I want you to start compiling dossiers on Simon, Brenda, and the business. What are his patterns? Where does he go? Who does he see? There are probably some public records, but BKL is privately held, so there won’t be anything in the way of stockholder filings and such. You’ll have to use those pretty little legs of yours to do some old fashioned investigating. Got it?”

“Really? For fun!” She swung her gams off my desk and headed for the door grabbing Maizie’s leash off the hat rack. I’m not sure if she was more excited about dinner tonight or getting to dig into Brenda Barnett’s affairs.

She bolted out the door with Maizie in tow, and I had the promised four hours to stare at Simon’s laptop. With Simon, you never could tell. The clue he was trying to get to me could literally be on the laptop, not in the data. What I understood from the moment I read the note was that Simon wasn’t missing.

He was hiding.

I’ve Got a Secret

SIX O’CLOCK GETS EARLIER every morning. If it weren’t for the wet nose stuck in my face and the demands of having a pet that needs to be walked, I’d have rolled over and stayed warm and comfy in my bed. But Maizie was insistent.

I hauled myself out of the sack and headed for the john. Aging sucks. A back injury from when I was in the Navy keeps acting up on me, especially when the weather changes from dry to wet like it did this morning. I count it a good day if I can stand up straight by the time I get from bed to bath. This morning I was all the way to the kitchen before the last spasm subsided.

The clouds hung heavy around Queen Anne giving the Space Needle that strange other-worldly appearance that makes you think aliens have landed and are taking over downtown. With Maizie on her leash and an umbrella over our heads we set off through the cold mist for the office. Lower Queen Anne is a great place to live. I can walk to the Waterfront with only a couple of stops to rest. Thankfully, Riley drives me home at night. I’d never make it back up the hill with my breath as short as it’s been lately.

My first stop was at a coffee shop on Broad. It’s one of the few independents that were left in the city that spawned coffee-love throughout the world. But big name brands are the lowest common denominator for anything that wants to be called espresso. The little independents were where you got a cup that opened your eyes and put a smile on your face. Tavoni’s was just that kind of shop.

Maizie and I stepped through the front door at 7:00 and both shook the water off. At that hour, when they open, there is never a question of standing in line, or even ordering. Jackie came out from around the counter and brought me my espresso and Maizie’s biscuit.

Yeah. Espresso with my heart. There are a few pleasures in life that are worth dying for.

Jackie brings me an Americano—two shots of espresso pulled on top of two shots of hot water. I’d drink the espresso straight, but it cools off too quickly.

Espresso is an art, both in creation and consumption. I held the cup in both hands and absorbed the warmth through my fingers as the aroma tickled at the edges of my nose. I never drink fast. If I dove in and took a drink I’d just burn my tongue. I just hold it there and breathe. Then slowly bring it closer—about four inches from my face—and inhale deeply. A properly-made espresso will pick me up from that distance and jumpstart my heart. I could feel it working before the cup actually touched my lips. The first sip was mostly crème. That’s the oily foam that rests on top of a freshly-pulled shot of espresso. Just beneath the silky foam comes the first taste of heaven. The coffee was strong enough to dry my mouth out. The flavor washed across the sides of my tongue first then swept up to meet in the middle. As soon as the black liquid hit my throat, I inhaled again, sucking air down with the coffee until my lungs felt like they would explode. Lowering the cup so not to cool it, I expelled the air out through my mouth in a long sigh.

The cup at Tavoni’s was the only cup in the day that I got anymore, and I savored every last drop without thinking of anything else. I didn’t read. I didn’t talk. I didn’t listen. I coffeed.

After my coffee was finished, I checked the headlines of the newspaper and looked through the business section. When Maizie had finished her biscuit, we took our refreshed selves on to the office.

Riley was doing research at the library and then at the courthouse to look up all relevant records on BKL. I figured I had about six hours before she got back to the office. She tried to get me up and dancing after dinner last night, but I just couldn’t do that. Of course, there wasn’t a man in the club who didn’t want to wrap his arms around her dressed the way she was. She didn’t really like people to be that close to her, though. What a real contradiction in terms.

I unlocked the vault and checked the status of my drive set-up.

The vault was a special room I had built in this office when I first moved here years ago. I don’t show it to anyone who doesn’t need to know. The vault was located behind a wall next to the bathroom. A remote control sat on my desk for the wide-screen television on the wall opposite. If you knew the codes it would also unlock the vault. The wall slid open and a small room was revealed. The room was temperature controlled to keep the heat from my servers at bay. I had my own network and web servers so I didn’t have to use an ISP for connection to the Internet. The room was small, if only because one wall was lined with servers. It took a lot of power, but kept me independent from third parties.

Before I left last night, I wired Simon’s laptop into the system behind a firewall and a write-blocker. Then I spun the disk up and did a full spectrum analysis of the hard drive, including making two copies of the disk on new drives. I disconnected the laptop from the system and locked it and one backup in the safe in the vault. I wouldn’t touch the subject hardware unless I discovered there was a hardware key needed for security override. There was no more than one computer in a hundred thousand that required a hardware key. I wired the other backup drive into my network, protected by a firewall. Once that was done, I closed and locked the vault.

I didn’t work on computers in the vault, I kept them safe there. I worked on an ultra-portable laptop. It weighed less than three pounds and could connect to the Internet from just about anywhere in the world. I connected through a cellular connection so there wasn’t a wireless network in the office that anyone else could detect. I used a virtual private network to connect to the real power that was safely locked up in the vault.

I was paranoid about security, which is why I was so good at getting around other people’s.

If Simon wanted me to find him, he wouldn’t have made it too hard to do, but that assumption could trip me up. Simon would set things up in such a way that he thought only I could get the clues. That meant he probably tried to be cleverer than he actually was which could backfire and get a person into trouble. And I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the laptop itself might only be a hook to get me involved in the case.

If Simon was hiding more than himself, I thought, there might even be information on the computer that he didn’t want me to find. He would use obvious clues to get me looking in one direction and obfuscate what he didn’t want me to know. I fully expected his calendar would show only appointments he wanted me to know about.

I wanted to know why. Why after over thirty years did Simon send Brenda to me? Why did he want to play “Simon Says?”

For the rest of the day, I examined the results of my various searches of the hard drive. I stopped only twice. The first time was when Maizie insisted that it was time to go out again, which was a good reminder to take my pills and eat some lunch. The second time was when Riley came bursting through the door about 3:00 and proceeded to give her report.

Riley was in quite the mood. She paced up and down in front of the window of my office creating a striking silhouette against the light of the window. The setting sun lit her blonde hair and visually set it on fire. She was thin for five feet and nine inches tall. She moved like a cat and once told me she’s a “brown belt,” but I don’t know in what discipline. Truth was I wouldn’t test her. Riley was as sharp as Lars had promised and understood computers as well as she did the finer points of criminal justice. She didn’t know it yet, but I planned to bring her into full partnership someday soon. Her apprenticeship days were about over.

“BKL is a kind of holding company. That’s why there are so few people who work there. All the actual work is done in the companies that they hold. It’s hard to tell exactly how many of those there are, as they only have to file if they own more than 20% of a publically-held company. But if they own 100%, it’s not publically traded and they don’t have to file SEC papers at all. The original business was a consulting firm, mostly accounting and high finance. They were significant in restructuring Allied Materials about nine years ago. That was just before Allied went private. Turns out BKL bought it out for pennies on the dollar. Allied had it rough for a while but made a killing in the aftermath of Katrina. They pulled down mega-contracts for supplying building materials and rumor has it that BKL is ready to take them public again.”

She barely paused for breath before she was off on the next of BKL’s acquisitions. They were into import/export, financial consulting, travel planning, and even owned a small brokerage. Two local car dealerships listed wholly-owned subsidiaries of BKL as owners. Simon had spread a wide net and was raking in cash hand over proverbial fist.

“And then there’s our over-endowed client,” Riley continued, making sure I understood she was punning. “Seattle Arts Council, Board of Directors of the Art Institute, Mayor’s Council for the Homeless, Governor’s Task Force on Public Transportation, Board of Directors of Cornerstone Bank, Board of Directors of Livermore Mortgage, Symphony Patrons Club, Seattle Athletic Club, President of the Homeowners Association of Madison Park, the list goes on and on. Her picture has shown up in the newspaper with governors back to Booth Gardner and nearly everyone who is anyone in the Financial 500. But there is nothing about anything she’s actually done. She’s just there.”

“I suspected as much,” I said, causing Riley to pause. “Tell me Watson, what does it all spell out? What do all these interests of Simon and Brenda Barnett say?”

“They are all over the map,” she answered. “There doesn’t seem to be any sense to any of it. One minute she’s glad-handing a Republican, the next she’s donated $5,000 to a Democrat. There’s no common thread among the businesses that BKL invests in. You’d think they were all different businesses entirely. I don’t see anything.”

“Money,” I answered myself. “Money and influence. And if you have money and influence, you have power.”

“And if you have power,” Riley continued, “you have enemies.”

“You think?” I said. “Don’t you think Simon and Brenda Barnett are beloved by everyone with whom they do business?” She looked at me blankly, as though I’d just spoken to her in Swedish. “I’m being sarcastic, Riley,” I said. “Don’t make me explain.”

She laughed and plopped down on my sofa in a very unladylike pose.

“Do all Swedes have such a dry sense of humor?” she asked. “After eight months, I still can’t tell when you are joking. I thought you were defending them.”

“Not likely, Miss,” I snapped. “But it never hurts to look past the obvious. Are they beloved benefactors or feared powers? Or does it make any difference at all? Get your shoes off the furniture.” She kicked her shoes off onto the floor and continued to lie draped over the sofa like a knitted afghan. Maizie came over and licked Riley’s fingers, then finding no resistance, jumped up on the sofa with her. She absently scratched the dog’s ears and I could all but hear the wheels turning in her head.

“Dag, how do you get your fingers into so many pies? It’s one thing to be in the right place at the right time to make a good investment, but so many? How do they get their leads? How do they know what to buy?”

“That is the question,” I repeated. “Where do they make the contacts that keep Brenda so publicly involved and Simon so positioned to make big purchases? Do they entertain a lot? Do they go to the same club? Do they co-own a timeshare? And then you have to ask if Brenda’s participation on so many committees is the lead generator and Simon is the closer?”

When I leased this office thirteen years ago, the owners were in the middle of a pier renovation project to try to bring new life to the Waterfront. They thought they would encourage businesses to take space and thus drive more traffic to the Waterfront. But Chameleon Imports had taken up one entire end of the facility three floors high and had it filled with the kind of faux artifacts you’d find in a cheap hotel. Nearly all their business was shipping and receiving, with very little retail or foot traffic. The rest of us who rented space on Pier 61 had few walk-in clients as well. So much for generating a lot of consumer traffic. It was a long way from my little two-person office to the mega-conglomerate that Simon ruled over at BKL

It was full dark when I turned around and saw that Maizie had fallen asleep next to Riley and that Riley was struggling to keep her eyes open. I grinned at the two of them.

“Think you can get me home before you start snoring?” I asked.

“I don’t snore, Dag,” she said indignantly getting up and putting her shoes back on. “As if you’d know.”

We headed for the door and I turned out the last light and locked up my office. When she dropped Maizie and me off at our house, she asked me a curious question. “Dag, where does the money go? Do they just spend it? They’ve owned the same house for thirty years. What do they do with it all?” She had a point.

Maybe there was more missing than Simon.

Gone Fishing—With $ for Bait

THERE’S AN OLD ADAGE in detective work: follow the money. Riley’s question about where the money goes got me thinking, and it kept gnawing at me all night. In that odd way that the mind works, I found myself in a very hot dream with an unidentified model-quality date. But at every “important” point in the dream, my date would vanish and a sign would pop up that said “please deposit fifty cents more.” Most of the dream was occupied with trying to get fifty cents to deposit.

When I woke up, it was crystal clear to me that I had been looking for the wrong kind of clues on Simon’s computer. I resolved to start checking bank and financial records and find out where the money was going.

Riley had Friday off to meet with Lars on her thesis, so I had the day to myself in the office. I gave her time for her thesis work and didn’t require her to make it up. It was part of our agreement. Nonetheless, I knew that she would drive me to my appointments on Saturday even without asking.

I’d told Brenda that with the computer in my possession I would have access to all the personal information that was on it. That was only partly true. In order to get into bank records, I needed not only the computer’s password, but the bank password. That could have been a real problem unless the user had stored the password on the computer, like Simon did. It was a pretty common mistake people made with their computers. They entered a user name and password and the operating system popped up a window that asked if they’d like to remember the password. Well, who wouldn’t? Remembering passwords was a pain in the ass. Creating and remembering secure passwords was even harder.

Of course, when they selected the option to remember their password they got a little warning that anyone using this computer might be able to access the information they were saving. But who ever thought of anyone else using their personal computer in their home. Of course no one else had access to their computer—unless their spouse brought it to a computer forensics geek and told him to have a go at it. Getting into Simon’s bank accounts was as easy as looking up his Web history of places visited and revisiting them. Auto-sign-in and remembered passwords took care of the rest.

I didn’t know what I expected to find, but it wasn’t this. His bank account was a model of accounting perfection. It showed regular paychecks from the firm, normal utilities, and a mortgage payment. Groceries were bought. In general, it indicated a couple living within their generous but not extravagant means. There was a satisfactory balance in the account and the check Brenda wrote to me was already posted. I scanned the checks that had been paid and noted that most of them were signed by Brenda. Simon didn’t seem to do much with this family account.

The bank account led to credit cards and these, too, seemed in perfect order. But they showed a lot of different locations. Simon and Brenda traveled a lot. Dinner in New York, shopping, theater in DC. The next day, a hotel in Vegas. Did they ever stay home?

One account led to another and I discovered that there were often charges made in geographically different locations on the same day. A hotel in Orlando on the same night that one was paid in Acapulco. They traveled a lot, but not necessarily together. Finally, I came across the first of what I’d call Simon’s personal accounts. This account showed mainly cash deposits and cash withdrawals. Normally, if there aren’t checks you don’t know where the money goes, but with ATM records, you can tell the route it went to get there. It was obvious that Simon had some favorite spots to get money. That could only mean that he visited those places regularly. And that he used a lot of cash.

As I continued to investigate the accounts that the laptop was revealing to me, it was like finding little piles of virtual cash stuck in nooks and crannies all over the house. The diversity in business that Riley had spotted yesterday seemed to be reflected in the diversity of Simon’s accounts as well.

I found myself having pulled on a pair of surgical gloves that I wore when pulling apart a computer. But I wasn’t doing more than reading the private accounts of a one-time friend. It was like handling his dirty underwear. I didn’t really want to touch any of it.

It was still drizzling in Seattle, a gray, cold, wetness that felt like it had settled in for the season. It gets down into my bones and I decided there was no remedy but a bowl of Phó from a Vietnamese shop up at the Market. Maizie and I wound our way through the maze of tunnels and elevators that would get us from the Waterfront up to the Market and I ordered at the outdoor counter. At least they had an awning over the street so customers who sat on the outdoor stools were sheltered. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go inside with Maizie.

I sat there eating the hot soup and stirring bean sprouts and hot sauce into it, still caught up in the puzzle of Simon’s accounts. One of the cash machines that he frequented was located right here near Pike and First. I looked around, trying to picture him coming down from his penthouse office a few blocks away to get cash, lots of cash, near the Market. What kind of business was around here that he would want cash for? He certainly didn’t buy that many groceries.

The lights changed and, in the fashion peculiar to that intersection in Seattle, all traffic stopped and pedestrians crossed from every corner at once, some straight across the street and some diagonally between the corners. That was when I realized that one of those corners was still occupied by one of the older strip clubs in town. A block away was another.

Suddenly I wished I was still wearing those latex gloves. Was that where Simon’s money was going? I couldn’t imagine Simon going into a strip club—too many people might recognize him—but he’d always had an appetite for women. He had to be sating it somewhere.

They say that the only people who understand the national debt are billionaire entrepreneurs and mathematicians. Billionaires because sums of money in the billions and trillions are real to them. Mathematicians because a billion is as real a number as a hundred. I fell into the latter group. I could theoretically spend thousands of dollars a week, but I had no idea how Simon would do it. And his ATM withdrawals mysteriously stopped about ten months ago. Didn’t he use cash anymore?

I decided to start tracking down the major vices to see if there was one that might have gotten Simon hooked: women, gambling, and drugs.

Back at the office, I kept sifting through the files on Simon’s computer, but this time with a purpose. I plotted his cash transactions back for over two years. In addition to the ATM transactions near the market, there were two other locations that came up repeatedly early on, then suddenly stopped appearing in the records about ten months earlier. I looked up the addresses and found my first big clue. The two addresses were for Indian casinos within thirty miles of Seattle. This was something I knew a little bit about.

I’ve always liked games, even though I’ve never been a big gambler. Still, I knew both of the casinos that were on the list. Several months ago, I was called by the operations manager of the Sammamish Casino and Bingo Hall. His records had undergone a tribal audit and came up short over half a million dollars. He called me in to sift through his computer system for the leak. Finding the leak and getting a conviction on the embezzler saved Frank Deep Water Johnson his job. He always felt he owed me and was careful to be sure I earned complimentary meals and show tickets at the casino slightly faster than my play level merited. I called Frank to see if he could help me.

“Dag Hamar!” he exclaimed when he picked up the phone. “You must come out this weekend and I will get you a ticket to see Serendipity. In fact, bring your lovely assistant and I will get two tickets.”

“Frank, it sounds like a great idea,” I responded. “I wanted to come out this evening anyway to ask a couple of questions. I need a little deep information about a player.”

“Dag, you know that player information is confidential. I have to be careful,” he answered.

“I’m going to try not to put you on the spot,” I reassured him. “I’m on a missing person case and my records show that up until about ten months ago he was a regular out there. I was hoping you could tell me where he moved his action to.”

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem. If he is no longer a customer, then I’m not so picky about keeping information from you,” he laughed. “Are you suspecting foul play?”

“Not yet,” I answered. “I’m just looking for a place where a very rich man could drop a few thousand dollars and not be conspicuous. Maybe because he was playing with other very rich men like himself.”

“Dag,” he lowered his voice, “forgive me, but the game you want isn’t in your league. Technically, it doesn’t exist. This is Washington State, remember.”

“I understand, Frank,” I said. “Let’s just say that a businessman from the East is coming into town tonight and he wants to play where someone might be interested in a company he is selling.”

“I see,” Frank said. “What would this businessman’s name be?” I took a moment to do a mental inventory of identities that I could use and not get in trouble. Back at Gumshoe U under Lars, each of us were taught the fine art of creating a false identity that looked real enough to get us through a credit check. I seldom pulled a set of identity papers out of my safe except to keep them up to date, but I had some good ones.

“Sorry,” I said after a moment. “I was lost in thought for a moment. The businessman’s name is Jeremy Brett. He’s a business broker from New York representing a high tech startup in Minnesota looking for venture capital or outright sale. Funny, but he looks a lot like me.”

“Yes, well, I’ll be watching for Mr. Brett when he comes in this evening at, oh, about 9:00. I’ll have a couple of tickets available for him in your honor, but he should come alone,” Frank continued. “And he should bring money. There’s a thousand dollar minimum buy-in for the game he wants to play.”

“I’ll let him know,” I said. “I’ll… I mean, he’ll see you tonight.”

So, there was a high stakes poker game at the Sammamish Casino. Strictly speaking, that wasn’t legal. Poker tables were typically $25 or $100 limit. Frank was alluding to a no-limit game. Well, I figured Brenda could afford to front me a thousand dollars to find out information on Simon. I’d bill her for it.

I printed business cards that looked official enough and stopped by a local phone store to pick up a new cell phone and activate service in Jeremy Brett’s name. Maizie and I then caught a cab for home.

Friday night is Maizie’s sleep-over with Mrs. Prior, my landlady. I swear those two were made for each other and I was barely tolerated at times. We live in the top half of a duplex on lower Queen Anne. In her part, Mrs. Prior lives with an assortment of animals—birds, rabbits, and even a snake. She says that Maizie loves all the animals, but I think Maizie would love to eat all the animals. She absolutely drips saliva when I ask her if she wants to see Mrs. Prior.

Mrs. Prior was a pet psychic—excuse me—communicator. That portion of her day that was not taken up in caring for her own animals was spent caring for or communicating with others. She greeted us at the door and carried on a conversation with Maizie that completely excluded me. Finally, Mrs. Prior turned to me and said, “Maizie says she worries about you because you aren’t eating right. She says you need to have more fish in your diet and less red meat. And you should sleep more.” A large pink feather stuck through the back of Mrs. Prior’s tied up gray hair bobbed up and down with each sentence like a huge exclamation point. I told her that I would definitely have fish for dinner and not to worry. “Salmon,” Mrs. Prior called after me as I mounted the stairs to my unit.

I went into my apartment to get dressed. Since I was going to the Eastside and had promised Maizie I would eat fish, it seemed like a good idea to eat at the Front Street Fish House in Issaquah. I changed into a dark suit with a clean shirt and tie and pulled twelve crisp hundreds out of my emergency safe. I thought a moment and pulled out a couple more. I pulled Jeremy Brett’s wallet out of the safe and checked the contents to be sure they were current. New York driver’s license, credit cards, a couple of photos of people who looked like they could be related or just friends. Then I walked down stairs to the tuck-under garage where my yellow Mustang spends most of its time and headed east.

I walked into the casino and wandered casually through the slot area toward the cashier cage. Frank intercepted me before I was halfway across the casino. He called me by the name of Jeremy Brett. He had already prepared a player’s card and established a line of credit for me. I glanced over his shoulder at one of the security cameras in a bubble over the floor.

“I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, Mr. Brett. I owe your friend a debt of gratitude. I trust you will not make me regret my hospitality.” We crossed the floor and bypassed the cashier’s cage. Behind it there was a door with a keypad lock on it which Frank keyed quickly. I’d always supposed that door led to the counting room, but instead it opened into a small and elegant poker room. There were only three tables and a bar. A few spectator chairs held attractive young women, relaxing and talking among themselves. The mistresses? I wondered.

Frank introduced me to the room at large and indicated that the other players would introduce themselves if they saw fit. I played dumb, but there were only a few faces that I didn’t recognize from the newspapers as executives of major Seattle area businesses. These were the type of people that you wouldn’t see in public together unless it was at a charity fundraiser or an SEC hearing. I was pretty sure that given a little time I’d be able to identify the rest. No one volunteered his name, but one man I recognized as the founder of one of the few dotcoms in Seattle that survived the ’01 bubble bursting motioned me to an empty chair at his table.

“Thousand dollar buy-in,” the dealer said as I sat down. I passed the credit chit Frank had given me to him and he handed out an incredibly small stack of chips. Values on them were $100 and $25. People didn’t bet smaller than that. I noticed a few silver coins and $5 chips scattered among the other players and assumed there had been some split pots during the game so far. There were a few comments about fresh meat at the table and chuckles, then we got down to playing table stakes, no limit Texas Hold’em.

I was on the button for the first hand, meaning I was the figurative dealer and got the last card. I also got the last bet of the first round. I thought I saw a look and a nod pass among the players. By the time it was my turn to bet, the bet was up to $900 and all six other players were in. I understood. They were going to see if they could put me out on the first hand. I looked at my cards and saw pocket 10s. Not my favorite hand, but not bad either. The question in my mind was whether they really wanted me gone from the table or if it was just a test of my guts.

“Well,” I said, “it looks like it might be a short night. All in.” I pushed my entire thousand dollars onto the table and there was a general nodding of heads as if I’d passed a major test—like whether I was worthy of playing in their league. I wasn’t, but I wouldn’t let them know it.

Five players were still in for the flop and it didn’t look like help for anybody. I was relieved not to see a face card turn up in the first three cards. So, in order for me to be beaten, someone had to have a bigger pair in the hole than what I had, or they’d need to pair up twice on board.

Fourth Street was a Jack. That hurt and one of the players came out aggressively with a bet that folded all but one of the other players. A pair of Jacks, I had to assume, but for the first time I saw another possibility. There was a mix of suits showing on the table so no flush would win this hand. With a 2, 7, 8, and Jack showing, the highest hand possible was three of a kind—unless the dealer turned a nine on the River. It was really too much to hope for and I prepared mentally to buy-in for another thousand. Then the dealer turned another 10. The two remaining players made their final bets and showed their hands—a pair of Jacks for one and two pair, 7s over 2s, for the other. The dealer paid the side bet and asked for my cards. Three 10s. The dealer pushed close to five thousand in chips toward me. With careful playing, it took me nearly two hours to lose them back to the others.

When I was near my break-even I excused myself from the table to go to the bar for a tonic. I was exhausted and aside from enjoying playing cards, I hadn’t really gotten anything out of the game. This was a table where no one talked business. They were just rich men playing Friday night poker.

I was surprised to be joined at the bar by one of the lovely women who had been waiting and observing the game. What a boring night they must be having. She introduced herself as Cinnamon and spoke admiringly of my poker skills. I laughed and we shared small talk. I hadn’t gotten anything from the poker players, so when I found out that Cinnamon often came to the game to watch I decided to probe her for information.

“I’m a little disappointed,” I said. “I was hoping to see an old friend here tonight. He set up the arrangement for me to join the game.”

“I know just about everyone who plays,” Cinnamon said. “Who were you looking for?”

“Simon Barnett,” I answered casually.

She turned her stool and mine to face the bar away from the game.

“Shhh.” She cautioned me. “We should go someplace else to talk. You game?”

“Won’t your boyfriend mind?” I asked. I hadn’t actually identified anyone she seemed to be attached to, but I couldn’t imagine why a young woman would be here if it wasn’t as a girlfriend.

“Oh, I’m just a hostess. Some of us come around in the evenings and get drinks for the guys and flirt. They give us good tips.” What an interesting concept. I had seen the young women get drinks for guys, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to them to notice that they were treating everyone pretty much equally. I went back to the table and cashed in my chips.

“I’ve got tickets for the 11:30 show tonight and this charming young woman has consented to join me,” I announced. “I hope I’ll see you all again on my next trip.”

“Friday nights,” one of the men answered. “Welcome anytime.”

“You behave, Cinnamon,” said another sternly.

“Yes, Papa,” she replied with a giggle. There was a general round of laughter. We slipped out the door as the game resumed.

“That was your father?” I asked, unable to believe it.

“No,” Cinnamon replied. “He was just acting like it. He’s really my boss.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to talk about Simon in there?”

“Him and all the others. Mr. S. has been mysteriously missing the past few days and it has all of them nervous. Do you know where he is?” Cinnamon asked.

“No. In fact I was hoping to find him here. I’d heard he wasn’t seeing anyone lately.”

“No one except Angel,” Cinnamon answered.

“Who is Angel?” I asked.

“She’s his special friend,” Cinnamon replied. “You know. They’re like a couple, except he’s married.”

“Hmmm. Sounds like I should meet this Angel. We might share some common interests.”

“Don’t you like me?” Cinnamon asked, pulling my arm around her waist and melding her lithe body into my side.

“Ummm, yes. Of course,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean…” I stammered, “I don’t mean anything like that.” Cinnamon laughed at my discomfiture.

“Of course you didn’t,” she smiled. “Do you live here in Seattle?”

“Part of the time,” I said, remembering my cover just in time. “I’m bi-coastal.”

“That’s okay,” she said sitting beside me in the theater. “I like both boys and girls, too.”

“No, no,” I hastened. “I mean I live on both coasts—part of the time in New York and part of the time here in Seattle.” Cinnamon laughed at me and I realized she’d been playing on words and I’d taken her literally. I was blushing.

“Aw. I bet that makes it hard to hold down a relationship, doesn’t it?” she said.

“Not so much,” I said. She kept throwing me curve balls, but I was beginning to warm to the game. I felt a sudden need to appear worldlier than my last few comments had seemed. “I have a wife in New York and a girlfriend in Seattle. They both maintain pretty well.”

“Are you rich?” she asked bluntly.

“Well enough. I live on other people.”

“Like expense accounts?”

“Yes, like that.”

“Are you on an expense account now?”

“Mmm hmm.” Damn. Her fingers had found a particularly nasty knot in my neck and I was enjoying this entirely too much.

“I like men on expense accounts,” she said leaning forward and brushing my ear with her lips. I was prevented from responding aloud by the start of the concert. For me it was like being transferred back to the music of my youth. They played mostly sixties and seventies hits. I’m sure that to Cinnamon it was campy rather than nostalgic. But she kept herself glued to my side, holding my hand and rocking to the music. When we filed out of the theater at 1:00 she asked if I was going to go back to play cards.

“No,” I responded. “I’m still jet-lagged and am ready to head home. I’d love to meet Angel, though, if you could arrange an introduction for me sometime soon.”

“Will your girlfriend get jealous if you have another date tomorrow night?” she asked turning to me with wide eyes. I’d had enough experience parrying Riley’s casual flirtation to be able to resist this, but damn! And this girl didn’t even work for me.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked.

“Well, we’ve got a kind of private party we go to on weekends. I’m pretty sure Angel will be there tomorrow night. I’d be happy to get you in, and if your girlfriend is nice, you can bring her, too. Pick me up at 8:00 and I’ll take you to the party. Maybe she and I will hit it off as well as you and I have. That could be fun!”

“Give me your number and I’ll call tomorrow as soon as I set it up with Deb,” I started. Damn, I should have used a different name for her.

“I’ll look forward to meeting her,” she said. “I’ll trade you my number for… oh, say ten percent.”

“Ten percent of what?” I asked.

“Of your winnings tonight,” she smiled. “Remember? We are here for tips.”

“Uh, you know I didn’t win that much,” I answered fishing in my pocket.

“Yeah, but you took me to a show. That counts,” she answered. I pushed two hundred dollar bills into her hand, figuring that it wouldn’t seem too much and wouldn’t be insulting either. “Mmmmm. You did better than I thought,” she said, then pulled my face to her and kissed me.

Damn! That girl can kiss.

All right. Deep breath. I extracted myself from Cinnamon after a long hug that resembled a dance. She let go of me in small stages as if she were pulling herself from a sticky taffy. Regain my composure. This was not what I came here for.

“I’ll call you tomorrow and pick you up at 8:00,” I said accepting the card with her phone number on it. I’m not sure where she pulled it from.

“It’s a date, Mr. Jeremy,” she cooed and waved a kiss my direction as the valet brought up my car. I didn’t look back as I drove away.

I didn’t know where the money was going, but I was pretty sure some of it had passed this way.

Dark Angel

IT MUST HAVE BEEN AT LEAST 7:00 when I got out of bed this morning. By the time I’d put myself together, I could see Riley on the front walk talking to Mrs. Prior. Maizie was dancing around them, ready to go to the spa to have her nails done and get a shampoo. Mrs. Prior says that Maizie loves to get pretty at the spa.

She’s supposed to be my guard dog, damn it! Pink ribbons ruin the whole effect.

I went downstairs before Riley could push the doorbell and got in her car for the ride to the office. Riley often swaps days when she has class or an advisor meeting with Lars. I really wouldn’t mind if she just took the time off, but she’s got a work ethic that is uncompromising (unless there is a video game that just has to be tried at the office). I told her from the beginning that I’d pay her while she was in school or working on her thesis. But today I was thankful that she was making up the time.

“It’s approved,” she yelled, dancing in her seat. “Lars says it is a good thesis and the evidence is well and carefully planned out. It’s a good thing, too, since I’ve got over half of it written. Another month and I’ll be able to finish this. In January it should be all edited and ready to submit to committee.”

“I’m really proud of you, Riley,” I said. “You’ve worked hard for this and you deserve to get your degree.” I paused for a moment before I plunged ahead. “How would you like to be my girlfriend?” I thought she was going to drive off the road.

“Dag!” she exclaimed in shock. “Are you serious? What about all that quid pro quo stuff you keep spouting at me?”

“I think we can suspend that in the interest of our investigation. I got a lead last night that might take us to a shortcut in finding Simon. I just don’t want to go in without backup, and the only way I can get you in is as my girlfriend.”

“You had me for a minute. I should just have said ‘Yes.’ I’ve had enough of academia and research the past two days. What’s next?” she asked.

“Well…” I hesitated. I’d never sent Riley out on this particular type of assignment before. I’d asked her to keep an eye on someone and given her a couple of interviews to do, but this was going to require a lot more of her than she’d done before.

“You’re not sending me to the library again, are you, Dag?” she moaned to me. I laughed. Okay, she wants field work.

“No, Sweetcheeks. No library for you today,” I laughed. “I want you to go to a party with me tonight—a very exclusive party. We are going in the company of another attractive young woman who gets tips for flirting with corporate executives. We need information about how the place works and who she works for.”

“I’m always up for a party. What’s the scoop?”

I told her in detail what I’d learned last night, without including any reference to the kiss. I filled her in on the whole scenario and the identity that I’d used, the cover story, and what I wanted her to interview Cinnamon about.

“Let me get this straight,” she said at last. “You want me to meet this escort, pretend to be your West Coast girlfriend… Wait, do I know you are married to a woman on the East Coast? Okay, so it’s an amicable arrangement. I’m used to sharing you around. So I pretend to be interested in the party scene for my own purposes so I’ll have something to do while you are out East. Do I have a job or am I simply a kept woman? I find out how she got into this, who invites her, who owns the place, and what she knows about the Missing Man.” Riley paused.

“Yes, but there is one other thing that I want you to be sure of,” I said. “Don’t make any arrangements for a threesome.”

Riley turned in her seat as she pulled up in front of the office and stared at me. Then she shocked me.

“Believe me, Sweetcheeks,” she threw back at me, “if I thought there was any chance, I wouldn’t be sharing.”

“So, while you are occupying Cinnamon, I’m going to try to interview Angel and maybe ask questions of some of the other partiers.”

“Well, this will be fun,” she said. “But just one other thing…” I paused half out of the car and turned back to her. “Was she good?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No personal sniffing, Riley,” I said with a wink.

She parked and came into the office a few minutes later. By the time she got in, I had the laptop out of the vault and sitting on my desk. We were going to launch a two-pronged attack on the computer this morning, but first I had to call Cinnamon. I reached for the phone only to have Riley push my hand down on the receiver.

“Not yet,” she said.

“I told her I’d call this morning, Riley,” I replied trying to get the phone out from under her grip.

“You are so obviously not a party girl,” Riley went on. I sat back. “When a party girl says tomorrow morning, she means sometime after noon—preferably not too soon after.”

“This from a party girl?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not me, but I’ve got friends. Weekends you don’t call them before noon. You don’t know if she’s even gotten to bed yet. Or at least to sleep.”

I couldn’t argue with that and let her sway my enthusiasm for setting things up right away. Instead we turned to the computer.

“How come you’ve got the laptop out?” Riley asked.

“I need you to do some work on it,” I answered. She was definitely surprised. “I want you to do a data recovery routine on it. It struck me, as I was looking at the files, that there were things missing. I think Simon, or someone who knew I was going to look at his computer, took a day to delete information she thought might be too personal.

“The bee-atch!” Riley exclaimed. “Do you really think she would do that?”

“In a word, yes,” I answered. Riley took the laptop gingerly and went to her desk in the outer office. I knew she would be careful, and that the rewards would be high.

I spent until 2:00, digging into more of Simon’s financial statements. It had occurred to me to check the disk for fuzzed files. File fuzzing is one of the easiest ways to conceal information on your hard drive. Frankly, I use it myself. I figure that if my computer was in the hands of someone with my talents, my secrets wouldn’t be safe for long regardless of what I did. But my worry isn’t about people with my talents. It’s people I work for who would be likely to think that they could walk off with my computer and have all the information on my clients that they want. For them, file fuzzing is as effective as any means of protecting unencrypted data other than not keeping it on your computer in the first place.

It’s a pretty simple technique—just a matter of changing the file extension. The most common would be to rename a word processing file—say it’s a .doc file—to an image file like .jpg. If you try to open the file, you get a message back that says it is not a valid .jpg file. It looks like it’s been damaged.

Most applications leave a code in the file’s header that identifies the file type. So I have a program that examines every file on the computer to see if the file type in the hash matches the extension. If they don’t match, I’ve got a fuzzed file. I also know what to open it with. The process of examining every file, however, is a lengthy one. I set it up to run while I was gone and figured I’d pick it up on Sunday. While I was at it, I set up a file content search for “Angel.” If she was Simon’s mistress, chances are there were e-mail messages, account records, checks, or some odd bit that listed her name.

We called Cinnamon just before we closed up shop at 2:00 and a very sleepy voice answered the phone. She was instantly awake, however, and was happy we would pick her up for the party at 8:00. She gave us an address on Capitol Hill. I asked what Riley should wear and Cinnamon said sexy party clothes. Riley motioned that she knew what to wear and I rang off.

Riley dropped me off at the Swedish American Center in Ballard and then went home to get ready for our date. She was getting into character like an actor ready to go on stage. She leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek when she pulled to the curb in front of the Center and said sweetly, “Bye, Honey. See you later.” Off she drove leaving me on the curb wondering what I’d gotten myself into.

Even though they never allowed me to speak Swedish or to hear them speak it, my mother and father were very firm about keeping in touch with other Swedes. I started coming to the Swedish American Center in the fifties. Barring a few years when I was in my twenties and “knew better,” I’ve been coming back for special occasions ever since. In the past couple of years I’ve found that I’m coming back more and more frequently. These are the people who make me feel like family.

Saturday afternoons I play cribbage with all comers and drink water since I can’t take any more of the black Swedish coffee. There is always a Saturday evening dinner social where everybody brings what they can to share. My stop at the deli for knäckerbröd and herring each week is winked at and deemed an acceptable contribution. Surprisingly, it seems to always be eaten.

Today I was filling time before I could get on with the evening’s investigation. Even though I was going to the party on official business, I couldn’t help but feel squeamish about people possibly finding out that I was “going out” with my assistant. All these kind mother substitutes that I surround myself with on Saturday afternoons would be shocked. Finally, at 7:30, I walked out of the Center and Riley’s car pulled up in front. She waited for me in the car and I worried she was having second thoughts.

When I got in the car I was shocked with what I saw.

It was only her car that convinced me that it was Riley sitting in the seat next to me. She wore a straight black wig with bangs cut straight across her eyebrows. The plunging neckline on her silk blouse drew the eye downward to the skin-tight shiny black pants she was wearing. Over this was a waist-length jacket with three-quarter length sleeves. Her makeup accented her eyes and lips. She could easily have been one of the women I saw in the private room at the casino last night. I was staring, I confess.

“Don’t you think you took the get-up a little far? You don’t actually have to go to work there. I just wanted you to interview the hostess.”

“I need to look like I could go to work there. How else are we going to find out what is going on?” I handed her $200, much to her surprise.

“These girls expect to get tipped for their time,” I explained. “Don’t be afraid to be nice to them… within limits.” I tried not to watch as the money disappeared into her outfit. I swear I don’t know how women do that. There was no room there for a pocket.

Cinnamon greeted us warmly and after taking one good assessing look at Riley, hugged her and gushed, “Debbie! I’m so glad you came! This is going to be so much fun!”

Before I slipped into the back seat behind Riley she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You told her my name was Debbie?”

“Well, you look like a Debbie tonight,” I laughed. There was definitely vengeance in her eyes when she responded.

“I hope you like the threesome then.” I nearly swallowed my tongue as she closed the door behind me.

We parked a block away from a Seattle high-rise and walked parallel to the hill. In Seattle a Waterfront high-rise is all of twelve stories. The elevator took us to the entryway of the penthouse where it opened up to a burly security guard who blocked our paths.

“This party is by invitation only,” the guard said folding his arms across his chest.

“Back off, Davy,” Cinnamon said pushing him gently aside. “They are my date tonight—approved by Mr. Jonathan.”

“All right,” Davy said. “But I’ll need your electronics, please,” he said, holding out an envelope for us to drop our cell phones into. After signing a receipt and getting a claim ticket, we were allowed to pass through a metal detector and into the main part of the condo.

Inside, the mood was relaxed and we were greeted by a hostess to whom Cinnamon introduced us. I started to give her my name and she put a finger to my lips and said “First names only in here, Jeremy. Cinnamon will show you around.” Cinnamon ushered us first to the bar. Riley and I both ordered a tonic and lime, and Cinnamon had a glass of white wine. I was digging in my pocket for some cash, but Cinnamon pushed my hand down and said, “Just leave a nice tip before you go, Jeremy. Okay?”

Hmmm. I remembered my tip to her last night and wondered how nice you had to be for a glass of water. I wasn’t sure I’d given Riley enough money.

After we got our drinks, she took us on a grand tour of the condo. It was hard to judge how many people were there. At 9:00 the evening was still young. Soft music played throughout the apartment, just loud enough that it was difficult to hear anyone who was more than a few feet away, but not so loud that you had to shout at your companion. The penthouse was immense, occupying the entire top floor of the building. The living room was set up with several intimate seating areas, each of which by nature of its high-backed furniture provided a modicum of privacy. The kitchen provided the bar area. A variety of cold hors d’ oeuvres and finger food were displayed where they were easily accessible.

Various bedrooms were set up with more intimate settings and had locks on the doors. Finally there was a rooftop deck that was complete with walking paths through a garden and a hot tub that was currently unoccupied in the drizzling rain. A canopy kept the falling water separate from the whirling water.

I wasn’t sure how to go about getting the answers we needed, or how to bring up the idea of meeting Angel. Trust Riley to jump into the breach.

“So what do you get out of being here?” Riley asked bluntly. “It looks like a pretty quiet party.”

“It’s fun,” she said. “I get to come to a really nice place, meet nice guys who are very rich, learn all sorts of interesting things about their businesses, and go home with spending money for the week.”

“Spend a lot during the week?” Riley asked. I was afraid she might have crossed over a line, but Cinnamon didn’t pause.

“Oh, around a thousand a week,” she said. “And who knows, maybe I’ll meet Mr. Right up here. That’s why most of us come here. These are some of the best catches in Seattle.”

I looked around. It didn’t seem like much of a future for a young woman. Compared to most of the geezers here, I was looking young. Maybe the ladies planned to marry rich and old, hoping he’d die soon. Well, I was a perfect candidate, I thought grimly. Except for the rich part.

“Over here,” Cinnamon said. “I know Jeremy wants to meet Angel, and I’m dying to get to know you better, Debbie.” She pulled us down the hall to a game room in which several young women were playing pool with two older men “helping” them with their shots. There was a great deal of wiggling and giggling going on. Sitting on a stool with a glass of wine and a sour look on her face, it was evident that one lady at least was not having fun. Before we got around the table to approach, Cinnamon whispered in my ear. “By the way, I think Debbie is just adorable. We’re going to have so much fun! I’m sure we could all three have a good time together. Don’t throw away my phone number.” Then we were next to Angel and Cinnamon was bubbling.

“Angel sweetie, I want to introduce you to Jeremy. He’s quiet and shy, but really nice.” Angel groaned almost audibly and Cinnamon dropped her voice. “He’s also a friend of a friend of yours. You might have a lot in common.” Angel’s attention sharpened and focused at those words. “Well, toodles!” And then Cinnamon was off around the table to coach another girl on what shot to make. Riley kissed me on the cheek and said, “Have fun!” She wiggled herself around the pool table to join Cinnamon.

“Hi Angel,” I said. “Can we sit and talk for a while?”

“I don’t know, QuietandShy. Maybe we should go someplace where we can lock a door behind us. I don’t want to be interrupted by your girlfriend. What did you want to talk about?” She might have been angry or depressed a minute ago, but she was every bit a professional when she took my arm and smiled. She led me out of the game room. At 6'2", there are not too many women who look me in the eye, but when Angel stood up, I looked up at her. I guessed her heels were three or four inches high, but she was still at least six feet tall. She was bottle blonde, and I figured other parts of her were artificially enhanced as well. Her face was so perfect that I guessed she’d had a nose job at one point. When we crossed the room together conversations paused as people watched.

“I’m looking for Simon.”

The expressions washed across her face like water, one after another. But the one I caught most was fear. Her eyes darted around the room and it was clear she was deliberately not looking at the overhead security camera concealed in a casino-like bubble.

“Shhhh.” She said placing a finger on my lips and letting a smile fill her face as if I’d made a perfectly naughty suggestion. “Not here. Let’s get our coats.” She ushered me to the door and we retrieved our coats and I signed for my cell phone. “Mr. Jeremy wants to take me dancing at the Colorbox, Davy. We’ll be back in a couple of hours,” she said to the security guard who stood in front of the elevator. He looked angry, but held his tongue as he stared at me before stepping aside to allow us to enter the elevator.

We didn’t speak until we were out the massive front doors of the condo building.

“There’s an all-night coffee shop two blocks from here on Olive,” I offered. “Unless you were serious about going dancing at the Colorbox.”

“The coffee shop will be just fine,” she answered. “I just don’t want to talk about Simon up there. You can’t tell who is listening.”

I’d forgotten that the designated coffee shop was uphill from the Condo, so I was unable to carry much of a conversation while we walked. Angel was polite and concerned, but not much help. It was all she could do to make the climb herself in those ridiculous shoes. Once there, however, we settled into a pair of chairs next to the window and sipped our beverages. Then she launched in before I was able to start.

“Where is he?” she began. “He was supposed to call me Monday with instructions on where and when to meet him. And nothing. Nothing all week. I’ve been worried sick.”

“I was hoping you would be able to help me on that front, Angel,” I said. “I’m looking for him, but this is as fresh a trail as I could find.”

“Why do you want to find him?” she asked, suddenly defensive.

“Because he asked me to find him,” I answered. “It’s an old game we used to play called ‘Simon Says.’ I got a note along with his laptop computer that said, ‘Simon Says Find me.’ If I can, that is exactly what I’ll do. When did you last see him?”

“Simon Says?” Angel asked.

“Simon Says,” I confirmed. She visibly relaxed. If Simon Says, then it must be okay. That’s the way it has been for as long as I can remember.

“He spent part of the night with me on Saturday two weeks ago. He had to leave and go home to his bitchy wife half way through the night. He was going to fly to Singapore on Sunday and then he’d send me instructions on where to meet him. Since then nothing.”

That was a preview of For Blood or Money. To read the rest purchase the book.

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