Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02 (21 page)

Lavercan Kimbell, of Kimbell, Kimbell, & Schwartz, was my investment broker, with the emphasis on broker. The more I dealt with Lavercan, the broker I got. Back when I’d had a little extra cash, I’d decided to dabble in the stock market. Lavercan had guided me through a series of mind-numbing investments, which had since dried up like old hookers. The shares I owned were now about as valuable as Monopoly money. I figured that the least Lavercan could do was help me find a lead on Genetic Research Systems.

I called Kimbell, Kimbeel, & Schwartz and was told that Lavercan wouldn’t be in the office for awhile. I wondered briefly if I’d underestimated Lavercan. Maybe he’d fleeced me and his other clients and was sunning his round, white belly on a secluded Mexican beach. No way. He was an inept, financial moron, but he wasn’t a swindler. If all his other investments had fared like mine, he was probably browsing through pawnshops, looking for an inexpensive handgun.

Luckily, in the loosest sense of the word, Lavercan’s brother Lemmer, as opposed to his wide-eyed sibling, looked like someone who would not only scam your life savings, but have someone steal the drive cell out of your speeder while you were sitting in his office. Fortunately, I had no intentions of doing anything requiring an exchange of money. I told Lemmer that I was looking for a company called Genetic Research Systems and asked if he could check his computer listings for any information about it.

Lemmer seemed a little put off, but said he’d take a look before putting me on hold for several minutes. When he returned, he said that there was no listing for a company by that name, which meant the company was privately owned.

I asked if he had any pointers on how I could locate GRS. He rolled his eyes, then told me to contact the state Department of Commerce, since all businesses were required to register there. Lemmer’s curt inflections let me know that I was wasting his time, so I thanked him for his help and ended the call.

It seemed logical to start with the Department of Commerce. If that didn’t pan out, I’d be forced to start a more systematic search, and I had a feeling that GRS would end up being harder to find than a smoking section in downtown Los Angeles.

I looked up the number for the DOC, punched it in, and was soon face to face with a tired-looking state employee. I told him what I was looking for and asked if they had any information that would help me. The government worker said they did, indeed, have the information I needed, but that it was strictly off-limits to the public. I was about to ask him how he felt about perpetuating a stereotype when he suggested that I visit my local library and check out a publication by the name of Dun & Bradstreet. He went on to say that Dun & Bradstreet provided credit information on almost every company, public or private, and that it would also furnish phone numbers and addresses. I expressed my heartfelt gratitude and hung up.

I collected the books I’d checked out the night before and flew to the library. Since I had to consult Dun & Bradstreet anyway, I figured I ought to take back the books. If I put it off for more than a coulpe days, I’d totally forget about them and eventually end up with an overdue fine bigger than my annual bar tab.

Once I got to the library, it didn’t take long to find the Dun & Bradstreet reference book.

Sure enough, Genetic Research Systems was listed. The first thing I did was jot down the phone number and address. The business was located in Sacramento. Then, out of curiosity, I read the company bio. GRS was one of six subsidiary companies belonging to Western States Pharmaceuticals. As to what the company did, Dun & Bradstreet’s blurb hedged around the subject like an intelligent but unprepared college student’s term paper.

I wanted to find out as much about GRS as I could before making any kind of move. Its parent company, Western States Pharmaceuticals, sounded vaguely familiar. I ran through the alphabetical listings to W and read the bio. Somewhat to my surprise, I saw that the parent company was an affiliate of another corporation-one I knew about: Lowell Percival Enterprises. My stroll down the paper trail had suddenly gotten very interesting.

I left the library and, as I flew home, tried to make sense of this new information.

Genetic Research Systems was essentially part of Lowell Percival Enterprises. Was it purely coincindental that the sealed envelope from GRS was sitting on Alaynah’s desk just before the bombing? All my instincts said the two things were connected. But how?

The personal ads in the Bay City Mirror clearly implied that someone inside GRS was in contact with the Colonel. From what I’d learned earlier, I concluded that this person was probably the CAPRICORN mole Paul Dubois had told me about. Why had

CAPRICORN felt it necessary to infiltrate GRS? What was going on at GRS? I decided it was worth checking out and set course for Sacramento.

It was a short flight. I’d never felt any urgency to visit Sacramento, so this was virgin territory for me. After stopping to ask for directions three times, I finally ended up in an industrial section of the city. The buildings were old, prewar structures, and most appeared to be abandoned and/or condemned. Here and there, I saw barely thriving, unhappy businesses. From what I could see, the city had expanded to the north, leaving this part of town eerily isolated and empty.

When I reached the address I’d copied from Dun & Bradstreet, my first impression was not good. The building, a large rectangular block of cement, looked like it was just half a notch above a bomb shelter and appeared to be completely abandoned. All the

surrounding buildings were in various stages of decay. I walked to the front door and saw the words Genetic Research Systems stenciled cheaply on the steel door. The lock on the door was bolted shut. I walked around the side, past seven or eight blacked-out windows, and continued on to the back end of the building. There was a rear entrance, but it was sealed as tightly as the front door. A quick check of the other side of the building confirmed that there were only two entrances.

It was times like this that nicotine often came to the rescue. Enjoying a smoke not only gave me something to do, but also seemed to inspire me, elevating my pedestrian thought processes into the realm of the sublime. I took a long drag and surveyed the building from top to bottom and end to end. I inhaled again and waited for the brain power to accelerate.

By the time I took the last hit off the Lucky Strike, I’d formulated a plan. I discarded the butt and searched the ground for a goodsized rock. Finding one, I walked up to one of the windows and threw it against the window as hard as I could. The rock bounced harmlessly off.

OK, I needed a Plan B. Maybe there was an entrance on the roof. I backed away and looked up. The roof was flat, and it had plenty of surface area. I returned to my speeder.

A minute later, I set down on the gravely top of the building. I hopped out and spied what appeared to be a trap door. The red metal lid had a rusted padlock on it. I returned to the speeder and retrieved my trusty hammer from the trunk. After five minutes of banging and twisting, the padlock broke. I traded my hammer for my flashlight, opened the trap door, and climbed down into the black hole.

When I reached the bottom of the ladder, I turned on the flashlight and looked around.

Locating a light switch nearby, I flipped it but nothing happened. I moved my light around the room. It appeared to be some sort of storage area. There were rows of metal shelves, piled high with boxes and crates. Most of the boxes were marked and contained everything from test tubes to chemicals to computer supplies.

I found a door, opened it, and stepped into a long hallway. I walked to the first door on my right and entered a room full of computer workstations. The area was divided into cubicles with low walls, separated by narrow walkways. It looked like a typical office at night or on a weekend - empty, but not deserted. On some of the desks, I saw coffee mugs, notepads, and other objects you’d expect to find. I walked to one of the work stations and checked a desk calendar, the kind with a cartoon for each day of the year.

The date was December 7.

I thought back to the last personal ad I’d dug up. It’d been in the December 7 issue. The end of the message had read, “We sail tonight.” The meaning now seemed pretty clear.

By all appearances, GRS had been out of business for exactly three days. Where had they gone?

I returned to the hallway and crossed to another door. This room was a stark contrast to the cubicle room. It was cavernous and open, like the interior of a warehouse, and looked like it had functioned as a laboratory. All around the perimeter, overhead cabinets were mounted above black-covered counters, like the ones in my high school science classroom. Built into the counters, every twenty feet or so, were large, stainless steel sinks. In the center of the room were dozens of island tables, all completely bare. I looked through some of the cabinets, but there was nothing to find besides empty test tubes and other similar supplies. I circled the room, hoping to find something of interest, but this area, unlike the first room, seemed to have been thoroughly cleaned out.

Back in the hallway, I checked the next four doors. The first two were the men’s and women’s bathrooms, and the other two were utility closets. The last door, at the end of the hall, opened up to an office. I searched through the desk but, like the laboratory, it had been totally emptied. A quick search of a file cabinet, a wastebasket, and a cardboard box turned up the same result. I decided to give the first room a closer look.

I started at the work station closest to the door. Since the power was off, there was no way to turn on the computers. Upon closer inspection, electricity wouldn’t had done me any good anyway. The data storage clip had been removed. The computer was like a speeder without a drive cell. I rifled the drawers of the desk, but they were essentially empty.

I walked to the adjoining cubicle and went through the same procedure, with the same result. In the third cubicle, I saw something sticking out from beneath the computer. I lifted the edge of the machine and peeled off a piece of masking tape, which had gotten crinkled underneath. Written on it were the numbers 272551. Probably an inventory number. It gave me an idea.

I went back and checked under the two previous computers. They also had tape with six-digit inventory numbers stuck on them. I pulled out my notebook and checked the numbers I’d scribbled down the night before, after I’d found the Shakespeare quote. Act three, scene one, lines forty-nine and fifty. 314950. That could’ve been the meaning of the message - to find the computer with inventory number 314950. It was worth a try.

I hurried through the room, pausing only to inspect the bottoms of the computers. About halfway through, I found the one numbered 314950. To my disappointment, its data-storage clip had been removed, just like the others. I opened the top drawer and searched it. Finding nothing, I moved to the middle drawer, then the bottom drawer. Under a pile of papers, I found a tissue box. I picked it up, and it was heavier than it should have been. Much heavier. I tore open the side of the box like a kid unwrapping a Christmas present. There, nestled among the tissues, was a data-storage clip.

The Colonel had probably been meant to find this. That would explain the contents of the personal ads and why they were addressed to him. This might have been the only way the CAPRICORN mole could effectively relay the details on what was happening at GRS - wait for the decks to clear, then plant a land mine full of information. Well, the Colonel wasn’t around to find the clip, but I was. I slipped the clip into my pocket and made my way back to the roof. Minutes later, I was speeding in the direction of New San Francisco. My stomach was in knots with anticipation. I hoped that whatever was on the clip would answer some of the questions that had been piling up over the past few days. As I closed in on the city I called home, the sun disappeared over the horizon, and the waning moon hovered above the red band of fading light. By the time I landed my speeder in front of the Ritz, night had blanketed the city.

I climbed the fire-escape stairs and stuck my key into the deadbolt. As I stepped inside, just for an instant, I caught the sound of heavy breathing. A split second later, my jaw slammed into a wall.

UAKM - chapter twenty

As nearly as I could tell, I was seated in one of the chairs usually reserved for my clients. Someone had turned on the banker’s lamp on the desk, but my vision still hadn’t cleared. Gradually, a figure came into focus. It was an Asian woman, sitting on the edge of my desk, wearing a red silk blouse and black jeans.

“Good evening, Mr. Murphy.”

Her voice had a slight accent and a hard edge. I touched my chin gingerly and tested my jaw to see if it still worked. It hurt like hell, but at least they hadn’t knocked any teeth out. In my peripheral vision, I could see a pair of large bodies just behind and on either side of me. The odds weren’t in my favor, but I’d never let that stop me.

“I hope you don’t mind if I just make myself at home.”

The Asian woman folded her arms. “Something you seem to be in the habit of doing.”

“My habits are my business, thank you. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, who the hell are you, and what the hell are you doing in my office?”

Before I could flinch sufficiently, a hairy paw came from behind my right ear and cuffed me right in the sore spot on my jaw. Blinding pain flashed into my brain. A deep, vaguely illiterate voice rumbled behind me. “Shut yer face! You ain’t askin’ the questions here. Nobody talks to Eddie Ching like that.”

Eddie Ching? Damn. This wasn’t good at all.

“You’re Eddie Ching?”

“You’re a fast learner, Mr. Murphy. I respect that in a man. I also respect the job you did on my flat in Mexico City. It was very cleverly executed. All admiration aside, however, I must ask you to return the bird to me.”

I shifted in my seat and glanced back at the goon who’d cuffed me. “I don’t have it.”

Ching folded her hands patiently in her lap and smiled condescendingly. “Where is it?”