Advanced Mythology (35 page)

Chapter 33

“I tell you, Beach, we should be going south,” Maria said, as Beach opened the door of Gifts ’n’ Things, on the main shopping street of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Her dark Balkan looks seemed bleached out by the bright sunlight coming in off the ice-covered lake. “The power comes from there again, as it has not in many months. It grows ever stronger! The spirits call to me. I must go there.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” Beach said, waving her inside.

“There was a great
surge
of power. I have been telling you many days now. You do not listen,” Maria said sulkily. But as usual, she forgot about being upset as she sensed something in the store.

“I told you,” Vasques said, pleased with himself, watching her scurry toward the display cases. He raised a finger to point. “The item is right over …”

“No,” Beach said, pushing his hand down. “Let her find it. I want to know if it’s real.”

The two men watched as Maria went directly to the third case against the rear wall of the shop. She pressed her hands against the glass, as if communing with something inside. A pleasant-looking woman with round cheeks and light brown hair appeared out of a narrow doorway and bustled over to her.

“Hi, there. May I help you?”

Beach nodded to Vasques. “Keep them busy.”

With one eye on the others, Beach slipped through the doorway and into the rear of the shop.

He was getting used to the jumbled mess of back rooms and storehouses that stood behind pristine gift shops. The tidier the showroom, the more of a wreck was likely to be found in the private area. This shop was one of the extremes. The owner had one file cabinet, but it was clearly overworked. File folders leaned out of every drawer and were heaped on every flat surface, including boxes of stock.

Beach flipped through the mass of papers on the desk. The owner did his or her accounting by receipt. Heaps of them were jumbled together in an incomprehensible mass. Beach listened with one ear to Vasques spinning the clerk a long story about a cousin’s wedding while he dealt receipts off the pile in his hands as though dealing cards. Statuettes, figurines, Beanie Babies, Venetian masks … He had to hurry.

Suddenly, the word “lantern” caught his eye. Hastily, Beach pocketed the invoice and rejoined the others in time to see Maria exclaiming over a magic lantern exactly like the one they had taken from Keith Doyle’s apartment. Beach nodded to Vasques, who took Maria by the arm and escorted her firmly out into the street. Beach thanked the woman, then followed them, examining his prize as soon as he was out in the frigid sunshine. Wyszinski rolled the car up beside them within a few moments.

“Any luck?” Vasques asked.

“No Doyle,” Beach said. “The same company name: Hollow Tree Industries. No address. No indication of how the lanterns were delivered. Typical,” he spat. “Most of these places don’t have a decent file system, ledgers or any kind of organization. I have no idea how they stay in business.”

“So he is in business under this Hollow Tree umbrella?” Vasques asked.

“He has to be,” Beach said, getting into the car. He drummed his fingers on the receipt. “Six delivered here, twenty or more that we can trace elsewhere. Probably hundreds more we’ve never seen. So there’s no remaining doubt: they
are
mass-produced. That means a large workshop of some kind, but not in the city, and some kind of delivery service. We need an address. They have a web site, but it’s not active. That moron in there can’t help; Doyle probably hand-delivers to her, and even if he doesn’t she almost certainly thinks the shipments get there by magic.”

He flipped open his cell phone and dialed Ming’s number.

“It looks like a lock on Hollow Tree Industries, but still no return address,” he said. “Can we trace one through the name?”

“Not easily,” Ming replied. “If they pay cash for parcel post, there’s no paper trail. Hacking the United States Postal Service for one package is like looking for a frog in a swamp. I could break the firewall, but is that the best use of my time? It would be easier if you can identify a delivery service where they have an account. And it would help if you can pin down a postal zone. Omnivore can do it, but it will take longer the bigger the area it has to search.”

Beach snapped the telephone closed, feeling frustration overwhelming him. He pushed the sensation back, determined to let intelligence rule instead.

“I am missing something obvious,” he said. “Think, everyone.”

“We can go back and turn his place over again,” VW suggested. Beach ignored them, cupping his hands over his eyes. He went over their first meeting. He sat down beside him in the park. The boy had been reading. When Beach asked him a question, he lifted an open, friendly face, then went back to his book.

His book!

“He was reading a
textbook
,”
Beach exclaimed suddenly, surprising Wyszinski, who nearly swerved off the road. “He’s a college student.”

“What kind of book was it?” Vasques asked.

Beach cudgeled his memory, trying to make the picture come into focus. At one point Doyle had closed the book on his finger. Business … business something. He just could not see the second word, but that was enough. “He’s a business major.”

“Too old for undergraduate,” Vasques said, shaking his head. “We got his birthdate off the PDQ database, remember? He must be in graduate school, probably an MBA program.”

“Excellent,” Beach said. He dialed Ming’s number and gave her the information. “Vacuum up all the data you can through Omnivore. VW, check all the business schools. All of us,” he sighed heavily, “will continue to investigate craft outlets.”

“Maria felt the source of the power is downstate,” Stefan pointed out. “Also, that is where he was going when we followed him that time.”

“True,” Beach said. “We’ll look there, but there are dozens of diploma factories throughout the Chicago area, too. He’s holding down a full-time job. That can’t leave much room for a full educational program as well. This could take another month or two of legwork, but we’ll find his school. It’s only logical to work outward from there to the power source, without having to canvass every small factory in a six-state radius.”

“We’re on it, boss,” Wyszinski said.

“We’ll get him,” Vasques assured him.

The telephone rang.

Ming sounded triumphant. “Midwestern University. A Keith E. Doyle is registered in the MBA program there. Omnivore picked up right away. All those schools sell their student lists to marketers to make a few extra bucks.”

Grinning, Beach passed along the information to his operatives. “I never thought I’d say this in my life, but God bless capitalism.”

* * *

A severe-looking woman with dark hair looked up from the cash register when she heard the bell ring.

“Good afternoon,” she said, her eyes flicking with a practiced air over Beach and Maria. There was a look of approval there for Beach’s camel-hair coat and Maria’s stylish black fur ensemble. “May I help you find anything?”

As tired as he was of gift and craft shops, Beach put on a big smile. When his operatives asked around the campus of Midwestern University, this was the store that everyone recommended for nice knick-knacks and keepsakes. “Something special,” he said heartily. “We’d like a little present for some friends we’re staying with. Just a little gift for them to remember us by.”

The woman smiled. “I am sure we can find something appropriate. How much were you thinking of spending?”

“Thirty … forty dollars?” Beach suggested. “More, if you’ve got a really special item.” He put emphasis on the word “special.”

“Ah,” the woman said, nodding. “I think you might like something from this collection. Everything is handmade. They’re very popular with my customers.” She tilted a hand, indicating that he should follow him toward a shelf halfway back in the shop.

But he didn’t need the woman’s assistance. Maria was exclaiming with wonder. Almost as soon as they’d entered, she had made a beeline for the same display. “Look, Beach!” she said, excitedly, turning to show him a carved box she held cradled in her hands. The style of ornamentation matched other items in his possession, to a capital
T
. “So many things, all of them … mmmph!”

Beach put a hand over the psychic’s mouth and spoke to the shopkeeper. “Very lovely. As you can see, my companion here knows quality. I’ve hardly ever seen anything this nice. Is it locally made?”

The dark-haired woman started to reply, then her mouth snapped shut. She answered, very pleasantly, “I’m not sure. I buy them from a distributor.”

“I see,” Beach said. “Would it be an imposition to ask for the company’s name? I’d be very interested to see if the artisans take private commissions.”

The shop owner regarded them with open wariness now. “I’m afraid I never give out the names of my vendors.”

“Ah,” Beach said, nodding. He took the box out of Maria’s hands and put it back on the shelf. “Thank you very much for your help. Come along, darling, we’re done here.”

The bell jingled behind them.

“Those were
more
,”
Maria said, as Beach dragged her toward the car.

“Yes, they were.”

“New things, beautiful new things!”

He was losing patience with her. The farther south they had driven, the more frantic she had become. Her spirits were talking to her, compelling her to drive down country roads, steering them, in Beach’s opinion, nowhere useful. Whenever they reached a dead end, as they invariably did, she would stretch out yearning hands over the endless snow-covered crop fields, reaching out for something none of them could see. He regretted, not for the first time, hiring a psychic.

“Yes, dear, many pretty things. Now, get in. I’m not standing out in the freezing wet any longer because you’re in ecstasy. Early spring in central Illinois is like living in one of the frozen circles of Hell.” Stefan and Miller jumped out to open the doors for them, looking curious. “Hollow Tree Industries sells to her,” Beach told them. “A good long time, I’d say, by the way this woman reacted. She couldn’t wait for us to go away. We can’t be far away from his base of operations.”

In the center of the back seat O’Dell was talking on the cell phone. He handed it to Beach. “Ming,” he said. “She’s hacked the UPS computer. We’ve got an address.”

* * *

“Tourists again,” Shelogh muttered, coming into the kitchen with a basket of crocuses. “So early, ye’d think they’ll be in Flahrida.”

“Never been there,” Keva snapped. “And I’d never want to go. Full of snowbirds. Sounds unnatural.”

“Snowbirds are Big Folk who go south for the winter, grandmother,” Dola said from the kitchen table, where she was doing her homework.

“Big Folk?” Holl asked, coming into the kitchen with a sack of flour from the store in the barn. Enoch, carrying a second one, came in behind him. “What Big Folk?”

“The ones who go south for the winter,” Dola explained.

“No, don’t listen to the girl,” Keva said impatiently. “The ones hangin’ around the road.”

Holl gave his sister an odd look. “What do they look like?”

“You haf seen them for yourself,” Rose said, her mild eyes full of concern. “They vere there yesterday. They haf come back.”

“The same ones?” Holl asked. “Enoch said that a clutch of Big Folk were trying to come up the driveway two days ago. A man in coveralls stopped the UPS driver on his way out. I thought they were land surveyors.”

“They are back,” Rose said, now worried. “Are ve beink spied upon?”

“I don’t know,” Holl said, pushing out of the door.

“Stay out of sight,” Enoch ordered. He followed Holl.

* * *

Word spread throughout the village. In no time, everyone was clamoring to know more. When Holl and Enoch returned to the house, everyone was huddled in the living room, exchanging speculations that ran from harmless to wild. Holl went straight to the Master, who was in the midst of the crowd, calling for calm.

“It is as Shelogh said,” Holl reported. “These must be the people who have been harassing Keith Doyle.”

A few of the Folk began to wail in fear. The others were silent, but their faces were drawn tight.

“He’s betrayed us,” Curran howled. “He persuaded you to reduce the protection charm, and now he’s sent other Big Folk to capture us!”

“Never,” Enoch said. “You old fool, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Once we provided a front and back door for the fire-snake, such extensive wards were no longer necessary. We didn’t have to expend the energy.”

“He meant for us tae leave oursel’s vulnerable!”

“That is a lie,” Enoch snapped. “Keith Doyle has put himself at grave personal risk for our sakes.”

“We’ll have to call him,” Holl said, cutting off all further argument.

“Is that your decision?” the Master asked. Holl looked at him levelly.

“You know it’s the right thing.”

The Master nodded. “I agree.”

* * *

Keith turned the sketch of the Origami upside down, then onto its side. In another six weeks the promised scanning software would be available for purchase for the original buyers. It used the camera eye, set on fine-focus. Keith’s palms still itched, wishing he had one of the devices of his own so he could play with it and get some ideas. A drawing just wasn’t the same. A thread of thought concerning vacuuming up words was just beginning to form in his mind when a telephone rang. Absently, Keith kicked his chair backwards toward Dorothy’s desk and reached for the handset. He heard a dial tone. The phone continued to sound. He realized that it wasn’t ringing, it was playing a jig. His cell phone! Diane!

He scrambled to dig it out of the pocket of his coat, hanging on the back of the door.

“Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up! Hello?”

“Keith Doyle?”

“Holl, hi,” Keith said, plopping down in his chair. He was a little disappointed, but still pleased to hear from his friend. “What’s new? What do you think of a handheld device that can suck up words and store them in memory? Textbuster? No, wait, that sounds like someone going after dirty books. I just can’t come up with a catchword I like.…”

“Keith Doyle,” Holl said insistently, “cease your prattling just for a moment and listen.”