Dire Means (14 page)

From behind the serving counter, the shelter’s employees followed Neva’s “amen” with ten seconds of jumbled “God have mercy,” “Yes, Lord,” and “Thank you, Jesus.”

The shelter had turned into a tent revival meeting, but in less than a beat, Neva’s voice reverted to that of an instructor as she commanded the volunteers to take their seats again. As though she had flipped a personality switch, her calm, controlled voice briefed them on the specifics of tonight’s dinner service.

Mark took his place behind the kitchen counter where he was told to serve a scoop of rice to each tray that passed before him. At 6:30 sharp, the front door opened and the hungry dinner guests flowed in. The dinner service was more orderly than Mark expected. Two staffers collected meal tickets at the door, exchanging each for an empty food tray. Guests then passed through the service line quickly, in a cafeteria style, but with no choices to make.

When Mark missed a scoop of rice on a woman’s tray, she yelled, “You gonna starve me in a shelter? Huh?” Mark apologized, gave her a heaping scoop and buckled down with renewed focus.

He soon got into the groove of his job, gaining the courage to multitask—greeting a few of the dinner guests as he served them.

Mark felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw Tory, smiling in her white chef’s uniform complete with pleated chef’s hat.

“How’s it going, Mark?”

“Oh hi, Tory. Fine, just fine,” Mark said, comforted by her inquiry, but still worried about missing another scoop of rice.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the kitchen staffers and noticed that their eyes never left Neva as she walked from table to table in the dining area. Occasionally he heard her voice saying, “Aren’t you a love,” and “Why thank you!” She schmoozed with her dinner guests, touching their shoulders as they ate and they showered her with thanks and praise, feeding her as much as she fed them.

At 8:30 sharp, Neva walked to a bell hanging on the dining room wall and rang it loudly. She shouted, “Tray count!”

“Two hundred and seventy-six,” said a man standing at the end of the serving line.

“Eeeexcellent,” Neva replied. “Looks like we’ll have Happy Hour after all!”

Only a few dinner guests remained scattered throughout the dining area, and the kitchen staff had cleared off most of the tables.

Neva instructed the volunteers to pull two tables together for the Happy Hour celebration. Tory brought out cookies—different from the oversized coins Mark had seen dropped onto each dinner guest’s serving tray. These cookies were larger, softer, and still warm. Within a few minutes, the table was set with punch, cookies, potato chips, brownies, cheeses and pastries.

Mark was not in the mood to socialize. He fulfilled his goal of helping out. His hope of seeing Uncle Leon had been dashed, so there wasn’t much point in staying. He excused himself to use the restroom and then slipped through the kitchen and out of the shelter by way of the executive hallway.

Chapter Nine

SLEEP CAME EASIER for Mark that night; in fact, he slept so deeply that he woke with a start. He blinked until the clock radio came into focus. He was hungry and late. Though he still felt some stiffness and pain, he hurried to the bathroom. While brushing his teeth he was happy to see his eye looked almost normal again with only slight discoloration under it.

He showered and dressed fast enough to put himself back on schedule. In fact, he decided that it was safe to grab a quick bagel at Bonfiglio Café on his way to his first client.

When he arrived, Todd was already at the counter eating breakfast. All the other patrons sat engrossed in the morning television news. Another person had been reported missing and public alarm was intensifying. A news reporter interviewed a woman in front of a grocery store. “We’re leaving town for Thanksgiving, and now I think we’ll leave a few days earlier than we had planned. My kids are scared.”

Mark sat a couple stools from Todd. He kept quiet so he wouldn’t disturb the diners who slowed their chewing to take in every bit of information about the latest missing person.

Henry placed a coffee and a bagel in front of Mark and Mark gave him an OK sign. The news broke to commercial. Instantly people began speculating on the disappearances.

Mark stayed long enough to finish his light breakfast and bid farewell to Todd and Henry. He drove north to Santa Monica where he had booked two service appointments.

The first was with Cody Graham, the executive vice president of Broadman & Carose, a property management firm in the ALCO building. Mark visited Cody often and took care of all aspects of their computer network. Today, Cody wanted Mark to install a series of web connected cameras in their lobby. The task required minimal technical skill and would be routine for Mark.

Two of the missing people were last seen in this building and after recent complaints from tenants, Cody felt pressure to enhance security.

The additional cameras would appease these tenants, but the bigger motivation for Cody was a shot at the now $250,000 combined reward offered by the families of the missing people for information leading to their safe return.

Mark drove into the underground parking garage and rode the elevator up to the lobby. All parking elevators opened at the lobby, in view of a security desk where Neville, the security guard, sat. Because of Mark’s frequent visits to the ALCO building, he and Neville had developed a great rapport, joking and ribbing each other as Mark entered and exited.

“When are you coming to my house to fix my computer?” Neville said. For some reason, ever since he had learned that Mark worked on computers, he began prodding Mark for free service. Mark went along with the joke.

“I sure would, but I’m booked solid,” Mark said. He smacked his head with the butt of his hand—his usual response. Neville laughed. Mark hurried into an open door before Neville could notice his wounds.

The doors opened on the second floor and Mark stepped into the Broadman & Carose office. The receptionist, Gina, was on the phone and smiled when she saw Mark and then grimaced when she noticed his healing wounds. She held up her index finger for Mark to wait and then pointed to their make-shift waiting room—a sofa arranged beside a purified water dispenser and a magazine rack with some outdated Sports Illustrated magazines. Mark mouthed, “thanks” to Gina and sat on a couch.

“Hold one minute,” she said into the phone and pressed the hook down. “Hi Mark. I’ll let Cody know you’re here.” She pressed a button on her head set, announced Mark’s arrival to Cody and then said, “He’ll be right with you.” She then pressed another button to resume her call.

Cody appeared through an arched doorway. He was a big, round man, approaching four-hundred pounds with perpetual sweat on his forehead.

“I’m sorry about your loss. I heard about Carlos,” he said.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Mark replied.

“Come on back to my office and let’s talk about these cameras, Mark.”

They went down a hall, passing several cramped offices, “I’ve got lease renewals up. I’m going to lose tenants if I don’t do something,” Cody said, wheezing with every other step.

“Is it that bad?” Mark asked.

“Yep—and gonna get a whole lot worse if I don’t do something.”

They entered Cody’s office. It was larger than the others and had a 2nd story and ocean front view. Disheveled stacks of papers six inches deep sat edge to edge under coffee cups, donut crumbs and empty candy bar wrappers on his desk. Mark turned down Cody’s offer of coffee and they sat to talk.

Cody’s chair squeaked as he reclined in front of the window. He saw Mark’s face clearly now and asked, “What happened to you? Your face is scabbed up.”

“I was assaulted and robbed.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Cody said, leaning in for a better look at the healing scratches. “Did they catch the guy?”

“Nope. But I’ll be fine.”

Mark gave Cody an abbreviated summary of his assault ordeal and then they got down to discussing the matter at hand.

“What in the hell is going on in Santa Monica?” Cody said, throwing his arms up. He still panted a bit after the walk down the hallway. “Did you hear that three people disappeared from this building?”

“I thought it was only two.”

“Only two! ONLY two! Mark, you gotta help me here. These cameras I got—can I view them from home and record it?”

“I can make that happen for you.” Camera installations like the one that Cody wanted were common and simple to install. New technology made it easy to view the camera feeds from anywhere—even on a phone.

They discussed the logistics of setting up the building surveillance system and Mark explained how he would make the camera feeds recordable and available to Cody via the Internet.

Mark got a key from Gina, retrieved a ladder from the storeroom and went down to the lobby to set up the cameras.

Neville ribbed Mark about being in league with Big Brother and Mark laughed it off.

Within three hours, Mark had positioned six cameras that, together, would record every inch of the lobby. Anyone entering or exiting the building would be under recorded surveillance.

Mark went back up to the Broadman & Carose office and announced that the cameras were installed and ready for use. He gave Cody a tutorial on viewing the various camera feeds right on his computer. Cody was excited about his potential involvement in catching a criminal and the fat reward he could earn.

“I got two more things I need you for,” Cody said. “The first is a little sensitive. See, Gina, she’s doing too much personal stuff on the computer. She’s messaging, Tweeting and Facebooking with her friends all day to the point of not getting her work done. I confronted her about it. She claimed to have stopped while at work, but I don’t believe her. Her work isn’t getting done. I told her that I could watch what she does on the computer, but she knows how to work that thing so well—I don’t think she believes me. Is there anything I can do?”

“Easy. Want me to block those web sites?” Mark asked.

“No, I’d rather catch her in the act—I mean we’ve gone over this so many times, I’m ready to let her go.”

Mark remembered his prized TellTale and knew it could secretly confirm any computer activity Cody needed.

“Say no more,” Mark said. “I’ve got the perfect tool. I’ll set it up for you on my next visit.”

“Excellent. I knew I could count on you. The second thing I want your help with is this: We still have five old computers in the storage room from our computer upgrades last year and we need to get rid of them.”

“Bingo,” Mark said. “I did some volunteer work at a shelter last night and they mentioned needing some computers. They’ll receipt you for them, too.”

“Great, take them. I didn’t know you did volunteer work at shelters.”

“I’m fortunate, so I try to give back as much as I can.”

“Hmph. What a good guy. I’m impressed,” Cody said with a smirk. He walked Mark out to the front office and bid him good-bye.

In the storage room, Mark found the computers. There were four desktop systems and a laptop covered by a clear plastic tarp. He remembered these computers. There was nothing functionally wrong them; they were simply dated and slow by current standards. Mark could wipe them clean of data and then restore them to their factory condition for Soft Landing Shelter House.

As he drove out of the garage, Mark called the shelter to make arrangements for delivery of the computers. After two rings, a woman’s voice answered. He recognized Tory’s accent and she remembered him from last night’s volunteer service. Mark reminded her of Neva’s request for computers and told her he had obtained five of them. Tory was excited, said it was a good day for Neva to hear such good news and that it would be okay to deliver them Sunday, if possible.

The next morning Mark’s phone rang. It was Cody.

“Listen, Mark. We have a company that provides general building security for our tenants. They saw the cameras you put up for me and they had a fit on the phone, saying that they either want to supply their own cameras or we need to give them full access to our footage. Not sure why they’re so interested, but they’re making a real stink about it.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“I don’t know—you tell me what to do. I’d rather leave them up and just give them access—after all, you’ve done all the installation work already. Be a shame and a gigantic waste of my money to pull them all down. Besides, after a fight outside the law office, some of the things that happen in our halls and lobby are downright entertaining and I’d hate to lose them.”

“That’s fine. I can give your security company access to view the recordings via the web. What’s their name?”

“The guy who called is Bracks—and he was a real jerk on the phone. He wants the name, model number, and location of every camera you’ve installed.”

“Give me his email address and I’ll send him his logon info. He can get a ladder and look up the camera models on his own.”

“His email address is [email protected]. Hey, man, when you give him access, can you keep a couple of cameras for my eyes only? I want that reward and if anyone goes missing from my building again—the money will be as good as mine.”

“Alright, I might accidentally reserve a feed or two for your eyes only.”