Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1) (7 page)

BOOK: Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1)
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He made a mental note to update his
resume when he got the chance. And he’d have to think of an answer for when
somebody asked the reason he’d left his last position. He wasn’t sure a story
about an assassin showing up at his office was going to cut it.
Hostile work
environment
, he thought. That sounded better.

“Nice!” Tyler said. He held up an old
Spider-Man comic so Oliver could see it. Oliver looked at him blankly. “It’s
rare,” Tyler said by way of explanation.

“That’s great,” Oliver said dryly. He
didn’t know of many grown men who got excited over comic books. That was stuff
for kids, or people who lived in their parents’ basements. But then again,
maybe for people in Tyler’s line of work it counted as research. The next time
you had to fight a killer robot from the future, you could try doing what
Superman had done in that situation. It wasn’t like that kind of thing was
taught in schools.

“Why do you take orders from a little
girl?” Oliver asked, curious whether he could get any more information about
these people.

Tyler looked up from his comic. “Let me
give you some advice. Never call Artemis
little
, and never underestimate
her. And for god’s sake don’t make her angry.”

“What, she’s supposed to be dangerous?”

Tyler didn’t blink. “More than you can
imagine.”

Oliver studied the other man’s face.
There was no sign that he was about to grin and betray that he’d only been
joking. “Okay, then.”

“Okay.” Tyler went back to his comic.

Minutes passed and then there was a
sharp rap at the front door. “It’s still locked,” Tyler said. “Do you mind
letting her in?”

Oliver peeked through the window. Sally
was waiting there, arms folded in front of her. He wished Artemis would have
sent someone else. Sally’s presence here could lead to another confrontation,
and he really wanted to avoid having that happen again.

Oliver unlatched the deadbolt a bit
nervously and opened the door, hoping his face didn’t betray the fact that he
was at least a little bit afraid of her.

Sally nodded at him as she entered the
shop, latching the door behind her. She didn’t look happy to see him, but
Oliver was pleased that the rage he’d seen in her eyes earlier was gone. He
wondered if she’d ever really shot anyone with that gun she always seemed to
carry, or whether that was just an act she put on to intimidate people.

No, he thought. There was no way that
was an act. She had definitely shot someone.  Quite possibly a lot of someones.

“His office?” she asked Tyler,
completely nonplussed by the dead body in the center of the room.

“Over there,” Tyler pointed. “Where’s
Seven?”

“Seven had a nutty. He’s not coming.”

“Figures,” Tyler said.

“Who’s Seven?” Oliver asked.

“Tech support,” Tyler answered.

“I’ve got this covered,” Sally said.
“You guys can get out of here.”

“We can give you a hand,” Tyler offered.

“No. Artemis wants you two mobile in
case you’re being tracked. You have any other leads you can follow?”

Tyler shrugged. “Not really. There are
some people I can talk to. Rocky was my best shot, though.”

“Yeah.” Sally looked at Oliver and he
noticed her shoulders stiffen slightly. “I’m…” she began. “Damn it.” She took a
deep breath. “Oliver, I’m sorry I hit you earlier. It was uncalled for and
wrong of me.” The apology sounded rehearsed. Oliver wondered how long she had
been working on it.

“Oh,” Oliver said. “Okay.  Well, I’m
sorry I tackled you.”

“You
tried
to tackle me,” she
corrected him.

“I’m sorry I
tried
to tackle
you.”

“Okay,” she said. “Done.”

Tyler stared at her in shock. “What did
Artemis say to you?” he asked.

“Never mind,” she said, her eyes
challenging him to make an issue out of it.

Tyler looked like he wanted to say
something else, but then just shrugged. “All right.”

Sally nodded at Oliver again, and then
went into Rocky’s office. Tyler watched for a moment as she began dismantling a
computer, then turned to Oliver. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since
she apologized for something?” he asked quietly.

Oliver had no idea, having only met her
this morning. “It’s not a big deal,” he said.

“It’s a very big deal,” Tyler disagreed.
“It’s progress.”

“Oh?”

“Anyway, let’s get going. There’s
nothing more for us to do here.”

“Where are we going?” Oliver asked,
hoping that there wouldn’t be another dead body wherever they wound up.

“Trust me. I have an idea”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 9

 

 

Tyler drove them to
Haight-Ashbury, a neighborhood that had been famous in the 1960’s as the center
of the hippie counterculture movement in San Francisco, if not the entire
United States. A lot of time had passed since the “summer of love,” and the
neighborhood had taken a sad turn for the worse. Homeless people and drug
dealers outnumbered aging hippies and curious tourists by a wide margin. The
Haight was still a good place to score a little weed, if that was your thing,
but it was also a good place to get robbed, or stabbed. Or possibly both at the
same time.

Tyler drove up and down the streets
slowly, scanning the sidewalks and trying to peer down alleyways as he did so.
He was clearly looking for something. “Are you lost?” Oliver finally asked. 

“No.”

“What are you trying to find?”

“Not what,” Tyler said. “Who. And there
she is,” he pointed up the street. Oliver looked, but all he could see was a dirty
teenage girl sitting on the steps outside of an apartment building. She wore
ratty jeans and had a tangled mess of rainbow-colored dreadlocks running down
her back. She was smoking a cigarette, taking long drags and watching the smoke
thoughtfully as it rose into the sky.

“Her?” Oliver asked. “Are you kidding?”

“Nope.” Tyler pulled the Charger off to
the side of the road, nearly rolling one tire up onto the sidewalk.

“You’re right in front of a hydrant,”
Oliver pointed out.

“We won’t be long. You got a twenty?”

“What?”

“Twenty bucks.”

“Oh. What for?”

“Never mind, just give me twenty bucks.”

Oliver went into his wallet and fished
out a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Tyler said. “Stay here.” 

Tyler got out of the car and started up
the sidewalk. Oliver watched as he approached the smoking girl, who stood up
and smiled when she saw him. Oliver wondered how they knew each other. She
couldn’t just be some random homeless girl. Could she also work for Artemis?
Maybe she was some kind of secret agent, working undercover.

Tyler and the girl spoke for about a
minute, Tyler at one point motioning towards Oliver. Oliver saw the girl look
at him. He raised his hand instinctively to wave at her, and immediately felt
like an idiot for doing so. But the girl just waved back and nodded to Tyler.
He handed the girl Oliver’s money and started back for the car. The girl headed
off in the other direction.

“Who was that?” Oliver asked as Tyler
got back behind the wheel.

“Her name is Khameleon. With a
K
.”

“Khameleon? Really?”

“No, of course not. I don’t know her
real name. That’s what she’s calling herself these days, so it’s good enough
for me.”

“Oh.” Oliver watched as the girl
disappeared around the corner. “So does she have special powers? Her skin
changes color or something?”

Tyler looked at him like he was an
idiot. “No,” he said slowly. “She’s just a girl.”

“Well it’s about as plausible as a guy
getting shot in the head and then getting up and walking around five minutes
later,” Oliver said defensively.

“Hmm. Yeah. Fair enough,” Tyler
admitted.

“So what was that? What is she doing
now?”

“Putting the word out,” Tyler said. “We
need information. They have it.”

“Who? Homeless drug dealers?”

“She’s not a drug dealer. Well, she
is,
but not today.”

“But she is homeless?” Oliver asked. He
hadn’t been entirely serious before.

“Yeah.”

Oliver was sure he had to be missing
something. “You’re expecting a homeless girl to help us?”

“Exactly.”

“You’re serious?”
Now
who was the
idiot? “You just gave her twenty bucks? You realize she’s probably buying drugs
right now?”

“She’s not buying drugs. Come on, let’s
get out of here.”

Tyler drove them aimlessly around San
Francisco for half an hour before he finally asked, “Are you hungry? I’m
hungry. Why don’t we get something to eat?”

Oliver didn’t feel much like eating, but
the thought occurred to him that he hadn’t had any food today other than
Tyler’s blueberry muffins. He really ought to eat something more substantial,
if for no better reason than to keep his energy up. He might need to run later,
particularly if he saw Mr. Teasdale again.  “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

A few minutes later they were at a
run-down Chinese restaurant in North Beach. At first Oliver didn’t even think
it was open. One of the windows had been boarded up, probably after having a
rock thrown through it by vandals, and the neon “Open” sign hadn’t been turned
on. But there were diners inside, and a friendly Asian waitress greeted Tyler
by name. He had obviously been here before. The waitress showed them to an out-of-the-way
table and left to get them glasses of water.      

There was a small television bolted to
the wall in the corner. The local news channel had broken into whatever
mindless late afternoon talk show had been on with a special alert. A small
building was on fire in the Tenderloin. Oliver squinted at the television. The
building looked awfully familiar to him.

“Hey, isn’t that…” he trailed off,
realizing what it was.

“Oh, I don’t believe it,” Tyler spat.
“She burned it down.” The news channel only had a helicopter camera shot of the
blaze, but it was clearly Rocky’s pawn shop, currently engulfed in a massive
fire. It was clear very little would be left of the building once the
firefighters had managed to put the fire out.

“Did you know she was going to do that?”
Oliver asked.

“No. But it doesn’t surprise me all that
much.”

“Do you think Artemis told her to…”

“No, but she didn’t tell her
not
to either. That much is obvious.” He shook his head. “This is the last thing we
need.”

“What?”

“Attention.”

Tyler sulked until the waitress returned
with their drinks, along with a serving cart holding three dishes of food. “We
didn’t order yet…” Oliver began, but Tyler waved him off.

“I always start with this,” he said.
“Thank you, Li-Jen.” The waitress smiled at him and left them alone.

“You always start with three plates?”
Oliver asked.

“Yeah. Dig in. It’s all family-style
here.”

Oliver wondered how the man could have
so much of an appetite. Half an hour ago they’d been looking at another man’s
corpse. And now that corpse was burning up in a fire his partner had set.

He wondered if Sally was eating right
now, and if so, with how much gusto. Probably a great deal, he thought. He
doubted death and destruction bothered her that much. They might even turn her
on.

“What are we going to do now?” Oliver
asked.

“Wait for a while,” Tyler said. “Eat.
You really should eat something. Have a pot sticker.”

“I don’t want a pot sticker.”

Tyler shrugged. “More for me.” He popped
one into his mouth. “It’s good,” he said, his mouth full.

Oliver sighed. “I still don’t know who
you people are,” he said

Tyler ate another pot sticker. “We’re
private detectives,” he answered.

“Oh,” said Oliver. That was a much
simpler answer than he had expected. “Really?”

“No,” Tyler shook his head. “But close
enough, I guess. Or I guess you could say we’re a secret society, but there
really aren’t enough of us for that, I wouldn’t think. How many people do you
need before you can say you’re a society?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver admitted.

“So why don’t we say we’re a group with
a certain interest in…I don’t know. I want to say
esoteric
things, but
I’m not exactly sure what
esoteric
means.”

“It means…” Oliver started to explain,
but then he realized he wasn’t positive either. “It means unusual, I think.”

BOOK: Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1)
8.82Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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