Pop Travel (4 page)

Cooper shook his head. Miki was more stubborn than he was.

Dawson just shrugged.

“C’mon.” Cooper held the door for his brother. “I’ll be back in a while.”

Miki nodded and they left.

“So where’d you pick up the Caddy?” Cooper asked, lifting a corner of his mouth as they walked down the street.

“Oh, you know. At the I-385 Garage Exchange. I can splurge once in a while, right?”

“Of course. After you, Congressman.” Cooper smirked and bowed as he held open the café door for his important little brother.

Dawson gave him a slug in the arm as he went in.

The patrons halted their chatting to greet Cooper and his brother. Cooper acknowledged them with polite nods, while Dawson shook some hands. Too bad no babies were around for him to kiss.

Big Joe, a tall, bald, black man, came over as they sat down in a booth by the front window. One of the only guys in town Cooper could look in the eye at six-foot-four, Joe also held the Friendliest title, always offering a genuine smile and greeting.

“Hey there, Mr. Representative. What brings Cooper’s little brother to town?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I have a meeting with Mayor Athawan tomorrow.” Dawson cupped his mouth, like the news was a big deal secret. Then he added, “Keep on drivin’!” with a corny thumbs-up.

Cooper hated that slogan.

“Oh, sure. Gotta fill those e-car orders, eh?” Joe winked. “So what’ll it be, boys?”

After Cooper and Dawson ordered, Joe strolled off to the kitchen.

“So, how’s business?” Dawson asked.

“It’s good. Never a shortage of shady characters.” Cooper reclined, putting his arms up on the back of the booth.
Time for the
I’m Okay
drill.
“How’s the campaign?”

“Piece o’ cake. My staff runs a tight ship for me. I just show up and read what they put in front of me.” Dawson smiled.

“I see. No brains required. How are Chelsea and the kids?”

“Right. Oh, they’re all doing great. But Chelsea wanted me to ask if you are seeing anyone. She wants to fix you up.”

Cooper frowned and brought his arms down to lean on the table.

“That again? Come on. I know you two mean well, but please tell her to drop it. I’m fine.” Cooper pushed the idea to the side with his hand. No sense wasting time with women. Too much hassle for not much return. And no one could measure up to Kristen.

“Sorry, bro. Just looking out for you.” Dawson shrugged.

“Hmm. So how was your trip? I don’t know how you can do that pop travel. Gives me the creeps.” Cooper grimaced. Just thinking about pop travel made him squirm. He couldn’t fathom how a laser separated a person into a zillion pieces and put them perfectly back together again somewhere else. The concept was insane. Yet millions of people trusted it and did it every day. And after talking to Phisner, Cooper trusted it less, if that was possible. He preferred to travel the way God intended. By cars and planes.

“Oh, it’s nothing. You don’t feel a thing. It gave me the creeps at first, too. I’m used to it now.” Cooper sniffed.

“I have more reason to doubt it, now.” He let his insinuation hang as Joe brought their lunch.

“Here you are, gentlemen.” Joe set everything down. “Enjoy your dinner and let me know if you all need anything else.”

“Thanks, Joe.” Cooper smiled and rubbed his hands together, ready to dig in. Chasing the dog around made him hungrier than he realized.

“Yeah, thanks,” Dawson said, not taking his eyes off Cooper. “So what do you mean, you have ‘more reason to doubt it now’?”

Cooper gave a sly smile and raised his eyebrows.

“Well, I picked up an interesting case yesterday.” Leaning in, Cooper told Dawson about his new, unusual client. When he got to the part about Phisner being worried about someone following him, Dawson coughed and nearly choked. He held up a hand to stop Cooper.

“Hold on. That’s insane. This guy sounds completely delusional to me. A paranoid-schizophrenic. If pop travel has a problem, why is it still running? And why does it affect only a select few?”

“Well, Phisner also said a doctor told his fiancée not to travel because of her headaches…”

“Wait a minute. Headaches? During my pre-pop medscan, they asked if I got frequent headaches. I thought they just had an updated the questionnaire.”

“Really? That’s interesting.” Maybe Phisner wasn’t completely crazy. “I wonder if those questions have something to do with a real problem pop travel is experiencing. Maybe it’s got something to do with whatever made Phisner’s girl disappear.”

Cooper felt a surprising surge of hope.

“So you think this guy’s onto something? Do you think the ‘Feds are in on it’? I say again, that’s crazy.” Dawson looked down his nose at Cooper and chuckled.

Of course, Dawson didn’t want to admit the possibility of a cover-up. He had to believe in the sanctity of the government. His job required it.

“I don’t know. It was a very believable act, if it was an act. He kept looking over his shoulder and ducking when he heard a noise. He looked like he hadn’t slept in several days. Definitely distressed.” Cooper felt bad for the guy.

“That doesn’t improve my opinion of his sanity. And out of all the detectives in the greater Atlanta area, did he say why he chose you?”

“Yeah. I wondered about that, too. He said because I lived outside the city. Fewer cameras. And he read about my case against PTI.”

“Right, the Pop Travel International monopoly. I remember it as one of your best cases. At least this guy had good judgment there. But I still think he’s tangoing with a teddy bear.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right. Just the same, what do you think is happening with all the disappearances? A secret utopian society? A hole to another dimension? Those rumors seem just as farfetched.”

“I don’t know. My guess is, life got to be too much for them and they escaped to some secluded paradise, out of contact with the rest of the world. But if it will make you feel better, I will look into it for you.”

Cooper used to think the same way, ignoring the problems of the rich and famous, especially with bigger news pushing the disappearances out of the spotlight. But the more he thought about it, the more confidence he felt in his gut about an underlying cause, linking the cases. There had to be something wrong at the travelports someone didn’t want the public to know about.

“It would. And I’ll take any info you can give me on Pop Travel International and the Creator, too. I haven’t found very much on the Qnet so far. But that’s not surprising, with it being so closely monitored by the government.”

“For your protection,” Dawson said, pointing a finger at him.

“Riiight.”

“Okay. I’ve heard enough about pop travel and schizos. How are you? Have you been flying? When’s the last time you were up in the air?”

“It’s been a while. No time. Like I said, plenty of shady characters to spy on,” Cooper answered.

“I was hoping you’d have a funny case to tell me about.”

“They’re all laughable. Not very funny, though.”

“Aww. Come on. What about the dog you just found?”

Cooper lightened up a little, recalling the case of Mrs. Clark’s dog. He even cracked a smile describing how he had to reach under the dumpster. It felt good to finish their lunch with a few laughs.

“Love you, Big Bro. I’ll send you any info I can find. Be careful on the job.” Dawson put out his hand; when Cooper went to shake it, Dawson pulled him in for a hug, patting him on the back.

“You, too. Glad to see you moving up in the world,” Cooper said, releasing his brother.

Dawson got into the Caddy and headed back downtown. Cooper hoped this case was just a crazy notion, for his brother’s sake.

After an uneventful afternoon of following the lovely, suspected adulteress Mrs. Wilkins around, Cooper returned to the office. Miki had gone. On his desk, he found her zip pad with a handwritten note. She knew better than to leave him a vid message on his compucenter. As an anti-social hermit, he never checked them. She always summed them up for him.

The note read:

“A strange guy came in looking for you. He was scary-nervous. His eyes shot around and he kept messing with his jacket buttons while he talked. He didn’t leave his name, but I’m betting it was the same Phisner guy you met with yesterday. He said ‘they’ found him so he had to go underground and would contact you soon. Then he said to watch your back. What a psycho!

“And don’t forget to get my sister a gift for the wedding Saturday—you’re going! I’m running bridesmaid errands. I’ll see you tomorrow. Miki.”

A smiley face grinned at him under her name.

“Thanks, Miki,” he said to the note.
Maybe this guy
is
nuts
.

Sitting down, Cooper greeted his compucenter. Though he let his furnishings become antique chic, he updated his technology on a regular basis. He beamed every time it came to life, proud of his highly-rated, 3D, holographic display imager, with super speedy, clear motion rate guaranteed to eliminate fast action blurring, and the smartest Think4U program available, with intuitive reception, regularly updating his top five preferred-channel viewing options. His gadgets made him feel ahead of the game. Knowledge and information were the most potent weapons anyone could possess. He smiled and enjoyed all his shiny toys by himself. And that suited him just fine.

Cooper pulled down a box from the top of the imager suspended over his CC. The sharp, reconstructed features of the male anchor sitting at his desk expanded. As he spoke about the latest high profile disappearance, he wore a grave expression.

“…is the sixth public figure reported missing this year and the twenty-fifth VIP since the first case two years ago. The frequency of these mysterious disappearances has dropped significantly from five in one month, when they started. But where these people have gone is still unknown. Stress appears to be the number one factor. The glaring link between the victims, who range from celebrities to top executives, is their drive to keep in the forefront of their fields and their exhaustive travel schedules. Some doctors have said these people overworked themselves and were weak from all the adjustments to time zones, conjecturing they were on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Kidnapping has been ruled out by the authorities. Federal Investigator Carroll Simmons had this to say: ‘These folks have the means and the motivation to disappear for a while if they so choose. We haven’t had any ransom messages or evidence…’“

What if Phisner was right?
His story had checked out. The police had no criminal record on him. Phisner appeared to be normal before all this happened.

After running into dead ends on the Qnet and with authorities, Cooper had considered dropping the case. And after talking to Dawson, the more he thought about it, the crazier it sounded. But the poor guy came by to follow up. Cooper didn’t want to give up on Phisner just yet. He would give the Qnet one more go. Taking a different approach, he read about any open celebrity disappearance investigations.

Nothing but rumors and gossip.

With no bodies or evidence and not enough similarities between the victims, a serial killer had been ruled out. Not a speck of DNA had been found anywhere. But Dawson had a point, too. If pop travel had a glitch, those affected by it had to have something in common. There must be a link. Too many unsolved cases existed for them not to be connected somehow.

Maybe there were more victims than just celebrities. Cooper broadened his search to all missing persons reported in the past year last seen at a travelport. Filtering through the articles was a pain in the ass. He couldn’t figure out the connection from them. He needed more details.

After reading an article about a consultant from Orlando, Florida, Cooper called the guy’s office. He had gone missing six months ago.

A thin woman in her thirties with poofy, red hair appeared wearing a tight smile. “Creighton Comp Consulting. How can I help you?”

Cooper held up his ID and introduced himself. “Hello. My name is J.L. Cooper. I’m a private investigator looking into the disappearance of Moses Boyd. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about it.”

“Moe? That was ages ago. And we already told the police all we know. Go look it up.” She poised her hand to disconnect.

This must be the girlfriend the article said he left behind
. He tried to soothe her.

“I have, miss. And I don’t believe Mr. Boyd left town with his ex-wife, like the paper said.”

“That money slut! She took him for everything and still wanted more!” she blurted. She composed herself and asked, “What was your name again?”

“Call me Cooper.”

“Okay, Cooper. I’m Jean. I know Moe would never have run off with that, that—person. She was evil. Always trying to con more money out of him. She had no interest in him other than his bank account.” She gave him a curt nod.

“I see. Did you notice anything unusual about him at that time? Was anything out of the ordinary?”

“Not really. He went to the doctor about some bothersome migraines. He got a couple of nosebleeds, too. Other than that, he was fine.”