The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces (30 page)

“Okay,” he said. “What's this about Frank?”

“Frank's not fooling around on his wife,” I said. I turned around and walked back up the incline out of the courtyard. Marvin followed.

“Who said he was?”

“I can't answer that,” I said over my shoulder. “Client confidentiality.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” He caught up with me. “And where are we going?”

“This way.” I was pretty sure that red brick building was the one I wanted. I looked both ways and crossed the access road. We merged with a noisy group of students going into the building.

Once inside, I scanned the walls for some indication that I was in the right building. Nothing. I guess you had to know where you were going. We passed through the building and into a completely enclosed courtyard. There were students on benches, and a fountain. Several trees. Marvin put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me before I could hurry through to the other side.

“This is far enough,” he said.

“You're right!” There was the sign I was looking for.
EXPERIMENTAL SUPPORT SERVICES
. And an arrow pointing down. The offices were underground? “There it is.” I pulled away from him.

I was almost to the bottom of the stairs before I realized Marvin wasn't behind me. I stopped and looked back up. It was like looking up from the bottom of a well. The sky and Marvin peering down at me.

“Come on, Marvin,” I said.

“I'm not going down there until you tell me what's going on.”

I would have to tell him sooner or later. “I've solved the Documentalist Killers case for you,” I said.

“Sure you have.” He came down the stairs shaking his head. “That's wonderful. You've solved the case. Wait, I know. You've discovered that the murderer is a Peruvian coffee smuggler from Alpha Centauri and he's hiding down in this hole. I'll bet he's taking some night courses. Great. Nice job, Brian.”

“I'm going to introduce you to the murderer,” I said. “You're going to arrest him. Pretty simple, yes?”

“Jesus,” Marvin said. “What do you think, we're on TV? Is that what's happening inside that head of yours?”

I turned away and pushed through double glass doors.

“Hold it!” Marvin yelled. I didn't slow down.

Inside there was a glassed-in reception area with a window to the public. I could see a woman sitting at a desk in there. I couldn't tell how big she was.

Marvin came up beside me.

“That's Ms. Divey in there,” I said.

He took a look. “So?”

“Ms. Pamsy Divey.” I knew there was no chance whatever Marvin would pick up on the connection if I said she was Margaret Divey, but even aided by my lie about her first name, he didn't get it.

“Josey Dotes and little Pamsy Divey,” I said. He still didn't get it. “For crying out loud, Marvin. It's from ‘Mairzy Doats.' It's a famous song. The killer got Josey Dotes from the song.”

I could see the wheels turning.

“There's no Josey in that song,” Marvin said. “No Pamsy either.”

I grabbed his arm. “You don't have to be so literal. It's Lucas Betty. Watch his eyes when I call him Josey Dotes. Come on.”

“You go too far, Brian.”

I walked up to the window. “Ms. Divey?”

The woman got up from her desk and came to the window. “Yes? Can I help you?” I was happy to see that she was a small woman. I might have had an uncomfortable moment of doubt if Ms. Divey had turned out to be large. I'd say she was in her early forties. Tan slacks. A piece of complicated brass jewelry pinned just under the collar of her white blouse. Maybe the emblem of a secret society? Brown hair cut short. Brown eyes. Nice smile.

“We're looking for Lucas Betty's office,” I said.

“I'm Lucas Betty.” A man stepped through an open door to one side of the glassed-in office. “What can I do for you?”

Had he been lurking back there watching us approach? He was very pale. His hairline had retreated to the top of his head. He was not a large man. Less than six feet tall and thin. He wore glasses. He was not what I'd pictured all those times I'd been lying to him about finding Dennis. He was probably in his middle to late forties. Not a fitness freak. You wouldn't think this was a man who strangled people. But if you already knew he did it, you'd notice his mouth was a tight line. You'd see he was wrapped so tight he vibrated.

“My name is Skylight Howells,” I said, savoring the moment, “and this is Police Sergeant Zivon.”

Marvin was shaking his head. His face was as red as a beet. I'd be in big trouble if this didn't pan out.

I pushed on before he could stop me. “Can we come in?”

“Have you come about Dennis, then? What's going on?” Lucas looked like he wanted to run off in all directions at once, but he pulled himself together. “Buzz them in, Margaret.”

Ms. Divey reached under the edge of her desk. The door buzzed and I pushed it open.

Marvin was right on my heels. Lucas led us into his office. Ms. Divey followed us in.

Lucas took a seat behind his desk. “If it's about your fee, you can forget it. Dennis didn't show up.”

“Never mind Dennis,” I said. Lucas had taunted me on-line as SOAPY; he had called me on the phone about murder number four. I could see some trembling in the left side of his mouth. He was doing a good job at keeping calm, but he was right on the edge. I needed to push him over.

Marvin turned in a complete circle like he was photographing the place. I hoped his trained eye was taking everything in. But then he just stood there by the desk with his head down like a bad boy called to the principal's office. He should be looking deep into the suspect's eyes. Instead, Marvin was scanning the top of the man's desk like he was looking for a sandwich.

I looked at Ms. Divey standing by the door. Did she know what her boss had been up to?

“You're wondering why I called you all here,” I said.

“Shut up, Brian,” Marvin said. He looked up at Lucas. “I think we've made a mistake here. Sorry to have wasted your time.”

“No way!” I said. I bumped Marvin aside, and he snatched at the desk, scattering papers, to keep his balance.

“I know you're Josey Dotes,” I said. “I know you're SOAPY!”

They were all looking at me like I'd dropped my pants.

I turned and pointed at Ms. Divey. “And this is little Pamsy Divey!”

“I know that voice,” she said.

“Ms. Divey,” Lucas said. “Maybe you'd better call security.”

My theory suddenly exploded like a balloon. Maybe I had gotten it all wrong.

“No need,” Marvin said. He grabbed my arm. “We'll be leaving now.”

I could have gone screaming and kicking. Instead I decided to salvage some dignity. I'd need all I could get as I looked for a new line of work. I pulled my arm out of Marvin's grasp and turned and walked out of Lucas Betty's office and didn't look back until I was through the reception area, out the doors, and back up the stairs.

I turned back and saw that Marvin was right behind me. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but I bet he wasn't happy. I supposed I deserved whatever he decided to dish out.

We stood toe-to-toe, me looking up, him looking down. He poked me in the chest with one finger. It hurt a lot, but I stood my ground.

“You could have just told me,” he said.

“Would you have believed me?”

“It would have been your job to make me believe you.” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He used both hands to straighten it. He spent a moment looking at it, and then he looked back down at me. “You just about blew it here. I have no idea what his lawyer will make of that little scene at the trial.”

“The trial?”

Marvin grinned, and I suddenly saw the kid he'd been back when we'd both been scheming to get out of jumping around like idiots in Mrs. Fountain's dance class.

“We won't be able to use this.” He handed me the paper. “But it's just a copy anyway. And there's probably plenty of other stuff to find once we start looking.”

I looked at the paper.

It was an Experimental Support Services purchase order for ten (10) new printer cables.

twenty-five

It turned out there was lots of physical evidence for Marvin to find. Frank pretty much turned the case over to him, and Marvin had the whole thing wrapped up by the end of the week. He'd probably get a promotion.

Frank had other problems to think about. I told Elsie that he wasn't seeing another woman, but she told him she wanted a divorce anyway. Things had gone too far. Too much was broken. Marvin told me Frank was thinking of leaving the police department so he could devote full time to a project he wouldn't talk about. I was pretty sure that would be Cops for Internet Decency. Frank would be a ghost in the machine.

Yuri stopped in and we had a few glasses of juice together. Matusoff's failure and Yuri's success in the matter of the Documentalist Murders had greatly strengthened his position.

In fact, the other faction was just holding on. It wouldn't take much to finish them off altogether.

“That sounds ominous,” I said.

“Old habits,” he said. “It's not like we're going to have people shot.” He looked away.

He finally managed to drag me to a meeting and after I'd told my story to a bunch of people who knew exactly what I was and what I could be like and still didn't mind, I felt a lot better. I felt like maybe it would be a while before I saw the inside of another karaoke tap joint.

I'd missed a visit with my mother. First there had been finding Leo's body and then the lost time I'd spent at her house and finally the confrontation with Lucas Betty.

She was grumpy with me when I finally did make it by for one of our “Sunday” visits. I was sorry, and I did my best to cheer her up.

I told her about the case.

I told her I really wanted to thank her for reminding me about the
Big Book of Clues.

“Oh, that,” she said.

I told her the gossip was that Frank Wallace was fooling around on his wife, but I'd found out it wasn't true. She wanted to know who Frank Wallace was.

Just some guy, I told her.

I told her about my lunch with Marvin at the Whisper Café. I made up a story about Mrs. Zivon putting mayonnaise from a jar on my roast beef sandwich. Mom probably knew that wasn't true, but she got a kick out of it anyway.

Her giggles were like the hiccups. She couldn't stop even after she'd forgotten about Mrs. Zivon and the mayonnaise. It didn't matter. She had a good time.

I left feeling pretty good.

Dieter got a special delivery letter. Inside was a short note congratulating him on the way he'd handled the Secret Ingredient on the Net Crisis. I didn't know if that meant Dieter had engineered the posting of all those decoy ingredients or if it meant the Secret Society of Mexican Food Cooks thought he had created the entire Documentalist Murders hullabaloo to mask the fact that someone had leaked the secret.

We finally let Scarface get some fish, and they were going to take some getting used to since whenever I looked at the big tank, the fish were all lined up at the glass staring out at me.

Mean Ramona Simmons still hadn't returned any of my calls. Marvin told me she was still alive so it wasn't that we just hadn't found her body yet. She simply didn't feel like getting back to me. I sent e-mail to her BOD list address. I said, “So tell me Ms. Simmons, how does it feel to be a loose end?”

Sparks would fly.

Later that same day Prudence and Pablo came by. She wrote me a check for the rest of my fee as well as a nice bonus. I gave Pablo a couple of bucks and told him to go buy himself a soda.

“All that stuff about the Secret Masters of the Internet was a lie,” I said.

“I told you it was a lie,” she said.

“I mean it was
really
a lie.”

“Yes,” she said. “In fact, it's Pablo who really runs things.”

“Oh?”

“You seem skeptical,” she said. “He has some trouble out here, but in there he is king. Look how he handled you.”

“You mean that was really Pablo pretending to be you pretending to be Pablo and so on?”

“Yes and no,” she said.

“So what would have happened if Frank hadn't pulled me out of there before you could show me how the datapants worked?”

“Makes you wonder, doesn't it?”

Part of me had known all along it would be like this. In my line of work, the woman must always remain a mystery, and she must always leave. I was happy Prudence wasn't leaving in a body bag.

Pablo came back with his soda.

There wasn't anything else to say. Prudence stood up. I came around the desk.

Pablo shook my hand.

Prudence gave me a peck on the cheek.

I watched them walk away, and I wondered if they were off to catch a cybertrain and if that train left Eugene traveling east at 79 mph.…

About the Author

Ray Vukcevich was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and grew up in the Southwest. He now lives in Eugene and works as a computer programmer in a couple of brain labs at the University of Oregon. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including
Asimov's, Twists of the Tale, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Rosebud,
and
Pulphouse.
He is hard at work on a new novel.

THE MAN OF MAYBE HALF-A-DOZEN FACES
. Copyright © 2000 by Ray Vukcevich. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Edited by Gordon Van Gelder