W. L. Culbertson
After a much better lunch than I'd planned, I went back to my post in the car. I did more emails and other bookkeeping, all chores that made the time just fly by. The BMW gleamed right where Samantha had left it.
I checked in with Bart. He said he'd made contact with Kurse and would have something in a day or two.
Since the Floraison spa offered its customers fine dining while in the throes of the beautification process, the length of her stay didn't surprise me. By two-thirty, I decided there was no longer time for her to have an illicit assignation and still make the fund raising dinner the couple had scheduled for five o'clock.
I laid my tablet aside and reached for the keys. Before I could start the car, a belch from the back seat startled me. I snapped a look back over my shoulder.
A gnome sat in my backseat.
"'Scuse me," he said.
"What the hell . . ."
"I said I was sorry."
He covered his mouth for an additional small burp then frowned. "You anthros aren't supposed to notice us anyway."
"Why not?"
He shrugged. "Sort of like trying to see your backside in a mirror." He smiled and added, "I guess that means they're the lucky ones."
"But why do I see you, and they don't?"
"You're unlucky?"
That was less than informative, so I tried another tack. "What are you doing in my car?"
"Watchin'."
"What are you watching?"
"You." He yawned broadly. "Got to say, you sure don't do much. I'm Gary, by the way."
"Gary?"
"It's short for Garhezeigenbusch. It's an old family name."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "Garhezeigenbusch is too long to say."
"No." I made a face and waved away his answer. "Why are you watching me?"
"Mel told me to."
I'd sort of adjusted to actually talking with one of the beings I'd been half afraid were figments of my imagination, but we'd just rounded a sudden conversational curve. "Who's Mel, and why is he interested in me?"
"His real name is Melocartazenilis. You wouldn't know him, seeing as how he's a unicorn."
He stood up and frowned, putting his hands on his hips. "Mel says that Alexander Stuyvesant hired you. He wants to know why."
"Why would a unicorn care what Alexander Stuyvesant does?"
"Long story," he said. "It has to do with some property out west that Stuyvesant's wife owns. It's the only unicorn breeding ground on this continent, and Alexander wants to drill for oil or somethin' there." He shrugged. "You might say the details are above my pay grade. You really don't want to ask a unicorn too many questions. Especially not when the questions concern personal business like their . . ." He chuckled. ". . . breeding."
Maybe unicorns didn't like to be questioned, but since I had the gnome talking, I circled back to a question that had been on my mind for a long time. "So why is it that I can see you and nobody else can?"
"Not nobody, but there aren't too many of you sensitives around. I guess you're just born that way." He crooked a wry smile. "I guess those of you who can see us learn pretty early to keep their mouths shut."
I certainly agreed with that, but I pressed on. "Are there any others, you know, other sensitives like me in the city?"
He shrugged. "Beats me. We gnomes don't keep track of things like that."
"So what do gnomes do?"
"Scouting and snooping. We're are good at that."
"For Mel?"
"And others." He smiled. "You anthros really are pretty entertaining."
Gary looked out the window then back at me. He frowned. "So, you want to tell me if you're going to do something that matters today? I've been bored to sizlets back here."
I took a deep breath and tried to collect my thoughts enough to remember what I was doing. "Actually I was about to head back to my office. It doesn't look like Samantha is going to do anything today."
"So you really are following his wife, huh?"
He walked across the seat to the door. "Well, if you're heading back, I'm checking out. See you later."
He lifted the door latch and opened the car door just enough to slip out. When he closed the door, there was scarcely a sound.
The third day, the BMW and the tracker never moved from the parking garage. The fundraiser the night before had lasted well into the early hours—at least it had on their joint appointment calendar. There was nothing on that calendar for today, but I was ready in case Samantha had something on hers.
At least by now I'd figured out how to set up for my morning watch. The city allowed overnight parking on the street. Last evening, I'd located a good spot for the car across from the Carrack Center. My apartment was only two miles away, walkable in a half hour or so if I humped it. The distance was several lightyears in rental prices, but there and back again made for good exercise, especially since I would be sitting most of the day.
As usual, I'd brought my tablet to do work, but today I also brought one of my old law books. Yes, I'd dropped out of law school. The demanding and detailed coursework had bored me. Composing comprehensive legal briefs was tiresome beyond belief. I found splitting legal hairs down into their component molecules just for the sake of argument pointless.
So why had I gone to law school in the first place? A crime.
I went to college with the idea of being a high school chemistry or physics teacher—a nice, safe job for an insecure kid. My mother's father sponsored my education at his alma mater, a small private college in Ohio. Having led a sheltered life, my expectations of college were similarly limited.
The biggest revelation at college was the large number of gorgeous babes who were my fellow students—not to mention the effect that those girls had on my youthful libido. If you'd charted my study time over the four years, you would have concluded my major was women's studies. Considering the amount of independent research I did on the subject, my grades in my actual academic classes were pretty good.
The seminal event of my college education occurred my senior year. Over spring break that year, Myron Toff, the college's vice president of finance and chief financial officer, absconded with the majority of the school's money. When he didn't come back after break, the school found that glib, smiling Myron had cleaned out his office as well as most of their assets. He'd even taken the award he'd been given by the alumni group the year before in honor of his fundraising efforts—funds he'd been raising for himself as it turned out.
It took another week or so for the college's accountants to discover that somehow, over those three years, Myron had pilfered, diverted, embezzled, and outright stolen not only operating funds but also a goodly portion of the institution's endowment.
The college canceled commencement that year. Three months later, I received a sheet of paper vouching for my degree.
In the end, the school did not close. For several years it limped along, teetering on the brink of insolvency. The last I'd heard, my alma mater had found two wealthy brothers who had agreed to fund the school. It's no longer a liberal arts college. They kept the name the same, but it's become a business institute devoted to propagating the ideology of its benefactors.
The details of the embezzlement case fascinated me—on a strictly intellectual level of course. How had smooth-talking Myron hidden his actions for the time it had taken to loot the funds? What devious tricks had he used? That spurred my interest in the legal system, and I enrolled in law school.
That first year, I took courses like Contract Law. The course spotlighted the delightfully subtle interpretations of such concepts as offer and acceptance, invitation and acceptance, intention to be legally bound, both consideration and capacity, not to mention the rigors of regulatory requirements.
While the instructor's voice echoed in the large hall, I found myself contemplating such enigmas as the Mona Lisa's smile, the difference between degrees of mathematical infinity, the ethereal structure of the asteroid belt . . .
Don't get me wrong. Isolated aspects of the course work fascinated me. What was the history and reasoning behind the Supreme Court's dreadful Dred Scott decision? How was Brown v. Board of Education still influencing education today?
The required material in Contract Law? Not so much.
I stuck it out through the first year because I couldn't admit to myself that I'd made a mistake. That summer, most of my fellow students eagerly sought out positions as legal interns. I had gotten acquainted with Phillip Woodland, a local private investigator, and he offered to pay me to shadow a client's daughter through her course work in a nearby university's summer remedial program.
I loved the job. With my natural nosiness about everything and everybody, the work was effortless. While I'm not particularly a people person, I found I had a talent for pretending to be someone I was not for the purpose of chatting up people to gather information. Not particularly comfortable in my own skin, I could ooze confidence in someone else's.
At the end of the summer, Woodland offered me a permanent position with his agency. Since it was way more fun than law school—not to mention easier—I became a full-time private investigator. Illicit behaviors were a lot more fun to work with before they became court cases.
So why did I bring my dusty law book along today? Alexander Stuyvesant might have been a high-powered international financier, but I didn't trust him. I wanted to review subjects like torts, negligence, and liability—just in case the subject came up during the discussion of my bill. And maybe I wanted to check to see if there might be a defensible rationale for billing Stuyvesant for the cost of yesterday's lunch at Raffiné.
Turned out I had plenty of time to do research. I never saw Samantha that day. I saw no torts either, but I did develop a craving for the sweet tarts they sell at the Berry Ferry.
On day four, my stakeout yielded results that turned my view of the case around. Samantha spent the morning at a fitness center. It didn't have the exclusive look of the Floraison beauty spa, but they'd displayed enough high-end exercise equipment in the front window to advertise their service while making a clear statement that this was not a place to come expecting to find a pickup basketball game. Stuyvesant's surveillance job had preempted my normal morning fitness regimen. I sat in my car envying Samantha the opportunity to sweat productively.
I had to tail her visually today because the signal from the GPS tracker I'd planted on her car had disappeared yesterday evening. My first thought was a weak battery. While she was in the gym, I checked under the car. The unit itself was gone. Something had probably kicked up off the street and dislodged it—an accident.
Probably.
I stared at the car and debated with myself about planting a second tracker. What if someone had found the unit? If they recognized it as a tracker, they would have told Samantha and be alert for a replacement. If they found a second tracker, they'd start investigating.
For that matter, they might be watching right now.
I glanced around hurriedly but saw no one obviously keeping watch on the BMW. Pretending to be just another car ogler, I ran my hand admiringly along the car's fender line and walked away with the second GPS unit in my pocket. Her husband had been adamant that his wife not know anything about my surveillance, and I didn't want to jeopardize my payday.
Samantha was dressed for the gym in jeans and a sweatshirt with her hair in a ponytail, and that's how she came out. Even with her more casual look, I saw the same focused, no-nonsense woman. From the gym she walked around the corner to a fast food restaurant. No Floraison today. There she met another similarly dressed woman of about Samantha's age. I watched from a bistro across the street while they ate lunch. I had to scramble when they left because they took the other woman's car, a nondescript Toyota parked on the other side of the street and going in the opposite direction.
They drove into a rough neighborhood of decaying brownstone apartment buildings. I kept my distance and slid into the space beside a hydrant when they stopped. They got out of the car and went into one of the buildings. A few minutes later, they hustled out with a third woman. This woman clutched a bundle to her chest. A child? Samantha carried a bag. The two women helped the third into the back seat, and a moment, they later were on their way.
What had I just seen? I followed them reflexively, but my mind wandered about uncertainly in a bemused neutral gear. They headed to the outskirts of the city. Just past the outer belt, they pulled into the parking lot of the MotoGo Motel.
I cruised on down the street until I found a spot to turn around. The type of motel fit with information Stuyvesant had given me, but the context was completely wrong. This was no clandestine sexual assignation. It looked for all the world like a rescue mission.
That idea was confirmed when I pulled into motel's lot and parked the car. Samantha and the others were out of the car. The bundle now had arms and legs. The woman beamed as she held up her baby. After an affectionate little jostle, she pulled her baby close for a kiss. I couldn't hear their conversations, but there were smiles and fist-bumps all around as the two women escorted the woman and her child into the hotel.
I sat in the car and looked at nothing.
Ever have one of those moments when your entire frame of reference comes tumbling down? Maybe Samantha was stepping out. But maybe activities her meant something completely different from what her husband thought. Maybe Stuyvesant had been misled by idle gossip.
Maybe so, but my not-quite-right feeling edged closer to something's-fishy territory.