Altered States (8 page)

I really wasn’t expecting this. People get framed for things all the time in TV shows. But it’s really not that easy, especially considering all of the aforementioned techie stuff. It would only be possible by someone intimately acquainted with the details of the crime and the person being framed. Burch was quite nonplussed by the situation. He didn’t seem to have a clue who this might be.

If I’d known beforehand that he was going to be so clueless, I wouldn’t have made contact. But it was too late once I had. I couldn’t really continue following him around. Plus, that’s another thing that happens a lot on TV, which is logistically non-practical. Try it sometime.

There was one other thing I picked up from Burch. I got the impression he was in New Meadows for some shady activity. That he was here for some kind of deal. I couldn’t conjure anything more than a hazy feeling about this though. I would like to know what he was up to and who he was up to it with, but at the end of the day I’m not actually a mind-reader, and he was in no mood to tell me.

So I figured I was pretty much done with him. After dumping him in the gutter I called up the bail bondsman and tipped him off, saying that his bailee was about to skip town. The bondsman was almost half-a-million dollars down so I knew he would do a good job of keeping the guy out of harm’s way for a few days.

Of course, before I let him go I lifted his mobile phone from his jacket pocket.
This
would connect me to the rest of his life. Or so I hoped.

A few blocks down from where I left Burch I started scrutinising the phone. The first thing I learned was that the guy was a professional, or an obsessive compulsive. His phone was virtually clean. There was no data on it that might provide some kind of clue as to who he was: no names, notes, images or documents. There was nothing in his calendar either, which was a shame, but it was a long shot to expect him to be that dumb: ‘9am: Rob bank’. There weren’t even any entries in the phone’s contact list. Though this was quite standard practice for certain individuals who do dealings with other certain individuals.

What did impress me was how fastidious he was about deleting his text messages. There wasn’t a single one, incoming or outgoing; which was a big disappointment. These little babies can be a gold mine of personal information.

The only bookkeeping he hadn’t done that day was to clear his call register, so this was all I had to go on. I inspected the list. It showed that after leaving the jail he had made three outgoing calls. With no entries in the phone’s contact list I had no names to go on, just the numbers. There was only one option. I stopped off at a pay phone and called each one up in turn.

The first number had an area code I didn’t recognise. I tapped in the number and waited. The phone rang a few times before a woman answered. I asked for a random name, wrong number style, just to have a brief conversation with her. She was helpful and pleasant. She had a mature voice and I estimated her to be in her sixties or seventies. I came to the inspired conclusion that this was Burch’s mother. Who would’ve guessed it? It seems even bad guys have mothers. Some are even nice to them.

The second number had a 562- area code, which meant something to me but I couldn’t place it. I called the number up and it turned out to be a haulage company based at the Port of Long Beach, California. This was more useful than a natter with his mom, but I couldn’t do anything with it just yet.

The final entry in the register showed the call had been about ten minutes in duration. I dialled the number. It rang for a while then cut through to an answer message. The owner was probably screening his calls; wasn’t going to answer to an unknown caller. The message was short and the voice was that of a middle-aged man. It was gruff and gravelly like he’d smoked his body-weight in cigarettes since breakfast.

From my chat with Burch earlier I gathered he was in town for business, for some kind of deal, but I didn’t know what. Being incarcerated wouldn’t have been part of his plan so I knew that as soon as he was out he would have had to rearrange any meeting he’d set up. I was pretty sure gravel-tones was who he was supposed to be meeting. I just didn’t know where or when. If he had missed the first appointment, then it would probably be soon. He may already be late. He may have been waiting for the guy at Satori where I’d met him. This was rotten luck. If I’d known all this at the time I wouldn’t have approached him in the first place.

I needed to make contact with gravelly but I couldn’t risk a conversation. I needed to elicit some information without setting off too many alarm bells. I tapped a text message in Burch’s phone and fired it into the ether.

Suggesting a new time was easy, but I couldn’t just say ‘same place’ because I didn’t know where that was. I had a punt at Satori. If I was right it would just seem like I was confirming the location. If I was wrong I hoped the question mark would indicate I was suggesting a change of venue.

Assuming I heard back, 10pm would give me a couple of hours to freshen up and straighten my thoughts. To this end I headed back to my hotel du jour.

I spend a lot of time moving from hotel to hotel these days, which can involve significant context switches in a theme-crazed town like New Meadows.

The trouble with themes is that there are not so many of them – not so many that can be recognisably shammed at least. If you frequent the occasional fancy-dress party you’ll know what I mean. The same tired old themes being recycled time-after-time. Hotels are no different.

The Edwardian
, therefore, was a little refreshing. On the face of it, hundred-year-old England was a bit of an unusual choice of concept – much less scope for architecturally-challenging structures and gaudy interior design. I was born and raised in England so was no stranger to
actual
old buildings. Granted, The Edwardian was a little bit more plastic than the real thing, but it was a great deal more authentic than, say, the twenty-four storey igloo across the street, or the erection down the road that, shall we say, needs no further introduction.

The lobby of The Edwardian was all wood panelling, slender furniture and classical paintings hanging on the walls. There wasn’t any neon in sight. It was quite strange. There was of course a handy casino, situated conveniently between the reception and the elevators. Those Edwardians did love their one-armed bandits.

Back in my room I ran a bath, complete with lavender oil and rose petals. Seriously, who do you think I am? No, it was a strictly straight-guy bath, with just two or three complimentary bottles of generic cleansing substance emptied into it to make it good and bubbly. The porcelain bath was in the centre of the room, freestanding on little cast-iron feet. The taps were nickel-plated with ceramic inlays on top saying
hot
and
cold
, beside each of which was one of my feet hanging over the edge. I’ve noticed that most baths are clearly not designed with adult humans in mind. Either that or they are not intended for lying down in, which just seems like a crazy design assumption from the start, but what do I know?

My right arm rested on the side of the bath to facilitate the clutching of a large tumbler of scotch. I don’t really like scotch; it was just the most masculine drink I could think of to offset the effeminate leaning of my current pursuit. Trust me, I wouldn’t dream of touching an Appletini until I’d gotten at least a couple of fist fights under my belt first.

I allowed myself to slip down a little into the warm water, just chilling-out, relaxing a little. Then suddenly there was an almighty ear-shattering sound, like someone in a china shop had gotten a little bored and set the gravity switch to Up.

So, herein lies some advice. When your phone is on vibrate, do
not
leave it on a porcelain toilet cistern, unless you
do
intend to wake the recently departed ... on the fourteenth floor.

I climbed back into the skin I had just jumped out of, shook the excess water from my hands and grabbed the phone. The message read:

Game on.

Eye for an Eye

Conner arrived at the lock-up, on a dirty street on the east side of town. From the faded sign above the door it looked like it used to be a mechanic’s workshop. The front consisted mostly of a closed metal shutter, large enough to drive a truck through. To the side of the shutter there was a door with a blacked-out window. The black-out paint showed fine scratches in places and when Conner brought his eye up close he could see a flickering light from behind. He turned his ear to the window and could just make out the muffled tones of the Friday night TV schedule.

Conner took out his gun and rapped the barrel on the shutter doors a few times. After a moment of nothing he tapped again, louder this time. If the babysitter inside was worth his fee he would know to ignore whoever was knocking. If he was religious he may also choose to pray for his visitor’s disappearance. Conner knew this. But he wasn’t going anywhere. He banged the shutters a third time just for luck, then on the fourth attempt moved to hitting on the window.

Finally, there was a reaction, of silence – the TV had been muted. Someone was coming to investigate. Conner took two paces back.

‘Who is it?’ a voice called from behind the glass.

‘Police,’ Conner replied with complete integrity – one of the last sincere statements he would be offering the man. ‘I suggest you open the door.’

Conner gave the man a moment to consider his option – singular. If he refused it would be obvious he was hiding something. If he complied it might turn out the nice policeman was just making a neighbourly visit. Or, at least, it would give the heavy a better chance to pop a swift bullet into the cop’s head if his hand was really forced.

Sure enough, after a moment, the door opened a crack. Conner took another pace back, not wanting to crowd the guy, fully aware of the bullet-in-the-head scenario. He held up his badge at arm’s length.

‘Officer?’ the guy said as sweet as his mother’s apple pie. ‘How can I help?’

‘You can help by staying calm and listening carefully to what I have to say. If you do, everything will be cool, and we can all go back to our Friday night entertainment. Okay?’

‘Okay.’ The hired-help was apprehensive, not quite sure what to make of the situation.

‘Good. First, I need you to know that I am mic’ed up to a radio.’ Conner lifted his coat to reveal a covert personal radio inside. ‘And round the corner there is a car with two cops in, listening right now. Got that?’

The thug at the door got twitchy but he didn’t make a move.

‘We know you are holding a man against his will. But this is your lucky night. You hit the bonus ball. I need to talk to him in connection with an unrelated case. And I can’t afford any fuss, you understand? All you have to do is go back to your goggle-box and keep on goggling, and in half-an-hour I’ll be out of your hair and you’ll never see this face again. Won’t that be nice for you? Or ... we can do this the hard way?’

Once again Conner allowed a moment for the thick-skulled heavy to consider his options. Eventually, the door opened a little wider and Conner got his first good look at the man behind it. He was not a big man and Conner pegged him as good with a knife rather than good with his fists. He had a wide untrustworthy face, and a grade-one stubble from chin to scalp.

‘Is there anyone else in there with you who you need to relay this information to?’

‘No,’ the man grunted.

Conner wanted to be sure there weren’t any trigger-happy gun-touters around who didn’t know the score; didn’t know that anything they tried would be broadcast to the supposed cavalry.

Conner stepped into a greasy office which was virtually bare apart from a portable TV on a work surface, and a swivel chair. The man nodded to the door at the other end of the office, then resumed his TV-watching position.

‘Turn it up,’ Conner suggested as he walked past the happy viewer.

At the end of the office there were windows and a door looking out onto a large workshop area. Conner stepped through the door. The workshop was almost empty too, save for a few bits of old cars lying around: a dented fender, an exhaust back-box, a stack of bald tyres.

The few strip-lights above that remained operational cast a sallow pool of light into the room, successfully creating that
Eerie Chill
ambience that was so popular with thugs these days. The floor looked as though a thousand cars, living and dead, had deposited layer-upon-layer of grease, engine oil, gasoline and rubber upon it, leaving it with a grimy sheen.

And in the centre of the cavernous space was a lonely figure on a chair, tied to an upright steel stanchion. The figure was kitted out in a loose orange jumpsuit like those worn by convicts – which seemed like an odd touch to Conner – and had a hood over its head.

Conner was here alone. He had figured that he couldn’t go to the police with what he knew because he wasn’t supposed to know it. It would almost certainly end in his suspension from the force. Besides, he didn’t really see what good that would do anyone. It may protect Bigby, but that was exactly what the thugs were trying to do anyway: protect him and keep him in one place.

What Conner really wanted was to bust Bigby out, because he was key to the rug trade investigation. He’d rather the guy was back on the street. But it was too late for that. Bigby was due in court in a little over forty-eight hours. If he found his way to the street either it would only be for a couple of days until he was back inside, or he would do a runner and skip bail. Besides, busting him out was way too risky. Conner hadn’t gone that far off the rails yet.

So he’d figured his best option was to get in, get some info, and get out. That was the plan.