Dues of Mortality (39 page)

“
Are
you all right?” Glenda asked.

Kelmer
got up and took a couple of slow easy steps toward the table, between
him and his guests. When close enough, he grabbed the table’s
end and violently flipped it over.

Glenda
and Xavier dodged out of its way. They then looked back to see Kelmer
using the distraction to reach into a nearby cabinet and retrieve a
semi-automatic pistol.

“
Richard,
what are you doing?” Glenda asked. “Don't you remember
me?”

Xavier
angled his body to give Glenda maximum coverage. “It's okay,
Doc. No one is here to hurt you. We just came to talk.”

“
I...I...I
wanted t...to talk to her,” Kelmer said dry-mouthed. “I
don’t know who the hell you are.”

Xavier
turned up his most gregarious smile. “My name is Xavier
Hawkins.”

Kelmer’s
nose curled like he smelled a fart. “I said I...didn’t
know...who you are. I n...never said I gave a shit.”

Glenda
was crestfallen. The Richard Kelmer she knew would never have talked
that way.

“
He's
a friend, Richard,” she said. “You can trust him. He’s
been helping me to find you. I wouldn’t have even made it this
far without him. I know you’re scared; so am I. But we’re
here now and we need your help.”

Kelmer
seemed to soften. “How did you find me?” he asked.

“
We
spoke to Dana Holliman,” Glenda answered. “She told us.”

“
Dana?
Is she alright?”

“
She's
fine. She's scared for
you
,
though.”

“
If
you don’t believe us, you can call her yourself,” Xavier
said edgily. He was becoming impatient with this nervous-nelly
pointing a gun at them. He took a deep breath and checked his tone.
In the midst of the dramatics, he actually felt a pinch of relief. As
far as he was concerned, there had still been a lingering question as
to Kelmer’s exact role in all of this. Xavier had been
wondering if he was as innocent as Glenda seemed to assume. However,
it was apparent
now
that Kelmer was just as far
behind enemy lines as they were.

“
I’m
not going to ask for your gun,” Xavier said. He presented his
palms. “If you need to point it at someone, just keep it on
me.” He paused then pointed behind himself. “This woman,
in every sense, has risked her future on the chance that you'd be
here, on the
chance
that you might be able to shed
some light on why someone seems to want her dead. And I, personally,
have had to tackle my own share of best-left-alone problems to make
this trip with her, so...look in my eyes and believe me when I tell
you that we are not leaving here until we get some answers.”

Kelmer
pouted. He slowly lowered his gun, letting it dangle in his hand.

“
Good,”
Xavier said and replaced his grin.
“
That
wasn't so hard, was it?” He glanced between Glenda and Kelmer.
“Now, how bout we get this party started.”

Cleveland, Ohio, August 31,
7:37 p.m. EDT

Whomever
was calling him Gabriel would find a way to sue...or maybe even kill
if he never got to finish his dinner. His fork had just speared the
most perfectly tender cut of veal Scaloppini with Masala wine sauce
and now his damn comwatch was road-blocking the straightaway to his
mouth. Gabriel turned his wrist to see the number on his watch-face.
He sighed in controlled acrimony. A marketer, wrong number or someone
else whose family would never miss them, would have simply been too
much to ask for. He fingered the receiver button and his earwig
popped to life. He knew it was bad news before the old man uttered a
single syllable. “Hello,” Gabriel said.

“
Miles,
I'm worried,” Wallace said. “I’ve been trying since
last night to reach the customer. He hasn’t returned any of my
calls. I think something’s wrong.”

“
Maybe
he had to move unexpectedly.”

“
Even
so, he assured me he would be available twenty-four-seven until the
delivery was made.”

“
You
think he canceled out?” Gabriel didn’t want to even
fathom that possibility, or
any
that squashed the deal.

“
No!
He wants this. In fact, up until yesterday,
he
was haranguing
me
at every tick of the clock for
updates. I think he’s up to something.”

“
What
could he possibly be up to?”

“
I
checked the news webs. The Glenda Jameson story went national
sometime yesterday morning. I know he’s been keeping tabs on
local news as it is, and if he knows about what’s happening, he
may have assumed we’re not handling the situation to his
liking. He might have decided to take things into his own hands.”

“
He
wouldn’t dare.”

“
Wouldn’t
he? I know his type, Miles. When they get spooked this bad, it’s
either fight or flight. The whole reason he came to me in the first
place was because he got panicky!”

If
this wasn’t the icing on the cake, Gabriel thought.
What
the hell else could go wrong?
“
Do
you want me to send someone down to the Caymans to look for him?”
he asked.

“
Waste
of time,” Wallace said. “If my guess is right, then he’s
on his way or already here. We have to figure out where. It’s
not like he’s going to be wearing a holo-sign over his head.”

Gabriel
took a minute to place himself in the customer’s shoes. If he
were...wait! “I think I know who to ask.”

****

Andrew Roberts entered the
Blacklight Tavern after ignoring the “Closed for vacation”
sign, just as instructed. Dime to a dollar, the owner was the same
guy who arranged the meet. Roberts felt fairly relaxed going in; the
voice on the webscreen sounded nonnegotiable about him coming alone,
but it wasn't likely the mystery-man was stupid enough to think
Roberts wouldn’t tell anyone where he’d be. Plus, the
Blacklight had a regular or two from the precinct; Penfield wouldn’t
have a hard time finding the place in the event that Roberts never
made it home safely. What the chances were this mystery guest had
credible information on Glenda Jameson and her accomplice, Roberts
didn’t know. But he did surmise that the caller had bet CPD was
getting nowhere fast on the case and, by now, the frustrated
detective might be willing to throw everything but the kitchen sink
into the game. And he’d be right. It didn't help that Marcus
Northcutt was curiously absent from work today. Nor was he home when
Roberts drove over to his apartment to “question” him
about the gun and prints over which Silas Lally had his little cow.
Roberts supposed he could easily decide that Northcutt’s gun
was entirely unrelated to the Jameson case. Small caliber revolvers
were getting more and more rare these days, but still showed up often
enough as Exhibit A. So maybe it was nothing. Then again, maybe
winged unicorns would win the next Kentucky Derby.

Roberts
proceeded to the circular bar where the only active lights shone
dimly overhead. He imagined them suddenly blowing out and being
forced to shoot blind at whoever had set him up.

“
Thanks
for coming, detective,” someone said from the edge of the room.

Roberts
turned to see a man with ears like radial tires skulking behind him,
making his way to the door and locking it.

“
Who
are you?” Roberts asked.

“
I’m
the one who called you about your case; about Glenda Jameson. I know
who her accomplice is and I know where you can find them.”

“
And
just how do you know all of this?”

“
One
thing at a time, detective,” Max Porter said, looking
uncharacteristically humorless. “This is going to
blow...you...away.
”

****

Seattle, Washington

Xavier shook his head at the
unloaded M9 Beretta that lay on the table. Kelmer had had him
practically pissing his pants over a 9mm paperweight. It even had a
redundant automatic safety feature to help prevent unintentional
discharges.
Figures
,
Xavier thought as he loitered among the electronic festival that
comprised the lab.
A guy that
jumpy would be too scared of shooting himself in the foot
.

“
Thank
you,” Glenda said taking her cup. She was seated on a padded
stool at an empty table in the lab. Kelmer had ventured upstairs made
three cups of hot mint tea and served them.

“
Of
course,” Kelmer responded, capping his jubilation at having
pleased her in even the smallest form.

“
No
offense, Doc, but you really look awful,” Xavier said. “When
was the last time you slept?”

“
I’ve
gotten in a...a...few winks over the past couple of days, but n...not
a lot. I guess it’s just one...of those things y...you...you
have to compromise when you’re being hunted by killers.”
Kelmer jerked at the end of his thought and his hand shot outward. It
knocked his ceramic cup off the edge of the table and it shattered
onto the floor.

Everyone
paused for a moment.

“
Tell
us about it,” Xavier said.

As
Kelmer went about cleaning up, Xavier's wandering eye fell onto, what
he could only describe as, a “collection of gadgets” set
on a metal supply shelf to his left. The largest of these was a
simple black obelisk of sorts, no more than a foot in height and with
at least three different lens structures built in. Maybe it saw
through walls or something, he thought. In his childish curiosity, he
pressed a large eye-catching red plate located on the base of the
object. It made a soft whirring sound that lasted about three
seconds, followed by a click. Xavier grew nervous and pouted in
Glenda and Kelmer's direction. They were completely oblivious to his
adolescent meddling as Glenda was cooling her tea and Kelmer was
sweeping broken ceramic shards into a dustpan. Unsure if he’d
damaged anything, Xavier casually moved away from the shelves. The
imaging unit went unnoticed as it whirred softly again and several
small lights encircled another lens.

“
So
Wallace
is
the one you...
we
are running from?” Xavier
asked. He thought it best to pose his inquiries from a distance so as
to give Kelmer an illusion of intimacy with Glenda. She appeared to
be the blanket to Kelmer's Linus, and Xavier didn’t want to
risk any further ruffling of the man's already dangerously thin
feathers.

Kelmer’s
red eyes widened. “Y...yes.”

“
Why
is he trying to kill you?” Glenda asked.

“
Obviously,
b...because of what I know. Or what he thinks I know.”

Xavier
sauntered across the room toward another large cabinet and
nonchalantly flipped open one of its doors. “Well, either way,
I think it’s time you...ah!” Xavier dove sideways.
Shit!
Somebody’s in there!

Glenda
nearly fell off her stool and Kelmer froze solid.

Xavier
spun on a dime and looked for the closest object to use as a weapon.
He stopped when he got a second look at the figure inside the
cabinet. “The fuck?”

Richard
Kelmer walked over and peered into the cabinet. A disembodied mirror
image of Glenda's handsome companion stared back at him from inside.
Mostly the head and shoulders; Xavier had stepped out of range before
the device had captured the complete image. “You
weren’t...by...by any chance playing with my prototype, were
you?” he asked wryly.

“
Prototype?”
Xavier quizzed.

“
Yes.
I...It’s a prototype of a portable holographic projector.”

Xavier
was amazed.
“
That’s
a hologram? It's so real.” He went to touch it and his fingers
pierced the image, with nary a disruption. It was full featured and
completely clear, even in the bright light of the lab. It was more
like looking at a bust of himself in a wax museum. “This is too
much.”

“
It
was one of my uncle’s d...designs.” Kelmer said, with a
hint of pride. “He made it mostly out of s...spare parts from
the solar generator.” He then walked over by the image inducer
and picked up a four-by-six-inch, hand-held touchscreen with a small
3D outcropping. It had been activated in unison with the projector.

Xavier
recognized it right away.
“
A
remote control,” he said.

“
Y...yes.”
Kelmer said and handed it to him.

“
We
used something like this during basic training exercises. But the
images didn't look anywhere near this authentic.” Xavier dialed
in commands with Kelmer's remote, manipulating the holographic head
inside the cabinet. It looked like it was wondering where the rest of
its body was hiding. “Army's been waiting for years to have a
model they could implement in the field. Ideally, a soldier could use
the image to draw out the enemy without breaking cover. You haven't
tried to patent it, make a profit?”