Gumshoe Gorilla (44 page)

We were all sitting around the room waiting for Eddie's signal. As near as I could tell, though, I was the only one with my mind on business. Ms. Grey was sitting in the corner, chanting over a silver bowl that she'd filled with rainwater from a flask. I had made the mistake of asking what she was doing, and got some story about invoking the "Lady of the Lake" to "part the depths" and "reveal to us the hidden mysteries." Whatever.

Then there was Parker, who had decided to bring his pet along on the stakeout. Some scrawny little animal that he was carrying around in a shoe box and fussing over with an eyedropper. I took a look at the thing and decided that it was either an exceptionally cute rat, or the ugliest kitten in all creation.

And then there was the blond kid, who was tagging along with Parker. I still hadn't figured out what he was doing here.

Finally, there was a light tap on the connecting door to the next room. I opened our side, and Eddie smiled back at me, relieved to see a friendly face. I motioned him in, and then closed the door behind him.

"Did you have any trouble getting the room?" I asked.

The blackmailer had ordered Eddie to take a room on the fifteenth floor. I had modified those instruction slightly, telling him to specifically request room 1515. Hopefully, the blackmailer wouldn't notice the deviation.

"Nah, I told 'em it was a numerology thing. You know, fifteen being my lucky number and all."

"Good thinking," I said, "Now sit tight for a minute, while I check it out."

I grabbed my EM scanner and went in to search his room for bugs. Not that I really expected to find any. I mean, what was the blackmailer going to do? Put a bug in every room on this floor, just to make sure he got the one that Eddie stayed in? It seemed unlikely. Particularly since I had already run a sweep on our room, 1516, and hadn't found anything.

But still, there was something to what Grey had said earlier. About the blackmailer being on a power trip, enjoying ordering Eddie around. If that was the case, then the guy would find some way to keep tabs on Eddie. He'd want to watch his handiwork.

The EM sweep didn't turn up anything, but that wasn't necessarily conclusive. The scanner picks up the radio transmissions from a bug, so it can locate things that are actively broadcasting. But it won't find something that just sits there and records. For that, I had to do a physical search. It was time consuming, but worth the effort. Because if the blackmailer had put a recording device in the room, then he'd have to come back later to pick it up. And that's when we would grab him.

Unfortunately, my physical search didn't turn up anything either. I just can't seem to catch a break with this case.

I went back into the other room to round up my team. Grey had put away her magical toys, and she and Parker were talking about something. Eddie was playing with the cat, and the blond kid was playing with Eddie.

"Oh that's nothing," said blondie, pulling up his shirt to show off a stretch of sunburned stomach. "You should see how burned I got in
other
places."

I cleared my throat.

"If we could get down to business?" I suggested.

I tossed my notebook on the center of the bed, and we all gathered around it.

"How did the sweep go?" Drew asked.

"Rotten," I said. "Not a bug to be found. So we'll have to do this the hard way."

"Wait a minute," the blond kid interrupted. "You didn't find any bugs? Isn't that a good thing?"

I looked him over again. Clearly the kid was not here on an academic scholarship.

"Who are you, anyway?" I asked.

He smiled.

"I'm Daniel," he said. "Drew uses me for undercover work sometimes."

It was an interesting choice of words. I looked at Parker, who's face turned bright red. That told me everything I needed to know.

"It' OK," Eddie said to the kid. "I didn't understand that at first, either. See, we're trying to find a person. So the closer that person is watching me, the easier it is for us to find him. Get it?"

"Yeah," Daniel said. "But doesn't it also make it more likely that he'll spot the rest of us helping you?"

"Oh yeah," Grey said. "But that's what makes this such an interesting game of cat and mouse. Us secretly watching him secretly watching Eddie."

"Cool!" the blond kid said. "I saw a movie like this where..."

"You know," I said, cutting him off. "We do actually have a job to do here, people."

Blondie opened his mouth to say something but I gave him one of my
Don't mess with me
looks, and he thought better of it.

"OK. If there are no more interruptions, lets get down to business. Ms. Grey put together a list of hotel employees, and I've checked into their backgrounds. It looks like there are three that we'll want to keep an eye on."

I tapped on my notebook, and called up some pictures that Grey had shot that afternoon. Luckily her photography is better than her sense of humor.

"The first is Sasha Yavchenco, the assistant night clerk. He's been working here for three months. Born in Russia, emigrated in 2030. He's interesting because he has lived in both New York and DC, and he has a sister living in Richmond."

"All cities that Eddie was ordered to visit," Grey added, restating the obvious.

I clicked onto the next picture.

"The second is Ralph Shroder, one of the bellhops. He came to work here about a month and a half ago-- about the same time that Eddie received the first demands from the blackmailer. He's worth noting because he seems to be using a fake identity. There are some inconsistencies in his background, like the fact that he as a degree in chemical engineering and is working for minimum wage. Also, there's the fact that his birth certificate says that he was born in Snellville, Georgia, but Ms. Grey noted that he has a pronounced German accent."

"Could it be an immigration thing?" Parker asked.

"Possibly," I said. "But he's still worth watching."

I clicked to the last picture.

"And the Last. Crystal Jones. One of the maids. She makes the cut because of a criminal record. An arrest in 2022 for blackmail and solicitation. According to the old news stories, she was part of a ring of call girls in Las Vegas who videotaped their clients and then extorted them for money."

"Interesting," Grey said. "So she would know how to set this sort of thing up."

"Maybe," I said. "But the Las Vegas scam was a simple pictures-for-money deal, nothing as complicated as what's being run against Eddie. Still, she does seem to be the closest fit to our blackmailer so far. She's not on duty tonight, and isn't due back until tomorrow morning. So if anybody sees her enter the building, you're to call me immediately. Any questions?"

I looked around at their faces. Everyone seemed to be with me so far.

"Good."

I tapped on the notebook again, and called up our task list for the evening.

"As I see it, we've got four principle zones what we need to put under surveillance.

"Zone #1. The room itself. I want someone to sit up with Eddie and pay attention to anything,
anything
that goes on in his room. There may be some minor detail that will help us make sense of all this."

I looked around the room. The blond kid seemed particularly eager for the assignment, but I could see where that was gonna lead. He'd spend all his time flirting with Eddie, and wouldn't notice if a herd of elephants came stampeding through the room. Grey wasn't a much better bet. I'd seen the way she drooled over Eddie in the blackmail footage. That left...

"Parker," I said. "You better take that assignment. Lord knows I can't have you walking around the hotel carrying that shoe box."

Parker looked annoyed, but nodded.

"OK. Zone #2. The fifteenth floor. We should have someone walk around this floor about once an hour, to check for signs that the blackmailer is watching the room. We should probably rotate who does it, so that they don't see the same person walking by all the time. And no offense to blondie here, but he's probably not trained to spot surveillance. So that leaves Grey and I. Jen, you take the even numbered hours, and I'll take the odd. Clear?"

"Aye aye, Captain Bligh."

"I'll take that for a 'yes'. Expanding the search radius again brings us to zone #3: The public areas of the hotel. The three restaurants, the bar, the lobby, the gift shop, the downstairs meeting rooms, the ballroom, the parking lot, and the drop off area in front of the hotel."

"That's a lot of space," Grey said.

"True, but there's no help for it. Since we don't know what we're looking for, we can't rule anything out. You, Daniel and I will cover these areas as best we can. We'll link our palmtops together and share data. Each time you survey one of these areas, check it off the list and note the time you arrived and anything unusual that's going on. Then look over the list for the location that hasn't been visited by anyone for the longest time, and go to it. If we all follow that protocol, we should be able to cover everything and avoid bunching up."

"You sure like giving orders," the blond kid observed. "Were you in the military?"

"Yes, but it was covert ops, so if I told you about it I'd have to kill you. Anyway, moving on to zone #4. This one's not geographic, but consists of hotel staff members who are probably aware of anything unusual going on in the hotel: The concierge, the bellboys, the desk clerks, the bartenders. We should try to chat up as many of these folks as we can. Be subtle, but find out what they know. --Oh, and note that I've omitted our three suspicious characters from this list. I do not want anyone talking to them. If they are tied in with the blackmailer, I don't want to tip them off that they're being watched.-- I've prioritized the rest of the list, and split it down the middle. Jen, you take this half. I'll take the other. That way we won't be wasting our time talking to the same people all night. We should try to switch back and forth between area surveillance and personal interviews. Maybe..."

"What about Daniel?" Parker asked.

"What about him?"

"You should use him for this. He's good at getting people to open up."

I looked at the blond kid again. I'll bet he was.

"You've got a point."

I turned the notebook around so that blondie could read the list.

"Which names do you want?" I asked.

He looked it over.

"I can't tell from this. I have to see which ones think I'm cute."

Well, that did make a certain amount of sense.

"OK. How about this: You take all the women on the list, and any of the men that you seem to hit it off with. Just check them off so that Jen and I know about it. Fair enough?"

"Sounds good."

"Fine. Then that's about it," I said. "Any questions?"

They all looked around at each other, but nobody said anything.

"Good, let's get a move on, then."

Eddie, Parker, and the thing in the shoe box went into the other room to begin their watch. Daniel and Grey got out their palmtops, and I linked us all into a common database with the names of people we needed to talk to and the areas we needed to watch. This was going to be a fairly complicated piece of surveillance. I could only hope that it would turn up something.