The Ilium Obligation (A Matt Savage Adventure) Chapter 33

[seymoure]

Missed Clues

 

“In some sense, man is a microcosm of the universe;

 therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe.

We are enfolded in the universe.”
-David Bohm

 

We got our bags together and ready for their dispatch. After that had been settled, I made a call back to Kansas City.

Rayleen was breathless as she answered.

“Boss, I’ve been trying to get you since early this morning,” she stated. “Didn’t they give you the message?”

“No!” I exclaimed. “What’s the word?”

“Somebody broke into the office sometime last night,” she told me. “I searched through everything, and they trashed the place. I think they were trying to make it look like they were vandalizing, rather than looking for something.”

“What do you think they wanted to find?”

“The only thing that’s gone is a letter,” she hesitated, then, “The one from Victor Malvito. Not the contracts, those were safe at my place. But they got the letter that said that he wanted to pay you to find his killer.”

“Interesting,” I considered. “Nothing else was gone?”

“No,” she said, “but my notebook with the list of phone numbers you gave me was left open. I closed it last night.”

“You’re sure you closed it?”

“I’m an over-achiever in the control issue here in the office, remember?”

“Absolutely,” I recalled. She had alphabetized the bills as they came in. The strange thing was she wasn’t like that at home. She lost stuff all the time, except work-related things. She was raised with a feeling of obligation that out- weighed everything when it came to her devotion to quality in her profession. You couldn’t get a better secretary.

“That’s all?”

“That’s it; sorry, Boss,” she apologized.

“Hey,” I told her, “you couldn’t live in the office. It just means that somebody is in on our agenda, nothing more.”

There was a momentary pause.

“Could I speak to the Big Guy?” she asked.

I happily handed the phone to Hugo, who looked like a tot that had just been presented with a lollipop.

I motioned to him that I was going down to the desk to check out. He nodded and then was fully involved with his conversation.

All the way down in the elevator I was glad that, if nothing else came from the horrendous MacPherson debacle (aside from leaving me with more money than I would be able to spend in the rest of my life) I was glad the two of them had found each other.

When I marched up to the clerk, I noticed that he wasn’t happy to see me approach. I had expected to roll them over the coals for not passing on my telephone messages, but it seemed like there was something worse that they had to tell me about.

“Mr. Savage,” the manager said, “We feel that we must tell you that one of our people has been prying into your account.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was stealing your phone messages; ah,” he checked his book, “5 of them. And he had written down your check-out times and flight number at the airport. Knowing you worked as a detective and these things might be important, we felt we had to tell you.”

I considered just what the implication of this might be, and then asked, “Could I speak to this clerk?”

He was really uncomfortable now as he admitted, “We tried to hold him for you, but he demanded that we arrest him or let him go. We had no choice. Nothing he had done was a chargeable crime, so we had to release him. I had one of our bellmen follow him, and when he lost him, we checked out the home address he had on file.”

“It was fake?”

“Yes,” he said. “He had only been working here starting yesterday morning. Here are your messages, and I would be happy to reschedule your airport reservation.”

I was already looking at the papers he had handed me. Three of them were from Rayleen, one was from Rusty (saying that we had been cleared to inspect the house in New York), and the final one was from Connie Cho.

It was simple, and clear.

“Don’t look for me, unless you would imperil my life.”

I walked over in a fog and dropped into a chair.

This was going to take some thought.

© C. Wayne Owens
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