Old Poison (2 page)

I watched in horror as the slick, oily red
liquid seeped out of the flotube, spilled down the side of the
drain, and began sluggishly rolling south. The leading edge seemed
to stretch into a skin-like dam, allowing the thick liquid behind
it to build into a wall of swirling, iridescent red ooze.

It’s almost pretty
, I thought as I
sat momentarily mesmerized by a sight I had only heard of and never
seen. But it would not make a pretty death.

Ignoring the pain in my knee, I scrambled up
and hobbled across the drain to the plastibag on the far side. On
hands and knees I tried to climb the slippery slope, a few feet up,
then slide back, a few feet more, slide back. Each time I looked,
the Red 19 was looming larger.

At first I believed I could climb high
enough to be above the flow, but halfway up I saw the wall of red
ooze had expanded to the height of the canyon rim. As the flow
expanded, it also moved faster down the channel of the drain.
Exhausted and without hope, I stopped struggling and waited for the
red death to engulf me.

As I watched, the leading edge changed both
color and texture. Losing its deep red iridescence and its swirling
viscous texture, it began to look more like a gas than a liquid .
It was rising slowly off the ground and floating toward me like a
heavy red cloud. Suddenly, as it reached some point in its
transition, the entire mass lifted rapidly toward the sky.

I sat there watching as the red cloud
continued to rise and dissipate until it became indistinguishable
from the rest of the thin red atmosphere. Huddled alone on the
plastibag, I listened to the wind roar across the desolate wastes
of our land.

I hit the down arrow to go to the next page
and the entire text first dissolved into meaningless symbols, then
disappeared from the screen. I tried repeatedly to restore the text
but got nothing but a blank screen. The program had
self-destructed.

* * * * *

I wasted an hour trying to get something to
come up on that disc, but once I had read the file, the data had
simply disappeared. I decided to call the expert.

“Yeabot.”

“Yes, Mother.” He rolled over to my desk on
his little wheels.

“I have a new problem for you.”

Yeabot is a one-of-a-kind, computer robot
that was designed and given to me, in lieu of fee, by my friend and
mentor, Sam Dehany. I had originally named him Yeibichai for the
Navajo talking god, but Sam could never remember that and called
him Yeabot. It stuck. Yeabot is three and a half feet high with a
body of white plastic and looks like a cross between R2D2 and the
Pillsbury Dough Boy. Not only does he gratify my penchant for
fantasy, but he is also a very useful tool.

In addition to fun things like keeping me
company while I talk to myself, and pouring me a scotch at night,
he understands the spoken word better than any voice responsive
system on the market. He takes dictation, types my correspondence,
searches the Internet and my database sources, and is a full-time
guard with phone contact to his creator, Sam. Best of all, like a
living, breathing partner, I can simply assign him a problem and he
can work out a solution.

I slid the CD into Yeabot’s slot. “Check
this CD and see if you can open the files or if all the files have
been erased.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Yeabot whirred and beeped and hummed along
while I went back to my computer to finish a report for another
client. Suddenly, Yeabot made a squawk and ejected the CD so
forcefully that it flew out and landed with a clatter on the floor.
He was turning from side to side, repeating, “Access Denied, Access
Denied, Access Denied.”

“Yeabot, end program!” He immediately
quieted to his normal unflappable self. “Yeabot, what’s the matter
with that CD?”

“That CD is protected by a destructive
device. If accessed, it will release a virus which will destroy all
programs and data on the disc as well as programs and data on any
computer operating the disc.”

“I see. Mr. Borson seems to have hidden
talents.” I picked up the disc and considered this new mystery.
Deciding what to do was going to take some serious thought. I
tossed the disc into my Out basket and turned to my case files.

There were several cases in the file drawer
that were screaming for my attention. I pulled out the Carpenter
file. I had only a few days left to serve this turkey. A lot of PIs
won’t fool with process service, but I had developed a reputation
for doing
hard serves
. Of course, no one pays me fifty
dollars an hour to serve process unless they have already tried
regular servers or marshals who do the job for much less. So when I
get an assignment, I know before I ask that the recipient either
could not be found or could not be caught.

In the case of Mr. Carpenter, the server had
broken my number one rule:
Never door-knock anyone
. He’d
knocked on the door and was told that Carpenter had moved a year
ago. The server accepted this and raced on to his next delivery.
The subpoena was handed back to the attorney marked, “Moved, no
forwarding address.” That’s where I come in.

I turned back to my computer and ran the
name of my quarry through all of my database accounts, checking for
property, vehicle, employment, and consumer public filings. When
finished, I concluded that the guy most likely lived right where
the server had tried to serve him. In fact, the server had probably
been talking with him. Early tomorrow morning I would do a little
field reconnaissance and see if I could verify this assumption.

I stretched and looked at the file cabinet
and then at my watch. Yeah, 5:15, sun was over the yardarm. I
picked up the phone and dialed Sam. His J.Edgar, Yeabot’s
technological father, answered.

“Sam, you there? It’s Diana. How ‘bout
dinner at the Ocean Way Grill?”

Sam picked up. “Who’s buying?”

“Me. Got a fat retainer today.”

“I’ll see you there.”

I turned off the computer, slipped my wallet
into my jeans pocket, and the CD in my jacket pocket. I needed
Sam’s take on this CD.

For twenty-five years Sam had given his
heart, soul, and body to the U.S. intelligence service, and
high-tech toys and deceptions were his area of expertise. When
disillusionment and disgust had replaced duty and patriotism, Sam
had looked for a way out. He’d spent his last four years in the
service developing advanced robotics technology but had decided he
didn’t want this technology put to the uses the military had
planned for it. With my own brand of deception, I’d helped Sam
leave the service and take his robotics knowledge with him. But
that’s another story, one I don’t tell.

Sam now lives quietly in San Pedro. He has
no wife, no children, few friends, and no hobbies other than his
computer and robotics skills, which he can never use openly. I’m
lucky to be his friend and recipient of his genius. However, it is
painful to watch such genius and decency wasted and see a dear man
grow old in boredom and disappointment.

“I’m going out, Yeabot. You have the
security watch.”

“Yes, Mother. Security on.”

This old building I live in was once an
office building. When Bluff Beach slipped into decay a couple
decades ago, the office suites were haphazardly converted to
low-rent apartments. When crazy Merle goes home at five p.m., the
elevator is left on the first floor and there is no auto-call
button for the old relic, so tonight I walked down eight flights.
It’s a toss up as to which is worse, getting in the elevator with
Merle or walking the stairs.

Despite its drawbacks, I am enjoying my
funky little place, and nowhere else in Los Angeles or Orange
County could I find a place so close to the water and so cheap.
With the town now redeveloping rapidly, it probably won’t stay
cheap for long.

The six blocks between my apartment and the
grill used to be an area one did not venture into without an armed
guard. Now it is a lively, exuberant mix of shiny urban renewal
buildings and upscale supper clubs set among the pawn shops, used
bookstores, antique shops, tattoo parlors, and seamy bars. The
sidewalks are filled with yuppies in evening dress, city kids on
their way to the sixteen-screen theater, and panhandlers. As I
walked to the restaurant, Dixieland and progressive jazz emanated
from two of the clubs, while three street entertainers tried vainly
to compete.

I sat at the bar, nursed a Grant’s scotch,
and waited for Sam to drive over from San Pedro. As soon as he
arrived and we were seated at our regular table, I began the tale
of my new client, our strange meetings, and the seriously protected
CD. Through cocktails and salads, Sam listened silently to my whole
story and then looked briefly at the CD.

“Well, Diana, if Yeabot says he can’t break
this thing, I sure can’t do any better.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t want you to try. I just
want you to help me figure out who the heck I’m dealing with here
and if I should be. At first I put Borson down as just a curiosity,
then as a nut, and then as a crusader with both money and a cause.
But this CD puts a new icon on his head. I mean, what writer would
go to this length to protect a sci fi manuscript? And, who the heck
could do this stuff?”

Sam picked up the CD again and turned it
over in his hands as he considered his answer. I noticed how much
puffier and softer his hands looked, and noticed the liver spots
that had formed on his skin.. He had put on at least twenty pounds.
His once handsome face had become round and double chinned, and his
bright blue eyes looked tired and dull. I looked back down at my
salad plate, hating myself for noticing how much he had aged in the
last year. It somehow seemed disloyal.

“Well, you see, just about any able
programmer could booby-trap the thing with a virus. To do it so
well that Yeabot couldn’t find his way around it, that took someone
special. Could be someone from the community, all right.”

“You mean intelligence community? Maybe I
should decline the assignment.”

“I don’t see why, unless researching this
Red 19 leads you to classified information.”

“Yeah, but in his assignment letter Borson
said to check up on all the latest developments in experimental
fuels. What if this is some sort of industrial espionage?”

Sam shrugged. “That’s possible, I
guess.”

“So you think I should drop it and return
the retainer?”

He thought a minute. “Not at this point. You
know how to evaluate his requests for information. If they stop
sounding like science fiction and start sounding like Leavenworth,
get out. I think you can handle this, Diana.”

At that moment the waiter walked up with two
plates of steaming lobster. “Besides,” he added, “you’re going to
need that retainer to pay for my dinner.”

* * * * *

I was up at five a.m. and by six was settled
in on a discreet surveillance near Carpenter’s house. My second
rule of process service is:
Never let them see you coming
.
No matter how many lead-footed, inept servers have tipped them off,
I can still surprise them if I handle it right. A corollary to this
rule is my sexist rule of thumb:
Never hire a man for the
job
. Most of the men in this business are too puffed up with
macho images of themselves to use stealth. They have to pound on
the doors, kick the trash cans, and announce, “I am a PI!” It’s the
Sam Spade syndrome.

My subject left his home about eight,
driving a Toyota pickup with a plate that matched his vehicle
ownership records. His physical description matched the one on his
driver’s license and I was ninety-nine percent certain that this
was Carpenter. However, as all young PIs and police officers are
taught,
never assume
. Once I found a guy living in the
subject’s house and matching his description, but he turned out to
be the wife’s live-in boy friend.

I followed Carpenter to work and watched as
he parked the Toyota. His work place also matched my research, but
I didn’t try to jump out and run him down. Rule number three:
Never chase after the subject
. Breaking this rule not only
caused one of my few failures, but also a broken high-heel, a
sprained ankle, and the loss of a client. I watched Carpenter walk
into the building, then drove back to Bluff Beach.

It was time to do some research on Red 19.
My first job out of college was as a librarian, and I carry a
reverence for the wonderful resources of the reference desk. Not in
my wildest imagination, however, did I ever envision the amazing,
living, breathing, growing leviathan of information that would be
born on the Internet. With information being loaded from all over
the world and growing exponentially, it seems that any subject you
search for can be found. Everything, that is, except for Red 19.
Try as I might, I found no fuel or fuel byproduct that begins as a
viscous red liquid and transforms into a gas when it hits the
atmosphere.

However, I did learn a great deal about the
R and D of alternative fuels and identified a couple California
firms working in this field. I gave them each a call, but I never
made it past the PR desk in either firm. The responses I got made
it abundantly clear that my inquiries were considered suspect. Next
I tried three chemistry professors to see if anything in basic
science could behave like Red 19. No luck.

Next I tried Mike Shelley, a friend of mine
who works as a tech writer at Space Delivery Systems, Inc. SDS,
Inc., is a well-funded, low-profile, private company working on
exploration and colonization of the planet Mars. This is not a
governmental operation nor a bunch of science fiction dreamers, but
a private corporation that is dead serious about showing a profit,
someday. I knew that among other subjects, Mike was well read on
the development of fuels for space flight. He wasn’t in, so I sent
him an email and asked him to check on my mystery fuel.