Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller (16 page)

To be honest, I hadn’t been totally convinced that Zaharia Dudnic’s work was important, but the more resistance I received, the more I was sure it was worth looking into. Everyone dismissed it without giving it a chance.

I continued. “Did you read that article about him demonstrating his device?” I’d uncovered a news article about a demonstration that Dudnic put on at the Paris Expo in 1979. He’d brought a football-sized device onto the stage and powered a room full of lights, fans, and air conditioners.

“Right. The device failed.” Dr. Diallo sat back and crossed her arms.

“Yes, but that was just a technical glitch. It worked fine for a while, just like the Tom Thumb.”

“The steam engine?”

“Right. The first steam locomotive lost a race against a horse-drawn carriage when a belt slipped off a pulley. Didn’t mean steam locomotives wouldn’t work. They did, and they dominated freight transport for over a hundred years.”

She held up her hands. “Okay, let’s say you’re right, Dr. Eric Beckman. I don’t buy it, but let’s say that in addition to creating a time machine, Dudnic discovered a simple solution to our current energy catastrophe. Big deal. It won’t help us. The critical details we’d need to reproduce his experiments were lost when his lab burned down. Maybe if we had his prototype to examine, we’d know more. But most importantly, there’s no Dudnic. Where is he?”

I puffed out my cheeks. She’d put her finger on the problem. Zaharia Dudnic had disappeared soon after his demonstration had failed. Where are you, Uncle Zaza?

* * *

Viviana snapped her eyes open.

The source of the voice was silhouetted against the stars. “I knew you’d be here.”

A small girl, perhaps ten years old, stood with her arms by her sides. She wore pajamas covered with lions and tigers.

Viviana sat up and took her hand. “Aren’t you scared to be on roof?”

“Nah, I come here all the time.” She put one hand on her hip.

“Even at night?”

She nodded. “I saw you climb up the tree past my window, so I came up, too. Are the papanazis after you?”

“Paparazzi?”

“My mom calls them papanazis. She hates them and I do, too. Because they killed Lady Di.”

Ce?
Viviana frowned. “Was Lady Di your dog?”

“What?”

“Did papanazis kill your dog?” This new term for the photographers matched Viviana’s current feelings about them.

“No, silly. Lady Diana, the English princess.”

“In book.”

“No. You’re weird.” The girl sat down on the crown of the roof. “In real life. Mom heard about you on Twitter. She said the papanazis were chasing you right in our own neighborhood. That they caught you eating dinner at Surf ’n Surf.” She turned and pointed. The lights from the strip mall glowed in the distance. The sounds of more and more cars filtered up to the two figures on the roof.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Diana. My mom named me after Lady Diana.”

“Well, am honored to meet you, Diana. Do you think your mom would help me hide from papanazis?”

“Of course! But don’t tell her I was up on the roof, okay?”

Diana hurried back to the edge of the roof and disappeared.

“Be careful!” Viviana called out softly. Some of her own childhood climbing mishaps flashed into her mind.

A new noise, the boom of a helicopter, throbbed through the neighborhood. Probably FBI. As it approached, a dazzling searchlight skittered over the ground. It would arrive soon. Viviana bit her lip and squeezed in close to the chimney.

A shoebox-sized thing with multiple helicopter blades buzzed by to her left. What the hell was that?

Finally, Diana’s loud whisper echoed up to the roof, and Viviana climbed down. She hurried around to the back door.

Diana’s mom, Fergie, treated Viviana like the celebrity she was and got a kettle of tea going. A commemorative plate on the wall showed Queen Elizabeth—
not same one?
—who looked to be at least ninety. Two corgis rushed around the kitchen and stopped barking only when Fergie told them to hush.

She sat down at the kitchen table and leaned forward. “So, are you really from 1980? And you don’t know about anything that happened between then and now?”

“That’s right. Have been reading the papers a bit—”

“Not the internet?”

“Is on my to-do list.”

“Well, I’m glad Diana saw you hiding in the tree.” Fergie poured three cups of tea.

Diana and Viviana shared a smile.

“I hate the papanazis.” Fergie gritted her teeth. “That’s what I call them. I hate them with a passion because of what they did to Lady—oh, wait, you don’t know anything about that, do you?” She filled Viviana in on what had happened. “So you can see why we don’t like them.”

Fergie leaned forward and whispered. “Let’s see if we can fool them.”

* * *

A month after Viviana eluded the paparazzi, my shortcomings as a private eye were all up in my face. I knew her real name—I could read minds, for God’s sake—but it wasn’t helping. She’d disappeared like a wisp of smoke in a tornado. Like a good idea on a bad night. And sitting in my office making up film-noir similes wasn’t helping, either.

My only consolation: The FBI wasn’t doing any better.

And I had a new problem: I was running low on funds. I’d built up a nest egg—remember the poker playing—but I’d eaten through most of that.

It was my fault Viviana got away—partly, at least—and I wanted to clear the decks and find her. I had no time for everyday cases. Not that I actually had any everyday cases, but I didn’t want to waste time trying to get them.

Time for one of my fallback funding options.

People with confidential information about a stock are not allowed to buy or sell it. Insider trading is against the law. But by preventing those who know most about a stock from trading, you impede the market from setting a stock’s fair price. Sounds reasonable, right?

Also, one kind of insider trading is legal. If someone decides, based on confidential information, to
not
buy a stock, he’s done nothing illegal. So, it happens, lawfully, all the time.

Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. My not-a-saint conscience is sticking to it. It was time to go out and mine a few brains for confidential stock information.

Sure, I’d need a bit of luck, but in a crowd of financial types, stocks are a common topic of internal discussion. My fishing trip started in the financial district around quitting time. I stood on the sidewalk as the crowd of wing-tipped salmon streamed past me, and I cast a wide net.

Wielding my talent in a situation like this is unimaginably pleasurable. It’s like being really good at a video game in which you need to pay attention to many different targets. I flitted from one thinker to the next, grabbing a thought and moving on. Not letting a single mind pass by unexploited, that was the challenge.

I soon got a nibble. <
Our stock’s going to tumble.
>

The thinker was a portly executive in an expensive suit. I turned and followed him into the subway station.

<
They have no idea how bad it is. I should just stay home tomorrow.
>

This was promising.

<
We’ll drop like a rock. Seventy percent.
>

A stock price was going to drop. I could sell it short and make thousands. But which stock?

I stood near him while he waited for the BART train. Come on, buddy, think some details. But he just ran through those same thoughts over and over. He needed some kind of self-help book: how to stop ruminating on negative thoughts. The train would soon arrive. Time for escalation.

I turned to him and jerked my head back, as if discovering a lost buddy from high school. “Hey, I know you. James, is it?” The most common name.

He looked up slowly, probably having trouble disengaging from his spiral of negativity. He’d been a little heavy with the aftershave. “No, I don’t know you.” <
Definitely don’t know him.
>

“Aren’t you involved with that company? They’re going to announce tomorrow. What’s that company?” I snapped my fingers rapidly.

He watched the train approaching the station. <
Is this some kind of scam?
>

The wind from the approaching train cars ruffled my hair.

He ignored me and got on board. He glanced at me through the window as the train departed. <
Our stock’s going to tumble.
They have no idea how bad it is.
>

Ah, well. Win some, lose some. Told you it was a hit-or-miss thing.

I had two more failures. One man was excited about a stock, but I finally gleaned that it was just a hot tip from his broker. Those things weren’t reliable enough. Another was the owner of a racehorse named Wise-Ass. Apparently the horse was getting sick or something. Not my thing. Not today, anyway.

The crowds were thinning out when a competent-looking redhead stepped off the train. She had a bounce in her step that resonated in her shiny hair. <
I will be the financial story of the year.
>

This could be interesting.

<
No one saw the worth of my company.
>

I followed along, keeping her just in range. She was a good thinker for my purposes. That is, her thoughts were especially well organized, as if she were a writer composing a story in her head.

<
This will show them. A perfect black swan. When Sillman acquires us—me … Hey, I think I’ll celebrate and take the cable car.
>

She grabbed the last spot on the car going up California.

“Sorry sir, you can catch the next one.”

Ach! I ran after it. She was getting out of range. <
That asshole, Dick something, something, he’ll be sorry something something tomorrow morning.
>

I caught up to the cable car after a block. Someone got off and I got on.

A lot of thoughts spilled over me. I blocked all but hers.

<
Dick laughed at my company. Stupid name, he said. Carbock, ha. Not any longer. Asshole.
>

I let out a breath. I had something to sink my teeth into. I stayed with her a while, but her thoughts turned to what she was going to do with her money. I jumped off.

Carbock would be acquired by someone named Sillman, and it was a big deal. A black swan event, whatever that meant.

Wasting no time, I popped into a coffee shop, ordered a drink, and brought out my tablet.

Carbock Industries was a one-person company run by Collene Montoya. I Googled the name—yes, that was her. Handsome woman. I didn’t find anything on Sillman. Carbock "provided database management services and website design for health-care and publishing entities." If it were to be acquired, its stock, CDBX, trading at one cent per share, would rise dramatically.

I checked my available balance: $1,500. How much should I risk? With my line of credit, I could automatically borrow up to twenty thousand. Could I have misunderstood my new buddy, Collene?

Just to see how it would look, I used my brokerage app to set up a purchase of $10,000 worth of CDBX. One million shares. Wow. I held my finger over the trigger, had a moment of recklessness, and tapped “Submit.” As soon as I did, I wanted to take it back.

Worse, I had another bad thought: Would the SEC see my purchase and investigate? It would have to look suspicious. So, I bought $4,000 worth of a few other penny stocks that had received recommendations. Pretty thin camouflage.

What a mess. What had I been thinking? The brokerage fees were high for this kind of trading, so backing out now would be messy. I went to a bar nearby and had a gimlet. And then a few more.

* * *

The next day I found it hard to concentrate. Hangovers will do that. Hangovers and waiting for the results of iffy stock decisions. Plus, I had a lot on my mind.

I was low on funds. The FBI had millions of dollars. Mind reading was my only advantage over them, the only thing that gave me a chance to find Viviana first. So far, that was working, apparently, because I was the only person who knew her real name. And I was going to keep it that way.

I thought back to the shape of Ms. Petki’s body. I wasn’t daydreaming—this was a lead. She was exceptionally fit, with well-defined, toned muscles. Even after days in a coma she looked like someone on the Romanian gymnastics squad.

Was she some kind of super-human? Some strange race that was superior and able to fly through time? No, that didn’t fit. I already knew: She was a jewel thief with a genius uncle.

Jewel thieves and other normal people usually get bodies like that where? At a gym. So maybe she spent a lot of time at a gym.

That’s why I was checking health clubs in the Bay Area. I started with CrossFit gyms since they emphasized things like climbing and strength. Things a jewel thief might need to be good at.