The Hard Money (Fiction)

(By Mark Lax as Sarah Johnson)


There’s easy money and then there’s hard money. In both of its forms Missing Persons is hard money. The first form involves looking for a person whose life has been interrupted. Without incident or seeming reason, the person has wandered off the map. Police have been called, other authorities alerted. By the time a private investigator, such as myself, is called in the authorities and friends have exhausted all leads. What you do, what I do, is then go over everything the police and others have done and do it again—or play at guesses and checklists. It’s not a good game. The way it generally ends is with the discovery of a decomposed corpse. And the hotshot investigator has had nothing to do with this. All you have done, all I have done, is gone through a retainer, heaping thousands of dollars in costs upon a meaningless tragedy. That’s why I generally stay away from it.

The second type of Missing Persons involves tracking down someone who has plenty of reason to turn up missing. They’ve stolen something. They owe money. They have skipped out and are actively hiding. This, I do a lot of. (For personal reasons I never touch non-custodial parental abductions.) It’s not the core of my business, but it is a big sideline. The way I work it, I generally get a fee based on the value of whatever it is the person owes, or can pay or the value of what it is they have taken. It’s worthwhile, but it is a lot of work.

Mona Hall, 25, left a husband, two kids, a house and a career as a buyer for a knick knack catalog firm and vanished without a note five months ago. Someone in Wichita thinks they may have seen her buy a bus ticket. Other than draining the family bank account, she made no real preparations to up and leave. By all accounts, she was a loving mother and was very well liked at work. The marriage, no one is saying anything about. Police have placed the search on inactive. Her parents and employer are offering a $15,000.00 reward for her whereabouts. I am in a position to collect this.

Audrey Pearson, 44, is a self employed real estate leasing agent, specializing in high end office space. Six months ago she stopped showing up at her office suite. Her boyfriend of the past two years and her office landlord have both reported her missing. Her car was recovered from a kiss and ride near the Cumberland El stop in Chicago. Police report that there has been no activity on her credit cards and she seems to have left close to six figures in her checking account. The file hasn’t been closed on her, but there are no leads. The reward is iffy. Iffy there is a reward, I can collect it.

Mary Scott-Clark, 33, is a cosmetologist, in the employ of the Varrah’s corporation in Las Vegas. She works in various spas on the strip and, by all accounts, has quite an active client base. So much so that her employer thinks she may have struck out on her own. Her live-in boyfriend, who has kept the couple’s finances crappy with his debts and over the top spending, doesn’t think she did that. He just thinks she’s missing. Vegas is a pretty wired for sound place, especially when it comes to staff. As of two weeks ago, they are admitting they can’t find her. The soon to be evicted boy pal says she’s been gone a month. Varrah’s has put out a $20,000.00 reward for her whereabouts. I can also collect this.

Floyd “The Catman” Turner, is the undisputed Unlimited Rules Fighting Champion of Earth. This beefy 38 year old was last seen bashing the snot out of someone in a cage in Barbados. Per his gal pal Buffy, he never got on the plane back to Los Angeles. His estranged wife and three kids have not seen him, or his child support, for six months. California authorities allow a ten percent finder’s fee for the recovery of back child support, which per their laws is two thirds of his considerable income. This can also be mine.

Not that I’ve done any actual hard work here. I found them all in the same place, alive and well, and in the employ of Peter “Doc” Stroud at the Stroud Rejuvenation Day Spa here in sunny Des Plaines, Illinois. Dr. Stroud is the actual person that I am looking for.
The Day Spa itself is unmarked, a former chain hotel located off an off ramp to the 294 interstate. Each room has a spectacular view of the interstate’s cloverleaf, or the little twenty-four hour greasy spoon in the hotel’s parking lot, or the Mobile station across the street. Not to tsk-tsk Des Plaines or even this part of it, but restful and away from it all, this ain’t. Given that the spa’s treatments, whatever they may be, start at $50,000.00, one would expect a tad more. For reasons which I will explain, I have signed me up for some of them there treatments.

Who or what actually owns the hotel the spa is in is a little hard to figure out. When dealing with property searches it is common to find a lot of vestigial information. The hotel has gone through a few hands lately. It is either owned or managed by Saul Masterson, Masterson Management, Perth-Queensland, George Masterson Jr. or 55 River Road Associates. There is a lot ‘pending’ in the records and a lot of it is overlapping. In any case, it’s a bit off, even for commercial real estate.

None of this is quite as off as Dr. Pete, but then again, he’s a professional. By professional, I at least mean that he is a real Doctor, an MD--a cosmetic surgeon at that. He isn’t actually licensed to practice in the United States, although there is no reason that he couldn’t be. Having met Pete, I would say that he’s 35 or perhaps a well preserved 40. He’s pushing 80 per his papers. (78 to be exact.) Pete is a certifiable political refugee, having been granted haven here in the US from South Africa in 1989. Most apartheid era criminals were granted amnesty, but not Dr. Pete. That makes him very special indeed.

I can only guess at what Dr. Pete would have to fear if he were deported. My best guess is that the South Africans just don’t want him back. Given what I suspect about Dr. Pete, I can’t say I blame them.

Dr. Pete had previously made the news. Not that I was aware of it. My first awareness of Dr. Pete came two days ago. I was at my office in the Hancock Building. The name on the door to my compartment of the office quad is ‘Quality Creative Services’, which would suit an advertising agency. The other three offices in my quad are advertising agencies. Only the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation lists Quality Creative as a detective agency. I don’t advertise. I am not in the book. I answer the phone “Sarah Johnson.”
“Sar-rah,” says the voice on the other end. It’s Milt Feinstein, an editor for America’s favorite national newspaper--which is not the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal, nor even USA Today, but rather a colorful affair available every two weeks at your supermarket check out. “I have someone I need you to trace for me.”

This is my core business. Much of it involves shadowing investors or corporate big wigs who blow through Chicago. Some of it is tracking people for this fine paper. I point parabolic microphones at them. I take their pictures. Sometimes I bug their cell phones. The legality of it is nebulous. The cash is not.

I fart through silk. I wipe my shame filled eyes on my mink coat. For solace, I watch my race horses frolic from out the window of my indoor pool. Every day I am torn—between the Ferrari and the 911—on which to drive the two miles to the Barrington train station. I truly boo the hoo of hoo.

As part of my core business, I have cultivated a relationship with Milt’s newspaper dating back about ten years. At one time, the paper had a bit more of a focus on covering the occult. Or unexplained happenings. I started working with Milt about six years ago, when he was on that assignment. When last I spoke with Milt, he was on the crime beat. He was tracking down information on this weirdo guy who had blown up a number of drug gangs in Mexico and Los Angeles. The guy was dressed up as Zorro or something and was packing gear that seemed to have been stolen from a Chicago area alternative weapons project. The FBI called him Joe Loveguns or Joe Nobody. Our feature on Joe Loveguns Nobody was good for three pages, although we never did get a photograph of the guy. Since then, crime and the occult have taken a back seat to pictures of movie starlets wetting themselves in public.
Just the week before I had done some leg work for another editor on a UFO sighting near O’Hare, but other than my check, nothing came of it. Milt told me to drop that and get on this Dr. Stroud guy.

“We busted his martial arts schools five years ago. That’s what we are doing. ‘Where Are They Now’ it’s called,” Milt explained.

“No new crimes, Milt?” I asked.

“I had zero pages last issue. They are going to give my budget to another department. This is what I thought of. And this Dr. Stroud was real bad news,” he said.

Discovering Dr. Stroud was now running a day spa was about as anti-climatic as it gets. The more I read on Dr. Stroud, however, the less on the up and up what he was doing now seemed. I’ll confess I missed the paper’s previous expose. As it was, the expose only covered his activities as of five years ago. That he is a real doctor and a refugee I found out on my own. Really, their expose hadn’t scratched the surface of Stroud’s quite interesting listing of activities.

Ten years ago Dr. Stroud was running a mail order operation, specializing in manuals on self defense and philosophy and fitness. It was a system called ‘Progressive Autonomy.’ His advertising had the tag line ‘Beholding To None!’, coming off as a cross between Charles Atlas and Satan. Muscle culture always has a bit of an anti-social vibe to it, but this was taking things to extreme.

This was during the wrestling boom, which some may remember. Dr. Stroud and his disciples haunted the lower rent circuits, emerging out of the crowd for challenge fights. That they only did this at matches that were not televised raised my suspicion. It was low impact promotion. Dr. Stroud got enough publicity out of it that he started to open his ‘Total Progressive Autonomy Centers’ in mid markets.

By the time he reaches bigger markets, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cleveland and such, he’s added the wrinkle of giving discounts to law enforcement officers. About a quarter of his students were police officers. That’s some nice deodorization for a business which essentially traffics in violence.

As for the martial arts portion of Progressive Autonomy, it’s all about causing your opponent as much pain as you can with the first blow. It’s a lot of eye gouging, groin pulling and pressure points. Per the critique I read, it doesn’t work. The hand speed and coordination needed are well above the realm of normal. “You would be better off learning how to box,” the critique concludes.

Other than Dr. Stroud, only Floyd “The Catman” Turner has achieved black belt—or Omega Circle—level. Dr. Stroud admits that his system requires dedication. Total dedication. And that’s where he gets in trouble. People are so dedicated to it that they are quitting their jobs, leaving their spouses and generally giving the Doc all of their money. Some of the richer devotees go off on missions to Asia, Africa and South America. Many of them are never seen again. That’s when our paper’s expose hits.

He doesn’t get into any criminal trouble and I am not sure why. The families’ stories are quite heartbreaking, all about men who suddenly have violent personality changes. They systematically alienate friends and family until the only people they associate with are members of their local ‘Total Autonomy’ temple. On the other hand, most of these people are police officers. Cops have lousy marriages. Cops are violent. Cops only hang out with other cops.

And cops are loath to investigate the activities of other cops. In a way, the police are perfect victims for this. In my view, anyone attracted to ‘Total Autonomy’ or ‘Beholding To None’ as concepts are perfect victims.

Although he dodges criminal charges, and beats an IRS investigation, Dr. Stroud’s organization is crippled by a class action ‘alienation of affection’ judgment in California. (You gotta love Los Angeles!) He closes the temples down and slimes off to count his remaining cash.

Stroud isn’t hard to trace from there. Like all of his kind, he’s into real estate. He owned all of the strip malls his little temples were in. Some, he converts to quick mart stores, many of which employ his former students. I found a slew of family court orders demanding that students drop their careers as retail clerks and go back to being police officers. There starts to be a critical mass of this stuff, all dropping the good Doctor’s name. I am guessing that this is what compels him to make a clean break from the students. It is diminishing returns at this point.

Real estate is a world of nom de plumes, alias and euphemisms—at least if you are doing asset searches. Even the creative will wind up reusing names. Dr. Stroud is fond of using Perth Partners or Queensland Limited or Sidney Associates or some permutation of that. Is he Australian? Perth-Queensland Limited is the agent of record for the spa hotel and some of the Masterson’s previous office properties.

My morning computer work also dredged up a few more names, one of which I recognized: Meno Partners. That was a euphemism for Zerkor Real Estate, a firm I have run into before. Of the some eleven hotels that the chain put up, six of them are now owned by Zerkor through its subsidiaries. I wondered if they had ever had an interest in acquiring Dr. Stroud’s hotel and blew them a call. It was through them that I got the Masterson twins.

Zerkor is in something of a stealth business. They seek out shopping malls and old hotels or other commercial properties which are either run down or currently vacant. The objective is to convert them into apartments or condos. Since this changes the tax status of the properties, a lot of municipalities don’t like them and hence the stealth.
They are also is the rather not nice business of moving around leased office equipment from properties they assume, which is how I know them.

Like many businesses, mine is one forged from contacts. I have caught Zerkor red handed a few times, but I’ve kept our relationship cordial. They very nicely are allowing me to pretend to be one of their agents. This is the pretext I used for making contact with the Mastersons. For bonus points, Zerkor will give me a finder's fee if I can arrange for the Mastersons to sell the hotel to them. But I have made no promises.

After having my laser printer print up some business cards identifying me as an acquisitions manager for Zerkor, I am off to meet with Saul Masterson and his sister Zelda in Tinley Park.

Saul and Zelda are the type of people who need a private investigator, if they would think of it. They are still in the property management business, although they have lost control of their parents’ properties. Their office is nice, on the second floor of one of those newer three story dark brown brick buildings with the black smoked windows. They don’t know what I am there for, until I mention it.

Zelda and Saul are both in their early 40s. Sadly, Zelda looks like Saul in a wig. Both have rosy high cheeks and a rather pronounced nose. They seem to share responsibilities and are both operating out of the same inside office. When I mention the hotel, they both make the same sad wince.

“Not ours,” says Saul. “It was ours. We set it up.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For some reason people at the office thought you were Perth-Queensland Limited.”

“That was supposed to be the lessee,” Zelda explains. “Some sort of a fitness outfit.”

Saul says “Frankly, you can have the stinking hotel.”

“Right,” Zelda says and then they both go silent.

“I’m sorry. Is there a problem?” I prompt.

“Our parents have gone nuts,” Saul said.

Zelda added “It’s like were orphans.”

“My parents got pretty strange too, when they got older,” I said, slandering my quite living and thoroughly sane parents.

“My dad’s pulled on a gun on me. He pulled a gun on the bar tender of his club,” Saul said. “He’s been kicked out of a country club he founded.”

“All mom does is swear and threaten me. I don’t care if they want to cut us out of their will or whatever,” Zelda said. “It was all so sudden. And there’s no reason. Nothing we did. Nothing anyone did. They’re not talking to anyone.”

“We were going to have them declared nuts. That’s when we could find them,” Saul said. “Now their house is empty.”

It was almost the same story the families of the police officers had given, sans involvement with a martial arts clinic. I didn’t have any theories right then, but their story certainly did fit the pattern.

I was quite tempted to break character at this point. (I did, later.) They haven’t contacted the police as yet. Instead, they are attempting to trace their parents through relatives in Florida. They also haven’t made any connection between Dr. Stroud and Perth-Queensland Limited. All they have is an address for P-Q-L, as they call it.

The address is a two wing four story red brick office building off Route 53 in Rolling Meadows. The two large flower bunkers aligned beside the front steps are empty, which is unusual for late May. Its front lawn and other landscaping is similarly patchy or not done at all. There is no sign on the building and only blank brown slats in the road side light box. I see three building permits, all dated in April, on the front doors of the lobby. As for the lobby, panels are missing from the drop ceiling, with wires dangling here and there. There is simply a desk and chair in the lobby, but no person behind it.

I enter and hear nothing. Beyond the center bank of two elevators, is a hall to the right and a hall to the left. I take the left one, which winds around to the back of the building. No one here. Just more missing ceiling tiles. I do spot two cars in the back lot.

By the time I round the hall back to the lobby, there is someone there. I spotted her long enough to take a cell phone movie of her. She is looking out the front smoked glass, in the direction of my gold 911.

I am very lucky that Audrey Pearson looks exactly like her missing persons photo, otherwise I doubt I would have identified her. She is 5’7”, semi curvy with perfect dark red hair, jet black eyebrows and skin a tad too tan for her to be a real red head. Her youngish, angular face is adorned with lip gloss and an absolute minimum of foundation. As I first see her, she is wearing a short tan blazer, black silk blouse and a middy black skirt. The shoes are tan flats and she is wearing black nylons. She is also wearing wrap around black sunglasses and a weird red scarf around her neck.

My approaching footfalls give her a start. She turns and without a hello asks “Is that your car?”

“Yes it is.”

“Is it new?”

“I got it last year. I don’t know if the new ones are out yet. They don’t really change.”

“What are the payments?”

“I wouldn’t know. They didn’t push for financing. I’m sure they made enough off the extended warranty and other crap they sold me.”

My car is bringing something out of her. Not that I knew it at the time, but she abandoned a much nicer vehicle at the Cumberland El.

She just stands there.

I pull out my business card. This causes her to remove her sunglasses. Her eyes are vacant. The blacks in her eyes don’t move, are permanently small. It seemed that she was fighting off squinting.

Doing all the work here, I say “I have a tier three needing 9000 square feet. Nothing special for the info through. They have Steelcase cubes. Might need a copy center. I was wondering if there was any availability?”

The 2003 Independent Commercial Real Estate Leasing Agent of The Year’s response: “Huh?”

“Is this a build out? Build to suit? Any sublet possibilities? Do you have an ETA on occupancy?”

“You want to rent the building?”

“About 9000 feet, but nothing at a premium. Something interior, I am thinking second or third floor,” I say, convinced at this point that I might as well be speaking Latin. “But that’s really kind of the second thing. I thought this was the offices for P-Q-L. I wasn’t expecting an office building.”

“P-Q-L?” she says. “Oh, you mean Perth-Queensland.”

“Right. Is this their offices? Am I in the right place?”

“Yeah,” she says and then says nothing.

You can see why I didn’t think this woman was in real estate. Her blazer might have been in real estate. As for her, I thought she was in pharmaceutical consumption. Undaunted, I ask “Is there someone I should see?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

“Great. What really brought me here was a client who is interested in the River Road hotel in Des Plaines.”

“You want to rent a room?”

“No. It’s a new chain with a fast roll out. A value chain with no uniformity, so there’s no tear down. They can do existing and just hang a sign. They need coverage near O’Hare and got P-Q-L off the topographical. Does the hotel currently have an affiliation?”

“You want to buy the hotel?”

“Not me personally, no.”

“But you do own the car,” she says, looking back out at my car.

“Yes, I do,” I say. “I think the chain is just in kicking the tires mode right now. I know that they probably wouldn’t be opposed to a flat out sale. Of course, any agreement would come with a preamble to buy out the pre-existing affiliation.”

“Great,“ she says, momentarily having an expression not suited to a puppy. “I have to make a phone call. Stay here.”

“OK,” I say back. She lumbers to a glass door and enters the first office down the hall, whose door she shuts behind her.

I point my purse and slap its side, activating the parabolic microphone. I have to hold fairly still or it will screw up the recorder. I didn’t hear anything during the four minutes or so I was by myself in the lobby, but then again, I am not a parabolic microphone.

At the crack of the door, I turn the recorder off. She drifts back to the lobby, her Ray Charles Ray Bans back on. “You have to talk to Pete Stroud. He’s at the hotel. I told him you were coming,” she says, handing me back my business card.

As I am headed back to my car, I notice that she is again at the window, watching me and my car pull away. I turn the playback from the recorder on. Weirdly, I can’t hear Stroud’s voice from the other end of the call. The microphone is specifically designed to pick that up. Instead, I get Audrey’s scattered comments.

“Variety is the spice of life, Doc. Oh, but she is your type. Very overdressed, very pricey dressed and no wedding ring. Drives a Porsche, owns it flat out. Bottle blondie, about 36 or so. 5.’2”-5’3”? Kinda frumpy, but not altogether pushing maximum density. Well, making an effort at least. Came off as little Ms. Business. Talks fast. Real into herself. The type you love to make suffer. Obviously someone’s newly minted ex-wife. Good! Bon appetit, my love.”

This hair cost me $368.97. Other than that, I will reserve comment.

I arrive in the hotel’s parking lot about forty-five minutes later. What cars there are here are clustered around the restaurant. As I arrive, two carts are coming out of the back of the greasy spoon, piled high with plates covered in plastic domes. Two women, Mona Hall and Mary Scott-Clark, are guiding these carts in the direction of the hotel. Both are dressed as nurses, or candy stripers, and both are also wearing sun glasses. I took a discrete cell phone movie of them while pretending to check my email.

I didn’t even notice the security guard who had closed in on me. Just as I was turning off the phone, a rap came on my window. It was the 6’8” Catman, bursting out of a policeman’s white shirt and striped grey pants. He had a badge that said ‘Police’ with the word ‘Security’ below it on his shirt and his patrolman’s cap. Looking up, I smile and get out of the car.

I see only my own smile reflected back at me. The Catman is wearing wrap arounds too, but his are mirrored. He asks “Real estate lady?”

“Sarah Johnson,” I say, extending my hand. He doesn’t take it.

Instead, he takes off his glasses and looks me right in the eyes. He asks “Is this your car?”

I cannot describe his eyes. I simply have no memory of them. I answer “Yes, all mine,” as if someone had me by the throat.

“Miles?”

“Mileage? About 11,234,” I feel compelled to report. This isn’t the type of information that I can generally recall.

Apparently satisfied, he puts his big glasses back on and grunts for me to follow him. At the moment I am not confused as to my own reaction, but rather as to why food was being brought into the hotel at 2:30 PM.

The food had come in well ahead of us. When we got to the hotel’s smoked glass double doors, Catman knocked on them and we were buzzed in. The interior was what one would expect of a place that had been a slightly above economy hotel. It had a tall counter at the back of the narrow lobby, which was flanked by a door and an elevator. That much had been left intact. The rest of it was in what I would call ‘splendor’.

Splendor is white furnishings, specifically couches which have gold accents on the wood. Splendor is white walls dabbed with gold by a sponge with gold trim where the walls meet the ceiling. All it was missing was cupids. The couches by the door had been replaced with two desks, which were white and had gold rimmed glass tops covering them, as per the splendor style. It was here that the nurses, Mona and Mary, sat. Their sunglasses were on the desks, right in the middle. Other than the glasses, neither nurse’s desk was adorned with anything at all. Their bright, but dumb, smiles beamed at me from the right and the left as I entered.

I can’t recall what Catman was doing at the time. I knew he was behind me. I remember him following me in. But at the moment I was in front of the nurses, he was gone.

Mona asked me “Sarah Johnson, is it Miss, Mrs. or Ms?” as if she were going to write it in some non existent book.

“Miss.”

“Oh, that’s so much nicer,” she chirps.

I never gave it a thought until then. Again, I am distracted; this time by the food carts which are just sitting there. I don’t know what kind of diet the residents here are on, but it doesn’t seem to restrict bacon cheeseburgers. Perhaps I noticed this only because I had been eating more than my fair share of cottage cheese at the time. I counted thirteen Diet Cokes and eight regular Cokes. In my head that meant that there were at least eight men in residence here and thirteen people who have an 87% probability of being women. I am a font of useless statistics.

When I am next aware of Catman he is coming out of the elevator. He pushes the two carts into the lift and then turns and snaps his fingers at me for some reason. I can hear him laughing as the doors close in front of his face.

Mona and Mary also seem to have been laughing, but they suddenly stop. I trigger my cell phone to make it sound like its ringing and then pretend to answer it. What I am doing is checking the time. Per the phone, it’s only been about three minutes since I walked in, which seems about right. I take the opportunity to take another little movie of Mona and Mary, who now have their glasses off. When Catman came back down a few seconds later I tried to get him, but it didn’t come out.

After nine minutes of waiting, Dr. Stroud appears out of the door next to the counter. He is a cross between John Lennon and Don King. The man is rail thin, pasty and about 6’7”. A pair of round cherry smoked glasses are dangling off his hawk-like nose. His hair is straight up, a dark brown shocked cotton ball. He is wearing a stethoscope and a white lab coat with a name tag that reads ‘Hi! My Name is Doctor Pete.’ The dot of the exclamation point is a smiley face.

As for Dr. Pete, he doesn’t say hi. The moment he starts talking I slap my purse and activate the recorder. What he does say is “Ah, Sarah Johnson, please follow me.”

That’s the last thing I remember. I do recall that Pete didn’t have a discernible accent of any kind. Not that us folks in the Midwest have an accent. I also recall his teeth, which had that amateur whitening blue sheen. Ten minutes later I am walking out of the lobby, making a note in my cell phone that I have just written Dr. Stroud two checks totaling $50,000.00. I get in my car and start on my way to my hair guy for an emergency appointment.

Then the recorder in my purse buzzes. It trips to playback immediately. Hearing myself talk breaks the spell. I pull over and listen to the recording in its entirety. Again, the recorder has not picked up Dr. Stroud’s voice—and this time I was in the same room with him.

Well, I’m convinced. Now all I have to do is convince one other person.

At 8:32 AM the next day, the landline phone, cable TV and internet connections to the hotel are mysteriously cut off. By 9:10 AM a repair truck arrives in their parking lot. The hunter green truck resembles a Hummer, but it’s slightly lower slung at the front. With the ladders strapped to its sides, it doesn’t look all that out of place. On the door of the passenger’s side is an oval magnetic sign reading ‘Oual-Crea Services’. (Quality Creative Services = Me.) The truck, called a Luftawaggen, isn’t actually mine. It is amongst a group of ‘capital prototypes’ missing from a Chicago area alternative weapons project.

The person emerging from the truck isn’t me. I am still at home, attempting to gather some of the things Dr. Stroud has ordered me to bring. Instead, we have a man who is slightly above average in height and bulk. From the neck down, he looks like a cable installer, complete with lined blue flannel shirt over a red colored pull over and the blue jeans with wear showing at the knees. The steel toed work boots and the laden to the notch tool belt are a bit much, but you can’t break old habits. His black hair is close cropped, just long enough to part to the side. At the part of his hair is a white streak-- which I have been told that I am responsible for. He is tanned darkly and ridiculously clean-shaven, almost to the point of not having side burns. Like the hair, the walk is strictly military issue.

His name is Russell Manning. There’s a doctor or a captain before or after that name. He is an engineer, mechanical and electrical. At one time, he was an astronaut. Sixteen months ago his wife had him declared legally dead. All tolled, he’s been missing nine years. In his current incarnation the FBI calls him Joe Loveguns Nobody. I call him Rusty. Like Zerkor, he’s one of those contacts I haven’t exposed. To be honest he’s a tad more: Rusty is my special friend.

Rusty proceeds to lug his suspiciously large tool case up to the doors of the hotel. He is buzzed through without question. Moreover, no one questions his timely response. Dr. Stroud would like his TV and his internet and his phone fixed first, however. Rusty explains that the problem isn’t at the pole and that he is going to have to check five junctions inside. Stroud has Catman shadow him to the first two, after which he gets bored and leaves Rusty alone. They don’t bother him. Maybe it’s because Rusty doesn’t seem rich or maybe because, theoretically, someone knows where Rusty is—or more likely because they want their stuff fixed. Not that there’s really anything wrong with it.

I suppose Rusty could fix their things. He certainly has enough tools, not all of them conventional. Buried in the hidden heart of the box is something old, something new, something borrowed sonic imaging and something invented x-ray scope. He and these devices visit all three floors of the hotel.

At 11:15 AM everything comes back on. Mona signs a quite fictional receipt for Rusty and he goes on his merry way—off to my house, after making sure he isn’t being tailed. Rusty also has his own independent means of making sure he isn’t missing time or hasn’t been mussed with that he runs through.

I already know who Mona, Mary and Audrey are at this point. Audrey really throws me. On the other hand, she is an only child, her parents are dead, she has no children of her own and the boyfriend and her don’t seem particularly close. Still, six months ago she sort of was someone. If I was who I seemed to be, making me disappear wouldn’t be hard either.

Beyond this, I have been gathering my assets, as per Dr. Stroud’s instructions. I have both of my car titles and the title to my house ready to turn over to him. The stocks, CDs, Swiss accounts and bonds may be a little harder to liquidate, which the good Pete well understands. He just wants to see them, as is. At some point I should arrange for the sale of my horses, so I have located the name and number for my trainer. I know I told him about the safety deposit boxes, which are out of town, but he didn’t give me any instructions about them. Pity, too—since that’s the mother load as far as looting me is concerned. Perhaps he thinks he has all the time in the world when it comes to these other things?

My hair has now been cut, as per Pete’s preferences, and has little pink streaks put in it. I look like the cut off version of Seven of Nine from Star Trek, if her ass had swallowed half a two by four.

I wonder if this still makes me the kind he likes to make suffer? Probably accentuates it.

And then there is the lavender-talc body spray I am to lightly dip myself in. Given what Dr. Stroud’s actual plans are for me, it’s a baroque detail. He seems to be the type who likes all the fringes on things.

Arriving from my hair slaying, I walk in through my back door, into that ridiculous sprawl of stainless steel kitchen stuff the real estate woman poured her soul out over at the time I bought the place. There are all sorts of spatulas and pans and ladles hanging down from hooks in clusters, none of which I have ever touched. Behind the center of this, on an elevated white marble island, is the seated Rusty with his two laptops fired up. He takes one look at me and asks “What happened to your hair?”

He gets one point for noticing my hair has been cut. An additional point is awarded for not saying how grotesque it is—not that the semi-housebroken Rusty would ever relapse and say such a thing. The pink pinstripes in my tresses he does not notice, but what do you want. I sit down across from him and ask “Find anything?”

“They do have a camera system, but it’s not hooked up to anything.”

“Can you get into it?” I ask.

“It’s CC. No. The cameras may still be on, but there’s nothing running them. No hard drive, nothing.”

“Find any mirrors?”

“No.”

“In the rooms? Did you get into any of the residents’ rooms?”

“A few. No mirrors. Quite obviously removed. I think I found George Masterson. He was dressed for golfing, spikes and all.”

“What was he doing?”

“Wandering around the foot of his bed with a five iron over his shoulder. He had a hand on his bill, like he was shielding his eyes.”

“Wearing sunglasses?”

“No. Apparently not needed for imaginary golf.”

“Find anyone else hallucinating?”

“A woman on the second floor was dancing. Tango, I think.”

I doubt it, but I don’t correct him. Instead, I ask “Anyone else in dark, dark glasses?”

“Only the staff. Mona and Mary have them off most of the time.—It is George Masterson. He’s under his real name on this spread sheet. Wife is on another floor,” he says, turning a computer to face me.

“System wasn’t encrypted?”

“Not really. Pretty much off the shelf Microsoft Office.”

They don’t even have Quick Books. Everything is Excel spread sheets. If the Mastersons are any example, all thirteen women and eight men in residence are listed under their real names. I am now listed under my real name. I will be in room 232. Next to my room number is listed another number, 50,000.00. I am guessing this is a break down of their running take per resident, per room. I look down the columns. This is easily the world’s most profitable hotel.

All of this looks promising. “Anything else?” I ask.

He holds up two fingers and looks away from me. “Two coffins. In a room on the third floor.”

They were in an extended janitor’s closet, with access to the hallway as it turns out. I ask “Are we convinced?”

I watch as the color and expression drain out of the Terror of the Underworld’s face. Leaning forward, I grab his hands, saying “It will be alright. It will be just like the dragon we took down at the Packard works in Detroit.”

The dragon whose horde paid off my mortgage! I’m still liquidating the gold. That’s what’s in my out of town safety deposit boxes.

I love occult thingies, especially the undead. They’re kleptomaniacs. The Terror would rather take down drug dealers. That, to me, is nuts. Drug dealers have friends. The undead do not. They seldom have any recourse. Most of them are such egomaniacs that they have no back up plan for being busted. Once they know the jig is up, they scare off pretty easy. Leaving massive amounts of cash behind. For me.

This has been a very profitable arrangement, for both of us. The hard part was convincing the Terror that the occult exists. Post convincing, he’s still not all that enthusiastic. But he will do it. I am his special friend, too.

While I am going down the list of residents, attempting to match names with missing persons reports and rewards offered, the Terror spends the next three hours in my four car garage. He is coaxing an air jack into firing a foot long sharpened wood widget through three ply of dry wall from a distance of eight feet. It took him an hour to rig it and two to become happy with the operation. That’s just how he is.

At 4:30 we have Chinese. I ordered in. I start ingesting garlic tablets with my meal. By the time I am through, I will be desirable only as a pizza topping. But I am easing into it.

At 5:00 I join Rusty in the garage and we start suiting up the Terror. I have no idea how he gets into this get up by himself. Like all bad ideas, it starts off with wires and duct tape which are placed on now hairless patches of Rusty’s body. Next are bullet proof plastic pads, held in place by Velcro straps. Over this goes a layer of white rubber-like fabric, called ballistic cloth. An iron and titanium weave chain mail jerkin is then fitted over his chest and hips.



The snap on helm is more of the same. I guess it started as a boxer’s helmet and then grew things. I have tried it on a few times. Displays flash across the interior of the mirrored eye slits. Rusty was a pilot. It doesn’t bother him. It would drive me nuts. And the thing takes five minutes to boot up and calibrate. No rushing into a phone booth for this guy.
Its shoulder pads are the most time consuming thing to fix on. Each one of the little rhinestone-like studs on this set is a small photographer’s flash. About twelve hundred of them are imbedded into the piece, which sets like a horse collar. In form, it resembles a set of football pads. In function, it fires off thirty strobe bursts a second. When activated this makes it impossible for the Terror to be photographed. Rusty calls this feature ‘active invisibility.’ I call it ‘mobile disco.’ It’s quite blinding, unless you are wearing his helmet.

(The weirdest part of this: I have a set of this armor, too. Thus far I have had no reason to use it.)

At 6:00 the Terror backs his Luftawaggen out of my garage and down the driveway. One way holograms in the windows make it look like the truck is empty. I hope he doesn’t get stopped or noticed or… and then I stop worrying. Professionally.

I am supposed to be at the hotel by 7:45 to start my treatments. One wonders what it is that I am being treated for? I have three bags packed. One has my assets, all itemized and printed out in lovely full color anal retentive detail. The rest is clothes—and a surprise. I would pack more, but this is all that will fit in the 911.

Rusty can still call this off. I am also free to chicken out. I never have, but that’s the deal. On the corner of Northwest Highway and Potter is a street lamp with a Walk/Don’t Walk light. There is a yellow ribbon dangling off the tube connecting the Walk sign to the pole. That’s Rusty’s signal. Proceed with caution. All systems are go.

7:38 I roll into the parking lot of the hotel. On the way here, I have consumed a full 7-Up and half a pack of Certs. I do not think I smell of garlic yet. As for my reception, they let me make two trips to my car to hike my own bags. To them, it seemed the whole thing was a non event. Mona and Mary informed me of my room number, but were less than energetic about finding the key. Catman walked by and flung the restaurant’s plastic menu at me, explaining that meal times varied and depended on how busy the restaurant was.

Rather, it was dependent on the restaurant not being busy. In any case, I would be told when meal times were.

Mona tells me that the Doctor will see me at 8:23. Thirteen minutes after dusk, as it should turn out. I must, must, must be prepared, exactly, exactly as I have been instructed. Mona doesn’t seem too happy for some reason. Neither is Mary. Maybe deep down they like me? Or perhaps don’t think I deserve what is about to happen. I smile. “Oh, good!”

And then I take my luggage up, again unassisted.

Originally designed for Florida, the hotels in this chain all had catwalks exposed to the open air. The hallway on this one was enclosed as an afterthought, with large smoked glass windows and double track brown bricks. Each room still retains its big picture window and air conditioning/heating unit, which makes for a crappy view and a noisy hallway. The interior gloom of the room is enhanced by the fact that the picture window is also smoked glass.

Inside the room is pretty much what you would expect for a single. It is actually kind of “green” in its way, lacking a central light and having only two lamps for the entire area. One of the lights is over the sink next to the lavatory area. It only has one bulb, a florescent spiral job, which takes a minute to come on. The other light is on the headboard, also a florescent. There is no light in the actual toilet itself, although there are candles which stink of lavender when lit. A flat screen television is on the wall, perched where the mirror for the dresser should have been. There is a small radio on the night table. It has no clock.

No Gideon’s Bible. No telephone. There is some kind of a speaker system on the wall, but it is unlit, so I don’t think it functions. The bug sensor in my watch says it doesn’t.
I spray the queen sized bed with the lavender-talc crap. Per Dr. Stroud’s instructions I am to get into something ‘Both unusual but familiar’. I am not sure if my white one piece swimsuit counts, but it does fill the bill.

The suit has two straps which go over the shoulders. The attached skirt has red trim and pockets at the thighs. It is made from the same rubbery cloth as the white portions of the Terror’s armor. Like the Terror’s armor, it has Velcro and pads which go on the inside. I am not sure what good this is going to do me against a guy who can snap a spine with a flick of his wrist, but it will stop a .357 round.

Thus attired, I slip into the sheets. I have a candle on the nightstand which provides illumination halfway to the bed’s foot. Behind it I have my open compact, with its mirror facing the door.

Everything said, lilac and garlic are a horrendous mix.

The doctor is running late, it seems. I stay curled up. With me under the sheets is my surprise. Like the bathing suit, it was a gift from Rusty. At the time he gave it to me I was expecting an engagement ring.

The surprise is a foot and a half long balanced assembly of titanium, draping a three foot train of impregnated fabric. It is based on the design of a Browning Automatic Rifle, but scaled down. The thing fires thirty mercury filled .22 handgun rounds per second from a disintegrating belt. No, it’s not a ring, but it is damn thoughty. It’s the first thing Rusty ever made just for me. I can fire it one handed.

The door cracks open. There he is, still in his lab jacket and glasses. In his right hand is a long loop of tan rubber hose. In his left hand is what I first thought was a hammer. I later discovered it was an iron ice pick.

I don’t know what he intended to do with these things. I didn’t ask.

He clicked the door shut with a backwards casual kick. I looked in the compact’s mirror. He wasn’t there. Up out of the sheets came my surprise, ringing like a freight train and spewing bright cones.

Globs of what seemed to be wet charcoal splattered against the door. Letting loose of the hose and ice pick, Pete pirouettes out of his pants and lunges for the door knob.

Displayed across the back of his coat are golf ball sized creators, fuming white wisps.
Another flurry of heralds from my surprise straightens his posture. (I didn’t hit the door once!) He wrenches the knob and spills into the hallway.

My eyes squeeze closed just as the Terror’s disco display erupts. Per Rusty, the guy jumped to his feet, in a martial pose with his fists cocked. Pete was either trying to grab him or punch him.

Metal areas of the Terror’s armor can be electrified at will. It throws out amps, not watts. Whatever he was out to do, he didn’t try it twice.

Doctor Stroud arched back, recoiling. His hands were missing.

The Terror had to say it, because he’s a wiseass: “You’ve had the shake, now take the stake!”

Next I heard what sounded like an anvil falling on something hollow, followed by the splintering of a tree branch. From the kabuki play out my window I could see that the widget had gone straight through Pete’s chest. Its jagged point was sticking eight inches out of his back.

But he didn’t drop. I heard glass shatter as I bolted for the door.

Stroud had jumped through the window, having started without preamble from a crouch on the floor. In a blink.

Rusty and I gazed down into the parking lot. All we could detect was a fresh sprawl of broken glass.

Stroud had gone up, not down. We found this out seconds later, when Pete tripped the white phosphorous grenade Rusty had rigged to his coffin.

White phosphorous is extremely nasty stuff. Not only did it burn Dr. Stroud and the coffins to cinders, but it also burned through the floor and dropped into a room on the next level, setting a bed ablaze. It eventually burnt through the ceiling of the lobby.

In half a minute the grenade had created a five story flume of white smoke. This set off the sprinkler system. I watched from the gas station, still in my white bathing suit, as the hotel’s drenched occupants stumbled out.

The fire department was having problems containing the blaze. I don’t think they fight white phosphorous fires everyday.

All twenty-one of the hotel’s residents were carted off in ambulances. Most wound up being treated for anemia. Of the twenty-one residents, sixteen had active missing persons rewards offered. None of them could remember who they were. During the next few days I had bored advertising guys in the offices next to mine discretely contact their families.



The reward money has started rolling in. All of this pales somewhat compared to the finder’s fee Zerkor paid me when the Masterson’s signed their intent to sell letter.
Catman is the sole still missing person, but without his coffin I don’t think he’s long for this world. Dr. Stroud’s quite desiccated body was found later, the ME claiming initially that it seemed he had died years ago. Later reports stated that the body had been found, but did not mention the condition.

As a weird coda to this, just the other day I was introduced to the new manager for my office space: none other than Audrey Pearson. She looks a lot better now that she’s not anemic or whatever she was. We have had some interesting lunches. She’s dropping my name around her social circles, trying to dredge me up some work. Ditto the very nice man from Varrah’s who paid me off in person in cash for recovering Mary Scott-Clark. There are people in Vegas who have some issues they want me to look into.

I have been very busy--so busy that I had to decline the assignment from America’s favorite newspaper to do some leg work on “this weird hotel where a bunch of missing people were staying.”

Which is to say that the news coverage has been spotty enough not to mention me, so far.
As for Rusty, I haven’t seen him lately. Not that our arrangement is economic, but if he wants a cut, it’s his. He will be back. When he’s through being freaked out. Or just wants some company.

I still don’t like missing persons. As is typical, it ended with the discovery of a decomposed corpse. On the other hand, dozens of people were reunited with vanished loved ones. That is success. I was told by one relative that it was the not knowing which was the worst of it. Having been of such service to my fellow man should make me happy. It doesn’t. I just count the money. I’ll content myself with that, some way. It may have been hard money, but at least there was a lot of it.