The Pandora Directive: A Tex Murphy Novel (17 page)

Regan looked up from her wine and attempted a hollow smile. “Me to.”

There was a long pause.

“Do you still want to talk? Or should I come back later?”

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Her shoulders went back and her hollow smile filled out a little. “I’ll be fine.” She downed the rest of her wine. “All I need are a couple more bottles of wine and a little time to think. I’ll have the wine now and do the thinking later.”

I watched her, hesitantly. She took out another cigarette and lit it herself.

I went to the bar and bought back a full bottle of the Pinot. Regan seemed to have regained her composure. I filled her glass and sat back. “I suppose you want to know everything,” She said.

“Of course.”

“OK. I’ll tell you what you want to know, but first, tell me… what happened.”

I explained briefly. The only part of my conversation with Malloy that I mentioned was what he’d said about quitting smoking. Regan listened intently and even smiled at my description of her father. When I finished, she drained yet another glass of wine and refilled it.

“All right, from the beginning. I was an only child. My father and mother both worked for the government and met while they were assigned to Peking. I spent most of my childhood in China. My mother died when I was eighteen. My father and I were always close and got even closer after she died. Until…well , about a year ago. He remarried… someone I didn’t think was good for him.” Regan gestured toward me. “Well, you know her. That’s how you ended up with the box.”

I acknowledged her without speaking.

“After he married Emily, we couldn’t be around each other without arguing. I haven’t seen him for months.”

“How did you end up with the box?”

“He sent it to me. It arrived about a week ago.”

“Do you know why?”

Regan stubbed out her cigarette. “People were trying to get their hands on his work. If he thought they were getting close, he probably divided up the information they were looking for and sent it out a handful of people he could trust.”

“What’s in the boxes?”

“I don’t know, exactly. My father never told me much about his work. He said that it was better for me not to know about it, but I used to snoop around. I found out a few things.”

“Like what?”

“As you probably know, he was a linguist. He had notebooks filled with odd-looking symbols. They look like they might be Egyptian. I think he was trying to translate them.”

“So what makes you think that the symbols could somehow be worth a fortune?”

“I overheard a conversation he had with a stranger a few years ago. The man said that he could handle the transaction, which could be worth an astronomical amount. Those were his exact words. Dad refused. He said that some things shouldn’t be bought or sold, regardless of the potential pay-off.”

What Regan was telling me seemed to jibe with what I knew about Malloy. “Did you ever see the boxes before? Did he have them at the house where you grew up?”

“He had them for a long time. Unfortunately, he only showed me how to open one of them. And it’s not the one I have.”

Regan reached down, then set the box she’d brought on the table. It looked very much like mine, except that it had a design on it. I got the box out of my backpack and set it beside the other one. Regan looked it over carefully.

“This isn’t the one I know how to open, either.”

We sat in silence, staring at the boxes for some time. Question after question went through my mind. Two Pandora’s boxes. What was inside them? What contents would be important enough to die for?”

Regan’s voice broke into my reverie. “So what do we do now?”

I thought it over for a bit. “Well, I suppose we need to figure out how to open these.”

“What if we can’t?”

“I guess we should put them someplace safe and figure out where the other ones went. Do you have any idea who else he would have sent a box to?”

Regan was quiet for a few moments, then shook her head. “No.”

“We need leads. I want you to see what you can take up. Even if you don’t like it, I think you should talk to Emily and see if she could help. In the meantime, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take these boxes and see if I can get inside them.”

From the look on her face, Regan didn’t seem really comfortable with the idea, but I wasn’t giving her any options — were going to play it my way. I put both boxes into my backpack.

After they were securely stowed away, I leaned toward the beautiful woman and took her hand. “You’re going to have to trust me, Regan. Help me find the other boxes. We’ll get everything together, then decide what to do. OK?”

She was vulnerable, and clearly hated it. After pulling away and collecting her things, she looked down at me. “I guess I have no choice, do I?”

She started to walk off, then stopped and turned back. “Don’t run out on me, Tex. I’ve already lost my father.”

I looked up at her deep, clear eyes. “I won’t.”

I had other things I wanted to discuss with Regan, but I’d grilled her enough for a day with such bad news in it. I sat in the lounge for awhile longer, examining the boxes. What had Fitzpatrick called then? Chinese puzzle boxes? Whatever they were, they had me baffled. Maybe Fitzpatrick could figure them out. My instincts had already decided to trust the old man. Letting him hold on to both boxes were safer than carrying them around, and if he could unlock them, it would be an added bonus. In the meantime, I’d be free to track down the other boxes.

I flew back to Fitzpatrick’s hotel. He confirmed that the boxes did indeed appear to be the ones Malloy had owned in Peking. I left him hunched over one of them, examining it closely.

Sitting in the driver’s seat of my speeder, I considered my next step. The two boxes were as safe as they could be for the time being. Regan would, I hoped, go out and find a lead for me after she licked her wounds for a while. Chelsee was on the back-burner. The deadline Jackson Cross had given me had come and gone, but I was still among the living. I supposed that was a good sign. Maybe I should contact Mac Malden and see if he could give me any estimates on my current life expectancy.

Then there was the matter of getting past the encryption on Malloy’s desk and reading whatever information was there. Unfortunately I had no idea what the password was. The only real lead I had was the e-mail address that have fallen out of the paperback. I racked my brain, trying to think of where I could get on to the I-Net. No one I knew subscribed. Hold on a second. Malloy had a computer at the warehouse. People don’t typically carry e-mail addresses without having internet access. Maybe Malloy had been hooked up where he was working.

I flew over the waterfront area and landed for the second time at 54 Front Street. The outside of the warehouse looked no different. I was willing to bet the inside had changed significantly. The first two doors I checked were locked, but the side door was slightly ajar. I didn’t like the look of it. Glancing around, I couldn’t see any vehicles parked anywhere close. I stepped inside.

There hadn’t seemed to be so many steps when I’d sprinted down them last night. By the time I reached the third floor, I was panting. Here and there, I saw chips in the concrete walls where my pursuers bullets had struck. Was I dragging myself straight into a date with an armour-piercing slug? With some effort, I resisted the urge to turn back and continued on to the sixth floor.

The door into Malloy’s former work area was closed. I paused, my ear to the door. There was no sound coming from within. I turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly.

The room was spotless. I’d expected to see a Pollock-esque display of blood and brains. Instead I saw a perfectly tidy, unused office space. Temporarily stunned, I walked around the area, trying to picture what had changed. The desk Malloy had been working on was still there, but a quick search showed that it had been cleaned out. The file cabinet must have been there before, but it, too, was empty. There was nothing to find. Not a scrap of paper, not a single rubber band or paperclip. And no indication that a man had been gunned down in this very room less than twenty-four hours ago. Whoever the hit men were, they were good.

Malloy’s computer was in a corner, on the floor. I picked it up and set it on the desk. It didn’t take long to get everything attached and ready. As I expected, the active data storage clip had been removed by whoever had cleaned out the place. All I could hope for was that Malloy had stored his modem access commands in ROM. If he had, I could log on even without a data storage clip.

He had. Within seconds, I was ready to surf. With the familiar whining and screeching noises, I was welcomed into the world of virtual communication. I pulled out the There are Messages from Outer Space paperback, removed the bookmark, and typed in the e-mail address. After a short wait, the message to send screen popped up. I typed in We need to meet and clicked send. Several minutes went by with no reply. I dug for my smokes.

The cigarette was smoked almost all the way down when I heard a beep. I clicked Open and read the message displayed. Is this Malloy?

The senders ID was listed as Anonymous. I typed another message. Malloy is dead.

I sent the message and waited for a minute. Another beep. Who are you?

A friend. I was the last one to see him alive.

A longer interval passed. Whoever was on the other end was probably debating how to deal with me. Beep. How much do you know about Malloy?

Mr Anonymous was testing me. He died with a secret. I tried to find out what it was and keep it away from the bad guys. Can you help me?

I was coming on pretty strong, but I didn’t have time to pussyfoot around. This guy was either going to help me or he wasn’t. His message came back. Do you know about the box?

He was interested. Luckily, I had a trump card. I have two boxes.

It took only fifteen seconds to get a response. 413 Vina del Mar. There are ears everywhere.

The sloppily painted sign at 413 Vina del Mar identified the place as the Cosmic Connection. The tiny store front was wedged between a fruit stand and a sex shop in a run-down business section just off the Wharf. The display window was filled with charms, amulets, UFO books, and astrology charts. It didn’t look promising.

I opened the front door and stepped into the incense-filled shop. The interior was long and narrow, with old, creaky shelves bulging with boxes and books, reaching to the ceiling on either side. The place felt and smelled like an attic, stuffed with a mix of mysterious treasures and worthless relics.

A man stood behind the counter. His age fell somewhere between 20 and 40, with a face that was boyish, yet spottily bearded. His tiny wire-rimmed spectacles made him appear both scholarly and deranged. A baggy cardigan dwarfed his narrow shoulders and emphasised his hunched posture. From the pallor of his skin, I assumed that he saw as little of the sun as possible.

“Can I help you?”

I glanced around to make sure we were alone and approached the counter. “This is 413 Vina del Mar, right?” the man nodded. I thought back to the final e-mail message I’d received. “There are ears everywhere.”

My new acquaintance squinted his eyes at me and pursed his lips solemnly. “Wait here.”

He hurried to the front door and locked it. Then he leaned into the display window and flipped over the Open sign. Finally, he pulled down a shade to cover the door, leaving the room very dark. With a businesslike stride, he turned and brushed past me, heading toward a door at the back of the shop. “This way.”

I followed him into a back room, eerily lit by an aquarium, a lava lamp, and a half dozen candles. The smell of incense was strong. My New Age guide motioned for me to sit down. I sat on a solid oak chair with a spiderweb design in the backrest. My arm rested on a heavy wooden table covered with dusty tomes, yellowed documents, and splodges of candle wax. Maybe while I was here, I’d try to make contact with my Great-Aunt Rita and see what she’d done with my X MEN comic books.

“What’s your name?”

“Murphy. What’s yours?”

“Ellis. Archie Ellis. Here is one of my cards. Do you have one?”

I reached into my overcoat and pulled out a wad of business cards. Finally finding one of my own, I handed it over to Mr Ellis. As he looked it over, I checked out the card he tossed in front of me. Archibald Ellis. UFOlogist… Mystic… Occult Expert… Licensed Tarot Card Reader…Numerologist. I looked up, thinking of what Lucas Pernell had said about wheat and chaff. This guy struck me as a loony tune, but Malloy had been in contact with him. And he was still my only lead.

Ellis finished examining my card and looked up. “So, you’re a PI.”

I extended my hand across the table. “Good to meet you, Mr Ellis.”

His handshake was aggressive. “Call me Archie.”

“Okay, Archie. Let’s talk about Malloy.”

“Tell me what you know.”

I spent the next fifteen minutes giving Archie a quick overview of what had happened. None of the principal players names were mentioned (and I referred to the NSA as an unnamed federal agency), but Archie didn’t seem to mind. He soaked up everything I said. My story continued up to the point from where I found the e-mail address. Ellis leaned back and pressed his fingertips together.

“Would you like some herbal tea?”

Only if I were in the middle of a desert, dying of dehydration. “No thank you.”

Archie pressed his church steeple hands against his lips, lost in thought. I waited patiently. “You said that you have two boxes.”

I nodded and pulled out my smokes. Archie’s cool facade evaporated in horror as his eyes caught sight of my Lucky Strikes. “I don’t allow any smoking in my shop. Sorry.”

Looking peevishly at the smouldering trays of incense, I reluctantly replaced the pack. Damn health nuts. I couldn’t wait to find out what this Bozo knew, then get out of his New Age little shop of horrors.

“I’ve got two boxes, both of which came from Malloy.”

Ellis leaned back in his chair. “Small, right? Made of a strange material… no way to open them?”