Chapter 14

At the office I got started on a bit of important tedium. Most of an investigation is tedium – paperwork, interviews, watching people go about their daily routine. The number of PIs who ever get shot at is miniscule, and the number who shoot at least one person a year in the tradition of Spenser or Mike Hammer is either zero or none, depending on which system you use to tabulate things. If you want to be a PI, you'd better be able to handle boredom.

My boring project was creating a timeline of what I was thinking of as the "real threats." I was working on the computer, where I had to note the dates of both letters and calls, put them in order, enter any distinguishing characteristics that popped out at me, and when I was done see if I could spot any patterns. I did the letters first, since it's easier to pick up or put down a piece of paper than it is to keep mashing buttons on a tape player. It wasn't fun. After having gone through the threats once, the initial horror was somewhat blunted, and I was able to think of what I was doing as just another task in just another investigation. It wasn't, of course, but if I didn't think of it that way I'd miss something, or do something wrong, or omit something, and that wouldn't be good for me or the client either one.

With the letters out of the way, I had to tackle the tapes. Even with the whiteout markings I'd put on them, it was frustrating trying to locate the real threats, start them at the right place, note the date and time that the recording machine had automatically put on them the way our answering machine at home does, and ferret out anything specific about this threat which seemed like it would be useful. What I really needed was transcripts, and I planned to get 'em, but it would take time and I needed to get started.

After I'd been at it for three hours or so, and was sore-backed, stiff-necked, and sick unto death of it all, I got up and stretched. Even the comfortable chair I have doesn't make hard work easier. I got a vanilla Coke out of the fridge – I'd taken lately to swinging by the Phillips station on Central and Western Skies occasionally and picking up a couple, one for right then and one for later – and stood at the window. The view I have out that window is the reason I've been renting that office since August of 1992. This was a winter day, with the wind blowing, and the Sandia Mountains looked cold. The granite of the western face no doubt was cold to the touch, but somehow the mountains seemed to hunch under the blast of the wind, hunkering down under the sky trying to keep warm. It was silly, I knew – a pathetic fallacy I thought they called it, though my knowledge of philosophical terms, and of the terminology of formal logic, is only slightly less than my grasp of the grammar they use in the Horsehead Nebula. Maybe the term was something else entirely. In any event I knew that the mountains weren't alive, and weren't cowering in the cold – but they seemed that way nevertheless.

I glanced at my watch, and saw that it was late enough. I turned and took a couple of steps to my desk, and picked up the phone. I dialed a number from memory, and when someone answered I asked for Mike. When he came on the line I said, "I got a job for you, if you're interested and you can get to it in a day or two."

"I'm always interested in working for people who pay their bills in full and on time. And for you, I'll get to it. What do you need?"

"I've got some cassette tapes here. I need you to pull extracts from 'em and put 'em all on one CD, in order, and make an index for it."

"Sure, that's not a problem. The hard part will be finding the extracts."

"Yeah. I've got markings, but it ain't as easy as I wish it were. I ain't got a player with a counter, so I can't note exactly where what begins."

"That's all right, I'll manage. When will you bring them over?"

I looked over at the computer table behind the desk. I saw that I'd gone through about half the tapes so far. "At the rate I'm going, I'll be done sometime today. I've got a prior engagement this evening, though, so I may not get to you today."

"Okay, you know where I am when you get here."

"Yeah, I do. Thanks, Mike."

"No problem."

So that was out of the way. But the engagement wasn't. Cecelia would be home, having already taken Darlia to school, so I hit the first speed dial button on the phone. "Yes, Darvin," came my wife's voice after the first ring – she'd checked the caller ID.

"I hope I ain't interruptin' nothin', but I need to ask you when we need to be there tonight."

"Jeffrey is serving refreshments at five, and the reading will begin at six – assuming everything goes according to the schedule. I would plan on being there shortly after five, so ... we should leave here around 4:30." When she'd first told me of the deal she'd used the guy's last name and the honorific, but now she used his first name. No doubt she was just making sure, that first time, that I knew who she was talking about, and if so she'd been right – I'd have had no idea who Jeffrey was if she hadn't specified.

"You're drivin', right?"

"I know where the house is, so unless you wish me to navigate, I'll drive."

"Naw, it's easier for the woman at the wheel to do the navigatin'. Okay, C, I'll be home around 3:30 or so an' get a shower."

"That will do admirably." And that call was over. The only person I know who hates talking on the phone more than I do is Cecelia.

And that left me just one more thing to do – get back to business. I looked at the tapes still waiting for me, and uttered a formula that according to a novel about the 19^th century British Navy appeared to have been current there and then: "If I hadn't been born a bloody fool I shouldn't be here." Fool or not, I'd chosen to be a PI, and I'd chosen to take this case, and that meant I had to go through the rest of the tapes. I sat down and got to work.

For lunch I called out for pizza. I prefer Mazzio's, a chain which probably exists elsewhere but I've only seen in Oklahoma. But of those available in Albuquerque, Papa John's is the best by my standards, and I had them bring one up. I tipped the delivery guy extra for being able to find the place without much hassle – I've had this office for nearly 16 years and I know just how inconvenient the location is. It just about takes divine revelation to give directions to the office from anywhere.