The Langley Case: A Nathan Roeder Mystery

Things start coming together

We let Karen go. I wasn’t about to go around killing Better Business Bureau agents. It wasn’t just covering my own skin. It was about professional courtesy. She was just doing her job. In another world, at another time, things could have worked out. You know, if she hadn’t pulled a gun on me. Twice.

“You dated her?” Felicia asked once she was gone.

“One date,” I said.

She ran a finger up and down my arm. “Did you guys have sex?”

“No, she pulled a gun on me.”

“Is that a requirement for a date with you, Nathan?”

I shook my head. But I couldn’t exactly disagree. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a date with someone who didn’t eventually try to kill me. “Are you offering?”

She tapped her wires together again, setting off a visible spark. “I’m offering all kinds of things, Nathan Roeder.”

I stepped back. She laughed and pulled the plug out of the wall. “Just kidding,” she said. “Where’s my present?”

I’d completely forgotten, what with all the torture threats and everything. I handed Felicia the PDA I’d gotten her. “Were you really going to shock her with that?”

Felicia grabbed the PDA from my hand and opened it up. “Hell no,” she said. “For all I know, it would’ve killed her.”

“You mean to say you’ve never tortured anyone before?”

She laughed. “Sure I have,” she said. “But never without consent.”

After spending almost an hour showing her what the PDA did and how to work it, I figured it was finally time to get back in touch with Johnny Staples. It had been hours since he’d told me he was done doing what I asked him to do.

I called and arranged for the three of us to meet deep in Town, far away from the hotel, from my apartment, and from anywhere else Felicia had ever seen. She insisted on giving directions, using her brand new PDA.

We moved through public transportation, anything that didn’t require identification. It took us a little longer to get there than other ways might have, but we got there. Johnny was waiting at a table in the corner. There was a drink in front of him, and his whole posture screamed that he was keeping a secret. He looked like he was trying to escape notice. I knew I’d have to talk to him about that sooner or later. It might have to be a hard talk.

Felicia put her PDA away just as we sat down. Johnny smiled and pressed a button on the table. “Do you guys want anything?”

I didn’t know what time it was, but figured it was still pretty early. “I’ll have whiskey,” I said, pulling out a cigarette and slipping it between my lips.

“Just water for me,” Felicia said.

Johnny made the orders, and the glasses came through the chute in the table a few seconds later. “So,” he said, “what happens now?”

I lit the cigarette and blew smoke to the side. “Now we start by sharing information. You tell me what you found out about that symbol.”

He winced a little. Barely perceptible. “That’s the problem, Nathan. There’s nothing. It doesn’t exist. I mean, it’s on the bodies of a bunch of murder victims, but that’s it.”

“I knew about that,” I said, waving him away and taking another drag. “Are you telling me there’s no other connection? It doesn’t appear inside some corporate logo, or on a website or anything?”

Johnny shrugged. “Not that I could find,” he said. “I guess whoever is behind that symbol wants to keep it a secret. Can’t say I blame them, really.”

“Why is that?” Felicia asked.

“Because if you were tied to a symbol like that, one that was linked to so many murders, it would ruin you. No matter who you were, if you were linked to those murders, you’d lose all stockholder confidence. Your business would be destroyed, and so would your life. It’s pretty much the worst thing that could possibly happen.”

Felicia looked over at me. “Sounds like something worth killing for.”

Johnny didn’t get the reference. “Whoever they are, they’ve been killing over it for a long time.”

That was interesting. Maybe there was something in all this that I hadn’t seen yet. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“All those murders with the symbol on it,” he said. “The victims all have something in common.”

“Aside from being dead?”

“Yes, Nathan.”

I leaned back and took a long drag. “I’m all ears.”

“Every single one of them researched this symbol within two days of their death.”

I counted back. How long had it been? More than two days. So I was at least ahead of the curve. “That make you nervous, Johnny?”

He laughed and finished the drink in front of him, then pressed a button for a refill. Whatever it was, it was stronger than what I was drinking. “How long ago did you start researching this symbol, Nathan?”

I shrugged. “Couple of days,” I said. “More than two, I think.”

“Anything strange happening to you? Anyone trying to kill you?”

“Yeah, people are trying to kill me,” I said. “But that’s not strange.”

“What?”

“Welcome to the biz, Johnny. People trying to kill you is just par for the course.”

Felicia nodded. “That much is true. They’ve been trying to kill him for as long as I’ve known him.”

I downed the drink and put it down a little too heavily on the table. It didn’t break, but it did get everyone’s attention. “What about you, Felicia? What did you find our about Oliver?”

She opened her PDA, which had some notes in it. “Oliver Langley was born well, from money, all the advantages. After school, he started his career as—”

I stopped her. “Yeah, I know all that. What about since he retired? Points of interest?”

“Nothing big,” she said. “Nothing important, anyway.”

Johnny was encouraging. “Well, what did you find? It might be more important than you think.”

“Just that he loved ancient literature. Had a flair for the dramatics. Shakespeare, absurdist plays of the twentieth century, that kind of thing.”

“All English?”

“English and American, yeah.”

“That could be something.” I took out my PDA and pulled out my notes. THEBAN. Still no idea what that meant.

Felicia moved to look at what I was doing, but didn’t say anything. “What now?” Johnny asked. “What’s the next step?”

I leaned back. Johnny wasn’t playing by the rules, and certainly wasn’t playing on the same side as the rest of us. But that’s just as well. I sent him on a fool’s errand, and he came back with something at least a little bit useful. If nothing else, it was another piece of the big puzzle. Another piece to go flying around in my head, waiting for that moment when it could come together with other pieces and paint me a picture.

“Now we call it a day,” I said. “We each go home to our respective domiciles and rest.”

Felicia looked at me strangely, like I’d grown another head or like I’d just said something eloquent and lucid.

“What?” I said. “Can’t I sound smart once in a while?”

She shrugged. “Just a change of pace is all,” she said. She was so cute.

I took another drag from my smoke, a long one that burned most of what was left down to ash. As I let the smoke flow its way leisurely out my mouth, covering the world, to me, in a din of smoke, I tried to think of the best way to handle Johnny. “The point is,” I said, leaning farther back than I’d leaned before, “we need to sleep on things. Try to get a better handle on things. Tomorrow morning, Johnny goes to his meeting. Then we all meet up for lunch. Let’s plan on meeting at my office. But just in case, Johnny, give me a ring first, okay?”

“No problem, boss,” Johnny said, his lips turning up in a smile that wasn’t one I’d want to see on a good day.

Once he was gone, I turned my eyes to Felicia. She was soft on the eyes, which was something I needed right then. “What do you think, doll?” I asked her.

“I think he’s holding something back,” she said.

“You’re quick, kid. Right quick.”

“What do you mean?”

I tapped my fingers on the table, as if that meant something, and stood up. “I mean a lot of things,” I said. “But I don’t mean any of them here. Let’s go.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Anywhere you want,” she said.

I led her out into the streets, past all the open stores, past the other restaurants. I led her to the transportation sections, onto the subway. We sat in a subway car. I glanced out the window, down at the Sprawl.

For a bit, I wondered how Max was doing. I knew he was okay. It wouldn’t be hard for them to fix him up, if he got to the hospital. But clearly he wasn’t all better, or he’d come collecting. I hadn’t gotten a call from him. I won’t say I was worried, but there was a bit of concern there. At least enough for me to think of him.

“So what do you mean, now that we’re here?” She asked. We’d been on the train a bit by that point, so it was clear we weren’t getting up any time soon.

“I think Johnny’s looking for a double cross,” I said.

She scrunched her forehead in a way that made my buttons get tight. “You think he’s working for them?”

“Not yet,” I said. “At least, not officially. But by my figuring, that meeting tomorrow is going to be with the enemy. Not his enemy, mind you. Just mine.”

She nodded. The kid was catching on. “The people behind that symbol.”

“On the nose in one.” I smiled at her. She was sharper than I thought she’d be.

She beamed in response to my smile. But just for a second. After that, she was all business again. “And you think that—what?”

“I think that he thinks the same thing. He thinks he’ll be meeting with them. But he’s going anyway.” I bit my lower lip, rubbed my chin. “Even though he knows that people who research that symbol end up dead.”

“Because he researched it, and he’s afraid he’s going to die.”

“I wonder if there’s something else. I think he hopes to get pulled in. It’s like Karen said. There’s a lot of power in that group. Careers could be made. Johnny was working the same dead end job he’s been working for years.” I looked out the window for a second. “Could be he wanted a boost on up.”

“And he’s willing to sell you out to get it?”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t put Johnny past selling his own mother out to get a leg up. I can’t say I hold a grudge about the whole thing.”

She put her hand on my leg. Casually, nonchalantly. The way a lover would. It sent tingles up my body, like there was a mild electrical charge coming out of her hand. “So you think he’s planning to betray us?”

“Oh,” I said, “I’d bet your life on it.”