The Langley Case: A Nathan Roeder Mystery

Figuring out where I stand

The ride down the elevator was mercifully smooth. Walking wasn’t as painful as it might have been, but it was certainly more painful than it had been before the broken ribs.

I was amazed at the medical technology they have up in the Tiers. My nose was fixed, the scratches on my neck were gone, and there wasn’t even any bruising—anywhere. The only downside was that my wrist felt fragile and my ribs hurt. It would have taken at least a week to get to that point at any hospital in Town, and probably a month in the Sprawl.

My office had not yet exploded. Which probably meant Johnny had decided not to meet me there when he didn’t get a hold of me. Which meant, if he was working for the opposition, that they knew not to follow my PDA anymore. Or, if they didn’t, they would soon.

“Do we really need to call him?” Felicia asked. “Couldn’t we just leave things be, get it all done and get on with our lives?”

I shook my head and rolled a cigarette. I wouldn’t be able to smoke it until we were back in Town, but that was just seconds away. The elevator man didn’t even look at me.

“We have to,” I said. “What if I’m wrong?”

“About this?”

I laughed. “Haven’t I been wrong before, Felicia?”

She shrugged. “I guess so.”

“It’s possible, trust me.” I let the cigarette rest in my mouth and waited for the elevator doors to open. The instant they did, I was ready for the smoke. There’s no smoking in the Tiers. I have no idea why that is.

“Fine then,” she said. “I’ll call him from my PDA.”

“No,” I said. “Yours is clean for now.” I didn’t want to say anything more in front of anyone, so I waited until we were off the elevator.

Back in Town, I lit up and sucked a lung full of smoke. It hurt my ribs to inhale that deep, but I needed it, and the pain was worth it. “If you call, and he’s who we think he is, he and his boss will be able to track us through yours. We need to call from a neutral location.” I started walking to a public phone.

It would tell people where I was, using the phone, but that was a risk I had to take. I couldn’t keep hiding in the shadows. Besides, it wasn’t doing me any good. I’d gotten beaten nearly to death after I’d started hiding.

I dialed the number for Johnny’s PDA from the pay phone. It didn’t ring long before he picked up. “Nathan,” he said. “Been wondering where you were. I tried to call you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “My PDA’s on the fritz. I’m calling from a public line.” I figured if he was on the up and up, he wouldn’t say anything incriminating over a public line. If he was working for the bad guys, he wouldn’t worry about what he said.

“Are you okay?” He asked. “Everything working out for you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, wondering if his question was enough to infer his loyalties from. “How’d the meeting go?”

“Fine,” he said. “Nothing all that surprising.”

“Did they offer you money and power to kill me?” I asked.

He laughed. It didn’t look nervous, but it’s hard to tell over the phone. “You’re such a narcissist,” he said. “It wasn’t even about you. They wanted to talk about my sudden decision to go public.”

I didn’t need to be able to read people to know that was bullshit. “What did you tell them?”

“That I was taking a career break to get myself in order.” Not a lie, I don’t think, but it didn’t matter at that point.

“Did they buy it?” I didn’t.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “They wished me well and told me to think of them when I decided to rejoin the work force.”

“That’s funny.” If he wasn’t trying to kill me, he would have made a joke there. Or at least been pissed off. He was distancing himself. “So, are we ready to meet again?”

I didn’t know how stupid those people thought I was, but I figured I’d give them the benefit of the doubt.

“Yeah,” he said. “Absolutely. But not at your office.”

So it was bombed. “Any particular reason?”

“Too in the open,” he said. “It’s right where they’d be looking for you.” That was logical. He played his part well.

“Where do you suggest, then?”

He didn’t play it perfect. In the past, he’d let me choose the location. “Somewhere out of the way,” he said, meaning somewhere without witnesses. “Somewhere we can have some privacy.” For him to kill me.

“Okay,” I said. “Do you know anywhere?”

“Sure thing,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of places around Town.”

I held up a hand to stop him. He’d clinched it for me. He wasn’t working on the same side anymore. Never suggest the place to a mark. It’s bad business. But Johnny was new to the game, so I couldn’t expect him to understand. “Not Town,” I said.

“What?”

“Town has too many eyes and ears. Let’s meet in the Sprawl. I know where we can get some great noodles.”

“Noodles?”

“Yeah. Don’t you like Noodles?”

I gave him the address and hung up. Outside the phone booth, I told Felicia what was what. “I’m not going back out there,” she said. “I left that place once and for all.”

I could understand that. “Okay,” I said. “That’s fair. I’ll go.”

“What should I do?”

I lit up another cigarette. “Two things,” I said. “First, call someone to clean up my office. And I mean the kind of cleaning up that gets rid of explosives, not the kind that brings in a maid. The last thing I want is another innocent’s blood on my hands.”

She nodded. “I can do that. What’s the second thing?”

“Find a way to get to that house, with Theresa.”

“What house?”

“The one in the picture.” I reached into a pocket and handed her the picture while I took a long drag, pulling sweet smoke into my lungs. Deep, but not deep enough to hurt. “You’re going to have to get hold of Theresa to do it, but get it done.”

“How?”

“You do whatever it takes, as aggressively as you can, to get past her secretary. I’d suggest threatening bodily harm. But whatever you need, doll face, you just get it done. I’ll call you from Johnny Staple’s PDA in a few hours.”

“How will I know it’s you?”

“He doesn’t have your number,” I said.