Phantoms Insults Morals and Technology

[For the

The 2023 "Hammered: an Ode to Mickey Spillane" Author Challenge

.]

"Oh, God, Abel, don't stop... Don't Stop! God that's so good!" Her hips pistoned against me, never lifting more than a couple inches, body trembling in the wonderfully familiar herald of her climax. I gritted my teeth, desperate to obey, wanting to laugh that it was not me that was doing it, amazed that this angel was doing this... was mine, or more accurately that I was completely hers. "Oh, God, I love you, A..." She was interrupted by a searing brightness, accompanied by a clap of thunder...

I banged the steering wheel so hard it was a wonder the horn did not sound, I lurched forward so sharply. It was not why I could not catch my breath. There was a prolonged moment of disorientation as reality crashed back, destroying the brief moment of happiness I will only know again as a dream. With reality comes memory.

I pushed those dark moments away, focused on my breathing, two seconds in through my nose, hold for a two count, two second exhale. And remembered she had first demonstrated it for me—had me read about it later. A conscious exercise to get my autonomics under control. I shifted, shamming as if still asleep, wondering if I had made any noise. I tried to assess my surroundings, listening, then through half closed eyes. The Glock 41 in the shoulder rig under my right arm was less than reassuring as vulnerable as I knew I was.

Nothing.

I sighed, tried to ignore the pressure of the erection complaining in the too cramped confines of my jeans, and checked the face of my Suunto watch. I know, a watch? I am a walking anachronism. 5:45 AM. No need to check the tank, standard procedure is to fill up before catching a nap.

I checked out the surrounding vehicles more closely, a motley collection of Semi's and RV's parked a hundred odd yards from the Walmart Supercenter. Old Sam knew what he was doing when he invited travelers to take a break in his parking lots. A bathroom break was going to be necessary in short order, but I knew better than to loiter where I had already spent too much time. I glanced at the faraday cage I had purchased the day before at another Walmart, precursor to another necessary chore, but it could wait until businesses were open.

Fired the FJ up, pulled out of the lot headed toward the ocean... or rather headed west, because ocean or bay was on both sides... not the best choice of a rest stop, but after more than 13 hours behind the wheel in real life rather than a dime store gumshoe novel, I had not had time or energy to engineer the perfect hide. I should have headed out south, but one extra turn beats none. Watching the mirrors I crossed north of the Supercenter, daring a car to follow me, but of course no one did. Tailing someone successfully for any time would be difficult, given how few cars were on the streets. I found the 101 and headed North. Passed on 'the Pancake Mill' then pulled in at the smaller lot to Mom's Kitchen. Neither place was open, yet, but there were other vehicles waiting at Mom's, which was a good sign. Besides, it sounded less like a chain.

I did take the time to back the Toyota up against a pile of wood covered by an aluminum awning, my sole effort at maintaining operational security. When the others began to head toward the entrance I followed, realizing for the first time I had managed to make it harder to get from the front door into my car by backing in. I studiously avoided looking around as I walked in, which probably made me look even more like a man on the run.

"Welcome, stranger, pull up a booth and I'll be right with you," I blinked stupidly in the fluorescent lit diner, more than a little surprised there really seemed to be a 'mom.' Regaining my wit... not plural yet before 9am, I walked the length of the bar and settled into the next to last booth, back to the couple who were already in the booth I had hoped would be empty. I glanced at the menu, then at the newsstand I had passed on the way in. Mom swooped in, coffee in hand, and asked if I had any questions. I thanked her for the coffee, reaching for the sugar container as I asked if she had a meal with a little bit of everything. She nodded, and again when I added I wanted the hashbrowns crispy, and the eggs over easy. I headed to the men's room, then back toward the newsstand, pausing at the cash wrap where there was a stack of papers for customers to read. I picked up the local paper, 'the World' and returned to my booth. Frowned at the coffee I had left unattended, considered the empty nesters behind me, then shrugged and took a healthy swig.

The paper was mostly a tool to keep anyone from starting a conversation. I scoffed at the name, then saw that the front page was Associated Press snippets from the world after all... Canada reporting 400 more cases. New Zealand boasting no new cases, and conveniently ignoring the Draconian measures they were employing to get such results. The photo above the fold was a drone image of an almost sprawling mansion taken from the street between the limbs of a big circle driveway. The headline beneath read 'Internet Wunderkid Drowns escaping a fire.' I read enough to see that it had happened in Seattle.

The whole bottom of the front page was dedicated to the virus. The numbers were rising again, and there was talk about closures and stay at home orders. I wondered bitterly for a moment what that meant for people without a home.

"Here you go, hon," Mom had four plates spread over an asbestos protected arm. I gaped at the plate with crispy hash browns and a pair of perfectly done eggs, followed by the plate of a biscuit smothered in sausage gravy, a plate covered by two big pancakes, and finally a smaller plate with three strips of bacon and three old style casing links. "Since you said crispy for the hash I assumed you wanted your bacon that way as well," Mom explained, "If that's not right let me know." I thanked her with a nod, then dug in. It was the best meal I had eaten in recent memory, and I cleaned every plate, which left time to get through most of the paper. Small articles detailing protests against lock down orders. The Oregon Supreme Court and the governor were at odds over just what the governor had the power to order. Their neighbor to the south was still essentially locked down, and I was glad I had not strayed south on my trip.

A second photo above the fold showed George Floyd and another man I had never heard of. The article touched on the protests still going on across the nation and expanded on the 'police free' zone citizens had set up in Seattle. Wondering just how that worked, I slapped down a twenty, which covered the bill with a healthy tip, put my mask back on, and exited the diner. I had eaten too much but would not need to eat again until I got to Seattle.

I kept the tank full, with stops in Pacific City and Astoria. Dads nationwide would have shaken their heads at the foolish delays, but my soon to be host did not know he had a visitor on the way, and arriving late was definitely a better choice. It would have been better to rent a different vehicle, too, but I was down to precious few 'back up's and leaving the FJ unattended seemed like tempting fate.

Came in to the Seattle 'burbs midafternoon, and made a third stop in Newcastle for gas. It was good to stretch my legs and actually pump my own gas, after the weird insistence on attendants pumping gas for my in Oregon. There was plenty of gas to get where I was headed, but like I said, late beats early, and I had no idea where I would be heading when I was done with my visit. But then I was not really sure where it was I was heading, beyond the address.

The residential roads twisting generally west from the highway into Bellvue were wide with impressive lawns fronting more impressive homes. It was also less than conducive to blending in, what with out of state tags and a dusty faded 4x4, rather than the endless Teslas, Beemers, Mercedes, and Audis that were parked behind twelve foot iron fences. I pulled over and checked my notes, puzzled that my host would live so comfortably. The address checked out.

I made a turn and rolled along the street, never meaning to stop. So why did I find myself standing on the brake at the closed gate to the closest limb of a sweeping circle drive? It could have been that I had seen the mansion before, after all. Actually, it was so I did not run the young member of Seattle's finest standing in the street over. He seemed surprised I was there, but less surprised than I that he had not heard my approach. Hand relaxed on his hip above his holstered regulation sidearm, he moved farther into the street and waited for me to lower my window.

"Nobody is allowed here," he waved at the gated drive.

"I didn't have an appointment," I answered, gesturing, forward, "I got turned around, I'm not from here, and I'm trying to find I5." He eyed the FJ more pointedly. "These are some digs," I added, conversationally, "I doubt I'll ever be invited to visit a place like these."

"Well, you can turn around at the beach park just around the corner," he told me, "You're headed away from the highway now. Or you can turn left with the road before you hit the water and it will take you back."

"Thanks, I knew I should have used Waze instead of Google," I shrugged, "Appreciate the help, officer." And coming off the brake, I rolled by, trying not to react or even show that I noticed when his eyes followed. At least he did not take out a Moleskin pad and write the tag down. I followed the road to the beach he had mentioned, pulling in and parking instead of turning around as he had advised. I glanced around, seeing mothers and children and a few walkers of varied age. I shrugged into a gray North Face rain jacket, flipped the hood up, even though it was not raining, and got out.

It was too convenient to be coincidence. So even though the answers I had hoped to get... the help I had planned to demand were no longer possible, I had a crucial answer. And with that answer, the guilt that had been eating me up for five days became a painfully intense anger.

I bottle it up, thrust my hands in my pockets and began to walk. It was not the easiest surveillance I had faced, there was no alley between the homes, and while it was a true mansion it did not back onto the water. And it was not just up the street, it was uphill, with an officer who had seen me up close. The lots were big, but on the row behind the mansion the police were babysitting the homes sat closer to the road. I could get a pretty good view between three older brick three story homes that seemed to huddle together compared to their sprawling newer neighbors to the southwest. There was not even the imposing fence on this side of the street.

Back at the truck, I wondered briefly about going to a Best Buy to get a drone, but big cities have some specific laws about that, and with the police on site, that seemed sure to cause additional problems. I also needed to make a phone call, but I decided that could wait until I had more information.

Instead, I looped south like the officer had suggested, and jumped back onto I5 to head into downtown Seattle proper. I found a Starbucks were I could keep an eye on the FJ while poring through the notes, looking for what I had missed.

***

Before firing up her mirrored laptop, I sat back with a grande vanilla bean and reluctantly went through what I remembered.

It had been a morning like any other. I was slow getting ready and she was eager to open shop. There were no appointments. There were no cases that had been even mildly interesting. Most of our work is... was remote, security assessments of Fortune 500 companies' firewalls, shakedowns of new business security systems, and the odd white hat challenge to online storefronts. It more than paid the bills, which is why I had spent most of a week sure it was the Syndicate settling an old score. And which meant what had happened was my fault.

The bagel shop north of the shop was open early enough for our New York tendencies, and I usually stopped there for breakfast for all three of us, so my being late should have been expected. Instead, it had not been recognized, which told me what had happened was not a thoroughly planned, meticulously executed... execution. I should have known it was not Syndicate. We have safeguards in place for that and had demonstrated we were willing to live and let live.

I mostly succeeded in locking out the feelings as memory hit me like the blast wave had... I had locked up the back slider where she went out, grabbed my bag off of the kitchen table, and went out the front door. Elliot had left the company car in the driveway, a normal act if anyone had been watching us. I bought it so he had means to run down the odds and ends that always crop up. Lacey laughed when I insisted we hire the burned out but earnest former cop that I was trying to save myself. I pretended I was not stung, asking just what she meant, and she had pointed out he was almost my twin, if you knew he had spent a decade in the bottom of various cheap whiskey bottles.

If it was an unconscious reclamation project, I had failed at that as well. Sitting in the coffee shop, going back over the morning, I realized the car was still hissing and creaking—he had only just arrived. I could imagine the two people who were part of my daily circle, one of whom was my entire life, had walked the hundred yards to our shop talking about what I was going to bring for breakfast.

I had exited the shop with the usual drink carrier and bag of bagel sandwiches... why can I not remember what the special was that day? I was almost between the house and the office when the shop just disappeared. I was close enough the shock wave threw me to the ground. Close enough to know no one had survived.

Now it was pretty definite that it had not been any of my history or our shared history that had come calling.

I remembered staggering to my feet and running away from the crater that had been my office and my life. Rounded the corner, which meant the guy at the opposite corner, even if he noticed me, would not have guessed I came out of our house, not when Elliot had stood in for me.

I did not pause to see when the fire crews arrived. I do not think they were on site before I pulled out around Elliot's car in the FJ that had been tarp covered in the garage and raced away across town.

Did you know that Alcoholics have awful teeth? Not meth addict bad, but years of too much ethanol and too few toothbrushes do real damage. But our little firm had dental as part of it's benefits, and I had brought Elliot to our dentist for the diagnosis and repairs, so to speak. And like most of the professional services in our little neck of paradise, 6 AM was earlier than the dentist opened up.

If you know Lacey and me, you know I am a bit of a... paranoid. Everything is backed up. I even had unsuspecting stand ins for us. Lacey's redundancy was the cleaning lady, Rosalita. And honestly Elliot had not been my redundancy, but he was going to help shield me posthumously. Dumping boxes of back up drives, laptops, cash, firearms, and gadgets into the FJ took less time than you would guess—most of it was already loaded. And the security system at the dentist's office? Let's just say we had maintained their set up at a discount that had made using us an easy choice. It also made getting inside their firewall... it is not really hacking when you have the passwords, is it? Parked on the street using their wi-fi signal it only took a minute... a couple copy and cut and pastes, five minutes tops, most of which was getting the laptop booted, and then I was on my way. I had only one question: just who I was going to kill. I grimly hoped that their mistaken belief that I was already dead would let me get close enough to do the job.

That grim recollection reminded me of something important. I had not been the only 'witness' on the street. There had been a non-descript sedan parked on the far side of the cross street, the driver leaning against the vehicle's open door, facing the shop, far enough away to escape the blast damage that had dinged me. There was nothing there he should have been waiting for, so I was pretty sure I had seen their assassin, a too tall, too thin man with blond or gray hair, too far away to get any detail. But I told myself I would recognize him when I saw him.

I opened Lacey's email browser, a commercially encrypted program, not the 'show your provider everything' email most Americans use. Even so, I did not use their search option, instead paging back through by hand. She had mentioned 'the Whistleblower,' several times in the month or two... before. It was not as hard as it sounds, she always was meticulous. All of the emails were in a folder titled PinkyBrain.

Reading through them reminded me of the way she had seemingly casually slipped into my life. The perfect plant. Too perfect since she had decided she liked the role in the end. She had been cryptic in what he wanted and what he had to offer. Good thing, too, because she was so good, if I had known what they were talking about I would have shut it down. Shut it down and she would still...

I glared at the email I was looking at. 'That spread in Seattle Magazine? Your rec room kitchen makes my main kitchen look like a hot plate in a dorm room.' I ground my teeth. The bastard was having his home displayed in magazines? No wonder he never considered whatever he was doing would catch up to him. The reply left me wondering if he was really the programing wunderkid she had claimed. 'That Wolf range has only been opened once. I have no idea how to cook more than an omelet, but the salesperson said it as the top of the line, so it was an easy choice.' What a waste.

I paged forward to the emails with attachments. Big attachments. All of them encrypted. And I did not see the key, even going back through the earlier emails.

Frustrated, and alone, and without a clue just what was going on, I shut the email program down, checked the VPN was still active, and went to the Seattle Times website. The article from the diner had few facts. Found drowned. Still in his business suit. Signs of a kitchen fire, but the automated sprinkler had put it out. Neighbors heard nothing. Speculated drugs. Some ghoul of a photographer had managed to get a picture of the body floating. Had to be an official police photo. Given what the politicians were doing to the police force, I could not blame the CSI flak for getting a C note on the side.

I sat, considering the myriad unknowns. Was that really her Whistleblower? Was it suicide? Drugs? What about the fire? What was it supposed to hide? Why were the police still sitting on the scene? And of course, what did I think I was going to find that they had not, why take the risk, and did I have everything I was going to need with me? And considering what else needed to get done.

The FJ could not continue to be my base of operations. It left me too vulnerable to one problem leaving me completely stranded. Well, not completely, but I was operating way out on a limb. I made sure everything backed up, shut the laptop down, pulled the sim card from the burner phone, wiped the memory, shut it down, and tucked it into my pocket until I could get the magnet against it and dispose of it. I had bought one or two every time I stopped for gas along the way, so it was not a problem.

I did not bother with the classifieds, I knew where I wanted to find a place, I just needed to look in person. Logic said I should be sleeping, but I was not ready to face another dream at the moment.