row of old photographs on the wall above the couch that she was most interested in – they were clearly taken many years ago. The picture she was particularly drawn to was of two men – one sitting behind a large desk looking at a script, the other standing behind him. It was a very posed photograph, the title of the script wasn’t in focus but there was no doubt it was a script.
The seated man in the suit and tie, she recognised as the producer and director George Katsel, ‘the Cat’, as Frederick Lutz had referred to him. The Cat that Got the Canary was but one of a whole list of Katsel’s box-office successes.
The other man, the one standing behind him, she was pretty sure must be Mr Norgaard senior, Mr Norgaard’s screenwriter father. But what really caught her eye was the round glass object on George Katsel’s desk. It was a paperweight containing a single yellow feather. She surveyed the other photographs and found another in which the paperweight appeared but this time it was shown on Norgaard senior’s desk, Mr Norgaard himself looking much older in this photo. George Katsel must have gifted it to him at some point, thought Ruby.
She looked at every picture she and the cops had taken very, very carefully, but in none of them did the yellow feather paperweight appear. It was no certainty, but she couldn’t help but feel this could be the missing item; stolen object number one.
‘You figured something out?’ said Blacker.
‘As a matter of fact, I think I just mighta, but I’m not a hundred per cent on it.’
‘OK, so tell me when you’re ready,’ said Blacker. There was a buzz from his watch. He checked it. ‘That’s kinda weird.’
Ruby looked up. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
Blacker showed her his watch. ‘A message from you.’
Ruby just stared. It said:
Xb8fnghsmKKshgg
‘Is this some kind of a test?’ Blacker asked.
‘I didn’t send it,’ said Ruby. ‘The thing is, I lost my watch. I think maybe someone found it.’
Blacker kind of winced.
‘OK,’ said Ruby. ‘I mean someone obviously found it, but it beats me who it could be.’
‘So where did you lose the watch?’
‘Somewhere 300 feet up in the air,’ said Ruby.
‘Sounds like a long story,’ said Blacker.
‘Kinda,’ said Ruby. ‘Look, if I start trying to figure out what the message means,’ she paused, looking him in the eye, ‘do you think there’s any chance you could buy me some time? Before you. . . you know.’
‘Report the watch activity?’
She nodded.
‘I’ll give you a head start,’ agreed Blacker, ‘but don’t leave it too long.’
Ruby smiled. Blacker was about as cool a partner as one could wish for and at that moment she felt pretty lucky.
‘Now you better head on home,’ said Blacker, waving her out the door, ‘catch you later.’
Ruby was almost at the elevator when Buzz called her back and handed her a note, which read:
Meet me at the Charles Burger, Hitch
Ruby knew the Charles Burger, an up-market burger grill place, with green leather banquette seating and polished wood tables. It was very Hitch somehow. She pushed in through the brass and glass door and found him sitting at a lamplit table towards the back of the room.
‘I got your message,’ said Ruby. ‘Are you still thinking of strangling me? It’s just if you are I might keep my distance.’
‘You’ve got enough problems kid,’ said Hitch. ‘I was thinking about what you said, about someone trying to kill you.’
‘At the Hauser Ink Building?’
‘Yes, when you were monkeying along that piece of cable.’
‘And?’
‘It couldn’t have been the guy you were chasing because, as you explained, the cable came loose from the other side. But it couldn’t have been an accident either – one of our guys took a look at the wire and it would appear that the steel was cut through with cable cutters. Took whoever did it a while, that stuff is strong – lucky for you – but it means they were determined.’
‘You’re saying someone was following me?’
‘I think someone was tracking the skywalker, just like you were, and they ended up on the same rooftop. I don’t think it was you they had their sights on, not to begin with – I think he was the target, you just got in the way.’
‘Still,’ said Ruby, ‘it doesn’t make them an awful nice kind of a person if they are prepared to kill a thirteen-year-old kid who happens to be going about her business.’
Hitch looked at her, eyebrow raised in a now I’ve heard it all expression. ‘I think what you got to expect here, Redfort, is that people who are prepared to track a guy, and if necessary kill him, aren’t going to spend a lot of time grieving about the demise of a nosey school kid.’
‘That is most likely true,’ said Ruby.
‘Your way of going about things I am not crazy about, but your detective work is sharp,’ said Hitch, taking a slug of his coffee, ‘so I’ve got a proposal.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘The thing is, you are meant to be an agent, not just any agent, a Spectrum agent, a trainee agent maybe, but an agent nonetheless. This means you have to look at things like an agent would – you don’t dive in without testing the water, you don’t jump without looking at where you’re going to land, and you don’t make decisions without thinking things through. Agents think about consequences – we have to because that’s the point of what we do.’
Ruby wasn’t arguing.
‘You, Redfort, are acting like some kind of movie agent, like there’s a writer out there in the real world penning some book all about you and your giant ego. You need to use that brain of yours and jump script. Make a decision: are you some kid playing superhero in the schoolyard or are you an intelligent force for good, set on making a difference? I guess what I’m saying is, are you for real Redfort?’
For once Ruby found she had no smart repost, she had nothing to come back with, her mind was a scribbled mess of questions – too many to ask.
‘Look kid, I’m going to have to level with you here – no one’s too crazy about the idea of a fearless teenager on the loose taking insane risks and possibly leading the rescue crew into unnecessary danger.’
‘So you’re saying don’t take risks?’
‘What I’m saying is, there’s risk and there’s risk.’
‘You
