box is more fun that a windy day on the Street of Short Skirts.” Pugsley removed his electronic device and reconnected Rigger’s Caller ID. Five minutes later, his coffee finished, he was out the front door on his way to resume digging.
Pugsley—Appearance – 2, Likability – 10, Attitude – 10, Usefulness – 10.
Two hours later, Rigger got a call from Pugsley.
“Katrina Loraine Raider, twenty-three-oh-one Kimberley Ridge, Number twenty-one, a townhouse, thirty-two hundred bucks a month is the rent—”
Rigger interrupted him. “What the Sam Hill are you talking about? She lives on the street.”
“Twenty-six years old, five-foot-four, dark hair, dark eyes. That sound like your dove?”
“Yes, but—”
“Last month’s electric bill, three-hundred-eighty-two, water and trash, forty-seven, both paid on time, employed at Wellington Labs—”
“Employed?”
“Works the swing shift, six p.m. till two a.m.”
“I can’t believe all this nonsense.”
“She has a degree in–get this–pharmacological ethnobotany. I know you’re going to tell me what that is.”
“It’s the study of how cultural groups use indigenous plants to make medicine.”
“Well, why the hell don’t they just say that?”
“Wouldn’t look good on a diploma.”
“Right,” Pugsley said. “She’s also going to school part-time, working on her master’s degree.”
Rigger was quiet, trying to assimilate all this alien information about a street woman he thought he knew.
“Drives a late model Volvo, dark red, never married—”
“Pugsley, what’s going on here? When I met this woman, she and her daughter were begging on the street.”
“Daughter?”
“Yeah, she has a four-year-old girl.”
“Nope. This babe has no dependents.”
“Pug, my friend, I’ve wondered when you’d screw up and get tangled in the wiring of that computer of yours.” Rigger was relieved in a way. He knew he couldn’t be that far off on Katrina. “Admit it, you struck out on this one.”
“I doubt that. What’s the kid’s name?”
“Rachel. And her doll’s name is Henry Bulyea.” Rigger chuckled. “Maybe you can track down something on her.”
“Her who?”
“The doll, Henry.”
“Her doll’s name is Henry?”
“Yeah, a Barbie doll named Henry Bulyea. I bet there’s lots of info on the Internet about her.”
“How you spelling that last name?”
Rigger spelled it out.
“I’ll call you back.”
The line clicked as Pugsley hung up.
No dependents, Rigger thought as he hurried down the street. He checked his watch again. Pugsley tracked down the wrong woman; that’s the only explanation. Miswired that little box of his, that’s what happened. Dialed the wrong number.
At 12:29, he sat at the bus stop across the street from Miss Wiggley’s Day Care. At 12:30, it seemed as if a large school bus had been tipped up to spill a load of laughing kids into the play yard. Rigger leaned forward, intent on the children–especially the girls, one little girl in particular. It wasn’t Rachel, but like Rachel, she had a flouncy air about her, that little loose-limbed, almost awkward stride, and there was a musical note in her laughter that he knew so well. She could have been Rachel’s sister.
Thirty minutes later, Rigger, empty of purpose and bereft of hope, trudged home, keeping to the edge of the cold afternoon shadows.
Halfway home, in the middle of the block, on a nearly deserted side street, he stopped.
This is creepy. I’ve heard of people feeling someone’s eyes watching them from behind, but I always thought it a bit melodramatic.
He turned quickly and saw someone. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. The person jumped into a doorway. Curious, he walked back. When he came to the doorway, he found it led into a place called O’Malley’s Bar and Grill. The glass-half of the door was grimy and frosted around the edges. In the dim interior, he made out a dozen or so patrons sitting at the bar, sipping their drinks. Three more sat at a beat-up wooden table, playing dominos. They were all men, and it could have been any one of them.
Chapter Five
Rigger’s besieged mind played tricks on him. At times, he imagined the tentacles of his disease reached slimy fingers into a synapse of his brain circuitry and tapped out some coded message to disrupt and bewilder his engineer’s logical sense of reason. Occasionally, these episodes would deliver a brilliant and painful burst of lightning. At other times, his mind would fill with boiling, silent thunderheads. Today, it was nothing more than a thick gray mist, echoing a persistent ringing. No matter what the mental weather, his intellect swung from near-genius to something either side of imbecile and back again.
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