The Authorities, page 24
The credit card company stooge said something that, from the inflection, sounded like a question.
Loomis said, “Yes, please do.” He covered the microphone again and told Max, “They’re putting me through to fraud prevention. I’ll try to speed this up.”
Max said, “Not at all, Mr. Loomis. Please, take your time.”
Rutherford knew without being told that this was more than an example of Max’s old-world manners. He was in no hurry to have Loomis hang up the phone because in not talking to the team, he was already answering all of the team’s questions, possibly without even realizing it. It was clear that he was going to claim that someone else had used his card to pay for the attack. He would almost certainly tell them that he wouldn’t have purposefully maxed out his card to hire the bouncers, particularly if the card was needed for other payments. He would also tell them that using his own card to commission a crime was a stupid move in the first place, because if anything went even the slightest bit wrong, it would immediately draw suspicion his way, which was true.
Of course, this could be an elaborate act to try to shift the blame away from himself. He would have known that even if the beating had occurred as promised, the team would still be alive and looking for whoever was responsible afterward. He had paid to have them beaten up, not killed. He could have deliberately used a credit card that was in his own name, ran it right up to its limit, then strategically used it again later so it would be declined, making him look like he was being incompetently framed for the crime. For all Rutherford knew, Loomis might have been watching out the window for squad cars so he could perfectly time his call to the credit card company.
It was a clever plan, which bugged Rutherford. He hadn’t pegged Loomis as being all that clever, or that good an actor, both of which were an issue if he meant to make a living as a comedian. Sloan said, “Rutherford, when we get a chance to talk, lean on him a little bit. We want him to feel some pressure.”
Rutherford nodded.
Another burst of high-pitched, modulated noise came from the phone. Loomis said, “What do you mean they aren’t answering? I’m busy too. Yeah, you do that. If I don’t hear back from you within forty-eight hours I’m taking this to my lawyer. And Twitter! I’m a well-known comedian. Search me on YouTube!”
Loomis ended the call. Before he could say anything, Rutherford said, “You have a lawyer?”
Loomis squinted at him. “Yeah. Uh, yeah I do. Why?”
“I was just thinking you should sic them on whoever you had steaming your carpets when we last met. I’d say they ripped you off, unless these stains are part of some pattern I’m not getting, or this isn’t your condo.”
Max said, “This might be his office.”
“Yeah,” Rutherford said. “That makes sense. His condo’s probably too luxurious. It makes him lose his edge. He rents this place so he’ll have somewhere to make his important business calls to creditors.”
“Okay,” Loomis snarled. “Fine. You got me. I exaggerated. I don’t have a condo. I don’t have a lawyer. I’m not doing that well as a comedian yet.”
Sloan said, “He’s saying what we’re all thinking!”
“What else did you lie about?” Rutherford asked.
“Nothing.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Yes!”
“Is that another exaggeration?”
“No! Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because you lied to us.”
Loomis thought for a moment, then scowled at Rutherford and said, “Fair enough. Why are you here anyway?”
Sensing that the bad cop portion of the festivities were at an end, Max took over. “We wanted to see if you knew anything further about what happened to Dr. Arledge, or to us.”
“Why,” Loomis asked. “What happened to you?”
Max said, “We were attacked.” He watched Loomis, looking for any flicker of recognition that would tip his hand. “By hired thugs,” he continued. “They were hired through a lady of the evening.”
Loomis continued to listen, but the look on his face seemed to say that he didn’t really understand what Max was telling him, or why he was telling him so slowly.
Max said, “The lady of the evening and the thugs she recruited were paid for with a credit card.”
Loomis continued to listen without commenting, as if he were being told a mildly interesting story.
Max looked at Rutherford. They both looked at Sloan. Sloan shrugged at them. They shrugged at each other, then Max told Oscar Loomis, “Your credit card.”
Loomis looked shocked, then horrified, then embarrassed, then horrified again. It was fairly convincing, and to his credit, the first words out of his mouth were, “None of you were hurt, I hope! Oh man, where’s the old black guy? Is he okay?”
Max said, “He’s fine. We’re all fine. We were able to defend ourselves. But we wanted to come have a talk with you about it.”
“You say they were hired through a hooker?”
“Yes.”
“Is she hot?”
Max said, “One would assume, by American standards. I don’t know if you understand how serious this is. Your card was used to make an illegal contract with criminals to commit a violent felony.”
“Against us,” Rutherford added.
Loomis looked scared, but not so scared his brain wasn’t functioning to some small extent. “But you guys aren’t cops. I mean, you can’t arrest me, can you?”
Max looked at Rutherford. Sloan said, “You’re up.”
Before they’d left the office to confront Loomis, Terri had made a quick call to update Vince Capp. That was how he’d known to arrange for the team to go in before the police. Capp had given Rutherford some very specific instructions for what to say if the subject of an arrest came up.
Rutherford said, “I can, but I don’t necessarily plan to. I don’t have to. The other cops are going to do it for me. The cops who are waiting right outside that door.” He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that Sloan was motioning toward the door like a presenter pointing out a new car on a game show.
He frowned at her, then turned back to Loomis and continued. “If you go out there, they’re going to take you in for questioning. That shouldn’t be a problem, as long as you can prove that it wasn’t you who called the hooker and hired the muscle. If you can’t prove that, who knows? If we walk out of this room without you, they’re going to come in here and take you in for questioning. They have a warrant. Either way, you’re going with them.”
Rutherford paused, not wanting to continue. In his ear, he heard Sloan say, “Ahem.”
“Unless you run,” Rutherford said, “through some exit we don’t have covered.”
Loomis stayed silent for a moment, looking at the floor.
Rutherford thought, He’s not going to take the bait. He can’t take the bait. It’s too obvious, and he’s not that stupid.
Loomis said, “I see. I see. Say, I feel warm. Maybe I should open a window. Any of you feel warm?”
Sloan nodded enthusiastically.
“Yeah,” Loomis said. “I’ll just open a window, get some air in here.”
He walked over to the window that Rutherford knew led to an ancient fire escape. Knowing what might be in store, he had taken a good long look at it on the way in. It had been affixed to the outside of the building decades before, with the minimum number of bolts code would allow.
Sloan said, “Albert, if you’re listening, pursuit will be initiated any second now.”
Albert’s voice replied, “Thanks. Deploying camera drones now.”
Rutherford took his battered fake cigar from his mouth and tucked it in his jacket’s inside pocket.
Loomis unlatched the window, then looked nervously over his shoulder at his guests. He heaved upward on the sash, but decades of (probably lead-based) paint were resisting him. No matter how hard he tried, he only managed to open the window a few inches. His shoulders slumped as he looked down at the paltry gap, knowing he could never squeeze through.
Max smiled, winked at Rutherford, then said, “Here, Mr. Loomis, let me help you with that.”
Rutherford said, “That’s real nice of you, Max.”
Max smiled at Rutherford. “Nonsense! It’s my pleasure.”
Loomis looked doubtful as to whether this jovial, bearded, much older man could be of any assistance, but Rutherford knew that Max was in better condition than most men a third his age. Max grasped the sash with both hands and pushed it upward with little resistance.
Loomis said, “Thanks.”
Max said, “You’re welcome.”
The two of them looked at each other, Loomis uncomfortably, Max expectantly. Max looked at the open window, then back to Loomis, then down at where he was standing. He realized that he was in the perfect spot to stop Loomis from diving through the window, and that Loomis probably recognized that as well.
Max nodded graciously, and returned to where he had been standing, next to Sloan and Rutherford.
Loomis said, “Okay then. I’m just going to get some air.” He turned and stuck his head out the window.
Rutherford thought, Max and Sloan are both having fun with this. I might as well. He stretched and flexed his arms, then lowered into a runner’s crouch, as if waiting for a starter’s pistol. In his ear, he heard, “Laughing.”
Loomis took a comically deep breath, then another, buying time as he psyched himself up. After the third deep inhale, he scrabbled gracelessly out the window and out of sight down the fire escape.
Rutherford didn’t move. Max looked at him quizzically.
“Head start,” Rutherford explained. “It won’t make a good show if I catch him right away.”
Rutherford ran three steps and launched himself through the window, catching himself on the fire escape’s railing. The escape shook and flexed unnervingly, but it stayed attached to the wall.
Rutherford looked down. Loomis was on the second floor, trying to lower the ladder to the ground. He couldn’t make it budge. When he looked up through the grating and saw Rutherford above him, Loomis panicked and jumped for it, dropping fifteen feet to the ground below. He landed hard, but kept his feet and sprinted down the street, deftly dodging one of the three buzzing camera drones Albert had deployed for the occasion, as well as several pedestrians who were standing on the sidewalk, watching the drone hover at eye level.
Oh, no, Rutherford thought, as he bounded down the steps to the second floor. He can run! The first time I get cocky and try to play to the cameras and I get a guy who actually has wheels.
Rutherford knew Loomis couldn’t keep his pace up for long, but he wouldn’t have to. Even assuming Rutherford didn’t turn an ankle or break a leg leaping to the ground, he’d still have to accelerate to Loomis’s speed. By then, Loomis would have reached the intersection, and if Rutherford lost sight of him, Loomis had a good chance of ducking around a corner and getting away. Nobody wants to share a video of a man in a leather jacket running to the corner, looking confused, then throwing his hands up and cursing.
Rutherford’s brain stuck on the idea of the Internet video. His synapses fired so quickly that his brain couldn’t consciously keep up. Thoughts formed and evolved without translating themselves into words, or even fully formed pictures. If asked at that second, he couldn’t have coherently explained it, but Rutherford knew that his best move was to shout, as loud as he could, “Stop, or we’ll release the bees!”
Loomis’s mind was already flooded with adrenaline. The threat of the bees added equal doses of panic and confusion. Rutherford knew Loomis had watched the video of Derek Sambucci being swarmed. He’d probably watched it multiple times, trying to write some snappy bee jokes to throw up on the web and exploit his fellow patient’s misfortune. Upon hearing Rutherford shout, Loomis imagined himself being swarmed. It was a vivid image, and one he did not want to become a reality.
The primal part of his brain wanted to keep running, to get as far from the bees as possible. The logical part of his brain wanted to stop so that the bees would never be released. This paralyzing debate within his own brain meant that Oscar Loomis’s feet were not getting any clear instructions. They had to decide what to do next on their own. They chose to stumble, making Loomis fall to the pavement, where he slid to a stop on his face, and his back and legs curled up over his head by his own momentum. When his forward motion stopped, he curled into a ball and shouted, “Not the bees!”
The buzzing that filled his ears caused him to repeat the plea several more times. His face was hidden and his eyes were shut. He couldn’t know that the buzzing was from one of Albert’s camera drones.
Rutherford hung down from the fire escape, dropped gently to his feet, then strolled to where Oscar Loomis was lying on the sidewalk. He assured Loomis that he wouldn’t release the bees, then helped him to his feet.
Rutherford shouted, “My fellow officers are going to read you your rights and take you in for questioning. If it was credit card fraud, you’ll be fine.” He tried his best to sound calm, but the buzzing of the drone forced him to shout, and shouting calmly is not an easy thing to pull off.
Loomis nodded, looking a bit dazed.
Rutherford took Loomis by the arm and led him back to the apartment building. The police met them halfway. As they took Loomis away, the comedian looked over his shoulder at Rutherford and the quadcopter, and asked, “Is that filming? Can I get a copy?”
Rutherford returned to Sloan and Max, who were standing in front of Loomis’s apartment building.
Rutherford said, “Either he’s way smarter than I ever gave him credit for, or he’s not nearly smart enough to have come up with this. I don’t know. I’m not sure if he did it or not.”
“None of us are,” Sloan said. “So now we have to figure out if he really was the one who used the credit card.”
“Wonderful,” Max said. “Just what we need. Another question.”
Rutherford said, “I have a question of my own.” He looked at Sloan and said, “How did you clear your throat earlier?”
Sloan said, “I can clear my throat.”
“Sure, but when you laugh, I don’t hear laughter, I hear the word laughing. When you cleared your throat, I didn’t hear throat clearing. I heard ahem.”
“Oh, that,” Sloan said. “I was trying to get your attention. I didn’t actually clear my throat. I said the words ah and hem. The system’s not perfect, so sometimes I have to find a work-around.”
TWENTY-THREE
Rutherford entered his apartment with surprising speed for someone who was tired from a long day of work. Before joining the Authorities, Rutherford had made a point of meeting and making a good impression on as many of his neighbors as possible. He hated the idea of them seeing him park his huge, vulgar van, then saunter through the halls in his grubby leather jacket and tattered jeans, so the night before, he had made a point of walking as quickly as he could to minimize the number of neighbors who would see him.
Of course, those who did see him saw him speed walking from the van in his grubby clothes, which was even less dignified than sauntering, but Rutherford was trying to err on the side of the least overall embarrassment.
He hadn’t forgotten that he needed to descale the van’s boiler; the ominous dashboard light made that impossible. He’d been told it was a quick, simple process. He merely had to park the van in an open area, select “descale” from the in-dash electronic feature-management system, and wait thirty seconds while the van ran through the Stephenson Drive’s automated descale cycle. Then the red glowing mushroom cloud that haunted Rutherford’s peripheral vision while he drove would go away.
He had done a little Internet research, and learned that the boiler descaled by blasting superheated steam directly through the van’s internal plumbing and out the smokestack, bypassing the steam engine. This produced a billowing cloud of steam and atomized minerals. Rutherford didn’t like the sound of that, so he drove the van to the emptiest, most remote corner of his apartment complex’s parking lot before he activated the descale cycle. The screen of the feature-management system went black, then filled with a bright red thirty-second countdown. He watched the numbers decrease until they reached twenty-three, at which point he was severely startled by a loud noise.
He jumped, screamed, looked around, and saw his sister Vanessa, who had just pounded on the driver’s-side window, inches from his head.
“Crap,” Rutherford shouted. “You scared me!”
“You’re scaring us,” Vanessa yelled back. In the distance behind her, he saw her Honda sedan. He realized that she must have been staking out his complex, waiting for him to come home so she could ambush him and get answers. “What’s with this van? Where’s your Miata? You love that car. Why am I seeing videos of you getting into street fights? Mother and I are both worried sick! Sinclair, what’s going on?”
Rutherford looked at his sister’s bright red face, then looked at the bright red countdown on the van’s dashboard, which read twelve seconds. “Vanessa,” he said, “You’ve gotta get away from here!”
“Why,” she asked. “Are you in some kind of danger?”
“Please, just get in your car.”
“I’m not leaving until we talk.”
“You don’t have to leave, just get in your car.”
“Why, so you can leave?”
“Please, Vanessa, just do what I tell you and get in your car! Now!”
