The Redactor, Chapter 16

I woke the next morning to the smell of whiskey and a head packed with sawdust.

  “You really slipped in the shit this time,” said Tracey from the gloom, seated in the room’s only chair. Except she would never have said ‘shit’—I berated myself for the off-character dialog.

  I opened the curtains a crack, rode a wave of nausea, and counted the minibar bottles scattered through the room. Apparently it was all of them.

  When I opened my wallet with clumsy hands, I counted the cash and realized I would barely have enough to pay for the bar, let alone the room.

  A bottle of bourbon had a stain of liquor at its base, so I tipped the bottle above my mouth and let the dregs dribble into my throat. I was my own physician, and I had prescribed a dose of hair of the dog.

  At last I tried my voice, which came out in a croak: “How was I to know he would switch train lines?”

  I took hold of my head and spilled some angry tears. Tracey watched in silence.

  When I had sniffed up the last tear, and raked my scalp, forgetting it was bald, she said, “He’s making up the rules as he goes along, Dad,” and for a moment I felt like the child. “Edit, cut, paste. Whatever fits his fancy.”

  In a sudden pique I said, “I’ll kill him.”

  Tracey’s smile was mixed with pity. “No you won’t.”

  Pity from my own daughter. I wasn’t going to take that. I gripped the hallucination in my mind and extinguished it.

  I made my way to the bathroom. It wasn’t much bigger than a closet. I dashed water on my face and rubbed my cheeks. They were rough with stubble, but shaving was the second last thing I wanted to do right then.

  The last thing I wanted to do was get on the telephone. But I might as well charge the call to the room. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

  I looked up the numbers I needed for an international call, put the phone on speaker, and dialed.

  I sat on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands and listened to the phone’s faint hiss and the ping-pong of my call racing through the network.

  A call tone, finally. Four pulses, then someone picked up.

  “Hello?” said a voice.

  “Matt,” (At last) I said. “You need to give the police the passwords—”

  “Mr Griffin?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Did you hear me? You need—”

  “I got your message,” he said.

  “Well, never mind that. You got there ahead of me. The passwords are working, but I need you to give them to the police so they can look at the blog too.”

  Silence.

  “Mr Griffin...”

  There it was again. Mr Griffin? What the hell was wrong with the kid.

  “I got your message, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. And—”

  “What do you mean—”

  “—the police have been here.”

  “Wait. Wait. Back up. What do you mean you have no idea what I’m talking about? The passwords for Hiero’s blog. Remember? They cycle. You cracked his server.”

  “Mr Griffin,”—Arg!—”those things you said I did, I didn’t do. I haven’t spoken to you since... it must be last holidays.”

  I felt heat flush my cheeks, but my gut was growing cold.

  “I know we haven’t spoken,” I said, voice rising. “I tried to call you. We Skyped, text chat, last week.”

  “No, we didn’t. I was on leave last week. At beach camp. Digital detox. I haven’t Skyped anyone in weeks.”

  “Shit...” I breathed the word, long, like a sigh.

  I must’ve been silent a long time, because Matt said, “Mr Griffin? Are you there? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I thought I’d just stepped in shit, but it seems I’ve been flushed down the toilet.” I lowered the receiver, then raised it once more. “Whatever they say about me, Matt. It’s not true. Don’t believe it.”

  And with those sage words I hung up.

  I sat there in silence and tried to make the world stop spinning. The hardarse in my head reeled off the score.

  I was (mostly) alone in a hotel room on the other side of the world, in an unfamiliar city filled with people speaking an unfamiliar language. I was broke, and suspected of at least one, possibly two, murders. I was doomed with the foreknowledge of another murder about to happen, and my one ace in the hole, my one window into the mind of the killer, which had seemed too good to be true, was in fact too good to be true.

  The blog was a honeypot and I was Winnie-the-Pooh.

  Hiero had somehow intercepted my attempt to communicate with Matt. Had impersonated him and set me up to read his blog.

  But why?

  I suddenly understood those guys you see on street corners and train stations who hit themselves on the head.

  Quickly I packed my meager belongings and descended to the lobby. I stashed Li Min’s journal next to Hiero’s notes into my coat pockets in an attempt to not look like I was skipping out on my bill.

  Before I left I checked the blog again. I read the latest entry with that same car-crash-can’t-look-away feeling:

 

  On to the next adventure. By train, this time, I think. The 08:52 from the Hauptbahnhof on through a cavalcade of German cities, the names of which put me in mind of a dozen B-Grade World War 2 movies, and finally, Gare de L’Est, Gay Paree!

  Not the Orient Express, but the same romantic sense of that old European passage. Wintering trees and cigarettes and cocktails in the dining cart.

 

  And there it was. Hiero’s rampage rolled on again like that train. And now it was almost certain he knew I was reading his account of his exploits.

  Well, I was getting on that train.

  From a boutique telecoms store I bought a prepaid phone, and loaded every last cent onto it, for voice and data.

  I called the Murdoch police station from memory and asked for Thomas. My call was dispatched and seconds later a very alert Thomas spoke. “Tell me you’re on your way home, Griffin.”

  “No, I’m on my way to do your job. He’s killed again, you know. Vienna. Hauptbahnhof station. Yesterday, right in front of me. I’m not going to let him do it again.”

  “What you nee—”

  I hung up.

  Barely thirty seconds later the phone buzzed. No caller id, but it had to be Thomas. I turned the phone off. Let him stew.

Vertically Challenged Story

This is a crowdfunding project for a short story anthology that I have a story in. The anthology is called Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction.

And this is a shameless plug. See? Completely different.

Dark Matter

Rasputin “Monk” Lowdermilk wanted to end it all. But when he is run down by a car on the way to his suicide, he finds that life is just beginning.

As he recovers from Chrysler-induced head trauma, he begins to discover strange new abilities. He can draw portraits so precise they look like photographs. He can remember with flawless clarity everything he’s ever seen or heard, no matter how trivial. He can read strangers so well it verges on telepathy.

But with these gifts come strange visions tinged with menace. And the one thing Rasputin doesn’t know is that his new abilities have been noticed, by ancient and evil forces who recognise what the gifts mean and what they will become. Unfortunately, his new life is only of benefit to them if he’s dead.

Dark Matter is a cerebral mystery that plays fair—and dares you to solve it.

Strawman Made Steel

Janus McIlwraith knows New York City. From the grimy basement bars where the underclass mutter and curse to the gleaming penthouse apartments where the elite plot and control, he's seen it all, and he's never been happy about it. He's a private investigator who works the city the old fashioned way. No internet. No databases. No smartphones.

Not that he has a choice in the matter.

Because Janus knows two New York Cities. There's the one with Facebook, The Tonight Show and iPods. And there's the one he enters through the mirror, the one with genetic supermen, skyscraper canons, and a certain subatomic particle that's misbehaving...

And when McIlwraith takes on the case of the rich boy whose brutalized corpse is found in a dumpster, he little realizes how deep the case will cut―right to his very core, to the place where, like this city, his own soul is split in two.

Ancient Schmegyptians

I was enjoying a book in Townsville Library the other day (we like free) when my youngest son thrust a different book under my gaze. His was a book on Ancient Egypt. I like Ancient Egypt, and it was a small book, so it was no chore to read it. Chapter headings included the usual suspects: Worship, Recreation, Family Life, Law and Punishment… and I'd made it most of the way through when my attention was snagged by a curious note. An ancient egyptian, said the book, had each year to register their occupation. To fail to do so could mean death. The law applied to everyone, including bakers, farmers, artisans--and here comes the snag--and robbers? Yes, that's right. In Ancient Egypt, one could register to be a professional thief.

The book went on to explain that if said thief was caught with the loot, the victim was still only entitled to recover 75%, leaving, presumably, 25% for Grundy & Sons Robbery Co. How bizarre.

Professional thief with union-accredited ‘I'm nicked. I give up’ headdress.

I'm always on the lookout for societal quirks like that. It's just these sorts of oddities that can grow into interesting fictional cultures with which to populate fictional worlds. At the very least, legitimate thievery could make for some interesting career posters.

But when I later attempted to research Ancient Egypt's professional thieves I ran into a brick wall. The only mention of them I found was on a web page that referenced a book from the 1800s. I was beginning to think someone was having a lend… until I turned up digital copies of two references from the 1880s, which indeed mentioned this curious law, and even gave a name to the official in charge--the Shekh of Thieves. Truly bizarre.

I say two references, but on closer examination one book appeared to have, barring a little commentary, stolen text from the other word for word. Ironic.

The book I was reading before Jos thrust Ancient Egypt under my nose was The Neverending Story, which I think has become one of my favourite books. But more on that later…

Free SMS

Acronyms aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Anyway, Strawman Made Steel, my hard-boiled detective fiction in a New York that went to hell and returned with crazy eyes, is free until the 8th of August. It's here: amzn.com/B00DT4LO6S

Or you can press the widget thingy to the right and down a bit. Yep, that one.

I am J.K. Rowling

...okay. That might be a lie. Well, it is a lie.

But I did finally publish a detective novel.

Now, back to lunch.