Facing Worlds - Chapter 1

Chapter 5

Chelsee went home and I slept hard. Nothing puts a fella to sleep like a game at Rook's, a tough case, the love of a good woman, a bourbon, and a lack of air conditioning in my apartment.

There was a knock at the door to the fire escape. I opened it, and was surprised to find nothing there but a newspaper. Odd. I thought they gave up on me after I won the "Latest Overdue Bill" award for newspaper subscriptions.

I opened it casually and almost fell over from what I read inside.

"Archeologist Chester Smith found Dead This Morning."

I had to find a seat, fast. Not again. Dead clients are bad for business.

Business...

The word hung around my brain in hopeless anticipation of finding a neuron to connect it with.

Oh, no.

Had I forgotten to agree on a fee before Chester left?

Bad business man. Bad, bad, bad. No wonder you're always broke. I guess I was so anxious to get started on a case that I forgot to charge the client. The ex-client, I mean.

Well, maybe he has a relative who's interested in avenging the murder. Or maybe the police are interested in talking to me about it. I might be the last person who saw him alive. His relative is probably a better option. Maybe he'll pay me.

First things first. Call the ex-client's number and see if anyone's at home who wants to talk to me. And pay me.

Another bad feeling passed as I dug through my pockets for a business card or way to contact the client.

Business card...

Oh, no.

I had a feeling this was going to be a very bad day.

I rummaged through my desk drawers looking for the phonebook. After a 3 minute search, I found it. I looked for Smith. When I got there I realized I had a big problem. There were two full pages of Smith's in San Francisco. None were listed as Chester, but there were 68 listed as "Smith, C". There was no way I was going to call all 68 C. Smith's in the city. At that point I decided to start this case, and hope to find someone who could pay me later. I knew exactly where I should go first.

"Mr. Malden, there's a Tex Murphy out here asking for you. He's says you two are good buddies."

Mac clearly hesitated before he replied to his secretary. It took about 3 seconds before I heard his voice on the speakerphone.

"Let him in."

"Yes, sir."

The secretary got up and opened the door to Mac's office. I went inside to find Mac wiping the icing sugar off his face from his lemon jelly filled donut, "Take a seat, Murphy."

"Thanks," I sat down, "You know Mac, I think its time you start eating those new soy donuts. They have all the flavour and only ten percent of the fat."

"If you came by just to give me health pointers, then why don't you get the hell outta my office!"

"Sorry, Mac. I do have a good reason to be here."

"And that is?"

"I'm guessing you may have heard about the death of Chester Smith?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"He hired me to do something yesterday. I won't go into the details, but shortly after he left my office, he disappeared. One minute he was at the bus stop the next... gone."

"What time was this at?"

"It was around 11:20PM. I remember because I thought it was strange that he disappeared like that considering the next bus didn't show up until 11:30."

Mac looked at me, as if I were kidding him, "Your kidding right?"

"No, I'm dead serious."

Mac hesitated for a moment, obviously having realized that I wasn't trying to pull his leg, "Could you describe Mr. Smith for me?"

"No, need, I have a photo of him and his archaeology partner right here," I pulled it out and handed it to Mac.

"Which one is he?"

"The one on the left," I pointed him out.

Mac turned to his computer and started typing some stuff in he was about to type in his password when he turned to me, "Do you mind?"

"Oh, sorry," I closed my eyes.

"Murphy?" asked Mac.

I opened my eyes, "Yeah?"

"Are you sure this is the man who hired you?"

"Positive, why?"

Mac turned his monitor towards me. It listed a bunch of details (including Chester's home phone number which I took quick note of), "What am I looking at?"

Mac pointed to the part of the screen which listed Chester's death. It said July 16, 2044 4:30PM. If that was actually Chester Smith that hired me, then I'd been hired by a ghost.