———Published June 8th, 2024———
Radio awoke just before dawn on a street it had never seen in the light of day.
This wasn’t uncommon for Radio.
“I bet he doesn’t even remember what time it is.” Radio thought to itself. “He always gets mixed up when he drinks.”
Radio was in its car where it always was—the ancient analog clock on the dash tick, tick, ticking. And like usual, Radio was waiting for its car’s owner, Harry.
Harry was inside one of the houses. Radio wasn’t sure which. He had gone there after meeting a girl the night before. She was at a bar drinking Manhattans by herself.
She had introduced herself as Lisa. But not before Harry had noticed her rather generous cleavage sticking out of her tight, black dress. And due to Harry’s general attractiveness, his carefully-honed-for-female-American’s-ears English accent, and the 3 manhattans Lisa had already drank—it didn’t take long for Harry to convince Lisa that a ride back to her place was in order.
Radio wouldn’t have cared.
Other than the fact this meant he had the unfortunate luck of sitting through their drunken conversation on the drive home.
And while it was physically impossible for Radio to feel nausea, it would’ve happily taken a dramamine had you offered it one and had it had a mouth.
After Lisa had said, “I love your accent,” for the fifth time, Radio switched to FM 69.2—where he knew a local psychologist named Dr. Linda would be taking calls from worried wives and girlfriends complaining about their husbands and partners.
(Oh late-night talk shows—one of Radio’s guilty pleasures.)
Harry answered Lisa’s curious look by saying “Stupid Radio, it’s always jumping channels like that. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed.”
Which was a lie. Harry had no intention of fixing Radio—nor did Harry think Radio needed to be fixed at all.
Radio noted that was not the first (nor likely the last) time Harry lied to a pretty girl.
15 minutes later and Radio heard giggles and the car door slam—and Radio fell asleep shortly after.
“Well,” Radio thought awake now as the margins of the morning sky grew brighter, “might as well catch another 40 winks.”
=========
Harry Hughes awoke as the first rays of day were glaring through the gap in the blinds.
Oh hell, when is it? 9 o’clock, he thought looking at his watch. But what day?
He thought it was Tuesday but he wasn’t sure. It always got like this the morning after he drank too much. Which, admittedly, was too often.
But if he was correct it was Tuesday.
And if it was Tuesday, he had a client meeting.
And if the meeting went well, he could make enough money to pay his landlord this month’s rent and not get kicked out.
But already he was running late.
Shoes, where the hell are my shoes?
He walked around the room picking up his belongings as quietly as he could, constantly peeking back to make sure sleeping beauty’s eyes stayed shut.
But just as he cracked her bedroom door with his arms full of loot, her eyes shot open and he heard, “I know you’re leaving. It’s ok. You can say bye.”
“Uhhh… Ok.” Harry said halfway into the hall. And just before he turned he asked, “And what day is it?”
The woman sat up on one arm, the sheets draping her chest like a marble statue Harry had seen in Florence one summer.
“It’s Tuesday silly.”
“Right,” Harry said, turning and shutting the door. “Goodbye.”
=========
Harry opened the door to his AMC Javelin and got in.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Harry said seemingly to the vacuum of the car. “Oh come on, don’t give me the silent treatment.”
The engine kicked over as Harry turned the key and Reggae music came blaring through the speakers.
“Crikey,” Harry said, changing the station. “You know I hate reggae.”
Radio was assembled from parts made all over the world. And he just so happened to have a rare type of transistor that only came from one factory in Jamaica. Which unsurprisingly to Harry, meant that Radio considered itself something of an island soul.
Unfortunately, Harry never grew fond of the magic of the one-drop.
And even though he was objectively wrong on the matter, refused to listen to any music where the skanking was easy.
Although Harry in the eyes of this author does deserve some redemption for his one true musical love:
Jazz.
Specifically, cool jazz.
The staccato rhythm of the drums. The slow, sultry sassiness of the bass line. And most of all, the way the melodies dip in and out… emerging as singular characters in an interwoven drama….
The problem was that Radio hated jazz. Or at least seemed to. Harry sometimes thought Radio pretended to hate it just to spite him—after all, what sort of psycho hates reggae?
That’s why when Radio was in a mood like this, the jazz stations wouldn’t come through. Just static.
“Fine,” Harry said, turning the volume knob. “Silence it is.”
=========
The AMC Javelin made the coiling trip to the heart of Meadowbrook and finally, its destination, The Cup.
The Cup was the local cafe that Harry frequented almost daily. And it was his first choice for any client meetings—when he had client meetings that is.
Ever since the very public bird scandal, this town had treated him differently.
Very differently.
The AMC Javelin slid to a stop near B street. It was parked near a wall housing a vacant building that people had plastered with flyers. There were flyers for open room rentals. For guitar lessons. And even for a creepy-looking clown advertising itself as “Great for kids birthday parties.”
But what dominated the wall was flyers for the 3 men that had gone missing the month prior. Something unheard of in Meadowbrook. Sure the town had its issues and economic setbacks as of late. But it was almost always thought of as a safe community.
Things are getting awfully strange around here lately, Harry thought as he exited the car onto the sidewalk. But when things get strange is when I get paid.
He was right.
Harry entered The Cup through the side door and made a beeline to his regular table. It was the table his favorite waitress, Mary, always saved to him. She would always keep it empty for him with nothing more than a cute origami duck or other animal she made just for him.
But to his dismay, the booth wasn’t empty and there was no origami today. Just his potential client sitting with her hands crossed on the table.
So much for a cup of tea and a moment to think.
Harry slid into the booth across from his client, forcing his eyes away from the cleavage peeking through her business suit.
“Ahh, Mrs. Worthngton, so happy you’re here. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Mrs. Worthington was a finely-crafted piece of art. Rumor had it her morning skincare routine alone took an hour each day and cost $2,000 a month.
Mary, the waitress, approached the table.
“The usual?” She asked Harry.
“Of course, Mary, thank you,” he said with a smile and a wink.
“And how about for you ma’am?”
“Black tea with lemon” she said without looking up.
Harry could tell she wanted to get down to business, which was fine with him. The sooner he got done here the sooner he could take care of his other business of the day. Which he had only just found out about while driving to the cup via a voicemail the police had left on his phone.
But that’s for later.
“Ok Mrs. Worthington, how can I help you?”
Harry knew that Mrs. Worthington was married to Mr. Worthington. A very wealthy man who had managed to dip a very stinky toe into just about every bit of industry around town.
He had a hand in logistics, real estate, politics, waste management, he had invested in the local minor league hockey team, owned art galleries and cafes, and more and more and more. It wasn’t exactly clear how he came to be so successful or even what his skills were.
But everyone in town knew his name.
Everyone in town also knew about his “Clean Up Meadowbrook” campaign.
How he wanted to rehouse (or kick out) the homeless, tear down dilapidated buildings, and most importantly—according to him—was the focus on clean, renewable energy.
It all sounded good.
But Harry figured it would all benefit the Worthington’s in the end more than your average Meadowbrookian.
So yes, Mr. Worthington was a known quantity.
But Mrs. Worthington on the other hand, was a much more private person. She wasn’t on any ads or the face of any campaigns. And your average local hardly knew her name. Which meant that to the regulars at The Cup, Harry was simply having breakfast with a beautiful and serious woman.
Which—the beautiful part at least—was nothing out of the ordinary.
“It’s my husband you see.” She made direct eye contact that made Harry feel awkward. “We’ve been married for nearly 10 years now and through that time I’ve seen him change so much. And lately, he’s been acting… well… strangely.”
“Ahhh, so you think he’s cheating on you? And you want me to tail him, find the mistress, take pictures for proof and all that?”
“No, no, no, not exactly. Well… I mean, yes.” It wasn’t normal for Mrs. Worthngton to feel flustered. But with her husband’s recent antics and the 3 men missing around town… she didn’t feel quite herself. “Yes I want you to follow him and dig up dirt. No, I don’t think he’s cheating on me. At least, not with a woman.”
“With a man? I mean, I’m not one to judge we all have our se—.”
“No, listen,” she said, cutting him off. “He’s not cheating on me in a marital sense. I think he’s cheating on me in a business sense.”
Mary had chosen that unfortunate moment to bring their cups of tea.
“Your breakfast is on its way”, she squeaked out, pretending not to hear their conversation as she slipped away.
Mrs. Worthington dryly squeezed her lemon and took a sip of her tea. Took a breath. And then went on to explain how more than just husband and wife, they were business partners. It’s how they met. And even though her husband was in the public eye, they worked on everything 50/50. Until lately that is.
“And quite frankly,” she said, “the marriage was more based around money than it was around emotions.”
Which was fine with her, she added.
She didn’t need to be coddled and loved. She needed to be respected.
“What behavior exactly do you find suspicious?” Harry asked, for the first time being interested in what his client had to say.
She was getting to that, she told him.
And over the course of the next 30 minutes she explained how Mr. Worthington had been hiding something from her. She wasn’t sure what. But it wasn’t good. He was always gone at strange hours with vague excuses for where he could be. There was money missing that he assured her was being put to good use but wouldn’t say for what. And there was many strange men he had hired recently that she didn’t trust.
She thought Mr. Worthington had been caught up with some bad people. But she wasn’t sure what they were doing. Embezzlement. Selling drugs. Human trafficking. She didn’t know.
And the uncertainty was killing her.
She finished her tale, he folded her hands and sat back in the vinyl booth silently biting her lip. It wasn’t until that moment that Harry realized how out of place she looked here.
It was like hanging a Van Gogh original in a frat house.
“So that’s where I come in,” Harry said, trying to break the silence.
During Mrs. Worthington’s story, Mary had brought Harry his breakfast. The usual. 3 eggs, a rasher of bacon, hash browns, toast, and a pile of fluffy flapjacks. Harry played up his English accent for the ladies—but in every other way embraced Americanism.
By the time Mrs. Worthington finished, he had downed the savory section and was in the process of deluging his pancakes with maple syrup.
As Harry forked his syrup-soaked cakes, she gingerly sipped her tea.
“Yes, that’s where you come in. Mr. Worthington has connections with everyone in town. I can’t go to the police, because he donates a lot of money to them and is on first-name basis with the chief. I can’t go to any other private investigators, because he’s hired them all and has half of them on retainer. And I heard about you after…” Mrs. Worthngton paused, looking embarrassed.
“Well, that left you as the logical candidate.”
Harry burped right along eating his pancakes and ignoring Mrs. Worthington’s accidental insult. But at that moment he couldn’t help but notice a flock of birds looking mockingly at him outside.
“Right,” Harry said, “so where can I find Mr. Worthington.”
“You can’t. At least not easily. That’s what I mean about him acting strangely. He bought a new warehouse somewhere and that’s where he’s been working for the last few months. But he won’t tell me where it is. Or why he bought it. Or what he’s doing there. It’s all a big mystery.”
“I love a good mystery,” Harry said. And that was true.
Mrs. Worthington stared blankly for a moment before reaching into her purse.
“I guess this just leaves the matter of payment,” she said.
“Yes, half now, half when the job is finished,” Harry said through a mouthful of breakfast cake, but with a much bigger appetite for her checkbook.
She quickly signed the check, shook his hands, and walked out the door. Telling Harry she had a charity function to attend to tonight and needed to go home and prepare.
As she walked out, Harry couldn’t resist taking a peek at the way her business skirt hugged her hips. Once she was out the door, he began flipping through the files she had left him.
It was basic stuff. Mr. Worthington’s home address, cell phone number, where he banked, places he hung out during nights and weekends, the car he drove.
It wasn’t until he got to a newspaper clipping she had left in there when he perked up.
“Local businessman donates $100,000 to study renewable energy”
And under the headline, a picture of Mr. Worthington standing next to a frazzled-looking scientist with gray hair sticking up at every angle from his head.
Strange, Harry thought. He’s taking the mad scientist trope a little too literally.
=========
Harry walked back to his car past a group of gaggling teenagers.
When they saw him they started squawking like birds and flapped their elbows like they were wings.
“Oh bugger off.” Harry yelled.
That blasted bird incident just wouldn’t leave him alone.
What few people appreciated about Harry is that he had skills few other men on Earth had. Skills he had developed—well, inherited—while working for MI6.
Skills that, unfortunately for Harry, had come with side effects.
But for the first time in a long time, it was time to put those skills to the test.
Harry started his car, winced as he heard “Every little ting is gonna be alright” come through the speakers, and promptly turned Radio off.
“Come on now,” he said, “can’t we get along?”
He drove the meandering path to the closest park. He needed somewhere quiet so he could think.
=========
The AMC Javelin came to a halt in the shade of a giant Oak.
Radio was bored and flitted through the AM stations until Harry ended it with a click of the knob.
“Need silence,” Harry said. “Must work.”
Radio was used to Harry getting like this. It had something to do with Harry’s time working as a spy or something. Harry didn’t explain much as it was top secret—and quite frankly, Radio didn’t care to ask nor did he have the faculties to.
All Radio knew was that Harry suffered from some sort of mysterious “side effects”. Whatever that means.
Harry rolled down the driver’s side window to feel the fresh air. But when he heard birds chirp, he quickly rolled it back up. With that done, he put his seat back, closed his eyes, and began to hum.
From Radio’s perspective, nothing happened.
But for Harry, he was as intensely focused as he could possibly be. He brought up the picture he had received of Mr. Worthington into his mind’s eye. He poured every ounce of mental energy into it. For Harry there was no park. No car. No Radio. Almost no Harry even.
Just deep, intense study of Mr. Worthington’s face.
Every ageworn line. Each angle of his smirk.
It was then that Harry, what was left of him, began to hear a buzzing sound. Then feel a shake. And then noticed kaleidoscopic images careening into view.
It felt as if his mind was on a conveyor belt. Being pulled into nothingness by silly faces. As often happened, they almost looked like clowns or jesters or silly tricksters laughing at some cosmic prank.
Just ignore them, he thought, his training kicking in. They’re just distractions.
The faces faded back into the geometry and in the distance a door seemed to open, white light behind it. Harry drifted towards the light.
Then went through it.
On the other side, Harry entered into a land that felt both like a dream, and somehow realer than real life.
Mr. Worthington was there. Mrs. Worthington was too.
There was a problem. A fight. A smashed bottle. The butler bending down to clean it up.
The scene disintegrated and Harry drifted to another one.
This time Mr. Worthington was alone. Well not completely. He had two men with him. One of them seemed so familiar. A strange mole on his right cheek. Harry just couldn’t make out who it was. His head began to hurt and the vision grew shaky.
“Dam side effects,” he muttered under his breath. Radio grew impatient.
Harry drifted again to another scene.
This time he saw Mr. Worthington. In some sort of room that could’ve been the operating room of a UFO.
It was all bright lights and machinery that Harry could barely understand. But that wasn’t the strangest thing of all. The strangest thing was that Harry saw that he himself was also there. Tied up. Screaming. His face convoluted in terror.
He was forced to look at himself—this dream thing that he was. He began to shake.
Radio grew worried.
Harry’s mind wretched and the vision grew wild. The clowny faces came back, stuck in their ever-changing, yet perfect geometry. The faces circled around his dreamself as he sat in his car shaking.
The faces weren’t evil. But they were laughing.
It felt to Harry as if they wanted to point out how fragile he was. How silly all this looked from their perspective.
Harry tried to reach out to himself, to help the figure he saw writhing in pain. But as he came closer a clown mouth opened and swallowed him.
Harry jolted awake just as the alarm he had set on his phone whirred to life, sounding like a chorus of electronic bird calls.
“Blast it,” he said. “More side effects and still getting nowhere.”
His head ached a dull pain.
He checked his phone.
Ahhh my meeting with the police. Time to deal with more clowns.
=========
That morning Henry had seen a voicemail pop up from The Meadowbrook Police Department.
Which wasn’t too strange given Harry’s reputation in town. Especially since the bird incident the police just wouldn’t leave him alone… blasted crows!
But the message itself was strange.
Normally when the police called it was to mock him, or to tell him to not interfere with a case, or even in many cases, to prank him.
But this sounded different.
“This is Detective Montgomery with the Meadowbrook police. We have a current investigation that we—errr—are requesting… well need actually, your assistance with. Please meet us at the station at 11am today.”
Click
It was strange. But strange was the regular in Harry’s life.
Well then, let’s see where this takes us.
The AMC Javelin’s engine roared.
=========
The AMC Javelin came to a halt around 10:54 am in the parking lot of the Meadowbrook police department. The sun beat down on the open lot and Radio knew it’d be in for a hot few hours.
But to Radio’s relief, just before Harry slid out the door, he cracked the windows.
“I’ll be back soon,” onlookers heard him say to seemingly no one. “I hope,” he added as he locked the door.
The police station was brightly lit and coolly conditioned. Harry approached the front desk and told them he was here for a, uhhh, meeting.
The officer cocked a side-eye and shuffled some papers on her desk.
At this point, Harry thought this could still all be a prank, or a misunderstanding, or even a ruse to get him into the station to arrest him for something he had forgotten he had done—or worse, something he hadn’t done at all.
The officer at the front desk clicked a button which made a loud buzz.
“Through there to your right,” the officer said. “Ask for Detective Montgomery.”
“Right,” Harry said, nerves fluttering.
Detective Montgomery was an absolute unit of a man. He had one of those big ergonomic office chairs that somehow his mass pushed to its absolute limits—and then some.
Harry sat at the Detective’s desk and watched as Montgomery tore through a pink donut with sprinkles.
A little too on the nose once again with the cliches, am I right? Harry thought.
“Ahhh yes, Mr. Hughes, Meadowbrook’s #1 Private Eye,” Montgomery said. The sarcasm spilling out his mouth as naturally as he spilled donut crumbs on his desk.
“At your service,” Harry said with a sarcastic bow.
The officer seemed not to hear. “I don’t know who you’re working for, who you bribed, or who’s genitals you pleasured, but someone from up high requested I take you along with me today.”
“I assure you, the only genitals I pleasure are my own,” Harry said, without a hint he was joking.
The officer stopped chewing his fried dough ball only long enough to look at Harry the way you look at a child who asks you what blue tastes like.
The officer burped right along.
“I’ve been given orders to bring you with me for a few meetings. Your job is to shut up and listen. I don’t want you with me. And as long as that’s clear and you stay out of the way, we won’t have a problem.”
“Of course. What could go wrong?”
The officer swallowed the ultimate chunk of donut and licked each finger clean.
=========
While driving the police cruiser, Detective Montgomery told Harry the plan for the day.
Three men were missing from town. And their job was to interview their wives to see if there was any connection between the three.
Everyone liked to assume it was the work of some psychotic serial killer, Montgomery had said. But as far as they knew, there was no connection. And the three of them could’ve separately decided to flee their lives.
“After decades of doing this job,” Montgomery said, “I’ve learned that the simple answer is almost always the right answer.”
In Harry’s professional opinion, that just meant Montgomery didn’t look hard enough to see the true complexities that undermined all of reality.
The first two meetings went over without incident.
Both of the wives gave some variation of “Bill was happy as I ever saw him. Well I guess he was a little stressed from work. He recently got a big promotion, you see. He couldn’t tell me a lot about it, but he was working hard. He had big plans for the future. There’s no way he just disappeared on his own accord. I’m telling you, someone is behind this.”
When Harry had pointed out the similarity in their stories, Montgomery grunted it was, “Just a sad coincidence.
But Harry had learned long ago that coincidence was just a fancy word people used to describe things they didn’t understand.
So on the way to the third house, Harry wagered:
“I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts she tells us her husband recently got a mystery promotion.”
“If that’s the case, you can take my job,” Montgomery said with a belly laugh.
Now there’s a man who doesn’t understand fate, Harry thought as the houses on Cherry Street flicked by.
=========
“I’m telling you officer, there’s no way my Randall would have just up and left without a trace. He loved me too much. He loved our grandchildren too much. No, I promise you, something bad happened to him,” the gray-haired Mrs. Carlson had said.
Montgomery scribbled on his notepad looking like he was hardly listening.
Mrs. Carlson turned to Harry.
“Please, you have to believe me.” She blew into her handkerchief.
“I very much believe you Mrs. Carlson,” Harry said, getting up from the couch. Harry didn’t notice that it made Montgomery cringe. But he did notice a picture on the mantle behind Mrs. Carlson. A picture of Randall smiling in front of a building. Behind him was a sign that read, Alternative Wasterall Inc.
Harry turned back to Mrs. Carlson
“I have a question for you Mrs. Carlson. You said your husband was just a few years from retirement. But you didn’t mention what he did for a living. I’m wondering, did he get a promotion recently, perhaps?”
She perked up.
“Why yes, yes he did. He was ecstatic about it. Through the roof. Said it would help us retire in peace. But how could you possibly know that?”
Harry turned to give Montgomery a smile. Montgomery grunted and possibly farted, it was hard to tell.
“Lucky guess, I assure you.”
Harry turned back to the wall of pictures and Mrs. Carlson went on about her Randall and how good of a man he was, how he always helped others, how he loved this town.
Harry began walking down the hall where more pictures were hung. Typical stuff. Pictures with families. Pictures in front of buildings. Pictures of the Carlson’s toasting margaritas at a Mexican restaurant.
But there was another picture that caught Harry’s eye.
“Uhhh, excuse me, Mrs. Montgomery”, he said, cutting her off. “Who is this man?”
Harry had taken the picture off the wall and was now holding it in front of Mrs. Montgomery’s face, pointing to the smiling man with his arm around Randall.
“Oh, that was Randall’s boss. You may have heard of him. His name is Silas. Silas Worthington.”
It was at that moment that Harry noticed something else. A strange mole on Randall’s right cheek. A mole Harry had seen mere hours before.
He almost dropped the picture frame.
=========
“What the hell was that about,” Motgomery said as soon as they were outside the house. “You weren’t supposed to say anything. What was with all the questions about his boss being suspicious and where he worked? What’s that about?”
“Errrh, sorry about that. Just recognized that rich guy from, uhhh, seeing him in the news.”
Montgomery turned red.
“It’s no big deal,” Harry said, “I just have a thing for local celebrities.”
Montgomery stood there looking like he wished he had a pack of powdered donuts to suck down—or a box of rocks to throw at Harry.
“Come on,” Harry said walking to the cruiser. “I don’t have all day.”
=========
Harry looked at the notes he scribbled down from Mrs. Carlson.
Near the old abandoned Creamy Freeze, past the dump, off Old Grove Rd.
Strange place for an office, Harry thought.
Although, he couldn’t be sure it actually was an office. After all, Mrs. Montgomery never got to finish telling him what her husband did there before Detective Montgomery was pulling him out the door. Maybe it was a factory or a farm or a slaughterhouse or even a venue for a weekend burlesque show.
Need to focus, Harry thought.
Unfortunately for Harry, the entire place was surrounded by a tall, razor-wire-topped fence.
From his car parked two blocks down the street, he couldn’t see a way in.
So he waited.
An hour passed and Harry almost felt like giving up. Maybe this place wasn’t important after all.
But as that thought crossed his mind, he saw a white, windowless van with “AWI” stamped on the side pull up to the entrance. A giant, bald man in black overalls stepped out, walking up to the combination lock, and leaving it hanging as he swung the gate open.
“Hop in,” the driver said, “the boss is coming and he won’t want to be kept waiting out here.”
The van skittered away leaving the gate with its jaws agape.
Once again, Harry thought, fate lines up the dominoes. Now let’s get on with knocking them down.
He quickly locked the AMC Javelin as he got out. Strolled to the gate. Took a wary glance around. Then dashed inside.
=========
“Where do you get so much confidence?” This is something Richard, one of Harry’s mates had asked him years ago in a Scottish pub on vacation.
Even back then Harry was famous for walking up to the group of the prettiest girls at the bar and within a few words, having them laughing and giving him their numbers.
Richard didn’t get it.
Harry wasn’t the best looking. He wasn’t the smoothest talker. He certainly wasn’t the smartest. But he had more confidence than anyone else Richard had ever met.
“You just have to trust fate.”
This is the answer Harry would always give Richard. Ever since they were little kids. Richard remembered one time when Harry had stood up to the school bully in 4th grade.
The bully had been held back 2 years and should’ve been in 6th grade. He was already growing a mustache while Harry had a pipsqueak voice and was built like a wet spaghetti string. .
When Harry challenged the bully to a fight, Richard had asked him if he was crazy, what was he thinking, surely you’re going to get beat to a pulp.
But Harry had said something about fate.
Even in 6th grade, Harry was weird.
Richard was worried sick that entire day.
But Harry didn’t act like anything was out of the ordinary. He read in class. Traded corndogs for chicken nuggets at lunch. And kicked the bounciest cherry ball at recess.
When the time came for the fight, Harry put his backpack down by a tree and his fists up by his face.
Here it comes, Harry thought, something’s got to give.
Richard looked on at the scene in front of him. An oversized bully striding towards Harry. A circle of school kids standing around screaming and pointing.
But just at that moment, Harry pointed to the ground and said something. Richard standing closer than the other children could’ve sworn he said “Fate”.
The bully looked down to see fire ants swarming up his shoes. Then his legs. And then he began to feel their biting and stinging.
The bully danced. Then yelled. Then cried. And very quickly, he ran away as if he were engulfed in flames.
The school kids hadn’t seen the fire ants and were all tears of laughter over the histrionics.
That day before the ants stopped stinging, a rumor began that Harry had used some magic ability against the bully. And even though Richard was close enough to see the fire ants, he more than anyone else had believed it.
This memory laid comatose in the back of Harry’s brain as he crept through the open parking lot and around the back of the building. Harry didn’t know it yet, but down the street, a jet black sedan was waiting at a red light. In the passenger seat sat Silas Worthington. Just as the light turned green, Harry noticed the only window in the back of the building that had been left cracked open.
The sedan accelerated and Harry slipped in.
=========
Harry landed with a thud, kicking up dust around him. He could hardly see, since the only light was coming through a few grimy windows—one of which he had just come through.
From the looks of it, the place had been abandoned for months if not longer.
If the van hadn’t pulled in with AWI on the side, Harry would’ve guessed Mrs. Carlson had given him the wrong place. It hadn’t looked like anyone had stepped foot in here in ages, let alone worked here.
There was dust everywhere. Cobwebs. Some sort of mold growing on the exposed pipes. This place certainly wasn’t an office. It had the feel of an old, abandoned utility plant.
It also smelled of chemicals. Which is perhaps why the window had been left ajar.
Harry crept towards the door, electric light streaming through the cracks. But just as he approached it, shadows appeared under the door and Harry could hear speaking on the other side. He crouched behind an empty oil drum and a large bundle of pipes that were stored near the wall.
The door cracked open and Harry held his breath as the large man in overalls and a smaller man in a lab coat stepped inside. The small man had a mop of wild, gray hair. And was the same man Harry had seen in the picture at Mrs. Carlson’s house.
“This place is perfect, isn’t it?” The scientist said. “It could use a little love, but it has all the space we need. And it’s far enough away so that no one can hear… well, it’s private enough, let’s just say that. Much more private than where the machine is stored now” They both took a step inside and looked around.
Harry thought about grabbing a nearby wrench that was on the ground in case they walked around the oil drum. But he decided against it not wanting to step on the exposed piggies of fate.
But luckily, the man in overalls mumbled a response Harry couldn’t hear as they turned around and left the room, closing the door behind them with a bang.
Harry realized through the door was the last place he should go. So he looked around for a better option.
And that’s when he noticed a ladder built into the wall behind him leading up to the ceiling and presumably the second floor.
Perfect, he thought as he shimmied up the first rung. A ladder to nowhere.
=========
Growing up, Harry was never the biggest or strongest kid in class. But for some reason, he was always good at climbing.
In fact, it was in high school during the annual fitness test right after had come down from the rope climb that everything changed for Harry.
Because when he came down, a man in a black suit and black sunglasses walked up to him and told him he wanted to speak. That Harry had shown some serious skill out there. And that he could help him find work in a very lucrative and interesting field.
Harry took one look at his PE teacher, Mr. Johnson with his beer gut and his too short shorts, and said show me what you got.
Harry couldn’t have known it at the time, but the man in the suit hadn’t asked him to talk because of his aptitude to climb ropes. Rather, it was other skills that had become grist for the rumor mill in town.
Years later, Harry reached the top of the ladder in the dusty factory room.
When he did, he saw a strange looking door in the ceiling—or the floor, depending on your perspective. The door was circular and had a tarnished knob in the middle. Almost like you were entering The Great Hobbit Hole in the Sky on your belly.
Harry twisted the knob the door resisted. He pushed very hard and…
Crash, splunk, plow
Whatever had been on top of the door fell with a crash and Harry winced. So much for keeping a low profile. No time to waste though.
He sprang through the door and in a flash was on the other side.
And what he saw was far from a Hobbit hole.
Now this looks like an office, he had only a moment to think before he heard the door across the room from him open. He dove behind a desk and prayed for a miracle.
Luckily the man in the overalls and the man in the lab coat would never expect anyone to break in here. Why would they? Almost no one knew about this place. And the people that did were either hired by Mr. Worthington or paid off.
The henchman and the scientist looked around.
“Must’ve been a mouse or something that knocked it over,” the scientist looking man said, “Come on, the boss should be here, let’s go.”
Must’ve been a pretty big mouse Harry thought, thought as the adrenaline wore off. And moments later he had all but forgotten about the henchman and scientist and got to work.
The room looked much different than the one below. It had all the signs of a place humans regularly existed.
Stale cups of half-drunk coffee sat on coffin-like tables. Pens sat with their caps off, slowly crossing the inky divide. And pictures on desks of loved ones—and yes, here was a picture of Mrs. Carlson. This must have been Randall’s desk.
Now just to see what Mr. Carlson was up too…
As Harry gathered evidence, found piles of blueprints and schematics, and tried above all to be quiet, a car pulled into the parking lot. Out walked Mr. Worthington into the bright, fall day.
Harry worked quickly, knowing there was little time. And as he began to hear voices come down the hall and skitter under the door, he folded the evidence and stuffed it into his pockets. With this done, he walked back to the door in the floor.
Only, this is when he found the door had no knob on this side. In fact, it could hardly be seen at all. He tried to find a seam somewhere to yank it up. But it was as pointless as if the door had never existed.
Why there was even a door there in the first place was something that Harry would never figure out.
Bloody hell, he thought. And Radio out there all by himself, wondering what I’m up to. No, I can’t stay here. Must think of a plan.
The voices grew louder. And at that moment, as the door to the room swung open and all seemed lost, Harry opened a window, looked down, and jumped out…
=========
While he was falling the two stories, Harry had a strangely calm moment to think.
I need a vacation.
He hadn’t thought that since he caught Europe’s biggest gun smuggler, Chad Wickington, in the UK with over a million pounds of illegally-smuggled arms.
Before he caught the international criminal, Harry had decided to take a vacation to Bristol for no apparent reason.
And while there, he happened to bump into Wickington’s #2 man—an ex Green Beret with a scar across his left cheek where a Saudi had cut him.
Harry was able to follow the man to their secret warehouse. And from there, making the bust was as easy as making a call to MI6 headquarters.
“See, told you I needed a vacation,” he told his supervisor.
And while falling from the window, Harry could almost feel the Bristol breeze.
Sploosh
Harry landed in the open dumpster he had seen under the window. And luckily for Harry, not only was the dumpster lid left open, but trash day was tomorrow. So he landed on a bundle of papers, food wrappers, and from the smell of it, some half-eaten, half-rotten lunch in those wrappers too.
But he lived.
For now.
There’s no way they didn’t hear me fall. Better get out of here in a hurry.
He climbed out of the dumpster, ready to run the few blocks to his AMC Javelin when fate hit.
The front door opened and a group of men walked out.
This group included Mr. Worthington, the bald man, the scientist, and another man in a black suit who looked like he belonged in the secret service. The secret service man was also the only one who had a gun drawn, although it wasn’t pointed at Harry. For now he kept it pointing towards the ground.
“Errrh, yes, hello gentlemen,” Harry said, getting out of the dumpster and brushing himself off. “Allow me to introduce myself, I’m… Rich Darknight, county inspector. I’m here to inspect your… uhm… new building.” Harry was guessing on the last part. Figuring that based on what he saw inside, it was a safe bet they had recently moved in.
Mr. Worthington looked up at the open window then down at the dumpster. He looked at the bald henchman and motioned for him to go upstairs and check it out. The henchman walked inside and presumably up the stairs. The secret service man kept his gun in his right hand pointing at the ground.
Mr. Worthington turned to the scientist and asked: “Inspector? Were we expecting an inspector?”
“Well actually, yes.” The scientist said, looking nervous. “But I didn’t know it would be today.”
Harry interjected—capitalizing on this small bit of fortune, ”Of course, we can’t tell you when we’re coming. It would ruin the authenticity of the thing.”
“You look familiar,” Mr. Worthington said, ignoring Harry. “Were you in the news a while back?”
Harry’s expression remained unchanged but he couldn’t help but hear a crow squawking down the block.
“News? No, never been in the news, nothing interesting to report about me sadly. I inspect a lot of places in this county though. Maybe I’ve inspected another one of your properties, perhaps?
“Maybe,” Mr. Worthington seemed to think out loud. “Well, do you want to come in?”
Harry couldn’t think of a worse idea than being locked inside the remote warehouse with these 4 men.
“Oh no need, today was just an outside inspection. I’ll be coming back on another date to look inside.”
Just then the henchman made it to the window and looked down at Mr. Worthington with a shrug.
Luckily for Harry the henchman didn’t know there was a door in the floor or a ladder leading up to it. And he still was under the impression a mouse had knocked over the boxes. Harry once again thanked his fortune.
“One more question, Mr., what did you call yourself, Darknight?”
“Yes,” Harry nodded, mentally kicking himself for choosing such a stupid name.
“Why were you in the dumpster here when we got out?”
“Ahhh, funny story. I noticed you had left your gate open so I let myself in. And I climbed onto the dumpster to get a better look at that pipedrain coming down the wall there. With the rains being how they’ve been the last few years, we must make sure the drains are working properly. And clumsy me lost my balance and fell in. Sorry for the ruckus.”
Mr. Worthington continued looking at him with a grin.
“Well Mr. Darknight, it’s been a pleasure to meet you. I wonder, are you free tonight? My wife and I are hosting a charity function at The Imperial, you know the hotel downtown? Yes, that one. And I’d like to invite you as my guest. I feel we’ll be bumping into each other more. So I’d like to get to know you. If that’s ok.”
“Of course,” Harry said, seizing this delicious dish of fate. “Just tell me the time.”
=========
Harry paced his apartment while Radio took a nap in the cool parking garage. The evidence he had collected from the office was spread across his apartment.
Everything from blueprints and schematics to invoices and order forms to hastily scribbled notes.
Yes, it was risky taking things from the office. But everything he took had either been stuck in a drawer seemingly forgotten somewhere or was in a stack of copies and he took just one.
“7 pm”, he muttered. Can’t be late.
He paced and paced, jumping from document to document trying to figure out what it all meant. The blueprints seemed to be schematics for pieces of equipment that fit into a larger device. But beyond that, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
One drawing he had found in a notebook was of a man standing in a cylinder with lines coming from his head. Probably wires from the look of it. The words “BIO energy” scribbled underneath.
Harry had no idea what this meant.
And worse, he feared Mr. Worthington had seen through his lies and invited him to the function for less than generous reasons.
Yet, with the mystery at his fingertips, he couldn’t say no to going.
Harry paced and paced until his nervous energy wore thin. And only then did his lack of sleep from the night before set in. Tea can only keep a hangover like that at bay for so long.
So he drank a glass of cool water, peeled and ate an orange, set his alarm for 6:30 then laid down for a nap.
=========
When Harry awoke, his alarm was buzzing and it was 7:17. By the time he got ready and drove there, he would already be an hour late.
He shrieked, jumped in the shower, put on his best looking suit, and ran to the AMC Javelin not bothering to even say hello to Radio.
The AMC Javelin screeched to a halt at 7:52 in front of The Imperial hotel. He had made up time on the way with some nauseating driving. But he was here.
Harry quickly threw his keys to the valet and ran inside.
So much for getting a look around before things started, he thought as he entered the revolving door.
Harry had never been inside The Imperial. At first glance, it was nothing but a hall of shiny bronze. There were bronze furnishings. Bronze carts for the bellhop to bring your luggage to your room. Bronze inlay on the ceilings and floors. And even a bronze bell on the counter you could tap to alert the concierge of your arrival.
Harry saw infinite reflections of himself in a faceted hall of bronze. He ran past his infinite selves to reach the ballroom where the charity function was in full swing.
Little did Harry know, but everything was about to change.
=========
Harry had attended dozens of these types of events while working for MI6. Some he had attended in a spy capacity. Some he had attended as the date of some rich widow. So even though Harry wasn’t the type of bigwig who could afford the entry fee; he knew how these things tended to work which gave him a certain comfort.
He saw the Worthington’s greeting guests and smiled.
Good, not too late.
He walked up to Mr. Worthington and shook his open hand.
“Hello Mr. Worthington, great to see you, thanks again for inviting me.”
“Ahh yes, Mr. Darknight, county inspector.” He said with a smirk. “This is my wife, Rebecca. You haven’t had the pleasure of meeting… have you?”
Shock flashed across Mrs. Worthington’s face. It lasted only a moment. But it was enough time for both Harry and Mr. Worthington to notice.
She recovered quickly.
“No, of course not. It’s a pleasure to meet you… Mr. Darknight was it?” She said, extending her hand. “How do you know my husband?”
Harry sensed more than just curiosity behind her question. She seemed scared. And who could blame her with how many people her husband had on his secret payroll. Harry decided to put her out of her misery.
“We just met today, I assure you. I was out inspecting his new building over by the abandoned Creamy Freeze…” Harry glanced at Mr. Worthington whose jaw tightened. I guess he really was keeping that building a secret from her. Harry continued, “… and he very generously invited me here. I’m so happy to meet you Mrs. Worthington. I’ve heard great things.”
The trio fell silent and the town’s upper class murmured around them. Harry could hear an octogenarian real estate tycoon behind him say, “… and that’s why you should never adopt a Parisian Poodle from a Chinaman,” to the sounds of rich people laughter. Harry always found it strange how they laughed differently. Almost as if once your bank account hit enough zeros, your vocal cords began to change.
Just then the secret service looking man from the warehouse walked in and motioned to Mr. Worthington.
“Looks like I’m needed, duty calls as they say. I’ll leave you two to… catch up,” he said with a grin.
He walked away leaving Harry and Mrs. Worthington in silence.
Harry wasn’t sure what to say. But he figured the longer he stayed put, the more suspicious he would seem. So he took a look around, saw the appetizer table, and exclaimed: “Shrimp cocktail” before walking away.
Mrs. Worthington could feel her faith in Harry dropping by the minute.
The charity function continued for the next half hour without incident. Harry charmed a rich older widow whose husband had died last year of cancer. Harry was of course very sorry as was she. But these things happen and Gerald had lived a good, long life. She just felt bad for the grandchildren who missed him dearly.
He also spoke to a middle-aged couple who were very active in the local charity scene and had gone to charity 3 functions this month. They couldn’t help but brag a little about all the celebrities and politicians they got to meet.
But mostly, Harry wandered around trying to find something interesting and mysterious—anything at all.
Just when he thought he might give up and go home to study those blueprints, Harry saw the bald man and the scientist from earlier walk into the hall through the same door the secret service looking man had used.
These two came curiously close to Harry and turned to each other to whisper.
So naturally, Harry dropped his plate of deviled eggs on the table and began dropping eaves. From two tables down and his back to the men, he could just make out what the scientist was saying.
“Yes, we are delaying moving the prototype from the hotel for at least a few days. I know I don’t understand it either. The boss said something about how tonight’s the night to run more tests. I know I agree it’s risky with everything going on, but don’t worry he owns the hotel through a subsidiary. Yes, yes. Of course I’ll be careful. Ok, understood.”
The scientist looking man walked back through the double doors they had come through. While the bald man lurched around close to where Mrs. Worthington was still chatting with guests. Harry sweeped the room and saw Mr. Worthington seated at the table having an important-looking discussion.
“Well, now seems to be the time,” Harry said to no one in particular. Before sauntering up to the snack table, grabbing a fistful of pigs in their blankets, and slipping quietly through the double door.
=========
Harry wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find on the other side. But it certainly wasn’t what he saw. Because what he saw was completely boring and unimaginative.
It was a hallway lit with fluorescent lights that led… somewhere.
Harry shrugged, figuring that’s how life was sometimes. This was a hotel after all, not a secret lair in a James Bond film or an alien hideout in Doctor Who. So he gobbled the last of his cozy piggies and moved onward.
While in MI6, Harry had undergone extensive training in what he called “sneaking”. But his trainers had called “Coordinated Un-Noised Transversals”.
Even after years of being an agent, he had hardly ever had to use what he learned in his sneaking training. He quickly found that in most situations, you were better off strutting your stuff in plain sight like you owned the place rather than get caught looking suspicious.
But this wasn’t one of those times.
As Harry entered, he noticed doors on both sides of the hallway staggered about ten feet apart. The first of the doors was on his left. So naturally, he cracked it and peered in.
Inside was what his old supervisors would call a battle station. There was a battery of screens that showed security footage. Mostly shots of the charity function that was going on a few feet away from him.
And sitting in an ergonomic chair was a snoring security guard, with a nameplate on his chest that said, Bob. The table before Bob was littered with pieces of paper, a walkie talkie, and a lukewarm cup of coffee that had barely been sipped.
Behind him sat a filing cabinet with a sad-looking plant and a pair of orange Fiskar scissors someone was using to prune it.
As Harry continued peering in, he noticed one of the screens was different from the rest. The screen wasn’t covered with gray-haired millionaires talking about their yachts and their kid’s polo games.
Instead, it was a still shot of a machine. A machine that looked vaguely similar to the blueprints that were currently covering the walls of his apartment. Which is the machine he must’ve heard the scientist talking about. And in fact, there was the scientist on the screen right now pressing buttons and moving dials and taking notes while he did it.
Harry quitely closed the door and slipped down the hall with a pad, pad of his loafers on the tile. He didn’t know it, but as he continued on his way, the screen with the machine sprang to life.
And sparks and flashes of lightning lit up the scientist’s face.
=========
Harry continued down the hall checking each door to see if they contained any secrets. He didn’t find any worth discovering.
There was a broom closet with cleaning supplies. A room with stacks of boxes floor to ceiling. And even a room where the hotel kept spare linens.
Basement. That’s what the scientist said. Gotta make it to the basement.
Harry came to the end of the hall which veered to the right. This was just past the room with the linens and someone had left a dirty laundry cart against the far wall. He made the turn and saw a service elevator in front of him.
Brilliant.
But just then the elevator dinged and the door cracked open. Harry dove for the dirty laundry basket just in time to not be seen. He peered out through a fold of fabrics and saw the secret service looking man and 3 others who looked just like him. They exited the elevator and walked down the hall.
“No one has eyes on him but he didn’t leave, he’s here somewhere. Go find Bob, he probably fell asleep in front of the security cameras again.”
They rushed down the hall just fast enough for Harry to slip out of the linen cart and into the elevator before the doors closed.
He pressed the bottom button.
Ding
=========
The elevator went down. And Harry went down with it. He had no idea what the machine was. Or what he’d do when you got there. All he knew was what direction he was going:
Down.
Down far longer and deeper than he expected any hotel basement to go. He felt like he was going so deep he’d soar straight past hell and pop out on the other side of the cosmos.
The door opened with a ding.
The basement was big. Much bigger than Harry would’ve guessed for a hotel this size. They must’ve dug under neighboring buildings to make that happen. Maybe Mr. Worthington owned the whole block.
But Harry didn’t have long to ponder this.
Because almost immediately, his attention was caught by the sharp barbs of sparks lighting up the room.
His raised hands instinctively to shield his eyes.
The sparks stopped and he exited the elevator.
“Ahh yes, Mr. Hughes, I’ve been expecting you.”
It took Harry a moment to realize that the words rebounding in his ear canals were spoken by Mr. Worthington.
It also took Harry a moment to see the scientist twisting knobs in the background.
“Mr. Worthington, surprise to see you here,” Harry bluffed, “my supervisor had told me to pop in here and I hadn’t gotten a chance, so figured I’d do some official inspecting while I was here.”
Mr. Worthington didn’t move.
“Well, I’ve seen what I need to see, I’ll be going now.”
Harry turned to go back to the elevator and the safety of up.
“Stop.” Harry knew he could keep going. But for some reason, in the cavern-like basement, he couldn’t ignore Mr. Worthington’s booming voice. So he stood in place. “I know why you’re here. Do you think I’m really that stupid? Do you think my security would be this weak? That you’d just happen to overhear what we’re doing down here? Just happen to sneak past my guards and overhear that Bob fell asleep at the wheel. How stupid you must be.”
Harry flinched.
“Now that you mention it, it was all pretty convenient.”
Harry stopped when he noticed the pack of guards—all carbon copies of the secret security looking man he had seen before to the point he didn’t know if the original was among them or if it was just a pack of clone troopers. Harry turned to face Mr. Worthington.
“Yes, convenient. For me.” Worthington continued. “You may have realized by now that we’re testing this machine you see here. But what you don’t know is that we need another guinea pig. The men we’ve been testing it on so far are at their limits unfortunately. But you. You seem different. I looked into you and found that you have… certain specialites. And I think with your specialties you can give us the data we really need. You and my lovely wife of course.”
With eerie, movie-like timing the door behind Mr. Worthington opened dramatically. And from the door came a sillhouette Mrs. Worthington walking between two guards with her hands behind her back.
Harry gulped as the scientist strapped Mrs. Worthington into the machine.
Over the sounds of leather belts being tightened, Mr. Worthington explained in detail to Harry how the machine worked. How the design was based on a sketch—that Mr. Worthington had purchased at great cost from a museum—that an inventor in the 1800’s had made. How the machine converted human energy into electricity. And assuming they could make it efficient enough, how he could strap an army of men in here to power the whole city—heck, with enough people he could power the whole world. And he finished by telling Harry how they were so close to a breakthrough. And all it would take is a few more tests.
As he spoke, Harry noticed a man strapped into the machine looking lifeless. The scientist undid his straps and the secret security men dragged him away.
Randall, Harry said under his breath—but much louder than he meant to.
“Yes, Randall. I figured you’d recognize him. So sad he recently had a… workplace accident. I’d ask you to tell his wife who I know you were so close with. But sadly you just like Randall won’t be making it out of here.”
A secret security man pointed a gun at Harry as two of his storm troopers each grabbed an arm and tugged him towards the machine. Harry tried to struggle. To fight back. But it felt like he was in one of those dreams where you try to run but your feet sink through the floor.
Finally they reached the machine. And the men forced Harry into the seat. Roughly buckling the leather straps around his chest, waist, neck, and chin.
Harry turned as much as he could to face Mrs. Worthington next to him.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
She didn’t respond. She looked strangely emotionless. Harry assumed she blamed herself for hiring him. And he wasn’t wrong.
“Allright, well it seems our work is finished here,” Mr. Worthington said, nodding to his suited goons. “We certainly don’t need to be here to see the rest.” He glanced at his wife when he said this, almost a sad look in his eye. But it passed quickly. “I trust you can take care of the rest,” he said to the scientist.
“Yes, of course. Just a few adjustments to make and the show will be on the road in no time.”
“Excellent.”
And just like that Mr. Worthington and his goons left the same way they had come from.
Harry didn’t know what to do.
The scientist had his back turned to Harry on the opposite side of the room where he was dialing dials and buttoning buttons. Harry grunted and tugged on the leather straps as hard as he could.
Harry forced himself to think. His mind spun a million miles an hour. But nothing he could do would get him out of this mess.
He sat there forsaken and helpless as if here were on a cross.
And as the scientist spun his last knob and beeped his last button, all Harry could think was:
If only I had known to grab those scissors sitting in Bob’s office. They didn’t search me. There’s no one here to stop me. A few snips and I’d be free.
But just then the scientist walked to the large switch in the middle of the room, pulled it, and everything around them lit up with sparks and flashes…
And moments later, everything turned black…
=========
Harry jolted awake—his alarm buzzing and flashing 7:17.
For a second he had no idea where he was or what had happened.
But, the scientist… the machine.
Harry checked his watch and sure enough, it was still Tuesday.
Which meant he hadn’t been to the function at all.
Which meant—he slapped his forehead—side effects.
You see, just because Harry’s could no longer use his powers like he once could, it didn’t mean they didn’t help him from time to time. Usualy they were good for nothing more than a party trick or to get a cute girl’s attention.
But other times—like tonight—they saved his life.
SIDE EFFECTS! He yelled, bounding into the shower, putting on his best looking suit, and running to the AMC Javelin this time giving Radio a toothy “Hello.”
The AMC Javelin screeched to a halt at 7:52 in front of The Imperial hotel.
Perfect.
=========
Everything happened precisely the same as before. Harry ran past his ten thousand selves cast in bronze. He made awkward small talk with the Worthingtons. And he stuffed his mouth full of shrimp cocktail.
Only one thing changed.
When Harry was sneaking by a sleeping (or at the very least, a prentending-to-sleep) Bob, he quietly reached his arm into the room, grabbed the orange pair of scissors, and left before Bob could even bat an eyelash.
Everything was as it should be.
=========
Radio sat in the valet lot, calmly listening to 106.9 FM, a local station that covered breaking news.
“So you see, I simply had the good fortune of coming prepared as a good detective always should. And so while the scientists back was turned, I was able to cut myself and Mrs. Worthington free before we made our escape. And as luck would have it, the Chief of Police was at this function and even though he’s friends with Mr. Worthington, even he can’t look lightly on kidnap. Are there any more questions?”
He’s done it again, Radio thought. Radio could just imagine Harry sitting there, a goofy smile on his face as the reporters asked him how he cracked the case and what was next for the intrepid detective.
He could imagine the lines of police cars and ambulances flashing their lights. The squad of officers trying to keep the peace. And a much larger squad of journalists asking questions aiming to stir it up.
“What about the 3 missing men,” a reporter slung Harry’s way.
“That’s not really for me to say, I’m afraid. My heart goes out to their families of course. But what I can say is that this town is now free of a bad group of men doing bad things. And that without the help of Mrs. Carlson, this case would’ve never been solved. So this town is in debt to her.”
Harry of course knew the truth about the 3 men. And that even though they were alive, the machine had blown their fuses so to speak. He knew that they were nothing more than meat vegetables at this point.
Which is no fault of the author’s. Even happy endings aren’t perfect.
“What’s next for you and your detective agency?” Another reporter offered.
“Well, I’d hardly call it an ag—,” just then Harry was cut off by Mrs. Worthington stepping up and grabbing the mic.
“I can answer that,” she said past a quizzical-looking Harry. “Now that I’ll be taking full ownership of the Worthington estate, I’ve decided to start an investigation agency of my own. And Mr. Hughes here will be heading it… should he accept of course. ”
Harry beamed. Looks like he’d be able to pay his rent after all.
=========
Harry waited on the sidewalk as he saw the valet pull the AMC Javelin to the curb. The valet exited and waited until Harry slipped a five dollar bill in his pocket to attend to the next guest in line.
Plenty more where that came from now, Harry thought.
Harry looked up through the rush of streetlights and saw stars twinkling through the electric fog. He took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped into the AMC Javelin. As he slid into the leather seat, cool jazz spilled through the car speakers.
Ahh, brilliant, he thought.
And he turned the key and drove away.