The Langley Case: A Nathan Roeder Mystery
Chapter 32

Finally, my Eureka moment

Before meeting Johnny, there was something I needed to get. I’d given up my gun when I went up to the Tiers, but I didn’t throw it away. I felt better with the weight of it back in my pocket. The awkward way one side of my coat was heavier than the other was reassuring, even if it did tug my posture off kilter a bit, making my ribs hurt.

I went to the Noodle restaurant as fast as I could. If Johnny thought he was going to surprise me there, he had another thing coming. Once I was there, I could waste the time before our meeting trying to figure out what the hell Oliver was trying to tell me.

I walked back in, and the smell assaulted me in a way that only smells that bad can. “Hello, Faggot!” The cook said, showing me a smile that somehow seemed to have fewer teeth than the last time I’d seen him.

“Shut your hole, you ignorant fuck,” I said.

“You have to do better than that, Faggot. We don’t serve your kind here. Go suck on someone else.”

“I’d have to,” I said. “Not much opportunity here.”

He scratched his chin, and his hand looked so dirty I wondered if he even knew what toilet paper was. “Not bad, faggot,” he said. “But that does admit that you like doing it.”

“Why don’t you eat shit?” I asked. “It would be like a breath mint for you.”

He laughed and waved me forward. I stepped in, through that weird little field he had set up, and saw the place for what it was. His hands were much cleaner, and so was the rest of the place. But I still wasn’t sure how many teeth he had.

“You get beaten up by anyone new lately, faggot?” He asked as I sat down.

I laughed. “It happens so much, I don’t keep track. The way your mother stopped counting her Johns.”

He laughed and clapped me, hard, on the back. As friendly as the gesture was, it hurt my ribs something awful.

He looked like he was going to apologize. “I make you noodles,” he said. “This time, without urine.”

I thanked him, and he went to start cooking. I turned my back to him, so I could see the door open as soon as it did.

There was someone behind it all, some master mind. And the answer was there, in the words that Oliver had written. It was a strange sensation, like I was talking to someone from beyond the grave, only they didn’t speak English. There was something important he needed me to know, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.

Maybe I could torture Johnny for the info. He would know. And god knows the noodle man would help me do it.

I tried not to think about how dangerous it was for me to be out in the Sprawl at all. I’d been effectively banished what, two days ago? Three? My plan was a lot more ballsy than I’d given myself credit for. Ballsy and stupid are almost interchangeable.

Of course, like so many other games, there is significance beyond the initial thought. You must go round about, dear readers, from rules to regulations. Think of the rules as characters, the regulations as authors. Sometimes a character may appear once and again with different authors. So to do many games share rules, but regulations are specific to the sports in question. There is the rub, dear readers.

That was the passage that mattered. I knew that was the one. The clue was right there, in front of me. Plain as day. From rules to regulations.

Think of the rules as characters, the regulations and authors. So from characters to authors. But that didn’t make any sense. Characters belonged to their authors. Each author created the character, and then used the character.

Sometimes a character may appear once and again with different authors. That was true enough. Some of the serial stories would jump from author to author, but always keep the same character. Like two different actors playing the same character. But that didn’t gel with Oliver’s interests. He liked drama, particularly English literature. And that’s Literature, with a capital L. Not the kind of books I like. He would have thought Raymond Chandler was a hack.

Many games share rules, but regulations are specific to the sports in question. I know that’s just explaining what he said, but I don’t get it. Many games share characters, but authors are specific to the sports in question? Nonsense.

Maybe if I passed it back through what I’d already seen. He was talking about some characters from Hamlet. The other clue was about Hamlet. What characters from there exist in other places?

The answer didn’t come to me right away. I’d like to say it was just because Johnny showed up. But realistically, I think it’s because I’m just not that bright.

“Who’s the square?” The cook was whispering in my ear.

“A friend,” I whispered back.

“Same kind of friend as the last time you were here?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “I’ll get the shotgun.”

Johnny looked like he was afraid of getting a disease just by walking in the door. “Hey, Nathan,” he said, “do we have to do this here?”

“Best noodles in town,” I said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What’s the matter, pansy?” The cook yelled past me, one hand below the bar. “You afraid of a little dirt?”

“A little?”

“It’s a thing, Johnny.”

“What’s a thing, Nathan?”

“The cook.”

“You shut up, faggot. It’s time to see if Pansy has balls to speak of.”

“I don’t have to take this,” Johnny said. He looked at me, pleading. I waited for him to go for a gun.

“Just tell him what you think of his place,” I said, my own hands in my pockets.

“It’s an infested rat hole, and I feel like I need to get a deloused just from opening the door. How are you sitting in here?”

The cook laughed. “You’re okay, Pansy,” he said. “You come in, I make you noodles.”

“Careful,” I said, “He pisses in them.”

The cook laughed again. “Only yours, faggot.”

Johnny stepped inside, completely off balance. That was exactly how I wanted him. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but I was pretty sure that Johnny was a whole lot more armed than he had been the last time I saw him. He wasn’t a man used to carrying weapons.

He would tell me that he had started, figuring he would have to if he wanted to go into the detective business. I would smile. He would offer to show me. I would be predictably stupid and indulge him. He’d shoot me in the chest and walk out of here.

Simple plan.

I moved over to a table, sitting so that Johnny would have to put his back to the door, and so the cook would have a clear shot of him if things went down the wrong way.

“What the hell is this place?” Johnny asked, once he saw it for what it really was.

“I’ve got a lot of good memories here,” I said.

“Didn’t you almost die somewhere like this?”

I wracked my memory to see if I’d told him the story of my scuffle with The Bicycle Man’s people. I hadn’t. Slip up number one. “Yeah,” I said, pretending not to get it. “Good memories, like I said.”

“Why is almost dying a good thing?”

“Because it’s almost,” I said. I smirked at him. He relaxed, just a tiny bit. Still not enough to be considered normal.

His hands were under the table. I needed him to put them on the table. I needed him to show me the gun. More importantly, I needed him to show the cook the gun.

“Are you packing, Johnny?” I asked.

He scrunched up his forehead. Nerves and confusion. “What?”

“A gun.” I said. “Do you have a gun?”

He wrung his fingers and tapped his feet. Lots of nervous energy. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re acting like you do.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re nervous; you walk differently. I assume you have a gun.” I put one hand on the table. I used it to push myself into a straighter sitting position. I did that to hide the movement of my other hand slipping into my pocket, around the gun I was carrying. “It’s okay,” I kept my voice casual, reasonable. “I’m carrying one too. I bet you just got one so that you could get used to carrying them.”

“Right,” he said. “That’s it.”

So he had been prepped. But he was forgetting his lines. He was nervous, afraid. He’d never killed anyone before. I almost felt sorry for him, then remembered that I was the one he was supposed to kill.

“Why do you want to get used to carrying them?”

There was still that chance. That hope. I prayed that maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t been turned. It all depended on his answer to that question.

“Because I’m gonna be a detective now,” he said. “I need to get used to carrying a gun. Right?”

Perfectly reasonable words, said in a perfectly rehearsed manner. I bet whoever he was working for had made him repeat them, over and over. He probably even practiced in front of a mirror.

“Do you want to see the gun?” He asked.

Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe I’m just stupid. But I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, one last time. “Okay,” I said. I wrapped my finger around the trigger and made sure that when the gun fired, it wouldn’t ruin anything on my body beyond the pocket it was lying in.

He reached into his jacket and got a grip on the gun. His eyes looked panicked. Not like someone who was just showing something. Like someone who was about to do something he didn’t want to do, something he was scared to do, but something he was going to do anyway. I wondered what kind of bribe they’d really offered him. Maybe I could ask.

He drew the gun, and his finger was on the trigger. I could have waited to see if he actually pointed it at me, or if he just put it down on the table. I could have given him that much benefit of the doubt.

But that would have been too dangerous.

I pulled the trigger in my pocket. First my coat got ruined, the pocket blasting out in a tell tale way that would ensure that I’d need a new one. Then Johnny jerked as the bullet ripped into him. I didn’t know where it hit him, but it was low. Low enough that he might have survived it.

I knew I couldn’t risk it. I fired again, ripping another hole, breaking apart the table between us. He collapsed, dropping his new gun on the floor next to him.

I pushed him to the floor and switched the gun over to my other pocket. Then I reached in and pulled his PDA out of his jacket. It was, luckily, unharmed.

The cook came over. “You’re a nasty bastard, faggot,” he said. “And you ruined my best table.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay,” he laughed. “It was a shitty table. Can I keep his gun?”

I nodded. “You can keep anything you want.”

“I get rid of the body, we call it even for the table?”

It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea how the other bodies had gotten taken care of. That and it occurred to me that I not only didn’t want to know, but I also didn’t want to eat any noodles with meat in them. “Sure,” I said. “Whatever you want.”

“Thanks, faggot.”

“Anytime, bastard.”

I stepped outside and called Felicia. She picked up pretty quick. “My assassin is dead,” I told her.

And suddenly, just like that, it all fell into place.

Felicia was saying something, but I wasn’t listening. I was paying too much attention to the pieces in my mind.

Hamlet was sent away to England in act four, scene three. Or something like that. The point was, he wasn’t sent alone. He was sent with his friends, friends who were supposed to deliver him to England, so that England would kill him. Friends who were, effectively, hired by the king, the man in charge, to assassinate Hamlet.

Rosencrantz and Gildenstern.

It’s right there at the end of the play. And it’s right there at the end of Oliver’s message. “There is the rub, dear readers.” When Hamlet talks about the rub, he’s discussing death, the end of things. The end of the play, the death of the friends. Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead.

A play. Same characters, different author.

Tom Stoppard wrote Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead.

Stoppard was the head of the organization.

It all made sense. I ran into Stoppard my first time in the Tiers. Bumped into him. He must have done the research then, figured out who I was and what I was up to. But I was carrying the diary. Carrying it with me. He saw the symbol on it. And after that, after he saw that I had it, he asked where I’d been. Made sure I was talking to the Better Business Bureau. He must have figured out I was on his trail, and moved to stop me. That’s why Karen turned on me between when I saw her and when we went on the date. Stoppard got to her. Jack Stoppard.

Holy shit.

“Nathan, did you hear a word I just said?”

“Stoppard,” I said.

“What?”

“He’s the one behind it all. That mother fucker. He’s the killer.”

Felicia shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re saying Nathan. Do you want to hear what I’m saying or not?”

“What? Yes, go ahead.”

“We’re at the estate,” she said. “But we can’t replace a safe. Theresa says she’s had the house x-rayed, and there’s nothing.”

I scratched my chin. “Is there a numerical pad anywhere in the house?”

“What?”

“A pad with numbers on it. It doesn’t have to be a combination lock. It could just be a pad with numbers. One to a hundred, one to ten, anything.”

“No, not really.”

Fuck. “Okay, put Theresa on.”

Theresa took the PDA and looked at me with a scowl. “What am I looking for here, Nathan?”

“Go to the front door,” I said. “Or whatever door you would normally enter the house through.”

“Okay.” The screen moved a bit as she walked. Eventually, she came back on. “Now what?”

What were the numbers? “What directions can you walk without hitting a wall?”

“Straight or left.”

“Can you go eighteen steps in either direction?”

“No.”

Okay, so that wasn’t it. Maybe I needed to be on sight for this. “Can I meet you there?” I asked.

“I suppose,” she said. “You’ll have to charter a flight. That’s expensive. Isn’t there another way?”

I sighed. “I suppose,” I said. “You’re sure there’s nowhere to put the code in?”

“Positive.”

The picture was her outside the house. Was that it? Was it pacing from outside the house? That could be it. But there was no indication of direction. With five numbers, that was –how many possibilities was that? More than twenty. Too many to reasonably try.

“Keep looking,” I said. “I’ll call you when I have it.”

“Okay. What was it you were saying to Felicia?”

“What do you mean?”

“She said you were babbling about something. What was it?”

I bit my lower lip. “Do you know Jack Stoppard? Did your father ever have any contact with him?”

“I know of him.” Her voice was distant.

I pressed the issue. “Any contact?”

“Not really.” Her words were short, clipped. “I think they might have spoken a few times, but that’s all.”

What could those numbers mean? “Well, Jack’s the one behind it all,” I said.

“What?”

“Why do people keep saying that when I tell them what I’ve figured out? Is it such a stretch?”

“Well, yes. It is. Jack Stoppard is a very powerful man. A very wealthy man. To even suggest that there’s a link is—well, it’s dangerous.”

“Because he could have me killed?”

She shrugged. “I guess you may have a point there. But he could do so much more to you than what he’s done. I mean, Nathan, that man can erase people. He can just delete any trace that you ever existed, straight down to your identity number.”

She kept talking, kept going on and on about what he could erase about me. But that was the key. My identity number. There were a trillion possible identity numbers out there; none of them had ever been repeated in recorded history. They were nine digits long. “What was your father’s identity number?”

I had interrupted her mid sentence. “His what?”

“His identity number. What was it?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, what’s yours?”

“What does that matter?”

I had to light up a cigarette. This was just getting too frustrating. I tried another tactic. “Okay, then,” I said. “Let me ask you this. How would you write out an identity number? Digits or words?”

She hesitated. “Digits.”

“I need the truth, Theresa. When you were a kid, how did you do it?”

“Words,” she said. “But that was before I knew better. Before I’d even—”

“I’m not judging,” I said. “Your father knew you. He knew you did that. That’s why he wrote out the numbers.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think that Jack Stoppard’s identity number is one eight one four six three seven four five. Eighteen, fourteen, sixty three, seven, forty five.”

“Holy shit.”

“If I’m right,” I said. “But that’s not the evidence. The evidence, the proof, has to be somewhere in your house. It has to be somewhere you would look.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the key to all of it, Theresa. Your father wanted to get you the message. He wanted you to know it. That means he had to make it so that you could figure it out. Only you. And he had to hide it so that anyone else who got lucky and found a piece of the puzzle still wouldn’t have the whole thing. So it has to be you. Where would he send you?”

She laughed. “To my room,” she said. “I was a petulant child.”

I stepped into the elevator up to Town. “Then go to your room,” I said. “Go to your room and look around for something that isn’t supposed to be there. Call me back at this number when you replace it.”