The Pandora Directive: A Tex Murphy Novel by Aaron Conners Page B

have a lot of options. They’d catch me eventually, and… then what? Kill me? I’d obviously gotten in the way of something, as well as contributed to the death of an agent. Sure, this Horton guy was as crooked as Lombard Street, but was he murdering women for his own sport, or on behalf of the agency? Maybe they just wanted to question me. A voice in my head said don’t bet on it. I needed leverage… a bargaining chip. The box.
    Mac was watching me, mouthing half a doughnut like a cow chewing its cud. I drew in on my cigarette, then slowly exhaled the smoke in one long breath. “The cops who picked me up last night, did they bring a box in from the crime scene?”
    “What you mean?”
    “You know, a box. A metal box that holds 3-by-5 cards. Like the kind your Mom kept recipes in.”
    An anguished look passed over Mac’s puffy face. “My mother didn’t keep recipes. When I was eight, she took me and my brothers and sisters to the circus. A couple of days later, she disappeared. She ran off with one of the circus clowns. Beppo. Left my Dad to raise all nine of us on his own. I’ve hated clowns ever since.”
    It was a sad story, but we all had sad stories. I even had my own reason for hating clowns, but that was a long time ago and I tried not to think about it any more. “Sorry to bring it up. But you know what I for am talking about, right?”
    Mac picked up a sticky bun. The prospect of a third pastry seemed to ease him out of his bitter memories. “Sure. There was no box. Our boys didn’t bring in anything except a gun and what was on the body. Took everything to the coroner.”
    I thought back to the events leading up to Horton taking his last dive. In my mind’s eye, I could see him running across the street and scrambling over the fence into the alley. Suddenly, I realised — he wasn’t carrying the box! His hands were free when he climbed the fence. Horton must have dumped the box somewhere behind the Electronics Shop and the Brew & Stew. And since someone had searched my office earlier today, it was clear that the box hadn’t been found. If I could find it first and put it somewhere safe, it might just give me the leverage I needed to keep breathing.
    I got up to leave.
    “Where you going?”
    I was feeling a lot better now that I had a plan. “I’ve gotta go find something. Something the agency wants even more than me.”
    Mac pulled out a cigarette. “I wouldn’t go back to your office for awhile. Knowing the agency, they’ll have lookouts crawling all around your place.”
    “I appreciate the warnings, Mac. I guess I owe you on this one.”
    Mac waved his Merit at me. “Let’s just say we’re all squared up. And, by the way, we didn’t have this little talk.”

Chapter Nine
    I flew my speeder in low over Chandler Avenue, hoping, or rather not hoping, to see something that would confirm what Mac had told me. There were three people loitering near the Ritz — a clearly marked “no loitering” area. Even though the rule was never enforced, the Ritz just wasn’t the kind of place people hung around. I had to assume that the loiterers were the Fed’s Malden had warned about.
    I nosed up and headed aimlessly toward the new city. I needed time to think. My first priority was to find the box Horton had ditched last night. Secondly, I have to get back into my office and recover the wrapping paper I’d dug out of the dumpster. Last, and least, I was eventually going to need a place to sleep and maybe take a shower, though I had a first rate deodorant and tried to sweat as little as possible.
    I spent the afternoon in a booth at the twenty-four-hour pool hall. A barmaid with six new stitches to her forehead had been very attentive and only charged me for half my drinks. She said her name was Candy, the nickname her boyfriend had given her for good reason. I couldn’t help but speculate that she was looking for a man to tide her over until her true love got paroled. It didn’t look like