Fiction
Two Before The Wedding Part 3
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson And Henry James Series
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson, and I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
So how do we deal with talking to an unknown person on a mysterious phone call who tells us another unknown person may die if we don’t find them and stop them from purchasing some unknown reality somewhere in Austin, Texas?
For us, it looked like it was going to be another normal day of running down a story for Dark Sides.
We met at the office Wednesday morning before seven and loitered in the break room nearest the bullpen waiting as the coffee maker brewed some fresh morning elixir.
“Got any ideas on this one?”
“Like maybe we need to get the police involved?”
“And tell ’em what princess?”
“I don’t know, Henry. This whole thing stinks. This is day one of five, and we have absolutely nothing to go on.”
“Not necessarily. Let’s go to the bullpen and go over some notes I jotted down last night.”
“Wait. Hang on; you took notes? You never take notes, Henry.”
“Give it a rest, Johnson. Get your damned coffee and come on.”
After perching in our respective chairs we sipped coffee as we tried to make some sense of what happened last night.
“Okay, so Mr. Fixer-Upper told us two things last night.”
“Aside from the fact, somebody’s about to get killed in four days?”
“Okay, three things. Just stifle it for a sec Shaundrika and let me get this out. First, he said something about some real estate in Austin and the company he represents, and one other company are fighting for it.”
“Could be anywhere within Austin city limits Henry.”
“Probably is, but the fact that the company he’s working for will lose billions of dollars in revenue means it’s got to be big. I’m guessing we’re talking a huge area of prime real estate.”
“Residential or comercial?”
“I think you just said a mouthful princess. I believe the property could possibly be used to satisfy both. If I was a betting man, I’d say the billions of revenue the company stands to lose is commercial. You know, like an industrial park or something.”
“Okay so we have commercial property on one side of the coin, and residential on the other.”
“Exactly.”
We fell into silence and sipped our coffee for a few seconds. A few agonizingly long seconds.
“You don’t get it, do you, Johnson?”
“Not really.”
“Those twins must be draining all the blood out of your brain.”
“You know what, James? You can just kiss my ass. Big deal. On the one hand, we have a company that wants to buy the property and turn it into commercial property and then on the other…”
A few more agonizing seconds of silence floated back and forth between us.
“Shit Henry, both of these companies are bidding on the exact same property. We get the cyber-spy twins to do a deep dive, and we find out what companies and then we start poking around.”
“Exactly, Sunny. Whew, I thought you’d lost your touch there for a moment. But as the saying goes, but wait, that’s not all.”
“The email.”
“Okay, now you is cooking with gas girl. I bet if we send Donnie and Wu the email, they can probably track its origination point. That might just get us a little closer to Mr. Fixer himself.”
“Yeah, but don’t just forward it to them. Send it as an attached item so they can get all the routing header information.”
“Since when did you become a cyber geek?”
“I’m married to one. Your brother? Remember?”
“Oh yeah. So you send the email, and then we’ll call and tell them what we need.”
“Did it while you were prattling on.”
“I don’t prattle.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What the hell ever, Johnson. Let’s find a conference room and make the call. You know how this bullpen gets around eight-thirty.”
After refreshing our coffee, we walked around until we found an open conference room with a spider phone.
Something about Dark Sides and conferences before nine in the morning. They rarely happened, so we pretty much had our pick of the litter.
We dialed the main number at Robert and Manny’s office, and this time Robert picked up.
“Robert Johnson speaking. How may I direct your call?”
“You know you just answered the phone the same way Manny does? What is it with you two dudes? Can’t ya just say hello?”
“Unlike you, big brother, I believe in following the rules rather than doing my best to break ‘em.”
“Oh, that’s harsh.”
“So did you call for a reason Henry, or are you just trying to start my morning off by yanking my chain?”
“Robert, we need Donnie and Becca to do some deep dives on a theory of ours. Are they available?
“We usually let them handle their own workload, sweetheart. I’ll transfer you and let them decide.”
“Thank you, dear. I’ll see you tonight at home.”
“No problem, baby. Hang on just a minute.”
“Ah, damn princess. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Do you two talk like that at home? Dear and sweetheart. Really?”
“Bite me, Henry.”
“Donnie here. You’re on speaker Sunny.”
“Okay, we need a favor, guys. Did you both receive the email I sent?”
“Yes. We’re guessing you need us to do traceroutes on the IP addresses and hopefully find the destination point?”
“Exactly, Becca. Also, we need to know about large areas of prime real estate for sale in the Austin area. But not just any. The one we’re talking about can be used for either commercial or residential. And we need to know the companies bidding on the land.”
“You realize most of those are sealed bids, right?”
“What’s that, Donnie?”
“Most of those types of bids are closed to the public.”
“Ah, damn. Well, Henry, I guess we’ll never know who the companies are.”
“I didn’t say that, Sunny.”
“Donnie, you said…”
“That the bids are sealed, but very often the company or companies file for a zoning change. You know, like if it’s commercial and they want to build houses or the other way around? We can tag those filings pretty darned quick.”
“Son, you’re an absolute genius, you know that, right?”
“So they say Henry, but it’s sure nice to hear that coming from you.”
“Let me guess you and Henry need it yesterday.”
“I’m afraid so, Becca. You guys just do the best you can, okay?”
“Will do.”
We disconnected and filed out of the conference on the way to a pit stop in the breakroom then resumed our day at our desks in the bullpen.
We didn’t have to talk about it. Both of us knew the score. Even though it was only day one of five, and we were already beginning to feel the squeeze.
Read On — Two Before The Wedding Part 4
Let’s keep in touch: [email protected]
© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
