Shell Game – Chapter 33 – Regroup

The roaring sound of a trash truck rumbling down the street outside brought Evan Gold back to consciousness. However, he lay on the floor for a few minutes longer trying to believe that he was still alive. His eyes seemed quite content to remain shut, but there was a dull ache across his cheekbone that refused to let him go back to sleep.

He finally opened his eyes and was instantly disoriented by not seeing the familiar surroundings of his bedroom. He blinked once, twice, and then shifted his glance to see more of his location. It hurt. Finally, the sights clicked with his memory, and he knew where he was and how he ended up on the floor.

Without moving any other muscle, Evan tried to determine if Eye Patch and Margo were close by. Not hearing or seeing anyone else, he decided to sit up. And after five minutes, he was successful and rewarded with throbbing eye pain. He squinted, and that made it a little better. Evan realized he’d been knocked out all night by looking at the light coming in through the window. What time was it? He lifted his arm to check his watch. It had wound down completely.
Evan rolled over on his knees and used the arm of the sofa to get vertical. The room spun like a slow-moving merry-go-round, and he plunked down on the sofa’s arm. Evan pressed his palms to the side of this head in the hopes of making the room still. It didn’t help much.

He managed to stumble through the rooms to see if anyone kept him company. He spied an alarm clock by the unmade bed — eight o’clock. Evan made it to the bathroom mirror and what he saw was an embarrassment. A colorful bruise where Margo had pistol-whipped him spread in a very artistic swirl of blue, black, and purple. A tiny, scabbed cut stretched across his cheekbone. The wound was still tender to touch, but Evan didn’t think the bone underneath was broken.

Slowly and carefully, he made his way from The Webster back to his office. He already held a very loose understanding of where all the players in this fiasco were. Now, it seemed, someone had tossed the board in the air. Who knew where the pieces would land? He thought that if he made it to the end of this week, he would never take up another case. He and Katherine could take up potato farming for all he cared. He was getting too old and tired to mess with people who couldn’t help but get into trouble and seemed to enjoy making more trouble for others.

When he arrived at the agency door, he found it locked. As Evan fiddled with his keys, every metallic sound was like a jackhammer behind his eyes. The lock turned angrily, and he opened the door to find Sophie asleep at her desk. Evan nudged her shoulder gently until she awoke.

“What time is…” she got a look at Evan’s face, “Did you fall off a truck?”

“Something like that,” Evan said and touched his cheek. “Did you spend the night here?”

Sophie arched her back and then worked a kink out of her neck with her fingertips. “I guess so. I came back here after dinner. I figured you’d swing back by at some point. But then it got late. I got tired of waiting, but I didn’t feel good about walking home. You look like you had a better time than I did.”

Evan sat in one of the customer chairs and closed his eyes. “I’m guessing from the locked door that no one’s been by today?”

“If they knocked, I didn’t hear them.”

“Still no Claire?”

“Still no Claire. I’m sorry about that, Evan. I thought she was a different kind of kid. I still do, if I’m honest. My guess is she’s in whatever this is so far over her head she doesn’t know how to get out of it.”

“Maybe so,” Evan said. “Though I’m not too sure how badly she wants to get out of whatever this is.”

“Oh!” Sophie perked up and turned to a pile of phone messages on her desk, “that reminds me the DA called last night. He wants to meet with you.”

“The key to the city?”

“Maybe. All I got was that you should call back today and set something up.”

“Did he seem upset?” Evan asked.

“I spoke with his secretary. She seemed quite pleasant.”

Evan flashed his eyebrows, which sent a bolt of pain around his skull. “Anything else?” he asked through closed eyes.

“A woman came by looking for you. She looked like someone from a spy movie. She said her employer wanted to meet you yesterday before five.”

Evan laughed to himself humorously. “Would you believe that that was the meeting that rendered my face in such a beautified state?” He exhaled suddenly. “She’s the one who did it, too! Speaking of, where were you? I get back here, she’s perched at your desk, and you’re nowhere.”

“She what?” Sophie looked confused. “I told her I didn’t know where you were. She left. I had to run by the post office to check our box.” Sophie thought a moment. “That must have been what happened. I knew I locked the door. I came back, the door was unlocked, and you never showed. But she must’ve jimmied the lock.”

Evan laughed to himself, and then the dime finally dropped in his thoughts. He snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “That’s what did it!”

“What?” Sophie asked.

“It all happened before I knew what was going on. Our one-eyed friend asked when I could get my hands on the pearl. I told him it would take a few days for me to get my hands on it, the meeting wrapped up very suddenly, and then to make nice, I stupidly gave Lauren Bacall back her gun.”

“Lauren Bacall?”

“The spy woman you met.”

“She does have a resemblance!” Sophie said.

“They must be trying to get to the pearl without me. Makes sense. If they don’t need me, that’s one less mouth to feed. And if they can put their mitts on Claire in the meantime…” he trailed off.

“I’m afraid that blow to your noggin has made you daffy, Evan. What are you talking about?”

Evan closed his eyes and smiled. “How are you fixed for tall tales this morning?”

“Is it something that’ll publish?”

“Not likely,” Evan said. “It seems there’s this pearl. Except it isn’t a pearl, but a person in the shape of a pearl. Don’t give me that look; I’m in my right mind. It’s not going to sound like it, but I am. But this person, see, is important in a different dimension than ours and is escaping imprisonment and execution. She fled here, and Ms. Bacall’s boss is hunting her.”

“Her? I thought it was a pearl,” Sophie asked.

“The pearl goes by the name Lillian.”

“That’s a pretty name. My grandmother’s name was Lillian.”

“Anyway, the whole thing seems pretty far-fetched, doesn’t it?” Evan asked.

“Except these people seem to believe it?”

“Yeah. The boss man, Lauren, Huber, Charles, and Claire. All of them are like a pack of rats trying to get their clutches on this pearl. I don’t think any of them except Eye Patch seems to know that the pearl isn’t really a pearl, though. Our client has us plumb stuck in the middle of it, and because she brought us in without our knowledge, our Gabe got himself killed.”

“You think they’re related? The pearl and Gabe?” Sophie asked.

“I do. But I haven’t quite figured out how yet.”

Sophie and Evan sat silently in the office for a moment. The ticking clock on the wall gave Evan’s head no end of irritation.

“So, what do we do next?” Sophie asked.

“I don’t know. All I can tell you is I’ve heard and seen things this week. Things I don’t know how many people I could tell and not end up in the loony bin. I mean, the whole thing seems loopy.”

“Maybe,” Sophie said, “and maybe not. I got this cousin who teaches astrophysics at the university. He was over to the house for dinner last month and went on and on about – who am I kidding? I couldn’t hope to remember all that he said. But this might be something he would know something about. I could ask him if you wanted.”

Evan perked up a little. “Yeah. Ask him. But not as a real thing. Like… you’re reading a, I don’t know, a novel or comic or something, and you wanted to know if this story is even theoretically possible.”

Sophie nodded, “I can do that, sure.”

“But you have to sell it to him as fiction. These people are dangerous and desperate. We need to keep this as low a profile as possible. There’s no point more people getting hurt.”

“Got it. I’ll see if I can take him out to lunch today.”

“Perfect.”

“You should go home, though,” Sophie said. “You need to get yourself together.”

“Don’t you imagine someone’s watching it?”

“Probably. Go in the back way. Trust me. You look terrible, and if you meet with the DA, you’ll want to look professional. She looked again at the bruise on Evan’s cheek, “Well, at least as professional as possible.” She grabbed Evan by the elbow and helped him to his feet. “Please tell me you at least got one lick in.”

“I was raised not to hit women,” Evan said. “Plus, I didn’t even see it coming.”

“Ah, that’s the power of a pair of smoky eyes,” Sophie said. “Now, you and I have a busy day, so we best get to it. We can meet up later and fill each other in on the juicy details.”

Evan nodded, which was a mistake.

“This is exciting,” Sophie said. “You don’t get many cases like this in Athens, Kansas.” She picked up the phone and began dialing the university. “Now scoot!” she waved Evan out of the office.