“You, sir,” said the man from Dervish Industries doorway, “are you well?”
That was definitely debatable. “As good as can be expected, I guess.”
The man looked me up and down, noting my singed hair and all-around dishevelment. “If you say so.” He squinted. “Hey, I know you. You’re that Kal Hakala guy from television. Saw you on Ellen.” A well-manicured hand appeared, beckoning. “You want a drink?”
What could I say? “If you have soda pop, I have a thirst.”
The door opened wide. “I have everything. Come on in.”
I followed, taking in my host’s appearance. A tall man, a shade under my six-four, slender and lithe. Jet-black hair combed back from a high forehead over glittering dark eyes and an aquiline nose. Movie star quality, this one. In fact, he was so good looking it was intimidating. Best thing to counter all the handsome was an industrial accident. Women dig scars, right?
With a nod and a smile, he led me past the reception area (plain, almost Spartan, with only a desk) and into the back office where he conducted his business.
In contrast the main office was crowded with some lavish touches. A long rectangular redwood desk fronted by plush leather chairs graced the far end to the right, while a floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall bookcase occupied the other end. The long wall was hung with Monet knockoffs, although they were damn good ones. Woman with a parasol, Bain à la Grenouillère, and Poppy Field. What struck me as odd was the addition of Tintoretto’s The Descent into Hell.
I shook my head. It takes all kinds, I thought, stepping onto Berber carpeting that wasn’t quite white, and on closer inspection was hand-looped wool. To my left, opposite the bookcase wall, was a small kitchenette with granite countertops and ironwood cabinets. The fridge stood flush against the wall and the flat-range had been designed to blend into the granite. A cappuccino maker most baristas would sell their least-favorite grandmother for gleamed near the fridge, shining pile of potential energy ready to turn kinetic in the creation of a truly superb cup of coffee. I felt my mouth start to water.
It was to this wonderful machine that the man traveled.
“I love me a good cup of coffee. You want one? You can have the soft drink after if you wish.”
Oh, twist my arm just a little bit more. “You talked me into it.” I guess it was habit, but I checked all corners of the room for Supernatural and non-Supernatural lurkers. Just in case.
The man caught my eye and grinned. “A healthy dose of paranoia. I like that.” A heavenly, almost earthy aroma hit my nostrils as he spooned fresh-ground coffee into the brewing cup. Pressing the button, he said, “Cappuccino or espresso?”
“Espresso, please.” I had the feeling that we were in the midst of some sort of ritual and that to stray from its course would be more than a little awkward.
“Man after my own heart. Milk ruins the pure taste of the bean. Don’t you agree?” His voice induced a subtle harmony that took the worry out of my muscles, and I began to feel the tensions of the day ebb away.
“Yes. Yes I do.”
Chung, hiss, whirr. “Do you know the secret to a great cup of coffee, Mr. Hakala?”
I was impressed. He pronounced my name correctly, accent on the first syllable. Most people screw that right up. “It’s in the grind. Always in the grind.”
That earned me a big smile. “Well, well, well, look at the smart BSI Agent. Just for that you can have seconds.”
His patronizing attitude grated, but the divine smell of coffee erased any irritation. Hell, right then I would’ve tap-danced, jugged, and voted Republican for a decent cup of joe. A couple minutes later and the complex ceremony of coffee making was complete.
A demitasse cup settled in the palm of my hand and I raised it in a salute to my host. He raised his back and we both slammed the small amount of liquid down. It hit my throat like liquid fire, a hard burn that seared me down to the core. Viscous, heavy, rich as Iowa soil, it left sharp bitterness on the back of my tongue that faded to a light sweetness. Overall the finish was smooth and polished, as if crafted by hand rather than grown on a bush in Hawaiian soil.
“Good grief,” I breathed. “Can’t get enough of a good Kona coffee.”
My host smiled. “You know your brews, Mr. Hakala.”
I could feel the caffeine enter my bloodstream and the warmth in my tummy spread both north and south. I nodded.
“Wonderful.” He took the cup from my hand and placed both in the granite countertop. “Allow me to introduce myself.” He offered his hand and I grasped it. Firm, but no hard calluses. It was no stranger to manicures. “I am Orson. R. Nias, Esquire, at your service, sir.”
“I’m not a sir. I work for a living.” The words came out automatically, and I wished I could take them back. No need to be rude. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Orson dropped my hand and gestured toward one of the leather chairs. “Have a seat.”
He sat behind the desk, leaning back with hands behind his head while I sat like a supplicant awaiting the king’s pleasure. I was acutely aware of my ragged appearance and the coffee wasn’t the only thing with a strong aroma. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know why I sat there so easily while the rest of my team faced God-knows-what. I think I needed a break after the horrors I’d endured. Or perhaps I needed a measure of sanity, an island of reason in an op gone sideways.
“So here we are,” said Orson, in an effort to start the conversational ball rolling.
I decided to let it roll to me. “Why are you here? I thought the building had been evacuated.”
Perfectly arched eyebrows rose. “You mean because of the ghost, or haunt, or whatever?”
“Yeah.”
“I have a business to run.”
“The power was cut.”
A quirky smile. “Not my power. There are ways around such things.”
“What do you do?”
“Asset reacquisition.”
“What?”
Orson dipped a hand into an open drawer and withdrew it, clutching two cigars. “Cuban. Care to try one?”
What the hell, I thought, reaching for the cigar. Man’s gotta have a vice or two. I’d given up drinking, choosing the high road now that I was a father, and womanizing had gone out the door the second I hooked up with a Magician who could turn those who irritated her into Spam.
A box flew my way and I caught it by reflex. “Use these. Wooden matches preserve the flavor. Allow me to demonstrate.” With a flick of a thumbnail, Orson lit a match and ran the flame slowly along the length of the cigar clamped firmly between his teeth. “The heat awakens the flavor,” he mumbled before lighting the end and drawing deep. “Don’t take it into your lungs.” Smoke swirled from his lips. “Hold it in your mouth for a moment and then blow it out.”
I did as instructed, the thick smoke curling around my tongue like a vaporous serpent. Ash, grass, and hay slicked the back of my tongue. After a fourth draw, I tasted leather and espresso, just the tiniest amounts, as if they’d been added as an afterthought. It wasn’t my first cigar, but it was the first cigar that didn’t taste like I’d inhaled a hot turd. The quality of this tobacco was so high that even a guy as flush as me would balk at the price. I had a kid to put through college eventually and I reckoned that by the time he went, an ivy league school might cost six figures a semester.
“Good, eh?”
“Good, yes.” Another puff. “But you’ve avoided answering my question.”
“No flies on you.”
“Nope.” I waited a moment, matching him stare for stare, and I’ve been stared at by the best. BB has been known to make grown men cry without saying a blessed word. The man could give a cobra a heart attack.
As the staring contest went on, I realized that he knew the old adage as well as I: ‘The first to talk, loses.’
Orson buckled first, but not without tossing me a toothy grin that said he was conceding the point out of respect. That guy could give a shark lessons on smiling. “All right, Mr. Hakala. May I call you Kal? Or Kalevi?”
“Kal is fine.”
He grinned that white and inviting grin once again and tossed me another cigar, which I stored in the Bat Belt. “Here’s an extra. For luck. Okay, Kal it is, then. Asset reacquisition … where do I start?” He blew a flawless smoke ring. It hung in the air for several seconds before dissipating. “When my company loses a valuable asset, such as property or personnel, my boss, the president of the company, tasks me to reacquire that asset.”
Hmmm. I raised an eyebrow and he raised his. Damn, he was good. “What if an asset, say a person, doesn’t want to rejoin your company?”
He tossed more silky laughter my way. “Kal, they always come back. Each and every one. It’s simply a matter of incentive.”
“And Dervish Industries has enough capital to afford ludicrous incentives?”
That earned me a flat stare. I was reminded of the Kipling story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” Set in India, it’s about a British family in India who adopts a mongoose as a pet. Of course, this being India, you can’t have a mongoose story without a cobra.
This one has two. Nag and his mate, Nagaina. Long story short, it’s an animals’ version of Beowulf. Well, I watched the animated version when I was eight. Orson’s stare reminded me of Nag and Nagaina’s. Flat and deadly, as emotionless as a manhole cover. I repressed a shiver.
And quick as a wink, the stare became warm and human again, filled with good cheer. “Kal, Dervish Industries is so rich I can’t tell you. Safe to say that if we wanted to, we could buy Bolivia and have change left over for Paraguay.”
I whistled. Not bad at all. “So why are you on the first floor and all? Seems kind of pedestrian for a hotshot lawyer and asset reacquisition guy and all. I had this pegged for a top-floor penthouse kind of outfit.”
“My nose has been in it since the beginning, Kal, and that’s how the president likes it. I can’t say I disagree with him at all, considering he’s a genius.”
“Soooo … a smart guy?”
“You’ve heard of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates?”
I knew what was coming. “Yep.”
“Morons.”
“ ‘Never go in against the Sicilian …’ ” I quoted.
“ ‘When death is on the line,’ ” he finished.
I raised my cigar in a salute, which he returned. Nice to know I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the classics. “You were talking about having your nose in it from the beginning?”
Orson nodded. “Any idiot can sit on high, lording over the ants below. I consider that to be plain lazy. It takes a person with vision to get on the ground floor or lower and work. Get down, get dirty, get in the game—that’s what I say. Let the real-estate multi-millionaires lounge about in their eight-figure penthouses surrounded by their frescoes and murals and gold doors. The real work is on the bottom floor. It always has been.”
There wasn’t much I could say, so I sat there and puffed on my Cuban cigar and pondered his words. On one hand, it sounded pretty effective—get down with the people and toil away in the really real world—but something about his speech and tone of voice put me off. I sensed condescension behind them, almost contempt. I shrugged. Maybe it was because he was lawyer.
“What about you, Kal?”
Put on the brakes. Bring brain back online. Whew. About lost myself in daydream land. I shouldn’t think too much. I’m not equipped for it. “What about me? My job is the ground floor.”
“Fair enough. What about the places you work?”
“What about them?”
He smiled around his cigar. “What do you know about St. Louis, Kal?”
“It’s got an arch. Probably someday it’ll have two and they’ll be painted yellow and tower above the world’s biggest fast-food joint.”
Orson stood and walked over to the Tintoretto, touching the ornate frame at the bottom right corner. The Descent into Hell became a window looking out on St. Louis from a height of about a thousand feet. The city sprawled out from the river like an oil stain, and the late afternoon sun shone down in sepia tones through wispy clouds.
“A picture?” I asked as I joined him in front of the screen.
“A live feed. I like to be able to view the city in real time.”
“Cute.”
My host puffed on his cigar. “This city was founded in 1794 by Auguste Chouteau and Pierre Laciede. They named it after Louis IX. Unfortunately for the French, the region on which it stands was ceded to Spain, spoils of the Seven Years’ War. It remained part of Spanish Louisiana until 1802. Napoleon acquired the territory in the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, so once again it came under French control. You have, of course, heard of the Louisiana Purchase?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“In 1803 Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory, all 828,000 square miles of it, to the United states for fifty million francs. The United States also forgave France’s debts worth some eighteen million francs. That’s a grand total of sixty-eight million francs. In today’s dollars that’s roughly two-hundred thirty-six million dollars.” Orson shook his head in admiration. “That’s one hell of a good deal. For the U.S., that is.”
The math was a bit of a pain, but I got there. “That’s less than fifty cents an acre.”
“Right you are, Kal. Right you are.” He inhaled sharply. “This is a great city, a city of commerce. It’s home to corporations like Monsanto, Peabody Energy, Express Scripts, Ralcorp, and a few others.”
“Not to mention the Rams, the Cardinals, and the St. Louis Blues.”
“You do know something about the city, then.”
“I watch ESPN every now and then.”
A slim finger pointed at the screen. “What do you know about that, Kal?”
I gave the Gateway Arch a look, manfully resisting the temptation to repeat my fast-food joke. “Nada.”
“Did you know that that six-hundred-thirty-foot arch is the tallest monument in the Western Hemisphere and the tallest building in the city? Did you know it’s also the world’s tallest arch? It’s a monument to the westward expansion of the United States, a representation of Manifest Destiny.” The last two words were accompanied by a snort of cigar smoke. For a moment, I imagined his eyes gleamed red. I blinked and the illusion disappeared.
Manifest Destiny, the belief that the American people were sanctioned by God to claim the entire continent because of their special virtues—their love of liberty and justice and desire to remake the West.
What a crock. The only thing that the conquering of the West showed was that if a technologically superior expansionist people were to butt heads with a technologically inferior one, then the technologically inferior people would be swept away. Just look at the Roman Empire. If it hadn’t rotted away from the inside and remained a true republic, we’d all be speaking Latin and wearing togas.
Still, the arch did look cool.
There must have been a look of distaste on my face because Orson bellowed with laughter, eyes screwed almost shut in mirth. “Oh, you don’t believe in Manifest Destiny, do you?”
I shook my head.
It took a minute for his humor to drain away, and when it did he said, “Manifest Destiny, real or not, is what made America what it is today.” He went back to staring at the real-time feed. “Damn, I love this city. It’s vibrant, alive in a way the really big metropolises are not. It has a dynamic I can’t describe, except to say that the people here are both jaded and trusting, emotional yet pragmatic.”
Uncomfortable with the tack this conversation was taking, I decided to switch it up. “Why are you still here, Orson? There’s one heck of a badass Supernatural out there and it’s dangerous. I’d advise you to leave, but it looks like we’re stuck here for a bit.”
“You mean that ugly shrieking orb,” he said, not looking away.
“You’ve seen it?” The hair on my arms stood up. How come this guy was still sane? Then again, maybe he wasn’t.
A nod. “Briefly. It doesn’t seem interested in me. Perhaps I’m lucky.”
“Still, you should get out of here at the first opportunity.”
“Nah. I’ve got work to do. There’s a particularly slippery asset I’m looking to land, an employee who left the firm, absconding with some very valuable intelligence. It’s my job to retrieve that data and bring the employee back into the fold.”
I felt a tingle at the back of my neck like I was being watched. Or conned. “Why would you offer a thief his or her old job back, Orson?”
“Sounds odd, doesn’t it?”
“More than a little.”
“This particular asset, a he, by the way, has a very valuable skill set we wish to take advantage of. Unique, in fact. He decided to leave our employ despite having some time left on his contract. It’s not often you find someone with such valuable abilities.”
“So he’s in breach.”
“Yes. And he is in hiding, although we have a good idea where. When I find him, I will impress upon him that he should fulfill his obligations as stated and that the alternatives would be unpleasant. The president is a man who always adheres to the letter of any agreement he enters into and he expects others to demonstrate the same level of dedication and honor.”
I puffed on my cigar for a moment. Yep, the leather and espresso taste became thicker and more pronounced the more I smoked. “He sounds like a hard man, your president.”
Orson nodded. “He can be, but he’s fair and he lives by a code of honor. He believes in keeping one’s word.” He gestured toward the feed. “That is a code most of them would do well to emulate.”
Them?
Before I could ask, Orson turned his gaze my way. His eyes were frozen marbles set in granite. Once again the image of the cobras Nag and Nagaina flashed through my mind. “I know how bad it is out there for you and your team, Agent Hakala. That orb killed the previous team, I believe. While I am safe in my little slice of reality here, you are not, so you’d best leave and keep moving. I suggest the freight elevator; it runs on a separate system and can access any floor.”
For the first time since I’d met the man, Ghost chimed in. “There is no freight elevator indicated on the Quint Building blueprints, Kal.” He sounded annoyed.
I mentioned the blueprints to Orson. He just smiled slightly, his face thawing. “A late addition by Mr. Quint, who rarely follows the letter of the law in such things, although all his builds are up to code. I believe the elevator was meant for his use alone, but he cannot hide his intentions from Dervish Industries.” Again with the cobra stare. “I will supply you with the requisite data. One moment please.”
He went back to the desk and another drawer, where he removed a large tablet. Inserting a thumb drive, he tapped away for a few minutes then removed the drive, tossing it to me.
“Thanks,” I said, tucking the drive into my Bat Belt.
Orson sat down and set his cigar in a crystal ashtray I hadn’t noticed before. “Good luck to you, Agent Hakala.” A dismissal, albeit one with a smile and a wave.
“Good day to you, Mr. Nias.”
As I turned to the door, he delivered one more parting shot. “If you ever decide to retire from the Bureau, we could use a man like you, Kal. We can offer you a compensation package like no other.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Please do.”
Puffing my cigar, I left.