Pro tip: When you are fighting in a back alley, throw out the rule book.
There’s nothing like a good throat punch to get a guy’s attention.
I hadn’t crushed his windpipe, but the guy did make a lot of funny noises as I hit him with a flurry of jabs and a right hook that sent him to the sidewalk. He also got a kick to the gut as he tried to crawl away. That made him roll over so I could stomp on his knee.
I considered just shooting him to make my life easier. Less exertion. I pulled my Stinger from its shoulder holster and aimed it at his face. “Any last words?”
“Tee . . . See . . . Eye . . . Dee,” he gasped.
“Those are some stupid last words. But it’s your funeral.”
He was fishing in his coat for something. The coat had fallen open, revealing a pistol in a holster at his hip, but that wasn’t the side he was fumbling with. He finally got his fingers on what he was after and tossed it to my feet. The wallet fell open to reveal a badge.
I stooped and picked it up.
The badge was engraved with the letters TCID. Temporal Crimes Investigations Division.
Ah.
I could admit that his last words weren’t entirely stupid.
I holstered my gun.
“We just . . .wanted . . . to talk,” he wheezed.
“You’re not very good at it. Your voice is all weird.” I read his ID. Said his name was Theodore Baker. “Okay Teddy, where’s your boss? I know you aren’t the brains of this outfit.”
Theodore struggled to his knees and pointed across the street. There was an unmarked van parked a half dozen cars away.
“Don’t get up on my account,” I said, and dropped his badge to the sidewalk again.
I crossed the street and walked up to the passenger side of the cargo van where the sliding door was. I rapped on the door with my knuckles.
It slid open and a female agent stared at me over the barrel of a .45 caliber Falcon Nighthawk. Her chestnut hair was tied back. She was wearing blue jeans, a navy T-shirt, and a bomber jacket. It was a good look. I put her in her late thirties but it was hard to tell.
Agent door-opener made an appearance too. He was an overweight, fortyish white dude, looking less cool in khakis and a beige Members Only jacket. Tough to be hip in beige. His gun was out too.
“Heard you wanted to talk.”
The aviatrix lowered her Falcon by a degree. “What’s your name?”
“Puddin’ Tame.”
She frowned. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.”
“Ask me again and—”
“Yeah yeah,” she muttered.
“Nice surveillance van. This thing have cable?”
“Oh good. We caught a wise guy.”
I scanned the interior of the van and noted a wastepaper basket full of takeout wrappers. “Looks like you’ve been here awhile. You find the good coffee yet?”
The agent lowered her weapon the rest of the way. “Next block over.”
I said, “You’re buying.”
It was hard to tell if the twenty-four-hour diner was a throwback to the fifties or just hadn’t been updated in thirty years. Either way, it made me want to order a milkshake.
We settled into a booth and Agent Stella York slid her business card across the table to me.
Above her name it said TIME CRIMES.
Not to be outdone, I pulled a business card from my wallet too.
She took it and snapped a photo with her phone.
Cheater.
“Travers?” Her eyebrows lifted. “You related to Benjamin Travers?”
“When I have to admit it.”
She tapped the edge of the card on the table. “I thought your family stayed on the right side of the law. What are you doing coming out of a place full of known mobsters?” She pocketed my card.
“I like to stay well-rounded. How long have you been watching the Amadeus organization?”
“You say that like we ever aren’t watching them. The family is into everything you can imagine. But our current interest is a money laundering scheme. We have reason to suspect Amadeus, but so far we’ve got nothing to pin on him. You talk to him in there?”
“You didn’t get an invite?” I asked.
“TCID doesn’t get asked to gangster parties.”
“Sounds like it’s time to quit. Make your own way in the world. Have some fun.”
“That you? Lone wolf? No one to hold you accountable?”
“Many hands make more messes.”
“So, private investigator. Investigating what?” She sipped her coffee and watched me over the brim.
“Dead guy. Murder. Followed a couple of Roman’s gun thugs here. Just kicking the hornet's nest to see what buzzes.”
“We know they’re in there, but you’re the only one we’ve seen come out. What’s the trick to getting inside?”
I located the card the bartender had given me for The Last Nightclub and handed it to her. “Put a space in the word nightclub and it gets you the time. It’s a space/time joke.”
She studied it carefully. “Last Nightclub becomes Last Night Club. Clever. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to that’s actually been given one of these.”
I wrapped my fingers around my coffee cup to warm them. “It’s a pretty foolproof system. The meeting is always the night before you get the invite, so it’s exclusive to time travelers. They use someone who was in attendance as a gatekeeper. If he didn’t see you there the night before, you don’t get access. That way only people who have been there can get there.”
“What happens if the gatekeeper forgets to invite someone who already showed up?”
I shook my head. “These guys aren’t amateurs. They don’t strike me as the type to mess around with paradoxes. Who has you watching Amadeus?”
“ASCOTT concerns get the highest priority. My division is focused on missing time gate technology and black-market personal time travel devices.”
I was familiar with the Allied Scientific Coalition of Time Travelers. The organization was the closest thing the time travel community had to a formal government. The Temporal Crimes Investigation Division was subject to their authority. They laid down the law for the use of time machines and the creation of parallel timestreams. But 1984 was well beyond their normal jurisdiction. They were going out of their way for this one.
“You think Amadeus is pulling something big?”
“Rumors on the street are that he’s working for someone bigger. But we don’t know all the players. Tracking these guys is like grasping at smoke. There’s never any kind of paper trail and even if we catch someone in the act, there’s no way to trace it to the Amadeus family.”
“You tried following the money?”
“We haven’t seen any change hands. These people are good.”
I liked that she wasn’t trying to disguise her lack of progress. She was floundering and sharing it openly. I respected that. Showed she didn’t confuse setbacks with failure.
“You new to TCID? Most of the agents I’ve dealt with aren’t so forthcoming.”
Stella brushed her hair behind an ear. “Been at Time Crimes six months. Did fifteen years with the FBI before that. It was actually your grandfather who put a word in for me with the division.”
“That a fact. Good to know.”
“We’re getting nowhere with Amadeus right now. I was planning to pull up stakes here after today if we didn’t gather anything new. You learn anything we can use?”
“Roman seems to be the guy in charge. He kept things casual but made an interesting comment about time being our most valuable commodity. Thought he was speaking metaphorically, but maybe he wasn’t. I’ll keep digging and see what I can come up with. If you’re looking for stolen time gates, I might be able to point you to one.”
“You have my card,” Stella said. “Maybe next time don’t cripple my agents?”
“They should learn to stay on their feet.”
I got up and Stella York rose with me. She had a good face. I liked her. Definitely wouldn’t knock her down in an alley.
“One more thing, Travers.” She brushed her hair back again. “I find you’re playing both sides of this somehow, famous family or not, I’ll put you away.” She locked eyes with me. Held it.
I gave her a nod. “We know where we stand with each other.”
“Yeah. We do.”
I held the door for her.
We parted ways on the sidewalk and I noticed Agent Punching Bag glaring at me from the driver’s seat of the van as I walked away. I had a feeling we weren’t friends anymore.
It was going to be a pain getting back to St. Pete to pick up my car, but at least I knew where I was headed.
It was time to run down my next lead.
And I knew just where to start.