Read Online The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces by Ray Vukcevich - Free Book Online
Authors: Ray Vukcevich
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washroom door. The nerdy guy who sweeps up. I gave him a big thumbs up.
I locked the office and walked down the hall to the janitorâs closet and borrowed a mop and bucket. I had never seen anyone in my building use them. I only knew they were there because no matter where I am, I like to know whatâs behind every door. Iâd found this closet the first day I rented the office back in ⦠well, a long, long time ago.
I made the short walk around the corner and down the street to the Baltimore building. The night was cool and cloudy, the dark mall all echoes and whispers, shadows and night eyes.
The service entrance was locked, of course, but it didnât take me long to get inside. I wondered if the real janitorial staff would be bumping around in the building. If my building was anything to go by, janitors at the Baltimore might be purely mythical.
When I got to suite 317, I looked for light under the door, and just because I didnât see any, I didnât pick the lock right away. Instead, I put my ear to the door and spent some time listening. Nothing. So I went to work on the lock.
Once Iâd gotten the door open, I walked directly to the door of the inner office to check for light under it. No light. I did some more listening. I did some sniffing. Itâs a fact that most bad guys would be more elusive if they showered more often.
I eased the inner office door open. Listened. Sniffed. All was quiet and everything smelled inorganic.
By the time I flipped on the lights, I was pretty sure I was alone. I put on my hey-donât-hurt-me face and held up my mop just in case, but there was no one there.
The inner office contained two desks. Iâd had the impression there was only one desk when I was here so briefly last time, and that was because the desk to the left was turned sideways and pushed up against the wall. Maybe Gerald or Pablo had been trying to get a little privacy. I wondered if they had gotten along. I wondered why theyâd never thought to put some kind of barrier between the two desks. The current arrangement would have driven me crazy.
I went quickly through the drawers of the desks and found nothing interesting. Address books and the like had either been taken by the police or maybe had not existed at all. The big filing cabinets back against the wall between the desks were empty.
I peeked behind the posters taped to the walls. I flipped through the books on the shelf running around the room just a foot or so from the ceiling. Nothing.
It made sense, I suppose. If there were anything to find in a place like GP Ink it would be on computer media. The police had evidently taken all the CDs, floppies, removable hard disks, and tapes that must have been everywhere in an office like this. That left only the hard drives on the computers. The police would have copied the data, but I doubted they would have erased it. My one hope was that I would see something they had missed, or maybe make some connection they hadnât made.
There were three computersâone in the outer office and two back here. Computers always made it easy to be Dennis. He decided to call the computer in the outer office computer number 1. Facing the back wall of the inner office, the machine on his left would be computer number 2 and the machine on his right would be number 3. That meant we could choose one of six (three factorial) orders of searchâ123, 132, 213, 231, 312, or 321.
Because we lived in this universe and not some other universe, the stuff we were looking for, if it existed at all, would be in the last place we looked.
Knowing that, Dennis figured it should be possible to fool the universe and save some time.
He turned toward the front office as if he were going to go for 123 or 132, then at the last minute he spun around and sat down behind computer number 2. At this point in the procedure, the information would be on computer 1 or 3 (it would all depend on which one Dennis
I locked the office and walked down the hall to the janitorâs closet and borrowed a mop and bucket. I had never seen anyone in my building use them. I only knew they were there because no matter where I am, I like to know whatâs behind every door. Iâd found this closet the first day I rented the office back in ⦠well, a long, long time ago.
I made the short walk around the corner and down the street to the Baltimore building. The night was cool and cloudy, the dark mall all echoes and whispers, shadows and night eyes.
The service entrance was locked, of course, but it didnât take me long to get inside. I wondered if the real janitorial staff would be bumping around in the building. If my building was anything to go by, janitors at the Baltimore might be purely mythical.
When I got to suite 317, I looked for light under the door, and just because I didnât see any, I didnât pick the lock right away. Instead, I put my ear to the door and spent some time listening. Nothing. So I went to work on the lock.
Once Iâd gotten the door open, I walked directly to the door of the inner office to check for light under it. No light. I did some more listening. I did some sniffing. Itâs a fact that most bad guys would be more elusive if they showered more often.
I eased the inner office door open. Listened. Sniffed. All was quiet and everything smelled inorganic.
By the time I flipped on the lights, I was pretty sure I was alone. I put on my hey-donât-hurt-me face and held up my mop just in case, but there was no one there.
The inner office contained two desks. Iâd had the impression there was only one desk when I was here so briefly last time, and that was because the desk to the left was turned sideways and pushed up against the wall. Maybe Gerald or Pablo had been trying to get a little privacy. I wondered if they had gotten along. I wondered why theyâd never thought to put some kind of barrier between the two desks. The current arrangement would have driven me crazy.
I went quickly through the drawers of the desks and found nothing interesting. Address books and the like had either been taken by the police or maybe had not existed at all. The big filing cabinets back against the wall between the desks were empty.
I peeked behind the posters taped to the walls. I flipped through the books on the shelf running around the room just a foot or so from the ceiling. Nothing.
It made sense, I suppose. If there were anything to find in a place like GP Ink it would be on computer media. The police had evidently taken all the CDs, floppies, removable hard disks, and tapes that must have been everywhere in an office like this. That left only the hard drives on the computers. The police would have copied the data, but I doubted they would have erased it. My one hope was that I would see something they had missed, or maybe make some connection they hadnât made.
There were three computersâone in the outer office and two back here. Computers always made it easy to be Dennis. He decided to call the computer in the outer office computer number 1. Facing the back wall of the inner office, the machine on his left would be computer number 2 and the machine on his right would be number 3. That meant we could choose one of six (three factorial) orders of searchâ123, 132, 213, 231, 312, or 321.
Because we lived in this universe and not some other universe, the stuff we were looking for, if it existed at all, would be in the last place we looked.
Knowing that, Dennis figured it should be possible to fool the universe and save some time.
He turned toward the front office as if he were going to go for 123 or 132, then at the last minute he spun around and sat down behind computer number 2. At this point in the procedure, the information would be on computer 1 or 3 (it would all depend on which one Dennis
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