Gridiron - Philip Kerr

Richardson stood with both hands thrust deep into the pockets of his pants, his chin pointed belligerently at the policeman.

'How dare you speak to me like that,' he said. 'How dare you!'

Curtis was already waving his badge in the architect's face. 'This is how I dare, Mr Richardson. LAPD badge number 1812. Same as the goddamn overture, so you can remember it when you report me to my superiors, OK?'

'You can depend on it.'

Marty Birnbaum, the project manager, tried to defuse the situation.

'Perhaps we'd better just get on with it,' he interrupted smoothly. 'If you two officers would like to move next door, to the kitchen, you could ask your questions in there. Everyone else — take a seat. We can continue with our meeting and take turns leaving the room to speak to these two gentlemen.' He glanced at Curtis and raised his eyebrows.

'How does that sound?'

'That sounds fine, sir. Just fine.'

Then, seeing Declan Bennett appear in the doorway, Birnbaum thought it would be better to get rid of Richardson altogether. Less trouble that way.

'Ray, I could be wrong, but I don't believe you ever spoke to Sam Gleig, did you?'

Richardson was still standing with his hands in his pockets and looking like a disappointed child.

'No, Marty,' he said quietly, as if somehow a dream had been shattered. 'I never did.'

Coleman and Curtis exchanged a look.

'Well that figures,' murmured Coleman.

'Joan? Did you ever speak to him?'

'No,' she said. 'I never did either. I don't think I could even tell you what he looked like.'

The project team started to sit down.

'In that case there's not much point in your staying,' said Birnbaum. To Curtis, 'Mr and Mrs Richardson are flying to London tonight.'

'I guess it's been that kind of day,' said Curtis.

'You'd best get off to the airport, Ray. I'll wrap the meeting up. No need for you to stick it out. If that's all right with the sergeant?'

Curtis nodded and looked out of the window. He had no regrets about losing his temper, even if the guy did end up reporting him.

Richardson squeezed Birnbaum's elbow and started to gather his things off the table.

'Thanks, Marty,' he said. 'For that matter, thank you all. I'm proud of you. Every one of you has made a significant contribution to this project which I may say has been completed on time and on cost. That's just one of the reasons why our clients, both from the public and private sectors return again and again to us with new assignments. Because excellence in architecture — and don't let the philistines tell you any different: this is a magnificent building — excellence is more than a matter of mere design. It's about commercial triumph.'

Joan led a small ripple of applause and then, with Declan Bennett following them, she and her husband were gone.

'Well done, Marty,' said Aidan Kenny as the rest of the room let out an audible sigh of relief. 'You handled that very well. The man was fit to be tied.'

Birnbaurh shrugged. 'When Ray's in one of these moods, I just pretend he's one of my Dobermanns.'

-###-

Jenny helped Mitch to his feet.

'Are you OK? What happened? There's blood on your lip.'

Mitch held his lower jaw and shifted his hand on to his skull. Then he ran his tongue along his lip and winced as he tasted a raw cut inside his mouth.

'Bastard,' he mumbled flatly. 'Allen Grabel just decked me. He's gone crazy.'

'He hit you? Why?'

'I think he might have had something to do with the death of that security guard.' Mitch groaned and rolled his head on his shoulders. 'I don't suppose you saw him, did you? Guy who looks like someone on the nickel?'

'I haven't seen anyone. Come on. Let's go back upstairs and put something on that cut.'

They crossed the garage floor and stepped inside the elevator car.

'How's the ceremony coming along?'

'It's not.' Jenny told him about the mistake with the calendars.

'That figures,' said Mitch. 'Maybe you should read my horoscope. It's certainly not been my day. I wish I'd stayed home in bed.'

'Oh? With or without your wife?'

Mitch grinned painfully.

'What do you think?'

-###-

When everyone had gone from the poolside, Kay Killen removed her sodden underwear and swam naked. Her strong brown body showed the line of her tiny bikini, but this was not so pronounced that it indicated someone who would never have gone topless on a beach. Kay was not the bashful type.

Tiny quantitites of urine, perspiration, cosmetics, dead skin, pubic hair and other ammonium compounds floated free of Kay's fluid body. Where water containing these pollutants passed through the circulation system it was brought into contact with ozone before being returned to the pool.

She first noticed the gas as a small cloud of grey-yellow vapour drifting across the pool towards her; she assumed that someone had come on to the pool deck, someone smoking a cigar or a pipe. Only the cloud seemed too low on the water to have been puffed there by the lungs of some unseen and voyeuristic spectator. Covering her ample breasts with her forearms Kay stood up and instinctively started to back away from the noxious-looking cloud. Then she turned and started to swim away from it, towards the ladder.

She was half out of the pool when the odour of the gas caught her nostrils. And by then it had also caught her lungs. The cloud enveloped her and suddenly she could no longer catch her breath. A violent pain —

the most violent pain she had ever known — filled her chest and she collapsed, gasping, on to the pool deck.

Even as she realized that somehow she had been gassed she began to expectorate quantities of blood-stained froth, but this afforded her no relief. It only made the pain worse. She felt as if she wanted to cough up the entire contents of her heaving chest.

If there had been anything but chlorine gas in her dyspnoeic lungs she might have screamed.

Kay crawled on her hands and knees along the poolside.

If only she could reach some fresh air.

With a supreme effort she got to her feet and blindly staggered forwards. But instead of getting to the door she collapsed into the water, next to the open outlet valve and another, even stronger cloud of chlorine gas.

For a moment she struggled to keep her head above the water, until the water itself seemed to soothe her burning lungs and she struggled no more.

-###-

In the elevator Ray Richardson swore revenge.

'I'm going to get that asshole,' he snarled. 'Did you hear the way he spoke to me?'

'You've got his badge number,' said Joan. 'I think you should take him at his word and report him, Ray. 1812, wasn't it?'

'1812. Who the hell does he think he is? I'll write him an overture he'll never forget. Dedicated to his fucking superior. With cannons.'

'Better still, why not call Morgan Phillips at City Hall.'

'You're right. I'll break that arrogant bastard. He'll wish he'd never got out of bed this morning.'

The elevator doors opened. Declan opened the Bentley's doors for them and then jumped into the driver's seat.

'How's the traffic, Declan?'

'It's not too bad. We'll be early, I think. It's a nice evening for flying, sir.'

The engine roared and the car sailed towards the garage door. Declan leaned out of the window and repeated his name for the TESPAR code. The door remained shut.

'This is Declan Bennett. Open the garage door, please.'

Nothing.

Richardson buttoned down his window and shouted at the wall microphone. 'This is Ray Richardson. Open the fucking door!'

'Isn't life great?' growled Richardson. 'This is just what I need with the PCI on Monday.'

'Shall we get someone to fix it?" asked Joan.

'Right now what I most want to do is get the hell out of here.'

Richardson gritted his teeth and shook his head slowly. 'We'll call a cab. And go out through the front door.'

Declan reversed the car towards the elevator. The three of them got out and took the elevator up to the atrium. They marched past the tree and across the white marble floor.

'What's that smell?' said Richardson.

'What's that awful music?' asked Joan.

Declan shrugged. 'It is kind of depressing, Mrs Richardson,' he admitted. 'Not my taste. Not my taste at all.'

'There must be something wrong with the aromatizer,' said

Richardson. 'Fuck it, there's no time. Let someone else sort it out.' He led the way through the enormous glass doors towards the front entrance.

Joan and Declan followed. At the hologram desk Joan stopped to call a cab and to complain about the music.

'You're listening to a piano suite by Arnold Schoenberg,' explained Kelly Pendry. 'Opus 25. This was the first twelve-tone, "atonal" piece of music ever created.' She was smiling brightly, like some brainless MTV presenter. 'Each compostition is formed from a series of twelve different tones. This series may be played in its original form, inverted, played backward, or played backward and inverted.'

'It's a noise,' barked Joan.

'Joan, just get that thing to call us a cab,' said Richardson as he waited for Declan to open the front door. And waited. 'Declan?'

'… Locked,' muttered Richardson's driver. He turned to the microphone by the entrance and said, This is Declan Bennett. Will you unlock the door, please?'

He returned to the door and pulled a second time, but the door did not budge.

'Here, let me try,' said Richardson, approaching the microphone.

'TESPAR voice check. Ray Richardson. Open the front door, please.'

As he pulled on the handle the photochromic glass in and around the door started to darken.

'What the hell's happening now?' He cleared his throat and repeated the request. 'Ray Richardson. Open the door, damn it.'

Declan shook his head. There must be something wrong with the

TESPAR. And it smells like an abattoir in here.'

Richardson dropped his briefcase and laptop carrier and looked at his watch. It was five thirty-three.

'You know, I really don't need this right now.'

The disgruntled-looking trio walked back to the hologram desk.

'We can't get out,' said Richardson. 'The front door appears to be locked.'

This building closes at five-thirty,' explained Kelly.

'I'm aware of that,' said Richardson. 'However, that does not apply to those who are still in the building. And who might want to get out. What is the point of the TESPAR if not…?'

'TESPAR? That stands for Time Encoded Signal Processing and

Recognition System, sir. A signal containing frequencies within any finite range can be described mathematically as a complex polynomial function, and so can be encoded in terms of its real and complex solutions or zeros.'

'Thank you, I know what TESPAR is already.' Richardson spoke through clenched teeth.

'The real zeros are points where the amplitude actually falls to zero; and the complex zeros, where there is an intermediate trough in the amplitude of a wave. TESPAR numerically describes where these points are.'

'Shut the fuck up, will you?'

'You asked me a question, sir. I was giving you an answer. There is no need to be abusive.'

'Well, now that you've given me the answer, you stupid bitch, I want you to call the boardroom. I want to speak to Aidan Kenny.'

'Please be patient. I'm trying to expedite your inquiry.'

'You do that. And while you're doing it change the music. This shit is driving me up the wall.'

'Certainly. Do you have a preference?'

'I don't know. Anything but this crap.'

'Very well,' said Kelly. 'This music is by Philip Glass,' and the piano started to play again.

'I don't think this is much better,' said Joan, after a few bars. Richardson grinned as he saw the funny side of his situation.

'Look, where's that call?'

'Please be patient. I'm trying to expedite your inquiry.'

'And what is that awful smell? It seems to go with the music.'

'That is ethyl mercaptan. It represents just 1/400,000,000th of a milligram per litre of air in this building, sir.'

'The building is supposed to smell nice, not like a butcher's shop.'

'My data records indicate that the aroma of roast beef is a pleasurable one.'

'That's not roast beef. That's rotten beef. Change it, airhead. Sea breeze, eucalyptus, cedar glade, anything like that.'

'Very well, sir.'

The telephone on the desk rang. Richardson leaned through the hologram and picked it up.

'Ray? Aidan Kenny here. What seems to be the problem?'

'The problem is that the front door is locked,' said Richardson. 'And the computer won't unlock it.'

'Must be something wrong with your TESPAR. Have you tried clearing your throat before you made the request?'

'We've tried everything short of praying to it and kneeing it in the balls. Besides, we just came up in the elevator. If there was something wrong with our TESPAR signals we could hardly have got this far.'

'Hmm. Let me take a look on the screen here. I'll put the phone down for just a second.'

'Bastard,' muttered Richardson and waited.

'Ray? I'm going down to the computer room to try and sort it out there. Maybe you should come back up to the boardroom until I've fixed the problem.'

'With Sergeant Friday there? No thanks, I'd rather stay here. Just hurry up, will you? I'm supposed to be at the airport.'

'Sure thing. Oh, Ray? You haven't seen Mitch or Kay, have you?'

'No,' he said impatiently. 'No, we haven't.'

The elevator chimed as another car arrived on the atrium floor.

'Wait a minute. Maybe this is them.'

Richardson looked around and saw the two painters and the security guard, Dukes, coming towards them.

'What's the problem, sir?' said Dukes.

'Aid, it's not them. It's those two painters and the security guard. The one who's still alive, y'know? You'd better ask Abraham where the hell they are. That's what it's for.'

-###-

Aidan Kenny crossed the bridge to the computer room and pushed open the heavy glass door, wondering why Richardson or Mitch or Grabel, or whoever it was who had designed the room had not thought to use an automatic door. Then he remembered that there was no automatic mechanism powerful enough to operate a bombproof glass door. At least it helped to keep the room cool. He had not realized how warm the rest of the building had become until he entered the fridge-like conditions of the computer room. Perhaps it was not just the front door lock that was faulty. Perhaps there was something wrong with the HVAC too.

It as just as well, he told himself, that the computer room HVAC was independent of the main building's air-conditioning system. No such thing as diurnal use in here. The Yu-5 required twenty-four-hour airconditioning. A shut-down of something as sophisticated as the Yu-5 owing to a loss of air-conditioning would have been disastrous. You could not afford to take chances with the environment in a $40 million computer room.