The Outside Job
Chapter One
Bob Corbett hated Mondays.
Mondays in general were bad; Mondays in mid-winter were worse. And Mondays in an Alaskan December had to be the worst of all. The dark skies, heavy grey clouds, and the few short hours of daylight did little to lighten his mood.
He was in Anchorage because that’s where his current assignment was. He’d flown in two months before, just as winter set in, and the weather had been cold and windy with horizontal snow. The locals assured him that it was still “early” and it would get “serious” later.
This did nothing to brighten his outlook, he thought grimly. Why couldn’t he get one of those plum assignments? You know, the ones with sunshine and sandy beaches? And girls in bikinis? Especially the girls in bikinis.
But no, Bob reckoned he was destined to visit every dark, cold, dreary corner of the planet. “And if I did get Hawaii,” he thought, “it would be just in time for a hurricane.”
As he rounded a corner, the wind slammed into him hard enough to push one foot into the other as he walked. Standing upright was nearly impossible, unless he braced himself against something like a car or building.
Bob let dreams of warm, sunny beaches play in the back of his mind while struggling to cross the snow-covered streets of downtown. At one intersection, he saw the hoof-prints of a moose on the sidewalk. “Great,” he thought. “It just keeps getting better and better.”
He looked suspiciously up and down the street, but didn’t see any large animals. “Any moose that lives here is probably holed up someplace warm. That’s where I oughta be.”
The job was waiting. Bob, an experienced field operator, knew he was in no mood for meeting a client. For the hundredth time that day he wished heartily that he were someplace else. But his bosses wouldn’t take lightly to brushing off a client because of what they’d term “a little wind and snow.”
* * * * *
He returned to the featureless three-story office building where he’d been meeting with his client. The grey structure didn’t help his attitude at all. Although there were many colorful edifices around the downtown area, he’d wound up in the ugliest building on 5th Avenue. The only interesting feature he’d seen on the block was a six-foot replica of the H.M.S. Resolution, Captain Cook’s ship, above the entryway of the bar next door.
Going through his notes last night, he’d determined he had enough background material, and needed to start the operation. He spread the paperwork across his desk and looked at the reports once more.
When his office door opened again, his client was there. An elderly Oriental man, the fellow’s conversation was a veritable parade of mangled metaphors and foul language. After several meetings, Bob was definitely unimpressed by the man’s presence and harsh voice, but Ng evidently considered himself the smartest man in any room he entered. In fact, he was the most unpleasant guy Bob had ever met.
Ng had a reputation as a tight-fisted tyrant, and Corbett’s experience seemed to bear that out. Richard “Ricky” Ng was mean, and so clearly uninterested in the rest of humanity that he rarely remembered the names of the people he dealt with.
“Corbin! My son tells me you haven’t done much about the problem. Do I have to draw you a picture? If the blind leads the blind, they both go down a blind alley, you know. I think you’re stupid.”
Bob pushed down his resentment at the harsh tone and said, “It’s ‘Corbett’. And your son is entitled to his opinion, Mr. Ng, but that doesn’t make him right. You’ve known these people for quite some time, but they’re all new to me. Now, I’ve gone through all the notes you gave me, and looked into the background of the people involved. I think it’s time to get started with the active phase of your program.”
“Oh, so now you think so? Time is of the essence, you know. We need this to be done, like yesterday. You’d better know what you’re doing, or it could come back on me. I’ve got a reputation, you know.”
The old man was apparently a wheeler-dealer in real estate a few decades back, but had been running on reputation and borrowed money for years. The problem was, Bob thought, that most of the people who knew Ng were either dead or the grown children of businessmen that Ng had worked with in the Sixties.
Bob sighed. “It won’t do me much good either, Mr. Ng. Did your son bring the things I asked for?”
Ricky Ng pointed to a nylon bag in the corner of the room. “My son had it delivered this morning. If you’re as good as I’ve heard, you’d already have gone through it. You must be stupid. Ye gods, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink the water!”
Bob had in fact looked through the bag upon entering his office, but was sure the old man had no clue what was in it. If Ng had known, he probably wouldn’t have come in.
Neither would most folks who fancied keeping body and soul together.
To be continued ...
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