“What did you say?” Cindy Rusch asked.
I had her on speaker, with Rachel beside me. “They’re using alchemy to turn metal into gold at Tomorrow Metalworks. Your brother must have found out somehow, stole a bar of gold, and they killed him and stole back the bar he gave you. Did you tell the police about it?”
“N-no.” She sounded nervous. “I was afraid Mike might have stolen it, and I didn’t want to get into trouble. But—I’m not sure I believe all this anyway.”
I sighed. Too often, my cases veer unexpectedly toward the supernatural. This was only the latest example.
Rachel spoke. “Alchemy is about transmuting base metals into silver and gold, plus other stuff, and people have been trying to do it for centuries, but obviously no one’s been able to do it, at least on a big scale.” She winked at me. “I mean, that’s what I read on Wikipedia just now. But these guys might have figured it out. We’ve seen weirder things.”
“I guess.” She didn’t sound convinced. “I don’t care about the—no, that’s not true, I do care about the gold! Is there anything we can do?”
I grimaced. “The police will be skeptical. Even the ones who know me.” A few cops did believe my stories. “For that matter, there’s probably no law against turning lead into gold. The SEC or somebody might have opinions on it, but—”
“There’s a law against killing people! My brother is dead!” She sounded like she was getting ready for a rant. “Can’t we just—! don’t know—do something?”
“Maybe.” I sighed. “Okay, I do have an idea. You’ll hate it—” I looked at Rachel, “but it’s the only one I can think of.”
Lisa Hobbes picked up her phone on the third buzz. “Lisa Hobbes, Tomorrow Metalworks.”
“Hi, it’s Tom Jurgen. We met yesterday? You and Carl showed me around.”
“Yes, what’s up? Carl’s in charge of ordering supplies, I can transfer you—”
“No, it’s not that. I’ve been let go from IMS.” Which was technically true.
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. I can connect you to HR if you—”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” I paused. “Look, I know what you’re doing there. With the gold. I found some stuff in Mike Willey’s computer. I want in.”
Hobbes didn’t speak for so long I was afraid she’d hung up. “I don’t—what are you talking about?”
“The gold. You and Carl and Anton Chernoff, Cherny. You killed Mike, and I don’t want that to happen to me, but I want a piece of what he was in on with you. Or I’ll go to the police. And the papers.”
Hobbes laughed. “You really think anyone’s going to believe some fairy tale about us making gold?”
“I think they might start asking questions about how Mike got killed. They found his body. Shot and burned.”
Again she was silent for a long time. “Let me make a phone call. I’ll call you back.” She hung up.
“I don’t like this.” Rachel glared at me.
I braced myself for a punch. “I know.” Part of me was hoping Hobbes would just tell me to go to hell. Or never call back. I sipped my coffee, watching the phone nervously.
Rachel paced. She knows I can’t let go of things, ever since I was a reporter. I call it being tenacious. She calls it “being a stubborn asshole.” We’ve had to deal with it over the years. She can tolerate it, but she never likes it.
My phone buzzed. Lisa Hobbes. “You’re not a salesman,” she snapped. “You’re a P.I. they hired at IMS.”
Fortunately, I’d expected this. And it confirmed another theory. “Ryan Ludd, right?”
She seemed surprised. “That doesn’t matter—”
“He doesn’t have Willey’s laptop, does he? He was asking about it. Like I said, I want in. Or that computer goes to the police.”
Another long pause. Finally she said, “All right. All right. Maybe we can make a deal. Come down to Tomorrow at nine thirty. Park in back. I’ll be at the door to the plant.”
“Sounds good.” But she’d already hung up.
I turned to Rachel. “How’d I do?”
“You sounded just stupid enough that she’s not afraid of you.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re really going to do it this way?”
“I’m open to better ideas.” I wasn’t really thrilled by the prospect of walking into the place alone. But it was the only way I could think of to get any kind of evidence.
Maybe there was nothing wrong with making gold for themselves, but if we were right, they’d killed a man. I’d been a crime reporter and a P.I. too long to not take murder seriously.
Rachel sighed and crossed her arms. “All right. Take the gun.”
Yeah. I’d finally bought a handgun. After a case involving a face-shifting serial killer who’d almost killed me. It was a Glock 17 automatic pistol. I had all the necessary permits for ownership and concealed carry, and I’d taken a firearms safety class right after buying it. Rachel knew how to use it too. I kept it locked on a top shelf in our bedroom closet. I’d never taken it out since bringing it home from the firing range.
I nodded. “Okay.” They had killed Willey, after all. And I was going in alone. I only hoped I wouldn’t have to use it.
At 9:20 that night I left Rachel in the McDonald’s across the street from Tomorrow Metalworks. I called her phone, she set it to record, and I set my phone to record as well and slipped it into my jacket pocket. We kissed briefly. She punched my shoulder. “Be careful, jerk.”
“Always.” My throat was dry. I got back into my car and drove over.
The pistol felt like a tumor under my arm. My heart thudded inside my chest as I got out of the car and headed toward the rear of the facility.
Lisa Hobbes stood outside a door, smoking. She grimaced when she saw me, dropped her cigarette to the ground, and held the door as I walked up. “Let’s do this.”
I followed her through the empty plant. Empty, but not silent. Machinery hummed, the air conditioning whistled overhead, and I heard something dripping from a corner. Half the big fluorescent tubes overhead were dark. Hobbes led me around the big machines toward the door I’d seen marked AU.
“Oh. Now I get it.” I pointed at the sign. “AU—not ‘Automated Utilities,’ or whatever you said. The symbol for gold.”
“Little joke.” She grinned.
Benson was leaning against the door, arms crossed, looking annoyed. “Took you long enough.”
“I was right on time.” I shifted on my feet, trying to hide the bulge under my arm.
Benson cocked an eyebrow. “Nervous?”
I figured I might as well use it. “I’m here all alone, and you guys killed Mike Willey. Yeah, I’m not exactly cool, calm, and collected.”
Hobbes’s eyes flickered, but she didn’t contradict me about killing Willey. Good sign or bad? She just tapped a code into a pad mounted next to the door and swiped a key card across it. Benson pushed the door open. “Inside.”
Inside Hobbes flipped a switch. Bright lamps dangled from the ceiling, casting harsh, hot light over the floor. The place smelled of sweat and ozone, like the air after a thunderstorm.
Hobbes dropped her jacket on a stool and unbuttoned her sleeves. Benson loosened his necktie.
I couldn’t take off my jacket. I’d just have to pretend I wasn’t sweating as if I were running a 10K.
“Where’s Cherny?” Hobbes shook her head. ”We need him for the next part of it.”
“He texted.” Benson pulled out his phone. “I’ll—here he is.” The phone was buzzing. “Cherny? Okay, we’re all here. Hurry up. He’ll be right here.”
Good. A cell phone signal could get through the walls here. Rachel could hear everything. So far, so good.
I looked around. Storage cabinets lined one wall, facing a row of tables in the middle of the room. A box that looked like an oversized microwave sat in the center of one table, with a red light glowing over a keypad and a heavy-duty power cable plugged into a socket in the wall.
Metal trays and stained plastic containers and covers crowded over another table, with rolls of paper towels standing at attention between them. Beakers and bunsen burners were strewn across another table, as if a high school chemistry class hadn’t cleaned up when the bell rang.
One storage locker was open. I saw bottles labeled like prescriptions from the drugstore on the top shelves, and a pile of what looked like canvas sheets stuffed into the bottom shelves. Like the sheets Mike Willey had been wrapped up in? I tried not to think about that.
A small black safe stood next to the locker.
Benson leaned against a table and crossed his arms. “Did you bring Mike’s laptop?”
“Hell, no.” I looked at the door. My only escape. “I don’t want to end like him. You shot him and smashed in his skull, didn’t you?”
No response from either of them. Hobbes just blinked once, her eyes like stone.
“I’ve got it. I’m leaving it where you can’t get at it until I get my share.”
Benson groaned. “You idiot.”
“Hey, after what happened to him—”
Hobbes jabbed a finger at me. “We couldn’t trust that asshole to keep his mouth shut, and we sure as hell don’t trust you.” She shook her head. “We’re not giving you anything unless you give us everything you’ve got.”
“Okay, okay!” I lifted a hand. “How about—just show me how you do it, all right? I need to see it. Then I’ll go get the laptop, and you can give me a nice chunk of the stuff.”
Hobbes rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t work like that. When Cherny gets here—where is he?”
Benson’s phone buzzed again. “He’s here.” He opened the door.
Anton Czernoff—or Tony Curnow—walked in, carrying a heavy black bag. He stared at me. “Who’s he?”
“I’m the guy whose car you wrecked,” I said. “That’s costing me $800 for a new rear window.”
He blinked. “You were following Lisa. I had to do something.”
“Try a note on the windshield next time.”
“This is Tom Jurgen,” Hobbes said. “He’s a P.I. He was pretending to be a salesman for IMS, but—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Czernoff slammed a fist on a table, making the Tupperware jump. “First Willey, now this guy? You can’t keep letting people find out about this! I spent 10 years working on this, and I’m not going to let some schmuck of a salesman or P.I. or whatever screw it up for me!”
“Calm down, Cherny.” She reached for her jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “We just pay him off and he’ll leave us alone. Just like Mike.”
Czernoff scowled. “Just like Mike. I got it.”
He opened his bag and lifted out a thick bundle of newspaper. Pulling the paper away, he dropped a yellow brick on the table and grinned. “Piece of cake. Gold cake.”
Cindy Rusch’s gold. It had to be. Damn it, I’d been right there . . .
“Any trouble?” Hobbes asked.
He shook his head. “She was gone. Empty house. Took a while to find it, I had to trash the place, but—here it is. Did you add that stuff I gave you last night?”
“All of it, just like you told me.” Hobbes lit a cigarette.
Sweat was streaming down my back, but I kept my jacket on as I tried to keep my eyes on all three of them. “So . . .” I gazed at the yellow brick. “You guys know how to make gold, right? Out of lead, or something else?”
Czernoff scowled at me. “Lead is best. For the weight. What do you know about it? I’ve spent years on this.”
“I know a little bit about alchemy, and a lot of other things most people don’t believe in. Did you tell Mike Willey all about it?”
Benson snorted. “He thought we were laundering drug money. I don’t think he would have believed us if we told him.”
“Maybe Mike didn’t have any imagination.” I looked at Hobbes. “How did you guys hook up with Cherny here?”
“He came to us.” She blew some smoke through her nose. “About eight months ago. Off the street. Good thing he picked the right person to contact.”
“A greedy little bitch, and her friend with benefits.” Czernoff laughed. “I did my research. Fired from her last company for embezzlement. Looking for a new score, right, Lisa?”
She glared at him and blew more smoke into the air.
I looked around the room, at the tables filled with equipment, the storage lockers, and everything else. “How does it work?”
Czernoff grunted. “I’ll show you.”
Hobbes and Benson exchanged worried glances, but Czernoff ignored them. He pulled a cabinet door open, bent down, and lifted an ingot of heavy metal. “Lead,” he said, dropping into a tray on one table. From another cabinet he took a plastic jug full of a dark liquid, and some jars filled with powders and liquids. He set them on the table, then opened a book from his bagh and flipped through the pages. The paper looked old, like parchment, yellowed and delicate.
Hobbes found a stool to perch on, and she lit another cigarette. Czernoff glared with the lighter flared. Benson stood near me, arms crossed, as if guarding me. Could he see the bulge of the handgun under my jacket? Smell it? The room was already hot, and when Czernoff lit a bunsen burner the temperature seemed to go up another 10 degrees, but I couldn’t take off my jacket. I waited, sweating.
“What’s that?” I asked as Czernoff started heating a mixture of silvery powder and thick dark liquid in a beaker over the burner. “Eye of newt?” I was talking because I was nervous, and so Rachel would have some idea what was going on.
“Shut up.” Czernoff swirled the mixture around over the flame. “It took me years to find the right book, and then eight months to get everything together. And then close to a year to do it for the first time.” He set the beaker down, took off his gloves, and unscrewed a bottle of yellow liquid.
“How long does it take for one brick?” I asked.
He turned to the box with the glowing red light. “I started that two weeks ago. That was after more than a month of prep work with the materials. It’ll be ready in a few more minutes.“
“So if each one is worth, what? Twenty thousand dollars or so? It’ll take a long time to get to a million.”
Hobbes and Benson both looked at me while Czernoff poured the yellow liquid into the beaker. “What?”
“We can’t keep handing this stuff over.” Hobbes’ eyes were icy. “First Mike wanted one brick, then he wanted more.”
“So, what? You killed him?” Say it, say it, and then I can get out of here . . .
Before anyone could answer, the box with the red light beeped three times. The light went dead. Czernoff set down his bottle and turned, picking up a pair of heavy gloves.
Hobbes’ eyes brightened. Benson smiled. Czernoff opened the box, reached in, and gingerly lifted out a plastic tray. Inside sat two thick bricks covered in what looked like black oil
He set the tray down on the table and lifted the first brick out, putting it down on a sheet of canvas. Then he dropped his gloves and sprayed the brick with a plastic bottle that blew a clear mist over the surface. Grabbing a wad of paper towels, he began wiping the brick, cleaning the oil from it.
Benson stood right behind Czernoff’s shoulder. Hobbes leaned on her stool, peering between them. I tilted my head, watching Czernoff’s arm move steadily back and forth.
Czernoff dropped the wad and pointed. “That took two months.”
A brick of gold sat on the table, shining under the light hanging overhead.
“Wow,” I breathed. “So you really can—wait a minute.” I shook my head. “This could be a scam. How do I know you didn’t just buy a block of gold and cover it with oil and leave it inside there and then pull it out now?”
Czernoff laughed. “Sure. We’d spend thousands of dollars on a gold ingot just to fool a salesman. Or whatever you are.”
I nodded. It was time to get out, with or without any incriminating statements from them. “Okay. Let me go get the laptop—should I bring it back here tonight, or drop it off tomorrow?”
Hobbes and Benson looked at each other. Czernoff started wiping off the second bar.
“Hang on.” Hobbes crouched down next to the safe and started spinning the dial. “I have to show you something.” Benson just watched me.
I tensed. “What?”
“Just a minute.” She turned the handle and pulled the safe open. “Here’s what we’ve got so far.”
A stack of gold bars sat inside the safe—at least 10 or 12.
Next to it sat a handgun.
Oh hell. I jumped back, pulling my jacket open.
Hobbes stood up, lifting the gun in her hand. But I had mine first. I pointed it at Hobbes. Or at least in her general direction. “Don’t!” My voice was shaking. So was the pistol. “Put the gun down, Lisa.”
She stared at me, the handgun firm in her fingers, her eyes steely.
“Look, I’ve only fired this thing on the practice range.” I fumbled with the safety, keeping my finger clear of the trigger like they’d taught me in firearms class. “You really don’t want me practicing on you. Put the gun down, Lisa. Now.”
Hobbes stared at me for a moment. I held my breath, hoping she didn’t decide to dare me. I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid of getting shot myself, or having to shoot her,
Finally she swore, bent over, and dropped her handgun on the floor.
I reached slowly into my pocket for the phone. “Rachel? You there? Did you get all that?”
“Mostly.” Her voice sounded faint. “What are you doing? Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I think so. Call the cops.”
“On it.”
“Wait a minute!” Hobbes lifted a hand. “You’re in this too! You can’t—”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” My eyes flicked between her and Benson. Czernoff watched me, his eyes narrow, one hand over the bar of gold he’d been cleaning. “Is that the gun yopu used to shoot him? I’ve got it recorded, everything you said—”
Hobbes and Benson started yelling at me together, ignoring my handgun. “I never said—you can’t—this isn’t going to hold up—no cop will ever believe—”
I let them argue, trying to breathe slowly and keep the Glock under control.
“The hell with this!” It was Czernoff, his face red. “You people are all idiots!”
Then he lifted a gold brick and hurled it at me.
I dodged, and it flew over my shoulder, clattering on the floor behind me.
Hobbes leaned down, snatching at her handgun. Benson lunged at me. I swore, pointed the barrel of my gun somewhere in between them, and squeezed the trigger.
The handgun roared. Hobbes jumped. Benson stumbled and fell over, but I hadn’t shot him. My bullet hit the metal door of one of the storage cabinets. My wrist hurt, but I managed to keep the gun steady in my hands.
Czernoff was running for the door. He’d grabbed his bag, stuffing one of the fresh gold bars into it as he pushed the door open. “See you later, assholes!”
I had to let him go. I wasn’t going to shoot him, even if I could have hit him. He stumbled through the door and disappeared.
Benson rolled over, clutching his knee and groaning. Hobbes glared at me some more, shaking her head. “You idiot.” She looked back at the open safe, and the gold sitting inside. “All right, take it. Take it and get out of here.”
I admit I was tempted. But the cops were on their way, and I couldn’t exactly hide a dozen gold bars inside my pants. “Let’s just stay here and wait for the police.”
Hobbes snorted. “What are you going to tell them?”
“What else? The truth.”
She rolled her eyes. “You think they’ll believe you?”
“Not my problem.”
The cops were skeptical about the gold process, of course. But they took Hobbes’ gun, and listened to the recording on my phone.
A young cop shook his head. “That’s not admissible. Illinois is a two-party state for recording conversations.”
“Her gun is admissible,” I said, pointing at Hobbes. Handcuffed, she tried to spit at me. “Test it for the bullet that killed Mike Willey.”
“Speaking of guns—” He held out his hand. “Slowly.”
I handed my Glock over. “Can I get a receipt or something? That cost a lot of money.”
He smirked. “Call in the morning.”
They took Benson away on a stretcher. He’d apparently injured his knee when he fell. Hobbes walked slowly, muttering to herself.
They took the gold, too. I hoped none of it got “lost” when it got downtown. At least they let me go.
Back home with Rachel I opened a beer and called Cindy Rusch. She listened to my report, cried a little, and didn’t seem upset that I wasn’t able to get her bar of gold back. “I guess it was too good to be true.” She sighed. “Will they really go to prison?”
“Maybe.” I tried to be honest but optimistic. “If Lisa Hobbes’ gun matches the one that was used to, uh—with your brother, that’ll be positive evidence, and Carl Benson could make a deal to testify against her.” Of course, a scheme to turn lead into gold could be a tough sell to a jury. Maybe they could leave that out somehow.
She thanked me, and we hung up. Rachel leaned against me on the sofa. “So you fired the gun.”
“Yeah. It was loud.” I rubbed my ear.
“And you couldn’t manage to grab a little of the gold before the cops showed up?” She punched my arm.
“Believe me, I thought about it.” I sipped my beer. “Thanks for helping.”
“Anytime it doesn’t interfere with my TV.” We were watching The Flight Attendant. “What happened to Czernoff?”
I shrugged. “He got away. His website’s already down. He can start over again somewhere else, I guess. Hopefully without anyone getting killed this time.”
Rachel nodded and patted my knee. “You okay?”
“Firing a gun is scary.” I drank some more beer. “I hope I don’t have to do it again soon.”
She kissed me. “I’ll protect you.”
I smiled. “I like that.”
# # #
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