Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [38]
Bob stumbled into the study and grabbed some of his books. No, he was right – it wasn’t from the Goetia, or the Key of Solomon, or the Heptameron. But nor was it just a scribble by someone trying to be spooky – it was too well-constructed, the work of someone who knew what they were doing.
Bob laid the symbol down on the kitchen table, carefully.
He didn’t want it near the phone or the computer. He didn’t want to bring it with him, either. He made a quills sketch of it on the back of some printer paper, folded it up, and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. Maybe the Doctor could work it out.
Before he left the house, he dug his Sixth Pentacle of Mars out of a bedroom drawer and slung the talisman around his neck on a leather thong. No sense in taking any chances.
Unfortunately, he’d already taken one. And blown it.
Swan had lived in her station wagon, parked down the street, waiting for Bob to return. She had popped caffeine pills to stay awake, making sure she didn’t miss a moment of the nothing that was happening in the street. She’d read the Washington Post from cover to cover by the time her prey showed up.
Swan waited while Bob went inside. She ate a cold, limp taco without taking her eyes off the house. Finally he emerged, looking nervous, and climbed back into his rent-a-wreck.
Swan followed, keeping well back. Bob never noticed her.
She hoped her little message had rattled his mind.
She spent a few minutes driving around, looking for a parking spot near the hotel. No need to hurry. She strode in through the front doors carrying her suitcase and went to the little florist’s shop.
‘I’d like to send some flowers to one of your guests,’ she said. ‘Robert Salmon.’ The florist gave her a card to sign, and she scribbled, ‘Best wishes for your bar mitzvah. Florence.’
Swan had guessed Bob would sign in under his own name, If he were the sort to have a fake ID or two, she would have known about it. As it turned out, she didn’t have long to sit, in the lobby before a bellhop went past carrying the massive bouquet.
Swan quietly got up and followed the bellhop into the elevator. She watched from the vending machine niche down the hallway as someone answered the door. ‘I’m afraid these aren’t for us,’ said a voice in an English accent.
Swan made her way down into the basement, where she found the bridging box for the whole hotel. A couple of cleaners gave her an odd look, but she just went on as though they weren’t there, and they left her to whatever she was doing.
Which was attaching a DNR to the Doctor and company’s phone line. The Dial Number Recorder would print out every number they called.
Early that evening, the Doctor plucked a fob watch from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘It’s time,’ he said, getting up from the Apple II and stretching. ‘I’ve got to call the Eridani and arrange our delivery.’ Bob, who’d had nothing to do all afternoon except watch the idiot box, eagerly leapt onto the abandoned machine.
Swan watched the Doctor leave, by himself, with a cardboard box tucked under his arm. He never noticed her, sitting at a glass table in the cafe area, downing an extra caffeine pill with her second coffee.
Swan could have followed him. Maybe she could even have got the device off him – I can easily see her as a mugger, vibrating with stimulants and cold anger, wielding one of the Japanese knives I’d seen in her kitchen. But instead, she decided to borrow the power of the law.
Swan went back to the basement and looked at the little roll of tape in the DNR. It had registered a single number.
Swan clipped her linesman’s test set to an outgoing line and called up a C/NA operator. Then she called the police.
The three of us almost walked into Swan as we caked the elevator. We were on our way to dinner. She was just stepping out of the other elevator, on her way back from the basement.