Secret Master of Fandom and private detective Spade thought he would be spending Christmas Eve alone—until a strange call from Paladin changes his plans. And just when he thinks the evening can’t get any stranger, a huge blast sends his world into chaos, along with that of Paladin and Casper.
And what the trio learn next might prove even more explosive.
“The Really Big Ka-Boom” by USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch is free on this website for one week only. The story’s also available as an ebook on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and from other online retailers.
The Really Big Ka-Boom
A Spade/Paladin Conundrum
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Do you have plans for Christmas?” I asked Paladin, and then flushed. I couldn’t believe my own boldness. I felt like Stalker Spade.
I hadn’t planned on running into Paladin here, at one of the Los Angeles megamalls. In fact, I hadn’t planned on seeing anyone I knew. Everyone I knew in Los Angeles (well, not everyone, but almost everyone) was at a hotel near LAX, celebrating Black Friday the way that sf fans always celebrated Black Friday—at a science fiction convention, with hundreds of their closest friends.
Paladin was an sf fan, but she didn’t make conventions the center of her life. Nor did she make malls the center of her life. I only knew bits and pieces of her life, the bits and pieces she let me know over the short time we’d known each other.
Mostly, what I knew about Paladin was that she rescued people. She took her inspiration (and her business card) from the old Have Gun, Will Travel TV show. She’s a wanderer who digs into whatever crisis she can, usually those involving kids.
I had no idea she was going to be in Los Angeles, let alone at this mall. I had seen her before she had seen me, which was kind of amazing, considering this was one of those big Los Angeles malls that made product placement a god, and people watching difficult. Plus there had to be a thousand people here, most of them in the broad walkway between the shops.
Paladin isn’t very tall—5’4” on a good day—but she has a distinctive look. She’s thin and elfin, with upswept ears that end in a point. A man who is not involved with a woman should never have a favorite part on that woman’s body, but I do have a favorite when it comes to Paladin. Those ears sold me the moment I first saw her. They were real, unlike most pointed ears you see at science fiction conventions, and they fit her puckish face.
I’ve seen a lot of fake pointed ears. I spend my life at science fiction conventions—literally. I am a Secret Master of Fandom, which sounds grand, but actually means I’m one of a group of people who make sure that science fiction conventions all over the world go off without a hitch. Fans call us SMoFs (pronounced “smoff”) for short, and only those fans who truly pay attention know who we are.
“Christmas?” Paladin said drily, as if she couldn’t believe I’d said that. “I’m working.”
Her sarcasm carried over some Bing Crosby wannabe’s hideous version of “White Christmas.” I resisted the urge to close my eyes and smack myself in the forehead with the heel of my hand.
I had been thinking of Christmas—who didn’t in this environment?—and then I saw Paladin. I’d been talking to other fen (that’s the real plural of “fan” in the sf world), and we’d been trying to figure out who was coming to Chinese Food Con.
Chinese Food Con wasn’t a real convention, but it was what we called our annual holiday celebration. Actually, we had two celebrations. Chinese Food Con was for those fen who didn’t celebrate Christmas. Started by Jewish fans decades ago back when the only restaurants open on Christmas Day were Chinese, Chinese Food Con lasted five whole hours and usually ended at the screening of some major holiday movie at a designated multiplex. After a while, we even started moving Chinese Food Con from town to town, picking the best or the most accommodating Chinese Restaurant in the area.
Chinese Food Con was one of my favorite traditions. I hadn’t missed in years.
I often missed the second holiday tradition: Regifting Day. The fen had been doing that long before regifting even became part of the lexicon. Usually held around New Year’s, again in a designated city, Regifting Day had strict rules. The regifted item couldn’t be cool. It had to be the worst gift you got that year.
Since I didn’t get many gifts (some years I didn’t get any), I had no reason to attend Regifting Day, even though I had heard it was fun.
So when I saw Paladin, heard the Christmas music, saw all the red-and-green and exhausted crowds, I asked her what I’d been asking everyone I liked at the convention. Want to join me for Christmas? sounded so normal when asked of casual friends at an sf con.
It sounded creepy and vaguely weird in the middle of Black Friday celebrations at one of the biggest malls in the country.
“I know,” I said, “I figured you were working. I wasn’t inviting you to my house or anything. It’s just we have a tradition in fandom for Christmas Day and I wasn’t sure if you knew about it, and—”
“I’m working,” she said again, with unusual emphasis, and I nodded like the doofus I was.
Of course she was working on Christmas. I’d never known Paladin to do anything except work.
Not that I was one to talk. I wasn’t at this mall for a Black Friday reason. I was here for a convention reason.
A phalanx of Klingons who had come here to scare the civilians had left behind a small troop who had started playing some light saber game in the center of the mall. Yes, yes, I know the irony of Klingons playing a Star Wars game, but most mundanes don’t, and they crowded around as if they were watching the second coming of the Enterprise.
One of the Klingon leaders had to be on a panel at four, so he rounded up the bulk of the team and left. When they got back to the hotel near LAX, they sent me into deepest darkest Los Angeles to save the rest of their people from the mundanes.
“Well,” I said, sounding even dumber than I usually did around Paladin, “in case your job cancels or something, we have this fannish tradition from the deepest darkest days of prehistory. It’s—”
“Where’s Chinese Food Con being held this year?” she asked as she peered around me.
My entire face was on fire. I didn’t know how I could screw this conversation up more.
“Um, Oregon. Portland. There’s this great restaurant near the tram that someone found at last year’s Orycon, and we decided that it would be spectacular for this year’s—”
“Fine, good,” she said, and then she pushed past me.
I turned, just to say something else, like maybe goodbye or I’m sorry or something profound (in my dreams), but all I managed to see was Paladin’s back as she slipped into the crowd. She looked like one of those heroines from the cover of an urban fantasy novel, all boots, muscle-shirt, and leather. She just needed a broadsword over her shoulder to complete the image.
The crowd swallowed her, and I was left alone with my terminal embarrassment.
At that moment, a Klingon clapped his steel-gloved hand on my shoulder and said, “Kapla!”
I was so startled, I almost stammered, And may the Force be with you too! but I managed to avoid that faux pas. Still, I didn’t feel like answering in Klingon.
“You guys ready to go home?” I asked, and as he nodded, I realized that I didn’t even have to apologize for the word “home.” We both knew what I meant, and we both knew the truth of the word.
For us, an sf convention truly was home.
***
I didn’t see or hear from Paladin again, and I figured she’d forgotten our encounter. Actually, I hoped she had forgotten that encounter. I wished I could.
I went to SMoFcon the following weekend, and presented two panels on accounting for sf conventions. Most people don’t realize that conventions are multi-million-dollar enterprises, and must be handled the way that large businesses are handled. That’s the reason I get called into most conventions; someone has messed up the books (again), and I have to fix everything.
After SMoFcon, December slows to nothing, which is why non-religious fen who consider conventions their home feel a bit lost at this time of year.
I do. I retreat to my house in Seattle, do the obligatory maintenance, sort through everything I bought at the various conventions through the year, make sure my own accounts are in order, and try to go out at least once a day.
I don’t work. I’m what’s called in Northwest parlance, a Microsoft Millionaire—one of the early Microsoft employees who got paid in stock options as well as ready cash. Mine vested back when Microsoft was the biggest company in the world, and I made millions. Unfortunately, most of my Microsoft Millionaire colleagues handled money the way that brand new sf conventions do, and those folks aren’t millionaires any longer.
I know how to handle my funds, and even after all the economic ups and downs of the past few years, I’ve still quadrupled my original take. I probably would have made even more, except for the holiday season. I believe in the charitable giving thing; I know a lot of folks who are struggling, and they get a visit from a Secret Computer Santa who pays off their house or their credit cards or their one and only car. There’s usually a tree and wrapped packages involved too.
It still means I spend the bulk of the holidays alone.
I have a personal tradition: I show up for Chinese Food Con about a week before (depending on frequent flyer blackout periods), and explore the city. Every city has different traditions for Christmas, and each one is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Even though I live close to Portland, I’d never been there over Christmas. I stayed downtown—not in one of the trendy boutique hotels, because I’m not a trendy guy—but in one of the high-end chains that had been downtown forever. I’ve stayed in so many hotels that I’m more at home in them than I am in my house, and I expected things—24-hour room service, enough TV channels to keep me entertained, a functioning bar, and access to a concierge who doesn’t look down his nose at a 350-lb man in an X-Men T-shirt.
On December 23rd, I went down to the bar for some hot wings and a microbrew. I had gone to local concerts on all of the previous evenings, but there were none tonight—or at least, none I wanted to attend, since most were in churches.
I was thinking of dinner and a movie. I had my iPad out to see which films were showing, and try to figure out which the Chinese Food Con folks wouldn’t want to attend. That ruled out all the sf movies, of course, and left me with the hopeful (and possibly dull) Oscar contenders. I had just stooped to reading reviews when my phone rang.
“Where the hell are you staying?”
It was Paladin, and she sounded grouchy. I actually pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen. Yep, the screen image was a photo I’d taken of Paladin the summer before when she was sitting cross-legged in my gigantic con chair, looking both impish and Buddha-like.
I put the phone back to my ear. “Um, why?”
“I figured you’d be at the Other Hotel, like you usually are, but it’s gone. I mean, gone.”
The Other Hotel was a joke from Portland’s best convention, Orycon. Back in the day, the convention was held in a Red Lion hotel near the Columbia River. Across the parking lot (literally) was another Red Lion. People always came in and asked for something, only to be told it was in the other hotel. When Portland hosted Westercon in both hotels, the con committee actually made T-shirts that read, It’s in the Other Hotel.
Since Orycon’s standing committee was so very competent, I never had to work the convention, so I would go to relax and I would stay in…you guessed it…the Other Hotel.
“The Other Hotel’s still there,” I said. “It was the old Orycon hotel that burned. And I didn’t know you when I stayed in the Other Hotel. Did I?”
I felt awkward. Orycon had left the complex more than a decade before. How could I have missed Paladin?
“So where are you?” she asked, completely ignoring my question, which made me nervous all over again. She had sought me out for our very first case together, which I call “The Case of the Vanishing Boy,” although she doesn’t like the fact that I name cases. Had she been watching me long before that? If so, why?
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m at the Other Hotel, I guess,” she said. “Why won’t you tell me where you are? I thought you always came to Chinese Food Con early.”
I frowned. Had she been spying on me? I knew I hadn’t told her about Chinese Food Con before.
“I’m downtown.” I told her the name of my hotel. “What’s going on, Paladin? Is something—”
And at that moment, my phone beeped at me, like it did when a call got severed.
I set it down and stared at the screen. Paladin had come here? After our discussion in Los Angeles, I had thought she wouldn’t show up at all. She hadn’t said anything. She never contacted me, and I didn’t see her at Loscon (or SMoFcon for that matter). Plus, she was two days early.
I pushed aside the microbrew—I needed all of my wits about me—and ordered a Diet Coke. (No jokes, please. I happen to prefer the taste.) I ate the hot wings and wiped off my fingers. By the time I had popped in a Listerine strip to help with my breath, Paladin came through the hotel’s main door.
And she wasn’t alone. Beside her was her younger doppelganger, Casper. Casper was thirteen going on fifty. She wasn’t related to Paladin at all. Casper’s parents had abandoned her in the middle of the recession, and she’d ended up at a shelter. Paladin met her there, and then introduced her to me.
Casper might look like Paladin, but she had math and computer skills that made me seem like a slacker. She helped Paladin solve a case back in October, and Paladin convinced me to sponsor Casper at a private school for the totally brilliant. I paid her tuition, yes, but I also vouched for her, and that meant I got weekly reports.
They were stellar.
Still, I hadn’t invited Casper to join me over the holidays. I have to be careful to avoid the creepy unrelated sick-o uncle thing with a preteen girl. Not that I have designs on anyone under thirty, but I don’t want the perception to hurt either of us.
“Hey,” I said to both of them as I met them near the door.
Casper, who was wearing a parka despite Portland’s forty-degree temperatures, looked around. “This is where you spend Christmas?”
It did have upscale, somewhat inoffensive decorations, and Christmas music by actual musicians, but it didn’t seem very homey.
“This is my first Christmas in this hotel,” I told her.
“Expensive taste.” Paladin made a face as she headed to the reception desk. She was wearing a winter version of her usual outfit—tight black jeans and layers. Ever larger long-sleeved T-shirts covered each other. I could see a hint of a tank top underneath it all. She didn’t wear a jacket, but at least her black boots were practical.
She pulled a wallet out of her back pocket as she leaned against the reception desk. By the time I got to her side, she was tapping a credit card on the desk. I couldn’t see the name on the card. I knew it couldn’t be Paladin, but I didn’t know what her real name was.
No one did—at least in my circles.
“Let me get this,” I said. “My treat.”
She glared at me. “I didn’t come here so you could pay.”
“I know,” I said, and I was tempted to let her pay for the entire thing, just so that I could see what her real name was.
“I was going to find you after we checked in. But I was having a hell of a time.” She still tapped that card, even though I had my black American Express card clutched in my pudgy fist.
She peered over the desk. So far, no one had shown up to check her in.
“In fact,” she said, “the Other Hotel wasn’t even my first choice. I went to the Beaver Motor Lodge, but left after fifteen minutes because no one waited on me.”
She said that last bit louder than she said the rest of it. I grinned. I wonder what she had done to try to get someone’s attention at the Beaver Motor Lodge. Paladin called herself a bulldozer, and had, in fact, hired me in the past for my ability to finesse things.
She was in impatient bulldozer mode here, and I’d have to shut her down soon, but bulldozer mode might not have seemed out of place at the Beaver Motor Lodge.
The Beaver Motor Lodge wasn’t really a motor lodge. It was a funky hotel in one of the areas of Portland waiting for urban renewal. The “beaver” part wasn’t because of what you might think either. The beaver is Oregon’s state animal, and the name of the sports teams from Oregon State University—something I always thought of as bad planning, especially for the girls’ teams called (no, I’m not making this up) the Lady Beavers.
The Beaver Motor Lodge had been the site of one of Portland’s latest conventions, an anime/gaming/urban fantasy hybrid called MotoLoCon. MotoLoCon (short for Motor Lodge Con) died an ignominious death when the treasurer of MotoLoCon 2 ran off on the con’s first night with all of the funds. I investigated that one, found the stupid embezzler who had run all the way to Vancouver, Washington (across the bridge from Portland), and who had gone on a shopping spree at a rather downscale mall.
She was serving time, and the entire concom was not going to work conventions ever again.
I always liked Beaver Motor Lodge and thought it had potential to be one of Portland’s great boutique hotels, even if it wasn’t set up to be a convention hotel.
“She kept telling me how cool it was,” Casper said, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her parka. Her jeans were ripped and her tennis shoes had a hole in the top. Looked like new clothes were on the agenda for this trip, whether she knew it or not.
“You don’t think so?” I asked.
“Dead moose heads in the lobby? Are you kidding me? Ugh. And that stuffed bear was just gross.”
I grinned at Paladin, but she didn’t notice. She was peering over the desk again. No one was waiting on her here either.
“I’m never going to get a room anywhere, am I?” she said.
I hit the bell, and a man dressed in a shiny black suit appeared as if he’d been summoned by demons. The only thing that spoiled his wealthy look was the name tag on the lapel.
“These two need a two-bedroom suite,” I said.
“We do not,” Casper said as Paladin said, “Spade, no.”
“And put it on my bill,” I said before turning to them. “It’s the holidays and you should be comfortable. My treat.”
“I don’t want a treat,” Paladin said.
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
“Spade,” she said, not letting it go. “I—”
“Say ‘thank you,’ Paladin,” I said.
She pursed her lips. “Thank you,” she said clearly reluctant.
“You were supposed to say, ‘Thank you, Paladin,’” Casper said, doing a perfect Gracie Allen. I had no idea how a kid like her even knew who Gracie Allen was, considering George Burns’ wife had died in 1964.
Paladin glared at her, and I was instantly grateful they would have the privacy of their own bedrooms. Paladin didn’t strike me as someone who shared her personal space well.
“She was promising me dinner at some diner near that creepy motor lodge,” Casper said. “Said it had the best hot turkey sandwiches on the planet. Then we didn’t stop. I suppose this place doesn’t have hot turkey sandwiches either.”
Clearly she was in the mood for them. And now that she mentioned it, so was I.
I smiled. “I remember that diner. It’s fantastic. And it’s not very far from here, if you don’t detour to Jantzen Beach where the Other Hotel is.”
“Really?” Casper said.
“Really,” I said. “Let’s just get you guys settled in.”
***
It didn’t take long. They didn’t have much luggage. I was beginning to think Casper didn’t have much of anything. Paladin wouldn’t think of buying Casper clothes—Paladin was not a girl-girl—and the money I sent for expenses probably went to books and gadgets instead of necessities because Casper wasn’t a girl-girl either.
I didn’t want to ride in whatever vehicle Paladin had rented, so we took my Lexus SUV across the Hawthorne Bridge to the east side of town.
Fortunately the diner was open, which was more than I could say for the Beaver Motor Lodge. No cars parked in its lot, even though lights were on in most of the rooms.
The Lodge resembled a hunting lodge crossed with a motor lodge. Rooms spread out like spider legs across the parking lot, but the bulk of the lodge went up four stories in a rickety wood building that looked like a sneeze could knock it over.
No one had even bothered to put up Christmas decorations. Apparently the Beaver Motor Lodge was on its last legs. Too bad. I had enjoyed the place when I stayed there.
The diner, on the other hand, thrived. We didn’t have to wait in line, but only because the place was huge. A waitress in a 1960s brown uniform and matching beehive hairdo grabbed three gigantic menus and led us to a table near the window.
Christmas music was playing here too, but era-appropriate: Elvis singing about his ba-ba-ba-blue Christmas and the Safaris (I think) doing a surfer rendition of “Jingle Bells.” The decorations that the Beaver Motor Lodge lacked were out in force here, from plastic lights nestled against real evergreen along the frosted windows to little Santa suits on the ketchup bottles. If you were not in the spirit of the season, you did not belong here.
I think Paladin was the only one who glanced at the menu. Casper and I wanted hot turkey sandwiches, and we ordered them, along with corn bread and soup and a bunch of other stuff neither of us would probably eat. Paladin finally decided on a cheeseburger.
We had just gotten our drinks when the world went black and white and whump! all at the same time. I got blown sideways out of the booth, landing on a vibrating floor.
Sound hit me next—a ka-boom like I’d never heard before. (And in my stunned mind, I kept hearing Marvin the Martian repeat in his little alien voice, A really big ka-boom!) It was a really big ka-boom, followed by another really big ka-boom, and yet another.
Sleet landed on me, at least, I thought it was sleet until a piece landed just in front of my nose.
Broken glass.
Heat rolled over me, which I thought was very weird, and then a hand grabbed my arm, pulling me away.
I looked up.
Paladin, her face covered in blood, elfin eyes big, saying, “Jesus, Spade, I don’t want to drag you and Casper. Help me here.”
She had Casper by her arm. Casper looked dazed, but not out. She was getting to her feet.
I almost said, with the impeccable logic of a man in shock, that Paladin wouldn’t have to drag both of us, and then I realized that Paladin couldn’t drag me any more than she could stop a moving train. I mentally imbued her with supernatural powers because she was the most fascinating person I had ever met, but that didn’t mean she actually had those superpowers.
Somehow I got to my feet, terrifyingly unalarmed by placing my hands on glass shards to boost myself up, or the fact that the booth wasn’t anywhere in sight, or the way that the blood was dripping off Paladin’s lovely skin.
In addition to Marvin’s really big ka-boom voice, another voice in my head calmly and rationally reminded me that shock had its virtues but a realistic assessment of the danger around a person was often not one of them. Yet a third voice told me that it was winter, and heat shouldn’t roll in the window.
I listened to that third voice, put my arm around Casper to move her forward, and let Paladin tug us both to the back part of the diner. As we moved, so did other people. They were screaming or crying or searching through debris.
Paladin was telling them all to get out, get out, and asking for cell phones so that someone would call for help. But she kept moving all the same, and we got to the back of the building—which was intact. I wanted to stay there, but Paladin made us file through the door leading to the alley—not just me and Casper, but all the people huddled there.
“Stay away from the building. It’s not stable. And wait for me,” she said before running back inside.
I thought—stupidly, but all of my thoughts in that crisis were stupid—that I had finally met someone who would run into a burning building, and it didn’t surprise me that that person was Paladin.
“She gonna be okay?” Casper asked, holding me so tight it would have hurt if I could have felt any pain.
The fear in Casper’s voice caught my loopy brain and somehow focused it. I held her close. This poor kid had lost everything the past year, and had somehow stayed strong, and now she was going through this. If she lost Paladin too, she might break.
So I did the cowardly thing: I spoke with extreme confidence as I lied.
“Of course, she’ll be okay,” I said. “She’s Paladin after all.”
***
And she was a paladin that night, one of the foremost warriors in the world. She battled heat and smoke and fires, broken tables, and collapsed ceilings to get at least fifty people out of that building. I did what she told me to do: I moved everyone away from any walls that could fall, and kept a tight hold on Casper who was using the new iPhone I sent her three days before it got released to repeatedly call 911 and yell at them for not sending anyone.
She sounded so outraged and so strong that I didn’t want to inform her that someone was on the way: we were just in time dilation, as they would say in Star Trek. Everything was happening in slow motion, at least to us. Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours. We probably were outside without help for fifteen minutes maximum, but it seemed like days.
And through all of those days, Paladin kept bringing injured people out, and going back in for more.
Her layered shirts were ripped down to the tank, her jeans were in tatters, and the blood on her face had turned black. Or maybe it was just covered with so much smoke and dirt from the flames that it looked black.
She didn’t stop even after the fire trucks arrived, and she didn’t curse them the way that the crowd did, when they went across the street.
That was the first time I looked up, and saw what was really going on.
The Beaver Motor Lodge was gone, from its four-story center to the tentacles spreading across the parking lot. The buildings on either side—and by that, I mean across the street, like the diner on the north side, and something else (a strip club?) on the south side, had collapsed as well, and they were burning.
Fire truck after fire truck after fire truck arrived: I had no idea that Portland had that many fire trucks. As ever more arrived, I began wondering if any city had that many trucks and if I was seeing double (or triple or quadruple).
Paramedics had moved a lot of the people Paladin saved, sorting them as if they were damaged collectibles and someone had to grade them: Fair, Very Fair, Good. The folks in Mint condition stood to one side, and those who were judged Poor had already been stuffed into ambulances and driven to nearby hospitals.
Someone grabbed my arm, but I shook him off. I didn’t want to be graded or placed in line. But the arm-grabber was persistent.
“We need to check you out, sir,” he said softly (or maybe it wasn’t soft; I was beginning to think my hearing was damaged), “and your little girl too.”
It was the thought of Casper that moved me to the ambulance, and let them poke and prod me. I figured if I let them poke me, they could poke Casper too. All she kept doing was asking after Paladin, but no one knew who Paladin was.
Finally, I said, “The little woman who keeps carrying people out of the restaurant.”
“Oh, her,” the paramedic said. “No one can stop her.”
I nodded. That about summed her up.
Casper was okay except for some cuts and bruises (Very Fine), but they wanted me to go to the hospital to treat me for shock. They also wanted to make sure I hadn’t damaged anything else, which I finally realized was code for he’s fat and out of shape; he might have heart issues.
I made them wait until they could stuff Paladin in an ambulance too. She didn’t go willingly. I finally told her that I needed her to come with me, and then she sat quietly at my side, letting the paramedic check her blood pressure along with mine, search her skin for burns (miraculously there were none), and make her promise she’d get all her cuts stitched up.
The paramedic wiped off her face to find the cuts, and that was when we all realized that she was covered in ketchup. Her face was surprisingly unhurt, even though she had cuts elsewhere, especially on her hands.
“You guys sure know how to throw a Christmas party,” Casper said as they wheeled me into the ER.
Paladin smiled at her and said, “We like to start our holidays with a bang.”
***
I was okay. Well, as okay as an obese man who never left his favorite chair could get after he’d been flung across a room by the force of a blast that the news called (with hyperbole, of course) the equivalent of a five-megaton explosion.
Whatever that explosion had been, it had been dramatic, and by the time the hospital set me free (hanging onto me longer than expected, mostly to keep Paladin there so the docs could check her for all kinds of possible damage), it was nearly nine. We hadn’t gotten our roast turkey sandwiches, and I don’t think any of us were interested.
We went with the old standby. Pizza, delivered to Casper and Paladin’s suite. Because I wanted to rebel against all of those nasty medical assumptions, I made sure at least one pie was a five-meat combo with extra cheese.
The suite was lovely and so not-sf conventiony. Lots of high-end furniture, real flowers, and bowls of fruit everywhere. Complimentary Champagne “for the lady” and an entire assortment of chocolates “for the young lady.” Plus free big snuggly robes that Casper immediately crawled into. She looked as lost in hers as she had in her parka. But at least she was grinning.
I made the mistake of telling them about my Marvin the Martian moment, and Casper subsided into a sea of giggles, stopping only to imitate Marvin herself, and mutter, “A really big ka-boom.”
It did sound funny when she said it.
The local news featured the explosion, sending clueless reporters to the scene. The reporters had to stand blocks away with the still-burning fire as a backdrop. By the last newscast, someone had gotten their hands on cell phone footage of the actual explosion, and it was impressive.
Even our giggler fell silent. Paladin and I glanced at each other, clearly astonished that we had survived it.
I wanted to tell her how impressed I was with her actions, but every time I tried, she shut me down.
“You’d’ve done the same if you hadn’t fallen so hard,” she said, but we both knew it wasn’t true. Give me a computer screen filled with numbers and I can tell you if they’re legitimate or not. Give me a burning restaurant filled with people, and my mind conjured Marvin the Martian who, even in a cartoon emergency, wasn’t the most efficient of characters.
“How come you guys aren’t out there solving this?” Casper asked.
I looked at my bruised self, so big it didn’t fit into the complimentary robe. I wore a loose sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants that I usually used for relaxing around my hotel room when I was alone. I didn’t look like a man who could solve anything.
And Paladin’s hands were wrapped in gauze, because the doctors didn’t want her stitches to get infected.
But Casper was frowning at us. I was going to ask if she noticed that we weren’t really up to snuff, but Paladin—the bulldozer—spoke first.
“Arson investigation is very specialized,” she said with a calmness that surprised me. “I don’t have the expertise, and I don’t think Spade does either.”
“What makes you think this is arson?” Casper asked.
Good question. I wished I had thought of it myself. My brain was still sluggish from the day’s events.
Casper glanced at the TV as Paladin glanced at me. She had a help-me-with-this look.
“I mean,” Casper said, “they’re saying it was a gas leak.”
Paladin frowned. Apparently she wasn’t thinking clearly either, or she would have answered a bit less directly.
“Remember that video of the explosion?” she asked.
I frowned, and wished the TV in the room came with a DVR. Then we could have rewound the footage.
“The explosion went through the building, and out through all of the rooms equally. If it had been a gas leak, the explosion would have been uneven, particularly in the rooms in the parking lot. They were too far away for anything but collateral damage, not for the original explosion.”
Paladin used her hands as she explained this. She didn’t seem like she was in pain at all. I felt like I’d been hit by a two-by-four (or maybe several two-by-fours), but she seemed physically unaffected.
“It sounds like you do know arson investigation,” Casper said.
“I know logic,” Paladin said.
“So you think someone set this,” Casper said.
“I think someone facilitated the explosion,” Paladin said. “Proving it will be hard.”
Casper frowned, then she looked at me. “We should be pretty mad about this, shouldn’t we?”
Bruises, no turkey dinner, the loss of the diner. Maybe we should have been mad. But no one died in the diner or in the buildings near the Beaver Motor Lodge, even though it would take some time to say for certain if anyone died in the motor lodge itself.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It seems to me that we’re pretty lucky, all things considered.”
“Maybe.” Casper sounded like she was getting wound up. “But you know, Paladin and I were there for like hours. What if we hadn’t given up? What if we got there later? Their front door was unlocked, the lights were on, and we were just waiting for someone to check us in. And no one did. And Paladin got annoyed so we left. But what if we didn’t? We could’ve died.”
I glanced at Paladin, who had actually paled. She hadn’t thought of that.
“I didn’t smell rotten eggs,” she said to me. All natural gas companies tinged their product with the stench of rotten eggs, so that you knew you had a gas leak in your furnace the moment it happened, not when—you know—the entire thing blew up.
“That’s something we need to tell the arson investigators,” I said. “But it can wait until tomorrow.”
I was exhausted. Casper had deep circles under her eyes. But she seemed to have a lot of energy.
“I know you can’t investigate the crime scene,” she said to me, “but I watch TV and I read a lot, and isn’t arson always about insurance money?”
“No,” Paladin said. “Sometimes it’s about revenge or sheer—”
I gave her a look that shut her down. Casper didn’t need to know about the kind of people who would burn up someone they hated simply for the pleasure of it.
“What are you saying, Casper?” I asked.
“I’m saying you know how to use computers and you are this financial wizard, and couldn’t you find this stuff faster than the police?”
I took the last piece of the five-meat pizza. I think Casper had one slice. The rest had been all mine.
I tended to eat when I was nervous. I didn’t remember inhaling that pizza. I must’ve been beyond nervous.
“I could,” I said, “but anything I found wouldn’t be legitimate. If this is arson, they’re going to want to follow an evidence trail that leads them in the right direction. And the right direction is one that holds up in court.”
“But they won’t even know where to look,” Casper said.
Something in her tone made me set the piece of pizza down. “And you do?” I asked.
“Well, der,” she said, as if I were the dumbest person on the planet. “I mean, how coincidental is it that every hotel in Portland that holds an sf convention has burned down this year?”
“Not every hotel that holds an sf convention has burned,” Paladin said, in what I’m sure she thought was a soothing tone.
But I frowned. People got ideas from other people. And the initial news reports about the old Orycon hotel fire mentioned arson. People linked to those old news reports on Facebook and fan sites as they discussed what great memories they’d had at Orycon back when the con was held in those hotels.
I know, because I wrote some of those posts. We talked about the great centrally located restaurant and how a disabled friend convinced the hotel to put in elevators to its function space and how the filking never managed to bleed into the dealer’s room despite the proximity of the space. We talked about a lot of things, but mostly how sad it was that the hotel had devolved from a beloved space to a place where transients lived and fires happened, maybe for the money.
“Crap,” I said.
“What?” Paladin asked.
It felt like my brain had returned. “Casper’s right,” I said. “This is a connection the police might never make.”
“What connection?” Paladin asked.
My brain had returned. It was moving faster than other people’s on money matters, just like it always did.
“The convention connection,” I said, “and the ties Beaver Motor Lodge had to the guys running MotoLoCon.”
I knew about it because I had offered to help with the books, and no one let me. The MotoLoCon people assured me they were getting a fantastic deal because one of the concom’s cousins owned the lodge.
The fannish connection was slight, but it existed. And people in fandom were bright, endlessly inventive, and sometimes a bit too invested in their own abilities.
Such as their ability to remain undetected.
“I need my computer,” I said as I stood up. I was a bit wobbly, but I wouldn’t let myself catch the side of the couch to show weakness.
“What can we do?” Paladin asked.
“Nothing yet,” I said. “Let’s just see if I have reason to be suspicious.”
Then I went back to my room, and got to work.
***
About two hours in, someone—Paladin, probably—called room service and got me Red Bull, coffee, Diet Coke, and all kinds of weird looking appetizers. The room service waiter showed up expecting a party, I guess, and seemed stunned when he realized I was alone.
I didn’t really care. I did remember to tip him, and then I went back to my computer system.
I hadn’t brought my tower of terror—I only used that at conventions—but I did have two different laptops, both the latest from their various manufacturers. I also had some software I designed that made it a lot easier to investigate someone’s finances.
I didn’t have a court’s permission to dig into the finances of the Beaver Motor Lodge, but I didn’t need one at first. I went all the way back to the material that one of the Oregon SMoFs had provided me about MotoLoCon.
The SMoF wanted to know if the various Oregon science fiction societies would be liable for any of MotoLoCon’s debts, since MotoLoCon was using all the sf societies’ good name and stellar reputation to get help with its financing.
I remembered that as a dicey case, with lots of potential problems. I scanned everything to remind myself, and then saw my e-mail back to the SMoF.
This is something we worry about if and when MotoLoCon goes belly up. If someone blames your organization, I’ll be right there to prove you had nothing to do with the convention.
I had a lot of good, legal information right in front of me, and I had a reason—besides a growing need to punish someone for nearly killing Paladin and Casper—for digging through all the records.
I dug a little further, and then I turned on the news. The local early morning shows mentioned arson in connection with the Beaver Motor Lodge’s demise.
That was all I needed. I picked up the phone and called an old fannish friend who had gotten transferred to Portland’s FBI Bureau. He greased a few wheels for me, so that I could talk to the right investigator.
I called him—a guy by the name of Ernie Reston—and he asked to see me right away.
Apparently the FBI connection—and my impressive forensic accounting résumé—caught his attention.
***
I knew better than to show up in my usual outfit of T-shirt and jeans, but I considered it, just to emphasize my fannish cred. Instead, I hauled out my suit. I traveled with it everywhere and wore it only when I was being official.
Portland’s Central Police Bureau was downtown, not too far from my hotel. I would’ve walked, but my bruises from the night before had turned into aches so profound I felt empathy with Oz’s Tinman. I definitely needed oil in my joints. Or something. I felt bigger and achier than usual.
The Bureau was in a large stone building that also housed the Justice Department. It was impressive; I had to walk farther than I wanted to in order to get to the press room, which was where Reston wanted to meet me. I was just happy we didn’t meet in an interview room; that always indicated something was about to go south.
I found a table and was just setting up when Reston came in. He was a dumpy guy whose suit fit worse than mine did. His face had streaks of soot, and he smelled like smoke. He looked so exhausted that I began to regret thinking I was tired at all.
We didn’t even exchange pleasantries. Instead, I explained how I’d been asked to investigate a science fiction convention a few years ago, and what I had found.
It wasn’t a lot—just enough to bend the rules in a way that would’ve made me hire a different group to run the convention—but in light of the fire, it looked truly suspicious.
Because MotoLoCon never made money, even though it had minimal expenses and “free” hotel access due to the cousin. The “free” access turned out to be less than free; most of the money from MotoLoCon 1 went to taxes, fees, and “additional expenses” provided by the Beaver Motor Lodge. Tens of thousands of dollars worth.
“Ballpark it for me,” Reston said. “I’ve been inhaling smoke all night and I’ve been thinking about burn patterns, not financial patterns.”
“Let me state that I don’t have information showing what Beaver Motor Lodge did with its money,” I said, “but I can tell you some of the taxes charged don’t exist, which makes what I have here something the Feds are going to want to see.”
“No kidding,” Reston said.
“The rest of it tells me that MotoLoCon was set up to make money for the people involved, even though the corporation running the thing had filed for nonprofit status. That means the organizers could pay each other a small wage, but they weren’t entitled to any profits from the convention. So they just funneled the money to the motel instead.”
“And this is tied to the investigation how?” He rubbed his face, covering it with more soot as he did so.
I explained Casper’s idea about the two convention hotels. Then I reminded him that criminals often took inspiration from each other to design a scam.
“Plus,” I said, “I think this one little convention alone shows a pattern of financial irregularity, and a willingness to bend the rules for financial gain. With your permission, I can look into the motel’s finances. Or you guys can just check to see what kind of insurance policy the place had.”
“Already did,” he said. “It’s large, considering what a dive that was, but that doesn’t mean anything if we can’t prove arson.”
I smiled at him. “I have some friends whom you might want to talk to,” I said. “They spoke to the police at the scene, but they were at the motel a few hours before it blew. They didn’t smell anything, and you’d think, with a gas leak that big, they would have.”
His eyes narrowed. Then he nodded. “I would like to talk to your friends as soon as I can.”
***
I took him to see Casper and Paladin at the hotel. I figured they would have more credibility in that setting than in a police setting. But I didn’t have to worry. Reston had already heard of the heroic Paladin, and how she had saved countless lives.
For a few minutes, I thought she’d flee the room. Paladin doesn’t do compliments well. But he saw her face, and quit. Then he listened to their story about the Beaver Motor Lodge’s reception area.
And then Paladin, without any help from me, found that cell phone footage on the news station’s website, and showed him how the explosion looked suspicious to her.
He eyed her sideways, then smiled for the first time since I met him.
“Yeah,” he said, as if he were talking with an equal. “The rooms off the parking lot all had space heaters—filled with oil. And not the kind the manufacturer usually provides. Plus adjoining doors between all the rooms were, somehow, left open.”
“I knew it,” Casper said, turning toward me. I put a hand on her arm. Too much enthusiasm at the moment was unseemly, particularly in light of all the injuries and damage. “We’ll have to testify, won’t we?”
He gave her a soft smile. I hadn’t known a man like that was capable of such warmth, particularly considering all he’d been through.
“It depends,” he said. “I’m hoping the bastards are going to realize how hopeless this all is, and take a plea.”
***
They did take a plea. But that was months and lots of attorney’s fees away. Plus fees for me, because the Portland Police Bureau decided that I could continue my investigation. As expensive as I am, the Bureau didn’t mind. The insurance company footed the bill. They figured it was cheaper than paying out.
It was.
But that was all in the future.
After Reston left, we decided to go out in search of hot turkey sandwiches. He recommended a few places and Paladin volunteered that any restaurant recommended by a cop had to be good.
She was right.
I had changed back, deciding on a nice holiday T-shirt, featuring Santa giving Chewbacca a boatload of gifts. Most of my other Christmas T-shirts had a lot to do with rather gruesome Santa death scenes or very obscene reindeer games. After the 24 hours we’d had, neither seemed appropriate.
In fact, the 24 hours inspired me to be a bit more forthcoming than usual. After we got our sandwiches, but before we dug in, I said to Paladin, “I was a little surprised that you showed up for tomorrow’s Chinese Food Con.”
She frowned at me. “You invited me.”
I felt that flush return. “I did. But you said you were working.”
She stared at me like I was a total idiot, and then she started to laugh.
“Spade,” she said. “I was working. That day. In the mall. And you were screwing up my op.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Wow,” Casper said. “You guys give a whole new meaning to socially challenged.”
Paladin glared at her, but I laughed. Casper had a wicked talent for the truth.
“No matter what,” I said, “I’m happy you both came.”
Paladin’s expression softened. “Merry Christmas, Spade.”
Casper lifted her water glass and said in a perfect movie Tiny Tim accent, “And God bless us, every one.”
Copyright © 2015 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January/February, 2015
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2015 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Lonely11/Dreamstime
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.