Every Day is Monday (Serial Story) - Part 3 (Patreon)

This took far longer for me to get done because I've been juggling a bunch of things, but continuing the serial, things are heating up for our protagonists.

“Sam, Sam, Sam,” she said shaking her head. The coyote clicked her tongue at my disappointed. “This is all you’ve got on the guy you’re working for? What type of information broker are you?”

“Jonas and I looked, but that’s it,” I said gesturing at the half page of basic information.

She looked it over. “You’ve got no idea if his name really is Mallory and no address. You have no idea who he works for or if he’s independent. All you’ve got is a phone number and some general assumptions.”

“I’ve got his voice recorded. If I can find some good candidates, I might be able to find out who he is.”

“Assuming he’s not using some fancy synthesizer. Really, you two, you couldn’t do better than this?”

We both shook our heads.

“Well, let’s hope he’s not the violent type, because there’s no way I’m going to find him based off of this. If you two wind up dead, you better hope the killer is sloppy. That’s the only way I’ll be able to track the hitman this guy calls on you.”

Jonas chimed in. “We’ve got no indication he would do something like that.”

“The work has been straightforward. Lots of information gathering and public records scouring about the Proxima Fund,” I add. “He’s obviously got either a business relationship with them or is a rival.”

“And where does the money come from?”

“Offshore Swiss bank,” said the rat.

“Figures.” She picks up the piece of paper. “His secretary is Cheryl?”

“Yeah, that’s who the number goes to. Tracing it went nowhere. I put my nose to it, and it looks like they’ve got it carefully set up through a proxy.”

Eva looked at the paper and pulled out her phone and tapped something into it. She frowned at the screen. “Huh, the plot thickens.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Sam, Sam, Sam. You know I love you right?”

“When you threw that vase at my head, I wasn’t thinking that.”

She laughed. “We were getting in the way of each other’s contracts. You were more a by the book dog while I prefer to run it wild. I needed to find my own way.”

“Yeah, well you’re lucky I saved your tail when it came to that mix-up you get into with hacking Eastern Capital.”

“Some information requires extraction, but I admit, I screwed that up. So, forgive me when I say this, but you really screwed yourself over on this Proxima business.” She slid her phone over to me.

I picked it up and looked at the contact information. The phone number I’d been calling was on the screen next to a contact in Eva’s phone. “Cheryl Hinson, CISO, Proximia Fund.” Oh shit.

“Yup. Nice woman. I’ve done some work for her before.”

“The Chief Information Security Officer?” Jonas blinked and held his hand out for the phone. I handed over the phone to him when Cheryl nodded her ascent.

“Then who the hell is Mr. Mallory?” I asked her.

The coyote scratched at the underside of a muzzle. “That’s a damn good question.”

“And why the hell are we doing all this research for them. The CISO should have access to privileged information like this, and could find out a lot more than we could,” said Jonas.

“Also, a damn good question. Sounds like you need to buy some insurance.”

I sighed. “This is going to cost us isn’t it?”

“It should,” she said, “This sounds like it runs deep. I don’t think you have the money to pay for the type of help you are going to need.”

I frowned. “And what’s that?”

She shrugged. “Hard to say, but have you dug yourself a bolt hole?”

Jonas cleared his throat. “We’re not in any type of legal trouble now.”

“You still should have a backup plan,” replied the coyote. “Corporate clients willing to circumvent the law aren’t against using violence to silence people.”

Jonas shook his head. “I can’t see someone ordering a hit over real estate records.”

“Someone had Arthur Burke killed, and they knew that would be big news and it would be investigated. Once you’ve reached that level of desperation, why not take out two more nobodies?”

She had a point. The police would look into the death of Jonas and me if our bodies turned up somewhere, but not like they would look for who killed Arthur Burke. Hell, if they were busy and someone paid them off, our deaths might just be a line or two in the daily police report and nothing more. “I guess your right. Us living out of a cheap hotel down in the 5th Ward isn’t going to be much of a deterrent either.”

Eva shook her head. “Only if you’ve got enough cash on hand to cover it and don’t plan to own a cell phone. You two stay completely off the grid long enough and they might lose interest in finding you. Depends how patient and have much time they’ve got.”

“There’s more to this,” said Jonas. “It’s not just property. Proxima has to be either laundering money or have some other shady business scheme they’re running. They’re a big company, so who knows if one hand knows what the other is doing.”

“And without knowing what they’re doing, there’s no way to know what they might do to us,” I said.

Eva considered for a moment and picked her phone up. “Well, you’ve likely breached their confidence with this conversation. I’m sure Cheryl would be interested in knowing about it.”

I growled. “Eva, no games, please.”

She smiled at me and sat back. “You didn’t offer me anything yet.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to offer you? The shirt off my back? My apartment?”

Jonas looked at the two of us and rolled his eyes. “I thought when you two broke up, the games would stop.”

“Sam is too much of a good boy. I want a cut of the action, of course.” She smiled all fang at me. “This is too good not to be in on.”

God she was insane sometimes. I swear this woman was going to be the death of me. “I’m not paying you just to sit around and tell me what an idiot you think I am. Already been there. Anyway, do you know what types of bills you stuck me with over that mess with Eastern Capital?”

“And like a good dog, you took care of it for me.”

Jonas cleared his throat. “We took care of it for you. Sam wasn’t the only one on this.”

She laughed. “Okay, so I owe you both. I’m game, really. If there’s a big payout from this, I want a cut, but I owe you guys, and I want to get square over the Eastern Capital business.” She looked at me. “You need my help.”

“I know, but we need to handle this carefully.”

She licked her fangs. “Now when was that any fun? Anyway, don’t you want to know what they’re not telling you?”

Network penetration was Eva’s specialty. I’d seen her stay up forty-eight hours trying to break into a bank’s system just to find out the account balance of a client’s rival. She was good, better than Jonas and I about that type of stuff. “I do.”

“Then how about a third of the profits, assuming anything falls in our lap.”

I squinted at her. “Just to help us?”

“You aren’t the only one with debts you know, Sam. Also, that’s if there’s a payout at the end of this.”

“Twenty-five percent, and we let you go over Eastern Capital.”

She wagged her tail. “That’s fair.”

I turned to Jonas. “Does that work for you?”

He nodded. “Sure, but this could get messy. All our necks could be on the line.”

Eva flashed more fang at us both. “And that boys, is why you need me. Now, who do you want me to hack first?”