Need a Tow?
Rodney leaned back in his chair and looked out the window as he listened to Hastings make excuses. Hastings had switched to his video call to render his avatar to hide his emotions. Even his voice was being run through a filter to scrub it of tell tale clues. Rodney hated that crap. “Come on Hastings, what’s with all the secrecy? I’m just trying to give you some work.”
“Why?” Hastings asked in a dead pan tone.
Rodney, glanced at his open calendar. It was almost completely empty. “You know how it is. I’m slammed. I’d do the job if I could but I can’t fit it in.”
“Why do I think you’re lying to me?”
Rodney didn’t hide behind digital masks, but he did enjoy the challenge of trying to look transparent. Where as the fun if the machine did all the work. “Look Hash, what’s wrong with me sending you a little work your way.”
“Because then I’ll owe you,” Hastings replied without hesitation.
“So that’s it, you’re worried about a debt?”
“Absolutely.”
Rodney nodded. He could understand that. “Then here it is. Guild free. A gift, no debt, no future obligation. The truth is I don’t want the deal but I want it done right. They came to me and my reputation is on the line here. So I called you first.” That much was true. Hastings Tensworth was not at the top of Rodney’s list, but he had called him first. He needed to spread the wealth around a bit.
“So you’re giving this to me free of charge? No strings attached?”
“If you don’t believe me call Coil. I’ve sent him plenty of jobs. Never so much as called in a chit.”
It was hard to read Hastings expression. The Avatar was an intentionally cartoonish replica of him. Hastings had good manners. He wanted you to know when you were talking to the hand. But something of a smile appeared at the corner of his lips. Hailing from Bombay, the man was tall and thin with milk coffee colored skin, green eyes, and pale purple hair, like flavored whip cream on a latte. All in all he was a decent guy - which is why Rodney kept him on his roster of subcontractors.
“Okay, I’ll take it,” Hastings replied. “but purely on the condition that it is free of charge, strings, or other attachments.” Rodney muted the call for a second, directing his digital virtual assistant, “write it up just like he described and send him the contract.” His desktop DNA scanner blinked, Rodney unmuted the call and pressed his index finger on the pad. “Encoding block chain right now. The contract is on his way.”
Hastings shook his head. “You’re a strange duck, Morris. No one just gives away business.”
“I’m not giving away anything,” Morris said. “I’m keeping good people employed. That’s what I do.”
“Oh it’s like that?”
“How long we been friends Hash?”
Hastings avatar vanished to be replaced by his true view. He was older than the image presented, with wrinkles around his eyes, and his purple hair had more silver than the last time Rodney had seen him. “A few years,” Hastings admitted.
Rodney picked up his high ball full of ice water and tipped it to him. “This should be a milk run.”
Hastings looked to the side. Rodney realized he must have been scanning the contract on his end. “So that’s it, no surprises? Just a stranded pleasure yacht?”
“You have all the information I have,” Rodney confirmed. “Except this.”
Hastings eyebrows raised.
“My gut tells me that the owner of said yacht is going to be another pretender wanna be rich guy who can’t afford to maintain his crap.”
“So?”
“So that tells me he’s going to be embarassed and deeply insecure. Don’t take any crap from him. He’ll pay, they always pay, but don’t let him harass you or harange you in front of his guests or family.”
Hastings nodded knowingly.
Hastings was a good guy, and Rodney knew you couldn’t be in this business without running into a few difficult personalities.
“That description isn’t in the tow request. How’d you come by that info?”
Rodney smiled. “That my friend is not part of the deal.”
“Morris, you’re a strange cat.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Rodney replied then noticed an alert appear on his screen. Two calls in one day? That was weird. “Have fun, stay safe. Talk to you soon.” Rodney hung up before Hastings could say good bye. It always bothered him how the other person wanted to be the last person to say bood bye. So he did it first and hung up before they could say anything.
Rodney pulled up the alert - it was a priority call from Samantha. Crap.
“Stella transfer the call to my mobile and connect us voice only.” Rodney preferred to walk and talk when he spoke to his ex-wife. It also helped if he didn’t have to look at her. He got up from his desk and walked to the station window. He looked at the blue marble that was Earth rotating below - the long impossibly thin line of the elevator connecting the orbital platform. It felt like a plate balancing on a piece of frozen thread. As he waited for the connection he walked toward the curved surface that would change his gravity orientation from parallel to the planet to perpendicular. The sense of meaning flipped almost instantly in his head, now he was on a giant swing connected to the blue ball by a gossamere thread.
“Rod?” Sam’s voice, soft and gravely came online. It was always good to hear her voice. “Ms. Sender?”
He heard her herumph. “You know I don’t like it when you call me that,” she said testily. Which of course was why he liked calling her that. “There’s a simple solution to that,” Rodney replied.
“Today’s not the day for this okay?”
Rodney was about to fire back with snark but paused. Something in her voice told him it was better not to poke mamma bear. “How can I help you?”
“I’m calling for a friend,” Sam said. “It’s her brother.”
“This is a work call?” Rodney said incredulously.
“Not exactly. It’s a favor.”
Rodney stopped walking. His stomach had almost flipped at that point. When was the last time Sam had asked for a favor? He and Hastings had danced around it sure, but this was different. This sounded serious. Before he could object, Sam continued, “I realize you don’t owe me anything…”
“That’s not completely true,” Rodney admitted feeling a little warm in the face. Authenticity was not his strong suit, but he’d committed to try it, especially with Sam.
“Let’s not get into that now,” Sam said, “This is different and you know it.”
“What’s going on?” Rodney took a long slow breath and started walking again.
“You know my friend Nina?”
Rodney scraped his memory, “Vaguely. The political consultant?”
“Yes, that’s her. Well, it turns out her brother has gone missing.”
“Gone missing? or Gotten himself stranded?”
“Well, that’s just the thing,” Sam said. “He took his family and some friends on a pleasure cruise and he hasn’t returned.”
“I’m failing to see the problem,” Rodney said. His mind jumped to the conclusion that the real problem was the worried sister, not the lost rich guy. Rich guys changed their schedules all the time. That was the advantage of being rich. People worked around your schedule.
“I know how it sounds,” Sam said firmly. “but Nina is convinced something is wrong. You see, her brother was supposed to be back last week. Apparently he had this really important meeting to attend two days ago.”
Rodney did not want to be rude, but he was feeling a little irritated. “So he hasn’t even been gone a week yet?”
Sam replied, “I know, I know but his employees are losing their minds. This is not like Geoffrey to miss a meeting like this.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
Rodney waited.
“But… okay. Nina told me Geoff was selling his company. It is super hush hush, but he didn’t show to meet the investors.”
“And this is a problem?”
“It is if they take his company.”
Rodney paused at that. “Come again?”
“Okay, I’m getting this second hand, but the Chief Operating Officer told Nina that the purchase contract had a keyman clause. If anything happened to Geoff the deal would go through automatically.”
Rodney thought about it - that wasn’t all that unusual. “But those things typically have some holding period before they kick in.”
“Right,” Sam agreed, “but this contract didn’t.” She paused on the other end of the line.
Rodney let that sink in. “Do you suspect foul play? Jeez Sam, I’m a a glorirified tow truck driver, not a private detective.”
“You are much more than a tow truck driver and you know it,” Sam chided him.
“Still,” Rodney countered. “I’m not sure this is in my wheel house.”
“I understand that,” Sam replied, “but Nina has no where else to go. Geoff hasn’t been missing long enough for the insurance company to get involved… and Rodney, there’s something else.”
“Yes?” He experienced a sinking feeing in his stomach.
“There’s little kids involved. Geoff took his whole family on the trip.”
Crap. Rodney thought about it. Chances were that this was just another dumb rich guy who decided to show off by turning off the navigation assist and got himself stuck.
“You didn’t meantion a beacon,” Rodney said.
“That’s right,” Sam said. “As far as we know, they did not activate their beacon.” Beacons sometime misfired, but about as often as parachutes, life vests. It happened but rarely. Rodney weighed the options.
“Look, you know there’s a reason the insurance companies make everyone wait…”
“Don’t give me that line Rodney Morris, I’m not some green belt calling panic for the first time.”
Rodney felt his ears flush red. God damn he hated it when she corrected him like that. He almost hung up the call but just barely managed to get a grip on himself. Sam, seeming to sense she had stepped over the line, immediately tried to smooth things over.
“R, you and I both know I would not call if I didn’t think it was important, if I did not think that… well anyone else but you could handle this. My spidey sense is tingling and I think there’s something that needs looking into.”
Rodney didn’t say anything. He just stood there staring out at the blue green sphere hanging over his head like a giant balloon. The swirls of clouds and the glimmer of lights always held a special fascination for him.
“Nina is a good friend, and I’m worried about her.”
Rodney bit his tongue.
“Will you look into it?”
“I’m not going after them if that’s what you’re asking,” Rodney said with his voice as forced calm as he could. But after a long heavy beat, “But I’m sure I can find someone good who can.”
He sensed, more than he heard Sam stifle another argument. He knew what she was thinking. She had called him, she had wanted him. Well, too god damned bad. He wasn’t her puppet. He wasn’t some dog on a leash she could yank whenever she wanted. Friend or no friend, this was probably another bullshit stuck up rich guy who’d got himself fucked sideways and didn’t know how to restart his jump drive.
And yet… how many times had he shot off his mouth and been wrong? Suddenly the pictures of kids, his kids, popped into his mind. “How old did you say the kids where?”
“I didn’t,” Sam replied. “And there are four of them. Two couples. The kids range between 4 and 10.” Rodney cursed to himself.
“I’ll look into it. I’ll find someone reputable who can find them - “
“You promise?” Sam cut in.
“Or I’ll find them myself,” Rodney said then immediately regretted it.
“Rodney,” Samantha said slowly, “Please hurry. I think they may really be in trouble.”
Rodney nodded, despite knowing she couldn’t see that. “I hear you.” Now that he’d stuck his neck out there was nothing for it but to try and be soothing. “We’ll find them. Just try to stay calm and remind your friend it’s probably something stupid. 99% of the time it is. These ships are crazy reliable. Chances are he deactivated the navigation system to show off and got himself stuck.”
He heard Samantha sigh, “I’m sure you’re right, but I’ll sleep a lot better, I know Nina will sleep a lot better when she knows what happened to her brother. happened to her brother. “
“Sam, what’s his last name?”
“Oh right, his name is Geoffrey Stikine, his wife is Rosalie, and their kids are Joseph and Mary.”
“Traditional names”
“They’re good people Rod”
“I’m sure they are. Do you happen to know his company?”
“No idea, Nina never said.”
“Okay,” Rodney glanced at his watch. Time felt so arbitrary in orbit, but he tried to keep his schedule. It helped him keep the weight off. “Look, it’s almost dinner time. Let me grab a bite to eat and then I’ll see what I can find out.”
He was very careful to avoid saying, “I will go look for them.” He’d already made up his mind he’d farm out the work to Shilling or Johnson. Hasting’s was committed. He’d have to find someone else to pick up the work.
“You’ll keep me in the loop?” Samantha asked.
“Absolutely,” Rodney said. Odds were this would all be over in a day or two. The trick was to keep the family calm while you waited for the pinhead rich guy to get over his ego and send the beacon or reboot the nav system and come home.
“Talk to you soon,” Sam said.
“Yup,” Rodney fired back quickly then hung up ending the call before she could say another word.