Meanwhile, Back in Houston
Chapter 1
Mac walked into his apartment after the long trip back from Scotland and flipped on the lights. He dropped his heavy bags near the door but felt no lighter from it. Slogging over to the kitchen he looked around and checked the fridge. The place looked the same as he left it two weeks ago in his haste to get to Aberdeen and on to Furness Bay; even the telephone's message light wasn't lit. He emptied his pockets of the mementos from his trip and poured them onto the counter; the scallop shell, the razor clam and various other smaller shells and water-worn rocks clattered as they settled on the blue tiles.
He then tacked up a few Polaroids taken in Furness onto his message board, opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto his balcony. The sky was just starting to turn from black to grey as the morning began its ritual of chasing away the night. Even as dark as it still was, between the smog and the light pollution from downtown Houston the stars in the sky had no chance of being seen.
On a whim he called Furness' only payphone, knowing that with the six hour difference it would be almost midday. He let it ring for a full minute, then hung up figuring that no one was near enough to hear it much less answer.
He checked his wrist for the umpteenth time only to remember that he had left his watch somewhere back there where it was probably sitting in a tide pool rusting. The clock wasn't any more encouraging; only two hours before he'd be getting up to go into the office anyway. Might as well beat the traffic and get an early start; a short nap wasn't going to get rid of the jet lag he was experiencing.
A few hours later he was working at his desk when his coworker Calvin Wrain showed up.
"Good God man, how long have you been here?" he asked Mac.
"About six years" he answered as he rubbed his eyes.
"No, I mean today."
"I'll stick with my answer."
"I can almost believe it. You look like one of those 'before' pictures for a Jack LaLanne ad."
"I've been on the phone all morning between sending a Telex to half of the civilized world and a quarter of the uncivilized part. Like I told you on the phone yesterday…"
"That was two days ago."
"…two days ago Happer wants to change things around. I've got calls in to Fountain and Crabbe and have finalized the Congo deals we were working on when I left and it looks like the Furness refinery is moving to the Gulf; Mississippi has an incentive program that we should take advantage of and I've talked to their secretary in charge of 'business encouragement' while at the same time Geddes and Watt have been filled in on the changes and are modifying the plans as we speak over at the Aberdeen lab." He took a deep breath. "Happer is happy as a clam over in Furness now that the refinery is dead and he's planning on building an institute for 'sky and sea' with his name on it and wants us to send over a big telescope ASAP but not the one in his private office so I got on the line with that German optics company and arranged to ship over a big one as a rush job assuming they have all of the components in stock, my office smells like a rat died there while I was gone and I think I'm having a nervous breakdown."
Cal stuck his nose up in the air and took a deep sniff. "I'll go along with everything you said except the rat part; smells like it always does."
"Good, at least I got the rest of it right. Thanks for the confirmation on the diagnosis, I'll just jump out the window now."
"The windows don't open, you know that. You could try throwing yourself down the elevator shaft."
"Nah, I don't like elevators anyway. Maybe I'll just jab the pencil sharpener into my gut."
"It's electric."
"Okay, give me a pencil and I'll sharpen it to a nub and then suffocate myself on the shavings."
Cal handed him his pencil, which Mac examined. It was a mechanical pencil.
"Damn. Guess I'm stuck here; I'll just have to go crazy at my desk."
"You've done a week's worth of work this morning already. Why not go home and rest. Maybe you caught a bug or something over there?" Cal suggested.
"Maybe you're right; I've got some terrible seaweed disease and a scotch on the couch is the only cure. If anyone needs me I'll be there. Thanks Cal, I'll put you in my will."
"I can't even afford the insurance on that car, so forget that."
"No problem, I'll put you my down for my record collection then."
"Done. Don't leave out the Dire Straits."
Mac went home and entered his apartment, thinking that maybe it smelled a little like dead rat too. Since the same smell couldn't be both places, it had to be him. He showered again only to find that the smell still lingered. "Must be a symptom of that seaweed thing" he told himself. The phone rang and he picked it up.
"MacIntyre, Happer here. How are things progressing there?" He must have gotten Mac's number from the business card he left with Gordon Urquhart.
So Mac spent 10 minutes filling in Happer on the morning's calls and Telex barrage. It occurred to him near the end that he wasn't hearing the tone to insert more money into the phone. "Where are you calling from sir?"
"Furness of course. I had Geddes set me up with one of those new satellite phones. It's a prototype, but I can use it to call anywhere during time windows from..." The sentence wasn't finished as the line went dead.
Well, he had no idea how long the window was opened or closed, or even how often. If it was really important Happer could always get some 10p and make a call from the telephone box like everyone else. Just then the phone rang again.
"Hello?"
"Happer you pile of dung! You leave your number with me but don't set up another appointment?" the voice asked on the other end.
"Who is this?" asked Mac.
"Moritz of course. This isn't Happer?"
"No, I just work for him here in Houston. Who are you?"
The man's tone changed considerably. "I'm his therapist. We were making great progress until he had me put on a 48 hour psych hold while he disappeared on me. I know some of those guys down there too! That's how I got out so early after I explained what I was doing."
"Wait. If you're a therapist tell me something; why does everywhere I go smell like a rat died?"
"Hmmm, that's pretty complicated. The quick answer is you stepped in something and it's stuck to your foot."
"I showered. Three times."
"Then it's something that's stuck to the inside of YOU. Your nose isn't really smelling it; your brain is putting it there. Back up to the last time you didn't smell it and then figure out what made the smell in your head. It's more complex than that but you can start there. Do you happen to have Happer's number by any chance?"
"No idea. He's kind of away from phones most of the time." Moritz went on for a few minutes about his theories on men like Felix Happer.
"...classic avoidance; there's gonna be a book about this guy yet. Okay, thanks and good luck with the stink. If you get his number let me know; maybe I'll throw in a couple of sessions for you."
