Chapter 10
Investigations

Around 5 p.m. Leif headed for Toni's office, but she had already left. "She left a little early today," Darlene informed him when he passed her on his way to the front of the office. She hesitated. "Leif?" she called after him.

"Yeah?"

"Are you all right?"

He stopped and turned towards her. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You just seem tense and jumpy the past day or so. Is there anything wrong I can help with?"

"No," he shook his head. "Just working on these cases sometimes get's stressful. Once we finish some of this work load and I can relax I'll be okay."

"I hope so," she waved to him as he slipped into his coat.

He slid into a cab on the street and told him the address before he realized that Toni was already in the cab. "He already knows the address," she informed him.

"So is this what you're going to do all the time?" he was mildly irritated.

"It's what I'm supposed to do," she responded her tone irritated too.

"It can get annoying."

"You're telling me?" she snapped. "Do you think I like this impulsion I have to make sure that you're taken care of?"

He sighed and leaned back in the seat. He folded his arms and stared out at the busy street. Mentally he thought how nice it would be to get home quickly instead of having to move through all the traffic. Almost as soon as the thought formed in his mind they were there.

The cab driver sat up quickly and began scratching the top of his head where only a thin bit of hair covered his bald head. "Um…" he hesitated. "We're here," he told them.

Leif shot forward in surprise and looked around. Sure enough they were there. He glanced at Toni. Quickly he counted out his change and handed it to the man and grabbed Toni's hand, nearly dragging her out of the seat.

"What did you do that for?"

Toni sighed and shrugged. "You've got to be more careful of what you think."

"You can hear my thoughts?"

"No, but if you think a wish, usually if I'm close by, I'll feel compelled to grant.

"Oh great," he muttered. "Aren't you going home?"

She stared at him. He stared at her.

"My bottle belongs on your mantel now."

"What?"

"I am your slave now, oh Master," there was mock formality in her tone.

"Ooooooh this is just great!" he stomped off into the apartment building, Toni tagging along. He stopped suddenly and turned towards her, she almost colliding with him. "What about your apartment?"

"Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to keep it."

"I don't mind." He grumbled as he walked towards the elevator. Once they had arrived at his apartment it was suddenly clean, spotless, she was in her blue outfit. Supper was on the table, it was set for two and on the mantelpiece sat Toni's blue frosted bottle sat next to his ancestor's. It had happened so quickly that Leif almost missed the changes.

"So was my ancestor's genie any relation to you?" he sat down on the table. This was better than trying to eat his own cooking.

"I'm not sure, but I kind of think she might have been. I'd have to ask Grandma though."

"And you think the 'legend' was true?"

"Of course," she raised an eye brow as she used her fork to put a bit of food in her mouth. "Don't you?"

"Now? Yes."

"Let's go to Goldwyn's around 7. Does that suit you?" she changed the subject.

"Whenever you think," he inclined his head. He had a lot to get used to with this genie and master relationship. She continued to talk, but his mind was on other things. He was watching her for a long moment. Had it only been one day ago that he had thought her a normal everyday woman with a few mere oddities? Now he knew her "oddities" and he kept having to tell himself that it wasn't a dream. It was really real.

When they had finished eating Toni blinked away the dishes, washed, dried and put away. By then it was almost 7 so she blinked them to the office. Leif looked around him wonderingly, but the trip wasn't as frightening as it had been the first time.

"Now what?" he asked as he looked around the room.

"We start searching."

"For what?"

"If I knew we wouldn't have to be searching for it, now would we?" her tone sarcastic.

"Are genies always this edgy to their masters?" Leif copied her tone.

"I'm not edgy!" she snapped.

"Glad you told me," he smirked and started moving a few files around on the desk, glancing through them.

Meanwhile on the first floor of the building, in a room filled with surveillance equipment the security officers were dividing their last doughnut and sweetening their coffee with little pink packets.

"That's strange," one of them leaned forward to look closer at the computer screen fixed into a counter. One of the rooms on the screen was blinking a little red dot. The screen was monochrome, black with white lines that outlined the rooms.

"What's wrong, Frank?" the other asked.

"Well, we have an intrusion, but it's only just started," Frank replied. "On the 18th floor."

"That is strange," the second man agreed. He picked up the phone. "Hey Barney?" he spoke into the receiver. "Check out room 6 on floor 18; there seems to be an intruder."

Barney was making his rounds on floor 15, but when he got the call he hurried to the elevator.

"Here's something," Toni picked up a piece of paper and handed it to Leif. "It's about that case with Goldwyn's son."

"Yeah, that's what I was looking for," Leif took it from her. "I remember it clearly. His son was going to be charged with murder, and supposedly there was evidence that he had not committed it. I don't believe the case ever made it to court. They dismissed it during the preliminary stages."

"I remember reading about that in the paper before I came to work here," she stopped to look at him. "Do you remember any of the details about it?"

Leif shook his head. "What's in the file?" Toni blinked a copy of it. "Well look closer at it when we get back to your apartment."

She was about to say something else when she said, "Oh dear."

"What's wrong."

"Someone's coming," she whispered.

"Then get us out of here!" he replied in a shout-whisper.

Without hesitation Toni folded her arms across her chest and blinked at the same moment Barney's hand was on the door knob. Cautiously he poked his head through the open doorway. "Hello?" he called. "Anybody here?" he pushed the door open further. "Hmm, that's strange," he muttered to himself and walked back into the hall.

Blinking Leif tried to adjust to the bright lights of his apartment from the darkness of the office. "This is going to take some getting used to," he commented. He looked down at the things they'd brought with them. "Uh…Toni," he glanced around at the furniture that looked a lot like Ace Goldwyn's office.

"Oops," she blinked the furniture back to the office, causing poor Barney, who'd just poked his head through the door way again, to shake his head and wonder if he were not going crazy.

"I must be going daft," he said to himself as he quickly closed the door and hurried to give a report back to the guards downstairs that everything was fine…whether or not it really was.

"How'd that happen?" Leif asked.

"A mistake on my part," Toni shrugged. "I was in too big of a hurry."

"Genies make mistakes?" he was mockingly sarcastic.

"Yes," she snapped back at him. "Now can we get back to the matter at hand?

"No problem," he shot back.

By now she was furious. "If you don't…!" she began and blinked him into a miniature version of himself.

"Hey!" he shouted indignantly, his voice also miniaturized. "Make me big again, Toni!"

"What? Why should I? You were being insulting."

"So were you!" he spat back.

She blinked and he found himself back to normal…he hoped. "I was being insulting?" she demanded.

"Let's just get our work done," he responded, trying to change the subject. He didn't want to end up miniature again. "Anyway, here's the gist of his son's case; it says that he was found to be the last person to see Jacob Wade alive. Wade was a friend of Sean Goldwyn, but they had been arguing about something, but that was never uncovered. It seems that Sean was the only one who really had any motive for killing Wade, but when it came up for indictment enough evidence was shown that this was just an accidental gang killing and thrown out by Judge Benedict."

"At least we know that Judge Benedict isn't a judge that can be bought off," Leif interjected, referring to the elderly judge who stood strong on his values and his judgments. If he threw it out, then the evidence was real. It possibly wasn't all of the evidence, but it was real.

Toni agreed as she looked at the rest of the file. "So Goldwyn handled the case himself," she commented. "Here are his defense plans," she handed Leif the paper with scribbled notes on it.

"It says here that Dominique Brozenski was the leading witness who testified that he was with Sean the night of the murder; they went out and played a game of tennis. It was a doubles game," Leif scratched his head. "Here's a note at the bottom of the page," he pointed to the tiny words. "I can't read what it says.

She blinked them larger. "It says 'talk to Moretti,'" she read the words aloud. "Who's Moretti?"

"I have no idea. We need to look at Goldwyn's contacts," Leif turned to her.

She pursed her lips. "We can't keep popping in and out of Goldwyn's office," she said practically. "The guards are going to get really suspicious."

"Could you blink his rolodex here?" he gestured with his hand. "We don't have much time to figure all this out."

She obeyed, but they were unable to find anything in his rolodex that was close to Moretti. "Maybe he keeps a list of contacts on his computer?" she suggested. "That'll be easy to access."

She blinked on Leif's plasma TV and then connected it to Goldwyn's hard drive. "Now how does that work?"

"Under the same principle of wireless connection," she responded. "Just done a bit differently. Modern technology makes my job easier."

A thorough search of the computer files brought them to an Excel sheet titled "Contacts." In the sheet were a half a dozen Morettis, but one of them was starred. "I don't want to ethnically stereotype all Italians, but do you have the funny feeling we may be talking about organized crime?" Leif asked. Toni only looked at him, but he knew the same thought was running through her head.

"What should we do now?" she asked.

"I think we should sleep on it. Perhaps we can come up with a perfect solution by in the morning."

She agreed and she headed for her bottle while Leif got ready for bed. The night was long as Leif tossed and turned, trying to organize facts in his head. In just a few short days too many things had happened; had changed. To find out in only the course of a couple of days that genies existed and a senior partner was transpiring with the mob were almost too much for him to comprehend.

(To Be Continued…)