A Malcolm Tyler Story
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“Working. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m going to just keep telling myself that. Ignore the stray squiggly lines that are ruining this otherwise perfectly good piece of scrap paper. As long as I keep telling myself that I’m working then no one can really argue with it, can they? At least no one in my head can argue. Although I suppose I could take to arguing with myself. There I go again. Arguing with myself. Wouldn’t that just be quaint.” I almost didn’t realize that I’m arguing with myself aloud. That would have been awkward if anyone had walked in.
It must be an opportunistic day, as that’s what someone proceeded to actually do. I shouldn’t be all that surprised. I do have an office and most days like it when someone decides they need to stop by. See, I’m a fate adjuster. At least that’s what I call myself. The sign on my door says ‘Malcolm Tyler, WizD - Problems Adjusted’. WizD of course stands for Doctorate in Wizardry. Not that I actually have one, but people like to think that I’m accredited by something. Right, there’s a person standing in my office staring at me now. I should probably talk to them, instead of myself.
“Hello, come in, sit down. Have you had your coffee yet today?” Acting a little crazy helps with nailing down some solid business. At least from my experience, people who are ‘progressive’ enough to come to a wizard for problem solving help aren’t looking for someone who looks and acts like an insurance adjuster. I finally looked up at the person who came through the door. Good, not my landlord.
“So what can I coffee for you today?” I smiled a small, not a big one, and no teeth. Teeth can just be downright eerie. You can find out so many things from a persons teeth. Some people think that the soul is stored in the heart. I call that balderdash. The soul is definitely in the teeth. Maybe not all of them, I think canines would be right out, but that’s just my personal feeling on the matter. The person who had come in stood there, staring at me blankly. I often have that affect on people.
I suppose I should actually identify the person I’m staring through. I let my eyes focus and almost immediately was disappointed that I’d let myself ramble. Blonde, leggy blonde. She was too much to take in, not literally of course. She could be a work of art, the skirt she was wearing could have ended wars. The look on her face was certainly one of confusion and I can’t blame her. “Or rather, hello. Have a seat, miss.”
“Madame Rachel de Levine, and I have had my coffee today.” The look on my face must show disappointment, and if I could look in a mirror I’m sure it would be obvious. “And I think, despite my fulfilling my coffee intake during a meeting this morning, I may still need your help. That is if you are what you say you are.”
“Of course I am what I say I am. I am me, you are you, and we’re… wait, you need my help?” The singsong in my voice died as quickly as the synapses in my brain actually processed that this woman actually needed my help. There’s something you should probably understand about what my services usually entail. I’m more of a lost goods finder. I don’t actually get much work in the real field of problem adjusting, and the tone of her voice suggested that she didn’t need me to find a bracelet lost at a party or arranging for a cheating spouse to be caught in the act. “I mean, if you need me to help, it must be very serious. What sort of trouble are you in?”
Making it seem common for me to be dealing with high level problem adjustments seems like it may get me a larger fee for the case. “My husband seems to have disappeared. I’d like for you to find him. What are you usual rates?”
Now we get to the important question. Although likely the husband had just run off with a mistress, although why he would is a mystery that the ages just won’t be able to solve. “For my full attention on your case I charge $1000 a day with a two day minimum plus expenses.” She immediately nods. Usually there’s a jaw dropped or two at that price.
“You’ll need to start immediately. What do you need to start your search?” I expected a little floundering, some haggling, some uncertainty. I received none from her. It definitely was an extraordinary situation. “I can start right away. I just need your husband’s name, his full name, and if you have any of his hair, a toothbrush, or maybe even a blood sample?” No one ever has the blood sample, I suppose that’s because normally I’m looking for objects. Difficult to collect one from something that doesn’t have a working cardiovascular system. That doesn’t make it impossible, just difficult. “And you can start by telling me the last time you saw him and the last time anyone else saw him as well. Did he miss any meetings, go into work late, that sort of thing.”
Mrs. de Levine pulled out a brush in a plastic bag. She had come prepared. That was unusual and a little disturbing. “You’ve done this before?” She nods and passes it over. “Not me exactly, but my grandmother. She recommended you. You might remember her, Eugenia Hart. She spoke very kindly of her after you were able to solve the problem of her missing purse. Said you found it across town in a dumpster and her wallet and watch in the west end of town outside a pawn shop. Seems like a lot of running around to find such small objects. Not only that, but how could you have known where they would be?”
“Magic of course. I just go booga-booga and then poof, I know where they are. Of course it’s a little more difficult, but trade secrets you know, trade secrets. I wouldn’t want everyone opening up as a wizard, it would put me right out of business. Now, if you’ll just leave me a phone number or way to reach you and I’ll get started on this right away.” She pulled out her her purse, and her beautiful hand reached over and extended a business card to me. I took it from her and placed it on my desk.
“I’ll call you when I have something to update you on or to approve expenses.” She proceeded to take her beautiful self, legs and all, and made her way out of my office. I sat there and watched the red dress that was certain to give men both dreams and nightmares. I will likely be one of those men. It would be very difficult to not become one of those men.
My eyes took me back to my desk. She had left a note next to the business card. I picked it up and gave it a quick read. It made absolutely no sense.
Milk
Cheese
Fortune
Yellow bird
Adjustment
?
Morgue
I didn’t really know what to do with it. Obviously it looked like it was a list of things to do, but why would she be going to the morgue after buying groceries? And that certainly is quite the list. It was at least written in a woman’s hand, the slowly looping curls in the cursive gave that away. If it was Rachel’s hand, then she was equally gracious in more than one aspect. She could also be equally complicit in her husbands disappearance. That wasn’t something I wanted to think about, but until I started down the rabbit hole, there wasn’t much evidence to confirm it.
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I walked quickly out of my office and around the corner to my apartment around the block. Yes, it conformed to the stereotype of wizards and their rat hole apartments. It was more due to the fact that the rent was cheap, and the location below ground made it less likely that I would ever be disturbed while actually doing any magic. It wasn’t that I couldn’t perform around people, it was just that they never believed that what I was actually doing was possible. It made it a lot more difficult to work the magic and no one wants to ever give away all his trade secrets anyway.
My apartment was at least relatively large for it’s basement location. It wasn’t exactly the best neighborhood, but the door was hidden in the side of the building on it’s way down a dimly lit alley. That’s why I had to rent office space around the corner. Asking paying customers to visit my office in this area of Minneapolis was already a stretch. The parking was terrible and the crime was a bit higher than the local suburban housewife really wanted to deal with, even in the light of day. It’s lack of windows hadn’t helped my case. There was a single window, it was smoked over with dirt and grime. It was the way I liked it.
I went in through the door and looked around pulling out my checklist. All my books were where I’d left them, check. My phone was still off the hook and making that beeping noise, check. The wheel on the wall calendar was pointed to Tuesday, check. It wasn’t Tuesday, but the wheel didn’t know that and having the day on the wall say it was a day different that today made it difficult for anyone trying to make sure things were back where I’d left them. I went and put the kettle on to make some tea and locked the door with all three deadbolts, the chain, and the little lock in the handle as well. The I pulled out my precious metal reproduction of a sonic screwdriver, put it to the door frame and uttered the words that would keep me from being disrupted.
Did I forget to mention that I tend to be just a tad paranoid? At least I didn’t prop up a shotgun to the door in case of intruders-at least not anymore. Scared the crap out of a chinese food delivery guy once, it left buck shot holes in the wood of the door and left the delivery guy with a twenty dollar tip. Now I just left the shotgun propped next to my little workroom. I made the tea and brought the rest of the boiling water into the workroom.
I keep it neat and tidy in there. Never really know when you’re going to need something quickly and it’s nice to know where things are. The water went on the low table along one wall and I started pulling what I needed off the shelves. The silver bowl came out, as did the bunsen burner and tongs. The hot water would help catalyze the dusts, copper and grass, and I measured out the right amounts to make a creamy green and orange paste and placed them in the bowl and set everything to start cooking.
In the meantime I was going to try the easy way, but the majority of the time the easy way either didn’t work, or the person was inside a building somewhere. Yes, it sucks that my easy way couldn’t see through walls. It would have made looking around a lot more entertaining. I didn’t see through clothes either, believe me, a younger version of me had already tried that one. Hormones of a teenager and magical ability lead to some creative and somewhat perverted attempts at seeing inside the girls locker room. Admit it, you probably would have tried too.
Back to reality though. I pulled out my trusty sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the map. It wasn’t really a sonic screwdriver. In fact it had no moving parts and didn’t make that whistling noise either. It was more an ironic poke at the fact that while it supposedly helped the Doctor through all of time and space, it actually helped me control time and space. Not all of it, but enough of it where I could change the course of events enough to warrant a real visit from the Doctor. Good thing he’s a fictional character and magic is real, right? Screwdriver, pointed at the map and I cleared my head of distractions. I read the name on the back of the Bernard Louis de Levine and pushed my consciousness out through my arm and into the map.
The lights changed from the dimness of my office to an arial view of the city. I was poised above downtown and had to make sure I didn’t crash my consciousness into any of the buildings. The buildings wouldn’t be worse for wear, but I would have a splitting headache for a week. I said the name again and pushed out my senses into the fabric of the city. I felt a tug to the east end of downtown, near the government building. I let my consciousness follow it until I was poised just above the walking heads. The area was filled with police and I was drawn to a specific head.
Bernard Louis de Levine. Odd. I said the name again, and my disembodied eyes followed the man. He was dressed in a pinstripe suit and carried a briefcase as he walked along in his patent leather shoes. I watched for a minute or two, but he was just walking from the city government center to the federal courthouse. It wasn’t all that interesting and being disembodied was just a little bit chilly. I was about to withdraw and call Rachel to let her know I’d found her husband when I saw a red dress come through the crowd from the opposite direction. It was Rachel de Levine.
She approached her husband with a straight face, reached into her purse, and pulled out a revolver. She aimed the gun straight at her husband and pulled the trigger three times. The muzzle flash and noise sent shivers up and down my disembodied spine and sent my self fleeing back into my body. It slammed back into my body with a shiver and I could do nothing but sit there rocking and trying to deal with the impressive amount of endorphins that were released all at once into my body. With a shaky hand I turned out the burner and crawled over to my couch. I pulled a blanket over me and fell asleep.
