By Felipe Brenny
June Corp on Albert Street. A building made up of a cacophony of materials and shapes in order to fulfil some millionaire promise of innovation. All it does is place an ugly building on an uglier street. If I had more time, I’m sure I’d take time to nitpick the details and decide which is uglier, but as the watch on my wrist slowly ticks to 10:20am, all I can do is pray and step out of my car.
By the time I speak to the receptionist and make it to the floor where my meeting with Mr June is going to take place, I begin to realise something: the whole floor is depowered, save for the lights and air conditioning. No computers, no nothing. I’ll explore and pray that the trap I set will work.
Something feels wrong. I feel like I’ve been here for so long, but all the clocks here are off, and checking my wristwatch reveals it’s stopped working. It’s stuck at 10:28am; something here must’ve caused it to break. I’ve already checked the whole floor, and there’s nothing here. It’s irritating, and that’s exactly what Mr June wants, isn’t it? I have to admit, I don’t know what his game plan is, but I can’t walk into his trap. I have to break the cycle.
Grabbing the closest chair to me, I drag it to the elevators and sit down on it, going against every instinct to keep exploring. Here I am staying absolutely still, waiting for Mr June to show up. After all, he’s invited me, so he’s being rude not to show. It doesn’t take very long for the elevator to ding.
Two bodyguards step out first, followed by the professional Mr June. Blue wasn’t really his colour, no matter how hard he tried to smother himself in it. He’s the first to speak.
‘Mr Monroe, welcome. Before anything, though, you won’t mind if my bodyguards search you?’
I suppose this is it, isn’t it? If I fail this, then I truly am a fool for trying. Years of solving cases down the drain, not just that, but what I’d be leaving behind, too. They get the gun from my pocket.
‘He has a gun, but besides that, he’s clear,’ one of the guards says.
It’s over. No matter what happens. Mr June, your whole career is done for and all because your guards couldn’t find it. How could they? They couldn’t have thought of splitting up a radio into its base parts and wiring them throughout your clothes. Every single bit and bob of a radio is all wired together. There’s no speaker, just a microphone, but that’s all I need. I’d be a fool to let a lone radio wave reveal my hand.
‘You truly brought nothing but a weapon?’ Mr June says.
‘If it came down to it, all I would’ve needed is to shoot you for kidnapping a poor mother’s boy,’ I say.
‘Please, there are a lot of poor mothers I’ve left in the dust. Come now, I know of a good room where we can discuss the offer I have for you.’
‘Offer?’
He leaves me as his guards follow him. I need him to talk, anything that can be used against him. Undoubtedly, I’ll reject his offer, yet I put on a smile and follow suit. We reach a meeting room where the sun is at just the right angle to douse it in light. Mr June holds a smile as the sun forces his left eye shut.
‘A comforting gesture, Mr June, but you said something about an offer?’ I say.
He drops the smile and slouches. His fingers tap on the glass table as he stares absent-mindedly towards the sun. His eyes are open. He jolts up from his chair and talks. ‘Honestly, I’d like you to drop everything against me, it’s that simple, really.’
‘It’s never that simple. Let’s say I drop everything on you, what happens when you screw up again?’
‘Ah, that’s why there’s an incentive. Not money, Harry Monroe, I know of your aversion to greed. Instead, why don’t I land you a nice job at the police centre? Why not lead those babbling cops?’
‘They could use some more discipline… fine, but first, tell me what you’re working on and you’ve got yourself a deal.’
‘You jumped awfully quickly on that deal.’
‘Maybe I’m trying to trick you, but it seems you’ve got the eyes of a hawk.’
Come on, Mr June, surely you’ll spout out all your secrets. Give me something, anything. ‘Honestly, why would you develop such an obtuse way of trafficking people?’ I say.
‘What?’ Mr June says, taking the bait.
‘I mean, surely there are ways that don’t tie them back to your business?’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’d like to see you disprove the mountains of evidence I have at my office. Even if it’s fake, it could be convincing enough, don’t you think?’
‘What I’m working on is for more than just wealth.’
‘You’re already holding it in both hands, just say you want to be a modern-day Midas.’
‘You!’ Mr June says, ‘how dare you say that I’m doing this all for wealth! Don’t you know how many millions I’ve lost to see my son?’
There it is, the greed that flows through his very veins, the hypocrisy of stealing the children of others to see his own. Nothing has given him the right to do such horrific acts.
Mr June keeps talking, ‘and now you’ll be the next subject.’ One of the guards hands him his camera. ‘With this, Harry Monroe, you will be locked inside your very mind just like the others.’
‘Is this a threat?’ I say.
‘One that will seal you away for good.’
‘Then it seems you are done for good.’
‘The evidence you have is fake. It’s nothing. You never figured out what I wanted. Even you couldn’t figure that out,’ Mr June says.
‘No, even you made a remarkable effort to hide your evidence.’
‘So I bested you?’
‘You are missing one thing,’ I say.
‘Huh?’
‘Oh, and don’t bother thinking I’d even tell you. Then I’d just be a fool.’
‘I wasn’t going to bother looking, simply put, there’s only one thing in store for you.’
He grabs the camera and with the press of a button.
I’m gone.
*
Dammit, Harry, I leave you alone for a few hours, and this is the thanks I get? You go ahead and get yourself kidnapped. You do this in every case we work on, a gambit. No wonder you keep losing at chess. Still, their panic when they found your radio. You tricked them, Harry, but your gambit will only work if you planned for this; you must’ve known I wouldn’t have been tuned in. Which means you did something else to ensure I heard it all.
I slam the brakes as I reach the complex where our office is, and I jump out of the car, shoving the front doors aside. I take two steps at a time, even if I catch somebody in the act of breaking into our office, it’ll work… alas, the door to our office is nearly off the hinges.
Inside, it’s like a tornado was let loose to wreak havoc: pages are scattered across the floor; floorboards are torn off; some paintings have been torn in half; and another detail is that our TV is on. Probably to help mask the sound of their search. As I search around, I eventually find that our safe has been taken. If they’d been able to open it here, they would have, which means that at least something is in our favour. That safe is a red herring; it’s difficult to break into because its mechanism is broken. Not even Harry or I could get into it without breaking it. That’s why we’ve just put some of our sentimental possessions inside it. Things we never want lost, but also don’t have to see.
So if they took the safe, the hidden compartments around our office shouldn’t have been found. We have three around the place, and only one that works.
Harry would need somewhere soundproofed if he were recording stuff, and there’s only one spot that’s like that. Heading over to the tiny kitchen, I go to a set of three drawers and yank them out, the several objects inside clattering across the floor. I duck and reach my hand inside. I struggle for a bit before the Velcro gives way and the panel on the back wall opens. Inside is Harry’s gambit, an active radio transmitting static and right beside it is a tape recorder still recording. Of course, there is a protocol I must follow.
‘This is Alex Lowe. This tape recording has been retrieved as of eleven twenty-seven in the morning.’
I end the recording and let it play.
‘Hello Alex,’ it’s Harry’s voice. ‘This is a pretty terrible plan on my part. Either I’ll have just been captured with little to show for it, or this will have recorded our meeting. If this is the first scenario, my strongest lead is that Mr June has been purchasing warehouses across the area. It seems nonsensical, and according to public records, they aren’t listed under the company’s resources. This information is useless without the ability to search it, but that’s the purpose of this tape; hopefully, I can give you something to use… Good luck, Alex.’
With that, the recording stays silent for a while, with the occasional noises of cars and Harry’s self-talk. Still at his meeting with Mr June, they discover the gun, but not the radio on his body and after hearing his threats towards Harry, that alone is enough to legally investigate.
I rush to our landline phone and dial the exact person I need, ‘Hello, this is Gareld Reed.’
‘Honestly, I was expecting your wife to answer,’ I say.
‘Oh, Alex. Today’s my day off, so please make this quick if you can.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t want to interrupt a noble cop on their day off, it’s just a shame I’ll have to go to the police about a certain millionaire on the block.’
‘Millionaire? Do you mean Mason June?’
‘Just the one.’
‘You’d better have good evidence against a figure like that.’
‘It’s like a hill, maybe? I have a missing person report to file, and I have evidence of a threat against said person from Mason June.’
‘Harry’s missing?’
‘The idiot pulled off one of his trademarked gambits.’
‘If you’re calling me, it worked.’
‘Can you come by the office? I’d like your help to maybe track some burglars too.’
‘Did you guys have to pull this off on my free day?’
‘Think of it as extra pay.’
‘Fine,’ Gerald says as he hangs up the phone.
Just distract him, Harry, that’s the only thing I can ask of you.
Author Bio:
Hi, my name is Felipe Brenny (He/Him), and I am a third-year student at QUT studying creative writing. I have a passion for writing various kinds of fiction, and for my creative project unit, I am working on a dystopian novella, which I hope to complete after the unit. I enjoy playing a variety of video and board games, as well as reading books like “The King in Yellow” and “House of Leaves”.