The Age Atomic Read Online Free Page B

Jazz music; the phone line stripped the bass out but Rad could hear a bright piano and drum beat.
    â€œWhere are you from?” Rad asked, before the man on the phone had a chance to say anything else.
    â€œOh, patience, detective, patience. You have something of mine. You picked it up at the warehouse. I’d like it back.”
    â€œUh-huh,” said Rad. He glanced at the clock in the corner. It was three in the morning. He’d dozed off, which explained the crick in his neck. “Must be pretty important for you to call at this hour.”
    There was a dull scraping on the other end of the phone. “Oh, it’s late. I’m sorry. You tend to lose track of time, job like mine.”
    Another hint, another clue. Rad smiled. “Lot of fancy stuff in that warehouse. Specialized equipment. Not to mention the toys you’ve got in cold storage. Quite an operation you have running.”
    Too much information? Rad winced and sucked in his cheeks. He needed some sleep and possibly not any more coffee.
    The man on the phone laughed. It was just a quiet chuckle, slow, steady. Rad listened, but there was nothing else on the line except the man laughing and the faint music.
    â€œSomething funny, pal?” Rad sniffed. “Nothing funny about tying ladies to chairs and waving guns around.”
    â€œOh yeah, I heard about that,” said the man on the phone, while in the background the jazz reached a crescendo and then stopped. “That’s a shame. Tell you what, friend, come up and see me. Bring my property. We can have a drink, and we can have a little chitchat.”
    â€œI’ll look forward to that.” Rad reached for a pen and had it ready, poised over the jotter on his desk. He felt like he’d just made a breakthrough in a case he knew nothing about. “What’s the address?”
    The man on the phone just laughed again. Rad thought he’d pushed it a little far with a criminal mastermind – well, he assumed the guy was a criminal mastermind, who else rang in the small hours just to laugh at a detective?
    The scraping sound came again, like the man on the phone was distracted and turning away from the mouthpiece. Rad pressed the phone into his ear and closed his eyes. The office vanished, and he was lost in the faint buzz of the phone line. The jazz started up again, another number, slower this time.
    There. There was something else. The buzz was moving; not interference, but something in the background. Somebody talking, too far away for Rad to know if it was a man or a woman.
    The scraping sound came back loud, and Rad opened his eyes.
    â€œThere’s someone here who wants to see you.”
    Rad sucked in a breath and leaned forward on his desk. Eyes wide, just one thought entered his mind.
    â€œCarson’s there? Can you put him on?”
    The laugh again. “Last I heard the Chairman went out over the ice and into the fog,” said the man. Rad could almost hear the smile in the man’s voice and he didn’t like it one bit.
    â€œQuit playin’ around. Look, I–”
    â€œCome north. 125th street. You can’t miss it. Look for the green light.”
    â€œWhat?” Rad squeezed the pen. “What’s the address?”
    â€œYou’ll find me. 125th Street. Tomorrow. Come at night – it’s not safe during the day. Drive to 110th, then walk.”
    â€œLook, pal, whoever is there–”
    â€œHe says his name is Kane Fortuna. I think he wants to talk to you pretty bad.”

 
    FOUR
    Â 
    Cold, cold like the grave.
    Evelyn smiled, like she could remember what cold was. She knew it was cold because that’s all everyone was talking about on the radio and on the television. Evelyn could read the waves of electromagnetic radiation as they bounced between the skyscrapers of Manhattan; she could see, feel, any and all energy. Eventually she’d worked out how to read the information encoded