The Tin Collector

Chapter 32

THE FIFTEEN-STORY steel-and-glass building on Lincoln Boulevard was named the Two Thousand Building by a large monument sign that marked the entrance. Under that in gold letters:

It was also on top of the building in five-foot-high lit letters, leaving no doubt about who owned the place.

Shane and Chooch parked in the underground garage, got out, and moved to the elevator, taking it up to the management floor at the top of the building. They exited into a huge architectural lobby decorated in monochromatic colors, dominated by too many sharp edges and angular lines. Steel-and-glass furniture dotted the interior. Futuristic recessed lighting laid down a cold blue-white glow. A huge gold sign behind the receptionist again announced that this was:

Shane left Chooch by the elevator and approached a striking, unfriendly white-blond receptionist who looked cold enough to have been delivered with the furniture. Shane opened his wallet and took out his police business card. Since he didn't have his badge, the business card was the best he could manage. He was hoping it would get him past the blond goddess who was guarding the floor, stationed behind her huge, semicircular, two-inch-thick green glass desk, like a turret gunner.

"What's this regarding?" she asked, speaking coolly, not intimidated by his card or manner.

"Police business," he replied.

"Mr. Spivack isn't here. Perhaps someone else can help you?"

"How about Calvin Sheets?" Shane said, wondering if Logan Hunter's head of security was also working for Spivack.

"He's down at the city council meeting with Mr. Spivack. Sorry…"

"The Long Beach City Council?"

She ignored his question and smiled an icicle at him. "Would there be anybody else…?"

"Coy Love."

"We don't have a Coy Love."

"I'm not doing too well, am I?"

"Sometimes if you make an appointment in advance, it works wonders." Freon.

"I may just have to get a search warrant and start emptying everyone's desks… Do a couple of body searches."

"Anything else?" She had grown tired of him.

"Pamela Anderson Lee wouldn't happen to be around, would she?"

"Just left." But at least this earned him a smile.

He picked up his business card, tucked it into his wallet, then took a Spivack Company brochure off the glass desk and walked across the lobby, the ice-blonde watching him all the way. He retrieved Chooch, got into the elevator, and went down. He left the teenager in the lobby, then found the staircase to the basement. It took him five minutes to find the service utility room. Inside was a huge gray panel box with a dime-store lock that took Shane less than thirty seconds to pick. Now he was looking at a startling array of colorful wires. "Shit," he said, then slowly went to work unraveling the building's complicated alarm system.

???

"I wonder where the city council meets. Probably city hall," Shane said as they settled back into the Taurus. He picked up his almost fried cell phone, called Information in Long Beach, and got the address for city hall on Front Street just before the phone quit.

They drove away from the Two Thousand Building and, with some help from a gas-station attendant, found Front Street. The huge domed city building loomed two blocks ahead…

As they pulled up the street, they could see quite a demonstration in progress thirty or forty pickets were congregating around in front of city hall. It was a strange mixture of people. Some were old men in American Legion uniforms, holding duplicate hand-lettered signs that read: