AZOTUSLAND Chapter Sixty-Five

While Maugham and Manfred huffed and puffed and setup equipment in Silo 1 and Silo 2, Jim went out in the Gallery and asked Hans to follow him into Silo 2.

Hans looked bewildered when he walked in and saw the room.

"Diss is for storage?"

"No, Hans. It's my new office. We are expanding and going into new ventures."

"It's is vonderful!" he marvelled. "I luff vat you have done with da lamps," he cooed.

"Come sit down Hans," Jim said motioning to a chair on the other side of the deck.

"You are going to fire me," Hans said sadly. "I knew it."

"No Hans," Jim said. "I am promoting you to be my personal secretary. It's not enough work for full-time so you can run the Gallery as well. I'd like you to do both. Will you agree?"

"It vill be more money, no?"

"Yes Hans. And no more bussing tables. You will be here during normal business hours with two hours lunch every day because I may need you some evenings for a bit. Does that work for you?"

"I get to organize?" Hans said with one eyebrow arching.

"Yes, I would like that very much Hans."

"Zen I agree Jim."

"There will be a lot more foot traffic through here, so you will need to be flexible."

"I understand perfucktly Jim." Hans said.

Just then Manfred came in with the Tower and while putting it down it landed on his foot.

Manfred shrieked and hopped around.

"Dance of Shiva," Jim said quietly.

"No Ghandi-Gee now," Hans said even quieter and they both shared a smirk.

********

Maugham setup in Silo One. A long black table,tyhe three towers underneath, three flat panel monitors and keyboards on the desk with mice. He also brought down his big leather chair.

Jim came in a quickly gave him a more full tour. The main lighting was from the white panels against the North wall, but it was enough and made it cave like. The three monitors displayed The matrix screensavers and cooled, well, cool. The black table actually came out from the wall, as did a number of other things.

Jim looked sheepishly at maugham. "Not a word of this stuff to anyone, right?"

"Hey dude..Martine, I.."

"Okay, but only her."

Maugham had been right the first time he saw the room. It was a little James Bond-like. Though small the walls hid recessed panels. An industrial sized refrigerator, that was lightly stocked. A small room with a fax machine, two cellphones, Bluetooth headsets, a Blackberry, two digital cameras, a bagged SLR with various lenses and a cache of film. There was a Centrino laptop that had never been used but was always charged. Then on the right was a dizzying array of connectors, cables and cords for any occasion. There was a bank of rechargible batteries of all sizes and cradles. It was "Nerd Paradise" thought. Maugham.

Jim invited Maugham to the far Eastern wall and he pushed another black panel and the door hissed open. It was musty with only old small lights down a dank hallway. When they walked about 30 or yards they turned right and came upon the elevator.

"You must be joking'" Maugham said.

"Then Jim gave him two keys. "This is to your office. This is to this elevator. Not that we need it now, but you can take a look in the veiwscreen here and see if anyone is in it. Only the key will bring it down here. There is a keyhole in the elevator that automatically takes you down here. It's the only way."

"What happened to you dude?"

"That's a question for another day my friend," Jim said. "Let's just say I am making a major comeback."

No one was in the elevator, so Maugham used the key and a minute or so later the doors opened and they climbed in.

They rode up and it stopped at floor one and Jonathan looked surprised when the doors opened and it was occupied.

"We forgot our keys," Maugham said, and they rode up.

******

It was late Sunday and Jim was down in Silo 2 studying alabaster on his own. Only it was not the same alabaster Maugham was searching for in Silo 1.

Jim had decided to let Maugham handle the investigation. He could be more objective, and he was shrewd..a lot more than Jim. They were both like generals in a way, but Jim was the caring tactical general like Omar Bradley. Maugham could be fearless, clear and ruthless like George Patton.

Together Jim liked their chances and he felt strangely happy with all the changes.

Jim found an old book on ancient Middle Eastern perfumes that was dust covered and sat down to pour over the material and type into his iBook.

**********

Next door Maugham had done several hundred independent searches, across several search engines. He had signed on to several search services and laid in what he could. He started to get results after a few hours.

It was not easy. There were towns named alabaster, companies, old lamps, sculptures, even old Bible stories.

But Maugham did find a promising strain finally.

It was from 2001 and a man in Sacramento had complained bitterly on a few chatboards about a woman named "Alabaster99".

Maugham decided to take the strain and focus on that as a lead and also did searches with other years added on. He started playing with other variations, but printed up any leads and taped them to the wall with notes.

Around midnight, he saw Martine at the door in sweats. "So how are Batman and Robin doing?"

Maugham smiled. "Sorry baby. Last thing I knew it was 3 p.m.". She came in and sat on the floor.

"Nice Oro-fice" she said. "You searching for babes on the Internet?"

"In a manner of speaking," he said. "Look I got some good news to share with you, but can you do me a favor and get Jim from next door?"

"Now I am Alfred the Butler?"

Maugam gave her a look and she said "okay, okay," and bounded up the stairs to fetch Jim.

Creeping into Silo 2 Martine had the same reaction Matisse had had. Jim looked up and said "How are you sister?"

"You really are weird Jim," she said.

"Yeah, I get that a lot. Hey come here and have a look at this." He showed her a collection of photographs of old alabaster vials used to hold perfume and spices.

"They are beautiful," she said.

"Here look at this one," he said grabbing the book and thumbing to page 346. A beautiful vial shaped like a woman with dark handles that swirled around it's white sides. "Isn't that great?" he smiled.

"Lovely," she said. Then she sighed. "You know sometimes this place moves a little too fast for me."

"I know, Tis true. What's up?"

"Maug needs you next door," she said "and if you keep spending so much time with him I am going to get jealous."

"No you won't. That's all being handled."