28
Frost walked through the cavernous halls of the north building of the Moscone Center, surrounded by thousands of men and women with convention badges slung around their necks. The lobby signs told him that the annual meeting of a national dental society was in town, along with an army of salespeople hawking digital-imaging systems and ultrasonic scalers for the high-tech dentist’s office. Sooner or later, every major trade group in the world made their way to Moscone Center.
He took the escalators down to the sprawling lower level. The dental trade show was in full swing, and he could see hundreds of vendor kiosks beyond the ballroom doors. Even his police badge didn’t get him past the security personnel with their bar-code scanners, checking the credentials of every participant. Instead, he asked them to call their boss, and he waited in the huge lobby for Billy Chee along with crowds of dentists glued to their phones.
Billy arrived in less than ten minutes. He was a slim Asian man in a gray suit, with a headset and microphone covering one ear. He was almost fifty, and his thinning black hair left him with a high forehead. He had a tablet computer nestled under his right arm.
“Billy,” Frost said, shaking his hand. “Look at you, running the world.”
“Just a couple square blocks of it,” Billy replied with a smile. “Sorry about the cold reception at the door. We tell them nobody gets in without a convention pass, and they’re afraid they’ll get their ass handed to them if they make a mistake.”
“No problem. You miss the old days?”
“Not even for a minute,” Billy said. “I don’t have time.”
Billy Chee had been a popular captain inside the police department until he’d been lured away with three times his police salary to run the security department at Moscone Center. The convention halls were ground zero for threats of corporate espionage, political protests, sexual assault, and mass shootings, and every major event was a potential target for terrorism. It was a big job, and Billy routinely recruited cops as temporary help to bolster the security team.
“How’s your father?” Billy asked. “This place isn’t the same without him.”
“He misses the city, but my mom loves Arizona,” Frost replied. His dad had been a convention planner for Moscone Center for most of his career and had led the search team that hired Billy five years earlier. “I’ll tell him you said hi.”
“Do that. What brings you over here, Frost? I’m sorry to rush you, but I only have a couple of minutes.”
“That’s all I need. Do you remember Alan Detlowe from vice?”
“Alan? Of course. Terrific guy, terrific cop. It was horrible what happened to him. It must be two years ago now.”
“Three.”
“It’s been that long? Unbelievable. Alan and I were friends on the force, and he used to help me out on some of the larger gigs around here.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. His wife tells me that Alan worked security on an event just a couple days before he was murdered. I’d like more details.”
Billy nodded. “I remember that. Trent Gorham talked to me about it after Alan was killed. He was wondering if the event raised any red flags for me with regard to Alan’s death.”
“Did it?” Frost asked.
“Oh no, nothing like that. There were no major security issues.”
“What was the event?”
“As I recall, it was the closing ceremony for a big week-long tech convention,” Billy replied. “Digi-Con or Data-Con or some other Con. They all run together after a while.”
“Do you remember what Alan’s role was?”
“Not specifically. Alan was experienced, so I usually kept him with the VIPs. Plus, he was vice, so he knew to alert me if he spotted any working girls crashing the parties. That’s always an issue.”
“What about that particular night? Did he report any prostitution problems?”
Billy shrugged. “If he did, it doesn’t ring a bell with me, but it would have been low on my priority list.”
“Alan told Marjorie that he needed to talk to someone who was attending the event. An out-of-towner. Did he mention anything about that?”
“Sorry, no. I doubt Alan would have told me if he had a secondary motive in doing the gig. He knows I don’t like it when cops use my events as cover to talk to people who don’t want to talk to them. That makes everyone around here unhappy, and I get angry phone calls. If Alan was looking to question somebody, he would have kept it to himself.”
“So you don’t know who it could have been?”
Billy shook his head. “We’re talking about an event with a few thousand people in attendance.”
“And do you have a way of looking up exactly what the event was?” Frost asked.
“I could do it tonight when I’m back at my desk,” Billy told him.
“Any chance you could do it now?” Frost asked with a smile.
Billy glanced over his shoulder at the doors to the trade show. Frost could hear a stream of alerts crackling through the man’s earpiece. Billy sighed and unlocked the screen on his tablet. “Okay, but only because I miss your dad. Hang on, let me check my database.”
“I really appreciate it.”
Billy’s fingers buzzed around the screen. When he was done, he slapped the vinyl cover shut, and Frost felt his own phone vibrate a few seconds later.
“I just texted you the info,” Billy told him. “The convention was one of our largest annual tech shows. Net-Con. Alan worked the gala dinner to wrap it all up. It was a who’s who of top execs from Amazon, Google, Facebook, all the big names. Security was tight. We had a lot of protesters outside, and there were a couple arrests for disturbing the peace. Inside, everything came off without a hitch. My data log doesn’t show any significant incidents. A few medical alerts and that’s all. Alan made no reports of any problems.”
“Do you have an attendee list?” Frost asked.
“Even if I did, I couldn’t share it with you. You know that.”
Frost nodded. He wasn’t even sure the list would help in an event filled with thousands of people. Alan Detlowe could have been meeting anyone inside the convention hall.
“Well, I need to run, Frost,” Billy told him. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
“No, I’m grateful. Thanks.”
Billy turned toward the convention doors, but then he retraced his steps. “Listen, if you want more dirt about that event, check in with Khristeen Smith over at the Chronicle. You know Khristeen. She’s never afraid of a quid pro quo with the police when it comes to handing out information.”
“Khristeen was there?” Frost asked.
“I’m sure she was. Hell, half the media in town was there, plus most of the national and cable networks, too. It was a huge night. That was when the mayor announced that Zelyx was relocating its headquarters from Chicago to the new high-rise in Mission Bay. You’re talking about a hundred-billion-dollar public company coming to town and bringing along thousands of new jobs. Everyone was covering it.”
“Zelyx,” Frost murmured. “That was a big deal for the mayor, right?”
“Big deal?” Billy laughed. “Are you kidding? A new hospital or a new school is a big deal. This was an earthquake. Denver, Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, all the big cities wanted to land Zelyx. And we got it. Believe me, politicians kill for that kind of deal.”
Zelyx.
Frost sat in his Suburban on Howard Street near the convention center and let the name roll around his tongue.
He had no idea what the company actually did. He looked them up on his phone, but the website buzzwords didn’t make their technology any easier to understand. Zelyx built security software for corporate customers, which left them in the shadows for the rest of the public. They’d started in a Northwestern University dorm room, launched an IPO within three years, and grown into one of the largest technology companies in the country.