“Why would he look for someone else? Especially in the personals… it’s so… sleazy. I thought we had something special.”
The Colonel might have been checking the personal ads for personal reasons, but I doubted it. From what I’d learned, his interest in the ads was purely professional. On the other hand, if Melahn was convinced that her boyfriend had been looking for love in a newspaper, it might make losing him less painful, but I felt like she ought to know the truth.
I explained the situation to her without any of the details. She seemed at least partially relieved, but started asking for particulars. I told I wasn’t at liberty to share the information, but that she could be sure the Colonel’s motives in the matter were innocent. She thanked me and said she’d call back if she found out anything else.
After disconnecting, I turned my attention to the message Melahn had passed along. I started by counting the letters-there were 84, unless my spelling skills had completely vanished. If this was a code, it didn’t appear to be like the other one I’d found in the paper. I went through the other approaches, every other letter and so on, but without any luck. After a while, I decided that I would never make progress without a stiff drink.
Then I saw it. I’d been looking too hard. It was the initials. “Gorgeous, rabid single seeks confidential, open minded lover.” GRS seeks COL. COL was the abbreviation for Colonel. This was definitely a communication meant for the Colonel to see. Now I just had to find out who GRS was. And what was the meaning in the rest of the message?
The initials didn’t make any sense. At any rate, it didn’t sound like a code; it sounded like a literary quote. Unfortunately most of the literature I knew started with “There once was a man from Nantucket.” Maybe if I found out where the quote was from, it would help me to interpret the message.
There was only one logical place to check. I’d never been to the public library, but my tax dollars were helping to fund it. I decided to tap the resource and looked up the number in my directory. I glanced at my watch. It was just after eight o’clock. They were probably closed, but I’d try anyway. To my surprise, someone picked up. It was an older woman, with white hair tied in a tight bun and spectacles hanging on a chain around her neck. She looked to me like a veritable vault of quote knowledge. “City Library. Can I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I have this literary quote, and I’m trying to find out who said it.”
“My goodness. Trivia. Well, let’s hear it, though I can’t promise anything.” She was a trooper.
“OK, here goes. ‘Take away our love, and our Earth is a tomb.’”
The old woman mulled it over. “If I had to guess, I’d bet it’s probably Robert Browning.
It sounds just like the kind of thing he’d say. We have quite a good selection of his work down here, if you’d like to look around.”
I smiled appreciatively. “I just might do that, ma’am. Thank you for your help.”
“Not at all. Thank you for calling.”
Going to the library actually seemed like a pretty good idea. I could check on this Browning guy and browse through the newspapers from the past couple of weeks. I had a hunch there would be other messages. If only I had money. There were sources on the Internet that could give you access to newspaper data from all over the world.
Unfortunately, my web subscription was one of the first things to lapse when I’d gone broke. At least I didn’t have to pay to use the library and, apparently, it stayed open to at least nine o’clock. I grabbed my coat and left.
When I reached the San Francisco Public Library, I was pleased to see that the posted hours were 7 A.M. to 10 P.M. I stepped inside and breathed the pleasant smell of books.
These days, more and more people were using their computers as reading material.
When they weren’t glued to the television, that is. Online libraries offered a direct entry to the Library of Congress, and actual libraries couldn’t compete when it came to selection. The book you were looking for was always literally at your fingertips, since it never had to be checked out. Plus, you could always find what you wanted and print it out.
Despite all the advantages, in my opinion, it just wasn’t the same as lounging in the tub with an old, yellowed hardback. Ever since I was a kid, I’d had a soft spot for real paper books. I’d grown up with the Hardy Boys, then moved onto Sherlock Holmes. By the time I discovered Chandler and Hammett, my destiny was clear.
I started by looking up the past three weeks of Bay City Mirror issues. This time, I dispensed with the cover-to-cover search and went straight to the personal ads. I hit pay dirt in the November 23 edition, which was seventeen days previous and a week prior to the ad Melahn had found. The message read, “Grandfather reaching sixty seeks comfortable, old-fashioned lady. Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.” There it was again — GRS seeks COL. The quote at the end sounded like something from a Greek play or maube Shakespeare.
Sensing a pattern, I skipped ahead two weeks to the December 7 issue. Again, I found what I was looking for: “Green-eyed, redheaded Scorpio seeks curvy, outgoing Leo. We sail tonight.” The last part didn’t sound like a quote. It sounded vaguely fateful.
I went on to check the other days in between, but there were only the three messages. It was almost closing time when I went to the front desk. The elderly lady I’d spoken to on the vid-phone came to the counter, smiling pleasantly. “I hoped to see you in here, but I didn’t expect it would be so soon.”
“You were very convincing.”
I showed her the Pyramus and Thisby quote. She was all over this one and told me that the line was from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I got directions to Robert Browning and went on a search. Just at ten o’clock, I returned to the front desk with a copy of his Collected Poems and a small paperback of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The elderly lady checked out the books for me and wished me a good night.
I returned to my office and took the books to bed. It took quite a bit of searching before I located the Browning quote. There was nothing in the rest of the poem that clarified the message. I picked up the Shakespeare paperback and started scanning through the play. I paused after the first act and rubbed my eyes. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock, and I was dragging. I fired up and went back to my speed-reading.
Finally, in act three, I found the line “Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.” It appeared in a scene where a bunch of knuckleheads were trying to practice their parts in a play. I’d never been an avid Shakespearean, but the scenario read like a bad episode of Three’s Company. I read it over and couldn’t find anything that made the quote meaningful.
Maybe the numbers at the top of the page were significant. The top right and left corner each had a number; I assumed they indicated which lines of the play were on that page.
Fatigue was creeping up on me. It took me three tries to figure out the line number for
“Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.” I grabbed a pen and wrote down act three, scene one, lines forty-nine and fifty. When I finished, I laid back to rest my eyes for a moment.
An especially loud snore startled me out of a deep sleep. I’d been dreaming, and the images were still fresh in my mind. I’d been talking to Alaynah and was relieved to see that she’d miraculously survived the bombing. We were discussing the personal ads.
When I asked her who GRS could be, she winked at me and pointed. I followed her finger down to a sealed enveloped on her desk. Printed on the envelope were the words Genetic Research Systems.
UAKM — CHAPTER NINETEEN
There was no listing for Genetic Research Systems in the phone directory. The company either had an unlisted number or wasn’t located in the greater New San Francisco area.