Cold Skies by Thomas King

Author:Thomas King
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2018-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Six

The Aegean was quiet and even darker than before. Several customers were wandering through the stacks, and there was a young man sitting on a sofa, thumbing through a large book on Rembrandt, turning the volume to try to catch whatever stray light might be available. Archie was nowhere to be seen. With any luck, he was at lunch, and Thumps would be able to get in and out of the store before the little Greek even knew he had been here.

“Thumps!”

So much for luck.

Archie hurried out of the back area, waving a sandwich in one hand. “You should have told me you were coming.”

“Just needed to borrow your computer.”

“You still don’t have one?”

Thumps did have a computer. It just didn’t work. And he was in no rush to get it fixed. When it was working, he had had to wade through a daily blizzard of obnoxious emails. Free trips to Paris, pleas from Nubian princesses to help them with their fortunes, easy and inexpensive ways to enlarge your penis.

“I won’t be long.”

“Sure, sure,” said Archie. He set the sandwich down on the desk and moved the mouse. “You want the internet?”

Thumps opened the envelope and took out the flash drive. “Just need to take a look at a couple of things.”

Archie raised his eyebrows. “Evidence?”

“Archie . . .”

“This the files from their cellphones and laptops?”

“Archie . . .”

“What? You don’t trust me?”

“It’s an ongoing investigation.”

“So, what’s wrong with a little ongoing help?” Archie moved into a blocking position, putting himself between Thumps and the computer. “Besides, you don’t even know where to put that drive.”

Thumps reached around and plugged the drive into a USB port.

“Lucky guess,” said Archie. “Now let’s see you open the file.”

Thumps hoped that a window was going to pop up with a prompt and he would be able to look at the files Stick had loaded onto the drive without having to involve Archie.

No window.

Thumps dragged the mouse around and clicked on an icon he didn’t recognize.

“That’s Windows Media Player.”

Thumps clicked on a second icon.

“And that’s Dropbox.” Archie was smiling.

Thumps took the flash drive out and then eased it in again. Still no icon. This was why he didn’t care if his computer was working. Functioning computers were just as frustrating as non-functioning ones.

“You know they offer computer courses at the college.” Archie forced Thumps out of the chair and worked the mouse. “Okay, there are two files. ‘Lester JPEGs’ and ‘Knight JPEGs.’ Which do you want to see first?”

“Lester.”

Archie ran the mouse to the bottom of the page, clicked on an icon. Thumps tried to watch what the little Greek was doing, but it was like following a sleight-of-hand artist with three cups and a pea.

“Nothing much,” said Archie. “Four photos.”

The first photo was of a car.

“BMW,” said Archie. “Looks like a 7 Series.”

The second and third photos were taken on a golf course overlooking the ocean. Thumps recognized the hole immediately.

“Pebble Beach.”

The fourth photograph was of a young woman sitting at an outdoor café with a busy cityscape in the background.

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