“Probably. Give me a few days. My team at work has a deadline coming up so I’m going to be pulling long days next week but I can try to crack them. It might be next weekend before I can give you anything.”
“All right. I’m going to let Wolhardt know we’re working on it. This one’s a little weird because he can’t pay us up front expenses. We get paid if we get his notes back and he wins the reward for cracking the enigma.”
“I guess I better get in touch with him then and make sure his supposed solution isn’t a bunch of bullshit.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Okay,” Ashna said, rising and closing her laptop. “I’ll email him. Let’s check in before you go to Seattle.”
“Can’t wait. I love our little chats.”
Ashna flipped me off on her way out the door, then stuck her head back in. “Thanks for dinner by the way.”
“Always my pleasure.”
Chapter 6
The Never-Ending Party
June 24: San Francisco
I woke up early and took my coffee to the roof. The bay was fogged in and the big boats were visible only by their lights, spectral in the haze. The ladies were beginning to arrive for work downstairs. I listened to them chatter, coming up the street. Far from annoying me, their voices sounded like home. I knew there were plenty of people who would find my living arrangement difficult to understand. My two-story cinder block box suited me perfectly. Still, buildings were growing up all around—four, five, six stories tall. More people were in the neighborhood all the time. The families were leaving and the twenty and thirty something party people were moving in. A friend who taught dance to kids at a local studio had told me that they were cutting back hours and staff. There weren’t enough kids in the city anymore. The demographics were shifting. It was like Logan’s Run but the old people weren’t euthanized, they just buckled their kids into their car seats and went to the East Bay. Still, I would remain as long as possible, like one of those old ladies in a little Victorian house completely surrounded by concrete walls. They would have to force me out by eminent domain.
I was about to go in when my phone pinged with an incoming text from Ashna. She had figured out the identity of enigma_admin. Weirdly enough, she had his email address in her own contact list.
—This f*ing guy! I’ve been to parties at his place a few times. James Ringold. Everybody calls him Molly (for obvious reasons). He’s a real weirdo. Lives on top of a building in SOMA. One of those dudes who made millions in the first dot com boom and retired to a life of non-stop partying. He was employee number five at PayPal or eBay or something. A crypto nerd like me. He was into that sex cult for incels back in the day. And burning man. He’s a no sleeve burner—
—no sleeve burner?—
—Yeah man. No sleeves. They never have sleeves! I don’t know. They cut them off of all their shirts. Or maybe there’s a shop that sells them that way, artfully ripped with threads all hanging off. Not a bad look if you have the shoulders for it. Anyway, it’s been a couple of years since I attended any parties at his place but I just asked a friend at work and he says the party has not stopped. The EDM and MDMA are strong with this one. You should check him out before you go to Seattle. It was the solstice a few days ago. The party should still be going strong—
Ashna sent me the address and I replied that I would go by and see if I could scare up any clues. From the description, he didn’t sound like a strong suspect but I had a couple of days free so it couldn’t hurt to check it out.
I spent the day working, grinding and smoothing welded joints. By five o’clock I was ready to quit. I had texted my friend Roberto earlier to see if he wanted to crash the party with me and he was an enthusiastic yes. He was coming over from Oakland and we were meeting for tacos in the Mission, then heading to Molly’s rooftop pleasure palace.
We met at Taqueria El Buen Sabor on Valencia. Roberto didn’t like fancy restaurants—especially the ones in the Mission district that catered to the tech crowd—so we compromised on my favorite taqueria. It didn’t have much atmosphere but you could sit at the counter that faced the street and watch people pass by out on Valencia.
“The pollo verde’s better at Taqueria Cancun,” Roberto said, poking at his taco, perched on his stool like a malnourished buzzard with a toreador’s pompadour. “Not enough cumin in this.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“How was the food in LA?”
“No idea. I just ate take out and room service.”
“A wasted trip.”
“Not completely. I met a guy down there who asked me to do a job for him.”
“One of your secret jobs.”
“Yeah. That’s why I need to go to this party house tonight. The guy who lives there might have some info.”
“Interesting. If you need me to cause a distraction let me know. I’ll knock over a potted palm and start screaming.”
We caught the BART two stops, getting off at Powell and walking down into SOMA. The address was on Howard Street. When we reached it, we found an old, six story brick apartment building. I could see from the street that there was a kind of penthouse sprouting up from the roof. A weird structure built up out of steel girders, big panes of glass, cinder block, and corrugated metal roof panels, it didn’t look new but it didn’t look original either. Through the windows I could see lights flashing purple and blue.
“Is that where we’re going?” Robert asked.
“Yeah, I think
