b-jones@ttidca.UUCP (Bill Jones) (08/30/85)
Nick Hackman, Systems Consultant and The Case of the Camarillo Brillo I was waiting for my contact in this grungy little cantina on the bad side of Nogalas. There was nobody in the place but me and the bartender, a chubby little guy with a Boston Blackie mustache and sweaty T-shirt that was about a size and a half too small to stretch over his ample beer belly. I was sitting at a fly specked table against the back wall watching the warm mid afternoon breeze dance with the bead curtain stretched over the street en- trance to the cantina. The bartender was standing behind the bar, sipping a Tecate, swatting flies and watching a rerun of Bonanza on an ancient black & white television. I was half way through my second quart of Mezcal when the dog came in. He was an ordinary looking dog, just like the kind of mongrel you'd expect to see in any alley in any grungy little town anywhere in the world. But something told me that this wasn't just any dog. Maybe it was the way he jumped up on the chair and seated himself at my table, maybe it was the UCLA class ring he was wearing. I don't know, but I had a pretty strong hunch that this was my contact. The dog sat there staring right into my eyes with one of those cold, unwavering stares that you usually get from the patrons of waterfront bars around closing time. As I sat there staring back through a Mezcal induced fog, he deftly removed a cigarette from my pack on the table and lit up. He inhaled the cigarette smoke deeply into his lungs, then glanced over his shoulder at the bar- tender as he casually exhaled the smoke. The bartender was still watching Bonanza. "Hackman ?", inquired the dog, as he turned back to face me. "Right", I said. "You must be Carlos." Before he could answer, a large black raven flapped in through the bead curtain and landed on the edge of our table. The dog barked something in Spanish at the bartender and then turned back to me. "I am Carlos. And this", he gestured toward the bird, "is my associate Don Juan." The bartender placed two cans of Tecate on the table, then returned to the Ponderosa. "I love your disguises", I said, "but now that you've both shot your wad, what will you do for Halloween?" "You must understand, Mr. Hackman, that we are dealing with a very, well shall we say, delicate situation here" sniffed the raven. "If certain individuals should see either Carlos or myself speaking with the famous Systems Consultant, Nick Hackman, then the seriousness of our predicament would be all too evident. The consequences would be quite grim." "Whatever." I said. "You mentioned in your letter that the as- signment you have for me may be dangerous." An unmistakable sneer was on the dog's lips as he asked "A little danger doesn't put you off, does it Mr. Hackman?" I was seriously considering what form of violence to perpetrate against this acerbic cur when the bird spoke up: "We'll get to the point Mr. Hackman. as you know, Carlos and I work for the exploration division of PEMEX. We have been charged with imple- menting a real time system to capture and evaluate seismic data." "Actually," interjected the dog, "the system is being designed by a separate systems architecture group within our division. We are responsible only for the implementation." Just then an attractive senorita walked in and seated herself at the bar. The bartender deserted Ben Cartright and the boys to take her drink order. "Yes," continued the raven, "therein lies the crux of our prob- lem, and why we have come to you for help." "Let me guess," I started, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the din of a blender grinding ice cubes to slush as the bar- tender built a margarita for the senorita. I thought only gringos drank those things. "seventy percent of your development time has been pissed away while the architects have been sitting around arguing endlessly about what is the theoretically correct design." "Precisely." said the dog as he grabbed by bottle of Mezcal with both paws and proceeded to chug a healthy portion of it. I've had to do some pretty unsavory things from time to time. It comes with the turf, but there are some things I won't do. Sharing my bottle of tequilla with a damn dog is one of them. But the mer- cenary in me took hold as I remembered the healthy fee these guys were offering, so I fought back the impulse to pull the bottle away from him. "The problem is, Mr. Hackman," the black bird continued, "is that we are responsible for delivery of a working system by the end of the year, and every day that the architects spend pontificating their position is a day stolen from our development time." "What we'd like you to do, Mr. Hackman," said the dog as he clunked the empty Mezcal bottle on the table, "is develop our system for us independently so that we can meet our delivery date. The architects will never know the difference because they havn't the faintest idea how these systems really work anyway." "I understand", I said, "but this is not an unusual situation at all. Why are you two being so secretive?" I paused to admire the senorita as she walked by our table on her way out the back door of the cantina. "What is normally done in these cases is to leave the architects to their bickering and pontificating while the developers just plod along independently and get the thing done." "That would be the most logical and expedient approach," coun- tered the bird, "but we do things differently here in Mexico. These matters are taken quite seriously here. People have been known to..." he was interrupted by Carlos bolting from the table and skittering out the back door with his tail tucked between his legs, yelping madly as he went. As I turned to see what had prompted his rude behavior, I noticed five guys wearing identical three piece suits and carrying menacing looking attache cases. Something told me that it was time to get back to the Holiday Inn, but as a I got up to sprint for the door, I remembered the quart and a half of tequilla I'd consumed, and that I'd forgotten how to walk. The last thing I remember before the lights went out was the floor, covered with five pair of identical wing tips, rushing up and hitting me on the chin. TBC