AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

hear anything from that guy who’s hot for you?” she asked, laughing. “No, seriously, hear anything?”
    “Hah, hah. Yes, he said he wants me to make an appointment. He wants to hire me.”
    Yamaguchi glanced at him in the passenger seat. “You’re not going to, are you?”
    “No, I’m not. I am a happy member of the Denver PD team. Uh, parking space at 3 o’clock.”
    “Got it.” Yamaguchi parked the cruiser on 15th Street near the corner with Wazee. LoDo was Denver’s trendy lower downtown, although Munroe still didn’t think Denver had a big enough downtown to justify the term. Many parts of LoDo had been turned into lofts, restaurants or office buildings, but there were still a few warehouses.
    “Which one is it?” she asked after they got out of the car.
    “The one next to the Wazee Supper Club,” he told her.
    She crossed the street carefully as the cars sped along 15th. She looked up at the two-story building. It had probably been built around 1900, 1910. Munroe stayed beside her, but decided not to say anything until her first impressions.
    “They’ve used this building for raves before. Owned by a man who owns a couple of the buildings on Wynkoop. Met him at one of the Japanese-American society meetings. My mom hated him.” She walked around the corner and looked down the alley. “You couldn’t get in last night, huh?”
    “Nope, didn’t even try without my trusty sidekick.” She muttered something that the terminal didn’t translate and walked back out to the sidewalk and the main entrance. She looked through the glass door and saw a flight of stairs leading up. There were two doors at the base of the stairs and two more at the top landing. She tried opening the door but it was locked. She knocked on the door with her knuckles.
    “No answer,” she said, but not really to Munroe. She took out her nightstick and rapped on the door harder. Still no answer.
    He peered up the stairway. “Can you make out the sign on the door?”
    “Where?”
    “Top floor.” Munroe looked carefully but he could only make out a smudge.
    “It’s a bad angle. Looks like … looks like …” she sneezed on the door and had to wipe the glass clean with her sleeve. “Barf … Barf? No, Barfly. Barfly Tentmaker? No. Barfly Entertainment.”
    She took out her phone and made a call. “Hi, dispatch? John, that you? Yeah, it’s Linda. How you doing? Yes, I got a cold. Oh you did, did you? Hey, can you make a call for me? See if you can reach anyone at Barfly Entertainment … I kid you not. On 15th Street. Yeah, tell them to meet me on the street. OK, I’ll hold.” Munroe could see Yamaguchi’s lips move but the terminal provided no translation. She was humming. At least her mood’s improving, he thought.
    “OK, thanks, you’re a prince among men,” she said and hung up.
    She looked back to the top of the stairs and the door opened. A man came walking down the stairs, looking surprised to see her. She could see he had an iPod hung around his neck and earphones pushed back on his head.
    He unlocked the door and opened it.
    “Yes, officer, may I help you?” Munroe thought he looked the part of the late 20s slacker — baggy pants, a bowling shirt, several piercings and spiky red hair. But he was polite.
    “May we come in?” she asked.
    “We?” he asked. She nodded.
    “Sure, come on up.”
    Yamaguchi motioned for him to go first, and he walked up the stairs. She followed him through the door and into an office that was the dream of any hip, young entrepreneur. The office had high ceilings and large, north facing windows. Five desks held Apple computers, their monitors seemingly hanging in mid-air and looking like flowers seeking the sun. People were working at two of the computers. Large and small posters advertising concerts and raves were plastered all over the walls, which were brightly painted except where they were trendy bare brick.
    The young man who’d invited them in led them to curved, modern-retro plywood chairs arranged around a wire spool table. He motioned for them to sit.
    “Nice office, what do you do here?”
    “We make the posters and stuff advertising impromptu musical entertainments.”
    “Nicely put,” Yamaguchi said. “We’d like to know if you might remember an impromptu event that took place in this building Dec. 11.”
    “What’s the ‘we’ mean? Like the imperial Denver police we?”
    “Sorry, I forgot to introduce us. I’m Linda Yamaguchi and my