For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

It was completely dark out by the time he got to the Xalaxy building on a frontage road close to the freeway. Despite the ten foot muddy colored brick sound wall, Henry could hear the trucks and cars going by heading south and back in the direction of his beloved Palm Springs. Henry thought there were too many people in this part of California. If someone had told him that he was in the middle of Los Angeles, he'd of believed them.

He parked across the street from the building with a canvas banner on it that said Xalaxy in front of a similar looking building that just had "Building C" painted on the side. The entire frontage road was full of similar buildings, all concrete wall tilt up construction, and he was convinced these would all fall down like stacked cards in the next big Northern California earthquake. He was surprised at how many cars were still in the Xalaxy parking lot.

Henry spotted at least two of the Mercedes SUV's similar to what Wayne said Anchula drove. He sat there and watched the building for about thirty minutes and every once in a while, someone would walk out and get into their car and drive away. Right after a tall woman carrying a briefcase walked out and climbed into one of the Mercedes SUV's, Henry decided not to wait any longer and got out of his car and walked across the street.

The front door was unlocked and Henry walked right in and stood just inside the door. The building was filled with cubicles and didn't look that much different from Rosie's office. Except here there were inflatable pool toy animals hung from the ceiling, Christmas lights strung in an arch over an aisle way, he could hear at least three different stereos playing various kinds of music, there was the clattering noise from what sounded like a pinball machine from the back of the space and a rhythmic droning that sounded suspiciously like a dribbling basketball. What was obviously the reception desk right in front of him had a telephone and laptop computer with a slide show going with pictures of a small child and a large fluffy white cat.

Henry walked through the maze of little hallways orienting himself on the pool toys and Christmas lights so that he wouldn't get lost as he had at Rosie's office. Hmmm, why did he keep thinking about her? Once he arranged a hotel room for himself, he was determined that he was going to call her to ask her out for Saturday night. Maybe she'd enjoy a movie, he was probably too forward when he asked her during lunch the other day. Or should he ask her over to the house so that he could throw something on the grill for the two of them. That sounded better, he hoped she would come over, it was much easier to talk at home than during a movie and he did like talking with her. He could ask Charles to go visit one of his many friends and stay away.

He kept looking at the little name tags on the cubicle walls and saw a lot of names that he couldn't pronounce but not Anchula's. There was a glass door to what looked like a conference room that had a bunch of people in it looking studiously at what a short heavy set guy with long black hair tied in a ponytail was writing on a white board. Henry opened the door and poked his head in; "I'm looking for Amit Anchula; can any of you help me find him?"

The long haired man that was standing in front of the white board looked at him with wide eyes, threw the marker that he had been using at Henry and leaped for the other door in the conference room that headed directly outside. Henry left the general commotion of the others in the room behind as he took off after what was obviously Anchula running through the door. He pushed past the people in the room and went through the door just a few seconds behind Anchula. He was outside now in a little courtyard that had a bunch of chairs and a low wall surrounding it. Anchula was climbing over the wall but he was not as fast as his pursuer and Henry caught up to him just as he jumped down on the other side and started running across the lawn. Henry leapt at him, caught him around the mid-section and tumbled on the grass holding onto Anchula.