Episode 2: The Minotaur

There's a darkness hanging over the city today. An oppressive black cloud that roils and rumbles, but never quite becomes a thunderstorm. The wind blows as if it can't pick a direction. Leaves whirling in strange patterns. Vortices of steam forming over manhole covers. People are walking around with their fists clenched as if something is coming. As if some revelation is at hand. But the fever never breaks. The storm never comes. There is no release.

The clouds get darker and darker until you can't really tell whether it's day or night. And maybe it's neither. Maybe this is all there ever was. The old world is dying. The new world has failed to be born. And who knows what monsters will emerge from the twilight. Come, come, experience the pleasure, the visual delight of flesh on flesh. See the dark, delectable provocations of the cinema of carnal mystique.

Today, you will witness the sensual explorations of Marco Polo and the savage women of the desert. who claim handsome travelers for themselves in brutal, naked combat. See them cleanse their bodies with hot dripping wax. Watch them writhe Oh See you again, Mr. Detective Sir. Just going to work. Are you sure I cannot tempt you? The women of the desert are very fine and smooth. Or are you a big bushman? Tomorrow we descend into the dark, moist undergrowth of I'm okay, thanks.

Do it yourself, Mr. Detective. But be careful. The soul gets heavy when the sky is dark. Good morning, Detective Wade. Good morning, sir. Glad to see you're on time today. I swear, normally I'm never late. It was just that one day, with the rain and the whole city going crazy. City's always going crazy lately. I'm trying. Are you reorganizing the vault? Just making sure it's in order. It's important to keep track of things.

You recording? Uh yep. Just like you said. Record every step and always listen back. Always. You must never lose track. Do you understand? Yes, sir. I know I sound crazy. I am well familiar with my reputation. But there is a single gift we human brutes have been given, and that is the gift of reason. Your job is to use that gift to make connections, to draw lines between all the fragments of our understanding.

I know you're a smart guy, Ben. I'm just You're not as smart as Danton, but eh, you're smart. I've read your file. You're smart and you care. You've helped people. You've been that one cop who tries to do the right thing when everybody else is just there to scratch and hitch. But you know something I've discovered in life? Smart and well meaning people.

Are the best at deluding themselves. They're the best at telling themselves convincing stories, and even when it comes to the media, to the powers that be, on some level, they just want to believe what they're told. Because deep down, you're an honest person, and you want to think that somewhere in the system there are people like you. And if they dress up nice and sound less crazy than the opposition, well maybe they're the good guy.

That's how you lose track of what's going on in this city. So you go back and you listen to everything again. You make connections and you never assume that you got it right the first time. I understand. And maybe you're right about me. That's definitely how I used to be. I'm not sure it's still how I am. When the Whitman dossier was leaked, I really thought something would change. The commissioner says it has, but I don't really see it.

Good morning. Morning. Detective Danton. I was just reminding your colleague of the importance of following the procedures that I established. It's too easy to miss things or to forget. I've got my recorder right here, sir. Excellent. Now where's Crane? We're both early, sir. I thought I'd be first. All right. Until he gets here, uh have a look at this file.

So Jerry, did you hear about those kids protesting at City Hall? One of them threw an egg at the mayor right in his face. Now look, I don't know how you feel about this, Jerry, but I don't think it's right. You know, I don't always agree with the mayor. Everything you hear on here is my opinion, pure and unfiltered. But you gotta show some respect. Our troops are out there fighting for democracy, Jerry. If we believe in democracy, we can't be throwing eggs at public officials.

And if you don't like the war, why don't you join up and fight so one day we can have peace, right? You gotta work through the system. I don't understand what's wrong with kids these days, Jerry. Hello buddy! Have you ever desired a desert woman? Today? Not now, man. Hey. Detective Crane, just on time. Time for what? Your next case.

This is a particularly complicated one, and I would have recommended staying away from it for now, but there's a new piece of evidence that I want you to investigate. Here you go. Any pointers for where we should start? No. I don't want to prejudice you. There's one thing this case needs. It's a fresh pair of eyes. Well, sir, my eyes are minty fresh.

Shut up, Crane. This case has no space for bullshit. I have my own work to attend to, and I can't stay here just to make sure you don't get sidetracked. Am I making myself clear? Crystal. Good. Now get to work.

Jesus, that man needs to relax. I guess you nerds already know what this case is. I read the case summary and uh I'm not sure what we're looking at. Yeah, I think we might need some kind of chart. I don't even know where to start. Just uh walk me through it. How does it start? Who got killed? Well, that's a problem. The the subject of the case is an accountant named Leonard Quinn. He's missing, maybe dead.

Okay, that's not unusual. Except that apart from this case, there is no record of a person called Leonard Quinn ever existing. He has no social security number, no driver's license. The Association of Certified Accountants doesn't even have his name on record. So it's an alias. Could be. But the accounting firm he worked for is pretty prestigious. I'm not sure he could get away with fake paperwork. Which firm is it? Angstrom and Cathcart Auditor.

Their offices are in the heights on the corner of Summit in Blackwood. It's a gorgeous building. Ooh, we got an architecture appreciator over here. What? I like Art Deco. Not everything has to be an ugly gray box. I agree. Well, the heights are too fancy for this schlubby mortal, so why don't you keep telling me about this non-existent accountant? Quinn had been employed by Angstrom and Cathcart for about 20 years.

According to this interview with Maya Angstrom, he was reserved, but a hard worker with a reputation for always getting things done on time. If you had a particularly messy job, you gave it to Quinn, and he would slowly and methodically figure it out.

Sounds like he was fun at parties. The trouble began when Quinn was assigned to audit a private security company called Legrasse Home Defense. Why were they auditing them? I'm not sure. I think it's got something to do with these mergers. A bunch of companies were buying each other and I don't know. It's really tangled. Okay, let's show that question for now. So Quinn starts auditing these Legrasse guys. What happens next?

Well at first, they're really evasive about giving him the files at all. They keep making excuses about why they can't deliver them. There's a problem with the Xerox machine. There's a problem with the elevator. The accountant is sick. Basically, they're like an inch away from saying the dog ate their homework. So Quinn actually goes to their offices and says fine, I'll do the audit right here. Surprisingly ballsy.

Now it suddenly turns out they do have everything prepared, and they hand him a ridiculous stack, just thousands and thousands of pages, all of them out of order. And a neat summary that makes everything look great. So clearly they're hoping he'll just rubber stamp it and let it be. His notes also suggest that they offer him a significant financial incentive. But he doesn't take

Instead, he decides to take those thousands of pages and sort them out. Figure out what Legrasse is trying to hide. The guy's kind of a badass. This is where it gets messy. As he goes through the files, he starts realizing that none of Legrasse's customers are actually real. The transactions are real, but none of the people whose homes they're supposed to be protecting actually exist.

Even the street names are fictional, so the company's a front. Exactly. An extremely well-disguised front for a bigger company used to hide some of its transactions. So now Quinn decides he needs to find out who owns Legrasse. Angstrom says it becomes an obsession for him. He stays in the office until late at night, subsisting on nothing but coffee, trying to track down all the connections. Ugh, could do with the coffee. The problem is that there's so many connections.

Money flowing back and forth in a hundred directions, arms deals, chemical manufacturing, human trafficking, funding for the university statue of someone called Theodore Adorno, investments in electronics, a charity event for children with cancer. payoffs to Heinemann from the Whitman dossier, there's no obvious pattern, no obvious benefactor.

Quinn starts making lists of other accounts, wondering which of them could even be capable of setting up something so convoluted. One of his last notes is, I'm trapped in a labyrinth, but where's the minotaur? He can't let go of this idea of an antagonist, of the Minotaur always working against him. The accountant and the anti-accountant. What a world.

Now he starts getting threatening phone calls. A distorted voice always the same telling him that he's going to die. Even Angstrom gets a few calls. She says the voice sounds like a demon. This goes on for a while until one day, Quinn tells Angstrom that he's had a breakthrough. He says he has to go talk to someone called Osoka.

He leaves the building and ten minutes later, fucking car explodes. Minute work on him. Except there's no body. All of his files are in the car. So are his keys, his wallet, even his umbrella. But nobody. But he is never seen again, either. Hold on. Didn't you say he didn't have a driver's license? How do we even know it was his car? That's a good point. Everyone at Cathcart and Engstrom was certain it was his, and the investigating officers seemed convinced.

Could it be that his identity was scrubbed after the fact? It's not impossible. The three-letter agencies love this kind of shit. Were there witnesses? A severely drunk homeless man claims that Quinn was shot by a sniper. But there's no evidence to back that up. And according to the investigation, the homeless man is a veteran with PTSD who frequently hallucinates sniper attacks.

Uh that's pretty common. Once you've experienced sniper fire, it's hard to forget. You hear someone pop a soda can and you shit yourself. Anyway, what's the new evidence?'Cause it sounds like all the old evidence got blown up. Right, let's see. Uh, interesting. This is a letter from Maya Angstrom. She says that she received a phone call from a man identifying himself as Leo Beningelli. He claimed to know the true identity of the Minotaur and said it could be discovered on 137th Street.

Did he specify where on 137th? Apparently not. Yeah, because that would be convenient. I guess we go and have a look, see if anything sticks out. I'll stay here. Maybe I can dig into Donovan's files, see if I can find some connection. The thing about war is that it creates a lot of jobs. People don't think about that, you know? What's gonna happen to all those jobs when the war is over? What about all those families that depend on those jobs?

I'm not saying I don't want our boys to come home. But it's never as easy as people make it sound. That's why I'm not a politician, Jerry. I wouldn't want to have to make those hard decisions. Better leave it to folks who know what they're doing. Hey, I was gonna ask, were you in the army? Yeah. Wow. I didn't realize. Thank you for your Do not thank me for my service. Hey, sorry. I prefer not to talk about it, okay? Well you know what, Jerry? I almost forgot to thank our sponsor for today.

We live in a complicated, dangerous world. Taking care of the people you love has never been harder. But Legrasse Home Defense has your back. Legrasse, because your home is your castle. Night gaunt to control. Q is off the board. The package has been diverted.

So what exactly are we gonna do here? I don't know. Walk down the street, see if there's something? Great plan. Do you have a better one? Not really. Alrighty then. This is all residential buildings. Should we check the doorbells? Let's look for something more obvious first. We can check on our way back if we don't find anything. Okay. Man, this neighborhood used to be a lot nicer. Everything used to be a lot nicer.

Is there anything that's not covered in graffiti? Some of these houses are actually really nice if they were just maintained. Graffiti's the least of anyone's problems around here. I know, I get it, I get it. And I can understand the appeal of a nice graffiti. Something you know, creative. But did we really need to know that Banjo Skank was here? How does this improve the world? Or or look at this. Abolish techno industrial civilization.

Abolish it? It's already being abolished. That's the problem. It's like it's like telling drowning people to abolish oxygen. You know what I think? You picked the wrong job. You should have been an architect, or maybe a city planner. I wish. And what about this place? The laundromat? I mean technically it was a money laundering operation, right? Seriously though, there's something weird going on here. I don't if I could just look through those shutters.

Whoa, I didn't do anything. It was already open. What? But look at this. There aren't any washing machines. There's just a picture. It's just a big picture. What the fuck? So um we've entered the laundromat and it turns out there's just a big picture on the wall that looks like washing machines if it's dark and you're looking through the shutters. This has to be a joke.

There's a door. Where? Here. Look, this opens. And now we have a hidden door and a creepy staircase. Fucking amazing. Go down? Well, we came all this way. Alright. We're heading down a narrow staircase. Another door going through. Right behind you. What? It's an office. A huge office space. Maybe three dozen desks. Typewriters. Filing cabinets are ugh moldy as fuck. But there are documents in here. What the hell is this place? Should I I don't know, I I guess.

Yo mama's laundry, how can I help you? Harrison? Susan? It's Susan? What? Susan, how do you have this number? I was trying to find out more about Quinn's Minotaur, and then I remembered that one of the transactions involved Heinemann. The dick from the dossier. That's him. I see the reason Heinemann took the fall isn't because he was worse than the others, but others but because he was so overconfident that he acted carelessly. He got sloppy. Very

So I realized that the Whitman dossier contains a set of transactions that are clearly related to the Quinn case. And then I noticed that some of the transactions were rent payments for a building on 137th Street. And there was a phone number listed, so I called it. That's fucking weird. Who owns the building? A company called Ataraxia Systems. Shit, are you sure? How did she know how to say? Who are they? They're spooks. Or ex-Spooks.

But what's the difference? These motherfuckers are some of the worst, most psychotic fucks you're ever going to meet. Like the school of the Americas had a baby with the Phoenix program. Shit, we better get out of here. Try the Fuck off. Jesus Christ. I smell smoke. Shit, over there. Fire! How it's spreading fast. We need to get out of here. But all these come on. Jesus. Jesus, what is this? Where are all these fires coming from? This place must be booby trapped.

I don't want anything to do with adaraxia, okay? I'm not that person anymore. If you want to save your soul, I suggest you look for a different line of employment. Okay, let's uh let's let's go around this side and then just run through. Shit! Yeah, let's do it! You ready? Not really. Go! I'm not going back. Do you understand? The things that we did are unforgivable. Unforgivable. You and me, do you think we will see heaven? Do you think people who have killed children

Will receive the mercy of God. I don't care what you do to me. I'm not going back. Oh shit! Oh god! No Please. Please. I'll do it. I'll do it again. Just don't hurt her. Did you hear about the fire on 137th, Jerry? Laundromat burned down. That's kinda funny, isn't it? A laundromat of all things. What's next? A fire station? An aquarium? Yeah, probably just kids burning stuff for no reason again. Although, if you ask me...

Maybe they should just let it burn. Do the whole city a favor. No offense to anyone who lives there, but that whole neighborhood is a shithole. Well, that sucked. Are you okay? What happened? The whole place went up in flames. Must have been rigged somehow. Did you manage to save any documents? Nothing.

Please tell me you found another lead. All I've really been able to determine is that Ataraxia Systems was one of the parties involved in this operation. Once I had the Heinemann connection, I found a few more. I suspect they were using corrupt police officers to destroy inconvenient information and put investigators off the scent. But that leaves most questions unanswered.

I might be able to find some answers if Maya Angstrom lets me access their files. Then let's do it. Let's go talk to them. Now? Why not? It's been about an hour since the fire. Sounds like the fire department's got it under control, but I doubt we're gonna find anything in that basement. We've picked up Detective Danton and we're heading over to Angstrom and Cathcart to see if they can tell us anything about what she managed to dig up. Susan, anything you'd like to add? Yes, I have a question.

This is our car. Isn't it charming? Really puts the rust in rustic. Did you know that the city took half the money intended for homeless shelters and spent it on new patrol cars? It was one of the less shocking facts in the Whitney dossier. Yeah. All that corruption and we don't even get anything out of it. They really hate Captain Donovan, don't they? He's everything they pretend to be. A real cop. Doesn't care about the politics.

Doesn't care about his career. Just wants to help people. My dad was like that. Shit. Your dad was a cop? Yeah. A real small town sheriff. Even had the hat. Where was this? In Mayberry? No. It was in And I assume that's where you get the whole goody two shoes thing? Yeah, I guess. I mean, I understand it was a different world back then. I'm not totally naive, okay?

But my dad helped people and people respected him. I don't understand why we can't even try that. How about you ask the drug-dealing pimps in the Whitman dossier about it?

See, it is a nice building. I concede, it ain't bad. Shouldn't there be a receptionist? I guess we just take the elevator. Hello. Yeah, let's just go. It's on the third floor. I really hope she can help us. I don't like being here. Talking to accountants makes me nervous. Just thinking about taxes gives me diarrhea. Dude. He's not wrong. Are we on the wrong floor? No, this is it. But there's no one here. It's empty.

Perfect. Just perfect. I I don't how is this possible? The letter from Angström was sent yesterday. Let's look around. Maybe we can find something. This is empty. This is empty. Empty. Nothing. How many rooms are there? This place is a maze. Hey, I found something! Coming! Over here. Look, room 137, Leonard Quinn's room. How do you know it's his room? It says it on the door. See, it even has furniture and a big pile of paperwork. Let me see.

Is this what I think it is? Yeah. It's his research. All of his files. I I don't understand. Why is this here? Where is everyone else? It doesn't make any sense. You know what? I'm done with this case. Take the files and let's go. I need four hot dogs and a glass of tequila right now.

Detective Susan Danton. Final report. On the Quinn case. The offices of Angstrom and Cathcart auditors appear to have been empty for several months. As far as we can tell, Maya Angstrom has never existed. She has no social security number, no driver's license. And the Association of Certified Accountants doesn't even have her name on record. There is also no record of Angstrom and Cathcart ever having been registered as a company.

As for Leonard Quinn, it will probably take months to go through all of his research, but it seems that in the end, he did find the answer he was looking for the name of the Minotaur. The shadowy accountant who set up this labyrinth of illegal transactions was circled and underlined in the document on the very top of the pile we found on his desk. That name was Leonard Quinn.

Azutoth Blues was written and directed by Jonas Kiradziz with music and sound by Chris Christadulu or to speak their names in the world. Η Ονά Κυρατζή και Χρήστο Χριστό. Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Casey Camp, Sean Branny, and Peter Will. For more information as well as Check out the show notes or the official website at azetothblues.com.