A Billion Ways to Die (34 page)

A
MERICA
ISN
’
T
a kind place to a person without a car. Luckily, with an abundance of public transportation, not always the cleanest or easiest to navigate, the New York metro area was the least unkind. A string of cabs, trains and shuttle buses got me to La Guardia in Queens. From there, it was a simple matter of finding the sort of limousine service airport security stridently cautioned you to avoid.

Even as a law-abiding market researcher, it was a technique I often used: lurk around where the drivers dropped off their fares and look for the face of a bored, defiant or simply greedy individual. There was no lack of these at La Guardia.

It helped if the driver worked for himself and had a car with impenetrable windows. I profiled a guy with a gross belly, loosened tie and cigarette sticking out of an unkempt face. He told me to go fuck myself. So I tried another guy, slim and elegantly put together, who looked skeptical, but perked up at the roll of cash I flicked in front of him.

“Not here,” he said. “Go to the next terminal and wait at the crosswalk.”

I thought the odds were fifty-fifty, but he showed up and I jumped in.

“What’ll it take for the whole day?” I asked. “Up to Connecticut and back.”

He told me and I said okay, let’s do it.

It was so comfortable in the backseat of the impeccably preserved Crown Vic I almost slid into sleep. The driver, with whom I never exchanged names, felt no need for casual conversation. More likely, chose reserve as the safer choice. He just nodded and punched the address I gave him into his dash-mounted GPS and we swept up through the urban majesty of New York and onto Connecticut’s narrow greenways.

When we got to Rocky Hill, I asked him to park at the diner a few buildings down from the Jason P. Fellingham Academy of the Military Arts. I gave him half the fee we’d agreed upon and expressed hope that he’d wait for me to earn the other half.

“For an hour. Tops,” he said.

“More than I need.”

The massive woman was at her station at the front entrance. She greeted me as if she’d never seen me before. I bought a ticket, but didn’t bother to ask for Colonel Gross. I knew where to find him.

The door to Archives was open, but Shelly wasn’t at the worktable. I stood and listened, and finally heard shuffling noises coming from inside the towering shelves. I cleared my throat and out he came, holding a stack of accordion folders with both hands.

“Like a bad penny,” he said.

“Nice to see you, too.”

He sat at the worktable and called security, telling them he had a rude, but approved visitor. He assured them he’d hit the alert should any concern arise.

“Will concerns arise?” he asked me, as he hung up the phone.

“That depends.”

“Where’s Miss Fitzgerald?”

“I don’t know. We split up.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It was after we got a visit from Jersey Mitchell. In Zurich. It was the only way to shake the tail. At least I hope we shook the tail.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said, patting his stack of folders, as if assuring them they’d have his attention back in a moment. “Nobody tells me anything.”

“Then how did you know Joselito Gorrotxategi was in an undisclosed maximum security prison?”

“Because they used to tell me things.”

“What if they’re lying?” I said.

“Not a chance. And it’s not a they, it’s a him. Cleanest possible source.”

“Captain Perry?”

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation. “Not that I owe you an explanation.”

“Joselito isn’t in custody. At least the most important part of him isn’t. He’s online, free to roam the web at will.”

“Impossible.”

“You could say that with a bit more conviction.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“Because you knew.”

Shelly never looked his age to me, despite the white hair and age spots on his hands. Looking at him then, I wasn’t so sure.

“That’s quite an accusation,” he said.

“Captain Perry’s been your go-to guy all along. He’s your dear friend at the bureau. You’ve been feeding him information about us in return for getting back on the inside. You sold us out for a bagful of ego.”

“The young man on the other end of this phone can crack you in half with one hand,” he said.

“You knew about Joselito all along. But no warning. How come?”

“I’m not in the position to discuss national security with you, of all people.”

“You knew what Joselito planned to do to me. And to Natsumi. That doesn’t bother you?”

“My personal feelings have nothing to do with this. And don’t be so quick to condemn. I could have had you collared whenever I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t. Though not out of the goodness of your heart. We were supposed to operate freely. Why?”

“Your sister is safe,” he said. “I made sure of that.” He picked up the phone and redialed the security guy. “My visitor needs to be escorted from the building.”

I stood back from the door with my arms held parallel to the ground. Moments later the dark-skinned man with the light blue eyes was a few feet away from me in a semi-crouched stance.

“Stay cool, sergeant,” I said to him. “Just leaving.”

He followed me through the museum, past the big woman who held a hand to her heart as she watched us go through the front door. The young military man stood there until I was through the gate and on my way to my reticent, but honorable limo driver.

C
HAPTER
26

I
nstead of going all the way to the city, I asked the driver to drop me off in Stamford. It felt good to be back on home turf. Good, though a bit strange.

There was little danger anyone would recognize me, since I didn’t look much like the guy who disappeared off the face of the earth several years before. Never a very social person, the few people I chatted with around the neighborhood were out toward the suburbs, and thus several socioeconomic light years from the tired city street where the limo driver dropped me off.

But it was where the home advantage mattered. In the midst of the AIDS epidemic, I’d done some pro bono work for a nonprofit which was trying to distribute clean needles to a community the group tactfully described as highly disorganized. After a few weeks of face-to-face interviews, I’d learned how well organized their daily commerce actually was.

It taught me a lot about secure communications, transportation and housing. The last in the form of a motel that took cash for time increments beginning by the hour. No one stayed there long enough to determine limits at the other end.

I paid a week in advance and wrote the name of a famous baseball player in the register.

“Good luck with the season,” said the old lady behind the counter.

I asked her where I could buy a ride, cheap. She directed me to a gentleman named Mo, who operated out of a muffler shop a few blocks over. Mo was about the same vintage, his hair mostly white and his skin reminiscent of weathered Naugahyde.

“I don’t want to have to change the plates,” I told him, when he asked for my specifications.

“Then you’re talkin’ a rental. I don’t do rentals.”

“Not exactly. I’ll buy it, drive it, then give it back to you when I’m done.”

“Hm,” he said, pondering the opportunity. “That sounds like a pretty good deal for me, till the po-lice are here wonderin’ what my car’s doin’ somewhere it ain’t supposed to be.”

“How about a combo? You rent it to me, then I steal it. Like a week from now.”

“Innovative,” he said.

“You’ll probably still get it back. Either way, you’re ahead.”

He bought the logic and I bought a ’95 Toyota Corolla, probably the closest thing to a generic car ever produced. It was clean and in good repair, despite the odometer reading that approached 200,000.

“Is that the actual mileage?” I asked the guy, as he handed me the keys.

“Probably not, actually. Do you care?”

“No.”

I used the car to drive to a menswear shop specializing in business suits about as eye-catching as the Toyota. A few doors down, I bought an attaché case to match. The third purchase was more difficult, since the number of places you could buy a fake moustache in Stamford wasn’t unlimited. The result was a mighty walrus affair that went with a Civil War uniform on sale at a costume shop.

The young girls in the shop convinced me their giggling shouldn’t be misinterpreted, that in fact the moustache made me look quite distinguished. We used a high quality adhesive, which helped me to bring the thing under control after just a few minutes in front of a mirror with a pair of sharp scissors.

I drove to Greenwich and located the offices of Calle, Cowles and Espinoza.

They were just outside the denser part of town in a low, freestanding building. Across the street was the landscaped corner of another office complex, this one much larger. There was no easy place to park or lurk, though you could watch the entrance to the firm’s building from an enclosed bus stop about fifty yards down the street.

Not good enough.

So I parked in the parking lot and found their office, which only occupied about a quarter of the second floor, though they’d dedicated a fair amount of floor space to the enclosed reception area. A man with a large head covered in a mat of buzz-cut white hair sat at the raised desk, on the front of which the name of the firm was elegantly etched in frosted glass.

“Can I help you?” he asked, as if that was the last thing he wanted to do.

“I’m here to talk about your documents.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“There’s someone in this office who wakes up every night at three a.m. worrying about document security.”

“That could be,” he said, “but you won’t be putting them back to sleep without an appointment.”

“In an office this size, that person is probably the managing partner. And I bet you’re his direct report.”

“Hers. If you leave me your card, I’ll get it to her.”

I imagined a wastebasket under his desk filled to overflowing with business cards.

“We’re supposed to give it to the person directly,” I said.

He looked at me as if deciding between a polite refusal and a swift kick. Then a door well hidden in the wall opened and a roundish young woman with pale troubled skin walked into the room.

“Ah, perfect timing,” I said, “You must be the managing partner.”

“That’ll be the day,” she said.

“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “We were about to give her a call.”

“Wait a minute,” said the guy.

“Do you mind bringing me back?” I asked. “I just need to give her some documents. I’m not allowed to leave them at the desk. Chain of custody.”

“Whoa,” said the guy. “Hold the phone.”

The woman looked at him with ill-disguised annoyance.

“I can handle this,” she said. “Ms. Franklin is in her office, but she’s probably busy.”

I held up my briefcase.

“Two seconds. I hand her the documents and walk right out the door. On tippy-toes.”

“Hey,” said the guy.

The woman smiled at me in a way clearly meant for him.

“Not necessary. Follow me.”

We went through the secret door into an open area with more reception seating surrounded by private offices.

“I’m assuming Ms. Franklin handles electronic discovery for your office. But maybe I’m wrong,” I said.

“That’d be Miguel Ángel. He’s our man in security.”

“Hah. Can we bother him instead?”

She stopped and turned toward me.

“That’d be a lot easier,” she said. “Even I outrank Miguel.”

“Then lead on.”

She took me to a door marked “Server Room.” I could hear the whir of cooling fans and air conditioners. Inside the windowless room were metal racks filled with blinking electronic equipment and a flabby-looking dark-haired man staring into a monitor. Pulling his eyes away from the screen, his face went from curious annoyance to something entirely different, though likely unnoticed by my escort.

She introduced us and he reflexively reached around the monitor and took my hand. The grip was as soft as a jellyfish.

“I have some pretty interesting stuff on document security I’d love to share with you,” I said, “if you could just give me a few minutes.”

“That’s up to you,” she said to the man. “You busy?”

“I’m willing to bet that nobody in the world is more interested in what I have to say than Miguel,” I said.

He nodded.

“We can talk in here,” he said, in a low voice, gently graced with Spanish inflection.

“Suit yourself,” she said, pulling up a chair for me and leaving us alone. When I heard the click of the door, I said, “Hola, Joselito.”

“El Timador.”

The only time I’d seen him was in the midst of extreme circumstances, but I’d never forget his face. What I saw sitting in the server room was a much more pallid and deflated version of the grandiose cyber desperado I thought I’d flushed down the drain.

“Federal maximum security is even cushier than I thought.”

“You won’t get away with it,” he said.

“What?”

“Hurting me.”

“Any hurt to you will be entirely self-inflicted. I just want to know how you did it. Not the money. I know all about that. I’m more curious about why you aren’t in the deep dark hole you’re supposed to be in.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” his voice hardening, as hate reemerged from alarm.

“I know that. Just had to ask. By the way, your access has been cut off.”

A pink haze started to relieve his pasty complexion.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The code that gave you access to the funds. It’s been changed. You’re locked out.”

His fingers flew over the keyboard for a few minutes, his eyes narrowing at the screen as he worked. I watched impassively, ignoring the little twist of fear that perhaps Strider had been too optimistic, or maybe too tired, to have actually slammed the door. Or doors.

The fear lifted when Joselito banged his fist on the keyboard and looked up in a blaze of panic and fury.

“
Estúpido
, do you know what you’ve done?”

“You convinced them I took the money. The only reason you’re free is you promised to track me down and get it back. But you still had it, neatly tucked away. In a digital sense,” I said.