Dead Anyway (16 page)

The machine suddenly appeared before me, knocking the chair out of the way as it made deepening forays into the space behind the desk. I saw a thick white woman’s leg, sheathed in heavy support hose, above black high-top sneakers. I pulled in my feet and strained against an agony of apprehension.

The woman grunted something in an unknown language and the vacuum started to retreat. It moved back out to the hall. Then the emptied wastebasket dropped to the floor, the chair was pulled back in place, and a second later, it was dark again.

I stayed under the desk, feeling my legs go numb from lack of circulation, until well after the light along the bottom of the door flicked out.

Only then did I start to breathe normally and begin to appreciate just how undignified my position was. It made me smile inside, not because I could make fun of myself, but because I cared so little about what constituted proper dignity.

The episode did serve to distract me from the tedium of the download, long enough for it to have run its course. I checked the files on the external hard drive to make sure I had everything, then moved on to the final task of the night.

It was a long shot, but if Finger was anything like most top executives, he had little regard for proper computer security at the personal level. I opened up Microsoft Word and started searching, beginning with “password.” The word itself appeared in dozens of documents, but without any specific codes. I moved on to other possibilities, such as systems administrator or just plain administrator. Lots of mentions within documents, but no passwords. I began to compliment Bruce’s good behavior when a search for “Important Agency Numbers” brought up a remarkable document. It was a single double-space page listing the access codes and test questions for all the agency’s online banking, payroll service, group medical, 401(k), the premium trust account (a holding pen to manage the flow of client money through the agency and out to the carriers) and investment accounts at two brokerage houses. And right there, near the bottom of the page, under the heading, “In case Ethan gets hit by a bus,” the administrator username and password. The keys to the realm.

I printed out the document to Bruce’s private printer, shut down the computer and removed the boot disk and external drive. I followed the dark hall down to the temperature-controlled room where I’d installed the servers that lived at the heart of the agency’s automated systems. As hoped, the administrator’s workstation that I set up was still there, and likely still the subject of daily check-ins. I turned on the computer, logged in and went to a place called the domain controller. This is where every employee, laptop or external computer authorized to connect from the outside was logged and labeled with their own security code. I was pleased to see Administrator One and Administrator Two listed, me being Administrator One with my access rights turned off. All I had to do was switch them back on and provide a new password. It felt unlikely a guy like Ethan, lazy enough to leave most of my original ID intact, even providing a new username, would have the presence of mind to notice a subtle change within such a large field of data.

I had one more change, also well disguised amidst the rows of names and numbers—the registration of my laptop as an authentic workstation. This gave it a name and security ID that would allow me to log in to the network and connect to any computer from a remote location.

After that last alteration to the active directory, I inserted a little flash drive into the USB port and downloaded a different, but related piece of treacherous code.

Going by the rather banal name of monitoring software, the application would record everything the administrator did on his computer, every keystroke he made, every email that went in or out, every application opened and every server managed. And most importantly, every password typed into every log-in dialog box. Without him ever knowing it was taking place.

More than a nuisance spyware virus, this one lived deep in the nether regions of the operating system, quietly and innocuously going about its business of reporting everything to the PC at my little house. Virtually undetectable as long as no one thought there was something malevolent in the system in need of detection.

When the program was installed and the initiating command established, I pulled out the flash drive and shut down the computer.

I walked out of the agency with the entire operation in my pocket, past and present, with a direct feed into all that would happen in the future. A decent harvest of information, and only my nervous system the worse for wear.

C
HAPTER
13

T
he next morning a little alert from my computer woke me up as it often did. It was telling me that the agency’s system administrator had logged on. I watched with oddly little satisfaction as he ran through a series of checks on the agency’s servers. I turned away and let the spyware carry on with its relentless surveillance.

After showering and eating a breakfast of yogurt and granola, I went clothes shopping. This was something I truly knew nothing about, having been an awkward geek my entire life, a status that thoroughly excluded any gift for sartorial aplomb.

I was on the hunt for two types of outfits. One casual, yet sophisticated, the other baldly pretentious and predatory, extravagantly expensive, yet in a way that only the fashion cognoscenti would know.

So it was no charade for me to walk into a small shop in Westport that stank of wool, silk and leather, and completely give myself over to the predacious attentions of a tiny whitehaired man named Preston Nestor.

“Imagine a roomful of investment bankers who can also claim advanced degrees in classical languages and ancestry back to the Mayflower. No one is better, nor more appropriately, dressed than I,” was basically how I put in my order. “Two versions.”

“So that would be two shades of grey,” said Nestor.

“If you say so.”

Having set clearly defined criteria, the process was fairly brief and efficient, especially after I told him not to bother describing the clothing’s physical properties and pedigrees. He wasn’t offended. Armed with precise measurements of my body, we moved from custom-made to off-the-rack casual wear and accessories. I accepted every recommendation and rationale, in whole cloth if you will, with the exception of a yellow cashmere sweater.

“It’ll be too distracting,” I told him, “and I’ll probably end up dribbling Coquilles St. Jacques down the front.”

A little over two hours later I left the store with the only items not in need of fitting and tailoring, and a renewed appreciation for the power of pretension in the confiscatory pricing of luxury goods.

It was time to sell a few more guitars.

I drove to a music store in South Norwalk I’d noted back when I was stalking Madame Francine de le Croix. It was a small shop, but the window was filled with vintage instruments, and thus an ideal prospect. I always carried in my back pocket descriptions of select items in the inventory, just in case an opportunity arose. So I entered the shop prepared.

A balding man with a curly black and grey beard looked to be in a death struggle with a floor stand for some sort of electronic keyboard.

“The perfect road rig for the piano-playing PhD in mechanical engineering,” he said, without looking up from within a contortion of black metal tubing.

“This is why I never bother with assembly instructions,” I said.

He looked up at me.

“What can I do you out of?” he asked.

“Vintage guitars. Wife says to cut down on the collection.”

He picked up a piece of the floor stand, then used two hands to toss it on the floor.

“Assemble thyself,” he said to the black tangle.

We retired to a desk at the back of the shop. He pulled a chair up for me and introduced himself.

“Aloysius Cooper,” he said. “I prefer Al. Not the famous one.”

I handed him the sheet describing five very different guitars, from an exotic clear plastic Danelectro to an early twentieth-century Martin acoustic.

“Pretty eclectic,” he said. “You looking for consignment?”

“Straight purchase,” I said.

“I’m running a store here,” he said. “I gotta have some margin.”

“Generous terms,” I said. “Especially on cash sales. Just not stupid.”

There was a well-thumbed copy of the Elderly Instruments catalog on his desk. I waited quietly while he looked up current pricing ranges for each of the guitars.

“Wait here,” he said, getting up from his desk chair and disappearing into the back room. It wasn’t hard to imagine a phone call to a collector to arrange a little pre-sell. I’d seen it before. He came back ten minutes later.

“The Les Paul and pre-war Martin,” he said, noting the two most expensive guitars on the list. “Let the haggling begin.”

After telling me he wouldn’t insult me with a lowball offer, he tossed a ball whose elevation barely cleared the ground. I explained I had plenty of other options, and had only stopped by because I was in the neighborhood, and thought he might help expand my distribution. He noted the declining state of the vintage guitar market, about which I expressed some sympathy, while pointing out that we’d only just crested the peak. This genial thrust and parry went on for another ten minutes, after which I was ready to shake hands and depart friends, when he floated a respectable range for each instrument.

“Depending on condition,” he added.

“I’ll be back this afternoon,” I told him, and left.

The drive up to Danbury and back was uneventful and almost unnoticed by me, as I was utterly absorbed in my thoughts, fueled by a growing anxiety over Austin Ott, III. He was teaching me my limitations, a check on over-confidence after the encounters with Sebbie Frondutti, Fred Tootsie and Pally Buttons. Contributing to the feeling was his M.O.—an intermediary between clients and field men, brokering rather than executing. It suggested excessive caution, or paranoia, or both. And thus a far more elusive quarry.

This clinched my decision to draw in Shelly Gross. Risky, but essential to forward motion. Shelly could do things I couldn’t do, even in retirement. He still had plenty of relationships that could give access to official channels and police prerogatives, and if I properly read his personality, he was bored and ripe to be drawn back into the game.

When I returned to the music shop, the keyboard and its unruly floor stand had disappeared. In its place were two stools and two guitar stands, as if waiting for a pair of performers to arrive.

I set the guitar cases on the counter and opened them up. He snatched up the Martin and looked inside the sound hole.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “Welcome home.” He looked at me. “This is my guitar. Was my guitar.”

“Really.”

“I sold it to Gerry Charles. How is that old wood freak?”

I knew I was better than most at keeping my emotional state from leaking into the observable world, but this time the shock of the unexpected showed.

“What’s the matter?” said Cooper. “Is he okay?”

“Don’t know him,” I said. “I bought it online. Never checked the provenance.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I never do either. Not the first time one of my chicks has come home to roost.”

Self-recrimination took the place of alarm. I should have anticipated that happening. Gerry had been a serious collector in the area for decades. He probably knew every dealer. A nauseating sense of vulnerability surged through me, somehow conflating with my fears over Jason Three Sticks. The room tilted, and I sat down in one of the performance chairs before I fell over. My heart began to race, and I nearly asked Cooper for a paper bag to breathe into.

“Sorry. I’m still recovering from an injury,” I said, using the easiest and least challengeable cover.

“Sure. Take your time.”

While I sat in frustrated examination of my sudden failing, Cooper went over the two guitars, playing a lively bluegrass riff on the Martin and the opening bars of “Smoke on the Water” on the Les Paul.

“You never go wrong with the classics,” he said, before throwing out a number for both. I bumped it up to where it belonged. “Okay,” said Cooper, “can’t blame a guy for trying.”

He went to the bank, which was a block away, leaving me in charge of the store. Luckily no one came in, giving me time to compose myself. Evelyn had predicted lapses in cognitive acuity and sudden mood swings, most of which I’d avoided, especially in recent weeks. It was a reminder that I still had a functioning brain, though it wasn’t entirely the same brain I used to have.

When Cooper got back to the store, he handed me a fat white envelope, insisting that I count it while he watched. It was all there.

“I do love that old Martin,” he said. “Maybe explains why it came back to me. The prodigal dreadnaught.”

It wasn’t until I was back in the Subaru that I felt the world reassemble itself into its former, mildly distorted state. I breathed slow, deep breaths, bringing down my pulse and easing the clenched muscles in my neck and upper back.

“You’re not a machine,” I could hear Evelyn telling me, the day before I left her house, “you’re a human being. It takes strength to understand your weaknesses. Not to capitulate, but to cope.”

I felt again the gratitude and defiance her words engendered, and then I coped the only way I knew how.

I threw myself into my work.

B
EFORE LEAVING
Norwalk, I stopped at a deli and bought a copy of the
New York Times
. It was the first day Shelly had a chance to place an ad in the classifieds. And there it was.

“1965 Mustang convertible, four-speed, 289, insanely clean and meticulously maintained, sold to the best offer with assurances it will annoy your wife as much as it does mine. Call now. Car goes off the market in two days.”

He included his phone number in Rocky Hill. I bought another disposable cell phone and drove down I-95 toward New Haven. I called him as I went through Bridgeport.

“Shelly Gross,” he answered.

“I have zero interest in that Mustang,” I said in my Clint Eastwood voice.