Final Victim (1995) (9 page)

"But did you lie?" she asked again.

"Why don't you ask him if he was guilty?" Lockwood looked over and saw something in her eyes he hadn't seen before. It looked strangely like pity.

They got back to the prn an hour and a half later. Stan had Malavida waiting in the visitors' area, in handcuffs and a waist chain. He handed the keys over to Lockwood and watched while the agent signed the release in triplicate and promised to have the prner back that evening. Then they all walked out to the car with Malavida where Lockwood handed Stan the boots. Stan looked at them and whistled low.

"Ain't them fuckers a sight to behold," he said.

In ten minutes, they were down the road and out of sight. Lockwood had put the fifteen-hundred-dollar Lucchese boots on his Customs Service credit card. He didn't have a clue how he'd justify the expense. But he was already hanging so far out on this deal, it probably didn't matter. In the back of his head, a question buzzed around like a fly in a bottle: He was already in deep shit with Internal Affairs, so why was he out here in California busting a Federal prner loose with bad paper, just so he could help Karen Dawson break into a computer he didn't really care about? It made no sense. Then a new thought hit him. Was it for his own emotional survival? Was he subconsciously trying to get himself thrown off the job before it destroyed him?

Chapter
9

S*0*L*I*M*F*H*0.

Malavida Chacone sat in the backseat beside Lockwood while Karen drove the yellow LeBaron. They had put the top up. Malavida was dressed in prn blue jeans and still wearing the cuffs and waist chain. They pulled into the sleepy town of Lompoc. Small, architecturally bland buildings housed 7-Elevens and chicken franchises. Malavida was straining forward, looking out the window, his senses quivering at the smell of freedom.

They rode in silence until they hit a stoplight and Lockwood said, "Whatta you need t'crack a computer?"

"A ten-dollar hammer and five swings oughta do it," Malavida said without humor.

"Don't be an asshole."

The light changed and the cars behind them started honking, so Karen accelerated.

"There's a computer store here in Lompoc," Lockwood continued.

"We can pick up a laptop and whatever else you need, then we'll check into a motel and have a go at it."

"Hey, why don't you start by telling me what program you want me to crack into? It might make a difference," Malavida said.

"It's a remailer in Oslo, Norway, called Pennet," Karen said. "It's set up to deny access to invalid logins. I get three tries and then it locks me out."

"You using Crack?"

"Yeah, I got it off the Internet."

"Why didn't you just call the System Mangler on the phone and tell him you were trying to break into his jukebox?"

"Look, I'm not a cracker. I use my computer for research," she said.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Miss Dawson," he said, smiling at her pleasantly. "I was just saying that the Crack program is a primer program for newbies. If this Pennet computer is a remailer, then they got high-grade security on it. You're not gonna get in with software like Crack. They probably have the telnet daemon listening for multiple logins. And Crack is slow. It could take you six months with Crack before you randomly hit the right password. You can't use Crack on a system like that, anyway. So, what happened? The SysAdmin came on and started screaming at you, right?"

"Yeah, he locked me out for ninety days. He also knew I was working on a government computer at Customs," Karen said, surprised by the change in his language and demeanor.

"That was telnet that did that. It has to know the IP, the 'Internet Protocol' address of the packets coming in, so it can send its data back to you. It knows your host address. So, what you are is, you're basically fucked."

"You better figure out how to get us unfucked or you're basicall
y b
ack in jail," Lockwood said. Then Karen pulled over and parked the car in front of the computer store.

"Whatta you need?" Karen asked.

"I need my own laptop. I got a 14.4 external modem at my mom's house in East L
. A
."

"Nice try," Lockwood said. "But let's save that trip for Mother's Day."

"Can't we get you a laptop with a high-speed modem in there?" Karen asked, pointing at the store.

"I also need my cracking tool kit . . ." Malavida said, playing out a little more line.

"What the hell is that?" Lockwood asked.

"It's all the cracking programs I've designed. It's a buncha disks. And I need my ITL notebook."

"Your what?" Lockwood was starting to get a headache.

"ITL . . . 'Interesting Things and Locations.' It's Internet locations of stuff I might need but haven't retrieved yet." He was again ignoring Lockwood and talking only to Karen, trying to look earnest and helpful.

"So, I'll send somebody over to your mom's house and he can get this stuff and modem it up here," Lockwood said. He wondered where in town he could buy aspirin.

"Nada."

"Whatta you mean, nada?"

"Won't work. I'm the only one who can access the disks. We need this stuff. I can't help you without it. I got a list of outdials and a copy of the C-programming language for several flavors of UNIX. I got a complete list of Internet locations and all kinds of software utilities. No offense, Miss Dawson, but you got the Pennet Systems Administrator on point with that Crack program. The way I go in, nobody sees me."

He started grinning. "I'm fast and invisible. And don't think you can send some clubfoot Customs nerd over there to deuce it out and open my files, 'cause all the disks are encrypted. If anybody tries to open them, it'll automatically erase the whole kit. And then we're S
. O. L. I. M. F. H. O
."

"What?" Karen and Lockwood said simultaneously.

"S
. O. L
. means Shit Outta Luck."

"I got that much," Karen said. "What's I
. M. F. H
.0.?"

"In My Fucking Humble Opinion. Let's go, the Mexican ghetto's that way." He pointed. "Either that, or you should take me back to prn." He closed his eyes. "I'm just gonna bone out back here till you two geniuses make up yer minds."

Lockwood sighed and looked at Karen. "Why not?" she finally said. "What's the difference whether we do it here or there?" He wondered whether he'd be able to steal some time to see Claire and Heather.

Karen put the car in gear and headed back onto the freeway. "One other thing, Chacone. . . . She ain't gonna be your 'tight,' so you can stop the rubdown. I'm in charge."

Malavida nodded earnestly. "I know," he said, but he was already working on his next move. He was determined to splash on John Lockwood. Malavida hated him, and, one way or another, he would find a way to fuck him up.

Chapter
10

Malavida's heart started to pound in his chest as they neared his mother's apartment. Elena Chacone had raised all seven of her children by scrubbing floors and washing windows in the big houses up in La Habra Heights. She had never asked for anything in return. Malavida used to be her favorite child. Now she looked at him with sadness. He hated the thought of going home in chains.

Elena had been born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and in the evenings, she used to tell her children stories of the beautiful tree-shaded public squares in that mountaintop city. She would close her eyes and remember the colorful flowers and the children riding ponies in the park. She described the magnificent churches with their huge stained-glass windows and ornate Spanish arches. "Dios mio, son bonitas," she would sigh. Her family had all worked in one of the pottery plants there, and she told her children about the blown glass and clay artifacts that had won the city international fame.

To Malavida, it seemed a crime that she had left such a beautiful place to live in a two-room apartment in graffiti-ridden Pico Rivera. She had been only sixteen when she left that Mexican paradise to come to "El Norte" to work on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors. In an even worse turn of fate, she had married Juan Chacone. He was also an illegal alien, but was ropy and mean. His hometown was Chubasco, which he remembered with seething hatred. Elena had seven children by Juan, and Malavida was the youngest. Juan was a brawler and a drunk, who often came home on Saturday nights and took swings at Malavida's beloved mother. Malavida hated Juan with every fiber of his existence. He prayed that his father would be hit by a car or killed in some Saturday night brawl. And then, one day, Juan had simply gone to the store and hadn't come back. Malavida prayed every night that he would never return. As the days passed, it seemed that Malavida's prayers had been answered, but his mother was paralyzed by her husband's disappearance. She had been abused by him, but couldn't seem to face the idea of living without him. His mother had been afraid to go to the police, because she was sure they would send her back to Mexico and she would be separated from her children.

When Malavida was twelve years old, he had been given a used Apple computer by one of the people whose houses his mother cleaned. He was fascinated by its bright screen and beautiful graphics. He worked at it endlessly, and in five years, at the age of seventeen, he was already so adept that he was a legend on the Internet. His username was Snoopy. Long before that, however, he realized that his computer gave him immense power over a system that had held him down and enslaved his family. One day, he decided to use this new power, and that was the day he started out on his career of crime. His initial goal had been simple. He would get enough money so that he could send his mother back to Guadalajara in style. She had finally become a U
. S
. citizen b
y v
irtue of the Amnesty Act of 1987, so now she could come and go across the border. He decided he would fulfill her dream of going back to the beautiful city where children played in the shaded town square and rode ponies and ate gelato in the huge green parks.

His first computer scam had grown out of something very innocent. He had been up in La Habra Heights, helping his mother clean one of her houses, and saw a country-club membership book on a marble table. On impulse, he slipped it into his pocket. The book gave the addresses and occupations of the members, as well as the ages of their children. He thought such personal information surely must have some value. He turned the problem over in his mind for two days, and slowly a plan formed. He started reading The Wall Street Journal to pick up the terms he would need. He asked his sister's boyfriend, who was an artist, to design a letterhead. Then he wrote a letter to ten of the club members, each one selected by occupation. If the man was an insurance executive, the letter would say that an executive headhunting firm called Executive Research Foundation had been hired by an international insurance firm with headquarters in California to find a chief executive officer. This insurance company, the letter said, preferred to remain anonymous at this point, but the position it was offering paid approximately five hundred thousand dollars a year. The letter continued by telling the mark that his name now appeared on the short list of potential candidates as a result of his outstanding work at his current company. Then Malavida wrote that it was ERF's pleasure to inquire if he would be interested in taking an in-person meeting with the insurance company's Chairman when he was in town, to discuss the employment opportunity. He signed the letters "Dexter Freemantel, Vice-President of Human Resources." He sent them off and waited.

From ten letters, Malavida got four replies, all of them affirmative. Then he wrote each one back, asking the candidates for a few mor
e d
etails before the meeting could be arranged. He politely requested that they supply him with a Social Security number so that ERF could complete its background check, and could they also supply him with their mother's maiden name and their banking affiliation for a routine credit check? To this query, he got one reply. . . . Mr. Gregory Clayton Smith said that he was looking to make a change and enthusiastically sent back all the information requested.

Then Malavida simply sat down in front of his computer and cracked Mr. Smith's bank, which happened to be the Bank of America. He hacked into Gregory Smith's account and then requested a wire transfer of two thousand dollars to an account he had set up at a bank in Fullerton under a bogus name. He took only two thousand because that was all he needed to buy airfare to Guadalajara for both himself and his mother, with a little left over for new clothes for the trip. When the B of A computer asked for Mr. Smith's Social Security number and mother's maiden name for the wire transfer confirmation, he sent the information.

The next morning was Thursday, December 16. Malavida rode his old ten-speed bike three miles to Fullerton and checked his balance. On that day, Malavida got an early Christmas present and completed his first successful computer theft. . . . Sitting in Charles Brown's bank account was a wire transfer for two thousand dollars. He couldn't believe it had worked! With adrenaline coursing through his teenaged heart, he cashed in the account and took off. He smiled all the way back to his ramshackle apartment building in Pico Rivera, the twenty crisp hundred-dollar bills in a pocket of his school backpack. He was just thirteen years old.