Hack (19 page)

He did not reply. I tried several messages but there was no response. Obviously Aubrey, or whoever it was, had switched phones again because he knew the cops would be monitoring the one he used previously—waiting to pounce. Izzy had refused to be specific but I assumed they would trace the cell towers to pinpoint a location if the previous phone was used and rush police to the spot. Neither Izzy nor the
Mail
would know about the new phone unless I told them. I didn’t know whether Badger had the ability to tap my phone and any phone that called me. With the cops, it would probably take time and involve a subpoena. That meant I was the only one who knew about the new message. So far.

I left Skippy chewing one of my sneakers on the couch and went to Jane’s place for lunch. She produced fresh hummus with tahini, yogurt sauce with cucumber and dill and hot pita bread to dip in it. Also feta cheese, seedless red grapes, wine and sparkling water.

“This is great,” I told her.

“I got it because I know you liked it at the restaurant the other night. It’s ancient. People have been eating this meal for thousands of years. Helen of Troy, Aristotle, Alexander the Great.”

“That’s what I said—it’s great. How about Aristotle Onassis? Or Pita the Great?”

She threw a grape at me and I caught it in my mouth. It was delicious.

“Wow. You’re fast. How did you do that?” she asked.

“The seeds are the problem,” I said.

“What?”

“I’m not sure how long ago they figured out how to grow seedless grapes. Maybe not that long ago.”

“Don’t ruin it. I was feeling romantic,” Jane said, dipping her bread.

“Sorry.”

“And don’t look it up on your phone. I hate that. My husband used to do that.”

“I’m not your husband,” I pointed out.

“I know that.”

“Sorry, Jane. Okay, even if there were seeds, it’s the same thing. It was a nice thought. I like your brain.”

“Pig. I want to be loved for my body, too.”

“And that.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes. I smiled at her and she smiled back.

“Aubrey sent me another text,” I said, between bites. “I’m going to meet him alone.”

“What?” she asked, her mouth stunned open.

I showed her the message. She shut her mouth.

“I hope you told the cops all this,” Jane said.

“Nope. So far, just you.”

For some reason she looked at me like I was a crazy man.

“But you’re telling your paper. What’s-his-name, that big photographer will be there.”

“Nope. I’m not telling them anything.”

“Oh, I get it,” Jane said, dropping her pita. “You’re the brave guy, going out to meet the Hacker alone but telling the little lady, so when this guy kills you, I’ll be able to tell the police where to pick up your body. So I’ll feed Skippy.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you either, but I just decided to—not so they find my body—but because I trust you,” I told her.

Her angry expression softened. She picked up her pita.

“Do you want me to come?”

“No. It’ll be fine. Trust me.”

“I… I do trust you but you’re crazy. Why are you doing all of this?”

“You mean why am I meeting Aubrey, or whoever it is, alone, or why am I working on the case, or why am I at the
Mail
in the first place?”

“All of the above,” she said.

“Well, I’m meeting the guy because I’m curious and I’ve got to keep going until it’s done. I’m working on the case because… because it’s fun.”

“Fun?” she asked, with a laugh.

“Yeah. The reason I’m at the
Mail
is something else entirely.”

She waited.

I said nothing.

She waited some more, eating grapes, enjoying the ancient, eternal meal.

I told her.

“So, you’re undercover?” Jane asked, when I was done. “The only reason you got a job at the
Mail
was to try to prove they blackmailed some cop, who killed himself?”

“Well, yeah. His brother was one of our team. But I’m not undercover anymore. I told them I was working on a story about the Sean Joyce case.”

“But you’re not. You’re trying to find evidence that will prove they did something wrong. Why tell them what you’re doing?”

“Because I have evidence they do this kind of thing, but not evidence they blackmailed the dead cop. I know they did it but I can’t prove it. I figured if I told them I was onto them, I would draw fire, you know, get them to react, show themselves.”

“And they have.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I assume most corporations in New York do not have Human Resources people who carry guns and threaten employees.”

“These days, who knows?” Jane laughed. “So your definition of success for your not-so-secret mission would be if they started shooting at you?”

“Well, as my friend Al would say, it would be a start.”

“Have you considered the possibility that you may be insane?”

“Everything about my life proves that is true.”

She laughed and took me by the hand, leading me toward her bedroom.

“Where are we going?” I asked her.

“To do something I want to do again before the murderer or your employers kill you.”

After lunch, I went back to my desk at the newspaper with a smile on my face. I called Mary Catherine on my iPhone to update her, while opening a small pile of snail mail with my black letter opener. At least a few readers had liked my column. I looked up and spotted Jack Leslie and Matt Molloy watching me from across the room for a bit before drifting away.

“This is your plan?” Mary Catherine asked sarcastically. “Blab the mission to the bad guys to piss them off and then go to meet a killer alone?”

“Best plan I’ve got,” I told her.

“It sucks,” she concluded.

“It does. But I won’t be alone. I’m open to suggestions.”

“Let’s just let them incriminate themselves with an electronic trail,” she suggested.

“There won’t be one.”

“Shit. We can’t use a dummy and a wig this time.”

“I’m the dummy.”

“Yes, you are, Shepherd.”

“Just be there.”

“Okay. I’m praying for you, Shepherd.”

“Don’t do that. Do your job.”

“Okay, I will.”

“I mean it, Mary Catherine. No praying. Didn’t you read that scientific study they did about praying for sick people?”

“No. Who wasted money on that?”

“I forget. In one test group, people prayed for actual sick patients to get better—but they got worse. More died than in the control group.”

“You made that up. That doesn’t make sense,” she sniffed.

“Praying makes sense?” I asked.

“How could it hurt?”

“Maybe their minds weren’t on their jobs.”

“Okay. God helps those who help themselves,” she concluded.

“Have it your way.”

“Who’s going to show up?” she asked.

“Probably the person who sent me that text.”

“Aubrey Forsythe?” she asked.

“Could be. Maybe he wants to give himself up.”

“You don’t believe that,” she said.

“No, I don’t. And I still don’t think he did this.”

“Who else?”

“A copycat, maybe,” I said. “But there are always other possibilities.”

“Who?”

“Old friends, new friends? Guessing doesn’t count. See you tonight.”

Daydreaming at my desk, I watched a flock of pigeons, under reflected clouds, maybe the same flock, flying in tight formation between the skyscrapers. When no falcon attacked, I got bored. I grabbed my folded red necktie and my favorite letter opener and went home to feed and walk Skippy. He was happy to see me.

On our walk, the HR thugs were nowhere in sight. Neither were Ginny or her siblings. As Skippy took care of business, I had that itchy shoulder blade feeling, the caveman sense that a predator was eyeing me. I looked around carefully but couldn’t see anyone I recognized—just strangers coming and going on foot and in cars, paying no attention to me. I scanned the rooftops, the windows. Nothing. Just the feeling. That feeling was an old friend.

Back in my apartment, I sat on the couch discussing possibilities with a disinterested Skippy.

“So, who got something from these killings?” I asked him. “Who benefits?”

Skippy cocked his head reflectively. He had no suggestions. I made fun of Izzy talking to corpses but here I was talking to a dog. At least Skippy was alive.

The next of kin would benefit from the killings. So Aubrey would get his husband’s money. But Aubrey was the one
with
money. Cushing had several ex-wives and lots of kids but I doubted they banded together to bump him off. Who would get Pookie’s fortune? But Izzy would be all over that stuff, inheritance, insurance, the routine cop stuff. If he had found anything, I’d know.

“I still can’t see Aubrey being the Hacker,” I told Skippy. “Unless Cash Cushing and Pookie Piccarelli killed Neil Leonardi together. Then Aubrey would be innocent of the first murder but guilty of the other two—for revenge. That works. But why would a greedy billionaire and a horny party girl team up to off a food critic’s husband? No reason in the world. They had nothing in common. Except they all had money. And reality TV shows.”

“Son of a bitch!” I yelled, startling Skippy. “Ratings!”

Neil’s murder on the front page of the
Mail
, every front page, plus on TV, radio and the web. Millions in free publicity. I grabbed my phone and launched Google. Sure enough, the shows all had huge viewer spikes on TV, online, Netflix, everywhere, after each killing. Box sets of Aubrey’s, Nolan’s and Pookie’s shows were topping the Amazon charts.

Somebody was making millions. I looked up the ownership. Three different networks. Damn. Aubrey’s show,
Food Fight
, was on the FFY channel, Nolan’s show,
You’re Foreclosed
, was on the MMC channel, and Pookie’s
Bitch Blanket Bimbos
was on TDC. They all had separate, competing ownership. Pookie’s show was owned by billionaire Trevor Todd, the owner of the
New York Mail
, my ultimate boss. They were actually running promos for Pookie’s show, using my front pages to draw viewers. They showed other cast members reacting to her death. A new season based around her murder was already being filmed. Tacky but not illegal.

Now it made no sense again. If it was a ratings scam, all the shows should have been on the same network or owned by the same people. Obviously Neil, Cash and Pookie were not willingly part of any plot that involved their own deaths. Maybe Aubrey
did
want to surrender and plead guilty with an explanation? But if not Aubrey, who? A stranger, a loony serial killer who hates rich reality TV jerks?

Stay tuned.

What to wear to meet a serial killer?

I no longer owned body armor or an M5, or a SCAR assault rifle.

I only had my lucky red tie, the one with a dragon on it, and my black letter opener. The ancient Chinese sage Lao Tzu said “one who feels punctured must once have been a bubble,” whatever that means. I changed back into my slightly dirty jeans and sneakers and put on a clean, long-sleeved white dress shirt. I donned my garish dragon tie, fiddled with it, and checked it out in the mirror. Felt a bit stiff but it worked.

I stood on the curb of Central Park Drive, close to where Pookie had been found. Stubs of yellow crime-scene tape still tied to a light pole and a tree fluttered in a vague breeze. Yellow cabs, cars and the occasional hansom cab, a black horse-pulled buggy used to separate tourists from their money, rolled by, ignoring me. Some sightseers cruised by in a black limo, taking pictures of the murder spot out the window. Twice a cab slowed to see if I was a fare but I waved them away.

It was already after midnight. I casually ran my eyes over the grass and trees and rocks all around me. I could not see any sign of Mary Catherine or her people hiding. Either they were very good or they were late. They certainly weren’t close. Unless they were disguised as elms.

I took out my phone and checked for messages. Zip. Another yellow cab slowed to the curb right in front of me and I started to wave it off. Both windows on my side were open and the driver inside the dark vehicle—a short guy in black, wearing a light turban—asked me something I couldn’t make out.

“No, I don’t need a cab, thanks,” I said, waving him away again.

“Drop the phone and get in. Fast, asshole,” he said clearly.

The voice coming from under the turban was Matt Molloy’s.

“Hi, I’m Alec Baldwin,” the little TV in the back seat said.

Before I could say no, another familiar voice from the back seat spoke up.

“Get in right now, Shepherd, or I shoot you where you stand. Drop your phone and get the fuck in—three seconds.”

That would be Jack Leslie. I could barely see him, dressed all in black, lying on his back across the seat, propped up on the far door, both hands on his gun, which was pointed right at my chest. Eight feet from the gun to my heart. His automatic was cocked, ready to fire. He couldn’t miss. Only in movies can people dodge bullets. We learned that the first day out. The round is through you and out before you hear the shot.

“If you see something, say something,” Alec Baldwin said.