Second Chance (18 page)

He quickly learned, however, that Thomas
Feeley
was not as easy to get alone as he had hoped. He was surrounded by subordinates at work, and his house, a mini-estate in Fox Chapel, had a security fence around it. Keith could have shot him from a distance, but he wanted something more, wanted for people to know how and why death came to Thomas
Feeley's
family.

And family, he decided, was the key. Thinking of how much his own father's death must have devastated his mother, he decided to kill
Feeley's
wife instead.

It was a brutal idea, and he fought against it for several days, but in the end decided that it had to be done. She was living on the profits too. She had not left him when the world learned what he was guilty of, and in such a case, a wife was her husband's support, her approval his carte blanche. Her death might not be totally fair, but neither would it be completely unjust.

So he planned and prepared, watched Mrs.
Feeley's
comings and goings, saw the days she was alone and unprotected, the times when she could be approached and abducted.

But all his preparation did not prepare him for the reality of violence, and afterwards, the entries in his book of the mind were bitter.

~*~

January 14, 1972
:

I apologized to her before I killed her. It didn't make it any easier. I told her that her death would mean something, that it would not only teach her husband, but others like him, people who felt they could ignore the laws, pay their fines, and fuck up the earth all they wanted to.

When she knew I was going to kill her, she started to scream. I shouldn't have told her. I don't think I'll ever tell them again. I only wanted to be honest with her. I didn't want her to think that her death would have no meaning. But I should have just killed her before she even knew what was happening. From now on that's what I'll do. That way they won't be scared. They won't feel the pain.

~*~

January 18, 1972
:

I keep hearing her screams as I held the gun to her head. The strange thing is that she didn't seem as afraid of dying as of the possibility that I was going to do something to her—rape her, I suppose. I wouldn't have done that. That's no part of what I want to do. I feel almost like a priest. I haven't had a girl in over a year now, and I suspect that will continue. I just can't afford to let anyone come that close. I might say something in my sleep.

But it's funny. Now that I know what I need to do, I don't miss sex. It's as if being celibate makes me stronger, more able to concentrate. I plan to have no other interests in life than saving the world. I think that's enough for anyone.

~*~

But there were other interests. Keith Aarons acquired two possessions that he took everywhere he went, that remained permanent no matter how often his identities changed. The first was a small, hardcover copy of Herman
Hesse's
Steppenwolf
, which had been his favorite book in college and had remained so; the second was a print by a man named Kowalski, a copy of which had hung in his parents' living room.

It was of a wolf standing on a hill in the snow at night, looking down on several lit cabins. He had been fascinated by it when he was a child, and when he had seen it on the wall of a pawn shop, he bought it immediately. He took little else with him on his frequent moves. Some of his weapons he dismantled and destroyed when certain jobs were completed. Others he left, without fingerprints, at the scene. He did not drag around things. He did not trust things. Things could be traced.

One other interest was classical music. He quickly tired of rock in the early seventies, and found that the music of Beethoven reflected his passion, Bach his desire for precision, Mozart and Haydn his need for order, and Mahler his neuroticism and complexity of moral thought. Upon moving to a new location, he always bought a portable stereo and a number of records, tapes, and later, CDs. He also bought computers.

He had started to study computer languages and programming in 1976, thinking that the information to be derived through modems might be of some benefit. That thought was the single greatest understatement of his life. After a few years of study, he found that the keyboard had become an extension of his mind. Since he was hacking from the beginning, he found it possible to follow the logic of those who were developing ever more complex security systems. Bypassing the systems was difficult, but Keith was patient and purposeful, and devised several programs to automatically enter passwords until the right one was found. When passwords became too long and complex for the program to work, he developed ways to bypass the locks entirely, essentially reconfiguring the security system itself.

He found that smaller financial institutions were relatively easy to invade, so money eventually ceased to be a worry. His procurements were made from many different companies, and no single theft exceeded three figures. Most of the time he withdrew only $500, an amount that could be excused by one faulty
autoteller
transaction. When laptops became available, he ceased to use his own temporary phone lines, and instead broke into previously surveyed houses in stable, working class suburbs.

During the day, both husband and wife were at work, and he was able to connect his modem to their phone lines and complete several thousand dollars worth of transactions. When he was finished, the only evidence of his presence would be the slightly higher phone bill from calls to numbers of which his victims had no knowledge.

The computer was useful for other jobs as well. It made acquiring identities far easier, and made finding things, even things that were intended never to be found, possible. It was how Keith Aarons had found the lab.

Chapter 16

A month had passed since Keith drove into Bone, Texas. In that time he had established Pete Sullivan as Bone's
numero
uno
chili cook, had made the evening crowd far larger at Red's Tavern as a result, and had formed a relationship with Sally, one of the waitresses.

The relationship consisted of her occasionally grabbing his ass as she came into the kitchen, and sleeping with him two or three times a week. Sally was divorced, had no children, and lived in a trailer on the outskirts of Bone. When they slept together, it was always at her place.

It was the kind of relationship Keith liked. There was nothing of the mind in it. She gave him what he needed, and he reciprocated. There was no dominance, only an exchange of pleasures. It was fair, non-sexist, and as much fun as he allowed himself to have. He had long passed the self-imposed state of celibacy that he had thought necessary to revolutionary ideals, and had learned that his fear of talking in his sleep was groundless. He had formed a number of these relationships of sexual convenience over the years, and was grateful that he had had to kill only one of the women in all that time.

Keith had also established a friendship with Bob Hastings. He found out a lot about the man by talking to him, and what he couldn't find out quickly he learned from Sally. Among the information she shared was that, "He got a lot less
dick'n
he
thinks
he has . . ."

Although that sentiment might have been shared by Hastings's wife, who had divorced him five years before, Hastings blamed the split on other reasons. "That bitch," he had said during one of their first conversations, shaking his head and lowering his filmy gaze to his glass of Lone Star. "She had no
goddam
idea of how important my work was . . . hell, is. She wanted to get
outta
Texas, go up north, be I don't know what. Met her at A&M, I was majoring in bio, wanted to be a dang high school teacher, but then I found about this G.E stuff, and well I just went
apeshit
." He looked up at Keith. "That's not General Electric, that's—"

"Genetic engineering," Keith said.

"Well, I'll be go to hell, you ain't as dumb as you look, Cookie."

"What about your wife?" Keith said, not wanting to rush things.

Hastings snorted. "Pretty as a speckled pup under a red wagon, and she knew it. She was in the theater department, wanted to be an actress or something, and knew she wasn't gonna do that in Bone. You know what she's
doin
' now, Pete?"

Keith shook his head.

"She got her teaching certificate, and she's teaching English in some high school in New York state. Directs the senior class play. Married a fuckin' gym teacher. That's what become of her." He finished his beer. "Mae!" he called toward the kitchen. "
Gemme
another beer—and a
bowla
red, hold the
fartnuts
!"

Mae, Red's wife, who was thirty years older than Sally, stuck her head through the window. "
Yore
mama didn't teach you to talk like that," she said, and her head disappeared.

"Aw, piss on the fire and call in the dogs," Hastings muttered. "Dang women all alike. You ever married, Pete?"

Keith shook his head. "Never had time for it. Always too busy."

"Busy?
Doin
' what?"

He shrugged. "
Studyin
'.
Workin
'."

"You ain't a queer, now?" Hastings asked. Keith felt the question was serious, even though Hastings tried to make it sound like he was joking.

"You go ask Sally about that." Keith shook his head and made his face go grim. "Makes me sick just to think about queers, what they do and all.
Gay
people." He paused at the word as if it made his mouth hurt. "Don't know what they got to be so gay about,
droppin
' dead with AIDS every time you turn around." Then he chuckled. "Best damn disease to come along since sickle cell."

"Think so, do ya?" Hastings grinned slyly.

"
Finer'n
pubic hair on a pope. Not only got the fags, it gets the junkies too. God himself
couldn'ta
made a better plague on purpose."

Mae tossed a bowl of red on the table. "Pot's almost empty," she told Keith. "And your break's almost over."

"I'm
goin
'."

"Where's my beer?" Hastings asked.

"Oh,
gimme
a break," said Mae. "I ain't even had a chance to piss tonight."

"Always wondered how you filled them kegs," Hastings said, then howled at his joke.

During Keith's first week in Bone, Hastings came into Red's Tavern every night, ate chili and burgers, and drank beer. Some nights he came in alone, and other nights with Al Freeman and Ted Horst, the two men Keith had first seen him with. Although they weren't nearly as talkative as Hastings, they were nearly as friendly. They were married and had children, which accounted for their occasional desire to spend an evening at home.

Keith was glad when he could get Bob Hastings alone. Hastings's tongue was freer about his work when his two older friends weren't there. Too, Keith suspected that Hastings was somehow subordinate to Freeman and Horst. Although he joked with them, he always seemed careful not to push things too far.

The last night before Hastings went back on his two week shift, Keith finally managed to work the conversation around to what he (or what Peter Sullivan) had done before he had come back to Texas. He leveraged the talk so that by the time he told Hastings, the younger man was grateful to learn the secret.

"
Biochem
," Keith said. "I spent a couple years in the service, then went to Cornell when I got back, did my grad work at M.I.T., then worked at Wyeth-Ayerst for eight years, and at Rider till last year."

"You're not
funnin
' me now."

"God's truth."

"Where'd you learn to cook?"

"How I paid my way through school."

"Well, I'll be switched. You quit at Rider or get fired?”

“Quit."

"
Whycome
?"

Keith looked away. "Like I said before, somebody ate my lunch, and I didn't like that. Didn't work all these years to have some damn slant walk in and
 
. . ." He shook his head. "What's
done's
done.
Bitchin
' don't change the weather."

When Keith looked at Hastings again, the man was looking at him appraisingly, almost coldly. "That why you come to Bone?"

"What, Goncourt? I thought about it maybe. Night after you mentioned G.E., I called personnel out there, but they're not
lookin
'. Said I could send a resume when I offered to, but that was all. Right in the old round file." He shook his head. "Nah, fuck it anyway. I'm not up for
kissin
' any Jew asses or nigger asses or
Mex
asses—"

"Especially with them
beaner
farts," Hastings said, and laughed.

"Seriously, I couldn't stand it," Keith said. "Big organization like that,
gotta
be your minority hiring, huh?"

Hastings's face got smug. "Ain't no niggers
workin
' at Goncourt. No Jews or
Mexes
neither. Not even to clean the crappers.”

“Bullshit."

"What?"

"If that was true, the
EEO'd
be over you like flies on a
runover
armadillo."