Stuff to Spy For (25 page)

“The damndest part of this is we’re ready to start making the software, and we can have it installed within two weeks. Two weeks, Carol. If it wasn’t for Jason Riley and the government watchdogs, we never would have had to put in this useless security system. By the time they actually activate it, we won’t even need it.”

“We never needed it. But the two boys play right into our strategy. I told you, don’t worry about it.”

Just before we lost their conversation altogether I heard Conroy say, “If Sarah is the easiest one to take down, who’s the second easiest to take a fall?”

Carol Conroy’s harsh laugh rolled down the hallway.

We waited a good two minutes. If they were still in the building there was no sign of it. “I think we can give the all-clear sign.”

“Jesus.”

“Being the religious man that you are, James, you can say a prayer of thanks that we didn’t get caught.”

“The Lord’s will, Skip. It was the Lord’s will.” This time I think he meant it, and I wasn’t going to argue with him.

“Obviously, you guys know a whole lot more about this than you’ve told me.” Em was miffed. Big time. “Maybe we should share a little bit more.”

She’s a turn-on even when she’s mad. None of us spoke again until we were in the truck and rolling home.

“I’m not sure we know enough to piece it all together.” James kept his eyes straight ahead, staring into the inky blackness as the potholes in the asphalt jolted our truck’s suspension system, shaking us down to our molars.

“Em, we really don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well, I can tell you something about that conversation back
there. Carol Conroy is high maintenance and a total control freak. What a bitch.” Em could certainly call them.

We bounced out of a hole or crack and it felt like the bottom had dropped from the truck.

“I don’t want to believe that Carol Conroy orchestrated the death of Walters, but Sandy hinted that—”

“James. There were a lot of things I don’t want to believe about that conversation. They’re going to try to surprise her father—”

“And not in a good way.”

“They’re going to take down Sarah.”

“And somehow implicate us? And we’re still not sure what we’re going to be implicated in.” I needed a beer. Or a deep sleep.

“You keep saying they.” Em rested her hand gently on my thigh. “Skip, it’s not they.”

James gave her a brief look, a frown visible by the dashboard lights. “There were two of them in the building, Em. I was there.”

“There were two of them James, but you and I must have heard two different conversations.”

“Okay,” he gripped the steering wheel, “you tell me your version.”

“Sandy Conroy said ‘those two punks are keeping an eye on me.’”

How were we ever going to forget that statement?

“So far we heard the same conversation.”

“And Carol Conroy responded with ‘You’re imagining things. They’re not bright enough to keep an eye on anyone.’”

“A slam. We heard it, Em.”

“Don’t you get it James? Skip? She’s the one who asked you to spy on him. And then she gives him that answer?”

“And your point is?”

“She’s telling him that you’re not bright enough to pull it off.
She jumped right in and said it could never happen. After she knew it had already happened. She has the proof. She has the transcript you took off the computer card.”

“You’re right.” James was shaking his head up and down.

“Why would she say that? Why wouldn’t she tell him that you had put up the bogus smoke detector? I don’t think they are going to take down Sarah. They are not going to surprise her father. They are not going to involve you guys.”

“She said they were. Why would she say that?”

“She lied to him, Skip. Don’t you get it? She’s planning on pulling something off by herself. She’s going to do the dirty work. She’s not going to involve him.”

“Why not? Why not involve Sandler Conroy? The philandering husband? What’s going to happen to him? Is he going to be left out in the cold?”

“When he said ‘please tell me there won’t be anymore like Ralph Walters or Tony Quatman,’ do you remember what she said?”

I did. I’d practically memorized that short conversation. “She said she couldn’t promise that. There was seventy-five million dollars at stake.”

“I definitely remember the seventy-five million dollars.” We had James’s attention. “What could be worth that kind of money?”

“Well, if it was murder, if somebody killed Ralph Walters or maybe Tony Quatman, too, the next person to be murdered isn’t going to be Carol Conroy.”

James braked for the stoplight. At this hour of the morning, there was no one except us on the street, and with our bad brakes he should have just coasted through the intersection. The screech of brakes grinding metal on metal sent shivers through my body.

“The whole reason we’re involved in this spy thing is because Carol Conroy is concerned for her life.” She’d told me that at the Red Derby.

“That’s what she told you. But think about the conversation you just heard.”

Damn. Em was right. After what we’d heard tonight, it all made perfect sense. “It’s going to be Sandy Conroy. That’s what you’re getting at isn’t it? She’s setting him up to be killed. It has to be him. He knows too much.”

“My guess.” There was a self–satisfied tone in her voice. Almost like a vocal smirk.

“Too much about what?” James pulled into our parking lot and his headlights hit the plywood window covers of our apartment. “What information does Conroy have? We don’t have a clue, do we?”

“It has to do with codes and passwords. It has to do with Feng and Chen. It has to do with Walters and Conroy and Sarah and Carol Conroy. That’s what it’s about.” I was suddenly very tired, and very pissed off. This entire day seemed like a really bad dream.

“Want to spend what’s left of the night together?” I put my arm around her, half hoping she’d say yes, and half hoping she’d say no.

Em gave me a brief hug, then pushed off. “No offense, but this isn’t the safest place to be right now. I think I’ll just drive home.”

I totally understood. I wasn’t sure even James and I should be sleeping here tonight. Somewhere nearby there was a shooter on the loose. “Be careful.” I kissed her.

“You be careful.”

“We’ll be fine.” Bluff and bravado. Always trying to be a little more macho than I really felt.

“Skip,” she leaned in again and gave me one more tight hug, “I’m serious. Watch yourself because I seriously think that lady may be planning on taking care of you and James, too.”

She didn’t have to explain what taking care of meant.

“We’ll clean up the broken glass in the morning, pard.”

The we would be me. Splinters of sharp-edged glass littered the cheap gray carpet and vinyl kitchen floor, and I didn’t want to think about it.

“Do you think Carol Conroy is a killer?” James opened the refrigerator.

“They’re all gone.” We’d finished the last cold beer before our little adventure. “We’re going to have to drink it warm, man.”

He reached down into the case I’d just purchased and pulled out two bottles. Pitching one to me he popped the top on his and took a long swallow. “Warm, cold, it’s still better than water.”

“What the hell was that all about tonight? It’s like we should be calling the cops, but we don’t know what to tell them. Is Carol Conroy a killer? That’s not possible.”

“Compadre, you told your girlfriend that you thought Mrs. Conroy might kill Sandy Conroy. Your girlfriend thinks Mrs. C. may be out to kill us.”

“There’s that.”

The pounding on the door made me almost drop my beer. I
glanced at James and he shrugged his shoulders. Three in the morning. Nobody stops by for a social visit at three a.m. Well, in college you stopped by twenty-four hours a day. For a cigarette, a beer, or a shoulder to lean on. But in the adult world—

James pulled the door open and I half expected someone with a gun. Or a cop. Or maybe Carol Conroy. Or Em.

“Hi, guys. Sorry to bother you so late, but I couldn’t sleep and I thought I should share some information with you.” Jim Jobs, in his boxer shorts and a sleeveless undershirt, walked into our apartment.

“Watch your feet, dude.” James was looking at the floor where J.J.’s bare feet were walking through the slivers of window glass and pieces of blown-up computer.

“I saw the car.”

“You want a beer?” James stood by the cardboard case, ready to serve my beverages at this ungodly hour of the morning.

“Sure.”

“It’s warm.”

“Still better than water.”

James tossed him a bottle.

I couldn’t believe it. Better than water? “You saw what car? You mean the truck?”

“No. The car. The two guys pulled in, parked across the lot, and took four shots at your apartment. I saw it.”

It occurred to me that I’d seen a car pull in just before the shots. The one with no headlights. “Did you see what kind it was?”

“I did. Couldn’t make out the two characters inside, but there’s no doubt they stuck a rifle out the window and took those shots.” For the first time he started looking around. “Man, they really messed your place up.”

“Have a seat,” James said. The three of us straddled our three kitchen table chairs and we proceeded to take deep swallows—of warm, bitter beer.

“Skip,” J.J. never looked at me, just stroked his bottle and looked at the floor, “I questioned you the other day about that smoke detector. It wasn’t that I was trying to run the show—I mean, God knows I’m grateful to you for the job.”

And he should have been.

“But there are a lot of strange things going on in that place.”

James gulped his next swallow. He could drain a bottle in two swallows if he put his mind to it. Finally, he caught his breath and said, “More than you know, Jim. More than you know.”

“Well, I think I’ve got it figured out.”

A little magic, a little sleight of hand. James, Em, and I had been working on it hands-on, and this presumptuous bastard thought he’d figured it out?

“Why don’t you tell us what you think is happening?” James had a look of genuine curiosity on his face.

“Could be wrong, boys. Could be wrong.” He scratched himself through his shorts and I had to look away. “These guys at Synco Systems are putting in your security system to protect their secrets, right?”

I didn’t want to be cynical, but I couldn’t help myself. “It’s usually the reason people put in security systems.”

“But there’s some secrets that aren’t normal. That head of security guy—Feng. He’s sneaking out to the parking lot and talking to another Asian guy. Sometimes two and three times a day.”

I hadn’t noticed that.

“And the president, that Conroy fellow, he’s got Feng in his office ten times a day. It’s not like there’s a big leak in the security around there. So I say to myself, why all this secret stuff? What’s the big deal?”

James nodded. “So what did you come up with?”

“Well, Synco Systems is working on a security system for the Department of Defense, right?”

I was somewhat taken back. “How do you know that?”

J.J. put the beer down on our coffee table and rubbed his hands together. “They got maybe forty, fifty people working there. You can’t keep a secret from forty or fifty people. Gossip is thick in that place.”

This little guy was just a runner. And in the short span of three days he’d been promoted to temporary operation director by Andy Wireman, he’d questioned my decision to put in a smoke detector, and he’d picked up on the DOD, plus he’d listened in on plant gossip. He put James and me to shame.

“What was the gossip?”

“Like I said. This project that they’re working on is being delivered to the Department of Defense. The department in charge of defense of the entire United States of America. The defense of our country, Skip. Now come on. That’s pretty heavy stuff. Am I right?”

Actually, it was pretty heavy stuff. “And?” I didn’t think he had a clue.

“And? Listen to me, Mr. Moore. When a Chinese guy—two Chinese guys—get together and have secret parking lot meetings, when one of those guys is working on a top secret project for the Department of Defense, I get worried.”

“And what do you think they’re talking about? What do you think these meetings are about?” James, Em, and I had all waltzed around the idea. But we’d never committed. This little weasel, this handyman who’d threatened me after I got him his job, this guy was going to lay it all out for us? I couldn’t believe it.

“You need security codes to put in a computer system.”

“And?” I didn’t want him to say it. I didn’t want this to be true. I wanted my money from Synco Systems, from Sarah, and from Carol Conroy. Whoever shot up our apartment, it was all a mistake. The Feng and Chen connection, just a coincidence. The
conversation we’d heard earlier tonight, totally out of context. Everything was going to be fine when we got up in, in about four hours.

“And? Are you kidding me? The Department of Defense is going to have to give security codes to Synco Systems so Synco can install the software. And when they do, the Chinese guys can steal every frigging secret in the entire system.”

James stood up, walked to the case, and pulled three more warm beers. He distributed them to us, then straddled his chair again. “Every frigging secret?”

“Every secret. About nuclear weapons. About new technology. About battle plans, spy networks, and whatever else the Department of Defense deals with.”

“Jesus.” James put the bottle to his mouth, closed his eyes, and we were all silent for about twenty seconds as he drained the beer.

“You know this? For a fact?” I so didn’t want this to be the truth.

“No. No. Hey, settle down. I could be wrong.”

James’s eyes rolled, possibly because of J.J.’s accusation, possibly because the beer was overwhelming his brain. “Our government isn’t that dumb. Do you understand me? The Chi Mak thing, the guy who stole missile secrets, that was because a trusted engineer was able to steal stuff he was inventing. It’s not the same, J.J.”