The Devil Went Down to Austin

Page 26

 

  "If I see you again, Mr. Navarre, if you ever show your face, I will not be merciful. "

  Engels said, "Come on. "

  We left W. B. at the coffee table, studying its goldembossed surface like it was a war map—one on which his forces held only the low ground.

  Engels escorted me toward the elevator.

  After nine or ten steps, I said, "How long in SWAT?"

  Engels kept walking. "Three years. "

  "And now back to patrol. Must be hard to swallow. "

  The sunglasses told me nothing.

  "Doeblers money cant make up for the demotion," I said. "What was it—you do something out of line? Fail the psych profiling?"

  When we got to the elevator, Engels pressed the button. He watched the elevator numbers creep up.

  "How much can he buy, Engels? Who else besides you?"

  The elevator doors dinged, then opened.

  "Right now," Engels said, "while weve been talking, I couldve killed you five, maybe six times. "

  I stepped inside the elevator, smiled at Engels. "Missed opportunities. They suck, dont they?"

  Those chrome lenses gave back my reflection as the doors slid shut.

  CHAPTER 21

  Dwight Hayes was a natural.

  Not only had he found my truck in the Met garage, he had discreetly parked right next to it. I walked around behind his Honda and came up on the open passengersside window.

  Dwight was occupied looking at the F150, craning his neck, trying to see through the tinted glass of the back window.

  "What are those?" he muttered. "Swords?"

  "Yeah. "

  I guess he wasnt expecting an answer. He jumped so hard he bumped his head on the Hondas ceiling.

  I said, "Hey. "

  He cut his eyes to either side, seemed to come to the conclusion he was cornered.

  "I followed you here," he blurted.

  "Really? You did that?"

  He blushed. "When did you spot me?"

  "About the time we left the entrance of the Techsan parking lot. Until then you were tailing me flawlessly. "

  He put his elbow on the window of the Honda, rubbed his forehead.

  His face had the same slightly nauseated expression as yesterday. The colourfulness of his blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt didnt do anything to offset the morose poodleeyes, the chevrons of Band Aids patching cuts on his neck and forearms.

  His floorboard was littered with cassette tapes—Lightnin Hopkins, B. B. King, Fabulous Thunderbirds. Points for Dwight on the tasteometer.

  On the passengers seat was a yellow legal pad, a pen, half a pack of Hostess Snoballs. From the rearview mirror hung a small plastic Jesus, its arms spread like the Rio de Janeiro model. It seemed to be making some kind of pathetic promise—Some day, Dwight, youll catch a fish this big.

  "Dont worry," I told him. "Any fired employee of Penas is a friend of mine. "

  Dwight scowled. He gave his rearview mirror Jesus a tentative nudge. "I shouldnt have called Maia. "

  "Pena was so true to you. So loyal. "

  Dwights scalp glistened under his fuzzcap of brown hair. Sweat was trickling down my back. The summer midday parking garage was getting about as comfortable as the mouth of a Labrador retriever, but I waited while Dwight did his internal wrestling.

  "He was my roommate at UT," Dwight said. "Thats how far we go back. Freshman year. He kept track of me when he went out to California. When I was looking for work he sort of—adopted me. I owe Matthew a lot. Not just my job. I never expected to be as successful as him, but Ive watched him. Ive tried to learn some things about business. "

  It was almost verbatim what Dwights mother had said. I decided not to point that out.

  "Pena fired you, Dwight. Youd had enough, you argued with him, and he fired you. "

  "I shouldnt have pushed him. "

  "He used you like a dowsing rod for new victims. You saw the results. "

  Dwight thought about that. "I followed you—I dont know, I guess after I talked to Miss Lee this morning, I started thinking about all the things Id left out, things I shouldve told her. "

  "I can take a message. "

  "If I tell you something about Techsans software, what can you promise me? I mean, about confidentiality. Protection. "

  "I can promise that if youre desperate enough to talk to me, Dwight, its going to come out anyway. You might as well tell me. "

  He blinked, then gave me that wobbly smile again, that same illfed sense of humour Id seen at Windy Point when Id borrowed his wet suit. "You always make your informants feel this good?"

  "Wait until I get rolling. You got airconditioning in this thing?"

  I climbed inside and shut the door.

  Dwight turned on his engine, let it idle. I slanted one of the little air vents my way, got a blast of cool that smelled like old Silly Putty.

  Dwight said, "Jimmy Doebler called me about the software, about a week before he died. "

  Dwight was staring out the window, watching the concrete columns of the parking garage as if he expected them to move.

  "Why you?" I asked.

  "Jimmy and I met when Matthew first approached Techsan about a deal. We spent an afternoon going over the code so Jimmy could show me it was solid. He treated me really nice. Even after Techsan rejected Matthews offer, Jimmy stayed cordial, told me I could come out to his place sometime for barbecue. "

  "When he called you two weeks ago, what did he say?"

  "He thought Matthew was sabotaging their program. And he thought he knew how. "

  I felt like a hunter whod just had a sixteenpoint buck sit down next to him. I wanted to shoot the thing pretty bad, but I didnt dare move. I let Dwight take his time.

  "Jimmy needed someone with access to Matthews computer," he told me. "He wanted me to confirm his suspicions. He thought Matthew was using a back door in the program. "

  "A back door. "

  "Programmers call it that. Its a command thats not advertised— something that lets you inside the program. You hit your special access sequence, and you can get behind the program, go into God mode. The back door can give you unlimited access, let you change data at will. "

  "Or steal confidential files from betatesters," I suggested.

  Dwight didnt answer.

  "This back door," I said. "Whered it come from?"

  "Jimmy didnt tell me. Probably one of the original programmers—Jimmy, Ruby, or Garrett. Maybe they forgot about it, or

  thought it so well hidden there was no reason to take it out. One of them couldve even snuck it into the program maliciously. "

  "Dwight, were only talking about three people, here—how would the others not know?"

  "You have to trust your partners in a startup—theres no time to check each others work. A highlevel encryption program has millions of lines of code—millions of places to stash a back door. "

  "If one of the principals, a malicious one, gave Pena access to that back door . . . "

  "Matthew could destroy the betatesting," Dwight finished. "The other principals might never know what hit them. Once Matthew bought Techsan, he could fix the back door quickly, document the problem, blame it on the original programmers, then turn around and make a huge profit. He could afford to bribe his informant several million and still come out ahead. "

  I thought about that. There were only three principals at Techsan. One was now dead.

  "You told Jimmy you couldnt help him," I guessed.

  Dwight nodded slowly. "I couldnt go behind Matthews back. Jimmy couldnt give me any more specifics. The conversation came to an impasse. "

  "But now you think Jimmy was right. "

  Dwight stared at his little Jesus on the rearview mirror. "The way Matthew was talking yesterday, about how quickly he would fix the software, yes. I think Jimmy was right.

  But thats not what bothers me most, Tres—not how Matthew hurt your brothers company, but why. "
r />   I waited.

  "Ive seen Matthew do bad things," Dwight said. "Scary things. But this acquisition seems . . . special to him. I gave him a list of four or five possibilities in Austin. Not just Techsan. But he looked at the names of the principals and zeroed in on Techsan immediately. Hes spent a lot of time on this project, more than anything else hes done. "

  "The money potential," I said. "You indicated it was huge. "

  "Thats just it. Hes making it huge. He couldve made the same size IPO with any other company I showed him, probably with less work. But Matthew is pulling in all his markers with venture capitalists to make Techsan his biggest play. Its like he intentionally wants

  to hurt these principals, make them know theyve been crushed. Hes being worse about this than Ive ever seen him. Almost like—"

  "Its personal," I supplied.

  He nodded.

  "Why would it be?" I said. "Pena ever meet Jimmy before?" "No. "

  "Ruby or Garrett?"

  "Not that I know of. "

  "UT," I said. "Thats where you and Pena met. Thats where Jimmy and Garrett and Ruby met. No crossing of paths?"

  "We mustve graduated at least ten years after the Techsan folks. "

  He was right. There really wasnt much coincidence—a school with fifty thousand students. It was hard to find five people in Austin who hadnt gone there.

  "What about before college—you know anything about Matthews past?"

  Dwight hesitated. "I know he was from a welloff family. I know he hated his parents. "

  "Because?"

  "He said— I dont know why this would help you. His parents were doctors, lived in Marble Falls, did a lot of charity work in orphanages, homeless shelters, places like that. According to Matthew, he was like their trophy child. They gave him everything but never paid attention to him. When he turned eighteen, he pretty much severed all communication with them. "

  "Parents still alive?"

  "No. They died while we were in college. Car accident. "

  I stared into the parking lot.

  I wondered whether my urge to dig up Penas past was really my investigative instinct, or just the desire to find a weak chink in Penas armour, a place he could be hurt. I didnt trust myself to stop if I found the latter to be true.

  "W. B. Doebler," I said. "How tight were he and Pena?"

  Dwight shook his head. "An occasional meeting. I wouldnt describe them as tight. The only person Matthew spent any real time with in Austin besides me—"

  He stopped himself.

  "Dwight?"

  He ran his knuckle along the windshield. "I was going to say, Ruby McBride. "

  Id looked through Penas appointment book and seen only one meeting scheduled with Ruby—the one Dwight had already mentioned in the spring, when Pena had first approached Techsan.

  I decided against asking Dwight about this discrepancy. For one thing, I didnt want to admit having the datebook. For another, Pena might not have written down every meeting for his secretary to see.

  Dwight apparently took my silence for disapproval.

  "I wasnt implying anything," he assured me. "Miss McBride . . . I mean, I never saw them talking business. Matthew just got along well with her socially. She was a lot like Miss Selak—same personality, same interests. It probably just made Matthew feel better, being with her. "