A Walk Among the Tombstones

Page 22

 

  "Or send it to them in stamps," David suggested.

  "I see your point," I said.

  "Because we all know what happens when the phone eats your quarter and doesnt put the call through. Face it, none of us are way out in front of the game when were dealing with Mother Bell. "

  "I suppose. "

  "So youve got free long distance and free Call Forwarding. Theres a code you have to enter to forward your calls, but just ring them up and tell them you lost the slip and theyll explain it to you. Nothing to it. TJ, whats your phone number?"

  "Aint got one. "

  "Well, your favorite pay phone. "

  "Favorite? I dont know. Dont know the number of any of em, anyhow. "

  "Well, pick one out and give me the location. "

  "There be a bank of three of em in Port Authority that I use some. "

  "No good. Too many phones there, its impossible to know if were talking about the same one. How about one on a street corner?"

  He shrugged. "Say Eighth and Forty-third. "

  "Uptown, downtown?"

  "Uptown, east side of the street. "

  "Okay, lets just… there, got it. You want to write down the number?"

  "Just change it," David suggested.

  "Good idea. Make it an easy one to remember. How about TJ-5-4321?"

  "Like its my own phone number? Hey, I like that!"

  "Lets just see if its available. Nope, somebodys got it. So why dont we take the other direction? TJ-5-6789. No problem, so lets make it all yours. So ordered. "

  "You can just do that?" I wondered. "Arent different three-number prefixes specifically linked to different areas?"

  "Used to be. And theres still exchanges, but that works for the particular line number, and that has nothing to do with what you dial. See, the number you dial, like the one I just gave TJ, is the same as the PIN code you use to get money out of your ATM at the bank. Its just a recognition code, really. "

  "Well, its an access code," David said. "But it accesses the line, and thats what routes the call. "

  "Lets fix the phone for you, TJ. Its a pay phone, right?"

  "Right. "

  "Wrong. It was a pay phone. Now its a free phone. "

  "Just like that?"

  "Just like that. Some idiotll probably report it in a week or two, but until then you can save yourself a few quarters. Remember when we played Robin Hood?"

  "Oh, that was fun," David said. "We were down at the World Trade Center one night making calls from a pay phone, and of course the first thing we did was convert it, make it free-"

  "- or otherwise wed be dropping quarters in all night long, which is pretty ridiculous-"

  "- and Hong here says pay phones should be free for everybody, same as the subways ought to be free, they ought to eliminate the turnstiles-"

  "- or make them turn with or without a token, which you could do if they were computerized, but theyre mechanical-"

  "- which is pretty primitive, when you stop and think about it-"

  "- but with pay phones were in a position to do something, so for I think it was two hours-"

  "- more like an hour and a half-"

  "- were hopping through COSMOS, or maybe it was MIZAR-"

  "- no, it was COSMOS-"

  "- and were changing one pay phone after another, liberating it, setting it free-"

  "- and Hongs really getting into it, like Power to the People and everything-"

  "- and I dont know how many phones we switched by the time we were done. " He looked up. "You know something? Sometimes I can see why NYNEX wants to nail our hides to the wall. If you look at it in a certain way, were sort of a major pain in the ass to them. "

  "So?"

  "So youve got to see their point of view, thats all. "

  "No you dont," David King said. "The last thing you have to do is see their point of view. Thats about as smart as playing PacMan and feeling sorry for the blue meanies. "

  Jimmy Hong argued the point, and while they kicked it back and forth I cracked a fresh Coke. When I got back where the action was Jimmy said, "All right, were in the Brooklyn circuits. Give me that number again. "

  I looked it up and read it off and he fed it to the computer. More letters and numbers, meaningless to me, appeared on the screen. His fingers danced on the keys, and my clients name and address showed up.

  "That your friend?" Jimmy wanted to know. I said it was. "Hes not talking on the phone," he said.

  "You can tell that?"

  "Sure. We could listen in if he was. You can just drop in and listen to anybody. "

  "Except its so boring. "

  "Yeah, we used to do it sometimes. You think maybe youll hear something hot, or people talking about a crime or spy stuff. But all you really get to hear is this remarkably tedious crap. Pick up a quart of milk on your way home, darling. Really boring. "

  "And so many people are so inarticulate. They just stutter and stammer along and you want to tell em to spit it out or forget about it. "

  "Of course theres always phone sex. "

  "Dont remind me. "

  "Thats Kings favorite. Three dollars a minute billed to your home phone, but if youve got a pay phone that you taught not to be a pay phone, then its free. "

  "It feels creepy, though. What we did once, though, we just dropped in and listened on some of those lines. "

  "And then cut in and made comments, which really freaked this one guy. He was paying to talk one-on-one to this woman with this incredible voice-"

  "- who probably had a face like Godzilla, but nobody could tell-"

  "- and heres King dropping in on him in the middle of a sentence and trashing his fantasy. "

  "The girl was freaking, too. "

  "Girl, she was probably a grandmother. "

  "Shes going like, Who said that? Where are you? How did you get on this line? "

  Throughout this exchange Jimmy Hong had been participating in another dialogue as well, this one with the computer. Now he held up a hand for silence and hit keys with the other. "Okay," he said. "Gimme the date. It was in March, right?"

  "The twenty-eighth. "

  "Month three, date two-eight. And we want calls to 04-053-904. "

  "No, his number is-"

  "Thats his line number, Matt. Remember the difference? Uh, what I figured. Data not available. "

  "What does that mean?"

  "Means we were smart to bring in a lot of food. Could somebody bring me some of those Doritos? Were going to be here awhile, thats all. You interested in calls he made from his phone, while were in this part of the system? Seems a shame to waste it. "

  "Might as well. "

  "See what we get. Look at that, it doesnt want to tell me a thing. Okay, lets try this. Uh-huh. Okay, now-"

  Then the system began spitting out a record of calls, reeling them off chronologically starting a few minutes after midnight. There were two calls before one in the morning, then nothing until 8:47, when the system logged a thirty-second call to a 212 number. There was one other call