Walk Among the Tombstones: A Matthew Scudder Crime Novel

  “Five hundred apiece.”

  She whistled. “That’s not bad for a night’s work.”

  “No, it’s not, and if they’d come up with a figure it would probably have been a lot less. They went blank when I asked them how much they wanted, so I suggested five hundred each. That seemed fine to them. They’re middle-class kids, I don’t think they’re hurting for money. I have a feeling I could have talked them into doing the job for free.”

  “By appealing to their better nature.”

  “And their desire to be in on something exciting. But I didn’t want to do that. Why shouldn’t they have the dough? I’d have been willing to pay more than that to some phone-company employee if I could have figured out who to bribe. But I couldn’t find anybody who’d admit what I wanted was technologically possible. Why not give it to the Kongs? It’s not my money, and Kenan Khoury says you can always afford to be generous.”

  “And if he decides to bail out?”

  “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Unless, of course, he gets arrested going through customs wearing a vest full of powder.”

  “I guess something like that could happen,” I said, “but that would just mean I’d be out of pocket to the tune of a little under two grand, and I started out by taking ten thousand dollars from him a couple of weeks ago. That’s almost how long it’s been. It’ll be two weeks Monday.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, I haven’t accomplished very much in that amount of time. It seems as though—well, the hell with it, I’m doing what I can. Anyway, the point is that I can afford to take the chance that I won’t get reimbursed.”

  “I suppose so.” She frowned. “How do you get two thousand dollars? Say one-fifty for a hotel room, and a thousand for the two Kongs. How much Coca-Cola can two kids drink?”

  “I drink Coke, too. And don’t forget TJ.”

  “He drinks a lot of Coke?”

  “All he wants. And he gets five hundred dollars.”

  “For introducing you to the Kongs. I didn’t even think of that.”

  “For introducing me to the Kongs, and for thinking of introducing me to the Kongs. They’re the perfect way to spirit information out of the phone company, and I never would have thought of looking for someone like that.”

  “Well, you hear about computer hackers,” she said, “but how would you find one? They don’t list them in the Yellow Pages. Matt, how old is TJ?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You never asked him?”

  “I never got a straight answer. I’d say fifteen or sixteen, and I don’t think I could be off by more than a year either way.”

  “And he lives on the street? Where does he sleep?”

  “He says he’s got a place. He’s never said where or with whom. One thing you learn on the street, you don’t want to be too quick to tell your business to people.”

  “Or even your name. Does he know how much he’s getting?”

  I shook my head. “We haven’t discussed it.”

  “He won’t be expecting that much, will he?”

  “No, but why shouldn’t he have it?”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you. I just wonder what he’s going to do with five hundred dollars.”

  “Whatever he wants. At a quarter a shot, he could call me up two thousand times.”

  “I guess,” she said. “God, when I think of the different people we know. Danny Boy, Kali. Mick. TJ, the Kongs. Matt? Let’s not ever leave New York, okay?”

  Chapter 11

  On Sundays Jim Faber and I usually have our weekly dinner at a Chinese restaurant, although we occasionally go somewhere else. I met him at six-thirty at our regular place, and a few minutes after seven he asked me if I had a train to catch. “Because that’s the third time in the past fifteen minutes you looked at your watch.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize it.”

  “You anxious about something?”

  “Well, there’s something I have to do later,” I said, “but there’s plenty of time. I don’t have to be anywhere until eight-thirty.”

  “I’ll be going to a meeting myself at eight-thirty, but I don’t suppose that’s what you’ve got scheduled.”

  “No. I went to one this afternoon because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit one in tonight.”

  “This appointment of yours,” he said. “You’re not ner-vous because you’re gonna be around booze, are you?”

  “God, no. There won’t be anything stronger than Coca-Cola. Unless somebody picks up some Jolt.”

  “Is that a new drug I don’t know about?”

  “It’s a cola drink. Like Coke, but twice as much caffeine.”

  “I don’t know if you can handle it.”

  “I don’t know that I’m going to try. You want to know where I’m going after I leave here? I’m going to check into a hotel under a phony name and then I’m going to have three teenage boys up to my room.”

  “Don’t tell me any more.”

  “I won’t, because I wouldn’t want you to have foreknowledge of a felony.”

  “You’re planning on committing a felony with these kids?”

  “They’re the ones who’ll be committing a felony. I’m just going to watch.”

  “Have some more of the sea bass,” he said. “It’s especially good tonight.”

  BY nine o’clock all four of us were assembled in a $160-a-night corner room in the Frontenac, a 1,200-room hotel built a few years ago with Japanese money and since sold to a Dutch conglomerate. The hotel was on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fifty-third Street, and from our room on the twenty-eighth floor you could get a glimpse of the Hudson. Or you could have, if we hadn’t drawn the shades.

  There was a spread of snack food laid out on the top of the dresser, including Cheez Doodles but not including Pringles. The little refrigerator held three varieties of cola, a six-pack of each. The telephone had been relocated from the bedside table to the desk, with something called an acoustic coupler attached to its earpiece and something else called a modem plugged into its rear. It shared the desk with the Kongs’ laptop computer.

  I had signed the register as John J. Gunderman and gave an address on Hillcrest Avenue, in Skokie, Illinois. I paid cash, along with the fifty-dollar deposit required of cash customers who wanted access to the telephone and mini-bar. I didn’t care about the mini-bar, but we damn well needed the phone. That was why we were in the room.

  Jimmy Hong was seated at the desk, his fingers flashing on the computer’s keyboard, then punching numbers on the phone. David King had drawn up another chair but was standing, looking over Jimmy’s shoulder at the computer screen. Earlier he had tried to explain to me how the modem allowed the computer to hook into other computers through the telephone lines, but it was a little like trying to explain the fundamentals of non-Euclidean geometry to a field mouse. Even when I understood the words he used, I still didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

  The Kongs had worn suits and ties, but only to get through the hotel lobby; their ties and jackets were on the bed now, and they had their sleeves rolled up. TJ was in his usual costume, but they hadn’t hassled him at the desk. He’d come lugging two sacks of groceries, disguised as a delivery boy.

  Jimmy said, “We’re in.”

  “All right!”

  “Well, we’re into NYNEX but that’s like being inside the hotel lobby when you need to be in a room on the fortieth floor. Okay, let’s try something.”

  His fingers danced and combinations of numbers and letters popped up on the screen. After a while he said, “Bastards keep changing the password. You know the amount of effort they spend just trying to keep people like us out?”

  “As if they could.”

  “If they put the same energy into improving the system—”

  “Stupid.”

  More letters, more numbers. “Damn,” Jimmy said, and reached for his can of Coke. “You know what?”

/>   “Time for our people-to-people program,” David said.

  “That’s what I was thinking. You feel like refining your human-contact skills?”

  David nodded and took the phone. “Some people call this ‘social engineering,’ ” he told me. “It’s hardest with NYNEX because they warn their people about us. Good thing for us that most of the people who work there are morons.” He dialed a telephone number, and after a moment he said, “Hi, this is Ralph Wilkes, I’m trouble-shooting your line. You’ve been having trouble getting into COSMOS, right?”

  “They always do,” Jimmy Hong murmured. “So it’s a safe question.”

  “Yeah, right,” David was saying. There was a lot of jargon I couldn’t follow, and then he said, “Now how do you log in? What’s your access code? No, right, don’t tell me, you’re not supposed to tell me, it’s security.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know, they give us grief about the same thing. Look, don’t tell me the code, just punch it in on your keyboard.” Numbers and letters appeared on our screen and Jimmy’s fingers were quick to enter them on our keyboard. “Fine,” David said. “Now can you do the same thing with your password for COSMOS? Don’t tell me what it is, just enter it. Uh-huh.”

  “Beautiful,” Jimmy said softly as the number came up on our screen. He punched it in.

  “That ought to do it,” David told whoever he was talking to. “I don’t think you should have any problems from here on in.” He broke the connection and let out a huge sigh. “I don’t think we should have any problems, either. ‘Don’t tell me the number, just enter it. Don’t tell me, darling, just tell my computer.’ ”

  “Hot damn,” Jimmy said.

  “We’re in?”

  “We’re in.”

  “Yay!”

  “Matt, what’s your phone number?”

  “Don’t call me,” I said. “I’m not home.”

  “I don’t want to call you. I want to check your line. What’s the number? Never mind, don’t tell me, see if I care. ‘Scudder, Matthew.’ West Fifty-seventh Street, right? That look familiar?”

  I looked at the screen. “That’s my phone number,” I said.

  “Uh-huh. You happy with it? You want me to change it, give you something easier to remember?”

  “If you call the phone company to get your number changed,” David said, “it takes them a week or so to run it through channels. But we can do it on the spot.”

  “I think I’ll keep the number I’ve got,” I said.

  “Suit yourself. Uh-huh. You’ve got pretty basic service, haven’t you? No Call Forwarding, no Call Waiting. You’re at a hotel, you’ve got the switchboard backing you up, so maybe you don’t need Call Waiting, but you ought to have Call Forwarding anyhow. Suppose you stay over at somebody’s house? You could get your calls routed there automatically.”

  “I don’t know if I’d use it enough to make it worthwhile.”

  “Doesn’t cost anything.”

  “I thought there was a monthly charge for it.”

  He grinned and his fingers were busy on the keypad. “No charge for you,” he said, “because you have influential friends. As of this moment you’ve got Call Forwarding, compliments of the Kongs. We’re in COSMOS now, that’s the particular system we invaded, so that’s where I’m entering changes in your account. The system that figures your billing won’t know about the change, so it won’t cost you anything.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I see you use AT&T for your long-distance calls. You didn’t select Sprint or MCI.”

  “No, I didn’t figure I would save that much.”

  “Well, I’m giving you Sprint,” he said. “It’s going to save you a fortune.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh, because NYNEX is going to route your long-distance calls to Sprint, but Sprint’s not going to know about it.”

  “So you won’t get billed,” David said.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Trust me.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt what you said. I just don’t know how I feel about it. It’s theft of services.”

  Jimmy looked at me. “We’re talking about the phone company,” he said.

  “I realize that.”

  “You think they’re gonna miss it?”

  “No, but—”

  “Matt, when you make a call from a pay phone and the call goes through but the quarter comes back anyway, what do you do? Keep it or put it back in the slot?”

  “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 doesn’t put the call through. Face it, none of us are way out in front of the game when we’re dealing with Mother Bell.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So you’ve got free long distance and free Call Forwarding. There’s a code you have to enter to forward your calls, but just ring them up and tell them you lost the slip and they’ll explain it to you. Nothing to it. TJ, what’s your phone number?”

  “Ain’t got one.”

  “Well, your favorite pay phone.”

  “Favorite? I don’t know. Don’t 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, it’s impossible to know if we’re 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, let’s 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 it’s my own phone number? Hey, I like that!”

  “Let’s just see if it’s available. Nope, somebody’s got it. So why don’t we take the other direction? TJ-5-6789. No problem, so let’s make it all yours. So ordered.”

  “You can just do that?” I wondered. “Aren’t different three-number prefixes specifically linked to different areas?”

  “Used to be. And there’s 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. It’s just a recognition code, really.”

  “Well, it’s an access code,” David said. “But it accesses the line, and that’s what routes the call.”

  “Let’s fix the phone for you, TJ. It’s a pay phone, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Wrong. It was a pay phone. Now it’s a free phone.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Some idiot’ll 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 we’d 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 they’re mechanical—”

  “—which is pretty primitive, when you stop and think about it—”

  “—but with pay phones we’re in a position to do something, so for I think it was two hours—”

  “—more like an hour and a half—”

  “—we’re hopping through COSMOS, or maybe it was MIZAR—”

  “—no, it was COSMOS—”

  “
—and we’re changing one pay phone after another, liberating it, setting it free—”

  “—and Hong’s really getting into it, like ‘Power to the People’ and everything—”

  “—and I don’t 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, we’re sort of a major pain in the ass to them.”

  “So?”

  “So you’ve got to see their point of view, that’s all.”

  “No you don’t,” David King said. “The last thing you have to do is see their point of view. That’s 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, we’re 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 client’s name and address showed up.

  “That your friend?” Jimmy wanted to know. I said it was. “He’s 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 it’s so boring.”

  “Yeah, we used to do it sometimes. You think maybe you’ll 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 there’s always phone sex.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “That’s King’s favorite. Three dollars a minute billed to your home phone, but if you’ve got a pay phone that you taught not to be a pay phone, then it’s 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—”