They look at each other again, but refrain from laughing.
“That requires a lot of trust on your part,” C.H. says.
“I do trust you guys,” I say.
“That’s good,” Curly says. “Because we’ve been tracing your laptop since the day you got it.”
Larry says, “There’s a bomb in there, too.”
“Excuse me?”
“There’s a bomb in your laptop. All we have to do is go online, punch in a code, and your computer blows up.”
“I got my laptop directly from the factory.”
“Yes. But you ordered it online from your old computer.”
“So?”
“We have a keystroke capture system on all your devices. Everything you type, every message you receive, comes to us. We read your computer order, hacked into the company’s system, had your new laptop routed to our address, assembled the tracking device, key capture, and bomb, and shipped it on to you.”
“How powerful a bomb is it?”
“Not that powerful,” C.H. says. “It has a blast area of four to ten feet, depending on if your laptop is open or not.”
I look at my laptop.
“There’s a bomb inside?”
“Yes.”
“If I’m carrying it, and you press the code, I could die?”
“Yes, of course.”
Curly says, “It’s not that big a deal. There’s a bomb in all the computers.”
“What are you saying?”
“You, Jarvis, Maybe, Gwen, Joe Penny, Jeff Tuck—”
“What about Callie?” I ask.
“We can’t get access to anything owned by Callie.”
“Why not?”
“She’s too careful.”
“More careful than me?”
They all start laughing again.
I say, “You’re telling me you could kill me and all my crew with the simple entry of a code?”
“Yes, provided you’re near your computers.”
“You could wait for us to start typing, then kill us.”
Curly turns to Larry and says, “By George, I think he’s got it!”
I say, “Who authorized you to plant bombs in our computers?”
“Darwin.”
“Wait. Which Darwin?”
“As you well know, there’s only one Darwin. Dr. Petrovsky.”
“You knew who Darwin was all this time and never told anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Why not?”
“No one ever asked us.”
“But Lou thought Dr. Howard was Darwin. He killed him.”
C.H. shakes his head as if saddened by my intellectual inefficiency. He says, “Dr. Petrovsky paid Lou forty million dollars to kill Dr. Howard and frame him for being Darwin. It was part of his exit plan.”
“Does Dr. P. still possess the code?”
“Yes. Should we change it?”
I do a double take. Dr. P., my new business partner, could have killed me and the entire crew, all but Callie, at any time. And still can.
“Don’t change the code. Cancel it. Immediately.”
Larry salutes me. “Yes, sir!”
“What about your agents?” C.H. says.
“Theirs, too.”
“But what if you want to kill them sometime?” Larry asks.
“I don’t kill my friends,” I say.
They look at each other.
“What?”
C.H. says, “Why does the name Augustus Quinn come to mind?”
I frown. “That’s different.”
He says, “It’s always different when they do it.”
“Can you disable the kill code while I wait?”
“Of course.”
Larry says, “I assume you’ll want us to clear you for a retinal scan.”
I say, “No. This is your home. I know how much you value your privacy.”
“What about emergencies?” C.H. says.
“You’ve been here for years. I’m sure you can handle any emergencies that come your way.”
They seem happy and sad. Happy I don’t want to impose, but sad that I don’t want to have access, like Lou did. So I add, “As we become closer, over time, I would love to have access to your area. But even so, I won’t go beyond the lobby without your permission.”
That brings big smiles to their little mouths.
“Want to take a tour?” Curly says.
“Would you like me to?”
“Absolutely!”
“How about you cancel the kill code first?”
15.
GEEK CITY TURNS out to be six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a conference room, kitchen, workshop, laundry room, and a computer room that defies explanation. They’re music nerds, each possessing a private collection of more than ten thousand songs that blare constantly from breakfast to dinner, at the highest possible volume.
“Do you ever play the same song at the same time?” I ask.
They look at each other and smile. C.H. says, “What a perfect question to ask! Every afternoon at precisely two-forty-six, we play Dream Merchant, by Gee Gee Shinn.”
Not that I give a shit, but because of the way they’re looking at me, I ask, “Why that particular song?”
“The four of us programmed our individual music into our peripheral computers,” Larry says. “Day after day for years no two computers ever played the same song at the same time.”
C.H. says, “Until eighteen months ago. One afternoon, at two-forty-six, two computers played Dream Merchant at the same time.”
“Do you know what the odds are of that happening?” C.H. says.
“A million to one?” I say.
Curly yells, “Jimmy Charles! Nineteen sixty!”
Larry shouts, “Patterson, New Jersey!”
C.H. says, “That’s nothing. Nothing! Who sang backup?” While the others struggle to answer, he yells “The Revellettes!”
“Ah, but who were in the Revellettes?” I say.
They look at each other and do a double-take. Then grab their cell phones and punch the keys furiously.
Larry gets there first.
“Jackie and Evelyn Kline—”
Curly and C.H. shout in unison, “And Dottie Hailstock!”
They slap each other on the back, do a high-five, and some sort of strange victory dance.
Then C.H. says, “The odds of two of our lists playing a single song at the same time are impossible to calculate because our lists were pre-programmed to constantly shuffle, and each computer has a different random sequence. We’ve been working on the calculation for years. I can show you the algorithm flow chart if you’d like.”
“Another time,” I say, which sets them to laughing.
The biggest surprise comes when they show me Moe’s room and I happen to open the closet door and see his corpse hanging from a hook, wrapped in plastic.
“This can’t stay here,” I say.
“Okay,” Curly says.
I supervise as they carry the body to the antechamber.
“How long will you need to keep my laptop?” I ask.
“For what?” Larry says.
“To program it the way I outlined.”
“We can do it remotely. We’ll send you a link when it’s ready.”
“We should exchange phone numbers,” I say.
They laugh.
“Right,” I say. “You’ve got my number.”
“And you’ve got ours,” Larry says. “All you have to do is press the star key twice. We’ll answer.”
“How will you hear my call over the music?”
“All phone calls mute the music.”
We say our goodbyes. When they’re out of sight I look at Moe’s body, at my feet. A man so broken up by Lou’s sudden death, he killed himself. A man so alone in the world there was no one to contact about his death.
Unless the others killed him and made up the story.
I shake my head, call Tommy Cooper, and tell him to bring a fr
iend.
16.
Callie Carpenter.
THE CONTiPORARY GANGSTER handbook calls for high income-earners to keep a low community profile. Following that advice to a T, Frankie and Angie De Luca maintain an unassuming home in a modest neighborhood.
It’s nine-thirty p.m. under a dark sky as Callie approaches the residence. She knows the De Lucas dined across town with Sal, Marie, and several mob lieutenants and wives at Luigi’s, a mob-connected family restaurant. Their plans had been to finish dinner around nine, then watch the fireworks from the restaurant’s courtyard, which overlooks the Ohio River. Luigi’s isn’t the best viewing spot, since the fireworks are launched a mile away, but it’s safe, private, and the De Lucas will be there at least another forty-five minutes. Which means they’ll be gone an hour, if you include driving time.
And why wouldn’t you?
She picks the back door lock so quietly the family dog sleeps through the process.
Until Callie opens the door.
When that happens, several things occur. One. The alarm panel beeps, which tells her the De Lucas have an alarm, but failed to set it. Two. The beep is sufficiently loud to wake the bullmastiff, who goes berserk upon finding a strange woman standing in the hallway. Three. Callie leaps atop the washing machine and spends the next twenty minutes hopping back and forth between the washer and dryer as the dog snarls, lunges, jumps, and tries to eat her ankles instead of the biscuits Callie keeps tossing to the floor.
Callie didn’t know there’d be a dog, but there often is, so she came prepared. The dog biscuits contain enough synthetic opiate analgesic to render your typical canine adversary unconscious within minutes.
Dosing is simple.
Each biscuit neutralizes twenty pounds of dog. For a ten-pounder, you break the biscuit in half. The dog currently trying to maim Callie is a seven-biscuit beast.
Ten minutes of jumping tires most bullmastiffs. Twenty minutes exhausts them. When the De Luca mastiff finally hits the wall, he eats the biscuits and hits the floor with a heavy thud.
Callie races to the kitchen and searches the drawers and cabinets till she finds the burglar alarm pamphlet where she rightly assumed the De Lucas recorded their alarm code.
She tests it.
It works.
She thumbs through the pamphlet and learns how to bypass the monitoring company.
She goes to the garage, finds Angie’s keys right where she expected to: in the console tray of Angie’s car. She removes the door key and slips it in the pocket of her jeans. Then searches the house, finds Frankie’s guns, removes the bullets.
Under normal circumstances, killing Angie and Frankie would be child’s play. But Creed wants her to torture Frankie, hoping to learn something he can use to justify Frankie’s death. If, for example, Creed can prove Frankie’s been skimming money, Sal would condone the hit.
She walks back to the laundry room, sits on the floor beside the dog, and strokes his head. This is an ugly-ass dog. First time Callie’s ever seen one that’s uglier asleep than awake. While Callie isn’t opposed to killing animals, she needs a better reason than its appearance. And killing this one would take the De Lucas out of their routine. They’ll come home, expect the dog to meet them at the door enthusiastically. If it doesn’t, they’re going to be concerned. Killing and torturing people works best when you catch them by surprise, while they’re following their daily routines. The fewer variables, the better.
If killing the dog’s a poor option, not killing him is even worse. He could start barking when Callie returns later tonight. If so, Angie might call the cops. Nothing worse than trying to torture a guy while police bang on the victim’s door, demanding to enter.
If she further sedates the dog, the De Lucas will come home, find their pet unconscious. They’ll panic, and rush him to the vet.
And Callie would break into an empty house.
The dog has turned this simple killing into a complete cluster fuck.
Creed’s original idea had been for Callie to oil the doors, test the floors for sound, and sneak back in at two a.m. while the De Lucas were sleeping. She’d creep into their bedroom, kill Angie quickly, before Frankie can react. Then torture Frankie, gain the information she needs, then kill him.
Callie sighs, removes a tiny disk from her back pack, peels off the backing, and attaches it to the inside of the dog’s collar. The disk contains a miniature blasting cap and plastic explosive that can be detonated remotely from Callie’s cell phone. Press a button and Fido’s head comes clean off.
She pats his head again and says, “I hope it doesn’t come to this.”
Then she goes into the kitchen and makes herself a sandwich.
17.
THE DE LUCAS’ FRIDGE yields thin-sliced smoked turkey fresh enough to pass her smell test. That, plus mayo and oat nut bread makes a meal. She’d prefer some lettuce and tomato, but beggars can’t be choosers. She grabs a bottled water, sits on a barstool by the island in the kitchen, and nibbles her sandwich while deciding what to do about the De Lucas and their dog. That done, her mind drifts to the conference call she received last night from Annie Lorber and Emerson Watkins, whose fathers co-founded Sensory Resources.
“Lou Kelly’s dead,” Annie said.
After expressing shock, Callie asked what happened.
“You know Rachel Case?”
“Creed’s former girlfriend.”
“Former?” Annie said.
“Forget I said that. What about her?”
“You’re aware Lou was dating Rachel Case’s mother?”
“Sherry, right? What happened?”
“Apparently Lou and Sherry were infected by the same mercury poisoning Miles Gundy created for his terrorist attack in Memphis.”
“How’s that possible?”
“We believe Gundy combined dimethylmercury poison with a live HSV-1 virus and placed it on the barre of a dance studio. The dancers were infected on contact.”
“Lou was locked away at Sensory Resources, in Virginia.”
“He and Sherry went to Roanoke, on a date.”
“Still. Roanoke’s a long way from Memphis.”
“The contagion life cycle was four to five hours. A client took the class in Memphis, flew to Roanoke to visit her sister, and wiped out the whole family. Apparently Lou Kelly or Sherry came into contact with her at some point.”
“Wrong place, wrong time?”
“Exactly. But the reason we’re calling—”
“Lou’s job?”
“Exactly.”
“Have you spoken to Donovan Creed?”
“Not yet.”
“Why are you calling me? To vouch for his character?”
“No,” Emerson said. “We’re offering you the position.”
Callie laughed. “Creed’s the one you need.”
“He killed our fathers!” Annie said.
“What?”
“We don’t know that for certain, Annie,” Emerson said.
“Yes we do.”
“Please dismiss that,” Emerson said. “We’re offering you complete control, Miss Carpenter. You’ll run the agency, Creed will work for you, should you care to keep him.”
Callie laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Why wouldn’t I keep Creed?”
“Keep him, kill him, your choice,” Annie says. “I hate the bastard.”
“Let me put an end to your anger,” Callie said. “Creed didn’t kill your father, Annie. Nor yours, Emerson.”
“You know that for a fact?” Annie said.
“I do.”
“Then who killed him?”
Callie paused. “Tara Siegel.”
“Who?”
“She used to work for Sensory.”
“Where is she now?”
“Dead.”
“What happened to her?”
“I killed her.”
“That’s awfully convenient.”
“Tara might disagree wit
h that comment.”
“Still, we have only your word on it.”
“And I’m the one you asked. Look, do you think I care if you hate Creed? If you’re determined to hate him, there are plenty of legitimate reasons. It’s just that killing your father’s not one of them.”
Emerson says, “Will you accept the position? It’s yours for the asking.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“We need to know by ten a.m. tomorrow.”
“What happens at ten?”
“We call Creed, to offer him the job.”
“Does Creed know Lou’s dead?”
“No,” Emerson said. “So if he tells you, act surprised.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it?” Annie said. “No thank you?”
“For what?”
“For giving you this opportunity.”
Callie laughed. “What do you want me to say? It’s a shit job.”
18.
IT ISN’T MUCH of a sandwich, but Callie gets it down, tosses the empty bottle of water in the trash, goes back to the laundry room. She removes the explosive disk from the dog’s collar, tosses it in her backpack, takes out a prepared syringe and injects the dog to deepen the dosage. Walks to the nightstand in the master bedroom, where she’d seen Angie’s sleeping pills on a People magazine earlier. She bites the top off the plastic medicine bottle and tosses it to the floor, scattering the tiny pills across the carpet. Then she tosses the magazine on the floor and rips several pages from it, puts two pills in her pocket, and two more on the hallway floor by the laundry room. She scatters the magazine pages, inspects her work, and decides it’s not quite right, so she wets a paper towel and dabs the pages and pills till they’re soggy.
The idea being the De Lucas will come home, find the dog passed out, see the sleeping pills on the floor, think the dog got into the pills and fell asleep. Angie will count the pills she can find and determine two are missing. She’ll want to take the dog to the vet, but Frankie will say, “Are you kidding me? Who’s gonna carry a hundred and thirty pound dog after drinking all day and half the night? Two pills is nothing! Let him sleep it off.”
With any luck, that’s what will happen. Callie will hide in the hall closet and wait for the De Lucas to come home. When they fall asleep, she’ll make her move. If they freak out over the dog, she’ll jump out of the closet, kill them, and manufacture the evidence she needs to convince Sal that Frankie was skimming money.