“Jesus,” she said. “Maggie. Remember her in the Japanese baths, kidding you about burning your balls off? I thought she’d never stop laughing. She was a friend. I thought you two guys were developing into something.”
“I thought so too.”
“And Dace is dead.”
We drove into the Philadelphia airport and retrieved my car. Before we left, I called Bobby from a phone booth, using the portable.
What?
Need everything you can find on Hellwolf /Whitemark and Sunfire/Anshiser. Crash jobs, full-time. Flat fee $10,000. Need feeds every few hours.
Leave terminal on answer.
Leaving the airport, we turned back west. The appearance of the two hoods and the inevitable conclusion about Maggie kept me awake. I drove all the way through to Gettysburg, where we checked into the biggest motel we could find.
I put LuEllen to bed, called Bobby, and took the first dump of information on Anshiser and Sunfire. LuEllen slept most of the day, woke up long enough to eat, and went back down for the night. I was beat-up but drove into town and bought another printer so I could dump incoming files to paper. Late in the day, Bobby was calling every hour, and the stuff was coming faster and faster. Most of it was useless: lightweight business-magazine stuff, public biographies. I’d seen some of it during the first run-through, before taking the job.
On the second day, a rainstorm came through from the west. It killed a spell of late September heat and replaced it with autumn. The rain left the park grounds dark and somber. I walked LuEllen along Cemetery Ridge, pointing out the path of Pickett’s Charge.
“It doesn’t look so hard; it’s not hardly a hill,” she said.
“It didn’t have to be. The crest was just high enough to hide the federals and give them some cover during the preparatory barrage. The Southerners thought the cannonading had done a lot more damage than it had. But they came up the hill into a hornet’s nest. The high tide of the Confederacy. The South was defeated that week. Lee was turned around here, and out West, Grant was taking Vicksburg. What a time.”
We’d gone out to the battlefield during a break in the rain, but now it was sweeping in again, a thin, gray wall coming down from Seminary Ridge, across the peach orchard, obscuring the Roundtops, and up the hill. We turned our backs on it, retreated to the car.
“I was supposed to be in Mexico today,” LuEllen said as we went back to the motel. She stared out the window, and tears trickled down her cheeks. I couldn’t think of anything to say. We rode back to the beat of the windshield wipers and the sound of wet pavement hissing under the wheels.
Another lengthy file was waiting at the motel. I dumped it to the printer and started working through it. Ten minutes later I found it.
“That’s funny.” I sat up on the bed.
“What?”
I looked at the source of the article I was reading: one of the popular science magazines.
“I’ve seen a couple of references to a guidance system called Snagger. For the Hellwolf.”
“So?”
“So it sounds a hell of a lot like the String system. But I haven’t seen anything about String.”
WHAT?
Need word search on all files, references: String and Snagger.
It took about six hours to accumulate, but when we had done it, the facts were clear enough.
“Anshiser never had the String system. Whitemark developed the Snagger. Same thing, essentially. Anshiser didn’t have a clue. Then, six months ago, when preliminary design studies were due, word got out that Whitemark was onto something big. Anshiser didn’t have anything to compare with it.”
“So Anshiser stole it from Whitemark, not the other way around?”
“Looks like it. They desperately needed time to understand Snagger and do a knock-off for their own plane. That’s where we came in. That whole routine they did in Chicago was an act. Jesus! I bought the whole thing!”
LuEllen sat hunched on the bed, her hair hanging limp down the sides of her face, her face wrinkled in thought. Eventually she shook her head and looked up.
“So?”
“So?”
“Yeah. So what?” she said. “So they conned us into doing a job on Whitemark. What difference does it make? If they’d told you the truth and offered you two million to take down Whitemark, you probably would have said ‘yes’ anyway. They lied, but that’s no reason to start shooting at us. We’re no more likely to go to the cops now than if they were telling the truth.”
“Maybe not. But it makes what we did a lot more serious, especially for Anshiser. If Whitemark had stolen the String system and Anshiser could prove it, it might have cost Whitemark the contract. Or a lawsuit so big that winning the contract would have been meaningless. But if Anshiser stole Snagger and then wrecked Whitemark to slow them down so they could do a knock-off, and if Whitemark could prove it . . .”
“Then Anshiser is ruined. Absolutely.”
“And if Anshiser had hired the job done by a group of outsiders, and one of them was a newspaper guy with a reputation for busting defense industries, and another one was a thief whose name he didn’t even know . . .”
“It might make sense to get rid of them permanently,” LuEllen concluded.
We both thought about it for a minute.
“Where did they get the gunmen?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Anshiser is a defense industry. They know all kinds of people. They probably found a couple of ex-Special Forces guys looking for a little cash.”
“And then you’ve got a couple of guys who know the story and have killed people because of it,” LuEllen objected. “I don’t know. It sounds weak.”
“They wouldn’t have to tell those guys the whole story, just point them at the targets,” I said. “I can’t think of any other rationale.”
THE MOTEL ROOM had two single beds. When we went to sleep that night, LuEllen suddenly said in the dark, “I’d like to come over and sleep with you, but, like, no sex. I just want to sleep with somebody.”
“Come on.” She snuggled in against me, and we whispered back and forth for a while, and then she drifted away. Her body warmth under the blanket reminded me of Maggie, like a black patch on my mind. I was dozing off when the computer alarm sounded, and I rolled out of bed to look.
Something weird.
What?
Been in newspaper clip files, gone way back. Anshiser old man was in German mob.
What?
Chicago had German mob. Like Mafia. Anshiser father convicted in 1910 extortion, two years in prison, charged 1914 murder and extortion, not guilty. No more charges but mentioned in stories as accountant for German mob. Don’t know what that is yet, keep digging?
Look for stuff on Anshiser and associates.
Already got most of it.
Got access to criminal intelligence data banks, FBI?
No. Tried once. Maximum protection.
How about NCIC?
Easy access if got codes. Need codes.
Who got codes?
I find. Call back later. Want mob clips now?
He dumped the clips to the computer. There weren’t many of them, but there was enough information to suggest that Anshiser’s father was a major crime figure. Exactly what he did was unclear from the clips. I had just finished reading the clips when Bobby called again. He had a name.
When LuEllen woke the next morning, she smiled, a small tentative smile, the first one I’d seen since the shooting.
“I don’t know how to break it to you,” I said.
“What happened?” she asked, quickly serious.
“We’ve got to hit another house. We need some more codes.” I told her about the background on Anshiser’s father. “We need to get into some crime intelligence files. Bobby found a guy for us. He goes into the NCIC—the National Crime Information Center—from his home computer.”
“Uh, is this guy . . .”
“Yeah. He’s a cop.”
Chapter 16
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THE COP WAS named Denton. He was the liaison man between the Washington police and the National Crime Information Center, supervising computer-entry work for the city.
“I’ve never hit a cop before,” LuEllen said. She was worried.
“It shouldn’t be any worse than the others. Maybe he’ll have better locks.”
We were leaving Gettysburg. We could see blue sky to the south and west, but the town was still under a dark slab of cloud, and it was raining again. A semitrailer ahead of us on the highway threw up a plume of water and resolutely fought off attempts by the cars behind him to pass. We slowed to fifty, then to forty-five, and settled down for a long trip.
“There might be another problem,” LuEllen said. “When Dace and I were going around town, I didn’t see many white cops. If he’s black and he lives in a black neighborhood, everybody on the block will be looking at us.”
“Bobby says he’s black, all right, but he and his wife live out in Bethesda,” I said. “She’s got a heavy job with the Commerce Department, and he’s a lieutenant, so they’ve got a few bucks.”
“We need this, right?” asked LuEllen.
“Yeah. We have to know what’s going on.”
“All right. But if we wind up in deep shit, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
WHEN WE GOT to Bethesda, the sun was shining and the clouds were blowing out to the northeast. The streets were still damp, with dead oak leaves stuck to them, and everything smelled cool and clean.
The Dentons lived in a low, dark, wood-and-stone house on a lot with tall trees in the back and a narrow, sloping front yard. There were no extra-green tufts of grass. Basement windows were set into the foundation, and the garage was attached to the left side of the house as you approached it. Beside the garage, a tall, gray, board fence separated the Dentons’ yard from the one next door.
“Look at that fence. Must not like their black neighbors,” I said as we cruised by the first time.
“That’s a pool fence,” LuEllen said matter-offactly. “There’s a swimming pool back there, in the neighbors’ yard. There’s a law about putting fences around your pools to keep kids out.”
We drove past once more. Everything about the house was neat and in good repair.
“They’ve got money, all right,” I said. “Maybe we ought to check them out for a maid.”
“No black cop in the world has a maid, not if he wants to get ahead. Let’s find a phone. Let’s call them, and if they’re working, let’s do it. Today. Right now.”
“You sure?”
“Goddamned right I’m sure.” She sounded fierce, tight, angry. I looked her over and slowed the car.
“If you’re doing it because you’re scared, or pissed about Dace, that’s not good enough. It won’t help him if we’re busted or shot,” I said.
“I’m scared, and I’m pissed about Dace, but I’m not crazy,” she said, looking across the seat at me. “The house feels right. There’s nobody home. There’s hardly anybody on the street. This is the time.”
I took a left at the first street and drove to a shopping center. She dipped into her purse for cocaine and took the first hit as we pulled up to a phone.
We got Mrs. Denton’s secretary, but Mrs. Denton was in a meeting and couldn’t speak to us. We left a message. “Tell her Bob called.” We couldn’t get the cop on the phone. He was working, a woman said, but he might be out for an early lunch. We called the house. There was no answer. I clipped the phone and LuEllen took a deep breath.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“You’re sure? You’re making me nervous.” I shoved the phone receiver under the car seat.
“This one feels nervouser. Probably because he’s a cop,” she said. She had the cellophane wrap of coke in the palm of her hand. “Let’s get it the fuck over with. C’mon.”
We dropped the car at a park and walked down to the Dentons’. An Oldsmobile passed us as we were approaching the house, and the driver lifted a finger in greeting, as though he recognized us. I nodded and LuEllen lifted a hand. We slowed to let the car get out of sight before we turned into the Dentons’ driveway.
A small louvered window, in what was probably the kitchen or bathroom, was cranked open. We could hear the phone ringing as we walked up to the house.
“Hold it a minute,” LuEllen said as we walked in front of the garage. There was a row of windows in the garage door, just at shoulder height, and she peered through them.
“All right,” she muttered distractedly.
Glancing up and down the street, she took my arm and led me around the side of the house, between the garage and the neighbors’ pool fence. There was a door on the back of the garage, and it hung open. We stepped into the garage.
“Nice and private,” LuEllen said. There was a space for two cars side by side. Both spaces were empty. A lawnmower, smelling faintly of gasoline and grass clippings, was pushed against one wall. Several fishing rods hung on one wall, along with a small net. A sack of birdseed and another of fertilizer sat on the floor below the rods. Two bikes hung by their wheels from hooks screwed into the rafters. A pair of green plastic garbage cans stood beside the door into the house.
LuEllen tried the door. It was locked. We were standing on a doormat, and she pushed me away and lifted it. Nothing. Then she scanned the walls, and finally looked up at the overhead tracks for the garage door.
“Can you reach up there?” she asked.
“If I stand on the garbage can.” I stood on the can and stretched to the track, slid my fingers along a few inches, and pushed the key off the track into LuEllen’s waiting hands.
“Wa-la,” she said. “Cops can be as dumb as anyone else.” She cracked open the door and used her doggie whistle. Nothing. “Anybody home?” she called. The phone kept ringing. We went inside and she picked it up and dropped it back on the hook.
“We don’t have to trash the place. If we can get the stuff and get out, he’ll never know we were here,” she said.
The house arrangement was purely functional. A kitchen, dining room, living room, library, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms, along with a miscellany of closets, marched straight down from the garage to the opposite end of the house. The garage door opened into the kitchen, the better to unload groceries. The basement door also opened into the kitchen, directly opposite to the door coming in from the garage. The front door was about halfway down the house.
We checked the top floor, but there was no sign of a computer. We went back to the kitchen and down the stairs. There were four more rooms in the basement. The general utility room had a washer and drier, a furnace and water heater, and a workbench made from an old chest of drawers and covered with a pile of tools. Adjacent to it was a small tiled studio with a floor loom. On the loom was a skillful, half-finished weaving of a vegetable garden. Another weaving hung on the wall. The initials D.D. in one corner indicated that the cop, whose first name was David, was the weaver.
Next was a family room with a television set, a couch, and two comfortable leather chairs. The computer was in a little nook off the family room, along with a two-drawer steel file cabinet, a few computer books, a printer, and a box of disks. Off the computer nook was the fourth room, a bathroom.
LuEllen was impatient and hurried me along. “Let’s go, let’s go,” she said as I brought the computer up. Denton had one standard communications program, which I copied, but there was no sign of a code list in the program. His file disks all appeared to contain personal budgetary stuff, games, programming languages, and the like. I went through them one by one, the minutes ticking away, the sweat gathering on my forehead.
“Look through the cabinet and around the desk. See if you can find anything that looks like a list or a serial number, maybe,” I whispered to LuEllen. “It might be written right on the desk, or on the top of a file . . . anywhere.”
“Right,” she whispered back. Suddenly we were dealing in whispers.
I unscrewed the plate over the phone line
and clipped a bug in place. LuEllen riffled through the files in the cabinet and checked the desk, top and bottom, but found nothing.
“Look under the covers of the books,” I said.
She started going through them as I was screwing the strike plate back on the phone outlet. She’d just put the last book on its shelf, and I was dropping the screwdriver into my bag, when the garage door went up.
We froze and looked at each other. There was a beat of silence, then another beat, and then a car door slammed.
“Shit, he’s home,” LuEllen hissed, as the garage door came down with a bang. Her face was deathly pale. “And he’s a cop. He’ll have a gun.”
“Did you lock the house door behind you?”
“Of course.”
“So now what?”
“Get all the tools. Get everything,” she whispered violently. We shoved a couple of extra bugs and the disk copies into the bags.
“In here,” she said, pushing me into the bathroom. She stepped back out to the computer area and looked quickly around to make sure we’d left nothing behind. Satisfied, she followed me into the bathroom and eased the door shut.
“Open that window,” she whispered urgently.
The bathroom window was one of the slanted type, with the hinges on the bottom. It pulled down forty-five degrees.
“There’s no way we can get out of that,” I whispered to her. “Maybe he’s just here for a minute, we can wait, and he’ll leave.”
There was a click and a mechanical hum, and LuEllen shook her head. “That was the central air. He’s going to be here for a while. And I’ll tell you something. He’ll find us. He’ll be down here in ten minutes.”