by Wally Duff
“What about, ah, being with the customers?”
Sammy glanced around and lowered her voice. “You mean prostitution?”
“I do.”
“No way,” she said. “One of the girls did it, and he canned her the next day.”
“Was Donna having a thing with the dentist?”
“Maybe,” Corky said.
She slowly spun her coffee cup around in her fingers. Sammy slouched in her chair. I waited.
No more questions. Let’s see what happens.
“I was at work on the Sunday before Donna was killed,” Corky finally blurted out. “Lorenz came in and, after he ordered a beer, he asked me about my breasts. I told him to get outta my face.”
I glanced down at her chest. “I can’t blame any man for noticing your breasts. They are impressive.”
She blushed. “Thank you.”
“Yours are too, Sammy.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
“I do, and I’m sure you get asked about them all the time,” I said. “Does the operation hurt much?”
“For me, the first operation killed, especially the menstrual cramps,” she said. “The implants were 650 cc, and the surgeon put them under my chest muscle. But it wasn’t as painful the second time.”
“The second time?”
“Mr. al-Turk didn’t like the way the first implants looked and felt. And he said they were too firm, not realistic enough. Molly said the same thing.”
“Molly?”
“One day at the gym, she spotted them when we were working out. She let me feel hers, and she was right. Mine were like hard lumps of clay compared to hers. This pair is way better.” She thrust out her chest. “And bigger, 875 cc. Do you want to feel them?”
I leaned back in my chair. “I’ll leave that to Molly. Corky, what about you?”
“Donna and Sammy had theirs done first. I was scheduled for mine, but before I had it done, both of them had theirs redone. The second time, theirs were much better, so I did it. These implants feel totally natural.”
“You seem to have complete confidence in your surgeon. Did Donna like him too?”
“She did,” Corky said. “It’s hard not to like him. He’s so kind.”
“And he’s free,” Sammy said.
Free?
“It’s one of the advantages of working for Mr. al-Turk,” Corky said.
Before I could ask them any more questions, Sammy glanced at her watch.
“I have to leave,” she said. “I go on at three o’clock.”
“Would you like to come to my house for lunch and to meet my daughter?” I said, hoping to keep the girl talk going. “Playing with a toddler will take your minds off of what happened to Donna. Kerry goes a million miles an hour.”
“That would be great,” Corky said. “I love kids.”
We exchanged cell numbers, and I gave them a hug.
Free breast implant surgery? I need a consult.
100
From Starbucks, I walked to Linda’s to pick up Kerry, but first made a quick detour and dropped by the home of my breast implant expert.
“What’s up?” Molly asked, as she opened her front door. I heard her kids yelling at each other in the background.
“I need information about augmentation mammoplasties,” I said.
She stared at me.
“Boob jobs,” I continued.
“Oh, right. Are you thinking about having one?”
“No, but I’m kind of curious. Have you had one?”
“One? Honey, I’ve had four.”
“Did it hurt?”
“God, it’s hard to remember exactly, but I think the saline ones hurt more. The surgeon put them under the muscle.”
“What about menstrual cramps after the operations?”
“None. The only time I’ve ever had bad ones were after the doctor harvested my eggs for my IVF. He said it was common after the egg retrieval.”
“Did it hurt?”
“It sure did, but not as much as my tummy-tuck.”
“You had that done too?”
“Tina, having four kids ruined how I look in my bikini bottoms. With the last breast implants, the surgeon tightened up my stomach muscles and removed floppy skin.” She blushed. “And he did me a little other work, you know, down there.”
She pointed at her groin. I understood what she meant, but we were getting sidetracked.
“How are the implants inserted?”
“I had three through a nipple incision and the last one under the breast. But they can be implanted through a belly button incision or from the armpit. I haven’t had that done because the surgeon said that would be painful.”
“Have you ever heard about breast implant surgery being done for free?”
“Never. Greg calls them my million-dollar boobs, and he has the bills from the surgeons to prove it.”
“If it costs that much, why have you had four?”
“I had my first operation when I started modeling. I did it to make my boobs pert and perky.”
“How big were the implants?”
“250 cc.”
“Kinda small.”
“The designers didn’t want them to distract from the lines of their clothes.”
“I can see that. Why did you have them changed?”
“After Chase was born, my boobs drooped. Plus, they were saline implants, and they became all ripply. I couldn’t have that.”
“And you had them replaced.”
“I did.”
“And made bigger?”
“As long as I was going through the pain, why not?”
“Exactly. And Rex and then Stevie came along.”
“A silicone pair for Rex, 650 cc, and a new silicone pair for Stevie, 800 cc.”
“What about Cory?”
“Mastopexy. Same implant size, but the surgeon added a tuck-up of the skin to lift my boobs...again.”
“Then technically, it wasn’t an augmentation.”
“Nope, and he did a tummy-tuck and vaginal rejuvenation at the same time.”
“What do you think about Sammy and Donna’s breast surgeries?”
“Let me tell you, the first ones felt weird, like the doctor had used an out-of-date batch of silicone. Way too firm. But the revisions are as good as mine, maybe better.” She began to unbutton her blouse. “Wanna feel?”
What’s with all this boob feeling?
I held up my hands. “I’ll get back to you on that one.”
“Whatever. Do you want to see the ones they took out?”
“You have them?”
“Yep. Greg said they’d cost so much he wanted them as a souvenir for all the money he spent. He keeps them on his desk.”
Molly went into Greg’s home office and came back with a box. She handed two implants to me.
“This is Rex’s 650 cc silicone pair.”
They were teardrop-shaped, and each one was about the size of a cantaloupe. I squeezed the implants. They felt like a baggie full of squishy jelly.
She held up two flat implants. “These are my saline ones, without the saline of course.”
“What’s this thing here?” I asked, pointing to what looked a valve. “Your other implants don’t have it.”
“It’s where the doctor injects the saline after he inserts the implants.”
Rolling the silicone implants around in my hands, I discovered six numbers on the back of each set.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“All of the implants have a serial number.”
“Why?”
“My doctor said it’s so the company that makes them can follow the results of the surgery for complications. It began with the silicone scare a few years ago.”
As I walked home, I had difficulty picturing a rippled breast. But I was thrilled she didn’t want to show off her vaginal rejuvenation scars.
101
Thursday evening, Kerry played on the kitchen floor with Elmo and R
alph while I cooked sweet-and-sour chicken for dinner. As I stirred the sugar, vinegar, and pineapple juice together in a saucepan, my mind kept drifting to al-Turk’s story.
The FBI agents have access to the two GPS devices Lorenz attached to my van. And they saw me at Donna’s funeral.
Adding in the ketchup and soy sauce, I let the mixture simmer on low heat while I cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
Tony said two or three agents would be watching my house and al-Turk’s.
I was going to have to be aware of new people in the neighborhood.
What else can they do to track me?
After rolling the chicken pieces into the flour-and-egg mixture, I cooked them in a pan with a smidge of oil.
I wiped my hands and focused on my landline phone. Picking up the receiver, I removed the screw and plastic covering to expose the guts of the apparatus. I poked and prodded, but if an electronic listening device were in place, I couldn’t find it. I screwed the phone back together and put it down.
I studied the kitchen. The feds might put devices in places they didn’t think I was sophisticated enough to find.
But they’re wrong.
Removing the cooked chicken pieces from the pan, I put them on a paper towel and carried my daughter down to the laundry room. I retrieved my electronic scanning device, a rectangular black box about the size of a deck of playing cards. When I flipped the power switch, the green light came on. It immediately went out and the red light flashed on.
Uh-oh.
I walked around the lower level with Kerry in my arms and pointed the box in all directions. In each room the light remained red. I made two circuits while waving the box around. The result was the same until I went into the wine room. There, the light turned green.
Safe in here.
Stepping out of the wine room, I glanced at my computer. If they had gone to the trouble of bugging my home, it wasn’t much of a stretch to assume they would monitor my computer too.
Gotta call Linda.
I would ask her to come over tomorrow and check my computer. But I had to buy a burner phone to do that. The feds would not only listen in on what I said in my home, but they would monitor my landline and cell phone.
“Kerry, let’s go upstairs. I’ll let you play with this black box. Let’s see if you can make the light turn green.”
It took fifteen minutes but she couldn’t; with the exception of the wine room, our entire house was bugged.
102
Friday morning, I called Linda, and she dropped by with her daughter, Sandra. I took the girls out to play with me in the sandbox. Linda went down to the lower level to work on my computer.
It didn’t take long.
Fifteen minutes later, she joined us in the heat and wind.
“Do you know what a keystroke logger is?” she asked.
“No, I’ve never heard of it,” I said.
“It’s a software package that captures what’s written on a computer keyboard, allowing offsite personnel to spy on every keystroke that is typed on the keyboard.”
“Please don’t tell me I now have one on my computer.”
“I’m sorry to say you do. Could anyone have broken in here and done this?”
“Doubtful. We have a security system. Is there any other way to install one?”
“There’s a keystroke logging software called Magic Lantern that was developed by the FBI. It can be installed remotely via an email attachment.”
“Then I wouldn’t know my computer had been compromised.”
“Why would the FBI do this to you?”
Gotta fess up.
“This is strictly confidential. Cas and Molly don’t know any of this.”
I told her about the new intel on al-Turk.
“Al-Turk is a drug dealer, and the FBI agents were after him?” she asked, when I finished.
“The FBI and possibly the DEA. But I’m curious. Hasn’t anybody in the FBI read our Constitution?”
“Apparently not. The FBI denies Magic Lantern has ever been deployed.”
“But it has?”
“Of course it has.”
“Can the feds access the data on my hard drive?”
“No, they can’t retrieve the files already in place, but they’ll record all words and characters you type on your keyboard from now on.”
I felt heat rise up my neck. “They can’t do this to me.”
“But they did, and you can’t prove it. It’s the beauty of their system. Does Carter use your computer?”
“Rarely. He carries his Tribune laptop home and uses it. I’m the only one who is screwed.”
“Actually, you’re not. You know it’s there. Don’t type any information on your computer you don’t want them to have.”
“Makes sense, but I still don’t like it.”
Linda and Sandra went home. Kerry and I returned to the kitchen. As I cleaned up the breakfast dishes, I stared at Lorenz’s house.
Tony had given the FBI my name when they called him about the trash samples with the C4, and Lorenz was promptly dispatched to Chicago to investigate me. When I drove to the Twenties on Wednesday, Lorenz either followed me or used the GPS device to track where I drove during the day. On Thursday night, Molly saw Lorenz at the Twenties when he began expanding his investigation.
After Lorenz was blown up and his computer stolen, I was the only remaining lead the FBI had. Following me was the easiest way to find out what was going on. The keystroke logger was another way for them to continue their investigation.
I envisioned the trajectory of a fabulous story in my mind, but how was I going to work on it with the FBI monitoring all of my activities?
Buying a burner phone was now my top priority.
103
Saturday morning, Carter had gone in to work. Driving in my van without the FBI tracking where I went was impossible. I couldn’t use my computer without them recording what I typed. And I needed a backup if they figured out a way to erase my files using another top secret cyberspace program. I went down to the computer room and downloaded the contents of my hard drive onto a flash drive.
Now, I need to hide it.
The wine room was a possibility, but I wasn’t sure what the constant fifty-four degree temperature would do to the functioning of the flash drive. I settled on the laundry room, where I put it under a pile of rags.
That accomplished, my next task was to buy a burner phone. I took Kerry, Elmo, Ralph, and the stroller out on the front porch and glanced around the neighborhood.
The library!
“Let’s visit the library and then buy Mommy a new phone.”
“Okay, Momma. Elmo wuvs the wibrary.”
The public library sits across North Paulina, directly east of our home. After I walked across the street, I looked at the building and then back toward our home.
A perfect sightline.
Tony said the FBI would select a location where they could watch al-Turk’s house and ours. And the feds were on a limited budget. The library provided an ideal vantage point to do it without being spotted, and the cost was minimal: cameras and monitors with recording capabilities, and an agent to watch them.
From my many trips to the library, I knew the main room was about fifteen feet high. There were no standard windows facing the outside because bookshelves stood head-high in front of all the walls. To provide light, small rectangular windows had been built close to the ceiling, about fifteen feet from the floor. No one was tall enough to see in or out, but those windows would be the perfect place for video surveillance cameras.
I shielded my eyes from the sun and scanned the windows.
There it is.
A video camera sat in the last window on the south side. It rotated back and forth scanning our home. A second camera was in the window above my head. It was pointed at al-Turk’s home.
What about al-Turk’s alley?
Pushing Kerry north on Paulina, I approached the alley. I checked the trees and t
he houses on each side for a camera.
There they are.
There were two cameras hidden high in the trees on each side of the alley. They were oriented toward al-Turk’s garage.
There was one more thing I had to do. I pushed the stroller around the block and approached the library from the east side, away from the cameras watching our home.
I lingered in the entrance doorway. When I saw her, I congratulated myself on how smart I’d been to peek inside the library. One of Lorenz’s probable replacements sat behind a desk to my right in the front corner of the library. She had her back turned to me and stared at three monitors that were a different brand than the rest of the computer equipment in the library.
Government issue?
The woman stood up and stepped into a glassed-in office located behind the desk with the three monitors. She had short blond hair and wore a white blouse and black slacks. I spotted her plain, black shoes. They screamed comfort, a necessity if you needed to follow a suspect on foot.
I leaned closer to her monitors. I could only see the one on the left but I recognized what was on the screen: our front porch.
Turning the stroller around, I walked away before the agent spotted me. Now, I had their cameras to worry about too.
The feds are boxing me in.
104
Sunday was a family day for us. Monday afternoon, Tony texted me to contact him about the swabs I’d given him. Kerry and I had been at the park, and now she napped in her room. I went to the wine room and called him on my new burner phone.
“Got the lab report from the swabs you took from the perp’s garage,” Tony said. “It’s heroin. They didn’t find any C4.”
Finally, documented proof.
“Now what?” I asked.
“When the report came in, I went downstairs and drank a cup of coffee with the narcs. Couple of days ago, they busted a low-level dealer pushing a small amount of high-grade heroin.”
“How high?”
“Too primo for a dude that far down on the drug distribution chain. Perp didn’t want to give up his source because the product hadn’t been stepped down. Wanted to keep it for himself.”
“What did they do?”