The Big Wheel

by Scott Archer Jones

  The young guy polishing the glass with his back said, “License. We have the license number from the garage surveillance footage. We need to figure out how to search for the plate.” The room buzzed with ideas.

  “If he leaves the state, he’ll want to re-license the bike rather than drive around with New York plates. He’ll either go down to Motor Vehicles or steal one.” People at the table nodded enthusiastically, heads like dipping birds.

  Insurance waved both hands, his face beaming. “He’s required to carry insurance in all states. If he re-licenses, he has to have proof of insurance which means we can watch the databases.”

  During all this interchange, Angie typed rapid-fire on the screen of her desk tablet. Patents wrinkled his eyebrows in worry. “Is that legal, hacking into databases?”

  “Illegal for us. We’re not the police. We need coppers.” This came from a woman who would lie to anybody on the phone to get intel.

  Number Four from Legal, said, “Are you sure? We need Information Technology. Here with us. And we need to be willing to bend the rules.” Legal had voted for technology, not lawyers.

  Angie laughed, a burbling fountain that sprang up. Her head tilted towards Thomas, her eyes merry. “We can get IT—and more space at the same time. I’ve found expanded room for the team. We’re moving down to the computer floor at noon today. We’ll get better security, more isolation.”

  Thomas guessed she wanted to wall off LeFarge. “Who knows someone in IT they can trust to play on our team?”

  Angie’s friend from Accounting raised her hand, “My husband works in IT. I don’t trust his taste in clothes, but I do trust his discretion.” Angie nodded and made a note.

  Thomas said, “Let’s look at the bike.” He brought up a picture on his desktab, a stop frame from the Cumberland garage. He projected it onto the wall. “It’s a sleek beast. Look at the body, the fairings, the large alloy spoke wheels. Even the paint is designed to scream. It’s a speed freak’s bike, like someone said. Where did he buy it? Is it custom? Where did he have the bike modified? Does he still have ties to the shop? Do we know a biker who could go see for us?”

  Angie stopped the room cold. “We need surveillance to find the bike. Illegal surveillance. Nationwide.”

  “Tall order, Miss Tommo,” said Thomas.

  “But possible. O’Brien bought the controlling interest in Tran Cam three months ago.”

  “Tell us about Tran Cam,” Thomas asked. He watched her, her calm and her confidence. She was his girl, all right. Only not.

  She held up her hand like hushing a class. “They’re the single largest US Surveillance company. Tran Cam runs the traffic cameras for most of the big-city police forces in America. They do corporate security for a lot of the Fortune 500. Tran Cam has a major contract with the Feds for surveillance at their installations.”

  One of the team said, “That’s impossible! We can’t hire ten thousand people to stare at TV monitors. And all those people would have to know what we’re up to.”

  Angie said, “Facial recognition software. They can tweak that kind of software to search for the bike.” Her voice was reasonable, firm.

  “How do we get access to Tran Cam?” asked Insurance. His bald, doming forehead wrinkled in a pucker.

  Thomas thought out loud. “We need clearance from the top. We need to feed Zlata, Boxwood, and the bike into the Tran Cam system. We need someone to insert the code to bypass their controls. We need the system to feed out to us here in this office.”

  Patents said, “So you need to suborn the CEO, his operations manager, a coder, and a communications engineer. Is that all?”

  Thomas slapped the table with both hands and flashed his most charming grin around the room. “The CEO. If he tumbles, then all else is possible. Let me approach O’Brien, see what we can do.”

  The room murmured a soughing sound, a contented buzz.

  Thomas felt delight wash through him. The consensus in the room was “this would work.” He summed up, “In the meantime, I also want the three bank accounts searched going back as far as you can; see if Zlata paid for another residence somewhere or always buys weird traceable items. I want intel on everything about the make, model, and custom touches on the motorcycle. Let’s bring our IT guy on board. We’ll tunnel into all the Motor Vehicle Departments and insurance data bases that support major cities.”

  “Why major cities?”

  “Ithaca was a one-off. Zlata is an urban animal.”

  ***

  “Can you do it?” Thomas asked O’Brien.

  “I could make Georgie Patton cry. This is easy,” replied the Governor.

  “Good. If you can bend Tran Cam’s boss, then I’ll meet with him. Together we can figure out how to use their system but involve the minimum number of people.”

  “You’re sure the cameras and the software can identify Zlata and Boxwood?”

  Thomas hadn’t said anything about the motorcycle—that was his ace in the hole. “Law enforcement uses the software every day, and the prisons are full. Zlata will turn up on camera sooner or later, and Tran Cam will inform us. Then it’s up to Corporate Security to lay out a web of people in the right city and find him.”

  “Sooner or later? I don’t have your patience. What will your people be doing?”

  “We’ll figure out Zlata’s spending patterns. We’ll also tunnel some databases. It’s all across the line as far as legality.”

  “I don’t care—and I don’t want to know. Just do it.”

  “Okay boss.” The boss wanted deniability, so Thomas could be the fall guy.

  Chapter Fifteen: End of the Idyll

  Sibyl drove while Robko dropped in and out of sleep beside her. They puttered along in a twenty-four-year old minivan, a bit of a sad thing he thought. They towed a rented trailer, visible as an orange and white box in their tail lights. The enclosed trailer jerked as it ran over bumps and transmitted an irritating shudder up the trailer tongue into their van.

  She pushed the search button on the radio for the millionth time, a most annoying habit. She joggled his elbow. “Are you awake?”

  He jerked upright in the faded, stained seat. “Yes. Are we close by? I don’t recognize anything in the dark.”

  “Still on I90, at the exit for Milwaukee. Central Ave is close by. That’s why I woke you.”

  “Where?”

  “Look at the map on your iMob, gozo. You’re practically home.”

  He did. “Okay, let’s go over it again. You drop me off—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I dump you, drive around a big circle using Central and Parkside until you get right with your mother and magically reappear on the curb.”

  ***

  Robko hopped up on the dumpster and chinned himself onto the roof of the three-car parking unit on the back of his Ma’s apartment block. The old, blond brick was crumbly under his fingers. His feet followed a route he had taken many times as a teenager. She never locked the kitchen window of the second floor apartment. The room was dark as hell itself. He crept in over the sill, pushing a chair away from him and back under the kitchen table. He swiveled his head around as he eased the window shut. An orange dot glowed on the other side of the table. He saw the ghost of her face as she drew hard on the cigarette, then the swoop of the ember as it headed for the ashtray.

  “That you, son?”

  “Yeah, it’s me, Ma.”

  “You shouldn’t have come. I don’t know what weasel thing you done, but there are guys hanging around, asking questions… watching the house.”

  “Sorry about that, Ma. It’s not so much what I did; it’s who I did it to.”

  The orange glow flew up from the ashtray, burned bright, and then disappeared in the smoke that swept out around it. “You and your old man. I thought he’d be the death of me. I think you’ll be the long, sad song they use to take me to the graveyard.”

  “Aaah, Ma.”

  “Turn on the goddamn light. They aren’t out in the alley, or you woul
d have seen them.”

  He took the four steps and flicked the switch. Everything was in its remembered place. He pulled the chair out across from her and dropped into it. He waited.

  “Brown-haired now? Well, it’s good to see you. Been too long.”

  He nodded. “Three years.”

  “More like four. I pray at Mass every day you’ll clean up and come home.”

  “Maybe someday.” He looked into her eyes, red from the cigarette smoke and with little veins where the vodka had broken through.

  “Robko, you don’t mean it. You’re thirty-two, too old to change.”

  There were lines around her eyes. Lines put there by ten-hour days running the bar… lines dug in by him. “I’m happy, Ma. Can you be happy for me?”

  “You got muscle after you, son. How cheerful can I be, knowing there’s always going to be someone after you? What I wouldn’t give if you were a grocer here in the neighborhood or had a nice job at the Post Office. Or you were a priest.” She shook her head and took a drag.

  “Me… a priest?” He choked down the laugh. “I just came by to let you know I’m okay. I got Sibyl with me, and we’re heading west.”

  His mother’s second-hand smoke flurried out across the table and drifted across his hands and forearms. “Sibyl.” She started a new cigarette with the old one. “I always liked that girl. Very finishing-school—what a hoot, her with you. I always thought she’d dump you for Stannie.”

  Stannie. Stanislaw. His brother. Her firstborn. “She might have.”

  “Yes, she might have. Too late now.”

  Too late for the good son, dead for years. He crossed his arms and scratched both elbows, an old habit from the principal’s office. He waited.

  “West, huh? Don’t tell me where, so they can’t beat it out of me.”

  He flinched. “Can you get someone to stay with you, just for a little while?”

  She wheezed a little chuckle, the smoke burbling out of her mouth. “I thought about that. There’s a couple of heavies at the bar, but they’d think I was coming on to them. My old bouncer Teddy would do it, but he’s got COPD. There’s a new bouncer, a kid really. A tattooed wonder with huge muscles, but he’s got nothin’ upstairs.”

  “So you’re alone?”

  “No. I brought the bar shotgun home.”

  There didn’t seem to be much to say to that. He waited again, like he always did.

  “Mirko’s dead, you know? Murdered.” She stared deep into his face.

  He nodded, gazed down at the red checks in the plastic table cloth.

  “His sister called, the spinster one. I thought about you the moment she told me.”

  “Why? Because we are—were old friends?”

  “Because I wondered if you were there when it happened.”

  ***

  Sibyl asked, “How was it? You look whipped.” She snapped a picture of him slumped up against the arm rest and then pulled away from the curb.

  “Mothers will do that for you.”

  “Gimme a break. Your mother’s still around. Mine, she’s in a nursing home and is scared to death of me. I can’t walk into her room without her going off in screams.” She reached across the console and rubbed his thigh. “I like your mom. She’s seen it all.”

  “Maybe we should lay up close by for a couple of days.”

  “Unh-unh. You had your chance to go hide out in Polish Land. Now we’re headed into my country where the corn is tall and the women are blondes.”

  “You’re not blonde.”

  “Not anymore.” She sighed. Rochester had changed her hair color again… back to brunette.

  “Still mourning your blonde look?”

  “No. I mourn the loss of good accommodations out here in the middle of America. Denver’s the last chance at a suite before Los Angeles.”

  “I don’t know. Omaha is a possibility… and they have steaks.”

  “I’d prefer albacore tuna. And sushi. Sashimi… and wasabi.”

  “Someone’s hungry.” He reached across the console and traced a pattern on her knee with his index finger.

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “On the contrary. I’m quite horny—a well-known side effect of shaking off my downers.”

  “But if you’re aroused when you’re tweaked, how can you have the same problem un-tweaked?”

  He splayed his knees and adjusted his pants. “Who said it was a problem? Why don’t you pull off in the next alley, and we’ll explore whether it’s a problem.”

  She rubbed her fingers and thumb together. “Give me five hundred dollars.”

  “Now, there’s the problem. I need to hit an ATM. I’ve got forty-five on me.”

  She scanned him and arched an eyebrow. “Pity. You could have negotiated me down to fifty, but forty-five… that’s just cheap. And in the back of a minivan? I ask you.”

  “Well, if you want a room with a bed, we can find one. Chicago has plenty of flops.”

  “I’m wide awake. Why don’t we drive out to Omaha, get in in the morning, and spend all day in bed.” She paused. “Robert, I’ve been thinking. If anyone is watching, our ATM usage draws a line across America.”

  “Naah. I kept it all separate, and this is the fourth account. They don’t have a clue.”

  “So you think we’re safe.”

  “Safe and without any option. We need the money.”

  She shook her head. Her hair cascaded around her face, settled back on her shoulders. “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Then we’ll have to escape their constricting net of evil villains, burst out of the trailer on the bike like Batman and Robin from the Bat Cave, and scream into the night. We’ll live the hobo life, sleep under bridges and inside giant culverts, and travel only at night until we hit L.A. and pick up my other resources.”

  “Other resources?”

  “I have a fifth account. It’s a savings account. I thought I might one day be old and need old-people money. There’s also diamonds. How about that motel? I want to get laid… soon.” Robko pointed to an old-fashioned motor-court rolling into view.

  “Puuleeze. Another four blocks and I catch the Kennedy Expressway. I’m driving on, so you can put your testosterone back in your testicles.”

  Robko stared through the windshield at the 30s building, focused on a scrawl in black paint down the side of the motel’s cinderblock wall, saying, “Wanton Love: Who Will Love Me?” A block-shaped tag at the end finished off the graff—that signature. He shuddered. “You’re right; drive right past this one.” All these tags, maybe by the same man or same group, maybe speaking to him. The dickheads were creeping him out.

  ***

  Thomas called this part of the chase “spidering.” He had cast his web out and now waited to see what information would blunder in and be snagged.

  The team had grown up so fast. O’Brien’s CIO delivered the IT neuker who built them digital tunnels into eight DMVs. Angie relocated the team to open space on the computer floor and set up connections into the major insurance databases, courtesy of the Corporate Insurance division right in their own building. One other thing pending: O’Brien hadn’t suborned the Tran Cam president yet. Thomas kept his hand on his spider web to see if it vibrated, but mostly he waited, dark and grumpy. His team glimmered shiny-bright and enjoyed themselves quite a bit. He grew bored… and nervous. He didn’t know how to read his luck.

  The team worked long and grueling hours, but not Thomas. He hid away in his carrel on the computer floor, projected Zlata’s data onto the cheesy wall, and listened on his phone to the alt-bands he thought Zlata enjoyed. Thomas acclimated himself to an unexpected preference for the type of singer that would spit on the audience and insult the fan base. His cadre thought he searched for Zlata using some mystic method, but really he just messed around and tried to wriggle into Robko Zlata’s head. Half-assed and surely moronic.

  He returned to the Comet Kitty even though his prey had disappeared into America. He morphed, a fraud i
n his spiky hair, sunglasses, and black clothes, but he did enjoy himself. He visited with the singer and the drummer of a band named Red Knuckle. He bought them drinks and bar food. They enjoyed talking about themselves; the conversation circled round his admiration for their raw three-chord sound and their psychopathic lyrics about the current American war. They asked; he lied. “I’m a lawyer who specializes in entertainment contracts.”

  “You’re in the business, man? Who do you know?”

  “Not music. Actors. Theatre. Movies, TV adverts.” He enjoyed becoming someone else, building his own fiction.

  Red Knuckle invited him back for the next night. “Hang out before the gig, dude. It’ll be phunk.”

  They lounged around a table about nine, eating carryout Italian and waiting for the club to open, yawning, quiet, waiting. “Is this the way it is with you guys most of the time?”

  “Hell yes, my, my,” replied the singer. She had done her best to make herself ugly—black-polished nails, a face painted chalk-white, flea market clothes, hair that escaped in shards from a Jamaican dread-locks hat. But there was still an exotic beauty that shone out.

  The drummer explained, “It’s not so much a life as a train ride. We don’t have time for anything personal. You wake up and you stagger off to work. You play, and you really pump up for that. About two in the morning, you finish up, and you go out to eat at some local dive and talk about how good the gig was or where you play next. If you’re lucky, you get stoned on someone else’s dollar, and you might go home with somebody or take that mysterious somebody to your place. If there’re no surprises, you sleep for a while. Then the train pulls out of the station, and you do the ride all over again.”

  “And how often does this happen?”

  The singer said, “We gig as much as we can. We’re working six days a week right now. We’d tour if we could afford it, but the expenses on the road kill you.”

  Thomas asked, “What happens the seventh day?”

  “We rehearse, work up new material, jam out. We’re not any stinkin’ cover band, man.”