“But how are we going to decrypt the files?” I said. “Won’t we still need passwords?”
“The decryption keys are assigned to the machines, not the people.” I guess I didn’t look like I understood what he was saying, because Felix said, “Meaning—”
“All the equipment assigned to this lab can decrypt all the data this lab encrypts,” I said. “Thanks. I got it.”
“So, are we ready?” Digby said. When we nodded, he turned on the TV and pressed play on the DVD. The three of us scurried out of the conference room.
SEVENTEEN
Digby and I went into the handicap stall of the women’s bathroom, where he pulled down the baby change table, unpacked our loot of data tapes, and waited for Felix. The sound of his fingers tapping a rapid beat against the table made me nervous.
I put my hand over his and said, “Are you all right? You haven’t blinked in a while.”
Digby machine-gunned a few dozen blinks.
“I don’t want to ruin your concentration mid-shenanigan but . . .” I said. “I’ve never seen you so off your game.”
“You mean I’m holding on too tight? I’ve lost the edge?” Digby said. “I’m nervous.”
“Because you’re so close.” I nodded. I understood.
“No, Princeton, I’m nervous because I don’t have an out planned for you,” he said. “If we get caught, that’s it for you. And Felix.”
“Do you ever have an out planned for me?” I said.
“I always just plan to plead guilty in exchange for your immunity.” Digby pointed at the data tapes. “But they won’t offer a plea deal for this.”
I felt a quick splash of panic but I calmed myself down. “You’re right. This is by far the stupidest crap we’ve ever pulled. But we’re right in the middle of this tight-rope walk and it’s not the right time to start looking down,” I said. “I know what I’m doing. A really smart dude once told me that friends take responsibility for friends.”
“Felix said that to me too,” Digby said. “What do you think it means that we’re getting our wisdom from the same guy who spent half an hour arguing with himself whether I was the Archie or Jughead of our little group. I mean, of course—”
I said, “You’re Jughead” the exact same moment he said, “I’m Archie.”
And then we both said, “What?”
“Henry is Archie,” I said.
“Henry is Moose,” Digby said.
“But Sloane is Veronica,” I said.
“If I’m Jughead, then you’re Ethel,” he said. “Although that does kind of make sense because Ethel’s always giving Jughead food.”
“I’m actually shocked how much you and I know about Archie,” I said.
“And I’m shocked I’m only just now realizing how much of that Taylor Swift song is Archie,” Digby said. “Betty is like, can’t you see that I’m the one who understands you. Been here all along, so why can’t you see you belong with me . . .”
“But in the Jughead comics”—Digby and I jumped at Felix’s suddenly joining our conversation—“Jughead and Betty get together . . .”
Digby opened the stall door for Felix and let him in.
“And even in the Archie comics, Jughead is always the shoulder Betty cries on whenever Archie chooses Veronica. Of course, if you want to talk about the TV version, then we have to start this conversation over completely.” Felix put down the laptop on the baby changer. “And, Digby, I’m running out of polite ways to tell you. I know it’s your favorite song and you thought Zoe should’ve been going out with you instead of Austin, but not every relationship can be explained by ‘You Belong With Me.’” Felix started opening the tape boxes. “In fact, you guys are more like ‘I Knew You Were Trouble.’”
“It’s Princeton’s favorite song,” Digby said.
“It came on the radio once when we were hanging out,” I said. “I sang along to some of it and you’ve been talking about it ever since.”
Felix held up a handful of the tapes. “Pick a tape, any tape. That’s where we’ll start.” He inserted the one I chose into the tape reader.
“How long will this take?” I said.
“Well . . . it depends.” Felix spent a few minutes scrolling through the tape’s directory before ejecting it.
I handed him my second pick of tape.
“It takes a long time to search these backups one by one,” Felix said. “But the data’s sequential, so I just have to get in the strike zone of Dr. Digby’s years of employment at Perses and it’ll be super fast from there,” Felix said. “Oh, hey, I hear I should be congratulating you?”
“You told him about Prentiss?” I said.
Digby nodded.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I said.
Both Felix and Digby said, “Of course you’re going.”
“Just let yourself say it already,” Digby said.
“It’s a seriously good school,” Felix said. “Well, if you want to do the whole ‘job’ thing.”
“The ‘job’ thing? Who doesn’t want to do the ‘job’ thing?” I said. “I mean, if they want to do the whole ‘eat and have a place to live’ thing . . .”
“Well, yeah, if you want to have a job, sell your time, then, yes, you should go to a good school, get good grades and all that,” Felix said. “But, you know, if you want to sell your ideas, it matters a whole lot less where you go and what you score on a test. Or, in fact, if you even want to go to college at all.”
“Are you saying you aren’t going to college?” I said.
My jaw dropped when Felix smiled and said, “Nope.”
“Do your parents know?” I said.
Felix said, “Every time I contemplate having that conversation, my brain freezes.”
“What are you going to do?” I said.
“I have an idea for a data security start-up.” Felix pointed at what he was doing and said, “Clearly, there’s a market for it.”
“Felix? Didn’t you tell me your parents are buying an apartment in Boston so your mom can live with you when you start going to college?” Digby said. “That’s happening soon, isn’t it?”
“It’s going into escrow next week,” Felix said.
“Felix. If you’re sure you don’t want to go to college, you have to tell them before they waste a bunch of money,” I said.
Felix muttered something about not wanting to deal with it before he got back to searching the files.
I watched Felix work but after a while, I found myself staring at a screen of rapidly scrolling gibberish dizzying. I stepped outside the stall and washed my hands.
Digby followed me out.
“What are you doing? This is the ladies’ room. What if someone came in?” I said. “Get back in the stall.”
“We could just start making out and say we’re jacked up on hormones and science,” Digby said.
From behind the stall door, Felix said, “Please don’t do that.”
“Relax. No one’s coming in.” Digby pushed the door open so I could hear everyone at the party reciting the dialogue along with the characters onscreen. “I don’t think they’d even notice if I went in there for a slice of cake.”
Again, from behind the closed stall door, Felix said, “Please don’t do that.”
“But I’m starving,” Digby said.
I threw him a granola bar. “I don’t have any more food, so you’d better make that last.”
“Hey!” Felix said. “This tape is blank.”
I watched Digby’s face suddenly slacken with panic. “I never did ask you how you decided which tapes were which,” I said.
“Your old-lady lavender smell gets on everything you touch. I could smell it on the tapes you took out of the box,” Digby said. “Remember how your mom smelled it on me that time I was over at your place?”
&nb
sp; Felix said, “And this one’s blank.” There was a series of plasticky clacks as Felix ejected and threw yet another blank tape aside. “This one isn’t empty but it’s not the right one,” Felix said. “What happened to you two down there?”
Digby gave a summary of the fiasco in the data storage center that ended with, “. . . I mean, at one point, I tried to clear my nose by sniffing the cup of coffee sitting on the desk but the guy adds cream to his.”
Felix kicked open the stall door to check if Digby was being serious. For the few seconds between the door swinging open and swinging shut again, Felix gave us a look that perfectly combined pity and disgust. And then the sound of Felix inserting and ejecting tapes resumed.
“Princeton. You don’t think I took the wrong ones, do you?” Digby said. I didn’t think I could come up with a cheery answer, so I kept my face neutral. “I should’ve known. It was too easy.”
There wasn’t anything I could say, so I just hugged him.
Digby said again, “It was too easy . . .”
“Nothing about the past year has been easy,” I said.
“I wish life were just a straight suffering for results swap,” Digby said. “Then I’d be golden. Because I’ve already done the suffering part—”
Felix kicked open the stall door and walked out, stiff-legged and wild-eyed.
“What?” I said.
Felix didn’t say a word.
“What is it? Nothing?” I said.
Felix and Digby just stared at each other.
“What?” I said. “Come on, you mute bastards, say something.”
Felix held up a data tape, his face bathed in triumph, and in the five seconds that followed, I don’t think any of us even thought about the risk of getting caught. We screamed.
EIGHTEEN
I felt a deeper relief than I’d ever experienced in my life when we passed the imaginary red line I’d drawn around Perses without hearing a single alarm or siren. Once my over-stimulated brain stopped telling my body it was in crisis, I slipped into a post-adrenaline state of shock. Time stretched and shrunk in weird places. Digby drove Aldo back to the bus terminal and I smiled and said good-bye, all the while feeling like I was underwater.
Next thing I knew, we’d arrived at Olympio’s. Digby was slow to get out when we parked the car and when he caught up with us, I pretended I hadn’t seen him wipe tears from his eyes.
I didn’t blame him. We had his mom’s research. Everything de Groot wanted. We were going to find out what happened to Digby’s sister. It was a big freaking deal.
Sloane and Henry were waiting for us when we got inside but before we had a chance to sit them down and explain what we’d just done, Henry said, “You guys. A little help? Tino’s not here because his wife broke her foot at Jazzercise, Wanda won ten grand on Lotto—won’t be seeing her for a while—and the register is acting screwy,” Henry said.
I took the plate he handed me. “Wait. Shouldn’t your parents come in, then?”
“It’s the first time they’ve trusted me with a busy dinner shift,” Henry said. “But I guess I could get them to bail on their movie . . .”
I pointed at the plate and said, “Where does this go?”
Henry said, “This goes to the woman by the window. You’ll know which one she is.”
Sure enough, an angry woman was craning her neck in our direction.
Right as I served the food, I heard a crash and saw Sloane swabbing at a puddle of spilled soda at a table of noisy kids and their frantic mom. I grabbed a rag and headed over to help Sloane and before we knew what was happening, Felix was in charge of pouring drinks and plating desserts, and Digby, Sloane, and I were running the dinner service while Henry went back into the kitchen to help out the one short-order cook who had shown up for work.
* * *
• • •
When we finally beat the Friday dinner rush and the last few diners were finishing up, Henry came out of the kitchen and gulped down three of the pre-poured glasses of water Sloane had set up on the counter.
“Already setting up for the after-movie slam,” Henry said. “Good thinking.”
“Don’t kiss my butt. I’m still mad,” Sloane said. But clearly she felt Henry had learned whatever lesson she needed to teach and the two of them were back on the road to Sweethearts-ville.
“Wait. The what?” I said. I mean, it had been maybe a little therapeutic to get out of our heads for a while but the idea of having to deal with yet another room of people who thought server and servant were the same thing . . .
Sloane saw my face and said, “I keep telling Henry to tell his parents to sell this place and buy a pizza franchise instead. It’s more money, less work, and a much easier business to run by telephone from our house in the Hamptons.”
“Running a diner’s not a bad business, actually,” Digby said. “If only the customers were—”
“Not animals?” Sloane said.
“Come on,” Henry said.
“Who else orders bottomless garlic bread when they know it’s just day-old buns smeared with shortening and garlic powder?” Sloane said. “And what kind of restaurant does that?”
“Lots of places use up their day-old bread like that,” Henry said.
“Lots of places that are dumps,” Sloane said. “It’s tacky. You should get rid of it.”
“And let them eat cake instead?” I said.
“Actually . . .” Felix said. “That’s probably the most profitable item on the menu after soda.” He came over with a copy of the menu. “If you want to streamline, think about things like the moussaka. Why is moussaka on the menu?”
“We’re Greek, Felix,” Henry said.
“You were averaging fifteen minutes between orders going in and orders going up until one guy ordered the moussaka plate. Then everything slowed way down and we never got back up to fifteen minutes after that.” Felix took a Sharpie and started crossing out items. “This menu’s too big. Too many soups. The Greek stuff’s a time waster . . .”
“Hey,” Henry said.
Felix said, “And the restaurant’s basically a set from a workers’ compensation PSA video shoot.”
“What?” Henry said.
Felix pointed around the counter area. “The leaking soda machine’s flooded the floor and that’s a major slip and fall hazard. The electrical tape you used on the frayed wire for the cash register is now frayed too, and it’s throwing off sparks—”
“Sparks? I’ve never seen that,” Henry said.
Just then the wire crackled and a small blue spark popped out. Digby carefully unplugged the register.
“And do you smell that? That gasoline smell?” Felix said.
We all sniffed.
“Isn’t that Sloane’s perfume?” I said.
Sloane gave me a dirty look.
“I told you,” I said. “It doesn’t matter how much it costs, Sloane. When you wear too much, it just smells like roach spray.”
“No, no. I think it’s that.” Felix kicked at a pile of rags on the floor under the counter.
“Oh, we use those to polish the metal on the counter.” Henry pointed at the ridged metal banding that edged the entire length of the diner’s lunch counter and all the diners’ tables.
“Metal polish is highly flammable,” Felix said. “Safety first. You need to make changes.”
“Flood or fire, Felix?” Henry said. “Which is it?”
“I didn’t really see it as an either-or situation,” Felix said.
“Whoa,” Henry said. “You have really been thinking about this.”
Felix sighed and closed his eyes. “Anything to keep my mind off the fact that we stole confidential government information this afternoon,” he said.
“You what?” Henry said.
Sloane turned to me and said, “I couldn’t fi
nd you at lunch but I just figured you cut and went to the mall.”
“Um . . . you guys.” I pointed at a nearby table of college frat guys who were obviously trying to eavesdrop.
Henry clapped his hands and said, “Okay, everybody. The diner’s closed. If you leave right now, your food’s on the house.”
We watched the last few tables empty out. I was relieved. I wouldn’t have wanted to let down Henry but I couldn’t imagine having to deal with a second round of grumpy diners.
Digby said to the eavesdropping frat guys, “The food’s free but the service isn’t. Don’t forget to tip your server.” All that got him was a round of jeering.
“Ugh. Ungrateful creeps,” Sloane said.
“Why do you think I prefer working in the kitchen?” Henry said. “Speaking of which, I should go tell Jorge he can go home. I’ll call my parents to let them know we’re closing early.”
After Henry went to the back, one especially douche-y frat guy yelled, “The service here sucks balls.” And then he raised his glass of water and poured it all over the table.
Digby glanced at me, silently asking for permission to deal them a little instant karma.
I put my hand on his arm. “The things we did today . . . if that’s the worst we have to deal with, then we are solidly in the win column.”
It was Sloane who noticed the lone customer huddled up in the corner.
“Sorry, sir. We’re closed,” Sloane said.
The guy stood and slowly slithered up to us at the register, giving me enough time to see the tracks that hard living had run all over his face. He was thin in an unwholesome way and the way he tucked his chin down and talked to us in an insinuating, I-know-things hiss didn’t help either. He creeped me out.
“Great place you got here,” Sir Hiss said. And then he started looking at Felix, Sloane, Digby, and me in an assessing and memorizing kind of way.
Trouble Never Sleeps Page 14