Law and Vengeance

by Mike Papantonio

  “You didn’t need to do that, Bennie,” said Gina. “The case is over.”

  “As soon as I hear that from Deke and Carol,” Bennie said, “you’ll no longer have a security detail.”

  When Ned and Bennie entered the terminal, their families rushed in to give them hugs. After both men finished kissing their wives, Gina thanked Tina Williams and Andrea Stokes for letting her borrow their husbands. The woman seemed to be in remarkably good moods Gina noticed—expensive flower arrangements can sometimes work wonders.

  Gina also met Bennie’s four children; Dylan was nine, Faith was six, Hope was four, and Charity was three. Two of the girls were in Bennie’s arms; the third was holding on to his left leg. Dylan, a spitting image of his father, stood at his side.

  “She’s Colestah, right Dad?” asked Dylan, pointing to Gina.

  Bennie looked embarrassed, but nodded.

  “Colestah?” asked Gina. “Who is that?”

  “She was a great Yakama warrior,” said Dylan. “Colestah carried a stone war club with her. She was always ready for battle. I wrote a report on her and got an A. My dad says you’re just like her.”

  “Your dad is the real warrior,” said Gina. “I probably couldn’t even lift a stone war club.”

  Still, she turned her head and found herself wiping away a few tears. Gina knew she was no Colestah, yet couldn’t help but be pleased at the name Bennie had bestowed upon her to his family.

  Even though it was getting close to midnight, Peter still wasn’t home, and neither was Gina’s Porsche Cayenne. Even though she’d been out of town, she couldn’t help but feel annoyed. Peter seemed to be getting awfully fond of her car.

  Her brother’s absence, though, allowed her to go to sleep right away. Being in her own bed felt like a luxury. When her alarm went off at six in the morning, she wished she could have slept in.

  There were signs that Peter had returned sometime during the night, but when Gina didn’t see her car keys, she had Steve drive her to work. When she walked into her office at eight fifteen, she found a handwritten note from Carol: Please leave your cell phone behind for our meeting. I’ll be collecting it afterward.

  For once, Gina wasn’t the first to the meeting. She and Martin Bergman arrived at the fifth-floor meeting room at the same time and found Carol and Deke already deep in conversation.

  “Good morning,” said Carol. “Please come in. I’ve made sure we can all talk in here without fear of being overheard. We were just discussing these.”

  She opened up her hand; in her palm were half a dozen wafer-like devices about the size and thinness of a fingernail.

  “These are bugs,” said Carol. “Two were found in Gina’s office, two in her car, and two in her home. There is another even more elaborate bug in her cell phone.”

  “Son of a bitch,” said Gina. “Was I the only one targeted?”

  “You seem to have been the focus of interest ever since being given the Arbalest case,” said Carol. “Prior to that, I believe Angus was the main target, even though there were others. I feel I am partly to blame for not picking up on the surveillance. In the past we’ve concentrated on providing security inside the building without considering that we should be doing it beyond these premises as well. The man who I am calling Mr. Wizard—the individual who was hired to do the surveillance—initially bypassed this building. Mr. Wizard performed his black magic in houses and vehicles. It appears he was also able to do his dirty work through home personal computers. And also through property security systems that he turned into his listening and viewing posts.

  “The good news is that I am fairly certain no more monitoring is going on now; the bad news is that I had hoped to find a way to use these bugs to find him. Something must have alerted him, though, because no one is on the other end now.

  “Mr. Wizard did leave more than a calling card, however. These bugs aren’t something you can buy online; they’re original and handmade. We have his signature on his bugs and his electronic programming. And because I firmly believe that sometimes it takes a criminal to catch a criminal, I have arranged to go see Foul Henry today.”

  “Who is Foul Henry?” asked Gina.

  “He is someone who most especially wants to meet you,” said Carol.

  “And why is that?”

  “He is a fan of yours, especially since you took on the whistle-blower case against Arbalest. But he’s also made it clear that he finds you attractive.”

  “Carol is the only one in this room who has met Foul Henry,” said Deke, “although Martin and I have both helped him on a few occasions to get out from under the thumb of the feds.”

  “Henry sees himself as a patriot,” said Martin, “and believes it is his duty to expose the workings of tyrants everywhere.”

  “Like Snowden and Assange,” said Deke, “Henry can be a bit of a megalomaniac. There’s also the problem that what he categorizes as whistle-blowing, the US government might call criminal espionage.”

  “Foul Henry wants quid pro quo in this,” said Carol. “He says in addition to paying him for his work, he also wants a marker for the future. According to Henry, he’s working on something that will make WikiLeaks look like ‘Mini-leaks.’ Because of that, he is certain that in the not too distant future the government will be coming after him. He wants our guarantee to lead his legal defense.”

  Martin and Deke looked at one another; the firm’s founding partner spoke for them: “We’ll get you that documentation to give to him.”

  “So what you’re saying, Carol,” said Gina, “is that we’re seeking out the help of a good wizard to go after a bad wizard?”

  “Good wizard might be overstating it,” said Carol. “Foul Henry is more like a very independent wizard.”

  “But why do you call him Foul Henry?” asked Gina.

  During their flight to St. Louis, Carol told Gina and Bennie the story of Foul Henry. “I’ve been working investigations for a long time,” she said, “and have heard a million stories. It was around ten years ago that Henry’s name first surfaced. At the time he was known as ‘Robin in the Hood.’ It’s probably the name he’s best known as, and I imagine it’s the one he prefers. I thought it was all an urban legend, but the stories of this digital Robin Hood going after the Sheriff of Nottingham in his various forms persisted. As the years passed, I began to believe our Robin Hood might actually exist and that we might have a need for his services, so I decided to track him down.

  “It wasn’t easy. Robin in the Hood sent me down many a wrong path. Maybe he finally took pity on me. Or maybe he’s just a pervert. He liked the idea of a woman going to such lengths to meet him, even one he considers of ‘advanced years.’ So, much to my surprise, Robin decided to invite me to his house. He lives in the slums of East St. Louis. Robin bought up an entire culde-sac, and pays a street gang to keep an eye on his digs. Which means invading his turf is like invading gang turf. It is almost like he has his own castle and army. According to him, it’s a very sound investment and costs him far less than buying a fortress and staffing it.

  “By then I’d found out his real name was Henry, not Robin. Before his twenty-fifth birthday, Henry had been the toast of Silicon Valley. Then he had a breakdown of sorts and fell off the radar. Anyway, Henry recovered from his breakdown, or at least recovered enough to do the kind of work he now does. Over the past five years he’s helped Bergman-Deketomis on several occasions.”

  “Am I ever going to hear why you gave him the name ‘Foul Henry’?” asked Gina.

  “All too soon,” said Carol, “you will smell why he has the name Foul Henry. After Henry bought his street in East St. Louis, every stray cat in town seemed to find its way to his home. He now lives with hundreds of cats and seems to be impervious to their smells.”

  Gina’s face contorted. She wondered if she would be able to stand the acrid smell of all those cats.

  “I almost regret having initiated a personal relationship with Henry,” Carol said. “As far as I
know, I am the only creature with two legs he’s allowed in his house. And now he specifically asked for you. If he wasn’t the best, there’s no way I’d be here. I already sent him pictures of the listening devices and the reverse engineering that was put in place on our computers and security systems, but Foul Henry also wanted us to bring along the electronic surveillance devices that we located.”

  “Sounds like we should have also brought along some Meow Mix and kitty litter,” said Gina.

  With Bennie at the wheel of their rental, they drove through the city and across the Poplar Street Bridge over the Mississippi River. Once across, with the St. Louis Gateway Arch in their rearview mirror, their surrounding circumstances abruptly deteriorated. Luckily Carol knew where they were going. She recognized that you don’t want to bet your life on the accuracy of GPS in East St. Louis. They drove through what looked like a war zone and finally arrived at Henry’s street. Although they couldn’t observe anyone watching them, everyone was sure they were being observed. They pulled up to the end of the cul-de-sac. Behind a wrought iron fence was an old mansion that looked about as welcoming as the one in the movie House of Usher.

  Carol reached into her purse and brought out a bottle of Vicks VapoRub. She opened the bottle, stuck her finger in, and put a dab under each nostril.

  Then she held out the bottle and asked, “Anyone?”

  “I’m afraid the cure might be worse than the disease,” said Gina.

  “Your stomach,” said Carol.

  Bennie didn’t hesitate and dabbed some under his nose. Gina followed suit, although her eyes began to tear up right away.

  Carol led the way to the gate and pressed her finger on the bell. From inside the old house they could hear a ring.

  “Henry smokes a lot of dope,” said Carol. “Sometimes I have to ring the bell for ten minutes until he responds.”

  She rang the bell a second time. A few more seconds passed before the front door opened. Foul Henry stepped out into the light and tried to fend it off with his right hand. If he’d been wearing black clothes he might have pulled off the vampire look, but he had on cut-offs, a tie-dyed shirt, and Chuck Taylor Converse All Star High Tops.

  Gina thought Foul Henry looked a bit like a stoned Johnny Depp, with dark hair and wispy facial hair. The man’s slightly uneven eyes took their time running up and down Gina’s figure. As Henry made his way to the gate he smiled at Carol and then scowled at Bennie.

  “Ladies are welcome,” he said. “Chief Broom Bromden stays behind the gate.”

  “I come in peace,” said Bennie, speaking like a John Ford Indian.

  “You will welcome Bennie,” said Carol, “as you will welcome Gina, as you will welcome me.”

  “Mom has spoken,” said Henry, unlocking the gate.

  Even with the Vicks VapoRub running olfactory interference, Gina caught a scent of the “cat house” and almost gagged.

  As they were led in, Gina saw the cats weren’t the only things contributing to the stench. Henry was a hoarder. There were piles of books, mountains of magazines, and heaps of electronic parts. The living room was a graveyard of old computers and their operator manuals. Amidst the computers were boxes of old and mostly consumed pizzas along with forgotten cans and jars.

  And, of course, everywhere there were cats.

  “You must really like cats,” said Gina.

  Henry shrugged. “It’s not like I sought them out. With the economic conditions around here, they were looking for a refuge. But then I don’t have to talk about economics with you. I have studied some of your cases. It would seem to me you must be political.”

  “I am,” Gina said, “but mostly to the extent of giving to causes I believe in. I understand you’re an activist.”

  “Like Diogenes,” Henry said, “I take my lantern and go out on the fruitless search for an honest man. Or woman. And when I find lies, I expose them. Right now the Republicans are blaming the Democrats for leaking material, and the Democrats are accusing the Republicans of the same thing. What they’re not saying is that each party is guilty of lying, which they are. The person who believes that either side has the moral high ground is a damn fool.”

  “And you are Diogenes?” Gina asked.

  “More like Guy Fawkes, I think,” said Henry, “except instead of setting off actual explosives, I explode secrets.”

  He motioned to the living room. “Sit down.”

  His invitation was more easily said than done. Carol, Gina, and Bennie had to shoo away cats so that they could sit down on chairs and a sofa. Henry sat down on an old piano bench. It wouldn’t have surprised Gina if she suddenly heard the music to The Phantom of the Opera playing.

  “All right, Henry,” said Carol. “Quit ogling Gina.”

  “If you insist,” he said. “Now, besides her, where are the goodies I asked you to bring?”

  36

  ROUND AND ROUND THE BAGGAGE CAROUSEL

  During the flight back to Spanish Trace, the main topic of discussion was Henry. Instead of being repulsed by him as Gina had expected, she both admired him and felt sorry for him. In his moldering house of cats, Henry was fighting what he believed was the good fight.

  “If anyone can find who was spying on us,” Carol said, “Foul Henry can.”

  “He said he detected a similar electronic fingerprint in the way Angus’s car computer was hacked,” said Gina, “and in the bugs planted in my office and home.”

  “I think Henry already has a good idea of who our guy is,” said Bennie.

  “It’s a small pool of weird wizards,” Carol admitted.

  Bennie said, “What I wasn’t following was Henry’s rambling explanation about the Black Knight Richard and Ivanhoe fighting side by side on the deep web.”

  “The deep web is just the kind of place where I’d expect to find our Mr. Wizard,” Carol said. “You want to hire a hit man? Are you a pedophile looking for child porn? That’s the place you go. If it had been around during Dante’s time, I’m sure the deep web would have been a circle of hell.”

  “Abandon all hope,” said Gina, “ye who enter here.”

  Carol nodded. “It’s a place you don’t want to enter unless you have to. When I have to spend time there, I always feel as if I’d had a tar bath.”

  “Henry said he’d contact us when he had something,” Gina added. “I’ve got my fingers crossed that we hear from him soon.”

  During the flight, Gina asked Carol if she could help her to track down a number that no longer seemed to be working. Carol took down all the information, and half an hour later handed her a slip of paper with a number on it.

  “I always say there’s no such thing as an unlisted number,” said Carol.

  “Thanks so much,” said Gina.

  Gina made the call as soon as she got home. The conversation lasted for fifteen minutes. When it was done, she cried for even longer than she’d talked.

  Afterwards, she went to her bookcase and pulled down a book that was near and dear to her heart. Gina found wrapping paper and did her best to wrap the volume. She had never been very good at wrapping, but this time she tried to make her efforts look at least presentable.

  Peter was out, as usual, and so was her Porsche Cayenne, so Gina called for a taxi.

  Gina tried to remember a time when she’d felt so nervous and decided there had never been such a time. This was it. She felt exposed and vulnerable. She felt like throwing up. Gina hated being so dependent on another human being for her happiness. That wasn’t something she did. That was a sucker’s game. Flee, Gina thought. Leave a note. Write a card. Recite a cute message. Do anything but avoid this face-to-face.

  He had every right to be angry. He had every right to hate her. She was the one who caused their breach, not him. By now, he would likely have gotten over the pain. By now, he might have realized she was toxic and that he was better off without her.

  Passengers emerged from the gate. Gina scanned the heads. More and more people walked out, but Bryan wa
sn’t there. He must have taken another flight, Gina thought. Or maybe he fell in love in Australia with a woman who deserved his love. Maybe he had decided there was nothing in Spanish Trace worth coming home to.

  A couple came into view. A beautiful woman was walking with Bryan. Gina wanted to run away. She didn’t want to see this, even though she deserved it.

  And then a voice called out, “Amy!” And the woman went running into the arms of a man waiting for her in the terminal.

  That’s when Bryan saw her. She smiled for him, but he didn’t return her smile. Gina opened her arms for him, but he didn’t come for a hug. He just looked at her, his face giving away nothing. Tears started falling from her face. She tried to control herself, but couldn’t. She was an absolute mess; there was no masking how she felt. It was all there on display, and Gina felt terrible for that. But that was the very thing Bryan needed to see.

  He ran to Gina and lifted her in his arms. “You put me through hell.”

  “I was . . . was . . . was . . . right there with you,” she sobbed.

  “I love you,” he said.

  And right back she said, “I love you.”

  She handed him a wrapped present. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Open it. It’s yours”

  “And ruin your wonderful wrapping job?” he teased.

  “I tried,” said Gina, as he ripped away the wrapping. “You said you’d never read To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a first edition, one of only a few with a Harper Lee signature. It might seem like an odd gift, but it was one of my few real treasures before you walked into my life. It’s the most sincere way I could think of to say how sorry I am and how sorry I am for what Peter did.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. But never mind that now. Let’s just go to my house.”

  “What about your luggage?”

  “It can wait. Right now, I need one of those kisses that last all week,” he said.