The Puppet Master

by John Dalmas

  Before it downloaded, a code flagged on the screen. When I'd first been with the Marquette Police Department, there'd been some factional infighting, replete with spying and even accusations of the sabotage of files. And because it wasn't all right to make a file inaccessible to the office, or try to, I'd learned to install a covert security alarm on sensitive files, something I've done routinely ever since, on general principle. "Hyvää iltaa,"—"good evening" in Finnish—or hyvää päivää, depending on the time of day, were the codes I used to identify myself and tell the computer to flag anything that might be a trespass.

  And someone had activated the Christman file, called it up on Carlos' terminal at 12:27 that afternoon! Fidela would have been in the lunchroom, and a check indicated that Carlos still wasn't back from Fresno. So far as I knew, the only people who should be using Carlos' computer were Carlos himself, and whoever he might have told to use it for some reason. Steinhorn for example. Except there was zero likelihood that Carlos would have told him to do anything with the Christman file.

  So. Presuming it had been Steinhorn—why would he have snooped? Curiosity?

  I called up the file again, to look at it "with other eyes than mine," and see what it might have looked like to him. Parts of it were clear and detailed. The Oregon project, on the other hand, read cryptically, if you didn't already know what was going on. The entries were dated, and the photos were there, but how we'd gotten them wasn't even hinted at. The bills, the charges and times of charter flights, the trip to Minneapolis to see Hjelmgaard—all those things were there, but not the why, not what they meant. Charles Tomasic wasn't even mentioned except as Charles—"Hjelmgaard and Charles."

  And since then, all the entries simply stated "null," or "nothing new."

  I asked the computer for a reprise of all operations run while whoever it was had the Christman file in the RAM. It had been scrolled, stopped, and scrolled again, repeatedly. Nothing had been entered, deleted, or altered in any way, but the computer had printed a copy of each of the photographs from Oregon!

  Perkele! Who had he sent them to? He'd hardly have faxed them on one of our office machines. There'd be a record, and he knew it. I checked anyway. They record everything sent; my expensive pictures weren't among them. But there were plenty of commercial fax machines in the neighborhood. Lots of stores have them for customer use, cheap.

  It seemed to me that someone, perhaps the abductor, perhaps the church, now had copies. And someone's hair just might have been standing six inches out from their head when they saw them. The important question now was, what might they do next?

  I locked my door, then took the bug scanner from my attaché case and checked my office over. Sure as hell! There was one in the thermostat control! I let it be. It could have been there for weeks or months, but I was willing to bet it had been installed that day, or at most only a few days earlier. By Steinhorn. Better let him, or whoever it was, think none of it had been discovered, neither bug nor computer trespass.

  Then I walked down the hall and asked Fidela if Carlos had called in. He hadn't. So I phoned his flat and asked Penny if he was home yet. She said no, and that he'd probably stop at the office first. I told her I'd call that evening if I didn't see him sooner.

  By that time it was five o'clock, and people were leaving. I called up the Christman file again and entered a null day. Which of course was a gross lie. Because, I told myself, I'd just been handed a lead that might be more important than the photographs.

  I was wrong about that, it turned out. Both were vitally important.

  I also decided to call Tuuli that evening and talk her into staying longer in Arizona. If Christman's murderers or abductors had those photos, things could get dangerous again.

  * * *

  I hung around for a little and read my messages, dictating the necessary replies or comments to the computer. Vocorders are still pretty expensive, but Joe liked to hold down the paperwork for his investigators. Everyone else was gone except floor security and the night receptionist, but with Tuuli out of town, I felt no urge to get home, and this way I missed the quitting-time traffic. Real Angelenos say the traffic these days isn't nearly as bad as before the plagues, but I still prefer to leave early or late.

  Then Carlos came in. I waited a few minutes while he handled his in-messages, then asked him if he'd walk to La Fonda with me and eat Mexican. He knew I wouldn't distract him if I didn't need to—not when he was being an investigator instead of a supervisor, and working on a case of his own. So he called Penny and told her he'd be eating before he came home.

  La Fonda is only five blocks from the office. It's not as good as La Casa de Herreras, but it's cheaper. And we were really going out to talk; the meal was incidental. Neither of us said much on the way. It was a pleasant evening, and the only reason I wore a jacket was to cover my shoulder holster.

  Based on experience, we both ordered enchiladas suizas. Then, while I creamed and sweetened my coffee, Carlos asked what was on my mind. First I told him my office was bugged, and that his might be, and conceivably other places around corporate headquarters. That sobered him. Then I told him about the trespass into the Christman file at noon, and that the photos had been copied. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind. "You see why I didn't want to talk about it at work," I finished.

  He nodded. "And you've got some ideas about what it means."

  "Right." Then I told him about Steinhorn using his desk that day. "You didn't tell him to, did you?" I asked.

  He was frowning, mouth and eyes. "No. Which doesn't prove anything, but it's suggestive. What do you make of it?"

  "For one thing, it's a break in the case. Also, I don't want Steinhorn to know I suspect him, or that I even know anything's wrong. I think we need to check the personnel reports we got on him against the original files, both with the army and Algotsson-Scherker. But first I think you should scan your office for bugs, because quick-checking his personnel records will require using the phone."

  "I doubt that the army's files were tampered with," Carlos said thoughtfully. "These days, military storage archives are supposed to be about as tamperproof as you can find. When one of them gets compromised, it closes down the whole system, alarms God knows how many offices, and kicks in a backup system."

  "Even personnel records?!"

  "Once they're closed."

  That didn't make much sense to me, but if that's how it was . . . That left Algotsson-Scherker's. He'd check them in the morning, he said, during A-S' office hours.

  * * *

  After enchiladas, we went back to the office. A scan showed no bugs in Carlos', but that didn't mean it would stay clean. He decided to check it again whenever he came in. The men's room was clean too, electronically as well as otherwise. He'd send Steinhorn out with Rossi first thing in the morning; that would keep him out of the way till quitting time. Then we could sit down and do some brainstorming.

  Prudential has the security contract for our building. Our security crews are the best in the business. As we left, Carlos gave instructions for the swing shift and night shift to record any staff who came in, along with time in and time out. And not to tell anyone but him and me; he stressed that. If anyone else came in after hours "to work late," he wanted to know.

  * * *

  On my way home, I stopped and called Tuuli—on a coin phone, leaving no paper or electronic trail—and asked her to stay in Arizona for another week. I expected her to ask why, and I also knew that anything but the truth would sound weak. Which could start an argument. To my surprise, she agreed right away, and never asked a thing.

  That got me worried. Had she found some guy in Arizona that she liked better than me? Would worrying about it keep me awake half the night?

  So I stopped at Gold's for an hour and a half, to poop myself out good, then buried my nose in Hirschman's massive Twenty Case Histories of the Post-Reform Era—about my fifth reading of it—and around midnight went to sleep without any trouble. By that ti
me I'd decided Tuuli wouldn't have found anyone at Long Valley, Arizona, who was stronger or smarter than me. Not that she could talk Finnish with.

  27

  NEW BREAKTHROUGH

  I was finishing off an omelette in Morey's the next morning when Indian came in. Usually when he comes in, he's there earlier, and I could tell by his expression that something was seriously wrong. I waved to him and he came over without even stopping to order.

  "Jesus Christ!" he said as he flopped down.

  "What is it?"

  "Cloud Man's dead! Killed! This morning!"

  It turned out they'd been riding in together on Indian's big bike—an Indian Buffalo, appropriately enough—with Cloud Man on behind. They'd turned onto Hollywood from Gower and just passed the intersection with Cahuenga when a sniper had shot Cloud Man right off the bike. Indian had almost lost it; it took him forty or fifty meters to stop. By the time he'd run back to Cloud Man, cars had stopped and people were gathering. A couple of them were on their knees, trying to help. Crowding them aside, Indian knelt. Cloud Man's eyes were open, and when he saw Indian, he tried to talk to him. Indian had to get his ear down close to hear.

  "My real name," Cloud Man whispered, "is Leo McCarver." He repeated it. "Leo McCarver. The guy, who shot me— Card in my wallet. Ensenada. Mexico. Warn Martti. They'll kill him too."

  As Indian finished telling me, his eyes opened wide, as if only the words, not the meaning, had registered before. As if his attention had been so totally on the incomprehensible—someone shooting Cloud Man—that he hadn't really connected the words with reality. "Go on," I said. "Then what?"

  That was all Cloud Man had told him; then he'd closed his eyes. Indian hadn't tried to frisk him for his wallet, because about that time two beat cops came running up. Three or four minutes later an ambulance was there, and the paramedics had gotten Leo McCarver—Cloud Man—onto a litter. Indian heard one of them say he was dead. By that time a patrol floater was there too, and Indian told the sergeant Cloud Man's name—names—and where he'd lived, and what his own name was. The sergeant had asked a few more questions, then let him go.

  He hadn't mentioned Ensenada or me. Indian had driven on to Yitzhak's then, even though he'd arrive too late for muster, to tell them what happened. The jobs had already been assigned, so he'd come to Morey's.

  Warn Martti. They'll kill him too! Unless Indian had left something out, those were McCarver's last words, said with almost his last breath! Why, unless he thought it was true? And where did I fit in?

  * * *

  I passed Steinhorn and Rossi in the lobby, going out as I went in. Rossi said hi; Steinhorn only nodded. I suppose I said something back.

  Carlos' office was still clean, and I sat down next to him so we could both watch his computer screen. I told him about Cloud Man. Leo McCarver: the name meant nothing to him either. He called Algotsson-Scherker, and as you'd expect of a construction outfit, their headquarters' office was open. They opened at eight instead of nine, and they were on Mountain Time. The guy who answered connected him with their personnel office, where a Francine answered. After Carlos had identified himself and the firm, he told Francine he needed to see their personnel file on David Steinhorn.

  She asked why he needed to know. When he'd satisfied her, she said, "Just a moment, Mr. Katagawa." Her attention went to her computer; presumably her fingers were giving it instructions. Then, frowning, she looked back at her vidcam. "I'm sorry, Mr. Katagawa, but we have no record of a David Steinhorn."

  "You did when I checked with you a little over a week ago," Carlos said. "You may have a record of my call. We hired him on the basis of it."

  Her gaze returned to her computer screen, her brows drawn down in concentration. Again her fingers wrote. She shook her head slightly, still frowning, and tried something else, then something else again, finally staring thoughtfully with her lower lip between her teeth. Then she looked out at us from the phone screen. "I'm sorry, sir. I have nothing on a David Steinhorn; on any Steinhorn; or any other name beginning with S-T-E-I-N or S-T-I-E-N or S-T-E-N."

  "But you do remember my call."

  "I remember your face, yes."

  "Do you remember finding a file on Steinhorn?"

  "I remember finding a file for you, yes sir, but I don't recall its identity."

  "Okay. There's something strange here. May I speak with whoever's in charge of personnel files?"

  "I'm in charge of personnel files," she said. She was still frowning. I got the notion that actually she remembered seeing the file and was wondering what the hell had happened to it. "Would you like to speak with Ms. Hawks, the personnel director?"

  "If I may, please."

  Ms. Hawks was a trim and handsome woman, black but with an Oriental look. Her father'd probably been a GI in Asia somewhere. When Carlos had explained our problem to her, she shook her head. "I'm sure we've had no salaried employee named Steinhorn since I came here in oh-four. And our personnel files haven't been culled since they were computerized; probably in the seventies or eighties."

  "Who has access to them?"

  "Various people, in read-only. Only Francine and I have access to them in edit mode. Except of course Mr. Scherker, and Ms. Lopez, his administrative assistant. And— We employ standard precautionary systems to ensure the integrity of our personnel files. To meet the legal requirements for personal privacy. Entering them illegally would require someone skilled and resourceful. And reckless."

  She left it at that. The rest was understood: Such people were available for hire, operating out of homes and offices everywhere. There was a constant attrition of them, of course. Some made their stake and quit. Others got located by monitor programs and arrested; sent to work camps to chop cotton in the desert sun, or plant trees on old cutovers and burns. Hard manual labor, hot and sweaty or wet and cold. But the payoffs could be big. There were always recruits to the ranks of computer criminals. Or perhaps Lopez or even Scherker could have done it, maybe as a favor to a friend. Or it could have been Hawks or Francine, though Francine especially had seemed too convincing to be acting. Carlos decided to let be; he thanked Hawks and disconnected. Then we talked. Conceivably Steinhorn might have hacked into A-S' personnel files himself, and inserted the erroneous file. Then erased it after he was hired, to avoid someone like Hawks running across it and perhaps informing us, if they logged the personnel reference requests they received.

  But if Steinhorn had the skills for that, what was he doing working for Prudential as an investigative assistant?

  To both of us, it seemed a lot more likely that someone else had arranged the false file, for the purpose of inserting Steinhorn in our office. Someone interested in the Christman case. Which could be any of our active suspects, or someone else, unsuspected and maybe unknown.

  "So," I said, "assume his military record is genuine. It probably is. If he hasn't been working for Algotsson-Scherker since he took his discharge, what has he been doing?

  "And Cloud Man, Leo McCarver—was he connected with Steinhorn in any way? They both arrived on the scene about the same time. When I first met McCarver, he didn't seem like a Loonie to me. I thought he might be undercover for the LAPD, or maybe the DEA—something like that. Whose card did McCarver have in his wallet? Apparently someone in Ensenada who might be interested in killing me.

  "Why would someone, or some business entity, in Ensenada want me dead? Is there a connection with Steinhorn? And why would McCarver want to warn me, when we'd barely met? Was there a faction that wanted me dead, and another that wanted me alive and on the job? Specifically the Christman job? Because that's the only job I'm handling."

  Carlos had been leaning back in his chair, listening with eyes half closed. Now he sat up and leaned toward his computer, his fingers pecking. He accessed ITT's public-access listing of private security and investigation firms in Ensenada, a hundred kilometers south of the border on the west coast of Baja. There were three firms listed that did investigations—a lot for a town th
at size. A phone call to a contact and friend in the PEF—the "federales," the Mexican national police—established that all of them were one- or two-man operations, probably operating out of one-room offices. That sort of thing.

  "So," I said when he'd disconnected. "Where does that leave us?"

  Carlos grunted. He can put considerable meaning into a grunt, but it's not always apparent what the meaning is. "Back before La Guerra de Octubre, there was an outfit in Ciudad Juarez, with branches elsewhere, that called itself a travel and transportation service. A charter operation. But their main activities were smuggling weapons and drugs, and sometimes they took on a murder contract. The cover allowed them to operate aircraft and trucks without making anyone curious."

  His fingers moved again, calling up transportation and travel services in Ensenada. Aside from the usual travel agencies, there was an outfit that called itself SVI—"Servicio Viajero Internacional." Then he called up the public-access records on its ownership and management. It was a partnership, the listed partners being an Aquilo Reyes, a Eustaquio Tischenberg-Hinz, and a Kelly Masters.

  "Carlos," I said, "call the Data Center and get McCarver's social security number. Use the Boghosian bombing case ID for access." To our surprise, they actually had a Leo McCarver listed as employed by Yitzhak's. His SocSec number was 1487-23-8765.

  "Now see if he's been in the military."

  He keyed up the Pentagon, went through three connections, then made his request, listing the contingency contract we had with the LAPD regarding the Boghosian bombing. He was referred to a captain, who asked enough questions to satisfy himself that there was at least some connection between the request and the case, then let it go at that. After all, we weren't asking for access to national security secrets.

  He didn't show us a readout. He read from it, apparently editing out things he considered irrelevant to our needs. McCarver, it turned out, had been in Special Forces, and discharged without prejudice in November 2007, in the middle of an enlistment.