by Mike Faricy
“Sounds like a laid back gig, well, as long as those dudes stay the hell away,” he said then took another large bite. He’d moved on to the big Macs by this point, taking a giant-sized bite out of one, chewing aggressively like he was under some sort of time constraint, then attacking the thing again. He’d devoured it in just over four bites, then grabbed a large Strawberry shake and sucked the entire thing down in about thirty seconds while taking a short break from chewing. By the time we pulled into Bonnie’s driveway he was finishing the apple pies and sucking down the last of the shakes.
“So here we are, man. Might as well go on in and get you situated.”
The car rocked back and forth as Luscious slid across the back seat and eventually out the door. I think I heard the struts in the car gasp a sigh of relief once he was out and standing in the driveway. He stood there in the oil slick the Lancer had left, holding the last of a strawberry shake while cramming the remnants of a final apple pie into his mouth.
I noticed he’d undone his belt, or maybe he’d just forgotten to buckle it. Not that he could see that fact from his particular vantage point. Come to think of it, maybe he just couldn’t buckle it. “Let’s go on in,” I said and unlocked the door. “Go ahead and make your way upstairs, Luscious. I’m just going to check on Iggy downstairs.” I hurried down the lower set of stairs and knocked on the door as Luscious groaned with every step he took up to the main floor. The staircase groaned back.
I knocked again, this time calling Iggy’s name. I was just starting to get worried when he answered.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Iggy, Dev. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, yes,” he said, sounding rushed. “I’m in the middle of a Linux update so I have to go. Who was that big guy?”
“Friend of mine. His name is Luscious. He’s going to help out over the next few days,” I said, then wondered how he knew Luscious was big. All the windows in the lower level were covered. Maybe he heard the staircase groan? Then I remembered he’d taped Bonnie and me and that he’d installed some sort of visual access to the entire upper floor.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bonnie arrived home about an hour later. Luscious was stretched out on the living room couch, watching cartoons. He didn’t move much, other than to wave a hand in the air when I introduced him. Morton was asleep on the floor in front of him.
“Nice to meet you,” Bonnie said, not sounding all that sure, then looked at me like I was crazy. “I think I might need a glass of wine, want to join me on the deck?” she said, nodding toward the sliding door and using a tone that suggested I really didn’t have another option.
I filled a glass with water then carried it out to the deck and stood at the railing examining the backyard. Bonnie came out a few minutes later and closed the sliding door.
“That’s the guy you got to help? What? You just gonna have him lay in front of the door, and anyone who tries to break in will have to climb over?”
“We’ve worked together before, he’s low-key. Okay, very low-key, but he’s good. Used to play for the NFL.”
“The NFL, really?”
“Yeah, he was a tight end.”
“I’m not even going to comment. Did you meet that Wegger character this morning?”
“I did, he offered me more money than I’d ever have a use for, which tells me we’ve been doing something right. It’s why I brought Luscious here, I’m thinking in the next couple of nights something’s going to happen. Iggy said you’re flying out tomorrow?”
“Yeah. You talked with him, Iggy?”
“Yeah, we discussed bugging techniques. It was pretty much over my head, but we discussed it. Why?”
“Why? You’ve seen his paranoia in action, the tinfoil, the lights off, about a thousand different levels of security on the computers. As far as I knew, I was the only one the poor guy’s ever talked to, and suddenly he’s chatting with you? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great, really I do. I just find it, I don’t know, amazing.”
“Hey, I’m a caring, sensitive kind of guy. Who wouldn’t want to get to know me?”
“Yeah, right,” she said and took a sip of wine. “Let’s talk about my trip for a moment. I plan to fly to Seattle tomorrow. If everything goes okay I should get in around four. I have a nine o’clock meeting the following morning. I expect to be home tomorrow evening, unless.”
“Unless?”
“Unless everything goes according to my hopes and dreams and I’m suddenly whisked in to meet Jeff Bezos.”
“Who?”
“Ahhh, Dev! Where have you been the last twenty plus years? Jeffrey Preston Bezos, born January twelfth, 1964. Founder and CEO of Amazon. If that guy wants to meet me, I’m there, no matter what it takes.”
“I wish you luck, I mean it. Wouldn’t that be cool if he wanted to see the product and you had to stay over?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“How are you planning to get to the airport?”
“I was gonna call a cab.”
“How about I give you a ride? I’d feel better knowing you got there safely, just for starters. Besides, with Luscious here, Iggy won’t be alone, and I’ll leave Morton, just to be sure.” Bonnie gave me a look like she wasn’t all that impressed.
* * *
She was up at six the following morning. Her flight left at two, but now, due to the improvements with TSA and the new security features, a three-hour, rather than two-hour lead time was recommended at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. It had gotten so bad that the head of the TSA had paid a visit, then, at no surprise, declared everything to be working splendidly. Our government at work.
I let Iggy know I was driving Bonnie to the airport, although, since she and I had talked about it in bed last night, I’m sure he already knew. I put Luscious in charge of security and Morton in charge of Luscious.
Our drive to the airport was uneventful. I kept my eyes on the road while Bonnie reviewed pages of notes. I parked the car at the airport rather than just drop her off at the curb.
“Dev, it’s really not necessary. The Delta counter is about ten feet on the other side of the door.”
“Yeah, I know, but just to be on the safe side. Depending on how desperate Wegger is, I want to see you get through security and be at least somewhat safe on the other side.”
“How very sweet and totally unnecessary,” she said, then went back to her notes.
If there was someone following, I never spotted them. She checked in at the kiosk, printed off a boarding pass, then wound her way through the forty-minute line to get through security. I stayed with her the entire time, looking around, and never spotted anyone even remotely suspicious other than a bald guy arguing with the TSA woman because he wanted to bring an expensive bottle of whiskey in his carry-on luggage. He ended up furious, red-faced, and whiskey-less, grumbling and swearing as he passed through the scanner. The TSA crowd couldn’t seem to wipe the smiles off their faces.
From the airport I made a quick stop at the office just to check mail.
“Oh, you out already?” Louie asked, looking up from his computer.
“What are you talking about?”
“The cops, they didn’t find you? They were here yesterday afternoon and again about two hours ago.”
“Cops?”
“Yeah, two plainclothes guys. I have to say, not much of a sense of humor. Left their cards on that stack of mail on your desk.”
“What’d they want?”
“They wouldn’t say. I even told them I was your attorney, all they did was smile. At least I think it was a smile.”
“Cops?”
“Yeah, cards say Major Crimes Division, Vice. Maybe a one-nighter you forgot to pay?”
“Very funny,” I said and sat down at my desk. I tossed the two business cards off to the side, then went through my mail, such as it was. I had a half-dozen grocery store circulars, two offers for cable TV, four or five credit card offers and a letter from my b
ank with a five-hundred-dollar returned check written to me from a client. The check was stamped ‘ACCOUNT CLOSED’. Perfect.
“Hey, look. I think those are the same two guys that were here earlier this morning,” Louie suddenly said. He was leaning back in his office chair, casually gazing out the window.
I picked up the binoculars I use to watch the girls in the third-floor apartment across the street. I didn’t recognize either guy stepping out of the car, but if you knew they were cops and then saw them, you’d say, “Oh yeah.”
Both were in sport coats, no ties, one had jeans, the other wore what looked like khaki slacks. They had to wait for a moment while a bus and a couple of cars passed before they crossed the street. Their car was a dark blue Ford Escort. Through the binoculars I could just make out the flashing lights setup positioned low in the rear window. As they crossed the street, the cop in jeans pointed to my Lancer and said something to his partner. The partner nodded and the two of them seemed to pick up their pace.
“I’m out of here, Louie. See if you can get them to step inside and close the door.”
“You don’t want to talk to them?” he called as I hurried out the door and down the hall. A moment later I heard the door to the building open and then footsteps on the stairs just as I pushed open the door to the ladies room.
I waited behind the door and counted to sixty, hoping they couldn’t hear my heart pounding from down the hall. Once I finished counting I cautiously opened the door and peeked out. God bless Louie, the office door was closed.
I hurried down the stairs, quietly opened and closed the door to the building and then hugged the front of the building until I was just opposite my car. I had my car keys in my hand, ran to the driver’s door, slid behind the wheel and prayed the beast would start. It did, thank God. I took a quick right at the corner, another right at the next and then drove down the block and parked on the side street. Even if they saw me take off, there was less than a slim chance they’d follow the route I’d taken. I waited a couple of minutes, didn’t see the dark blue Escort and quickly drove over to my place.
As I drew closer to my place I noticed a squad car parked across the street from the house. Two guys were sitting in the front seat, involved in an animated conversation of some sort. I just kept on driving, got on the interstate and headed toward Bonnie’s.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I pulled into Bonnie’s driveway and parked next to her car. I entered the garage through the side door and pressed the button to raise the garage door. I had to move some sort of plastic castle, two snow sleds, a wagon, a couple of bikes, a set of Hot Wheels, a doll buggy and a five-gallon bucket full of Legos before I’d cleared a space large enough to park. I pulled the Lancer into the garage, then lowered the door. I went into the house through the front door. Morton and Luscious remained asleep on the couch. An empty ice cream container with a spoon resting in the bottom sat on the coffee table. A plate that looked to have been licked clean and a fork lay next to Morton. An empty box of Hungry Jack pancake batter and an empty bottle of maple syrup sat on the kitchen counter next to the stove with the frying pan. Apparently, Luscious had made the two of them a small snack of a couple dozen pancakes.
I checked the backyard just because, made sure the board was still in position behind the sliding door, then ran downstairs and knocked on Iggy’s door. He responded after the third set of knocks.
“Yes?”
“Iggy, it’s Dev. Can we talk?”
The door opened a moment later and I stepped in.
“Problems, I’m guessing,” he said, then pulled the Mylar sheet just that much tighter around his shoulders and up over the back of his tin foil hat.
“You’re telling me,” I said, stepping into the darkness. I waited for him to close the door and made a mental note of the fact that at least he gave me enough time to enter the room.
“So tell me,” he said, heading for a chair once he closed the door.
I told him about the police looking for me, handed their business cards over to him, then told him about the squad car parked across the street from my house and how I just drove past and out here to Bonnie’s.
“And you’re sure they didn’t follow you?”
“I checked at least a half-dozen times. Took some strange turns, circled back, but thankfully never saw anything. When I got here, I cleared a space in the garage and pulled my car inside.”
“Did you check it for a tracking device?”
“A tracking device?”
“You know, the kind that attaches magnetically. It would most likely be around one of the bumpers, maybe in the wheel well or attached to the engine. Better go check now, just to be sure.”
“We watched them get out of their car. They hurried across the street and into the building, never stopped for a moment.”
“True, but weren’t you parked at the airport for an hour, maybe longer?”
I thought about that. “I’ll be back in a minute.” I hurried out to garage, got down on my hands and knees and gave the Lancer a thorough going over. There, just below the front bumper was a small black unit. About the size of the sort of magnetic box you’d maybe keep a spare key in. I had to pull it off using some force. I went into the house, grabbed Bonnie’s car keys then drove her car over toward the shopping mall where I planned to attach the box to another vehicle. Halfway to the mall I had to wait at a train crossing. Oil cars, and lots of them, moving slowly due to a curve before they headed for the straighter line that ran along the Mississippi, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. I was only the second car in line so I climbed out, took the box and walked to the tracks. Everyone sitting in cars seemed to be watching, no doubt wondering what I was going to do.
I attached the box to a slow moving oil car then walked back to the car, waited what seemed like another ten minutes before the crossing guards went up, then turned around in the first parking lot I came to and headed back toward Bonnie’s.
“You found something?” Iggy asked when he opened the door.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how long it’s been there. But it’s gone now,” I said then proceeded to explain. Even in the darkness I thought I detected a smile flash across his face when I told him about attaching the device to the oil car. “I might have another problem.”
“Oh?” he said, sitting down in front of the computers where I’d first met him.
“Yeah, I mentioned the two police officers who stopped at my office looking for me this morning, plainclothes, I’m guessing detectives. They were driving an unmarked car. While I was there, they returned and I had to sneak out of the building. I told you I drove past my house, and there was a squad car parked across the street. I’m guessing they were there waiting to see if I might show up.”
“Did you talk to them?”
“No, I just kept on going and came out here.”
“And you don’t know why they were looking for you?”
“No. They left their cards the first time. They’re with the Major Crimes Division, Vice.”
Iggy seemed to think for a moment. “Is your computer here?”
“No, it’s at my office and…”
My cellphone suddenly rang, Louie. “Here’s my office mate. Let me take this, I’ll get an update. Louie, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll send you my bill later. Hey, those cops are not too happy with the fact that you weren’t here. They saw your car out front when they came in.”
“What did they want?”
“Not exactly sure, they were going to tow your car, but obviously that didn’t work. They had a warrant for your computer. Thankfully, I wasn’t mentioned in the warrant, but I have a feeling they could be back to grab mine. I might be working out of that back room at The Spot for the next few days.”
“They took my computer?” I said and looked over at Iggy. He nodded, then rolled his chair in the opposite direction and fired up two more computers.
“Yeah, didn’t say much more, other than to try and
convince me the warrant covered everything in the office. They ran into a wall on that one,” Louie chuckled.
“Okay. Sorry for the hassle, Louie.”
“Not a problem, I’m packing up and heading to The Spot right now. I’ll probably be over there until I hear different from you.”
“Sorry, man,” I said again.
“Like I said, you’ll get my bill.”
“The police confiscated your computer?” Iggy said as I ended the call.
“Yeah, apparently they showed up with a warrant for the thing, and he had to let them take it. He’s my attorney,” I added, hoping that might add some credibility to the situation.
“We’ve probably got some time, but not much. Is your computer password-protected?”
“Sort of.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“Well, you need the password to open it, but I sort of have that always displayed so right now, when you just click the start button it comes on and you’ve kind of got access to everything.”
“What kind of a system is it?”
“System?”
Iggy took a deep breath and exhaled. “You don’t know what OS you have?”
“OS?”
“Operating System.”
“Not really.”
“Do you know the manufacturer?
“It has an HP on the front.”
“And how long have you had it?”
“God, let me think.” I couldn’t really remember the year I’d purchased the thing so I was counting back in girlfriends, Angie, Lisa, Mary Lou, Mai, Lisa again, AJ, Molly, Pattie, Rae Lynn, Carol, a couple of weekend getaways I was drawing a blank on, Heidi intermixed off and on with all of them.