Clean

by Tom Lytes

  “I bet you’re hungry,” Officer Pincus said.

  He pulled out his phone and dialed an island restaurant called Home Team Barbeque.

  “Hey, it’s Officer Pincus, and I’m at the old Denny Pelman place,” he said. “Is Ashley working today?”

  There was a pause and Peggy couldn’t make out the muffled words coming through Officer Pincus’s phone. She heard what sounded like the clatter of pots and pans and a busy bar in the background.

  Ashley must have been working, because Pincus said, “Yeah? Okay great. Can you ask him if he wouldn’t mind bringing down two dozen wings, and a rack of ribs? How about mashed potatoes and lima beans for the sides? Tell Ashley I said thank you.”

  “Fantastic plan to get delivery,” Peggy said, as she pulled plates and glasses from a glass fronted hutch.

  “They don’t usually deliver, but I helped the manager’s son. He’s a smart kid who was hanging around with some of the teenagers on the island, partying with their parent’s booze. His folks were concerned, and I stepped in.”

  “How?”

  “Got him an internship at the jail up in North Charleston.”

  “I’ve never heard of that. Is that common?”

  “Nope, kid only lasted two hours, but he’s been staying out of trouble.”

  Peggy laughed loudly. With food coming to them, they waited, looking at the magnetizing view. The crowd and vehicles around the alligator had left the beach, and a change in tide reset the beach to its smooth, untouched natural state. Two surfers floated on their boards far from the shore, barely visible under the darkening sky.

  Peggy wondered if the boys from up the street were bobbing in the water. How different their childhood memories must be compared to hers and Doyle’s, growing up in rural New York. She tried to find meaning in the puffy clouds that were hanging around and looked like they were waiting for something to do. She wondered if the clouds she was looking at would travel as far as New England and float over the horse pastures she once revered. She imagined they would. The clouds were one of the few sights in South Carolina that were the same as what she was used to seeing in New York. Everything else was different.

  Her thoughts circled back to Officer Pincus, who watched out the window, cloaked in the silence of his own deliberations.

  “I’m happy to have you come over and order take-out,” Peggy said to him, turning to face him, “but is there another reason why you’re here?”

  Officer Pincus smiled broadly.

  “As a matter of fact, there is. I was hoping we could see what might be done about Leonard’s computer program.”

  Peggy nodded. “Okay, great. I thought I would try to ask Leonard some questions and have been formulating a plan to do that. It would be great if you’d come along.”

  “Of course, you know that Leonard could refuse to speak with either of us. He has no obligation to say anything to you, Peggy, and if he doesn’t want me around, I can’t do much about it.”

  “True,” Peggy said, “but he called me when I was in New York to tell me about the program, or at least that I was on the list. I get the feeling he wants to talk.”

  “You may be right,” Officer Pincus said. Then, casually, he asked, “Did I mention that an Agent Finley from the FBI was meeting us here?”

  “What—” Peggy stammered, jumping from her seat. She looked down at her clothes, and into a small mirror ringed with sea shells that had the look of a school art project. “Finley’s coming here?”

  “The FBI has been somewhat adamant about becoming involved with your ongoing situation. It doesn’t strike me that they want to do anything other than watch you, know where you are. I’m guessing it has to do with the warrant, but like I said, I’m guessing.”

  “So, how’d we get Finley?” Peggy asked with her hands on her hips.

  “No idea what happened on their end, up in New York,” Officer Pincus said. “Might be good for your situation down here, though. Maybe it will take a little pressure off the DA, too, and the mayor of Charlest—”

  “The mayor of Charleston, were you going to say?” Peggy asked. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Officer Pincus said. “I’m obviously getting confused. At any rate, Agent Finley,” he checked his watch, “should be here about now.”

  There was a clatter at the door, and Peggy went to answer. It was the food delivery.

  During the ensuing bag hand-off Peggy said, “Wait a second, my wallet is inside.”

  The lanky twenty-something said, “Ashley says Pincus doesn’t pay.” He spun on a heal and went back to his hatchback that leaked a steady beat of rap music into the night air.

  Before Peggy shut the door, Agent Finley appeared in front of her, having approached on foot, making her jump in surprise. He looked handsome, and she checked his pants. Finley wore khakis over his white socks.

  “Ha, no pasty white legs,” thought Peggy.

  Finley mistook the smile for something else, “Hello, Peggy.”

  He came in for an embrace, with his arms extended. Peggy ducked a little and pivoted with the bags of food. Finley came up empty and awkward.

  “Great to see you, Peggy,” Finley said, following a few steps behind Peggy to the kitchen.

  Peggy worked hard at saying nothing, at looking ahead and revealing little about her own attraction to Finley. She was glad he’d come, but not yet ready to admit it.

  Officer Pincus stood when they entered the kitchen, and he extended his hand to Finley, “Pincus.”

  “Agent Finley.”

  With the elaborate “hellos” out of the way, a silence gripped the room. Peggy collected another plate and set it down for Finley. She opened the metal containers of wings, mashed potatoes, and stewed collard greens.

  “Surprised to see you down here, Fin,” she said.

  “I told you I was coming.”

  Peggy retorted, “What, you tell me everything now?” She smiled like she was giving him a hard time. “Since when?”

  “I’ll serve us up,” Officer Pincus said. “Finley, we were discussing when and how to approach Leonard. I understand you’re a computer whiz yourself. Anything you can share with us about the type of program he’s created, this Clean?”

  “Yeah, Finley, tell us what you think,” Peggy said, seriously. “It seems like if we could find the computer hosting Clean, we could destroy it once and for all. The problem is, we don’t know where it’s being hosted. Maybe there would be a way to find it?”

  “You mean start looking at likely places it might go?” Finley asked, as he loaded a plate with mashed potatoes. “There’s no telling. It’s purposefully made hard to find, so it couldn’t be stopped. I believe it jumps hosts daily.”

  “There must be a way to lure it to us, instead of trying to find it. Can you build a perfect host computer,” Peggy asked? “One that Clean couldn’t resist. One that it would find because it would fit its host match criteria like no other.”

  “Of course, theoretically,” Finley said. “We wouldn’t have to build anything. Leonard would have used something called a supercomputer as the ideal.”

  “Okay, so what’s a supercomputer?” Pincus asked.

  Finley said, “It’s a computer that has an extremely high computational capacity. That basically means it can process a tremendous amount of data, extremely quickly. Sometimes they’re created to solve a task with computers in a network. In that scenario, lots of individual computers take on one piece of a task or problem and integrate data at a central point. Those aren’t hard to create. It can be done with laptops throughout the country, bound together by a network. Otherwise a supercomputer is created by clustering large processors in a single room.”

  “I have never heard of such a thing,” Peggy said. “Who would need something like that?”

  “Well, one relatable
use for a supercomputer is weather forecasting. Accuracy depends on data volume, I’m told. And scientists use supercomputers to analyze chemical compounds, really all kinds of things. Boeing engineers use them to study the aerodynamics of planes, and to simulate flying and, uh, crash scenarios.”

  “Oh, wow,” Peggy said. She was on her feet now and animated. “How many of these supercomputers are there?”

  “Very few in the United States,” Finley explained. “The list and analysis of each supercomputer gets published in magazines and in the tech sections of the business papers. It comes out every year.”

  “We could start there and see where we could find one.”

  “It won’t be enough to know where one is,” Finley said. “We have to get access to it. They’re heavily guarded, in buildings designed to house them safely. There’s a lot of money wrapped up in these supercomputers. Even with me belonging to the FBI and our law enforcement background, it’s unlikely anyone will want us to go poking around in their supercomputer.”

  “Well, forget about that complication, for the moment,” Peggy said, thinking past it, “just for a second, anyway. Let’s assume we can get access to one. What then?”

  “I guess the way you could make one of those computers irresistible to the program would be if it had a tremendous amount of empty storage space,” Finley said. “I’d have to think about how to make it attractive beyond that, but I could probably guess the criteria Leonard built into the algorithm.”

  Peggy hopped up and was pacing now. “That makes sense to me. That sounds good.”

  Finley said, “Only, it would be impossible to create storage space on one of them. They’re kind of being used right now.”

  “Well, who has these computers?” Peggy asked.

  “I checked. There’s one nearby. Clemson University, an hour or so drive from here has one. Like I said, there is a financial commitment to owning one, so we’re lucky one is so close. They’re expensive to buy, and the electricity alone to keep it from overheating can cost millions of dollars over the life of the computer. Then there’s upkeep and software. It takes a lot of labor to keep it running smoothly.”

  “I see,” Peggy said.

  It was Finley’s turn to become animated. His head was tilted to the side as he started pacing.

  “And supercomputers can be divided into two groups,” he said. “One group tries to solve many small questions with a focus on capacity. The other group processes immense amounts of data to solve one question.”

  Peggy thought about that. “Wouldn’t the program make a distinction between the two? I would imagine it just needs the capacity type to decide the guilt or innocence of people on the list.”

  “You’d think so,” Finley said. His hands fell to his sides and it looked as though his eyes were focusing on a distant point. “I just don’t know if Leonard’s program would end its work there, though. I mean what’s the real point? It eliminates the bad seeds in society, but in the context of the planet that would be a blip of social engineering. The more I thought about Leonard’s program, the more I realized it how it would be held together, logically. It’s likely trying every night at midnight to answer a question.”

  Peggy became still. “What question?”

  “Could be anything. Like what traits in humankind need to be eliminated to create utopia on earth,” Finley said. “Or, in the end, should all of humankind be terminated? There are a lot of deviations, but you get the idea.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope, no, I’m not.”

  Finley said, “Getting the program into a supercomputer could allow me to disrupt it, if we knew it was there. We wouldn’t need access for long. The critical time would be when the program batches data, I think. That’s when it considers a new host computer for itself. At that very moment, it would run the cost benefit analysis of moving. If the supercomputer was available, and unbelievably attractive, it would take it.”

  Pincus asked, “What’s that really mean, y’all?”

  “We try to lure it in and kick its ass.”

  “Ah, right.” Peggy turned to Officer Pincus. “How do we get access to a computer at Clemson or wherever at midnight?”

  “I don’t know,” Officer Pincus said. “It sounds kind of like a fairytale gone bad, doesn’t it? We need to be with the supercomputer at the stroke of midnight to stop the evil program.”

  “Maybe I have an idea on how we can accomplish that,” Peggy said.

  She grabbed a chicken wing on a napkin, and dialed Bobby Touro’s phone number.

  25

  Mr. Warchester sat in the parking lot of the Fishkill State Penitentiary Facility. As he often did after spending time with his son, he processed the visit’s details in the parking lot. Sometimes he came up with ways to help his son. Today was different.

  The barbed wire fence along the periphery of the property butted up against the large expanse of grass that separated the parking lot from the prison yard. There weren’t any inmates outside, and if you took away the guys with the high-powered rifles, the prison dogs that roamed the grounds, the watch towers, the security cameras, and the miles of razor wire, the prison and yard looked exactly like the recess area of the middle school a few blocks away.

  He hadn’t seen Peggy Whitfield since the day she came by the farm to watch the hay go down. Rhodes brought her up today and had been specific, almost authoritative in his demands.

  He’d said, “Find Peggy Whitfield, and tell her to steer clear of Bobby Touro for the next couple weeks.”

  Not expecting the response it would elicit, Mr. Warchester laughed and made a comment that his son shouldn’t worry. Peggy wouldn’t be with Bobby Touro anyway. Rhodes stared at him coldly and then went berserk. He attempted to come through the tempered glass of the visiting facility and his flesh left sweat marks all over the glass.

  Mr. Warchester watched in shock as his son screamed, “Is it that hard? Listen to me. It won’t be safe for her to be around him right now.” He pounded his fist on the glass, “I don’t ask you for anything. I take care of myself in here. I’m taking care of my business. All I ask is one simple favor and you can’t just shut up and do it?”

  Mr. Warchester sat looking stunned at the violent outburst as guards appeared out of nowhere and circled his son. He watched as Rhodes hit one of the guards in the throat with his knuckles, spun and kicked another in the chest – knocking him down, and dropped an elbow on the last one’s knee as he avoided being hit by a baton. The sound of more guards coming quickly became deafening as boots scampered on pavement. Security doors slammed. Mr. Warchester was dragged from the visiting area, and when he looked at his son, Rhodes was standing up close to the glass, ignoring the fast-approaching guards.

  “Find her and tell her. Find her and tell her. Find her and tell her,” he repeated until the wave of guards and batons and fists took him from view.

  It seemed hard to believe all that happened less than ten minutes ago, and now, Mr. Warchester was in his truck. He wondered what really happened behind the brick walls that helped incarcerate so many men’s sons.

  Why would Rhodes need him to tell Peggy to stay away from Touro? What could possibly be going on with his son, Bobby Touro, and Peggy after all these years?

  And how did his son learn to fight like that? Were those karate moves he used to overpower three guards?

  26

  Bobby Touro’s phone rang and after looking to see it was Peggy calling, he let it go to voicemail.

  “I got life and death calls coming in here that I’m not answering,” he said to his driver, who was standing next to him. “Where the fuck is Jimmy?”

  They were in Lowell, Massachusetts by the Tsongas Center, an indoor stadium. To Bobby Touro the stadium was the byproduct of a huge out of state contract for the construction arm of his business. He kept a presence in the ar
ea long after the stadium was built, and he took bit parts in a bunch of the factory conversions that created the Lowell campus of the University of Massachusetts. And it wasn’t just the campus. The 1990’s were incredible for Lowell, as dozens of abandoned factories found new life and, through it all, Bobby made a fortune. That was then. Now Bobby and his driver were looking over the river that ran through Lowell. Once, it’s flow of water powered just about everything, right up until the textile business crumbled.

  “Can you remind me why I come here anymore?” Bobby asked. “For ten years, it hasn’t been worth the trouble. All the drugs coursing through the community and nothing happening except big profits for drug dealers. I swear, there isn’t enough business coming through here to justify my time. And it ain’t gonna go back to what it was. And fucking Jimmy can’t tell time.”

  “Maybe they get a casino?” his driver asked. “I don’t know, boss. That’s why we keep coming. Maybe we oughta stop, though. Maybe you’re right. You been complaining about coming here a lot recently.”

  “I got more on my mind now, and Lowell doesn’t pay,” Bobby said as he thrust his hands into his pockets and looked around for Jimmy. “It used to be great, and we keep hoping for something more, like the casino, and that would be stupendous. I just don’t know if it’ll ever happen.”

  “Yeah, the casino would be good,” his driver said.

  “But it probably won’t happen,” Bobby said. “The government spent three-hundred million dollars to turn this place around and look at what that bought. It’s a failure. The money helped, but you know as well as I do, these people are born to work in the factories. It’s in their blood. When you take that away, it’s hard to change.”

  His driver said, “Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, but when I look around like you’re telling me, I don’t see all bad. This right here would be a nice spot if you could get rid of the idiots that remind you that Lowell isn’t so nice.”