Clean

by Tom Lytes

  “Sure thing,” the ranger said as he continued towards the museum. “You have a good day, now.”

  “You too,” Bobby said. “Oh, and can I ask you what’s going on over there?”

  Bobby pointed to the group of firemen, who were still hanging around near the metal building, talking. The ranger craned his neck to see and squinted his eyes.

  “Over at the shed?” the ranger asked.

  Bobby didn’t know what the shed was, so he pointed over to the general area of the firemen and nodded.

  “Oh, them boys are getting ready for the Fish Fry,” the ranger said. “It’s a great time with a band and some of the best fried fish you’ll likely eat. It’s a fundraiser every year, and the proceeds go to the fire department. A lot of people in town’ll turn out for it.”

  “Oh,” Bobby said, “right, the fish fry.”

  “I think you can get some tickets still - all you can eat, it is. Anyway, with the big ship on fire, they pushed back the date of the Fish Fry, and it’s tomorrow.”

  “Thanks for the information,” Bobby said.

  He was happy to know the firemen were assembled for such a benign reason, and glad that he didn’t drive through the group.

  He watched as the police cruiser, the one he’d seen after Hansel and Roger were vaporized, come around the corner on Middle Street. Turning to the left on a residential street before the church, it pulled into the driveway of a small shack. Bobby watched the policeman get out of the car and carefully look around, open the trunk, and extract something wrapped up in a tarp. At first, Bobby thought it might be a body, but then it wasn’t bulky enough. The policeman dragged it to the garage next to the shack and closed the door. After a good five minutes, he emerged and turned on the flashers of the squad car and drove Middle Street towards the Porsche wreckage. Bobby watched wisps of smoke rise and disperse and said a silent prayer for what he thought could be last gasp of Hansel’s and Roger’s souls.

  Bobby wore blue jeans, sneakers, and a Yankees shirt, and suddenly felt self-conscious as he slid from the Dodge’s seat. When the ranger looked him up and down, what did he see? Bobby’s white skin made him look like a guy on vacation, he thought. Maybe that was all. Walking from Stella Maris Church, he crossed Middle Street, strolled through a public parking area, and was on the beach in a few steps. In the foreground, the charred, colossal ship reminded Bobby of Newark, where he grew up behind the power plant. It served as a reminder that bad things happen everywhere, even in a bucolic place like Sullivan’s Island. Life couldn’t be all park rangers taking out the trash and fish fry gatherings.

  Close to the end of the island, Bobby walked until he was in line with the Porsche wreck, and came off the beach into Leonard’s yard. Rather than walk up the bright white wooden path that led through the dune and into the pretty, grassy yard, he jumped over the fence to approach the house more slyly. Porches and windows faced the beach and if somebody inside looked at the water, he’d be spotted, so Bobby took his time and tried to look like a misguided tourist. When he arrived at the base of the raised house, sprinklers were irrigating the lawn with a vengeance, and there wasn’t a dry passage to the front of the property. He inched his way along the lattice work until he could see the driveway out to Middle Street. There were a couple firetrucks out front, a huge all-terrain truck with big tires, a tow truck, and another police cruiser which just arrived. Standing at the foot of Leonard’s driveway, Bobby got a glimpse of the policeman he saw earlier, his hands on his hips watching everything unfold in front of him. It had to be Pincus.

  A pre-programmed change occurred to the watering cycle of Leonard’s yard, because suddenly, sprinkler heads all around Bobby popped out of the ground and started to spray ice cold water everywhere. Bobby’s wet sneakers squeaked as he ran for cover along the house. In his haste, he became less aware of his surroundings, which would explain why he didn’t see the golf club before it hit him square in the back and caused him to faceplant in the wet grass. When he turned to look, Peggy stood over him, her eyes intent on causing damage. Then she recognized him.

  She whispered, “Bobby, what the hell are you doing here? And why are you sneaking around like that?”

  “The cop blew up my guys,” Bobby said as he blinked several times, trying to see straight. “I saw him do it.”

  “What— wait— he blew those guys up?” Peggy asked. Her expression hardened. “Your guys suck. The orders you gave them suck. The Clean program sucks, and you really suck.”

  Bobby started to stand, and Peggy hit him again with the golf club.

  “What was that for?” Bobby asked after he stumbled and fell back onto the wet ground.

  Peggy let him stand. “Don’t play me, Bobby. I know you made plans beyond stopping the program. Don’t try to deny it.”

  “You’re right,” Bobby said, rubbing his head. “I did. I’ve changed now, though. I’m changing my life.”

  Peggy cocked the golf club like she’d hit him again before she lowered it and motioned for him to follow her. Peggy led Bobby under the house where they climbed a stairwell leading to Leonard’s kitchen. Peggy sent Bobby up before her.

  “You have enough wet grass on you to feed a herd of cows,” she said.

  Bobby didn’t answer, and he didn’t say anything until they met up with Finley and Leonard.

  Finley jumped from his computer. “Bobby Touro.”

  “Finley,” Bobby said. “Glad you could take time out from Ms. Bourgeaux.”

  “You? Was it you who spoke to the paper?”

  Bobby said dismissively, “What are you talking about? Leonard here, or what?”

  “He’s in the bathroom,” Finley said.

  “This fucking program got the FBI working with a psycho, huh Peggy? Anything less likely than Finley and Leonard working together?”

  Peggy didn’t answer, and Bobby didn’t hesitate to continue. He wiped wet grass clippings off the front of his shirt.

  “Not that I’m complaining. Clean blew up my life, got me down to this hot as anything place. I’m here for two fucking minutes and have a front row seat to see my guys vaporized by a land missile.”

  Leonard came back into the room and went to his laptop.

  “Bobby,” Leonard said.

  “Any closer to ending this mess?” Bobby asked.

  Leonard shook his head.

  He said, “The bloodiest day in three decades got blamed on gang violence yesterday. Hundreds of gunshot deaths in Chicago, Los Angelos, Tampa, Kansas City, and St. Louis.”

  “They’re saying it’s a gang war?” Bobby asked.

  “Finley might be able to find more specific information,” Leonard said, “but that’s what the authorities think, according to the newspapers.”

  “But it’s Clean,” Bobby said.

  “Yes,” Leonard said.

  “What about my fucking guys outside?” Bobby asked, pointing towards the Porsche explosion.

  Leonard pulled a map graphic onto his laptop.

  “Clean isn’t claiming your guys, Bobby. Somebody else killed them.”

  “It was the psycho cop, the one you were talking about, Peggy,” Bobby said. “I saw Officer Pincus blow up that Porsche as it left the driveway,” Peggy said.

  Leonard vocalized what they all thought. “Officer Pincus must have thought you were in the car. He tried to kill you, Peggy.”

  She said, “Clean has Officer Pincus freaking out. He’s changed and acted weird during the ship fire.”

  Bobby said, “Yeah, well, he killed my guys. And I’m not going to even ask why they were leaving in your Porsche, Leonard.”

  “At least I have two Porsches,” Leonard said.

  The comment sat there like an uneaten, extra desert after a big meal. Anyone could have dug in and taken the conversation wherever they wanted, but nobody wanted it. Bobby seemed to visibly switc
h gears, content to watch everything closely without making comments. The atmosphere felt charged, all of them in the same room, gathered uneasily with the hope that together they could overcome Leonard’s program.

  Bobby glared at Leonard impatiently, as if he could perform a miracle right then and there.

  He said, “Peggy’s name was added to Clean manually. It wasn’t when the computer was just doing its thing, and then people started getting killed randomly.”

  Bobby nodded and shrugged. As he started drying off, grass fell off his body as he did, encircling him in a small ring of it.

  “Now two other names have been added,” Leonard said.

  “Two others?” Peggy asked.

  “Who?” Bobby said.

  “Carson Miller is one of them. Isn’t he a politician or something?” Leonard asked.

  “Carson Miller?” Bobby asked.

  He clenched his hands in fists, as he glared around the room. It looked like he was figuring something out.

  “Yes, he’s a politician,” Peggy said. “And he’s a good, good friend of Bobby’s. Who’s the other?” Peggy asked.

  “Santrelle Simonson,” Leonard said. “Ever heard of her?”

  “No,” Peggy said.

  “I met her once,” Bobby said thoughtfully, “with Carson Miller.”

  “Let me pull up a picture of her if I can find one,” Leonard said as he typed some more. “Wow, she’s extremely wealthy. She founded Pro-F Cosmetics and sold it for three billion dollars two years ago. But why her?”

  When Bobby spoke, he sounded like the old Bobby Touro, in charge and authoritative. The problem was, he looked like the air filter on a lawn mower – dusty and half covered with grass.

  “She, I can see,” Bobby said. “Sometimes when you’re rich you collect more enemies on the path to those riches than I have stones in my gravel driveway. It’s him that I find curious. Why Carson Miller?”

  Leonard pulled up pictures from an internet search.

  “I’m not feeling great about hanging around here,” Peggy said. “Officer Pincus is busy with the Porsche out there, but he probably realizes by now that he didn’t kill me. How long does it take for him to come over here and finish me off?”

  When nobody said anything in response, Peggy walked to the front window and looked out at Officer Pincus, prowling at the foot of Leonard’s driveway, pacing back and forth.

  “Bobby,” she asked. “Why did you come down here?”

  “When Clean found me guilty,” he said quietly, “I needed to break routine, and I’m not going on vacation at a time like this. So, I came down to see what I might do to put an end to the program, and help. Besides,” he said softly, “I don’t trust Leonard.”

  Peggy nodded. Her eyes lingered on Bobby as if she was seeing him differently, and it wasn’t just because he wasn’t sharply dressed in a suit.

  “Wait,” Leonard said, spinning his computer. “Here’s a picture of Carson Miller and Santrelle Simonson together. Oh…”

  “Who’s the guy in the middle?” Bobby asked. “I feel like I saw that guy before.”

  “I don’t know, but they obviously know each other,” Peggy said. “Look at the body language between Carson Miller, Santrelle Simonson and the other guy. They look comfortable.”

  “They sure do,” Bobby said.

  Peggy went back to check on Officer Pincus. He was still hard at work, pacing along the crease of the driveway to Leonard’s house.

  “I know that guy,” Leonard said. “His name is Rube.”

  45

  “So, what?” Bobby Touro asked, looking annoyed and suddenly impatient. “You recognize some little squirt in a picture. Shouldn’t we be on the way to Clemsum right now with a battering ram and a case of C4 explosives? What’s everyone sitting around for? You guys forget the plan or something?”

  In response to Bobby’s fiery response, Peggy pushed at the air in front of her to try and calm him down. She said, “The plan may have changed, Bobby. Leonard and Finley might have come up with a way to destroy the program without having to lure it to Clemson’s supercomputer.”

  Finley nodded, and said, “It’s less risky, too. What if the program fails to move into the Clemson supercomputer as it’s host? Ever? I don’t think we can afford to hang around.”

  “Finley,” Bobby said. “Maybe you don’t fucking remember that my name is on the list now. I just dropped out of my life, leaving countless situations behind that demand my immediate attention. And I drove a thousand miles in an old pickup truck with no air conditioning. Do I look to you like a guy who wants to hang around?”

  “Uh… no,” Finley said as he buried his head back in the computer. “You definitely don’t look like you want to hang around.”

  “So, tell me about this new plan,” Bobby said.

  Finley spoke up.

  “Well, we thought we might find an inroad to the program when Peggy’s name was manually added to the guilty list. I’ve been looking into it, and now I know we can figure this out without going to Clemson.”

  “You found something new?” Peggy asked.

  “Yeah,” Finley said, “When you were outside talking to Bobby’s guys we saw how the new names were added to Clean, and—”

  “That guy Rube is important in this,” Leonard said.

  “No, Carson Miller is important,” Bobby said. “He’s going to be the president one day. The other lady is a billionaire, so somebody probably thinks she’s important too. I dunno, but I’m guessing.” He pointed to the photo of Rube. “That guy is just a hanger-on.”

  Leonard was nodding up and down and left his computer. He was moving fast, but going nowhere, and talking fast too.

  “Look,” he said. “That may be, but Rube’s the guy who gave me money and acted as a go-between for whoever controls the program. That’s him.”

  He pointed to Rube again, his image blown up on the laptop, in a photo cozying up to Carson Miller and Santrelle Simonson. The three of them dressed in formal attire with champagne glasses held high in the air.

  Bobby pointed a fat finger at Rube’s photo.

  “That’s the guy then? That’s our connection to the Clean program?”

  “I think so. Before, I had no context for him, and when we met I’d never seen him before,” Leonard said. “With the picture, and in context of Carson Miller, I figured it out. He’s Carson Miller’s campaign manager, and chief policy advisor.”

  “Carson Miller’s campaign would definitely endorse the work of the program,” Peggy said, thinking through the details. “It’s almost like the program was made for his candidacy.”

  “It sure does,” Bobby said. “And if I know people at all, Santrelle might be the one funding the program, and helping Carson Miller get elected. The three of them could be in it together, thick as thieves with their scheming.”

  “Maybe something went a little awry with the trio,” Peggy said. “Maybe there’s a rift between them.”

  “And maybe Rube decided to take the other two right out of the picture,” Bobby said as he made a fist and slammed it on the table. “That’s pretty cold to input their names manually.”

  “Tell me about it,” Peggy said.

  “I think that’s what happened,” Leonard said, nodding.

  Finley chimed in, “It makes sense.”

  Peggy said, “But I can’t see why anybody would manually put my name into the program.”

  “Maybe they were afraid you were figuring them out,” Leonard said with a shrug. “If they thought you were onto them with your investigation of the murders in New York, they might’ve wanted to get rid of you.”

  She looked out the front window again, and Officer Pincus was gone. So were most of the emergency personnel and their trucks.

  “I wonder where Officer Pincus went,” Peggy said. “He’s not pacing
out front— has he gone totally crazy?”

  “We’ll keep a look out for him,” Bobby said as he walked back and forth from the front window of Leonard’s house to the back. “You don’t wanna be staying here too long, though. You’re a sitting duck for a guy who’s willing to blow up a car on a residential street in the middle of the day.”

  Peggy nodded and went back to the window.

  “But I wanna know what you geniuses came up with to stop Clean.” Bobby said. “We can help Peggy run, but there needs to be a stop to this, once and for all.”

  “We need to make the program turn on Rube before it moves again,” Leonard said.

  “Maybe Clean finds him guilty.”

  “What good is that going to do anyone?” Bobby asked.

  “Wait,” Finley said. “It’s a good idea. If Rube inputted Carson and Santrelle’s names to the computer, to do that, Finley’s server will have directly communicated with the host of Clean. We want to make him do it again.”

  “We’ll fill the internet with Rube’s crimes and bad behavior, making up horrible stuff,” Leonard said. “He’ll worry the program is going to find him guilty and try to kill him.”

  “And who would he go to for answers?” Bobby asked, and then answered his own question. “He’s going to look at the people he just threw under the bus: Santrelle and Carson. He’ll blame them for the smear campaign.”

  “I think so,” Leonard said.

  Peggy asked, “What’s that going to do to end the program? If those three are behind it, what good does it do if they go after each other. The program will continue to do its thing with or without them, right?”

  “I can track the program through Rube, though, if he’s the one inputting names in there,” Leonard said. “Maybe I can take the thing back over if I can access what he can. Then it’s a simple matter of sending it a virus that makes the coding implode on itself.”

  “We set the three of them against each other,” Finley said, “And spy on Rube’s computers until he logs into the program. Then we get the passwords, or whatever, for access and shut it down.”