King of Code

by CD Reiss

  “Help me over to the steps.”

  We guided him over as he grunted and winced the entire way. A woman ran over to help.

  “Johnny, you done it again.” She had the exhausted impatience of a woman who’d committed herself to a real pain in the ass.

  “I’m fine,” he complained.

  We put him on the step. It was the only place to sit.

  “Take it easy,” the woman said. “We can’t afford you to miss work.”

  Kyle pulled off his hat and scratched his scalp. “If we want to paint this floor on Saturday, we gotta clean it up today.”

  “I’ll shovel his shit,” I said.

  “No, no, no,” Johnny protested.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Kyle said. “Be a nice break from your ranting and raving.”

  “I’ll carry my own weight.” Johnny started to get up, but he cringed and flopped back down.

  “I tell you what,” I said. “I shovel your shit, and you give me back my watch.”

  He shrugged and shook his wrist as if he really liked my watch and didn’t want to give it up.

  “Oh,” the woman said. “This is your watch?”

  “It’s mine now,” Johnny said. “And California here won’t last an hour doing actual work.”

  I picked up his shovel. “I’m Taylor. This is my watch. And my back’s in great shape.”

  “I’m Pat,” the woman said. “Shovel for my husband, would you? He doesn’t need another watch. He only has two wrists.”

  I nodded to her and turned to Kyle. “What are we doing?”

  Kyle showed me the piles of shit and where they went. Then I spent the morning pushing garbage across the floor, into bags, and down the chute. Someone brought music. Fights broke out over “angry white guys screaming,” “your bumpkin bullshit,” and “taco Tuesday tunes.” No one seemed to get deeply offended, but the insults flowed equally between everyone. They were joined by a common goal—seduce Everett Fitzgerald with a spiffy factory.

  I didn’t think Fitz would be moved by a clean floor as much as a cost-effective deal, but it wasn’t my job to save them from disappointment. I didn’t say much because breathing was hard enough. Shit was heavy, and I had a point to prove. I didn’t have the energy to spare on anyone’s musical taste.

  By the time lunch was announced, I was a mess of sweat and I smelled like a landfill. Card tables and grills had been set out in the parking lot with ceviche, burgers, asada, and hot dogs. Children ran underfoot in a never-ending game of tag.

  “Get away from the river!” Catherine roared at one of them, her gentleness turned to fire.

  The kid in question froze then spun away from the tall reeds.

  “She’s got a wild animal inside her,” I said to Harper, who had just straddled the bench next to me with a plate of tacos.

  “Yeah. With the kids especially.”

  “Thought you were over tacos?”

  “I changed my mind.” She tilted her head to get a taco to her lips. Hair dropped over her cheek and threatened to dive bomb into her lunch.

  I flicked it back and over her ear. She had the taco in her mouth when her eyes went a little wider in surprise. The gesture was too intimate. I knew it before I got the hair all the way over.

  Harper wasn’t the only one looking at me as if I’d just shit my pants. I couldn’t swear every single eye was on me, but Catherine and Johnny, who was flat on his back in the bed of his truck, had their heads tilted our way.

  “Sorry.”

  She spoke around her chewing. “I’m sorry, actually.”

  “Really?”

  The afternoon wind was picking up, and she pulled another lock of hair out of her mouth before I could.

  “Yeah. We have a deal. You put out, and I didn’t pay up.”

  “Way to make a guy feel like a whore.”

  She shrugged. “You’ll live.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I broke into your room… but not really.”

  “You know the saying about the snake?”

  “The one that bites you because… what did you expect? It’s a fucking snake?”

  “That one.” She faced into the wind, blowing her hair away from her face.

  I took the last bite of hamburger. A triangle of tomato fell out and landed on my shirt. Harper took a napkin out of her pocket and wiped me.

  “Stop.” I took the napkin. “This is the cleanest thing that’s touched this shirt all day.”

  She smiled, chewing a wad of taco in one side of her mouth. She had a charming, unself-conscious efficiency about the way she chewed her food and spoke volumes with her expression at the same time. She was an open book written in a code I was just starting to understand.

  I could have watched her eat for a long time, but a cry came out from the second floor.

  “Barrington ladies!” It was Damon, who I’d seen in passing by the dumpsters. His tattooed arms leaned on a second-floor ledge, and the sun made two reflective dots on his sunglasses.

  Harper shaded her eyes and turned his way. Her body was curved to click into what mine wanted. It was like math. Only exact figures balanced the equation.

  “What?” she called.

  “The office is locked,” Damon shouted.

  “So?”

  “Did Daddy give you the key?”

  The word daddy had a venom I hadn’t heard all day. It burned with acidic meaning and was thick with leisurely intent, yet it was subtle enough to pretend you didn’t hear it.

  “I’ll be right up!” Catherine called back. She was as sweet as always but with an edge of impatience, as if she was telling Damon not to fuck with her.

  Harper sighed as Catherine walked away with a ring of keys. “I’d better go too.” To me, she said, “You finish eating.”

  When she walked away, her ass swayed and her hair flew in every direction. With her curves and the way she moved them, I had no choice but to follow. I could eat later.

  XXXVI

  Hacking real life was at least as good as finding weaknesses in code. Once Keaton and I had learned how to pick a lock, opening doors became as much of an addiction as building profiles. We’d find a single piece of information about a person, tack it onto another piece we found on a Tor site, grab a birthday from social media, uncover an address from the mortgage rolls. We skimmed just enough to not get caught, only buying things where our marks bought things. I didn’t excuse it. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway.

  Until the pure code hacks, which were sexier, more difficult, and got the most esteem from the boys in the hacker forums.

  I hacked my dad first but didn’t take anything. The pure rush was being able to do it. I had power over him. In retrospect, that moment where I looked at his bank account without him knowing was the moment I became a man.

  Life was a problem to be hacked. It was never about money. It felt good.

  As soon as I saw Catherine struggling with the dozens of keys on the ring, I wanted to cut the shit and hack the problem. But Damon, Harper, two other guys, and myself just watched, quickly alternating between impatience, anticipation, hope, and disappointment, in that order.

  I knew the lock, and I knew the type of key. It would be a Kwikset with the three triangle cutouts on top. But she went through every single one.

  “Come on, princess.” Damon’s face was clammy, and he kept rubbing his hands on his jeans.

  “Hang on.” Catherine isolated a silver key. The last one, and it was a Kwikset.

  Anticipation, hope, impatience, disappointment as the key didn’t turn the lock.

  She dropped the ring.

  “You are so useless.” Damon scooped up the keys and gave them to her.

  I didn’t know Catherine, but I wanted to punch Damon.

  Harper snapped at him before I could react. “There’re no loose Fentanyl bottles in there, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “Fuck you, you rich little cunt. You don’t know shit about—”

  He had me at cunt. I had the
advantage of surprise, pushing my forearm against his throat and his head against the dirty wall. “What did you say?”

  The pressure on his esophagus didn’t temper his hostility, which was fine with me. I wasn’t ready for the apology Harper deserved.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Taylor.” Harper’s voice, behind me. Far, far away.

  “Don’t talk to her like that.”

  He pushed me hard against the opposite wall.

  “Damon!” Catherine, miles away.

  “You push a broom and think you’re one of us?”

  In a split second, Damon and I were locked hand-to-face-to-shoulder-knee-in-stomach-defense-offense-defense-offense. He had worked with his body his whole life, putting me at a disadvantage, but he wasn’t just fighting me. He was fighting whatever made him sweaty and shaky.

  Damon’s friend, whose name I never learned, just lit a cigarette. Catherine and Harper worked as a team, splitting us. I wound up against the wall with Harper’s hand on my chest.

  I pointed over her shoulder at Damon. “I’ll pick this lock if you leave now.”

  “You pick the lock?” Damon sneered. “Bullshit.”

  “Get out of here,” I sneered back.

  “I get it. Money sticks to money. Fine. Fuck it. Pick the fucking lock.”

  “Just wanted to mop the fucking floor.” Damon’s friend regarded the tip of his cigarette then flicked off the ash.

  I held my hand out for the keys. Catherine dropped them into my palm. I flicked through the club member cards, snapped the thickest one into the right shape, and was in the office in thirty seconds. There was nothing but an overturned desk and empty shelves. Huge windows looked out onto the halfway-clean factory floor.

  I stepped out of the way and let Cigarette Man kick his wheeled yellow bucket through the doorway. Damon made a point to brush against me on the way out.

  I almost shoved him, but Harper vise-gripped my arm. I snapped out of it.

  “You dropped a bunch of stuff.” She pointed toward the hall floor.

  I picked up my wallet, a pen, and the napkin she’d used to wipe tomato off my shirt. It had fallen open, revealing a row of numbers written in marker.

  “You really should pay better attention,” she said softly. “You almost threw it away. And I wasn’t writing it again.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s—”

  “I need your phone again.”

  She handed me the black rectangle. When it hit my hand, it woke up. I saw the wallpaper. Harper from just below, with her blowing hair, indecisive eyes, and the factory outlined against the blue sky behind her. She looked powerful, confident, the muse for a revolution.

  “Oh, the code.” She took the phone and hit the glass with her thumb. “Here.”

  She handed it to me, the photo safely tucked behind the keypad screen.

  I wasn’t scared. Not that. But something closer to freaked out.

  And not at her.

  At myself. At how easily I handled her power over me and how badly I wanted her at the same time.

  “I’ll use the one in the house.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I kissed her without thinking then ran, but I had to make a stop at the lunch tables first.

  XXXVII

  Kyle scrubbed down the grill with a wire brush as everyone packed up the paper plates and leftover food.

  “Kyle, I need you to watch Harper.” I told him what had happened with Damon outside the office.

  “Saw him leave a minute ago. Probably getting a fix. But I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “Thank you.”

  I ran back to the house, pounding over the bridge, through the reeds, past the thorn garden, napkin crumpled in my hand, until I got to the kitchen, which looked like a culinary bomb had hit it. This must have been lunch central. I picked up the receiver and stared at the clear plastic circle.

  What was Deeprak’s number?

  My grandmother had made fun of me one Christmas because I didn’t know any of the numbers in my phone. She then recited every number she’d ever learned. By the end of dinner, we were singing the number my mother grew up with. Grandma still lived there.

  I dialed. It took forever.

  “Hello?”

  “Grandma?” She was pretty deaf. I had to yell. “Hi, it’s—”

  “Taylor?”

  “Yes. Do you—”

  “What are you doing all the way out there?”

  “What? I—”

  “The caller ID says you’re—”

  “Gram. Do you have my work number?”

  That’s right. I didn’t even know my office number.

  “Do you know you’re on the news?”

  I was on the news? I wasn’t much of a news watcher and usually picked up what was happening by following media on Twitter. I hadn’t seen a TV in the house, and when I’d seen one in the bar, it had been on sports. So, no, I didn’t know I was on the news.

  “What are they saying?”

  “Your computers didn’t work.”

  “They work, Grandma.”

  “And you disappeared. Your partner. The Indian—”

  “He’s from Bangladesh.” Why did I bother correcting my grandmother? She was close to eighty. She needed to be happy more than she needed to be correct.

  “He was on Morning Joe. He said you were fixing it, but Maria Bardono didn’t believe him. Said you were running away with everyone’s money. Said you were a criminal. And I said, that’s the last time I watch you, Mr. Morning Joe. My grandson is no thief!”

  She was sweet and loyal, but I’d been a prolific thief and digital trespasser since before her dotage.

  “When did they say that?”

  “Yesterday. But today Joe had a different guy on. Said you fixed it. I liked him, this second guy. Real handsome. Had a nice confidence on him and an English accent.”

  She had a short memory for boycotts and a sharp eye for authority.

  “Was it Keaton? The second guy? Keaton from Poly? Do you remember him?”

  “Oh, I remember that boy. Could be. The tall one, right? Are you coming back here? Or going to California? Roger from the deli usually saves me the pig’s feet if you want me to make them.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Just tell me if you’re coming.”

  Talking to Grandma had always been a commitment of time and patience. I was short on both.

  “I will. Do you have my work number?”

  “Your what?”

  “My work number. I know. You were right. But—”

  “You always ate them when you were little. You were the only one.”

  “I know. I’ll come see you, Gram. Do you have—”

  “It’s just pork, I said a hundred times. You believed me.”

  “I did. And you were right. Do you—”

  “Give me a minute. I’m getting the book out. I’ll have Roger save them for you. He gets a side of pork second Tuesday of the month.”

  I banged my head on the doorway molding.

  “Just tell me ahead, or that bitch on Chestnut gets them,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “All right. Let me look. These letters get smaller all the time. B. E. G. Harden is H. H. H. Here you are.”

  She read off the number. I snapped a pencil from a busted mug and wrote it on the wall.

  “Thanks, Gram. I’ll come visit. I promise.”

  “You better. I’m going to be dead soon, you know.”

  “You have another twenty years. Easy.”

  “Maybe, you little shit.” She said it with an abundance of affection and humor. “Maybe.”

  We said our good-byes, I made promises I intended to keep if I ever got out of the middle of nowhere, and I hung up. I dialed the front desk at QI4. I should have been able to get Deeprak’s extension right away, but naturally there wasn’t a touchpad. So I had to wait until a receptionist picked up. Then I had to identify myself, p
rove it, and growl like a lion before they’d give me Deeprak.

  “Where have you been?” he asked right away.

  “Shithole, USA, with no phone. Do not ask.”

  Calling the middle parts of the country a shithole was as natural as pissing standing up. Until that moment. In the shitholiest kitchen in Shithole, USA, I stopped feeling a fundamental truth in the word. The people here were all right, and they were mopping a factory floor to keep the town alive. That said a lot about the place. I was going to take that back—but not now. I read the code to Deeprak.

  KDQwOCkgNTU1LTEyMjY=

  “I’ll head down to the cage,” he said. “This is base64. Did you translate it?”

  I hadn’t even thought to look at how it would translate. “In my head? No.” I searched for something to write on besides the wall. “I’ll do it on a piece of paper if you can’t.”

  “Hang on. I’ll do it on my phone.”

  I heard the sounds of the office as Deeprak walked through it. Ronald’s loud conversations about “this girl gamer on Twitch.” The hiss of the servers. The bird soundtrack in the hallway. The universal ding of the elevator.

  I felt something I didn’t recognize at first because I’d never felt it before, but when the elevator doors in my office whooshed closed for Deeprak, I realized what it was: I was homesick.

  Deeprak laughed and got back on the phone. “You know what it is?”

  “What?”

  I heard the elevator doors open.

  “Our phone number.” Deeprak rattled off a string of Bengali when the ID pad asked for his name.

  “She’s such a fucking card,” I mumbled as if I was annoyed, but the truth was she was being thoughtful. She knew I couldn’t get my phone. She knew I’d have to use a landline. She knew I wouldn’t have shit memorized. So she gave it to me, knowing that I’d be able to scratch out the answer but not knowing I was in too much of a hurry to do it.

  “She?” He interrupted my warm feelings. His chair squeaked, and computer keys clicked against the muted stillness of the cage. “Is it Harper Watson?”

  “Who? No.”

  Yes, but no. He wasn’t allowed to know about her yet. I didn’t want her accused, and I didn’t want Keaton flying his ass out here to torment her or scoop her up. Nope. I wanted her to myself. She was mine. All mine.