Wonderland

by Ace Atkins

  “That was a business class?”

  “It has a fancier title than that, something like ‘Machiavelli and Computational Models for Consumer Behavior’ or some kind of junk,” she said. “It was Harvey Rose’s signature class. We all read The Prince, and Rose would relate the text to using data to get your consumers to do what you want them to do.”

  “As in the ends justified the means.”

  “Computational models are not educated guesses,” she said. “Using data of past behavior, a well-built model allows its user to accurately predict what consumers will do in any given situation, often more accurately than the consumer assesses his or herself.”

  “And what does that have to do with The Prince?”

  “It reduces everything to a data set,” she said. “If you think of your consumers as data sets and not people, it allows you to completely disengage from morality. Data sets are amoral. If the data says low-income consumers are more likely to spend that extra fifty bucks than middle-income consumers, then you target them. You don’t care if they can’t pay the rent or go to the doctor.”

  “Ah.”

  “And as the model gets better and better, it becomes a manipulation tool. Based on past behavior, you can set up the optimal circumstances that pretty much guarantee the outcome. It almost destroys free will. We can know that they will, and how they will, and for how long, and under what conditions.”

  “Yikes.”

  “What did you think we discussed here?”

  “Love thy neighbor?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “How about Jemma?” I said. “Did she ever discuss Professor Rose’s lack of ethics?”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “But I really didn’t know her very well. Sometimes I’d see her out for beers or at parties. That was rare. But mainly she was stuck up Rose’s ass.”

  “A true believer.”

  “More than that,” Cho said. She took a sip of the mocha. “I think she had a thing for him.”

  “For Harvey Rose?”

  “I know, I know,” she said. “Right? He was one of those professors who couldn’t match his socks. Had ketchup stains on his shirt all the time. Uncombed hair.”

  “I’m not so good with ketchup myself. Worse with salsa.”

  “So you know, he wasn’t exactly the kind of professor that made women swoon,” she said. “I think he found Jemma’s devotion very flattering. Especially with her style. And that gorgeous accent.”

  “Was there preferential treatment?”

  “Well, he hired her immediately when he left Harvard.”

  “Do you think they were intimate?”

  “I have no idea,” Cho said. “God, I hope not. I mean, that’s why you come here. To be independent, to impress employers into leadership positions. Not to screw your way to the top.”

  “Do you recall anyone else she was close to?”

  Cho shook her head. “I really can’t. I’m sorry. We all knew her. But she was very, very aloof. I can ask around.”

  “Did she have family in the States?”

  “I had the impression she was here just for the education. All I can remember are those clothes of hers. Wore very fancy stuff that was a bit out of place. Inappropriate for nine a.m. classes.”

  “And the riding boots.”

  “Always wore them.”

  “And her without a horse.”

  “You have to understand we don’t have traditional graduate assistantships here,” she said. “You are not required to have an internship, either. But we all pretty much do. I had one with Prudential and later with Bain. You work with a company and then you’re assigned a professor as a mentor.”

  “And Rose was Jemma’s mentor.”

  “And mine, too, and plenty of male students’,” she said. “I just don’t recall him taking that active a role in my off-campus work.”

  “Do you remember what Jemma did?”

  “I think she pretty much interned with Professor Rose,” she said. “Some of the students did that. But it was preferred that we left campus and worked in a real business setting. I just recall her always being in his office. Almost like his secretary, or a personal assistant. I thought the whole arrangement a bit weird. Maybe it was because I was always wearing sweatpants while Jemma was in haute couture.”

  “You should see me on Saturday nights.”

  “You seem very odd for a cop,” Stephanie said. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her knees with her arms. She stared at me, looking very much like a little girl, a bit quizzical. Her blunt-cut hair ruffled a bit in the spring breeze.

  “I could not stand being a cop,” I said. “That’s why I work for myself.”

  “That’s what I want,” Stephanie said. More wind kicked up on the common and you could smell the river. “My parents were first-generation. My father thought life was work. He believed that every day you must take a hard path to be a good man. You don’t seem that way.”

  “I am often late for work.”

  “My parents are very proud of me,” she said. “But they don’t understand why I left my job. And why I don’t take what I learned and put it in practice. I could never tell them I’m quite content to teach.”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  “You know, Professor Rose came back here last fall to speak,” Cho said. “He told us to be unemotional and detached in our decision making. He said you only need to know the who, what, and when, not necessarily the why.”

  “I’ve been teaching an associate of mine the same thing.”

  “Computational models?”

  “Hoodlum ethics.”

  56

  Z MET ME at Danehy Park in Cambridge at sunset. People jogged along paths, and dogs frolicked about. I had decided to sort out what I learned by throwing the tennis ball to Pearl. She had spent much of the last week cooped up, which tends to make a hunting dog psychotic. So we worked out her issues by letting her sprint for the ball and return it. My arm had grown tired and I tossed the ball to Z. Pearl, tongue lolling from her mouth, showed no signs of fatigue.

  “I heard about the two dead men,” Z said. “They part of the new team?”

  “Healy thinks so,” I said. “Heavy hitters from Vegas. Someone wanted to make sure they were not welcome.”

  “Maybe they were hired by Weinberg’s people,” Z said. “To come for the killers.”

  “Or maybe they killed Weinberg and got their due.”

  Z threw the ball over a rolling hill. Pearl disappeared for several moments. She appeared triumphantly with the tennis ball covered in slobber and blades of grass.

  “What is Jemma saying?” I said.

  Z shrugged. He watched Pearl intently.

  “She won’t talk about Weinberg,” he said. “It makes her very upset.”

  I nodded. Z tossed me the slobbery ball. I wound up and threw it to the moon. Pearl was off like a rocket.

  “How does she treat you?” I said.

  “Fine.”

  “I found out today that she had been an intern for Harvey Rose,” I said. “Ten years ago at Harvard Business School.”

  Z nodded.

  “That was something she had not told me,” I said. “You?”

  Z’s face was impassive, and he shook his head. Pearl returned. I rocketed the ball again. This time a black Lab broke into stride with Pearl but was no match for her. She beat him by three car lengths, and upon return, she teased him with the ball, nudging it to his mouth.

  “Watch your step,” I said.

  “She’s very scared and alone.”

  I nodded.

  “She said I make her feel safe.”

  I nodded again.

  Z took the ball from Pearl and threw it far and wide. His face was slick with rain as he stared up at the rolling hills and picnic tables. Pearl and
the black Lab nuzzled each other. Pearl was faster and stronger, but for some reason, she dropped the ball in front of the Lab. I reached for the ball and threw it as far as I could.

  “We had sex,” Z said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The other night,” he said. “She wanted me to come up to the room. She was naked.”

  “Hard to resist.”

  Z shrugged.

  “I don’t know much about this woman,” I said. “But the more I know, the less I like.”

  “Because she was Rose’s protégée?”

  “That she didn’t mention it.”

  Z nodded.

  “She asks me a lot about you,” Z said. “Wants to know what you know. She asks me a lot about Rachel Weinberg, too. And wants to know about your meetings with Healy.”

  Pearl returned. She looked happy and winded. A man in a red windbreaker called for the Lab, and the Lab trotted off. I placed my hand on Pearl’s head and attached her leash.

  “What else?” I said.

  “Jemma says you took advantage of her the other night.”

  “By saving her life?”

  “After,” he said. “She said you poured her a lot of drinks and that things happened.”

  “She tripped on my rug and I put her to bed.”

  “She said she does not remember it all,” Z said. “But she remembers you crawling on top of her in the night. And doing things.”

  “You would think that I would remember, too.”

  “I told her that I couldn’t trust you anymore,” Z said. “I said that you were a liar and a man without honor.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Z broke into a grin. “I said I was through with you,” he said. “But I would act as if we were still friends and pass along information.”

  “Some sidekick.”

  Z shrugged. He was still smiling.

  “Perhaps you can find out why she kept her relationship with Harvey Rose secret?”

  “If you slept with that man, wouldn’t you lie about it?”

  “Most definitely.”

  We walked back to our cars, taking a winding path covered with pebbles and stones. The air seemed to swell and expand, the dark, full clouds pregnant with an oncoming storm. Z walked to his car while I stopped at my Explorer.

  “She does believe those dead men were coming for her,” Z said.

  “Maybe so.”

  “She has a lot of fear in her,” Z said.

  “You would know,” I said.

  “How long do we keep this up?”

  “Me as the Lone Ranger?”

  Z nodded.

  “When we come to a fork in the road, we both take it.”

  57

  DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS, nothing new was learned for two whole days. Pearl seemed unconcerned, as she had taken the entire new couch while I walked across Berkeley for a tall Starbucks coffee. I tossed her a bit of a blueberry scone, and she caught it in midair and swallowed it whole. I spread out a copy of the Globe on my desk, going right for the sports section. It was early in the season, but many were already calling for the Sox manager’s resignation. Many also doubted the salaries of several marquee players. Perhaps my job was more stress-free. Then again, ballplayers seldom dodge bullets.

  After reading the box scores and checking in with Arlo & Janis, I got right into the accumulated mail. I was shocked to find a check from a previous client. And not so shocked to see a check I had sent to Mattie Sullivan torn in half and returned in a new envelope. I received an amazing offer from a local pizza chain, two for one. I put that aside. I found out I was preapproved for a credit card. That I tossed in the trash. I saved the largest envelope for last.

  I slit open the edge with my thumbnail and out dropped what seemed to be a basic key fob. But on further analysis, I realized it was a flash drive. The envelope was otherwise empty. My address was computer-generated on a basic Avery label. Of course, there wasn’t a return address.

  I clutched the flash drive in my hand and tried it out in my computer. My computer spoke to the flash drive, and in a couple seconds, a fifty-eight-page Excel document opened, filled with rows and columns of neatly aligned numbers and figures. At the top of several columns were names of many area banks. Running along the side of the document were dates of transfers. Gadzooks.

  Being a trained detective, I noted this might mean something. Being someone who did not have a degree from Harvard Business School, I knew I needed a bit of help. I reached for the phone and called Wayne Cosgrove as I copied the Excel file to my hard drive. He did not graduate from HBS but would know someone who could translate.

  “Hold for subscriptions,” Wayne said.

  “I just received this neato electronic thingy in the mail,” I said. “It appears to highlight many banks’ wire transfers and payments over the course of the last six months.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Many payments of note go to a deluxe slush fund for Joseph G. Perotti.”

  “And how did you come by this information?”

  “On this neat thingy,” I said. “Sent in the mail.”

  “Just showed up in your mail?”

  “I do believe someone has been searching for it,” I said. “My office was torn apart a few days ago. Someone believed I had something of value.”

  “Maybe you had other stuff they wanted.”

  “They left the coffeepot, a .357, and my Vermeer prints.”

  “Ah.” The buzzing phones and tapping keyboard sounds of the city newsroom came from the other end of the line. “When can I see it?”

  “It says Perotti, but who knows if it’s genuine or who sent the funds.”

  “You may be a trained investigator,” Wayne said, “but I am a trained muckraker. I know people who could read that thing if it was encrypted from the original Mandarin Chinese.”

  “Good to know those people,” I said.

  “You bet.”

  I hung up and whistled for Pearl. But Pearl was already at the door, waiting for me to slip the choker over her neck. She must have heard the conversation and known.

  “The game is afoot.”

  Pearl stared and tilted her head.

  “Tally ho,” I said.

  Pearl was not impressed until I rolled down the passenger window on our way to the Globe newsroom in Dorchester. I placed the drive into an envelope and handed it over to Wayne at security. For what seemed like ten hours but was more likely two, Pearl and I took in the sights around Dorchester. I let her off the leash at an empty Joe Moakley Park and we strolled along the beach.

  I finally met Wayne at a reporter gathering spot called the Harp and Bard and left Pearl in my car with the windows cracked. The bar was a newish pub with dozens of new televisions hanging from metal beams in the ceiling, along with old Bruins and Celtics flags. Wayne sat in a dark corner of the bar, studying an open folder.

  A sign advertised a karaoke contest every Thursday at five p.m. Prizes awarded.

  “We stick around long enough and we can enter,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Wayne said. “What would you sing?”

  “‘The Girl from Ipanema.’”

  “Glad to know you’re keeping up with the times,” Wayne said.

  I ordered the club with a Bud Light, and Wayne ordered a burger with a side of Jameson. After the bartender walked away, he shuffled his papers and looked at me.

  “This appears to be some pretty damning stuff,” he said. “It shows direct payoffs going right to Perotti. Some of it is legal, but most of it isn’t.”

  “Terrific.”

  “But proving is another matter,” Wayne said. “I know what this says. But we don’t know if it’s bullshit.”

  “And how can we find out?”

  “A court order.”

  “Or go
through the cops.”

  Wayne nodded. The bartender reappeared with my Bud Light and Wayne’s whiskey.

  “Jesus, Spenser,” Wayne said. “Bud Light?”

  “It’s not even noon,” I said. “Same as water.”

  “But Bud Light,” he said. “I thought more of you.”

  I shrugged. Wayne shook his head and rattled his whiskey around the ice. He looked down at his notes and then up at me. “You do understand what you are meant to see here?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  Wayne Cosgrove’s face morphed into a very serious expression. He tapped at the sheets of paper littering the inside of the file. “Two of these companies making the payoffs belong to Gino Fish,” he said.

  I drank some beer and nodded.

  “Who do you think sent it?” Wayne said.

  “I have a few ideas,” I said. “But I don’t know for sure.”

  “You think Fish believes you have it?” Wayne said.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “I know that Harvey Rose had a break-in recently. They stole several computers.”

  “Wow.” Wayne tossed back some of his drink. “If this can be verified, I would have a hell of a story.”

  “And what would I have?”

  “If we could connect Harvey Rose and Gino Fish to Perotti, the shit would hit the fan.”

  “Still doesn’t get me any closer to finding out who killed Rick Weinberg.”

  “Not my job.” Wayne drank a bit more, settled into his booth, and sighed. “I sure would like to know who laid this in your lap. And who the hell wants to screw Harvey Rose so bad they break into his office and steal those files.”

  “That list is growing shorter by the minute.”

  “You want me to hold on to the drive?” Wayne said.

  “I assume you made copies.”

  Wayne handed me the drive, and I placed it in my jacket pocket.

  “If something happens to me—” I said.

  “I will write a glowing obit about a man who refused to conform to the times.”

  “And maybe turn over this information to the state police.”

  Wayne smiled and signaled the bartender for another round. “Oh, and that, too.”