by Ray Daniel
“Why two?” I asked.
“What?”
“Why should I help you?”
“Because I asked you to!”
I looked straight into the senator’s eyes. “I don’t give a shit.”
“If you do it for me you’ll have a powerful friend.”
“I don’t need a powerful friend,” I said. “I need a nap.”
“Or a powerful enemy.”
I took a step toward the senator. Mel stood, put a hand on my arm.
“I’ve got powerful enemies,” I said. “I spent the night in prison because of them.”
Mel tugged at my arm. “C’mon, Tucker.”
I shook my arm free.
“We should go,” she said.
I pointed at Endicott. “Don’t blame us, you horny idiot.”
Mel said, “I’m sorry, sir.”
Endicott’s face flushed red under his white hair. He raised his finger, started to say something, but turned and pointed the finger at Kamela. “Fix this,” he said, then stalked out of the room.
I said to Kamela, “Give me one good reason that I should risk my ass for that joker.”
Kamela said, “For Betty.”
“What?”
“Betty,” Kamela said. “Betty Endicott. The senator’s wife.”
“Hmmph.”
“I’ve been following #TuckerGate.”
“I hear it’s great entertainment.”
“I’m thinking you don’t like it much.”
“Of course I don’t.”
“But you understand it, don’t you? You know what’s happening to you and why.”
I crossed my arms.
Kamela continued, “Betty isn’t from this time, Tucker. She grew up in a time when reporters would have considered this little sex video a private domestic matter between the senator and his wife.”
“It wouldn’t have been in the newspapers,” I said.
“And it wouldn’t have gone viral.”
I thought about the woman in the video.
Landon, you’re sure nobody will see this?
I asked Mel, “What do you think?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s my job. It matters what you think.”
“I do feel bad for Betty.”
“So will you help?”
“Yeah.”
“We should get out to see Xiong,” said Mel.
“I’ve got something I need to do,” I said. “I’ll meet you in your office in two hours.”
“What do you need to do?”
“Give PwnSec my condolences.” I flipped my phone open, texted Dorothy. Can we talk?
A delay, then: Yes.
Where?
Dorothy texted back a location. I showed Mel.
“Really?” she said. “You’re going to go there?”
“I probably deserve it.”
Fifty-Seven
Two beasts, great and terrible, claw at each other over Boston, battling to supply bitter, overroasted coffee to its citizens. While Peet’s yaps at the edges of the struggle, trying to get a word in, and Tim Horton’s looks on from its frigid perch in Canada, Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts roar and wrestle for dominance.
At one point in the battle, Dunkin’ Donuts launched an advertising campaign portraying Starbucks customers as effete dandies whose willingness to pay ungodly sums of money for a cup of Starbucks coffee demonstrated their wussiness, as opposed to the toughness of the callus-handed, working-class heroes who drank Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, drove pickup trucks, and built skyscrapers.
Dunkin’ Donuts customers reveled in the class-warrior glory of the campaign, while the Starbucks customers never noticed. They were too busy texting.
Meanwhile, hipsters, in their unending quest for irony, had gravitated to Dunkin’ Donuts as if it were the font of all vinyl records. And so Dorothy and Russell had invited me to their favorite coffee shop. I pushed through the door of the Dunkin’ Donuts in Cleveland Circle and spotted Russell’s purple Mohawk sitting at a booth in the back. Dorothy sat across from him.
I bought a box of assorted Munchkins and, God help me, a cup of coffee. Sat next to Russell, across from Dorothy.
“I’m sorry about Earl,” I said.
“Yeah?” said Russell. “Why? You kill him?”
“You want a Munchkin?” I asked, choosing a chocolate one. I popped it in my mouth, momentarily getting relief from my hangover as a wash of sugar invaded my bloodstream.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Of course he didn’t kill him,” said Dorothy. “I wouldn’t have called him if he had killed Earl.”
“Thank you,” I said to Dorothy. “Want a Munchkin?”
She chose a jelly one.
I drank my coffee, winced, ate a powdered-sugar Munchkin to kill the taste.
“You should put cream and sugar in that,” said Dorothy.
Russell said, “You still didn’t answer my question.”
“For crying out loud, Sherlock. No, I didn’t kill Earl.”
“Then who did?”
“That’s a more interesting question.”
“I’m scared,” said Dorothy.
“I think we should all be a little scared.”
“Why should you be scared?” asked Russell. “You’re not in PwnSec.”
“You ever have the whole Internet after you?”
“No.”
“It’s getting a little scary. I got swatted last night, and there’s only one way for me to get Anonymous off my back.”
“A manifesto?”
“No, not a manifesto! I need to catch this killer, whoever he is.”
“The HackMaster,” said Russell. “Or you.”
Between the hangover, lack of sleep, and Munchkin sugar rush, there wasn’t much left of my emotional defenses.
I fixed Russell with a stare. “What?”
“You know what,” said Russell.
“Can you believe this guy?” I said to Dorothy.
“Russell, c’mon,” said Dorothy. “Tucker didn’t kill Earl.”
“Yeah? Where were you?”
“I was busy getting thrown out of my cousin’s house because of what you wrote on Twitter, you little fuck,” I said, poking Russell in the shoulder.
“Ow! Stop it! I didn’t write that.”
“You started it. You’re still telling people that I killed Peter.”
“No, I—”
“Is there anyone else you’ve fucked up, Russell? Anyone else like me or that poor girl out at UMass?”
“I didn’t make her kill herself.”
“You are a first-class piece of shit.”
“Hey, fuck you, dude!”
Heads turned.
Dorothy said, “Children’s Hospital.”
Russell and I looked at her.
“We attacked Children’s Hospital,” said Dorothy.
“You were involved with that?”
Russell said, “Yeah, they took that girl, Justina, away from her family, so we helped Anonymous crash their website.”
“How would that get you guys on someone’s death list?”
Dorothy said, “Russell wrote a manifesto about how PwnSec was dealing justice.”
“It was a good one.”
“Jesus, Russell, you’re pathetic.”
“Fuck you!”
More heads turned. A cop standing in line glanced at us.
I said, “Will you just be quiet for once?”
“I’m so sick of you, man. You think you’re such hot shit.”
“I am hot shit, compared to you.”
“You’re a useless old man!”
“And you’re just a script kiddie who writes manifestos, Eliza
.”
“I don’t have to take this abuse. Get out of my way.”
Russell poked at me, I stood. Russell slid out of the booth and stormed out of the Dunkin’ Donuts.
Dorothy took another Munchkin, nibbled it. Sipped some coffee. I drank some more of my coffee. Spit it back into the cup.
“That was smooth,” said Dorothy.
“He’s an idiot.”
Dorothy stood. Headed for the door.
“Dorothy,” I said. She turned. I handed her the box of Munchkins. “For your aunt.”
“Thanks.”
I sat alone in the Dunkin’ Donuts staring out at Commonwealth Ave. I thought about checking Twitter, remembered that I only had a flip phone. Decided to call E instead. Immediate voicemail. Texted her. Good morning.
Shouldn’t you be saying that to your FBI girlfriend?
It’s not like that. Want to talk?
I stared at the phone, waiting for E’s response.
It never came.
Fifty-Eight
I emerged from the glass obelisk that is the Government Center T stop. Looked up into the gray April sky to see low clouds scudding by, portending rain for tomorrow’s race. Heading across the plaza toward Mel’s office, I saw two things that stopped me in my tracks. Two people, really.
One was the self-styled Internet bounty hunter Billy Janks, who went by the name CapnMerica. The other was the senator’s hatchet-nosed fixer, Pat Turner.
What caused this unholy matrimony?
CapnMerica and Pat reached me at about the same time. Pat opened his mouth to speak but got cut off.
“Aloysius Tucker, I am placing you under citizen’s arrest,”
CapnMerica said.
Pat said, “Wait. What now?”
“I’m arresting Tucker.”
“And who are you?”
I said, “Pat, meet CapnMerica. CapnMerica, Pat.”
“Captain America?” asked Pat, looking Billy over. “You’re a little shit. Don’t you need to take a potion?”
“Shut up! I’m arresting Tucker.”
“Yeah? For what?”
“Murder!”
“How about I arrest you for being a dick?”
“He’s a murderer!” shouted Billy.
“It’s not polite to point, Billy,” I said.
“He’s working for me,” said Pat.
“I am?” I asked.
“Who are you?” asked Billy.
“I’m the guy who’s going to punch you in the face,” said Pat.
“You guys going to fight over me? That’s adorable.”
“I might punch you in the face too.”
“How about we tone it down,” I said.
“You’re supposed to be getting that video.”
“That’s why I’m trying to get to Special Agent Hunter’s office.”
“Then go!”
I took a step. CapnMerica, brandishing handcuffs, reached for me. Pat made good on his word, punching CapnMerica right in the face. I stepped around the fight. Walked away. Someone would definitely be video recording this baloney, and I had enough problems.
The shouting and scrabbling faded as I crossed the street and entered Center Plaza. Took the elevator to Mel’s floor.
Mel met me in a conference room. She had changed into a black turtleneck and jeans that flared into bell-bottoms. She caught me appraising her outfit.
“What? It’s casual Sunday,” she said.
“I just think you look nice.”
“Do you want coffee?”
“My hangover says yes.”
“It’s one o’clock. You’re still hung over?”
“Ah, youth.”
We moved to a break room, where Mel pointed at a Keurig machine. I operated the machine, got a mug of brown water that had been pushed through a little plastic cup.
Mel said, “We have a problem.”
“Yes,” I said. “These machines are taking over the landscape.”
“Not a coffee problem. An Internet problem.”
“Is the Internet broken? Because that would be great. I’ve kind of had my fill this week.”
“You’re not going to like it,” she said and walked out, expecting me to follow.
We sat next to each other in her office facing a Facebook page on her computer screen.
“You’ve been life ruined,” she said.
“What? I’m not even on Facebook.”
“You are now.” She pointed.
The page said Aloysius Tucker. The profile picture featured Angry Tucker wearing Guy Fawkes face paint, teeth bared in the altercation that happened in front of my house.
“I didn’t make this page,” I said. “How did I get a hundred and fifty friends?”
“I think they got a list of your Twitter followers and used them to do friend requests here.”
I scrolled down. “So what did I put on my page?”
A photograph of Earl’s head looked out at me, surprising me like a punch in the gut. “Jesus!”
“It gets worse,” said Mel.
“How can it get worse?”
“4chan.org had its usual shot of the body with Sic semper contumeliosis as the caption.”
“Okay, so we’re getting a pattern.”
“This particular shot was not the one from 4chan. It’s nowhere else on the Internet.”
“This is an original?”
“The killer was the only one with this shot.”
“And the killer took the time to life ruin me.”
“It’s definitely someone you know. And it gets worse.”
“Of course it does.”
Mel opened another window in the browser, headed over to Twitter. Did a search. The same pictures came up under @TuckerInB0ston. My Twitter doppelganger who had tweeted: Ima kill me some cops. Every tweet bore the hashtags #HackMaster and #TuckerGate.
I sat back in my chair, the double gut punch of the pictures and personal violation mixing with the remnants of my undying hangover to suck the energy out of me.
Mel said, “I’m running some searches, trying to see—”
“I’ve got to catch the HackMaster,” I said.
“Actually, I have to catch the HackMaster,” said Mel. “This is becoming an FBI case.”
“You’re going to take it from Lee?”
“We’re one short of an official serial killer. I’d rather not let it go that far.”
I drank some brown Keurig water. Sighed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“I did some research,” said Mel. “Some Latin research.”
“It doesn’t mean ‘Thus ever to the insolent’?”
“It can. Latin doesn’t have that many words, so they do a lot of double duty.”
“What else could it mean?”
“‘Spiteful,’ for one.”
“‘Spiteful’? Shit. That could describe the entire Anonymous collective.”
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
I reached for the keyboard. “Let’s bring up these—”
As I spoke, another picture popped up on the @TuckerInB0ston feed. The photographer had stood across the street from my house during the protest. He must have been wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and had snapped a picture just after the police sirens had sounded.
Five people clustered on the three steps leading to my front door as I worked the lock: Dorothy, Russell, Earl, and E holding my arm, beaming up at me. @TuckerInB0ston had modified the picture, placing a red X over Earl. The associated tweet told the rest of the story:
@TuckerInB0ston: One down. Three to go. #HackMaster #TuckerGate
Fifty-Nine
The picture popped up on faux-Tucker’s Facebook feed next. Five people stood on my step
s. One was dead. Four were left. Three to go.
Which three?
Mel pushed me aside, started clattering at the keys. I closed my eyes, resting a brain that had processed too much information on too little sleep after too much alcohol. I slipped into the moment, hearing the keys clicking, feeling the hard plastic chair, rolling the past few minutes around in my mind.
Three to go. Three little pigs. Three blind mice. Three Days of the Condor. Three had to be one of the best numbers out there: the first prime number, if you don’t count two, and who counts two? Three kills makes a serial killer. Lee would tell me it was three days till Christ rose. Three to go.
Mel shook my arm. My head drooped to the side. A warm trail of drool graced my shoulder. My muscles, which had recently lost all tone, protested against the hard plastic of the chair.
“I found the picture,” she said.
“Where?”
“It started on—”
My flip phone chirped a text message. “It’s Xiong,” I told Mel.
“What does he say?”
“‘Help me.’”
“Help you?”
“Xiong is asking for help.”
I texted, Where are you?
We waited. No answer. I called Xiong’s cell. It went to voicemail after a while.
“Took long enough to go to voicemail,” I said.
“So?”
“So he didn’t answer, but he didn’t block the call either.”
“What’s his phone number?”
I told Mel, she clattered at her keys some more.
“You’ve got him on GPS?”
“Just because we had to let him go doesn’t mean we couldn’t surveil him. It was easy to get a warrant.”
“Where is he?”
Mel pointed at the screen. A blue dot sat over Xiong Distribution in Chelsea. Mel grabbed her coat and we headed down the elevator to her car. Got the car going, navigated past Faneuil Hall, past the North End, and across the Charlestown Bridge, Sunday’s afternoon traffic providing no resistance.
“So the picture of the five of us,” I said.
“Yeah.”