T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality

by T. Lynn Ocean

  “What guy?” I asked.

  “The guy or gal who wrote the code. I don’t know who, or how many people are actually involved, but whoever wrote the virus is the brains behind it all.”

  Ox motioned for Soup to continue.

  “The database of taxpayer names on the USB flash drive was dummy information. It was developed from a credit bureau database of random names, so the virus could have a test run before it was tried on the real thing. But the fields, coding, and security encryption are identical to Chesterfield’s actual client databases.” Soup paused to slurp some lumpy liquid from the coffee cup before explaining further.

  “Social Insecurity is sitting quietly in Chesterfield’s system. Patiently waiting for the first day of the quarter, when it becomes active. The first thing it will do is identify all clients who were processed as new SIPAs. The information is all there, but the accounts have a zero balance until the initial deposit from the government is made.

  “On the target day, electronic transfers from Social Security will start flowing through the ACH, or automated clearinghouse system, and credit each individual SIPA account registered with Chesterfield Financial. The Social Insecurity virus will pluck one thousand dollars from every incoming transfer. The bumps, as I call them, are immediately routed to another bank account. And voilà! This guy will go to bed as a poor man and wake up the next day with millions and millions of dollars. He’ll be able to check his balance shortly after midnight, to see exactly how rich he is. Those thousand-dollar bumps are going to add up quick.”

  “How many millions?” I said.

  “Well,” Soup said, studying the ceiling while he mentally calculated, “all the people that chose a SIPA and chose Chesterfield as their broker. From the eastern half of the country. A grand from each. But based on the applications that have been piling up in Chesterfield’s system, assuming a fifty percent closure rate because some who chose a SIPA could have either changed their mind or forgotten to sign and return the authorization form to Uncle Sam … somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty million dollars. And that’s conservative.”

  Stunned, I looked at Ox, who sat contemplating it all with a hardened expression. Fifty million dollars was a lot of money. Even more astounding was that nobody would realize the money was stolen until a month later.

  “It would be one of the biggest cybercrimes ever in history, from a dollar standpoint,” Soup continued. “Even though the new law went into effect in January, July first is the initial transfer day for SIPA money. Six months’ worth of baseball and apple-pie-loving individual marks, waiting in line to be screwed by an opportunistic pickpocket.”

  “Why only a thousand dollars?” Ox said. “Why not take more on each bump?”

  “Good question,” Soup said, professorlike. “Because Uncle Sam specified that the minimum initial SIPA transfer must be at least a grand. The majority will be considerably more. But the Social Insecurity creator didn’t want to take a chance. If, for example, he set the bump amount at five grand and an initial transfer came in that was only four, it would create an alert. A negative number, kind of like when a check bounces,” Soup said.

  “Will it work?” I wanted to know.

  “Shit yeah, it’ll work.”

  “Can you stop it?”

  Soup grinned wickedly. “Of course I can. But I’ve got another plan.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Lemme work on it. I’ll let you know.” He swiveled back to study lines of text that were scrolling up a monitor. “It’s a brilliant virus. Damned brilliant.”

  “This guy wants to steal money from hardworking Americans,” I reminded him.

  “I’m not condoning what he wants to do. I’m just saying you’ve got to recognize that kind of talent.”

  “You’re that kind of talent but you don’t steal from innocent individuals,” I said. “Just large conglomerates such as airlines.”

  “Yeah, well,” Soup said. “Everyone draws the line somewhere. Anyway, the airline in question owed me two round-trip tickets’ worth of frequent flier points.”

  “Why didn’t you just redeem your points?” I said to his back.

  “Much faster this way, and no blackout dates.”

  The jazzy ring tone of my phone sounded just as Ox and I were helping ourselves to a couple bottles of Coors Light at the Block. Although it was only eleven thirty in Wilmington, it was well past noon somewhere.

  The caller was Dirk, who said a man claiming to be one of the kidnappers had just phoned the Chesterfields’ home line. Samuel Chesterfield was out, but the caller let Lolly speak briefly to her stepson and she felt certain it was Jared’s voice. The man told Lolly to have Chesterfield gather two million dollars in cash. Further instructions would come in a few days, he said, and hung up. Unfortunately, Lolly was too shaken and didn’t attempt to keep the caller on the line as the agents had instructed, Dirk told me.

  Nonetheless, the call was traced to a cell phone in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the phone was traced to a retired nurse. The woman was a victim of wireless fraud, the agents quickly determined. A cell phone had been modified to snatch account numbers from her service provider and the reprogrammed phone could make free, untraceable calls from anywhere in the country.

  I’d barely flipped the phone shut when it rang again. Hal, the fourth in Spud’s weekly poker game, explained that Spud’s car was flooded out in the parking lot of the barbershop. After a pause, he admitted that the Chrysler wasn’t only flooded out, according to Spud, but also partially submerged in a pond.

  “Why’d he call you?” I asked him.

  “Fool said he’d pay me fifty bucks to pull him out. Told me to put some rope in the wife’s station wagon and get there quick.”

  “And?”

  “And I told him I’m not a damn towing service. Plus I’ve gotta get to the internist’s office for a doctor appointment. Besides that, I don’t think the station wagon could pull a golf cart out of a pond. It’s only a V-6 for chrissakes.”

  Unsure whether I should be angry or amused, I relayed the story to Ox and asked if he thought we’d need a tow truck.

  “For sure,” he said happily. “C’mon, we’ll take your car and I’ll drive. This should be fun.” I always preferred to drive myself, unless it was Ox doing the driving.

  It was nearing lunchtime, and the Block always did a good business between noon and two o’clock. But it would do a good business whether Ox was there or not and the employees could handle things just fine without him.

  Hal was at the shopping center when we arrived, playing the role of a curious spectator instead of a concerned friend. The city cops had responded in their image-friendly solid-white cars with quaint blue lettering. But cops were still cops and these two were youngsters with an attitude. Spud wasn’t helping matters.

  “A witness from the barbershop said that your friend here drove the car straight into the pond,” one uniform said.

  “Ah, hell,” Spud replied. “Bobby can’t see too good. He was just trying to park. Ask him”—he pointed to Hal—“he’ll tell you it was just an accident.”

  Hal instinctively took a few steps back to distance himself, showing his palms. “I just got here, you old fool. I ain’t no towing service and I ain’t no witness, either.”

  The cop started to question him, but decided to clarify things with my father first. “This is your car, but you say you don’t have a driver’s license?”

  “No shit, Sherlock. That’s why I wasn’t driving, for crying out loud.”

  “Spud,” I intervened. “Don’t be smart-mouthed. Just answer his questions.”

  “My smart mouth says this stupid piece of scrap should’ve sunk the whole way, for crying out loud!” he cried, waving his walking cane in the direction of the sunken Chrysler. “The damn thing is gonna have water damage now.”

  I smiled at the uniforms and calmly asked if there were going to be any charges pressed.

  “Guess you can’t press charges for stupi
dity,” the partner said.

  Bobby produced an insulted look. “Aww, look here,” he defended. “I was just doing what I was asked to do. Sink—I mean park the car. I can’t help it if the pond is in the middle of the parking lot. I thought it was something I could drive right into. I mean, through.”

  “Excuse me?” the first cop said, taking a closer look at Bobby and then his license. “Are you on medication, sir?”

  “He’s just confused, Officer,” I said, and if looks could slap a man, Spud and Bobby would have had stinging faces. “Bobby has had quite a scare. Now, if you’re all finished with these elderly and harmless gentlemen, I’ll see that everyone gets home safely. And I’ll pay a tow truck to come for the vehicle.”

  Giving me the once-over, they didn’t bother to conceal their skepticism. Even my government enhancements didn’t help.

  “Lieutenant Dirk Thompson is a good friend,” I told them as a last resort. “He’ll vouch for me.”

  The tail end of the Chrysler stuck out of the water, mooning us with its exposed underbelly. The front end was submerged enough to make the front tires invisible, and water crept a third of the way up the two front doors. Ox sat in the driver’s seat of my car and, by the expression on his face, was thoroughly enjoying himself. My idiot father and I were his free entertainment for the hour.

  Spud opened his mouth and pointed the cane to say something, but I silenced him with a menacing look. He was minus the barbershop trim he’d supposedly come for. Bobby leaned against the brick wall outside the barbershop, soaking wet up to his waist. Nearby, Hal was trying to suppress either indigestion or laughter. Probably laughter.

  After some deliberation and a call to Dirk, the uniforms left me to deal with Spud and his partially submerged car. Figuring the show was over, Hal departed the scene, declining to give my father and his driver a ride, as he was running late for his doctor appointment. With a lot of muttering, Spud and Bobby pulled their bodies into the backseat of the Benz. I found an old blanket stashed in the trunk and made Bobby sit on it to keep the leather from getting wet. Ox called a tow truck.

  “For crying out loud, Bobby!” Spud turned on his friend the instant we pulled out of the parking lot. “You took your foot off the gas too soon!”

  “I did not!” Bobby shouted back at him. “Your stupid car bogged down in the mud the second it hit the pond. I could’ve put a fifty-pound weight on the gas pedal and the thing wouldn’t have sunk all the way!”

  “Now I’ll have to pay a repair bill,” Spud grumbled. “I have a thousand-dollar deductible.”

  “Don’t blame me,” Bobby fired back. “I was just trying to do you a favor. Can’t help it if you have a front-heavy car.”

  “Gentlemen,” Ox said, like the father on a road trip scolding two siblings in the backseat. “It’s just a car. No big deal. Find another way to lose it.”

  I shot a sideways look at Ox, not believing that he’d just encouraged them to devise another plan. He grinned and I had the strangest desire kiss him. Or punch him.

  We’d almost made it back to the Block when my phone played music again.

  “You’re popular today,” Ox said.

  “Jersey here,” I answered.

  “It’s Chesterfield. I’m in the Lexus,” he said and his voice was strained. “They’re following me,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. But they’re on my tail. They’ve bumped me once already.”

  “Where are you?”

  He told me. I instructed him not to speed and not to stop, but to drive to the Water Street Restaurant. It was a trendy joint on a one-way street with a sidewalk café, and we were equal distances from it. I told him to pull right up to the curb and get out. I’d be waiting on the front patio. With Ox.

  We made it to Water Street before Chesterfield did and Ox instructed Spud and Bobby not to budge from the backseat of the armored Benz.

  When Chesterfield arrived with a screech of braking tires, Ox and I were seated at an outdoor table, beneath an opened umbrella. Chesterfield jumped out of the Lexus, leaving it half in the street and half on the sidewalk. A split second later, three men did the same. One of them grabbed Chesterfield by the back of the collar, forcing him to face the other two. The one who had him by the clothes was bald and short and had a gut beneath the suit he wore, but he was built like a tree stump. The other two were young with strong builds and wore jeans and T-shirts covered by blazers. All three were obviously hired muscle. I could see a bulge in the small of the first one’s back; he had a weapon tucked into his waistband. My hand rested on the Glock in my shoulder holster, ready to draw.

  Another outdoor table held some customers, two women. Sensing trouble but not leaving their drinks behind, they rushed to stand against the door of the restaurant and get away from the disturbance. In one fluid motion, Ox moved behind the stocky man in a suit, the one holding Chesterfield, and gave the guy a chop to the side of the neck. Stump dropped to the ground as though his body suddenly lost its bones. He never had a chance to go for his weapon.

  The other two lunged at Ox while a staggered Chesterfield stood between them. With his hands on Chesterfield’s shoulders, Ox jammed the heel of his boot into one of the men’s knees at the same instant he threw Chesterfield to the side. The would-be attacker buckled and went down, his left leg jutted at an odd angle. The remaining guy threw a roundhouse punch at Ox’s jaw. Ox ducked beneath the wide arc of the man’s fist, and as he was coming back up, jammed a chop into the man’s throat. He lurched but didn’t drop, so Ox threw a lightning quick combination at the man’s head, ending with a graceful uppercut that landed solidly on the chin. The final impact cracked loudly, sounding like concrete meeting bone.

  The thing about watching Ox fight is that you have to watch closely, or you miss it. The entire tangle was over in about three seconds. It began and ended before I had a chance to join in. Not that I was complaining. I’d just gotten a manicure last week, when I thought I was retired.

  “I’m feeling a little left out over here,” I joked. Ox grinned, but then I saw his eyes narrow and move to a spot over my left shoulder. Reflexively, I squatted and spun to see a wiry-looking fourth man swinging a piece of pipe toward the space that my head had just vacated. I shoved my shoulder into his exposed crotch, then clipped him on the back of the neck with a double fist as the momentum of the pipe carried him around. He dropped to the ground with a moan and curled into a fetal position, clutching his groin.

  Ox and I scanned the area to see if there were any more of them. There weren’t. The two ladies tentatively returned to their patio table and, sipping their salvaged drinks, took in the scene.

  “That’s Hertz,” Chesterfield said, pointing to the wiry one at my feet. Gary Hertz had been his property manager for the Bellington Complex. The one who’d taken him for fifty grand.

  We heard the faint sound of sirens. “Let’s roll,” I said, assuming that a bystander or server had dialed 911—We all had better things to do with our time than answer questions for the next hour.

  Ox tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the women’s table telling them, “Drinks on me, ladies. Sorry for the intrusion.” He slid behind the wheel of Chesterfield’s Lexus, which still idled by the curb. Shakily, Chesterfield climbed into the passenger seat.

  I retrieved the pistol, a Para .38, from Stump’s waistband. Not wasting time to search the other two, I yanked Hertz to his feet and patted him down. He had a pocketknife and a pair of brass knuckles, both of which I tossed into a nearby trash can. I shoved him into the front seat of the car and ran around to jump in the driver’s side. Still on the ground, the other three men were showing some signs of life as we pulled away from the curb, and when we turned the corner, we saw flashing blue lights heading their way.

  “Unbelievable,” Bobby said excitedly from the backseat. “Just like on TV!”

  “Ah, I’ve seen better,” Spud replied.

  During the short drive, Hertz slowly came around and his
eyes eventually focused on me. Although we were traveling at forty miles an hour, his hand inched toward the door handle.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I told him. He watched me pull the Glock from my shoulder holster and pass it back to Spud.

  “Keep this on him, would you?” I asked.

  “For crying out loud,” Spud complained. “Lemme have that other one you picked up. If I have to fire this one, my arm will hurt for a week.”

  I pulled the .38 from my pocket and passed it over the seat as well. “Take your pick.”

  Looking pale, Hertz removed his hand from the door and slumped wordlessly in the seat.

  “Can I have a gun, too? I’ll help watch him,” Bobby said.

  “No!” Spud and I said in unison.

  “Well, get me the hell back to your place, then. These wet pants are beginning to itch. There was some kind of slimy goo in that retention pond.”

  Ox, Chesterfield, and I sat with Hertz at my kitchen table. Bobby borrowed a pair of my baggy gym pants to replace his wet slacks, and he and Spud were at the Block eating fish sandwiches. Swimming always gave him an appetite, Bobby claimed.

  “Tell me again why you and your girls were following Mr. Chesterfield today,” I said.

  “Can I have a Coke, or something to drink,” Hertz said miserably. “I don’t feel too good.”

  “You’re going to feel a hell of a lot worse if you don’t answer my question.”

  “We just wanted a key so I can get my stuff out of the apartment. Bastard had the locks changed while Melinda and I was at a movie.”

  Chesterfield nodded his affirmation. “After I was positive about the financials and knew they were stealing. When they found the locks changed and realized I was onto them, they skipped town. I thought they skipped, anyway.”

  “Rich asshole prick,” Hertz spat out, eyes looking bright and jumpy.

  “You sure talk a tough game,” Ox said.

  “Touch me again and I’ll have you all arrested.”

  Ox laughed, an amused sound that was sinister at the same time. If I was Hertz and on the receiving end of that laugh, I’d have been shaking scared. Stupidly, Hertz believed that he had rights in this situation. I grabbed Hertz’s hand, twisted it in a half-spiral, and pressed on a nerve at the back of his wrist. He winced with the excruciating pain and discovered that trying to move made it much worse.