3rd World Products, Book 16

by Ed Howdershelt

  I replied in kind, “Always glad to entertain you, ma’am. Thanks for helping. I think they were impressed.”

  Athena laughed softly and her presence vanished.

  Reaching to wave a hand through the space where Athena had been, Keller muttered, “Dear God, did that really happen? Was she really there?”

  A tow truck arrived and parked behind the Mustang as Leeman said quietly, “I saw her too, Keller. Terry, on your feet. You went just a little too damned far today.”

  Terry shrank away from Leeman’s reach as he wailed, “I didn’t do nothin’! I was just blowing off a little steam!”

  Gazing flatly at him, Leeman said, “You threw a cup of soda at him and threatened our jobs and I’m damned tired of dealing with you, Terry. This time you get to face a judge.”

  “But he busted out my back window! What about him?!”

  Leeman snapped, “You got any proof? I don’t think he could throw anything that hard, either. Now get your ass up off the ground.”

  As he led Terry away, I sent a tendril to put Keller’s leg back in working order and he yelped. Lifting the leg a couple of times, he said, “What the hell…? It’s like it was asleep!”

  I asked, “Ever sit wrong in your car for too long? That can mash nerve bundles and… well, stuff like that.”

  Keller gave me a droll look and continued to work his leg. The tow truck driver waited until Terry was in the back seat of a cop car before crossing the street.

  As he joined us, he looked at Keller and asked, “Y’all sure ya wanna be doin’ this? Y’gotta know who his daddy is.”

  “If Leeman writes him up, I’ll back him on it.”

  “Kid musta been a real asshole today, huh?”

  “Can’t talk about it. Just stand by, Rick. We’ll let Leeman decide how things go from here.”

  Thumbing at my bike, Rick asked, “This goin’, too?”

  With a glance at me, Keller said, “No.”

  Rick nodded, said, “Well, y’all let me know ‘bout that car soon, okay?” and started back across the street.

  Leeman returned from installing Terry in the squad car and asked, “Who was that woman?”

  “Athena. She’s the computer I mentioned.”

  Keller asked, “Did she have anything to do with the busted window?”

  “Nope.”

  “How can we know that?”

  I shrugged. “You can’t. You don’t have to, either, since there’s no reason to believe she did anything. Or that I did. Are we about done here?”

  Leeman said, “Almost. We need a copy of that recording.”

  “See Greer. He already has it.”

  “Why not just give us a copy?”

  Giving him a direct gaze, I said, “Because if you really need it later, you’ll also need someone on your side who can’t be bought off or scared off by the kid’s daddy. If you have to go through channels and across county lines to get it, everybody involved will know the situation and you won’t stand alone.”

  “You know who his father is?”

  “Nope. Local politics don’t mean spit to me.”

  Keller said, “Lucky you,” then looked at Leeman and asked, “Well? What now?”

  Leeman sighed, “It’s all on record from the time he called 911 about the window. We’d have to show something for all that anyway and I’m tired of putting up with his crap. I’m taking him in and having his car towed.”

  Keller nodded and said, “Okay then. Let’s do this.”

  After signing a statement about my ‘traffic stop’ that mentioned an independent recording of the incident, I was on my way again. It occurred to me someone would likely ask why they didn’t impound the recorder as evidence. Heh.

  I reached Inverness around ten and turned west on County-44 to continue avoiding overdeveloped areas. Stopping at a Wendy’s for an early lunch, I considered where else to go. No answer. I seemed to be really and truly just out rolling around. Once I had my combo meal and drink, I took them outside to one of the small patio tables.

  Chapter Three

  A fairly attractive near-forty brunette woman unshouldered a black laptop case and sat down two tables from mine. After setting her purse by the laptop case and arranging her clothing for comfort, she opened the salad on her tray.

  She was well structured and wearing the sort of outfit I’ve always liked seeing on women; a near knee skirt and a jacket that fit her well. I guess it vaguely reminds me of the old WAC dress green uniforms or something. Whatever. I just like ‘em.

  Her outfit was a medium-dark shade of blue and the skirt rode up a bit as she shifted her legs. Very nice legs. Excellent legs, really. She didn’t have the waist of a still-growing schoolgirl, but she seemed not to have much extra there, if any. She seemed to keep herself in good condition.

  Several moments passed before she quietly asked, “Are you staring at me?” and looked up from her salad to fix me with a direct, green-eyed gaze.

  Hm. I revised my estimate of her age downward about five years. Her face and voice seemed oddly, vaguely familiar, but I was absolutely sure I’d never met her before.

  Shaking my head, I replied, “Not staring. Admiring. I was married to a WAC once. She wore outfits like that and I’ve always liked them.” Giving her a grinning little two-fingered salute, I said, “They kinda make me want to salute, y’know?”

  “Salute? WAC? Was she in the military or something?”

  “Yup. The Women’s Army Corps. But they did away with that differentiation some time ago. Nowadays women are just considered female soldiers.”

  Her left eyebrow arched and she eyed me for another moment, then she nodded and returned her attention to her salad. I dug into my burger and made a point of trying to find somewhere else to look at least some of the time.

  She finished her salad, set her drink to one side, and wiped the table. Lifting the black case that had been leaning against her chair, she produced a laptop, opened it, and turned it on. Glancing around and up, she moved and turned the laptop slightly, adjusted the lean of the screen, and then nodded.

  I was down to my last few fries when she softly muttered, “Oh, damn it to hell! Not today, please!” Her next string of words were a bit louder and less pleasant.

  Moving to stand by her table, I asked, “Problem? I used to fix computers in Hernando County.”

  Pointing at the screen, she said, “See for yourself.”

  Moving again so I could see the screen, I found it heavily populated with little pop-up ‘virus alert‘ windows that offered a ‘click here to repair your computer‘ button.

  I said, “If you happen to care at all, that’s a trojan, not a virus. If you click the button, you’ll be taken to a website offering an expensive cure.”

  “Yes, I know. I got something like this last year. Now I’ll have to find another computer to figure out how to clean this damned thing off this one.”

  She gently banged a fist on the table and snarled, “And I really don’t have time for this shit today! I have to show a condo at four! I’m all the way over here from Ocala and the address is on one of the pictures!”

  “Want me to fix things?”

  Turning to look up at me rather appraisingly, she asked, “Can you fix it? Really?”

  I nodded. “Yup. Really. Stand by one.”

  Retrieving my backpack from my bike, I took out my Puppy Linux CD and put it in her laptop, then turned her laptop off and back on. As I sat down, the laptop rebooted to the Puppy CD and we soon had a screen with program icons.

  Rather than simply clicking the drive icon to open her Windows drive, I decided to install Puppy so she’d have its facilities later. Choosing Gparted, I found she had lots of empty space on her hard drive. I partitioned ten gigs of it and formatted them to Ext2, then told Puppy to install there.

  Suddenly growing wary, the woman said, “You said you were going to fix my computer. What’s all this about?”

  “I said I was going to fix ‘things‘, ma’am. Y
ou’ll be able to work with your data files, show pictures, play videos and music, and do anything else you want to do. The trojan won’t matter a fat damn to Puppy Linux.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a different operating system. Windows bugs can’t touch it.”

  Looking somewhat alarmed, she said, “This is a company laptop! I can’t let you do anything to the Windows!”

  I held up a hand and said, “Relax. I’m not doing anything to your Windows files. I’m just making your laptop usable so you can get on with your day. That’s all, I promise. If we can’t clean out the trojan quickly, you can still do your job. Okay?”

  Her mouth and eyes tightened and her left hand twitched on the table, but she sighed, “Oh, what the hell… it’s too late now anyway, isn’t it?”

  “No. I could turn off the computer and use the CD to clean off everything I’ve done so far. But you’d still have that trojan and an unusable computer and I’d rather show you how to work around problems like that. Good enough?”

  As I said ‘good enough’, Puppy finished installing. She said nothing as I removed the CD and rebooted the computer, then she asked, “Uh… why did you stop the process?”

  “I didn’t. Installing Puppy doesn’t take long.”

  By that time, the boot options screen had appeared.

  She read the choices and said, “This wasn’t there before.”

  “Nope. Now you have a choice.”

  Twenty seconds later her laptop happily barked twice, indicating all was ready. Puppy automatically found several WiFi links in the area. I chose the open Wendy’s link. Downloading the latest Firefox, importing her ‘favorites’ bookmarks, and setting Firefox for private browsing took another few minutes, then I said, “All set,” and turned the laptop over to her.

  She sat eyeing the screen and asked, “Really? There’s nothing else still to do?”

  “Nope.” Pointing to the drive icon labeled ‘sda1‘, I said, “That’s your Windows drive. The drive labeled ‘sda2‘ is the chunk of space I set up for Puppy Linux. Click on the first one.”

  She did so and I saw her grin as her eyes widened in her reflection from the screen.

  “My folders!” she blurted, “What do I do now?”

  I chuckled, “Well, gee, ma’am; I guess you could find the ones you need and click on stuff.”

  She gave me a wry look and moused through several levels to a folder labeled ‘42796 Carmichael Ave‘. When she clicked on the first file on the list, up popped a typical MLS listing page with pictures, descriptions, and other info.

  “Oh, my Gawd!” she breathed, “It’s really all there! It really works!”

  “Yup. Using Linux is kind of like running your computer in ‘God Mode’. See all, do all, etc… if you know how. Puppy is a small version of Linux that can run completely in RAM if necessary. You want to see about fixing that trojan now?”

  She looked up and stuck her hand out. “It just occurred to me I don’t know your name. I’m Tanya.”

  Taking her hand, I said, “I’m Ed. While we’re taking a break, may I show you something?”

  “Uh… I guess so. What?”

  I said, “Watch,” and typed ‘Julie London you go to my head‘ in the browser’s search box. Up popped a few links to mp3 files. I clicked one, turned up the volume, and a few moments later, Julie softly sang, ‘You go to my head… and you linger… like a haunting refrain…’

  Goosebumps instantly rose on Tanya’s arms. She seemed startled to see them and rubbed them as she returned her rapt gaze to the screen. A couple of minutes later the song ended and we both just sat staring at the screen for a time.

  Tanya almost whispered, “Wow!”

  “Yup. That’s who you sound like, ma’am. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want you to think I was bullshitting you. And, of course, I wasn’t sure you’d know who she was.”

  She faced me. “I… I’ve heard myself on the phone a few times. When I made messages for the company and like that. But they didn’t sound like this. Well, not quite, anyway.”

  “This was made with a professional recording system. Even laptop speakers couldn’t ruin it. Do you sing?”

  With a blurting laugh, she looked back at the screen and chuckled, “A little karaoke a few times, but not like that!”

  Putting the Puppy disk back in its sleeve, I said, “Maybe you should give it a shot. I’d damned sure buy your tunes.”

  Tanya looked at my CD and asked, “Will I need a copy of that CD later?”

  “Not for this box. Maybe someone else’s. I’ll show you where to get it.”

  Reaching for the laptop again, I searched for Puppy Linux, found the 126-meg download, and clicked it. Tanya watched some of the download, then asked, “What’s an iso file?”

  “A file made to be written to a disk or flash drive. Just put in a blank CD and right-click on this file. Choose Pburn and let it do its own thing to make the disk.”

  She watched the download for another moment, then asked, “What about the trojan?”

  “We can try to can fix it before you have to get underway or you can mess with it later. Your choice.”

  Tanya checked her watch, then said, “Let’s try to fix it.”

  “Good ‘nuff.”

  We searched for info and found it, then applied it as directed to her Windows drive. About half an hour later Tanya was again able to boot into Windows and run things without a problem. We booted back into Puppy so I could show her a few things, but that’s when Tanya reached in a pocket for her cell phone.

  She looked at the screen, said, “I have to take this,” and got up.

  Standing and moving a few paces away, Tanya had what seemed like a rather tense conversation with someone. I figured it was either a boyfriend or a boss, so I took my laptop back to my bike. A few minutes later Tanya put her phone away and returned to her seat. As I went to join her, she turned off her laptop and closed it, then began rather ungently stuffing it into its case.

  I asked, “Anything wrong?”

  Glancing up, she said, “Yeah, something’s wrong. I won’t be showing the condo. They put a deposit on another place.”

  “Bummer. What does that do to the rest of your day?”

  Pausing before zipping the case shut, Tanya said, “I guess I’ll go home. There’s no point in going back to the office. I was supposed to be off today anyway.”

  She started to pick up the case, then canceled the motion and just stared at it for a moment.

  With a sigh, she said, “I have half a mind to go in on Monday and quit. If I didn’t need every damned dime I can scrape together right now, I think I would.”

  As I sat down, she said, “Some of the properties I’ve had to show this week should be condemned, not sold. Except that I didn’t make any commissions, I’m just as glad nobody bought them. I’d rather not be associated with them.”

  “A functional conscience can be a hindrance in your line of work, ma’am.” She gave me a droll gaze. I said, “And switching companies won’t change the available listings.”

  “So you’re saying what..? That I should find some other kind of job altogether?”

  “Not necessarily. Freelancers can specialize.”

  Her left eyebrow arched. “This job is hard enough.”

  “Think about it. Is there even one little thing you’ve done that really required being with a big company? Couldn’t you have handled everything yourself?”

  “The showing, yes. The paperwork, yes. But finding clients takes advertising. Lots of advertising.”

  “That’s just one way to fish, milady. There are many others, and maybe there’s another one that suits you better. Say you heard a company was definitely moving to Florida. How would you reach the employees who’d be moving with it? Figure they’d be middle management or above.”

  “Well, I guess that would depend on… No, it wouldn’t. Bottom line, new people would be coming here.” Eyeing me, she asked, “How would you reach them?”<
br />
  “I’d use other-than-usual methods to initiate a meeting. No blind calls, no introductory emails. No fancy brochures. I’d go in person and contrive a meeting with someone there. Preferably more than one of them.”

  She echoed, “You’d ‘contrive’ a meeting? That sounds a little devious, doesn’t it?”

  “Yup. But you’re bitching about having to show bad properties, so I’d say it doesn’t matter how you meet potential clients. You won’t knowingly sell rotten apples, right?”

  Tanya’s left eyebrow arched again as she regarded me briefly, then she asked, “So how would you do it?”

  “I’d recon the company on the Net. Moving when? To where? Get names of the brass moving with it. Recon their new location. Find out about utilities and routine necessities. Figure out how to make anyone’s move as painless as possible. Locate rentals because most of them probably won’t be hot to buy right away. They’ll have too much other stuff to think about. Then I’d go up there and…”

  She interrupted, “Go up there?! Without making some contacts first?”

  Raising an index finger, I said, “Whoa. Don’t panic yet. They’re moving to Florida, which means some of them will have properties listed up there, right?”

  Tanya subsided thoughtfully. “Yes, it probably would.”

  “And you could show some interest in those properties. Make some calls, make some contacts. A lot of people from Florida buy land in North Carolina. It’s kind of a standing joke in some areas.”

  With a skeptical gaze, she asked, “Really? Which areas?”

  “The mountains I visit every summer, for example. Run a property sale records search for Graham County. You’ll see where a lot of the out-of-state owners live for seven to nine months of the year. They want the scenery, but not the hard winters or the state income tax.”

  In moderate disbelief, she echoed, “A state income tax?”

  “Yup. Most states have them. Florida and a very few other states don’t.”

  Still skeptical, she asked, “Would you mind if I verify some of this? I mean, right now?”

  I shrugged and sighed, “Sure. Go for it. I’ll just sit here and feel all hurt and dejected ‘cuz you didn’t believe me.”