Once we were inside, Mark made the introductions and I shook Jack Baker’s outstretched hand. It was smooth and warm. It didn’t feel like he had spent much time chopping the wood that he used to heat his home.
“Come along,” he said. “Let’s see what I got for you.”
From the rebuilt and well-designed mobile home trailer, Jack led us into the yurt. In the center was a woodstove with a glass door, and inside were the hot orange coals of burning wood. The stove was on a round stone base, and the metal chimney ran up to the high-pitched roof of the yurt. Curved couches hugged the walls of the yurt, save for one side, which had a curved wooden desk that looked handmade. On the desk were three large computer monitors, and before the desk was a high-tech-looking chair. There were bookshelves, comfortable chairs, and a very large television on the other side. Small porthole-type windows looked out at the surrounding scenery.
He sat down at his high-tech chair, turned it around to look out at us. Mark took one chair and I took another. A black-and-white cat emerged from behind the woodstove, came over and sniffed Mark’s feet, and then rubbed up against my left leg. I rubbed its head and saw it only had one eye.
“Bailey,” Jack said. “Don’t disturb our guests.”
The cat yawned and then trotted back to the warmth of the woodstove. “Can I get either of you gentlemen something to drink?”
I looked to Mark and shook my head, and he said, “No, we’re fine. Jack, look, how close are you to getting the information about my dad?”
Jack lazily crossed his legs. “It’s taking some time, Mark.” He gestured to the three monitors. “Like I told you before, it’s not like I’m trying to hack a department store or the local DMV. I’m diving deep into some very secure, very dark, very dangerous waters.”
“I know that, but—”
Jack talked over him and went on. “The names and addresses of people in the Witness Protection Program are kept in some of the more secure computer storage systems in the world, and you can’t go at it with a sledgehammer. You have to be gentle, quiet, seductive . . . and sometimes you have to hire allies, hackers from other parts of the world, to do a little nibbling from their locations so alarms don’t go off. It’s like seeing a series of fishing lines stretched across a corridor, and you have to step around them, through them, and underneath them without touching a single fiber.”
He took a sip from his tea cup. Mark said slowly, “I appreciate that, Jack. I really do. You’re the best I’ve ever heard of, but . . . please. I’ve come a long way.”
“I know you have,” Jack said, his voice chipper, then giving his attention to me. “Tell me, what do you think of my little rural paradise?”
“Seems rural, seems warm. Depends on your definition of paradise, I suppose.”
“True enough, but it works for me.” He gestured to the terminals with his tea cup. “I have this wonderful, private little homemade home. About fifty acres of land and forest that belong to me. Private well, plenty of firewood, backup generators and batteries for power. Extreme privacy, with not even the post office knowing what I do here. I’m connected to the world—and even the International Space Station, and I hope you can keep that a secret—and with cutouts and anonymous re-mailing services, only a trusted few get to know I’m here. A perfect arrangement.”
With a self-satisfied smile, he took another sip. I looked to Mark. His fists were clenched and it looked like he was about to cry.
Time for an intervention.
I said “Jack, that’s all delightful and such, but as Mark pointed out, he’s in quite the hurry, and so am I. So where is his dad living?”
“Mister Will Mallory?”
“That’s the name,” I said.
With a shrug of his shoulders, Jack said: “I don’t know.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
What!” Mark exclaimed, leaning out of his chair. “You told me that you’d have that information today . . . that it was going to all come together.”
Jack didn’t look upset at all. “It is. I always keep my promises. But, Mark . . . it’ll be here in a few hours, but it’s going to cost more.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“That was then, this is now.” A slight, almost apologetic shrug. “As I said, this kind of work is very delicate. I needed to call in additional resources, additional allies. That means additional expenses. Sorry.”
Mark’s face was flushed. “You didn’t tell me it was going to cost any more. You promised the information for a flat rate. That’s what you promised.”
“Circumstances change,” Jack said. “The information is coming my way in . . .” and he checked the time on the nearest monitor “. . . two hours. Whether it goes to you or to my trash bin is up to you. And another five thousand dollars.”
“Jack . . . please . . . I’m tapped out,” Mark said. “I emptied my savings, did a cash advance on my Visa, and even cashed out my IRA. I don’t have anything more.”
Jack didn’t say a word, just kept on smiling. Mark put his hands together in his lap, folded them tight. Not a word was exchanged.
Enough.
I spoke up. “He’s squeezing you, Mark. He has you by the legendary short hairs and is going to strip you clean.”
Mark was really choking back tears now. “Is that true?”
Jack looked quite content, like a poker player keeping a tranquil face with four aces in his hand.
“I prefer to say it’s just business, that’s all,” Jack said. “No offense.”
“Would you take something from me?” I asked.
Both Mark and Jack seemed surprised, Mark most of all. Mark said “Lewis, please, I appreciate it, but—”
I held up my left hand. Mark quieted down. Jack still looked tranquil. I reached back, took out my wallet, removed something, and passed it over to Jack. He took the rectangular piece of cardboard and examined both sides.
“Shoreline?” he asked. “You’re a magazine columnist?”
Not really, but he didn’t need to know the ins and outs of my current employment situation. But remembering my Catholic school upbringing, I was going to do my very best.
“That’s what the card says, right?”
He looked at it again, like he was trying to puzzle out some sort of hidden secret. “Very cute. But anybody can go to a print shop and have business cards made up.” He flipped it back at me, and I let it fall on the floor.
I passed him something else from my wallet, and I said “A bit harder to fake this, don’t you think?” “This” was my official press pass from the N.H. Department of Safety, and it had my photo, stats, and my affiliation with Shoreline. Thankfully, the Department of Safety doesn’t do an active survey of the press passes it issues, so mine was still in effect.
I said, “Looks pretty official, doesn’t it? Not something a local Kinko’s can put together for you in an hour or so.”
That got his attention. Mark kept quiet. Bailey the cat wandered out and flopped himself on his side.
“The thing is,” I went on, “as a magazine writer, I’m always looking for story ideas. And lo and behold, here we are, with you, in this unique outpost of an Internet genius that has connection to the world and is heated by a woodstove. Don’t you think that’d be a great story?”
I was thankful that Mark, for once, was keeping his mouth shut. The tranquil look on Jack’s face was beginning to fade. “I forbid it,” he said.
“Forbid what?” I said. “Doing a story about you? Good luck with that. Or didn’t you learn anything about the Constitution during all the time you were studying computers and the Internet and Java?”
“Then you’ll have no access to my property for purposes of photography.”
“Gee, already taken care of,” I said. “Or haven’t you been told that cell phones can take photos nowadays?”
My cell phone was currently in pieces and at the bottom of the pond where I’d tossed it a little while ago, but I decided not to pass on that little gem of inform
ation.
He put his teacup down on the edge of a nearby table, and it started to fall, and he lunged to keep it in place. Some of the tea slopped out onto the table. “You . . . you can’t do that,” he said. “My privacy . . . the way I work . . . the way I live. You can’t do that!”
“Watch me,” I said. “Of course, if you were to take care of Mark here without pressing him for any additional payment, then I’m sure we could reach an arrangement.”
I was hoping for a civilized, give-and-take conversation, and I was severely disappointed. The previous tranquil look on his face had faded like a summer day, and an impressive series of obscenities erupted, and I sat there and let the words just wash over me. When he paused to catch his breath, I took out a pen and small notebook in my jacket—making sure my holstered 9mm Beretta made an appearance—and said, “What do you say, let’s start the interview process. Jack, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”
He said, “You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
Jack took a deep breath. “I will crush you. I’ll go through the ’Net and destroy your credit, steal all your passwords, hack everything and anything you have, and drain your bank accounts and anything else. For starters.”
He stopped and gave me a hard gaze. I looked right back at him. The silence was thick and still.
“Oh,” I said. “My turn? Is that how this goes?”
“Whatever.”
“All right, Jack,” I said. “Take a gander at this. I’m currently living in my car. My bank account is fast approaching negative territory. My credit rating is somewhat better than Greece’s. Whatever weapons you possess will have no impact on me. None. Zilch. Zero.”
I displayed my notebook. “This is what I have. Who do you think will win?”
Oh, his face was very much the opposite of tranquil. “I know people,” he said. “I know people who can hurt you bad.”
“I know people too,” I said. “Mister Beretta. Mister Smith. Mister Wesson. Do you really want to go there?”
More silence. He slowly leaned back in his very expensive, and actually quite silly-looking, chair. “Do go on.”
“Oh, I will, but won’t be long. Here’s the set. When will you get the information that Mark was looking for?”
He took another look at the near monitor. “Two hours.”
“Outstanding,” I said. I got up, and Mark slowly joined me. “We’ll be back in two hours and five minutes, and we’ll be here to pick up Will Mallory’s address. In exchange, well, you get nothing more from Mark. And as for me, you’ll get no attention. Nothing. You can keep on playing in your little camp in the woods, and your secrets will be safe from the readers of Shoreline magazine. How does that sound for a deal?”
“It sounds fine,” Jack said. “I guess.”
“Glad to hear that. Mark? Feel like killing some time?”
“You know it.”
Outside Jack’s home, we strolled up the dirt driveway, and Mark said “Thanks for what you did back there.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I know what you think of me . . . so why did you do it?”
I stopped walking for a moment. “You don’t know enough about me to ask that.”
“Hunh?”
“I did it because it’ll help you get finished with your befuddled quest, which means I can get you back to Tyler, and will—though I don’t know why—make Paula Quinn a happier woman. Are we done for now?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
We drove to North Conway, a fair-sized town in the White Mountains that, through some curious mix of geography and commercialism, is a hotbed of discount stores from Macy’s to L.L. Bean to American Eagle, and a host of other stores, including a super Wal-Mart, where I spent a few minutes picking up a cheap replacement cell phone. North Conway also has a number of smaller shops devoted to skiing, mountain climbing, and other outdoor activities; and as we slowly motored our way through the center of its crowded downtown, Mark said “I want to pick up something for my dad.”
“Like what? Some flowers? Bottle of wine? Crystal meth?”
“No,” he said. “He’s a biker . . . from what I gathered, a biker all his life. Maybe I can get him some gear or something.”
“If you think so,” I said, and I found an empty spot for the Mazda right in the center of North Conway. Out on the sidewalk we walked to the south, past a couple of shops and a white-steepled church, and came upon a shoe and leather-goods store called The Beggar’s Pouch that seemed to fit Mark’s bill.
“You go in,” I said. “I’ve got a couple of calls to make.”
He went up a set of brick steps and into the store. It was late afternoon. I was hungry, tired, and I didn’t like the look of the sky. Even at this distance from the Atlantic, the funny light in the sky seemed to warn of an approaching storm.
My first call went to Duncan Gross, the contractor who had been getting ready to start work on my house. The phone rang a half dozen times before his wife Sue answered, and I didn’t feel a whole lot of warmth coming my way when she said “He’ll be here in a sec. Hold on.”
When he got to the phone and I announced myself, he said, “Jeez, Lewis, I thought this might be you. Look, I’ve bent over backwards to help you out. We got that old lumber in place, I’ve done some prep work, but I’m already in pretty deep with you. And not to belabor the point, but I don’t know when I’m gonna get paid.”
“I know that, and I appreciate that, Duncan, but last I heard, Hurricane Toni is heading right for New England.”
“Sure is, and day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so please . . . what can I do?” He lowered his voice. “I want to help, honest to God I do, but the missus, she’s my business manager. She watches every penny that comes in and out, and I can’t do any more. I’m sorry. Without that insurance settlement . . . I’m stuck.”
“You and me both, Duncan. Thanks anyway.”
A short sigh. “Look, I might be able to slip away for an hour or so before we hit the road for turkey day. I’ll try to stop by your place, see if I can nail up some additional tarp. Won’t be much, but if the storm veers away, well, maybe you’ll get lucky, the damage will be minimal.”
After wishing him the best and not meaning it that much, I made another phone call, while two women of a certain age emerged from the store, with bulging shopping bags in their hands. Their accents said New York and lots of money, and I tried to tune them out while the phone rang and rang on the other end, and then it went to a menu, and I punched in an extension that I hoped someday to forget.
For some reason, I wasn’t placed on hold, and the phone was briskly answered. “Adrian Zimmerman, how can I help you?”
“Adrian, Lewis Cole . . . was that a trick question?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said ‘how can I help you?’ Did you really mean that, or is that some sort of automatic reply they teach you at insurance adjuster school?”
There was no sound and I thought he had hung up on me. But he finally went on and said, “Mister Cole, there’s nothing new to report. Nothing. The investigation is continuing, and that’s all I can say.”
“And the fact that within a couple of days, a hurricane will be hitting New England and just might destroy a historical home, that’s no concern of yours?”
“My concern and that of my company is to make sure legitimate claims are promptly settled. There’s still questions about the legitimacy of your claim. Plus . . . we received word that your Honda Pilot was stolen. In Tyler. True?”
“Yes,” I said, which was technically true. I didn’t have possession of it anymore and I didn’t know where it was.
“But you haven’t made an official report to the Tyler police, have you?”
“I’ve been . . . busy.”
“Or perhaps you’re concerned about what might happen if you were to show up at the Tyler police st
ation?”
“Adrian, I’d like to point out that I’m still out here, breathing free and not under arrest,” I said.
“That still doesn’t answer the questions about the arsons and your stolen vehicle.”
“Adrian, I need—”
“Mister Cole, I’m sorry. I appreciate your desire to get this resolved, but there are procedures to be followed, and at this moment I’m leaving the office for the upcoming holiday.”
“Goody for you, Adrian,” I said. “I’m sure you’re going to have a nice holiday, in a nice home. Think about me while you’re dining safe and warm.”
“Mister Cole—”
Now it was my turn to interrupt. “Ever hear of karma, Adrian? She can be a bitch. And I guarantee you this: some time in the future, next day or next year, you’re going to be in my position. And I hope you get the same level of consideration and attention you’ve shown to me.”
By then I was talking to myself.
I turned around and was going to enter the store to check up on Mark, when one of the women standing near me said something about an “ugly biker thug” and I stopped moving.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said, my voice polite and filled with concern. “I’m sorry, I accidentally heard you say something about a ‘biker thug.’ Did someone just threaten you?”
The near woman’s hair was black, thick and luxurious, no doubt having come from a bottle and skilled hands. Her companion was blond, and their clothes and coats and high-heeled boots and jewelry all said they were from away. She giggled nervously and said, “Oh my, it was nothing like that. It was just that Doris and I were in this cute little shop behind us, and there was one mean-looking thug walking around. Looked like one of those biker gang members you see on television.”
“Why did you think he was a biker?”
She fluttered a hand. “Oh, my word, the leather jacket he was wearing, funny beard and moustache, and my God, the tattoos; now, I’m not prejudiced and even my granddaughter, bless her, has a tattoo, but this thug . . . oh, he was scary, Doris, wasn’t he.”
Blood Foam: A Lewis Cole Mystery (Lewis Cole series) Page 17