A Walk Among the Tombstones

by Lawrence Block

Page 22

 

  "Or send it to them in stamps," David suggested.

  "I see your point," I said.

  "Because we all know what happens when the phone eats your quarter and doesnt put the call through. Face it, none of us are way out in front of the game when were dealing with Mother Bell. "

  "I suppose. "

  "So youve got free long distance and free Call Forwarding. Theres a code you have to enter to forward your calls, but just ring them up and tell them you lost the slip and theyll explain it to you. Nothing to it. TJ, whats your phone number?"

  "Aint got one. "

  "Well, your favorite pay phone. "

  "Favorite? I dont know. Dont know the number of any of em, anyhow. "

  "Well, pick one out and give me the location. "

  "There be a bank of three of em in Port Authority that I use some. "

  "No good. Too many phones there, its impossible to know if were talking about the same one. How about one on a street corner?"

  He shrugged. "Say Eighth and Forty-third. "

  "Uptown, downtown?"

  "Uptown, east side of the street. "

  "Okay, lets just… there, got it. You want to write down the number?"

  "Just change it," David suggested.

  "Good idea. Make it an easy one to remember. How about TJ-5-4321?"

  "Like its my own phone number? Hey, I like that!"

  "Lets just see if its available. Nope, somebodys got it. So why dont we take the other direction? TJ-5-6789. No problem, so lets make it all yours. So ordered. "

  "You can just do that?" I wondered. "Arent different three-number prefixes specifically linked to different areas?"

  "Used to be. And theres still exchanges, but that works for the particular line number, and that has nothing to do with what you dial. See, the number you dial, like the one I just gave TJ, is the same as the PIN code you use to get money out of your ATM at the bank. Its just a recognition code, really. "

  "Well, its an access code," David said. "But it accesses the line, and thats what routes the call. "

  "Lets fix the phone for you, TJ. Its a pay phone, right?"

  "Right. "

  "Wrong. It was a pay phone. Now its a free phone. "

  "Just like that?"

  "Just like that. Some idiotll probably report it in a week or two, but until then you can save yourself a few quarters. Remember when we played Robin Hood?"

  "Oh, that was fun," David said. "We were down at the World Trade Center one night making calls from a pay phone, and of course the first thing we did was convert it, make it free-"

  "- or otherwise wed be dropping quarters in all night long, which is pretty ridiculous-"

  "- and Hong here says pay phones should be free for everybody, same as the subways ought to be free, they ought to eliminate the turnstiles-"

  "- or make them turn with or without a token, which you could do if they were computerized, but theyre mechanical-"

  "- which is pretty primitive, when you stop and think about it-"

  "- but with pay phones were in a position to do something, so for I think it was two hours-"

  "- more like an hour and a half-"

  "- were hopping through COSMOS, or maybe it was MIZAR-"

  "- no, it was COSMOS-"

  "- and were changing one pay phone after another, liberating it, setting it free-"

  "- and Hongs really getting into it, like Power to the People and everything-"

  "- and I dont know how many phones we switched by the time we were done. " He looked up. "You know something? Sometimes I can see why NYNEX wants to nail our hides to the wall. If you look at it in a certain way, were sort of a major pain in the ass to them. "

  "So?"

  "So youve got to see their point of view, thats all. "

  "No you dont," David King said. "The last thing you have to do is see their point of view. Thats about as smart as playing PacMan and feeling sorry for the blue meanies. "

  Jimmy Hong argued the point, and while they kicked it back and forth I cracked a fresh Coke. When I got back where the action was Jimmy said, "All right, were in the Brooklyn circuits. Give me that number again. "

  I looked it up and read it off and he fed it to the computer. More letters and numbers, meaningless to me, appeared on the screen. His fingers danced on the keys, and my clients name and address showed up.

  "That your friend?" Jimmy wanted to know. I said it was. "Hes not talking on the phone," he said.

  "You can tell that?"

  "Sure. We could listen in if he was. You can just drop in and listen to anybody. "

  "Except its so boring. "

  "Yeah, we used to do it sometimes. You think maybe youll hear something hot, or people talking about a crime or spy stuff. But all you really get to hear is this remarkably tedious crap. Pick up a quart of milk on your way home, darling. Really boring. "

  "And so many people are so inarticulate. They just stutter and stammer along and you want to tell em to spit it out or forget about it. "

  "Of course theres always phone sex. "

  "Dont remind me. "

  "Thats Kings favorite. Three dollars a minute billed to your home phone, but if youve got a pay phone that you taught not to be a pay phone, then its free. "

  "It feels creepy, though. What we did once, though, we just dropped in and listened on some of those lines. "

  "And then cut in and made comments, which really freaked this one guy. He was paying to talk one-on-one to this woman with this incredible voice-"

  "- who probably had a face like Godzilla, but nobody could tell-"

  "- and heres King dropping in on him in the middle of a sentence and trashing his fantasy. "

  "The girl was freaking, too. "

  "Girl, she was probably a grandmother. "

  "Shes going like, Who said that? Where are you? How did you get on this line? "

  Throughout this exchange Jimmy Hong had been participating in another dialogue as well, this one with the computer. Now he held up a hand for silence and hit keys with the other. "Okay," he said. "Gimme the date. It was in March, right?"

  "The twenty-eighth. "

  "Month three, date two-eight. And we want calls to 04-053-904. "

  "No, his number is-"

  "Thats his line number, Matt. Remember the difference? Uh, what I figured. Data not available. "

  "What does that mean?"

  "Means we were smart to bring in a lot of food. Could somebody bring me some of those Doritos? Were going to be here awhile, thats all. You interested in calls he made from his phone, while were in this part of the system? Seems a shame to waste it. "

  "Might as well. "

  "See what we get. Look at that, it doesnt want to tell me a thing. Okay, lets try this. Uh-huh. Okay, now-"

  Then the system began spitting out a record of calls, reeling them off chronologically starting a few minutes after midnight. There were two calls before one in the morning, then nothing until 8:47, when the system logged a thirty-second call to a 212 number. There was one other call in the morning and several in the early afternoon, and none at all between 2:51 and 5:18, when he had been on the phone for a minute and a half with his brother. I recognized Peter Khourys number.

  Then nothing else that night.

  "Anything you want to copy, Matt?"

  "No. "

  "Okay," he said. "Now for the hard part. "

  I COULDNT tell you what it was that they did. A little after eleven they switched and David took over the controls, while Jimmy paced the floor and yawned and stretched and went to the bathroom and came back and polished off a package of Hostess cupcakes. At twelve-thirty they switched again and David went into the bathroom and took a shower. By this time TJ was sound asleep on the bed, lying fully clothed on the bedspread, shoes and all, and clutching one of the pillows as if the world were trying to get it away from him.

  At one-thirty Jimmy said, "God damn it, I cant believe theres no way into NPS
N. "

  "Give me the phone," David said. He dialed a number, snarled, broke the connection, dialed again, and on the third try got through to somebody. "Yo," he said. "Whom I talkin to? Great. Listen, Rita, this is Taylor Fielding at NICNAC Central an I got a Code Five emergency coming down. I need your NPSN access code and your password before the whole thing backs up clear to Cleveland. Thats Code Five, did you hear me?" He listened intently, then reached out a hand for the computer keyboard. "Rita," he said, "youre beautiful. You saved my life, no joke. Can you believe I had two people in a row didnt know a Code Five takes precedence? Yeah, well, thats cause you pay attention. Listen, if you get any static on this, Ill take full responsibility. Yeah, you too. Bye. "

  "You take full responsibility," Jimmy said. "I like that. "

  "Well, it seemed only right. "

  "What the hell is a Code Five, will you tell me that?"

  "I dont know. Whats NICNAC Central? Whos Taylor Feldman?"

  "You said Fielding. "

  "Well, it was Feldman before he changed it. I dont know, man. I just made it all up but it sure impressed Rita. "

  "You sounded so desperate. "

  "Well, why shouldnt I be? Half-past one in the morning and were not even into NPSN yet. "

  "We are now. "

  "And how sweet it is. Ill tell you, Hong, you cant beat that Code Five. It really cuts through all the bureaucratic bullshit, you know what I mean. I got a Code Five emergency coming down. Man, that just about blew her doors off. "

  " Rita, youre beautiful. "

  "Man, I was falling in love, I have to say it. And by the time we were through wed sort of established a relationship, you know?"

  "You gonna call her again?"

  "I bet I can get a password off her anytime, unless something tips her that she just gave away the store. Otherwise next time I call her were gonna be old friends. "

  "Call her sometime," I said, "and dont try to get a password or an access code or anything else. "

  "You mean just ring her up to chat?"

  "Thats the idea. Maybe give her some information, but dont try to get anything out of her. "

  "Far out," David said.

  "And then later on-"

  "Got it," Jimmy said. "Matt, I dont know if youve got either the digital dexterity or the hand-eye coordination, and you dont really know a thing about the technology, but I have to tell you something. Youve got the heart and soul of a hacker. "

  ACCORDING to the Kongs, the whole process really got interesting after they got into NPSN, whatever that meant. "This is the part thats fascinating from a technical standpoint," David explained, "because heres where we try retrieving information the NYNEX people claimed wasnt available. Theyll say that just to brush you off, but some of them were telling the truth, or what they thought was the truth, because the fact of the matter is they wouldnt know how to go about finding it. So its almost as though we have to invent our own program and feed it into their system so itll spit out the data we want. "