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"Fine." Eric shrugged. "It's not like I care."
"You've made that obvious enough."
"Ladies, please." Max gave us both a time-out signal. "Save the mud- wrestling for later. We've got plans to make, not to mention--"
"Crisis number two?" Schwarz asked.
There was a knock on the door. Max checked his watch and nodded. "Speak of the devil--he's right on time."
"I told him, and now I'm telling you, I won't be treated this way," Bernard Salazar raged from the doorway. He'd refused to come inside. I was hiding in Schwarz's closet, peering through a crack in the door and trying not to breathe in the fumes of his dirty laundry. Bernard, of all people, couldn't be trusted to know I was involved. "I gave you losers a shitload of cash, and what did you give me? Nothing."
"We gave you information," Max said impatiently. It was obvious he'd said it before, probably more than once. "You got a full description of your admissions officer, everything he was looking for in a candidate, statistical likelihoods of success with every possible answer to every possible question, a full run-down of everything you needed to do to be accepted. It was practically paint-by-numbers. Throw in the fact that you're claiming to be, what is it today? One eighth Latino and one eighth Native American? If you don't get in, I guarantee you it's not our fault."
"I am one-eighth Latino--my ancestors fought at the Alamo!"
"Yeah? Which side?" Max asked.
"Huh?"
"Do you even know which sides there are to choose from?"
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Bernaid punched a fist into the door frame. He sucked his knuckles, then thrust his chin up and his shoulders back. The black ballpoint tattoo on his left bicep twitched, and I wondered if he was trying to flex his nonexistent muscles. "Quit changing the subject. You think you can pull this on me? This is fraud."
"Daddy taught you a lot about that, did he?" Max asked.
"Shut up."
"Fraud. Noun. The crime of obtaining money or some other benefit by deliberate deception. Look it up." He turned toward Eric and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. "I guess we know why he tanked the SATs."
"Stop poking the hungry lion," Eric whispered back.
Max ignored him. "This isn't fraud, Bernie. You've known all along what we were willing to do for you and what we weren't."
"And I've known all along what I was willing to do to you," Bernard snickered.
"Are you planning to spell this out for us? Or are there too many letters?"
"You're going to hack into the computer system and get me in. I know you can do it."
Max snorted. "Of course we can do it. But why would we do it for you?"
Instead of answering, Bernard unzipped his shoulder bag, the opulence of its creamy leather clashing loudly with his ripped T-shirt and baggy jeans. Silk screened across the front of his T-shirt was a fist with the middle finger extended. The blue binder that he pulled out of his bag, on the other hand, had a Star Trek sticker pasted across the front of it and a small pink Playboy logo on the spine.
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Schwarz jumped off his bed. "The Binder of Power!" His voice squeaked.
Bernard's grin said Game over. "I told your buddy Clay that you needed it. And, like the mental defective he is, he just handed it over."
"You can't prove anything in there is connected to us," eric said. "For all anyone knows, you came up with it yourself. Your word against ours."
"My word--and your fingerprints," Bernard pointed out. "And ink that I'll bet came out of that printer." He pointed at the Canon laser beneath Schwarz's desk. "And I'm sure that's just the beginning."
"Someone's been watching a little too much CSI," Max said.
"Someone hasn't been watching enough," Bernard sneered. "You broke into the admissions office--under false pretenses--and altered a transcript file. I looked it up: That's a felony. Some kid in Philly got ten years for the same thing. So if you think the cops won't be interested in what I've got here"--he tapped out a jaunty rhythm on the blue binder--"or if you are sure you didn't leave any identifying evidence behind, then go ahead. Risk it. Let the admissions committee take a nice close look at Clay's application. Lose your little bet, get kicked out of school and tossed in jail. See if I care. Or you can do this one simple thing for me, and you get your precious binder back."
"You're such an asshole," Eric snapped, and I was waiting for him-- for any of them--to get up and take the binder. Bernard was bigger than Max, bigger than eric, and probably twice as big as Schwarz. But it was still three against one--and the math on that was remedial.
No one moved.
"I sure am. Stick with what you're good at, right?" Bernard said. "You could've made this a whole lot easier on yourselves if you'd just let me blackmail Atherton."
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"You still can," Max pointed out. "You want the tape?"
"We're not giving him that tape!" Eric protested.
"Doesn't matter." Bernard shook his head. "You said it yourself-- too risky. Too much chance of getting caught."
"So you came up with this brilliant idea instead?" Eric asked. "You realize how much worse it'll be if we get caught doing this?"
"That's what makes this so sweet. You'll get caught. Not me. So what do I care?"
Silence.
"It's your call. According to the timetable in here"--Bernard waved the binder again, then tucked it safely into his bag-^"admissions decisions are being made as we speak. So you're running out of time. Let me know what you decide."
"Fornicate you," Schwarz muttered. But he waited until the door had closed.
"You said you could handle him," Eric said accusingly. "You said we could trust him."
"I never said that," Max protested. "I just said he could pay. Which, lest we forget, he did."
"Yeah, you were right about everything. You've got everything under control. So tell us, oh master of strategy and tactical planning-- what the hell do we do now?"
"I'm glad you asked." Max stood up and wandered over to the window. He spread his arms across the frame and stared out at the Yard. "Fear not, brave fellows. In the immortal words of every great general, every criminal mastermind, every empty-headed politician in the course of human history, I have a plan."
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March 3 * EMERGENCY COMPUTER HACK
Objective: Damage control
If at all possible, dispense justice.
--Neil Steinberg, If At All Possible, Involve a Cow-. The Book of College Pranks
(Smile, I instructed myself. Not too wide or they'll know you're bluffing. Not too eager or they'll think you're scared. I rang the doorbell, and composed myself on the porch, leaning oh-so-casually against the white railing. I would be the Goldilocks of facial expressions. I would talk my way inside that house.
It turned out, I didn't have to.
"Come in, come in, dear." The slim, perfectly polished woman behind the door reached out to me and, in one smooth, elegant motion, shook my hand and maneuvered me inside. Before I knew what was happening, she had slipped off my coat and floated it toward a nearby hook. It was as if I'd stepped into a TV screen and this twenty-something, DKNY-clad, capped teeth, blond-highlighted starlet had hastily wrapped an apron around her waist in preparation for playing the role of The Mother.
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"I'm Alexandra," I said, wondering if I'd come to the wrong house. She pulled a plate from behind her back and suddenly I had a fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie in my hand. "You must be, uh, Gerald's ..."
"Stepmother," she said, with an airy giggle. "The boys are downstairs, like always." She shook her head in bemusement. Her hair didn't move at all. Last I heard, hairspray had gone out in the eighties, along with acid-wash denim and shoulder pads. But obviously one of us had missed a memo. "Would you like me to call them up here for you?"
"I'd rather surprise them."
But if I'd been expecting gasps and gaping jaws, I was disappointed. When I made my appearance at the bottom of t
he stairs, Gerald and Ash--or, as I still thought of them, mustache man and BO boy--barely looked up. Gerald had shaved his mustache but sprouted a spot of hair on his chin that was probably supposed to be a soul patch and looked more like a dribbling of applesauce. He was sprawled on a leather couch playing Xbox, while Ash, still deodorant-free, sat at the mahogany desk, doing something on the computer. It wasn't plugged in to anything, which meant, as we'd suspected, a wireless modem. But the router had to be somewhere--and judging from all the equipment down here, it was probably somewhere nearby. I started my search for telltale cables or phone jacks, pretending to be admiring the fake wood panels and shag carpeting.
"What're you doing here?" Gerald mumbled, too intent on his game to turn his head away from the TV. "I told you, we don't need you anymore. There's nothing more for you to do."
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"Unfinished business." I tried to sound tough. "You promised that if I did what you wanted me to do, you'd get me into Harvard."
"We will," Ash said. "But that doesn't explain why you're ruining our afternoon."
"How do I know I can trust you?" This was delicate. I needed them to hack the system on my timetable--soon, but not yet, not until I'd found the router and installed the device. I dug my hand into the pocket of my hoodie and curled my fingers over it again; there was something comforting about pressing the prongs into the flesh of my palm and running my fingertips across the bumps and dips on its flat surface, like I was trying to read a message in Braille. I'd run through the steps in my mind so many times that I thought I could probably install it in the dark--that is, if I could find the router. If there was an open USB port. If the device worked the way it was supposed to.
And if I could do it all without them noticing.
"What's the difference if you can trust us or not?" Gerald drawled. Then he cursed as, on the screen, his character's head got blown off with a hand grenade. He let loose a stream of shouted obscenities, then threw his head back, his words billowing a howl. As I stared--while assiduously pretending I was somewhere else--he bashed the controller against the wall, once, twice, and then once more for good measure. Then he sat up straight, crossed one leg over the other, and started a new game. "Either we'll do it, or we won't," he said calmly, as if the last few seconds hadn't happened.
Okay, now I was a little freaked out.
Geeky, computer-hacking, power-tripping, wannabe men of mystery cheaters were one thing.
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Crazy, geeky, computer-hacking, power-tripping, wannabe men of mystery cheaters who might at any time go off in a violent rage were something else altogether.
"That's why I'm here," I said, striving for the perfect mix of devilmay-care and don't-tread-on-me. "I want you to do it. Now. While I'm watching."
That made Ash look up from his computer. "Or what?"
I knew my part. And this was the point where I was supposed to come up with some kind of threat. I needed to demonstrate my leverage.
I chewed on my lip, my eyes ping-ponging back and forth between their faces, which wore identical ferret-like expressions. And then, midway between them, snaking along the baseboard on the opposite side of the wall, I saw it: the cable line. It was covered over with wood-colored tape, but I could trace its path along the molding until it disappeared under the couch. It didn't come out on the other side and, looking closer, I realized there was a wedge of space between the couch and the wall, just wide enough for a cable modem and router.
I brandished my cell phone. "Or I call Eric Roth right now and tell him how you're trying to cheat him out of twenty-five thousand dollars."
"That's our cue," Eric whispered. "She must have spotted the router." Max gave him a mock salute and reached for his walkie talkie. "You're up," he told their agent in the field. Two hundred yards away, a small figure emerged from the shadows and signaled his readiness, then darted across the street, crossed Gerald's wide lawn, and
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climbed onto the front porch. From Max and Eric's hiding spot two lawns away, they could see him pause for a moment to get himself into character, then ring the doorbell.
This part of the plan, at least, would go smoothly. A consummate professional, Seth Filch lived six houses down from the Roths, and had been a reliable go-to guy for Eric and co nearly all his life. He was cool and collected under pressure, an award-caliber Method actor, and willing to do anything for ten dollars and an ice-cream sandwich.
Most seven-year-olds are.
From where they hid, they couldn't hear the conversation, but they could picture the scene playing out well enough--after all, they'd written the script. Seth would be bawling, tears streaming down his face, his irresistibly cute button nose red and stuffy, his lips wobbling; no adult would be able to resist. Just as he'd been instructed, he would introduce himself as a new neighbor and tell Gerald's stepmother about his lost soccer ball--about its sentimental value and how it belonged to his father and he wasn't supposed to be playing with it and he was going to get into trouble and he was sure it was in someone's yard and he just needed to find it and please please please . . . Max had advised at this point he just give up on words all together in favor of a miserable wail.
He would cry uncontrollably for a moment, letting the stepmother attempt some brand of comfort--preferably in the form of baked goods. And then, in a quiet, wavering voice, he would ask if her son could help find the ball.
The whole transaction took about five minutes, and right on cue, Gerald and Ash, their body language screaming put-upon
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reluctance, burst through the front door and led sad little Seth into the backyard.
Eric gave Max a high-five and began whispering into the mic.
I'd been left alone in the basement with strict instructions not to touch anything.
The instructions were disregarded.
I installed the device in the router, then hurried over to the laptop, where, following Max's instructions to the letter, I got past the password encryption, established our connection, and reset the network so that every piece of data, every mouse click, every kilobyte would run through Max's computer before it hit the outside world. Then, my fingers stumbling over the keys, I erased all traces of my presence.
"Done," I said. It felt strange to be talking to myself in the empty room, even knowing that the microphone sewn into the lining of the hoodie would pick up everything. But at the same time, there was something weirdly comforting about knowing that someone was listening in--that they would have to listen, even if they didn't want to hear what I had to say.
"Eric, I--"
"Wolverine," he snapped.
Right. The stupid code names. Eric was Wolverine. Max was Magneto. Schwarz, even in absentia, stuck in midterms, was Professor X.
I was Leech.
It didn't seem like a coincidence.
"Wolverine, I just wanted . . ." But I had promised myself I wasn't going to apologize anymore. Not when he didn't want to
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hear it, and not when he wasn't willing to consider the possibility that I wasn't the only one in the wrong.
Wolverine? More like Pighead.
"Just wanted to say good luck," I said finally. "I hope this works."
There was a pause. Then Max's voice came on the line. "We're sending them back in now. One last time, you sure you're willing to do this for us?"
I didn't let myself stop to think about what I was giving up. I'd done too much thinking already.
"One last time," I said, watching the stairway and steeling myself for the next phase of the plan, "I'm not doing this for you."
As Seth trotted away, soccer ball in hand, Gerald and Ash retreated to their basement. Max and Eric moved into position. For the plan to work, they needed to be within fifty yards of the basement, and there was an old shed in the backyard with their name on it.
"Don't you think you should give her a break?" Max said, as they eased the rusty broken padlock off the door and let themselves in. "Wh
en's the next time you're going to have a chance with a girl that hot?"
"Since when do you think she's hot?" Eric set the wireless receiver in place as Max logged into the network. The bug was working perfectly--they could see everything Ash was doing on his laptop.
"Hotter than you, at least. And she said she was sorry. She's making the grand sacrificial gesture--what more do you want?"
"I don't want anything." Eric nodded toward the computer screen. "Can we just focus?"
"We can't do anything until she convinces them to start the hack."
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"If she convinces them."
"She will."
"Since when do you know her so well?"
"Jealous?" Max asked.
"Yeah, right."
"Then why are you whining?" Max dodged the handful of dirt Eric tossed in his direction. "I know she's good--she had you fooled, didn't she?"
Eric shrugged. "Whatever."
Max narrowed his eyes. "That's it, isn't it? You're not pissed because she played you--you're pissed she outplayed you."
"No, I'm pissed because she's a lying--" Eric gasped and jerked his head toward the screen. "They're actually going for it."
Someone inside the house was attempting to access the Harvard admissions system. Max was on it instantly. His hands flew across the keyboard, and then, with only the merest flicker of the screen, he'd made the switch.
Gerald and Ash were now hacking their way into a simulated admissions system, housed on Max's computer and designed to look identical to the Harvard network. After a few minutes, Max keyed in the command that would give the Bums backdoor access to the fake system; Eric could hear the hoots of victory coming through his earpiece.
The Bongo Bums thought they were in.
Max allowed them access to the fake Decisions directory and steered them toward the file he'd labeled "Alexandra Talese." It took only a few seconds for them to change the status from "Deny" to "Admit."
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