by Don Bruns
“If he’s just dropping off laundry, he’ll be out in the front by the counter. My guess is that’s it.”
“My guess is that he’s in the office.”
“Why does it matter, James?”
“You thought he was suspicious. You were sure he was following us using a Global Positioning System. Now, I buy into that and try to find out more, and you want to walk away from it.”
“All right, are we going to sit here and debate where he is?”
“I thought we’d prove where he is.” James pulled across the street to the abandoned cement-block building. They were plentiful in Carol City. If you wanted an abandoned building, complete with pitted cracked asphalt parking lot and weeds about ten feet high, you could find one in every other block. Some had been converted into churches, but most of those had reverted back to abandoned concrete-block buildings.
James backed up the truck so the rear was facing the plate-glass windows across the street. He got out of the truck and motioned for me to do the same.
I gazed at the laundry, a dirty white stucco building with a faded sign propped up in the front window that said open.
James rolled up the back of the truck and climbed in. I followed.
“Okay, Kemo Sabe, we’re going to see what the gossip is.” He set the tripod about halfway back in the box of his truck and aimed the wand at the front window of Chen’s.
Putting on his headphones, he pulled the trigger.
I watched the small metal box that was wired to the wand. A meter was flashing. “The meter, James. It’s flashing.”
He nodded. “We’ve got contact.”
We were buried far enough back that it was dark, and although I doubted that anyone was watching, I was sure they couldn’t see us.
“Extra starch in the shirts, Skip.”
“You can hear that?”
“Here.” He pulled off the headphones and handed them to me. I put them on, leaned over, and pulled the trigger.
“Yes, Mrs. Crider. We’ll have them for you Tuesday. Oh, it’s no trouble at all. I’ll ask Su Ning if she will sew two new buttons on the shirt.” The sound was clear, although I picked up street noise that was pretty loud.
In a minute, a woman emerged, turned right, and walked down the sidewalk. I could hear what sounded like an industrial strength fan running in the background, but there were no voices.
“Nothing else, James. You might be right.”
“Let’s head up the street. We can get a straight shot into the office window if we park back in the next block.”
I was getting into the spirit of the whole thing. We left the sliding door open, and I stayed in back with The Sound Max. James drove out of the small parking area and past Chen’s, stopping about a block away. Through the rear of the truck I could see the back window of the dry cleaner. James came around and climbed back in.
“How do you know that’s the office?”
“I don’t. But aren’t offices always in the back?”
I shrugged my shoulders. We had nothing to lose.
James put on the headset and pulled the trigger and I saw the meter flashing red and green. He was shaking his head and I wished we had two sets of headphones.
“He’s in there.” James was talking at about twice his normal volume.
“James. You don’t have to yell.”
“Oh, yeah.” He was quiet for a moment. “They’re talking about Mr. Chen’s business.”
“Oh, well that’s got to be exciting. How Su Ning sews her buttons or what?”
“No, shhh.”
I was quiet for a moment.
“How Mr. Chen will be able to retire after this next project. How he is looking forward to closing the shop and—” He got quiet for a moment, then pulled off the phones and handed them to me, motioning that I should put them on.
“The codes. It’s imperative Feng. We should have them by now.”
“Obviously we had a slight problem. There was a death in the immediate family.”
“You must put some pressure on to get them. Now. How much more emphasis can I put on this?”
“This is a sensitive area. It’s not possible to just walk in and demand—”
“Feng. This group forgets where they leave laptop computers with worldwide secrets on them. They allow workers to walk off with nuclear material, personnel information, and all types of secure matter. Feng, our own Chi Mak stole thousands of pages of information on weapons, nuclear reactors, and propulsion systems for U.S. submarines. For twenty years this organization was blind to his theft. They are the most inept establishment in the world. All we are asking for are the combinations. They should fall all over themselves to give them to you. You ultimately need them so you can install your security software. All we are asking is that you get them early. Early, Feng. We need them—now.”
“You are right.” Feng sounded remorseful.
“We’ve stressed this to Mr. Conroy.”
“Once there was a breach in our own security we did take care of it. That took some time, and we didn’t want to raise any red flags. You must understand that.”
Chen or whoever the other party was laughed. “Red flag?”
“The parties who had the information are no longer with us. There were four actual incidents.” I knew that voice. It wasn’t Feng. Who was it? I’d heard it before, recently, and I listened intently.
“And you would like me to compliment you on your ability to deal with problems in your own business? I’m sorry, Feng. I cannot do that. You have been retained, at a very high price, to take care of those situations. It was your job.”
Feng once again jumped in. “They learned about the project, and we removed them. There is a level of trust that I have to gain now.”
“And there’s a time frame that has been moved up. Remove the obstacles, and give me the codes. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I understand.” I could tell by his voice that he didn’t.
“Feng, to you this is a job where you will be paid. Very well, I might add. But you don’t really understand. Maybe Conroy does. But you don’t. You don’t understand what we can do with these codes. What Chi Mak accomplished is nothing to what we can do. But that’s for another day and another time. Let me put it very clearly. If you don’t produce the codes in the next forty-eight hours, I’ll find someone who can.”
“Yes.”
“If you let anyone interfere with the project—anyone, I’ll find someone else. And your involvement with our plan will be permanently erased. I have pressure, Feng. You couldn’t believe the pressure that I have.”
Codes and combinations. James was looking at me with a frown on his face. I could sense he was worried about what I was hearing. I handed him back the headset. I didn’t need to hear any more. It was all being recorded on a card, so we could play it back later that night. It sounded to me like Feng’s life was being threatened.
James listened intently, nodding as if in agreement with the Asian men. Finally he pulled the earphones off and turned off The Sound Max. “What is going on?”
“James, you tell me. Does it even have anything to do with Synco Systems?”
“Oh, come on. Every word. I think this thing is very shady. Very shady.”
My phone blared “Born in the U.S.A.” and I glanced at the caller’s number. I didn’t recognize it. “Hello.”
“Skip? This is Andy Wireman.”
“Yeah, Andy.” I glanced at the clock on my cell phone. 6:40. We had to hustle to get back. Mrs. Conroy would be there in twenty minutes.
“We’ve got a serious problem.”
That’s exactly what we needed. Every project needs a very serious problem. “Andy, can it wait until morning?”
“No.”
I sighed. James picked up on the urgency and moved in closer. I tilted the speaker toward him. He may as well know whatever Wireman knew. James and I, as usual, were up to our asses in this thing. “Tell me what the problem is.”
“Yo
u know that smoke detector that James installed in Conroy’s office?”
We both looked at each other. My hand started shaking and I seriously thought I would drop the phone. James shook his head back and forth like he didn’t want to be reminded of that smoke detector.
“Yes, Andy.”
“It went off.”
“It went off? There was a fire?” Jody told us that it really worked. I just hadn’t considered there would be a real fire.
“It went off and there was no fire. A false alarm.”
Whew. “Well, what could be the problem. It’s defective and we’ll switch it out for one of ours tomorrow.” Problem solved. No wonder I was Person in Charge of the Project, or whatever I was.
“No, Skip. We went up and opened it, trying to quiet it. And Skip, this smoke detector is unlike any I’ve ever seen. I think you need to come over here immediately.”
“Immediately?”
“Immediately.”
Mrs. Conroy was coming over, and I had to be there for her. Wireman was concerned about the detector and I couldn’t leave him with that. “Andy, can this wait maybe one hour?”
I could hear conversation in the background. “I don’t think so, Skip. Sandy Conroy is here and he wants some answers right now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Skip. I can handle this. You need to get to Synco, pronto.”
“Damn it, James. She’s not a happy camper. If it was just handing over the transcript, but I know she wants more information.”
“Even better. I can’t give it to her. We can put her off, because I know nothing. Nothing.”
“But you do.”
“She doesn’t know that. I’ll play dumb.”
I let the comment slide. “What am I going to tell Conroy? Wow. I can’t imagine what I’m going to say to him. I am in so much trouble.” I couldn’t even fathom how much trouble. It was like, when we were doing it, it was an adventure. Now, there was a likelihood that I’d broken the law and could be arrested.
James took a sharp curve, braking as he rounded the corner, and the shrill sound of metal scraping metal gave me chills.
“James, I could lose my job over this.”
“You could probably go to jail over this.” He was thinking the same thing.
“You installed the detector.”
“Hey, boss. Didn’t you tell me to?”
“James—”
He swerved to avoid a parked car, straightened out, and gave the old truck some gas. “Amigo, we’ve talked about this. Carol Conroy gave you permission—no, she actually asked you to install a listening device in her husband’s office. She didn’t say why. She just told you to do it. Just like you told me to perform the actual task.” James pulled into our parking lot. He rammed the sidewalk with the bald tires, and we both took a deep breath.
Carol Conroy’s Lexus was nowhere to be seen. Grabbing my laptop, I stepped out of the truck, and walked down to the Cavalier. I’d be in the office in ten minutes.
“I’m going to hand her the envelope, and tell her something came up at Synco. You couldn’t make it, but asked me to give it to her.”
“Exactly.”
“If she wants to check on that, she can drive by Synco and she’ll see your car in the parking lot.”
“James, please. If she asks about Sarah, if she mentions Emily—”
Doing his best Sgt. Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes imitation. “I know nothing. Nothing, Colonel Hogan.”
“Wish me luck, James. I just hope they don’t have the cops there. If I need bail money—”
“I haven’t got it, pal.”
I didn’t hold out too often on my good friend. But once in a while—“James, seriously, if I need money—”
“You won’t. This is going to work out. Just have faith, pard.”
“Listen to me. If I need help, money—”
“I’ll find some.”
“No. In my room, on the second shelf in the closet, there’s a Shel Silverstein book. Where the Sidewalk Ends.”
“Okay.”
“Page sixty-three, there’s three hundred dollars.”
“Got it.” He didn’t even look surprised.
I got into my car and on the third turn of the key the Cavalier coughed to life. I’d planned on putting some of my new wealth toward a new car. It didn’t appear I was going to see any of that wealth any time soon.
There was a poem on page sixty-three that I still remembered. When you’re a kid it’s easier to memorize things, and I’d memorized a poem called “Who.” And I thought about the second verse of that children’s fantasy. The exact wording wouldn’t come back to me, but it was something to do with having X-ray eyes. Who can fly and who has X-ray eyes? And who will be the man no bullet can kill? I will.
X-ray eyes. That’s what we’d had last night when we watched Sandy Conroy’s office from the ceiling. It was all amazing. I’d actually had X-ray eyes. I’d witnessed conversations and confrontations. I’d seen and heard things that were meant to be private. And earlier this evening I’d listened in on strangers’ intimate conversations that were foreign to my ears. It had been exciting, exhilarating, and now I was going to pay the price.
Flying, with X-ray eyes, and being the man no bullet can kill. Who can do all that? I will.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
On my way over, I concentrated on what could have happened. Somehow the detector was set off. Maybe Conroy smoked cigarettes or cigars, and even though Florida had passed a no-smoking ban, he was Sandy Conroy. The laws weren’t made for some people. People like me for instance. I didn’t seem to have too much trouble breaking the law. Putting GPS units under cars, cameras in office ceilings, taping private conversations.
What would they do to me? A police car came up behind me and I froze, slowing down to a crawl. He pulled to my left and zipped on down the road, paying no attention to the criminal that was almost in his grasp.
James was right. I’d have to give up Carol Conroy. It was all I could do. Tell them that she offered us money to tape conversations. But that meant that I’d be fired from Jaystone Security Systems. That meant that Sarah and her boyfriend wouldn’t pay me what they’d promised, and that meant that Carol Conroy certainly wouldn’t give me a cent. And if I was convicted of a felony, I couldn’t imagine Em sticking it out with me. And how many years could they give me for that crime? And how much of a fine? How did criminals who did long time in prison ever make enough money to pay the fines? And when you came out of prison as a convicted felon, who would ever hire you? You could sweep floors, maybe work at a fast-food restaurant, work on one of the fishing charter boats, helping some rich guy bait his hook and clean his fish. But what kind of a life could you possibly have?
I pulled into the nearly empty parking lot, glancing around at the seven or eight cars that were still there. Wireman’s truck was up front. There was a yellow foreign sports car. I didn’t recognize the body style. Head of security was not there. But I knew where he’d been about twenty-five minutes ago, and I knew what he’d said. I had a recording of what he’d said. Just another crime of mine.
I dreaded this confrontation, more than any meeting I’d ever had, but at least there were no cops. No Feng. I walked by the yellow car. A Lotus Exige. Man, that car was hot. Something like 260 horsepower under the hood. I didn’t have to wonder whose machine it was.
I pulled on the front door and it opened. I was half hoping it was locked. No one was at reception, and I thought about James’ remarkable exit today from these same doors as he threw the package into the parking lot. Was that just four or five hours ago?
Down the hall, past the rows of computers and worktables where technicians performed their software magic during the day. I stared at the offices, all in a row. The door to number one was open and I could hear soft conversation.
Play dumb? Admit to the crime? Blame James? Confess that Carol Conroy had offered me money? Take the heat myself and throw myself at their mercy? Whatever mad
e me think I could be a spy? I didn’t have the guts for it. Especially when I got caught.
If somebody captured me and threatened me with anything, I’d spill it all. I’d tell them whatever they wanted to know. I have no idea what made me think I could be a spy. I had to think more clearly the next time I started to make these irrational decisions.
Slowly I walked to the door. “Sorry it took so long.”
“Get in here.” Conroy pointed his finger from behind the desk. Wireman sat in the only chair in the room. I’d seen Sarah in that chair.
“Look, Mr. Conroy, I—”
He picked up the smoke detector from his desk. The top half and bottom half were separated, and I glanced at the ceiling where it had been earlier today. A new detector was installed. Apparently someone had come in after hours and wired it in.
“We hired your company based on the quality and the speed you could bring to this project.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So can you explain this?”
I didn’t know what to say. So, I just stood there like a dumb-ass. Andy Wireman sat in his chair, his hands folded, watching the two of us with a grim look on his face.
“Can you?”
“No. Well, yes.” Sweat ran down my neck. I wanted to scratch an irritating itch on my rib cage, but I was frozen in place.
“Which is it? No or yes?”
“It’s not what it seems.” It just came out. I had no idea where to go with that. It was exactly what it seemed. A card with a small camera lens.
“It’s not what it seems? What is that supposed to mean? Look at this.” He was almost shouting now, as he leaned into the desk and rested his elbows on the surface.
I did. I stared at the smoke detector. It was preferable to staring at his face, which was covered with a deep scowl. His eyes were wide open, and I was glad the man was behind his desk and not in front of it. His hands were clenched tightly around the white detector.
“According to Mr. Wireman, your friend installed a—” he paused, looking into the section that housed the camera lens and card. I closed my eyes and held my hands at my side, fingernails digging into my palms. “Installed a piece of crap. A smoke detector that is barely functional, and you chose this one to install in my office. He tells me that it’s a very unorthodox piece of equipment. That no company should ever use something this bizarre and you chose this to install in my office?”
