Wayward Sons

by Wayne Stinnett

  Alicia reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. “We’ll never know.”

  “Yeah.” My fingers pulled at a knot on the dinghy’s stern tie-down line. “You got the laptop?”

  “I wouldn’t leave home without it.”

  “Where would I be without you?” I hopped up from the swim platform, found the controls for the lift, then lowered it down. It wafted into the calm, warm waters without a hitch. Once I had the cover off, I turned back to my wife.

  “Ladies first.” I helped steady Alicia as she went aboard. When she settled in, I took her bag with the laptop, made sure the button was fastened, then handed it over. I jumped in and lowered the engine, pumped the little ball valve like the salesman had shown us, then turned the key. The motor came instantly to life and I untied the line.

  Compared to something as big and lumbering as Wayward, handling the dinghy was a breeze. It carried us through traffic and moored boats like a sparrow zipping between branches. I felt sure enough in the dinghy that I let myself look right, toward a boxy lighthouse, gray as a thunderhead pouring over the rocky, northern bluffs of Vieques.

  At the dinghy dock, I tied us on before helping Alicia disembark, then I followed her. We didn’t have to wait long before I spotted our contact.

  Macy Lane didn’t send me a description or a picture, but the instant I laid eyes on the short, fair-skinned, dark-haired woman wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of jeans that fit her like she’d traded a carton of cigarettes for them, I knew it was her. She wore the clothes of somebody too wrapped up in pursuing an interest to care about much else.

  And, from twenty paces off, she didn’t look like a tourist or a native to Vieques. The charming Spanish architecture didn’t draw her eyes off her phone, and she wasn’t rushing to sell the tourists anything.

  “Macy?” I asked as I got closer.

  “Snyder,” she answered, in a noticeably thick Eastern European accent. She pulled her eyes from her phone, ran them up me, then down Alicia. “And you must be Alicia? Let’s go.”

  Alicia and I exchanged a look after Macy turned around. She set off toward the same kind of buildings you’d find in quaint downtown areas in smaller cities across America. They were two-story, shoulder-to-shoulder, losing paint like gray hairs.

  “You’re shorter than you looked online,” Macy said.

  “You found pictures of me online?” I wasn’t active on social media. Hadn’t had an account anywhere in at least a decade.

  “It wasn’t hard. You have several photographs available, and an old profile.”

  “From what? And how old?” I thought back through the years but couldn’t pin down anything concrete. Maybe an update for some of my old friends when I went into PJ school? Could have been one of Dad and Arlen’s charity things. They always liked having photographers at their baseball games, and blackjack nights, or…

  “Nine years, roughly,” Macy said. “Nine years, six months, and a handful of days. I don’t remember the exact timestamp. It’s not important. The photograph I saw came from a fundraiser dinner for Meg Whitman’s run at governor of California in 2010. She’s a business friend of your father’s, I assume?”

  “Are you trying to impress me?” I was annoyed that she’d snooped on me. And I vaguely remembered that dinner.

  That time in my life was clearer in my mind. Echoes remained of my dissatisfaction with the tracks laid out in front of me—carefully staked down by Dad since before I’d wet a diaper. Much the same way Grandfather did for him. The distaste for the Snyder family lifestyle had become too strong to deny, though I wouldn’t talk to anyone in my family about it for years.

  “I wouldn’t dare try to impress the very impressive Jerry Snyder,” Macy continued as we side-stepped a local selling dozens of flooring tiles painted with sunsets over the water. “I want you to be aware of the fact that once something gets on the internet, it’s never getting off.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “It was so easy to find you online, Snyder,” she said with a smile. She eyeballed Alicia, giving her another up-and-down. “But you were much, much more difficult. So difficult, all I managed to dig up was your wedding announcement with one of your engagement photos. You’re practically a digital ghost.”

  “I am?” Alicia elbowed me, grinning. I pretended not to notice.

  “Have you considered going into the security business?” Macy asked her. “I know a wonderful man in Abu Dhabi looking for someone who fits your description.”

  “Not a chance in hell,” I said.

  “I’m a nurse by trade,” Alicia said more diplomatically. “Oncology first, then physical therapy. I’m past my prime when it comes to learning something new.”

  “Nonsense. You’d be a natural. I have an eye for these things. You can work for me. I’ve also got more contacts than I can handle at any one time, and I’d be happy to throw them to you. I usually have to make people wait for weeks before I’ll see them.”

  “You didn’t make me wait except for the time it took to get over here.”

  She smiled at me and cocked her eyebrows. “For you, I made a special exception. Isn’t that nice of me? Besides that, I’ll have the job done before you know I’ve done it. Cracking a password is child’s play—everyone knows that.”

  Almost everyone.

  “Did you bring the machine with you?” she asked.

  “Right here.” Alicia lifted the bag a few inches, then let it gently fall back to her side.

  “Good. We’re nearly at my office.”

  Passing a convenience store, we hooked a left around a wire carousel packed with novelty T-shirts, after which we faced a dirty, cramped alleyway. A rat the size of a terrier scurried from a trashcan, dashing for a sewer grate ahead and to our right. It managed to squeeze through the bars and slip into the darkness just as I was close enough to tug its tail—not that I did that kind of thing.

  “That’s Asimov,” Macy said. “Best not to pay attention to him. He’s a drama queen.”

  “You’re friends with the alley rat? Very cool.”

  “I hoped I was wrong, but I knew you’d be a patronizing person, Snyder,” she retorted. “You barely know me, but I’m sure you’re certain you’re better than me. I care for animals, so what? You didn’t have horses back at Keystone Manor?”

  How in the hell did she know the name of my grandfather’s old mansion? I pretended not to care. Macy winked at me, not breaking her stride. She started up a set of rusty steel steps going up the back of a building. Alicia and I followed.

  On the third floor—the top floor—she put a key into a deadbolt, then turned it open. She stepped aside, and motioned for us to go in.

  I’m not sure what I expected from a supposed computer security expert with a distinctly eastern European accent, but before I stepped one foot into Macy Lane’s office, I got the impression there was more to her than what I’d gleaned from my first… impression. Maybe she had some kind of foreign backing. A Russian oligarch was possible, or maybe she was some kind of double-blind in Armstrong’s pocket.

  Or maybe she was as independent as she claimed. If she had half as much business as she boasted, I expected an office packed with high-tech computers and screens and all that crap. Something out of The Matrix.

  Imagine my surprise when I turned the corner and found an empty room no bigger than Wayward’s salon. And it was truly empty. Nothing on the walls, nothing on the floor, not even carpet. We stood on bare subflooring, which bowed toward the middle of the room. Actually, there were a couple of things in the room; a cracked banquet table that Macy was pulling off the wall to our right, and a pair of folding chairs.

  “Let me help you with that.” I reached for her and the table.

  She looked at me like I’d grabbed her ass.

  “I don’t need your help.” She let the table smack on the floor, belly up. “I have made it this far without a big, strong man to set up my table.” She flipped each pair of legs up, then struggled to get th
e table upright. She couldn’t quite turn it over without the legs catching against the floor.

  “Here.” Alicia handed me the bag as she walked past, then helped Macy set the table right without catching a single word of flak.

  “Alicia, so helpful!” Macy said earnestly.

  If that wasn’t an attempt to get my goat, I didn’t know what was. Lucky for Macy, I had lots of practice ducking verbal jabs.

  She and Alicia each took a folding chair and set them out next to each other. My wife sat down, then patted the other chair, beckoning me over.

  “Only if it’s the egalitarian thing to do,” I said to Macy.

  “Stand on your head for all I care, Snyder. All I want to have from you is that laptop in your bag.”

  I guess I wanted her to have it, too. So, I walked over, set the bag on the table, took the laptop out and put it in Macy’s waiting hands.

  “Do you have the power supply?” She set it down and lifted the lid.

  “Nope.”

  “Just as well,” she said. “I should have something in the back.”

  She went through a door on the opposite side of the room. I caught a glimpse of monitors filled with code, computers sitting in racks below, cables hanging off neatly organized pegboards, along with tools and spare parts.

  A minute later, she returned, laptop in hand. “Why does this laptop smell like…” Her nose twitched. “…smoke?”

  “Long story.” I motioned at the laptop. “Did you crack the password?”

  “Of course,” she said. “You know, I can do more than run a script to unlock a machine.”

  “Whatever we’re willing to pay for, I’m sure.”

  “I am running a business.”

  “Maybe she can find us the formula for Anthradone,” Alicia said.

  It took me a second to place that word, Anthradone. Then, I remembered what Gabriela had told me the night DJ and I took her in.

  “You misunderstand,” Macy said. “I was talking more about malware, keyloggers, self-replicating worms. Have you ever seen one of those in action? Hook an infected machine up to a network, and watch the real fun happen.” She sat the laptop on the table and typed, the glow of the screen reflecting off her pale skin.

  “Thanks for the offer, comrade, but we’ll pass,” I said.

  “I’m not Russian. I’m American. Not that it matters.” Macy turned the laptop around until it faced us. “Your machine is unlocked.”

  On the laptop’s screen, I saw a picture of Dr. Markel and his wife—the first I’d seen. Her hair was like ink ribbons, his short and silver. Dr. Markel must’ve been past retirement age. They looked happy, sharing a deck chair, holding hands, probably planning for a future of rest and relaxation on the Puerto Rican coast. I held in a sigh.

  The next thing that caught my eye was a small yellow folder on the system’s desktop labeled BAPTISTE. Inside, I saw hundreds upon hundreds of documents. I clicked one, the laptop’s hard drive whirred to life, and a white sheet of paper crammed with tiny, black lettering appeared. I saw pie charts, graphs. Some kind of test summary.

  Summaries from tests weren’t going to help us. Gabriela had said the laptop had a formula for the drug Flor needed.

  The next document was the same as the last: tiny letters, numbers, data tables. I scrolled through the folder, paying attention to the file names, seeing if any one stuck out.

  At the end of the folder, nothing grabbed me. If Dr. Markel had prepared information for Luc, it wouldn’t necessarily have the formula for the drug Flor needed. Luc was a journalist, not a doctor. Over the next few minutes, I dissected more folders, searching for the word Anthradone.

  Nothing.

  I put my hands on my hips, let my head fall back, then blew out my cheeks. How in the hell were we going to comb through everything on this machine to find what we needed? It’d take weeks, at least. Meanwhile, Gabriela Ramos sat in jail.

  “We’ll find it.” Alicia put her hands on the small of my back. “I know we will. Those reports could have had useful information.”

  “There could be thousands of them on this machine. Maybe a million.” I said.

  “I can get through them,” Alicia said.

  I faced her.

  “I’m a nurse, Jerry.” She held her hand toward the laptop. “I wrote and filed hundreds of reports like this when I worked for Dr. Branson. I must’ve read a half-a-million—you learn to digest them pretty quick, or you’re buried under a yard of printer paper before you know it.”

  Alicia had a point but getting her more involved in this whole mess didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

  “No, I’ll figure it out,” I said. “Somebody at Armstrong has to know somebody else. They have analysts that can handle something like this. You can’t—”

  “I can,” she said firmly. “Whether or not there’s a formula for whatever treatment Flor needs in there, that information could very well be the reason that Luc guy was killed.”

  She side-stepped me, moving to the laptop, then set her hands on either side of it, and hunched over it like a bomb ticking down to zero.

  “I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t think somebody would go through all the trouble of killing Luc and Dr. Markel unless the information on this laptop was very… sensitive,” Alicia said.

  “I’d kill anyone who took one of my machines,” Macy said. “Out of principle.”

  “Let me take a look at this, Jerry. I know you want to protect me, but I’m already involved.”

  Alicia had a look in her eyes that I hadn’t seen since we’d left California. Sure, she’d been a good sport about the move, and she played like her life on St. Thomas was okay, but I knew this was coming, especially since she’d left her job.

  All that mental energy and nowhere to spend it. She needed this badly, maybe worse than I did, and that might’ve been what scared me the most. But keeping this task from her would create resentment.

  “All right,” I said.

  She almost held in a tiny squeak of excitement. She kissed me, scooped up the laptop and the charger, and then put them in her bag.

  “What a good husband,” Macy said with a crooked smile.

  “I know I am. How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “You call me next time you have a job that needs doing.”

  “I’m not one for charity,” I said. “I can pay whatever you like—”

  Macy’s eyebrow arched.

  “—within reason,” I quickly added.

  “Then pay me with a favor. Tell Mr. Armstrong what I did for you, and that I’m interested in heavier work if he’s got it.”

  “I thought business was booming.”

  “It is,” she said, “but I want to do something fun.”

  Gabriela’s first night in the Bayamón Correctional Women’s block was cold and quiet. She lay in bed, but if she slept, she didn’t know it. God was her only companion, and prayers meekly recited to the ceiling were her lullaby.

  Officer Oliveria came to her door shortly after dawn broke into her cell. With a few words, he guided her through the gray labyrinth of prison hallways to the cafeteria for morning chow. She wore the same formless shift Collat had given her yesterday. Loose as it was, it pinched and clung awkwardly to her skin as she slid through the chow line, collecting a slurry of different breakfast foods.

  Before she had a chance to sit down and pick through scrambled eggs, a guard she didn’t know approached her. She was Dominican too, her crimpy hair pulled back in a tight bun. She was a few years older than Gabriela, with high cheekbones and eyes hardened with scrutiny.

  “Ramos,” the guard said.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Put your tray down. Come with me.”

  Gabriela looked down at her food. It wasn’t appetizing, but that didn’t stop her stomach from wanting it.

  “Are you soft, Ramos? I said leave the food behind.” She slapped the tray out of Gabriela’s hand. The rattle it made reverberated throu
gh the cafeteria, cutting off all conversation, and drawing every eye.

  A shiver rattled up Gabriela’s throat.

  “Back to your meals, inmates!” a large, bearded man bellowed from across the room. “And somebody clean that up before I have to ask twice.”

  Most of the other girls went back to their food, picking up their conversations where they’d left off. An old woman with skin the color of wet sand and hair as light seafoam doddered over with a bucket of murky water and a dishrag. She went to work on the mess.

  “What do you want with me?” Gabriela asked the guard.

  “I want you to let me do my job before I lose my temper.” She grabbed Gabriela’s arm and slapped a pair of handcuffs on her. “Let’s go, Ramos.” The guard dragged her through the cafeteria, then out the exit.

  They went down another maze of indistinct hallways until they came to a dead-end. Almost. A door waited on the left wall with a guard posted in front of it. Gabriela’s guard stopped her and unlatched the handcuffs.

  “Visitation is ten minutes. Kindergarten rules: no touching, no kissing, no hugging. Keep your hands visible at all times. I will be watching you.”

  She pulled the door open and shoved Gabriela through.

  Gabriela found herself in a brightly lit, brightly colored room with half a dozen small, square tables with about as many people hunching over a couple of them, talking softly. Some wore pale gray inmates’ uniforms, others were in regular street clothes which, since she’d been locked in a gray smear, almost hurt Gabriela’s eyes. The high windows reinforced with steel wire dispelled any illusion she might have had about being free of Bayamón.

  “Hi…Gabriela,” a familiar voice said, haltingly.

  At the centermost table in the room sat Tamara Price. Gabriela’s skin puckered as a chill crawled over her scalp. What was she doing here?

  Ms. Price rose to her feet. She looked at Gabriela as if the guards had resurrected her from the floor of her cell. Ms. Price stepped forward, then stopped. Her arms came up from her sides, then went back down, her fingers becoming a tangle while a tear rolled down her cheek.