by Ray Daniel
Welcome to the club.
The traffic opened up as we got onto Tremont Street, allowing us to scoot down the street and park on Hanson in front of the playground. Lieutenant Lee and Jael stood in front of the playground, looking at three brownstones.
“One of these?” asked Lee.
“You didn’t check?”
“I don’t see anything happening.”
“It may be too late,” Jael said. “Which building is it?”
I thought back. E and I had stumbled up the stairs from the Beehive, walked down this street, and … and … nothing. I remembered making jokes. I remembered the feel of her back under my hand. I remembered her giving me a boozy kiss at one of these three doorways. I could not remember which one.
“Do you remember which floor?”
That I could remember.
“It was the first floor,” I said. “I made some comment about not having to take the stairs.”
Mel said, “Lieutenant Lee, you take the one on the left. I’ll take the one on the right. And Tucker and Jael can check the middle one.”
We split up. Jael and I climbed the stairs on the middle building. Rang the bottom bell.
“You’re probably going to have to pick the lock,” I said.
Jael reached into her handbag, pulled out a packet of tools.
A text chirped on my stupid flip phone.
The door started rattling.
“Or not,” I said.
Jael put the tools back, kept her hand hidden in her handbag.
The door opened and a bald guy stood before us, arms crossed against the cold sprinkling rain. He sported a three-day-growth beard, a T-shirt displaying a Boston terrier wearing glasses, and plaid pajama bottoms.
“Is E here?” I asked.
“Who?”
“E. It’s her nickname.”
“What’s her real name?”
“Um.”
Jael said, “He does not know.”
“E stands for Epomis,” I offered
The guy crinkled his nose. “That’s disgusting.”
“Maybe she lives next door? Asian girl. I was visiting her a couple of days ago.”
“Asian, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Guy called over his shoulder. “Honey, can I use your phone?”
Mel and Lee saw that we were having some success and joined us on the front stoop. Meanwhile, a woman appeared over the guy’s shoulder, brown hair sporting a wisp of gray. She wore a long sleeping T-shirt with a matching terrier. She handed the guy an iPhone. “What do you need it for?”
“I want to show him a picture.”
The guy poked at the iPhone, brought up a picture, showed us.
E.
“That’s her,” I said. “Where is she?”
“No idea. I don’t know her.”
The woman said, “She was our guest a couple of days ago.”
“And you don’t know her?”
“Ever hear of Airbnb?” the guy asked.
I blinked at him. Airbnb. I thought back to the iPhone charger, and my dead phone. Remembered that E used a Samsung. So why was there no charger for me? E didn’t have a charger here because she didn’t live here. She’d rented this house—
“This was her plan,” Jael said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“She intended to seduce you and she needed a place.”
Stupid!
The guy asked, “You called her Epomis?”
“Eww,” said the woman.
“Pretty disgusting nickname,” said the guy.
“Why?”
The guy poked at his phone some more, showed me a video.
In the video, a frog stood in a wide beaker. Sand covered the beaker’s bottom. A beetle sat across from the frog. The beetle waved its antenna catching the frog’s attention. The frog twitched its head toward the beetle, took a step. The beetle, oblivious to the danger, kept moving, attracting attention. The frog stepped forward, the beetle took a step. The frog leaped forward, mouth wide, but missed. The beetle was suddenly on the frog’s back, hanging on as the frog thrashed to get it off. The frog flopped on its side, scrabbling at the beetle with its hind leg, flailing and rolling. The beetle remained in place, burrowed its head toward the frog, started chewing.
“Gross,” said Mel.
The video began flashing forward in time. The beetle chewed through the frog’s back, disabling the powerful legs, and the frog was left waving its little front legs as the beetle ate it alive in time-elapsed horror.
I stopped watching when it reached the eyes.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said.
“The larva do the same thing,” he said, and ran another video. “Grab the frogs when they try to eat them.”
The frogs thrashed and rolled, flailing their legs, jumping, unable to escape an inch-long beetle larva locked onto their throats. The time lapse always moved to an immobile frog being sucked dry by the bristly larva.
“That’s an Epomis beetle,” the guy said.
“E’s nickname,” said Mel. “Epomis.”
“What’s her real name?” I asked.
“Far Li.”
Sixty-Five
The couple closed their apartment door. Lee and Mel had joined Jael and me.
“What is Airbnb?” asked Lee.
I said, “It’s a website that lets you make some extra money renting out your apartment.”
“These two rented that apartment to her?”
“Yeah. They went away for the weekend, rented the place to Far Li.”
“And she brought you there to have sex with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘Why?’”
“You are too old.”
“I don’t think—”
“He was the frog,” Jael said.
“What?”
“The frogs in the videos. They are tempted, drawn toward the beetle.”
“I’m the frog.”
“Yes, you are the frog. She tempted you and trapped you.”
“Then how come I’m not dead?”
Jael said, “Because she did not want to kill you. She trapped the others as well.”
Mel, silent until now, tapped her phone. Called Bobby on speaker. “Bobby, have we got anything on a Chinese national named Far Li? Any record? Anything in the database?”
“Let me look.”
We waited.
“You do look a little green,” Mel said.
I stared at her, eyes unfocused, suffering a flash of insight. Not the good kind, not the kind that pulls all the pieces together, solves the puzzle, and suggests that you’re a genius. This was the shitty kind, the kind that pulls all the pieces together, solves the puzzle, and tells you that you are a cornucopia of incompetence.
“I got something,” Bobby said. “Far Li is here on a work visa. She works at Xiong Distribution in Everett.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“Her sister was Shu Li.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Who is Shu Li?” asked Jael.
Lee said, “Shu Li was a student at UMass. She was here on a student visa.”
Mel said, “She committed suicide last year because of online bullying.”
And the last piece of my stupidity dropped into place.
“Russell or Dorothy is next,” I said.
Mel said, “E’s going to his house.”
“How do you know?” Bobby asked.
“PwnSec,” Mel said. “Far Li blames PwnSec for her sister’s death.”
I remembered the text. Flipped open my phone.
Russell had texted: E’s safe. She’s coming over.
Sixty-Six
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I texted Russell back: E is the HackMaster!
Waited.
Got nothing.
I called Russell, went to voicemail. Called Dorothy. Went to voicemail. Left them both warnings about E, knowing that kids never listen to voicemail. Texted Dorothy. No response.
“We have to get moving.”
There is no better way to screw up traffic in a major American city than to run a marathon through it. The elite runners would have already finished the race by now, but the great center of the bell curve would follow them. Thirty thousand marathoners had started winding their way through Boston, dividing the city, forcing you to be on one side or the other. Fortunately we were on the same side as Russell.
Mel drove, Jael in the back, and me riding shotgun, though drove is a strong word for what Mel was doing. There wasn’t much driving to be done. We were clogged in traffic caused by drivers realizing that they’d never reach their destination on the other side of the race. A homeless person pushing a shopping cart zoomed past us.
“We’d be faster on foot,” I said.
“No. It’ll free up,” said Mel.
“Let us do both,” said Jael. She opened the door, stepped out, and started walking, her long strides taking her around the corner and out of sight.
“Do you think she’ll beat us?” asked Mel.
“If she does, she might save Russell.”
“Far Li will have a sword.”
“Sword in a gunfight.”
We inched forward a bit more.
“Sic semper contumeliosis,” said Mel. “I’ll bet it wasn’t ‘Thus ever to the insolent.’”
“You said you did some research, that it has several meanings.”
“Yeah.”
“We had the insolent and the spiteful. What else could it mean?
“Abusive.”
“That’s got to be it. ‘Thus ever to the abusive.’ Because of Shu Li committing suicide.”
“Why would Far Li blame PwnSec?”
“Because Russell, as Eliza, gave a blow by blow of the life ruin. The idiot was actually proud of it.”
“I’m amazed she didn’t kill them sooner.”
“She would have, but she had to dox them. It was tougher than I made it look.”
Mel said, “The traffic clears up after this light.”
“Let’s see if we can beat the shopping cart.”
The traffic moved forward, and we made ground on our shopping-cart nemesis. The light turned red, and the shopping cart pulled away. The light turned back and Mel finally zigged around the shopping cart, down the street, and into the tail end of another line of cars.
I said, “Doxing can be tough if you don’t have a place to start. That’s why E launched the Epomis beetle plan. She’d make sock-puppet
accounts on 4chan and Twitter, create a fake woman and create a fake guy to hate her.”
“Then she’d get PwnSec to life ruin the woman.”
“And they’d inevitably ask for a picture. A picture that she had spiked with a virus.”
“And so she’d take over their computer and figure out who they were. But why did she use Peter’s computer to steal the senator’s video?”
“Two birds with one stone. She worked for Xiong, so she needed the video. Making Peter’s computer do it would get Peter arrested.”
“And doxed.”
“Right.”
“None of this explains the weirdest part.”
“What?”
“Why did she hook up with you?” asked Mel.
“I guess we’re agreeing it wasn’t my good looks?”
“Yeah, let’s just agree to that.”
The traffic loosened up. Mel shot past Wentworth, got on Huntington, and zoomed toward Russell’s house.
“Because I was better at doxing PwnSec than she was. When I got pissed off, I doxed Peter almost immedi—”
And then the whole thing revealed itself. I stared out the window, seeing nothing but a gigantic plan swirling like a hurricane on satellite radar with a tiny pin that said You are here. Sure, she’d played me. I was the frog. Not so hard to get a healthy single guy interested in hooking up with a healthy single woman. Guys are like that. But tricking me was only the start.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
“Who?” asked Mel.
“E played us all.”
“Who did she play?”
“The Internet.”
“What are you talking about?”
I thought back to the five of us standing in my apartment.
Earl pointed at E. “Who’s she?”
“She’s E.”
“Why didn’t you dox her?”
“She didn’t piss me off.”
“She knew I’d do it when I got angry.”
“Do what?”
“Dox PwnSec.”
“She needed to get you angry.”
“So she started #TuckerGate. Made a bunch of different sock puppets online, started the fights, got the trolls trolling. The whole time she played up PwnSec, put them in a leadership position. Inflated their egos.”
“And when they went after you—”
“I went after them, and E played ‘Let’s you and him fight.’”
Mel said nothing.
“Then she staged the Anonymous rally in front of my house. She knew that PwnSec would come, because they were leading #TuckerGate.”
“She got all the suspects together.”
“And then she got us into my apartment.”
Mel said nothing, drove.
I whacked myself in the forehead. “Idiot!”
“Don’t worry,” said Mel. “We’ll get there.”
Mel pulled right, off Route 9, shot down Buckminster, then down Clinton. Russell’s house was a big brick place fronted by winter-choked ivy. Mel stopped the car. We opened the door.
Mel’s phone rang. She put Bobby on speaker.
“I’m looking at 4chan,” said Bobby.
“And?”
“Call the medical examiner.”
We ran to the house, pushed open the unlocked front door.
Russell’s head looked up at us from the doormat.
Sixty-Seven
Russell’s face, even in decapitated death, seemed to say, See, I told you so. His head rested on an oriental rug, blood oozing between the wool fibers and staining his Mohawk. His body had dropped straight down. It rested against the wall, a tangle of arms and legs.
“Oh, no,” said Mel.
“Yeah,” I said.
“It just showed up on 4chan,” Bobby said over the speakerphone.
The smartest guy in the room, that’s me. Unless there’s a twenty-something girl around who, against all odds, thinks you’re hot. Then not so smart. Here. Here are my secrets. Here are the people who anger me. You want their real names? You want to know where they live? Sure! Why not! You’re purty!
I had set them up like bowling pins.
I called Dorothy. No answer. Texted. No reply.
“How long ago?” I asked Mel.
She crouched next to the body, touched it. “It’s still warm,” Mel said. She picked up a floppy arm, dropped it back into place. “No rigor. So less than three hours.”
Bobby said over the speaker, “Backup is on the way.”
“Nothing to do but wait for them,” said Mel.
“I have to go,” I said. “I need to get to Dorothy.”
“Far Li has only ever killed one a day.”
“Dies ultimus,” I said.
“The final day.”
“She knows she’s blown. She’s got to do it today. Call Lee. I’m going.”
My flip phone had no map. I jogged down Clinton toward Chestnut Hill Ave. Came upon a path cutting bet
ween two houses. Heard sirens approaching. Brookline Police would be here soon, wanting to talk to me. Get my insights. Sit with chins resting on their cupped palms, enthralled as Mr. Super Hacker told them how the whole thing had fit together.
Confessions of stupidity could wait.
I trotted down the path. It slipped between a pair of houses, forming a no-man’s-land of easement, then it came upon railroad tracks and Green Line trains. Then the path dove, forming a tunnel beneath the tracks. I ran into darkness, taking in the miasma of a recent urination.
The tunnel rose on the other side of the tracks. As I emerged I heard cheering ahead of me on Beacon Street. I followed the sound, a constant whooping, punctuated by cowbells and cries of “You got this!” “You go, Mike in the orange hat, you go!” “Woo!”
The Boston Marathon in full swing.
Cops had set up barriers across the street, funneling me through a checkpoint where a cop looked at my empty-handed status and waved me through. The whooping grew louder with each step, and soon I was standing behind college students who leaned over the barrier to shout encouragement at the runners who streamed past.
I turned up Beacon, heading toward Cleveland Circle. It was one o’clock. The elite marathoners were long gone, running their twenty-third mile faster than I could run any single mile. The runners passing were the nameless masses. Athletes who were still chugging along, burning off eight- or nine-minute miles. This group had been running for three hours, and they were almost home.
I reached Cleveland Circle and stopped. Marathoners filled Chestnut Hill Ave, running between barriers separating a sea of happy spectators. The runners reached the bottom of the hill and turned wobbly knees toward the finish line, four miles away.
Had E come here, merged with this crowd? How could she possibly have done it carrying a sword? She was resourceful, but the cops were wary. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she’d decided to wait for another day, a day with fewer cops. I looked across the race toward Dorothy’s house.
Most runners wore bib numbers as their only identifying feature. Others had written their names on their jerseys. All received the enthusiasm of Bostonians who pressed against the barriers, cheering, waving, providing a corridor of encouragement and adulation. Together, the runners and crowd created a joyful space that celebrated spring, freedom, and triumph over adversity.
The image of Russell’s head flashed at me, his eyes sneering even in death, his Mohawk tipped in blood. It roiled my stomach, reminded me of how I’d been duped. The marathon receded into the background as I replayed my missteps. My first tryst with E. My need to tweak the Anonymous protesters with my clever makeup. My flaring temper. The Twitter mob was out there, doing their thing, tearing down their sacrifice of the day, and one day it was me. I hadn’t needed to participate in #TuckerGate, but I just couldn’t resist.
