BLACK in the Box

by Russell Blake

  Roxie was humming to herself when he pushed the door open, and she glanced at him without interest before refocusing on the screen. He sniffed the air and walked to where he’d left the coffee, now tepid, and carried his half-full cup back to the desk.

  “She didn’t know anything,” he reported.

  “You mean she was able to withstand your scathing interrogation skills?”

  “No, I mean it wasn’t her. She was being questioned by McCarthy at four.”

  “Bummer. Guess you need to give the client back the money, huh? Minus my five hundred, of course.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I should have made it a grand. If I’d known I would have to sit here and endure the stink of your poison, I’d have doubled it.”

  “Kind of you to take pity on me.” He looked at the screen. “You mentioned you had something else?”

  “Did I?”

  “This isn’t the time, Roxie.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m not sure it’s related, but it looks like someone’s been cooking the books.”

  “Cooking, how?”

  “Well, it’s clever, but it looks like someone with access has been skimming cash. Not a lot. Just a few hundred here, a few there. Kind of small time.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. I just invented it to give us something to talk about besides your fashion sense – if you can call it that. But like I said, beats me how it ties into the axe thing.”

  “Or Mary?”

  “Well, the last entry was this evening, so it was probably her. I can’t see any of the other employees being able to access that area of the database.”

  Black probed the cut above his eye with his fingers and made a face. “Starting to hurt.”

  “You should have put ice on it.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “I can buy some of those boo-boo gel packs with the animal faces on them for you, if you want. For next time.”

  “Your generosity never ceases to amaze me.” Black scowled. “How would someone get Alec’s password without him telling them?” He gave her a summary of his discussion with Nancy.

  “Sounds like that went well,” she said.

  “I’m not expecting a Christmas card. Any ideas?”

  “Maybe a key logger.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Program that logs keystrokes. Hence the confusing name: key logger.”

  “They have those?”

  She shook her head. “You really don’t know much, do you?”

  “Not about technology. That’s not news. Is there some way to check for one?”

  “Of course.” She paused. “I should really be charging by the task.”

  “Do I get a refund every time you drive me crazy?”

  “Afraid not.” She stared at him. “Was there anything else?”

  “You were going to check for the logger.”

  “It kind of creeps me out to have you watching me while I work.”

  “Which is presumably why you do so little of it in the office.”

  “Ooh, you made a funny!”

  “Just check.”

  “Did I tell you you’re cranky tonight? Is your arthritis flaring up? Or are you backed up? I know when the weather changes older folks have problems. Got a little logjam going?”

  “I’m cranky because a pile of pallets almost killed me.”

  “Don’t forget your girlfriend booted you.”

  “She didn’t boot me, but thanks for the reminder.”

  “Which is why Mugsy’s carrier is here.”

  “I told you, she didn’t want to watch him.”

  “Yeah, I sort of put the whole thing together on my own.”

  Black sighed and took a sip of his lukewarm drink. Roxie continued to stare at him with dead eyes.

  “Were you sent by Satan to test me?” he asked.

  “No, that’s your prostate.”

  “Roxie…”

  “Okay, okay. Just stop – the pressure’s getting to me.”

  “Please do it.”

  “I told you, having you look over my shoulder gives me the heebie-jeebies. Is that your phone ringing?”

  “My phone’s not ringing.”

  “Maybe you should take the call. It’s probably someone with a clue telling you to leave your long-suffering assistant alone so she can get her work done and go home.”

  “How long will it take?” Black asked as he rose.

  “I need to unlink the thermos-coupling on the static phase adapter and then unscramble the encryption algorithm booster. It’s probably a Lempel-Ziv fractal in the allocation tables.”

  “That means come back in a few minutes?”

  “Make it fifteen. I’d say don’t unless you have Mugsy, but if he’s got any sense, he’s probably hiding.”

  “I’ll see if I can hear snoring.”

  “Your cut looks like it’s getting infected. I hope you don’t die.” She paused. “I mean, you will, at some point, but not before you find Mugsy.”

  “Does it really?”

  “Maybe nicotine will help.”

  “Or bourbon.”

  “One day at a time, boss.” She spun back to the screen. “So sad…”

  “I’m not an alcoholic, Roxie,” he admonished from the door.

  “Acceptance is the first step.”

  Chapter 36

  “All right, Ms. Collins, watch your head,” the female officer warned as she assisted Bethany from the back of the cruiser. Miraculously, she hadn’t thrown up, her stomach empty from earlier.

  She was booked into the system and taken into the back of the precinct to the drunk tank, where several other contrite unfortunates waited with hollow eyes. Bethany didn’t have any protest left in her. Her head spun as the floor shifted like the Catalina ferry in rough water, and she took a seat on one of the pair of metal benches, rubbing her wrists absently where the skin was abraded from the handcuffs.

  The booking officer had asked her if she’d like to make a call or wait until later, and she’d wisely opted for postponing it, painfully aware that her lifeline, Larry, would probably be less than receptive to hearing from her after seeing the damage she’d done. She didn’t know who else to call, though. Her mother had no money and lived in Chula Vista, which might as well have been New York, as far as it seemed now. Her roommates wouldn’t help, she already knew.

  She was screwed.

  Bethany sobbed quietly in self-pity. The sounds and smells revolted and frightened her. She’d only been arrested once before, but she’d been in and out in hours, alone in a holding cell, the charges ultimately dropped.

  She fancied herself as tough, but the other women in with her looked like hard cases, no strangers to the system, likely high as well as inebriated. Bethany sneaked a look over at them, blinking away tears, and then her head swam and she felt her stomach contracting again. She barely made it to the stainless steel toilet at the far end of the room before she retched, but nothing came up. She stooped over the seatless bowl, a long strand of saliva drooling from her mouth, emanating misery until the spasms passed.

  “Girl, you look like shit,” said one of the women, thirty-something going on sixty. The woman next to her cackled and elbowed the speaker.

  “Ain’t that the truth. An’ here I was feelin’ sorry for my ass.”

  “Whole lot of misery there, no doubt.”

  “Too right. Look like tha princess had too much happy juice.” The woman wrinkled her nose. “Smell like hell, too.”

  “Girl, you sit on back over there, far as you can from us, you hear?”

  Bethany nodded grimly, no fight left in her. She barely made it to the bench by the bars before she started shaking, shivering even though it was seventy degrees in the cell.

  She cursed Larry with what little energy she had left. This was his fault. She’d never have been on the road if he hadn’t left her – hadn’t lied to her. Her besotted brain teeter-tottered between wishing she’d never heard th
e call, so she could continue living a fantasy, to hoping he died in a horrible accident, preferably catching fire before expiring.

  Bethany perked up at the idea. Larry, drenched in gasoline, begging her for help as he watched flames follow the trail of gas from the car to where he lay, legs broken, on the pavement, like one of the images they’d used to warn her of the dangers of drinking and driving in driver’s ed class.

  “It could happen,” she murmured, and then thought better of it. People like Larry were insulated from being arrested and put into the tank with crack whores and losers. Money protected them with a halo of privilege. One she’d aspired to, but that was now as out of reach as eternal life.

  She swore silently, wary of drawing any more attention from the women. Her eyes closed as she trembled, partly from shock, partly from the alcohol leaving her system – and partly from fright. Why had she blown through her money this month so recklessly? Not her salary, which was laughable, the other money she made on the sly.

  Not that it would have done much good, she realized. She had no idea how much bail would be, but it would likely require way more than she’d ever squirreled away from her sideline.

  Visions of waking up with the hangover of a lifetime in jail haunted her as she weighed her options, but she was too high still to figure anything out. Maybe in a few hours, she reasoned. Maybe…maybe her last resort contact would come through for her – her ace in the hole. If he felt like it, he could get her out of anything…she hoped.

  Yelling drifted from down the corridor. Two guards arrived with an angry Hispanic woman about Bethany’s age held between them, who was hurling invective and protesting her treatment.

  “Hey. You all see this? You see it? They out of control,” she shrieked at the other prisoners as the pair of cops, whose faces could have been carved from stone, turned her so she was facing the cell door.

  “Angie, don’t dig the hole any deeper,” one of the guards warned. “You’re in enough trouble. Quiet down or it’ll go hard on you.”

  “Police brutality. I want a lawyer. I’m gonna sue you into the ground, you hear me?”

  “Angie – you’re wasted. Again. You crashed your car. That’s how you got the bruise on your head.”

  “No, it isn’t. Don’t listen to them. They’re lying.”

  “We have pictures, Angie. Now quiet, or you’ll be in here for a lot longer.”

  The officer’s words seemed to finally reach Angie, and she calmed down as one of her escorts reached for her keys. “Everyone stand back,” the woman ordered, and Bethany did her best to comply while still maintaining her distance from the others.

  Angie took the bench opposite Bethany and the lock clanked closed. The guards retreated and Angie glared around the cell, obviously looking for trouble. The pair of older women met her gaze with stony silence, and Bethany closed her eyes again, willing herself far away – this was a nightmare that was getting worse by the second.

  She was dozing when she started awake. Someone had kicked her foot. Bethany cracked one eye open and her heart sank – Angie was standing in front of her, an ugly expression on her face.

  “You’re snoring, bitch.”

  “I…sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “That’s not gonna do it. You got a smoke?”

  Bethany shook her head and grimaced in pain. The hangover was already starting. “No. Sorry. I don’t smoke.”

  “You smell like you do.”

  Bethany looked confused and then she understood. “Oh. That’s not cigarettes.”

  “What, you go to a barbecue or something?”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “It’s not that.”

  Angie kicked her foot again, this time harder. Bethany drew in a sharp breath but didn’t cry out. Angie stepped closer and then looked away at a sound outside the door. She scooted to the far bench as a guard ambled along, eyeing the captives with an unsympathetic gaze. Angie waited until the guard had passed on by, and whispered to Bethany, “This ain’t over. You mine, bitch. You mine.”

  Bethany closed her eyes and began crying again, this time audibly. The woman down the bench from her laughed. “You best shut your piehole. Don’t got to listen to that.”

  Bethany choked back the sobs, her stomach in knots, unsure what to do about the hostile woman who seemed bent on doing her harm, the reality of her plight crushing down on her like the weight of the world.

  Chapter 37

  Black shuffled along the kitchen accessory aisle, his head hurting from the blow as well as an overdose of caffeine. He toyed with the idea of trying Sylvia again but discarded it. He’d be better served talking to her in person, setting things right, promising that he would change.

  Just the thought of it sounded false, and he realized that Sylvia had made the right call. For all his protestations to the contrary, he wasn’t prepared to commit – he was too busy defending himself from a threat that existed only in his head. He’d met a beautiful woman who’d been willing to share his life, and he’d blown countless chances with her. His experience with a neurotic narcissist, his ex-wife Nina, had left him so bitter that when presented with the real thing, he’d balked.

  He’d been put to the test by time, and failed. He knew it, Sylvia knew it, and that was that. What right did he have to keep her in a relationship where he couldn’t give her the bare minimum she needed to feel appreciated?

  He stopped in his tracks, the thought as unpleasant as a piece of sand in his eye.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Black?” a voice asked from behind him.

  He spun and found himself facing Kristen Cho. Damn. He’d forgotten all about her.

  “Kristen, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You have a few minutes? I was just looking for you.”

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  They walked together back to the break room and sat down. “Someone told me you lost your cat. Sorry to hear that,” she said.

  “Thanks. Do me a favor and keep a lookout for him.”

  “Sure. I have two at home. I couldn’t imagine losing one,” she said with an accusatory stare that said he was a bad cat parent.

  “Well, I’m actually just watching him.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, Kristen. You’ve been here for almost a year?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You like the job?”

  “It pays okay. I don’t love working nights, but these days, you do what you have to.”

  Black nodded. You could say that again.

  “Your file said you were going to school?”

  “Right. I’m hoping to get a bachelor’s in business administration in June.”

  “What then?”

  “Start sending my resume out. But it’s tough. A friend of mine said she heard that there are five hundred applicants for every job at her company, and that pays even less than this does. People with tons of experience, degrees, the whole works.”

  “It’s definitely harder than ever.”

  “Which is why I’m not holding my breath. Suck it up, as my dad would say.”

  “How well did you know Alec?”

  “Hardly at all. I’m more technology savvy than most of the people here, so I didn’t really need his help much.”

  “No casual contact?”

  “No reason to.”

  “Did you ever notice anything unusual about him?”

  “Like…what?”

  “I don’t know. People said he seemed like he was stoned sometimes.”

  “I don’t do drugs, Mr. Black, so that’s way over my head. He was always professional with me.”

  The rest of the interview was about as helpful. According to Kristen, the night shift at Home World was rainbows and unicorns, and everyone was just slathered in awesome sauce. He already knew she had an alibi, but he made her tell him nonetheless. If he was hoping to catch her in a contradiction, he struck out.

  “Anything you can add before we’
re done?” Black asked.

  “Not really. I’m sorry he got killed. He was so young.”

  “Yes. It’s a tragedy.”

  “Let me know if you need something else,” she said once the session was over.

  “Will do. Thanks, Kristen.”

  He scribbled a few notes and then ducked his head into the office where Roxie was working.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “Negatory. Come back in another ten.”

  “This is like water torture.”

  “You find Mugsy?”

  “See you in ten.”

  His phone vibrated in his pocket and he felt for it. When he saw the message from Stan, he immediately called him.

  “Colt,” Stan answered, barking his last name.

  “Buddy, it’s me. You found stolen goods?”

  “Yeah. Who knew junkies were untrustworthy?”

  “The hell you say. That change anything?”

  “Not really. I kind of figured there would be shenanigans when we found the dope. How about you?”

  Black told him about the password.

  “That’s weird,” Stan agreed.

  “Can you think of any way someone might have gotten it?”

  “Not really. The key logger is the likeliest suspect.” Stan was more up on computers than Black.

  “If it’s not that, what’s choice B?”

  “Dunno. Maybe a camera? Or something like an ATM skimmer?”

  “What’s that?”

  Stan explained. When he was done, Black shook his head. “It’s probably a good thing I’m too untrustworthy to get a credit card. Sounds like the world’s more dangerous every day.”

  “Yeah. I mean, ask Roxie if something like that exists for passwords.”

  Black paused. “Back up a second. What did you mean about a camera?”

  “You know. Like a surveillance device.”

  “I already asked about them. They only have them on the public areas.”

  “Right, that’s what they have officially. But what if someone planted a camera so they could see Alec’s info?”