The Last Day

TWENTY-SEVEN

Watcher parked his truck outside a textile mill in Charlotte's south side that had been converted into lofts. He walked to a red door with the gold number 12 on it and rang the bell. He scanned the parking lot and was glad to see that it was deserted.

The peephole went dark and a second later the door opened. The young man who squinted out at Watcher was thin, stooped, and bald on the top of his head. The remaining halo of hair surrounding his pate was long and gathered into a thin ponytail. He wore a soul patch between his narrow lower lip and the weak chin beneath. The thick lenses held in heavy black frames enlarged his bloodshot blue eyes. He wore a soiled undershirt, and the boxer shorts he wore looked like they were going to fall off as soon as he exhaled. Obviously he'd been awake for a very long time.

“Hi, Bert,” Watcher said.

“Hey, man,” Bert said. “Come in. You know what the frigging sun does to vampires.”

After Watcher went in, Bert looked out and scanned the parking lot before he closed the door. Except for the bathroom, Bert's condo was one open space with eighteen- foot ceilings. The lower seven feet of the floor- to- ceiling windows, built to provide both light and ventilation to the workers in the cavernous weaving room, were covered by stained bedsheets. On a mezzanine, accessible by narrow stairs, an unmade bed was surrounded by piles of clothes and other flotsam from Bert's solitary lifestyle. The space smelled like a locker room after a football game.

The TV was on and Watcher was treated to a live report of the havoc wrought by the pornography virus. Watcher and Bert took a moment to watch and admire. Bert laughed out loud when a mother being interviewed started sobbing as she described the trauma to her young daughter the e-mail had caused. The report went from the woman to a minister who called for the arrest of the guilty party who'd perpetrated the unspeakable assault on human decency. The red-faced, gravel-voiced parson called further for the government to control the smut that was destroying the innocence of children and thousands of wholesome God- fearing families. “This is a war with Satan himself,” the sanctimonious minister bellowed. Before his segment ended, he managed to name his ministry and his dot- com address so Christians could send their dollars to help fund his antipornogra-phy campaign.

“Man, oh, man, I've never been a general in Satan's army before,” Bert said, barely able to contain his glee.

The damning evidence was purposefully circumstantial in nature. Watcher still knew that it was possible, though unlikely, that Ward would be arrested. Public outcry was too great. The authorities were under too much pressure. Watcher imagined the pressure on the McCartys and smiled back grimly at Bert.

A table made from a sheet of heavy plywood and set on sawhorses dominated the living room/kitchen. Five computer terminals lined the table. An expensive armchair on rollers was pushed up to one like a captain's chair. The screen of one computer held hundreds of lines of program coding, as undecipherable to Watcher as sheet music. The young man opened the re frigerator and took out a chilled bottle of beer. Except for a six- pack of Budweiser, a pizza box, and ketchup, the unit's interior was empty.

“Want one?” he asked.

“Too early for me,” Watcher said. “I brought you something,” he said, putting a glass vial on the table. He had taken it from his jacket pocket, using his fingertips on the edges to avoid leaving prints.

“What's this?”

“A reward for your amazing work.”

Bert lifted the vial and opened it, peering in at the white powder.

“Meth? I have plenty of meth. I like meth. You want some?”

“It's Peruvian flake, Bert. Ninety- eight percent pure, so be careful.”

“No shit?” Bert poured the powder on a plastic CD case. “Cool. I haven't had any coke in months. So, we're rock stars, man! We made a humongous splash with the naughty porno thing.” He laughed and held his clammy hand up for a high- five slap.

Watcher slapped the young man's open hand and smiled.

“You keep any of the kiddie pictures to look at later?” Watcher asked.

“Well, I've got the virus copies like you said to keep for you, the code and all that, but I'm not stupid enough to keep it around longer than necessary, even if it's a thing of beauty, virusly speaking. Not the porn, though. That's really creepy stuff, man.”

Watcher took a number-ten envelope from his pocket, again by the edges, and handed it to the programmer. “Five thousand dollars,” Watcher said.

“You already paid me,” Bert said. “Why the bump? Oh, because I'm such a rock star and because it was so effective for your guy?”

“Yep. It's a bonus. You earned it, man,” Watcher said, handing Bert a business card without his prints on it, but those of its owner. “Cut it with this.”

“Cool,” Bert said. He took the business card from Watcher-putting his own prints on it in the process-chopped at the pile of cocaine, and deftly split it into wide two- inch- long rails. Rolling up one of the bills from the stack inside the envelope, he bent down and snorted each rail, one, then the other. He straightened, pinched his nose like a child about to jump into a swimming pool, and sucked in air abruptly as he released his nostrils.

“Far out!” he said, spinning his chair in circles, using his filthy bare feet for propulsion. “We've been all that's on the jazzing news.” He stopped spinning, sighed. “Wish I could use this in my portfolio. I mean, I wouldn't, because I'd end up in jail… again. But I sure wish I could just tell some of my hacker buds. They'd go ape shit, man!”

“Are you sure the FBI can't trace this job to you?”

“No way, man. No frigging way. I put in so much bullshit code around the meat-excuse my pun-that they will never work through all of it. Then I piled the covering shit on shit, so deep that I'm never going to have anybody within ten miles of me. You hired the best, man. The absolute best.”

Watcher shrugged. He knew Bert's confidence was horseshit. The cops knew all about people like Bert, and given time they'd brace him and he'd end up rolling over like a dachshund puppy approached by a pack of ravenous wolves.

When Bert bent over the table to put the envelope into a wire bin, Watcher slipped the stiletto from his pocket, pressed the button releasing the long, thin blade, pressed the tip against the base of Bert's skull, and pulled back on his ponytail, shoving the blade in to the hilt. Watcher pulled it out, closed the weapon, and, after wiping off his prints, dropped it into a plastic bag, which he then put into his pants pocket.

He looked at the disposable cell phone on the table that he'd given Bert. Using his fingertips, Watcher took the envelope of cash and put it under the computer's keyboard. Satis fied, he took one of Bert's business cards and pocketed it for later use. Now, he thought, the circular evidence trail was exactly half laid.