Foul Play

Fifty-Seven

Stone was feeling better now, and an occasional glance at Brooke’s bosom was holding Huey’s attention.

“Here’s the important thing,” Stone said. “Can you teach me to do it at will? There will come a moment when I want to do it, but I can’t control when that will be, and you will not be available 24/7, right?”

“Absolutely, unalterably right,” Huey said. “Fortunately, you are not the first to need these skills.” He took hold of his book, held it by the spine and shook it. A folded sheet of paper fell from it and landed on the coffee table.

“What is that?” Stone asked.

“Instructions for idiots,” Huey replied.

“You’ve got the right man.”

“Fortunately, Shep Troutman was only slightly more semiliterate with computers than you. So, through repetition and following these instructions, he was able to control the software at will.” He unfolded the sheet of paper and handed it to Stone.

Stone found himself confronted with a page of ones, zeros, and various other gobbledygook. “I think I’d have to learn to read all over again,” he said.

“Do you have a computer at hand?” Huey asked.

“Downstairs in my office. Ladies, Dino, if you will all excuse us. We should be done by next Tuesday.”

“It won’t take as long as that,” Huey said, following Stone downstairs.

Stone switched on the lights and turned on the computer. “I hope this will do,” he said, “because it’s all I’ve got.”

“Let’s see,” Huey said, sitting down and letting his fingers fly around the keyboard. Various code and computer imagery bounced around the screen. Finally, he stopped.

“Is that it?”

“If you’re Bill Gates, yes. Unfortunately, you are you and require further instruction. I’ll make this as simple as I can: I taught Shep to operate the software that controlled the machines. He could turn them on and off, vary their performance, change the times and dates for auto-programming, after checking to see that the rental fees had been received, then turn them off if the fees had not been paid.”

“That’s a lot.”

“It is for you. My question is: Exactly what do you want the machines to do? If you can explain that to me, I can write a little program that, when activated, will do that and nothing else. Or, perhaps, give you an option or two.”

“I would like to be able to turn the machines on and off, just to demonstrate to Kronk that I can do it, then I’d like an option that will cause the machines to, in effect, commit suicide.”

Huey laughed aloud. “I’ve never been asked to make a machine take its own life,” he said. “That’s intriguing.”

Stone was happy to have something that could hold Huey’s interest, besides Brooke’s breasts. “Make it really, really simple,” he said.

“Can you type a single word, then hit enter?” Huey asked.

“Probably,” Stone said.

“All right, what I’ll do is write three programs. Give me three words.”

“Apple, Orange, Avacado.”

“Good. I’ll write a program that ‘Apple’ will turn on, ‘Orange’ will turn off, and ‘Avocado’ will turn the machinery into, effectively, guacamole.”

Stone laughed. “I like it.”

Huey typed fleetly for, perhaps, six or seven minutes. “Oh, and let’s give the program a one-word name.” He looked at Stone and waited.

“Cleavage,” Stone said.

“Perfect. Remember, all caps.”

“Right, all caps.”

“Now, let’s start from the beginning.” He shut down the computer and switched it off, then on again. “Here’s your starting page,” he said, when the machine had booted up. An empty box appeared on the screen. Huey typed in CLEAVAGE, and hit enter. Another page appeared, with the words, APPLE, ORANGE, and AVOCADO, each with an empty box next to it. “All you do is check the box you want. I could demonstrate, but since these factories are scattered about the world, we’d probably shut down something, somewhere, that someone is operating, and they’d start calling for help. They might get it, and we don’t want that.”

“Right.”

Huey did some more typing. “I’ve added an option on the title page,” he said. “It’s called ‘Time Bomb,’ and it has boxes for hours, minutes, and seconds. You fill in date, time, etcetera, up to twenty-four hours, then start the program as usual. When the time is up, voilà! You’ve got yourself lots of guacamole!”

“I like it,” Stone said.

Huey printed half a dozen copies of the page and instructions and gave them to Stone. “In case you lose five of them.”

“And I can do this from any computer?”

“Any PC. You want me to write you another version for an Apple?”

“No, don’t bother. We have only PCs in the office.”

“Then we’re done.”

“Listen, Huey, you may hear around your office that Troutman is going public. It would be a terrible mistake to either buy or sell the stock, or to tell someone who might do so. Insider trading is a great big NO-NO. Do you understand?”

“Of course.”

“Not even Trish.”

“No? Well, all right, though it would certainly impress her if I could make her a quick fortune.”

“You’d have to look at her breasts through prison bars, when she came to visit.”

“I’ll restrain myself,” Huey said.

They went back upstairs and rejoined the others.

“Get it all done?” Dino asked.

“Huey did. I’ll explain it all later.”

“By the way,” Huey said, “if you start the program from outside your local area network, you’ll have to type in the function you’re selecting, not just check a box.”

Stone wrote that instruction on the cheat sheet Huey had provided. “Got it.”

“Are you going to monkey with their machinery now?” Dino asked.

“No, I’m going to wait until they go public,” Stone replied. “They’ll announce the date soon, and I’ll confirm it with Charley Fox.”

“Can I watch?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”