Hard Stop

TWENTY-TWO

THE FIRST THING I DID the next morning was wake up Angel Valero. I was barely awake myself, having had only two cups of coffee in preparation for my morning shower. I’d plugged my cell phone into the same outlet that fed the coffee pot, and when I went to unplug it, Angel’s number popped up on the screen at the top of my contact list. The phone was always performing these spontaneous demonstrations, undoubtedly caused by the inexperience of the operator, but I took it as a hint from above and hit the send button.

“I told you to wake me at six. It’s only four in the fucking morning,” he growled on the other end of the line.

“Not here it isn’t. Where the heck are you?” I asked.

“Who’s this?”

“Sam Acquillo. I think we might have a friend in common. You know a guy named Ozzie Endicott? Actually, the late Ozzie Endicott.”

The line was quiet for a while. I thought he’d hung up, but the little time counter on the screen was still going.

“Angel, you there?” I asked.

“You’re not going to go away, are you,” he said.

“Not if I can help it.”

“We can settle this,” he said.

“We can?”

“Not over the phone. We need a sit-down. You probably have a figure in mind. It’s gonna be more than I’m willing to pay. So save yourself the disappointment and start discounting now.”

“Ah. That kind of settlement.”

“What other kind is there?”

“Okay,” I said. “When and where?”

“You’ll be contacted tomorrow when I get back from L.A. Don’t call me again,” he said, then hung up.

I poured the rest of the coffee out of the pot and into an insulated mug with the Yankees logo on the side. I brought it along to the outdoor shower, where I invested a week’s pay in hot water. I don’t know why showers, administered externally, have such a powerful effect on a person’s internal vitality, but they do. Mentally and physically.

I dressed for the day in work boots and a pair of shorts with big pockets on the legs, a sleeveless T-shirt and a black Yankees cap, to further express my abject loyalties.

Then I drove down from Oak Point, through Southampton Village, to the sea. It had rained the night before—thunder-showers—so there were large puddles creating an obstacle course along Dune Drive. Amanda’s pickup handled the challenge with distinction.

When I reached one of the few public access points through the dunes, I parked the truck and proceeded on foot. The sun was up on the horizon, but the air was still cool from all the rain and the gradual shift from summer into fall.

It took almost a half hour to reach Angel’s big white box. It’s not always easy to identify houses usually approached from the road by their beachside facades, but Angel’s architect had made it easy. The other clue was a bit of luck on par with my lucky call first thing in the morning: the sight of a brunette in a yellow bikini sitting at the edge of the surf on a chaise lounge, plowing through the final chapters of The Agony and the Ecstasy.

“Which is it for you?” I asked her, pointing at the cover.

Jesse shaded her eyes when she looked up at me. Then she looked at where I was pointing.

“A little of both.”

I sat down cross-legged, grateful to be finished with the uncomfortable slog across the sand.

“Mind if I join you?” I asked.

“You already have.”

She dog-eared a page and closed the book, resting it on her naked belly. I noticed a bracelet tattoo on her ankle.

“My father had a tattoo of an anchor on his chest,” I said. “Hip before his time.”

She held up her leg.

“It’s a string of pearls,” she said.

“Which came first, the pearls or the swine?”

She smiled.

“I did enjoy the way you handled Angel. Though not so much his mood afterwards.”

“Sorry. Not my fault.”

“But this is. Visiting me on the beach. How do you know he’s not on his way to join me?”

“Can’t get here that fast from L.A.”

Jesse took the thick book in two hands and tilted it up on end, showing off a little more tanned belly.

“So you made a special trip, just for me,” she said.

“I did.”

“Do you think staying in a rich person’s house, along with several other girls, in return for the occasional sexual favor, constitutes a form of prostitution?” she asked.

“To some people, I guess. Not to me.”

“Interesting. You handle loaded questions even better than bullies.”

“Just a lucky answer. It’s been going that way for me all morning.”

She seemed satisfied with that.

“So, what are you trying to get lucky with now?” she asked. “Me or Angel’s business?”

“Are those my only two choices?”

“They’re the two I’m most familiar with.”

“Okay. Let’s start with business.”

She gave the air a gentle punch.

“Excellent. What damaging things can I tell you?”

“It’s heartwarming to see such loyalty,” I said.

“Swine is a good choice of words. Though it might be understated.”

“Did you ever meet a young consultant named Iku Kinjo?”

“Iku? Sure. She was here all the time. She worked for Angel, indirectly. Part of a consulting business. Can’t remember the name.”

“Eisler, Johnson.”

“That’s it. Business freaks. Always in black suits and ties. Carrying big black cases full of chart packs and projectors.”

“So Iku wasn’t the only one he worked with.”

She shook her head.

“There were others. They all look the same to me, same clothes and haircuts, so they kind of blur together. All but the big scarecrow. Much better dresser.”

“Jerome Gelb.”

“That’s it. Angel called him Jerry, which you could tell he hated, which is why Angel did it.”

“Was he here a lot?”

“He usually came with Iku. That girl was intense, but I liked her. I’m not surprised she killed herself. Wound that tight. But I feel really bad for her. She always said hi, noticed I was there.”

“When Iku and Gelb were here, did they work off their laptops?”

“They all do these days. That and the little handheld things. Next they’ll have something jacked right into their skulls. That’s why it’s sort of funny,” she added, her voice trailing off.

“What is.”

“That Iku would leave it here. Her laptop. You’d think her family would want it back.”

“Oh, but they do,” I said, immediately pissed at myself for blurting it out. “They’ve been searching for it all over.”

“Really.”

I stared at her as the plea floated unspoken between us.

“You’re joking,” she said.

“I’m not. He doesn’t need it. You’ll be making some nice people very happy.”

I reached involuntarily for my cell phone, fingering the stubby antenna on top, but keeping it in its holster. I didn’t know how much time I had before Angel got back from the Coast, but it was probably less than needed for Sullivan to get the story in front of Ross, and then in front of a judge willing to invade the privacy of a semi-public figure, all without Angel catching wind of it and getting one of his household thugs to take a quick trip to the middle of the Shinnecock Bay.

Jesse shrugged.

“Sure. Why not,” she said brightly.

I felt myself let out a long held breath. I hoped it didn’t show.

“Excellent. How about now?”

She opened her book to the dog-eared page, refolded the corner and shut it again.

“Hold your horses there, Lone Ranger,” she said. “I got to figure a way to sneak it out of the house.”

I tried to look apologetic.

“Of course. You’re right. How much time do you need?”

She looked at her watch.

“Angel’s not back till after six, but I’m not taking any chances. Let’s meet at noon. Name the place.”

I told her how to get to the Pequot, figuring it was the one place on the East End where she was least likely to be recognized. I said if I wasn’t there, to leave it with one of the owners, Dorothy or Paul Hodges. I’d give them the heads-up.

“You trust them?” she asked.

“With my life.”

“Then I guess I can trust them with mine.”

On the return slog I had enough time to weigh all the possibilities, and worry about timing, and Jesse’s safety, which I might be seriously endangering without her knowledge, and the safety of others who might get caught in the crossfire.

But by the time I reached the pickup, my mood from the earlier part of the morning was back in place. The worries were still there, but I had a technique for keeping them at bay. All I had to do was remember Iku Kinjo sitting on the edge of a chair in my office at the company, impatiently scribbling down notes on a small pad of graph paper, checking her watch, the consummate neurotic, eager, alive and just starting to find her way.

My relief was almost overwhelming when I saw Jesse come through the doors of the Pequot, with a large wicker bag and a look I’d last seen on Honest Boy Ackerman confronting the distinctive ambience for the first time. Luckily Dotty was nearby to greet her and put her at ease, as well as a woman with chartreuse-and-black-striped hair can do.

“This place was a lot farther away than I thought,” she said, reluctantly accepting my offer to sit at the table.

“You got away clean, I hope,” I said, looking hopefully at the wicker bag.

“It’s in there. I’m not sure how clean I am. Probably clean out of my mind for even contemplating this, much less doing it. You’re a very persuasive person.”

“Thank you,” I said, reaching into the basket and pulling out the dark grey plastic slab and tangle of power cords before she succumbed further to second thoughts. I tucked it under my arm and fought the desire to make an immediate run for the truck.

“So maybe I can persuade you of one more thing,” I said.

She looked attentive, but suspicious.

“And that would be?”

“You’ve already met Dotty. You want to talk about a girl with a brain. You’d love spending a little time with her. Like, tonight. Her roommates all pick their teeth with filleting knives. Safest place in town.”

Suspicion grew into annoyance.

“I’m not safe?”

“It might be a good idea to exercise a certain caution. Just for tonight.”

“So, I’m not safe,” she said.

“I don’t know. Angel might discover the laptop is gone. He’ll be very upset.”

“And what about the grieving Kinjos?”

“They’ll still be very happy. Wherever they are.”

I did the best I could to sell her on the idea, though she hadn’t entirely capitulated by the time I left. I thought she would. Paul and Dotty were giving her the full blast of their distinctive charm, something few souls could resist.

I brought the laptop back to the cottage and out to the lscreened-in porch. I set it on the table next to Randall’s PC primer and the tumbler filled to capacity with a whole day’s ration of vodka on the rocks. No better way to sharpen the concentration.

I thought peering into the private cyberlife of a recently murdered woman would be a little unnerving, and I wasn’t disappointed. True to the torqued-down professional I remembered her to be, Iku’s folders were clearly labeled and alphabetically arranged. With the exception of headings like “Reports” and “Analysis,” I didn’t know what any of it meant, even after opening the documents. It was all boxes and arrows, tables and rows of data, a familiar language, but in a distinctly foreign dialect. I once had a penchant for deciphering meaning from all forms of data, however alien, but I was out of practice and the sheer, numbing volume of the information was daunting.

I clicked out of the heavy stuff and went looking for easier prey, like “Correspondence.”

After divining a way to open the file “Saved Emails” I ran smack into another form of impenetrability. The language here was unexpurgated corporate-speak—or worse, consultant-speak. In this Iku was so masterfully fluent I almost began to admire the opacity of the prose, her deft handling of euphemism to evade precision, and the use of passive voice to express near-poetic ambiguity. It was clear from the exchanges that, by comparison, her clients and fellow consultants were rhetorical pikers.

Angel Valero, on the other hand, didn’t even compete. His style was refreshingly loutish and blunt, poetic only in the absence of capital letters, as if using the shift key was too big a time commitment. The subject matter of their correspondence was ordinary to the point of banality—though, as with the technical files, I sensed there was meaning in the interpretation. The syntax varied, but the import was the same.

Bobby Dobson was vague and filled with complaint. Jerome Gelb was imperious and brusque, without Valero’s rough charm. Elaine Brooks was flirtatious. Zelda, poetic and erudite, trying to live up to her name. But with an edge, as delicate and keen as a razor. Anger masquerading as clever wit, highbrow repartee.

George Donovan, on the other hand, was tender and kind, and playful. Affectionate in the earnest, self-deprecating way people are when they really mean it. It was an adult affection, restrained only by fear of exposure. But it was clear—Donovan had fallen off the cliff. For him it wasn’t conquest, it was redemption.

I resisted being ensnared by the correspondence and pulled into a deep dive. There was too much surface to peruse, too many layers to peel away, holding areas to uncover and decant.

As I clicked along, my nervous system began to light up. There was a chase afoot and I was getting used to moving the little arrow around and remembering which key did what, speeding the process: validation of Sullivan’s theory that computers addict the unwary. Maybe, I thought, lighting a Camel and sipping the top off my drink, but only if you have an addictive personality.

Whatever success I managed to have on the job was probably based on a knack for pattern recognition, starting with recognizing what were patterns and what weren’t. This is what made me an official problem-solver for most of my professional life. Yet I was always a little superstitious about examining the process, afraid that understanding how I worked through a problem would ruin my ability to do it.

As I cruised around Iku Kinjo’s cyberlife, I could feel the process starting. A scan of the data in search of a gestalt, an image of meaning camouflaged by its context, yet visible to the objective first-time observer.

What I saw, in addition to Iku’s gift for obfuscation, was the burning need to obfuscate. It went beyond conforming to corporate jargon. She had things to hide. Lots of things. But also a need to communicate over a medium that was as insecure as it was indispensable.

The solution was to operate in plain view, by writing messages that conveyed twin meanings—one routine, the other, anything but.

This is what I recognized almost immediately. A thing you know is there, even if you don’t know what it’s telling you. A cipher wrapped in a puzzle inside a code. My favorite thing.

It took the rest of the day, and the balance of the night, but by the time the Little Peconic Bay began to glow with the nascent dawn, and the birds were in full chatter and chirp, I had it cracked.

I had it all.