Serial

76

When Westerley got back to Hogart and entered his office, Bobi Gregory was seated at the desk by the window. Across from her, Mathew Wellman was sitting in one of the padded black vinyl chairs with wooden arms. Mathew was pretending to read a supermarket tabloid. It featured the President of the United States smiling and waving as he boarded a flying saucer.

“My Aunt Edna sent me,” Mathew said.

Westerley was thrown for a moment. Then he remembered Mathew’s surreptitious viewing of pornography on the computer. He motioned with his head for Mathew to follow him into his office.

After settling in behind his desk, Westerley told Mathew to have a seat in a nearby chair that was exactly like the one he’d been seated in out in the anteroom.

Mathew looked down at the floor. “All I can say is I’m sorry about what happened, sir. I never meant for Aunt Edna to see that stuff.”

“I bet you didn’t,” Westerley said. “Some of those women looked seriously underaged.”

“Aw, they can make them look like that. You probably mean the one with the-”

“The sites are against the law,” Westerley said, but he supposed they’d have to be looked at one by one to really determine that.

“Actually, they’re-”

“I’ll talk to your Aunt Edna and make sure she knows you were just satisfying your curiosity, and you’re not a sex maniac.”

Mathew seemed surprised by this sudden apparent termination of what he’d assumed would be a major and historic ass-chewing from an expert. He wasn’t sure quite how to react. “I know pornography can become an addiction, sir.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Westerley said, noticing that Mathew was regarding him with a new attentiveness.

Mathew said nothing, sensing when to hold his cards close.

“You believe that stuff?” Westerley asked.

“About the addiction?”

“No. About the president and that flying saucer.”

No fool, Mathew, knew that wasn’t really the question. He said, “I don’t dismiss it out of hand.”

“You notice that computer on the table out in the other room?” Westerley asked.

“Sure, I did. Nice setup with plenty of power and storage. It’s got that new chip that makes it unbelievably fast. If you wanted to play games-”

“I do,” Westerley said.

Mathew grinned. “What kind of games?”

“Depends on what you and that computer can do. The state just bought it and I’m still lost on it. Probably always will be, to some extent. It’s a generational thing. Seems that the younger people are, assuming they been weaned, the better they are with all this tech stuff.”

“Weaned?”

“It’s an old expression. Like carbon copy. ”

“You’re funning me,” Mathew said.

“Not really. People over a certain age have a difficult time getting the hang of computers. Bobi, out there, she mostly downloads recipes and sends e-mail and photographs, so she’s not much help so far. Billy Noth might as well be flying the starship Enterprise for the first time. What I want calls for somebody who can make the most use of that expensive advanced technology. Really make it hum.”

“That would be me,” Mathew said.

“I’d find somebody younger if I could,” Westerley said, wondering where the sir went.

“I’m in the right spot at the right time.”

“That you are, Mathew. On the spot, you might say.”

“I want to do something,” Mathew said, “to repay you for keeping me out of trouble with Aunt Edna, and with the law. And for saving me a lot of embarrassment.”

So young to be playing the game, Westerley thought. “I haven’t done anything yet,” he said.

Mathew nodded but said nothing. His bland, reassuring face was unreadable. The lad would go far.

“What’s the expression used when you go where you aren’t supposed to be on the Internet?” Westerley asked. “I mean, other than if you’re looking at porn sites.”

“Hacking,” Mathew said.

“Do you possess that skill, Mathew?”

“It’s more an art than a skill.”

“So are you an artist?”

Mathew smiled. “Think Picasso.”

Westerley stood up and came around from behind his desk. “Come with me to the other room and familiarize yourself with that computer,” he said. “I’ll send Bobi home to make a pie, and then go see your Aunt Edna. When I get back, I’ll tell you what I need.”

Mathew stood up, grinning. “I wonder what Aunt Edna would think if she knew we were partners in crime.”

Westerley didn’t smile. “You’re going to have to learn, Mathew, not to pull my chain.”

But Westerley knew Mathew wasn’t exactly joking. He recognized the expression in the young nerd’s face, the ironically dumb staring look in his eyes. Hero worship. Maybe it was the way the porno thing was handled. Maybe the uniform. Maybe the gun.

Westerley shook his head. Terrific. I’m the idol of a kid smarter than I am.

Link kissed Beth on the cheek when he came home. She tried not to react too obviously, but she wondered if he’d noticed her resistance, the slight drawing away and stiffening of her body.

If he did, he gave no indication. He sighed contentedly, like a man glad to be home, and carried his blue nylon suitcase into the bedroom. It was a roomy piece of luggage, a suit carrier that had lots of zippered pockets. It could be folded twice, and somehow managed to qualify as a carry-on and fit in an overhead compartment.

Beth followed him into the bedroom and watched him unpack.

“Add to your collection?” she asked.

He smiled as he tossed a pair of socks onto the laundry pile. “Not my personal one, no. But I picked up some valuable antebellum coins for the company.” She noticed, not for the first time in the past few years, that Link had even begun to talk in a slightly different way, as if he were more educated. Not so much like the uncomplicated country guy she’d met years ago in a roadhouse with a parking lot full of pickup trucks.

Of course, he might simply have cleaned up his English to go with his suit-and-tie job.

“They should be pleased.”

“They usually are, Beth. That’s why they keep me busy traveling. It looks like I’ll have to be gone next weekend, too. Big numismatic convention in Denver.”

“Nowhere near New York,” Beth said.

Link stopped what he was doing and stared at her. “Why would you say that?”

“I don’t know. You go to New York a lot, don’t you?”

“Hardly ever. That place is too hectic, far as I’m concerned.”

She shrugged. “Well, Denver next time.”

He stopped unpacking and walked over to her. She stood very still as he gave her a hug.

“You don’t think I like being away so often, do you?” he asked.

“I know you like to travel.”

“Sure, I do. It’s the being-away part I don’t like. We’re doing okay with me in this job, and later on I can transfer to something that doesn’t involve so much travel. Or maybe even get another job altogether.”

Beth made herself rest her head against his shoulder. “You’re right, of course.”

He kissed her forehead, as if that would make everything better, then went back to continue unpacking. “Heard anything from Eddie?”

“He sent an e-mail. I saved it for you. He needs money.”

Link grinned. “Don’t we all?”

He’d finished placing his blue oxford shirt, and most of the other clothes he’d worn during his trip, on a pile on the floor. Beth moved around the bed and scooped up the wadded clothes, using the shirt as a makeshift sack. “I’ll put these in the washer.”

“Thanks, hon.”

“You might want to wear some of them on your Denver trip.”

“Might,” he agreed, grinning at her. “I’ll check the e-mail, then grab a beer and sit out on the porch while the washer runs. Let me know when there’s enough water pressure for me to take a shower.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Beth said.

These days, everything sounded like a plan.