The Fool's Run

CHAPTER 9

Samantha Ebberly was a manager, so her codes would get us into the administrative side of the Whitemark computers, but we also had to get into the engineering side. We scouted four of the five engineering targets, and all were marginal prospects. The morning after the Ebberly entry we went to check out the fifth engineer.

From the moment we turned the corner the target looked bad. Aside from the dying brown grass, the front yard was devoid of plant life. A battered ten-speed bike was lying at one side of the driveway, next to a green-and-cream '57 Chevy set up on concrete blocks. The driveway was stained black by a tear-shaped oil slick that was creeping out from under the car.

The backyard was surrounded by a shoulder-high, chain-link fence. There were no clumps of extra-dark-green grass, because there wasn't much grass, but subtle signs were unnecessary.

Two old-fashioned doghouses squatted against the house, and an evil-looking, white-eyed hound crouched beside one of them. The chain around his neck looked as if it might once have been used to haul logs. As we drove by, a blonde in a tight, black T-shirt banged out the front door, followed by a teenage boy who swatted her on the butt as they cut across the moribund grass toward his Harley, which was curled up to the curb.

"Just keep on rolling," LuEllen said. "Don't bother to look back."

"Christ, it's the Jukes."

"Nice Harley, though."

"Wonderful."

"Softtail," she said.

"I'd rather eat worms than ride a Harley-Davidson," I said, remembering a bumper sticker I once saw on a Honda.

"Riding a Honda's like fuckin' a faggot; it feels sorta good, but you wouldn't want your friends to see you doin' it," LuEllen said. "I thought this Bobby guy was finding us people without kids."

"He's doing it from databases. There aren't any guarantees."

"So now what?"

"The Durenbargers are probably the best bet," I said. "You've seen the other choices."

"Durenbarger, Jason and Ellen," she said, reading from the list. "They make a lot of money between them. Goddamn, I hate apartments."

The Durenbargers lived in an apartment called the Summit Rock, not far from our own.

"There are too many people around," LuEllen said as we sat on a bench across the street from the Summit Rock. "If you crack the door with a crowbar, somebody will hear you. It's only a short walk down the hall to check. Then they see the door and call the cops.

"And there are too many eyes around, even where there shouldn't be. Look how you caught me, outside your place. You were on the fuckin' roof. In the middle of the night. Asshole."

"Always be alert; America needs more lerts."

"Right. Then, with apartments, there's a hassle getting through the outer door. In some towns, like Des Moines or Lincoln, you can walk up to the front door as one of the tenants goes through and catch the door as it closes. You say 'Thanks' and go on in. Most of the time, you get away with it. Here, there's too much crime. Everybody's suspicious. You try that trick in a big city, and they'll ask to see your key."

"What do we do?"

"We get a key," she said. "Do we know what they look like? What their cars look like?"

"Yeah, we know the cars. His is a dark-brown Thunderbird. She's driving a red Toyota Celica." I thumbed through the report Bobby had sent us and found the license numbers.

"Okay. We wait. We see if there's any chance to get a key."

"That could take forever."

"No. You said time is getting tight. We'll give it a couple of days, and then we'll try cracking the place."

The street in front of the apartment was one-way. The paired street was on the other side of a narrow public boulevard six blocks long, dotted with oak trees and green, metal benches. We found a place to park across the boulevard and waited.

LuEllen waited well. I didn't. I was looking at the story of my life, as represented by the folded and bent bits of paper in my billfold, when LuEllen cleared her throat.

"Ah," she said.

"What, ah?"

"You think it's Dace? The leak?"

"I don't know if we've got a leak. We had a problem, and it seemed to go away. We get some information that doesn't fit with other information, but nothing happens. I don't know."

"If we have a leak.

"I still don't think it's Dace," I said. "He doesn't lie well enough."

"Look at it this way," LuEllen said. "You talk to him. He's nodding his head, but inside, he's saying, 'What a story. Giant companies raiding each other.' It could be the story of his life."

"I thought about it," I admitted. "But it doesn't feel right. He's just too. innocent."

She looked out the window and sighed. It sounded like relief. "I think the same thing. But I had to ask. You've got one of the great poker faces in the Western world. But I kind of trust your instincts."

"You in love?"

She pushed out her lower lip and squinted at me, thinking.

"Maybe," she said.

Jason Durenbarger showed up at six o'clock, his wife a half hour later. They parked in back of the Summit Rock, their cars side by side in a fenced compound.

"Too bad they don't have garages," LuEllen said. "Most people hide spare house keys in garages. We could shake down the garage and find it."

"If pigs had wings.

"Yeah."

We waited four more hours. For the first twenty minutes, we talked. Then LuEllen turned the radio on, and we discovered that it's impossible to listen to a radio in a parked car. Something about the ambience. After she turned the radio off, it was like driving across North Dakota, except we didn't get to stop for gas.

"They aren't gonna move," LuEllen said finally.

"Now what?"

"Home."

"Maybe we ought to rent an apartment there, if they've got vacancies," Dace suggested, when we told him what had happened. "We've got the money. Once we're inside, we could take a chance on popping the door."

"It's an idea," I said, looking at LuEllen.

"Two problems: The manager gets a good look at us and knows we're guilty as sin if we pay for the place, then split the day after the burglary," LuEllen said. "So we'd have to stay on for a while. That's the second thing. We can't stay. If there's a burglary a day or two days after we move in, the cops'll look at us. Just routine. I don't want to be looked at."

"Hmph."

"If you watch people long enough, something happens. They go to a restaurant, she goes into the can, leaves her purse on the sink. I only need a minute with the keys to make an impression."

LuEllen had three or four metal Sucrets boxes filled with damp clay. She could open them, press both sides of three keys in each, and shut the lid to protect the impressions. The process took two seconds per key.

The next day we looked at another prospect in the suburbs. The husband was an engineer who specialized in fiber optics as they applied to air-frame control. The wife was a real estate agent who sometimes came home at odd hours in the middle of the day. The neighbors on one side had a half dozen kids, and there were more kids in the house across the street. It was possible, but dangerous.

We got back to the Durenbargers' at five o'clock. Jason Durenbarger arrived promptly at six, as he had the night before. His wife was only a minute behind him.

"They're young; they ought to go out," LuEllen said. "They won't stay in two nights in a row."

The day before we'd picked out what we thought was their apartment. The lights went on a minute after Jason went inside, confirming it.

"Here we go," LuEllen said half an hour later. The Durenbargers walked out the front door of the building, around to the side toward the parking lot. We were on the opposite side of the block. I hurried around the boulevard to get behind them, and moved too fast. They still hadn't come out of the driveway as we approached. LuEllen ordered me over to the curb.

"Fuck it. Just wait," she said.

There's a technique for following another car. You never get too close, you stay in an adjacent lane rather than directly behind the car you're following, and you memorize the other car's tail-lights. A good surveillance man will risk losing the car before he risks being spotted.

And here we were, illegally parked fifty feet from their drive, in plain sight. A good surveillance man would have been weeping in disgust. It didn't matter, because they pulled out with barely a glance up the street. We memorized the tail-lights, gave them some distance, and followed them onto Interstate 295 and across the river to Georgetown. As they got off the main streets, we were forced to close up, but I managed to keep a car or two between us. Finally they slowed and turned through a curb cut beside a nice-looking, redwood-and-fieldstone restaurant.

"Oh, God, get in behind them. Quick. Right now," LuEllen said, almost shouting. "Look at the valet. Oh, shit." I didn't know what she was talking about, but her tone was clear enough, and I eased in behind the Durenbargers. Jason walked around the front of the car, took a tag from the valet, and they went inside. The valet put a flat hand out to us, telling us to wait, and drove the Durenbargers' car back into the lot.

"Get out and stand by the car and wait for the valet. I'm going to get out and go over to his hutch. I'll call him over to talk before he gets to you," LuEllen said in a rush, slipping out the passenger side. I got out on the driver's side and waited there. The valet was back in fifteen seconds and swerved toward his hutch when he saw LuEllen standing beside it.

She said something about the little girls' room, and he smiled and pointed at the door and motioned sharply around to the left. At the same time, he casually reached into the hutch and hung the Durenbargers' keys on a peg. LuEllen thanked him and started away. He handed me a tag and slid into the car. As soon as he was out of sight, LuEllen was back. With a quick look around, she reached into the hutch, took the Durenbargers' keys, and led me into the restaurant.

"The bar," she said. We got a booth and ordered cocktails. When the waitress had gone, LuEllen opened her hand to show me the key ring. There were five keys-two car keys, two that might be apartment keys, and one that looked like it might fit a suitcase. She took out the Sucrets tin, made her impressions, and wrote down the code for each key. We finished the drinks and left.

"Make it?" the valet asked with a grin.

"Just barely," LuEllen said. I gave him the tag and as he went after the car, LuEllen hung the Durenbargers' keys back on the hook.

"We're in," she said, a light in her eyes.

Dace was at his own apartment when we returned. LuEllen phoned him and asked where we could get some key blanks with no questions asked. He called around, and ten minutes later we had the name and address of a locksmith. The voice on the other end of the phone said he'd be around for an hour yet.

It took almost an hour to find the place. It was a dingy dump in a shopping center, sandwiched between a brightly lit but empty Laundromat and a vacant storefront that had last housed a used-clothing store called One More Time. A guy in a sleeveless jeans jacket was sitting on a trash can outside the Laundromat, watching the fat white moths circle the parking lot lights.

As we got out of the car and walked across the cracked pavement, the guy on the garbage can shifted his weight. For a moment, it looked like he might say something. He had shoulder-length black hair, chin whiskers, and a death before dishonor tattoo on one skinny upper arm. When we went to the lockshop instead of the Laundromat, he settled back on the can and watched us. The front of the shop was dark, and the door was locked, but a light was shining in the back. LuEllen banged on the door until somebody yelled "Yeah, yeah, yeah." A minute later the locksmith walked through the gloom to the door.

"We're the people who called for the keys," LuEllen said through the glass.

He nodded and unlocked the door, and locked it again behind us. We followed him toward the light at the back of the shop. He stepped around the counter, fished under it for a moment, and came up with three blank keys.

"Elwin four-oh-twos," he said. "That'll be ten bucks. Each."

"Jesus Christ, what are you talking about? That's forty-five cents apiece if. " LuEllen squealed. The locksmith cut her off.

"Tell it to somebody else, lady. Somebody asks me for a bunch of key blanks for Elwin four-oh-twos, the kind of locks you find on rich guys' apartments, and I sell the four-oh-twos, blank, no questions asked, for ten bucks. That's the price."

LuEllen looked at him for a minute, then cracked a tiny, tight smile. "I'll remember you," she said. It was a promise of future business. She turned to me and said, "Pay him."

I gave him a twenty and a ten.

"Thanks," he said. "For another hundred I'll cut them off impressions."

"No thanks," LuEllen said. "We don't consort with crooks."

The locksmith laughed, showing crooked, yellow teeth. "Come back anytime," he said.

Outside, the guy in the sleeveless jeans jacket was waiting. As we stepped outside the door, he came up close behind and said, "Give me your wallet." He had one hand in his jacket pocket.

LuEllen looked him over. "You gotta be kidding."

"Hey, lady.

"Hey yourself, asshole. If you had a gun in your hand it'd make a bigger lump. There's nothing in there but your fist. Why don't you take it home and fuck it?"

The guy looked at her, mouth half open. Then he did something with his hand in his pocket. There was a pop, and LuEllen said, "Oh, shit, he shot me."

When the gun went pop, I kicked the guy on the inside ball of his knee. His leg went out from under him and he lurched forward, and I hit him with a right hand on the bridge of the nose. His nose crunched, and he went down like a sack of sand.

LuEllen was looking at her arm. "Maybe I'm not shot. No, I think I am."

The guy was face down on the blacktop with both hands covering his face, trying to figure out what happened. Broken noses do that to you. For the first few minutes, it's impossible to think about anything else.

LuEllen pulled up the sleeve of her blouse. An inch above the elbow was a red streak where a small-caliber bullet had grazed her, pushing holes through the shirtsleeve both coming and going.

"He could have hurt me," LuEllen said.

The locksmith had seen the commotion. He came out and looked at the guy lying on the blacktop.

"Tried to rob you, huh?"

"Yeah. Thanks for the warning."

The locksmith shrugged. "I ain't the Sisters of Mercy."

"He shot me," LuEllen said. The guy tried to get up on his knees, one hand still cradling his face. LuEllen moved behind him and kicked him in the crotch, a full-footed punt. The guy gurgled and knotted up, his hands in his crotch now. Blood streamed down his chin into his little black beard. LuEllen dipped into his jacket pocket and came up with a single-shot.22 built into a stainless steel Zippo cigarette lighter.

The locksmith reached out for it. "A.22 short. Effective range, about the length of his dick. What a dipshit."

"Let's go," said LuEllen.

"Ain't you going to take his money?" asked the locksmith.

"You can have it," LuEllen said. As we drove away, the locksmith was going through the guy's pockets.

LuEllen didn't say much for a while, just kept looking at her arm, and finally giggled. "Wish I had some coke."

"Probably good that you don't."

"You should have felt his nuts squish."

"Yeah, right, a real treat, and I missed it."

"How come you didn't go for his nuts in the first place?"

"Too chancy a target. If you miss and kick a thigh instead of the balls, he'll be inside your shirt. There's no reflex to protect the knee, and that's crippling if you get it. And nothing hurts as bad as the first two minutes of a broken nose."

"It really sounded ugly when his nose broke," LuEllen said. "It gives me the shivers thinking about it."

"Yeah, well." I touched my own nose, which has been broken twice. I can remember each time with painful clarity. "You ought to hear it from the inside."

That was on a Friday. We couldn't risk going into the Durenbargers' place over the weekend, so Dace and LuEllen drove out to a cabin he owned in the hills of West Virginia. "The shack," he called it. "My wife hated the place. She called it Chigger City."

On Sunday afternoon, while they were gone, Bobby called. I'd given him Ratface's real name-Frank Morelli-and with the help of a Washington phone phreak, he'd been watching Morelli's phones. No activity.

I look up gas stations near Morelli apartment and check data banks for most likely credit cards. Morelli makes five charges in past week Atlantic City area.

He's out of town?

Yes/week. Also check consumer credit reports, shows personal loan secured by Chevrolet, year unknown, but bluebook value at $4,500 so must be old. Also estimated pretax earnings last year $52,000.

Thanx. Keep tabs.

Yes/Bye

LuEllen and Dace got back at midnight, and I told them about Bobby's call.

"So it's unlikely that he's watching us," LuEllen concluded.

"And he's a small-timer. Fifty-two thousand in billings wouldn't keep a church mouse alive in D.C., not if he pays for an answering service and an office in addition to an apartment," Dace said.

"I feel better about it," LuEllen said. "That's still weird about the gays, though. I wish I knew about that."

We went into the Durenbargers' first thing Monday morning. I made my copies, set the bug, and we were out of there like a cool breeze. LuEllen didn't touch a thing.