The Switch

63

Tanner went back into the public library and Googled for a few hours, took some notes on a scratchpad, made a list of what he’d soon need. Midafternoon, drained and in need of a caffeine fix, he went to McDonald’s. He was afraid to go into the groovy indie coffee shop, in case the owner, who knew him, was there. He didn’t want to be recognized.

Outside, on the next block, he found a hardware store. He took out his list and picked up a number of items: a flathead screwdriver, a Phillips-head screwdriver, a length of wire, a hammer, a little LED flashlight and batteries, wire cutters and strippers and electrical tape, a pair of insulated gloves. Then a jobsite backpack to carry it all around in. The total purchase was close to a hundred bucks. He paid cash, of course, and as he was waiting for everything to be bagged up, he counted the money in his wallet. He didn’t have a lot left. He needed more cash.

And with his account frozen, he was stuck. He couldn’t withdraw money. He couldn’t even try to use his credit cards or else Earle’s team would be immediately alerted, would see where he was. What did that leave? He could borrow from a friend, someone who knew he was good for it. Most of his friends, he imagined, would gladly lend him money. But who was it safe to contact? That was the problem. The friends he saw most often — the beer buddies — had to be ruled out. Or anyone he’d recently called, on any phone.

Or anyone he e-mailed. Unfortunately, by the time he ruled out anyone he’d been in touch with in recent memory, even the gang of buddies he went to Red Sox games with, he was left with a tier of friends he’d lost contact with. They were still friends, yes, but they were drifting away. He thought of a college friend, who like him had worked in a café in Boston during college to make money. Theo Oliveira. In college he was a musician, a keyboard artist, and he sometimes got paying gigs. A stoner, back then, and a bit of a flake. But a talented, nice guy. Last time they’d talked, which must have been at least five years ago, Theo was married to a fellow band member and lived somewhere in Acton, or thereabouts.

He mentally filed away Theo’s name. He had the impression that Theo was just scraping by, so maybe he wasn’t the best person to beg money from. But Theo would do what he could, Tanner was sure.

He returned to the library and located Theo Oliveira online, found his street address and phone number. He was living in the town of Carlisle, next to Concord. Then he watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to hot-wire a car, to remind himself. Apparently, hot-wiring a new car required a degree from MIT. The wires were hidden now, and there were immobilizer technology and smart keys. No, he’d have to find an older car.

As uncomfortable as he felt about stealing some poor guy’s car, he didn’t really have a choice: he needed to get around on not much money, out here where everything was fairly far apart, compared to Boston. Truth was, he didn’t have enough money for gas.

But there was the moral thing: Tanner wasn’t a thief. In all of his dealings with Tanner Roast, he was always scrupulously honest. To him, it was a matter of honor. And now he was going to break into someone’s car and steal it? Hard to justify. Except that he couldn’t see any alternative. The survival instinct made his moral qualms seem dispensable.

He hadn’t even stolen a car yet and he was already feeling guilty about it.

According to his library research, modern cars had become quite difficult to steal. Cars made since the mid-1990s had all sorts of antitheft devices like engine immobilizer technology. Video games like Grand Theft Auto made it all look so easy.

By the time he was finished with his research, it had grown dark. He grabbed a wire coat hanger from a coat closet. That was an easy theft.

It had gotten cool outside. The blazer he was wearing helped, but it wasn’t really enough. He felt cold and miserable.

He went down Main Street looking for a suitable target. He went right past shops and businesses that appeared to be open and operating. He found an old gas station that was apparently out of business, with a couple of cars parked in a lane in front. But that was right in view of vehicles and people passing by, so that was out. Behind a strip mall (a bridal shop, a small insurance firm, a bakery) a few cars were parked, but they were newer models, couldn’t have been more than five years old. Too new to steal. When he passed a supermarket, he went in and bought some more cheap mobile phones.

The supermarket’s parking lot was far too busy. He moved on, bypassing car after car, ruling them all out on various counts: too visible, too new, alarmed. It was dark and he was hungry and cold and lonely. He passed neighborhoods where he could see lit-up kitchens, people eating, watching TV, quarreling, and he felt isolated.

He was beginning to put together a plan, a way out of all of this, a way he might survive... and return to a normal life. Those few hours in the library had given birth to an idea.

He just needed to think it through.

But as of now, he needed to find a car to steal.

He found it after a few minutes. Another insurance company, a long, low, 1950s-era brick building. No night watchman there; it was dark and shuttered. A couple of cars were parked, presumably overnight, in a lot behind the building. The lot was deserted but also apparently unobserved. You couldn’t see anyone or anything from back here except a closed auto dealership on one side.

One of the cars was a fairly late-model Mercedes, which was out.

The other was a stubby little yellow Ford Festiva that had to be almost thirty years old. Made in the late 1980s or 1990s, he was pretty sure. Looking around — there was no one in sight — he took the coat hanger out of the backpack and straightened it. At one end he left a little bent hook. He slid it under the little black flap of weather stripping at the bottom of the driver’s side window, wiggled it around, felt something catch. Lost it. Wiggled it some more, felt it catch against some piece of machinery inside the door-locking mechanism, then yanked it up.

The door unlocked.

He looked around once again, just to be sure. Then he climbed in. The car smelled like the inside of an ashtray. He almost heaved. He felt around under the steering wheel for stray wires, but no. That would be too easy.

Try number one: he inserted the flathead screwdriver into the ignition slot, pounded it in with a hammer, then turned the screwdriver handle to start the car.

But of course it didn’t work. That, too, would have been too easy.

He shone the flashlight around, located the screw holes in the molded plastic kick panel beneath the steering column. Then, flashlight gripped between his teeth, he unscrewed the panel and, with difficulty, pulled it off. There it was, the guts of the starter, a rat’s nest of bundled wires, slathered in thick dust.

Finding the bundle that led to the ignition cylinder in the steering column was quick. Finding the battery voltage supply wires was almost as quick: they were the two thicker-gauge wires, both conveniently red. He put on the insulated gloves — the wires were live — and snipped both. Then he stripped them a half inch or so. He put the ends of the two wires together and the car came to life — the radio blared on, the dashboard lit up. Success. Part one, anyway.

He snipped another couple of wires, both brown, and both live too. He stripped the end of each and then touched them together. They sparked, and the starter cranked at once. The car fired up, a good, healthy, throaty ignition, and once it had caught, he pulled the two starter wires apart and taped up both ends.

Success, part two.

Sighing with relief, he revved the engine a bit, turned on the headlights, and familiarized himself with what was where. Foot on the brake, he turned the wheel — and the steering wheel wouldn’t move. It was locked. He turned the wheel back and forth a few times, but it was stuck.

A wheel lock. He had been afraid of that. You couldn’t tell by looking a car over whether it had a wheel lock.

Shit.

He had to move on. He passed up car after car, all too modern. Car thief was apparently now a skilled profession.

Behind a closed restaurant-supply shop he finally found an old, well-maintained Mazda that also had to be vintage 1990 or so. He got into the car quickly and managed to get it started in less than five minutes. He was learning.

The Mazda ran well and smoothly, and it had about a quarter tank of gas. He’d written down the address of a house in Concord where Sarah had said he could stay. When he was about to reach for his iPhone to punch the address into his favorite navigation app, he suddenly remembered he didn’t have it; he’d deliberately left it back at the office.

And couldn’t use it anyway. Not anymore. How did people navigate before navigation apps? he wondered.

The library was probably closed by now. So much for Google Maps or whatever. What he needed was a gas station, but he learned quickly that not all of them sold maps anymore. He stopped at a McDonald’s and picked up a fast-food dinner, which he ate as he drove.

Eventually, by stopping and asking for directions the old-fashioned way, he found the right street in Concord. He parked on the street, not in the driveway. He pulled a wire from the ignition assembly to shut off the car and got out. Halfway down the block was a stuttering streetlamp; the dim light flickered.

This house was immense and modern and angular. From the front it looked like a Lego construction, but pleasingly so: a ziggurat of glass and concrete. He punched the code into the burglar alarm and disarmed it. Then he entered the combination on the front-door padlock and got the door open.

He could smell something faintly lavender, probably from a sachet placed in the front hallway by the listing agent. He pointed the mini-flashlight’s beam up and down, side to side, so he could see which way to go. Honed marble tiles on the floor, a small black table that bore a single orchid in a white vase, and—

— the door opened, and an angular man loomed in the entrance, a woman just behind him.

“Hello?” the man said.

“Can I help you?” said Tanner.