“Joey? Sure. Why do you ask?”
“Well, today when I left the Electronic Crime Lab, I walked to the Psychological Profile Division. I attended a seminar last year with the assistant there, Helen Davis, and I went to look her up. When I entered the office, she immediately closed a file marked ‘Homegrown.’ She seemed to know I was working with you. She was pretty closemouthed.”
“Like she was ordered not to divulge squat to you?”
“Yeah, squat, that was the word I was looking for.”
Hiccock glanced away for a second, then rejoined Janice’s gaze. “You think this ‘Homegrown’ file is about what we are investigating?” He slammed his hand down on the table and spilled the tamarind sauce in a shallow plate. People near them turned toward the table. “Of course it is! Damn. We were supposed to share information.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to kick Joey’s ass.”
FROZEN FOR ALL ETERNITY with his right arm fully extended, forever warding off would-be tacklers, as the ball is clutched tightly in the left, torso twisted mid-sidestep, was the figure atop one of the many football trophies that lived on a glass shelf in William Hiccock’s apartment. Their only human contact now was when Mrs. Phelps dusted them every so often. Wild Bill barely paid them any notice any more. His Heisman Trophy was not the first won by a player from Stanford. That path had been cut by Jim Plunkett. Nevertheless, this trophy along with other prizes stood guard to his illustrious past, a history of his glory days in gold, brass, wood, and chrome.
The kid with the golden arm was asleep in his armchair, the TV flickering in front of him. His sleepless nights and stress over the lack of progress in the investigation were taking their toll. The remote fell from his hand, awaking him startled. In a groggy haze, with one eye open and the other closed, he checked his watch. As he rubbed the sleep from his face with one hand, he searched the floor for the remote with the other. Finding it, he pointed it at the set, about to shut it off when he was caught up in an old black-and-white film on TV. A clichéd old Viennese music professor, replete with little white goatee, was giving a young girl a piano lesson.
“You see, the spaces between the notes are as important as the notes themselves. Now once more, only let the notes ‘breathe’ this time. Feel the rhythm left by the spaces.” The actor recited his line with an accent, probably his own from Germany, but being pawned off as Austrian to the movie-going public of 1940 or so. The professor’s lesson for the day was not lost on Hiccock. As the young girl tickled the ivories on her way to Mozartville, Hiccock picked up the phone and punched in a number he knew well, thinking,
the spaces between
.
“Like this, professor?” the young actress, destined for anonymity in later years, asked as she precisely paced each note.
Ten minutes later he was in the shower when the cordless phone he left on the bathroom sink started to ring. His wet hand reached out from behind the glass shower door to pick it up.
“Thanks for getting back to me so early,” he said as he directed the showerhead away from him.
Tyler was at home sitting at her vanity in a robe, a towel turbaned around her wet hair. She held her beloved pink princess phone in one hand as she put on makeup with the other. “So what are you all excited about?”
Hiccock looked down, about to say something, but thought better of it. “In your travels, ever bump into anyone monkeying around with or involved in high-speed interstitial image retention research?”
“It’s a little early, but are you referring to subliminal advertising?”
“Essentially yes.”
Extending the long, pink-coiled cord, she rose from the tufted, crimson velvet covered bench, walked over to the closet, untying the silk belt of the red Norma Kamali wrap. Exposing one shoulder then two until the robe tumbled to the floor, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
Not too bad
, she thought. “Back in the sixties, advertisers were starting to experiment with slipping in quick cuts of beautiful women during cigarette commercials.”
Hiccock ran a towel over his hair with the phone tucked under his chin. “And dry, desert scenes into beer commercials,” he added. “It worked, too. Until Congress got wind of it, made it illegal, and financed research for building monitoring machines.”
“But, Bill, the head guy on that was out of your old graduate school, what was his name … Walters … Watkins. Wallenford!” She resumed her task of eyelining.
“Yeah, that rings a bell. They had one of those machines right there I bet.”
“Sure. That stuff is probably collecting dust in the basement of the Media Lab. So why this sudden interest?” she asked, pulling the towel off her hair.
“Something came to me as I was waking up.”
“Really?” she inquired with a naughtiness that surprised her.
“Down girl, this is work. You sure his name was Wallenford?” He was imagining her finishing her morning routine in her bra and panties. He loved the way she looked when he caught her doing something perfectly plain and ordinary. How sexy she was, even when she wasn’t trying. That brought a smile to his face that waned with a twinge of sadness. He was, after all, just imagining.
“It’s always work with you … Jack! No! John. John Wallenford.”
“Thanks, Janice. See ya tonight for dinner?”
“Um … not tonight, Bill.”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, I just can’t make dinner tonight.”
“Oh … Okay.” He clicked off, taking a deep breath. Tyler hung up, also taking a deep breath.
Sperling High Voltage made large capacitors for use mainly in research projects. One of those was the particle accelerator being assembled on Long Island at the Brookhaven National Lab. Opponents of the project claimed that the research being done right there on Long Island could create a black hole that would suck Long Island, the entire Earth, the sun, and this whole corner of the galaxy into it. Most of the protests took the form of sign-toting students and others who managed to acquire the delivery schedules of the supply trucks. They blocked the main gates for a short time and a few spoke over the various media outlets on the dangers of screwing with the basic glue that held everything in the universe together.
The idea came to Bernard after reading about the protests in
Time
magazine. He logged onto a bulletin board the society now ran under the guise of a hardware-trading web site for people who had old Olivetti word processors. The subject matter ensured that no one but the lost or stupidly curious would ever bother with the site. He typed in the message: “The weather on Long Island is getting better.” Voyeurger noticed immediately and responded to Sabot via Instant Messenger.
Although Bernard couldn’t see him, Voyeurger was smiling as he outlined his idea. It was Bernard’s turn to smile when Voyeurger typed back that he could do this within a week.
Hiccock was on his way to a military aircraft. He would shoot up to Boston, then an Air Force helicopter, already having arrived at Logan airport, would shuttle him to Cambridge. As he was leaving his office, Carly appeared at the door. “Can we chat?”
“Gee, I am out of here. I’ll be back tonight.”
“Can I buy you dinner?”
“No, I have plans for dinner… No I don’t.” Hiccock caught himself remembering that Janice had a date. “Sure! I’ll call you on my way back to D.C. this afternoon.”
He walked out to the car waiting for him in the portico wondering if this was a good idea, but not in any mood to cancel his spur-of-the moment acceptance of dinner.
Did I just say yes to a date?
The offices of GlobalSync were the epitome of downtown chic. After following the prescribed protocol, a series of security guards and receptionists, Dennis and Cynthia finally stood in front of the company’s comptroller in her office.
“Can you tell us what this check is for?” Dennis asked the lady who probably worked her way up from assistant bookkeeper.
“Let’s see, the code here—23765—should tell us.” She entered the numbers into her computer. Her expression changed when the screen came up. “Oh, dear!” She picked up the phone, “Mr. Freidland, can you come into my office? You’re going to want to handle this yourself.” She hung up the phone, then hung “smile number three” on her face, and politely asked, “Would you kindly just wait here a minute?” Dennis caught Cynthia’s eye and shrugged.
Ten seconds later, Mr. Freidland, in a suit that cost half of Dennis’s Detective’s Benevolent Association pension, entered the carpeted, midlevel executive office.
“Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Mallory, nice to meet you. Would you follow me, please?” With the air of a maître d’ he turned and led them into a small private elevator. There were only two floor buttons. The mirror-polished, stainless steel doors opened onto a vast space. Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed the cityscape of lower Manhattan Island. The vista was reflected in the highly polished black-marble flooring that, to Dennis, had the unintended effect of making the entire floor look like it was covered in an oil slick. Way down, at the other end of the space, was a desk that was a replica of the “con” on
Star Trek
. A skinny man in a red turtleneck, green pants, and white shoes swung his feet around and off the side return where they had been planted while he talked on a wireless headset. Upon seeing the Mallorys, he removed the headset, stood up from his desk, and approached them. Dennis gave a glance to Cynthia that said, “
Now
I get it!”
“How’s the leg?” Dennis said to the man.
“Hurts when it rains, but I stopped limping about a month ago.
It took me a while to track you down, Mr. Mallory, and
I
can find anybody.” He smiled at Cynthia. “And you must be Cynthia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Cynthia returned the warm smile.
“I appreciate the two of you wanting to come here to thank me but believe me, it is I who should thank you, more than any amount of money could ever express.”
Cynthia caught on. “Oh, you must be the young man Dennis helped in the woods.”
“A lot more than helped, Mrs. Mallory. Your husband saved my life twice in one afternoon.”
“Well, thank you Mr…?” Dennis fished for the name.
“Oh, God, how rude of me! Miles, Miles Taggert.”
“Well, Mr. Taggert, I appreciate your generosity, but I came here to tell you that I can’t accept this money.”
The maître d’ gasped as if Dennis had just used a salad fork to cut into a chateaubriand.
Taggert shook the smile off his face. “Why not? Is it not enough?”
“Oh, no, no. That’s not it. It’s very generous. It’s just that I can’t accept money for helping you. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Wow, you really are a hero,” Taggert said.
“Yes, he is,” Cynthia said. “And thank you, but really, there is no need.”
Taggert walked back around and sat behind his desk. He gestured for the Mallorys to take the seats facing him. He pondered for a second. Then he reached his hand across the titanium desktop. “May I have the check, please?”
Dennis patted the pockets of his off-the-rack Macy’s sport coat, having absentmindedly stuffed the check in his breast pocket. He handed it over.
Taggert ripped it up. Then he turned to his keyboard. Typing quickly, he finished with a double tap on the return key. He then swiveled his high-tech, ergonomic chair and faced the Mallorys once again. “Okay, so let’s talk about you for a minute, Mr. Mallory. You were a decorated New York City detective, shot three times in the line of duty and retired with thirty-five years under your belt. I don’t know for sure, but my dad was a cop and I know your last three years couldn’t have been padded up too much, so I figure you’re making do with a comfortable but not great pension.”
Dennis bristled.
“Please don’t take offense,” Taggert added. “I just like to know things about people. All from the public record, by the way, and what I have learned from my father.”
“Who is your father?” Mallory asked.
“He was a sergeant, the seven-eight in Queens. He retired when I went past 500 million in personal wealth. It was my idea. I didn’t want my mom to lose him to some junkie or hoodlum after she worked so hard and sacrificed so much for all of us.”
“Wow, aren’t you the son of the century,” Cynthia said. “Dennis, I like this boy.”
“Anyway, so here’s my next idea. Do you know what we do here, Mr. Mallory?”
“Haven’t a clue,” Dennis said, turning his palms up.
“We protect secrets, our own and those of clients. We protect secrets that have to be out in the open to have any value. We make it safe for trillions of dollars to find its way from point A to point B.”
“Okay, so that explains all of this.”
“Then hopefully it also explains why I’d like to hire you as a consultant.”
“Me? I don’t know anything about your business.”
“You don’t have to. I need what you already know. Security, police procedure, and how to keep my secrets
secret
.”
“What about your dad?”
“We’re not talking.”
“Now you are down to son of the
month
,” Cynthia said.
“He objects to my hang gliding.”
“With good reason,” Dennis said.
“He just doesn’t want your mother to lose you, after all they did to grow you up,” Cynthia said.
Taggert ceded their point. “You should meet them sometime. You’ll get along swimmingly!”
Just then, Dennis noticed the lady comptroller had silently glided across the “oil slick” and appeared in his periphery. If he was in an undercover operation, he could have been dead. It had been twenty years since he worked undercover, and upon reflection—the wavy one of the comptroller reflected in the slick black floor—that was a good thing. She handed Taggert an envelope. He peeked inside, nodded, and slid the envelope across the desk to Dennis.